LeGrand L. Baker

Helaman 15:3, LeGrand Baker, God’s love

Some of you know Ammon Latham. My beloved friend who returned from his mission a few months ago. Last week Ammon fell over a cliff in the mountains. His funeral will be at 11am, Monday, June 18, 2012, at the stake house at 810 East 600 North in Orem.

Helaman 15:3
3 Yea, wo unto this people who are called the people of Nephi except they shall repent, when they shall see all these signs and wonders which shall be showed unto them; for behold, they have been a chosen people of the Lord; yea, the people of Nephi hath he loved, and also hath he chastened them; yea, in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened them because he loveth them.

The human soul is vibrant and irrepressible unless culture and prejudice temporarily get in the way. and even those restraints cannot follow us beyond the grave. We can accomplish anything so long as we give it a name, and understand what it is and how to achieve it. Our purposes have to be named or they cannot become substantial. They have to be understood or they become lost in a forest of wishful thinking. Then, when they are clearly defined, the path to attainment becomes defined also. The road to the objective is no less more important than the objective itself, just as questions are more important than answers. If the object seams clear but the road is undefined, the object is unattainable.

If the answers are given but are neither preceded nor followed by questions, then the answers are without meaning. If we do not see the road or do not know the questions, then we are lost. The purposes of a prophet can be reduced to two essentials. First to help those who walk in darkness recognize that they are lost, and then, if they will listen, to teach them the way. Second to instruct those who chose to understand, both the objective and the road that brings them there. Here we see Samuel the Lamanite telling the Nephites in the most vivid way possible that they neither know the road nor its destination, and that the choices they have made, and are still making, will inevitably lead them to a destination that will destroy them.

The tragedy was that many of them refused to know, or would not admit to themselves that they were lost. Samuel says “yea, in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened because he loveth them.” That is true in principle but not factually correct. The Lord explained why:

7 Again, it is written eternal damnation; wherefore it is more express than other scriptures, that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men, altogether for my name’s glory.
8 Wherefore, I will explain unto you this mystery, for it is meet unto you to know even as mine apostles (D&C 19:7-8).

The fact is that God does not and never has punished anyone. The truth is that he warns them of consequences they bring upon themselves, then when those consequences have become reality, he uses that as a teaching tool and warns them again—ever trying to teach them to open their eyes and see the darkness they are in and the light that beckons them to come out of it. In assigning to himself the responsibility for their punishment (“in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened them because he loveth them”), he also seems to take upon himself the responsibility for their sorrows. In so doing, he can remind them that he can take their pains and sorrows upon himself as well. Thus, here as elsewhere in the scriptures the apparently stern anger that the prophets express in God’s behalf, is, in fact, a heartfelt pleading for them to come out of the darkness and not suffer the consequence of their sin.

Helaman 14:30-31– LeGrand Baker — sin is a violation of Self

Helaman 14:30-31
30 And now remember, remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free.
31 He hath given unto you that ye might know good from evil, and he hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death; and ye can do good and be restored unto that which is good, or have that which is good restored unto you; or ye can do evil, and have that which is evil restored unto you.

Perhaps the major purpose of this life is to discover one’s Self. In the process of that discovery we are totally alone—only a Self—and there is only one way to escape that aloneness.

The world each of us lives in is primarily a product of small electric impulses that originate in our eyes, ears, and other senses; that are carried to, and then translated by our brains. Consequently we are each the center of our own universe. We try to make contact with others, but in our aloneness we mostly struggle to define these others in terms of our Selves. We do this because we believe that such definitions will give us the power to break out of the confines of our solitary world and let us be a part of other people’s lives. But there is only one way we can do that, and it is not by defining them in terms of one’s Self.

Every time we speak we only talk about ourselves. For example if we say our neighbor is a selfish gorgon, we reveal nothing about our neighbor but only about our attitude toward him (That is why gossip is such a silly thing). If we say we believe Joseph is a Prophet, we say nothing about Joseph (he is a prophet whether we believe it or not), rather we are describing only our beliefs about his prophetic calling (I carefully used the word “believe” rather than “know.” I’ll explain why later). If we give a correct answer to a math or history question, we are not telling about the math or history (again, our knowledge of them has no impact on them at all), we are only telling about our understanding of those subjects.

If we admire a beautiful rose, that admiration says nothing about the rose, but only about our own sense of what is beautiful. The books we read, the movies we see, the music we listen to all become a part of our definition of Self. Thus, as Samuel said, “he hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death.” It is in our persistence in making inappropriate choices permanent that ultimately results in “whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself.”

But the converse is also true,

40 For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things.
41 He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever (D&C 88:40-41).

In the Beatitudes the Savior summed up those ideas by saying, “the merciful shall obtain mercy;” and the peacemakers shall be called “the children of God.”

Years ago, Jean Wunderlich taught me that sin is a violation of one’s Self. It may be a violation of others’ rights as well, but it begins and concludes as an offence against the law of one’s own being. just as Samuel said: “whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself.”

In contrast, love that is truly focused on another is a vindication of Self, and, as a gift of the Savior, it is the only power we have to begin to break out of the confines of aloneness and be a part of other people,

I wrote earlier that the world we each live in is simply the way we translate the electrical impulses that come from our senses and that therefore our whole world is contained within our own minds. However, that is not entirely true. There is one “feeling” that does not originate from our own senses and that “feeling” is the only key that will truly empower us to escape from our Selves and enjoy the expanse of our world and of the people who live beyond our own Self.

That “feeling” is the Holy Ghost. It invites and teaches to know truth that is beyond our physical senses and therefore is beyond the aloneness of our Selves. For example, when one speaks by the power of the Holy Ghost and says Joseph is a prophet, he is in fact talking about Joseph and is only incidentally describing his own ability to know. One cannot know that Joseph is a prophet without loving him as a prophet. The knowledge and the love come together when we are taught by the Spirit. The knowledge is testimony; the love is charity.

Anyone can feel strong emotional attachments to other people, but charity is a gift of the Spirit. Charity transcends the Self and enables one to embrace the soul of another. Charity is the only way to escape the loneliness of Self. It is the only key that will unlock the exit door from this lonely, dreary world and enable us to reach beyond our Selves with the promise that we will never again be entirely alone.

Helaman 14:10 — LeGrand Baker — ‘because I am a Lamanite’

Helaman 14:10
10 And now, because I am a Lamanite, and have spoken unto you the words which the Lord hath commanded me, and because it was hard against you, ye are angry with me and do seek to destroy me, and have cast me out from among you.

No doubt, Samuel the Lamanite was correct in his analysis of their assessment of him. It is common for people to put people unlike themselves in the disdainful category of the “others,” and then not bother to consider them as individuals. We see the same sort of thing when Philip told Nathanael about Jesus. Later Jesus paid Nathanael the ultimate compliment when “Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!.” But before Jesus said that about Nathanael, Nathanael asked Philip, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:47 & 46)

It is apparent that Nathanael’s prejudice was a learned cultural response, because he abandoned it without hesitation.

We might also assign the Nephite’s reaction to Samuel’s prophecy as cultural prejudice were it not for the rocks and arrows they shot at him. Their’s was something much more severe than Nathanael’s. Jesus spoke of the Nephite’s kind of prejudice when he prayed to his Father in behalf of the Twelve: “ I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world (John 17:14).”

Prejudice (or something akin to it) can have the positive purpose of warning us to stay away from dangerous or unpleasant situations. However, unthinking prejudice can cripple our sensitivities. Blind prejudice is to potential friendships what misapplied Round Up is to a flower garden. It causes fear or anger to penetrate our souls just as the misapplied weed killer penetrates into soil and destroys even the potential life of individual flowers.

Prejudice is putting people in categories, ignoring them as individual, but disdaining or even hating them because of the categories we have put them in. It destroys the possibility of individual friendships and leaves an emptiness in our soul in the place where that friend otherwise would be.

As I wrote this I realized that prejudice has eternal consequences, but I just couldn’t make the idea jell. Then I got an email from my dear friend Richard Dilworth (Dil) Rust. Dil brought everything together for me. He wrote:

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LeGrand: In an experience related to your excellent insights concerning Helaman 13:38, a woman of another faith who has been reading the Book of Mormon posed this question: If, as it says in Alma 34, there is no opportunity to labor after this life, how can those spirits cast into prison (Alma 40) have an opportunity to accept Jesus as their savior and repent?

I responded:

As for what you read in Alma 34, Amulek’s teaching needs to be considered in context. These Zoramites to whom he is preaching had received the gospel and then turned away from it. Amulek refers to the “many witnesses” they had already received of the truth about Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation (Alma 34:33). Thus for them, if they were not to repent in this life—after all the opportunities they had—they would “have become subjected to the spirit of the devil” (Alma 34:35). It helps to know, also, that the“same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world” (Alma 34:34). In other words, at the end of our lives we will go into the spirit world with the same attitudes, beliefs, consequence of choices, and character traits that we had at the close of our lives on earth. We will be aided or limited by all of this.

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The part of Dil’s statement that caught my attention was this: “at the end of our lives we will go into the spirit world with the same attitudes, beliefs, consequence of choices, and character traits that we had at the close of our lives on earth.”

That statement takes the consequences of prejudices from just making us lame in this life to projecting that disability into the life to come. There, if we do not repent, it will cripple us for eternity.

That brought to my mind this statement in the Doctrine and Covenants. Notice, it does not say “whatever information.” It says:

18 Whatever PRINCIPLE OF INTELLIGENCE we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.
19 And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come (D&C 130:18-19).

I believe that statement has little or nothing to do with book-learning. I believe that the “principle of intelligence” is the same principle that has enabled our growth from the time we were intelligences, and will continue to do so throughout eternity—charity, love, more specifically mutual love: philadelphia, hased.

The statement in the Doctrine and Covenants is encouraging. Its converse is terrifying:

18 Whatever PRINCIPLE OF INTELLIGENCE we [fail to ] attain unto in this life, it will [not — cannot] rise with us in the resurrection.
19 And if a person [fails to gain] more knowledge AND intelligence in this life through his [lack of] diligence and DIS-obedience than another, he will have so much the DIS-advantage in the world to come (D&C 130:18-21).

Once again, it all comes back to the same principle: It’s about light and darkness, love and hate, caring and contempt. If prejudices in this life preclude our loving others for the light that is in their individual souls, then we have so much the disadvantage in the life to come. Prejudice can destroy us. Teaching others to perpetuate our prejudices can cause us to help them destroy themselves.

Helaman 13:38 — LeGrand Baker — everlastingly too late

Helaman 13:38
38 But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head.

This statement by Samuel the Lamanite contains a question that virtually shouts at us. The question is: Except for sons of perdition, does God put restrictions on anyone so that they are no longer able to repent. The answer is, God himself NEVER puts restrictions on anyone that would take away their right to repent. The question now expands to be, how then, are they precluded from repentance.

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In Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord, Stephen and I suggested that the inclination to do good or evil is an eternal part of our sense of Self, and that our choosing and then acting on those inclinations is the most fundamental part of our eternal nature.

Our rationale began with B. H. Roberts’s conclusions which were essentially these:

An inteligence is an entitity that is intelligent. That is, he is able to distinguish the “me” from the “not me,” and is able to judge between the desirable and the desirable, and is able to choose between them.

The Doctrine and Covenants identifies an intelligence as “the light of truth” (93:29). Yet, it defines truth as “knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come” (93:24). That is, truth is information as God knows it in eternal time. Elsewhere we learn that “truth shines” (88:7). That requires some thought to sort it out.

Information does not shine. However the assimulation of truth by intelligent entities causes the entities to shine, thus intelligences are the “light of truth.” The more truth it assimulates, the more it shines. the Savior is the “Spirit of truth” and “received a fulness of truth, yea, even of all truth” (93:26).

Given those premises, if an intelligence can know “me” from “not me” and can choose to act on the most desirable of alternatives, it has agency. Therefore can choose to sin or not sin, as it can choose to repent or not repent. The ability to make those choices must begin as soon aw we become cognizant, therefore, the Savior’s atonement must be operative in our behalf that early on also or the power to choose would only be the ability to self-destruct.

As soon as we become cognizant, we are confronted with the most difficult question of our existence, and that question will never go away until is completely resolved. The question is: “What is in my best interest?”

That brings us to a discussion of Samuel the Lamanite’s assertion that happiness cannot be found if we look for it in the wrong places.

The question that constantly repeats itself throughout our experience in linear time is, “What is in my best interest?” If one perseves it to be in his best interest to love and bless others, and to accept love and the blessings of goodness from them, then that will be what he defines as the object and fulfillment of the happiness he seeks.

However, if, on the othe other hand, he decides the that the object of his productivity is to subdue, dominate, and control others, and use them to give himself satisfaction, then that will define his sense of fulfillment, and he will believe that seeking after that fulfillment will bring happiness.

The difference is that in the former, mutual love (hesed) brings eternal fulfillment. But in the latter, the desire to control others can never be fully satisfied. Therefore, seeking it brings only an addiction-like sense of getting there, but (like an addiction) it is incapable of delivering fulfillment.

If an intelligence makes the decision that his object is to seek power at the expense of others, then that is the begining of his personal evil, and unless he repents it becomes the ultimate road that leads to his damnation.

If those conclusions are correct, then we may say that the reason the Savior has never sined is because he has never, in the whole of his eternal existence, sought to use other people to his personal advantage. Conversely, the reason that Satan is absolutely evil is because his whole desire is to dominate, control, and destroy—to take away their agency by subjecting their wills to his.

Those examples are the two extreme ends of the spectrum. The rest of us fall somewhere along the continuum that is between those two ends.

If we wish to speculate further we may say that the third part that followed Satan and theose who followed him thereafter are those that bought into his argument that “one prospers according to his strength,” and that self fulfillment comes from dominating others.

On the other hadn we might also conclude that the “noble and great ones” are those who, like the Savior learned that their greatest personal fulfillment comes through a mutual desire to bless and be blessed (hesed).

If we accept that logic and follow it through to the end of our experience in linear time, we come to this simplistic, but otherwise probably reasonably accurate conclusion that those who get to the celestial kingdom are those who love and serve each other; those in the terrestial kingdom accept the worth of others passively so they don’t help or hurt too much; and those in the telestial kingdom ar those who seek to use others to their own advantage; while those in hell have no other object except to dominate and destroy by domination.

Thus Samueel the Lamanite can assert with great certainty that one cannot find godlike joy by searching in the wrong places, or with the wrong criteria, or wrong objectives. God never has and never will deny anyone the right to repent. However, one can become so deeply habituated to attitudes and acts of selfishness and anger that it becomes as though he were sucked into their grip like being sucked into a black hole where one denies for onself the possibility of learning how to love as God loves. The only effective way to avoid that fate is to not procrastinate the day of our repentance

Helaman 13:13-14 — LeGrand Baker — freedom is for the righteous

Helaman 13:13-14
13 But blessed are they who will repent, for them will I spare. But behold, if it were not for the righteous who are in this great city, behold, I would cause that fire should come down out of heaven and des troy it.
14 But behold, it is for the righteous’ sake that it is spared. But behold, the time cometh, saith the Lord, that when ye shall cast out the righteous from among you, then shall ye be ripe for destruction; yea, wo be unto this great city, because of the wickedness and abominations which are in her.

This is a working principle that is expressed several times in the scriptures. If a government protects the righteous, then the Lord will protect the government. It seems to be the same whether the government is a city or a nation. The most famous example is in

Genesis 18, 19 where God and Abraham dicker over the fate of Sodom. Abraham asked, “Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?” What if there are fifty righteous in the city. The Lord responds, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.” He can’t find fifty so Abraham reduces the number: 40? 30? 10? Eventually it came to only Lot and his two daughters. They left then there were none and the city was destroyed.

In the United States, we have that same promise, and implicitly, that same curse. Jacob speaks of that promise but he expands it from “a land of liberty”to this all inclusive statement:

13 And he that fighteth against Zion shall perish, saith God.
14 For he that raiseth up a king against me shall perish, for I, the Lord, the king of heaven, will be their king, and I will be a light unto them forever, that hear my words (2 Nephi 10:13-14).

Zion is the pure in heart (D&C 97:21). The location of Zion is most clearly defined as the place where her stakes are and ultimately where the temples are. Now, as stakes and temples dot the earth, Zion is spreading across all nations where there is freedom to worship. Steadily, Zion is encompassing the whole earth.

Now as we read Jacob’s promise, that which was first applicable to the United States is becoming applicable to the whole world.

In Jacob’s prophecy there is no promise of continual peace, only of ultimate success. Another relevant prophecy is that of the Prophet Joseph saying that the American Constitution would hang by a thread and (as Eliza R. Snow wrote) “that this people, the Sons of Zion, would rise up and save the Constitution and bear it off triumphant.

In December 1948, when I was a child attending Primary, the church published a broadside with the photographs of the general authorities on one side (George Albert Smith was then President of the Church), and a statement by Preston Nibley on the other. I was given my copy in Primary, as I suppose everyone else in the church was also. The broadside is now very rare, so the chances of your having seen it are remote enough that it probably will not be a redundancy to include a copy of Elder Nibley’s short statement here.

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WHAT OF JOSEPH SMITH’S PROPHECY THAT THE CONSTITUTION WOULD HANG BY A THREAD?

by Preston Nibley

FREQUENT INQUIRY is received as to the validity of the great prophecy. said to have been made by the Prophet Joseph Smith that the time would come when the Constitution would hang by a single thread, and at that particular time the Mormon people would step forth and save it from destruction.

For a number of years I have searched through the writings and sermons of the Prophet, but to date I have not found any record of the above prophecy as having been recorded by the Prophet himself, or by those who worked with him in his office and assisted him in writing his history.

The first reference to substantiate im­portant prophecy was given in a sermon by President Brigham Young in the. old Tabernacle on the Temple Block, on July 4, 1854. The occasion was the celebration of Independence Day by the people of Salt Lake City. President Young was the principal speaker.

Following are a few excerpts from his sermon:

“The general Constitution of our country is good, and a wholesome government could be framed upon it; for it was dictated by the invisible operations of the Almighty. He moved upon Columbus to launch forth upon the trackless deep to discover the American continent. He moved upon the signers of the Declaration of Inde­pendence, and he moved upon Washington to fight and conquer, in the same way that he has moved upon ancient and modern prophets, each being inspired to accomplish the particular work he was called to perform, in the times seasons and dispensations of the Almighty….

“If the framers of the Constitution and the inhabitants of the United States had walked humbly, the God who defended them and fought their battles when Washington was on the stage of action, the nation would have now been free from a multitude of evils.

“Will the Constitution be destroyed? No. It will be held inviolate by this people; and as Joseph Smith said ‘the time will come when the destiny of this nation will hang upon a single thread, and at this critical juncture, this people will step forth and save it from the threatened destruction.’ It will be so.” (Journal History, July 4, 1854)

President Brigham Young does not give the citation of his information regarding this important prophect, whether it came to him direct from the Prophet Joseph Smith or not, but he states it in such a bold, fearles manner that it is evident that he knew exactly what he was talking about.

On February 6 and 7 of the following year, 1855, a celebration was held in the Social Hall, by the surviving members of the Mormon Battalion to commemorate their long march to the Pacific, made in 1846-47. On this occasion President Jedediah M. Grant made a few appropriate remarks. Among other things he siad:

“We are friendly to our country and when we speak of the flag or our Union, we love it, and we love the rights the Constitution guarantees to every citizen. What did the Prophet Joseph say? When the Constitution shall be tottering, we shall be the people to save it from the hand of the foe.” (The Mormon Battalion by Tyler, page 350).

Three years later, on January 3, 1858, Orson Hyde was speaking in the old Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. At that time he made this significant statement, which he worded somewhat differently than the two speakers quoted above.

“It is said that Brother Josesph, in his lifetime, declared that the elders of this Church should step forth at a particular time, when the Constitution should be in danger, and rescue it and save it. This may be so, but I do not recollect that he said exactly so. I believe he said something like this — that the time would come when the Constitution and the country would be in danger of an overthrow, and, said he, ‘If the Constitution be saved at all, it will be by the elders of this Church.’ I believe this is about the language, as nearly as I can recolict it.” (Journal of Discourses. Vol.6:152).

It appears from the above that Orson Hyde heard the Prophet Joseph Smith make the prophecy quoted, though he differs somewhat from Brigham Young and Jedediah Grant in his understanding of the same. However, we have a statement from Eliza R. Snow, that she actually heard the Prophet make the remarks which she quotes. The following is from the Deseret News Weekly of Jan. 19, 1870, page 556. It is the report of a meeting of the women of Salt Lake City, held in the hew Tabernacle.

Eliza R. Snow was speaking:

“My sisters, my remarks in conclusion will be brief. I heard the Prophet Joseph Smith say if the people rose up and mobbed us, and the author­ities countenanced it, they would have mobs to their hearts content. I heard him say that the time would come when this nation would so far depart from its original purity, its glory and its love for freedom, and its protection of civil rights and religious rights, that the Constitution of our country would hang as it were by a thread. He said also that this people, the Sons of Zion, would rise up and save the Constitution and bear it off triumphant ‘.”

From all the above it is abundantly evident that the Prophet Joseph Smith did make the marvelous prediction that it is the destiny of the Latter-day Saints to some day save the Constitu­tion of the United States from destruction.

Helaman 13:9-10 — LeGrand Baker — Prophecy as testimony

Helaman 13:9-10
9 And four hundred years shall not pass away before I will cause that they shall be smitten; yea, I will visit them with the sword and with famine and with pestilence.
10 Yea, I will visit them in my fierce anger, and there shall be those of the fourth generation who shall live, of your enemies, to behold your utter destruction; and this shall surely come except ye repent, saith the Lord; and those of the fourth generation shall visit your destruction.

The timing of this prophecy was given asks interesting questions: It seems to say that if the people who are hearing Samuel do not repent then their great-great-great grandchildren will be destroyed. That really doesn’t seem to be very pressing or even all that relevant to the people he is talking to. Besides that, the modern reader who is reading the Book of Mormon for the umpteenth time knows that these people who refuse to repent will meet their own end when the earth expresses its anger just before the coming of the Savior and that there will be a millennial-like peace after that. Thus one has to ask, why is this prophecy relevant to the people who are hearing it? The answer is: so the righteous among the hearers will be able to warn those great-great-great grandchildren that the turmoil they are encountering in their lives was known by the Lord— and by his prophets— well before they had to face its dangers. That knowledge, that God is fully aware of their problems, encouraged and gave strength to the faithful of Mormon’s generation.

While Mormon did not mention the prophecy as a source of encouragement, he did call attention to its fulfillment in his own lifetime, perhaps suggesting that the faithful need not be surprised at the depravity that reigned free in the land (Mormon 1:19).

It appears that the Lord uses prophecies about the future for three separate purposes. One is to help prepare the faithful Saints so they will not be thrown off balance by events that are soon to come. An example is Samuel’s prophecy of the birth of the Savior which emboldened the faithful to stay true to their beliefs.

Another example of a distant, but very explicit prophecy is in Revelation 11:2-13. There, two prophets will be killed in Jerusalem before the Savior comes to protect the Jews. The prophecy partly answers our curiosity about what will happen in the future, but will, no doubt, be a great comfort to those who have to live through the war and turmoil that is described there.

A second reason is to give the Saints a sense of the ultimate triumph of the forces of righteousness over the forces of evil. By giving the faithful a glimpse of the chronology of future events, they can understand that whatever happens in their own times or even in their own lives, neither the difficulty nor the tragedy will have a permanent, eternal effect on their security and happiness.

The third reason is the most important of all. As the angel explained to John the Beloved, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Revelation 19:10.).” Mormon said it even more clearly:

8 And Alma went and began to declare the word of God unto the church … according to the spirit of prophecy which was in him, according to the testimony of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who should come to redeem his people from their sins, and the holy order by which he was called. And thus it is written. Amen (Alma 6:8).

As we see the prophecies fulfilled, or as the Spirit testifies to us that they have been or will yet be fulfilled, the Spirit also assures us that God is very much in charge, and however impossible it may seem to us just now, God will do everything to his ultimate glory and to our ultimate salvation.