Last Days

To see the chronological sequence of events go to
https://understandingthelastdays.blogspot.com/2017/07/sequence-of-events.html

Introduction: the Lord’s Precise Timing

“But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32).

“I, the Lord God, have spoken it; but the hour and the day no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor shall they know until he comes” (D&C 49:7).

The Lord declares that He alone can prophesy accurately the future of mankind. “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

As we consider the critical importance of prophetic events relating to the last days, it is natural for us to inquire as to when they will occur. Do the scriptures give any indication of this timing? Yes, they do! As we look back in history from the beginning until now, we are confronted with a pattern of astonishing complexity when we examine prophecies and their precise fulfillment. More than forty of the most significant events in Israel’s history have occurred precisely to the day on the anniversaries of feast days of the biblical calendar. The odds against this phenomenon occurring by random chance are staggering. For example, during the closing days of his earthly ministry Jesus warned us about the terrible events that would constitute the “signs of the times” leading up to his coming in glory. He told his disciples clearly when these events would occur – after the rebirth of the nation of Israel. Matthew 24:32-34 = 32: “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 33: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 34: Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

In the Doctrine and Covenants (hereafter D&C) 45:37-38, he has restated the parable as follows: 37: Ye look and behold the fig-trees, and ye see them with your eyes, and ye say when they begin to shoot forth, and their leaves are yet tender, that summer is now nigh at hand; 38: Even so it shall be in that day when they shall see all these things, then shall they know that the hour is nigh.

The key to interpreting these scriptures is that the fig tree represents the Jews in Matthew, and the Ten Tribes in the Doctrine and Covenants. God uses the signs of the times to keep His Saints informed of coming events in their season and to encourage them to be vigilant in their preparations for the future. This is our counsel: to read the signs so that when the prophet gives the word (God will do nothing but what he will reveal it unto his servants the prophets – Amos 3:7), we will already be prepared to follow his instructions (if ye are prepared ye shall not fear – D&C 38:30). Consider, for example, the following information.

After the death of Jesus Christ, persecution from the Romans and the Jews forced the Christians into exile. Jesus’ granduncle, Joseph of Arimathaea, Mary, the mother of Jesus, Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha, and possibly others, escaped to Cornwall in Britain during the persecutions of the Saints following the death of Jesus. There they built a group of Christian believers. Then in 70 A.D., Titus ransacked Jerusalem and the temple was leveled.[1] By the end of the first century, most of the disciples of Jesus had become martyrs, and in time the Church fled into the wilderness for 1,260 day (Rev. 12:6). Joseph Smith changed the word days to years in his JST of Revelation 12:5. The Church came out of the wilderness (apostasy) in 1830 (Doctrine & Covenants 33:5). Going back 1,260 years from 1830, we come to 570 A.D., a year of great significance; the year that marked the end of the early Christian Church.

In the final battle at Cornwall, the Church at Glastonbury (where Jesus’ family had fled) fell to the decrees of the church at Rome, and King Arthur was defeated in the Battle of Durham. Legend has it that he was fighting to protect the Holy Grail, which fable has made out to be the cup that Christ used at the Last Supper. What he was really defending was the last holdout of what remained of the pure gospel; and the descendants of the Savior who were living there and in Wales. The Times and Seasons, the official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the Nauvoo period recorded: “We are informed by the renowned historian, Whelpley, as also in the revolutions of Europe, that the church of Jesus Christ was overrun and driven into the wilderness, AD 570, and John the Revelator informs us it must remain there 1260 years, which makes exactly the time, the year 1830, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized with the gifts and blessings.”[2]

Changing now to another time period, Rabbi Judah ben Samuel (1140-1217), was a German rabbi who based his prophecies on the years of Jubilee. Leviticus 25 says a Jubilee lasts fifty years.

The Ottoman Empire (Turks) would control Jerusalem for eight Jubilees = 400 years (1517-1917). The Turks were conquered in 1917 when the British Army, under the command of General Edmund Allenby, liberated Jerusalem on Hanukkah (the Festival of Lights) on December 17, 1917.[3]

On May 14, 1948, Judah, inappropriately called Israel, became a nation – in the precise year foretold by the prophet Ezekiel over twenty-five hundred years earlier; and based on the Savior’s promise in Matthew 24:32-34, our generation is the only generation that has the promise that within the natural time span of our lives, we will witness the amazing events of the last days. We are the only generation that can “… look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

Given the time frame outlined in this study, if 2036 is the year of the Second Coming, and 1936 (see page 21) is the beginning of the generation, then the Savior’s definition of a “generation” would be 100 years ± – which is critical information. Consider then that there is another cycle into which this scenario would fit. World War I ended in 1918, showing that 2018 is a significant year for Israel (the “generation” in which Israel became a nation); Israel’s seventy-year cycle, which ends May 14, 2018, confirms this significance. See Sign 13 for more on this date.

Another important example, and one valuable to understanding the last days, is found in Daniel 9:24-27 = 24: Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. 25: Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. 26: And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. 27: And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

The commencement point of Daniel’s vision is the commandment to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, which begins in Daniel 9:25. This decree was issued by the Persian King Artaxerxes Longimanus “in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year” of his reign, according to Nehemiah 2:1. “The first day of the month of Nisan,” according to the Talmud (a collection of writings that constitute Jewish civil and religious law), is the beginning of the New Year for the computation of the reign of kings and for festivals. The first of Nisan in King Artaxerxes’ twentieth year was computed by the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, United Kingdom, as March 14, 445 B.C. From that date there is a period of seven “weeks” (7 x 7 = 49 years), and sixty-two “weeks” (62 x 7 = 434 years) which total sixty-nine weeks of years (69 x 7 years = 483 biblical years). This period of 483 biblical years equals 173,880 days (483 x 360 days[4] = 173,880 days).

At the end of the sixty-nine “weeks” (483 years), or 173,880 days, there will be a time when, according to Daniel, the “Messiah will be cut off.” On the tenth day of Nisan, April 6, 32 A.D., on Palm Sunday, Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem and presented Himself as “the Messiah” in fulfillment of this prophecy. Luke 9:41-44 records a prophecy given by Jesus at that time regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, because they rejected him at that time as their prophesied Messiah-King. Five days later this rejection culminated in his crucifixion and the postponement of the promised Kingdom for now almost 2,000 years.

In 70 A.D., less than forty years after the Savior’s prophecy, the Roman army besieged Jerusalem, killing more than one million of her inhabitants. The Roman legions leveled the city of Jerusalem, totally fulfilling His prophecy that “they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another” (Luke 19:44). The fearsome cry of the people, “Let him be crucified” (Matthew 27:23) and “His blood be on us, and on our children” (Matthew 27:25) had its tragic fulfillment, according to Flavius Josephus[5] during that final siege when the hills surrounding Jerusalem were studded with thousands of crosses as far as the eye could see.

Daniel’s vision spoke of a total of seventy “sevens” or seventy “weeks” of years, equaling 490 biblical years. That period of time, beginning on March 14, 445 B.C. until the Messiah was “cut off” (April 6, 32 A.D., the tenth of Nisan) was seven “sevens” plus sixty-two “sevens, equaling sixty nine “weeks of years” (173,879 days). That prophecy was fulfilled to the exact day, minus one “week.”

Given the fact that the prophecy was interrupted with the death of the Savior, there is one more “week” of seven critical years remaining to be fulfilled in our “generation” (1936 – 2036: see page twenty-one). God’s prophetic clock stopped on Calvary. Similarly, some 1,500 years earlier when Israel stopped at the very edge of the Promised Land and awaited the report of the twelve tribal leaders who spied out Canaan, when the report was given they disbelieved it. Through this disobedience and disbelief of God’s promises, the people were led forty years in the wilderness. That entire generation died without seeing the fulfillment of the original conditional promised possession of the land of Canaan.

During this interval between the ending of Daniel’s sixty-ninth week (32 A.D.) and the beginning of the final seventieth week, God has fulfilled other prophecies and is now preparing to fulfill that final week of prophecies. This lovingkindness of God is to allow all who will to come unto Christ to be saved. This “gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). It was even so during the Savior’s three-and-one-half-year ministry, which ended on Palm Sunday, the end of the sixty-ninth “week” of years.

Note: August 11, 2012 Elder Alan F. Packer, of the 1^st Quorum of the Seventy, son of the late Boyd K. Packer, told us that the brethren are paying close attention to the signs of the times and what the Church needs to do to prepare for the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He counseled us all to study these signs and prepare ourselves spiritually and physically.[6] We never know what trials and challenges we will be required to face. We can only do what is right and let the Lord’s wisdom and mercy be shown forth.

Introduction: Sequence of Latter-day Events

In Avraham Gileadi’s first edition of The Book of Isaiah[7] he gives us a sequential list in the introduction. There are thirty signs which he identified. However, his sequence does not coincide with mine. This is because his sequence only pertains to the last seven years of the world’s existence. But, some of his signs are overarching from this current period (2017) through to the end. In his own words there are other signs which he has not included in his list.

Never has there been a time in our history when apocalyptic events in several areas noted below are coming together all at once. Anyone of them could set off the others as the balance of unrighteousness tips the scales and our Father decrees an end to the wicked. The years 2028 and 2036 are prime examples of this as shown in the numbered signs below.

In studies of this nature we should be careful of being too dogmatic and certain of our own interpretations to the exclusion of meaning and insight that we may have completely missed. “It is better to be intellectually uncertain rather than superficially sure. This will leave us with a great deal to be certain about, while maintaining a humility to learn.”

Prophetic writings sometimes portray the same events multiple times but with different symbols. For example, Daniel offers us four visions and dreams, but each one describes the same future reality.[8]

All the picture of the last days deals with physical and spiritual realities. Much of it condemns evil practices among the Lord’s people.[9] “There are signs in heaven, earth and hell; the elders must know them all, to be endowed with power, to finish their work…”[10] “… he that feareth me shall be looking forth for the great day of the Lord to come, even for the signs of the coming of the Son of Man (D&C 45:39); … and he that watches not for me shall be cut off” (D&C 45:44). Upon examining the language used to describe past catastrophes and comparing it with the language used to describe them in the future, it becomes evident that the Lord describes both past and coming events using the same similes and metaphors. This similarity, then, is the key to understanding prophecy.[11] “Every major worldwide calamity was caused by extra-terrestrial bodies from space.”[12]

A study of The Book of Mormon also helps us understand the last days. Just as one example: there are seven exoduses in the book, which – when studied – help us understand the exodus of the last days both in a localized sense, and in its worldwide dynamics. This study will bring to bear the scriptures from the Book of Mormon as they interplay with the signs listed below.

The key to understanding the signs of the times is to be receptive to being taught by the Holy Ghost. There is a lot of information in the books contained in the bibliography that show the rise in earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, floods, droughts, etc., but few reference the worldwide events that will come at the end of the world. As you sift through the following evidence, let the spirit be your guide as to the truthfulness of what is written and as to whether or not the general sequence is properly organized. The Lord told the early elders of the Church: “And unto you it shall be given to know the signs of the times, and the signs of the coming of the Son of Man” (D&C 68:11). Signs elicit a conditioned response: i.e., an earthquake elicits a need to repent among the righteous. In his love and mercy, God will use disasters to seek to bring his children to repentance.[13] However, these are just a precursor to the worldwide events that await the wicked.

Natural disasters have been steadily increasing recently. According to a report by Professor Debarati Sapir, from the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, more than 254,000,000 people were affected by natural disasters in 2003, which was 180% more than in 1990.[14]

In 1998, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, summarized some of the events of that previous decade. He said: “During the past decade there have been many examples of large-scale adversities affecting tens or hundreds of thousands or millions. Only a few can be mentioned. In addition to wars in many nations we have had earthquakes in Japan, California, China, Armenia, and Mexico; hurricanes or tornadoes in Florida and the central United States; volcanic eruptions in the Philippines; flooding in India and North America; and famine and pestilence in Africa and elsewhere.”[15]

In 1952, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith reported the following: “In a book that has been recently published by Robert Gordon Collier, he says this: ‘The Bible says the earth is to be visited by earthquakes, dust storms, floods, plagues, and disease. Science reports that from 1914 onward, there have been more freakish weather, earthquakes, floods, and diseases than any other similar sustained period in history.’”[16]

Elder Smith further remarked: “The earth suffered greater shaking by earthquakes in 1950 than any other year since 1906, according to Professor L. Don Leet, director of Harvard’s seismograph station. The total energy released in the violent movement of the earth in the year 1950 was equal to the explosion of 4,000,000 atomic bombs. Professor Leet explained that a worldwide network of seismograph stations “located” 796 significant earthquakes from the first of January to December 16, including one of the two greatest earthquakes ever recorded (New Dispatch, December 30, 1950). During the year 1951, more than one earthquake a day was recorded; many were with extreme violence, great loss of life and property.[17]

The momentum of destruction appears to have picked up dramatically since the year 2000. An unprecedented tornado struck downtown Salt Lake City near the turn of the century. In 2003, about 83,000 people were killed in an earthquake in Iran. In 2004 four major hurricanes hit Florida within a two-month period. Over 1,700 tornadoes were reported in the United States in that same year. Then on December 26, 2004, a 9.3 earthquake struck in the middle of the Indian Ocean, causing the entire earth to wobble. The massive tremor created a tsunami that swept across the ocean into thirteen different countries, killing over 225,000 people.[18] In October, 2005, another catastrophic earthquake struck Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, killing about 85,000 people, injuring 42,000, and leaving over 3,000,000 homeless. In August of that same year, a category five hurricane (Katrina) struck the Gulf Coast of the United States, causing disastrous flooding, loss of life, and billions of dollars worth of damage.

There are prophetic events; and signs foretell their arrival.[19] Prophecies often include signs. For example, Jesus Christ, during his last week on earth in the Meridian of Time, prophesied about the signs of his coming: 1) destruction of the wicked; 2) false christs; 3) false prophets; 4) wars; 5) rumors of wars; 6) famines; 7) pestilences; 8) earthquakes; 9) love of many waxing cold; 10) gospel preached in all the world; 11) sun darkened; 12) moon turned to blood; and 13) stars falling.[20] The Lord is not particularly interested in satisfying our curiosity about what is coming. He wants us, rather, to be humble and contrite (D&C 136:32-33; Moroni 8:26).[21] Prophecy is moral warnings; rarely a chronological indication of the future.[22]

The study of “types” is critical to understanding the last days, because Israel’s ancient history repeats itself in the last days, and even within this dispensation, history repeats itself between the beginning of the Church and the events at the end of time. Accompanying the study of types is the need to understand the “spirit of prophecy,” and the “letter of prophecy,” as well as the requirement to “search the scriptures.”[23]

Searching includes: 1) structural analysis (blocks of material such as chapters, groups of chapters, and over-arching ideas; as well as forms of speech, poems, chiasms, and parallelisms; 2) typological analysis (examining patterns, types, cycles, phenomena, motifs, code names, linking ideas, imagery,[24] metaphors, allusions, symbols, personifications, similes, ironies, paradoxes, ambiguities, synecdoches, polysyndetons,[25] shadows, allegorical language, literary patterns, underlying structures, double meanings, and key words.[26]

In reference to how we should handle the events of the last days, the Prophet Joseph Smith in his prophetic re-translation of the Book of Revelation[27] says, referring to our desire to be happy, to be joyful, “Blessed are they who read, and they who hear and understand the words of the prophecy, and keepeth those things which are written therein, for the time of the coming of the Lord draweth nigh [highlights reflect the Prophet’s additions to the Book of Revelation, chapter one verse three]. Also, in this regard, Nephi says: “I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light (2 Nephi 32:4).

Following is a sequential list of the signs of the last days. The numbers in brackets show the order as can best be determined by comparing all that has been written about the various prophecies.

[1] The Gathering of Israel, 1^st Phase, (1830-2028),[28] including both the Jews and the Ten Tribes.

Ezekiel 37:7-11 7: So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. 8: And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. 9: Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 10: So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. 11: Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts; Ezekiel 37:21-23 21: And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: 22: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king of them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: 23: Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.

Then, just as a note for future reference, it says in verse 24: And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.

The gradual growth of the Israeli nation from scattered skeleton to full body development is startling. As Ezekiel’s prophecy indicates: “There was a noise, and … a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.” Following this, “the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skins covered them above: but there was no breath in them.”

From the sound of an earthshaking event (World War I), the seemingly dead nation of Israel was to gradually formulate a body, after which the spirit would be breathed into it. We submit that history records the birth of the nation of Israel exactly in this manner, beginning in 1917.

By 1916 the war was going adversely for England. German machine guns and other advanced weaponry were cutting down the flower of Europe’s manhood. England was desperate to find a rapid method of manufacturing TNT and a smokeless gunpowder. A brilliant Jew name Chaim Weizmann invented such a formula that made possible the rapid production of these vital materials, thus changing the course of the war. In return, David Lloyd George, representing the British government, told Dr. Weizmann to name his price. Rejecting personal reward, Weizmann requested that Palestine be declared the international homeland for the Jewish people. Consequently, the Balfour Declaration was drawn up and signed on November 2, 1917.

Could it be mere coincidence of language that the impetus to officially start the re-gathering of Israel was prophesied as a “noise and shaking,” and that the fulfillment took place during the loudest war – due to the prodigious amounts of TNT and gunpowder used – the world had ever yet known?

The gathering of the Jews into Palestine after the signing of the Balfour Treaty was indeed a gradual development – “bone to his bone.” In 1917 it is estimated that less than 25,000 Jews lived in the land. By 1922 there were 83,000; by 1932 – 180,000; by 1935 – 300,000; by 1937 – 430,000; and by 1945, more than 500,000. Today the population is over 5,000,000 and growing.

On May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion was appointed prime minister, and Dr. Chaim Weizmann was elected president of a provisional council.[29]

. . . . . . . . . .

The initial gathering, a lengthy and complex process, is divided into the following overlapping phases, which may be essentially looked at as an ongoing, cumulative effort: 1) to the United States after the restoration of Jesus Christ’s Church by Joseph Smith, Jr.; 2) centralization of converts throughout their nations of birth; and 3) gathering to Jerusalem and Zion. See 2029 for the end-time gathering period [#35].

Jacob 6:2-4 = 2: And the day that he shall set his hand again the second time to recover his people, is the day, yea, even the last time, that the servants of the Lord shall go forth in his power, to nourish and prune his vineyard; and after that the end soon cometh. 3: And how blessed are they who have labored diligently in his vineyard; and how cursed are they who shall be cast out into their own place! And the world shall be burned with fire. 4: And how merciful is our God unto us, for he remembereth the branches; and he stretches forth his hands unto them all the day long; and they are a stiffnecked and a gainsaying people; but as many as will not harden their hearts shall be saved in the kingdom of God.

1^st Nephi 10:3, 12, 14 = 3: That after they should be destroyed, even that great city Jerusalem, and many be carried away captive into Babylon, according to the own due time of the Lord, they should return again, yea, even be brought back out of captivity they should possess again the land of their inheritance; 12: Yea, even my father spake much concerning the Gentiles, and also concerning the house of Israel, that they should be compared like unto an olive-tree, whose branches should be broken off and should be scattered upon all the face of the earth. 14: And after the house of Israel should be scattered they should be gathered together again; or, in fine, after the Gentiles had received the fullness of the Gospel, the natural branches of the olive-tree, or the remnants of the house of Israel, should be grafted in, or come to the knowledge of the true Messiah, their Lord and their Redeemer.

1^st Nephi 15:20 = 20: And I did rehearse unto them the words of Isaiah, who spake concerning the restoration of the Jews, or of the house of Israel; and after they were restored they should no more be confounded, neither should they be scattered again….

1^st Nephi 22:25 = 25: And he gathereth his children from the four quarters of the earth; and he numbereth his sheep, and they know him; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd; and he shall feed his sheep, and in him they shall find pasture.

2^nd Nephi 6:11, 14 = 11: Wherefore, after they are driven to and fro, for thus saith the angel, many shall be afflicted in the flesh, and shall not be suffered to perish, because of the prayers of the faithful; they shall be scattered, and smitten, and hated; nevertheless, the Lord will be merciful unto them, that when they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer, they shall be gathered together again to the lands of their inheritance. 14: And behold, according to the words of the prophet, the Messiah will set himself again the second time to recover them; wherefore, he will manifest himself unto them in power and great glory, unto the destruction of their enemies, when that day cometh when they shall believe in him; and none will he destroy that believe in him.”

3^rd Nephi 5:24 says: And as surely as the Lord liveth, will he gather in from the four quarters of the earth all the remnant of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon all the face of the earth. D&C 33:6 says: And even so will I gather mine elect from the four quarters of the earth, even as many as will believe in me, and hearken unto my voice.

The 10^th Article of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints states: “We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; …”

In Jeremiah, the heading for chapter three states that: “In the last days, the Lord will gather Israel, one of a city and two of a family, and bring them to Zion” (the New Jerusalem).

Elias Higbee, an early elder of the Church, was able to inquire of the Lord regarding Isaiah 52:1. The answer is found in D&C 113:6-7: “What is meant by the command: Put on thy strength, O Zion – and what people had Isaiah reference to? He had reference to those whom God should call in the last days, who should hold the power of priesthood to bring again Zion, and the redemption of Israel; and to put on her strength is to put on the authority of the priesthood, which she, Zion, has a right to by lineage; also to return to that power which she had lost.”

D&C 113:9-10. What are we to understand by Zion loosing herself from the bands of her neck in the 2^nd verse [Isaiah 52:2]? We are to understand that the scattered remnants are exhorted to return to the Lord from whence they have fallen; which if they do, the promise of the Lord is that he will speak to them, or give them revelation. See the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th verses. The bands of her neck are the curses of God upon her, or the remnants of Israel in their scattered condition and intermarried with the Gentiles.

In reading and understanding the wealth of prophecy contained in the Book of Mormon, it becomes obvious that remnants of the House of Israel were scattered generally among all nations and that remnants of Israel were scattered specifically among what the Book of Mormon refers to as the Gentile nations of Europe and the Americas. It is to the latter that the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored and it is they who have care for latter-day Israel throughout the world.[30]

One of the best summaries of the gathering of Israel is found in the work by Donald W. Parry and Jay A. Parry.[31] They summarize this gathering as follows: “Probably no event of the last days has been prophesied more often than the gathering of Israel. Because of their wickedness, the Lord allowed the children of Israel to be scattered among the nations in the millennium before the birth of Christ as well as afterward, by the hand of Rome. But though they were lost to history, the Lord knows where he placed them, and he ever remembers his promises to restore them to their inheritance. Jacob talks of this in 2 Nephi 10:6-8.

Seven years after the publication of The Book of Mormon, the keys for gathering all of Israel were restored to Joseph Smith; the gathering continues under the direction of those who have succeeded the Prophet in the presidency (D&C 110:11; 115:5-6). The reasons for the gathering are: 1) to protect Israel from the “vengeance” the Lord will take upon the ungodly; 2) to bring Israel together to receive the blessings of the gospel and the temple; 3) and to restore them to their covenant lands.

[2] Gospel Preached Worldwide; Church Brought out of Obscurity; All Will Hear the Gospel in their own Tongue [this sign overarches all of the last days, even after the elders are called home, because of the mission of the 144,000].

D&C 42:45 = “I give unto you a commandment that ye shall teach [the doctrines of the kingdom] unto all men; for they shall be taught unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people.” Since 1830, 160,000,000 copies of The Book of Mormon have been published in 110 languages, as follows: 1) English 1830; 2) Danish 1851; 3) German 1852; 4) French 1852; 5) Italian 1852; 6) Welsh 1852; 7) Hawaiian 1855; 8) Spanish 1875 (selections only; full book in 1886); 9) Swedish 1878; 10) Maori 1889; 11) Dutch 1890; 12) Samoan 1903; 13) Tahitian 1904; 14) Turkish 1906; 15) Japanese 1909; 16) Czech 1933; 17) Armenian-Western; 18) Portuguese, 1939; 19) Tongan, 1946; 20) Norwegian 1950; 21) Finnish 1954; 22) Rarotongan, 1965; 23) Chinese 1965;[32] 24) Korean 1967; 25) Afrikaans 1972; 26) Thai 1976; 27) Indonesian 1977; 28) Aymara 1977 (selections; full book 1986); 29) Cakchiquel 1978 (selections); 30) Croatian 1979; 31) Quechua-Peru (selections), 1979; 32) Greek 1979 (selections; full 1987); 33) Hungarian 1979 (selections; full 1991); 34) Kekchi (selections; full 1983); 35) Quiche 1979 (selections); 36) Bulgarian 1980 (selection; full 1999); 37) Navajo 1980 (selections); 38) Quechua-Ecuador 1980 (selections; full 2011); 39) Arabia 1980 (selections; full 1986); 40) Vietnamese 1980 (selections; full 1982); 41) Fijian 1980; 42) Quechua-Bolivia 1981 (selections; full 1998); 47) Kuna 1981 (selections); 48) Niuean (Niue) 1981 (selections); 49) Icelandic 1981; 50) Hindi 1982; 51) Telugu 1982 (selections; full 2000); 52) Tamil 1982 (selection; full 2005); 53) Cambodian (selections 1982; full 2001); 54) Lao (selections 1982; full 2012); 55) Swahili (selections 1982; full 2000); 56) Guarani (selections 1982; full 2009); 57) Maya (selections 1983); 58) Sinhala (selections 1983; full 2008); 59) Mam (selections 1983); 60) Efik (selections 1983); 61) Chinese simplified characters (selections 1983; full 2000); 62) Kisii (Gusii) [selections 1983]; 63) Hmong (selections 1983; full 2000); 64) Persian (Farsi) [selections 1983; full 2015]; 65) Haitian (selections 1983; full 1999); 66) Marshallese (selection 1984; full 2003); 67) Bengali (selections 1983); 68) Bislama (selections 1985; full 2004); 69) Malagasy (selection 1986; full 2000); 70) Fante (selections 1987; full 2003); 71) Zulu (selections 1987; full 2003); 72) Pohnpeian (selections 1987); 73) Papiamento (selection 1987); 74) Chuukese (Tukese) [selections 1987; full 2005]; 75) Tagalog (selections 1987; full 1998); 76) Lingala (selections 1988; full 2004); 77) Shona (selection 1988; full 1999); 78) Urdu (selections 1988; full 2007); 79) Palauan (selections 1988); 80) Kirbati (selections 1988; full 2001); 81) Chamorro (selections 1989); 82) Ilokano (selections 1991; full 1995); 83) Cebuano (selection 1992; full 1998); 84) Tzotzil (selections 1994); 85) Hiligaynon (selections 1994; full 2005); 86) Pampango (selections 1994); 87) American Sign (ASL) 1995; DVD 2006); 88) Waray (selections 1996); 89) Ukrainian 1997; 90) Bikolano (selections 1998); 91) Pangasinan 1998; 92) Albanian 1999; 93) Estonian 2000; 94) Igbo 2000; 95) Latvian 2000; 96) Armenian East 2000; 97) Lithuanian 2000; 98) Amharic 2000; 99) Xhosa 2000; 100) Mongolian 2001; 101) Neomelanesian 2002; 102) Slovenian 2002; 103) Setswana 2003; 104) Yapese 2004; 105) Twi 2005; 106) Yoruba 2007; 107) Serbian 2008; 108) Slovak, 2008; 109) Malay 2013; 110) Kosraean 2015.

As may be noted from this list, the languages into which The Book of Mormon have been translated, cover most of the earth at this time. New editions have almost stopped since 2008.

Note from Ensign, January, 2016: there were 1,600 congregations in Africa (500,000+ members); eleven times more wards and branches and twenty times more members than in 1985; seventeen stakes were created in 2015 alone.

D&C 1:4-5 “And the voice of warning shall be unto all people, by the mouths of my disciples, whom I have chosen in these last days. And they shall go forth and none shall stay them, for I the Lord have commanded them.” D&C 133:37 “And this gospel shall be preached unto every nation and kindred, and tongue, and people.” JS-M 1:31 “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come, or the destruction of the wicked.”

“The Lord is done pruning his vineyard and has his servants gathering the fruit in the final harvest before the burning.”[33]

D&C 77:11 Question: What are we to understand by the sealing the 144,000 out of all the tribes of Israel – 12,000 out of each tribe? Answer: We are to understand that those who are sealed are high priests, ordained unto the holy order of God, to administer the everlasting gospel; for they who are ordained out of every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, by the angel to whom is given power over the nations of the earth, to bring as many as will come to the church of the Firstborn.”

[1]In 70 A. D. Jerusalem was destroyed. On August 1, 691 A. D., the Dome of the Rock was dedicated on the sight of the temple. Its destruction will signify one of the end signs.

[2]Christ Tolworthy, The Bible Says 1830, pages 31-33.

[3]The British White Paper of 1939.

[4]Twelve lunar months = 12 x 30 = a 360-day year.

[5]Wars of the Jews, book five, chapter eleven, section two.

[6]Cedar City Utah Stake Conference, leadership meeting.

[7]Avraham Gileadi, The Book of Isaiah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1988).

[8]S. Michael Wilcox, Who Shall be Able to Stand: Finding Personal Meaning in the Book of Revelation (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 2003), pages ix, 13.

[9]Avraham Gileadi, op. cit., page 2.

[10]Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, page 152.

[11]Anthony E. Larson, And the Earth Shall Reel to and Fro: The Prophecy Trilogy, volume 2 (Orem, Utah: Zedek Book, 1983), page 3.

[12]Ibid., page 6.

[13]Donald W. Parry & Jay A. Parry, Understanding the Signs of the Times (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1999), pages 9-10.

[14]“Disaster Figures for 2003 – Millions Affected,” Platform for the Promotion of Early Warming Newsletter, December 2, 2004 [found on http://www.unisdr-earlywarning.org].

[15]“Adversity,” Ensign, July 1998, page 7.

[16]Joseph Fielding Smith, The Signs of the Times (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1974), page 6.

[17]Ibid., page 203.

[18]“2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/2004_indian_ocean_earth-quake

[19]Richard N. Skousen, His Return: Prophecy, Destiny and Hope (Orem, Utah: Verity Publishing, Inc., 2007), page 16.

[20]Joseph Smith – Matthew 1:22-23, 28-34.

[21]Wilcox, op. cit., pages 17-18.

[22]Ibid., page 12.

[23]Gileadi, op. cit., pages 1-2.

[24]Ibid., page xvi.

[25]Wilcox, op. cit., page 7.

[26]Gileadi, op. cit., page 4.

[27]Thomas A. Wayment, editor, The Complete Joseph Smith Translation of the New Testament: A Side-by-Side Comparison with the King James Version (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 2005), page 316 [Book of Revelation 1:3].

[28]This sign is specifically divided into two time periods: 1) 1830-2028; and 2) 2029-2036. In D&C 45:25 the Lord tells us that the gathering of the “Jews” would not be the first of the latter-day signs. In fact, it would be one of the last, for they would have to wait to be gathered “until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Yet we know the Jews have been gathering since before 1945; hence I have divided the gathering into the two periods noted. The second period begins “near” to the time of His coming as He told His disciples.

[29]Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Are We Living in the End Times: Current Events in Scripture and what they Mean (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1999), pages 49-53.

[30]Marvin R. VanDam, Mine Elect Hear my Voice: The Gathering of Israel (Sandy, Utah: Leatherwood Press, 2006), pages 23-24.

[31]Parry & Parry, op. cit., chapter two, pages 48-115.

[32]Pew Research indicates that in 2016 there were 67,000,000 Christians in China.

[33]Alan Rex Mitchell, The Coming Calamity (Vernon, Utah: Greenjacket Books, 2010), page 6.

[3] Widespread Selfishness and Lack of Caring for others; Wickedness: Idolatry; Apathy, Pride and Greed [this sign overarches all of the last days].

1^st Nephi 11:34-35 = 34: And after he was slain I saw the multitudes of the earth, that they were gathered together to fight against the apostles of the Lamb…. 35: And the multitude of the earth was gathered together; and I beheld that they were in a large and spacious building which my father saw. And the angel of the Lord spake unto me again, saying: Behold the world and the wisdom thereof; yea, behold the house of Israel hath gathered together to fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

1^st Nephi 13:4-5 = 4: I saw among the nations of the Gentiles the formation of a great church. 5: And the angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity.

1^st Nephi 22:13-15, 23 = 13: And the blood of that great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth, shall turn upon their own heads; for they shall war among themselves, and the sword of their own hands shall fall upon their own heads, and they shall be drunken with their own blood. 14: And every nation which shall war against thee, O house of Israel, shall be turned one against another, and they shall fall into the pit which they digged to ensnare the people of the Lord. All that fight against Zion shall be destroyed, and that great whore, who hath perverted the right ways of the Lord, yea, that great and abominable church, shall tumble to the dust and great shall be the fall of it. 15: For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned. 23: For the time speedily shall come that all churches which are built up to get gain, and all those who are built up to get power over the flesh, and those who are built up to become popular in the eyes of the world, and those who seek the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world, and to do all manner of iniquity; yea, in fine, all those who belong to the kingdom of the devil are they who need fear, and tremble and quake; they are those who must be brought low in the dust; they are those who must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet.

Nephi did not write for his non-readers. He wrote for his readers, who are almost exclusively Latter-day Saints. When we fail to heed his warning and believe he is speaking to the unconverted or warning non-Saints, we become prideful and deceive ourselves.[1] Elder David R. Stone confirmed this in May 2006 in an Ensign article “Zion in the Midst of Babylon” He said: “we hardly recognize our idolatry. The world is too much with us. I think we’ve stepped beyond the veil of Zion.” Idolatry precedes divine judgment; in our day, therefore, as biblical types repeat themselves, we may expect “the great day of the Lord,” – a period of judgment upon all nations of the earth.

In this regard – our idolatry - how we practice economics is actually a barometer of morality. What we spend money on determines who we are. The U.S. is now poised at the edge of an economic cliff; moral laws have been violated leading to family disintegration and debt, which in turn brings poverty and a dependency on government. The sins of this generation will come home to roost in economic turmoil, followed by political unrest. The Lord has commanded us to teach one another about “the wars and the perplexities of nations, and the judgments which are on the land, and a knowledge also of countries and kingdoms” (D&C 88:79) in order that we may warn the people of the coming calamities.[2] But we must also take heed regarding our own peril if we do not repent of the pride that is among us.

Jesus, in speaking to his disciples[3] about our days says: “And again, because iniquity shall abound, the love of men shall wax cold; but he that shall not be overcome, the same shall be saved.” This prophecy shows that man-made afflictions and brutalities, marked by a decrease in friendship, affection, and commitment between modern people, make it easy for them to treat one another horribly. A world in which loves dies is a world doomed to self-destruction. Paul words “without natural affection” (Romans 1:31; 2 Timothy 3:3) denote the feelings of one who is heartless, who has antipathy even toward those whom a good person naturally loves, such as one’s family.

Affection stands opposite of antipathy. Paul’s use of the words “natural affection” shows us that this kind of love is inborn and arises easily and fully. However, it can also be destroyed, allowing people to become “lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy (2 Timothy 3:2). Affection is necessary to tame passion and erotic love; without it, all powers become self-centered and hurtful. Affection promotes unselfishness, care, obedience, and safety. Affection assures that the home will be a place of security, protection, acceptance, and love. Righteousness promotes affection and in so doing keeps the family and society strong and well protected. When society becomes unrighteous and selfish, affection disappears and the family suffers. The Savior prophesied that “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” He understood that for many living in our days, the home would cease to be a haven and become a hell. Society would fail because family affection would disappear.[4]

When speaking of idolatry, we often think of people venerating statues, bowing down before mute idols, or perhaps participating in processions with icons raised on portable pedestals. Some people still perpetuate these ancient kinds of idolatry, though not members of the Church (except perhaps in our 4^th and 24^th of July parades; in our sporting events, movies, and in our other school and church performances). Idolatry nonetheless assumes many forms besides these – less tangible than statue worship perhaps, but just as virulent.

Idolatry is any activity that diverts attention from the true God and his law to a counterfeit. Idolatry is often a corruption of what is sacred. The first of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt have none other gods before me” (Deuteronomy 5:7) is anything less than loving the Lord God “with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might (Deuteronomy 6:5; compare 5:10).

Ancient Israel jeopardized her chosen status by adopting the customs of the heathens among whom they lived. When Israel did not repent of the idolatrous practices learned from these Gentiles, the Lord cut the Israelites off from his presence and destroyed them. In another instance of idolatry, he removed the gospel from one group of people and gave it to another (see Romans 11:11).

From the beginning, the scriptures mark the Gentiles – all nations except Israel – as idolaters (see Deuteronomy 12:28-30; Jeremiah 10:1-16; and Revelation 18:2-3).

“Anytime evil accumulates, anytime there is idolatry, anytime the culture turns materialistic, self-indulgent and immoral – anytime children kill children [and society legalizes the wholesale killing of unborn children] – there is a price to pay, and that price is often exacted by nature. When a society turns to crudity and cold-heartedness, when it defies God’s love, when it rejects HIM, it fashions its own ruin.

“Our culture has reverted to old paganism. It has created new divinities. It is centered on man. It is focused on worldliness. And as you will see, that has always led to devastation. Sins similar to those in our day brought huge events in past ages. We are not psychologically prepared to meet the challenge.[5]

In The Last Days[6] there are identified twelve forms of idol worship:

1) images;

2) violence and sex;

3) rock music;

4) organized sports;

5) human idols;

6) imaginations of the heart;

7) nature cults;

8) mammon;

9) Babylon: manufacture, promotion and sale of idols;

10) the arm of flesh;

11) pollution of the temple;

12) elitism – Pharisaism.

Besides these forms of false worship there are also:

1) stereotypical devotion;

2) scrupulous preservation of true worship; and

3) multiplying of sacrifices at the temple.[7]

The Plague of Apathy.

Apathy is a major contributor to every scourge we face. While people are dying in regions hit by natural disasters, wealthy nations burn millions of tons of food each year to maintain high prices for their farm produce. The “haves” – the richest one fifth of the people in the world – consume 86% of all goods and services, while the poorest one-fifth consumes only 1.3%. The three richest people in the world have combined assets of more than the gross domestic product of the forty-eight least developed countries in the world. The world’s 225 richest people have a combined wealth of over one trillion dollars. This is equal to the annual income of the poorest 47% of the entire world’s population. Of the 4.4 billion people in developing countries, nearly three-fifths lack access to safe sewers, a third have no access to clean water, a quarter do not have adequate housing, and a fifth have no access to health services of any kind.

This is happening while Americans and Europeans spend seventeen billion dollars a year on pet food. This is four billion dollars more than the estimated annual additional funds needed to provide basic health and nutrition for all the hungry of the world. All those who died from starvation in the 1990s could have been saved for the price of ten stealth bombers. In 2009 alone, over four million people died from starvation. Every night between your bedtime and when you awake in the morning more than 40,000 children have died of hunger.

Further devastating stories and statistics can be found in the rest of this study, showing the loss of great areas for food production worldwide. It is summarized in the statement by President Spencer W. Kimball as follows: “The land will be barren (perhaps radioactive or dry from drought). The trees will be without fruit and the fields without verdure. There will be rationing and a scarcity of food, and sore hunger. No traffic will jam your desolate highways. Famine will stalk rudely through your doors and the ogre of cannibalism will rob you of your children and your remaining virtues will disintegrate. There will be pestilence uncontrollable. Your dead bodies will be piled upon the materialistic things you sought so hard to accumulate and save. There will be no protection against enemies. They that hate you shall reign over you. Your power, your supremacy, your pride in superiority will be broken. Heaven will not hear your pleadings nor earth bring forth its harvest. Your strength will be spent in vain as you plow and plant and cultivate. Your cities will be shambles; your churches in ruins. Your enemies will be astonished at the barrenness, sterility, and desolation of the land they had been told was so choice, so beautiful, and so fruitful. You shall have no power to stand before your enemies. Your people will be scattered among the nations as slaves and bondsmen. You will pay tribute and bondage, and fetters shall bind you.”[8]

The Plague of Pride and Greed.

It is hard to separate apathy, pride and greed into separate sections; as has been seen above apathy contains pride and greed. Pride is excessive self-esteem arising because of a person’s possessions, position, class, or achievements. Pride causes one to seek the things of the world rather than the riches of eternity. “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16). Pride is the central cause of contention. “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well-advised is wisdom” (Proverbs 13:10). Pride is wickedness and those who are proud will be destroyed at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Pride and greed are included in all forms of man’s inhumanity to man – government corruption, economic oppression, embargoes, and wars.

Greed, most simply stated, is nothing more than selfishness. We have come to this earth to be tested to see if we will seek the riches of eternity or the fleeting counterfeits of this earth. Greed is the covetous grasping for an unreasonable amount of the things of this world; it is a sin. “In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God” (Ezekiel 22:11).

Nephi described what greediness would yield in the end. “And the angel spake unto me, saying: Behold the gold, and the silver, and the silks, and the scarlets, and the fine-twisted linen, and the precious clothing, and the harlots, are the desires of this great and abominable church [and its people]. And also for the praise of the world do they destroy the saints of God, and bring them down into captivity (1 Nephi 13:8-9).

Modern revelation again reminds us to seek the riches of eternity rather than to greedily seek earthly things. “Now I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness (D&C 68:31).

Greed is bringing this nation and the world to the point where the end is in sight. Humans are the creators of most of the calamities that will befall mankind in the last days. As greed, speculation, and the worship of idols team up with pride and arrogance, worse sins will soon follow.[9]

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie said: “Because of iniquity and greed in the hearts of men, there will be depressions, famines, and a frantic search for temporal security – a security sought without turning to the Lord or obeying his precepts. We may expect to see the insatiable desire to get something for nothing result in further class legislation and more socialistic experiments by governments. Economic inequalities will certainly give rise to further class warfare and bickering. There will be riots, bloodshed, hunger, commotion, turmoil, and panics. These are all signs of the times.[10]

In the October 1965 general conference, Elder Harold B. Lee spoke on the test that will come to members of the Church in the last days. In his talk he referred to the words of President Heber C. Kimball, who said: “We think we are secure here in the chambers of the everlasting hills, … but I want to say to you, … the time is coming when we will be mixed up in these now peaceful valleys to the extent that it will be difficult to tell the face of a Saint from the face of an enemy to the people of God. Then, brethren, look out for the great sieve, for there will be a great sifting time, and many will fall; for I say unto you there is a test, a TEST, a TEST coming, and who will be able to stand?”[11]

We are beginning to experience the great sifting that has been prophesied. The sad thing is that many members of the Church are failing the test, because they are not following the counsel of the prophets and the commandments of the Lord. Pride and greed are causing many members to fall into Satan’s trap, as they have become lovers of pleasure and the transitory things of the earth more than lovers of God. This is producing some very serious consequences for those who are choosing the bitter path.[12]

In 1977, President Spencer W. Kimball said, regarding overcoming these sins: “First, we eliminate the individual tendency to selfishness.” This selfishness was described as power, authority, riches, and the vain things of the world. Selfishness does not consist of the three desires of Abraham for family, knowledge, and salvation.[13]

Idolatry precedes divine judgment; in our day, therefore, as biblical types repeat themselves, we may expect “the great day of the Lord,” – a period of judgment upon all nations of the earth.

[4] Jews Begin Returning to Jerusalem [this sign overarches all of the last days; the largest migration is after 2029].

In Matthew 24:32-34: “Now learn a parable of the fig tree [a synonym for Israel]; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh; so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”

The Lord Jesus Christ apparently regards a generation as being longer than most students of the last days have predicted. If the time frame indicated herein is correct, He defined a generation as ± 100 years: 2036 – 1948 = 88 years. In this personal study of the House of Israel Cycle, there are two forty-year periods for Israel, from 1948 – 1987 and from 1988 – 2027. Interestingly, Joseph Fielding Smith in Doctrines of Salvation, volume three, pages two and three said: “The day of the coming of the Lord is near. I do not know when…. I sincerely believe it will come in the very day when some of us who are here today (April 5, 1936) will be living upon the face of the earth. That day is close at hand. It behooves us as Latter-day Saints to set our houses in order, to keep the commandments of God, to turn from evil to righteousness, if it is necessary, and serve the Lord in humility and faith and prayer.” His prediction (or prophesy) from 1936 is exactly 100 years from his pronouncement to the predicted end, or the coming of the Lord Jesus, as outlined in this study (see page six).

On May 14, 1948, after almost nineteen hundred years of devastation and persecution, Israel became a nation – in the precise year foretold by the prophet Ezekiel over twenty-five hundred years earlier.[1]

The words of the prophets concerning the Jewish people are being fulfilled in our time.[2] The gathering to the land of Palestine began even before the state of Israel was founded in 1948. However, most of the Jewish people have still not returned in significant numbers. There are still millions of Jews that live in America, in Europe, and throughout the world. [3]

The Lord said that the gathering to Jerusalem would not commence in earnest until the times of the Gentiles had come to an end. He told His ancient Twelve Apostles: “I will show unto you how the day of redemption shall come, and also the restoration of scattered Israel…. And when that day shall come, shall a remnant [of the Jews] be scattered among all nations; but they shall be gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”[4]

Wilford Woodruff gave us additional information about this prophecy, describing the important events that will take place when the Jews return in mass to their homeland: “The gospel is now restored to us Gentiles, for we are all Gentiles in a national capacity, and it will continue with us if we are faithful, until the law is bound, and the testimony sealed, and the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, when it will again revert to the Jews, whom the Lord will have prepared to receive it. They will gather to their own land, taking with them their gold and silver, and will rebuild their city and temple, according to the prediction of Moses and the prophets.[5]

On an earlier occasion Wilford Woodruff explained that this gathering would not occur because the Jews had been converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ, but because they were following their belief in ancient prophecies handed down by Moses and other Old Testament prophets: “The Jews have got to gather to their own land in unbelief. They will go and rebuild Jerusalem and their temple. They will take their gold and silver from the nations and will gather to the Holy Land.”[6]

[5] Persecution of the Jews [this sign overarches all of the last days].

The heading to chapter twenty-eight of Deuteronomy shows the historical reality of Israel’s [including the Jew’s] rebellion against God: “If Israel is obedient they shall be blessed temporally and spiritually – if disobedient: they shall be cursed, smitten, and destroyed; diseases, plagues, and oppression shall come upon them; they shall serve false gods and become [a hiss and] a byword among all nations; fierce nations shall enslave them; they shall eat their own children, and be scattered among all nations.”

Because of this rebellion Israel was scattered throughout the world and is still scattered in our day. Regarding that past period and the persecution in our day, D&C 45:24-27 says: And this I have told you concerning Jerusalem; and when that day shall come, shall a remnant be scattered among all nations; 25: But they shall be gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. 26: And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth. 27: And the love of men shall wax cold, and iniquity shall abound.”

THIS IS WHERE WE ARE ON THE TIMELINE OF THE LAST DAYS

Year: 2017 From this year on the next sign becomes an overarching sign of the last days for the righteous. The refusal of the wicked to believe the signs is the first great sign of this part of the latter days. See The Great Division [Sign #32].

[6] Righteous Alerted by the Signs of the Times; Refusal of Unrighteous Men to Believe the Signs of the Times.

2 Peter 3:3-4 The heading to chapter three of 2^nd Peter says: “Latter-day scoffers deny the Second Coming….” The verses referenced say: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4: And saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”

Helaman 16:4-5, 15-23 = 4: “For behold, Nephi was baptizing, and prophesying, and preaching, crying repentance unto the people, showing signs and wonders, working miracles among the people, that they might know that the Christ must shortly come – 5: Telling them of things which must shortly come, that they might know and remember at the time of their coming that they had been made known unto them beforehand, to the intent that they might believe.” 15: “Nevertheless, the people began to harden their hearts, all save it were the most believing part of them, both of the Nephites and also of the Lamanites, and began to depend upon their own strength and upon their own wisdom, saying: 16: Some things they may have guessed right, among so many; but behold, we know that all these great and marvelous works cannot come to pass, of which has been spoken. 17: And they began to reason and to contend among themselves, saying: 18: This is not reasonable that such a being as a Christ shall come; if so, and he be the Son of God, the Father of heaven and of earth, as it has been spoken, why will he not show himself unto us as well as unto them who shall be at Jerusalem? 19: Yea, why will he not show himself in this land as well as in the land of Jerusalem? 20: But behold, we know that this is a wicked tradition, which has been handed down unto us by our fathers, to cause us that we should believe in some great and marvelous thing which should come to pass, but not among us, but in a land which is far distant, a land which we know not; therefore they can keep us in ignorance, for we cannot witness with our own eyes that they are true. 21: And they will, by the cunning and the mysterious arts of the evil one, work some great mystery which we cannot understand, which will keep us down to be servants unto them, for we depend upon them to teach us the word; and thus will they keep us in ignorance if we will yield ourselves unto them, all the days of our lives. 22: And many more things did the people imagine up in their hearts, which were foolish and vain; and they were much disturbed, for Satan did stir them up to do iniquity continually; yea, he did go about spreading rumors and contentions upon all the face of the land, that he might harden the hearts of the people against that which was good and against that which should come. 23: And notwithstanding the signs and the wonders which were wrought among the people of the Lord, and the many miracles which they did, Satan did get great hold upon the hearts of the people upon all the face of the land.

Matthew 16:1-4 = 1: The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven. 2: He answered and said unto them, when it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. 3: And in the morning, it will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowring (gloomy). O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? 4: A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.

D&C 63:9-14 = 9: “But, behold, faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe. 10: Yea, signs come by faith, not by the will of men, nor as they please, but by the will of God. 11: Yea, signs come by faith, unto mighty works, for without faith no man pleaseth God; and with whom God is angry he is not well pleased; wherefore, unto such he showeth no signs, only in wrath unto their condemnation. 12: Wherefore, I, the Lord, am not pleased with those among you who have sought after signs and wonders for faith, and not for the good of men unto my glory. 13: Nevertheless, I give commandments, and many have turned away from my commandments and have not kept them. 14: There were among you adulterers and adulteresses; some of whom have turned away from you, and others remain with you that hereafter shall be revealed. 15: Let such beware and repent speedily, lest judgment shall come upon them as a snare, and their folly shall be made manifest, and their works shall follow them in the eyes of the people.

Joseph Smith – History 1:40 Referring to the time period near the fullness of the time of the Gentiles, the Lord said: “…they who would not hear his voice should be cut off from among the people,…”

[7] Spirit of Elijah [this sign overarches all of the last days].

Temple building and temple work are one of the signs of a people becoming pure in heart (Zion) – D&C 97:12-19 = 12: “Behold, this is the tithing and the sacrifice which I, the Lord, require at their hands, that there may be a house built unto me for the salvation of Zion – 13: For a place of thanksgiving for all saints, and for a place of instruction for all those who are called to the work of the ministry in all their several callings and offices; 14: That they may be perfected in the understanding of their ministry, in theory, in principle, and in doctrine, in all things pertaining to the kingdom of God on the earth, the keys of which kingdom have been conferred upon you; 15: And inasmuch as my people build a house unto me in the name of the Lord, and do not suffer any unclean thing to come into it, that it be not defiled, my glory shall rest upon it; 16: Yea, and my presence shall be there, for I will come into it, and all the pure in heart that shall come into it shall see God; 17: But if it be defiled I will not come into it, and my glory shall not be there; for I will not come into unholy temples; 18: And, now, behold, if Zion do these things she shall prosper, and spread herself and become very glorious, very great, and very horrible; 19: And the nations of the earth shall honor her, and shall say: Surely Zion is the city of our God, and surely Zion cannot fall, neither be moved out of her place, for God is there, and the hand of the Lord is there.

D&C 128:15-18 = 15: And now, my dearly beloved brethren and sisters, let me assure you that these are principles in relation to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over, as pertaining to our salvation. For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers – that they without us cannot be made perfect – neither can we without our dead be made perfect. 16: And now, in relation to the baptism for the dead, I will give you another quotation of Paul, 1^st Corinthians 15:29: Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead? 17: An again, in connection with this quotation I will give you a quotation from one of the prophets, who had his eye fixed on the restoration of the priesthood, the glories to be revealed in the last days, and in an especial manner this most glorious of all subjects belonging to the everlasting gospel, namely, the baptism for the dead; for Malachi says, last chapter [Malachi 4], verses 5^th and 6^th: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. 18: I might have rendered a plainer translation to this,[7] but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other – and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead….

Without a legitimate claim to ancestry within the covenant, no one warrants deliverance by virtue of the promise of protection in the Lord’s covenant with Israel.[8]

Policy change: 2016: members can now print temple ordinance cards at home; schedule family ordinances together; and get copies of patriarchal blessings for the living and the dead at apps.lds.org/pbrequest.

[8] Building of Temples. As of May 9, 2017, there were 155 functioning temples, 3 under renovation, 11 under construction and 16 announced. From 1877 to 1981 there were nineteen temples built and dedicated, not including Kirtland and early Nauvoo. From 1981 to 1999 there were an additional twenty-three temples brought on-line. It took 104 years for the first nineteen; and eighteen years for the next twenty-three. From 1999 to 2012 117 temples were completed or had been announced in just thirteen years. Surely this sign of the times is being fulfilled right before our eyes; but the world is unaware of it; and many of the members of the Church pay little attention to it. The following list shows the chronological progression of temple building in this dispensation.

Temples Completed: Kirtland, Ohio; Nauvoo, Illinois; Endowment House, Salt Lake City, Utah; St. George, Utah; Logan, Utah; Manti, Utah; Salt Lake, Utah; Laie, Hawaii; Cardston, Alberta, Canada; Mesa, Arizona; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Bern, Switzerland; Los Angeles, California; Hamilton, New Zealand; London, England; Oakland, California; Ogden, Utah; Provo, Utah; Washington, D.C.; Sâo Paulo, Brazil; Tokyo, Japan; Seattle, Washington; Jordan River, Utah; Atlanta, Georgia; Apia, Samoa; Nuku’alofa, Tonga; Santiago, Chile; Papeete, Tahiti; Mexico City, Mexico; Boise, Idaho; Sydney, Australia; Manila, Philippines; Dallas, Texas; Taipei, Taiwan; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Freiberg, Germany; Stockholm, Sweden; Chicago, Illinois; Johannesburg, South Africa; Seoul, Korea; Lima, Peru; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Denver, Colorado; Frankfurt, Germany; Portland, Oregon; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; San Diego, California; Orlando, Florida; Bountiful, Utah; Hong Kong, China; Mount Timpanogos, Utah; St. Louis, Missouri; Vernal, Utah; Preston, England; Monticello, Utah; Anchorage, Alaska; Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico; Madrid, Spain; Bogota, Colombia; Guayaquil, Ecuador; Spokane, Washington; Columbus, Ohio; Bismarck, North Dakota; Columbia, South Carolina; Detroit, Michigan; Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; Billings, Montana; Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Raleigh, North Carolina; St. Paul, Minnesota; Kona, Hawaii; Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico; Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico; Tuxtla Gutierrez, Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico; Louisville, Kentucky; Palmyra, New York; Fresno, California; Medford, Oregon; Memphis, Tennessee; Reno, Nevada; Cochabamba, Bolivia; Tampico, Mexico; Nashville, Tennessee; Villahermosa, Mexico; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; San Jose, Costa Rica; Fukuoka, Japan; Adelaide, Australia; Melbourne Australia; Suva, Fiji; Merida, Mexico; Veracruz, Mexico; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Caracas, Venezuela; Houston, Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Boston, Massachusetts; Recife, Brazil; Porto Alegre, Brazil; Montevideo, Uruguay; Winter Quarters, Nebraska; Guadalajara, Mexico; Perth, Australia; Columbia River, Washington; Snowflake, Arizona; Lubbock, Texas; Monterrey, Mexico; Campinas, Brazil; Asunción, Paraguay; Nauvoo, Illinois; The Hague, Netherlands; Brisbane, Australia; Redlands, California; Accra, Ghana; Copenhagen, Denmark; Manhattan, New York; San Antonio, Texas; Aba, Nigeria; Newport Beach, California; Sacramento, California; Helsinki, Finland; Rexburg, Idaho; Curitiba, Brazil; Panama City, Panama; Twin Falls, Idaho; Draper, Utah; Oquirrh Mountain, Utah; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; The Gila Valley, Arizona; Cebu, Philippines; Kyiv, Ukraine; San Salvador, El Salvador; Quezaltenango, Guatemala; Kansas City, Missouri; Manaus, Brazil; Brigham City, Utah; Calgary, Alberta; Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Gilbert, Arizona; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Phoenix, Arizona; Montreal, Quebec (Nov. 2015); Córdoba, Argentina; Payson, Utah; Trujillo, Peru, Indianapolis, Indiana; Tijuana, Mexico (Dec. 2015); Suva, Fiji (Feb. 2016); Provo City Center, Utah (Apr. 2016); Saporro, Japan (Aug. 21, 2016); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Sept. 18, 2016); Fort Collins, Colorado (Oct. 16, 2016); Star Valley, Wyoming (Oct. 30, 2016); Hartford, Connecticut (Nov. 20, 2016); Paris, France (May 21, 2017); Tucson, Arizona (June, 2017);

Groundbreakings: Lisbon, Portugal (Dec. 2015); Barranquilla, Colombia (Feb. 2016); Kinshasa, D. R. of the Congo (Feb. 2016); Durban, South Africa (Apr. 2016); Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada (Dec. 3, 2016);

Temples Under Construction (with dedication dates when known): Fortaleza, Brazil; Meridian, Idaho; Cedar City, Utah (Dec. 10, 2017); Concepción, Chile; Arequipa, Peru.

Temples Announced: Lisbon, Portugal; Urdaneta, Philippines; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Bangkok, Thailand; Belém, Brazil; Quito, Ecuador; Lima, Perú (2^nd); Harare, Zimbabwe; Brasilia, Brazil; Manila, Philippines (2^nd); Nairobi, Kenya; Pocatello, Idaho; and Saratoga Springs, Utah.

Suspended Announcements: Samoa Temple, Oct. 15, 1977, 1^st Presidency; Harrison, New York, Sept. 30, 1995, 1^st Presidency;

Publicly Proposed Temples: New Delhi, India, June, 1992, Gordon B. Hinckley; Maracaibo, Venezuela, Aug. 3, 1999, Gordon B. Hinckley; Singapore, Indonesia, Jan. 30, 2000, and Managua, Nicaragua, Jan 18, 2012, Russell M. Nelson.

Isaiah 2:2-3, 5 = 2: And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house [a temple] shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. 3: And many people shall go and say, come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 5: O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Micah 4:1-2, 5 = 1: But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. 2: And many nations shall come, and say, come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 5: For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.

Ezekiel 37:26-28 = 26: Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. 27: My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 28: And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

D&C 124:25-42 = 25: And send swift messengers, yea, chosen messengers, and say unto them: Come ye, with all your gold, and your silver, and your precious stones, and with all your antiquities; and with all who have knowledge of antiquities, that will come, may come, and bring the box-tree, and the fir-tree, and the pine-tree, together with all the precious tress of the earth; 27: And with iron, with copper, and with brass, and with zinc, and with all your precious things of the earth; and build a house to my name, for the Most High to dwell therein. 28: For there is not a place found on earth that he may come to and restore again that which was lost unto you, or which he hath taken away, even the fullness of the priesthood. 29: For a baptismal font there is not upon the earth, that they, my saints, may be baptized for those who are dead – 30: For this ordinance belongeth to my house, and cannot be acceptable to me, only in the days of your poverty, wherein ye are not able to build a house unto me. 31: But I command you, all ye my saints, to build a house unto me; and I grant unto you a sufficient time to build a house unto me; and during this time your baptisms shall be acceptable unto me. 32: But behold, at the end of this appointment your baptisms for your dead shall not be acceptable unto me; and if you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God. 33: For verily I say unto you, that after you have had sufficient time to build a house to me, wherein the ordinance of baptizing for the dead belongeth, and for which the same was instituted from before the foundation of the world, your baptisms for your dead cannot be acceptable unto me; 34: For therein are the keys of the holy priesthood ordained, that you may receive honor and glory. 35: And after this time, your baptisms for the dead, by those who are scattered abroad, are not acceptable unto me, saith the Lord. 36: For it is ordained that in Zion and in her stakes, and in Jerusalem, those places which I have appointed for refuge, shall be the places for your baptisms for your dead. 37: And again, verily I say unto you, how shall your washings be acceptable unto me, except ye perform them in a house, which you have built to my name? 38: For, for this cause I commanded Moses that he should build a tabernacle, that they should bear it with them in the wilderness, and to build a house in the land of promise, that those ordinances might be revealed which had been hid from before the world was. 39: Therefore, verily I say unto you, that your anointings, and your washings, and your baptisms for the dead, and your solemn assemblies, and your memorials for your sacrifices by the sons of Levi, and for your oracles in your most holy places wherein you receive conversations, and your statutes and judgments, for the beginning of the revelations and foundation of Zion, and for the glory, honor, and endowment of all her municipals, are ordained by the ordinance of my holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name. 40: And verily I say unto you, let this house be built unto my name, that I may reveal mine ordinances therein unto my people; 41: For I deign to reveal unto my church things which have been kept hid from before the foundation of the world, things that pertain to the dispensation of the fullness of times. 42: And I will show unto my servant Joseph all things pertaining to this house, and the priesthood thereof, and the place whereon it shall be built.

D&C 133:10, 12-13 10: … Prepare yourselves for the great day of the Lord. 12: Let them, therefore, who are among the Gentiles flee unto Zion. 13: And let them who be of Judah flee unto Jerusalem, unto the mountains of the Lord’s house.

[9] The Disintegration of the Family [this sign overarches all of the last days and is the primary cause for the destruction of the wicked in the last days].

Based on a statement in Visions of Glory[9] regarding the attempt by Satan to destroy the family, and that it began about thirty years before the statement was made, I estimate that the Proclamation on The Family, published in 1995, gives us another date from which to estimate this period of thirty years, or in other words, around 2025.

“… Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”[10] This prophetic warning likely was created for the world as a warning at the approximate time referred to in the previous paragraph.

What causes the family to disintegrate? Primarily it consists of two things: sex and money. Irresponsible sex, including pornography, has a way of making the young not marry and the middle-aged to leave marriage. Anyone who thinks that sex is an individual matter needs to evaluate the consequences manifested in broken families, poverty, disease, guilt, lack of confidence, and worst of all, the loss of love.

Money problems, although often listed as a primary cause of divorce, aren’t the whole story. All marriages have money problems – their solutions are the way of setting priorities. If they go deep into debt for all the stuff that the family members want, the day will eventually come when at best things are repossessed, or in worst case, Child and Family Services take away the children as the family disintegrates.

We need to see the dual challenges of sex and money as ways in which we make choices. It helps if we can see the big picture, which is the eternity before us.

By 2007 the rate of out-of-wedlock births had increased to a startling 40% of all births. It shows no sign of decreasing. The fractured family will change nearly every aspect of society including the poverty rate, economic production, education, law, and medicine.

As of 2015, 1,500,000 couples were divorcing every year in the United States. This is more than half of those getting married.

[1]Grant R. Jeffrey, Armageddon: Earth’s Last Days (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1997), page 12.

[2]Isaiah 5:6-30, 11:10-16; 49:22; 60:4; 1 Nephi 22:12; 2 Nephi 6:14; D&C 45:43.

[3]Skousen, op. cit., pages 219-220.

[4]D&C 45:17, 24-25; emphasis added; see Sign #19.

[5]Wilford Woodruff, August 13, 1876, Journal of Discourses 18:221.

[6]Wilford Woodruff, January 12, 1873, Journal of Discourses 15:277.

[7]Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, The Words of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Publishers Press, 1980), page 318: Now the word turn here should be translated bind or seal.

[8]Gileadi, The Last Days, op. cit., page 84.

[9]John Pontius, Visions of Glory (Springville, Utah: CFI), page 134.

[10]The First Presidency and The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: “The Family, a Proclamation to the World.”

[10] The Mark of the Beast (1^st Phase), 1999-2027.

Note: John M. Pontius in Visions of Glory, page 135, writes for “Spencer” indicating that it was perhaps thirty years [ca. 1998] before the tribulations began [2028], that the Mark of the Beast began to show forth in the actions of the people; a re-coloring, a counterculture of political correctness.

This “Mark of the Beast” is not the end-times one that is spoken of in Revelation, because “Spencer” says: “In all my visions, I never saw a mark upon people, or heard people talking of being forced to receive a mark or microchip in order to buy and sell. It was already true that we each had a number to our name, and that number was required for any large transaction, such as buying a home or obtaining credit. That may have been part of the mark.

“But what I did see was that we had spiritually marked ourselves. This marking began perhaps thirty years before the tribulations, when the counterculture of political correctness began, and the assault on Christian values and traditions began. At first it seemed so ridiculous that it was harmless, kind of like a disease to which we were all immune. Soon, however, it was re-colored to equal compassion, fairness, acceptance, tolerance, and equality. From there it evolved into a power with the ability to take any truth and repaint it as a lie, to take any lie and re-label it as truth. Subscribing to this thinking and tuning out the Holy Ghost marked us with darkness. It was a mark we placed upon our own soul. It was not visible to another human, but those who had marked themselves in this way could not discern the Holy Spirit, and they found themselves completely reliant upon the foreign troops, who truthfully had no long-term interest in their survival.

Transitional Period, 2017-2028

The Mark of the Beast is already in place in 2017 with the bar codes on all products; the 666 of the Book of Revelation being the beginning, middle and ending lines representing the number 6. Thus, it will be an easy transition to force people to comply with the “mark” noted below in the second phase.

[10] The Mark of the Beast (2nd Phase), 2028-2035.

Note: Even though this part of the “Mark” belongs at the very end of the 6000 year period, it is included here, so as to keep continuity within the sign.

“When the tribulation began [2028], it was nearly impossible for those who had received the mark of the beast to see God’s hand reaching out to lead them to safety. They were blinded to the only thing that could redeem them, and many were eventually lost.”[1]

The Apostle John hints that many who refuse to take the mark of the beast will be beheaded and millions will die as a result.[2] “In Revelation 13:16-18 we read – 16: And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their forehead. 17: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18: Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six [666].”

MOST ALL SIGNS FROM THIS POINT ON ARE FUTURISTIC[3]

[11] 2017: Strikes, Anarchy: Overthrowing of Governments, Rise in Terrorism (2002-2017), Class Warfare, Gang Warfare, Violence & Disrespect for Authority.

Arthur Schlesinger said in 1991: “Ethnic and racial conflict, it now seems evident, will soon replace the conflict of ideologies as the explosive issue of our time.”

This reminds us of the condition of the people in the Americas at the time of Christ’s death. 3^rd Nephi 6:18 “Now they did not sin ignorantly, for they knew the will of God concerning them, for it had been taught unto them; therefore they did willfully rebel against God.” 3^rd Nephi 7:2 “And the people were divided one against another; and they did separate one from another into tribes, every man according to his family and his kindred and friends; and thus they did destroy the government of the land.”

Referring to the type and shadow of the Nephite nation as it applies to our day, it is said: The natural judgments that occurred prior to Christ’s visitation were preceded by political chaos as their enlightened government, based on democracy and the rule of law, disintegrated into tribalism. The last straw that broke the back of the Nephite government was the conspiracy to kill the chief judge in order to set free the conspiring judges who had illegally murdered the prophets (3^rd Nephi, chapter seven). Three years later, the natural calamities arrived.

Governments, whether we like them or not, are instituted for the well-being of men (D&C 134:5); as He told the Nephites, the people of wicked King Jacob were “above all the wickedness of the whole earth because of their secret combinations; for it was they that did destroy the peace of my people and the government of the land,” (3^rd Nephi 9:9).

Conspiracy to avoid the consequences of bad choices is the ultimate expression of the price which we can see the Nephites paid.[4] And if we look honestly at our day, we see it in many forms on many levels of our society.

In 1887, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

“A democracy [we are a Constitutional Republic] is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, [which is] always followed by a dictatorship.

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage.”

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, believes that the United States is somewhere between the “complacency and apathy” phases of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy; with some forty percent of the nation’s population already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase. Most of these people live in low-income tenements and survive from various forms of government welfare.

D&C 45:26-27 = 26: And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth. 27: And the love of men shall wax cold, and iniquity shall abound.

A 2011 report from CNN shows that hate groups have increased dramatically in the United States: four in Utah; and an average of sixty in several states; in that year there were 1,300,000 million gang members in the U.S. In August of 2012, this number had risen to 1,018 hate groups according to a television report.

Overthrowing of Governments.

This “overthrowing of governments” in this section is preliminary to the collapse of all world governments and the formation of a one-world government described in Sign #30 [q.v].

From an apocryphal source: “Bishop Koyle stated that shortly before the Relief Mine comes in, Russia would attack Turkey and this would begin a world war. Lorin C. Woolley said that we should look for the fall of Istanbul (Constantinople) WHEN Russia grabs the Dardanelles of Turkey and that this event would be the beginning of the end.”[5] The only reason I include this quote is that some of what Bishop Koyle predicted has come to pass. For the most part his views of the future were incorrect. Present-day scenarios regarding this prediction look very plausible.

Rise in Terrorism.

The Arab uprisings are another aspect of these violent times. Hate is raging in the hearts of some nations that are bent on the total destruction of their enemies. In September of 2012, over thirty Muslim nations began rising up against the U. S. and Israel. Rampant drug cartel violence continues to increase in Mexico and is spilling over into the United States: dozens of tunnels have been found between the Mexico and the United States, showing the determination of these evil societies to pull down this country’s moral and financial base.

Class Warfare.

In the latter part of the Nephite/Lamanite civilization, after all were converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it says: “And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift (4^th Nephi 1:3). “And the Lord did prosper them exceedingly in the land; yea, insomuch that they did build cities again where there had been cities burned (4^th Nephi 1:7). “And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people. And there were no envying nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God (4^th Nephi 1:15-16).

After 200 years of prosperity and multiplying of the people, they began to be lifted up in pride: wearing of costly clothing, all manner of jewelry, and of the fine things of the world. Naturally, “all things in common” was done away with. Following that they were divided into classes, and began to separate themselves into various churches and to deny the true church of the Savior (4^th Nephi 1:22-26). The believers in Jesus Christ were called Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites and Zoramites. The unbelievers were called Lamanites, Lemuelites and Ishmaelites.

With classes firmly established the society returned to their secret oaths and combinations, which spread rapidly over the land and eventually engulfed both the righteous and the wicked. War broke out as the society degenerated and eventually the Nephite nation was totally destroyed; some escaping to form another nation [see Sign #45]. The world, the United States, yes even The Church of Jesus Christ is on this same path, which has destroyed all nations throughout history.

“For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted. Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not? Yea, why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord?” (Mormon 8:37-39).

Too many members of the Church are putting their trust in the arm of flesh – in the “gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know” (Daniel 5:23). What we put our heart and trust in becomes our god. If this is anything other than the true and living God, then it is idolatry. The things of the earth – the dead things – have become the idols, the gods, of many members of the Church. God’s way is as follows: “… if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment (D&C 104:18).

It is an undeniable fact that the few have been prospering at the expense of the many in America over the past decades. Our nation has the most unequal distribution of wealth of any industrialized country in the world, with the top one percent owning over forty percent of America’s total wealth. It is this kind of situation that always ends up creating class warfare. When the poor people of the world rise up in these last days, it will be because they will reach sufficient numbers as to be a significant social force. They will believe that they are powerful enough to achieve their goal of raising their class to a higher form of life. The class wars that will come about will cover this nation and will engulf the whole world. They will occur because of the lust for something better, but that better life will not come, because the wars will not provide it for them.

“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not; ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war; yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:1-3).

In a recent U.S. Intelligence Report, we see that most of Africa, and much of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South, Central and Southeast Asia, and South America, could be left far behind the wealthier and more technologically advanced countries, led by the United States. Regions, countries, and groups left behind will face deepening economic stagnation, and political, ethnic, ideological, and religious extremism, along with the violence that accompanies it. Much of the violence could be directed against the United States. The pre-eminence of the United States will undoubtedly attract opposition from discontented groups and individuals, who could use anticipated advances in information, communications, and weapons technology to mount terrorist attacks, or information warfare against U.S. territories and interests. “Acts of biological warfare against the country; near total destruction of the east coast: Chicago, New York City, and Boston become depopulated;”[6] New World Order set up.

The world population is growing by 80,000,000 each year; and the planet is made up of two demographic worlds. One set is the poor, young, and growing countries; the other is made up of the wealthy, old, and shrinking, which includes most of Europe. These third world countries that do not have enough food or water to feed and care for their people now, will double and triple in size over the next decades. We can be assured that as they grow numerically, class warfare between nations will erupt.

The class wars will do one thing, though. The wicked will fight against the wicked and they will in due course destroy themselves and ultimately abolish the classes.

In the United States, the American economy is producing less and less jobs that pay enough to keep families out of poverty. The working poor are people who are employed and earn wages, but still live below the poverty line. Some are employed full time, and others can only find part-time work. In both cases, because of low wages, their income level is below the poverty guidelines. In addition, few of these people receive benefits that provide for such things as health care. The number of Americans in this category is growing each year. Of the people in this category, 62.4% of them do have jobs but still cannot make enough to get above the poverty lines.

More families are being forced to live below the poverty line. There were 6.9 million in 1989; 39.3 million in 1993; and today the number is still rising and this cannot help but create more problems associated with the haves and the have-nots that will ultimately lead to classes rising up against classes. This will happen just as soon as their numbers become large enough that the poor decide they have had enough of poverty. Then they will band together and mobilize with the intent of taking by force what the rich have.

[12] 2017: Slaves Rise up Against their Masters; Peace Taken from the Earth – Wars and Rumors of Wars: Pestilence; [2014-2015: 4 Blood-Moon Tetrads]; Terror Attacks; March 2015 – Formation of a 5-Nation Arab Army [this sign overarches all of the last days].

Note: This sign takes place before the Times of the Gentiles is fulfilled (D&C 45:26): see Sign #19.

[12a] Slaves Shall Rise Up Against Their Masters.

D&C 87:4 “And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war.” There has been controversy over the years as to the time of fulfillment of this prophesy, but it appears that a great race war in America is facing us in the near future. We should look to the Book of Mormon for the pattern of this warfare and how it will develop.

[12b] Peace Taken from the Earth – Wars and Rumors of Wars.

D&C 45:26, 33 = 26: “And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them…. 33: And there shall be earthquakes also in divers places, and many desolations; yet men will harden their hearts against me, and they will take up the sword, one against another, and they will kill one another.”

The Lord, in answering his Apostles regarding the signs of the last days said: “For nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…[7]

In the book Are We Living in the End Times: Current Events Foretold in Scripture…and what they Mean,[8] the authors say that “nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,” (based on 2^nd Chronicles 15:1-7 & Isaiah 19:1-2) is a Hebrew idiom speaking of a war started by two nations, each soon joined by surrounding kingdoms until all the nations involved in the prophet’s vision are included. If you add Matthew 27:8 that war is followed by unprecedented famines, pestilence, and multiple earthquakes, and you have the sign.

The authors contend that this war began in June 1914 when the Archduke of Austria was shot, followed by a declaration of war by Austria against Serbia. To that point in history it was the greatest war ever fought. 53,000,000 soldiers were in uniform; 13,000,000 of them were killed. The war was followed in 1918 with a flu epidemic that killed millions more than the war. In Europe, much of the deaths were preceded by malnutrition and famine caused by the war. So, three parts of the first sign Jesus gave His disciples – a special kind of war, famines, and plagues – were fulfilled from 1914-1918. (See Sign #28 for reference to earthquakes.)

Thus this sign, as Jesus said in Matthew 24, 8 “All these [the four parts of the one sign] are the beginning of sorrows.” This phrase “beginning of sorrows” is a Hebrew idiom used by four Hebrew prophets to describe a woman in labor and comparing it to the pain Israel will endure during this period. Thus, beginning with World War I, the first pains of labor began, but many pains and sorrows have and will yet manifest themselves in the process. For that reason this sign is placed at this point as a transitional sign.

“For many governments and their publics, the mounting losses from war have ceased to shock, as the rhythm of daily existence has settled into a routine of attack and counterattack. Yet wars have become even more brutal. In some wars today, ninety percent of those killed in conflict are non-combatants, compared with less than fifteen percent when the century [1900] began. In Rwanda alone, approximately forty percent of the population has been killed or displaced since 1994….

“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall [November, 1989], over four million people have been killed in violent conflicts. In January 1997, there were over thirty-five million refugees and internally displaced persons around the world. The violence that generated this trauma has been in some cases chronic.”[9] Over 2,000,000 people have been displaced in Syria in the years 2011-2012. This has continued to increase up until this time (2017). A report in March of 2017 indicated that over 2,000,000 people are starving to death in Africa.

As men increase in wickedness on the earth, it only stands to reason that they will also be more inclined to use organized methods of causing death and destruction (which is what war is) to obtain their goals. Truly, then, this is a day of “wars and rumors of wars,” giving us a sign of the times that is clearly in process of fulfillment. World War I cost more than 13,000,000 lives; World War II took a total of 45,000,000 lives.

A commission investigating violence in society declared: The twentieth century proved to be the most violent and destructive in all human history, with armed conflict taking the lives of over 100,000,000 people and political violence responsible for 170,000,000 more deaths…. At the time of this writing, there is conflict in over two dozen locations around the world in which, over the years, tens of thousands have been killed and millions of persons displaced.

D&C 1:35: For I am no respecter of persons, and will that all men shall know that the day speedily cometh; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion.

As war continues to spread throughout the world, the time will soon come when the Mormons will be “… the only people who shall not be at war one with another” (D&C 45:69).

D&C 97:22-24 = 22: For behold, and lo, vengeance cometh speedily upon the ungodly as the whirlwind; and who shall escape it? 23: The Lord’s scourge shall pass over by night and by day, and the report thereof shall vex all people; yea, it shall not be stayed until the Lord come: 24: For the indignation of the Lord is kindled against their abominations and all their wicked works.

D&C 63:33-35 = 33: I have sworn in my wrath, and decreed wars upon the face of the earth, and the wicked shall slay the wicked, and fear shall come upon every man; 34: And the saints also shall hardly escape; nevertheless, I, the Lord, am with them, and will come down in [from] heaven from the presence of my Father and consume the wicked with unquenchable fire. 35: And behold, this is not yet, but by and by.

D&C 87:6-7 = 6: And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations; 7: That the cry of the saints, and of the blood of the saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies.

“And it came to pass that I beheld that the wrath of God was poured out upon that great and abominable church, insomuch that there were wars and rumors of wars among all the nations and kindreds of the earth (1^st Nephi 14:15).

D&C 45:70-71 = 70: And it shall be said among the wicked: let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore, we cannot stand; 71: And it shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion, singing with songs of everlasting joy.

One of the indirect effects of the present and coming wars will be the change in behavior it will bring to individuals. Because of the deprivation and hunger that will result, some survivors will feel compelled to leave the area around them which will have been devastated. Thinking that their land alone suffered the wrath of God and not realizing that other lands have suffered the same effects, these bands of refugees will migrate in search of undamaged crops, potable water, etc. The compulsion to migrate in search of food and water will naturally bring them in conflict with other groups, and warfare will result again.

This is seen in the Old Testament after the Israelites had left Egypt; they encountered the Amalekites. (Exodus 17) According to Emmanuel Velikovsky, Arabic sources describe how the Amalekites had “left Hedjaz because of plagues, [and] followed the cloud in their wandering through the desert.” (Worlds in Collision, page 142) He asserted that they, too, had been driven from their lands by a catastrophe. “The fear of the Judgment Day not only did not pacify the nations, but on the contrary, uprooted them, impelling them to migration and war.” (Ibid., page 270) Hence, in the encounter between the Israelites and the Amalekites, we see a picture of two wandering nations, driven from the devastation in their homeland, encountering one another, and doing battle in the desert. Just as a note of interest, Velikovsky indicated that the Amalekites were a powerful nation. After doing battle with the Israelites, they continued on into Egypt, subjugated the hapless Egyptians, and ruled there for many years. They are known to profane history as the Hyksos.[10]

One of the calamities that befall people during war is “the shattering and prolonged trauma … [which can] produce psychological states which were strikingly similar to those which we classify today as catatonic schizophrenia.[11]

Apparently the overwhelming nature of war leaves participants no alternative but to withdraw from the awful reality of what is happening to them. Unable to cope with the devastating nature of war, the human mind turns to a mental defense mechanism – catatonic schizophrenia – in an attempt to shut out the incomprehensible changes occurring in the physical world. Two types of behavior develop: 1) a mute type of the affliction: withdrawal into a state of absolute silence and isolation; and 2) catatonic excitement or furor in which the individual becomes maniacal. In this state, the person becomes extremely agitated and destructive. In extreme cases of this hyperactive, agitated state, the individual will attempt to kill or maim anyone he can reach. Since family and friends, neighbors, and associates are often the most accessible to the “mad-man,” they become his most likely first victims. This conclusion carries tremendous implications for those who wish to survive the coming wars. Prophecy is replete with warnings of this type of behavior. Most seem to prophecy a state of catatonic furor:

“And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor.” (Zechariah 14:13).

“And I will overthrow the thrones of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow their chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother” (Haggai 2:22).

“And there shall be earthquakes also in divers places, and many desolations; yet men will harden their hearts against me, and they will take up the sword, one against another, and they will kill one another” (D&C 45:33).

“I have sworn in my wrath, and decreed wars upon the face of the earth, and the wicked shall slay the wicked, and fear shall come upon every man” (D&C 63:33).

“… no man shall spare his brother” (Isaiah 9:19).

“… every man’s sword shall be against his brother” (Ezekiel 38:21).

“I saw men hunting the lives of their own sons, and brother murdering brother, women killing their own daughters, and daughters seeking the lives of their mothers” (History of the Church, Volume 3, page 390).

The same kind of madness among the people was seen in a vision recorded by Elder Woodruff: “The states of Missouri and Illinois were in turmoil and strife, men killing each other, and women joining in the fight, family against family, cutting each other to pieces in the most horrid manner.

“… and they were crazy mad, and in a dying condition” (Wilford Woodruff Journals, June 15, 1878).

Because of the declaration of “madness” among men at this period, it appears possible that this refers to a psychosomatic affliction called hysterical blindness – a likely side effect of an overwhelming catastrophe.[12]

Given this general doctrinal analysis of wars in the last days, we now turn to the five end-time wars as they will unfold sequentially. These all begin before the tribulation period (2028-2035).

1. The Psalms 83 War.

This war is associated with the current events [starting in 2016 then beyond] taking place in the Middle East. Iran is moving towards having nuclear bombs. At some point Israel with need to intervene to stop this process. Included in this war is also the prophecies regarding Damascus, Syria and the bellicose and wicked president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, who is in league with Iran and sponsors of terrorism and pledged to destroy Israel.

Isaiah 17:1-3 = 1: “The burden of Damascus, Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 2: The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 3. The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of Hosts.”

This prophecy is saying that from Damascus to Aroer mid-way south through Jordan will be destroyed. Herein we see the application of the Principle of Occam’s Razor, also known as the “law of succinctness, a principle that generally recommends, when faced with competing hypotheses that are equal in other respects, selecting the one that makes the fewest assumptions.” Just because Aroer on the Arnon River is far from Damascus (some 150 miles) does not mean that God couldn’t allow all the land between it and Damascus to be destroyed. Militarily it would make sense to do so. In Revelation 6 and Matthew 24 we know that this general time period will be fraught with total war; and if so, then the opposing parties would want to destroy the vital trade and military route between the two places, known since ancient times at the King’s Highway.

This will also be a time when ancient hatreds come to their full fruition. Jordan, or the ancient lands of Ammon, Moab and Edom have always hated Israel. Obadiah prophesied against them, in a series of prophesies. With ancient hatreds and total war, it is easy to see total desolation in this region, especially in the face of all the weapons of mass destruction currently available, and mostly pointed at Israel.

Also of note is that Syria and Jordan seem to fade away as end time players. They are not mentioned in the Gog and Magog confederacy. We know from prophesies in Daniel that Jordan is not delivered into the Antichrist’s hands. “He will also enter the Beautiful Land, and many countries will fall; but these will be rescued out of his hand: Edom, Moab and the foremost of the sons of Ammon.” We also know that in Matthew 24:16 the Lord told those in Judea to flee to the mountains when the Abomination of Desolation occurs. The mountains are directly to the east in southern Jordan where Petra is. Revelation 12:14 tells of Satan chasing them across the desert as they flee to a place prepared for them. This desert is between Israel and the mountains of southern Jordan around the northern and eastern shores of the Dead Sea. And in Isaiah 63:1-6 it tells of the Lord coming from Bozrah in Edom after single handedly defeating His enemies there. Bozrah is the region of Edom (Jordan) where Petra is. If the fleeing Jews head across the mountains at the top of the Dead Sea and down the King’s Highway to Petra and if the area is already desolate and undelivered to the Antichrist’s control, it allows for their escape route without obstacles.

Syria has been engaged in conflict, some say civil war, since March 2011. The New York Times reported: “The wave of Arab unrest that started with the Tunisian revolution of January 2011 reached Syria in mid-March, when residents of a small southern city took to the streets to protest the torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti. President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorship from his father, Hafez al-Assad, at first wavered between force and hints of reform. But in April, just days after lifting the country’s decades-old state of emergency, he launched the first of what became a series of withering crackdowns, sending tanks into restive cities as security forces opened fire on demonstrators.” It has only gotten worse since then.

“But by the fall, Syria’s economy was crumbling under the pressure of sanctions and the unrest, with its currency weakening, its recession expanding and its tourism industry wrecked – a serious blow to a regime whose legitimacy has relied on economic success.” And recently, a semblance of civil war has erupted in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, where armed protestors are calling themselves revolutionaries.

Assad has threatened to attack Tel Aviv, Israel if NATO interferes in Syria’s internal affairs. He said: “If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv.” In response, Israel said, that if Tel Aviv is attacked they will bomb the Gaza and also the whole of Lebanon. In addition, Israeli military circles are saying that the Jewish state’s message to Assad “is clear in that Damascus’ fate, should it be targeted, will not be different than Lebanon’s.” In yet another escalation, it was said: “Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is now threatening to ignite the Middle East and destroy Israel if NATO attacks his country, while his mufti is threatening to dispatch suicide bombers to Europe and the United States.”

This is why the oracle Isaiah delivered was a burden. It was a burden to Isaiah to have to deliver the message, even to an enemy. Damascus is a thriving city and the level of devastation prophesied indicates that there will be massive deaths. Damascus is currently home to 2,300,000 people. In Isaiah 17:14 is says: “Then behold, at eventide, trouble! And before the morning, he is no more.” This predicts a strike so catastrophic and complete that the city is wiped out by morning. What can do that? a nuclear bomb. For Damascus to be so completely destroyed so as to never be lived in again, will require a nuclear destruction. When this nuclear bomb goes off in Syria, it will be one of the causes of a global panic that could easily begin a domino effect causing the collapse of the world’s economy [See Sign #30]. In March of 2017 Syria launched a missile at Israeli aircraft. Benjamin Netanahu threatened Syria that if they did it again he would destroy their entire defensive apparatus.

2. The Destruction of Mystery Babylon War.

The beginning stages of this destruction will begin with the economic collapse and other events before the last seven years (2028-2035). America is the only significant super power on earth that did not exist when the Bible was written. Thus, she was a super power that was a mystery to the writer of the Book of Revelation. When the new global government comes to power as the solution to a global financial collapse, this one world government will be led by the Antichrist. He will not want to see the United States around to challenge its power over the nations of the world. The global economic collapse will be the first blow leading to the destruction of the United States as we know it. This will be in 2028 [see Sign #30].

Revelation 17:15-16 explains a part of who will be the players in this coming destruction of America or Mystery Babylon. “Then the second angel said to me, ‘The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are people, multitudes, nations and languages. The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.’”

Besides the nations of the world combining against the United States, God’s divine judgments will add to her destruction through earthquakes, a meteor event that will bring a great tidal wave. In Rev. 18:21 (NIV): “Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: ‘With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again.’”

In summary, from Rev. 6:3-4 = 3: “When the Lamb opened the Second Seal, I heard the second living creature say, ‘Come!’ 4: Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.”

3. The Battle of Gog and Magog.

Ezekiel 38:18-23 (NIV) “This is what will happen in that day: When Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign Lord. In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign Lord. Every man’s sword will be against his brother. I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed: I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones and burning sulphur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him. And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

4. The Sixth Trumpet War.

Revelation 9:13-16: “The sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.”

One third of mankind based on the current population would be 2,400,000,000 dying in this war. It will take time to move 200,000,000 men. This war will be different time wise than Armageddon. This war will take about a year. At that time the two super powers have been destroyed. The United States and Russia have been taken out. That leaves China and the global beast government led by the Antichrist.

5. The Battle of Armageddon.

It is hard to believe that after the outcome of the Battle of Gog and Magog that any nation

would try to bring harm to God’s people. At that time Jesus will be seen coming back on his white horse and God’s enemies will be destroyed in quick order. All who have taken the mark of the beast will be seen as an enemy of God and unredeemable. It will be a sad day when those who were deceived by the Antichrist into taking the mark of the beast will call out to God for mercy and as Jesus told the five foolish virgins, “I don’t even know you.” The beast and the false prophet will be thrown into the lake of fire, and Satan will be bound for a thousand years.

[12c] Pestilence

Pestilence usually grows during times of famine and war where the poor general health of displaced refugees leaves them susceptible to disease.[13] Matthew 24:7-8 = 7: For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. 8: All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Notice the phrase “nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” In the book Emerging Virusus: Aids & Ebola, Nature, Accident or Intentional? by Leonard G. Horowitz (594 pages),[14] Dr. Horowitz proves with overwhelming documentation that both Aids and Ebola were created by the CIA and the State Department to test on Africans and gays. Over 30,000,000 have been infected with the HIV virus. Neither of these diseases came from monkeys but from cows. His study will be quoted elsewhere but it begs the question, does “Spencer’s” reference to a manmade virus released on the United States at about the time of the earthquake in Salt Lake City, come from nations who were getting back at us for releasing these two plagues on the world?

Jesus warned that worldwide “pestilence” would be a sign that we were living in the generation when He would return. The prophet John was given a terrifying vision of the coming holocaust during the last seven years of this age (known as the Tribulation Period) when God would unleash the devastating plagues of the last days that would decimate one-quarter of the population of the world.

The World Health Organization issued a report in April of 1997, from Geneva, stating that “at least thirty new infectious diseases with no known treatment, cure, or vaccine, have emerged in the past twenty years” as a result of the increase in air travel, growing urbanization, and poor sanitation. Despite the billions spent in the last decades battling these infections and many diseases of the past including bubonic plague, are re-emerging as deadly threats to mankind. The organization reported that malaria, smallpox, diphtheria, and yellow fever are also making a comeback. Their report mentions that “the health food craze was also partially to blame for the increase in food-borne diseases because unprocessed food contained less preservatives (which protect food from disease).”

The new scourge of fifty-three sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) is a modern form of pestilence that is a direct result of the sexual immorality and perversions of this generation. Some doctors estimate that as many as forty percent of all single, sexually-active adults in North America are infected with sexually transmitted diseases. As our generation has chosen to sow the wind of immorality and lust, we have begun to reap the whirlwind of sexually transmitted diseases, sterility, and death. The worst of all these STDs is the deadly virus known as AIDS, the most dangerous plague in the history of mankind. According to a 1993 report prepared for the U. S. president by the CIA, the AIDS virus will probably infect and destroy the lives of up to seventy-five percent of the population of Africa south of the Sahara Desert. If correct, this study predicts that over the next decade, 350,000,000 lives in Africa alone will be lost to AIDS. Researchers estimate that up to fifty percent of the population of Uganda may already be infected with AIDS. More than 1,500,000 children are now orphans, almost ten percent of Uganda’s population of 17,000,000. This is unprecedented for a nation that is not involved in a current war. The Washington Post reported on October 23, 1994 that up to fifty percent of those admitted to hospitals in central Africa are suffering from the AIDS virus. Its report indicated that “Africa was particularly susceptible to AIDS because of widespread venereal disease – which facilitates the spread of HIV infection.” The World Health Organization estimated that over 30,000,000 people are infected with full-blown AIDS, with more than half of those people living in Africa.

A recent medical study concluded that more than twenty-five percent of the population of Sub-Sahara Africa is now infected with AIDS. Twenty African nations now refuse to publish accurate AIDS infection rates because the devastating information is treated as a national security secret.

However, AIDS is also exploding in Asia, with estimates of up to one in three people in Thailand in danger of dying (Toronto Star, October 13, 1991). Experts from the Thai Red Cross estimate that more than 500 people are infected with the deadly disease in Thailand every night. Health workers estimate that up to ninety-six percent of the prostitutes in Thailand are infected with the deadly AIDS virus. Studies in India suggest that the AIDS infection rate for prostitutes now approaches sixty percent. It is estimated that the average male in these cultures visits a prostitute several times a week, exposes himself to the possibility of AIDS, and then brings that possibility home to his wife.

Thus far, AIDS has produced a 100% death rate. Very few victims have survived longer than twelve years. The medical researchers believe that AIDS is primarily transmitted through homosexual practices in Europe and North America. A recent report by Harper’s Magazine revealed that “years of AIDS education has probably produced almost no change whatsoever in the behavior that all gay men and their grandmothers know to be the most dangerous for transmitting HIV” (Harper’s Magazine, May, 1995). A study released in the spring of 1994 by the AIDS & Public Policy Journal revealed that the rate of AIDS infection for homosexual men was then approaching a staggering fifty percent, with a forty percent infection rate among young gay men and up to a seventy percent infection rate among older homosexuals. Other studies indicate that over 1,500,000 male homosexuals in North America alone will ultimately die from AIDS. AIDS is now the leading cause of death for men aged eighteen to forty-five. The Danish Medical Journal revealed that AIDS is now the number one killer of young and middle-aged men in the large cities of Denmark, exceeding both heart disease and cancer (International Express, June 19, 1996).

Over 11,000,000 people now die annually from tuberculosis worldwide due to a new deadly drug-resistant strain. The Laboratory Centre for Disease Control in Ottawa, Canada reported that tens of thousands of North Americans have become infected with a new drug-resistant form of tuberculosis that kills over seventy percent of its victims (Toronto Star, November 22, 1995). Our society has abused and over-prescribed antibiotics for colds and other ailments to the point that many people can no longer derive benefit from the antibiotics prescribed by doctors to defeat deadly diseases. An article by science reporter Joseph Hall revealed that researchers recently warned the American Association for the Advancement of Science that “overuse of antibiotics is leading to a world in which the drugs are no longer effective” (Toronto Star, February 18, 1997). University of Washington biologist Marilyn Roberts warned the international science conference that “tons of antibiotics are being used as farm additives on plants and animals; doctors are over-prescribing them and they are being misused in developing countries.”

Increasing numbers of diseases are becoming drug-resistant. There is now a new type of malaria that causes paralysis and death. This new type of malaria has infected over 300,000,000 victims worldwide, and it no longer responds to the traditional drug quinine.

If the AIDS virus ever mutates to an airborne virus like tuberculosis, the world will experience a plague beyond anything experienced in human history.

Today we face growing pollution and ecological problems that appear to be virtually unsolvable. Scientists are discovering hazardous waste dumps in many communities, leeching out their toxic elements into our water supply. Over 70,000 new chemicals, which never existed before in nature, were introduced into the earth’s biosphere during the last four decades. Only 10,000 of these chemicals were ever tested as to their effect on humans. Even if a new chemical is harmless by itself, it may be deadly when combined with other chemicals. When we add to this deadly concoction thousands of new, environmentally untested chemicals created in laboratories every year, we may be creating problems and diseases for which there is no cure.

A recent article in the Toronto Star newspaper (May 28, 1997) reported from Dallas that a new drug-beating germ may be unstoppable. This report claimed that “A common bacterium that is the leading cause of hospital-related infections appears to be on the brink of becoming an unstoppable germ. A staph infection known as Staphylococcus aureus has for the first time defended itself against the last remaining drug capable of killing all its strains, U. S. scientists say.”

The continued heavy usage of pesticides has resulted in the development of new strains of germs, known as “super bugs.” These super bugs have developed resistance to pesticides and other chemicals. Recently, environmental studies revealed that children living in homes that use garden pesticides have a 600% greater risk of developing leukemia.[15]

[12d] March, 2015: Formation of a 5-nation Arabic Army

Although this army has theoretically been formed to help fight against the invasion of Yemen by Iran-backed fighters [2015], it could easily morph into an army that will eventually fight against Israel.

[12e] 2014-2015: 4 Blood Moon Tetrads

Blood Moons Only three Tetrads (1492, 1949, and 1967) have been seen in the last 500 years, each falling on specific Jewish feasts, as well as being linked to historical events significant to Israel. The last Tetrad will also align itself with the feasts of the Lord. Each of these has begun with a trail of tears and ended with triumph for the Jewish people. The following four blood-moon tetrads are as follows; this last one also being associated perfectly with Rosh Hashanah, or the Feast of Trumpets:

Passover, April 15, 2014 1^st blood moon

Feast of Trumpets, September 25, 2014

Feast of Tabernacles, October 8, 2014 2^nd blood moon

Total solar eclipse: March 20, 2015

Passover, April 4, 2015 3^rd blood moon

Feast of Trumpets, September 13, 2015

Feast of Tabernacles, September 28, 2015 4^th blood moon

“The four Blood Moons happening on Jewish holy days has historically signaled major events connected to the deliverance of the Jews and Israel. In 2015 there was also a factor in that it was the last year of a seven-year Shemittah Cycle, and that that event can also coincide with large economic downturns. I believe that other events connected to the nation of Israel will follow the events of the fourth Blood Moon by as much as a year or two after the fourth Blood Moon which came on September 28, 2015” [minor changes made to reflect a past event].[16]

One other event associated with this sign is that on November 14, 2016, there was a super moon. A super moon also occurred during Israel’s War of Independence in May of 1948.

[1]John M. Pontius, Visions of Glory, pages 134-135.

[2]Robert J. Smith, The Last Days Unsealed (Orem, Utah: Agreka Books, 1999), page 8.

[3]Except as noted; some being in the process of fulfillment and overarch the whole time period, or part of it.

[4]Mitchell, op. cit., page 13.

[5]Lynn Lyman Bishop, The Winding-up Scene (Payson, Utah: Latter-day Publications, 2004), page 65.

[6]Visions of Glory, pages 116-118; page 128.

[7]Matthew 24:7.

[8]Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins (Wharton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1999), page 39.

[9]Parry and Parry, op. cit., pages 243-244.

[10]Anthony E. Larson, And the Earth Shall Reel to and Fro (Orem, Utah: Zedek Books, 1983).

[11]Dr. John V. Meyers, Language Department Chairman, Union University and Warner B. Sizemore, Assistant Professor of Religion, Glassboro State College, in Kronos, Volume 1, Number 1, page 366).

[12]Ibid., pages 138-143; 246.

[13]Mitchell, op. cit., page 4.

[14]Rockport, Massachusetts: Tetrahedron, Inc., 1998.

[15]Jeffery, op. cit., pages 246-251.

[16]John Shorey, Part Two, The Window of the Lord’s Return, 2010-2020: The Unfolding Signs of the End Times (priv. pub., 2015), page 210 [I Lyman D. Platt believe this time period could be as long as May 15, 2018: see Sign #13 above; that event is the most significant known event relating to Israel in the immediate future].

[13] 2018: May 14: 70^th Anniversary of the Declaration of Israel as a Nation

A 70-year cycle comes to an end on this day. Those cycles in the Bible are: 1) The Babylonian Captivity, 606 B.C. to 536 B.C.; 2) The Babylonian Desolations, 589 B.C. to 519 B.C.; and 3) The Restoration Period, 515 B.C. to 445 B.C. This day will be significant – see page nine of the Introduction for more information on this date. It is confirmed by the 100-year generation cycle from the end of World War I. Psalms 91 “The War Psalm,” may be significant here (see page 40).

THE TRIBULATION PERIOD BEGINS

[14] 2028 Spirit Ceases to Strive with the Wicked

D&C 63:32-33 = 32: I the Lord am angry with the wicked; I am [with]holding my Spirit from the inhabitants of the earth. 33: I have sworn in my wrath, and decreed wars upon the face of the earth, and the wicked shall slay the wicked, and fear shall come upon every man.

D&C 1:33 And he that repents not, from him shall be taken even the light which he has received; for my Spirit shall not always strive with man, saith the Lord of Hosts.

Because of the iniquity of earth’s inhabitants in the last days, combined with their unwillingness to repent, the time will come when they are “ripened in iniquity” (Ether 2:9: 9:20) and the Spirit will no longer strive to bring them to repentance. The final result will be a world war that will destroy a third of mankind (Revelation 9:16-18), followed by a number of devastating plagues (Revelation 16), and culminating in the destruction of the wicked at the Lord’s coming (Malachi 4:1; Revelation 18:8).

“I prophesy, in the name of the Lord God of Israel,” said Joseph Smith, “anguish and wrath and tribulation and the withdrawing of the Spirit of God from the earth await this generation, until they are visited with utter destruction. This generation is as corrupt as the generation of the Jews that crucified Christ; and if He were here today, and should preach the same doctrine [as] He did then, they would put Him to death.”

The scriptural history of the world gives a number of sad precedents for the loss of the Spirit and the destruction that eventually resulted: 1) the days of Noah: “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5); 2) The Jews in the time of Lehi were warned that Jerusalem would be destroyed because of their wickedness: “For behold, the Spirit of the Lord ceaseth soon to strive with them,” Nephi testified, “for behold, they have rejected the prophets, and Jeremiah have they cast into prison. And they have sought to take away the life of my father, insomuch that they have driven him out of the land” (1^st Nephi 7:14).

Later, looking into the future, Nephi said that four generations after the Lord’s ministry among the Nephites, “a speedy destruction cometh unto my people; for, notwithstanding the pains of my soul, I have seen it; wherefore, I know that it shall come to pass; and they sell themselves for naught; for, for the reward of their pride and their foolishness they shall reap destruction; for because they yield unto the devil and choose works of darkness rather than light, therefore they must go down to hell. For the Spirit of the Lord will not always strive with man. And when the Spirit ceaseth to strive with man then cometh speedy destruction, and this grieveth my soul” (2^nd Nephi 26:10-11).

The Jaredites suffered a similar fate, as recorded by the prophet Ether: “The Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them,” he wrote, “and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people; for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed” (Ether 15:19). This dreadful condition has now returned to the earth, only this time it has become worldwide.[1]

D&C 56:1-3 = 1: Hearken, O ye people who profess my name, saith the Lord your God; for behold, mine anger is kindled against the rebellious, and they shall know mine arm and mine indignation, in the day of visitation and of wrath upon the nations. 2: And he that will not take up his cross and follow me, and keep my commandments, the same shall not be saved. 3: Behold, I, the Lord, command; and he that will not obey shall be cut off in mine own due time, after I have commanded and the commandment is broken.

D&C 63:6, 32 = 6: Wherefore, verily I say, let the wicked take heed, and let the rebellious fear and tremble; and let the unbelieving hold their lips, for the day of wrath shall come upon them as a whirlwind, and all flesh shall know that I am God. 32: I, the Lord, am angry with the wicked; I am holding my Spirit from the inhabitants of the earth.

D&C 64:34-36 = 34: Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days. 35: And the rebellious shall be cut off out of the land of Zion, and shall be sent away, and shall not inherit the land. 36: For, verily I say that the rebellious are not of the blood of Ephraim, wherefore they shall be plucked out.

Ether 15:19 But behold, the Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people; for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed; wherefore they went again to battle.

Moroni 8:28 Pray for them, my son, that repentance may come unto them. But behold, I fear lest the Spirit hath ceased striving with them; and in this part of the land they are also seeking to put down all power and authority which cometh from God; and they are denying the Holy Ghost. 9:4-5 = 4: Behold, I am laboring with them continually; and when I speak the word of God with sharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I use no sharpness they harden their hearts against it; wherefore, I fear lest the Spirit of the Lord hath ceased striving with them. 5: For so exceedingly do they anger that it seemeth me that they have no fear of death; and they have lost their love, one towards another; and they thirst after blood and revenge continually.

Jeremiah 6:19 “I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts.”

One might conclude that these evil days will be brought upon the wicked Gentiles because they have forgotten God and sought after Mammon; but consider the following, which shows that it is true that these afflictions, pestilence and curses will begin with those who have been the covenanted people of God – we Mormons.

Many refuse to hear Christ’s words and are cut off from his people (3 Nephi 20:23; 21:11). These are members of the Church, people of temple covenants. The wicked Gentiles suffer the Lord’s justice (3 Nephi 20:13-22). The Gentiles are destroyed after they reject the words of Christ, which words they reject after enjoying the blessings of the gospel for a time (compare 3 Nephi 16:10-16; 26:6-11; and Ether 4:8-9).[2]

[15] 2028 The Lamanites Shall Blossom as a Rose

D&C 49:24-28 = 24: But before the great day of the Lord shall come, Jacob shall flourish in the wilderness, and the Lamanites shall blossom as the rose. 25: Zion shall flourish upon the hills and rejoice upon the mountains, and shall be assembled together unto the place which I have appointed. 26: Behold, I say unto you, go forth as I have commanded you; repent of all your sins; ask and ye shall receive; knock and it shall be opened unto you. 27: Behold, I will go before you and be your rearward; and I will be in your midst, and you shall not be confounded. 28: Behold, I am Jesus Christ, and I come quickly. Even so. Amen.

2 Nephi 30:6 And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and a delightsome people.

Perhaps the declining population of Gentiles will be replaced by the “remnant of Jacob” who have been prophesied to rebuild the New Jerusalem (3 Nephi 20:14-16, 22).[3] Perhaps through the Atonement they will be changed in their very natures (Mosiah 3:19). In the D&C we are told that the Lamanites will “come to the knowledge of their fathers, and that they might know the promises of the Lord, and that they may believe the gospel and rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ, and be glorified through faith in his name, and that through their repentance they might be saved” (D&C 3:20).

The Book of Mormon tells us that the mistreatment of the Native Americans – which comprise several ancient cultures, including the children of Lehi – will someday have to be answered upon the heads of the disobedient American Gentiles. When the Savior visited the Nephites after His resurrection, he prophesied that their descendants would act as a scourge to the wicked in the last days:

“But if they [the American Gentiles] will not turn unto me, and hearken unto my voice, I will suffer them, yea, I will suffer my people, O house of Israel, that they shall go through among them, and shall tread them down, and they shall be as salt that hath lost its savor, which is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of my people, O house of Israel” (3^rd Nephi 16:15).

When the Savior appeared to the Nephites again on the following day, he expounded on this prophecy, and described in detail how the wicked would be obliterated by the children of Lehi: “And my people who are a remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, yea, in the midst of them as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he go through both treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver. Their hand shall be lifted up upon their adversaries, and all their enemies shall be cut off.

“Yea, wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent; for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots; and I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strongholds; and I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy land, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers; thy graven images I will also cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee, and thou shalt no more worship the works of thy hands; and I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee; so will I destroy thy cities. And it shall come to pass that all lyings, and deceivings, and envyings, and strifes, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, shall be done away.

“For it shall come to pass, saith the Father, that at that day whosoever will no repent and come unto my Beloved Son, them will I cut off from among my people, O house of Israel; and I will execute vengeance and fury upon them, even as upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.” (3^rd Nephi 21:12-21; see also 3^rd Nephi 20:16-20. It is significant to note that the Savior is quoting from the prophecies given to the prophet Micah, which are found in Micah 5:7-15).[4]

President Marion G. Romney offered an enlightening commentary: “It is concerning the covenants the Lord made with their fathers which run in favor of the Lamanites and culminate in their blossoming as the rose that I wish to speak….

“Other covenants which the Lord made with their fathers were to the effect that the remnant would accept the gospel, regain their inheritance and former blessings and take part in the latter-day redemption of Zion….

“… The Lord is pouring out his spirit upon the Lamanites. They are accepting the record of their fathers and are coming to a knowledge of the ‘things’ referred to by Jesus…. And they will continue to accept it in ever-increasing numbers. As they receive and live it, they are certain to regain their favored status in the house of Israel and participate in the redemption of Zion and the building of the New Jerusalem here in America. Jacob, even now, flourishes in the wilderness, and shortly the ‘Lamanites shall blossom as the rose,’ heralding ‘the great day of the Lord.’”[5]

[16] 2028 The Last Days Passover, March 13, 2028 [Monday]

It is highly probable, based on the Lord's pattern of timing of past events (previous anniversary patterns demonstrated in Israel’s history), that the exodus will occur at the Feast of the Passover, which takes place on the evening of the fourteenth of Nisan (March-April), seven years prior to the end of time (Christ's Second Coming).[6]

Isaiah 26:20 – Gileadi translation: “Come, O my people, enter your chambers and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves a little while until the wrath is past.”

The things of the past are types of future events. Here we see the last days Passover. When the tribulation begins, the Lord counsels the righteous to be prepared, to enter their chambers, or homes, and shut the doors until the wrath passes over. This is the same commandment given to the Israelites as they prepared to leave ancient Egypt. It will be the same in our day. In order to enter into our chambers and shut the doors to wait out the initial tribulation, we will have to be prepared, with food, fuel and clothing.[7]

The Exodus of the righteous Saints begins the night before the war against the Saints and America starts (or at the Passover), showing the continuity of these two signs.[8] See signs 32, 33, and 34 for a more probable scenario.

[17] 2028: May 15^th: 80^th Anniversary of Israel: end of 2^nd 40-year Jewish Cycle

At this point in the chronology, a dramatic end has been reached; the times of the Gentiles is over; it is now Israel’s time to receive the blessings of the Lord in full measure; but they will be accompanied by great strife: the tribulation (seven years) prior to Christ’s Second Coming.

[18] 2028: Elders Called Home

3 Nephi 16:10 And thus commandeth the Father that I should say unto you: At that day when the Gentiles shall sin against the gospel, and shall reject the fullness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations, and above all the people of the whole earth, and shall be filled with all manner of lyings, and of deceits, and of mischiefs, and all manner of hypocrisy, and murders, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, and of secret abominations; and if they shall do all those things, and shall reject the fullness of my gospel, behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fullness of my gospel from among them.

D&C 88:84-85, 88-90 = 84: Therefore, tarry ye, and labor diligently, that you may be perfected in your ministry to go forth among the Gentiles for the last time, as many as the mouth of the Lord shall name, to bind up the law and seal up the testimony, and to prepare the saints for the hour of judgment which is to come: 85: That their souls may escape the wrath of God, the desolation of abomination which awaits the wicked, both in this world and in the world to come…. 88: And after your testimony cometh wrath and indignation upon the people. 89: For after your testimony cometh the testimony of earthquakes, that shall cause groanings in the midst of her, and men shall fall upon the ground and shall not be able to stand. 90: And also cometh the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and the voice of lightenings, and the voice of tempests, and the voice of the waves of the sea heaving themselves beyond their bounds.

What would cause the missionaries to be called home? They will continue to work until world conditions become such that the Church cannot safely allow missionaries into the various countries; hence a major event will create a condition that causes the existing missionary program to end. Many people look for this as a preliminary sign to the last days, but in reality, it occurs after something bad has already happened; and after all of the signs noted above.

As the persecution of the Church increases in the latter days, it will eventually result in the missionaries being withdraw from the nations. This significant event will have a number of surprising consequences, both for the Church and for the nations of the world.[9]

Brigham Young said: “All we have yet heard and we have experienced is scarcely a preface to the sermon that is going to be preached. When the testimony of the Elders ceases to be given, and the Lord says to them ‘come home; I will now preach my own sermons to the nations of the earth,’ all you now know can scarcely be called a preface to the sermon that will be preached with fire and sword, tempests, earthquakes, hail, rain, thunders and lightnings, and fearful destruction. What matters the destruction of a few railway cars? You will hear of magnificent cities, now idolized by the people, sinking in the earth, entombing the inhabitants. The sea will heave itself beyond its bounds, engulfing mighty cities. Famine will spread over the nations and nation will rise up against nation, kingdom against kingdom and states against states, in our own country and in foreign lands; and they will destroy each other, caring not for the blood and lives of their neighbors, of their families, or for their own lives.” [10]

It is sad to consider the terrible destruction and loss of life that are awaiting these errant souls who reject the missionaries and their message of salvation. If the wicked would only repent and join the righteous, their lives would be preserved. But when the Lord begins to pour out His judgments, it will be too late. The destruction that will befall them will be so catastrophic that it will leave the people in a state of shock and honor. As the luxuries and conveniences of modern life are stripped away, chaos will descend upon the nation as the people fight and pillage among themselves.

The righteous will not rejoice in these massive destructions of the wicked, but they will grieve for the loss of so many precious souls that could have been saved if they had only heeded the word of God. President Young continued:

“You may think that the little you hear of now is grievous; yet the faithful of God’s people will see days that will cause them to close their eyes because of the sorrow that will come upon the wicked nations. The hearts of the faithful will be filled with pain and anguish for them.”[11]

Wilford Woodruff also added his testimony about the fate of the wicked when they reject the missionaries of God:

“I can further testify, that there is no nation that will escape the judgments of the Almighty. There is no ear but what has to be penetrated with the sound of the gospel of Christ; and by-and-by the elders of Israel will be taken from those nations where they are now preaching, and there will be another set of missionaries sent among the people; there will be the voice of lightning, the noise of war, and of all those judgments which have been enumerated and prophesied of since the beginning of time, and they will go forth among the nations until the land is cleansed from the abominations that now reign upon the face of the earth.”[12]

“By and by the testimony of the gospel will be sealed among the Gentiles, and the gospel will turn to the whole house of Israel, and the judgments of God will back up the testimony of the elders of this Church, and the Lord will send messengers who will go forth and reap down the earth.”[13]

[19] 2028: Times of the Gentiles Fulfilled

The period from the restoration of the gospel in 1830, until a point when the gospel will no longer be preached to the Gentiles is called the “times of the Gentiles.” The Gentiles of the last days will resemble the Jews at the time of Jesus: some willingly will die for him even as others put him to an open shame.

D&C 25, 28-30; 25: [The Jews] shall be gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled; 28: And when the times of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fullness of my gospel; 29: But they receive it not; for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men; 30: And in that generation shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

The time period during which the Gentile nations were the focus of God’s missionaries and of the Savior and God Himself, was full of revelation and prophecy in which doctrines and teachings never before revealed in the history of the world were made known. The gospel was restored on the earth in its fullness.

The Lord confided to His disciples that, unfortunately, the world would not receive what God not only wanted them to have but verified through the outpouring of His Spirit. Though He would have given them the gospel if they had wanted it, “they receive[d] it not; for they perceive[d] not the light and they turn[ed] their hearts from me because of the precepts of men” (D&C 45:29).

After the Gentiles have had a chance to hear the gospel, the gathering of the Jews will commence. Recognizing the Times of the Gentiles gives us a clue as to where we are in the sequence of times. Elder Wilford Woodruff said: “No man knows the day or the hour when Christ will come, yet the generation has been pointed out by Jesus himself…. The Savior, when speaking to his disciples of his second coming and the establishment of his kingdom on the earth, said the Jews should be scattered and trodden under foot until the Times of the Gentiles were fulfilled. But, said he, when you see light breaking forth among the Gentiles, referring to the preaching of his Gospel amongst them; when you see salvation offered to the Gentiles, and the Jews – the seed of Israel – passed by, the last first and the first last; when you see this you may know that the time of my second coming is at hand as surely as you know that summer is nigh when the fig tree puts forth its leaves; and when these things commence that generation shall not pass away until all are fulfilled. We are living in the dispensation and generation to which Jesus referred.”[14]

How does Babylon blind the majority of the people so that they cannot perceive the light? It is through her ability to seduce people into committing the greatest immorality. She teaches her disciples to love things and to use people. And they commit the greatest immorality when they come to love things and use people to get them. The tobacco industry, the drug cartels, the movie and the pornography industries are a few of these wicked and selfish groups; as are lawyers, doctors, priests, and the food industry. This period will be rampant with the inebriating wine of materialism, which will fill people’s souls and the liquor of selfishness is a near-religion for some. Its theology is ‘me,’ its hereafter is ‘now,’ and its rituals consist of sensation![15]

As the wicked turn against the Church in the last days an important but tragic event will soon occur: the missionaries – the messengers of the gospel – will be withdrawn from the Gentile nations, bringing to an end the times of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24; D&C 45:25-30). These wicked nations will then bring upon themselves the wrath of God, and death and destruction will eventually be unleashed upon them. Because the wicked have been filling their cup of iniquity for many years, they will push themselves past the tipping point with a series of false actions.[16]

When these destructions rain down upon the heads of the wicked at the end of the times of the Gentiles, all national unity will be destroyed as disorder fills the land. This will begin to fulfill the prophecy of Daniel, in which he saw that the kingdoms of the world would be destroyed and replaced by the political Kingdom of God.[17]

Heber C. Kimball wrote: “The judgments of God will be poured out upon the wicked to the extent that our elders from far and near will be called home. Or in other words, the gospel will be taken from the Gentiles and later on will be carried to the Jews [this marks the fulfillment of the Times of the Gentiles].[18]

Orson Pratt foretold: “When God has called out the righteous, when the warning sign has been sufficiently proclaimed among the Gentile nations, and the Lord says, ‘It is enough,’ He will also say to His servants, ‘O, ye, my servants, come home, come out from the midst of these Gentile nations, where you have labored and borne testimony for so long a period; come out from among them, for they are not worthy; they do not receive the message that I have sent forth, they do not repent of their sins, come out from their midst, their times are fulfilled. Seal up the testimony among them and bind up the law.’”[19]

Note: 2028 is the end of the second forty-year cycle of the Jews claiming their homeland again on May 14, 1948. The beginning of the end must be at the end of their two cycles and prior to the last seven years of disasters and tribulations prior to the Second Coming. It would follow that if the Times of the Gentiles is over, that the beginning of the Time of the Jews (or more appropriately the Time of Israel) is the beginning of the last seven years of the world’s existence; and the beginning of Daniel’s last week (see pages five and six).

The Prophet Joseph Smith said that the gospel would just be entering the last Gentile nations when the times of the Gentiles would come to an end and destruction would descend upon the wicked. On two different occasions he taught: “The servants of God will not have gone over the nations of the Gentiles, with a warning voice, until the destroying angel will commence to waste the inhabitants of the earth, and as the prophet hath said: ‘It shall be a vexation to hear the report’ (Isaiah 28:19).[20]

“The last revelation says ye shall not have time to have gone over the earth until these things come. It will come as did the cholera; war, fires, and earthquakes; one pestilence after another, until the Ancient of Days come, then judgment will be given to the Saints.[21]

“… Historically, over the last two thousand years, many in the Church have written off Israel and ignored the eternal covenant promises that God made to his chosen people, the Jews. Many scholars have mistakenly taught that God rejected and abandoned Israel forever when the majority of Israel rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah. However, the apostle Paul warned the Church against this tragic error: ‘For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob’” (Romans 11:25).[22]

Luke 21:24-25 (see also the Inspired Revision of Luke 21:24-32) 24: And then his disciples asked him, saying, Master, tell us concerning they coming? 25: And he answered them, and said, In the generation in which the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled, there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, like the sea and the waves roaring. The earth also shall be troubled, and the waters of the great deep.

D&C 45:24-25 = 24: And this I have told you concerning Jerusalem; and when that day shall come, shall a remnant be scattered among all nations: 25: But they shall be gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

[20] 2028: Famines, Depressions and Economic Turmoil; Much Despair, Doom and Gloom and Emotional Instability [beginning to be fulfilled]

Famine: 2^nd Nephi 1:18 Referring to the land of liberty, Nephi prophecies that famine will come upon the land because of the hardness of hearts of the people. 2^nd Nephi 6:15: “They who believe not on the Messiah shall be destroyed by famine.” Isaiah 14:30 (also 2^nd Nephi 24:30): “I will kill thy root with famine.” Alma 10:22: “If it were not for the prayers of the righteous, ye would be visited now with famine.” Alma 62:35, 39: war causes famine.

Helaman 10:6: Nephi is given power to smite the earth with famine. Helaman 11:4: “Let there be famine in the land to stir the people up in remembrance of the Lord.” Helaman 13:9: 400 years will not pass away before the Lord visits the Nephites with famine.

D&C 43:25: “How oft has the Lord called upon the nations by the voice of famine.” D&C 87:6: “With famine shall the inhabitants of the earth feel the wrath of God.” JS-M 1:29: famine in the last days. JS-H 1:45: judgments to come with great desolation by famine.

During the summer of 2012 over 60% of the counties in the United States were experiencing severe drought, the worst since records have been kept. Note: 1620 {arrival of the Pilgrims} + 400 years = 2020 {possible Nephite parallel to our famine period}.

Most people don’t recognize change until it is staring them in the face. Time is of the essence. Those that are unprepared shall see famine and pestilence. Joseph Smith stressed: “It was made known unto me by the Holy Spirit that there should be prosperity, seed time, and harvest every year in which the rainbow was seen. But in the year when the bow was not to be seen would commence desolation, calamity, and distress among the nations, without seed time or harvest.[23]

Famine and pestilence, in part only, is nature turned ugly. As part of the Angel Moroni’s brief warning[24] famine is principally caused by political conditions rather than the lack of food. Wherever there is famine, there are armies or police states either controlling the flow of foodstuff, or stealing it outright. The 20^th century famines in the Ukraine in 1932-1934, in China in 1958-1961, and in Cambodia in 1975-1979, were all caused by Marxist governments enforcing Marxist economic ideology on peasant populations. History shows that famines “have nearly always been a hallmark of economic backwardness,” rather than overpopulation. Unfortunately, pestilence grows during times of war where the poor general health of displaced refugees leaves them susceptible to disease.[25]

Depression and Economic Turmoil

Isaiah 19:10 (Gileadi translation) “… and all who work for wages suffer distress.

Time, November 7, 2011, page 20 With reference to the European Union, “the most likely scenario is a slow slide to some lesser union of fewer nations, as weaker countries drop out of the European Union [in March of 2017 Great Britain withdrew from the EU – certainly not one of the weaker nations]. The result would be a drag on global growth and a lack of confidence in Europe’s future. The end of the European dream integration would be the end of the free world as we’ve known it. The European Union has 500,000,000 people. If Europe fails, we do too.”

The Philadelphia Trumpet, March 2009, pages 2-3. “How Ukraine’s Gas Crisis Fulfilled Prophecy, by Brad MacDonald.

Last August, when Russia invaded the tiny nation of Georgia, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote that “Russia’s attack on Georgia … marks the beginning of a dangerous new era in history.”

Dr. George Friedman from Stratfor said this about it: “The war in Georgia … is Russia’s public return to great-power status.”

Forcing Georgia back into the Russian sphere of influence was stage one of Putin’s plan to return Russia to “great-power status.” And it was successful, thanks in no small part to Germany’s complicity….

Then the financial crisis of September 2008 struck, and the media began to neglect Russia’s history-altering actions…. After recognizing stage one of Putin’s plan, Mr. Flurry anticipated what the next stage might be: “Will a crisis occur over Ukraine?” he asked last October. “That area is the breadbasket of Russia, and surely it is willing to wage war over that as well.”

Mr. Flurry got even more specific. “Russia has Germany – and all of Europe – over a barrel. Cutting off part of the flow of gas to a country would wreck havoc on the economy!” he said, implying that a gas crisis with Europe might well be used to carry out stage two of Putin’s plan: to wrest Ukraine from Europe and back into the Russian sphere of influence. He was right!

When Russia reduced its natural gas exports to Ukraine on January 1, initial reports indicated that the spat would continue between Kiev and the Kremlin, would be short-lived and would not impact Europeans in a major way. European countries, with supply lines and tanks at full capacity, weren’t overly concerned about another mid-winter energy crisis like the winter 2006 debacle.

Early reports were wrong. Three days after the first reduction, when it was apparent Ukraine was not hurting like Russia had hoped, the Kremlin cut supplies further. Still, that wasn’t enough. The next day, Moscow stopped natural gas shipments through the last large operating pipeline through Ukraine, cutting off all gas flowing to Europe via Ukraine.

Europe was embroiled in a major energy crisis, again. It didn’t take long before the heat and lights went out up and down the Balkan Peninsula; Bulgarian consumers were told to switch off gas stoves; and Slovakia declared a state of emergency. Meanwhile, deep cuts to supplies in Greece, Macedonia, Hungary, Croatia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, France, Germany and Italy affected millions and cost European industries billions.

Tensions soared. Like the homes of countless Europeans, relations between Russia and Europe cooled, fast. For three weeks diplomats and politicians scurried furiously. The Kremlin argued that its beef was with Ukraine, not Europe…. Moscow was well aware [however] that the European Union imports 25% of its gas from Russia, 80% of which flows through pipelines dissecting Ukraine. When Russia punished Kiev, it knew the pain would resonate across Europe….

“Ukraine hems in the south of European Russia so thoroughly that any hostile power controlling Kiev could easily threaten a variety of core Russian interest, including Moscow itself,” Stratfor analyst Peter Zeihan explained. “Ukraine also pushes far enough east that a hostile Kiev would sever most existing infrastructure connections to the Caucasus. Simply put, a Ukraine outside the Russian sphere of influence transforms Russia into a purely defensive power, one with little hope of resisting pressure from anywhere. But a Russified Ukraine makes it possible for Russia to project power outward, and to become a major regional – and potentially global – player.” Without Ukraine, Russia’s efforts to become a dominant international power are doomed to failure!...

The conspiracy between Russia and Germany – as spokesman for the EU – was struck on January 16, 2009. In exchange for gasoline flowing, Germany agreed to allow Russia to attack Ukraine and absorb it back into Russia. The rest of the EU was told to get behind Germany or lose their gasoline.

During the early part of 2014, the Crimea was taken over by Russia and the attack on the rest of the Ukraine began and became a fait accompli; the U.S. stood back, protested and watched it happen. Russia now had free access to the Mediterranean and Israel.

This war continues into 2015 and the future does not look as if any nation is going to come to Ukraine’s defense.[26]

Seminar [2010] with neighbor John Murray, Harmony Valley:

Lehman Brothers, September 15, 2008, almost brought the financial community to its knees; this is because we have become a debt-based society. September 15, 2012 Ben Bernanke began printing trillions of dollars to try and keep the country from sliding into a depression.

We need to localize food production as quickly as possible.

We need to re-establish the rule of law; rebuild local economies; rebuild the railroad system.

We need to expect less each year; localize all needs, including money (local medium of exchange).

How we may be forced to live may be how we should have lived all along.

Water: water creates disease, non-waste processing; death from dehydration; protect the water supply. John Cronin, The Riverkeepers, says that the quantity and quality of water is decreasing. Big rivers and waterways are polluted: fish, etc. can’t be eaten safely more than once a week.

If you run out of water, you have to leave.

Re-cycling sewage for drinking water will become more common; but some sewage treatment plants can’t process some chemicals out. We need to be able to measure what is in our water.

Food: Food will become the problem; it is beginning now; population growth is continuing while oil has reached its peak production. The collapse of America has already begun. Cutbacks are beginning; failures in the infrastructure are beginning. There were 1,500,000,000 to 2,000,000,000 people born from Christ to the 1860s when oil was discovered. There have been 5,000,000,000 people born since 1860. The great die-off will begin as oil production is unable to be sustained. Fossil fuels are the magic of modern civilization; they will run out before replacement solutions are on-line; our current lifestyle is unsustainable. [There are some recent indications that oil replenishes itself in the ecosystem. So possibly this statement is not true.]

Oil: James Howard Kunstler

U. S. oil peaked in 1970 at 10,000,000 barrels a day; 2011 it was at 5,000,000 barrels a day. The world peak in oil production will be reached by 2030 at the latest. The U. S. consumes 20,000,000 barrels a day and is increasing the demand. We import oil to maintain our way of living. The Hersh Report was buried by the Department of Energy. Our demands will not be met without imported oil.

Finances: Debt and sustainable resources must remain in balance; high debt is an imbalance. You can’t solve a credit crisis with more credit. The United States is insolvent; Bankruptcy occurs when people want their money and countries call in their loans. We are viewing a giant ponzi scheme; we need to retool or the economy won’t grow; innovations are relatively recent.

Future Predictions Based on “Spencer’s” Visions of Glory

And the trends just mentioned

The time frames given here, year-wise, are mine [Lyman De Platt] based principally on several key dates outlined above.

1) May 15, 2028: The end of two forty-year cycles of modern Israel is the key date.

2) It marks the end of the Time of the Gentiles;

3) It marks the beginning of the last seven years of the earth’s physical existence;

4) It marks the worldwide economic collapse;

5) It marks the rise of the Antichrist;

6) It marks the rise of the Davidic King [John the Beloved];

7) It marks the end of all nations and the creation of the New World Order;

8) It marks the separation of the righteous from the wicked;

9) It marks the beginning of the U. S. Civil War; including invasions of foreign troops and nuclear attacks;

10) It marks Israel’s full-blown apostasy;

11) It marks the beginning of the righteous wandering in the wilderness; places of refuge; the Lord raining down wrath and destruction upon the wicked; and

12) It marks the start of “Spencer’s” visions of earthquakes and destructions in Utah. See also #28 below for another possible important date.

In 2028, in the fall of the year[27] (given as July or August elsewhere in the book, an earthquake will occur affecting Utah and other areas. It occurs about noon, lasting for some six to eight minutes in Salt Lake City, which at the time of the quake has developed minor changes in the skyline, with newer model cars around; the mountains collapse on many homes on the east bench; flooding occurs for the rest of the day; (page 124 of Visions of Glory) the Great Salt Lake rises about twelve feet covering parts of I-15 and I-80; the airport shuts down; the lake grows about twice its present size; the Salt Lake Temple is flooded to twenty feet deep; the tabernacle is destroyed.

2029: (pages 118-119) A series of earthquakes the following spring after the Utah quake occur along the west coast of North and South America, from Chile to Alaska; many coastal areas are broken off, forming islands; major cities are flattened; tidal waves are created all across the world.

2029 Summer: after the spring quakes on the west coast, a large earthquake creates a canyon and a lake up the Mississippi River Valley, up the Ohio River, into the Great Lakes. This mega lake creates a separate eastern and western United States. A large landmass surfaces in the Caribbean divided into islands throughout the area. A tidal wave goes inland as far north as Chicago.

It is possible that these earthquakes are the result of Apophis, the comet which will approach earth on Friday, April 13, 2029, with its second return (the first will be on Friday the 13^th, April 2, 2024; the third in 2036); its trajectory in 2029 will depend on several variables that the scientists have not yet worked out. It is predicted at this time (2017) to only come within 18,300 miles of earth.

The earthquakes mentioned will also trigger volcanic eruptions around the world. Scientists have discovered a volcano under nearly a mile of solid ice near the South Pole. It is theorized that heat from this volcano may be the source of voluminous ice streams in western Antarctica and that this abundance of water is lubricating the slide of glaciers across the region’s ice sheet. This condition could lead to the catastrophic collapse of an ice sheet that could release enough water into the Pacific Ocean to raise global sea levels by eighteen to twenty feet. Such a disaster would bury in the depths of the seas many of the low-lying areas of the planet where a good portion of the earth’s population lives.[28]

Ezekiel 38:19-20 and Haggai 2:6-7 state that an earthquake will occur and will be so catastrophic that the whole world will be affected.[29]

The timing and reason for this earthquake are important to understand. In Revelation 16:18 it says: “And there were voices [usually the resonance caused by a earth-approaching object from space], and thunders, and lightenings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.”

Another reference to this monumental event is also found in Revelation 6:12: “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.” We see from this that the time frame is prior to the opening of the seventh seal, which in this study is set at October 2, 2032.

2029: famine: manufacturing and industry come to a virtual standstill; factories and global businesses shut down overnight; no raw materials are available; utilities are in chaos.

[21] 2028: Worldwide Economic Collapse

Before all the governments of the world will give up their independence, including the United States, we will experience some sort of event that will cause a global economic meltdown. This event will set the stag for the nations of the world to do whatever is required to bring back order to our world.[30]

“… whenever this time was that I was being shown, the financial structure of the world had completely collapsed. Every bank had closed down and money was worthless. People were learning to trade and barter. Manufacturing and industry were at a virtual standstill. There were no raw materials and no money to pay the workers. Factories and global businesses shut down overnight.

“All of the utilities were in chaos. People tried to keep the necessities of life running, but they were sporadic and mostly offline. There were blackouts everywhere, some of them lasting many months. Almost all water was not fit to drink because of acts of war against this country. People suffered everywhere.”[31]

A further comprehensive study of this economic collapse is found in Alan Rex Mitchell’s The Coming Calamity: Global Economic Crisis & Latter-day Prophecy.[32]

Page xii: how we practice economics is actually a barometer of morality…. Page xiii: Not surprisingly, the earliest studies of economics were a search for morality…. We may choose between good an evil, but we cannot re-define good and evil without consequences. If we do, we fit the Lord’s description of the postmodern worldview, where, “Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god,” (D&C 1:16)…. The sins of this generation will come home to roost in economic turmoil, followed by political unrest…. Page 2: “… The economic problems resulting from individual and collective choices will cause chaos and turmoil that will be followed by war and natural calamities.”

Page 8: “At this time, America is embracing socialistic policies to soften a financial crisis. This policy guarantees that the recession will endure for years and with it, the potential for social chaos. Nervous consumers would rather pay off debt than keep buying. Nervous businessmen hesitate to produce. Yet, the media reports that the sinking economy can be overcome by spending. The President, Congress, and the Federal Reserve have responded with stimulus packages and programs to pump money into the economy, but, at this point in time, there has been tepid response in employment or business activity.”

“… A few world leaders have protested America’s reckless large-scale spending, including Angela Merkel, Mirek Topolánek, European Council President and Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, [who] recently warned: Not only is America repeating its mistakes from the 1930s – the large scale stimuli, the protectionist tendencies and appeals, the ‘Buy American’ campaign – all these steps, their combination, and worse, the initiative to establish them as permanent, are a road to hell. We have to return to our history books, which so far have only been gathering dust.”

Page 13: “In The Dollar Crisis, financial analyst Richard Duncan pointed out America’s mounting private and government debt back in 2003. He ended his book by saying: “Exactly how these events will unfold is impossible to forecast; nevertheless, the eventual outcome is within sight. The dollar standard is inherently flawed and increasingly unstable. Its demise is imminent. The only question is, will it be death by fire – hyperinflation – or death by ice – deflation? Fortunes will be made and lost, depending on the answer to that question.”

Page 15: “According to the author Ayn Rand, the destruction of a free society is manifest in the attitudes toward money, especially the trust in fiat money (money declared valid by government decree) that will eventually collapse: Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked ‘Account overdrawn.’”

Page 188: “Perhaps, like the Jews of the past, the Latter-day Saints will be blamed for hard times simply because they are different, when, in reality, the economic troubles will be the result of the bad moral culture and economic policies that accompany the breakup of the family.”

[22] 2028: The Rise of the Antichrist

Rev. 13:1-3 = 1: “And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and each head a blasphemous name. 2: The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3: One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.

Rev. 17:12, 14 = 12: The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. 14: They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is the Lord of lords and the King of kings and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.

Daniel 7:20-21 = 20: I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell – the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully. 21: As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them.

Daniel 8:23-25 = 23: In the latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a stern faced king, a master of intrigue will arise. He will become very strong, but not by his own power. 24: He will cause astounding devastation and will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy the mighty men and the holy people. He will cause deceit to prosper and he will consider himself superior. 25: When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed but not by human hands.

These verses give some incredible insights to the Antichrist. Intrigue means he will be a master of deceit and lies. He will make war against all that is good and against God’s people. He will even stand up against Christ.

The Antichrist is alive today but he will not become the Antichrist until Satan possesses his body and brings him back from death. He will become the leader of the one-world government, after being fatally wounded in the head. Prior to that time he was one of the heads of the ten states that formed the one-world government (see Sign #29 for the formation of this government).

The Bible says he who has wisdom may be able to figure out who the Antichrist is before he comes to power. Rev. 13:18 KJV: Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six. Whoever he is, he will arise after the one-world government is in place; and if we follow the money trail, it may lead to him. Daniel 8:23-24: A stern faced king, a master of intrigue, will arise. He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. Daniel 11:37: He will show no regard for the god of his fathers or for the one desired by women [KJV: neither shall he regard the desire of women; or he will show no regard for babies desired by women], nor will he regard any god but will exalt himself above them all.

[1]Parry & Parry, op. cit., pages 234-237.

[2]Gileadi, The Last Days, page 90.

[3]Mitchell, op. cit., page 96.

[4]Richard N. Skousen, His Return: Prophecy, Destiny and Hope (Orem, Utah: Verity Publishing, Inc., 2007), pages 185-186.

[5]Conference Report, April 1963, pages 75-78.

[6]Jeffrey, op. cit., page 157.

[7]Gileadi, The Last Days, op. cit., page 96.

[8]Ibid., pages 98, 100.

[9]Skousen, op. cit., page 32.

[10]Brigham Young, July 15, 1860, Journal of Discourses 8:123-124

[11]Ibid.

[12]Wilford Woodruff, July 27, 1862, Journal of Discourses 10:16.

[13]Wilford Woodruff, June 27, 1875, Journal of Discourses 18:38.

[14]Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses 14:5.

[15]Neal A. Maxwell, All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979), page 30.

[16]Skousen, op. cit., page 33.

[17]Daniel 7:9-14, 26-27.

[18]Heber C. Kimball, Deseret News, Church Department, May 23, 1931, page 3.

[19]Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses 18:64 (July 25, 1875).

[20]History of the Church, 2:263.

[21]Ibid., 3:390-391.

[22]Jeffery, op. cit., pages 9-10.

[23]Kent P. Jackson, Joseph Smith’s Commentary on the Bible (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), page 124.

[24]Joseph Smith – History 1:45: “… great desolation by famine, sword, and pestilence…”

[25]Mitchell, op. cit., page 4.

[26]See pages 32-33 for Russia’s possible future attack on the Dardanelles of Turkey, with the end result that they would have full access to the Mediterranean.

[27]John Pontius, Visions of Glory (Springville: Cedar Fort, Inc., 2012), pages 116-117, 138.

[28]See “Chilling Thoughts: Antarctic Volcano Gives New Meaning to ‘Meltdown,’” Salt Lake Tribune, February 11, 1993, page A1; quoted in Hoyt W. Brewster Jr., Behold I Come Quickly: The Last Days and Beyond (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), page 32.

[29]Grant R. Jeffery, Armageddon: Earth’s Last Days (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1997), pages 95-96.

[30]Shorey, op. cit., page 155.

[31]Pontius, op. cit., pages 116-117.

[32]Alan Rex Mitchell, The Coming Calamity: Global Economic Crisis & Latter-day Prophecy (Vernon, Utah: Greenjacket Books, 2010), 224 pages.

[23] 2028: U. S. Civil War: Part of the War of Gog and Magog

D&C 45:68-70 = 68: And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety. 69: And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another. 70: And it shall be said among the wicked: Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.

When the foreign troops invade the United States, they will destroy all of the military capabilities of the country. They will strike first without provocation. What will be left of the government will encourage the citizens to submit to the new order of things.

All three battles of the last days could be called the “Battle of Gog and Magog.” However, the 2^nd war is usually called “Armaggedon,” and the third – last – war is at the end of the Millennium and is not usually considered.

The Russian Invasion of Israel (probable date of the beginning of War of Gog and Magog); Beginning of a Second American Civil War: the Break-up of the Disunited States of America.

2029: December 24, 2029, approximately seven years before Armaggedon. The prophet Ezekiel (38:19 – 39:8) describes the awesome destruction God will inflict on those nations that Russia will lead in attacking Israel. If we compare Ezekiel 38:19-22 with Haggai 2:18-22, we see the possibility that the 24^th day of Chisleu – the day before Hanukkah, in our month of December – is probably the day for this prophetic fulfillment. The Bible does not reveal the year of this battle. Only time will reveal whether “the day whereof I have spoken,” will occur on this anniversary of so many of Israel’s past deliverances. Ezekiel 39:8 “Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God; this is the day whereof I have spoken.”

Ezekiel 38:19-20 and Haggai 2:6-7 state that an earthquake will occur and will be so catastrophic that the whole world will be affected. [1]

Ezekiel 38:1-6 Preface = The battle of Gog and Magog against Israel shall usher in the Second Coming – The Lord will come amid war and pestilence, and all men shall shake at his presence. 1: And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 2: Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3: And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meschech and Tubal; 4: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even shields, all of them handling swords: 5: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: 6: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.

Russia and her allies (the former republics of the USSR, Eastern Europe, and the Arab and possibly the 3^rd World countries), still await their appointment with destiny.

TLD, 49-50 The U.S. is actually bankrupt and so far in debt that our national debt is the major issue in all recent national elections. We are on the brink of total economic collapse and when the civil war comes, it will virtually put an end to the government’s income. That is when we will be super vulnerable, and we will be delivered into the hand of a cruel master and harsh ruler (Isaiah 19:4).[2]

This great ruler will be an enemy of God and of the Savior and this is why he is called the Antichrist. He will hate the righteous Christian people, especially members of the Church. He will blaspheme everything holy and eventually people will worship him. John goes on to tell of a second beast or powerful individual who will arise at about this time:

“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred three-score and six” (Rev. 13:11-18).

TLD, 61-62 The Lord sends his scourge, the king of Assyria, the “rod of his anger,” and commissions him against us. The king of Assyria, however, does not know that this is his purpose. He thinks he is doing it on his own to annihilate people and exterminate nations. In other words, we have an exterminator about to be turned loose on us. “Then the Lord said, Just as my servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, so shall the king of Assyria lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, both young and old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered – to Egypt’s shame. Men shall be appalled and perplexed at Cush, their hope, and at Egypt, their boast. In that day shall the inhabitants of this isle say, See what has become of those we looked up to, on whom we relied for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria. How shall we ourselves escape? (Isaiah 20:3-6)[3]

This prophecy is against Egypt and Cush which are metaphorical names for the United States and Canada. The king of Assyria will take the people of these two countries captive for three and a half years leading them off barefoot and with bare behinds. The captivity comes following the civil war and unrest which weakens the United States so that it cannot defend itself.

This is a gruesome picture and since we, Ephraim, live in Egypt, this will be the fate of some of the members of the Church as well. The people of other nations in this hemisphere, which is a huge island separated from Eurasia by water, will be dismayed because they looked to the United States and Canada for protection. They wonder how they will escape and of course they will not because he is given dominion over all nations, kindreds and peoples, as both John and Daniel told us.

The end condition after this event occurs is the captivity of the world. Of course the beast has his allies such as China and the countries of Europe and we do not know what effect his reign may have on them. If this century is any indication, the nations of Europe will become much like the Warsaw Pact nations who had puppet Soviet governments with the people under their harsh rule and in subjection but under conditions less severe than the other conquered countries, such as our own.

[24] 2028: Israel’s Apostasy Begins in its Full-blown State

Book of Mormon, Testimony of Joseph Smith, 12^th paragraph; 1^st Nephi 19:11-16; 22:55.

It would stand to reason that this sign follows the Great Division. Once the righteous are separated from the other members of the Church, these other members will become as wicked as the rest of the world. See Sign #32; all these signs are in 2028.

Israel’s Apostasy: Isaiah 1:2-4 = 2: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 3: … Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. 4: Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Amos chapters 3-8 = 3: Because of Israel’s rejection of the prophets, and the espousal of evil, the nation is overwhelmed by an adversary. 4: The Lord withholds rain, sends famine and pestilence, and destroys gardens and vineyards, as judgments upon his people, yet they do not return unto the Lord. 5: Their sacrifices to false gods are abhorrent. 6: Woe to them that are at ease in Zion – Israel shall be plagued with desolation. 7: Amos prophesies the captivity of Israel; 8: and the downfall of Israel – there will be a famine of hearing the word of the Lord.

D&C 45:29-32 = 29: But they receive not; for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men. 30: And in that generation shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. 31: And there shall be men standing in that generation, that shall not pass until they shall see an overflowing scourge; for a desolating sickness shall cover the land. 32: But my disciples shall stand in holy places, and shall not be moved; but among the wicked, men shall lift up their voices and curse God and die.

We see in Isaiah that there are two forms of full-blown apostasy: 1) injustice; 1:21-23; 3:14-26) and 2) idolatry (Isaiah 2:7-8; 8:19).

Isaiah 1:21-25 = 21: How is the faithful city become an harlot! It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 22: Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: 23: Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. 24: Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: 25: And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

Isaiah 3:14-26 = 14: The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. 15: What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor saith the Lord God of hosts? 16: Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: 17: Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. 18: In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, 19: The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, 20: The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, 21: The rings, and nose jewels, 22: The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, 23: The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils. 24: And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty. 25: Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. 26: And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.

2^nd Timothy 3:1-5 = 1: This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come; 2: For men shall be lovers of their own selves; covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3: without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4: traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5: having a form of godliness; but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

2^nd Timothy 4:3-4 = 3: For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4: And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned into fables.

2 Nephi 27:1-5 = 1: But, behold, in the last days, or in the days of the Gentiles – yea, behold all the nations of the Gentiles and also the Jews, both those who shall come upon this land and those who shall be upon others lands, yea, even upon all the lands of the earth, behold, they will be drunken with iniquity and all manner of abominations. 2: And when that day shall come they shall be visited of the Lord of Hosts, with thunder and with earthquake, and with a great noise, and with storm, and with tempest, and with the flame of devouring fire. 3: And all the nations that fight against Zion, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision; yea, it shall be unto them, even as unto a hungry man which dreameth, and behold he eateth but he awaketh and his soul is empty; or like unto a thirsty man which dreameth and behold he is faint, and his soul hath appetite; yea, even so shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion. 4: For behold, all ye that doeth iniquity, stay yourselves and wonder, for ye shall cry out, and cry; yea, ye shall be drunken but not with wine, ye shall stagger but not with strong drink. 5: For behold, the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep. For behold, ye have closed your eyes, and ye have rejected the prophets; and your rulers, and the seers hath he covered because of your iniquity.

D&C 112:23-26 = 23: Verily, verily, I say unto you, darkness covereth the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people, and all flesh has become corrupt before my face. 24: Behold, vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth, a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth, saith the Lord. 25: And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord; 26: First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house, saith the Lord.

[25] 2028: False Churches; False Prophets; False Miracles will Abound [this sign overarches all of the last days].

The Tower of Babel: Isaiah 2:15 And upon every tower, and upon every fenced wall. Verses 12-19 should also be read as part of this implication of a Babylonian society. Isaiah 30:25 And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Genesis 11:4-9 = 4: And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5: And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6: And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they all have one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7: Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. 8: So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9: Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Joseph Smith History 1:22 I soon found, however, that my telling the story [The First Vision] had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen and fifteen years of age, and my circumstances in life as to make a boy of no consequence in the world, yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was common among all the sects – all united to persecute me.

[Referring to the Nephite record going forth in a day of wickedness, degeneracy, and apostasy]: Mormon 8:26-41 = 26: And no one need say they shall not come, for they surely shall, for the Lord hath spoken it; for out of the earth shall they come, by the hand of the Lord, and none can stay it; and it shall come in a day when it shall be said that miracles are done away; and it shall come even as if one should speak from the dead. 27: And it shall come in a day when the blood of saints shall cry unto the Lord, because of secret combinations and the works of darkness. 28: Yea, it shall come in a day when the power of God shall be denied, and churches become defiled and be lifted up in the pride of their hearts; yea, even in a day when leaders of churches and teachers shall rise in the pride of their hearts, even to the envying of them who belong to their churches. 29: Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be heard of fires, and tempests, and vapors of smoke in foreign lands. 30: And there shall also be heard of wars, rumors of wars, and earthquakes in divers places. 31: Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth; there shall be murders, and robbings, and lying, and deceivings, and whoredoms, and all manner of abominations; when there shall be many who will say, Do this, or do that, and it mattereth not, for the Lord will uphold such at the last day. But wo unto such, for they are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. 32: Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins. 33: O ye wicked and perverse and stiffnecked people, why have ye built up churches unto yourselves to get gain? Why have ye transfigured the holy word of God, that ye might bring damnation upon your souls? Behold, look ye unto the revelations of God; for behold, the time cometh at that day when all these things shall come forth among you.

2 Peter 3:3-4 = 3: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4: and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

Matthew 16:4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.

2^nd Nephi 28:18-29 = 18: But behold, that great and abominable church, the whore of all the earth, must tumble to the earth, and great must be the fall thereof. 19: For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish; 20 For behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good. 21: And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well – and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell. 22: And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none – and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance. 23: Yea, they are grasped with death, and hell; and death, and hell, and the devil, and all that have been seized therewith must stand before the throne of God, and be judged according to their works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment. 24: Therefore, wo be unto him that is as ease in Zion! 25: Wo be unto him that crieth: All is well! 26: Yea, wo be unto him that hearkeneth unto the precepts of men, and denieth the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. 27: Yea, wo be unto him that saith: We have received, and we need no more! 28: And in fine, wo unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God! For behold, he that is built upon the rock receiveth it with gladness; and he that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest he shall fall. 29: Wo be unto him that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more of the word of God, for we have enough!

Revelation 18 [Preface]: The saints are called out of Babylon lest they partake of her sins – she falls and is lamented by her supporters. 2: [The angel] … cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3: For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 4: And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 5: For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

1^st Nephi 14:12-13, 17 = 12: And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw. 13: And it came to pass that I beheld that the great mother of abominations did gather together multitudes upon the face of all the earth, among all the nations of the Gentiles, to fight against the Lamb of God. 17: And when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel.

The destruction of the wicked will also bring about the fall of Babylon and the collapse of the great and abominable church that John and Nephi both saw in vision (1^st Nephi 14:3, 22:14; Revelation 14:8). The prophets have rejoiced when they have beheld the future fall of Babylon in vision, since this will be the end of Satan’s reign upon the earth (Isaiah 14:1-24, 48:20; Revelation 14:8; 18:1-3).

The fall of Babylon will also result in the destruction of the great and spacious building that Lehi and Nephi were shown in vision (1^st Nephi 8:26-28; 11:35, 12:18). This building, which is filled with those who seek the glory of the world, will tumble to the earth “and the fall thereof [will be] exceedingly great (1^st Nephi 1:35-36; 12:18). The allurement of fame, fortune, politics and the entertainment industry will no longer deceive the people and lead them astray (1^st Nephi 8:31-31; 12:18).

The Lord has told us that He will bring about the destruction of the great and abominable church by internal strife and turmoil. Fratricidal war will soon result in the overthrow of Babylon, as Nephi prophesied in 1^st Nephi 22:13-14 = 13: And the blood of that great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth, shall turn upon their own heads; for they shall war among themselves, and the sword of their own hands shall fall upon their own heads, and they shall be drunken with their own blood. 14: And every nation which shall war against thee, O house of Israel, shall be turned one against another, and they shall fall into the pit which they digged to ensnare the people of the Lord. And all that fight against Zion shall be destroyed, and that great whore, who hath perverted the right ways of the Lord, yea, that great and abominable church, shall tumble to the dust and great shall be the fall of it.

The Savior has told us that “every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand (Matthew 12:25). Babylon will bring about its own downfall, falling victim to the very fate it had planned to use to destroy the righteous.[4]

[26] 2028: Fear of Christ Delaying His Coming

Civilization will come to a standstill to await the end of all life, and people will despair aloud, saying that Jesus Christ has delayed His coming until after the end of all life on the earth.[5]

D&C 45:24-26 = 24: And this I have told you concerning Jerusalem [referred to in verses 16-23]; and when that day shall come, shall a remnant be scattered among all nations; 25: But they shall be gathered again; but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. 26: And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth.

This scripture implies that the fullness of the times of the Gentiles will have come in and then the remnant of the House of Israel will be gathered to Jerusalem.

[27] 2028: September 13. My wife Karen died on September 13, 2015. Given the proximity to all of the events taking place in 2028, possibly September 13, 2028 is a significant date, it being thirteen years from her death. Numbers 16 and 17 above kick off the events of the tribulation period, they beginning on March 13 and May 15 of 2028. It is speculation at this point but this date could be the beginning of what Spencer saw in the references below in #28.

[28] 2028: October 24 - Earthquakes Land Movements, beginning in Salt Lake City.[6]

Tim LaHaye says: “I have read statistics that certain earthquakes, like the one in Baluchistan, West Pakistan, on May 31, 1935, was the most devastating earthquake in all history, but that record has been exceeded several times since. Major earthquakes have occurred since World War I in Kansu Province, China; Toyko, Japan; Persia; India; Peru; Taiwan; and Southern California.

One seismologist at the Scripps Research Center in La Jolla, California, said “It is almost as though the earth’s plates are gyrating in anticipation of the world’s greatest earthquake.” The Apostle John in Revelation, forewarned that the worst earthquakes ever to hit the planet will occur during the seven-year tribulation period.[7]

John Shorey records a dream he had on May 11, 2013, that at this writing (May, 2017) has not occurred, but is consistent with the events recorded by “Spencer” following John’s record:

“On Saturday, May 11^th, I woke up from just having a dream that was not like my normal dreams. I could remember every detail and conversation concerning this dream.

“In this dream, I was with people I knew from the Northwest Seattle area. It was about an earthquake that would hit the Northwest. It had not yet happened, but we were discussing it as if it had already happened. In the dream, we knew this quake was of the same magnitude as the earthquake that hit Alaska in 1964, which is said to have been a magnitude 9.2…. It was like I was warning the people I knew, but they would not take it seriously. However, they seemed to know it was going to happen.”

John prayed to know if the dream was really going to happen. He continued to ask for three days, but no answer was given. After praying again, he went to his office to read the Bible. He was reading in Psalms and into the second page of reading came to this scripture (Psalms 18:6-7 NIV): “In my distress I called to the Lord: I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry.”[8]

In the fall of 2028 – a month later, winter was “fast approaching;” so we can estimate the earthquake was in September [possibly September 13^th as noted in Sign #27 above] – the following events have been foreseen by our unnamed brother Spencer, who after some sixty years of preparation was given permission by Heavenly Father to reveal to the world what he had experienced and seen. It is recorded in Visions of Glory, compiled by John Pontius (who died in December of 2013), for Spencer. I pinpoint this time because it is the end of eighty years of Israel’s wandering in the desert; protected by God’s power, but without knowing really who he is. I will revise Spencer’s narrative, taking him out of the equation, and incorporating his events into my timeline because Heavenly Father intended that this information given to him be used to understand the signs of the times by those who are “looking” for them and preparing for the Lord’s coming in glory.

The scene is downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. God says, referring to the last days: “I will begin with my house.” The ground began rolling violently beneath everyone’s feet. Many fell to the earth unable to rise again and were killed as the tremors opened up underground water sources and created temporary floods that drowned them and swept them away. The streets were broken up. Water was shooting from manhole covers, storm drains and cracks in the earth. It was fresh water spewing into the air with a deafening roar; gushers of some six feet in height were seen. The ground continued to convulse for from six to eight minutes. Cars began to be swept down the streets with people in them. Furniture, parts of homes, dead bodies and trash of every type filled the swirling flood which lasted for about eight hours. Water was also flooding into Salt Lake City from Bountiful. There was also flooding from the south where the Jordan River was running over its banks, possibly from Utah Lake being filled and overflowing its shoreline; being inundated by water from the reservoirs above Alpine, Provo, Springville and Payson canyons. The next morning, the floodwaters had begun to recede. Debris was everywhere, including dead bodies and body parts. There was no electricity. All telephone and cell services had been disrupted. Fallen trees and buildings were everywhere throughout the northern end of the valley. Old landmarks were gone. The mountains to the east of the city had collapsed upon the bench areas, burying most of the large homes above the city. Houses were pushed off their foundations further down into the valley.

Water remained in the streets and pooled in low places for several weeks, becoming quickly fetid and septic. The rest of the water drained into the Great Salt Lake, moving the salty waters of the lake in a tidal wave out into the desert northwest of the lake. It grew double in size and rose about twelve feet. Low-lying farm areas and homes were gone. In some places water covered I-15 and I-80. The whole airport area was under water and it took months before military planes could land there. Commercial air service had come to a halt.

The Salt Lake Temple will be flooded to about twenty-five feet; the old Tabernacle will be destroyed; only the foundation and a few timbers will remain. The Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the Church Office Building will be damaged on the lower floors. The Conference Center will survive with little damage; flooding of the parking areas and lower rooms; the main auditorium will be flooded partially, but most of it will easily be salvaged. The flood will recede quickly, so that most people in the high rises will only be stuck there for a few days.

There was great confusion throughout the Church. The leadership of the Church was stricken just as hard as the general population. At least eighteen general authorities died at this time; but because all communications were down it would be several weeks before the Saints heard anything from the official channels of the Church. Some of the members being scared at having no leadership began trying or reorganize according to their own ideas. However, those with the Holy Ghost knew that the process of rebuilding the Church and restoring the quorums of the priesthood was already underway even though no details were known. The one group became angry; hoarders if they had anything; demanding if they did not; the other group was stalwart and giving throughout this period of discord and strife. Good people from other churches joined in the relief efforts, in cleaning up the devastations, and in feeding and housing the homeless and hungry. Burying of the dead was a large task. Groups rushed to close in damaged but livable homes and to find means for heating them. Materials were taken from damaged homes to repair the standing ones. Many families moved in together. It was a Herculean effort.

The next spring (2029) after the destruction in Utah, there was another devastating series of earthquakes that occurred along the west coast of North and South America from Alaska to Chile. The western coast of Alaska, Canada, California, Mexico, Central America and all the way to the tip of South America, was shaken so badly that much of it broke away from the mainland and formed a series of islands off the coast. Seawater rushed in to fill in the canyons between the continental land mass and the islands. Major cities were shaken to the ground, with inland areas suffering less damage. Almost all of California was in ruins, with less destruction further inland from the coast.

This earthquake sent tsunamis across the world. Europe was not as badly affected and began sending aid to various countries, including the United States. Asia and Africa were also spared the major effects of the earthquakes and tsunamis.

About two months later, another earthquake opened up a narrow canyon, approximately where the Mississippi River was, though it deviated eastward where the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers had merged. The canyon followed the old Ohio River into the Great Lakes region. The upper Ohio and Mississippi rivers rerouted themselves into this canyon, creating a huge lake and river system approximately where the old Mississippi River was. This canyon created an eastern and western United States, which figured into some of the international situations later on.

A great landmass arose in the Gulf of Mexico. It extended from Mexico to Florida and consisted of a few large islands that replaced the water in the Gulf. In some places, the new land met Mexico, Texas and Florida, but there was a large waterway separating most of the new land from the United States. This new land was not totally barren; large parts of it had trees and other vegetation. Some parts of it were just muddy islands, however.

This great landmass created a tsunami that did a great deal of devastation as far north as Chicago. About two-thirds of the Gulf of Mexico was now a series of large islands.

The earthquakes did not affect the Eastern Seaboard as much as in the central and western parts of the country, so the infrastructure was more intact. But there had been a biological attack which will be treated in Plague #29 below.

[29] 2028: Foreign Troops Attack & Destroy U. S. Military Capacity

After the earthquakes begin in Utah and throughout the United States, foreign troops will begin landing on the east and west coasts of the U.S. There will be tens of thousands of them. They will come in large ships, some of them former cruise ships with naval escorts. They will land thousands of vehicles, most of them laden with relief supplies, but also with large tanks and missile launchers. They will skip cities like Boston, Chicago and New York City because there will be no one there to help. Those who had not already died had begun trudging west to escape from those cities and others.

In California, some Americans will try to fight the troops because they will see them as invaders. There will be a few battles where the local people lose and are subdued. The foreign troops won’t punish the survivors; they will just ask them to cooperate, feed them, and release them. This will win over the minds of the people. These troops will come with the expectation, however, that they will have to kill locals, even though the Americans will be in no condition to resist them. After lawlessness begins to increase, the troops will summarily execute the perpetrators. Civil rights and human rights will not exist. In the Utah area, because many of the troops will also be Mormon, many will refuse to kill their fellow members.

Relief efforts from outside any disaster area will usually be calculated to take three to six weeks to put into place. It will take about this time for foreign troops to begin to arrive from across the Nevada desert from California. Most will not speak English and will look Asian. They will be dressed in the uniforms of the United Nations, wearing blue helmets and international insignias on their vehicle doors, helmets and uniforms. There will be some European troops, but none from England. There will be some American servicemen and some Mormons among the troops, including former missionaries.

They will come in large, strange-looking trucks – much larger than those of the present military. Some of the trucks will have four or five driven axles and will be too wide to drive down a single lane of the highway. In Utah, they will come from the West Coast and make their way across large area of devastation. They will be loaded with a great amount of cargo – food, medical supplies, fuel and other necessities. They will set up hospitals with trained doctors. They will begin occupying schools as their headquarters and using the gymnasiums to store their supplies, which will be guarded closely. They will have doctors among that will immediately set up trauma center, but they will soon be overwhelmed. Many of the local citizens will begin helping these troops to begin using heavy equipment to dig large graves in the schoolyards. Others will help where they are needed.

Every major city that these troops will come to will have been devastated from the earthquakes and other disasters.

Because the troops will have information of a broader nature than exists locally, we will review what they will tell the local people; and what had been seen up to that point in time.

The fault that runs along the Wasatch front had moved dramatically, causing a great deal of damage to cities along the front. The center of the quake was in the southern end of the Salt Lake Valley, where one of the east-west faults that branches off the main Wasatch front fault, had ruptured. The land mass in the south end of the valley, nears the Point of the Mountain, had dropped over fifty feet, apparently into an underground lake, causing water to fill fissures throughout the valley and spew upward. This created a new lake in the south end of Salt Lake Valley, which drained into the Jordan River and into the new fresh water Great Salt Lake. This took several weeks. However, no one was stranded in the taller buildings in the valley more than a few days.

They told the people that Utah Valley and surrounding area was also hit hard by the earthquake but had experienced only minor localized flooding when reservoirs had failed; also that the California coastline had broken off into a series of islands. Most of the devastation had occurred in North and South America. Much of Europe, Asia and Africa had been spared for the major effects of the earthquakes and tidal waves that had resulted. They had arrived in California in hundred of ships and had immediately worked with those people to stabilize things and then they had headed east. They informed the people that a large relief effort had landed on the east coast and was working west. Every major city that these groups had come to was devastated.

Almost all water was unfit for drinking because of the acts of war that began against this country – biological and nuclear. People suffered everywhere.

When the troops arrived in Utah, they were complimentary of the Church and surprised at how far the relief and restoration had progressed. But as the weeks progressed, they became less and less tolerant. They started taking advantage of any chaos that existed. Because of the collapse of civil authority, the Church had become the only organized group of people remaining. The Church had taken charge of rebuilding and reorganizing and did not stop just because relief efforts had arrived. This was the first city the troops had entered that didn’t just give up and hand control of civil matters over to the foreign troops. The organization of the Church seemed to thwart their plans to be in control. In a short time it became apparent that their primary goal was to establish their own government in place of federal and local governments. When they found the Church organized and functioning as a de facto government, it frustrated their plans, and it also created a split in their ranks, largely by national origin.

A few U.S. troops among them refused to act against the Church, as did many from Europe. Quite a few of the troops who resisted were members themselves. The troops from Asia were not dissuaded and thereafter decided that the Church was an enemy that had to be shut down or destroyed. But they could not proceed to just destroy the Church because of the troops who did not agree, and because of the fact that nearly all of the remaining population were members of the Church, or indebted to it for their lives and welfare.

A considerable amount of printed propaganda began coming from what appeared to be the remnants of the federal government. They proclaimed with great fanfare that this was the beginning of a “new world order.” They claimed that everything had changed in the world. For the first time in memory, the United States was no longer able to meet its own basic needs, and the rest of the world was welcoming us into this new world. Our own government seemed to be urging all U.S. citizens to just submit and accept the changes in civil authority. It didn’t take long for most people to decide the federal government no longer existed and that this propaganda was coming from the foreign troops themselves. Gradually the people began looking at the relief troops as a foreign invasion force. There was a huge growth of local resistance and distrust. Those who listened to the Holy Spirit realized that resisting these troops was not the Lord’s will. He had His own agenda, and those who obeyed Him just watched and waited upon the Lord.

The foreign troops at first waged a propaganda campaign, trying to destroy the people’s trust in the Church. They did this by publishing lies and accusations. They infiltrated the local meetings or paid people for information on what was going on in the local wards and stakes. They would create some sort of an uproar, just to see who was loyal to the Church and who would be loyal to the foreign authority.

They passed laws declaring that the Church had no authority in civil matters. Then they falsely accused and arrested key leaders for involving themselves in civic affairs. These were crimes against the new laws. Some of these leaders were publicly executed, which dramatically darkened the mood of the people toward the troops. In a short period of time they effectively ejected the Church from all civil matters. Since they could not tell a Mormon from anyone else just by looking at them, they made it illegal for any American to be in a position of authority in civil matters.

The mood of some of the people turned rebellious and along with the troops who had defected from the foreign forces, they moved from their homes up into the mountains. They took guns and provisions with them and periodically attacked the foreign troops. Their efforts were poorly inspired, and they were soon killed or captured, or they melted back into the larger society. The remainder of the people quietly turned their attention to prayer and faith, and they hearkened to the leadership of the Church. The Church began operating quietly to accomplish the Lord’s mission and did not fear the troops, but they also didn’t provoke them.

Atomic weapons were deployed by these troops to take out major defense installations around the nation and in Utah. There had been a first strike against the United States and it came without provocation.

As time went on the troops asserted greater and greater control, including establishing martial law and suspending civil liberties. The enforcement of their new laws was either by a warning, refusing further food and services to your family, or by execution. They did not maintain jails.

[30] 2028: The Collapse of the United States and other world governments – One World Government [see also Sign #21]

Before the United States will be willing to sign up and join the one-world government, it will have to fall apart economically, as well as suffer a complete breakdown of society as we know it.

In the beginning of the thirty-fourth year of the Nephite calendar (3^rd Nephi 8:5), a remarkable event occurred, one that is of critical importance to us today. According to Mormon, on the fourth day of the first month of the year, the Nephite nation collapsed under the weight of its own depravity. As we are to liken Book of Mormon events to us today, we should understand that this fall was on the scale of the cataclysms of the Flood and of Sodom and Gomorrah. Only a small group of Christians survived. Suddenly, above the darkness that had choked out any semblance of light, the voice of Jesus Christ was heard announcing his identity and the fulfillment of his mission; he declared the destruction of the wicked, lamented the evils of his people, and invited the remnant to come unto him with full purpose of heart.

Then the record goes silent. Mormon picks up the account “in the ending of the thirty and fourth year,” (3^rd Nephi 10:18) nearly twelve months later. What happened in the lives of the surviving Nephites during that year? Mormon only hints at what the people did with Jesus’ message; but when we piece together the account, we discover one of the great sermons of the Book of Mormon – a sermon that is of utmost importance to those of us who would become Zionlike.

We should keep in mind that these people were not unlike many of us: either they were new members or they were good people who were trying to live the gospel as best they could. Perhaps some were lukewarm; maybe others were sitting atop spiritual plateaus and lacking the motivation to keep climbing. Whatever their condition, we do know this: The Lord declared that they had escaped the destructions only because they were “more righteous” than the ones who had perished. We are left to speculate as to their degree of righteousness, but as we shall see, they needed time to change some things. The Savior was also quick to point out that they needed to change. Therefore, he called them to repentance and bade them strive to become truly converted so he could heal them (3^rd Nephi 9:13).

John Storey in his work quotes Ezekiel 30:1-3 and then comments on it. “The Word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, prophesy and say: this is what the Sovereign Lord says; Wail and say, ‘Alas for that day! For the day is near, the day of the Lord is near – a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.’” The following are his summarized comments:

Clouds denote storms, and “doom for the nations” is speaking of God’s judgment. The Bible teaches that God decides who will be placed in leadership to the nations of the world. I believe a nation can get to a point of no return. In America’s case, our leaders are taking a very dangerous position concerning the nation of Israel. This alone is enough to bring God’s judgment on America. When you look at what is happening in our courts, where evil is called good and good is called evil, we are heading in a direction that requires that God bring judgment on our nation. God loves the people of this nation; therefore, the events require that God bring judgment to turn the people of America back to Him. Many people in our nation are upset at the direction the leadership is taking us. I believe God has allowed the leaders of our nation to come to power as part of his judgment of this nation. He allows the leadership to make poor decisions that will ultimately lead to our collapse as a nation and force America to accept the joining of a global one-world government. This must happen for the fulfillment of the prophecies of the last days to come to pass.[9]

Then he quotes from the prophet Jeremiah: 1) 7:16 NIV: “So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you;” and 2) 11:11 NIV: “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.’”

“The powers behind the formation of this future one-world government have already laid out the division of this future global entity…. It is from this global division that we get the ten heads of the beast.” These divisions are given as: 1) America, Canada, Mexico; 2) South America; 3) Australia and New Zealand; 4) Western Europe; 5) Eastern Europe; 6) South Asia; 7) Central Asia; 8) North Africa; 9) South Africa; and 10) The Middle East.[10]

[31] 2028: The Call of Abraham; The Rise of the Davidic King

2^nd Nephi 3:24: And there shall rise up one mighty among them, who shall do much good, both in word and in deed, being an instrument in the hands of God, with exceeding faith, to work mighty wonders, and do that thing which is great in the sight of God, unto the bringing to pass much restoration unto the house of Israel, and unto the seed of thy brethren; 2^nd Nephi 8:5: My righteousness [the Davidic King] is near; my salvation [the Lord Jesus Christ] is gone forth, and mine arm [the Davidic King] shall judge the people. The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.

The rise of the Davidic king is at about the same time as the beast rises to power. The Lord gave us a statement about him that has caused considerable speculation among writers of books about last-days prophecy. Again, the writers have skipped many scriptures relating to this man and relied instead on the speculations of speakers of 100 years ago. The Lord said: Behold, I say unto you, the redemption of Zion must needs come by power; therefore, I will raise up unto my people a man, who shall lead them like as Moses led the children of Israel. For ye are the children of Israel, and out of the seed of Abraham, and ye must needs be let out of bondage by power, and with a stretched out arm (D&C 103:15-17). “A stretched out arm” is a metaphorical reference to the Davidic king.

Genesis 12:1-3 = 1: Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Isaiah 41:8-9 = 8: But thou, Israel, art my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. 9: Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee. Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.

Isaiah 51:2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you; for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.

The pattern of the call of Abraham, personalized in the last days as the call of the Davidic King, will happen just before the rise of the Antichrist and his invasion of the United States; the Davidic King will lead the Exodus back to Missouri.[11]

There are few in this dispensation, within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who believe that there will be a Davidic King. The most prominent of these was the late Elder Bruce R. McConkie.[12] He called the belief “The Davidic Myth.” He says: “This wresting of the written word assumes that someone of prophetic stature will arise in the Church in the last days, to preside as a Second David, and to prepare the way before the Second Coming of the Son of Man. That there may be one or many brethren called David who preside over the Church in this dispensation is of no moment. The scriptures that speak of King David reigning in the last days are Messianic; they have reference to the Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.” We will have to respectfully disagree and show how this will come about. As all types are patterns of past historical events, we must necessarily talk about Abraham as the type and shadow of the Davidic King, who is not Christ, and who reigns under Christ, as Abraham did under Melchizedek, the great High Priest of his time.

This servant of the Lord, when divinely empowered, fulfills both spiritual and temporal functions. His mission – in heralding deliverance or destruction – follows the pattern of Isaiah’s three-year mission in heralding the Lord’s day of judgment anciently when the Lord sent Isaiah to his people Israel and appointed him as a sign to the nations of the world. Because the Lord’s people in the last days are scattered among all nations, the servant’s mission encompasses the earth. The Lord appoints him as a prince, a witness, a lawgiver to the nations. As the Lord’s living oracle, he summons the repentant people of the earth to renew their covenantal allegiance to the Lord. The blind and deaf of the Lord’s people respond to the law and word of the Lord as they receive it through this servant. These see and hear in that day and affiliate with the Lord through the mediation of his servant. As the Lord’s spokesman or messenger, the servant leads them to the Lord himself.

The servant is able to help the Lord’s people ascend the spiritual ladder in part because of his own experience in doing so. At first, he endures humiliation and persecution, even to the point of being unrecognizably marred. Thereupon, the Lord heals him and gloriously empowers him to perform his redemptive mission. His reversal of circumstances is a paradigm of Zion’s imminent reversal from affliction to divine empowerment. As the Lord strengthens him, the poor and needy, the blind and deaf, and the hungry and thirsty [the outcasts of Israel] all respond to the servant’s mission of releasing them from bondage.

The Lord’s empowerment of his servant over political and spiritual enemies brings him worldwide recognition and renown. He attains the seraph level of the spiritual ladder and becomes an agent of life (just as the King of Assyria/Babylon is the agent of death). He fulfills that role initially as a temporal savior who delivers his people from destruction. Because he functions as a seraph or angel of the Lord’s presence, his vision and comprehension of the Lord’s plan of salvation are equal to his divine commission. The Lord thus acts in concert with his servant in implementing Zion’s full redemption.

A chief role of the servant of the Lord is to provide a paradigm of righteousness for His people. The Lord sends his servant, the Davidic king, as an exemplar to His people after the pattern of the righteous King Hezekiah. Additionally, the servant acts as an example of spiritual progression after the pattern of the prophet Isaiah. The servant’s personification of righteousness in the text illustrates his ability to exemplify righteousness – in the covenantal sense of loyalty toward the Lord – amid the peculiar challenges people face in the last days.

As the Lord’s people respond to the servant’s mission of establishing righteousness among them, the Lord does for his people as he does for their king. As the Lord heals and exalts his servant, so he heals and exalts his people Zion. Like him, they may become kings and priests and assume a prophetic office toward the nations of the earth. Righteous individuals among the Lord’s people emulate the righteousness of the servant, and become like him.

Certain servants and sons of Zion thus become as seraphs together with the Davidic king. Like him, they fulfill a proxy role as temporal saviors toward the Lord’s people, their royal investiture of priestly endowment empowering them to deliver others from bondage. As with the 144,000 servants of the Lord in the Book of Revelation, Isaiah identifies these individuals with the tribes of Israel to whom they minister.

Like the Davidic king, these servants suffer while serving others, thus themselves passing severe tests of loyalty. Rising from the dust to sit enthroned, these kings and priests of the Lord’s people are reborn as the Lord’s servants – his vassals – following intense humiliation and shame. Isaiah depicts their priestly endowment as a reversal of circumstances for those who mourn in Zion just prior to the Lord’s day of judgment. As the Lord delivers them from their afflictions, these leaders and rulers of the Lord’s people, in turn, deliver others. Their combined latter-day mission, when led by the Lord’s servant, brings about the redemption of Zion.

As an agent of the Lord’s redemption, the servant punishes the wicked and delivers the righteous. He delivers the Lord’s people by releasing them from bondage and exile and leading them in an exodus out of arch-Babylon to Zion. When led by the servant, the Lord’s people conquer the nations who oppressed them and re-inherit the promised land. The Lord’s righteous people assist the servant in restoring the land’s ruins and in building the temple of the Lord. The servant reconstitutes the tribes of Israel, unites Judah and Ephraim, and appoints the Lord’s people lands of inheritance.

This mission of the Davidic king provides the catalyst for a great division of the people into two opposite categories, a division that takes place at the Lord’s day of judgment. Those who repent will be redeemed as Zion, while those who reject the servant’s appeal to repent will perish.[13]

Some have thought that this person was Joseph Smith and that he will be resurrected and return to lead the people to Zion. When he was president, some thought it might be Brigham Young because they assumed that the retaking of Zion, or the land where it would be, would take place in their lifetimes. But both Joseph and Brigham have finished their ministries and gone on. This person has been identified in scripture that we have had in the Church since the beginning of the restoration.

With the unsealing of Isaiah, we can see the meaning in other scriptures which we have read over and over without beginning to understand them. So to our amazement we find that this great personage is discussed in many places and in fact, Joseph Smith identified him. Also, Isaiah clearly identified him: The people walking in darkness have seen a bright light; on the inhabitants of the land of the shadow of death has the light dawned. Thou hast enlarged the nation and increased its joy; they rejoice at thy presence as men rejoice at harvest time, or as men are joyous when they divide spoil. For thou hast smashed the yoke that burdened them, the staff of submission, the rod of those who subjected them, as in the day of Midian’s defeat. And all boots used in battle and tunics rolled in blood have become fuel for bonfires. For to us a child is born, a son appointed, who will shoulder the burden of government. He will be called Wonderful Counselor, one Mighty in Valor, a Father forever, a Prince of Peace – that sovereignty may be extended and peace have no end; that, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, his rule may be established and upheld by justice and righteousness from this time forth and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish it (Isaiah 9:2-7).

Almost everyone, including nearly all the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has assumed that this is a messianic prophecy looking to the birth of the Savior. The scripture is messianic in a sense because it talks of a deliverer to free the people from bondage, but this is not the Savior. The message is addressed to the “people walking in darkness.” We have again assumed that this was the apostate world among whom the Savior came as a bright light. It is true that he did so. But Isaiah was written for Israel only; and all of Isaiah is written, and the prophecies are, of last-days events. To be sure, Isaiah talks about the Savior in many places, but this is not one of them except that the Savior was and is a type of this great last-days deliverer.

The “people walking in darkness” refers to the church in the last days. Isaiah explains that because of the idolatry and injustice of the members of the church, he has ceased to speak to them through the designated oracles. “Procrastinate, and become bewildered; preoccupy yourselves, until you cry for help. Be drunk, but not with wine; stagger, but not from strong drink. The Lord has poured out on you a spirit of deep sleep: he has shut your eyes, the prophets; he has covered your heads, the seers…. But my Lord says, Because these people approach me with their mouth and pay me homage with their lips, while their heart remains far from me – their piety toward me consisting of the commandments of men learned by rote – therefore it is that I shall again astound these people with wonder, rendering void the knowledge of their sages, the intelligence of their wise men insignificant (Isaiah 29:9-10, 13-14). What he is saying is that he has stopped giving us revelation through the prophets and seers. The Lord is letting us wander in darkness without revelation as our guide. Thus, we, member of the Church, are temporarily cut off from revelation from the Savior. We are walking in the “land of the shadow of death,” which is the United States after the invasion by the beast. The ancient scene of the people of Israel in bondage in Egypt is being reenacted, hence the name of Egypt being applied to the United States today. In the midst of this terrible suffering and bondage, a light appears. It is a messiah or savior, but not the Lord. It is the one mighty and strong whom the Lord said would come to take them out of bondage. As stated in D&C 103, the people of Israel must be led out of bondage by power with a stretched out arm, a metaphor for a servant (used throughout Isaiah). Isaiah speaks of two arms; one is the beast or king of Assyria who is the Lord’s scourge and referred to as an arm and the other is the one mighty and strong, who is his righteous arm who will save the people.

This man then rescues the people from bondage of the beast or king of Assyria. The people rejoice when they see him because he is their deliverer and smashes the yoke of captivity just as Moses did in his day. This is a very powerful identification of the man. Isaiah is talking about literal bondage as he uses the example of the defeat of 120,000 Midianites by Gideon and his 300 (Judges 7:19-23). This was a miraculous event and was not accomplished by strength of arms alone. In addition, the clothing and equipment of the invaders will be burned as fuel.

He will sit upon the throne of David and preside over his kingdom and will rule forever. The Lord never did set up a temporal government with himself as king. His rule was spiritual and although he was the de facto king of Israel, he was never crowned and so did not act as the government. This latter-day king will, however, literally sit on the throne of David and will be the temporal ruler of Israel. The kingdom will be reestablished and will never more be given to another. This is what is meant by the kingdom being given to the saints. He will rule by justice and righteousness, which we see by the two names given to him: “A shoot [rod] will spring up from the stock [stem] of Jesse and a branch from its graft [roots] bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him – the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of valor, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His intuition will be guided by the fear of the Lord; he will not judge by what his eyes see, nor establish proof by what his ears hear. He will judge the poor with righteousness, and with equity arbitrate for the lowly in the land; he will smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips slay the wicked. Righteousness will be as a band about his waist, faithfulness a girdle round his loins. In that day the sprig [root] of Jesse, who stands for an ensign to the peoples, shall be sought by the nations, and his residence shall be glorious. In that day my Lord will again raise his hand to reclaim the remnant of his people – those who shall by left out of Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hammath, and the islands of the sea. He will raise the ensign to the nations and assemble the exiled of Israel; he will gather the scattered of Judah from the four directions of the earth (Isaiah 11:1-5, 10-12).

These verses have often been quoted and the virtues here usually assigned to the Savior. However, Joseph Smith received a clarification about this scripture: “Who is the stem of Jesse spoken of in the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th verses of the 11^th chapter of Isaiah? Verily thus saith the Lord: It is Christ. What is the rod spoken of in the first verse of the 11^th chapter of Isaiah, that should come of the Stem of Jesse? Behold, thus saith the Lord: It is a servant in the hands of Christ who is partly a descendant of Jesse as well as of Ephraim, or of the house of Joseph, on whom there is laid much power. What is the root of Jesse spoken of in the 10^th verse of the 11^th chapter? Behold, thus saith the Lord, it is a descendant of Jesse, as well as of Joseph, unto whom rightly belongs the priesthood, and the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days (D&C 113:1-6).

These two scriptures give us a partial description of this man. The man will be a descendant of Jesse, or of the royal Davidic lineage. He will be a righteous ruler because he will judge the people; hence he is a Davidic king. He will be a prophet because he will rely on the Spirit of the Lord which will rest upon him. He will smite the enemies of the people with the rod, or word of his mouth. Rod is a metaphor for word or words, such as Lehi’s iron rod which is defined by him as the word of God. But this also means that he will have the power to command even the elements and they will obey him. This is the fullness of the priesthood; the power of Elijah.

Joseph Smith reveals much more. As partly being of Ephraim, he has the right to officiate and function with the keys of this dispensation. Much power is laid on him (the one mighty and strong). In verse 5, Joseph asks who the root is. This is a parallelism and the root and rod are one and the same person but the Lord gives some additional information. He has the right to hold the keys of the kingdom. This means he has the right to preside using all the keys held now by the president of the Church. When he comes, then, he will preside by right. The final thing the Lord says about this person is that his principal mission will be to gather the people of Israel in the last days. It is important to remember this, his primary mission, because other scriptures describe him in terms of this mission.

The Lord also says “last days” rather than in “these days” indicating that he viewed the last days as yet some way off. Joseph stated that the original King David did not receive the fullness of the priesthood, which is the spirit and power of Elijah. He further stated that the priesthood “and the throne and kingdom of David was to be taken from him and given to another by the name of David in the last days, raised up out of his lineage” (DHC 6:253). He also recognized that the “last days” were still sometime in the future.

This king will have the power of Elijah, or the fullness of the priesthood, since, as Isaiah says above, “he will smite the earth with the rod [word] of his mouth…” The Lord also refers to him as his “hand,” a common metaphor in Isaiah. He will raise his “hand” to rescue the people. When he first spoke of the one mighty and strong, he said “I will raise up….” The act of raising is the calling and empowering of his servant. He also says his residence shall be glorious. His residence, of course, will be the New Jerusalem of which much is given in the scriptures.

Jeremiah gives some other information. He states that this will happen in a time of apostasy or the period prior to the tribulation. He says he will place stumbling blocks before the people and many will fall on them. Blocks are also stones but they are other than the seer upon whom people stumble. They are false teachers who deceive the people by saying “all is well in Zion” when we are in dire apostasy and need to repent. For this, the Lord will send a great nation from the North to punish the “Daughter of Zion.” There is one thing that reveals that it is speaking of our time. Jeremiah says that this great nation will arise from the “sides of the earth.” The beast of the last days will be a great nation extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific or literally from the sides of the earth. The Babylonian Empire occupied a relatively small area at the height of its power. So while the same conditions prevailed then, it is addressing us specifically today.

The stone or seer, is the same Davidic prophet who was described earlier as having the keys of the kingdom and who acts as directed by the Spirit. Those who accept and follow him, will be able to survive. He will also be a stumbling block to many as Peter said. He will be an offense and many people will not accept him. Elder McConkie said that the idea of a Davidic prophet in the last days is heresy and this has pretty much become the official position of the Church and a major stumbling block in the last days. When he appears, those who have followed this error, will be offended because he will not be of the hierarchy they know, or he will not come to his office in the “proper” order of things, as they perceive. This will be a very dangerous time. We, therefore, must become familiar with who this great and mighty seer is to be, and the actuality of his coming. He has been foretold by Isaiah, John, Joseph Smith and even by the Lord in the Book of Mormon, yet there are those who deny that he will come. He is the forerunner of Christ, the very Elias as Joseph said (D&C 113) and to deny that Elias will come is to deny that the Savior will come. There are many more scriptures dealing with this great individual. One such scripture which signals his role as Elias is also found in Isaiah: “A voice calls out, In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; in the wilderness pave a straight highway for our God: every ravine must be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground must become level and rough terrain a plain. For the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh see it at once. By his mouth the Lord has spoken it. See, my Lord the Lord comes with power; his arm presides for him. His reward is with him; his work precedes him” (Isaiah 40:3-5, 10). This has often been misquoted since the King James Version is in error. The scripture is a parallelism: prepare the way in the desert and pave a highway in the wilderness.

A couple of important metaphors common in Isaiah are used here: mouth and voice. These are the same person. He is Elias, or the forerunner of the Second Coming, just as John the Baptist was in the First Coming. In verse 10, Isaiah says the Lord comes with power, which is the Second Coming not the First, and “his arm presides for him” Arm is another important metaphor for the Davidic prophet as we discovered in D&C 113. He has the keys and presides by right, hence this scripture is talking about the same person. Further, in Isaiah: Who has raised up Righteousness from the east, calling him to the place of his foot?... I have raised up one from the north who calls on my name, who shall come from the direction of the sunrise. He shall come upon dignitaries as on mud, tread them as clay like a potter: Who announced this beforehand, so we would know, declared it ahead of time, that we might say, He was right? Indeed, no one could foretell it, not one make it known; no one has heard from you any prophetic utterance. But to Zion, he shall be her harbinger. It will appoint him as a herald of tidings to Jerusalem (Isaiah 41:2, 25-27).

Righteousness is a name for the Davidic king. Another name for New Jerusalem is the City of Righteousness which is the same as the City of David, because that is what it means. He will be a prophet to tell us of things to come, especially the Second Coming. He will also reveal hidden things, possibly additional sacred records. “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angel, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of God in their foreheads (Rev. 7:2-3). The seal which he holds is the keys to the kingdom. He has the authority to command the angels who are commissioned to wreck havoc on the earth. In other words, he has the power of Elijah. Joseph Smith also received more information on this person: Question: What are we to understand by the angel ascending from the east, Revelation 7:2? Answer: We are to understand that the angel ascending from the east is he to whom is given the seal of the living God over the twelve tribes of Israel; wherefore, he crieth unto the four angels… And if you will receive it, this is Elias which was to come to gather the tribes of Israel and restore all things (D&C 77:9).

In this verse we have confirmed much of what we already know. He is Elias, or the precursor of the Savior; the harbinger or herald in Isaiah 41:27 above. And again we see his mission is to gather Israel, thereby confirming him as the same person in all the scriptures referred to previously. He holds the seal over the Tribes of Israel, or in other words he is the king and head of the priesthood, since he presides for the Lord, as we just read. So we have latter-day revelation confirming that these revelations in Isaiah and Revelation pertain to the last days and to the Davidic king who is to come. The Lord continues talking about his chosen servant: “My servant whom I sustain, my chosen one in whom I delight, him I have endowed with my Spirit; he will dispense justice to the nations. He will not shout or raise his voice to make himself heard in public. Even a bruised reed he will not break; a dim wick he will not snuff out. He will perform the work of justice in the cause of truth. Neither shall he himself grow dim or be bruised until he has brought about justice to the earth. The isles await his law. Thus says the Lord God, who frames and suspends the heavens, who gives form to the earth and its creatures, the breath of life to the people upon it, spirit to those who walk on it: I the Lord have rightfully called you and will grasp you by the hand; I have created you and appointed you to be a covenant for the people, a light to the nations, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from confinement and from prison those who sit in darkness (Isaiah 42:1-7).

In verses 6 and 7, the Lord speaks to his servant. This should dispel the notion that the subject of this prophecy is the Lord. It is clearly referring to someone else. The Lord would not be speaking to himself in this way. In verse 5 he gives an affirmation of his godhood as the creator of the earth. Then in verses 6 and 7 he states that he, Jehovah the creator, has called him, the servant.

Grasping by the hand is the endowment of power and this function is very familiar to most of us. He is to be the living Davidic covenant in the last days. The Davidic covenant will be in force during the tribulation and will operate the same as in ancient times. This is the escape the Lord has prepared for the people. The members of the Church will be taken captive, but he will free them from prison both in the literal and metaphorical senses under the terms of the Davidic covenant.

In Isaiah’s chapters 41-55, he speaks much about the Davidic prophet and from these and the previous related verses, we get a picture of this man. Since this is the most important last days event for us, and our lives will depend on him, it is important to look at these scriptures: “I summon a bird of prey from the east, from a distant land the man who performs my counsel. What I have spoken, I bring to pass; what I have planned, I do. Hear me, you stubborn-hearted, who are far from righteousness; it is not now far off – my salvation shall no longer be delayed. I will grant deliverance in Zion, and to Israel my glory” (Isaiah 46:11-13). Remember that the Lord is speaking to us, the church in the United States, so the land from whence the Davidic servant comes, Palestine or Israel, is a distant land in the east. He then addresses us as stubborn-hearted who are far from righteousness. Righteousness is a name for the Davidic king, as we have seen, so he is talking about us who are far from him geographically at the moment, but we are also spiritually far from righteousness as we read in the first three chapters of Isaiah. We are in a state of apostasy today. But he says that righteousness is now, the time we are in, not far off and salvation will no longer be delayed. In other words we are there. This is the twelfth hour. The deliverance from captivity and the establishment of Zion in glory is at the door; therefore, the threatened captivity is even closer.

Now let us read the words of the Davidic king speaking in his own right: “Hear me, O isles; listen, you distant people: The Lord called me before I was in the belly; before I was in my mother’s womb, he mentioned me by name. He has made my mouth like a sharp sword – in the shadow of his hand he hid me. He has made me into a polished arrow – in his quiver he kept me secret. He said to me, You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified. I had thought, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose! Yet my cause rested with the Lord, my recompense with my God. For now the Lord has said – he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to restore Jacob to him, Israel having been gathered to him; for I won honor in the eyes of the Lord when my god became my strength – he said: It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore those preserved of Israel. I will also appoint you to be a light to the nations, that my salvation may be to the ends of the earth. Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel, to him who is despised as a person, who is abhorred by his nation, a servant to those in authority: Rulers shall rise up when they see you, heads of state shall prostrate themselves, because the Lord keeps faith with you, because the Holy One of Israel has chosen you. Thus says the Lord: At a favorable time I have answered you; in the day of salvation I have come to your aid: I have created you and appointed you to be a covenant of the people, to restore the Land and reapportion the desolate estates, to say to the captives, Come forth! And to those in darkness, Show yourselves!...” (Isaiah 49:1-9).

The Davidic king says that he felt as though he had labored in vain, spending his strength to no purpose. This is a very human reaction to the apparent desire to serve and work but without a specific mission. He has labored hard, apparently, but he trusted in the Lord to give him what he deserved. After these words, the Lord speaks to him and empowers him. His task is to restore Jacob to him. In Isaiah, Jacob is the name the Lord uses to refer to the Jews. At times he also calls them Judah when he doesn’t want to hide the meaning. But Jacob can also mean the Ten Tribes. In this case, his mission is to restore the Ten Tribes. At the time he receives this duty or calling, Israel is already gathered to him. This is strange unless we understand that Israel is the name the Lord uses in Isaiah to refer to Ephraim or to the modern Church. Ephraim has been gathered through our missionary efforts and exists as the Church today. This gives us a rough time check. The Davidic prophet will come after the Church is organized and Ephraim is gathered and before the Ten Tribes are restored. So we are in the time period in which the Davidic king will come to power. Since he has not come yet, the time of his coming must be between today and the time when the Ten Tribes return, which is immediately following the tribulation.

[32] 2028 The Great Division

“… the time cometh, said the Lord, that when ye shall cast out the righteous from among you, then shall ye be ripe for destruction; yea, wo [a covenant curse] be unto this great city, because of the wickedness and abominations which are in her.”

2^nd Nephi 6:14-18 = 14: “And behold, according to the words of the prophet, the Messiah will set himself again the second time to recover them; wherefore, he will manifest himself unto them in power and great glory, unto the destruction of their enemies, when that day cometh when they shall believe in him; and none will he destroy that believe in him. 15: And they that believe not in him shall be destroyed, both by fire, and by tempest, and by earthquakes, and by bloodsheds, and by pestilence, and by famine. And they shall know that the Lord is God, the Holy One of Israel. 16: For shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? 17: But thus saith the Lord: Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for the Mighty God shall deliver his covenant people. For thus saith the Lord: I will contend with them that contendeth with thee – 18: And I will feed them that oppress thee, with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; and all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Savior and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

During Israel’s captivity in Babylon, prophecies and time lines were fulfilled as given by Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel. In the spring of 536 B.C., in the month of Nisan, and under the decree of the Persian king, Cyrus, a small remnant – about 50,000 people – of the house of Judah returned to Jerusalem. The vast majority were content to remain in the pagan Persian Empire as colonists.[14] This is instructive of the Great Division to come.

It has always been that this division develops gradually. A true Zion community will develop on an individual and community basis, staying mixed with Babylon until being called together by the prophet to begin the physical separation from Babylon.[15]

There exists no scriptural type or precedent of the Lord’s bringing on a universal judgment until his own people wallow in wickedness. Their righteousness can stay such a judgment from the earth, but their transgressions become the catalyst of judgment when the balance tips in favor of wickedness. Hence the scripture, “upon my house shall it begin” (D&C 112:25). This catalyzing effect occurred in two instances of biblical history: first, when the ten tribes of Israel apostatized, leading to Assyria’s conquest and desolation of the ancient world; and second, when Judah apostatized and Babylon repeated Assyria’s scenario of destruction and exile. The prophets link both events to Israel’s idolatry (compare Isaiah 10:3-11; Jeremiah 25:3-11; and Hosea 11:1-7). By likening wicked Israel to Sodom and Gomorrah (compare Isaiah 1:10; Jeremiah 23:14; and Ezekiel 16:49), the prophets allude both to Israel’s fate and to a deficit of righteous people (compare Genesis 18:23-32; and 19:24-29).[16]

D&C 133:5, 7, 12-15; 5: “Go ye out from Babylon. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord…. 7: Yea, verily I say unto you again, the time has come when the voice of the Lord is unto you: Go ye out of Babylon; gather ye out from among the nations, from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other…. 12: Let them, therefore, who are among the Gentiles flee unto Zion. 13: And let them who be of Judah flee unto Jerusalem, unto the mountains of the Lord’s house. 14: Go ye out from among the nations, even from Babylon, from the midst of wickedness, which is spiritual Babylon. 15: But verily, thus saith the Lord, let not your flight be in haste, but let all things be prepared before you; and he that goeth, let him not look back lest sudden destruction shall come upon him.”

It would be wonderful if we could avoid divisions, but no individual has that option. The prophesied division that is forthcoming will be tumultuous. The late Elder Neal A. Maxwell noted that the division between the Nephites and Lamanites (2^nd Nephi 5:6) was first spiritual and then geographic. In the following years, a geographic division has been prophesied that will be based on obedience to the words of the Lord’s servant (D&C 1:14). Speaking of our day, the prophet Nephi saw the split coming. “For the time speedily cometh that the Lord God shall cause a great division among the people, and the wicked will he destroy; and he will spare his people, yea, even if it so be that he must destroy the wicked by fire” (2^nd Nephi 30:10).

The precise time and situation for the Great Division is placed here in the sequence of signs because of its relationship to the calling of the Davidic King, the times of the Gentiles being fulfilled; and other proximate signs. The expulsion of the saints from Missouri and Illinois was kindled by fear of political power exerted by the Mormons. Gay rights, abortion, family rights, and other issues may spark this division in our day, but only if other religions abdicate their positions. Perhaps, like the Jews of the past, the Latter-day Saints will be blamed for hard times simply because they are different, when, in reality, the economic troubles will be the result of the bad moral culture and economic policies that accompany the breakup of the family.

The future division will occur based on who will listen and obey; the Lord said: “And the arm of the Lord shall be revealed; and the day cometh that they who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of his servants, neither give heed to the words of the prophets and apostles, shall be cut off from among the people” (D&C 1:14). This warning is particularly addressed to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This division will occur in conjunction with the arm, or power, of the Lord being revealed. It will be necessary not to be ashamed of the Lord’s power. It will occur worldwide, followed by a call to battle against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Lord will defend his saints as the war spreads out among all nations, but Zion will largely be protected and the only people who shall not be at war with one another (D&C 45:69).

D&C 63:54: “And until that hour there will be foolish virgins among the wise; and at that hour cometh an entire separation of the righteous and the wicked; and in that day will I send mine angels to pluck out the wicked and cast them into unquenchable fire.”

The great division among the people at the death of Joseph Smith was a type of the last great division. What is the catalyst that causes the division and tests our faith?[17] The Lord accuses the Mormons of lapsing into apostasy. This apostasy included idolatry, injustice and violating the Sabbath.[18] We are like the Jews at the time of Lehi. The Lehi typology points to future events of 1) warnings; 2) Babylonian captivity of the wicked; 3) righteous leave into the wilderness; and 4) the righteous wander for three and a half years before arriving in Missouri.[19]

Throughout the Church’s history, there have been periods of persecution and trial. George Q. Cannon[20] explained: “It is true that the Lord has said that the tares shall grow with the wheat until harvest, but it is not said that tares will not be plucked up from time to time, for if it were not so they would overpower and choke out the wheat.

“The sifting or weeding process has been going on from the commencement of this Church until the present time; hence it is that the leaders of this Church are stirred up in their feelings from time to time to call upon the people to repent. They understand clearly that [otherwise] … this people would soon fall into darkness and error, and stray from the path of righteousness.”[21]

The Lord described this cleansing process of the Church in the parable of the tame and wild olive trees, which was given to the prophet Zenos. Near the end of the parable, as it describes the events of the last days, the Lord commands His servants:

“Wherefore, ye shall clear away the bad according as the good shall grow, that the root and the top may be equal in strength, until the good shall overcome the bad, and the bad be hewn down and cast into the fire, that they cumber not the ground of my vineyard; and thus will I sweep away the bad out of my vineyard…. And the bad shall be cast away, yea, even out of all the land of my vineyard (Jacob 5:66, 69; emphasis added).

As the righteous members of the Church are able to handle the removal of the tares, the Lord will sweep more and more of the bad from the Church. This will strengthen the Church and its members, as President Brigham Young explained:

“I wish you to understand that when the sheep are separated from the goats, they [the sheep] will never again bear the like afflictions they bore while they mingled with the goats, as long as the world stands; no, neither in this world or any other.

“… When there are no goats to annoy the sheep, the latter will mingle with each other and go hand in hand in full fellowship.

“But when goats are among the sheep, they will besmear them with their stink, and they frisk about, and behave so as to actually turn the sheep almost into goats.”[22]

It is important for us to know whether we are considered by the Lord to be a weedy tare or a stock of wheat in the Church – to know where we stand in the vineyard of the Lord. President Brigham Young gave us a key so that we can discern this for ourselves:

“Let us ask ourselves the question, am I a wheat or a tare? The proof as to whether we are tares or wheat may be seen in our lives, as it is written, ‘For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother’ (Matthew 12:50). Again, ‘not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven’ (Matthew 7:21).

“This is the proof – keep the commandments, observe the ordinances, and preserve the institutions of Christ’s church inviolate, doing all things that are required of us, as unto the Lord, sanctifying ourselves before Him, and, ‘By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another’ (John 13:35).”[23]

Joseph F. Smith added his testimony concerning this, and warned us that we need to be certain we are following the Lord so that we do not fall under the judgments of God in the latter days:

“I further testify, that unless the Latter-day Saints will live their religion, keep their covenants with God and their brethren, honor the priesthood which they bear, and try faithfully to bring themselves into subjection to the laws of God, they will be the first to fall beneath the judgments of the Almighty, for His judgments will begin at His own house.

“Therefore, those who have made a covenant with the Lord by baptism, and have broken that covenant, who profess to be Saints, and are not, but are sinners, and covenant-breakers, and partakers of the sins of Babylon, most assuredly will ‘receive of her plagues,’ for it is written that the righteous will barely escape,” [and I would add: the wicked not at all].[24]

The Lord has told us that the time is soon approaching when the tares will be removed from the Church. Now is the time to prepare for the events that are coming. It is only through a personal and firm testimony of the Savior and the Restoration of the Church that we will be able to stand firm when the tares are removed.

In a modern revelation we learn that “the angels are waiting the great command to reap down the earth, to gather the tares that they may be burned.” [D&C 38:12] The Lord further explained: “The angels are crying unto the Lord day and night, who are ready and waiting to be sent forth to reap down the fields; but the Lord saith unto them, pluck not up the tares while the blade [of wheat] is yet tender (for verily your faith is weak), lest you destroy the wheat also.

“Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned.” [D&C 86:3-7]

As some of the tares are flushed out of the Church, this process will strengthen and sanctify it. The persecution and trials that will come upon the Church will help to remove the dross, and prepare the Church to be the worthy bride who will meet the returning Bridegroom in glory and splendor. [D&C 109:73-74] The Saints will increase in righteousness as the Church is purified, and this will enable them to accomplish many important tasks in the latter days, to prepare the way for the Savior’s Second Coming in glory and power. The division may very well come as a result of how the Davidic prophet is called to preside over the Church. As with the Jews who refused to give up the law of Moses, to accept Christianity, many may balk at this new order of calling the prophet.

The Lord has told us that “the day soon cometh that ye shall see me, and know that I am; for the veil of darkness shall soon be rent, and he that is not purified shall not abide the day.” [D&C 38:8; emphasis added]

[1]Grant R. Jeffery, Armageddon: Earth’s Last Days (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1997), pages 95-96.

[2]Robert Smith, The Last Days Unsealed (Orem, Utah: Agreka Books, 1999) pages 49-50.

[3]Ibid., pages 61-62.

[4]Richard Skousen, op. cit., pages 190-191.

[5]John Pontius, op. cit., page 133.

[6]Ibid., page 117-124.

[7]LaHaye, op. cit., page 40. See Revelation chapters 6, 11, and 16.

[8]Storey, op. cit., pages 188-189.

[9]Storey, op. cit., pages 187-188.

[10]Ibid., page 77.

[11]Gileadi, The Last Days, op. cit., page 98.

[12]Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), page 518 #3.

[13]Avraham Gileadi, The Literary Message of Isaiah (New York: Hebraeus Press, 1994), pages 264-268.

[14]Jeffrey, op. cit., pages 38-40.

[15]Mitchell, op. cit., page 64.

[16]Gileadi, The Last Days, page 14.

[17]Gileadi, The Last Days, pages 106-107.

[18]In 2015 the Brethren began to express concern and stressed compliance with honoring the Sabbath day.

[19]Gileadi, The Last Days, pages 12-13.

[20]October Conference, October 6, 1875 [recorded in JD18:84].

[21]Richard N. Skousen, His Return, op. cit., pages 76-79.

[22]Brigham Young, April 7, 1852 [Journal of Discourses 6:320].

[23]Brigham Young, March 29, 1868 [Journal of Discourses 12:168-169].

[24]Joseph F. Smith, Conference Report, April 1880, page 96.[23] 2028: U. S. Civil War: Part of the War of Gog and Magog