Exact time of coming Mormon Doctrine Studies - Page 7
Continued...
Elder Joseph Young of the First Council of the Seventy and the brother of Brigham Young, claimed to have learned the following from Joseph Smith himself:
QUOTE "¦Enoch and his people, with the city which they occupied, and the foundations on which it stood, with a large piece of earth immediately connected with the foundations and the city, had assumed an aerial position within the limits of our solar system"¦
Another student of the prophet, Orson Pratt noted:
QUOTE The descendants of Noah not having faith sufficient to be caught up into Zion, concluded to build a tower sufficiently high to get there without being under the necessity of receiving a translation. From this it appears that the early descendants of Noah had an idea that Zion was located somewhere near the earth.(The Seer, Vol. II)
To generate a picture of this scene in our mind we have to consider the moon's size, it's proximity to the earth, and it's minimal tidal influence upon earth's oceans. Then try to imagine a globe of sufficient size and position to lift and hold all the earth's sea-water at the North Pole. This scene will also help us understand why a scroll was used as a scriptural symbol of the restitution of the earth to its pre-flood paradisiacal condition. We can easily picture, in our minds eye, another planet and the earth as they roll toward each other across the immensity of space and envision a scroll, seen from the end, being rolled together.
QUOTE
Isaiah 34:4 "¦the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll
Revelation 6:14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
3 Nephi 26:3 "¦the earth should be wrapt together as a scroll
Mormon 5:23 "¦at his great command the earth shall be rolled together as a scroll
Mormon 9:2 "¦that great day when the earth shall be rolled together as a scroll
According to the prophet Joseph Smith THE sign of the second coming of Jesus Christ will be the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel returning to the earth and Orson Pratt, of another similar event, wrote:
QUOTE This city will, most probably, not rest upon the earth but hover over it"¦ This proves that there will be a glorified place above the surface of the earth"¦ The Zion of Enoch, therefore, will probably be very near the earth, located over the American continent where it was anciently built; and most likely, will partake of the diurnal and annual revolutions of the earth, so as not to change it's relative position in regard to the western hemisphere of our planet.
In a statement above, the Apostle Parley P. Pratt spoke about "fragments"¦ broken off from the earth" returning during the restitution of all things. He spoke not just about the City of Enoch but also of the lost ten tribes. In an article published in the March 1892 Young Woman's Journal, O. B. Huntington, an intimate associate of the Prophet Joseph Smith and a Patriarch in Springville, Utah mentioned that the earth had two wings and drew them as semi-circles giving the earth the appearance of having polar elongations. Another friend, and onetime bodyguard of the Prophet, Philo Dibble is said to have received a diagram from the Prophet in 1842, which indicated the arrangement of this earth as a triple planet, at the time when the Ten Tribes were directed to the northern sphere.
The scene we are considering lends understanding to and makes it easier to picture the ten tribes traveling from the northern axis of the earth to the American continent. D&C 133 is describing a melting ice cap, is it melting because it will be covered by the great deep?
V
QUOTE erse 26: And they who are in the north countries shall come"¦ "¦and they shall smite the rocks, and the ice shall flow down at their presence. 27 And an highway shall be cast up in the midst of the great deep.
A "restitution of all things" would, of course, return the earth to its pre-flood condition. Something, not here now, will transform the climate and environment of the earth into a terrarium-like condition.
QUOTE Genesis 2 "¦the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
These are just a few examples, there are others that when considered under the light of the vision suggested above become clearer, easier to picture in our mind.
Revelation 8 "¦a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; "¦and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, "¦and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
In this study we have established that THE sign of the second coming of Jesus Christ will be a now hidden planet moving into a position very close to the earth. The next question we will address is: when will all the earth see THE sign.
Several scriptures link the common elements of the appearance of THE sign to one frightful event in the future; the battle of Armageddon. Near the end of a three and half year siege upon the city of Jerusalem the Savior, even Jesus the Christ, will come to the rescue of the Jews. According to Zechariah:
QUOTE the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
The Old Testament prophet then outlines a couple of things about the day of the rescue that tie this scripture to other prophesies about this event:
QUOTE And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
Though not emphasized as such, to consider the breaking of the Mount of Olives down the middle with the opposing halves moving away from each other, creating "a very great valley," to be just another earthquake is probably a bit of an understatement. The book of Revelation, again speaking of "a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon" describes the magnitude of the earthquake, along with
QUOTE voices, and thunders and lightening, as a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty and earthquake, and so great
and concludes with
QUOTE every island fled away and the mountains were not found.
This earthquake to end all earthquakes will be caused by the same gravitation pull that will drive the seas of the world back to the "north countries." It will, by lifting and then releasing the rotating earth's upper crust; similar to the moon's tidal influence on the oceans of the world, level every mountain range on the planet, thus returning the surface of the earth to its original mountain-less condition. Genesis 7 says that the flood waters were just fifteen cubits; less than 25 foot deep:
QUOTE and the mountains were covered.
Ezekiel 38 described in specific detail the destruction to be caused by the earthquake resulting from the appearance of THE sign:
QUOTE at the same time, when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, "¦there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.