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Looking Forward With the Eye of Faith
by Paul
Savage
Church leaders and
contemporaries of Joseph Smith gave us many
insights about what might lie ahead for our
country. Following are some of their
declarations.
“To all who have
discerning eyes, it is apparent that the
republican form of government established by
our noble forefathers cannot long endure
once fundamental principles are abandoned.
Momentum is gathering for another conflict —
a repetition of the crisis of two hundred
years ago. This collision of ideas is
worldwide. Another monumental moment is soon
to be born. The issue is the same that
precipitated the great pre-mortal conflict —
will men be free to determine their own
course of action or must they be coerced?”
“We are fast
approaching that moment prophesied by Joseph
Smith when he said: ‘Even this nation will
be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces
and tumbling to the ground, and when the
Constitution is upon the brink of ruin, this
people will be the staff upon which the
nation shall lean, and they shall bear the
Constitution away from the very verge of
destruction’.” (July 19, 1840, Joseph Smith
Collection, LDS Church Historical
Department). (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson
623-24)
“I have faith that the
Constitution will be saved as prophesied by
Joseph Smith. But it will not be saved in
Washington. It will be saved by the citizens
of this nation who love and cherish freedom.
It will be saved by enlightened members of
this Church — men and women who will
subscribe to and abide the principles of the
Constitution.” (Ezra Taft Benson: The
Constitution, a Heavenly Banner, 31)
“Will the Constitution
be destroyed? No: it will be held inviolate
by this people; and, as Joseph Smith said,
‘The time will come when the destiny of the
nation will hang upon a single thread. At
that critical juncture, this people will
step forth and save it from the threatened
destruction.’ It will be so.” (JD 7:15;
quoted by Brigham Young)
Orson Hyde records that
Brigham Young declared, “It is said that
Brother Joseph in his lifetime declared that
the Elders of this Church should step forth
at a particular time when the Constitution
should be in danger, and rescue it, and save
it. This may be so; but I do not recollect
that he said exactly so. I believe he
[Joseph] said something like this — that the
time would come when the Constitution and
the country would be in danger of an
overthrow; and, said he, If the Constitution
be saved at all, it will be by the Elders of
this Church. I believe this is about the
language, as nearly as I can recollect it.”
(JD 6:152; quoted by Orson Hyde)
Eliza R. Snow recalled,
“My sisters, my remarks, in conclusion, will
be brief. I heard the prophet Joseph Smith
say if the people rose up and mobbed us and
the authorities countenanced it, they would
have mobs to their hearts' content. I heard
him say that the time would come when this
nation would so far depart from its original
purity, its glory, and its love for freedom
and its protection of civil rights and
religious rights, that the Constitution of
our country would hang as it were by a
thread. He said, also, that this people, the
sons of Zion, would rise up and save the
Constitution and bear it off triumphantly.”
(Snow, Eliza R., 556)
Mosiah Hancock, who was
a boy of about ten at the time, quotes
Joseph Smith as saying just a few days
before his death: “The United States will
spend her strength and means warring in
foreign lands until other nations will say,
"Let's divide up the lands of the United
States", then the people of the U. S. will
unite and swear by the blood of their
fore-fathers, that the land shall not be
divided.
“Then the country will
go to war, and they will fight until one
half of the U. S. army will give up, and the
rest will continue to struggle. They will
keep on until they are very ragged and
discouraged, and almost ready to give
up--when the boys from the mountains will
rush forth in time to save the American Army
from defeat and ruin. And they will say,
'Brethren, we are glad you have come; give
us men, henceforth, who can talk with God'.
Then you will have friends, but you will
save the country when its liberty hangs by a
hair, as it were". (Mosiah Hancock
Autobiography, pg. 28, BYU Special
Collections)
When I read these
prophecies, I sometimes tend to fear what we
may have to endure in the last days. But
then, when I also read how the Lord has
protected His Saints in all dispensations, I
find great comfort and peace. For instance,
Levi Hancock, the father of the Mosiah
Hancock quoted above, was a close friend and
body guard of Joseph Smith. They observed
many miracles of protection in Nauvoo:
"Father had a great deal of opposition in
Nauvoo. One day as father and I were walking
down Water Street, and we came within twenty
feet of the Mansion, an east window raised
up, and Francis M. Higbee took deliberate
aim with a rifle, and shot father in the
left breast.
"I was walking on
father's right side, and I saw the shot
fired, and heard the thud as the bullet
struck, but father stopped and picked up the
bullet from the ground, and reaching it
toward heaven with his right hand, said, "I
thank thee, O God the Eternal Father, in the
name of Jesus Christ, that thou didst
destroy the power of this bullet". As soon
as the shot was fired, the window was shut
down. I suppose Higbee thought father was
gone this time for sure, but father had been
shot at many times by the mobbers and
apostates. Father had had the temple in his
care for sometime, and some were jealous of
the honors conferred upon him." (Ibid. pg.
31)
That’s not to say that
all the righteous will escape persecution in
the last days, for certainly Joseph Smith
and Jesus Christ were not spared, but the
Lord’s eyes will be upon His chosen people,
and to a large degree, He will deliver His
people with a mighty hand.
We must rejoice that for the very first time
in the history of the world, the Priesthood
and the Kingdom of God will finally prove
victorious, and we may live to see it
fulfilled! But even if we are not permitted
to tarry, imagine our joy when we are caught
up to meet Him in the clouds:
“For the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God: and
the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we
which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we
ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort
one another with these words.” (First
Thessalonians 4:16 - 18)
These are comforting words, indeed.
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