9 And with righteousness shall the Lord God judge the
poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the
earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips shall he slay
the wicked.
10 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.
After writing about the Jews accepting Christ, Nephi turns once again to Isaiah.
“But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and [decide
with equity] with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the
earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay
the wicked.
“And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and
faithfulness the girdle of his [waist].
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling
together; and a little child shall lead them.
“And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall
lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
“And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the [the
horned viper], and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' [IE
another venomous serpent] den.
“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain:
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover
the sea”(Isaiah 11:4-9).
The Lord will judge the poor (“And it shall come to pass
that when all men shall have passed from this first death unto life, insomuch
as they have become immortal, they must appear before the judgment–seat of the
Holy One of Israel; and then cometh the judgment, and then must they be judged
according to the holy judgment of God” [2 Nephi 9:15]).
When the Lord reproves the meek of the Earth, He does so
with equity. The righteous will be
spared, “and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked” (2 Nephi
30:9).
Richard Dilworth Rust writes about the Lord’s dealings with
man.
“In an imperiled world, The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints is designed to prepare God's people for the second coming of
the Savior and to warn the rest of the world to repent and to come unto Christ.
The Book of Mormon is a distinctive witness to this. So what is the nature of
the circumstances prior to the Second Coming? At that day Satan will ‘rage in
the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which
is good’ (2 Nephi 28:20). The Lord God shall cause a great division among the
people comparable to the later division between the Nephites and the Lamanites
in which ‘the true worshipers of Christ ... were called Nephites ... [and] they
who rejected the gospel were called Lamanites’ (4 Nephi 1:37-38). ‘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 Nephi 30:10).”[1]
Hugh Nibley continues.
“Of particular interest to Latter-day Saints are the prophetic
parts of the Book of Mormon, which seem to depict the present state of the
world most convincingly. The past 140 years have borne out exactly what the
book foretold would be its own reception and influence in the world; and its
predictions for the Mormons, the Jews, and the other remnants of scattered
Israel (among which are included the American Indians) seem to be on the way to
fulfillment. The Book of Mormon allows an ample time-scale for the realization
of its prophecies, according to which the deepening perplexities of the
nations, when ‘the Lord God shall cause a great division among the people’ (2
Nephi 30:10), shall lead to worldwide destructions by fire, for ‘blood, and
fire, and vapor of smoke must come; and it must needs be upon the face of this
earth.’ After this, the survivors (for this is not to be the end of the world)
shall have learned enough to coexist peaceably ‘for the space of many years,’
when ‘all nations, kindreds, tongues and people shall dwell safely in the Holy
One of Israel if it so be that they will repent’ (1 Nephi 22:26, 28).
“The Book of Mormon is the history of a polarized world in
which two irreconcilable ideologies confronted each other, and is addressed
explicitly to our own age, faced by the same predicament and the same impending
threat of destruction. It is a call to faith and repentance couched in the
language of history and prophecy, but above all it is a witness of God's
concern for all his children, and to the intimate proximity of Jesus Christ to
all who will receive him.”[2]
“There will be a
time when there will be a division among the people. Jacob told the Nephites, “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” (Jacob 6:2).
At that time, the
Lord will destroy the wicked. The Lord
revealed to Joseph Smith:
“These things are
the things that ye must look for; and, speaking after the manner of the Lord,
they are now nigh at hand, and in a time to come, even in the day of the coming
of the Son of Man.
“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” (D&C
63:53-54).
David wrote about
this day.
For
I was envious at the foolish,
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
For
there are no bands in their death:
but their strength is firm.
They
are not in trouble as other men;
neither are they plagued
like other men.
Therefore
pride compasseth them
about
as a chain [OR necklace];
violence
covereth them
as a garment.
Their
eyes stand out
with fatness:
they
have more than heart could wish.
They
are corrupt,
and speak wickedly concerning oppression:
they speak loftily.
They
set their mouth
against the heavens,
and
their tongue
walketh through the earth.
Therefore
his people return hither:
and waters of a full cup are wrung out to
them.
And
they say,
How doth God know?
and
is there knowledge
in the most High?
Behold,
these are the ungodly,
who prosper in the world;
they increase in riches.
Verily
I have cleansed my heart in vain,
and washed my hands in innocency.
For
all the day long
have I been plagued,
and chastened every morning.
If
I say, I will speak thus;
behold,
I should offend against the generation
of thy children.
When
I thought to know this,
it was too painful for me;
Until
I went into the sanctuary of God;
then understood I their end.
Psalms 73:3-17
The Lord told Joseph
Smith, “And it shall come to pass, because of the wickedness of the world, that
I will take vengeance upon the wicked, for they will not repent; for the cup of
mine indignation is full; for behold, my blood shall not cleanse them if they
hear me not” (D&C 29:17).
The righteous will
be spared by the Lord; the wicked will be destroyed by fire.
Nephi, talking to
his “brethren,” told them:
“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” (1 Nephi 22:23).
Hugh Nibley comments
on this scripture and its meaning.
“The saving of the
righteous ‘even if it so be as by fire’ (1 Nephi 22:17) suggests some sort of
counter-fire. That there is to be a segregation between those to be spared and
those to be destroyed is clearly stated: After ‘the Lord God shall commence his
work among all nations’ (2 Nephi 30:8), then ‘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 Nephi 30:10). This is the ‘cutting off’ of the
wicked from the rest of the people preparatory to the Great Overburn (1 Nephi
22:19-20).
“After the great
burning comes a great peace, ‘and all the nations that fight against Zion
. . . shall be as a dream of a night vision’ (2 Nephi 27:3). It shall
not be a peace of death but a millennial peace, when ‘the Holy One of Israel
must reign. . . . And he gathereth his children . . . and
there shall be one fold and one shepherd. . . . And because of the
righteousness of his people, Satan has no power; wherefore, he cannot be loosed
for the space of many years’ (1 Nephi 22:24-26). If there shall still be
nations during this period of peace, they must be all united: ‘But behold, all
nations, kindreds, tongues, and people shall dwell safely in the Holy One of
Israel if it so be that they will repent’ (1 Nephi 22:28). As soon as the
wicked are destroyed by fire (2 Nephi 30:10), ‘then shall the wolf dwell
with the lamb’ (2 Nephi 30:12; italics added), ‘and Satan shall have power over
the hearts of the children of men no more, for a long time’ (2 Nephi 30:18).”[3]
[1]
Warfare in the Book of Mormon / Purpose of the War Chapters in the Book of
Mormon, Richard Dilworth Rust, Maxwell Institute.
[2]
The Mormon View of the Book of Mormon, Hugh Nibley, Maxwell Institute.
No comments:
Post a Comment