1. The conditions and events associated with Jesus
Christ’s visit to the Americas serve as a pattern for His Second
Coming. The Book of Mormon help us to be better
prepared for the “great and dreadful day” (3 Nephi 25:5) when Christ will come
again.
2. Background Reading: Dallin H. Oaks, “Preparation for the Second Coming,” Ensign o, May
2004, 7–10.
3. Jeffrey R. Holland, “Preparing for the Second Coming,” New
Era, Dec. 2013, 2–5.
5. Signs are given to help us believe and prepare for
the Lord’s Second Coming
6. “In the Book of
Mormon we find a pattern for preparing for the Second Coming. A major portion
of the book centers on the few decades just prior to Christ’s coming to
America. By careful study of that time period, we can determine why some were
destroyed in the terrible judgments that preceded His coming and what brought
others to stand at the temple in the land of Bountiful and thrust their hands
into the wounds of His hands and feet” (TPC: Ezra Taft Benson [2014], 140).
7. Prior to the Savior’s birth, Samuel the Lamanite
foretold the signs that would accompany the Savior’s birth and death. Helaman
14:20–30; 16:4–5.
Pay attention to the phrase “to the intent that …”
8. The Lord provides signs and wonders so that we
might believe in Him and be saved.
9. 3 Nephi
9:1–5, 12–14; 10:12-
What happened to those who believed in the messages of Samuel and Nephi and what
happened to those who did not?
10. 3 Nephi 11:1–17- How did belief in the
promised signs of the Lord’s coming prepare people for this experience? How it
might have felt to be present on that occasion?
11. “What if the
day of His coming were tomorrow? If we knew that we would meet the Lord
tomorrow—through our premature death or through His unexpected coming—what
would we do today? What confessions would we make? What practices would we
discontinue? What accounts would we settle? What forgivenesses would we extend?
What testimonies would we bear?
“If we would do those things then, why not now? Why not
seek peace while peace can be obtained?” (“Preparation for the Second Coming,”
DHOaks, Ensign, May 2004, 9).
Biblical and modern prophecies give many signs of the
Second Coming. These include:
1. The fulness of the gospel restored and preached in all
the world for a witness to all nations.
2. False Christs and false prophets, deceiving many. 3. Wars and rumors of wars, with nation
rising against nation. 4. Earthquakes
in divers places. 5. Famine and
pestilence. 6. An overflowing scourge,
a desolating sickness covering the land.
7. Iniquity abounding. 8. The
whole earth in commotion.
9. Men’s hearts failing them.
D&C 1:35; Isa. 5:20; 2 Ne. 15:20;
D&C 87:8;
Matt. 24:45–46; 1 Ne. 22:17; 1 Ne. 14:14; D&C 133:44; D&C 1:36; 2 Cor. 4:8–9; D&C
33:17–18
__________________________
Preparing for the Second
Coming Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
We are making our appearance on
the stage of mortality in the greatest dispensation of the gospel ever given to
mankind, and we need to make the most of it.
I
love a line from the Prophet Joseph Smith saying that earlier
prophets, priests, and kings “have looked forward with joyful anticipation to
the day in which we live; and fired with heavenly and joyful anticipations they
have sung and written and prophesied of this our day.” Note this similar
affirmation from President Wilford Woodruff: “The eyes of God and all the holy
prophets are watching us. This is the great dispensation that has been spoken
of ever since the world began.”
In short, apostasy and destruction
of one kind or another was the ultimate fate of every general dispensation we
have ever had down through time. But here’s my theory. My theory is that those
great men and women, the leaders in those ages past, were able to keep going,
to keep testifying, to keep trying to do their best, not because they knew that they would
succeed but because they knew that you would.
Moroni
said once, speaking to those of us who would receive his record in the last
days: (Mormon
8:34–35).
One
way or another, I think virtually all of the prophets and
early apostles had their visionary moments of our time—a view that gave them
courage in their own less-successful eras.
Ours
is the day, collectively speaking, toward which the prophets have been looking
from the beginning of time, and those earlier brethren are over there still
cheering us on! In a very real way, their chance to consider themselves fully
successful depends on our faithfulness and our victory. I love the idea of
going into the battle of the last days representing Alma and Abinadi and what
they pled for and representing Peter and Paul and the sacrifices they made. If
you can’t get excited about that kind of assignment in the drama of history,
you can’t get excited!
Preparing
Christ’s Church for His Coming
Unlike
the Church in the days of Abraham or Moses, Isaiah or Ezekiel, or even in the
New Testament days of James and John, we have a responsibility to
prepare the Church of the Lamb of God to receive the Lamb of God—in person,
in triumphant glory, in His millennial role as Lord of lords and King of kings.
No other dispensation ever had that duty.
In the
language of the scriptures, we are the ones designated in all of history who
must prepare the bride for the advent of the Bridegroom and be worthy of an
invitation to the wedding feast (Matthew 25:1–12; 22:2–14; D&C 88:92,
96).
We
Must Be Acceptable to Him
I am
filled with awe, with an overwhelming sense of duty to prepare my life (and to
the extent that I can, to help prepare the lives of the members of the Church)
for that long-prophesied day, for that transfer of authority, for the time when
we will make a presentation of the Church to Him whose Church it is.
When
Christ comes, the members of His Church must look and act like members of His
Church are supposed to look and act if we are to be acceptable to Him. We must
be doing His work, and we must be living His teachings. He must recognize us
quickly and easily as truly being His disciples.
Yes,
if in that great, final hour we say we are believers, then we had surely better
be demonstrating it.
When
will all of this finish? When shall Christ appear publicly, triumphantly, and
the Millennium begin? I don’t know. What I do know is that the initial moments
of that event began 193 years ago. I do know that as a result of that First
Vision and what has followed it, we live in a time of unprecedented
blessings—blessings given to us for the purpose of living faithfully and purely
so when the Bridegroom finally and triumphantly arrives, He can personally,
justifiably bid us to the wedding feast.
Indeed,
the only concern I would have us entertain is a very personal one: How can we
live more fully, more faithfully, so that all the blessings of this great
dispensation can be showered upon each one of us and upon those whose lives we
touch?
“Fear
not, little flock. … Look [to Christ] in every thought; doubt not, fear not.”
“Ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath … prepared
for you” (D&C 6:34,
36;78:17).
I
leave you my blessing, my love, and an apostolic witness of the truthfulness of
these things, that our dispensation will not fail and that those who live the
teachings of Christ and do His work will be worthy of an invitation to the
wedding feast when the Bridegroom comes.
The
light that comes to us with truth will be brighter than the darkness that comes
from sin & error around us. (Henry B. Eyring)
