This subject is of great moment. It should interest all people, Jew
and Gentile, especially those who profess Judaism and Christianity.
It involves several features which affect the claims made by the
Latter-day Saints that more revelation has been given and that the
gospel has been restored in these, the last days. The solution of this
question involves the fulfillment of many prophecies in the Old and New
Testaments.
The trend of the teachings of modern Christianity is such as to keep,
from the human mind, the idea that the Lord is a practical being and
has anything whatever to do with the temporal affairs of the children
of men. Yet by a careful reading of the Scriptures it is readily seen
that God designated various portions of the earth to be occupied by
different bodies of His children. He gave Palestine to the seed of
Abraham, and designated where the children of Esau and other races
should dwell. This truth is beautifully expressed by the apostle Paul
in Acts xvii:26, as follows: "And hath made of one blood all nations of
men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the
times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation."
To make this subject clear to the reader, we will first show that
the seed of Abraham were promised certain countries, that they once
occupied those promised lands, and were driven and scattered from them.
Hence, in order to receive the fulfillment of the promise regarding
their inheritance, they must of necessity be gathered home from their
long dispersion.
In Genesis xiii:14, 15, we have the following: "And the Lord said unto
Abraham after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes,
and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and
eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee
will I give it, and to thy seed forever." This promise was renewed to
his son Isaac, as recorded in Genesis xxvi:2, 3: "And the Lord appeared
unto him and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I
shall tell thee of; sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and
will bless thee; for unto thee and unto thy seed I will give all these
countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham,
thy father." And again, the promise was made to Jacob, the father of
the twelve tribes of Israel. In Gen. xlviii:3, 4, it is said: "And
Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz, in the
land of Canaan, and blessed me. And said unto me, Behold I will make
thee fruitful and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude
of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an
everlasting possession."
It is not necessary to make special quotations to prove to Bible
readers that the tribes of Israel were led into the land of Palestine
in the days of the prophet Joshua, and under his administration
received their respective inheritances in the promised land.
On reading the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis we find a brief statement
of the blessings pronounced by the great patriarch upon his twelve
sons. In blessing Joseph it is plainly indicated that his seed was "a
fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall;" in other
words, his posterity should receive a land beyond the limits which
bound the country occupied by the other tribes of Israel. This view
is corroborated by the thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy, in the
blessing and prophecy of Moses upon the head of the tribe of Joseph.
The descriptions of the land of Joseph, given in these two chapters,
together with the other passages of Holy Writ, show that the land
of Joseph was no less than the Western Hemisphere, known to us as
North and South America. It is well known that the tribes of Israel
occupied the promised land from generation to generation, until through
apostasy and transgression nearly all the tribes were carried into
captivity long before the advent of the Messiah. When He came the land
was occupied chiefly by the tribe of Judah, which was subsequently
scattered among the various nations of the earth.
The Lord plainly warned the house of Israel that, to enjoy His
blessings and to remain unmolested in the land of their fathers, they
must keep His commandments. If they did not, this was to follow: "And
I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell
therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the
heathen, and will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall be
desolate and your cities waste." (Lev. xxvi:32, 33.) Very much like
this prophecy are the sacred words of the Messiah, spoken 1500 years
later: "For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon
this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be
led away captive into all nations: And Jerusalem shall be trodden down
of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." (Luke
xxi:23, 24.)
It is also stated in Deut. xxviii:63-65: "And ye shall be plucked from
off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall
scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto
the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods which neither thou nor
thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations
shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy feet have rest;
but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of
eyes, and sorrow of mind."
History records beyond the possibility of a doubt how literally and
terribly the various clauses in these predictions have been fulfilled.
Israel has been scattered, and Judah has been persecuted and oppressed
and become a hiss and a byword in the mouths of all the Gentile nations.
With the sacred promises before us, that Israel should receive those
countries and the history which proves that they were scattered and
are still unreturned to their promised land, we must be convinced, if
nothing were said in the Scriptures of the restoration, that Israel
must be gathered and re-established in the land of their fathers or
the promises of the Almighty would come to naught. We are not left,
however, without predictions which specify, in considerable detail,
that the chosen people shall be gathered and the circumstances and
signs of the times associated with the gathering of Israel in the last
days.
Four hundred and forty-six years before Christ, the prophet Nehemiah,
bowing down in sorrow because of this scattering and destruction of his
people, besought the Lord in humble supplication, thus: "Remember, I
beseech thee, the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying,
If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations; but if
ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments and do them; though there
were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I
gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have
chosen to set my name there." (Neh. i:8, 9.)
The psalmist David said (Psalms l:5): "Gather my saints together unto
me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." The context
of this psalm shows plainly that the fulfillment of the words quoted
should take place in the last days, near the time of the coming of the
Son of God. Those who should be called saints would be required to
sacrifice the associations of their native lands as Abraham was when
called upon to turn aside from the false religion of his fathers and go
to a land into which the Lord should lead him. The Latter-day Saints
have made a covenant with God, and through self-denial are gathering
together in fulfillment of the words of David the psalmist.
Another prophecy from the same book is as follows: "O give thanks unto
the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever. Let the
redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of
the enemy; and gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from
the west, and from the north, and from the south. They wandered in the
wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry
and thirsty, their souls fainted in them. They cried unto the Lord in
their trouble and He delivered them out of their distresses."
The provisions of this prophecy have been and are being verified in
the gathering of the Saints to the Rocky Mountains. In Isaiah ii:2, 3,
we have the following prediction: "And it shall come to pass in the
last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established
in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and
all nations shall flow unto it. 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." This prediction is too plain to be mistaken when
it is fulfilled. This prophecy was not fulfilled at the coming of the
Messiah, neither before nor since His time, but it is being fulfilled
in the gathering of the Latter-day Saints. They have established the
house of the Lord in a mountainous country; many people are gathering
to it, their object being to learn the ways of the Lord that they may
more perfectly walk in His paths. This prediction should be verified
at a time near which people should beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks; "neither shall they learn war any
more," as shown by the verse following those we have quoted.
Micah, fifty years after this, uttered a similar prophecy, in almost
the same language, as will be found in the first and second verses of
his fourth chapter.
Another prophecy of Isaiah on this subject will be found in chapter
five, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses. It reads as follows: "And
He will lift up an ensign to the nations from afar, and will hiss unto
them from the end of the earth; and behold, they shall come with speed
swiftly; none shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber
nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed nor the
latchet of their shoes be broken." The wording of this, in connection
with verses which follow, seems plainly to have its fulfillment in the
manner of travel by which the Saints are being and shall be gathered to
the place appointed. They come by railroad, "with speed swiftly," which
prevents them, in a great measure, from stumbling or becoming weary by
the way. Notice that the words of this prediction, that the ensign was
to be set up from afar, undoubtedly indicate a far distant land from
the place where Isaiah stood when he uttered the prophecy. He stood
upon the Eastern Hemisphere; America was far distant, and upon this
land the ensign has been lifted up. Is it not an ensign to the nations?
The authority of God, the house of the Lord, where the nations of the
earth are invited to repent of their sins and freely partake of the
blessings to be obtained where the ensign is established, surely are
such.
A prediction very similar to the foregoing in its provisions was
uttered by the same prophet and is contained in the eleventh chapter of
his book, the eleventh and twelfth verses: "And it shall come to pass
in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to
recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria,
and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and
from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He
shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts
of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four
corners of the earth."
These prophecies could not be fulfilled short of bestowing more
revelation upon the children of men to show them how, where and when
these great events should be accomplished.
We have quoted from the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, in the twelfth
verse of which this language is used: "And shall assemble the outcasts
of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah." It will be
noticed that the word outcasts applies to Israel, which means that
Israel was _cast out from_ the knowledge of the Gentile nations, while
the seed of Judah was _scattered among_ the nations of the earth. The
reason distinction is made between Israel and Judah, when Judah was one
of the tribes of Israel, is that in the days of David and Solomon the
Lord divided the kingdom of Israel, making Judah the distinct nation
and the remaining tribes another distinct nation, having two separate
kings. The tribes of Israel were led away into the north country, and
became lost to the knowledge of the world, while Judah and a portion of
Ephraim remained in Palestine, and were scattered among the nations.
This is why the prophet applies the word "outcast" to Israel and the
word "dispersed" to the tribes of Judah.
Zechariah the prophet says: "Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land
of the north." (Zech. ii:6.) This return of the tribes of Israel from
the land of the north will be attended with much miraculous power. The
miracles wrought in the days of Moses will not be the reference made by
Israel to show the power of God in their behalf, but this prophecy will
be fulfilled: "Therefore, behold the days come, saith the Lord, that
it shall no more be said, the Lord liveth that brought up the children
of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But the Lord liveth that brought
up the Children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the
lands whither He had driven them: and I will bring them again into
their land that I gave unto their fathers." (Jer. xvi:14, 15.)
One very interesting feature associated with the gathering of Israel in
the last days is expressed in the sixteenth verse of the same chapter,
as follows: "Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and
they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they
shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of
the holes of the rocks." When men engage in fishing they cast their
lines into the water, and know not until drawn to shore whether the
fish caught be of one kind or another; but when they go hunting they
know exactly the game they shoot at, whether it is a lion or a tiger,
a buffalo or a deer. This Scripture is fulfilled in the preaching of
the Gospel among the Gentile nations by the elders of Israel; it is not
known by them whether the person who embraces the Gospel and gathers
to Zion is of the blood of Israel, a Gentile or otherwise, until it
is made known by the light of revelation. This, then, is as casting
the Gospel net into the sea, which gathers of all kinds, who remain
together until the bad are separated from the good and cast back into
the sea.
Isaiah says, in chapter xxvii:12, "Ye shall be gathered one by one, O
ye children of Israel." This is corroborated in the third chapter of
Jeremiah, fourteenth and fifteen verses, which read: "I will take you
one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion; and
I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you
with knowledge and understanding."
How strikingly true it is that in this dispensation only one or two, in
many instances, of a numerous family, receive the truth. And frequently
but one, or very few, in a whole city. But these, when they receive the
Holy Spirit through embracing the Gospel, at the hands of inspired and
divinely authorized men, are filled with a desire to gather to Zion,
and there are taught by pastors "called of God as was Aaron."
A prophecy very like the foregoing is found in the eighteenth chapter
of Revelations, fourth and fifth verses: "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. For her
sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities."
That they are out of Babylon is made clear by the verses preceding the
ones quoted. Babylon signifies confusion, and is shown in the preceding
chapter of Revelation to apply to "people and multitudes, and nations
and tongues." Should there be among the nations of the earth any class
of people professing to be the Saints of God, yet who have no desire
to gather from Babylon in order to avoid her sins and thus escape her
plagues, it would be proof that they had not received, in spirit and
truth, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Another prophecy bearing upon the return of the tribes from the
north, as well as those scattered among the nations, is found in Jer.
xxxi:8, 9, 10: "Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and
gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and
the lame, the woman with child, and her that travaileth with child
together: A great company shall return thither. They shall come with
weeping, and with supplications will I lead them; I will cause them to
walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not
stumble; for I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first born.
Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles
afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep
him, as a shepherd does his flock." In the twelfth verse it says,
"Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion." This latter
clause in the prophecy shows that the place of their gathering shall
be an elevated region of country. In some instances the term Zion is
used with reference to a place or land, as shown in the sixty-second
chapter of Isaiah, which the reader can refer to at leisure. And in
other instances the word applies to a people. Modern revelation through
the prophet Joseph Smith says: "This is Zion, the pure in heart." Using
the word in this sense, light is thrown upon the foregoing prophecy
of Jeremiah by one found in Isaiah xl:9: "O Zion, that bringest good
tidings, get thee up into the high mountain." This would not have been
verified if the Saints of latter days had remained in a scattered
condition among the nations, or even in the lower regions first
occupied by them in the United States, for America is the land of Zion.
The great events which go to make up the history of the Latter-day
Saints furnish indisputable evidence that they were led there by the
hand of God, and that, too, in fulfillment of ancient and modern
prophecy.
In reference to the saints being led by the rivers of water in
a straight way, Isaiah has a similar prophecy, contained in the
thirty-second chapter, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth verses:
"And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure
dwellings, and in quiet resting places; when it shall hail, coming down
on the forests; and the city shall be low in a low place. Blessed are
ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the
ox, and the ass." The prophets foresaw that the gathering place of the
saints should be in a section of the country where the rains should not
be abundant, and for that reason they would plant beside all waters,
that the system of irrigation might be employed to water the crops of
the earth, and through this also that grasses and other vegetation
might be provided for their domestic animals. It is also an interesting
fact that the cities built by the Saints in the valleys, in comparison
with the summit of the snow-capped mountains around them, are situated
in low places, so that many times when the hail comes down in fury upon
the mountain forests above, the city is free from storm.
One feature of the pleasantness which characterizes the Saints of
God is their custom, in their mountain homes, of coming together in
a social capacity and joining in the dance. In this capacity, as in
gatherings of more weighty importance, the old and the young, male
and female, mingle together, that parents may rejoice in the innocent
recreation of their children and that the children may be under the
guiding influence of their parents. Strange as it may seem to the
world, even to those professing Christianity and a consequent belief in
the Bible, such a condition is in fulfillment of sacred prophecy found
in the thirteenth verse of the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah, which
reads as follows: "Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both
young men and old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy,
and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow." This
was to be at the time of their getting up into the high mountains, and
expressing their praises to the Almighty in the heights of Zion.
Closely connected with the foregoing prophecies is one found in Isaiah,
thirty-fifth chapter, first and tenth verses: "The wilderness and the
solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice
and blossom as the rose. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."
Almost the entire chapter has a bearing upon this subject.
The Lord has so abundantly blessed the labors of His people in that
once barren region that truly the desert does rejoice and blossom as
the rose. That Salt Lake valley was a most forbidding place cannot be
denied. James Bridges, an old trapper who had seen Salt Lake valley
before the Pioneers, was so confident of the perpetual sterility of
the soil, rendered so by having little or no water, scarcely any rain,
and frost nearly every month in the year, that he said to President
Brigham Young: "I will give you a thousand dollars for the first ear
of corn that can be produced in Salt Lake valley." Our geographies
designated that country as the Great American Desert. Daniel Webster,
the great statesman and orator, earnestly opposed the annexation of
that section of the country to the United States on the ground of its
almost utter worthlessness, claiming it would be a financial burden to
the government.
Notwithstanding these forbidding aspects, the Prophet Joseph Smith
predicted on the 6th of August, 1842, that the Latter-day Saints would
become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. This
prophecy will be found readily in a work entitled "A New Witness for
God," by Elder B. H. Roberts, which work also contains really other
predictions of the prophet Joseph Smith, and shows their fulfillment.
The following in the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter thirty-five, "For in
the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert, and
the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty lands springs
of water," has been fulfilled in the settlement of the Rocky Mountain
region by the Latter-day Saints.
As the judgments of God come upon the earth the gathering of Israel
will be accelerated, and the words of the prophet Isaiah will be
fulfilled wherein he asks the question, "Who are these that fly as a
cloud, and as the doves to their windows?" (Isa. lx:8.) As they come
together from their long dispersion, and from the north country, in
times of famine, pestilence and bloodshed, the Lord will strengthen
them by saying, "Fear not; for I am with thee; I will bring thy seed
from the east and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north,
give up; and to the south, keep not back; bring my sons from afar, and
my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one that is called
by my name." (Isa. xliii:5 6.) How universal will be this gathering
from all points of the compass, and which will apply to all who are
truly called by the name of the Lord!
This gathering will be attended by greater power than heretofore, and
no power will be able to impede the progress of the great work. Hear
what Ezekiel says: "And I will bring you out from the people, and
will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a
mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.
And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will
I plead with you face to face." (Ezekiel xx:34, 35.) The same prophet
also predicts the gathering of Israel in unmistakable terms, in chapter
xxxvi:24: "For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you
into your own land."
The foregoing predictions are chiefly from the Old Testament, but the
New Testament also contains many very definite forecasts upon this
glorious subject; indeed, in the last days, when the Gospel should
be restored to earth by divine revelation, the dispensation thus
established was to be designated as a gathering dispensation, as stated
by Paul in Ephesians, chapter i:9, 10: "Having made known unto us the
mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath
purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fullness of times,
He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in
heaven, and which are on the earth; even in Him." This is in perfect
accord with the prophecy of Isaiah before quoted, that all who are
called by the name of the Lord should be gathered together.
Jesus offered the gathering to the house of Judah in His day, but they
rejected it. He said unto them, "O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest
the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would
I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood
under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you
desolate; and verily I say unto you, ye shall not see me, until the
time come when ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name
of the Lord." (Luke xiii:34, 35.) How terribly have these words been
fulfilled upon the Jews through their having rejected the Messiah and
the principle of gathering which He offered to them.
By reading the book of Zechariah we learn that when the Jews have
gathered to their promised land, in the last days, and the armies of
the Gentiles surround them, the Messiah will appear unto them on the
Mount of Olives. Looking to the fulfillment of the great predictions
the feeling now pervades the hearts of the Jews, to a very great
extent, to furnish means for the purchase of the land of Palestine,
that they may return and rebuild the city of Jerusalem.
When the Twelve Apostles at Jerusalem requested of the Savior to know
the signs of His second coming, He gave various evidences, among
which was the preaching of the Gospel of the kingdom and consequently
its restoration to the earth, and the raising up of prophets to warn
the people, without which the comparison of the days of Noah and the
days of the second coming of the Messiah would not be complete. To
counterfeit the work of God through prophets that should be raised
up, false prophets and teachers should also arise; kingdom should
arise against kingdom; war, pestilence and bloodshed should desolate
the nations of the earth; the gathering of Israel should be going on,
as proved by the prophecies heretofore quoted, and when the signs of
His appearing should appear in the heavens, "He shall send His angels
with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His
elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." (Matt.
xxiv:31; see also Mark xiii:27.)
This is the dispensation of the fullness of times in which all the
keys, power and authority enjoyed by all previous dispensations
have been restored to the earth, and this includes the keys of the
gathering. Under date of April 3d, 1836, Joseph Smith and Oliver
Cowdery were the recipients of many splendid visions and revelations
at Kirtland Ohio, in the Temple of the Lord. They solemnly testify as
follows: "After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto
us, and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the
gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading
of the ten tribes from the land of the north." (Doctrine and Covenants,
Sec. 110:11.)
From that time the spirit of gathering has rested richly upon the
saints of the Most High, and tens of thousands have gathered from many
nations of the earth. The Saints will continue until they are assembled
in the places designated for them to occupy. Since the date mentioned,
the spirit of the gathering also has been working among the Jews, and
when all things are revealed it will undoubtedly be found that the
spirit of gathering is working among the ten lost tribes of Israel,
looking to the restoration promised to them in the predictions of their
fathers. Thus in the purpose of God will be accomplished the gathering
together in one, all who will serve Him and keep His commandments, that
they may "learn of His ways and walk in His paths," that the earth
may be "filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the
mighty deep, when no man shall say to his neighbor, 'know ye the Lord,'
for all shall know Him, from the least to the greatest."