Casey Griffiths:
Whenever we’re dealing with prophecy, the question we deal with is, is this figurative or is this literal?

Scott Woodward:
This is real. This is legit. We’re not playing games here. This isn’t a fairy tale. This marks the beginning of the resurrection. In the latter days.

Casey Griffiths:
I’m going to show you how the day of redemption will come. This is how I’m going to reverse the two grand things that make life so difficult for people. You’re not perfect and you’re going to die. People spend their entire lives struggling with those two basic ideas and attempting to overcome them.

Scott Woodward:
This is one unified story leading to this climactic ending where all these promises come crashing together. Of a Messiah, a gathered Israel, a resurrected people, a glorified earth. This is where the story’s been going ever since the beginning.

Casey Griffiths:
These things happening isn’t a sign that the world is out of control. They’re a sign that everything’s going according to the plan.

Scott Woodward:
This is where all the promises of old have been building. This is not a metaphor.

Casey Griffiths:
More to come on that subject. A lot more to come. Here we go.

Scott Woodward:
Another eschatological revelation.

Casey Griffiths:
Are we gonna keep using that word? Because I embarrassed myself the last time. I just can’t say eschatological very well.

Scott Woodward:
See, you nailed it. College words.

Casey Griffiths:
I struggle with college words because I’m not very ambidextrous. So, Scott, it’s fair to say this is another one of the great eschatological revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. In fact, walk us through the sequence leading us up here. What great eschatological revelations have we already seen so far?

Scott Woodward:
We have seen. So Section 29 was our first eschatological revelation. We’re talking about the end of the world, the end of times. How will the story wrap up and conclude? And 29 kind of first started heading that direction. Then would you say Section 38 was kind of this blend between practical reasons why to gather to the Ohio to the New York Saints? But then, I mean, goodness, it. It ends very eschatological. Talking about the gathering of Israel, preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus, preparing for another Enoch like environment on earth, like the city of Enoch and Zion. And Section 42 hinted at it a little bit, right? Talked about the New Jerusalem being revealed. So kind of teased at it. But now here in Section 45, here’s another, like full blown, like we’re going deep, especially that time period right before the Second Coming of Jesus and then a little bit after. And so today’s kind of a, we call it our first, like, real focus on the, the signs of the Second Coming of Jesus, which riffs off of some of his teachings in the, in the New Testament. So we’ll, we’ll get into that.

Scott Woodward:
But really fun stuff.

Casey Griffiths:
This one is, Harold B. Lee 50 years ago gave a Second Coming reading list. He said everybody should read so they know the basics. And this is on the list. I think I’ve mentioned this a couple times, but President Lee says you ought to read Joseph Smith—Matthew, you ought to read Section 45, Section 101, Section 133 and then go back to Section 38. And that was what he suggested, that if you’ve read that, you’re more prepared to understand the signs of the times than the average Church member is. But this is a big one, right? This and Section 133 are probably the most focused signs of the times revelations given out there and not just signs of the times. Great advice for living in the last days. And also some, some interesting, cool teachings here that are very, very enlightening as well.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, you know, recently I heard somebody talking about Latter-day Saints, not very favorably. They said that we grow out of this premillenarian movement that maybe they disagreed with. Premillenarian, I think I’m saying that right, movement which is this idea of like that the Church was founded with this concept that the Millenium would, would happen sometime soon, that Jesus’ Second Coming would occur. This was another Christian talking kind of pejoratively about this movement grew out of this expectation for the coming of Jesus. And I just kind of had to sit back for a second and ask like, aren’t all Christians premillenarian? Wasn’t Paul anticipating the coming of Jesus? Doesn’t the whole book of Revelation, wasn’t John like into the Second Coming of Jesus? And hasn’t this been the case ever since Acts 1 when the angels said the same way you saw Jesus going to heaven, you’re going to see him come back? Like I think Christianity is premillenarian, you know, as it is. And so I think we can just fully embrace that. Right. We are in anticipation of Jesus’ coming.

Casey Griffiths:
It’s baked into the cake, right? If you believe in the New Testament and to a large degree the Old Testament and especially the latter-day scriptures that we use. So I almost wrote my master’s thesis on this, but I switched at the last minute to something else. But there’s different schools of thought among Christians about what the end of the world is going to be like. And one of them is premillennialism. Which premillennialism is kind of the idea that everything’s going to get worse and worse until the Savior intervenes and ends the trouble. That’s it in a nutshell. The second one is amillennialism, which is sort of that the Second Coming is a figurative concept that really we find peace and the Millennium comes in our hearts when we accept Jesus Christ, which, if you take out the word figurative, I’m on board with that. I think that’s a beautiful philosophy. It’s kind of being drawn from Augustine and the city of God and the idea that we find heaven in our hearts. And then the last one is postmillennialism, which is the idea that we will create the perfect society that will fix our problems.

Casey Griffiths:
It’s kind of the Star Trek millennial theory that mankind comes together and creates a utopia, and then Jesus comes back when we’re ready. And I think, you know, as I was studying this and getting ready to maybe write about it, I think you could argue that Latter-day Saints land a little bit in all three of those. I think that we’re very premillennial in the sense that, yeah, we do think things are going to be bad and we believe in the literal nature of prophecies. I think that we’re postmillennial and that we’re not just sitting back waiting for the Rapture either. We’re getting out there. We’re trying to alleviate human suffering. That’s what the law of consecration, the revelations right before this are about, right? Is let’s find a way to eliminate poverty, alleviate suffering. That’s very postmillennial. And I also think we’re okay with amillennialism as long as we say we don’t think it’s figurative. But we do believe that the real peace that we find is when we accept Christ and receive forgiveness of our sins and place our faith in him and his grace. We’re a little weird mixture of all three.

Casey Griffiths:
And I think you can go too far in any one of those three directions and get into trouble. But I’ll agree with you that I think our baseline is premillennialism.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And I think we’re going to see that play out really, really well in Section 45. There’s a lot of trouble coming prior to his return, and yet the disciples are not being asked to be passive in this. We’re going to help create something that helps pave the way for that. So I think in this very section, you’re going to see some pre- and postmillennialism and to give a little shout out to your amillennial thought. Here’s an awesome quote you made me think of from President Spencer W. Kimball. He said, “When Satan is bound in a single home, when Satan is bound in a single life, the Millennium has already begun in that home, in that life,” and you can kind of see where he’s coming from, right? Like one of the crowning distinguishing features of the Millennium is that Satan will be bound for a thousand years. And so President Kimball is saying you can get a jump start at least on that aspect of the Millennium in your life. Tell us about the context. It’s a little ambiguous this one, but what do we know about the context?

Casey Griffiths:
So here’s what we know. This is given March 7, 1831. It’s titled A Prophecy. In one early manuscript of it, it’s given in Kirtland, Ohio. And we don’t know of any clear, like, inciting incident that causes Joseph Smith to write this down. No obvious question, but we do have this statement in Joseph Smith’s history. So Joseph Smith starts writing his history in 1838. And here’s the introduction that he gives, which is a little bit in the italicized introduction in the Doctrine and Covenants, he writes, “At this age of the Church, many false reports, lies and foolish stories were published in the newspapers and circulated in every direction to prevent people from investigating the work or embracing the faith.” So they’re starting to get a little pushback because they’ve had so much success in and around Kirtland, Ohio. And just in general, people are buzzing about this new movement, this gold Bible, this new prophet, all this kind of stuff. One example he gives of a newspaper criticizing them, as he said that “a great earthquake in China which destroyed from 1 to 200,000 inhabitants, was burlesqued in some papers as Mormonism in China.” The background he gives is at least one article mockingly blamed the China earthquake on a young Mormon girl who had predicted the disaster six weeks earlier.

Casey Griffiths:
And the obvious intent here is to mock the Church’s belief in prophecy and to prevent people from joining the Church or taking it seriously. But, Joseph Smith says, “to the joy of the Saints, who had to struggle against everything that prejudice and wickedness could invent, I received the following.” It seems like Section 45 was kind of received as an answer to that, like, can people receive prophecy? Yes, here is one, in fact, that talks about the signs of the times. So Section 45 is in some ways a gift from the Savior, who was reaching out to strengthen and assure the Saints, who felt like they were misunderstood and misrepresented with a revelation about the future, specifically about the millennial day. Now, it should be noted that the future, and specifically the millennial era, was on the minds of Church leaders all the time and members at this season as a result of previous revelations that had been recently received. So we’ve already said Section 29, Section 38. Even the concept of Latter-day Saints, which isn’t a title they’re using quite yet, says we’re focused on the last days. And then six months later in September, the Lord revealed that the gathering of his elect to one place upon this land of America was a prelude to the millennial day where they would dwell in righteousness with men on earth a thousand years.

Casey Griffiths:
So there’s all these prophecies leading up to this. In December, they are translating the prophecy of Enoch, which is found in the Pearl of Great Price, and it’s revealed again that the latter-day elect would be gathered around the world to a holy city called Zion, a New Jerusalem, to prepare for Christ to come, and that the city of Enoch would come and that they would dwell on earth in righteousness for the space of a thousand years. Just about a month after that happens in February 1831, when Section 42 is received, the Lord promises to reveal the location of the New Jerusalem to which the elect would be gathered and to which the Lord would come. So this theme of a New Jerusalem, of a holy city, of an assurance, of a refuge in the last days is on their minds and in several revelations leading up to this one.

Scott Woodward:
Then last Section 43, right after that, right? Where he assures the Saints in Kirtland that he will return and my people shall reign with me on the earth for the great Millennium of which I have spoken shall come. You mentioned a couple times, I think throughout this series this year that Latter-day Saints, some of their favorite places in the Book of Mormon. Some of the most commonly recorded or emphasized parts of the Book of Mormon are Ether 13, about the New Jerusalem and 3 Nephi, what, 20, 21, 22. And they are about the New Jerusalem that Jesus prophesied of. Like this is on their minds ever since the Book of Mormon came forth. And then the Doctrine and Covenants keeps reassuring them. Yeah, that’s, that’s real. It’s coming. It’s real. That’s true. And then they got the Enoch prophecy saying it’s true. So anyway, yeah, it just seems like this has been a steady flow of reassurance recently that the New Jerusalem, Zion and the Millennium, the thousand-year period are actually going to happen. This is not a metaphor.

Casey Griffiths:
I mean, in the six months before Section 45 is received, there’s at least eight times where the Lord has said he’s coming soon or quickly. And it’s also clear that the Millennium, the end of times, was a major, major fixation for the early members of the Church. It’s still a huge fixation today. You know, if your kids are falling asleep in class and you want to get their attention, you start talking about the Second Coming. I know that worked on me when I was younger. And it seems like this is not only on the minds of Church members. They’re hungry, they want to know more. And so this revelation was a major blessing to them because it goes into great detail about the time leading up to the Second Coming, and takes some of the earlier things that are found in the scriptures, especially in Matthew 24, and expands on it in a beautiful revelation that helps them kind of feel more prepared, more in control, more like there’s something they can do to get the world ready for his coming.

Scott Woodward:
And it seems like in the spirit of mocking, that’s been going on about Mormons believing in future prophecy and having a living prophet on the earth and how ridiculous that sounded to a lot of people in Kirtland. It’s a pretty cool move the Lord does here by dropping in an amazing prophecy through a prophet in Kirtland almost to reassure them, like, this is real. This is legit. We’re not playing games here. This isn’t a fairy tale. Let me give you a booyah prophecy of the future, just to sink in how seriously we’re taking the Second Coming of Jesus in the millennial reign. So it’s a leaning in rather than leaning away from our belief in prophecy and prophets right here. So very, very cool. All right, let’s into the content. This revelation opens with a rather long, I’d say introduction, verses 1 through 16, is the Lord introducing himself and basically asking the reader or the listener to do one thing, and that one thing is hearken. Hearken. Please listen to what I’m about to say. For 16 verses. Casey. He goes on to please listen to what I’m about to say. “Hearken and give ear to him who laid the foundation of the earth,” he says, “and by whom all things were made which live and move and have a being.”

Scott Woodward:
Listen to that person, the one who made the earth. His invitation is to “hearken to my voice, lest death overtake you and your souls not be saved.” It’s that they “listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him.” Wouldn’t you want to listen to the Creator of the earth, your advocate with the Father, the one who is going to help your souls be saved, the one who will stand in front of the Father and say, verse 4, “behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin in whom thou wast well pleased. Behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest, that thyself might be glorified. Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.” That’s the one who’s asking us to listen. And then again he says, Verse 6, “Hearken, O ye people of my church, ye elders, listen together, hear my voice while it’s called today, harden not your hearts.” He goes on to say, this is “Alpha and Omega,” that’s speaking, “the beginning and the end, the life and light of the world.”

Scott Woodward:
He’s the one who “came unto my own as a mortal and unto as many as received me, gave I power to become the sons of God.” A concept we’ve been talking about recently, right? This ability to become the children of Christ and thus eternal heirs in the kingdom of God. “Those that believe on my name,” he says, “give I power to obtain eternal life.” The way he has empowered them to do that is by sending forth what he calls in the next verse, “mine everlasting covenant.” That’s in verse nine. And this is something that we saw back in Section 39, is also equated to the phrase “the fullness of my gospel,” which he there defined as repentance, baptism by water and the Holy Ghost. And so it’s by receiving Christ through the fullness of his gospel that we become the children of Christ. Or another way to say it, by receiving the everlasting covenant, we come into that group who are empowered to be heirs of the kingdom of God. And he’s just dropping some rich little doctrine here, but this is all just introduction. He’s just asking us to listen to that person, listen to the one who has sent forth this covenant.

Scott Woodward:
Verse 9. “I have sent forth mine everlasting covenant into the world, to be a light to the world, to be a standard for my people and for the Gentiles to seek to it, and to be a messenger before my face, to prepare the way before me.” In other words, his everlasting covenant, like a beacon light or like a hoisted flag, is to be the rallying point for both his people Israel and for the Gentiles to seek to it. And then receiving his covenant is like, he says, receiving a royal messenger who sent out to announce the coming of the king. And so to receive the everlasting covenant, then is to be prepared to receive Christ the king. “Wherefore,” the Lord invites, “come ye unto it,” meaning the everlasting covenant. “And with those that cometh, I will reason as with men in days of old, and I will show unto you my strong reasoning. Wherefore, hearken ye together,” he invites again, “and let me show unto you the wisdom of him whom ye say is the God of Enoch and his brethren, who were separated from the earth and were received unto myself a city reserved until a day of righteousness shall come.”

Scott Woodward:
By the way, that’s verse 12. And we find actually that Joseph had recently been translating in Genesis 14 in his Bible translation, and it’s actually a close paraphrase of what he had recently translated, that references the city of Enoch which God had before taken, separating it from the earth, having reserved it unto the latter days or the end of the world. Again, this Enoch theme right here, it keeps coming up again ever since December of 1830, when Joseph had translated Moses. 7. Here the Lord is again clarifying that Enoch’s city was specifically taken in reserve for a day of righteousness to come. That is this millennial day, which now becomes the main topic of the remainder of this revelation. He says, “this is a day which was sought for by all holy people down through time, yet they found it not because of wickedness and abominations” that prevailed in their societies, in the various wicked cultures in which they lived down through the ages. He says the righteous have often felt out of place like “strangers and pilgrims on the earth,” is his phrase here. Yet they have “obtained a promise that they should find and see it in their flesh.”

Scott Woodward:
Verse 14 says, but how could that be? How could the righteous who have lived throughout various ages of the world’s history and have long since died, actually see the millennial day in their flesh as he says, “wherefore hearken,” verses 1 through 16 is, please listen. “Hearken,” he says, one last time, “and I will reason with you on this point, and I will speak unto you and prophesy as unto men in days of old. And I will show it plainly as I showed it unto my disciples, as I stood before them in the flesh and spake unto them.” Here the Lord is asking Church members to lean in a little closer and listen to his plain and straightforward explanation of this mystery, which is actually an explanation that he gave long ago to his disciples that he’s now going to expound on.

Casey Griffiths:
And this is where the gears shift a little bit in the section where he hearkens back to this discourse that’s recorded in Matthew 24, that becomes sort of a fixation for Joseph Smith. When Joseph Smith translates this passage, he’s going to change it so much that it becomes its own separate text thing in the Pearl of Great Price. Joseph Smith—Matthew the discourse, which is commonly known as the Olivet Discourse, is one of the last things Jesus does. So it’s Holy Week. It’s the night before the Last Supper of the Crucifixion. He sits on the Mount of Olives, which Scott, I think you’ve been there. You’ve been on the Mount of Olives, right?

Scott Woodward:
I have.

Casey Griffiths:
And you can still it’s, this beautiful, beautiful spot to just look over the city and you can still see that huge platform that the temple would have rested on when Jesus was there. And he’s told them, in fact, he has said publicly. This is one of the things that gets him arrested and crucified, is that the temple which was there is going to be destroyed, that there’s not going to be one stone left on top of another, which is shocking to everybody, because the temple of Herod, the temple Jesus is looking at, is one of the wonders of the ancient world. It’s one of the biggest and most beautiful constructions that anybody had built. There’s different versions of this discourse. They’re recorded in Matthew 24. That’s the primary one that Joseph Smith spends his time on. But it’s also in Mark 13, it’s in Luke 21. And this discourse is really complicated and hotly disputed among Christians. But here in Doctrine and Covenants 45, Jesus just flat out says, I’m going to reason with the Church in 1831 and show it plainly unto them. So he’s giving the fourth version of the Olivet Discourse, eventually a fifth version in Joseph Smith—Matthew, that will explain these signs of the time.

Casey Griffiths:
So verse 16 is where gears shift. And now we’re going into the 1831 update of the Olivet Discourse, of this discourse on the Mount of Olives.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So straight from Jesus himself. Now, we’re not getting filtered through Matthew or Mark or Luke. What are the events that are going to lead up to the day in which all the faithful who’ve ever lived get to rest with the Lord in the millennial day in their flesh? So here we go. He says this in verse 16. Here he goes and it’s going to begin a flashback. He’s going to flashback to him standing on the Mount of Olives with his disciples. And so we’re kind of getting his view. It’s kind of like another camera angle, if you will, of what he said on the Mount of Olives. And he said something like this. He says, quote, “as ye have asked of me,” speaking to his disciples all those years ago, “concerning the signs of my coming, in the day when I shall come in my glory in the clouds of heaven, to fulfill the promises that I have made unto your fathers, for as ye have looked upon the long absence of your spirits from your bodies to be a bondage, I will show in you how the day of redemption shall come and also the restoration of scattered Israel.”

Scott Woodward:
Those are the words he said 2,000 years ago on the Mount of Olives to his disciples. And then he’s going to explain it. And so we’re kind of eavesdropping on that ancient conversation now. Just note a few key things about this rather long sentence that he just introduced that with verse 16. First is that Jesus announced his purpose for the Second Coming and the subsequent millennial reign is to, quote, “fulfill the promises that I have made unto your fathers.” I don’t know that we always talk about the Millennium like that. Sometimes we just kind of talk about the Millennium as, like, this thing that, I don’t know, it’s going to end the world and, you know, everything’s going to be different. What’s the point and purpose of it? I don’t know. It’s just kind of how it’s supposed to go, right? But he’s telling us right here, it’s actually fulfilling the promises that I made to your fathers, meaning the ancient house of Israel. It’s actually a cluster of assurances that he made back in the Old Testament times about the restoration of scattered Israel. Specifically, there are two elements that I think are worth pointing the ancient promises to restore Israel.

Scott Woodward:
Number one is that gathering Israel out from among all nations after they’re scattered would be a thing, right? The first time that comes up, I think, is Deuteronomy 30. And then it gets talked about like crazy throughout the rest of the Old Testament. And then number two, the purpose of being gathered together is so that they can become part of a unified kingdom of Messiah. The Messiah would be this powerful, benevolent descendant of King David who would rule over all of Israel as their shepherd-king forever and ever. And there are so many prophecies about that in Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Isaiah and these kind of coming together, create a really kind of simple picture that Israel will be gathered so that they can be under the reign of Messiah, and they’ll actually rule and reign this world together with him in righteousness. That’s kind of the upshot of those promises. And so the Millennium is the day in which these will be fulfilled.

Casey Griffiths:
At the heart of this is the difference in how Jewish people in the Savior’s day saw the Messiah versus what Jesus was actually trying to do. Jews then and now still believe that the Messiah is a military figure. He’ll be a spiritual leader and a righteous person too, but primarily a great prince, a figure that leads them out of bondage. And the struggle in Jesus’ day was that they couldn’t see the bigger picture or they struggled to, that he wasn’t trying to just liberate them from rule by foreigners. The Jews were ruled by Romans at the time, but to liberate them from the real things that really affect us. And you’ll notice this. Okay, the second thing to notice is that Jesus says his disciples, quote, “looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies to be a bondage.” So they’re thinking about their own deaths, which makes sense because according to Matthew 24, Jesus had just told them that before his return, they would be afflicted, hated and killed. That’s in Matthew 24:9. So it’s a tough thing for him to say, hey, because you followed me, you’re going to be hated, you’re going to be persecuted, and eventually you’ll die, which all of them do.

Casey Griffiths:
But to counterbalance this, Jesus does something, which he often does, which is I’m going to show you how the day of redemption will come. He’s aiming for bigger things. A redemption from sin and just as important, but a redemption from death. This is how I’m going to reverse the two grand things that make life so difficult for people. It’s just tough for everybody to know, know that, nope, you’re not perfect. And two, you’re going to die. Like, people spend their entire lives struggling with those two basic ideas and attempting to overcome them. So the day of redemption, which is probably a reference to the Resurrection, is closely associated here at the restoration of scattered Israel. And these two things are connected in what Jesus is trying to say. So how does the day of redemption and the restoration of scattered Israel come about? That’s the subject of this discourse that he’s talking about.

Scott Woodward:
So let’s keep going. This is good. This is good. And by the way, that’s brilliant to always keep in mind, like what you just said, these different threads we sometimes talk about separately, like the gathering of Israel and then the resurrection over here, sometimes we don’t put those together, and the millennial day over here. And actually this is just one story. This is one unified story leading to this climactic ending where all these promises come crashing together of a Messiah, a gathered Israel, a resurrected people, a glorified earth. This is where the story has been going ever since the beginning. And Jesus is starting to pull these threads together to help us capture that picture. And so this, this is vital to understanding the plan of salvation as we like to refer to it. So then the section goes on and says that the Lord explained to his disciples that before these things would happen, the Jews would, quote, “be destroyed and scattered among all nations,” and the Jerusalem temple would be, quote, “thrown down, that there shall not be left one stone upon another,” but the remnant of the Jews who will “be scattered among all the nations shall be gathered again, but they shall remain until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

Scott Woodward:
So he’s dropping some phrases here that are sometimes difficult. This phrase, times of the Gentiles, seems to be a reference to the season in which the Gentiles, that is like the non-Jewish people or the non-covenant people, will retain dominance in the world world. And he says, “and in that day,” apparently sometime during the times of the Gentiles, “shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men’s hearts shall fail them. And they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth. And the love of men shall wax cold and iniquity shall abound. And when the times of the Gentiles is come in,” the Lord explains, “”a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, that is the Gentiles, “and it shall be the fullness of my gospel.” But by and large the Gentiles, he says, will not receive it. Instead they’ll “turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men.” And in that generation, he says, that is, in this generation of the mass rejection of the fullness of the gospel, “shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

Scott Woodward:
So let’s chew on that for a second. This light that comes and breaks forth unto the darkness, which is the fullness of the gospel to the Gentiles, I think that’s referring to this time in which Joseph Smith is receiving this, isn’t it? Isn’t Joseph living in a Gentile nation? Isn’t he called in the title page of the Book of Mormon by Moroni. Doesn’t he call him the Gentile? This is the time when the Gospel is coming to the Gentiles, and the gospel now from the Gentiles is being taken out to the world. It’s just begun here in 1831. And yet we’re seeing, as you brought up in the context of this revelation, that the Saints are being persecuted and mocked and made fun of. And Gentiles are starting to reject this. And so this seems to be a perfect fit for what the Lord is describing here. It’s going to come to the Gentiles, and then there are going to be many that don’t receive it.

Casey Griffiths:
And he’s using Gentiles in kind of the Book of Mormon way of using Gentiles, which is people that are Jewish, and then everybody else is a Gentile, essentially. So later on, it’s going to become a big deal among Church members to get patriarchal blessings and be identified as the House of Israel, whether a literal descendant or adopted. We don’t really care. But this is using Gentile in the Book of Mormon sense, where those prophecies in the early parts of the Book of Mormon talk about the Gentiles meaning non-Jewish people, and then the Jews meaning the people identified as being Jewish today who are a mixture of Judah and Benjamin. That’s an important part to understand here as well.

Scott Woodward:
So then he goes on here and says, some in that generation shall see he, calls it “an overflowing scourge,” which is some kind of “desolating sickness,” he says, “that will cover the land. But my disciples shall stand in holy places and shall not be moved, whereas among the wicked, men shall lift up their voices and curse God and die.” And further, he says, “there shall be earthquakes also in diverse places and many desolations. Yet men will harden their hearts against me and will take up the sword, one against another, and they’ll kill one another.”

Casey Griffiths:
This is scary stuff, right? And I like how in verse 34, he kind of says, timeout, let me pause for a second. And he sort of shifts from telling the story of Olivet Discourse to speak to the members of the Church in Kirtland. He’s narrating. He says, “when I, the Lord, had spoken these words unto my disciples, they were troubled.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, no kidding.

Casey Griffiths:
And he says, and I said to them, and now he’s going to flash back to the Mount 1800 years earlier. “Be not troubled,” he told his disciples, “for when all these things shall come to pass, ye may know that the promises which have been made unto you shall be fulfilled.” In other words, while this is scary stuff, like, this is distasteful and grisly and difficult. And it still gives people a little bit of a fright today. He’s trying to say these things happening isn’t a sign that the world is out of control. They’re a sign that everything’s going according to the plan, that it’s going to be difficult. But keep in mind, when you see these things, they’re an indication that my plan, my wonder is beginning to come forth. They’re key indicators that the promises made to Israel and to the Savior’s disciples are about to be fulfilled. So he goes on, he says, “and when the light shall begin to break forth,” meaning the light of the fullness of the Gospel referenced back in verse 28, “which will break forth among the Gentiles, it shall be with you like unto a parable which I will show unto you.

Casey Griffiths:
“Ye look and behold the fig trees, and ye see them with your eyes. And when ye say, they begin to shoot forth, and their leaves are yet tender the, summer is now nigh at hand. Even so it shall be in that day when they shall see all these things, then shall they know that the hour is nigh.” So in the parable, when you see a fig tree starting to shoot forth leaves, that’s a sign that we’re getting close to summer. I still witness the same thing. We have this beautiful little cranberry tree in my yard, and my wife and I came back from a trip the other day, and it was white. We had been gone for three days. All of a sudden, all the blossoms on the tree had bloomed. And every year for about three days, we have the prettiest tree on the block. Then all the blossoms fall off the tree and blow away. It’s incredibly sad. But that is still to us, officially, spring is here. The tree has blossomed. He’s saying the same thing with the fig tree. And in the parable, summer represents the Millennium. It’s also referenced as the day of righteousness, the day of redemption, or the great day of the Lord.

Casey Griffiths:
The leaves shooting forth from the fig tree represent the individual signs that Jesus has been talking about, and they’re visible indicators that the Millennium is starting. So again, the bad stuff is a sign that everything is proceeding according to plan, that we’re getting to where the Millennium is and that it’s close.

Scott Woodward:
We might be understandably confused as to how all these bad things might be an indication of a good thing. I find it helpful to talk about, is it Romans 8, where Paul talks about the earth going through labor pains in preparation for the coming of the Lord? It’s almost like before a woman has a baby, there’s a lot of bad things that seem to be happening in her body, but it’s because it’s about to produce a really, really good thing. And in this case, we have wickedness that is ripening on the face of the earth, and some really awful things, some earthquakes and some groanings in nature and desolating scourges covering the earth. That is all a harbinger of good things to come in some twisted, ironic way, in the same sense in which a baby is preceded by some pretty difficult things in a woman’s body. That’s an interesting metaphor he’s not using here, but has been used in other places which I find interesting. For instance, here’s a couple other ones. “It shall come to pass,” he says, “that he that feareth me shall be looking forth for the great day of the Lord to come, even for the signs of the coming of the Son of Man.

Scott Woodward:
“And they shall see signs and wonders,” he calls them, “for they shall be shown forth in the heavens above and in the earth beneath.” And then he names some of these, for instance, “they shall behold blood and fire and vapors of smoke. And before the day of the Lord shall come, the sun shall be darkened and the moon be turned into blood, and the stars fall from heaven.” And then, speaking about the Jews, who he calls the remnant, he says, “they shall be gathered unto this place,” meaning, remember Jerusalem. We’re still in the flashback. He’s still 1800 years ago on the Mount of Olives. The Jews will be gathered back to this place, he says, “and then they shall look for me. And behold, I will come. And they shall see me in the clouds of heaven, clothed with power and great glory, with all the holy angels.” And then he warns, “he that watches not for me shall be cut off, but before the arm of the Lord shall fall,” meaning before his anger is unleashed upon the wicked, “an angel shall sound his trump, and the saints that have slept shall come forth to meet me in the cloud.”

Scott Woodward:
So this begins the first answer to the riddle of how will righteous people who’ve died long ago be able to stand with him in the flesh in the millennial day? This marks the beginning of the resurrection in the latter days. “Wherefore,” he says to his disciples on the Mount of Olives, who were contemplating their own deaths at this time, he says, “if ye have slept in peace, blessed are you; for as you now behold me and know that I am even, so shall ye come unto me in the resurrection and your souls shall live, and your redemption shall be perfected. And the saints shall come forth from the four quarters of the earth” to meet him up in that cloud. That’s kind of step one. And then he says, after this, his arm falls upon the nations, which he then is about to describe.

Casey Griffiths:
But whenever we’re dealing with prophecy, the question we deal with is, is this figurative or is this literal? And I would take that to be figurative. But he also seems like he’s talking about some very literal stuff in the next couple passages.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of passages that actually refer to Jesus coming down from above, but not alone. Like, he’s coming with people. Like I’m thinking over in Section 76, there’s like, verse 63 speaking about this same group he was just referring to here, the saints. “These are they whom he shall bring with him when he shall come in the clouds of heaven to reign on the earth over his people.” The people are going to be coming with him from the clouds. So it seems like this is giving us the first part of that story. First the resurrected taken up, and then they’re going to come and descend down with him. That seems to be described literally in so many passages like this that there’s some meaning to the saints descending with Jesus, but before they can descend with him, they’ve got to resurrect from their graves. And so there’s a, there’s an up and then there’s a down, apparently.

Casey Griffiths:
Now the next thing he does is he does an interesting thing with an Old Testament prophet prophecy. He says, first the Lord will set his foot upon the mount, meaning the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, and it shall cleave in twain. This is a prophecy found in Zechariah 14:4. “The earth shall tremble and reel to and fro, and the heavens also shall shake.” So this sounds very tangible, like I’m taking this literally, that he’s going to set foot on the Mount of Olives, and an earthquake will split the mountain in two. And then he says, “the Lord shall utter his voice, and all the ends of the earth shall hear it. And the nations of the earth shall mourn. And they that have laughed shall see their folly and calamity shall cover the mocker, and,” as Isaiah prophesied, “the scorner shall be consumed and they that have watched for iniquity shall be hewn down and cast into the fire.” Then in fulfillment of two more prophecies of Zechariah, so he’s taking two prophecies and kind of combining them together. He says, the Jews in Jerusalem will “look upon me and say: What are these wounds in thine hand, hands and in thy feet?”

Casey Griffiths:
One of the most poignant passages in the Old Testament. “Then shall they know,” he says, “that I am the Lord. For I will say unto them, these are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. I am Jesus that was crucified. I am the Son of God. And then shall they weep because of their iniquities, and shall they lament because they persecuted their king.” These are key moments in the redemption of the Jewish people at the time of the Second Coming. And then he addresses non-Israelites. He says, “then shall the heathen nations be redeemed.” Heathen in this case, meaning those who are non-Jewish and non-Israelite. “And they that knew no law shall have part of the first resurrection, and it shall be tolerable for them.” This appears to be describing the redemption of those who did not have God’s law given to them, but who lived well according to the light they did have. So this is setting us up for some later stuff down the road where we start to realize, yes, the Savior is fulfilling promises made to the Jews, but he’s got a plan for everybody, that we shouldn’t focus too much on one group of people because the Savior is at work among all nations.

Casey Griffiths:
In fact, that’s the whole point of the Restoration is this manifesting himself to all nations, as the Book of Mormon says that this is the great culmination of all these movements, some of which we know and some of which we don’t know, which have been happening for millennia among different nations.

Scott Woodward:
And I love later on in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith will say, quote, “God will judge all men not according to what they have not, but according to what they have.” I love that view of God, that these good, wonderful people who did not have the law of Christ, many of them will also be resurrected here. They’ll be redeemed at the beginning of the Millennium, which is remarkable. I assume these are the people. We’ll find out later. Once work for the dead is introduced in Nauvoo, that I would assume, putting two and two together, that they have already received Christ by that point in time. But it would be a great mystery here in 1831, without an understanding of work for the dead of exactly theologically to describe that. So this is how it’s described there. “They who knew no law shall have part in the first resurrection, and it shall be tolerable for them.” So no further comment in 1831 at that time. But we find out a little more.

Casey Griffiths:
More to come on that subject. Yeah, a lot more to come.

Scott Woodward:
The good news. Here’s what happens. Jesus says, “Satan shall be bound, that he shall have no place in the hearts of the children of men. And at that day when I shall come in my glory shall the parable of the ten virgins be fulfilled.” A parable which he had likely just shared with his disciples only moments ago on the Mount of Olives. Right, because we’re still in the flashback here. “For they that are wise,” he said, “and have received the truth and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived–verily I say unto you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide the day” of his Second Coming. That’s beautiful. So there’s some, some rich things you can do there with the parable of the ten virgins. Right. I love what he’s saying here. Receiving the truth, taking the Spirit for your guide, and not being deceived. This, I think, is what the parable refers to as oil in your lamps, which is crucial, really. Finally, he says, upon his arrival, the millennial day will dawn for God’s people. During this special era, “the earth shall be given unto them for an inheritance; and they shall multiply and wax strong, and their children shall grow up without sin unto salvation. For the Lord shall be in their midst, and his glory shall be upon them. And he will be their king and their lawgiver.”

Scott Woodward:
Oh, Casey, here it is again. Right? This is the, he calls it the great day of the Lord, the day of righteousness, the day of redemption toward which all things have been moving. This is where all the promises of old have been building, as verse 16 said. This is where the promises will be fulfilled. This is where the restoration of scattered Israel will ultimately come about in fulfillment of “the promises that I have made unto your fathers.” And then verses 60 through 62, the Lord now comes back to the moment with, in 1831 with Joseph Smith and speaks directly to him in his present situation and says, “Behold, I say unto you, it shall not be given unto you to know any further concerning this chapter,” meaning Matthew 24, “until the New Testament be translated, And in it all these things shall be made known. Wherefore,” the Lord continues, “I give unto you that ye may now translate it,” meaning the New Testament, “that you may be prepared for the things to come.

Scott Woodward:
“For verily I say unto you that great things await you.” Ooh. This is a pivotal moment in Joseph’s Bible translation project, isn’t it? Right. As a result of just these few little verses, the day after this revelation is given, Joseph shifts his translation efforts from the Old Testament to the New. And from this effort comes, among other insights, that portion of the Pearl of Great Price you talked about. Casey, where we call it Joseph Smith—Matthew today, which is his translation of Matthew 24, referred to here by the Lord.

Casey Griffiths:
This might be the point where we tell everybody, go read Joseph Smith—Matthew. Because Joseph Smith, when he’s translating, doubles Matthew 24 in size and also adds in some things that are really helpful. One confusing thing about the original Olivet Discourses found in Matthew and Mark and Luke is it’s not always clear when the Savior is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, which takes place in AD 70, and the end of the world. Matthew 24 makes it very clear what part are about the destruction of Jerusalem and what parts are about the end of the world. And just that alone is really helpful. Those two events become clear when the Savior is talking about which one.

Scott Woodward:
And it’s cool to see that Joseph is not doing a translation of the Bible where he’s starting in Genesis 1. And then he’s just going at the same pace through the entire standard works. We actually see the Lord right here kind of guiding him. He’s just gotten done with, I think, Genesis 14, if I remember right, where we get lots of cool stuff about Melchizedek, about Enoch. And once we get that stuff, the Lord says, okay, good, stop. Now go to the New Testament. So he jumps from Genesis 14 right over to the New Testament. And then we’re going to see that after he gets done with the New Testament, he’s going to cycle back and go through the Old Testament one more time and the New. So he basically does two loops through the scriptures, but it’s not even. It’s not a. It’s not a systematic translation. It’s almost like the Lord is guiding him as we see. He did just in those verses there to go ahead and jump around from here. Okay, now come over here. Good. He wants Joseph asking the right questions to get the revelations the Lord wants to give him.

Scott Woodward:
And this is a cool moment where we’re watching it happen in real time.

Casey Griffiths:
And that’s fascinating, is to see how the Bible translation and the Doctrine and Covenants are really kind of linked to each other, that there’s an interplay there where when the Lord wants us to learn and he wants to also give us revelation, open the scriptures, right? That’s the way it worked with Joseph Smith. That’s the way it works for us. Now, continuing with the revelation right after verse 62, where he says, “great things await you,” I think is one of the most ominous phrases in the entire Doctrine and Covenants. Something that if I read in 1831, I’d be like, wait, what? But he says this: “Ye hear of wars in foreign lands; but behold, I say unto you, they are nigh, even at your doors, and not many years hence, ye shall hear of wars in your own lands.” Which immediately would have caused me to pause and say, what are you talking about? There’s an easy way to fulfill this. There’s wars that break out pretty soon after: the Texas Revolution, remember the Alamo, all that stuff.So just four or five years after this prophecy is given. The Mexican War, which takes place from 1846, 1848, and of course, and more information on this comes later to Joseph Smith, the American Civil War, which takes place in the 1860s, among others.

Casey Griffiths:
But the Lord is trying to globalize the story. A lot of the prophecies about the Last Days found in the Bible reference, specifically the region in which the Bible takes place in and around Jerusalem, the surrounding environs, even thethe, old term Armageddon is in anglicization of the Word, Megiddo, which Megiddo is just a city to the north of Jerusalem. Har Megiddo. Tel Megiddo we call it today. It’s great that the Savior is also telling us, hey, there’s a story about your part of the world leading up the Second Coming, too. So he gives them instructions here. He says, “I, the Lord have said,” to the Church, “gather you out from the eastern lands, assemble yourselves together; go ye forth into the western countries of America,” and there “call upon the inhabitants of those western lands to repent,” and when they do, to “build up churches unto me.” Which the Church always had kind of a westward gaze, because we’re trying to bring the gospel to the Native Americans. But this is another factor too, where the Lord said, get out of the eastern lands. And weirdly enough, the Saints are largely spared the effects of these wars, especially the Civil War, because they’ve headed west.

Casey Griffiths:
If they had been in a place like Missouri when the Civil War broke out, they may have suffered terribly. The Civil War was bad there. But they’re over in the west, where they can kind of see the war happening and reflect upon what it means, but don’t engage in a lot of the bloodshed, which again, is a bonus for the Church.

Scott Woodward:
That’s a good thought. So sometimes we forget that this section of the Doctrine and Covenants was given to a people in 1831, and it was immediately relevant to them. This isn’t a revelation that applies equally to all people at all times. Like, this group, like you said, is going to be spared as they continue to go west and they’re going to miss a lot of the carnage of some of these major wars. And I hadn’t thought about it that deeply, Casey, until you said it, but I’m like, wow, that’s, that is true. Because they go west, they will be spared. Very insightful, Casey. I think that’s true. I want to also highlight what he says next. He says something future-facing that’s not an 1831 time period. He says, as the Church continues to grow “with one heart and with one mind,” an explicit reference to the Zion description In Moses 7:18, they are instructed to “gather up your riches that ye may purchase an inheritance in the west, which shall hereafter be appointed unto you. And it shall be called the New Jerusalem,” which will be distinguished, he says, as quote, “a land of peace, a city of refuge, and a place of safety for the saints of the Most High.

Scott Woodward:
“And the glory and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion.” Now, this is clearly a reference to something we’re going to learn about shortly in Section 57, right, Casey? We’re going to learn that there’s a spot in Missouri, actually the western border of the United States, that the Lord will specifically point out as the place of the New Jerusalem. This seems to be a clear reference to that. Then the Lord predicts more war. The Lord says, amidst widespread war, quote, “it shall come to pass among the wicked that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety.” And many people of this more peaceful temperament, he says, “shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another. And it shall be said among the wicked; Let us not go up to battle against Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible; wherefore we cannot stand.” Then he finally predicts, “it shall come to pass that the righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations and shall come to Zion singing with songs of everlasting joy.”

Scott Woodward:
And then in verses 72, through 75, he gives a final prohibition not to share these things yet until it is “expedient in me,” he says, to accomplish the work. And then concludes the section with a brief prophecy about the fear and trembling that will seize upon their wicked enemies when he comes again. And that is the end of Section 45, which I think brings up a controversy we need to talk about.

Casey Griffiths:
All right, so let’s talk controversies in Section 45.

Scott Woodward:
Can I raise a controversy I want your thoughts on?

Casey Griffiths:
Yes. What’s your controversy?

Scott Woodward:
It’s kind of those last verses we were just reading about. This section, especially the end part there, clearly speaks about Zion, the New Jerusalem, as a singular city in the then-western United States. That would be Missouri, the western border there, beyond Missouri, just west of Missouri, what we call Kansas today, was just Native American territory, unorganized territory, territory out there. Right. So when he’s referring to this in 1831, west is Missouri. And we know that’s where the Saints will land on where the New Jerusalem will be according to Section 57. So in 1831, this may have made a lot of sense, but today it doesn’t seem to make as much sense. Casey, I want your thoughts here. So since, since the time of this revelation, the concept of Zion has shifted and expanded significantly to include all the stakes of Zion. We’ve talked about that in recent episodes. Today we don’t specifically have like a central hub of Zion as it was originally articulated here. So what do we do with the prophecies of this section? Like how, for instance, will Zion become a city of refuge when all the rest of the world is at war?

Scott Woodward:
That there will be people from all nations who come and gather to this one city, and they’ll be at peace and nobody will dare to fight this city. That seems to be the early 1830s, like, conception of Zion will be one place. But because we don’t think about it like that now, I don’t know what to do with this when I read it, Casey. We’ve got temples all over the world. We’ve got Saints everywhere, embedded in all nations. And are we to read Section 45 literally as that these people are all going to come to one center spot maybe in western Missouri or what?

Casey Griffiths:
I’ll say, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s how it’s going to play out. The Lord says in another passage in the Doctrine and Covenants that hasn’t been received when Section 45 is given, he speaks unto men according to their own understanding. At this point in time, you know, the goal for the Saints is the New Jerusalem, a singular city. But before 1831 is over, the Lord is already talking about network of cities. For instance, this is Section 133, which is received in November of 1831. So later, a couple months after this, he says this, “and this shall be their cry, and the voice of the Lord unto all people, go ye forth unto the land of Zion,” which sounds like a singular city, “that the borders of my people may be enlarged.” It’s enlarging. And then “her stakes may be strengthened, that Zion may go forth unto the regions roundabout.” So he’s already introduced this idea that there’s Zion and there’s her stakes, that there’s going to be multiple cities and places of refuge that will exist. Though I do think there’s going to be a center point, like a central hub around which all these gather.

Casey Griffiths:
And I mean, when you said there is no central hub today, I mean, right now, Salt Lake is Church headquarters. I don’t know if I’d call it the central hub.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, I mean, we’ve got more Saints outside the United States now than we do inside the United States, right?

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah, yeah. But I mean, that doesn’t take away its function as like a center place where we still gather to hold General Conference and Church meetings. And every Latter-day Saint, it seems like, has some sort of connection to Utah or has been here because that’s where Church headquarters is. I could see the city of Zion when it’s built, if it’s built in Missouri like the early Saints believed, or if it’s built somewhere else, is serving the same kind of function as well. So a central place with satellite locations, cities of refuge that exist around the world. In later sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, I’m thinking specifically Section 97, verse 21, the Lord says, this is Zion, the pure in heart. And that seems to be the definition that leaders of the Church are most comfortable with today. Talking about Zion as a city gets us into our hyper-millennial mode, where we’re thinking about building physical cities and moving to Missouri or wherever. And leaders of the Church are trying to say, What’s a city? Okay, what’s a city? It’s not real estate. It’s not trees and buildings and sidewalks. It’s people. If BYU-Idaho was destroyed tomorrow, Scott, the buildings, I mean, as long as the people are there, the university would persist.

Casey Griffiths:
And I think the same thing with Zion, where we don’t know what the refuge is here or what the calamities are, that the Lord’s going to be talking about. We tend to think in terms of armies and natural disasters. But I mean, is it a calamity that, you know, the number of divorces has shot through the roof or that people are starting to sort of feel this disconnect, this inhumanity towards other people? And I don’t think you need a fortified city to protect against that, but a city of people who are compassionate and kind and can provide refuge and comfort to people that feel like they’re lost. That might be what the Lord’s going for. That’s my spin on this. And that would be something that could have a central hub, central services, but also could have satellite communities all over the world, even to the point where there’s a little branch building on an island somewhere in the Pacific. Isn’t that Zion? Isn’t that what the Lord was really going for?

Scott Woodward:
So in the sense of spiritual warfare, you would say the refuge is how you’re living. Are you living in the Zion way? Are you living with a Zion community? Are you living with a people who are, as earlier in the section mentioned, standing in holy places? Right, that kind of a thing. He says, this will be the only people on earth that are not at war one with another. And yes, I could see where you’re saying like, well, maybe that’s like a spiritual warfare of some kind. And I could do that. But it also kind of sounds like it’s going to be war war. And if that kind of war, like, actually broke out, let’s say globally, a massive global war breaks out. How is Section 45 fulfilled? Like, is it that the stakes of Zion become like physical places of refuge? I realize I’m getting off here into like, wow, I want to know exactly what this was look like. And we know that never really worked out well for the Jews who tried to do that with the Old Testament, then they missed Jesus. And so I get that the practice that we’re engaging in right now is a little bit fraught.

Casey Griffiths:
I don’t want to overspiritualize the scriptures. I think my tendency towards the scriptures is to take them literally unless I have reason to do so otherwise. But I mean, verse 66, “it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God.” And I think think about feeling like we’re continually at war. Like the thing that the Savior talks about is wars and rumors of wars. In other words, actual warfare, like you’re talking about, but also the anxiety that comes from living in unsettling times. And I got to tell you, I think verse 66 is something I experience every Sunday when I spend six days out of seven in the midst of this complexity and thinking, What is going on? And why does it seem like everything is falling apart? And then I go to Church and I see my bishop and other people in the ward who have this serene feel to them, and for a couple hours I can kind of back up and go, okay, there’s good people in the world, right? And not everybody out there is trying to tear things down.

Casey Griffiths:
Here’s a bunch of builders. For me, that’s peace, refuge, and safety in one place. So I don’t want to overspiritualize these passages. Like, I get where you’re coming from, but I also also think that a lot of the complexity of the last days isn’t just physical violence, which is there, but also spiritual, social violence. The feeling that you can’t feel safe around other people. I feel safe when I go to Church. I feel like everybody there is on my side and is trying to help me and wants the best for me. And yeah, there’s complex relationships that exist there, but it feels like a place of peace for me. It feels like for a couple hours I can relax and hopefully I can get the same feeling at home. And hopefully my family, my, my kids especially get the same feeling at home, that this is a place of refuge and safety and peace.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And I think to your point, as I’m glancing over the verses again, it is talking about those who are at war as the wicked. Verse 70, “it shall be said among the wicked, let us not go up to battle against Zion, for their inhabitants are terrible.” I like that too. Verse 67, “insomuch that the wicked will not want to come there, it shall be called Zion.” This one group of people who are not at war, you might be onto something here. The wicked versus those who will be in Zion. Right? Something’s going on there. It’s kind of a mix between these two.

Casey Griffiths:
You made me think of the use of the word terrible, which I have always interpreted to mean, like, we’re scary. Right. But I guess you could say that the movement in the last few years has been to see members of the Church, especially active members, as scary. Right. Our unity is scary. Our serenity is unsettling to some people. Like, I go on a message boards on Reddit and stuff like that. And people moving to Utah say the most awful things, like, Hey, I want to live in a neighborhood, but not with any Mormons or anything like that. And it feels like our lifestyle is sometimes seen as terrible to some people, but to us on this side, it’s peaceful, it’s uplifting. It gives us a sense of refuge from all the stuff that’s going on. And the fact that I’m supposed to be angry about something every five minutes, that they’re continually in this kind of emotional and psychological war with everybody around them, where everybody they assume is bad. And as a member of the Church, I guess the teachings of the Church have just made my default setting that most people are basically good and they’re trying to do the best that they can.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, it’s interesting the way that the word terror and terrible is used here in these last few verses. And in fact, the very last verse. Look at that one. Well, let’s do the last two, verse 7, 74 and 75. “For when the Lord shall appear, he shall be terrible unto them, that fear may seize upon them, and they shall stand afar off and tremble, and all nations shall be afraid because of the terror of the Lord and the power of his might. Even so. Amen.” That’s how the revelation ends. It’s this fear and trembling that the righteousness of God and of his people strike in the hearts of the wicked. And I know not what that’s going to look like. I don’t, I don’t know that I’ve experienced that directly. But whatever the Lord is describing here in the end of times, it seems like the takeaways the Lord is asking the Saints here to rally around are those, those themes of, for instance, verse 65, of being of one heart and one mind. Or earlier in the 40s of, of standing in holy places and taking the Holy Spirit for your guide. And it’s these things of clinging to principles of righteousness and knowing that everything will ultimately work out if you do that right, that it’s like President Hunter once said, one of my favorite quotes from him, “If our lives are centered in Christ, nothing can go permanently wrong.

Scott Woodward:
“On the other hand, if our lives are not centered on the Savior and His teachings, nothing can ever go permanently right.” I see that kind of playing out here in the end of Section 45. Like, things are going to be bad, but they’re not going to be permanently bad. And if you stay with the Lord and you stay with the covenant people, one heart, one mind, building Zion the best you can, nothing can go permanently wrong. But if you’re on the other side, the wicked side, and you’re looking at the Lord and his people as terrible, nothing’s ever going to go permanently right for that group.

Casey Griffiths:
Let me add, I remember one of my teachers, they used to say, like, a good gauge of a person’s spirituality, how their spiritual health is: hey, if the Savior walked in the door right at this moment, what would your feeling be? Is it great? Is it terrible? Would you be excited to meet him, to, to know that it’s all true, that he’s real? Or would you be really scared because you have issues that you need to deal with? There’s this dichotomy that surrounds the idea of the end of times. And that is it something to look forward to or is it something to dread? If you’re looking forward to it or if you’re dreading, it really says a lot more about you and where you’re at spiritually than it does about the events itself. So it can be great and it can be terrible as well. Those are the two words usually used to describe the Savior’s Second Coming.

Scott Woodward:
So I don’t know that we solved the controversy here.

Casey Griffiths:
We had fun. That’s the important thing, right? We had a good time.

Scott Woodward:
We had a good time. So whether, whether verses 63 through 71 are truly envisioning the New Jerusalem as a single city in the western United States, which will become the only safe international harbor amidst otherwise universal worldwide war, is unclear. And if it is literal, we can safely say that nothing in history has ever yet come close to a approximating a fulfillment of that prophecy. If it is in some ways metaphorical, we could say this is amongst us now, right? The spiritual warfare is on, and the places of safety are those places where you can be of one heart, one mind with people who are trying to stand in holy places and take the Holy Spirit for their guide and to receive the truth. If we’re talking about that, then game on right now.

Casey Griffiths:
Absolutely. Well said.

Scott Woodward:
All right, so, Casey, consequences, outcomes of Section 45. What do we got?

Casey Griffiths:
Section 45 becomes kind of an invitation to the members of the Church. One, the Savior wants them to learn how all the righteous who have lived throughout various ages of world history will ultimately see the millennial day in their flesh when they’re resurrected at Christ’s coming. So it’s an affirmation of Easter. It’s a declaration that everybody is going to be able to receive a body and live in immortality and eternal life. It’s a great, great thing.

Scott Woodward:
It shows how the promises made to the ancient Israelite fathers will finally be fulfilled in the day of their redemption when they’re gathered together as a nation from among the dead and the living and are gathered together under their divine messianic king to inherit the earth, where all this has been heading from the beginning.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. And it also is intended to help us understand that the calamities, the upheaval, the tumult of the latter days, while they aren’t going to be exactly pleasant, are signs that help us understand that the fulfillment of God’s promises are coming. They’re not great, but they’re not a sign that the world is out of control. They’re a sign that God is in control and that things are proceeding according to the path that he’s laid out.

Scott Woodward:
And I think one more thing is that this section helps these 1831 Latter-day Saints better appreciate the broader context into which the Lord will soon command them to build the New Jerusalem out west as a place of peace, refuge, and safety amidst war, which is totally going to become their context in the next couple decades. And so I think Section 45 would be looked back on by the those Saints as pretty meaningful. When the Lord says, go out west to Missouri and build Zion. It’s no wonder that this revelation came, as Joseph Smith said, “to the joy of the Saints,” as it reframes their present annoyances from local antagonists within the broader perspective of the ultimate triumph of God’s purposes for his people. In the light of God’s overarching promises and knowing that those will be fulfilled, the little things like these local annoyances antagonisms that the Saints are experiencing in 1831 and that we might experience today are temporary. They’re going to go away. Just keep in mind the big picture. Section 45, I think, does that really, really well. Not turning a blind eye to the problems, but saying to please fix your focus and your gaze on the fulfillment of God’s promises and you’ll be able to take these other things in stride, I think.

Casey Griffiths:
Yeah. And at the same time, it’s that classic hearken, listen to me, the Lord’s call to stand in holy places, receive the truth, and take the Holy Spirit as their guide. He’s taking the parable of the ten virgins, this story about the end of the world and being prepared for it, and just basically saying, here’s some of the things I want you to know so that you could be prepared so they know that the Lord is mindful of them and that the complexities that they face both in 1831 and in today are things that the Lord will help us us navigate, that he wants us to be prepared and he wants us to know that it’s not going to be easy, but it is going to be possible for us to survive the latter days and that these calamities are leading to greater and better things.

Scott Woodward:
So some of my takeaways from this, Casey, is you’ve made me think about this because I read Scripture so literal. But it’s interesting that he’s not saying, get better at your swordsmanship. He’s saying, receive truth, take the Holy Spirit for your guide. Stand in holy places, and this is how you survive the calamities of the latter days.

Casey Griffiths:
Rather than being the best swordsman, we should strive to be people that create spaces of refuge and safety and peace. That is the calling of the church in the latter days.

Scott Woodward:
Great discussion today. Appreciate that, Casey, good thoughts, as always. Fun to be with you.

Casey Griffiths:
Well, thanks, Scott. This has been fun, too. We’ll see you next week. And in the meantime, have a great time. I’ll see you.

Scott Woodward:
All right. We’ll see you, Casey. Thanks, man.