When giving an overview of Rev 14:6-7:
This is one
of many angels doing work of the restoration. Speculative Mormon tradition suggests
that this is Moroni. (Martin J. Preece, Learning to Love the Doctrine and
Covenants [Salt Lake City: MJP Publishing, Inc., 1988], 175)
Prophecy
does not always predestinate. Another prophet, Jonah, predicated under
inspiration of the Lord that in forty days the city of Nineveh would be
destroyed, and yet it wasn’t (Jonah 3). Does this mean Jonah was a false
prophet? No. The people of Nineveh repented. Predictions made through
prophets are often conditional. People and circumstances and other factors may
contribute to and detract from the fulfillment of prophecy. Read D&C
124:49, 51. (Martin J. Preece, Learning to Love the Doctrine and Covenants [Salt
Lake City: MJP Publishing, Inc., 1988], 188)
When commenting on D&C 124:49:
Here is a vital principle. When a man receives a commandment of
the Lord, if he should go with all his might to accomplish it, but is prevented
from doing so by factors beyond his control, then the Lord will accept their
sacrifice.
Now, wait a moment! I thought that we believed what Nephi taught
in 1 Nephi 3:7, “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for
I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he
shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he
commandeth them.”
Is there any contradiction between 1 Nephi 3:7 and D&C 124:49?
There is a little. We must regard Nephi’s teaching as a truth, but an
incomplete truth. D&C 124:49 gives us the complete truth on the matter.
Beware of other incomplete truths in the Church. Can you think of any? How
about: “Keep the Word of Wisdom, and you will enjoy good health.” “Pay your tithing,
and you will become prosperous.” “Train up a child in the way he should go, and
later in life he will not depart from it.” (Ibid., 362-63)
Intelligence. Whenever we encounter the term
“intelligence,” we ought to think of two possible meanings:
1. “Intelligence” or “intelligences” are those eternal and
uncreated entities utilized by the Father and the Son in the process of
creation. The “intelligence” of a man is his essence—who he really is.
Intelligences are capable of exercising their agency and acting for themselves.
They have always existed and cannot be destroyed. Each individual, including
the Father and the Son, is, at his very center, a single intelligence. In
addition, a myriad of lesser accomplished intelligences were embodied with the bodies
of plants, animals, or even the inert materials of the earth. The purpose of
the existence of each intelligence is to progress toward Godhood which is
accomplished through obedience to the laws of God given to them. And there are
divine laws or commandments given to each and every category (kingdom) of
intelligences (see D&C 88:36-38).
2. “Intelligence” also may refer to that amount of light,
spiritual progress, or spiritual growth, an individual (an intelligence) has
acquired as a result of his obedience to God’s law. Since the light which
emanates from each intelligence contains the complete truth about that
intelligence, we may say that his light is his intelligence and vice versa. In
speaking of an individual intelligence, we may say that he radiates more or
less light or intelligence than another because of his pattern of obedience to
the laws of God. (Martin J. Preece, Learning to Love the Doctrine and
Covenants [Salt Lake City: MJP Publishing, Inc., 1988], 228)
On D&C 110:11 and "the leading of the
ten tribes from the land of the north":
There have been
at least two main theories regarding the “lost” ten tribes in this
dispensation. Each has had its advocates among the brethren. First, some have
suggested that the ten tribes are not really lost but rather are scattered or
dispersed among the nations of the earth. They are “lost” in identity but not
in person. We know where they are but we don’t know who they are. Also they no
longer know who they are. Second, they are thought by some to still be living
together as a group in some obscure location. A subterranean location “in the
north”—near the north pole has even been suggested. It has even been theorized
that they may be living together on some extra-terrestrial sphere, such as
another planet. It would seem that the former theory is the more likely and
that the “land of the north” is only a figurative allusion.
If the ten
tribes are scattered throughout the earth, then why is their location so often
referred to as “the north” (Jeremiah 3:12), “the land of the north” (Zechariah
2:6), or “the north countries” (Ether 13:11)? There are several possible
reasons. One may simply be that the tribes are scattered predominantly, though
not exclusively, throughout the northern hemisphere. Another reason is the
geography of Israel itself. Even though Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome (the
powers most responsible for scattering Israel) were actually located to the
east and the west of Palestine, because of the topography of the land,
historically their armies approached Palestine from the north to the south and
departed from the south to the north. This meant that their captives were
always carried away “into the north.”
Another
reason “the north” had evil connotations in Jewish symbolism was that the
northernmost city of Israel, Dan, later became particularly associated with
idolatry and apostasy (1 Kings 12:28-30). This may be the reason why Dan, the
tribe of the north, was later omitted from John’s list of the twelve tribes in
his Revelation (7:4-8). Another reason why the “north” symbolized evil for the
ancients was that they oriented themselves on maps and so forth, not to the
north, as we do, but to the east toward the rising sun. This put their right
hand, which was associated with good things and clean uses, on their south,
while the left hand, associated with unclean uses, was to the north. Benjamin,
which means “son of the right hand,” was a favorite of Jacob and settled, of course,
in the south (or right-hand side) of the promised land. Good things, like the
gold of Ophir or the Queen of Sheba, came from the right, or south, while bad
things, like the armies of Assyria and Babylon, came from the left, or north.
Even today, as every “lefty” knows, the right hand still gets preferential
treatment. Anciently, the two hands, and the two directions they represented,
were not “right and left” but “right and wrong.” This concept is reflected in
the Latin word for “left,” which is sinister. So, anciently, the north was
associated symbolically with idolatry, apostasy, and political defeat, and, as the
direction of the left hand, with uncleanness. The gathering of Israel will
bring the ten tribes back from this figurative north land—even though they are
actually scattered in all four directions (3 Nephi 20:13; Psalm 107:3; Isaiah
42:5-6).
And yet,
part of the gathering of Israel in the latter days will include a literal
return of all the twelve tribes of Israel to their ancient inheritances in the
Old World. Just as the ten tribes were literally taken out of the Holy Land to
the north and thence to all nations, so shall their return, at some future
time, be literally from among all nations to re-enter the Holy Land from the
north. The children of Ephraim, one of the ten tribes, who have been “wanderers
among the nations” (Hosea 9:17), have already begun to be gathered and have
begun “to push the people together” (Deuteronomy 33:17). Eventually, that
gathering will bring about the restoration of all the tribes of Israel. Besides
the establishment of an American Zion, this will include a formal return of representatives
from each of the ten northern tribes to their former inheritances in Palestine
and also a return of Judah and Benjamin to Jerusalem and their inheritance in the
south. The breach between the two kingdoms (Judah and Israel) will be healed, and
Israel will be restored—all its twelve tribes—to all of its biblical
inheritance in fulfillment of the promises made to their fathers, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
However, it
must be added that not all the descendants of Israel who will be gathered in
the latter days could possibly fit into Palestine in the Old World or into Jackson
County in the New. These two locations will likely be administrative centers with
other stakes or gathering places located throughout the world.
People are
“gathered” in two separate ways—spiritually and temporally. They are gathered
spiritually as they are led out of the captivity of apostasy and accept the Savior
and his gospel and are “restored to the true Church and fold of God” (2 Nephi 9:2).
They are gathered temporally as they go where the saints of God are congregated.
(Martin J. Preece, Learning to Love the Doctrine and Covenants [Salt
Lake City: MJP Publishing, Inc., 1988], 294-95)
Commenting on D&C 113:7-10 and the interpretation
of Isa 52:
A word of
caution regarding the interpretation of scripture is perhaps appropriate here.
As we read the inspired writings of the prophets such as Isaiah, Ezekiel,
Jeremiah, we ought always to keep in mind that more than one interpretation of
their revelations may be possible. Fundamentally, these prophets were speaking
to the people of their own and addressing the issues and problems that existed then.
We may find application in their words to us and to our time, and it may be
legitimate and appropriate to do so, but the application to our time may
not be what the prophet had primarily in mind. An interesting specific example
if our modern interpretation of Ezekiel 37:15-17. Since Orson Pratt pronounced
that these verses—which include the concepts of the “stick of Judah” and the “stick
of Joseph”—refer to the Bible and the Book of Mormon, that meaning has become thoroughly
and irreversibly entrenched in our culture. The question one might ask is, “What
did Ezekiel intend by those verses?” When Ezekiel wrote, between 592 and
570 B.C., the people of Judah were held captive by Babylon. Ezekiel lived in a
colony of exiles from Jerusalem. He addressed, in his writings, the whole of
Israel. In his day Israel was in shambles. The Kingdom of Judah was separated
from the Kingdom of Israel (the Kingdom of Israel had been taken captive in 721
B.C. by Assyria), and Judah was in chains living under Babylonian domination.
His people doubtless would have petitioned him, “Ezekiel, where is God? Are we
not the covenant people? Have we been abandoned by God?” At this time of great
anguish it seems likely that Ezekiel would have wanted to reassure them that
they had not, in fact, been abandoned by God, but that one day God would take
the two parts of Israel broken off from one another and reunite them in their
own land and under their own rule, out of bondage. Read verses 21 and 22 of
Ezekiel 37. It seems less likely that the captive Israelites would have been
comforted to know that there would eventually be a Bible and a Book of Mormon
centuries hence. Now, certainly, it may be that God intended Ezekiel 37:15-17
to speak of these of our day and announce that there would be both a Bible and
a Book of Mormon, but it is not clear that Ezekiel was aware of this interpretation.
(Martin J. Preece, Learning to Love the Doctrine and Covenants [Salt
Lake City: MJP Publishing, Inc., 1988], 315, emphasis in bold added)