--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - West, Joseph A. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 23 number: 4 published: 1920-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'West, Joseph A., "Present World Conditions and Prophecy," *Improvement Era* 23, no. 4 (February 1920): 346–350.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2304unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2304unse start_page: 346 end_page: 350 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1920-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2304unse publication_year: 1920 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1920, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Present World Conditions and Prophecy Present World Conditions and Prophecy By Joseph A. West (Concluded from page 140, December, 1919.) At a general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held at Nauvoo, April 6, 1840, Apostle Orson Hyde was called to go to Jerusalem and dedicate the land of Palestine for the gathering of the Jews. In his report to the Twelve, dated at Triest, January 2, 1842, he says: "It was by political power and influence that the Jewish nation was broken down and her subjects dispersed abroad, and it will be by political influence and power that they will be gathered. England is destined, in the wisdom and economy of heaven, to stretch forth the arm of political power and advance in the front rank of this glorious enterprise." Those who recall the triumphal march of the British army through Palestine during the world war just passed will at once see how literally this prophecy of a modern apostle has been fulfilled. One of the earliest Bible predictions of a universal war in the evening of time is to be found in Joel 3: 9, 10. Speaking of a time just preceding the sign of Christ's final coming, when "the sun and moon shall be darkened and the stars shall withdraw their shining," the prophet Joel says: I Proclaim ya this among the gentiles; prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong. Those who have kept advised on the stirring events of the past five years cannot fail to be struck with the remarkable manner in which the above prophecy has been fulfilled, even to the weaker nations of Europe boastfully entering the war on one side or another of the conflict. In the second chapter of Isaiah and the fourth chapter of Micah we read the following: And many 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. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples, PRESENT WORLD CONDITIONS AND PROPHECY 347 and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Some one has defined prophecy as history reversed, and surely one of the crowning events of this latter-day gospel dispensation could not have been more correctly or beautifully described, had Isaiah been filling the role of a modern historian instead of that of a prophet who lived in an age that is past. People of all nations have been gathered by the gospel into these mountain vales, that are exalted from three-quarters of a mile to one and a half miles above the hills of the surrounding low-lands; and these people have come here to be taught in the ways of the Lord and have covenanted with him in solemn, sacred places to walk in his paths. Out of this Latter-day Zion has already gone forth the law of the Lord, and countless thousands have rendered obedience thereto. The great divine law of political and religious liberty that God inspired our fathers to establish upon this land has also gone forth to the nations of the earth, and despotic rule is doomed throughout the world. As Joel said, "The gentiles have prepared war, and the mighty men" have come against each other in the greatest battles the world has ever known, and now that it is over, they are beginning, figuratively speaking, to "beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks," and seeking, by a League of Nations, to "learn war no more." The Savior, in answering the request of his disciples, "Tell us, when these things will be and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?" predicted: "Nation shall rise again nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall and earthquakes, in diverse be famine, and pestilence, places;" which, he says, will be but the beginning of sorrows. "And this gospel of the Kingdom," he adds, "shall be preached in all the world for a witness against all nations; and then shall the end come." Matt. 24:3, 14. In the new revision of the scriptures made by Joseph, passage reads as above, but to it is added the the Seer, this the idea words, "Or the destruction of the wicked," conveying end, or destruction, of the that the end referred to was the wicked. _ . _ . ., Verily T1 say , C T7 . Verse 34 in the same chapter which reads, all these things shall unto you, This generation shall not pass till in the new translation reads as follows: be fulfilled," [in which these things shall "Verily I say unto you, this generation, not pass till all these things be fulfilled. be shown forth] shall 348 IMPROVEMENT ERA That is, the generation in which the events pertaining to the first apostolic dispensation were predicted should not pass away until all those predictions were fulfilled, and likewise, those events that relate to the latter-day dispensation, or the dispensation of the fulness of times, shall all occur in the generation in which they shall first begin to be made manifest. To overcome the apparent difficulty of interpretation in King James' translation in the 34th verse, reference is made to the last verse of the 16th of St. Matthew, which reads as follows: "Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his Kingdom," evidently referring to John, who was one of the number. In each place in the Gospels where this same statement is made, the plural is used, showing that there would be more than one then living who would not taste of death until after the coming of the Savior in the latter days. On December 25th, 1832, Joseph, the Seer, received the following: Verily, thus saith the Lord, concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of S uth Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls. The days will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at that place; for behold the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations, and thus war shall be poured out upon all nations. In the original manuscript of this passage the word then, as shown by Elder B. H. Roberts, occupies the place of the word thus, making it read, "And then shall war be poured out upon all nations." That is, when Great Britain shall call upon other nations to defend herself against other nations. I need not here refer at length to the marvelous and most accurate manner in which this prophecy was fulfilled in the Civil War. The bare mention of it is sufficient to confirm, in the mind of every student of history, the fulfilment of this prediction, for that war did result in the death of, approximately, a million men, and it cost our government nearly a thousand million dollars. We are now only concerned with that portion which relates to the war that was to be poured out upon all nations, when Great Britain should begin to call upon other nations to protect herself against other nations. I do not know just when it was that the entente between Great Britain, France, and Russia was formed as a counter-balance to the alliance between Germany, Austria and Italy, known PRESENT WORLD CONDITIONS AND PROPHECY 349 as the Triple Alliance; nor do I know whether the exact date is important to the question I am discussing. The fact is that alliances were formed, on the one side at the instance of Great Britain, whose main purpose was to defend herself against other nations, principally Germany, her great commercial and naval competitor, and when she called upon other nations to defend herself against other nations, under the terms of said alliance, one of the greatest wars that the world has ever witnessed was launched and has already resulted in the death of about fifteen million people, directly and indirectly, ten millions having been killed in battle alone; and the expenditure of 197 billions of dollars, or eleven billions more than the total wealth of — North America a debt that hangs like a mill stone upon the necks of this and coming generations. There is not a nation in all the world that has not been more or less affected by this great war, however distant it may have been from the actual theatre of the great conflict. Even those nations that have tried to be neutral have not escaped the ravages of Germany, either in her submarine warfare or in some other way, and thus has the entire world been plunged into a deluge of strife and bloodshed. And why has all this happened? Let the Word of God answer. Isaiah, after enumerating the terrible judgments of the Lord that were to be visited upon the world in the latter days, gives the following reason therefor: The earth also is defiled unto the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate. * * * And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones * * * and the kings of the earth. (Isaiah 24.) What greater punishment could be meted out to the "high ones and the kings of the earth" than that which has overtaken them as a result of the war just passed? And the end is not yet, for some of them may be tried by an international court and punished in accordance with the enormity of their crimes. We therefore find that, while the present condition of the world is a striking fulfilment of prophecy, both ancient and modern, it is also the direct result of the rejection of the gospel that has so long been preached to the inhabitants of the earth by the authorized servants of the Lord. Let us who claim to be Latterday Saints not think that because we have accepted the truth thereof, we and but indifferently lived up to the requirements will escape the latter-day judgments, for where much is given and the Lord has said that judgment would much is required, begin at the house of the Lord. Upon this point the prophet "It a false idea that the Saints will escape all the Joseph says: is 350 IMPROVEMENT ERA judgments, while the wicked suffer; for all flesh is subject to suffer,and the righteous shall hardly escape; still many of the Saints will escape, for the just shall live by faith." (History of Church, Vol 4, p. 11.) Judgment began with the Saints in the early history of the Church, because they would not keep the commandments of the Lord and they were scattered and peeled as no other people have been since the days of the early Christians. The Lord's hand rested heavily upon this nation in the Civil War, for having, among other things, allowed wicked men to slay our Prophet and Patriarch, and to expatriate the Church, numbering tens of — thousands not for any crimes that the Saints had committed, but to satisfy religious prejudice, such as caused the crucifixion of the Christ and the martyrdom of his disciples. The generation that held the stage of history at the time of the Civil War, both believers and unbelievers, within the confines of the United States, received its chastisement, and our own generation, in the great world-war, the world over, has had a foretaste and premonition of what may yet come, if it does not repent and turn unto the Lord with full purpose of heart. To the Saints, the Lord has said "Therefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved until : the day of the Lord come; for behold it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen." Logan, Utah Soldiers Though I cheered them, yet I cried, For my heart was full of pride Of those youngsters, as they stood In their splendid young manhood, Clad in khaki, tall and bold, Faring forth like knights of old On a high and holy quest. But, withdrawn from all the rest, Suddenly I saw him there, A saint-eyed stripling, strong and fair, With withered arm and athlete's back, And soul upon a fearful rack, White lips compressed; head held high; A tortured look; an anguished sigh; Then radiant grew his suffering face, And I rejoiced, for by God's grace, Had" I here seen a hero made, That life shall find all unafraid. For those who answer their Country's call, And the faithful at home, Are soldiers all. Maud Baggarley.