Posted on 05/05/2008 10:01:30 AM PDT by Old Mountain man
THE DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS SECTION 87 Revelation and prophecy on war, given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, December 25, 1832. HC 1: 301–302. This section was received at a time when the brethren were reflecting and reasoning upon African slavery on the American continent and the slavery of the children of men throughout the world. 1–4, War foretold between the Northern States and the Southern States; 5–8, Great calamities shall fall upon all the inhabitants of the earth. 1 Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls; 2 And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place. 3 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 then war shall be poured out upon all nations. 4 And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war. 5 And it shall come to pass also that the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation. 6 And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations; 7 That the cry of the saints, and of the blood of the saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies. 8 Wherefore, 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.
Er, few people in America after 1820 would have doubted that there was going to be eventual war between the States. And few would have guessed any other State but South Carolina as starting it.
I imagine it would be difficult to prove this wasn’t added after the war.
And yea, thou shaltst not useth the html paragraph tag, saith the LORD. My will is even that only those (eth) who can standeth to read unformatted pap will receiveth my revelation, and woooooe be unto those who faileth to putteth up with it.
13:1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,A second test is recorded by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:20-22. In this second test, the prophet is correct about who God is (i.e. passed the first test, above), but now has to pass a second test - accuracy in predicting the future...
13:2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
13:3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
13:4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
13:5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
18:20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.In other words, a prophet who is truly hearing from God, will be correct in his/her prophecies fully 100% of the time, and will be in agreement with what prior prophets have announced re God's nature and character. Any less, and God assures us that "prophet" is false.
18:21 And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?
18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
The apostle John provides an update to Moses' first test - and a command to apply it - in 1 John 4:1-2:
4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
4:2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.
ROFLOL. Even Elsie wouldn’t try to pull that one!
You ought to ping a person to the comments you make about them.
pinging for comments
The Mormons believed the Civil War would set the stage for the Second Coming, and the closer the war got, the more they believed in the prophesy. That is part of the explanation, in theory, for the fanaticism that led to the Mountain Meadows Massacre (See A. J. Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains).
As far back as 1832 rumblings of secession had threatened the Union. John C. Calhoun, a senator from South Carolina, feared Northern interference in the affairs of the southern states. Although he opposed secession, Calhoun did argue that the southern states could protect their interests by nullifying acts by the Federal government they considered to be unconstitutional.
Joseph Smith was aware of this discontent and mentioned it in the History of the Church (vol. 1, pg.301). He wrote, “The people of South Carolina, in convention assembled (in November), passed ordinances, declaring their state a free and independent nation...President Jackson issued his proclamation against this rebellion, called out a force sufficient to quell it, and implored the blessings of God to assist the nation to extricate itself from the horrors of the approaching and solemn crisis.” On Christmas day, 1832, Smith claimed he received his “prophecy on the war of the rebellion.”
Despite these warning signs, some insist that as early as 1832 no one but Joseph Smith could have known that the United States could be plunged into a civil war. The fact is, not far from Smith’s Kirtland, Ohio headquarters, a newspaper called the Painesville Telegraph printed a story from the New York Courier and Enquirer entitled “The Crisis.” The article spoke of the “probabilities of dismemberment” stemming from discontent in South Carolina and Georgia over states rights. It is interesting to note that the date of this article is Friday, December 21,1832, just four days before Smith received his alleged “prophecy.”
http://www.mrm.org/topics/joseph-smith/did-joseph-smith-correctly-predict-civil-war
THE CIVIL WAR PROPHECY
This is a long one, but it needs to be looked at closely because the Mormons [especially the LDS missionaries] like to claim this prophecy as one of Joseph Smith’s true prophecies, and it just doesn’t bear close scrutiny!
In D&C 87.18, (1832) we read: “Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls; And the time will come that war will be pour out upon all nations, beginning at this 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…and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and then war shall be poured out upon all nations.
“And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshalled and disciplined for war. And it shall come to pass also that the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation.
“And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations.
“That the cry of the saints, and the blood of the saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies. Wherefore, 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.”
This prophecy was given on Christmas Day, 1832, in appearance almost 30 years before the Civil War. Although the prophecy looks good on the surface, it must be realized that at the time this was brought forth, South Carolina was already involved in many rebellious acts, and this fact was available in the papers of the time. Congress had passed a tariff in July of 1832 that South Carolina had declared unacceptable.
It was during the Christmas season that the nation’s press expected and wrote about the impending outbreak of civil war, beginning with this rebellion in South Carolina. Even the U.S. Army was on alert. With these facts at hand, it didn’t take much of a seer to predict the unfolding events. Even a paper published by the Mormons themselves contained such news!
However, the war did not come to pass. The entire prophecy was shelved and never appeared again during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. The first two editions of the History of the Church did not include it even though it was in the original manuscript. It reappeared in 1852 when the war again seemed imminent.
Aside from the dating problems, the scope of the prophecy is not in balance. In just one item, the prophecy states that war would begin locally and pour out upon all nations and shall be the direct cause of an international global war. Even the great World War I did not encompass all nations, and it was 50 years after the Civil War and had no possible relationship to it! This is a definite false prophecy that did not come to pass.
Former Mormon Dick Baer has pointed out there are at least 20 elements in this prophecy, and for it to be a true prophecy, all of those elements would have to have come to pass. In human terms, those odds are 1 in 1,048,576óa truly remarkable achievement, had Smith pulled it off. Obviously he did not.
In another example, verses 4 through 6 state that the slaves shall rise up, the remnants left in the land shall rise up against the Gentiles (non-Mormons) and the bloodshed, famines, plagues (caused by this great war) shall bring with God’s wrath, “...a full end of all nations.” This did not happen. In fact, Smith only got two elements out of 20 right, and those were based on current events and common sense. Sorry, this is a bad one!
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Further reading:
JOSEPH SMITH AS A PROPHET
http://www.exmormon.org/prophet.htm
see:PROPHECIES OF JOSEPH SMITH WHICH WERE NOT FULFILLED
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Old Mountain man, this is not intended as an attack on you. What you are believing, Mormonism, is the product of a confused man. There is some very good news! Many of the best things you hope to be true about Mormonism are actually true in the Bible!
Jesus Christ did die for our sins and rise again, and there really is an eternal Kingdom for those who turn from their sins and seek forgiveness by faith in Him. Put aside all the confusing Mormon theology and read the simple and plain words of Jesus Christ in the Gospels.
“Prophesy” is a verb. “Prophecy” is a noun.
Jefferson knew where we were headed, it was just a matter of time.
In a prophetic letter decades earlier ,
President Thomas Jefferson expressed
the fears of many of his contemporaries over conflicts
of states’ rights, westward settlement, federalism and slavery.
“This momentous question,
like a fire bell in the night,
awakened and filled one with terror,
I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.
It is hushed indeed for the moment.
but this is a reprieve only,
not a final sentence . . .
we have the wolf by the ears
and we can neither hold him
nor safely let him go.”
Matthew 7:15,16: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits....
The first calls for a Southern secession began with the Missouri Compromise in 1820.
South Carolina threatened to secede in 1828, as a result of the so-called "Tariff Of Abominations."
Secession fever flared up in South Carolina again in 1832 - and almost resulted in military action.
This "prophecy" was supposedly written in 1832, but no autograph exists to verify that claim.
In 1846 the Wilmot Proviso again rekindled secession fever in South Carolina.
Secession fever brewed up again in South Carolina following the Compromise of 1850.
An LDS source claims that in 1851 this "prophecy" was printed in England as an appendix to an English edition of The Pearl Of Great Price - not as part of The Doctrine And Covenants. I have seen no external, non-LDS verification of this claim.
In 1876 the LDS issued a revamped edition of The Doctrine And Covenants in which much of the previous editions texts were reedited and resequenced and 26 new sections were added.
One of the sections that was added was the new number 87.
here’s another interesting prophecy (also not intended as a personal attack):
Rev 22:18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book;
Rev 22:19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.
Rev 22:20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Rev 22:21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.
NASB
I would say the first problem is that this is the word of a self-declared prophet.
Just like Warren Jeffs.
And we all know about ‘self-declared prophets’.
How many of them turned out to be correct about ‘the end of the world’?
JEFFS has declared the ‘end of the world date’ multiple times.
Each time it didn’t happen, he just set a new date.
If the Bible says, ‘no man knows when the end time will come’, then how can one believe a man that claims to know?
You tried that in another thread. True it wasn't included in the D&C until after the war ended, but it was published in 1851, ten years prior to the start of the Civil War. Previous to that it was included with LDS Missionary literature in the late 1830's.
The prophecy was not written after the Civil War.
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