Hugh Nibley pointed out that prophecy is a gender-neutral gift. For instance, Eliza R. Snow had the spiritual gift of prophecy. To know or be shown the future by God is one thing; what makes the President of the Church of Jesus Christ, his counselors, and the Quorum of the Twelve special is that they have been commissioned to share information with us in the present that will help us prepare for the future. Not every legitimate prompting and impression that the Lord gives to individuals is meant to be shared (most are not). But the Brethren who hold those offices are appointed to be “prophets, seers, and revelators.” To reveal means to make known, to publicize.
It is one thing to predict based on wisdom. It is another to have the future revealed in detail to us by God or one of His servants, the prophets. Recent events have reminded me that we are actually led by prophets in our day.
Joseph Smith recorded many prophecies, and some of them are in the Doctrine and Covenants. Here is part of D&C 87:1-8. This revelation was given 25 December 1832, almost thirty years before the Civil War, which began in 1860 and ended in 1865:
“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…”
The Civil War began with the secession of South Carolina, and the first shots of the war were fired on Fort Sumter, on the shore of that state. It is still the most costly war America ever fought in terms of death—600,000 to 800,000 men died in five years, depending on whose tabulations you consult.
“And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place.”
This was the beginning of modern warfare. Gunpowder had been around for centuries, but the Civil War was the first truly modern war. It saw the advent of steel plated steam powered warships, the extensive use of railroads, the use of hot air balloons for surveillance (technically an air force), trench warfare, and telegraph lines for instantaneous communication across long distances. Though it was never deployed in the combat of the Civil War, the machine gun was invented at that time. The next century and a half saw other innovations in weapons technology, and manufacturing, buying, and selling these machines became the most profitable business of the next 150 years. Genocide and mass murders became commonplace as these machines proliferated and fell into the hands of dictators. Two world wars and countless “brushfire” wars turned the world into a proving ground for these deadly instruments. Only the advent of nuclear weapons (a mere 80 years after the Civil War ended) caused the world to pause and feel a desire for peace through some means other than superior firepower and the threat of force. We went from muskets in 1832, to possessing technology to wipe out humanity through the push of a few buttons in 1945.
“…the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations…and they shall also call on other nations, in order to defend themselves…and then war shall be poured out upon all nations.
“…slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war.”
The North recruited an entire regiment (54th infantry) of black soldiers.
“And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn…”
The last verse makes an impressive series of predictions about the future into more than an exercise of fortune-telling, and drives home the point of having a prophet in the Church of Jesus Christ today:
“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.” We are told about great calamities in details no one could know without prophetic vision, but we are also told what to do about it—the safest way to weather the coming storm.
Joseph Smith’s prophecies about the Civil War are famous, at least among anti-Mormons. (We Latter-day Saints seem to prefer not to talk about them in our Sunday school classes. It is easy to become jaded about miracles.) There is another prophecy that gets no mention at all, but is equally impressive.
Astronomy
Joseph was in Liberty Jail, a pit prison without adequate food or warmth, basically a frozen sewer. Joseph and Hyrum Smith, as well as other men, spent several months in that miserable place while they received reports that their families and loved ones, the Saints, were being driven and persecuted.
Joseph wrote a letter from that prison (how did he have a pen and paper, yet not adequate food, clothing, or the option of bathing?), and parts of that letter are in our D&C. It begins with the line, “O God, where art thou? (verse 1). The Lord responds to Joseph’s prayer with words of consolation and instruction, and we focus on those words in our own trials. But look at this remarkable prediction from a prison in frontier America in 1839:
“…the last times…A time to come in the which nothing shall be withheld…All…shall be revealed…if there be bounds set to the heavens or to the seas, or to the dry land, or to the sun, moon, or stars—
“All the times of their revolutions, all the appointed days, months, and years, and all the days of their days, months, and years, and all their glories, laws, and set times, shall be revealed in the days of the dispensation of the fulness of times—
“According to that which was ordained in the midst of the Council of the Eternal God of all other gods before this world was…” (D&C 121:27-32).
The orbits, rates of rotation, approximate masses, composition, and other details about the sun, moon, and stars are now known.
For instance, the sun has an eleven year cycle of magnetic disturbances and sunspots. Our galaxy is approximately 120,000 light years in diameter, has a spiral pinwheel shape, and rotates on its axis. Our solar system circles the center of the galaxy once every 250 million years. Thousands of “exoplanets” have been found orbiting other stars. The Hubble telescope, with its view from space unhindered by air, has photographed seemingly dark patches of sky, and returned images of thousands of galaxies, each comprised of hundreds of millions of stars and planets. This information was veiled to scientists until very recently. But the Lord tells Moses in scriptures received through revelation to Joseph Smith, “Worlds without number have I created…And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man…” (Moses 1:33, 35). (We also see hints in the scriptures that there are now inhabited worlds other than our own (see D&C 88).) A kid in third grade can look up all of this on the internet at home.
The sun rotates on its axis at a rate of about once per 28 earth days; the moon also has a 28 day cycle. The moon appears to perfectly subtend, or overlap, the sun in the sky. What are the odds that one planet we know has life has only one moon, orbits only one star, and they look the exact same size from the surface of that planet? The fingerprints of deliberate creation are still there, if we choose to pay attention and ask questions.
You might say, “lucky guess, just random sweeping generalities borne of overused superlatives,” and dismiss it all. But Brigham Young pushes things even closer to recently revised models of the universe:
“How much matter do you suppose there is between here and some of the fixed stars which we can see? Enough to frame many, very many millions of such earths as this, yet it is now so diffused, clear and pure, that we look though it and behold the stars. Yet the matter is there. Can you form any conception of this? Can you form any idea of the minuteness of matter?” (Journal of Discourses, 15:136, quoted in Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 397-8).
“...the world...this little ball, this little speck in God’s creation, so small that from the sun I expect you would have to have a telescope to see it; and from any of the fixed stars I do not expect that it has ever been seen, only by the celestials (exalted)—mortals could not see this earth at that distance.” J.D. 15:19, quoted in Discourses of B.Y., p. 295).
The latest scientific data lead some scholars to postulate “dark matter,” stuff between the stars we cannot see, yet whose influence gives gravitational effects they can account for through no other means. There is even visible matter between the stars, and I hear that most of it is quasi-organic, potential building blocks of living organisms like carbon and oxygen. Of course, the incomprehensible vastness of space was learned a century ago, though the picture has expanded recently.
It is easy for anyone to shrug off trying to explain these extraordinary statements from prophets and keep doing what they were doing, but those who already receive personal revelation cannot help but have their faith reinforced by such amazing accuracy. Blindfolded, possessing no formal training in science, no advanced instruments like orbiting telescopes or atom-smashers, these men living in the 1800s described accurately a physical universe we have only begun to witness through telescopes.
What does that tell us about the accuracy of their descriptions of the place where God lives, of premortal and afterlife geography?
Prophets Today
The skeptic will say, “What about prophecy today?”
In 1998, and again in 2001, in General Conference, President Hinckley made reference to Pharaoh’s dream: seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.
“I cannot forget the great lesson of Pharaoh’s dream of the fat and lean kine and of the full and withered stalks of corn.
“I cannot dismiss from my mind the grim warnings of the Lord as set forth in the 24th chapter of Matthew.
“…Now, I do not wish to be an alarmist. I do not wish to be a prophet of doom. I am optimistic. I do not believe the time is here when an all-consuming calamity will overtake us” (The Times In Which We Live, October 2001 General Conference). He referenced the same dream in 1998:
“I wish to speak to you about temporal matters.
“As a backdrop for what I wish to say, I read to you a few verses from the 41st chapter of Genesis.
“Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, dreamed dreams which greatly troubled him. The wise men of his court could not give an interpretation. Joseph was then brought before him: “Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood upon the bank of the river:
‘And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in a meadow:
‘And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed. …
‘And the lean and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine: …
‘And I saw in my dream … seven ears came up in one stalk, full and good:
‘And, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them:
‘And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears: …
‘And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, … God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.
‘The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. …
‘… What God is about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh.
‘Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt:
‘And there shall arise after them seven years of famine;
‘… And God will shortly bring it to pass’ (Gen. 41:17–20, 22–26, 28–30, 32).
“Now, brethren, I want to make it very clear that I am not prophesying, that I am not predicting years of famine in the future. But I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order.
“So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings” (To the Boys and to the Men, October 1998 General Conference, priesthood session).
He did not predict a literal famine (people were still trying to diet during the recession), but there was a “bubble” that lasted seven years, followed by a slump that lasted seven years. The boom-time lasted from about 2001 to the massive recession in 2008; seven years of plenty. I remember two pamphlets distributed to every family in Church during the last years of the boom, one extolling and explaining getting financially prepared (building up savings, getting out of debt), and a pamphlet explaining the right way to get and maintain a year’s food supply.
The last seven years since 2008 have been hard for many, but we seem to be turning a corner. This year, 2015, started off with a massive drop in oil prices, which affects every aspect of the economy. It means the value of American money itself might increase, if retailers choose to lower their prices. Wal-Mart recently gave their half a million plus American employees a one dollar per hour raise; that means the poorest one percent of employed Americans just got a pay increase. President Hinckley’s seven years of famine might be at an end. I’m glad not everyone slept through General Conference.
Follow the Spirit
It is tempting to base our faith on miracles and amazing predictions coming true. “But, behold, faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe.
“…Yea, signs come by faith, unto mighty works…
“Wherefore, I, the Lord, am not pleased with those among you who have sought after signs and wonders for faith, and not for the good of men unto my glory” (D&C 63:10-12).
“…An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign…” (Matt. 12:39). Those who worship their flesh will trust what their five senses can touch and report. God expects us to follow the Spirit, often despite the contradictory report of our flesh.
As a missionary, I encountered remarkable historical facts about the early Christian Church that had been dug up in recent centuries. “Aha! This PROVES that the Church is true!” I thought to myself. I began to lean on this tangible confirmation instead of the whisperings of the Spirit. The next thing I knew, the Spirit withdrew a pace, and I was left to struggle for a few days with doubts about the existence of God instead of worrying which Christian denomination was true. I learned a valuable lesson—whether it is a visible tower of Babel, or an intellectual one built of evidences, God will knock it over. The only acceptable escalator into heaven is the promptings of the Spirit, and the faith we exert to follow them. He wants us to trust in Him instead of our eyes, ears, our war machines, or our stomachs.
Still, those who exert that faith continuously are bound to witness signs and miracles when all other options for completing their assignments run out. Moses had no other options BUT to part the Red Sea, and so it was allowed.
One Important Prophecy
“…the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10). The greatest truth about our current future is that He will come again to the earth. The prophets have demonstrated veracity in lesser things; all true prophets lend their voices to this one great reality. His modern Church is called “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” This is a prophecy—we are living in the “latter” days, the last years before the return of Jesus Christ. He will purge the world of wickedness, and so the Church is supposed help gather as many people as possible, get them under covenants, and encourage as many people to repent as possible.
Prophets do not just amaze crowds with miracles or prophecy; they save us physically and spiritual with forewarning. The metaphorical figure of the prophet is a watchman on a tower, who can see the enemy afar off: “…build a tower, that one may overlook the land round about, to be a watchman upon the tower, that [my vineyard] may not be broken down when the enemy shall come…” (D&C 101:45).
Joseph Smith received inspired corrections to Matt. 24, and the entire refurbished chapter is included in our Pearl of Great Price. It repeats the Lord’s prophetic warning about His Second Coming, to us:
“…of that day, and hour, no one knoweth…
“But as it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be also at the coming of the Son of Man;
“…they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage;
“And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away…
“…watch, therefore, for you know not at what hour your Lord doth come” (JS-M 1:40-46).
