New Witnesses for God (Volume 3 of 3)

by B. H. Roberts

When they [the foregoing words of Isaiah] shall be fulfilled, then is the fulfilling of the covenant which the Father hath made unto his people, O house of Israel. And then shall the remnants which shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth, be gathered in from the east, and from the west, and from the south, and from the north; and they shall be brought to the knowledge of the Lord their God, who hath redeemed them. * * * And behold, this people will I establish in this land, unto the fulfilling of the covenant which I made with your father Jacob; and it shall be a New Jerusalem. And the powers of heaven shall be in the midst of this people; yea, even I will be in the midst of you. Behold, I am he of whom Moses spake, saying, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people. * * * And I will remember the covenant which I have made with my people, and I have covenanted with them that I would gather them together in mine own due time, that I would give unto them again the land of their fathers, for their inheritance, which is the land of Jerusalem, which is the promised land unto them forever, saith the Father. And it shall come to pass that the time cometh when the fulness of my gospel shall be preached unto them. And they shall believe in me, that I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and shall pray unto the Father in my name. Then [referring to Isaiah] shall their watchmen lift up their voice, and with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye.^[[23]]

And now as to the sign which he gave by which the branch of the house of Israel in the American continents might know that this work of restoring the house of Israel to the land of their inheritance, together with the spiritual and intellectual awakening that should attend upon that event—of this Jesus said:

And, verily, I say unto you, I give unto you a sign, that ye may know the time when these things shall be about to take place, that I shall gather in from their long dispersion my people, O house of Israel, and shall establish again among them my Zion. And behold, this is the thing which I will give unto you for a sign, for verily I say unto you, that when these things which I declare unto you, and which I shall declare unto you hereafter of myself, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, which shall be given unto you of the Father—[when these things] shall be made known unto the Gentiles, that they may know concerning this people who are a remnant of the house of Jacob, and concerning this my people who shall be scattered by them.—Verily, verily, I say unto you, when these things shall be made known unto them of the Father, and shall come forth of the Father, from them unto you—* * when these works, and the works which shall be wrought among you hereafter, shall come forth from the Gentiles, unto your seed [through publishing the Book of Mormon] * * * it shall be a sign unto them that they may know that the work of the Father hath already commenced unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he [God] hath made unto the people who are of the house of Israel. * * * And then shall the work of the Father commence at that day, even when this gospel shall be preached among the remnant of this people—verily I say unto you, at that day shall the work of the Father commence among all the dispersed of my people; yea, even the tribes which have been lost, which the Father hath led away out of Jerusalem. Yea, the work shall commence among all the dispersed of my people * * * to prepare the way whereby they may come unto me, that they may call on the Father in my name; yea, and then shall the work commence, with the Father, among all nations, in preparing the way whereby his people may be gathered home to the land of their inheritance.^[[24]]

That is to say, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon was to be the signal for this modern world awakening; and the "sign" of the commencement of the work of the Lord among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, to bring to pass the restoration of his people and the accomplishment of his purposes in all the earth. The facts already set forth establish the fulfillment of this no less venturesome—i. e. venturesome for an imposter to make—than remarkable prophecy.

VI.

Conditional Prophecies—The Evidence of Things Worthy of God to Reveal.

In closing these chapters on the prophecies of the Book of Mormon, I direct attention to what I shall call conditional prophecies. Not for the purpose of referring to their fulfillment, either accomplished or prospective, as evidence of the truth of the book, but as exhibiting the fact that the Book of Mormon has a prophetic message for the present generation worthy of God to reveal, and one that it concerns the Gentile races now occupying the continents of America to know. These prophecies deal with the terms upon which the Gentile races may maintain for themselves and perpetuate to their posterity the inheritance they have secured in the goodly land of Joseph—the American continents. First let it be remembered that these continents, according to the Book of Mormon, are a promised land, especially to the seed of Joseph, son of the Patriarch Jacob, and also to the Gentiles whom God shall lead hither. To the leader of the Nephite colony the Lord said:

And in as much as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper, and shall be led to the land of promise. Yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands.

Subsequently, as is well known, the Nephite colony arrived in America, repeatedly referred to by them and their descendants as "the land of promise."

Before his demise the prophet Lehi, who lived to arrive with his colony upon the promised land, made the following prophecy concerning the occupancy of the land by his people: