23. The faith of the Saints teaches that in the day of the Lord's righteous fury, safety will be found in Zion. The importance which the Latter-day Saints associate with the work of gathering, and the fidelity with which they seek to discharge the duty enjoined upon them by Divine authority in the matter of warning the world of the impending dangers, as described in the Revelator's vision, are sufficiently demonstrated by the great extent of the missionary labor as at present prosecuted by this people.[1006]
24. Israel a Chosen People.—It is evident that the Lord has conferred the choicest of blessings upon His people Israel.[1007] With Abraham, the patriarch of the nation, God entered into a covenant and said:—"I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."[1008] This was to be an everlasting covenant.[1009] It was confirmed upon Isaac,[1010] and in turn upon Jacob who was called Israel.[1011] The promises regarding the multitudinous posterity, among whom were to be counted many of royal rank, have been literally fulfilled. No less certain is the realization of the second part of the prediction, that in and through Abraham's descendants should all nations of the earth be blessed. For, by a world-wide dispersion, the children of Israel have been mingled with the nations; and the blood of the chosen seed has been sprinkled among the peoples.[1012] And now, in this the day of gathering, when the Lord is again bringing His people together to honor and bless them above all that the world can give, every nation with the blood of Israel in the veins of its members will partake of the blessings.
25. But there is another and a more striking proof of blessings flowing to all nations through the house of Israel. Was not the Redeemer born in the flesh through the lineage of Abraham? Surely the blessings of that Divine birth are extended, not only to the nations and families of the earth collectively, but to every individual in mortality.
26. Restoration of the Ten Tribes.—From the scriptural passages already considered, it is plain that, while many of those belonging to the Ten Tribes were dispersed among the nations, a sufficient number to justify the retention of the original name were led away as a body, and are now in existence in some place where the Lord has hidden them. To them Christ went to minister after His visit to the Nephites, as before stated.[1013] Their return constitutes a very important part of the gathering, characteristic of the dispensation of the fullness of times.
27. To the scriptures already quoted as relating to their return, the following should be added: As a feature of the work of God in the day of restoration we are told:—"And they who are in the north countries shall come in remembrance before the Lord, and their prophets shall hear his voice, and shall no longer stay themselves, and they shall smite the rocks, and the ice shall flow down at their presence. And an highway shall be cast up in the midst of the great deep. Their enemies shall become a prey unto them. And in the barren deserts there shall come forth pools of living water; and the parched ground shall no longer be a thirsty land. And they shall bring forth their rich treasures unto the children of Ephraim my servants. And the boundaries of the everlasting hills shall tremble at their presence. And there shall they fall down, and be crowned with glory, even in Zion, by the hands of the servants of the Lord, even the children of Ephraim; and they shall be filled with songs of everlasting joy. Behold this is the blessing of the everlasting God upon the tribes of Israel, and the richer blessing upon the head of Ephraim and his fellows."[1014]
28. From the express and repeated declaration, that in their exodus from the north the Ten Tribes are to be led to Zion, there to receive honor at the hands of some of the children of Ephraim, who necessarily are to have previously gathered there, it is plain that Zion is to be first established. The establishment of Zion will receive attention in the next lecture.
NOTES.
1. Gathering Now in Progress.—The Latter-day Saints "are building up stakes of Zion in the Rocky Mountain valleys, and in this way are fulfilling predictions of the ancient prophets. Isaiah hath it written, 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people 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' (Isaiah ii, 2-3). It is remarkable how minutely the Latter-day Saints are fulfilling the terms of this prophecy: 1. They are building the temples of God in the tops of the mountains, so that the house of the Lord is truly where Isaiah saw it would be. 2. The Saints engaged in this work are people gathered from nearly all the nations under heaven, so that all nations are flowing unto the house of the Lord in the top of the mountains. 3. The people who receive the gospel in foreign lands joyfully say to their relatives and friends: Come ye, and let us go up to the house of the Lord, and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths."—Roberts' Outlines of Ecclesiastical History, p. 409.
2. Israel a Chosen People.—"The promise to Abram that he should become a great nation, has been fulfilled in his chosen seed occupying the land of Palestine, as such, for fifteen hundred years. It will again be fulfilled when they become a nation on that land forever. The history of the eastern hemisphere for the two thousand years which intervened between the calling of Abraham and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, witnesses that every nation that fought against Israel, or in any way oppressed them, passed away. Time will show the same general result from the destruction of Jerusalem to the millennium. The Prophet Isaiah, speaking of the time when the Lord should favor Israel, said, 'All they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish' (xli, 11). 'I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood' (xlix, 27). 'I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink of it again: but I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over.'"—A Compendium of the Doctrines of the Gospel, by Elders Franklin D. Richards and James A. Little, pp. 246-247.
3. Israel Among the Nations.—"When we reflect that it is thirty-two centuries since the enemies of Israel began to oppress them in the land of Canaan, that about one-third of the time they were a people in that land they were more or less in bondage to their enemies; that seven hundred years before the coming of Christ the ten tribes were scattered throughout western Asia; that we have no record that any have as yet returned to the land of their inheritance; that nearly six hundred years before Christ, the Babylonish captivity took place, and that, according to the Book of Esther, only a small part of the Jews ever returned, but were scattered through the 127 provinces of the Persian empire; that Asia was the hive from which swarmed the nomadic tribes who over-ran Europe; that at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans the Jews were scattered over the known world; we may well ask the question, Does not Israel to-day constitute a large proportion of the human family?"—Compendium, by Elders F. D. Richards and James A. Little, p. 90.