The Second Coming

Elder Dallin H. Oaks has said, "We need to make both temporal and spiritual preparation for the events prophesied at the time of the Second Coming.  The preparation most likely to be neglected is the one less visible and more difficult, that is, the spiritual.  A 72-hour kit of temporal supplies may prove valuable for earthly challenges, but as the foolish virgins learned, to their sorrow, a 24-hour kit of spiritual preparation is of greater and more enduring value.

Evil that used to be localized and covered like a boil is now legalized and paraded like a banner.  The most fundamental roots and bulwarks of civilization are questioned or attacked.  Nations disavow their religious heritage.  Marriage and family responsibilities are discarded as impediments to personal indulgence.  The movies, magazines, internet and television that shape our attitudes are filled with stories or images that portray the children of God as predatory beasts or, at best, as trivial creations pursuing little more than personal pleasure.  Too many of us accept this as entertainment.

The men and women who made epic sacrifices to combat evil regimes in the past were shaped by values that are disappearing from our public teaching.  The good, the true and the beautiful are being replaced by the no-good, the 'whatever,' and the valueless fodder of personal whim.  Not surprisingly, many of our youth and adults are caught up in pornography, pagan piercing of body parts, self-serving pleasure pursuits, dishonest behavior, revealing attire, foul language and degrading sexual indulgence."

Denying the Need for Revelation

From the book, Orson Pratt's Works, pages 114 to 115 we read:

 In their zeal to oppose everything under the name of new revelation, some of the more ignorant have assumed that when Christ was lifted upon the cross, and cried, "It is finished," it put an end to all further revelation. If this assumption be correct, then all the books of the New Testament, written years after, must be false. If Christ finished the work of revelation, when He exclaimed, "It is finished," then the apostles must have been base impostors for pretending to receive revelation scores of years after this exclamation. All, therefore, who reject new revelation upon these grounds, are required by their own application of this saying, to reject all the writings of the New Testament: thus, in their heated zeal to oppose new revelation, they not infrequently destroy the very books which they profess to believe.

 A saying of Paul to Timothy is sometimes referred to by the enemies of new revelation, and applied in the most deceptive manner, in order to strengthen the world in the fatal delusion that God will no more speak with man: it reads as follows: "From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation." (II Timothy 3:15.) The objector to new revelation argues, from this passage, that the scriptures, with which Timothy was acquainted in his childhood, were abundantly sufficient to make him wise unto salvation, and consequently there was no need of any more. If this conclusion be correct, it would do away with all the scriptures of the New Testament; for Timothy when a child was only acquainted with the scriptures of the Old Testament, the scriptures of the New Testament not being yet written. Thus, again, the enemy of new revelation in his fanatical zeal to close up the volume of inspiration, has done away the very scriptures which he pretends so firmly to believe.

The Savior

How close are we to the Second Coming?  (By Joseph Fielding McConkie)

 

"The question cannot be answered by turning to a calendar.  It can only be answered in terms of the events that have been prophesied to take place before Christ's return.  After the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the gospel, the most important event to precede the Second Coming is the declaration of the restored gospel throughout the nations of the earth. (Joseph Smith Matthew 1:31; Moses 7:62)…

John the Revelator tells us that before that day, there will be those among 'every kindred and tongue and people and nation' who have found redemption through Christ and have been ordained 'kings and priests' (Revelation 5:9-10), meaning they had received the fulness of temple blessings.

This chain of thought suggests not only that the restored gospel must be freely taught among the Arab nations, for example, but that it must be taught in their native tongues by Arabs who are legal administrators of the gospel.  It further requires that there be Latter-day Saint congregations throughout all Arab nations and that there be those in their congregations who have received the fulness of temple blessings.  Some considerable time will be necessary for such promises to be fulfilled.  It also suggests that we have a considerable labor ahead of us and that missionary work is still in its infancy."