The GREAT And DREADFUL Day Of The Lord
By Alan on Jan 07 in Blog tagged bad, beginning, Chaismus phrase, children to the fathers, dreadful day, earth be smitten with a curse, Elijah, end, evil, Glenn Beck, good, great day, half empty, half full, importance, Jesus Christ, light darkness, prophecy, right, righteous, scriptures, The Great and Dreadful Day, the Last Days, the Lord, turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, wrong | Comments Off
The idea of the coming of the Lord as a Great and Dreadful day is a chaismus phrase highlighting details of particular importance. It will be a great day and it will be a dreadful day depending upon each individual’s view of the return of the Lord. It is a point of view of how one sees it. 
It is a Chiastic pattern or ring structure used as a literary device applied to narrative motifs that is commonly seen in ancient literature and in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, to emphasize, parallel, or contrast concepts or ideas to give meaning to their writings or to highlight details.
The details of the Coming of the Lord to some will be a GREAT DAy and a DREADFUL DAY to others. It depends on how you have lived your life and what place Jesus Christ plays in your life.
There are opposites in all things. Where there is Good, there is Bad; Righteous, Evil; On, Off; Light, Darkness; Right, Wrong; Beginning, End.
To some a glass of water is half full; to others half empty.
It is all in how one looks at things. Life can be looked at the same way; from both sides; Up and Down.
In a song I wrote it sings, “Life is just what you make it. Life is just what you want it to be.” It can be a Great Life or a Dreadful life. You Make the Bed You Sleep In.
Scripture teaches: “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.
And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.” 2 Ne. 2: 11-13
In this there can be found hope:
“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Rom. 15: 4
“Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.” 2 Ne. 31: 20
If you believe in God and His Son Jesus Christ, then you should look forward to the Second Coming of The Lord
Scriptures teach us about that day:
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Mal. 4: 5
“BEHOLD, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” D&C 2: 1
Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come— To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse— Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors.” D&C 110: 14
Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come— To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse— Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors.” D&C 110: 14“After this vision had closed, another great and glorious vision burst upon us; for Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us, and said:
Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come— To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse— Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors.” D&C 110: 13-16
No one, not even the angels in heaven knows exactly when Jesus Christ shall return. There are events or experiences that God gives to people to show that something important in his work has happened or will soon happen. They are called, ‘The Signs of the Times‘. In the latter days, many signs for the second coming of the Savior have been prophesied. These signals allow faithful people to recognize God’s plan, be warned, and prepare.
I like Glenn Beck’s take on the future: “Tomorrow Can and Will Be Better.” He expresses it in a chiastic form. Which way do you read it?
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Lord, How Can We Prepare The Way Before Thy Coming?
By Alan on Apr 01 in Blog tagged ., authority, before thy coming, charity, church, comandments, dispel fear, dreadful day, faith, fear, fearful, great day, heavens to shake, hope, How can we prepare, if ye are prepared ye shall not fear, Joseph Smith, Latter-day Saints, look upward, Mormon, not comfortable, patience, red in his apparel, trust | Comments Off
NO, THIS IS NOT APRIL FOOLS WHAT WE SAY!
It’s Time To Stand For Our God, Our Freedoms, And Our Families!
We are living in the Last Days!
He is "The Way".
We must learn to give heed to the words and commandments that the Lord shall give through his prophet, “as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.” D&C 21: 4-5
There will be some things that take patience and faith. You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will desperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name’s glory.” D&C 21: 6
If the emotions one feels as he contemplates the fore-boding days ahead are primarily fearful, then perhaps what is needed is a serious evaluation of one’s personal relatioinship with Jesus Christ. It is he to whose coming we look, and if it is with frightened eyes, perhaps it is because we are not completely comfortable with our present relationship to him.
We must be prepared. The Lord spoke through Joseph Smith and gave a most profound truth, and a promise, saying: “…if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.” Elder John A. Widsoe said, … Fear, which “shall come upon every man,” is the natural consequence of a sence of weakness, also of sin. Fear is a chief weapon of Satan in making manking unhappy. He who fears loses strength for the combat of life, for the fight against evil. Therefore, the power of evil ever seeks to engender fear in human hearts. In this day of sorrow, fear walks with humanity. It directs, measurabbly, the course of every battle. It remains as a gnawing poison in the hearts of the victors as of the vanquished.
As leaders in Israel, we mst seek to dispel fear from among our people. A timid, fearing people cannot do their work well. The Latter-day Saints have a divinely assigned world-mission so great that they cannot afford to dissipate their strength in fear. The Lord has repeatedly warned His people against fear. Many a blessing is withheld because of our fears. He has expressly declared that man cannot stop his work on earth, therefore, they who are engaged in the Lord’s latter-day cause and who fear, really trust man more that God, and thereby are robbed of their power to serve.
The key to the conquest of fear has been given through the Prophet Joseph Smith. “If ye are repared ye shall not fear.” D&C 38: 30 That devine message needs repeating today in every stake and ward. Are we prepared in surrender to God’s commandments? In victory over our appetites? In obedience to righteous law? If we can honestly answer yes, we can bid fear depart. And the degree of fear in our hearts may well be measured by our preparation by righteous living, such as should characterize Latter-day Saints.
In this world upheval, in this day of wanton destruction, we, as a people, must look upward. There must be trust and faith in our hearts. Hope must walk by our side. We must remember charity also. We must treasure the warm words of the Father to His Church. “Be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord God am whith you, and will stand by you.” D&C 68: 6
Oh!, that each heart could honestly repeat the words spoken by President Joseph F. Smith during World War I. “No matter what may come to me, if I am only in the line of my duty, if I am in fellowship with God, if I am worthy of the fellowship of my brethren, if I can stand spotless before the world, without blemish, without transgressioin of the Laws of God, what does it matter to me what may happen to me? I am always ready, if in this frame of understanding, mind, and conduct. It does not matter at all. Therefore, I borrow no trouble nor feel the pangs of fear.
Much has been said concerning the coming of the Lord. Much more could be said. The world rushes headlong toward disater and many live in fear of that “dreadful day“. But many others look forward with poignant longing for the “great day“ of the Lord.
The advice of Elder Orson Pratt should be in the forefront of the mind of every Latter-day Saint in these troubled and ominoius times.
With a work of such magnitude before them, the Latter-day Saints should be wide awake, and should not have their minds engaged in those fooleries in which many indulge at the present time. We should put these things away, and our inquiry should be, “Lord how can we prepare the way before thy coming? How can we prepare ourselves to perform the work which must be performed in this greatest of dispensations, the dispensation of the fulness of times? How can we be prepared to behold the Saints who lived on the earth in former disipensatioins, and take them by the haved and fall upon their necks and they fall upon ours, and we embrace each other? How can we be prepared for this?” How can all things that are in Christ Jesus, both which are in heaven and on the earth, be assembled in one grand assembly. without we are wide awake?
When we can make such questions the code for patterning our daily living, we too can truly be prepared for the coming of the Lord.
“And the Lord shall be red in his apparel, and his garments like him that treadeth in the wine-vat.” D&C 133: 48 & Isa. 63: 2
He is "The Way".
