Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Doctrines
We have no account of any greater vision than this which the brother
of Jared had. "And the Lord said unto him, Write these things and seal
them up, and I will shew them in mine own due time unto the children
of men;" _Ether_ 3. 2-27. Thus we learn from the twenty-seventh verse,
that all the great things which pertain to the history of man, from the
beginning unto the end of the earth, are yet to be revealed, through
the record of the brother of Jared, to all who are prepared to receive
them.
Lehi, the head of the first Jewish colony to America, was commanded by
the Lord, in a dream, to leave Jerusalem, take his family and go into
the wilderness, preparatory to going to a strange land; 1 _Nephi_ 2.
2; _verse_ 4 proves his supreme faith in this dream: "And it came to
pass that he departed into the wilderness. And he left his house, and
the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his
precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family,
and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness."
This great patriarch, on other occasions, showed his faith in dreams
and visions. In these ways the Lord revealed many great things to him
and his son Nephi.
The Mosaic dispensation opened by an angel of the Lord appearing unto
Moses in a flame of fire "Out of the midst of a bush;" _Exo_. 3. 2.
The Old Testament gives an account of many visions and dreams,
but perhaps the most important of the latter is the dream of
Nebuchadnezzar, which was interpreted by the prophet Daniel; _Dan_.
2. It is now over twenty-four hundred years since the king of Babylon
had that dream, and its fulfilment can be traced in the history of the
world down through all these centuries.
The last great event, shown in this dream, was, that in the latter
times the God of heaven would set up a kingdom which would break down
other kingdoms and stand forever. This is the kingdom that it was the
mission of Joseph Smith, Jun., to establish, and which the Latter-day
Saints are laboring to build up.
Dreams characterized the opening up of the New Testament dispensation.
After the birth of our Savior the wise men, who came from the east to
see him, were warned to disobey the command of the wicked king Herod,
who sought the life of the young child. The reputed father of the
child, Joseph, was warned in a dream to take the child and its mother
and flee into Egypt for the same reason. When Herod was dead, Joseph
was warned in a dream to take the child and its mother and return into
the land of Israel.
This great latter-day dispensation was opened up by a vision. When
Joseph Smith, Jun., was a lad, in his fifteenth year, he retired to a
secret place to ask the Lord to direct him and give him wisdom. When he
kneeled down to offer up the desires of his heart to God, he was nearly
overcome by the powers of darkness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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