The Restoration of the GospelWidtsoe, Osborne J. P.
Religion
The Restoration of the Gospel
Widtsoe, Osborne J. P.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
And just as the prophets of old foresaw the falling away, so, too, they
foresaw and predicted the glorious restoration. The blissful condition
to be desired at the time of the restoration was described by the Lord
to Jeremiah. The Lord God would make a new covenant with His people.
It was to be a time when the law of the Lord should be put in the
"inward parts" of the people, and they should "teach no more every man
his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord"; for
they should all know Him, from the least of them to the greatest of
them.[A] How far we are in the modern religious world from realizing
the condition here described, it is needless to say. The promised new
covenant has certainly not been generally accepted. The time remains
yet to come when creeds shall cease contending one with another,
saying, "Know the Lord." The time is not yet to come, however, when the
new covenant shall be introduced. It is here.
[Footnote A: Jer. 31:31-34.]
King Nebuchadnezzar had one night a wonderful dream. He saw standing
before him a great image of excellent brightness, but terrible form.
The head of the image was of gold; the breast and the arms were of
silver; the belly and the thighs were of brass; the legs were of iron;
and the feet were part of iron and part of clay. As the image stood
before the dreamsight of the king, there appeared a stone cut without
hands, which smote the feet of the image and broke it to pieces. The
clay, the iron, the brass, the silver, the gold, of which the image was
made became like chaff and were scattered in the winds of heaven; but
the little stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
To the Hebrew prophet Daniel was given the interpretation of
Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The four parts made of gold, and silver, and
brass, and iron, represented, he said, four great world kingdoms that
should arise. In fact, the first of them--that represented by the
head of gold--was Nebuchadnezzar's own, the kingdom of Babylon. After
it should arise another inferior to it--the kingdom of the Medes and
Persians--typified by the breast and arms of silver. There should come
in succession two others--the kingdom of Alexander, a kingdom of brass
to bear rule over the whole earth; and the empire of Rome, an empire of
iron, strong, to break in pieces and subdue all things. Finally, after
the fall of these four world empires, the earth should be divided into
many kingdoms, some strong and some weak, as the feet and toes of the
image were part of iron and part of potter's clay. Then, in the days of
these kingdoms, said the prophet Daniel, "shall the God of heaven set
up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not
be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all
these kingdoms and it shall stand forever."[B]
[Footnote B: Dan. 2:31-45.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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