{"id":1472,"date":"2014-06-29T22:37:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T05:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/?p=1472"},"modified":"2014-06-29T22:37:31","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T05:37:31","slug":"the-promised-land-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/29\/the-promised-land-of-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The Promised Land of America"},"content":{"rendered":"

This text comes from a talk I gave today to the Springtown Ward<\/em><\/p>\n

The land in which we live today has long been a place where righteous people have gathered, led by the hand of God.\u00a0 We often refer to it as the \u201cpromised land.\u201d\u00a0 It is of this land I would like to speak today.<\/p>\n

In ancient times, the Jaredites escaped the wickedness of their home country and were brought by the hand of the Lord to this continent.\u00a0 The brother of Jared was promised that \u201cthey should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people.\u201d (Ether 2:7)\u00a0 The Lord goes on to say,<\/p>\n

\u00a0that whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them. (Ether 2:8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Jaredites lived and worshipped as the Lord directed.\u00a0 They prospered initially, but soon fell into wickedness and, according to God\u2019s promise, were eventually destroyed by their own hand.\u00a0 But the promise connected to this land was still in effect.\u00a0 As the last of the Jaredites prepared for their final battle on the hill Ramah, the Lord was preparing a new people to possess the land in righteousness, thus perpetuating the promise of this land.\u00a0 Lehi was persecuted for his prophecies of the coming of Christ and was forced to leave his wicked home country and again brought by the hand of God, traveled to this continent.\u00a0 Lehi recognized the significance of this land, and as he gathered his family before his death, he stated:<\/p>\n

6 Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord<\/em>.<\/p>\n

7 Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever<\/em>. (2 Nephi 1:6-7 emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lehi\u2019s family lived in periods of righteousness and wickedness for the next thousand years.\u00a0 Great blessings were bestowed during the righteous times.\u00a0 One such period came directly following one of the greatest events in the Book of Mormon: the personal manifestation of Christ to this continent.\u00a0 Of the 200 years following that glorious event, the prophet Mormon wrote,<\/p>\n

16 And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God. (4 Nephi 1:16)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The people at that time were taking full advantage of the promise the Lord made to those inhabitants, that \u201cInasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land\u201d (2 Nephi 4:4).\u00a0 This promise is made throughout the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 The Lord first tells Lehi in 1 Nephi chapter 2.\u00a0 In turn Nephi, Jarom, Amaron, Alma the Younger, Mormon and others taught this promise.\u00a0 I believe this is the most repeated promise in the Book of Mormon and I also believe this is the promise <\/em>of the promised land.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, wickedness eventually set in and before long, there were no righteous left upon the face of the land.\u00a0 Mormon, the great historian and military leader, saw the deterioration of his great nation and said,<\/p>\n

17 O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you!<\/p>\n

18 Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. But behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss.<\/p>\n

22 O that ye had repented before this great destruction had come upon you. But behold, ye are gone, and the Father, yea, the Eternal Father of heaven, knoweth your state; and he doeth with you according to his justice and mercy. (Mormon 6:17-18,22)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These words stand as a warning to those who defy the promise of this land.\u00a0 Though the Nephites were eventually destroyed, the Lord prepared others to come to this land of promise.\u00a0 While Mormon led his people to their last battle, the saints in the old world had already entered the long dark night of the apostasy.\u00a0 Amid great persecution, the apostles of Christ\u2019s church were killed.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure the surviving leaders of the church did their best to continue the Christian practices and beliefs, but it didn\u2019t take long before outside influence changed and corrupted the true doctrine.\u00a0 Prophesied by many, including Isaiah, Amos, Peter, and even Christ, this period of darkness left the world unfit for Christ\u2019s church to be restored.\u00a0 All remnants of the church and the authority Christ left with his apostles were gone.<\/p>\n

And so the world entered a period of time where spiritual darkness reigned.\u00a0 The writings of the prophets were preserved, but they were kept from the public who were, in majority, illiterate.\u00a0 Even great leaders of nations were unable to read or write.\u00a0 Scriptures had to be copied by hand and usually took years to complete.\u00a0 The few who did have access to scripture used it as a source of power and altered doctrines for their benefit.\u00a0 Under these oppressive spiritual conditions, it is improbable that a restored church could have survived.\u00a0 The groundwork had not yet been laid to support the fullness of the gospel being restored.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until the Renaissance, a period of rebirth of art, literature, and society, that things began to change.\u00a0 Over a period of about four centuries, a series of courageous and inspired men rose up, whose combined efforts made possible a restoration of God\u2019s church.\u00a0 The first of note is the englishman John Wycliffe, who in the late 14th century spoke out against religious corruption and began the first translation of the Bible into English.\u00a0 His teachings and work inspired and influenced other men for years to come.<\/p>\n

The next important event was the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-1400s.\u00a0 What was once prohibitively slow and expensive, the written word, was dramatically revolutionized and paved the way for the proliferation of knowledge throughout the world.\u00a0 Many ecclesiastical leaders of the time resisted the printing of sacred text, seeing it as a threat to their power and position, but, as Joseph Fielding Smith said,<\/p>\n

the publication of books, including the Bible, was too great a force to be stemmed, like an irresistible flood, printing, and the desire to read what was printed, swept over the entire land.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Elder McConkie concurred:<\/p>\n

Few tools were more effective than printing in paving the way for the great revival of learning, for the religious reformation, and for the breaking away of peoples and nations from religious domination. Without the discovery of movable type… the barrier of gross darkness covering the apostate world could scarce have been pierced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another significant event in the 15th century was the discovery of America.\u00a0 Nephi saw in vision Christopher Columbus\u2019 discovery of this continent.<\/p>\n

12 And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land. (1 Nephi 13:12)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Columbus himself said,<\/p>\n

With a hand that could be felt, the Lord opened my mind to the fact that it would be possible to sail and he opened my will to desire to accomplish the project. \u2026 This was the fire that burned within me. \u2026 Who can doubt that this fire was not merely mine, but also of the Holy Spirit \u2026 urging me to press forward?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the beginning of the 16th century, a German monk and professor at the University of Wittenberg named Martin Luther, inspired by other reformers that came before, saw the corruption and worldliness pervasive in the church.\u00a0 He nailed his historic 95 theses–statements urging reform–to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church.\u00a0 He was later banished and sought refuge elsewhere.\u00a0 He translated the bible into German for the masses.\u00a0 Elder McConkie said of him,<\/p>\n

Luther\u2019s break with Catholicism was part of the divine program; it came as an Elias preparing the way for the Restoration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

About this same time in England, William Tyndale began translating the bible into English.\u00a0 He, too, desired the word of God to be available to all.\u00a0 Instead of using Jerome\u2019s Latin translation, Tyndale went back to the Greek and Hebrew texts.\u00a0 Prophetic were his words when he said,<\/p>\n

If God spare me I will one day make the boy that drives the plough \u2026 to know more of Scripture than the Pope does.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When he could not find a publisher to print the bible in England, he had them printed in Germany and then smuggled them into the country.\u00a0 It was this version that was used primarily in the King James version of the bible.\u00a0 Tyndale was the one who penned the words in the book of James that caused Joseph Smith to say,<\/p>\n

Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. (Joseph Smith History 1:12)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Throughout Europe, other inspired men sought to correct the wrongs of centuries.\u00a0 Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin in Switzerland, John Knox from Scotland, Jan Hus from the Czech Republic, and others, many of whom gave their lives for what they knew was right.<\/p>\n

While these men did not have the full truth, they were undoubtedly inspired by the Spirit of God to lay the foundations upon which God could restore his church in its fullness.\u00a0 Each one made an important contribution that, combined together, culminated in the formation of an environment that could sustain the flourishing of God\u2019s church again upon the earth.<\/p>\n

Joseph Fielding Smith said,<\/p>\n

In preparation for this restoration the Lord raised up noble men, such as Luther, Calvin, Knox, and others whom we call reformers, and gave them power to break the shackles which bound the people and denied them the sacred right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Latter-day Saints pay all honor to these great and fearless reformers, who shattered the fetters which bound the religious world. The Lord was their Protector in this mission, which was fraught with many perils. In that day, however, the time had not come for the restoration of the fulness of the gospel. The work of the reformers was of great importance, but it was a preparatory work.<\/p>\n

As evidenced by the persecution of the reformers, religious freedom and tolerance was not yet available on the earth.\u00a0 The Puritans were among the first of the groups to come to the American colonies seeking religious freedom.\u00a0 They had left England for America, seeking a place to worship God.\u00a0 The Puritans established a strict religious commonwealth intolerant of any other religion.\u00a0 Roger Williams was a dissenter from the Puritans who argued that no particular religion should be imposed on the people.\u00a0 He also believed that all churches had fallen away from the church established in Christ\u2019s time.\u00a0 He was banished from Massachusetts in 1635 and along with others established the colony of Rhode Island, which allowed total tolerance of all religions.<\/p>\n

As immigrants came and various religions began to take hold in the American colonies, no one religion dominated over the others.\u00a0 This diversity was the major reason for the religious liberties that later became a unique and defining feature of the United States.<\/p>\n

Nephi foresaw the coming of the colonists in vision.\u00a0 He wrote,<\/p>\n

13 And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.<\/p>\n

15 And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; (1 Nephi 13:13,15)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though there were safe religious havens among the colonies, true religious freedom was not protected and so the time was not quite right.\u00a0 Under the rule of King George II, the colonists enjoyed just policies from the British crown.\u00a0 When the next monarch, King George III, and his ministry took over in 1765, they began to enact oppressive and unjust laws on the colonists.\u00a0 For the next 10 years, the colonists endured the increasing difficulty imposed on them from overseas.\u00a0 It was, however, only under these circumstances that the colonists rallied to overthrow the oppressive rule that governed them.\u00a0 I believe God allowed these injustices to happen to inspire the minds of our founding fathers to draft the most important documents in our nation\u2019s history.\u00a0 I think it is similar to the story of the people of Alma who were oppressed by Amulon and the other wicked priests of Noah.\u00a0 If you recall, they were given heavy tasks, but as they prayed, the Lord made their burdens light.\u00a0 Why wouldn\u2019t the Lord just take away their burdens?\u00a0 He tells us why in Mosiah 24:<\/p>\n

and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just like the story of Gideon and the Midianites, sometimes the Lord doesn\u2019t give us the easy way out so that we may witness His hand in our lives.\u00a0 So it was with the early Americans.<\/p>\n

After repeated appeals to their oppressors, in July of 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed in Congress.\u00a0 This inspired document proclaims that<\/p>\n

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.\u00a0 That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This Declaration of Independence was the first of three documents that finalized the conditions in which God\u2019s church could be restored.\u00a0 It was followed by the Constitution, which was ratified in 1789, and finally the Bill of Rights in 1791.\u00a0 This last document is the one that put into law religious freedom as we know it today.\u00a0 The Bill of Rights\u2019 first amendment reads,<\/p>\n

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These words made it possible for God to do his work in this land.\u00a0 Fourteen years after this was signed into law, on a small farm in Vermont, Joseph Smith, Jr. was born.\u00a0 It was in this new free land that he was raised.\u00a0 The time had come, the conditions were right.\u00a0 At this time there was a great religious excitement.\u00a0 Joseph Smith said he was \u201ccalled up to serious reflection\u201d on the subject of religion.\u00a0 The sacrifices of countless individuals before him placed this humble 14-year-old boy in the unique circumstances that inspired him to yearn for the truth and the ability to receive it.<\/p>\n

Joseph Smith was called of God to do what none had done before him.\u00a0 He sought not to reform or protest against any church, but was directed by God to restore anew what was lost.\u00a0 Through heavenly messengers, the priesthood was again restored to the earth and the keys of the kingdom were bestowed upon mankind.<\/p>\n

For thousands of years, this continent has been a place set apart by the Lord.\u00a0 The promise made to the Nephites still holds true today.\u00a0 Inasmuch as we keep the commandments of the Lord, we will prosper in the land.\u00a0 It is our responsibility as members of God\u2019s church to stay true to our beliefs and strive to be obedient to what we know is right.\u00a0 It is easy to get discouraged by all the negativity and wickedness prevalent in the world today, but I would like to draw your attention to the marvelous blessings and prosperity the Lord has given us in this age.<\/p>\n

Most of us carry volumes of scripture and teaching materials on our phone.\u00a0 With the click of a button, I can search through hundreds of thousands of documents and do family history research right from my couch while wearing my pajamas.\u00a0 We can get on a plane and travel thousands of miles in a matter of hours.\u00a0 We can stay in touch with friends and family through phone calls, shared pictures, video chats, anywhere we go.\u00a0 It is truly a marvel.\u00a0 So many of these things were invented in this great land of freedom.\u00a0 The influence of this nation has changed the world.\u00a0 Think of what these abilities and technologies can do for the spreading of the kingdom of God.\u00a0 What an exciting time to be alive.<\/p>\n

For hundreds of years, the hand of the Lord directed countless individuals to prepare the way for His church to be once again established on the earth.\u00a0 It cost the blood of many brave men and women who gave their lives so that we could be here worshipping God today.\u00a0 Let us not forget those who sacrificed so much and who were courageous in the face of adversity.\u00a0 Let us also remember that all of this–all that we do–is only made possible because of the great and last sacrifice made by He who broke the bands of sin and death.<\/p>\n

During the early part of the nineteenth century, Samuel F. Smith wrote the words to the hymn, My Country, \u2018Tis of Thee<\/em>.\u00a0 The final verse reads:<\/p>\n

Our fathers\u2019 God to thee,
\nAuthor of liberty,
\nTo thee we sing.
\nLong may our land be bright
\nWith freedom\u2019s holy light.
\nProtect us by thy might,
\nGreat God, our King!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What a blessing to live in a land where our only King is our God.\u00a0 In the name of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This text comes from a talk I gave today to the Springtown Ward The land in which we live today has long been a place where righteous people have gathered, led by the hand of God.\u00a0 We often refer to it as the \u201cpromised land.\u201d\u00a0 It is of this land I would like to speak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8WrW-nK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1472"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1475,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions\/1475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angieandjim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}