The Hope of the World

Softly beams the sacred dawning Of the great Millennial morn, And to Saints gives welcome warning That the day is hasting on. ¶

Splendid, rising o'er the mountains, Glowing with celestial cheer, Streaming from eternal fountains, Rays of living light appear. ¶

(John Jacques, "Softly Beams the Sacred Dawning") ¶

Christ's Coming the Hope of the World ¶

I do not believe that hope has bade the world farewell. I think, I firmly believe that in this huge, ugly mass of evil that is rolling and swelling there is some good, imprisoned temporarily; that this good is working towards deliverance and triumph. ¶

This earth, according to the scriptures, is moving towards a glorious ideal. We believe that Christ will reign personally upon the earth and that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory. By prophets this glorious condition has long been foretold. Christ's reign on earth, when He will establish the millennium — and it will not be established before He comes — has been the consolation of martyrs and the hope of suffering saints. It is the hope of the world. The mission of this Church, I understand, is to preach the gospel, to prepare a people for the great millennial reign. This Church has been established and dedicated for that very purpose, and in his first visit to the Prophet Joseph, the angel Moroni told him that the preparatory work was about to commence, to prepare a people for that glorious event. We do not hope to convert all the world before the second coming of the Son of God, but through this gospel and the government that God has set up in the Church, it is our destiny, our bounden duty, to prepare a people to meet the Savior. ¶

Preparation for the Millennium ¶

We talk, and justly so, of the greatness of our Priesthood quorums and all of our auxiliary organizations, and I would not for the world underestimate their strength and power and the great work they are doing, but what about the home, what about the evident lack of parental control? Solomon said: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). If our people will obey the injunction of the Almighty and teach their children the principles of the gospel, not only by precept but by example, you are going to see a people such as the world has never before beheld, for the children brought up in righteousness will be fit to meet the Lord when He comes in power and great glory. This blessed millennium, the account of which shines upon the pages of holy writ — the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price — sounds as you read these pages regarding the millennium, like a trumpet calling us to preparation. If we are earnest and devoted in our duty to preparing a people for the millennium, you will not see liquor stores disfiguring our mountain valleys. The tremendous price paid for liquor in the valleys of Ephraim, it seems to me, is a warning, at least an indication, that the vision of our destiny has been somewhat blurred. I plead for stronger, more persuasive, more loving teaching in the homes of the Latter-day Saints. ¶

Conditions during the millennium are going to satisfy the soul. Holiness will be triumphant, Satan will be bound, and men to a very large extent shall be relieved from temptation. The swords are going to be beaten into plowshares, and the spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not learn war any more — When the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. ¶

Labors During the Reign of Christ ¶

During the millennium we are not going to be idle. God forbid. Jesus Christ said in the Book of Mormon: "... for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever" (II Nephi 29:9). ¶

As we are co-laborers with the Almighty, how can we indulge in the vain hope that we shall be idle during the millennium. No, we shall be co-laborers with Jesus Christ throughout all eternity. I am so grateful that the hopes and the fond desires of the saints concerning immortality and eternal life are voiced in the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Apostle Paul tells us that when the Savior comes to reign in power and in great glory, from the very headwaters of immortality there is going to flow a stream of immortality, for he says: For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. ¶

Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (I Thessalonians 4:16-18) ¶

The Prophet Joseph, the solver of problems, the comforter of humanity, told a mother who had lost a baby in death that in the resurrection when the Lord Jesus Christ appears, her baby would be resurrected and that she would have the joy, more joy than she could have had in mortality, in the resurrection, of rearing that baby, or the young child, young children, who have died, to manhood and womanhood. ¶

Horace Greeley, one of the greatest editors that ever lived, lost a boy who was five years of age. He said: "Now, all that deeply concerns me is the evidence that we shall live hereafter ... If I felt sure on the point of identifying and being with our loved ones in the world to come, I would prefer not to live long." Well, all that doubt is removed by obedience to the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ¶

Present Adversities for Our Good ¶

We are told that when the Jaredites in their barges set forth for this land of promise, fierce and terrible tempests prevailed. The winds blew and they were in imminent danger all the while on that perilous journey. God sustained them. And we read that although these gales and tempests raged, holding destruction in their wake, that the wind was continually blowing toward the Promised Land. And these adversities through which we are passing, these terrible wars and all the horrible things that are prevailing, are in the power of God. He can stop them when He chooses, when His divine purposes are fulfilled. But let us not forget that through this sea of trouble, our adversities, the experiences through which we pass and which God will make work together for our good, if we will obey Him — all these are blowing us forward to the haven of rest, to a glorious future, to eternal life, and unitedly we join in John's loving response ". . . even so, come Lord Jesus." Amen. ¶