D&C 109:36-53

109:36-53 - Again, looking at this revelation from the perspective that the Lord revealed it, the Prophet prayed for an outpouring “as upon those on the day of Pentecost.” This was very interesting to me, mostly because I don’t really know too much about the Pentecost. The prayer continues asking for God to remember the suffering of those “who have been driven by the inhabitants of Jackson county, Missouri… O Lord, how long wilt thou suffer this people to bear this affliction, and the cries of their innocent ones to ascend up in thine ears, and their blood come up in testimony before thee, and not make a display of thy testimony in their behalf?” Interestingly though he continues, “Have mercy, O lord, upon the wicked mob, who have driven thy people, that they may cease to spoil, that they may repent of their sins if repentance is to be found.” Eventually the Smith family will suffer incalculably at the hands of the mobs in Jackson County, and knowing this, the Lord still included the part about repentance in to this revelation.  In the most recent general conference Elder Kevin R. Duncan gave an incredibly powerful talk entitled “The Healing Ointment of Forgiveness.” I found the part of the talk most relevant to the subject of making allowance for the offenders to repent saying, “Too often we look at the offender the way we would look at an iceberg- we see only the tip and not beneath the surface. We do not know all that is going on in a person’s life. We do not know their past; we do not know their struggles; we do not know the pains they carry… Christ Himself, when He was unjustly accused, then savagely assaulted, beaten, and left suffering upon the cross, in that very moment said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ In our shortsightedness, we may sometimes find it easy to develop resentment toward others who do not act or thing the way we do.” It would make sense that the Lord would include this portion in the prayer to make sure that those in attendance would remember that they are to forgive, to let go and let God, and to move forward. The IM asks, “Has the anger of the Lord fallen upon the United States in response to this plea?” Then answers, “As part of the dedicatory prayer, the Prophet Joseph Smith pleased with the Lord to remember the Saints in Missouri in their afflictions. He beseeched the Lord to have mercy on the mobs so that they might repent. But the Prophet asked the Lord to show forth His power on behalf of His people, letting His anger and indignation fall upon those guilty of causing the suffering, if they did not repent. On at least two other occasions the Prophet predicted that Missouri would suffer great judgments because of the mob actions against the Saints. In 1843 in Nauvoo, the Prophet said: ‘They shall be oppressed as they have oppressed us, not by ‘Mormons,’ but by others in power. They shall drink a drink offering, the bitterest dregs, not from the ‘Mormons,’ but form a mightier source than themselves. God shall curse them.’ And in a conversation with General Alexander Doniphan, a friend of the Saints in Missouri, the Prophet said, ‘God’s wrath hangs over Jackson County. God’s people have been ruthlessly drive form it, and you will live to see the day when it will be visited by fire and sword. The Lord of Hosts will sweep it with the besom (broom) of destruction. The fields and farms and houses will be destroyed, and only the chimneys will be left to mark the desolation.’ During the Civil War these prophecies were fulfilled, and Missouri was a scene of widespread, terrible destruction. Earlier the Lord had commanded the Prophet to seek redress, as high as the president of the United States if necessary, warning that if the government did not heed their just pleas, the Lord would ‘vex the nation.’ The Saints did seek redress but received none. President John Taylor commented: ‘The Gospel reveals many things to us which others are unacquainted with. I knew of those terrible events which were coming upon this nation previous to the breaking out of our fratricidal war (the Civil War), just as well as I now know that they transpired, and I have spoken of them to many. What of that? Do I not know that a nation like that in which we live, a nation which is blessed with the freest, the most enlightened and magnificent government in the world to-day, with privileges which would exalt people to heaven in lived up to- do I not know that if they do not live up to them, but violate them and trample them under their feet, and discard the sacred principles of liberty by which we ought to be governed- do I not know that their punishment will be commensurate with the enlightenment which they possess? I do. And I know- I cannot help but know- that there are a great many more afflictions yet awaiting this nation. But would I put forth my hand to help bring them on? God forbid! And you, you Latter-day Saints, would you exercise your influence to the accomplishment of an object of that kind? God forbid! But we cannot help but know these things. But our foreknowledge of these matters does not make us the agents in bringing them to pass.” There are a couple of really good points made here, the first of which lends insight in to why the Lord commissioned the dedicatory prayer Himself. As President Taylor said, just because we know something bad is going to happen doesn’t mean that we can be the agents of bringing it about. This indicates that it would be inappropriate for Joseph Smith to pray for vengeance even upon unrepentance mobsters. This would set a terrible precedent, “it’s ok to pray for revenge only if you are righteous and someone does something bad to you.” In fact I was just talking to my mom about this concept the other day, she was telling me that someone we know had prayed for her husband to die. True, he was not a super nice guy, but my mom said that the Spirit chastised her for praying that, and this is exactly the same thing. Praying for affliction to come upon your enemies flies in the face of the Lord’s teachings for us to pray FOR our enemies. The second point that this statement by President Taylor brings up is that even though it’s considered the “wrath of God,” God doesn’t send his angels down to earth wielding swords and killing all the wicked. The Lord tells us that it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished, meaning that God doesn’t usually send down his power to destroy the wicked, but he does withdraw from where he is not wanted and by doing that, the void that is left allows Satan to come in and wreak havoc throughout the wicked. When the Spirit of the Lord leaves, Satan’s inner most plans become manifest, and it’s the destruction of everyone and everything, even those who have been loyal to him. The mention of the Civil War made me wonder just how much it was part of the answer to this, and if so, how bad was it for Jackson County in particular, so I googled “Jackson County Missouri civil war.” On the Wikipedia page about that very topic, there’s a mention of Order No. 11 which is “the title of a Union Army directive issued during the American Civil War on August 25, 1863, forcing the evacuation of rural areas in four counties in western Missouri.” I just want to stop here and admire the irony of this. These western Missourians forced the Saints from their homes and 25 years later, they were forced to do the same thing themselves. On the wiki page, there is a statement made by a man named George Bingham who was an artist and painted the scene and described the events saying, “It is well-known that men were shot down in the very act of obeying the order, and their wagons and effects seized by their murderers. Large trains of wagons, extending over the prairies for miles in length, and moving Kansasward, were freighted with every description of household furniture and wearing apparel belonging to the exiled inhabitants. Dense columns of smoke arising in every direction marked the conflagrations of dwellings, many of the evidences of which are yet to be seen in the remains of seared and blackened chimneys, standing as melancholy monuments of a ruthless military despotism which spared neither age, sex, character, nor condition. There was neither aid nor protection afforded to the banished inhabitants by the heartless authority which expelled them from their rightful possession. They crowded by hundreds upon the banks of the Missouri River, and were indebted to the charity of benevolent steamboat conductors for transportation to places of safety where friendly aid could be extended to them without danger to those who ventured to contribute it.” Did anyone else get goose bumps when reading the part about the chimneys standing alone? I had read this passage before I started writing tonight and when I read the IM’s account of Joseph Smith saying “God’s people have been ruthlessly drive form it, and you will live to see the day when it will be visited by fire and sword. The Lord of Hosts will sweep it with the besom (broom) of destruction. The fields and farms and houses will be destroyed, and only the chimneys will be left to mark the desolation.” That was incredibly powerful to me. These two accounts, one prophecy and one fulfillment were recorded decades apart and couldn’t have been coincidence, the chimney part is way too specific. It’s quite improbable that these two men, whom I don’t think knew each other, would use the same unique words to describe the same events, one recorded as he saw it in his mind in prophecy, and the other recorded decades later as he saw it with his eyes in fulfillment.