Orson Pratt

“ Have not the righteous often times been burned at the stake? have they not been consumed to ashes, by the power of the wicked? And why should this intense heat, of which you are speaking, which is to destroy the wicked root and branch, not affect the righteous as well?" Let us explain. Before this day of burning, there will be no righteous on the earth. Not one? No, not one. "What is to become of them?" The Apostle Paul informs us that, "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. ”

“ And that those two great cities which are to descend upon this new earth are to be the great capitals of this new creation, inhabited by immortal beings—the Saints of God that have lived in the various dispensations of this world. ”

“ I read, too, that not only the New Jerusalem should descend on this earth, but another city called the Holy Jerusalem, whose dimensions and architecture are described, and that because of the glory that should exist there, the inhabitants thereof should not have need of the light of the sun, nor of that of the moon, nor of the stars; for God himself should dwell there with them, and he would be their light and their glory. ”

“ It is not for us, unless we have some definite instructions by the word of God, to tell how He is going to accomplish His great purposes. It is sufficient for us to know that he will do it. ”

“ When therefore, we read that the earth was once depopulated, except a few individuals, who were saved in the ark, why should it be thought a thing incredible that the Lord should again depopulate our globe, not by a flood, but by devouring fire. It may be said that we cannot see how a universal fire can prevail over all the face of the earth. There are various ways by which this could be accomplished. How did the Lord cause fire in ancient times to break out among the children of Israel, when they transgressed his holy laws, and when they murmured and complained against God? ”

“ The Lord said, "To every beast of the field, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat." The grass, and the herbs, and every green thing were their food. ”

“ When we read in the Book of Genesis about the rains which fell from the heavens, causing a flood of waters to deluge the earth, in fulfilment of a certain warning message which had previously been preached to the people then living, by which they were swept away and drowned, we must believe that the inspired writer who penned the words, described the event as it occurred, so far at least as the general facts are concerned, and that the flood spoken of was a literal body of water, and that it did prevail upon all portions of the earth. ”

“ And then the animal creation will manifest more intelligence and more knowledge than they do now, in their fallen condition. Indeed, we have a declaration, by John the Revelator, that when this time shall come, they will even know how to praise God. He says, "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I, saying, Blessing, and honor and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." ”

“ But the earth has to undergo numerous changes. A partial change will take place when Jesus comes, at the beginning of the thousand years' rest; then a still further change, after the Millennium should pass, when the great last trump should sound, awaking the nations of the wicked from their sleeping graves. I then read in the Scriptures of truth that God would create a new heaven, and a new earth, and that on this new creation should dwell righteousness. ”

“ Unless there should be another miracle performed to prevent the waters that are heaped up around the equatorial regions from flowing to the polar regions, they would necessarily, as the earth began to cease or rotate more slowly in its axial revolutions, cause the waters of the equatorial region to flow towards the two polar regions. It is an easy matter for a mathematician to demonstrate the depth of the waters in any part or latitude of our globe, should such an event take place or happen. ”

“ There will be but one government, not several hundred different forms of government, but one form will prevail upon the new creation, inhabited by immortal beings. All these changes are what the Latter-day Saints are looking for. ”

“ This change will be wrought upon all flesh when Jesus comes; not a change to immortality, but a change sufficient to alter the ferocious nature of beasts, birds and fishes. In those days the lion will eat straw like the ox; he will no more be the terror of the forest, but will be perfectly harmless, and gentleness, will characterize all the wild and ferocious animals, as well as the venomous serpents, so much so that the the little child might lead them and play with them, and nothing should hurt or destroy in all the holy mountain of the Lord ”

“ He says, through the mouth of His Prophet, that the people who should be guilty of this great wickedness should be visited with fire; "the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men left." This is a little more definite. We learned through Malachi, that they should be destroyed both root and branch—no branch of wickedness, no roots of wickedness left; but it does not give us the proportion, between the righteous and the wicked. But Isaiah gives us a little further clue to this matter. ”

“ A great many infidels and sectarians cannot believe that this promise can ever be literally fulfilled, because they did not realize it in the day of their mortality. But Jesus says, they shall "inherit the earth;" this includes too, all the Gentile Saints that have, and that will embrace the gospel, among all peoples, and nations, and kindreds and tongues, for all such become Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. ”

“ Cause the earth to rotate on its axis more swiftly than what it now does, say for instance, in one half the time—in 12 hours instead of 24—and you would bury up all the equatorial lands of our globe. How easy a matter it would be for the Lord to cause the earth to rotate more swiftly, and then again to rotate more tardily, and produce the effects ascribed to the flood. ”

“ Supposing you cannot, does your unbelief make the predictions of the servants of God without effect? Supposing, for instance, we should disbelieve excepting eight souls, as was the case with the antedeluvian world, would our unbelief subvert the word of God. ”

“ There are but few individuals, comparatively speaking, among the nations of Christendom, who differ from the prevalent belief, namely, that the Bible is a book to be understood only by the learning and wisdom of man, that the uninspired preacher, who may be highly educated after the manner of men, is a great deal better qualified to interpret the things of God, than he or they through whom they were spoken. The Latter-day Saints, who may have been similarly trained, were more or less disposed to entertain such views ”

“ We are told, in connection with this remarkable preservation of life, that there was not so much as the smell of fire on their garments, neither was a hair of their heads injured, while some of the wicked, when they were in the act of casting these young men into the furnace, which had been heated even times hotter than was usual for them, were devoured themselves. ”

“ And the Saints will come forth; for then the face of the Lord will be unveiled, then the heavens will be parted as a scroll, then will be seen the prophets of God, and all the righteous who have not yet arisen from their graves, and they will appear in the clouds of heaven with the Savior. Abraham will be there, Isaac and Jacob will be there, and all the ancients of whom the children of Israel, in Ezekiel's days, said, "Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost," will all be there, ready to enter into the possession of the earth as their inheritance. ”

“ And Adam and Eve ate fruits and vegetables, not animal flesh. The whole earth will be restored; and man will be restored; and not only upon man, but upon all flesh the Spirit of God will be poured out and they will eventually be restored to all that was lost by the fall of our first parents. ”

“ But then, perhaps the Lord may not see proper to do this work of burning in the latter-days altogether upon a supernatural principle; he may, perhaps, bring it about by certain physical forces or laws, by certain changes that may be wrought upon our elements; for the Lord holds in his own hands all the elements, and not only those of this little globe of ours, but all the elements that compose the universe ”

“ They look upon inspired men as saying one thing and meaning another, and the only way to ascertain what meaning they really wish to convey is to get an uninspired man to give some other meaning entirely different from the literal construction of the words of the inspired writer. ”

“ Then we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." It seems, then, that the righteous that sleep in their graves are to arise at this time, to be caught up with those living on the earth, who will be sufficiently righteous. ”

“ The Lord has a great many ways and means by which he could bring about an event of this nature. For instance, how easy it would be to drown all the inhabitants of the temperate and arctic regions, by just merely stopping the earth from rotating on its axis. ”

“ For instance, in one place speaking of the Lord's coming, it says the wicked shall be destroyed out of the earth, and that the righteous shall be caught up, in the same manner as the New Testament describes it. ”