Friday, September 17, 2010

Judgment and Appraisal of Idumea or the World

Judgment and Appraisal of Idumea by Art Bulla on #BlogTalkRadio - http://tobtr.com/s/1238362
 

Original Air Date: September 16, 2010

Judgment and Appraisal of Idumea

Man has come in contact with man, morally, physically, religiously, and nationally, from the foundation of the earth. If God's works had done so, what tumult and ruin there would have been in the immensity of space ! Instead of the order that now prevails, man would have been sometimes frozen to death, and at other times burned up; one or two seasons of irregularity, even in climate, would depopulate the earth. But what if the planets, irrespective of the power by which they are controlled, were to rush wildly through space, and, with their mighty impetus dash against each other? What fearful consequences would ensue. There would be "system on system wrecked, and world on world." What terrible destruction and ruin ! System would be shattered with system; planet madly rush on planet; worlds, with their inhabitants, would be destroyed, and creations crumble into ruins. There would be truly a war of planets, "a wreck of matter and a crash of worlds." These, indeed, would be fearful results, and shew plainly the distinction between the beautiful order of God's work, and the confusion and disorder of man's. God's work is perfect-man's imperfect. The one is the government of God, and the other that of man. In the city of Paris alone...there are one hundred thousand soldiers, besides police to a very great number, not to mention the vast number of custom-house officers and others. Suppose we add to these their families...notice the vast amount of prostitution, misery, degradation, and infamy, that such an unnatural state of things produces. ...the navies are not included. I say again, What are these all doing? They do not raise corn to supply the wants of men, nor are they occupied in any useful avocation; but they must live, and their wants must be supplied by the products of the labour of others. There has to be an immense amount of legislation for the accomplishment of this thing. (John Taylor, The Government of God, p.10)

And from whence come these things? Let the apostle James answer: "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come. they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not-ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain : ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts" James 4:1-3. Here is evidently a lack of that consummate wisdom, that moral and physical control, that parental power which balances the universe, and directs the various planets. For let the same recklessness, selfishness, individuality, and nationality there be manifested, and we should see the wildest confusion.    
Man has come in contact with man, morally, physically, religiously, and nationally, from the foundation of the earth. If God's works had done so, what tumult and ruin there would have been in the immensity of space ! Instead of the order that now prevails, man would have been sometimes frozen to death, and at other times burned up; one or two seasons of irregularity, even in climate, would depopulate the earth. But what if the planets, irrespective of the power by which they are controlled, were to rush wildly through space, and, with their mighty impetus dash against each other? What fearful consequences would ensue. There would be "system on system wrecked, and world on world." What terrible destruction and ruin ! We have read of earthquakes destroying countries, of wars depopulating nations-of volcanoes overwhelming cities, and of empires in ruin; but what would the yawning earthquake, the bellowing volcano, the clang of arms, or a nation's distress, be in comparison to a scene like this? System would be shattered with system; planet madly rush on planet; worlds, with their inhabitants, would be destroyed, and creations crumble into ruins. There would be truly a war of planets, "a wreck of matter and a crash of worlds." These, indeed, would be fearful results, and shew plainly the distinction between the beautiful order of God's work, and the confusion and disorder of man's. God's work is perfect-man's imperfect. The one is the government of God, and the other that of man.    
We notice the same mismanagement in the arrangement of cities and nations. We have large cities containing immense numbers of human beings, pent up, as it were in one great prison-house, inhaling a f&oeligd, unwholesome atmosphere, impregnated with a thousand deadly poisons; millions of whom, in damp cellars, lonely garrets, and pent up corners, drag out a miserable existence, and their wan faces, haggard countenances, and looks, tell but too plainly the tale of their misery and wretchedness. A degenerate, sickly, puny race tread in their steps, inheriting their fathers' misery and distress.    
If we notice the situation of the nations of Europe at the present time, we see the land burthened with an overplus population, and groaning beneath its inhabitants, while the greatest industry, perseverance, economy, and care, do not suffice to provide for the craving wants of nature. And so fearfully does this prevail in many parts, that parents are afraid to fulfil the first great law of God, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth;" and by desperate circumstances are almost forced to the unnatural wish of not propagating their species; while, corrupted with a correspondent depravity with that which reigns among nations, they are found using suicidal measures to prevent an otherwise numerous progeny from increasing their father's misery, and inheriting his misfortunes. And yet, while this is the case, there are immense districts of rich soil, covering millions of square miles, inhabited only by a few untutored savages, or the wild beast of the forest; and such is the infatuation of man that in many districts of country, which were once the seats of the most powerful empires, and where flourished the mightiest nations, there is nothing but desolation and wildness. Such are Nineveh and Babylon, on the Asiatic Continent; and Otolum, and many others discovered by Stephens and Catherwood, in Central America; and recently discovered ruins-unequalled in the old world-a little above the head of the California Gulf. Not only their cities, but their lands are desolate, deserted, and forsaken, and the same evils that once existed there are transferred to another soil, all bespeaking plainly that we want a great, governing, ruling principle to regulate the affairs of the world, and assist poor, feeble, erring humanity.    
Again, if we examine some of the details of these evils, we shall see more clearly the importance and necessity of a change. Nearly one-third, speaking in general terms, of the inhabitants of the earth are engaged in a calling that would be entirely useless if the world were set right.    
If men and nations, instead of being governed by their unruly passions, covetous desires, and ambitious motives, were governed by the pure principles of philanthropy, virtue, purity, justice, and honor, and were under the guidance of a fatherly and intelligent head, directed by that wisdom which governs the universe, and regulates the motions of the planetary systems, there would be no need of so many armies, navies, and police regulations, which are now necessary for the protection of those several nations from the aggressions of each other, and internal factions. Let any one examine the position of Europe alone, and he will find this statement abundantly verified. Look at the armies and navies of France and England; and the confusion of Germany, also of Austria, Turkey, Russia and Spain, not to mention many of the smaller nations, and let their armies, their navies, and police be gathered together, and what an abundant host of persons there would be. They would be sufficient to make one of the largest nations in the world ! And what are they doing? To use the mildest term, watching each other, as a person would watch a thief for fear of being imposed upon, and robbed, or killed; but generally strolling around as the world's banditti, robbing, plundering, and committing aggressions upon each other; and if they have peace, acquiring it by the sword; and if prevented from aggression and war, it is generally, not that they are governed by just, or virtuous principles, but because they are afraid that aggression might lead to combinations against them which would result in their overthrow and ruin.    
In the city of Paris alone, at the present time, and its immediate environs, there are one hundred thousand soldiers, besides police to a very great number, not to mention the vast number of custom-house officers and others. Suppose we add to these their families, where they have any, and where they have not, notice the vast amount of prostitution, misery, degradation, and infamy, that such an unnatural state of things produces. I give the above as an example of the whole, but here the navies are not included. I say again, What are these all doing? They do not raise corn to supply the wants of men, nor are they occupied in any useful avocation; but they must live, and their wants must be supplied by the products of the labour of others. There has to be an immense amount of legislation for the accomplishment of this thing, and instead of having one government of righteousness and the world obeying, we have scores of governments, all having to be sustained in regal pomp, to be equal to their neighbouring nations; and all this magnificence and national pride having to be supported by the labour of the people. Again, all these legislatures have to provide immense hosts of men, in the shape of custom-house, excise, and police officers, to carry out their designs, all of whom, and their families, help to increase the burden, till it becomes insupportable. That, together with the unnatural state of society, before referred to, in regard to the situation of the inhabitants of cities and the nations, plunges millions of the human family into a state of hopeless destitution, misery, and ruin, for they are groaning under all these hopeless burdens without having sufficient land to till to meet their demands, and as natural means fail they are obliged to have recourse to those that are unnatural. Hence, in England a great majority of the inhabitants are made slaves of, virtually to supply the wants of the greatest part of the world, and are forced to be their labourers. Thousands of them are immured in immense factories, little less than prisons, groaning under a wearisome, sickening, unhealthy labour; deprived of free, wholesome air; weak and emaciated, not having a sufficiency of the necessaries of life. Thousands more from morning till night are immured in pits, shut out from the light of day, the carol of the birds, and the beauty of nature, sickly and weak, in many instances for want of food; and yet, in the midst of their wretchedness, gloom, and misery, you will sometimes hear them trying to sing in their dungeons and prison-houses, in broken, dying accents,    
"Britons never shall be slaves."    

   (John Taylor, The Government of God, p.9-12)

Judgments upon scattered Israel if they come not "out of her (Babylon), my people":

Deut  28:15-68
 15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:
 16 Cursed [shalt] thou [be] in the city, and cursed [shalt] thou [be] in the field.
 17 Cursed [shall be] thy basket and thy store.
 18 Cursed [shall be] the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.
 19 Cursed [shalt] thou [be] when thou comest in, and cursed [shalt] thou [be] when thou goest out.
 20 The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.
 21 The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it.
 22 The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.
 23 And thy heaven that [is] over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee [shall be] iron.
 24 The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.
 25 The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.
 26 And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray [them] away.
 27 The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.
 28 The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:
 29 And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save [thee].
 30 Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.
 31 Thine ox [shall be] slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass [shall be] violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep [shall be] given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue [them].
 32 Thy sons and thy daughters [shall be] given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look, and fail [with longing] for them all the day long: and [there shall be] no might in thine hand.
 33 The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway:
 34 So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.
 35 The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.
 36 The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.
 37 And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee.
 38 Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather [but] little in; for the locust shall consume it.
 39 Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress [them], but shalt neither drink [of] the wine, nor gather [the grapes]; for the worms shall eat them.
 40 Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint [thyself] with the oil; for thine olive shall cast [his fruit].
 41 Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity.
 42 All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume.
 43 The stranger that [is] within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low.
 44 He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.
 45 � Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee:
 46 And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever.
 47 Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all [things];
 48 Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all [things]: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.
 49 The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, [as swift] as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;
 50 A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young:
 51 And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which [also] shall not leave thee [either] corn, wine, or oil, [or] the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.
 52 And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
 53 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:
 54 [So that] the man [that is] tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave:
 55 So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.
 56 The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,
 57 And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all [things] secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.
 58 If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;
 59 Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, [even] great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.
 60 Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee.
 61 Also every sickness, and every plague, which [is] not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.
 62 And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the LORD thy God.
 63 And it shall come to pass, [that] as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.
 64 And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, [even] wood and stone.
 65 And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind:
 66 And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:
 67 In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.
 68 And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy [you].

Chapter 29

  • The Revelations of Jesus Christ: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-28287-3 
  • "But we ask, does it remain for a people who never had faith enough to call down one scrap of revelation from heaven, and for all they have now are indebted to the faith of another people...does it remain for them to say how much God has spoken and how much He has not spoken?"  Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Two 1834-37 Pg.60
  •  Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Section Six 1843-44 Pg.365
       When a man goes about prophesying, and commands men to obey his teachings, he must either be a true or false prophet.
     
  •  Our website: http://www.artbulla.com
  •  "All men are liars who say they are of the true Church without the revelations of Jesus Christ and the Priesthood of Melchizedek, which is after the order of the Son of God."  Joseph Smith; TPJS p. 376
  • "He that can mark the power of Omnipotence, inscribed upon the heavens, can also see God's own handwriting in the sacred volume: and he who reads it oftenest will like it best, and he who is acquainted with it, will know the hand wherever he can see it...." (T.P.J.S., p. 56)

·         10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. (New Testament | Galatians 1:10 - 12)

Posted via email from The Redemption of Zion

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home