Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Pattern For The Second Coming

As Latter-day Saints we are fortunate to have the Book of Mormon to help prepare us for the coming of Christ. The coming of Christ to the Americas anciently was a type and shadow of his coming to the world as a whole. President Benson taught,

If they (Nephite Prophets) saw our day, and chose those things which would be of greatest worth to us, is not that how we should study the Book of Mormon? We should constantly ask ourselves, "Why did the Lord inspire Mormon or Moroni or Alma to include that in their records? What lesson can I learn from that to help me live in this day and age?" And there is example after example of how that question will be answered. For example, in the Book of Mormon we find a pattern for preparing for the Second Coming. A major portion of the book centers on the few decades just prior to Christ's coming to America. By careful study of that time period we can determine why some were destroyed in the terrible judgments that preceded His coming and what brought others to stand at the temple in the land of Bountiful and thrust their hands into the wounds of His hands and feet. (Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson , p.59) (emphasis added)

The following presentation shows some parallel events between the coming of Christ to the Americas and his second coming to the world so that we can see the pattern. There are many more parallels of which the following is but a small part. These were first presented in the 1979 Institute Book of Mormon student manual p. 395.

(click to enlarge)

2 comments:

Tiffani said...

I am filling in at the primary teacher for Cameron's 6 year old class. Do you think they are ready for this? Just kidding. Last week it took me the whole time just to get them to realize we were taling about baptism. These little future missionaries. I love them.

In The Doghouse said...

There are so many patterns throughout the scriptures to prepare us for this great event. This pattern is a perfect one that is shown very clearly. Thanks for sharing once again.