BY ELDER B. H. ROBERTS.  
Of all events that will take place in the immediate future, the most important to mankind is the glorious appearing of the Son of God, generally spoken of as the Second Advent of the Messiah. And if there is one thing that the writers of Scripture are more explicit in than another, it is in relation to this all-important event.
 
The writer of the Acts of the Apostles, giving an account of the last meeting of the risen Messiah with His disciples in Palestine, and His last words to them, says:
 
"And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And, while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven" (Acts i, 9-11).
 
From this we learn that the same person whom the disciples had seen go up into heaven was to return in like manner. And this agrees with the words of Jesus Himself.
 
"For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father, with His angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works" (Mat. xvi, 27).
 
From this last quotation we not only learn that the Son of God is to come in the glory of His Father, accompanied by His angels, but that He at that time "Will reward every man according to his works." And to this testimony agrees that of other sacred writers.
 
St. Jude, after referring to certain wicked characters who were like clouds without rain, or like raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame, says:
 
{163} "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." (Jude, 14, 15).
 
Paul bears witness to the same thing:
 
"For if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch-angel, 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" (i Thess. iv, 14-17).
 
And again:
 
"And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day" (ii Thess. i, 7-10).
 
From the foregoing passages of Scripture the reader learns two very important things: first—that the Son of Man in a glorious manner is to return to this earth; second—that when He shall so come, it will be to execute judgment—to reward the righteous for their faithfulness, and to punish those who "know not God, and who obey not the Gospel, with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power."
 
No believer in the inspiration of the Scriptures can possibly doubt the truth of what these passages teach, viz., that the Son of God will verily come, and that to judgment! But in all other ages of the world, when God has decreed judgments upon a people or nation, He has first sent divinely-appointed messengers to warn them of the impending evil, that peradventure, some might repent and be saved. For example,—when God decreed that He would destroy the Antediluvians by a flood for their wickedness, he first sent Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among them to warn them of the approaching calamity: When destruction was hanging over the cities of the plain—Sodom and Gomorrah—the Lord sent His angels {164} to first gather out righteous Lot and his family: When destruction was decreed against Nineveh, the prophet Jonah was sent to cry repentance to the people, and in this instance the warning was heeded, and the calamity was turned aside: Whenever bondage, famine, disease, or judgment of any character, was about to overtake ancient Israel for their wickedness, prophets were sent to warn them, that they might repent and escape the sore affliction.
 
This has been the course pursued by the Almighty in all ages and among all people; and now that mighty judgments are pronounced against the ungodly at the coming of the Son of God, may we not reasonably expect that God will be true to His custom in the past, and send messengers to warn the nations of the near approach of those calamities? Basing our conclusion on the experience of past ages, it would be reasonable to expect the Lord to so proceed. But the Scriptures themselves speak of a number of incidents that will take place as a preparatory work to the glorious coming of our Lord. Among these may be mentioned:
 
I.—THE RESTORATION OF THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL.
 
The great event is thus described by John the Revelator:
 
"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him: for the hour of his judgment is come" (Rev. xiv, 6, 7).
 
II.—THE COMING OF A MESSENGER.
 
to prepare the way for the Son of God, when He shall come in the glory of His Father. This event is foretold by the prophet Malachi:
 
"Behold, I will send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years" (Malachi iii, 1-4).
 
III.—THE COMING OF ELIJAH.
 
to whom is given the peculiar mission of turning the heart {165} of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers. Malachi thus describes Elijah's mission:
 
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their father's, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse" (Malachi iv, 5, 6).
 
IV.—THE GATHERING OF THE SAINTS.
 
The Scriptures are replete with passages in relation to this event, but I can here refer only to a few. When John the Revelator was about to foretell the downfall of Babylon, he says:
 
"And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye may not be partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double" (Rev. xviii, 4-6).
 
The Psalmist bears this testimony:
 
"Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself" (Psalm i, 3-6).
 
So Isaiah:
 
"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it" (Isaiah ii, 2-4).
 
"And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from afar, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they will come with speed swiftly" (Isaiah v, 26, 27).
 
"And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel [not the Jews alone, but all Israel], and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth" (Isaiah xi, 12).
 
So Paul:
 
"Having made known to us the mystery of his will * * * that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him" (Eph. i, 9, 10).
 
{166} And lastly, the testimony of Jesus:
 
"And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of trumpet, and they shall gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Matt. xxiv, 30, 31).
 
All believers in the Holy Scriptures, then, must believe in and are looking forward to the glorious coming of the Son of God. They also must believe that these four events we have named, will precede that coming. That is, they believe and are expecting that when those judgments connected with the coming of the Messiah are about to overtake the inhabitants of the earth, an ANGEL will come with the Everlasting Gospel, which must be preached to all nations; that a MESSENGER will come to prepare the way before the Lord, that ELIJAH will come to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and vice versa; and that God's SAINTS will be gathered together.
 
And now, in all sincerity of heart, and in the fear of God, the writer testifies to all men unto whom his words may come, that the first three events have taken place, and the fourth, the gathering of the Saints, is now going on, and the coming of the Son of God, together with the attendant judgments, are near at hand.
 
THE RESTORATION OF THE GOSPEL
 
occurred in the following manner:
 
In the spring of 1820, Joseph Smith, then a lad between fourteen and fifteen years of age, being exercised on the subject of religion, and not knowing which of the contending sects of religion were accepted by God as His Church, fortunately came upon that excellent advice given by the Apostle James, viz.:
 
"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (James i, 5).
 
In full, child-like confidence that God would fulfil His word, he called upon the Lord in prayer, and in answer received an open vision, in which he beheld the Father and the Son, who revealed to him the startling truth that man had transgressed the laws of the Gospel, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant, and that none of the churches or sects were acknowledged of His as His church or kingdom, and he was commanded to join none of them. He was {167} also informed that the time was at hand when the Gospel would be restored, and was told that he was a chosen instrument to assist in bringing about the purposes of God.
 
Let not the reader impatiently cast away this tract at the statement that God did not acknowledge any of the sects or churches as His church or kingdom. Let it be remembered, according to the prophecy of the Revelator we have quoted (Rev. xiv, 6, 7), that every nation, kindred, tongue, and people in the hour of God's judgment, are to be without the Gospel, or why would there be any need of an angel being sent from heaven with it to the earth, if it was anywhere on the earth? The learned John Wesley said that the reason the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer enjoyed was because the love of many waxed cold, the Christians had turned heathens again and only had a dead form left (Wesley's works, vol. VI, ser. 89). The Church of England in her Homily on Perils of Idolatry (page 3) says: "Laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects and degrees have been drowned in abominable idolatry, most detested by God and damnable to man for eight hundred years or more."
 
But to return to our account of the restoration of the Gospel. More than three years passed before Joseph Smith was again blessed with a heavenly vision. But on the night of the 21st of September, 1823, while engaged in prayer in his bedcham............