Good Morning or Good Afternoon or Good Evening,
this post should take four minutes to seven minutes to read from start to finish.
This post focuses on a Brigham Young University (BYU) Devotional, and it is called "America's Fate and Ultimate Destiny" by Elder Marion G. Romney. This post is part two, and I hope you will be able to learn something new while you are reading through this post.
Elder Romney has mentioned the following; "Elder Nephi L. Morris supports this conclusion with quotes from Washington Irving’s The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus:
Elder Romney has mentioned the following; "Elder Nephi L. Morris supports this conclusion with quotes from Washington Irving’s The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus:
“In the latter part of his life, Columbus, when impressed with the sublime events brought about by his agency ... looked back upon his career with a solemn and superstitious feeling, he attributed his early and irresistible inclination for the sea, and his passion for geographical studies, to an impulse from the deity preparing him for the high decrees he was chosen to accomplish“(See Irving, p. 18, vol. 1).
“When [Columbus] had formed his theory, it became fixed in his mind with singular firmness, and influenced his entire character and conduct. He never spoke in doubt or hesitation, but with as [such] certainty as if his eyes had beheld the promised land. No trial or disappointment could divert him from the steady pursuit of his object.
A deep religious sentiment mingled with his meditations, and gave him at times a tinge of superstition, but it was of a sublime and lofty kind; he looked upon himself as standing in the hand of heaven, chosen from among men for the accomplishment of his high purpose. . . .”
... His son Fernando, in the biography of his father quotes him as saying on one occasion: “God gave me the faith and afterwards the courage so that I was quite willing to undertake the journey.” ...
America Reserved for the Righteous
We who live in America today are here because the Lord led Columbus to this land. We dwell here under the same divine decree, however, as did the ancient civilizations, who, being likewise led here, prospered when they obeyed the laws of the God of the land but who finally ripened in iniquity and, pursuant to the Lord’s decree, were swept off the land. And be it known that we are as well informed of the decree as were those former inhabitants. The manner in which a knowledge of this decree came to us is as follows:
Moroni, an American prophet-historian who, about 421 A.D., closed the sacred Book of Mormon record now available to us, spent his youth and middle life in the final struggle between his people, the Nephites, and the Lamanites.
As the sole surviving Nephite, he spent the rest of his life abridging the two-thousand-year record of the Jaredites. ... With these heartrending scenes and his own experiences upon his mind, he was given in vision a view of us who now dwell here.
Knowing that his record would come to us, he wrote as he looked at us in vision: Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing. [Mormon 8:35]
And this [the record that he wrote] cometh unto you . . . that ye may know the decrees of God that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done.
Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ. [Ether 2:11–12; emphasis added]
Although the foregoing references to America’s past are brief and sketchy, they clearly show that she is now and has been from the beginning a favored and choice land in which the Lord has taken a personal and peculiar interest. ... (see J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Stand Fast by Our Constitution [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1973], p. 183).
But not only has the Almighty reserved America for a righteous people and decreed that her inhabitants shall serve him or be swept off the land; he has also, as indicated at the outset of these remarks, decreed for her a great and marvelous final destiny namely, that out of her is to go forth to all the world his law.
... Thus America’s ultimate God-given destiny, planned by the Creator [and by him through Isaiah declared], is that out of her shall go forth the law. [Clark, Stand Fast, pp. 174–75] This destiny no power of men or devils can thwart.
Let us now consider for a moment what the Lord has done since he led Columbus to America to move her toward her divine destiny. Reference has already been made to the early settlers, to the growth of the original colonies, to the Declaration of Independence, and to the success of the colonists in the Revolutionary War through which their declared independence was won.
Later on, between 1820 and 1844, the Lord revealed a new and complete dispensation of his gospel that contains the laws of the God of this land, who is Jesus Christ. This was, of course, made imperative by the divine decree that those who dwell here must obey such laws or be swept off the land.
His laws have always been given to the inhabitants of America. He gave them to the antediluvians through his prophets from Adam to Noah. He gave them to the Jaredites through the prophets from the brother of Jared to Ether. To the Nephites in a personal visitation and through his prophets from Lehi to Moroni, he revealed his laws. To this generation he has given them anew through his prophet Joseph Smith, Jr.
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| In God’s economy, America is now and has always been a choice and favored land. God has decreed for her a final, great, and glorious destiny. |
Free Agency Needed for Obedience to God’s Laws
The giving of these laws, however, would have been abortive without a civil government that would guarantee men the untrammeled exercise of their God-given free agency.
Without such a civil government men could not be bound by the laws of God even though they were revealed. As a matter of fact, free agency underlies all of God’s laws.
It is God’s law of liberty. ... God wants men to do good, but he never forces them and does not want them to be forced. He placed in and left with them the power of election. When they do good, he honors them because they could have done evil.
... God allows men to make their own choices, and he has reserved to himself the judgment as to the correctness of their choices. Free agency has always had rough going, however. Over it the War in Heaven was fought. In the earth it has been abridged by almost all governments, civil and ecclesiastical. Apostate churchmen, kings, and other rulers have from the beginning arrogated judgment unto themselves.
They have, contrary to God’s law of liberty, preempted man’s right, with or without his consent, to determine what would be best for them to do and by every means within their power have undertaken to force men to do their bidding.
... On July 3, 1776, no government on earth guaranteed God’s law of liberty; but on July 4, 1776, in the Declaration of Independence, that law was declared anew in the earth. ... The colonial patriots did receive the fugitive.
They fought and won the war of the revolution to obtain freedom. They, under the inspiration of heaven and the interposition of the Almighty, established the Constitution of the United States to secure freedom, God’s law of liberty, not only for all Americans but also for all men.
In this manner did God move America into position to fulfill her destiny. That it was he who did it, he himself affirms. ... According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh [not just for America], according to just and holy principles;
... That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.
In this declaration the Lord reveals three things: (1) that the Constitution of the United States was established by him; (2) that the purpose of it was to protect men in the exercise of their God-given moral agency; and (3) that every man should eventually, under its just and holy principles, enjoy such protection.
... I think I have now said enough to sustain my thesis that America has from the beginning been, and now is, in God’s economy, a choice and favored land, and that he has decreed for her a great destiny. I shall therefore conclude with a statement of these basic facts.
The blessings of our constitutional freedoms were secured for us by the bounty of the Almighty through the patriotism and sacrifices of the founding fathers. They were preserved for us through the suffering and trials of the Civil War. For them we owe a deep debt of gratitude to God and our forebears.
By the grace of God we occupy this land, the blessings of which are unequaled in any other land. It is difficult for us of this generation to fully appreciate these blessings because they were not won by the shedding of our own blood, sweat, and tears, but by that of others.
There are some things, however, that we must no longer fail to appreciate. ... America’s destiny requires that the constitutional safeguards of this freedom be appreciated and maintained. It is imperative that they be maintained and observed here in America in order that they may go out from here undiluted to the protection of all flesh.
Whether this generation of Americans will live up to its opportunity to obey and preserve them, particularly God’s law of liberty including the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the God of this land remains to be seen. If it does not, the wicked among us will be destroyed, as were the wicked preceding the appearance of the risen Lord to the Nephites.
God will spare the righteous and raise up another generation in this land, for out of Zion the law of God will go forth. There are those among us who feel, and perhaps with good cause, that these constitutional freedoms are being, both wittingly and unwittingly, eroded.
If this be so, let it be known that with the loss of each constitutional freedom we are surrendering our inheritance in this favored land. What can we do about it? Let me give you a suggestion in the words of the immortal Lincoln. As I read the word laws and I quote him, think of the laws of the gospel and those constitutional laws calculated to preserve our free agency God’s law of liberty. Here is the quotation:
Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country [and let Latter-day Saints include in that the laws of the gospel of Jesus Christ], and never to tolerate their violation by others.
As the patriots of ‘76 did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and the laws [of God], let every American pledge his life, his property and his sacred honour; let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample upon the blood of his fathers and to tear the charter of his own and his children’s liberty.
... Now, my beloved brothers and sisters, young and old, let us who know and believe so much more than others about the fate and ultimate destiny of America lead the way by precept and example to the realization of that great destiny. ..."
If you would like to read the whole devotional either now or in your own time, here is the link below.
Stay Tuned until next time.
