Book of Jarom and the Plan of Salvation

My scripture study this morning was in the Book of Jarom. The following few verses really stuck out to me (emphasis mine): 

Jacob and his father, Enos. Image here.

2 And as these plates are small, and as these things are writtenfor the intent of the benefit of our brethren the Lamanites, wherefore, it must needs be that I write a little; but I shall not write the things of my prophesying, nor of my revelations. For what could I write more than my fathers have written? For have not they revealed the plan of salvation? I say unto you, Yea; and this sufficeth me. 

3 Behold, it is expedient that much should be done among this people, because of the hardness of their hearts, and the deafness of their ears, and the blindness of their minds, and the stiffness of their necks; nevertheless, God is exceedingly merciful unto them, and has not as yet swept them off from the face of the land. 

4 And there are many among us who have many revelations, for they are not all stiffnecked. And as many as are not stiffnecked and have faith, have communion with the Holy Spirit, which maketh manifest unto the children of men, according to their faith. 

5 And now, behold, two hundred years had passed away, and the people of Nephi had waxed strong in the land. They observed to keep the law of Moses and the sabbath day holy unto the Lord. And they profaned not; neither did they blaspheme. And the laws of the land were exceedingly strict.

Fighting Lamanites. Image here.

The Book of Jarom and I have a really nice history. Early on in my life I was very in favor of the so-called "War on Terror" (what does that even mean, anyway?), but after a very intense study of the Book of Jarom, I changed my tune. The whole book is only one chapter, so you can also do a very intense study of the book in not a lot of time. In the chapter, we learn about the Lamanites who "loved murder and would drink the blood of beasts," and how they "came many times against us [...] to battle." Sounds like modern-day terrorists to me.

Except the "kings" and "leaders" who "were mighty men in the faith of the Lord" did not go hunting the Lamanites out of existence, and did not take the war to them, and did not invade their lands. Instead, these mighty men in God's wisdom prepared for war by "fortify[ing] [their] cities," making "weapons of war," and "diligently exhorting with all long-suffering the people to diligence [...] persuading them to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him."

Verse 12: "And it came to pass that by so doing they kept them from being destroyed upon the face of the land; for they did prick their hearts with the word, continually stirring them up unto repentance."

Anyway, I read all of that and thought--gee whillickers! THAT is how to withstand modern day terrorism! Fortify your lands, prepare for war, and repent repent repent and keep the commandments. Bam.

But today, those first five verses really stood out to me. I feel like my life now--and probably many of your lives now--is characterized by a lot of revelation. I feel like almost every day I'm learning something new and amazing about something, whether it is a revelation about the nature of the universe, or about the human body, or about my specific life, or about the lives of my clients. I spend a lot of time now enjoying direct tutelage from the Spirit, and I love it.

So I really super love what Jarom teaches in verse 2. There he is, a man of revelation, having received lots of revelations, but when it comes right down to it, he opts against sharing the things that have been revealed to him, because they all pale in comparison to the importance of the Plan of Salvation.

This is so, so true. At the end of the day, all the other things we learn from the Spirit are minor in comparison.

Jesus the Christ. Image here.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is so amazing in this regard. On the one hand, it is complex enough that you can receive spiritual downloads about it every day and still barely scratch the surface of its immense complexity. There is so much to learn about how it all works!
And yet, it is so simple that a child can understand.


One reading of the Book of Mormon, and every major question you ever had about life's purpose is answered.

One discussion of the Plan of Salvation can utterly change your life.

Just yesterday I was reading about a Holocaust survivor who had some serious questions about God after his experiences--can you imagine if he and his rabbi had understood the Plan of Salvation? What a huge relief and comfort it would have been. What peace it could have brought. From the interview:

Eisenhower liberated me in concentration camp. He came with his other general, and they saw the piles of bodies that they couldn’t burn. The Jews were on the bottom, and I was the only guy because the Czechs, they didn’t march me to death because of my Czech friends. They said you are a Czech. You’re not a Jew. Stay with us. So I was the only Jew the rabbi found. He was looking for a Jew. He said, “I’m a rabbi. Are you Jewish? I’m looking for a Jew.” I said I’m a Jew. I’m a Jew. Come over here, talk to me. So he came over and talked to me. 

I said you’re not a rabbi. You’re Jewish. You’re a soldier. He says no, I’m a soldier rabbi. So I’m asking you one question. Can you do me a favor, not for me, for my 4-year-old brother that I know now that he was burned? Where was God? Not for me, because I might have sinned. Maybe I deserved to be here, but my four-year-old boy had no sins whatsoever. He didn’t live long enough. He could have been a rabbi like you. Why didn’t God help him? 

He says I can’t answer you because I’m not prepared to answer your questions, so I started crying. I started crying because I said to him who am I going to ask? You’re the rabbi. You’ve got to help me, thinking because I believe in God, save me. So I’m not asking for myself. My brother could have been a rabbi like you. You don’t know what he would have become. God didn’t know yet because he didn’t sin yet. All of us maybe have a little sin. Whatever happened, God is a busy man. I understand that.

Reading that just broke my heart. For so many reasons, but especially because no one involved here understood the plainest part of the Gospel:

That we are God's children.

Image here. 

That He loves us.

That we lived with Him before our mortal birth.

That we all agreed in a Council in Heaven to come to earth to learn to be more like God.

That we understood we would be tested and tried and be given growth opportunities, opportunities for growth that couldn't have happened any other way.

That that we knew we would all fail.

That God promised He would send us a Savior, Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins and enable us to repent  and heal and come home after our mortal probation.

That everything in life is for our ultimate benefit: even that hard stuff, even the indescribably hard stuff, even the stuff that seems unfair and that doesn't make sense.

That even when things seem unfair, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, everything is fair--and merciful.

Can you imagine if that rabbi had had access to that knowledge?

Or if either of them had had access to a scripture like D&C 121? Even when I was a small child, D&C 121:7 brought me so much peace. I remember being a kid and thinking of it as I struggled with physical, spiritual, and emotional health problems. What a huge comfort it was. And is.

The Plan of Salvation is the most important thing.

So I guess in keeping with my Jubilee preparedness blogging: spend some time today with the Plan of Salvation. If you've never heard of it before, read up. If you are familiar with it, spend some time feeling grateful for it, praising God for it. This is the most important thing we can know.

Prepare: commandments and blessings

This was my hookum this morning (a hookum is when you let your scriptures fall open with the intention that the page opened to will be just right for you):

Women in the wilderness.
Image here.

1 And it came to pass that we did again take our journey in the wilderness; and we did travel nearly eastward from that time forth. And we did travel and wade through much affliction in the wilderness; and our women did bear children in the wilderness. 

2 And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, our women did give plenty of suck for their children, and were strong, yea, even like unto the men; and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings. 

3 And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them; wherefore, he did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness.

- 1 Nephi 17:1-3 

This was just right for me.

The promise here is that if we keep the commandments, God will work incredible miracles to keep us strong and nourished. If you must live upon raw meat in the wilderness because you are keeping God's commandments, God will use it to make you strong.

If things really did Get Bad, there's no way a year of food storage would be enough. A year's supply for one person is maybe a few months' supply for a family. A family's food supply for a year would be a month or a few days for a community. But the point is obedience. By acting in faith, we show God that we are preparing our hearts to trust Him fully enough to provide for us in the wilderness.

Keep the commandments! Receive the blessings!

Prepare: obtain copper cups

I recently read an article about the antimicrobial, antiviral nature of copper surfaces. I already knew that silver was antimicrobial, but I had no idea about copper. It looks like scientists are still not sure why copper is so effective at killing viruses. But it apparently is.

One of our preps, I decided this morning, will be to obtain one handled copper mug per person in my group. The handle will make it so the cup can easily be secured to a belt loop or backpack strap--which reminds me that I should possibly stock up on carabiners.

Copper mugs do not need to be washed--you just rinse them out and dry them. So one mug per person would be perfect. They can keep the mug on their person and use it as needed. The one downside to copper is that it would get very hot if you poured something hot into it--but I believe the antiviral properties of the cup would outweigh that problem.


Copper mugs sell for about $20/mug on Amazon. All of these pictures here are affiliate links to appropriate cups, costing between $18 and $20/cup.

You want to be sure you are getting a mug that is 100% copper. Most of the mugs I am finding have food-grade lacquer on them, but you can get that off with lemon juice or dishsoap and scrubbing. This is one reason why the mugs are not dishwasher safe--the dishwasher gets the lacquer off! In a survival situation, you would want the straight copper, unmarred by lacquer. You want your water and hands to touch the straight up copper surfaces so that the copper can work its magic and take care of pathogens on your behalf.

I'm so glad I discovered this--I'd been thinking I should get some silver, but if copper works just as well, that's way more efficient. Silver costs multiple times more than copper, so if copper gets the job done, I'm good with that!

Food storage prep

In keeping with my focus on preparedness, here's a post about what I'm doing food-wise.

If things Get Bad, I'll have me and my husband, our two kids, my parents, my mom's parents, and likely a few friends and their kids. Overall, I'm planning on having to feed 8 adults and 4 children. Seven of these people have allergies to various common food products such as wheat, nuts, dairy, tomatoes, and so forth. Up until recently I have not been super gung-ho about my food storage, but lately I've been feeling like the pressure is ON! So we are storing food.

My big project right now has been to buy flour at my local Aldi (last week it was only 89 cents for five pounds of flour--today it was $1.29 for 5 lbs flour, but still a good deal). Then I come home and repackage it into 2L soda bottles. Allegedly, the flour can store in there for several years.

Preparing the soda bottles

I prepare my soda bottles for use with water or food storage by scalding them inside and out with very hot tap water, then adding a capful of bleach for a few minutes, shaking it up with hot water, and then draining it and letting it dry completely. I use the soda bottle's cap itself as the measuring device for the bleach so it cleans the inside of the cap as well.

I don't just use two-liter bottles; I also use used water bottles and my mom's Dr. Pepper bottles. The scald and the bleach remove any odors or germs, and then you're left with a container that can safely hold and waterproof about exactly 2 cups of rice. This is a little less than a pound of rice uncooked, which is about the bare minimum of rice a person would need to eat to keep themselves alive for one day in an emergency situation.

The bottles have to be utterly, completely, absolutely and totally dry before you use them. Here is a picture of me drying some bottles with a little bit of rice.

Adding the food


I went out and got a few more funnels today to use for this purpose. I use the funnels to get rice and flour and beans and so on into the 2L soda bottles. With flour, I also use a plastic spoon to kind of help unclog the spout of the funnel. With the rice, I've found the easiest way to get it into the bottle is to fill up the funnel as it is situated on top of the bottle, then use my [very clean] hand to tap the top of the funnel. With every tap, rice shakes free and down into the bottle. It takes a little while to fill up a bottle, but to me it is worth it.

Why this is worth it to me

1. Buying fancy canned flour seems like a waste when in my heart I feel that my personal family will need the flour in closer to 3 years than 30 years. 

2. The paper bags flour comes in are no protection against vermin or the elements. 2L soda bottles can be. Particularly if you dip the cap in wax afterwards or seal it with superglue. One guy I read about online said he'd recently eaten rice he'd stored this way over 15 years ago, and after, yes, FIFTEEN long years in a two-liter soda bottle, the rice cooked up perfectly and was virtually indistinguishable from fresh store rice.  

3. A soda bottle is the perfect size for carrying, for trade and barter, and for charity. If a starving person comes to me, it will be so much nicer to be able to give them a bottle of rice than to have to scoop out a scoopful of it from a giant 6-gallon bucket or something. 

Useful numbers

A 2L soda bottle holds 8.45 cups of whatever. This equals 3.4 pounds of rice, or 2.25 pounds of flour, or 4.25 pounds of water.

A 16.9-oz bottle holds about 2.25 cups of whatever. I just filled up a few of those with rice--each little bottle is enough rice for one person to live on for one day if he or she ate nothing else.

Baking mix

I also recently (this morning) decided to stop packing just plain flour, and instead pack baking mix. 6 cups of flour to 2 tbsp baking powder and 1 tbsp salt. Then you can just pour it out and mix it with the appropriate amount of reconstituted milk to bake biscuits.

Things to store

I plan on storing flour, baking mix, homemade muffin mix, rice, beans, and sugar this way, at a minimum. Now the big deal is finding enough bottles to use...

Dollar Store prep

So, regular readers know that I am into preparedness lately. I personally am preparing for worst case scenarios right now, and so I've been trying to write a little bit more about how I'm preparing that way.

Well, one way I've been preparing is by going to the dollar store.

I know, you say: ridiculous! Well, oh well.

Here is my reasoning:

If things ever get Bad, or "SHTF," as they say, money will be worthless and even gold and silver will be useless. Brigham Young has a lot to say about this in his Journal of Discourses. On page 250 he says, "The time will come that gold will hold no comparison in value to a bushel of wheat." On page 262, President Young mentions a friend's dream:

He dreamed that there was a sack of gold and a cat placed before him, and that he had the privilege of taking which he pleased, whereupon he took the cat, and walked off with her. Why did he take the cat in preference to the gold? Because he could eat the cat, but could not eat the gold. You may see about such times before you die.

Anyway, the point is, food and commodities will trump credit, cash, and even precious metals, hands down, in the case of an economic collapse.

I have yet to publish some of my drafted work on ebola, but one important thing to note is that we don't need an epidemic to destroy our economy. All we need is enough fear of an epidemic that makes people stay indoors. Can you even imagine? If the papers publish that there are, say, twelve cases of ebola in a certain city, it won't matter if the papers are correct; people will stay home out of fear of plague. With no one going into work, and no one delivering goods, it will only be a few days before things get crazy. Most people do not even store enough food and water for three days in an emergency situation. Try a 21-day quarantine period. Money will not matter then; having food and commodities is what will matter.

So, to get back to the point: the dollar store.

When I get a few random dollar bills now, I go spend them at the dollar store. This is a list of things I buy there and why.

- Gloves of all kinds. Winter gloves for warmth; vinyl and latex gloves for cleaning and dealing with possible contagious people. 

- Shower curtains. I was required to buy these for my homebirth, to spread on the bed underneath an old sheet. Dollar store shower curtains are waterproof and could be used to line beds or other surfaces that a sick person needed to use. Also, my research is indicating that you could use a dollar store shower curtain to line homemade menstrual pads if you had to make yourself some. Overall a useful product to have around in the case of a long-term emergency. 

- Sewing kits. Obviously being able to repair clothing and other textiles will be useful. Additionally, they could make great items for trade or charity. 

- Bleach. Cleanliness will be of utmost importance if our economy ever destabilizes. Also, ebola is killed by household bleach. 

- Candles. I initially had a hard time finding a better deal than those plain white candles that they also sell with Catholic saint pictures on them. I did find a better deal eventually on Amazon: 15 Hour Unscented White Emergency Votive Candles - 144 Bulk

Those may be the biggies I stock up on there. Another thing I get when it's there is chalk, but it's not consistently available.

I also stock up on water there, for better or worse. It seems if you're going to buy gallons of water, you can expect to spend at least $1/gal. Of course, you can always reuse your soda bottles to store water, but my family doesn't drink soda, so we usually end up just buying water for our home storage.

Do any of you stock up on commodities at the dollar store? What do you get and why?

Preparing for the Shemitah, Jubilee, and Possible Sorrows

I've been blogging a lot about Biblical calendars--the Shemitah we are currently living through, the Jubilee that begins next year, the "half hour" or 21 years of silence following the opening of the seventh seal, and the associated Tribulation. The big question is: if all this stuff is legit--which, who knows, maybe it isn't, but maybe it is--how does one prepare?

So I decided to do a series on preparedness. And I guess this is its introductory post.

The first thing to do is identify what we are preparing for.

What situations can we expect in the coming years and why?

These are the types of situations I would tend to expect:

Based on the nature and timing of the Shemitah:

• General economic collapse, leading up to and culminating in a severe collapse on 13 September 2015 (29 Elul on the Biblical calendar) 

• Possible associated disaster, either manmade (like the 9/11 terror attacks or the Wall Street collapse on 9/28/08), or natural (no precedence that I can think of off the top of my head, but it feels like a possibility--could involve something like an earthquake or other weather event, or a plague of some sort)

Based on the nature and the timing of the Jubilee:

• Traditionally, the Jubilee marks a second consecutive year of economic disturbance, so you would expect things to be even worse economically from mid-September 2015 to mid-September 2016.

• I personally would not be surprised if the beginning of the Jubilee coincided with the Beginning of Sorrows, because it will begin the last "ten minutes" of the "half hour of silence" mentioned in the book of Revelation, as well as D&C 88:95. These "ten minutes" will last seven years--a third of the overall time involved in the "half hour."

If the Beginning of Sorrows does begin soonish--not that it has to or will, but if it did--these are the kinds of things we would expect:

Image here.

• Plagues: wiping out the world's population significantly.
• Increase in the severity and frequency of natural disasters of all kinds: ones of particular interest might include storms, earthquakes, and tidal waves.
• Societal collapse: it won't feel like Kansas anymore, Toto. Associated violence and general wandering in search of safety and resources.
• Wars and rumors of wars. Possible invasion by foreign troops in addition to local gang violence.
• Famine--partially from natural disasters ruining crops, and partially because it is no longer safe to farm

So the question is, how do we prepare for stuff like that?

I propose that there are a few different areas of necessary preparation:

- Spiritual: how strong is your faith that God can and will take care of you?
- Emotional: how strong are you emotionally? Could you emotionally handle a collapse of the current order?
- Mental: Do you know the things you'd need to know to survive if a survival situation came up in your life?
- Physical: Is your body physically fit enough to withstand a new level of physical rigor?
- Temporal: Do you have the necessary stuff to get through any potential trials comfortably? This would include things like stored food and water, water filters, cloth diapers, hand-laundering equipment, extra clothing, etc.

I'll be examining these different areas of preparation in the coming weeks. We all have a lot to prepare if there ever is an emergency in our lives--whether that emergency is a widespread societal one, or just a personal one like job loss or a death in the family.

Whether or not the coming years hold economic craziness, it is always a good idea to be prepared. This talk from President Gordon B. Hinckley in 2005 is more relevant than ever: if we are prepared we shall not fear. Read the whole talk, but he says:

Our people for three-quarters of a century have been counseled and encouraged to make such preparation as will assure survival should a calamity come. 

We can set aside some water, basic food, medicine, and clothing to keep us warm. We ought to have a little money laid aside in case of a rainy day. 

Now what I have said should not occasion a run on the grocery store or anything of that kind. I am saying nothing that has not been said for a very long time. 

So to echo the prophet: my point here is not to panic or anything like that. None of the call to prepare is somehow new. Maybe crazy things are coming and maybe not, but in either case, it pays to be prepared.

To that end, upcoming posts will be covering issues of preparedness on all levels. Time to get our houses in order! 

the Shemitah and the Stock Market

I've blogged about the Shemitah before: the Biblical "land's Sabbath." Every seven years, the land was supposed to lie entirely fallow, and all the Jews were commanded to spend the year living off food storage and studying the scriptures. Economically, this year-long Sabbath looked like a depression. No food production, people living off what they already had. At the end of the Shemitah, on 29 Elul (the last day of the Biblical year, falling in mid-to-late September), all the economic slates were wiped clean: all debts and all credits erased. For the Jews, this was a commandment (it's in Leviticus, and I have all the scriptural links in the link above), and when they violated it they got punished with devastation for as many years as they had neglected their Shemitah observance. In modern days, Shemitah observance is not considered a commandment, but history indicates that it does constitute a time of judgment.

Honey and applies: traditional Rosh Hashanah fare.
Image here.

According to my research about the Shemitah, one would expect that shortly after Rosh Hashana in the Shemitah year, economic failure would begin. The severity would correspond with a judgment on the land. This economic pattern fits into the oft-noted and completely not-understood phenomenon of stock market failure in the month of October. This article mentions this phenomenon at the bottom.

This Shemitah, arguably the final Shemitah in the "half hour of silence" prior to the events listed in D&C 88:95, began on 25 September 2014--the day Thomas Duncan checked himself into the hospital with Ebola and was turned away.

On October 6 and 7, we had General Conference, which I thought focused heavily on spiritual preparation and being prepared to follow the prophet no matter what. I was also pleasantly surprised about the talk mentioning the importance of physical health and focusing on a healthy diet and regular exercise.

General conference. See LDS.org.

On October 8 we had a Biblical blood moon tetrad blood moon, along with a simultaneous Draconid meteor shower--symbolically indicating severe troubles ahead for the House of Israel (the lunar eclipse symbolizes enemy forces "eclipsing" Israel and the Draconids represent the unleashing of Satanic forces).

At about this same time, the Supreme Court essentially legalized gay marriage everywhere, by refusing to hear state appeals about the issue.

Daily we are hearing of new ebola cases popping up in the US and Europe, with various organizations claiming that we could hit 10,000 new cases per week in December.

And to top it all off, the stock market has been falling and falling. Examine (my emphasis):

Is Ebola going to cause another of the massive October stock market crashes that Wall Street is famous for? At one point on Wednesday, the Dow was down a staggering 460 points. It ultimately closed down just 173 points, but this was the fifth day in a row that the Dow has declined. And of course Ebola is one of the primary things that is being blamed for this stunning stock market drop. Since September 19th, we have seen the S&P 500 fall about 7 percent and the Nasdaq fall nearly 10 percent. The VIX (the most important measure of volatility on Wall Street) shot up an astounding 22 percent on Wednesday. So many of the ominous signs for the markets that I wrote about on Tuesday are now even worse. If a handful of Ebola cases in the United States can cause this much panic in the financial world, what would a full-blown pandemic look like?

Now check out this super fun graph depicting the parallel between 1929 (hint: the drop that began the Great Depression) and today:

Super fun!! Looks like we are right on track to follow in the footsteps of a really intense time. The Shemitah corresponding to this graph went from Gregorian 1930-1931. The timeline back then looked like this:

1929: Black Monday, giant stock market crash
Early 1930: stock levels went back up a bit, see graph above
June 1930: passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, linked to collapse of global trade
September 1930: Shemitah began
Late 1930: general economic deterioration
April 1931, "the year that made the Great Depression Great": deflationary spiral beginsSeptember 19, 1931: British Empire discarded the gold standard, triggering worldwide panic and the largest monthly percentage drop in stock market history--within days of the financially climactic Shemitah year's end

Timeline paraphrased from The Mystery of the Shemitah: The 3,000-Year-Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future, the World's Future, and Your Future!.

Basically, all of this is what we would expect if we looked at and compared Biblical and secular history.

The big difference is that if we really are in the "half hour of silence," and that half hour, or 21 years, really began in 2000, that would put this year as the final Shemitah prior to the Tribulation. If we thought the Great Depression was bad, I submit that theoretically the economic turbulence immediately preceding the Tribulation would be substantially more... turbulent.

21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.- Jesus, Matthew 24:21

Conclusion

Things so far as looking exactly as one would expect a mere two weeks into what may be the final Shemitah. We should not be surprised by further economic collapse. Hopefully it doesn't happen, but if it does, it will be well within the realm of what one would expect based on history and the Biblical calendars.

a half hour of silence in the heavens

 And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. -Revelation 8:1

Hopefully we've all read the Bible by now and recognize this verse. There has been a lot of talk throughout history about the opening of the seventh seal, but we are among the lucky few who have lived to see it. This claim is based on scriptural evidence.

Note about this essay: This is not to make any fancy claims about exact dates or the exact nature of coming events. It is just to point out some scriptural and calendrical evidence for the scriptures and collaborate it with recent General Conference talks. My goal here is to inspire preparedness--which, I have blogged before, has been considered "urgent" for many, many, many years now. Even in the New Testament, Saints were counseled to treat their spiritual preparedness with urgency, even though the Second Coming was clearly not for some time (as we have yet to experience it ourselves, two millennia later). Hopefully we all approach our spiritual and material preparedness with the urgency recommended in the scriptures and by the prophets, regardless of upcoming events and how soon or far away they may be.

Upcoming: some evidence that the seventh seal has already been opened, per the beginning of the seventh thousand years as explained in the scriptures; an exploration of the calculation of the "half hour" of silence; how this fits with and supports the concept of the Christ coming at the Meridian of Time; the relation of the Seventh Seal to the Shemitah and upcoming Jubilee; and implications.

Seven seals. Image here.

The Seventh Seal: Timing, and the Half Hour

Poking around on the Internet today I found a link to Cleon Skousen's analysis of the time leading up to the Second Coming.

The whole article is worth a read, but here is a "brief" excerpt (brief compared to the rest of the essay, anyway!) Bolding is mine, and I cut out a giant paragraph that is worth reading but not necessarily as part of this post:

JOHN BEGINS DESCRIBING MODERN TIMES AFTER THE OPENING OF THE SEVENTH SEAL

Now John is ready to transfer his attention from the five chapters outlining the preparations in heaven for the Second Coming and concentrate on the unfolding of these events on earth. All of these events are controlled by the factor of “time.” He therefore defines the period in which these events will occur. John says:“And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” ¹⁵This immediately raises four highly significant questions. For example:#1. According to OUR calendar, when will the seventh seal be opened, and the half-hour of silence begins in heaven?Until 1582 A.D. our calendar was not at all accurate, but Pope Gregory employed a group of mathematicians and astronomers to restructure the calendar. They set up the new calendar so that it was in perfect harmony or calibration with the sun. To make it completely accurate they had to add one day every four years and that is how we got our “leap year.”But even with all that restructuring, how are we certain that it is completely accurate? The best answer to that question is in the Doctrine and Covenants. On two occasions the Lord used the Gregorian calendar in such a way that it seemed to clearly imply his approval of it.In Section 20 the Lord said he wanted the Church established on the sixth day of April because it would be “one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh.” ¹⁶In the very next section we are told the Church was set up by Joseph Smith under the guidance of the Holy Ghost and then it says:“Which church was organized and established in the year of your Lord eighteen hundred and thirty, in the fourth month, and on the sixth day of the month which is called April.” ¹⁷So if our calendar is accurate and apparently approved by the Lord, there is no question about the date of the opening of the seventh seal and the half hour of silence in heaven. It will commence in the year 2000 AD .#2. Why is there suddenly “silence in heaven” when the SEVENTH seal is opened?Apparently there is a great deal of furious activity in heaven right up to the time the seventh seal is opened. The Priesthood of this dispensation are required to work at a tremendous pace to get ready for the Second Coming. This was explained to Wilford Woodruff the last time he was allowed to see Joseph Smith in the spirit world.

[...] 

Joseph Smith made it plain to Wilford Woodruff that the Priesthood of this dispensation are working under a fantastic deadline to teach everyone who has died without the gospel since the apostolic times. This task has to be completed by the time of ‘the opening of the seventh seal when the hosts of heaven will have a new task connected with the final preparation and cleansing of the earth for the Second Coming.#3. DO WE KNOW WHEN THE HALF HOUR OF SILENCE ENDS?From a modern revelation we learn when the half hour of silence ends. Here is what the Lord says:“And there shall be silence in heaven for the space of half an hour, and IMMEDIATELY after shall the curtain of heaven be unfolded, as a scroll is unfolded after it is rolled up, AND THE FACE OF THE LORD SHALL BE UNVEILED; and the saints that are upon the earth, who are alive, shall be quickened and be caught up to meet him.” ¹⁹Obviously we are talking about the Second Coming. So this tells us when the half hour of silence ends. It is just before the Second Coming.#4. CAN WE calculate THE ACTUAL DURATION OF TH HOUR OF SILENCE?Since we know the half hour of silence begins at 2,000 A.D. when the seventh seal is opened and since we know from a modern revelation that the half hour of silence ends with the Second Coming, can we calculate in terms of years the length of time which will elapse between these two monumental events? In other words, can we determine about how long the half hour of silence lasts?One of the apostles felt that such a calculation was possible. Here is the way Elder Bruce R. McConkie suggested it could be done. After talking about the half hour of silence, he says:“If the time here mentioned is ‘ Lord’s time’ in which one day is a thousand years, the haft hour would be some twenty-one of our years.”Elder McConkie reached this conclusion based on the following scriptures:“A day with the Lord after his manner of reckoning, it being 1000 years according to the time appointed to that [ whereon thou standest."And again:"But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that ONE DAY is with the Lord as a THOUSAND YEARS, and a thousand years as one day."The next step was to divide 1,000 years by 24 to determine what an hour would be according to God’s time. It turned out to be 41.66 years or just under 42 years. This means that a half hour of God’s time would be ? 7 years or nearly 21 years. This would clearly suggest that this is the duration of the half hour of silence in heaven and the period of time when the angels undertake the calamitous preparation of the earth for the Savior’s second coming.

 So, to recap:

The scriptures indicate that the Gregorian calendar is an accurate count from the time of the Savior's birth. This would put the opening of the seventh seal from Revelations in the year 2000 AD, Gregorian. Here is a site with explanations from the scriptures and the prophets about why that is. But here's a good scriptural recap, D&C 77:12 (my bolding):

Angel sounding trumpet. Public domain. 

 12 Q. What are we to understand by the sounding of the trumpets, mentioned in the 8th chapter of Revelation?A. We are to understand that as God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day he finished his work, and sanctified it, and also formed man out of the dust of the earth, even so, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years will the Lord God sanctify the earth, and complete the salvation of man, and judge all things, and shall redeem all things, except that which he hath not put into his power, when he shall have sealed all things, unto the end of all things; and the sounding of the trumpets of the seven angels are the preparing and finishing of his work, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years—the preparing of the way before the time of his coming.

Basically, ancient and modern scripture agree that man is allotted 7,000 years on the earth. The opening of the seventh seal corresponds to the beginning of the last thousand years. The world gets a "half hour of silence," according to Revelation, and then Christ returns, the world burns, and the Millennium for real begins. Since the year Christ was born in was 1830 years prior to the restoration of the Gospel in 1830 AD Gregorian, and He was born at the Meridian of Time (the 4,000th year out of the 7,000 total), that would put the beginning of the seventh thousand years in 2000 AD: Y2K.

Per the scriptures, the ending of the world didn't happen then, with the opening of the seventh seal; rather, we began the half hour of silence predicted in the book of Revelation.

How does this fit with the Meridian of Time?

 This is slightly tangential, but I want to throw it in here in case anyone is as confused as I once was. One thing that always bothered me was that if that whole 7000 year thing was accurate, and Christ came at year 4000, then why--?? How does that work if He was supposed to come at the Meridian of Time?

John Pratt has an article about that, kind of--it doesn't address the Meridian of Time according to the whole history of humankind, but it does address the issue of the Meridian of Time according to the Enoch and Hebrew calendars. Examine:

The Enoch calendar. Image here. 

Christ born at Meridian of Grand Year. Following the same pattern shows that 6 Apr 1 BC fell in the year called 14 ADAR 2. The Feast of Esther begins on the day 14 Adar, or, in years with the thirteenth month, on 14 Adar2. So the proposed year of the Savior's birth also fell in a "holy year" of the Grand Year, corresponding to the Feast of Esther.
Moreover, that particular Grand Year comprised 385 years. The Feast of Esther that year fell in the 193rd year of the Grand Year, which is precisely the middle year of the 385 years. So the birth year of Christ occurred at the meridian of a Grand Year, which was also a "holy year."
One final point: the name Esther means "A star," so the birth year of Christ was the year of the "Feast of A Star." That seems appropriate, in light of the appearance of the Star of Bethlehem, which heralded his coming. If that was planned, then even Esther's very name was inspired.
Christ born at Meridian of Jubilee Year. The year beginning in Sep., 2 BC was a SUNDAY, the first year of the sabbatical cycle. In fact, it was also a Jubilee year which is always a SUNDAY, occuring every 49 years.^[5] The jubilee year was to be announced with the blowing of the trumpet on the Day of Atonement (in September/October) (Lev. 25:9-10). If Christ was born during the night preceding 6 Apr 1 BC, as all of my calculations indicate, then he was born exactly on the meridian day of that Jubilee year, which was also the day of Passover. That is, from 10 Tishri to 15 Nisan is half a solar year. A normal Hebrew year is ten days short of a solar year, to the 5 extra days from the 10th to the 15th is exactly what is required to separate the two days by half a solar year. Thus, the meridian of time is precise down to the very day, not just the year. 

Anyway, it's awesome, but not super relevant--another article of his, I believe, points out that although the halfway point of 7,000 years would be 3,500, it would be rounded up to the nearest day to be the meridian. 3,500 rounded up is 4,000. Hence Christ's birthday as the Meridian of Time, even though it is not technically at the exact halfway midpoint of time.

So we really are looking at exactly 2,000 years from Christ's birth for the opening of the seventh seal--not 3,500 years.

OKAY.

What Happens in the Half-Hour of Silence? 

What does this half hour of silence mean? What is supposed to happen in it?

Revelation Chapters 8-12 are dedicated to this very thing. In Chapter 8 we see hail and natural disasters, Wormwood making the waters bitter, the water of the sea becoming blood. In Chapter 9 we see terror visiting men: "And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them" (verse 6). In Chapter 11 we learn of the prophets who will be slaughtered in Jerusalem. And so on. Basically there is a lot of stuff that is going to happen during this half hour--or, as Bruce R. McConkie calculated, 21 years--that immediately precedes the Second Coming, as explained in D&C 88:95-96:

 95 And there shall be silence in heaven for the space of half an hour; and immediately after shall the curtain of heaven be unfolded, as a scroll is unfolded after it is rolled up, and the face of the Lord shall be unveiled;
 96 And the saints that are upon the earth, who are alive, shall be quickened and be caught up to meet him.

Seven angels. Except in real life they are male. Image.

We know from the scriptures that "times of tribulation" are supposed to happen immediately prior to the Second Coming. Mormons don't super call that time the Tribulation but other Christians do, and it is said to be a seven-year period. You can read more about that on the Wikipedia article about it. Mormons would qualify by those standards as "Posttribulationists"-- people who believe the "Rapture," or "quickening" and being caught up as described in the scripture above, will happen after the Tribulation.

If there are seven years of Tribulation immediately prior to the Second Coming; if there are 21 total years between the opening of the seventh seal and the Second Coming; if the seventh seal has been opened as the scriptures indicate in the year 2000, AD; that would put us just on the cusp of beginning the Tribulation.


Relation to the Shemitah and Jubilee

Image here.

Twenty-one years happens to fit exactly 3 Shemitahs. We just began the third Shemitah year since 2000, on September 25, 2014. And it just so happens that the Jubilee begins on September 14, 2015. According to my research, this will be the 70th Jubilee since the Exodus and the 120th Jubilee since Creation. Examine this research on the relationship between the Jubilee cycles, Biblical prophecy, and the House of Israel. This Jubilee would, theoretically, signal the beginning of the final seven years--or "week of years"--preceding the unveiling of the Lord's face. In other words, we are on the cusp of the beginning of the Tribulation, the seven final, turbulent years preceding the end. It would begin right after 13 September 2015, the final, collapsing day of 29 Elul that corresponds to 9/11 and 9/28/08 (the date of the largest Wall Street collapse in history). Mid-September of 2015 starts the figurative Sunday of the final week of our half hour of silence immediately preceding what Protestants would call the Rapture.

This final week of years--seven years--is what other Christians call the Tribulation, as I explained above.

Conclusion and Implications

This is all based on scriptural evidence. That is not to claim great claims of accuracy or truth; but it is to say that this is not completely unfounded speculation. The Biblical calendar backs it up, and teachings in the Old and New Testaments as well as the Doctrine and Covenants back it up. According to the scriptures the seventh seal's opening corresponded with the year 2000, and right now we are almost 2/3 done with the silence during the half hour. This is scriptural. It isn't to name dates or claim anything about exact timing of the Second Coming or exact events or anything like that; exact dates and predictions are not the point. The point is that the scriptures said to be on the lookout for the half hour of silence, they told us when they would be, and told us how to recognize them. From what I can tell, we are in that half-hour now and times of tribulation are rapidly approaching.

The major implications for me:

Image here.

- Spiritual preparedness for self: we have a responsibility to be as spiritually developed as possible in order to handle the rigors of the trials coming up in essentially the immediate future. This month's Conference talks include recommendations to prepare in a way that has never been known, develop our personal ministries, and make our exercise of faith our first priority. I and my family were also very intrigued by the amount of talks dedicated to the importance of following the prophet even if it doesn't always make sense. I had a sense that those talks would be relevant very soon. And they already are relevant. So if you're not following the prophet, now would probably be a good time to get on that.

- Spiritual preparedness for others: we have a responsibility to do our part in the Hastening of the Work. It's our job to warn our neighbors and to reach out to them in love. This is also spiritual preparation for ourselves, as we exercise our faith in reaching out even though it can be scary.

- Material preparedness: my research has indicated that in the case of a widespread economic collapse as one might infer from a Shemitah-Jubilee link and a coming Tribulation, money will be less important than food, water, and other material essentials. If you were quarantined to your home for weeks due to plagues, would you have the necessaries you need to survive? If you had no electricity or clean water available, would you be able to meet your needs and the needs of your family? Would you be spiritually prepared to share with others, too?

- Physical preparedness: Is your body ready for some upcoming trials? In Conference this year, we were expressly counseled to get in good physical shape and health (as a way of increasing our spiritual confidence, no less!). AH I LOVE THAT TALK.

Again: This is not to make any fancy claims about exact dates or the exact nature of coming events. It is only to point out that the scriptures likely indicate that tough times are coming. I'm just passing it on. And for anyone wondering why this would not be explicitly addressed in General Conference, I did blog about that before. The prophets have been warning us, even explicitly, about this time for all of time. To echo their call for urgency in preparation is not alarmist. Since a person can die at any time and end their mortal probation, even if the Tribulation is not right around the corner, spiritual preparation is still of utmost urgency and importance. It is never bad to be scripturally aware and wisely prepared.

Shemitah: year of judgment

Image here. Link to page about Shemitah.

The past few months I have been learning a lot about holy calendars. Read this article by LDS astronomer John Pratt to learn more about ten of the sacred calendars that testify of Jesus Christ. God has appointed the sun, moon, and celestial lights to be calendars for His appointments with His people--i.e., us. It is good to be aware of them.

In the book of Leviticus, Israel is commanded to sow the fields for six years, and on the seventh, let the land lie fallow. This Sabbath for the land is called the Shemitah. Leviticus 25:1-4:

 1 And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,
 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord.
 3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;
 4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.

See also Exodus 23:10-11. 

Implications of a Land's Sabbath

The image is link. If you buy it from this
link, I'll get paid. So if you want the
book, buy it from this link, please! :o)

We know nowadays that leaving the land fallow every once in a while is really good for farming. But when we do it in modernity, we tend to rotate which field is resting, so something is always being cultivated.

Not so for the Jews. ALL of them were supposed to take a year off from farming, from growing anything in the land.

In other words: for that one year, literally no Jews were supposed to grow food. They were supposed to essentially live on food storage, and spend the year reading the Torah and growing closer to God instead of working. All of them. The Shemitah year is uniform for everyone--it's not like you can stagger it out. So for that one year, essentially all economic activity would come to a halt. What does it look like when all economic activity comes to a halt? Some might call that a recession or even a depression. 

The Jews obviously noticed that this practice was economically intense for them, so they came up with all these "ingenious" strategies to get around it all: selling the land for 1 year to their non-Jewish neighbors for cultivation was, I believe, the prime example. Their punishment for this was outlined in 2 Chronicles 36:20-21:

 20 And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:
 21 To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.

Lehi left Jerusalem shortly before the invasion,
after spending his life warning the people to
repent or else. Image here.

In other words, the Jews ignored the land's Sabbaths for 70 years. So when they were invaded (shortly after Lehi left Jerusalem, right, directly after he warned the people--he left ~600 BC and Jerusalem was invaded ~587 BC), the land had to rest for the 70 years it missed.

The land needs a Sabbath whether it is given one or not. When it doesn't get its Sabbath the easy way, the Lord makes sure it gets its Sabbath the hard way. It all comes down to obedience.

Release of debts

 1 At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.
 2 And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord’s release.
- Deuteronomy 15:1-2

On 29 Elul of the Shemitah year, the final day (the Hebrew equivalent of New Year's Eve) all the credits and debts were to be released. That final Shemitah day is a biggie, the culmination or peak of the Year of Remission (which is what the Shemitah is). So if you owed a bunch of money on your, I don't know, wagon or something, all of a sudden you didn't anymore, and it was just yours. But if someone owed you money, suddenly they didn't owe that money anymore. So pros and cons. 

The past two Shemitahs

The past two Shemitah years spanned from Sept 2000 - Sept 2001, and Sept 2007 - Sept 2008.

America experienced an industrial peak in September 2000, which obviously means that afterwards there was a decline. It culminated in the terrorist attacks of 9/11--an event that was both physically and economically destructive. 

Ram's horn shofar. Image here.

In September 2007, global financial collapses began with British mortgage lender Northern Rock, on September 13--Day 1 Tishri, the New Year's Day of the Shemitah year. The greatest one-day crash in world history took place on 29 Elul, New Year's Eve, of that Biblical year--September 29, 2008. As Jonathan Cahn writes in his book The Mystery of the Shemitah, "The crash was sealed with the sound of ram's horns that evening as the Feast of Trumpets began." Biblically, the Feast of Trumpets is a symbol of Judgment Day. 

Current Shemitah status

We currently just began our next Shemitah on September 25, 2014. The day that Thomas Duncan Liberian Ebola victim guy checked himself into the hospital in Dallas and was sent home. That was Rosh Hashana, New Year's Day. As New Year's Day goes, so the rest of the year goes! 

The culmination date of this cycle's Shemitah is September 13, 2015. So now we know to be prepared and aware. 

Jubilee status

Leviticus 25:8-10:

 8 ¶And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.
 9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
 10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

The scriptures explain that every 7 Shemitahs will culminate in a so-called Jubilee year, which is actually the first year of the next set of 7 Shemitah years. (So the cycle is of 49 years, not 50, technically speaking. If the Shemitah is Sunday, the Jubilee is not another Sunday, it's Monday). 

Money black hole. Economic collapse sounds funner
than it is. Image here.

The Jubilee in Hebrew is the word yobel, which means "trumpet blast." Again, this is a reference to the Feast of Trumpets and Judgment Day. Jubilee = Judgment. Like the Shemitah, the Jubilee year is supposed to be marked with no one farming, and all the lands lying fallow. So it's like the Shemitah, but kind of worse/more intense, because instead of just one year of living off food storage, it's supposed to be two consecutive years (one of Shemitah, and then one of Jubilee, in a row). I bet by the end of the second year things would get pretty tight.

The Jubilee year is all about "proclaiming liberty" to the people. It sounds like a good thing but... let's put it this way. Theoretically being set free sounds good, especially set free from debts, but also being set free from all credit, and everything else...

You don't owe anyone, but no one owes you anything. Economic collapse. If you're set free from your tyrannical government, that means societal collapse. All this freedom can sound good because freedom is just a nice word and we like it because we're Americans and so on. I personally am a giant fan of freedom and I super hate tyranny. I am a Gadsden flag person. However, being set free from our behemoth government at this point would be a giant overhaul that would not really be comfortable. The implications of this involve a lot of violence and struggling to survive. Getting set free from, say, modern infrastructure will not be as fun as it sounds. 

I'm not saying that anything major will happen, but I am saying that we should be prepared for something major if it does happen, and we should not necessarily be surprised.

Conclusion

We are just starting out a Shemitah (Judgment Year) that is building up to a Jubilee (super Judgment Year). Past Shemitahs have ended in economic collapse. It is worth it to note the pattern and its Biblical basis and listen to the Holy Spirit in case there are any special preparations the Lord wants you to make.

Read the Book of Mormon here.