Blogging "65 Signs of the Times Leading Up to the Second Coming" - Part 9

This is part 9, and my final installment, of my review of David Ridges, 65 Signs of the Times Leading Up to the Second Coming. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here. Part 5 is here. Part 6 is here.Part 7 is here. And Part 8 is here.

In earlier installments, I had made it through Ridges introductory comments and discussion, and the first 60 signs. This time, I will cover the last 5 signs.

(61)  The Mount of Olives will split in two. (Yet to be fulfilled). The basic source for this sign is Zechariah 14:1-5, which reads:

1 Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.

2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

3 Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.

4 ¶And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.

 This may very well be the earthquake that accompanies the Lord's return, as D&C 45:48 indicates:

And then shall the Lord set his foot upon this amount, and it shall cleave in twain, and the earth shall tremble, and reel to and fro, and the heavens also shall shake.

That is, this may be The Earthquake when the whole Earth will tremble and shake, the "stars" fall, and the continents be gathered together into one.

Ridges quotes Charles W. Penrose as to this sign of the times:

His [Christ's] next appearance [after his appearance in the New Jerusalem] will be among the distressed and nearly vanquished sons of Judah. At the crises of their fate, when the hostile troops of several nations are ravaging the city and all the horrors of war are overwhelming the people of Jerusalem [ed: i.e., the abomonation of desolation], he will set his feet upon the the Mount of Olives, which will cleave and part asunder at his touch. Attended by a host from heaven [ed., perhaps the 144,000], he will overthrow and destroy the combined armies of the Gentiles, and appear to the worshipping Jews as the mighty Deliverer and Conqueror so long expected by their race; and while love, gratitude, awe, and admiration swell their bosoms, the Deliverer will show them the tokens of his curcifixion and disclose himself as Jesus of Nazareth, whom they [ed. i.e., their ancestors] had reviled and whom their fathers put to death. Then will unbelief depart from their souls, and "the blindness in part which has happened unto Israel" be removed.

(Italicized brackets in original; others are mine).

(62)  The sign of the coming of the Son of Man. (Not yet fulfilled). This sign is given in Matthew 24:29-31:

29 ¶Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Ridges goes on to cite some other references and quotes regarding this sign, but the important point is that no one knows what is this sign--no description of it is given. We merely know that it follows many of the other signs--wars and rumors of wars, the sun turned into darkness and the moon to blood, earthquakes and diverse places, and so on. Ridges quotes Joseph Smith as stating that the people of world will attempt to put this sign off as a natural phenomena, such as a planet or comet. I believe that the righteous shall understand this sign, and it will strengthen them; and the those wicked who understand the end times (the sons of perdition) shall also understand, and it will strike fear into their hearts. But for the rest of humanity, it will be just another of bewildering disasters and unscrutible portants.

(63)  The righteous will be taken up to meet the coming Lord. (Not yet fulfilled).  This is not the rapture, as many Christians use that term. That is, this is not a case of the Lord taking the righteous believers from the Earth prior to the tribulations of the last days (which, if it was going to occur, would probably be happening right now). Rather, as Ridges notes, the righteous (which are those living a celestial quality of life already or, if the resurrected dead, qualified to enter into the Celestial Kingdom) will literally be caught up as a group to meet the Lord at the time of his coming and descend with Him to Earth as He comes to begin his reign. The sons of perdition and those living a telestial lifestyle (i.e., the wicked, or the "tares") will be burned at His coming. Although we are not sure of the mechanism, those living a terrestrial lifestyle will be preserved--these will be the subject of intense missionary efforts since, as we know, many of those without knowledge of the Gospel or of Christ will remain.

(64)  The wicked will be burned. (Not yet fulfilled). Malachi 4:1 indicates:

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

This, of course, is the point of the well-known scriptural references to the gathering of the wheat and the burning of the tares. Ridges focuses on the mechanism of the burning, noting that the scriptures indicate "that the wicked will be burned by the glory of the coming Lord. Since they are not worthy to be 'quickened' or transfigured with the righteous, they will be consumed by the glory of the resurrected and glorified Christ." (See, e.g., 2 Thessalonians 2:8). Ridges adds: "Since this will be a selective destruction, only those people and those things that do not belong on earth during the Millennium will be destroyed."

As noted above, those that are neither among the "righteous" believers, nor among the wicked, will not be destroyed. Ridges quotes Joseph Smith:

There will be millions of people, Catholics, Protestants, agnostics, Mohammedans, people of all classes and all beliefs, still permitted to remain upon the face of the earth, but they will be those who have lived clean lives, those who have been free from wickedness and corruption. All who belong, by virtue of their good lives, to [at least] the terrestrial order, ... will remain upon the face of the earth during the millennium.

(Brackets and ellipses in original).

Ridges does not address the issue of why the wicked must be destroyed. It is one of the great lies taught that a loving God would not punish and destroy some of his children. This has morphed even further into the belief that if God loves the sinner, he will also love the sin (or, at the least, be tolerant of the sin). This argument is often heard by those espousing a homosexual lifestyle or other sexual immorality--they reason that God could not be angry with two people expressing their love toward one another. The flip side of this argument is that advanced by many athiests who do not understand how a loving God could tolerate, let alone, order the Israelites to attack and destroy a city or people. Those holding these thoughts are blinded by the idea of moral equivalence--that all moral choices are equivalent, and there is no "good" and "bad" or gradiations between.

That fact is, like a loving Father, God is more than willing to destroy those whose wickedness threatens the destruction of the good--just as if you had the choice of killing a murderer, or letting the murderer kill your spouse and children, you would kill the murderer. Basic humanity requires nothing less. Obviously, God allows people their free agency, and this short life is merely a test, so God does not prevent bad things from happening to people. Even the rightous suffer trials. But there are points when a line is crossed, where wickedness is so rampant, that the only way to destroy the wickedness is to destroy the wicked--to completely remove their wicked teachings and practices (i.e., memes) from the face of the earth. Such occurred with the Flood of Noah, and such will be the state prior to the Second Coming. The cancer, or infection, of wickedness will be removed, together with those that carry that disease within them.

(65) Everyone will see Christ when He comes. (Not yet fulfilled). Ridges cites Revelation 1:7, which states:

Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

Ridges emphasizes that, for the righteous, this event will be a time of great joy and peace; but for the wicked, it will be a time of great dread. (See, e.g., Isaiah 11:6-9; compare with Rev. 6:14-16).