An undervalued facet of scriptural end-time prophecy: God tells us in advance that some things *will* happen. Certain deconstruction & purging is inevitable. Societies follow a cyclical pattern; at some point, the fruit of corrupt human culture is overripe & harvest is over.
Why is it important to know that deconstruction is inevitable? It grants us permission to look away from the crumbling great & spacious building (evils that must fall) & focus all our energy on that which *can* be saved, that which can & must be built. We’re here to build Zion.
Hugh Nibley compared the Last Days to a theater. When one show ends, the set must be broken down & a new one built for what comes next. We’re not here to break down the old set; it will come down on its own. We’re the builders of the new set—a place where Christ will return.
In politics, business, culture, almost every man-made societal structure today, we find a wild orchard of overripe fruit rotting off the branches. It sickens the heart & discourages the mind, because we have in past times envisioned personal control over such matters.
We might rightfully assume that some of that control was imagined, an illusion fabricated by the adversary to keep our focus on the lower laws of culture & economy, far away from the greater laws of salvation, morality, & doctrine.
We were not wrong to care about lesser laws, mortal matters, human governance & civic responsibilities. We were wrong, perhaps, to think these things could save us—that we could somehow preserve ourselves with such crude weapons & shortsighted, material motives.
We were wrong to let other men be our saviors, to let other mortals take the Lord’s place in our thoughts & hearts, to let human idols in human shrines replace the Lord as our king & drive us self-righteously outside his law & his saving grace.
We are wrong to scramble with fear & anxiety in the dead of night to collect some meager harvest from an orchard of rotten fruit. We are wrong to war with our neighbors to secure some semblance of tribal rank, like hardened Lamanites in the ancient wilderness.
This strife at the end of every societal cycle has been prophesied in scripture to many civilizations. What a gift! God is telling us what will be. He’s telling us how to escape. He’s telling us what to do: build Zion. Prepare the way of the Lord. Live in love. Rejoice.
What the world needs now, IMO, is a groundswell of post-political Saints who have forgotten petty mortal grievances, looked away from the great & spacious building, & picked up every tool at their disposal to build Zion—side by side with their onetime opponents in unity & love.
We need not abandon mortal matters entirely, but any attention we give to the fields of government, politics, & culture shld be rooted in the doctrine of Christ. Advocate for all God-given freedoms granted in the Natural Law, that which promotes & defends righteousness.
What we shld want 1st from mortal governance is the freedom for all to succeed at God’s plan. W/that comes its converse—the freedom to choose otherwise. But that fundamental liberty must remain. So much else, inconvenient & uncomfortable tho it may be, is meaningless in eternity.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” What wld a post-political gathering of Saints look like in this climate of deep societal & cultural divides? How much progress cld be made in building the Lord’s Zion if our collective goal was individual salvation & City-of-Enoch dedication?
Is that even possible? What a daunting prospect. Our God knows it’s possible—he told us to do it, & he gives us no commandment save he prepares a way for us to succeed. Brainstorm concrete plans. What can we do to sever unholy mortal alliances & “bring again Zion” together?
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