What is the Sign of Thy Coming?

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What is the Sign of Thy Coming?

• www.kevinhinckley.com

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Timeless Wisdom
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Elder Holland

•  I know that many of you have wondered in your
  hearts what all of this means regarding the end
  of the world and your life in it.
• Many have asked, Is this the hour of the Second
  Coming of the Savior and all that is prophesied
  surrounding that event?
• Indeed, sometime not long after 9-11, I had a
  missionary ask me in all honesty and full of
  faith, Elder Holland, are these the last days?
  I saw the earnestness in his face and some of the
  fear in his eyes, and I wanted to be reassuring.
• I thought perhaps an arm around him and some
  humor could relieve his anxiety a little. Giving
  him a hug, I said, Elder, I may not be the
  brightest person alive, but even I know the name
  of the Church. 

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Signs of times

• When you look towards the future, what do you see?

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Three Chapter Lesson

• Matthew 23- Condemnation of the Pharisees
• Matthew 24-
• The result What will happen and when to look
  for it (the Olivet Discourse)
• Matthew 25-
• How to prepare

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Matthew 23 JST

• Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and
  wise men, and scribes and of them ye shall kill
  and crucify and of them ye shall scourge in your
  synagogues, and persecute from city to city
• That upon you may come all the righteous blood
  shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous
  Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, Son of
  Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and
  the altar.
• Verily I say unto you, All these things shall
  come upon this generation.
• Ye bear testimony against your fathers, when ye,
  yourselves, are partakers of the same wickedness.
• Behold your fathers did it through ignorance, but
  ye do not wherefore, their sins shall be upon
  your heads.
• Then Jesus began to weep over Jerusalem, saying,
• O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Ye who will kill the
  prophets, and will stone them who are sent unto
  you how often would I have gathered your
  children together, even as a hen gathers her
  chickens under her wings, and ye would not.
• Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!

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History of Jerusalem
Ignore the Prophets- Disobedience
Kill the Prophets, Ignore the Poor
Jerusalem Destroyed by Babylonians, 586
BC (Abomination of Desolation)
Ignore the Prophets- Disobedience
Kill the Prophets, Ignore the Poor
Jerusalem Destroyed by The Romans, 65-70 AD
Will it happen a third time?
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Matthew 24 Olivet Discourse

• So important, parts of it are recorded in three
  different places!
• Matthew 24
• Pearl of Great Price (JS-Matt 24)
• Doctrine and Covenants 45
• The questions that prompted the revelation
• Matt 241-3
• DC 4516-24

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Look through either Matt 24 or JS-M 1

• What stands out, for you, as already happening?

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The Plain and Precious Truth Restored

• What will happen at the moment?
• DC 45 34, 48-53

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Brigham Young

• "Do not be too anxious for the Lord to hasten his
  work and dont be in a hurry to see the overthrow
  of the wicked.
• Let our anxiety be centered upon this one thing
• the sanctification of our own hearts, the
  purifying of our own affections, the preparing of
  ourselves for the approach of the events that are
  hastening upon us.

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How to Prepare.Matthew 25

• The Ten Virgins (1-13)

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Elder Dallin H. Oaks

• The arithmetic of this parable is chilling. The
  ten virgins obviously represent members of
  Christ's Church, for all were invited to the
  wedding feast and all knew what was required to
  be admitted when the bridegroom came.
• But only half were ready when he came. . . . We
  need to make both temporal and spiritual
  preparation for the events prophesied at the time
  of the Second Coming. And the preparation most
  likely to be neglected is the one less visible
  and more difficultthe spiritual.
• A 72-hour kit of temporal supplies may
  prove
  valuable for earthly challenges,
  but, as the
  foolish virgins learned to
  their sorrow, a
  24-hour kit of spiritual
  preparation is of greater
  and more
  enduring value."11

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What would prepare us the most?

• Scanning the headlines?
• Or scanning our heart?
• Watching for Signs of the Times?
• Or guarding against the Sins of the Times?
• Fearing Armageddon?
• Anticipating Adam Ondi Ahman?
• Ignoring the Prophet in order to fit in?
• Obeying the Prophet in order to stand out?

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Signs of the Times

• The Signs of the Times are found in
  our faces each time a weary world sees
  something different in us.
• The Signs of the Times are found in the
  lives of Saints trimming their lamps in
  preparation for the coming of the
  Bridegroom.
• Finally, Signs of the Times are found in hearts
  filled with hope who view the fig leaves with
  growing anticipation and joy.

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Robert L. Millet

• To read the signs of the times in our day is
  to read the signs of wear and tear in the
  countenances of those who have chosen to
  lovequestionable causes. Error and wickedness
  take their terrible tolls upon the hearts of
  those who choose divergent paths the wheels of
  waywardness grind away slowly but inexorably to
  produce a type of demented character that will
  never know peace of mind.
• To read the signs of the times in this era of
  time is to make a decision in favor of Zionor in
  favor of BabylonEach city, Zion and Babylon,
  makes definite requirements of its citizens, and
  as the end approaches, each community will insist
  upon the total devotion and consecration of its
  municipals.
• To read the signs is to recognize that in the
  future fewer and fewer Latter Day Saints will be
  lukewarm that the myopic and the misguided of
  the religious world will grow in cynicism and
  confusion that the ungodly will, as time goes
  by, sink ever deeper into a despair known only to
  those who revel in iniquity and that wickedness
  will widen and malevolence multiply until the
  citizens of Babylon seal themselves to him who is
  the father of all lies.
• (Eye Single to the Glory of God, p. 102)