World Peace Depends Upon the Book of Mormon

"For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and

garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire." 

 Sounds about like right where we are in the world today, doesn't it? Refugee crises abound, due to the confused noise of despotic governments and the lust for power among terrorist groups.  As a result, refugees are spilling into Europe, causing anger there as it seems there are too many new-comers to assimilate.  The Zika virus, once a fairy tale that only affected other people, has now arrived in America.  Economies are either near or in tailspins all across the globe.  Angry Brits recently decided they weren't getting what they wanted out of the European Union, so they voted to leave, and that made other Brits angry.  In America, angry Donald Trump supporters vowed that they would not accept the election results until-shockingly and suddenly--they had won, which in turn caused angry Hillary Clinton supporters to take to the streets by the thousands with angry shouts of he's "not my president!"

It really does seem as though the world is filled "with confused noise".  Seemingly every newsnight we see the deaths of innocents whose "garments [are] rolled in blood" because they stepped into the crossfire of "burning" anger.  It can seem hopeless, until we realize that prophets have seen our day, and that there is a way out of the mess that we've gotten ourselves into.
It's interesting to discover where the quote at the top of the article comes from, which is right before this one:

[But] unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Those two verses of scripture are, somewhat surprisingly, found back to back in 2nd Nephi chapter 19 in the Book of Mormon.  They were originally included back to back in the 9th chapter of Isaiah.  Isaiah seems to be saying--and seeing--here that each of us gets the opportunity to choose what we want out of life--"confused noise"  or "peace".

And that's the essence of why Nephi decided to include so many of Isaiah's prophecies within the premium space of what came to Joseph Smith as "the Golden Plates".  Nephi and Isaiah both saw our day, and they knew exactly what we needed.  

The prophet Nephi even pointed out that “In the days that the prophecies of Isaiah shall be fulfilled men shall know of a surety, at the times when they shall come to pass."  ( 2 Nephi 25:7 )  If it's not now completely obvious that we're in the middle of the storm that Nephi and Isaiah predicted, I think it's starting to become that way.

And that's why, if you've never really studied The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, now would be a good time to start.

Ironically, the title page of the Book of Mormon does not list the testimony of Jesus Christ as the first most important reason that the Book of Mormon was created.  That purpose only places third on the list of reasons.  The first two are:

1. To show unto the...the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and 
2. That they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever

There are far too many people in today's world who feel cast off forever, and who feel that there can't possibly be a God that could allow such violence and squalor to exist on an earth that he created.  That's where the Book of Mormon comes in.

In the very first chapter of the Book of Mormon (the one most Mormons would tell you "oh yeah, that's where Nephi says he's been born of goodly parents") we immediately see just what great things God has done for us.   And it comes by way of Lehi's vision, a few of the most important details that Nephi shares with us.  That vision is of the divine council that occurred in pre-mortality.  Nephi writes that

[Lehi] saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.
And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day.
And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament. And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth

 (1 Nephi 1:8-11)

Lehi, as many other prophets have had the privilege to see, witnessed the premortal assignment of Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles to their future missions in mortality.  But perhaps even more important in the context of this article are the "numberless concourses of angels" that were there.  Who were those angels?

They were us!  They were future Americans, Mexicans, Russians, Syrians, Libyans, Germans, and Italians.  They were future believers in Christ, believers in Buddha, believers in Muhammad, and believers that there is nothing spiritual to believe in.  They were future Donald Trump supporters, they were future Hillary Clinton supporters, and a few of us were even future Gary Johnson and Jill Stein supporters.  They were future Brexit supporters and future Brexit haters.  And many of them would become future refugees--homeless on their own planet!

But in that glorious moment that Lehi saw in vision, we were all on the same team!

To be continued...