Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints."

[1548] Isa. 2:2, 3; compare Micah 4:1, 2; see also Doc. and Cov. 29:8.

[1549] See "The House of the Lord," pp. 63-109.

[1550] P. of G.P., Joseph Smith 1:31, 36; compare Matt 24:14, 30.

CHAPTER 42.

JESUS THE CHRIST TO RETURN.

THE LORD'S SECOND ADVENT PREDICTED IN ANCIENT SCRIPTURE.

"Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus,
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as
ye have seen him go into heaven."[1551] So spake the white-robed angels
to the eleven apostles as the resurrected Christ ascended from their
midst on Olivet. The scriptures abound in predictions of the Lord's
return.

By the "second advent" we understand not the personal appearing of the
Son of God to a few, such as His visitation to Saul of Tarsus, to Joseph
Smith in 1820, and again in the Kirtland Temple in 1836; nor later
manifestations to His worthy servants as specifically promised;[1552]
but His yet future coming in power and great glory, accompanied by hosts
of resurrected and glorified beings, to execute judgment upon the earth
and to inaugurate a reign of righteousness.

The prophets of both hemispheres, who lived prior to the meridian of
time, said comparatively little concerning the Lord's second coming;
their souls were too full of the merciful plan of redemption associated
with the Savior's birth into mortality to permit them to dwell upon the
yet more distant consummation appointed for the last days. Certain of
them, however, were permitted to behold in vision the working out of the
divine purposes even to the end of time; and these testified with
unsurpassed fervency concerning the glorious coming of Christ in the
final dispensation. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied saying,
"Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute
judgment upon all."[1553] In a more extended account of the Lord's
revelations to Enoch than is included in the Bible, we read that after
this righteous prophet had been shown the scenes of Israel's history,
down to and beyond the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus
Christ, he pleaded with God, saying: "I ask thee if thou wilt not come
again on the earth. And the Lord said unto Enoch: As I live, even so
will I come in the last days, in the days of wickedness and vengeance,
to fulfil the oath which I have made unto you concerning the children of
Noah.