Latter end of the latter-days?

[Avatar4321]

I've been thinking all the natural disasters this past year has been the beginning of the Lord preaching His own sermons. The winter was brutal. I expect the summer to be worse.

I don't know the future but I think it's time to get out houses in order whether we have ten years or ten thousand

[Hamba Tuhan]

As I wrote in another thread earlier today: 'Elder Bednar was here for a priesthood training meeting a bit over three years ago. He told us that if we were too attached to the Church as it now looks, we were in trouble. The emerging Church, he said, will be unrecognisable to us, so we'd better be converted to the Lord, not current Church culture. I don't remember the exact words after that, but they were something along the lines of the Lord having only just finished laying the foundation of the Restoration'.

I strongly suspect we have much to go.

[Marginal Gains]

3 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

As I wrote in another thread earlier today: 'Elder Bednar was here for a priesthood training meeting a bit over three years ago. He told us that if we were too attached to the Church as it now looks, we were in trouble. The emerging Church, he said, will be unrecognisable to us, so we'd better be converted to the Lord, not current Church culture. I don't remember the exact words after that, but they were something along the lines of the Lord having only just finished laying the foundation of the Restoration'.

I strongly suspect we have much to go.

Did he clarify what he meant by “too attached to the Church”?

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, Marginal Gains said:

Did he clarify what he meant by “too attached to the Church”?

He actually said too attached to 'Church culture'. From my notes, Elder Bednar said two additional things that could be understood as clarifications:

• Too many of you are just doing what you're familiar with instead of what we've repeatedly tried to train you to do. There is far, far too much tradition in this room.
• Not one of us is the man God expects him to be. I don't care if this is your second or third time serving as a stake president. If you're not repenting and changing and doing things differently, you're going to be left behind.

[Stargazer]

On 2/10/2017 at 6:21 AM, Calm said:

I hope it is either earlier or later.  I don't fancy experiencing the end while having to use a walker and being semi-aware of the world. 

Yeah, me too.

At 66 and a bit, besides being way too overweight I seem to be in pretty good health.  The wife wants me to get back to some kind of "fighting trim", and I think she's right.  If I'm to be of any use to the Lord in the event the time of tribulation really starts kicking in (I think we're in the early stages), then I need to be in better condition.

Run and not be weary, walk and not faint.  I always thought those two needed to be switched.  Right now I can't walk and not be weary. Never mind about running.  Which reminds me of an old saying: "There's no point in running; you'll only die tired."  That's for special occasions when you see the tsunami coming at you faster than you can run, or the meteorite rushing directly at you.  Otherwise, I need to be able to run a mile once again. 

Thanks for reminding me, Calm!

[Stargazer]

On 2/10/2017 at 3:15 PM, Nofear said:

One of my favorite questions to ask a Stake Patriarch is, "Obviously it would be inappropriate to give specifics, but based on your experiences has your personal timeline of the Lord's second coming changed?"
 

My wife's late father was a stake patriarch for many years, the last part of his life, and she said that one time he commented that the blessings he was giving now had a lot more to do with the second coming than the ones he was giving when he was first called.

[Avatar4321]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

Yeah, me too.

At 66 and a bit, besides being way too overweight I seem to be in pretty good health.  The wife wants me to get back to some kind of "fighting trim", and I think she's right.  If I'm to be of any use to the Lord in the event the time of tribulation really starts kicking in (I think we're in the early stages), then I need to be in better condition.

Run and not be weary, walk and not faint.  I always thought those two needed to be switched.  Right now I can't walk and not be weary. Never mind about running.  Which reminds me of an old saying: "There's no point in running; you'll only die tired."  That's for special occasions when you see the tsunami coming at you faster than you can run, or the meteorite rushing directly at you.  Otherwise, I need to be able to run a mile once again. 

Thanks for reminding me, Calm!

I’m not that old but I was facing similar issues. I couldn’t be on the ground playing with my daughter because I couldn’t get back up as  i’m not that old but I was facing similar issues. I couldn’t be on the ground playing with my daughter because I couldn’t get back up easily. So I started stretching my joints and muscles. My daughter does it with me. I can’t say all is perfect but I have far better range of motion. And I can sit down and get up with much less pain. Wish I had gone on to YouTube and learned good stretching years ago

[Stargazer]

3 minutes ago, Avatar4321 said:

I’m not that old but I was facing similar issues. I couldn’t be on the ground playing with my daughter because I couldn’t get back up as  i’m not that old but I was facing similar issues. I couldn’t be on the ground playing with my daughter because I couldn’t get back up easily. So I started stretching my joints and muscles. My daughter does it with me. I can’t say all is perfect but I have far better range of motion. And I can sit down and get up with much less pain. Wish I had gone on to YouTube and learned good stretching years ago

My main problem is my "baby bump".  I can stretch just fine, and my joints (all of them) are in inexplicably good shape, but this abdominal protuberance messes with my balance and interferes with getting up from the couch.  Not to mention that it makes very difficult to tie my shoes and put on socks.  Which is why I wear predominantly slip-on shoes.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

My main problem is my "baby bump".  I can stretch just fine, and my joints (all of them) are in inexplicably good shape, but this abdominal protuberance messes with my balance and interferes with getting up from the couch.  Not to mention that it makes very difficult to tie my shoes and put on socks.  Which is why I wear predominantly slip-on shoes.

I have not been able to do it (having to eat in the middle of the night appears to be what's stopping me), but my husband has steadily lost weight be using one of the phone apps to track his nutrition.  He was able to go to a weight loss clinic which is helping with proper exercises for strength and stretch, but much of the stuff can be found on YouTube.  I just found Brad and Bob at physicaltherapyvideo iirc who have a great series on helping with various forms of back pain. (A search on their names and physical therapy YouTube should bring them up).

[Marginal Gains]

7 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

He actually said too attached to 'Church culture'. From my notes, Elder Bednar said two additional things that could be understood as clarifications:

• Too many of you are just doing what you're familiar with instead of what we've repeatedly tried to train you to do. There is far, far too much tradition in this room.
• Not one of us is the man God expects him to be. I don't care if this is your second or third time serving as a stake president. If you're not repenting and changing and doing things differently, you're going to be left behind.

What have the Apostles repeatedly tried to train members to do that wouldn’t be considered traditional?

Left behind? Where is the Church going that Stakes aren’t following?

[DennisTate]

On 2/8/2017 at 1:12 PM, Sky said:

I heard a talk recently by President Russell M. Nelson saying that we are in the "latter end of the latter-days."  I can't locate the source at the moment, but I believe it was from his Youth Fireside address in January of this year or last year.  

I've always been leery of speculating of the exact timing of the Second Coming (an actual prophesied physical future event), but with statements like this, it's hard not to wonder.  After all, the name of the church is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Should this statement be considered a prophecy, or simply a random statement by a church leader, but not necessarily an official doctrinal pronouncement?  I mean, supposedly they have been saying stuff off the cuff like this for years.

But...if the latter days started in about 1820 (at the time of the First Vision), and curently we are only 3 years away from the year 2020, perhaps we are not that far away from the Second Coming after all!  

My bigger questions, though, are should we really bother to try to improve humanity and current world conditions if things are only going to get worse before Christ comes again?  Exactly how bad will things get?  Is the Church really where it needs to be right now in order for this to happen?  Less than 1% of the world's population is LDS, and even less than that are active LDS. How many of us really live our religion perfectly and can honestly say we are ready for this? There probably won't be any large LDS growth for the foreseeable future as far as numbers are concerned.  What will become of everything and everbody else?  Or should I even concern myself with such things? 

You may wish to do a search for the near death experience account of then fifteen year old Israeli Natan......

that he had in September of 2015.  He was shown some fascinating insights on latter day events that certainly fit with this being the latter days of the latter days.......

Two scriptures that his NDE account seem to verify are:

 

John 5:45  "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, evenMoses, in whom ye trust."

 

 

 

[DennisTate]

And... Luke 23:43  "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

and of course II Corinthians 12:2-4 

[Scott Lloyd]

On 2/8/2017 at 10:12 AM, Sky said:

I heard a talk recently by President Russell M. Nelson saying that we are in the "latter end of the latter-days."  I can't locate the source at the moment, but I believe it was from his Youth Fireside address in January of this year or last year.  

I've always been leery of speculating of the exact timing of the Second Coming (an actual prophesied physical future event), but with statements like this, it's hard not to wonder.  After all, the name of the church is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Should this statement be considered a prophecy, or simply a random statement by a church leader, but not necessarily an official doctrinal pronouncement?  I mean, supposedly they have been saying stuff off the cuff like this for years.

But...if the latter days started in about 1820 (at the time of the First Vision), and curently we are only 3 years away from the year 2020, perhaps we are not that far away from the Second Coming after all!  

My bigger questions, though, are should we really bother to try to improve humanity and current world conditions if things are only going to get worse before Christ comes again?  Exactly how bad will things get?  Is the Church really where it needs to be right now in order for this to happen?  Less than 1% of the world's population is LDS, and even less than that are active LDS. How many of us really live our religion perfectly and can honestly say we are ready for this? There probably won't be any large LDS growth for the foreseeable future as far as numbers are concerned.  What will become of everything and everbody else?  Or should I even concern myself with such things? 

I've always understood "latter days" to be a relative term to distinguish the the days following the great apostasy and subsequent Restoration from the time prior to that. So the latter days is any post-Restoration time, however long that period may last.

Perhaps I'm wrong. I'm open to correction, if so. 

[strappinglad]

As far as I know , there has never been a time in recorded history when there were 7 + billion people on the earth. There has never been a time when communication was so quick and powerful. There has never been a time when societies could be wiped out in hours, towns yes but whole nations no. A  virus now can be spread in days all around the world . The 1918 Flu killed millions, imagine a disease 10 times more deadly spread to most nations . Hospitals would quickly be overwhelmed. Panic would probably kill more now because we are not used to mass death. Just in time food delivery in America and other first world countries dooms millions to starvation in short order. Global warming we might be able to adjust to. If global cooling kills a couple of years crops in a row, we are in deep doodoo. As the Chinese curse says, " may you live in interesting times."

[Stargazer]

4 hours ago, strappinglad said:

As far as I know , there has never been a time in recorded history when there were 7 + billion people on the earth. There has never been a time when communication was so quick and powerful. There has never been a time when societies could be wiped out in hours, towns yes but whole nations no. A  virus now can be spread in days all around the world . The 1918 Flu killed millions, imagine a disease 10 times more deadly spread to most nations . Hospitals would quickly be overwhelmed. Panic would probably kill more now because we are not used to mass death. Just in time food delivery in America and other first world countries dooms millions to starvation in short order. Global warming we might be able to adjust to. If global cooling kills a couple of years crops in a row, we are in deep doodoo. As the Chinese curse says, " may you live in interesting times."

It's definitely already interesting!

I happen to have about 100 pounds of excess body fat, so if the food stops coming then I, at least, will be able to last a lot longer than you skinny-minnies!  But it won't be pleasant.  For any of us.