Sermon: The 'Work of God the same in all ages'

 

Apostle Erastus Snow

By Apostle Erastus Snow (1818-1888)

The following are remarks by Apostle Erastus Snow, delivered in the Assembly Hall, Salt Lake City on Sunday afternoon, February 24, 1884.
Reported by John Irvine. (Journal of Discourses 25:pp 72-73)

The safety and protection of the Latter-day Saints lie in their preparing for peace. 

In other words, it is to make peace with their God, and with one another, and to proclaim peace unto all mankind, and so live and deport themselves, that they will encourage, extend and maintain peace to the utmost of their ability. But, and if the wicked continue to oppress, to war against and annoy the people of God, and to deprive them of social, religious and political privileges, and other rights that belong to them as the children of God, as human beings, as citizens of the commonwealth, those unalienable rights of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness; if, I say, the wicked combine to abridge these immunities, privileges and rights, and trample them under foot, and to wage war against the Saints for the purpose of destroying them, what may we do to avert it? 

It has been well answered: Do the will of the Lord; keep His commandments; do good to one another; forgive one another, and ask to be forgiven of each other and of our God; walk humbly before Him day and night; trust in Him, believe in Him, and go forward in the discharge of every duty, fearing only God. “Fear not them,” says the Savior, “which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Let our fear center upon Him; let our trust and our faith center upon Him; let us maintain our confidence in Him, that He rules in the heavens and among the armies of men, and that He turns the hearts of the children of men as the rivers of water are turned; and if at one time their hearts are softened, as was Pharaoh's of old, and then, again, their hearts are hardened, as was Pharaoh's, we may bear in mind that all these things are necessary in the accomplishment of the divine purposes of our Father and Creator. 

For the wicked have their agency as well as the righteous, and God will not deprive them of it. He wills not that any be deprived of their agency. If people will work wickedness; if they will violate their covenants; if they will foreswear themselves; if they will trample under foot the constitution and institutions of our common country, (which they are sworn to defend and maintain) in their overzeal to destroy the Saints, they must have their agency so to do. They must have the privilege of working out their own salvation or their own damnation. They must fill up the cup of their iniquity; otherwise, how will the Lord be justified in wasting them away and destroying them out of the earth, except they first fill up the cup of their iniquity. But, says one, what and if He shall permit them to overrun and lay waste and scatter and destroy the Latter-day Saints? 

Such questions have been asked a great many times in years that have gone by, by those that were fearful, or doubtful, or unbelieving; but questions of this kind need not arise in the breasts of those who are living as Saints ought to live, and have the testimony of Jesus dwelling in them. 

We ought to know, yea, it is our duty to feel that abiding trust and confidence in God, to know that He will make the wrath of the wicked to praise Him, and the residue of wrath He will restrain; and that neither Congress, nor Presidents, nor Senators, nor Judges, nor Governors, nor armies, nor Generals, nor any other human being have or can exercise any power in the earth, except that which is given them of our Father in the heavens, and that He can restrain when it seemeth Him good, and within such limits as seemeth Him good. And this He does without interfering with their personal agency; for man may propose, but God only disposes the affairs of men.

May God help us to be in deed and in truth what we have been called to be — Saints of the last days, and then, whether in life or death, we shall be His, we shall enter into His glory and be numbered with His jewels; for the Lord cometh to make up His jewels, and it will be those who have met together often and have spoken often one to another, that will be numbered therein; while all the proud and they that do wickedly, will become as stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

May the grace of God be sufficient for us under all circumstances, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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