Chapter 26
Awake and Arise
"Awake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem . . .

that thou mayest no more be confounded,

that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee . . .

may be fulfilled."
— Moroni 10:31

We live in the most serious, difficult, and demanding times this world has ever known. The prophets have repeatedly told us that the wickedness will exceed that evil which was experienced in the days of Noah or Sodom and Gomorrah. The calamities which are to befall the world in the last days have been echoed from prophet to prophet from the beginning of time. But what is most exciting, and very challenging, is the fact that this is the Lord’s time and we know that He will win in the end. This will be the time when He will pour out His judgments, bring His Kingdom, and reign as King of Kings and Lord of lords, and His saints will reign with Him.

For this momentous time that is swiftly approaching He has given us prophets to lead the way, time to preach the gospel to the world and to warn our neighbors, commandments so we can get our lives in order and be prepared, and to gather spiritual oil for our individual lamps.

What will add emphasis to all this is the fact that we, modern Israel, have not done all that we were supposed to do in protecting our rights and the rights of others. Can we see now how we have let many of those precious threads of our freedom become severed, because of our ignorance and apathy? Brigham Young said that instead of our country developing, it has regressed: "The progress of revolution is quite considerable in every government of the world. But is the revolution for the constitutional rights of the people in progress? No: It is on the retrograde." (JD, pp. 14-15.)

Our Present Situation
It looks like we, as a nation, have done all that we could to NOT protect our God-given rights of agency. We have let secret combinations control our lives. We have nullified many of those rights by contract and agreements, using the world’s values.

The Lord chose good and wise men to found this nation, and this country was fashioned as a republic, but we have been led to believe it is a Democracy.

We have entered into treaties that have been treasonous and have taken away the sovereignty we once enjoyed as a free people. And we have let Congress relegate its authority to make laws to the Executive and Judicial departments and other various government agencies. Even the States have not stood up for their rights, by allowing regionalism to creep in and by the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment.

We have let a private corporation control our financial affairs, tax us to extremes, and then send that money to foreign countries which have been our enemies for more than three quarters of a century.

Religion has been taken out of our schools; the discussion of freedom, government, and the Constitution has — for all intents and purposes — disappeared from our churches; and our national moral posture is condemning.

Not only are we living all ten planks of the Communist [Socialist] Manifesto, but many are pushing to have a new constitutional convention, which could result in the establishment of an entirely new constitution without the liberties we now enjoy.

Is all well in the Zion of America? No it is not! The Constitution is truly hanging by a thread.

In speaking about some of the ancient civilizations that once graced this proud land, Spencer W. Kimball reflects:

"Why, why aren’t these Mayan Indians still building temples and other magnificent structures? . . . Why do they grovel in the earth today when in the long-ago-past they had their observatories and looked into the heavens? The answer comes ringing back with great force: Because they forgot the purpose of life! They forgot the thing for which they had come to earth and they dwelt in the earth and lived an earthly life. And the time came when God could not tolerate it longer and they were permitted to be decimated and destroyed." (The Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 137.)

After reciting the fall of another great people and the resort city of Pompeii, President Kimball adds:

"It seems strange that with all these historical examples of peoples who were destroyed because of unrepented sin, so many pursue a similar course today, including many in America. Yet the promise has been given to the great nations of the Americas that they shall never fall if they will but serve God. Those in the service of the Lord in those nations are but a token number. The devil reigns; sin is rampant in political, religious, and social circles. Evil is called good, and good evil." (Ibid., p. 139)

Elder Mark E. Petersen once said, "The extinct civilizations of the past now speak to us out of the ages, giving warning against the same conditions which brought them down to oblivion. Listen to what they say!" (The Ensign, June 1971, p. 48.)

Awake and Arise
We have drifted a long way from the intent, not only of our Founding Fathers, but of the Lord, when He redeemed this land and had this nation established. President Benson says that we are headed for another conflict:

"We must keep in mind that collectivized socialism is part of the communist strategy. Communism is fundamentally socialism. We will never win our fight against communism by making concessions to socialism. Communism and socialism, closely related, must be defeated on principle.
"Communist dupes and left-wingers use every stratagem to make socialism sound appealing and seem inevitable. Their aims for the United States include greatly expanded wasteful spending, higher and higher taxes, increasingly unbalanced budgets, wild inflation followed by government controls over our economy and lives, greater centralization of power in Washington and so on ad infinitum. We will never win the fight against communism by making concessions to socialism. (TRC, p. 75.)
"To all who have discerning eyes, it is apparent that the republican form of government established by our noble forefathers cannot long endure once fundamental principles are abandoned. Momentum is gathering for another conflict — a repetition of the crisis of two hundred years ago. The collision of ideas is worldwide. Another monumental moment is soon to be born. The issue is the same that precipitated the great premortal conflict — will men be free to determine their own course of action or must they be coerced?" (CHB, p. 27.)

At another time he mentions ten points, or cycles, that many past civilizations went through on their road to destruction and ruin. They are:

1. Bondage - Civilization always begins with bondage.
2. Faith - Out of bondage, comes faith in God.
3. Courage - Out of faith in God comes courage.
4. Liberty - With courage, men acquire liberty.
5. Abundance - This comes with liberty.
6. Selfishness - This follows abundance.
7. Complacency - This comes with selfishness.
8. Apathy - This comes after complacency.
9. Dependency - The "gimme" stage when we put more emphasis on security than we do on opportunity and challenge.
10. Then bondage again -Weakness under dependency leads to bondage. (TRC, p. 137.)

We, as a country, have never known bondage since the inception of this nation. We need to take time to discover the needs of this country. The unfortunate thing, it appears, is that most people believe, as President Benson has said, "It cannot happen here." And then he continues with, "We must never forget that nations may, and usually do, sow the seeds of their own destruction while enjoying unprecedented prosperity." (CR, October 1962; The Improvement Era, December 1962, p. 910.)

The Book of Mormon warns us often about the secret combinations in our present day. The book of Ether is especially pointed when it comes to warning us, and tells us to wake up to what is happening:

"Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain — and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, . . .
"Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when you shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, . . ." (Ether 8:23-24.)

One of the oldest statements which exhibits the mindset of the Soviet leadership came in 1931. This quote was shared with you earlier, and it was made by Dimitry Z. Manuilsky at the Lenin School on Political Warfare in Moscow. At that time he stated:

"War to the hilt between communism and capitalism is inevitable. Today, of course, we are not strong enough to attack. . . . To win we shall need the element of surprise. The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movements on record. There will be electrifying overtures and unheard-of concessions. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as their guard is down, we shall smash them with our clenched fist!" (Quoted in The Naked Communist, pp. 208, 235.)

It is their desire that we be asleep so that they can do their work of subversion. Remember, the book of Ether says that we should "awake to a sense of" our "awful situation." We as a nation have been asleep and need to awaken. In her biography of Ezra Taft Benson, Sheri Dew quotes the Prophet recalling what Nikita Khrushchev said about this very thing: "During the contact between Nikita Khrushchev and Ezra Taft Benson in 1959, Khrushchev boasted. . . . ‘Your grandchildren will live under communism. . . Americans are so gullible. They are in the process of being fed small bits of socialism and one day will awaken to find themselves living under a totalitarian order.’" (Ezra Taft Benson, p. 339.)

Let us follow a few more statements by Ezra Taft Benson in regard to this topic of "We the People" slumbering, when we should be vigilant:

"As a people who have known only liberty, we are inclined to feel, ‘it cannot happen here.’ We have become lulled away into a false security." (General Conference, October 1962; The Improvement Era, December 1962, p. 912.)
"The devil knows that if the Elders of Israel should ever wake up, they could step forth and help preserve freedom and extend the gospel. Therefore the devil has concentrated, and to a large extent successfully, in neutralizing much of the priesthood. He has reduced them to sleeping giants." (CR, April 1965, p. 123.)
‘It is the devil’s desire that the Lord’s priesthood stay asleep while the strings of tyranny gradually and quietly entangle us until, like Gulliver, we awake too late and find that while we could have broken each string separately as it was put upon us, our sleepiness permitted enough strings to bind us to make a rope that enslaves us." (AEHDT, p. 313.)
"There are many ‘awake’ passages in the Book of Mormon, such as: ‘O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell . . . awake . . . [and] put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust" (2 Ne. 1:13, 23). (CR, April 1986, p. 4.)
""And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, and they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well — and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell." (2 Ne. 28:21) (Ibid., April 1965, p. 124; AEHDT, p. 277.)
"I like the word ‘carefully.’ In other words, don’t shake them, you might awake them." (CR, APRIL 1965, P. 124.)

And perhaps we can offer a statement from the Lord through the Prophet Joseph Smith in this scenario, when He said to Edward Partridge:

"Awake my shepherds and warn my people! For behold the wolf cometh to destroy them — receive him not." (Joseph Smith to Edward Partridge, January 7, 1838; Joseph Smith Collection, Church Historians Office; Unpublished Revelations, Vol. I, Part 42:3.)

"Yea, let the cry go forth among all people:

Awake and arise and go forth to meet the Bridegroom;

behold and lo, the Bridegroom cometh;

go ye out to meet him.

Prepare yourselves for the great day of the Lord."
— Doctrine and Covenants 133:10