Gospel Art Picture Kit
Ezekiel 37:16–19; 1 Nephi 13:23–25, 38–41; 2 Nephi 3:12; D&C 21:1; 27:5
The fruit of thy loins shall write; and the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write; and that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, and also that which shall be written by the fruit of the loins of Judah, shall grow together, unto the confounding of false doctrines. 2 Nephi 3:12
;)
From the time of Adam the righteous have kept records of their genealogies, of the covenants they have made with the Lord, and of the prophecies the Lord has revealed to His people (see Moses 6:5; Abraham 1:28, 31). The Lord has given us important promises about what He will do with the records His people have kept.
One of the prophecies of the last days is that the Lord will take the stick of Judah and the stick of Ephraim “and join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand” (Ezekiel 37:17). The stick of Judah is the Bible, which records the covenants the Lord made with Adam and his posterity, especially the covenants with the house of Israel (see 1 Nephi 13:23). The stick of Ephraim is the Book of Mormon (see D&C 27:5).
The Lord promised He would join the stick of Judah and the stick of Ephraim for two important reasons. The first reason, as the Lord explained to Nephi, is that when the record of the Jews was written, it contained the fulness of the gospel (see 1 Nephi 13:24). But over the centuries many of the truths of the record were lost. Adding the stick of Ephraim to the record of the Jews would “make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them” (1 Nephi 13:40). The second, and most important, reason is that combining the records would convince the world that “the records of the prophets and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true” and that “the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must come unto him, or they cannot be saved” (1 Nephi 13:39–40). The records were “established in one; for there is one God and one Shepherd over all the earth” (1 Nephi 13:41).
Summary
One of the promises the Lord made to us is that in the last days He would combine two records, or accounts, of people who have lived on this earth. These records, the Bible and the Book of Mormon, both testify that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Together they teach us the fulness of the gospel and tell us the commandments that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want us to keep.
Artist, Greg K. Olsen
© 1997 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA
^ Back to top