I am glad I was asked to speak this week. The text I’m basing this talk on is from Elder Ballard in the January Ensign 2020. We are looking back at the past 200 years of our Church’s history and what prepared the world for the First Vision. Elder Ballard’s talk is entitled, “How the Lord Prepared the World for the Restoration.” We normally begin this discussion by starting with the Reformers. But President Ballard started earlier than that. He begins with the Manuscript Revolution. And I had a crazy thought as I began to ponder on this topic.
Where was the Lord in the Dark Ages? If it is God’s “work and glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men,” (Moses 1:39) and it is, then where was He during that roughly 1500 years of the Medieval Era?
Elder Ballard suggests that the Manuscript Revolution was part of that. Monks spent their lives handwriting copies of the Bible to keep the word of God alive. They lived in isolation and toiled all day writing by hand passages of what would become the Bible. To make things more interesting, they began to illuminate the manuscripts. It increased the cost, but it also increased the beauty and allowed them to create in their own way.
President Uchtdorf, in October 2008, said in the Women’s Conference, “The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities; we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.”
I thought where else did creation happen in the Medieval Era. The cathedrals. I had never really thought much about the cathedrals until college where we studied what the cathedrals were. These magnificent buildings contained the stories of the Bible in the stained glass windows and the amazing stonework. At this time, the common people couldn’t read, but they could go to the cathedrals and read the parables and stories of Jesus in the magnificent windows. They had the statues of the prophets to remind them of the sacred history. God was at work with the people who didn’t make it into the history books.
Elder Ballard next goes to the Printing Revolution. About 1440, a German goldsmith felt the divine spark and found a new way to use existing technologies and Johannes Guttenburg created the first printing press. Within 50 years there was a 400 percent increase ( 30,000 to 12,000,000) in printed books in Europe. With the costs decreased by the ease of printing multiple copies, people began to learn to read again. It was no longer a skill for the very rich, the nobility or the church.
Less than 80 years after the printing press, Martin Luther sparked the Reformation when he posted his 95 Theses on the wooden door of a church in Wittenberg. He didn’t mean to start a new movement. He thought he was initiating a debate about current practices. But God was ready to move to the next step. Martin Luther questioned the nature of repentance. He challenged the Catholic Church’s practise of raising money by selling indulgences and what a church shepherd should be.
Those questions changed the world. People could now read and they could have their own debates. People began translating the Bible into modern languages instead of just Latin where only the clergy could understand the word of God. People like William Tynsdale were driven to follow their feelings and gave their lives to bring the Bible to the common people. About 100 years after Luther and his Theses, the King James Bible was translated in the English Language by command of the King in 1611.
President Ballard also talks about the Political Revolutions. Part of the Political innovations happened way back in 1215 with the beginnings of the Magna Carta. This historic document limited the power of the King and began the rise of the Barons. This was the beginnings of the House of Parliament in England. This was the difference between kings who had ultimate authority and kings who had to work with others in governing a nation. This was the start of the idea of freedom.
The English started their first permanent settlement on the new continent of America in 1620, less than 10 years after the publication of the King James Version of the Bible. The practise of the new colonies was to come with a charter from the king granting them certain political powers. They spent about 150 years practising principles of self-governance. They spent those years learning how to get along with people who thought and believed differently than they did. They spent those years learning how to give up the idea of a state religion. And in 1776, they decided to go it alone and fought Mother England for Independence.There was a brief 13 year experimental stage where we had the Articles of Confederation. And then in 1787 the process began for the Constitution. In Doctrine and Covenants the Lord, Himself, testified of the importance of that document. “And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.” (101:80)
The Constitution was written and ratified between 1787 and 1791, when the Bill of Rights was officially added. The First Amendment lists five freedoms. The first freedom is the freedom of religion, guaranteeing that there will not be a state religion of the new country. Fourteen years after the Bill of Rights became official, Joseph Smith Jr. was born in 1805, in Sharon, Vermont. Nine years after that in 1816, Elder Ballard stated in his article that a volcano, Mt Tambora, on the other side of the world erupted. This was a year without a summer and the Smith family found it necessary to move to a more mild climate. They moved to Palmyra, New York and were in position for the miracles that happened, starting four years later in 1820.
We just finished reading the New Testament last year in Come Follow Me. In Revelation, we read about a red dragon who, “stood before [a] woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born” (11:4) This woman fled into the wilderness. Where did God go during this time in the wilderness? How do we go from hiding in the wilderness to being the stone cut without hands that fills the earth? (Daniel 2:34-35). I think that God was with the common people and His doings just weren’t written in the history books. He was there all along. He inspired men as they learned the best materials to write on. He was there in the monasteries inspiring men to keep copying the manuscripts. He was there as everyday people learned how to build cathedrals that have lasted for over 800 years. He lit the fabulous windows that told the Bible stories to the illiterate populace. He was there when Guttenburg had his epiphany and began the printing miracle. He was there when Martin Luther dared to ask his bosses about inconsistencies he found in the Bible and the practises of the Church. He was there as the common people began to learn to read. He was there urging the Reformers to risk death and challenge the status quo. He was there inspiring people to leave friends and family and head to a new world in search of more religious and political freedoms. He was there during the Revolutionary War and the writing of the Constitution. He was there during the pressure building stage of the volcano on the other side of the world.
We get worried fighting a war on two fronts, with good reason. God is on every front. He inspires all his children to create and learn and innovate. Our challenge is to find Him in our Dark Ages or our Middle Eras. He is there when we are changing our plans because our carefully nurtured crops didn’t grow. He is guiding us to where He needs us most. He is there when we just want to ask a question and the world explodes on us.
He is there when we are wretched men and women and our heart is sorrowing (2 Nephi 4:17) to remind us that he has “been our support: He [has] lead [us] through [our] afflictions in the wilderness; and he [has preserved [us in our dangerous moments.]” (4:20) And most importantly, “He has filled [us] with his love. . . .”(4:21) and we find strength to keep going. And as Nephi we can say, “Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss. . .” (2 Nephi 4:35.)
May we be patient and look for miracles in our hard times. If we are struggling, may we have faith to make a bow and one arrow (1 Ne 16:23), may we persevere and go even when we don’t know where we are going ( 1 Ne 4:6), and may we hold fast to the Iron Rod as the mists swirl around us. May we ever choose Jesus and walk on His path until we find His arms that will welcome us home.
