These posts on Repentance are intended to be read in order beginning with Repentance: Introduction
At the bottom of each post is a link to the next one.
The words which Michael from Duchesne, Utah, spoke to the people of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his speaker equipped van, in Salt Lake City, Utah and the cities along the Wasatch Front and the I-15 corridor, are the words of God, words which God did put in Michael's heart, words which Michael says he was commanded to speak, and words delivered to him by an angel. So everything that Michael spoke is from God. Michael uses a phrase "the sword of justice" to describe the unrepentant condition of the people in the Church of Jesus Christ, and says that nothing can save this people except repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am Michael from Duchesne, Utah. I am only one of many who will come among the Lord's people in these last days, who have been commanded by the Lord to declare His words and call the people to repentance. Samuel the Lamanite served as a type of prophets like me. And there are and will be many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent or be destroyed. You will recognize them because they will only speak the words of God with power and authority having the Spirit of Revelation and the Spirit of Prophecy. Like me, Samuel came even though there was a prophet leading the Church. My presence among you is reinforced by the Savior who told the Nephites that "all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after" have testified of me.
I declare unto you glad tidings, but I have been commanded to say that because of the hardness of your hearts except you repent, Christ will take away His word from you, and He will withdraw His Spirit from you. The sword of justice or the Justice of God can only be removed by repentance. Repent or face the justice of God, and if you do not repent you will be destroyed in the upcoming destruction which is to occur prior to and in preparation for Christ's second coming. These endtime judgments will come about because of your failure to repent, just as the destruction awaited those whom Samuel warned. Behold, vengeance comes speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth, says the Lord. And upon you it shall begin, and from you it shall go forth; First among those among you, says the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house!
God will turn away His anger only if you repent and return unto the Lord your God. Our Lord has said that blessed are they who will repent and turn unto me, but wo unto him that does not repent. This is the time when you are the people who are being called to repentance.
There are those among you who are repenting, whom the Lord would call righteous, who are the reason this great city has not yet been destroyed. But when the time comes that the righteous are cast out, then will this great city be ripe for destruction. And I say the same for all the cities which are round about Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front.
The main cause of your wickedness is that you have set your hearts upon your riches. I say behold the people of this great city, and hearken unto my words; yea, hearken unto the words which the Lord says; for behold, he says that ye are cursed because of your riches, and also are your riches cursed because ye have set your hearts upon them, and have not hearkened unto the words of him who gave them unto you. You do not remember the Lord, but you do remember your riches and things of the world, and even thank the Lord for them, and yet your hearts are set upon them, and upon the vain things of the world. Your hearts are not drawn out unto the Lord, but they do swell with great pride, unto boasting, and all manner of iniquities. Do not be deceived by the works of this people: your church activity, your emphasis on family, your kindness, your service, your temple work, your piety, your ecclesiastical leaders, your industry, your counsels, and/or your good works. It is to you He is speaking: those that profess to know Him. Presently you are only bringing forth wild fruit, none of it which is good, because it is not fruit meet for repentance.
For this cause has the Lord God caused that a curse should come upon this city, and also upon your riches. Many people of the church are proud because of their riches and possessions which they have obtained by their industry; and in all these things are lifted up in the pride of their eyes. Because some of you have more than others, there is great inequality among you, which inequality is the reason the whole world lies in sin.
Your pride also leads you to believe that you are a good person, even though you are not perfect, and that the Lord, because He loves you, will forgive you for the mistakes that you have made and usher you into His presence. This thinking is contrary to the word of God and will carefully and unknowingly lead you into Satan's captivity and under his power.
There are some, who, if a prophet comes among them and declares unto them the word of the Lord, which testifies to their sins and iniquities, will be angry with him. They would much rather that one speaks flattering words unto them, and tells them that they can do whatever their heart desires. Those who flatter are foolish and blind guides, and you suffer yourselves to be led by them. Why do you put your trust in what others post online, and not in the word of God? How long will ye choose darkness rather than light? Why will you trust in lying words? Why will ye not put your trust in your God and not in men?
The days of your probation will soon be over, and because you have procrastinated the day of your repentance, I speak with urgency. The Lord awaits with open arms as He warns you of His justice. He wants you to accept His mercy. I plead with you to hear his words, and if you do, I pray that the anger of the Lord will be turned away from you as you repent and are saved.
I have been commanded to prophesy unto you the coming of the Savior and many events leading up to His coming. For purpose of these prophecies, you are identified with the Gentiles. Because you have rejected the fulness of His Gospel, His Gospel will be taken from you and given to the house of Israel. God will set his hand the second time to restore the house of Israel. He will bare his arm in the eyes of all nations. His latter-day servant will fulfill a mission to the nations, and will have power to judge them. God will perform His great and marvelous work among the nations. The Jews, Lost Tribes and Lehi's descendants will be gathered to the old and the new Jerusalem, as God fulfills his covenants with them. The wicked, or those who fail to repent and remain in Babylon, will be destroyed along with Babylon. Only those who hear and believe the word of God will be saved and will act as nursing mothers and fathers to the house of Israel. The time soon comes when the Lord shall cause a great division among the people, and the wicked He will destroy; and He will spare His people, even if it so be that he must destroy the wicked by fire. Again I have been commanded to cry unto you, repent and prepare the way of the Lord!
It is important that you hear his words so that you will know of the judgments of God which do await you, and also that you may know the conditions of repentance. But this is not all--you are to know of the coming of Jesus Christ and the signs of His coming so that you might believe on his name. For if you do believe on His name, you will repent of all your sins, that thereby you may have a remission of them through his merits.
Repentance is a necessity because of the Fall of Adam, and as result of the Fall we are all cut off from the presence of the Lord and die both temporally and spiritually. Christ, however, has redeemed mankind so that we would be brought back into the presence of God to be judged of God according to our works. Christ's redemption is brought to pass only on the condition of repentance for whosoever repents the same is not hewn down and cast into the fire. The justice of God will cause those who fail to repent to be hewn down and cast into the fire. On the condition of repentance, however, we can obtain the mercy of God and be found guiltless without having to be judged of our works, good or bad.
And so I say again: repent, repent, lest by knowing these things and not doing them you shall suffer yourselves to come under condemnation, and you are brought down unto this second death. The call to repentance is to avoid the justice of God, to avoid the second death, and rather be redeemed of the Lord.
All that the Lord does is done with the intent that as many as will believe will be saved! Whosoever will believe and repent will be saved.
And now remember, remember, that whosoever perishes, perishes unto himself; and whosoever does iniquity, does it unto himself; for behold, you are free; you are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God has given unto you a knowledge and he has made you free. And not just free to make choices, but free to choose good or evil, life or death; and be restored unto that which is good or have that which is good restored unto you; or you can do evil, and have that which is evil restored unto you. It is your choice to choose either justice or mercy!
The Lord has called you with His everlasting gospel to be the salt of the earth and the savior of men, and to hold up His light to the world, not your own inadequate light. Instead you are as salt that has lost its savor and are good for nothing but to be trodden down under foot of the house of Israel. Your only hope is to repent, and your failure to repent will be the catalyst for the Lord's endtime judgments.
Because of the wicked and abominable traditions of your fathers, many have been led astray, but you are left without excuse because He has warned you through His holy scriptures, and the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which lead some to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance brings a change of heart unto them and they are made free because of their firm and steadfast faith in Christ.
I have been commanded to describe you as being unsteady of heart. At the time the Lord blesses you, His people, by increasing your income, your gold and your silver, and even sparing your lives, then that is the time you do harden your hearts, and do forget the Lord your God, and do trample under your feet the Holy One--yea, and this because of your ease, and your exceedingly great prosperity. You are foolish, vain, evil and devilish and quick to do iniquity. And this is because you set your hearts upon the vain things of the world!
You do not desire that the Lord your God, who hath created you, should rule and reign over you. Notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards you, you do set at naught his counsels, and you will not that he should be your guide. I remind you that you are nothing, even less than the dust of the earth, but because of what the Lord has blessed you with, you are lifted up in pride and take strength unto yourselves.
If the Lord shall say unto a man--Because of thine iniquities, thou shalt be accursed forever--it shall be done. And if the Lord shall say--Because of thine iniquities thou shalt be cut off from my presence--he will cause that it shall be so. In contrast to the justice of God, however, you can be saved and for this cause has repentance been declared. The good tidings I bring are that blessed are they who will repent and hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; for these are they that shall be saved. I would that all men would repent and be saved, but I know that there are some who will not choose mercy, but will choose justice by refusing to repent.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine that the Lord must visit His people with many afflictions, with death and with terror, and also with famine and all manner of pestilence, or His people will not remember Him? And why? because how quick to be lifted up in pride; yea, how quick to boast, and do all manner of that which is iniquity; and how slow are they to remember their God, and to give ear unto his counsels, yea, how slow to walk in wisdom's paths!
Why do you pollute the holy church of God? Why are you ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do you not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies--because of the praise of the world? Why do you adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?
Because of your unbelief you do not understand the word of God; and your hearts are hardened. Do not harden your hearts against my words, for it will come to pass that He will smite His people with sore afflictions, with famine and with pestilence; and He will cause that they shall howl all the day long. All the prophecies of Isaiah and John will come to pass, except you repent. And except you repent, He will utterly destroy you from the face of the earth.
And I say unto you priests who pretend to teach this people, wo be unto you for perverting the ways of the Lord! For if ye had understood the spirit of prophesying, you have not taught them. Therefore, you have perverted the ways of the Lord. You have not applied your hearts to understanding and by your traditions have made the word of God of none effect. What teach you this people? Know you not that I speak the truth? You know that I speak the truth; and you ought to tremble before God. It shall come to pass that you shall be smitten for your iniquities, for you have said that you teach the word of God. And what do you know of the word of God? Have you said nothing but repentance unto this generation as you were commanded to do? I know that because I have spoken the truth you will be angry with me and judge me that I am an apostate. You have taught the precepts of men mingled with scripture and have lead this people astray. You have made His gospel into a gospel of performances and ordinances. You have not understood that there could be no man saved except it was through the redemption of God. Why is it that you have not warned the people?
My only claim is that I have been sent by God, armed with the words of God, to call to repentance the people of the church in Salt Lake City, Utah and in the cities along the Wasatch Front. Would it be a test as to whether we would receive the words of God even though the messenger was not an ecclesiastical prophet, perhaps just a gospel doctrine teacher, or even a ministering teacher, or a friend, a father, a grandfather, or that person in your ward who does not settle for the pulpit narrative? I add my words to the words of the prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord--I say unto you, that all who have hearkened to their words, and believed the Lord would redeem His people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are His seed, and they are the heirs of the kingdom of God.
I end my words with the words from the prophet of this last dispensation, Joseph Smith: "I will proceed to tell you what the Lord requires of all people, high and low, in order that they may escape the judgments of God which are almost ready to burst upon the nations of the earth. Repent of all your sins. Not many years away, the United States shall present such a scene of bloodshed as has not had a parallel in the history of our nations. Pestilence, hail, famine, and earthquake will sweep the wicked of this generation off the face of the land to open and prepare the way for the return of the lost tribes of Israel. Repent, repent is the voice of God to Zion, and strange as it may appear, yet it is true, mankind will persist in self-justification until all their iniquity is exposed, their character past redeeming. Hear the warning voice of God lest Zion fall and the Lord swear in his wrath the inhabitants of Zion shall not enter into his rest. Intemperance, immorality, extravagance, pride, blindness of heart, idolatry, loss of natural affection, love of this world, indifference toward things of eternity are increasing among those Latter-day Saints who profess to believe in the religion of heaven. Who but those can see the awful precipice upon which the world of mankind stands in this generation and can labor in the vineyard of the Lord without feeling a sense of the world's deplorable situation?"
Next: Repentance: The Fate of Michael from Duchesne
I am a bit worried about Michael's safety, and feel a sense of trepidation, considering your next post is titled "The Fate of Michael from Duchesne."
ReplyDeleteThe way Michael's message synthesizes so many scriptural warnings is one of the finest pieces of pseudepigrapha I have read. The message not only evoked the spirit of Samuel the Lamanite for me, but also the Old Testament prophets. The judgements prophesied made me reflect, particularly on the notion of the "anger" of the Lord.
In fact, while thinking about this post on the train to work this morning, I did a scripture search for "kindled" and ended up reading the entire chapter of Isaiah 30. "The name of the Lord cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire: and his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve" (Isaiah 30:27-28). I think that image--the image of the Lord sifting the nations with the sieve of His word--describes Michael-from-Duchesne's message.
What makes parents more frustrated than anything? The fact they would spare their children the "bread of adversity," but their children refuse to be spared. This helped me realize that, instead of the Lord sending judgments upon the wicked, He is sending the way to be spared from them (if we would but listen). Once I reframed my perspective, I could "hear" His love in these words that once sounded harsh in my ears.
Thank you Clark for helping to improve my spiritual pitch so I may better sing the Song of Redeeming Love.
I simply want to thank you for this post and acknowledge the power of it. I, too, am a bit concerned for Michael from Duchesne as I await the next post. I am also motivated to speedily repent!
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