The Sign of the Restoration of Israel

At the end of 3 Nephi in which the words of the Savior to the Nephites were recorded, the prophet Mormon wrote that when “these sayings shall come unto the Gentiles according to his word, then ye may know that the covenant which the Father hath made with the children of Israel, concerning their restoration to the lands of their inheritance, is already beginning to be fulfilled.”  He continued by saying that all the words of the prophets shall be fulfilled and that we “need not say that the Lord delays his coming unto the children of Israel” (3 Nephi 29:1-2).  So in other words, he is saying that when the Book of Mormon would come forth we would know that the Lord is already working to restore Israel and prepare for the Second Coming of the Savior.  The fact that we see the words in print tells us that the Father’s promises to Israel are already being fulfilled. 

                Other scriptures confirm this idea that the Book of Mormon would be the great symbol of the last days and restoration of Israel.  Mormon wrote that he was commanded to write what he did in the book and that they would come forth “in [the Lord’s] own due time.”  The words of the book would come forth in order that “the Father may bring about, through his most Beloved, his great and eternal purpose, in restoring the Jews, or all the house of Israel, to the land of their inheritance, which the Lord their God hath given them, unto the fulfilling of his covenant” (Mormon 5:12, 14).  The Savior likewise told the Nephites that the coming forth of the Book of Mormon would be a sign of the restoration of the House of Israel in the last days: “This is the thing which I will give unto you for a sign—for verily I say unto you that when these things which I declare unto you, and which I shall declare unto you hereafter of myself, and by the power of the Holy Ghost which shall be given unto you of the Father, shall be made known unto the Gentiles… and when these things come to pass that thy seed shall begin to know these things—it shall be a sign unto them, that they may know that the work of the Father hath already commenced unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto the people who are of the house of Israel” (3 Nephi 21:7).  So when the words of the Savior that now constitute 3 Nephi would go forth to the Gentiles and from the Gentiles to the remnant of the Nephites, it would be a “sign” that the work of the Father of fulfilling His covenant to Israel—meaning to gather them—is underway already.  Nephi quoted Isaiah to prophecy of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon: “And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book, and they shall be the words of them which have slumbered” (2 Nephi 27:6).  He prophesied of how the learned would reject the words of the book and that the Lord would say to this, “I will show unto the children of men that I am able to do mine own work….  I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, yea, a marvelous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise and learned shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid” (2 Nephi 27:21, 26).   Nephi’s writings clarify what that “marvelous work” is: “I shall proceed to do a marvelous work among them, that I may remember my covenants which I have made unto the children of men, that I may set my hand again the second time to recover my people, which are of the house of Israel” (2 Nephi 29:1).  So again we see that the Book of Mormon would come forth when the Lord was doing His work to gather Israel back together.  Elder C. Scott Grow put it this way: “The Book of Mormon is its own witness to the people of Latin America and of all nations.  Its very coming forth in these latter days bears witness that God has once again begun to gather scattered Israel” (see here).  The Book of Mormon is the great sign of the last days, the gathering of Israel, and the closeness of the coming of the Son of Man.