The Voice of Thunderings

One of the ways that Lord has decreed that His voice would be heard is through the great forces of nature we see around us. In an early revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith He commanded the Saints to life up their voices in testimony of Him but also suggested that other more dramatic voices would also come to speak: “What will ye say when the day cometh when the thunders shall utter their voices from the ends of the earth, speaking to the ears of all that live, saying—Repent, and prepare for the great day of the Lord? Yea, and again, when the lightnings shall streak forth from the east unto the west, and shall utter forth their voices unto all that live, and make the ears of all tingle that hear, saying these words—Repent ye, for the great day of the Lord is come?” So the “voice” of thunder and of lightning specifically can be the voice of the Lord calling on us to repent before the great day of His return comes. He continued in the same revelation, “How oft have I called upon you by the mouth of my servants, and by the ministering of angels, and by mine own voice, and by the voice of thunderings, and by the voice of lightnings, and by the voice of tempests, and by the voice of earthquakes, and great hailstorms, and by the voice of famines and pestilences of every kind” (Doctrine and Covenants 43:21-22, 25). So the Lord calls us through the elements; He seeks to get our attention through storms and tempests and earthquakes, through hailstorms and famines and pestilences. We must learn to turn our hearts to Him as we see the great forces of nature, knowing that He may be calling to us through them.

               Other scriptures similarly instruct us that we should “hear” the voice of the elements that speaks forth in dramatic ways. The Lord told the early Saints, “For after your testimony cometh the testimony of earthquakes, that shall cause groanings in the midst of her, and men shall fall upon the ground and shall not be able to stand. And also cometh the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and the voice of lightnings, and the voice of tempests, and the voice of the waves of the sea heaving themselves beyond their bounds” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:89-90). Again here the Lord suggested that the forces of nature have a “voice” that speaks to us, from groanings in the earth to the waves of the sea heavning themselves. We should learn in these events to hear the voice of the Lord calling us to repent and prepare. We know that one time in which He used these powerful acts of nature to speak was at the time of His death. Nephi saw this hundreds of years in advance and described it this way: “The Lord God surely shall visit all the house of Israel at that day, some with his voice, because of their righteousness, unto their great joy and salvation, and others with the thunderings and the lightnings of his power, by tempest, by fire, and by smoke, and vapor of darkness, and by the opening of the earth, and by mountains which shall be carried up.” Nephi described how some would “hear” this voice and interpret it: “And the rocks of the earth must rend; and because of the groanings of the earth, many of the kings of the isles of the sea shall be wrought upon by the Spirit of God, to exclaim: The God of nature suffers” (1 Nephi 19:12). The great destruction at the time of His death spoke to the kings of the isles of the sea such that they knew that “the God of nature suffers” when they saw what was happening. As we see terrible natural disasters occur in our world today, perhaps that too should remind us that there is a God in heaven who speaks and will one day return; those forces of nature should help us remember to repent and trust in Him who has power over the elements and who one day will return.