Build Up the Waste Places of Zion

The Lord declared after the Saints were kicked out of Jackson County, “Zion shall not be moved out of her place, notwithstanding her children are scattered. They that remain, and are pure in heart, shall return, and come to their inheritances, they and their children, with songs of everlasting joy, to build up the waste places of Zion” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:17-18). Zion will be built up again in that place, and the Lord emphasized again soon thereafter, “But verily I say unto you, I have decreed that your brethren which have been scattered shall return to the lands of their inheritances, and shall build up the waste places of Zion. For after much tribulation, as I have said unto you in a former commandment, cometh the blessing” (Doctrine and Covenants 103:11-12). These words of the Savior suggest that someday a city of Zion will be built up in Jackson County again as we sought to do in the beginning of the Restoration. As Orson Pratt said, “We shall in due time walk forth into Jackson County and build up the waste places of Zion.  We shall erect in that county a beautiful city after the order and pattern that the Lord shall reveal….  He will show unto his servants the nature of the streets and the pavement thereof, the kind of precious stones that shall enter into the buildings, the nature of the rock and precious stones that will adorn the gates and the walls of that city.” This shall be, as I understand it, the New Jerusalem built up to help prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Savior. The reality of this future city was confirmed by President Eyring in a very recent general conference. He quoted this prophecy of the Lord to Enoch: “I shall prepare, an Holy City, that my people may gird up their loins, and be looking forth for the time of my coming; for there shall be my tabernacle, and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem.” President Eyring then commented, “You will be an essential force in the gathering of Israel and in the creation of a Zion people who will dwell in peace in the New Jerusalem.” Someday we shall indeed build up the waste places of Zion in Jackson County and create a holy city to the Lord.

            So how will this future building of Zion in Missouri happen? In 1882 President Joseph F. Smith said this: “When God leads the people back to Jackson County, how will he do it? Let me picture to you how some of us may be gathered and led to Jackson County. I think I see two or three hundred thousand people wending their way across the great plain enduring the nameless hardships of the journey, herding and guarding their cattle by day and by night. … This is one way to look at it. It is certainly a practical view. Some might ask, what will become of the railroads? I fear that the sifting process would be insufficient were we to travel by railroads.” Though this suggests that we would all walk back to Jackson County without the use of cars or trains or planes, his words seem more a suggestion rather than a specific prophecy of how it will indeed happen. Could all modern means of transportation really be removed so that we would need to walk there? Wilford Woodruff did say, as quoted by President Ezra Taft Benson in general conference, “The day will come when, as we have been told, we shall all see the necessity of making our own shoes and clothing and raising our own food.” Certainly it may be in the future that our normal means of obtaining food and clothing and traveling is destroyed in the tribulation of the last days, but it does little good to speculate on such things. What we know is that the Lord wants to build up Zion, and we can start that by building Zion in our own stakes wherever we are and following the prophet of our day: “Therefore, verily, thus saith the Lord, let Zion rejoice, for this is Zion—the pure in heart; therefore, let Zion rejoice, while all the wicked shall mourn” (Doctrine and Covenants 97:21). Becoming pure in heart should be our focus, not the physical means or difficulties by which a future city might come about. And President Nelson has repeatedly suggested that we have a lot to look forward to as we stay firm on the covenant path and look earnestly for the return of the Savior, however that may happen and whatever may happen before: “My dear brothers and sisters, so many wonderful things are ahead. In coming days, we will see the greatest manifestations of the Savior’s power that the world has ever seen. Between now and the time He returns ‘with power and great glory,’ He will bestow countless privileges, blessings, and miracles upon the faithful.” So our focus stays fixed on the Savior and his prophet, and whatever the future may hold we look forward to the fulfillment of Isaiah’s glorious prophecy: “The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified” (Isaiah 60:20-21).