Great Physical Changes to the Earth:

Compiled by Robert Hyatt

2000

 

One of the greatest signs of the Second Coming will be the entire surface change of the Earth. I am convinced that the Earth will turn back on its axis as it was before the days of Noah and in the days of Peleg.(Genesis 10:25) “And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one [was] Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided;” Water will go to the north and possibly south poles, and there will in essence be one continent as it was before the Earth was divided in the days of Peleg. Several scriptures reveal that one of the signs of the Second Coming will be the flattening of the Earth.

 

Isaiah 13:13

13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

Isaiah 24:19

19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.

Isaiah 24:20

20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.

Isaiah 40:4

 4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

Isaiah 64:1

 1 ¶ OH that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,

Isaiah 64:3

 3 When thou didst terrible things [which] we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.

Revelation 6:14

 14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

Micah 1:4

 4 And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, [and] as the waters [that are] poured down a steep place.

Haggai 2:6

 6 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it [is] a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry [land];

1 Nephi 21:11

 11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.

D&C 49:23

23 Wherefore, be not deceived, but continue in steadfastness, looking forth for the heavens to be shaken, and the earth to tremble and to reel to and fro as a drunken man, and for the valleys to be exalted, and for the mountains to be made low, and for the rough places to become smooth--and all this when the angel shall sound his trumpet.

D&C 88:90

 90 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.

D&C 88:91

 91 And all things shall be in commotion; and surely, men's hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people.

D&C 133:22

 22 And it shall be a voice as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder, which shall break down the mountains, and the valleys shall not be found.

D&C 133:23

 23 He shall command the great deep, and it shall be driven back into the north countries, and the islands shall become one land;

D&C 133:24

 24 And the land of Jerusalem and the land of Zion shall be turned back into their own place, and the earth shall be like as it was in the days before it was divided.

 

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.634

When the earth was first created all the land was in one place and there were no mountains and valleys of the kind that now exist. At the Second Coming of Christ the sea will be driven back to its place in the north, the continents shall become one land again, every valley shall be exalted, every mountain shall be made low, and the earth shall cease bringing forth thorns and noxious weeds, but shall become as the garden of the Lord. (D. & C. 133:20-31, 44.)

 

Days of Peleg - Earth Divided

Compiled by Robert Hyatt

1998

 

Genesis 10:25

 25 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one [was] Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name [was] Joktan.

 

1 Chronicles 1:19

 19 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of the one [was] Peleg; because in his days the earth was divided: and his brother's name [was] Joktan.

 

JST Genesis 10:15

 15 And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber. And unto Eber were born two sons; the name of one, Peleg, the other Joktan.

 

JST Genesis 10:16

 16 And Peleg was a mighty man, for in his days was the earth divided.

 

John Taylor, The Government of God, Ch.12

"How far the flood may have contributed to produce the various changes, as to the division of the earth into broken fragments, island and continents, mountains and valleys, we have not been informed; the change must have been considerable. But after the flood, in the days of Peleg, the earth was divided.—See Gen. 10:25,—a short history, to be sure, of so great an event; but still it will account for the mighty revolution which rolled the sea from its own place in the north, and brought it to interpose between different portions of the earth, which were thus parted asunder, and moved into something near their present form; this, together with the earthquakes, revolutions, and commotions which have since taken place, have all contributed to reduce the face of the earth to its present state; while the great curses which have fallen upon different portions, because of the wickedness of men, will account for the stagnant swamps, the sunken lakes, the dead seas, and great deserts.

Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.1, p.84 - p.85

 

RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. Joseph Smith gave this inspired summary of latter-day events: "There shall be famine, and pestilence, and earthquake in divers places; and the prophets have declared that the valleys should rise; that the mountains should be laid low; that a great earthquake should be, in which the sun should become black as sack-cloth of hair, and the moon turn into blood; yea, the Eternal God hath declared that the great deep shall roll back into the north countries and that the land of Zion and the land of Jerusalem shall be joined together, as they were before they were divided in the days of Peleg. No wonder the mind starts at the sound of the last days!"

 

Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.1, p.85

Here the Prophet tells us that the dividing of the earth was in the days of Peleg. When Christ comes, it will be brought back again as it was before it was divided.

 

Joseph Fielding Smith, Church History and Modern Revelation, Vol 2, p.35

When that day comes great changes shall take place upon the earth. We believe this is a day of restoration, and that the earth is to be renewed. (Tenth Article of Faith; Lesson 40.) In this renewal we are informed that the Lord "shall command the great deep, and it shall be driven back into the north country, and the islands shall become one land; and the land of Jerusalem and the land of Zion shall be turned back into their own place, and the earth shall be like as it was in the days before it was divided." (Gen. 10:25.) The notion prevails quite generally that the dividing of the earth in the days of Peleg was a division politically among the people, but from this word of the Lord we gain the idea that the earth itself was divided and that when Christ comes it will again be brought back to the same conditions physically as prevailed before this division took place. The sea is to be driven back into the north. The land is to be brought back as it was originally and the lands of Zion (America) and Jerusalem (Palestine and all the land pertaining unto it) will be restored to their own place as they were in the beginning. The Savior will stand in the midst of his people, and shall reign over all flesh. We have discovered in our study that the wicked, or all things that are corruptible (Section 101:23-25), will be consumed and therefore will not be permitted to be on the earth when this time comes.

 

Journal of Discourses, Vol.16, p.47, Orson Pratt, May 18, 1873

The valley of Adam-ondi-ahman, according to the views and belief of the Latter-day Saints, was located on the western hemisphere of our globe. (I would here say, that as the greater portion of this congregation are Latter-day Saints, the proofs and evidences which I shall bring forth, in relation to the matter before me, will be selected from those books which are believed by them, which may not be particular evidence to strangers, but to the Latter-day Saints they will be undisputed evidence.) Adam-ondi-ahman, the Valley of God, where Adam dwelt, was located about fifty miles north of Jackson County, in the State of Missouri. The Lord has revealed to us that Adam dwelt there towards the latter period of his probation. Whether he had lived in that region of country from the earliest period of his existence on the earth, we know not. He might have lived thousands of miles distant, in his early days. It might have been upon what we now term the great eastern hemisphere, for in those days the eastern and western hemispheres were one, and were not divided asunder till the days of Peleg. Adam might have migrated from the great east, gathered up with the people of God in connection with the Church of Enoch, and formed a location in the western boundaries of Missouri. This is not revealed.

 

Alvin R. Dyer, Conference Report, October 1968, p.109

In the course of time from the creation, in the days of Peleg, or about the year 2200 B.C., Just prior to the confusion of the languages, the single continent of land that had continued from creation was divided to produce the hemispheres as we now know them. But notwithstanding this, the geographic location of the Garden of Eden was made known to the Prophet Joseph Smith by revelation as here in the land of America, in Jackson County, Missouri, with Independence as the center place.

 

History of the Church, Vol.1, Ch.20, p.275

That it comes to open the way for Zion to rise and put on her beautiful garments and become the glory of the earth, that her land may be joined, or married (according to the known translation of Isaiah) to Jerusalem again, and they be one as they were in the days of Peleg.

 

Earth's Axis to Tilt Back:

Note from Bob Hyatt (Dr. Bob-ha ha):

Not only will the Earth turn back on its axis but it will be the Holy Ghost that does it. Cool. Huh?

 

Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology, Ch.5, p.40

This Holy Spirit, under the control of the Great Eloheim, is the grand moving cause of all intelligences, and by which they act. This is the great, positive, controlling element of all other elements. It is omnipresent by reason of its infinitude of its particles, and it comprehends all things. It is the controlling agent or executive, which organizes and puts in motion all worlds, and which, by the mandate of the Almighty, or of any of His commissioned agents, performs all the mighty wonders, signs and miracles ever manifested in the name of the Lord -- the turning of the earth backward on its axis, the dividing of the sea, the removing of a mountain, the raising of the dead, or the healing of the sick.

 

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.684 SEASONS

Some have speculated that the earth's axis tipped, possibly incident to the flood, so that seasons as we know them had their beginning. This speculation would account for come of the so-called prehistorical periods during which, according to geologists and others, climatic conditions on the earth were radically different from those that have prevailed during known time periods. This line of speculation also assumes that when the millennial era commences, when the whole earth again becomes a garden, that the axis thereof will return to its upright position so that seasons in the sense that they now exist will cease.

 

Bruce R. McConkie, The Millennial Messiah, p.413

Seed time and harvest, in the sense of one season following another, exist because the axis of the earth is tilted twenty-three and a half degrees from the upright. This is the reason we have summer and winter, spring and fall. The first reference in the scriptures to seasons as we know them is in connection with the flood of Noah. There is a presumption that prior to the flood there were no seasons because the axis of the earth was upright, and a similar presumption that when the Millennium comes and the earth returns to its original paradisiacal state, once again the seasons as we know them will cease and that seed time and harvest will go on concurrently at all times. The whole earth at all times will be a garden as it was in the days of Eden.

 

Bruce R. McConkie, The Millennial Messiah, p.625

After our Lord comes and the new heaven and the new earth are a reality, then the earth will bring forth bounteously to support the billions of our Father's children who shall soon find lodgment on its surface. We do not know what changes will cause this to be. Our knowledge is limited to a few slivers of revealed truth here and there throughout the canonized word. Our revealed description of the millennial return of Israel says: "They shall smite the rocks, and the ice shall flow down at their presence. And in the barren deserts there shall come forth pools of living water; and the parched ground shall no longer be a thirsty land." (D&C 133:26-29.) If the great ice masses shall flow down before them, it presupposes worldwide climatic changes. And if the deserts are freely watered, conditions will be far from what they now are. It could be -- we do not know, we can only speculate -- it could be that the axis of the earth will become upright and no longer have the twenty-three-and-a-half-degree tilt that causes seasons. It could be -- we do not know -- that such was the case in the beginning, which might account for the great glacial ages about which scientists speculate. The first mention in the scriptures of "seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter," as we know them, is found after the flood of Noah. (Gen. 8:22.) At this point, it is wise to state that there is much more that we do not know than that which is known about many things that were anciently and that will be again.

 

Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p.649 - p.650

We have already spoken of the day of burning in which the very rocks and soil will be dissolved, in which the elements melt with fervent heat, and the mountains, as wax, flow down at the presence of the Lord. The prophetic word also speaks of every valley being exalted, of the mountains being made low and the rough places smoothed as a plain. It tells of an earthquake beyond anything the earth has ever known; of the earth reeling to and fro as a drunken man; of the mighty deep returning to the land of the north where it once was; of the continents becoming one land as they were in the day before they were divided; of the ice flowing down from the polar regions; of the burning deserts blossoming as the rose; of springs of water springing up in the arid wastelands; of the whole earth becoming as the Garden of Eden. Who knows but what the very axis of the earth will shift so that the seasons cease and the whole earth enjoys both seedtime and harvest at all times.

 

Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.684 SEASONS

Seasons as we know them with their varied climatic and other conditions come about because the axis of the earth is tilted 23 1/2 degrees. Revealed knowledge of all the great changes the earth has undergone is not presently available to men. We do know that the earth was created in a paradisiacal or terrestrial state; that it fell to its present telestial condition; that it will be renewed and receive again its paradisiacal glory during the millennium; and that eventually it is to become a celestial sphere.

 

Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.2, Ch.3, p.75

Characteristic of the sweep and scope of the Enoch apocalypse is the disturbance of the whole cosmos sharing the fate of the violated planet and its destruction: "The whole earth shall be shaken, and tremble, and be thrown into confusion. . . and the heavens and its lights be shaken and trembling." (Cf. Moses 7:41, 13.) "I saw how mighty quaking made the heaven to quake, . . . and the angels . . . were disquieted with great disquiet." (Cf. Moses 7:56.) The "quaking" of the heavens, often referred to, suggests to present-day knowledge of the shifting or unsteadiness of the earth's axis.

 

Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.2, Ch.4, p.203

The terrors of the book of Enoch reach their culmination when the upheavals of nature extend to the entire cosmos. Many apocalyptic accounts of the disturbed heavens suggest to some scientists today an actual shifting of the earth on its axis (a phenomenon now well attested from the study of ancient magnetized ceramics) or a massive showering of meteoric particles.

 

Hugh Nibley, Ancient Documents and the Pearl of Great Price, p.2

…. Notice that the Book of Abraham is very much occupied with cosmology and astronomy. He has given us a chart there, and he explains things. All these things are very closely connected together. This is part of the picture in Abraham's world beginning with the disturbances in the heavens. Remember in Enoch all the heavens shook; everything was in disturbance (the universe itself). The earth shifted on its axis is the explanation to that one. It was a time of earthquakes and volcanoes too.

 

Journal of Discourses, Vol.1, p.176, Parley P. Pratt, January 30, 1853

…..Moses and the Prophets had power to control the elements, and work mighty wonders in the name of the Lord, some of them even rolled the earth back on its axis. Have the Jews this power? No….

 

Journal of Discourses, Vol.18, p.318, Orson Pratt, December 3, 1876

From these simple testimonies we have shown that God controls the laws of nature. Again, the fact of the Prophet Elijah being taken up to heaven, records another instance of the laws of gravitation being overcome by a more powerful one. Again, the ascension of Jesus, after he had commissioned his disciples to preach the Gospel to all the world, was another instance of the law of gravitation being overcome by the power of God. Then let no person suppose that all the great events that will hereafter transpire upon the surface of land and sea, have got to take place by reason of some slow progressive changes, occupying hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of years, according to the ideas of modern geologists. Can they show the way the Lord can govern and control these things, bringing about events, in the course of a very short time, that perhaps would take millions of years to accomplish by the mere progressive changes, such as are recognized by geologist? How easy it would be for that same power to be made manifest, in commanding the great ocean to leave its present bed and to gather together in the polar regions in our globe. One may ask, What would hold them there? they now occupy the common level surface as near the centre of gravity as they can, and sustain the centrifugal force exercised by the rotation of this earth on its axis. If they should be rolled back, whence they came; if a great equatorial continent, in one continuous belt, encircled the globe, and the two polar regions were covered with oceans, what would hold them in their position? It might be done without infringing particularly on the laws of gravitation. How easy it would be for the Lord to compress the polar regions of our globe, and cause the equatorial regions to rise higher, so as to balance the polar waters, and retain them in the arctic and antarctic regions.

 

Journal of Discourses, Vol.20, p.73, Orson Pratt, August 25, 1878

Again, we find that the solid portions of the earth were entirely covered with water, for the Lord commanded the waters to be gathered together to one place; and commanded the dry land to appear. The dry land he called earth; the gathering together of the waters called he seas. How did he do this? He may have done it by a direct miracle, or he may have done it according to certain laws which he controlled, and which were always under his control. How easy it would be for him to take this globe of ours that was entirely covered by water, and set it in motion, and cause it to rotate upon its axis. Would not this cause the waters to be gathered together from the equatorial regions to the two polar regions--the Arctic and the ant-Arctic seas, and in the intermediate regions, and thus leave the dry land in the equatorial regions?