Wow, this has troubled me for some time as people lazily and Pharisaically state that they are paying their tithing based on the belief it will help them avoid crispy critter status:
For ages sitting in gospel doctrine classes and teaching preparedness I've heard LDS people say things about last days calamities that reveal that they have no clue about the severity of the destruction nor the length of time before Christ returns. Like there will be a few earthquakes and then boom...Christ appears!
Some thoughts I've had that perhaps this may help prepare some emotionally on some level for the death that will come from either taking or not taking the j@ b...plague...war...natural disaster...etc.
Lds folk have long joked that paying tithing is "fire insurance". Perhaps that scripture is about paying tithing and maybe it isn't. I ask you to read it anew. Does it say..."He that has paid tithing shall not be burned"? What does the scripture actually say is being tithed?
D&C 64 -
23 "Behold, now it is called today until the coming of the Son of Man, and verily it is a day of sacrifice, and a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned at his coming.
24 For after today cometh the burning—this is speaking after the manner of the Lord—for verily I say, tomorrow all the proud and they that do wickedly shall be as stubble; and I will burn them up, for I am the Lord of Hosts; and I will not spare any that remain in Babylon."
Isaiah 6 speaks of coming desolation and then tells us that a "tenth" shall return.
9 ¶ "And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,
12 And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
13 ¶ But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof."
There's also a parallel I see with all this in Luke 17 with the Lord speaking of a tenth leper that returned and then speaking of escaping Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember lots wife?
It may seem beyond the pale to consider that 1 out of 10 people might remain alive at Christ's coming. Of course the 10 virgins are much better odds...50/50...but that in my opinion is more about the number that are ready to meet Christ...not that they will necessarily survive to see His return. As 2 Nephi 20 states "few" will be left after the Lord returns. 3 Nephi with all it'd destructions is a parallel for our future.
Regardless of the exact fraction whether one interprets these scriptures as I do of who will survive...Jesus tells us to...
Luke 21:36 "Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man."
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