Question

Dear Gramps,

Somewhere I heard that Joseph Smith received a revelation that when a rainbow appeared in the sky that it meant that the following year would be a year of good harvest, and that the Lord would not come back for the Second Coming in that same year. Is this true? And if it is, where is that revelation found? OR, is it just another “faith-promoting story”?

Starlyn

Answer

Dear Starlyn,

The revelation that you refer to was recorded in “Ehat & Cook, Words, John Solomon Fullmer Papers: 10 March 1844 (Sunday), p.336,” apparently the same day that it was delivered. It reads as follows:

Prophesy delivered by President Joseph Smith, March 10th 1844. While enquiring of the Lord concerning the End of time, it was made known to him by the Holy Spirit, that there should be prosperity, seed time and harvest every year in which the Rainbow was seen, for to that was Noah referred as a surety on this subject,–But in the year when the Bow was not to be seen, would commence desolation, calamity and distress among the Nations, without seed time or harvest–And that the Revelation of the Son of Man from Heaven, would not be in this year, nor the next; and he would say to his Millerite friends, that it would not be in forty years to come. He uttered all this in the name of the Lord, and said we should go home and write it–

If the rainbow is not to be seen in a given year, it will certainly be because there will be no rain, and without rain a world-wide famine will ensue, and those who will not have stored provisions will no doubt be in dire straits. According to the prophet, this will be the beginning of “desolation, calamity and distress among the Nations.” Joseph Smith was not the only prophet to speak of the calamities that the earth will suffer prior to the coming of the Lord. Among the many prophecies of the pending calamities are the words of President Joseph Fielding Smith, in The Signs of the Times, p.175:

We see the great things that are taking place in the earth today–all this turmoil, all this trouble, men’s hearts failing them, the commotion, but we have only seen the beginning of it. The elements have not yet become angry as they shall become angry, and the sea heave beyond its bounds; and the earthquakes and the sinking of cities and the great destruction by plague and by famine and pestilence and all the rest of it will have to come first, and bloodshed, war, destruction.

Do you have your year’s supply of food, clothing, and, where possible, fuel on hand?

Gramps