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"I Will... Setup My Standard To The People", 1 Nephi 21:22-26

1 Nephi 21:22-26

Verse 22 picks up as an answer to the question posed in verse 21: how is it that Zion had any children if everyone of her natural children had been destroyed? The answer is pivotal to understanding the purposes of the Lord in the last days and how exactly it is that the Lord will redeem His people.

The answer:
Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. (see vs 22)
Footnotes on "standard"include additional references to this final work (see footnotes). The standard is also called an ensign. Important doctrines related to the establishment of this final standard or ensign: The work is to be initiated among the gentiles, and it is of such as scope that it will reach the ends of the earth. This is a global work. Yet it is extremely individual.

This particular final point is strongly impressed upon my mind. We are dealing with the salvation of God's family, and in the end, it shall be as it was in the beginning--available to all. The atonement of Christ works for all men; Jew, Gentile, Tongan, Chinese, Ethiopian, Russian, Israeli, Scandinavian, Brazilian, Indian, French, Nigerian, Australian, American, and all. It is almost impossible for us to comprehend as mortals that all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God (see Isaiah 52:10, Mosiah 15:31, or Doctrine and Covenants 133:3). But this is the work of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Then this chapter concludes with these words of encouragement: "For I will contend with them that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children," (see vs. 25). This is the faith, the hope, the promise that inspires the work to be accomplished. This is the strength to scale an insurmountable mountain.

In these closing verses are assurance to go ahead with the fight that we are to wage against the forces of this world. There is also the reminder that this is in part why our Lord is also referred to as our Savior, our Redeemer, and the Mighty One of Jacob.

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