“Lest I Come and Smite the Earth with a Curse”
Moroni used the following language: “If it were not so ” [if Elijah had not come], the whole earth would be utterly wasted at [Christ’s] coming.“ Why would this be the case? ”Because the earth would not have accomplished in foreordained purposes, to establish on its face a family system patterned after the order of heaven. If there were no binding and sealing powers whereby families could be cemented forever, then the earth would never ’answer the end of its creation’ (D&C 49:16). It would be wasted and cursed, for all men would be forever without root or branch.“ (Robert L. Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie, The Life Beyond, pp. 97-98.)”
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