The Lord Will Pour Out His Spirit upon All Flesh; There Will Be Dreams and Visions
Joel 2:28–31
28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote:
“We are inclined to believe that all of the ancient prophets knew about the restoration of the gospel in the last days. We know they all had the plan of salvation; they all knew that salvation is in Christ; they all knew He would come to atone for the sins of the world; and they all knew about the Second Coming. Those who were prophets in Israel knew about the latter-day gathering of that chosen people, and some of them knew about the Nephite nation and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Implicit in all this is the fact that they must have known about the restoration of that gospel which would gather Israel and prepare a people for the Second Coming of Him in whose name they worshiped the Father.
“Our purpose here is simply to sample a few slivers of the prophetic word so as to have the concept before us that the restoration of the gospel in the last days was one of the great wonders toward which the ancients looked with anxious expectation. The Lord’s purposes were not hidden from them any more than they are from us. They knew as we know that the day of final triumph and glory for the Lord’s people was reserved for the last days.
“Joel, for instance, had many things to say about the gathering of Israel, about the wars and desolations of the last days, and about the Second Coming. By his mouth the Lord said: ‘I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.’ Then, he continues, shall come to pass the wonders in the heavens and on earth, the blood and fire and vapors of smoke, and the sun turning to darkness that shall attend ‘the great and the terrible day of the Lord’ (Joel 2:28–31). Can there be any doubt that these dreams and visions preceding the Lord’s return will come to those who believe and obey the same gospel laws that qualified their forebears to receive like heavenly manifestations? Indeed, when Moroni first came to the Prophet, he quoted these very words from Joel and said they would soon be fulfilled (JS—H 1:41).”
(The Millennial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man [1982], 106.)
