The Fulfillment of the Prophecy in 3 Nephi 16:10

While studying 3 Nephi 16:10, I found a fascinating statement by Orson Pratt about the prophecy in the verse being fulfilled to “the very letter.”

3 Nephi 16:10 And thus commandeth the Father that I should say unto you: At that day when the Gentiles shall sin against my gospel, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations, and above all the people of the whole earth, and shall be filled with all manner of lyings, and of deceits, and of mischiefs, and all manner of hypocrisy, and murders, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, and of secret abominations; and if they shall do all those things, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fulness of my gospel from among them.

Orson Pratt Discourse in Journal of Discourses

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the Twentieth Ward Meetinghouse, on the Evening of Sunday, February 7, 1875.

“The Lord has told us in this saying that if the Gentiles should not believe in this book—the fulness of the Gospel—and should be lifted up in their pride above all nations, and be filled with all manner of lyings, mischiefs, whoredoms, abominations and every kind of evil, that he would bring the fulness of his Gospel from among them.

I wish to state that when I read this in 1830 it was a great mystery to me. Recollect this was written and printed before there was any Latter-day Saint Church in existence, and yet here was a prophecy that the Lord would bring the fulness of his Gospel from among the Gentiles if they did not receive it. When the Lord commanded us to go up and settle in Jackson County I thought to myself, ‘Well, if we build up a great city here, according to that which is predicted in the Book of Mormon, we shall be right in the midst of the Gentiles, and how will it be possible for that prophecy ever to be fulfilled?’

Fulfillment of Prophecy

“It was a mystery to me, I could not see it. I knew it was true, for God had given me a witness and evidence that I knew as well as I knew that I lived that that book was true; but yet I could not understand how the Lord would bring the fulness of his Gospel from among the Gentiles if we were going to be permitted to build up a city in Jackson County, Missouri, and stay there.

But some seventeen years after the rise of this Church circumstances rolled round by which the Lord fulfilled this prophecy in taking the main body of the people from among the Gentiles…we were brought out west here to these mountains, and I do not know of another place on the face of this vast continent where we could have been so completely isolated from the Gentiles, the wicked who had rejected the Gospel, and we were by coming out en masse to this land. ‘If the Gentiles shall sin against the fulness of my Gospel, behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fulness of my Gospel from among them.’ It was done, the prediction was fulfilled to the very letter.”(Journal of Discourses 17:300)