A God is Coming to Earth
Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote the following about Christ's mission:
A God is coming to earth to dwell as a mortal among men. His mission: to do that which he alone can do; to work out the infinite and eternal atonement and bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of the offspring of the Father on worlds without number; to do that which never again, in an eternity of time, shall ever occur among the mortals who dwell on this or any of the numberless earth of their creating.
A God is coming to earth, and all thing incident to this birth and life and ministry and death and resurrection and ascension to eternal glory are foreknown and foreprepared. He is to be sired by an Immortal Father, to be conceived in a mortal womb, to be born in Bethlehem, to be cradled in a manger, to be the natural heir of David, upon whose throne he shall reign. A new star is to herald his coming.
A God is coming to earth and we can scarce record a thousandth or a ten thousandth of the things he was destined to do, the words he was destined to speak, the people he was destined to heal--all of which things were known in advance and were foretold by one prophet or another on one continent or on another...
A God is coming to earth and everything connected with his birth and life and ministry and resurrection and ascension to eternal glory--everything!--must be perfect. It must conform to what the prophets have foreseen, foreknown, and foretold.
Mortal Mary must be living in her Galilean home. Joseph must have his carpenter shop in Nazareth. Augustus Caesar must command the Jews to go to their homelands to be taxed. Mary and Joseph must go to Bethlehem; there must be no room in the inns; the angelic choirs must be trained and be in readiness; the whole sidereal heavens must be awaiting the rise of a blazing new star.
Can we suppose that anything was left to chance? Were not the shepherds on the Judean hills chosen and prepared in advance so that their spiritually attuned ears could hear the angelic choirs? Did not the Spirit guide the wise men to travel from their eastern home with the gold and myrrh and frankincense? And what of Herod--was he not destined to reign as king of the Jews?
Mary and Martha and Lazarus were sent to earth at that time to be his friends, in whose house he could escape the barbs and revilings of his enemies. Peter and James and John were prepared from before the foundations of the world to be his chief apostles.
Truly Omnipotent Wisdom had left nothing to chance. A God was coming into this world, and the world must be ready for his Advent.
The Mortal Messiah, 1:282-285
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