D&c 87:3

[chiefpriest]

A lot of people have asked me about the last part of this verse, saying that Joseph Smith was a false prophet because war was not poured out upon ALL NATIONS during this time of civil war. What sayest thou?

[Elgama]

A lot of people have asked me about the last part of this verse, saying that Joseph Smith was a false prophet because war was not poured out upon ALL NATIONS during this time of civil war. What sayest thou?

Many nations were involved in terms of finance, economy and mercenary soldiers. Not to mention that period of time most of Europe was involved in their own civil wars and revolutions. The civil wars played a part in that. The various treaties involved led to the reunification of Germany which in turn played a huge part in the cause of WW1

Because of the empires being built in the 1800s most of the world if not all of the world was embroiled in conflict. The treaty that divied up Africa during up this time is still causing conflict

[Moksha]

I don't think all prophecies have to come true for one to be a prophet, do they? At least I am content with what we've already received.

[MarginOfError]

One interpretation I don't entirely subscribe to is that since the Civil War (actually, a little bit before) there has been a major conflict somewhere in the world almost without discontinuity.

This is a little biased, as we've been a lot more diligent about recording history in the past 400 years, but take a look at this article and decide for yourself

Lists of wars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Hemidakota]

A lot of people have asked me about the last part of this verse, saying that Joseph Smith was a false prophet because war was not poured out upon ALL NATIONS during this time of civil war. What sayest thou?

Let me help with several brethren statements that may aid you in this verse quagmire:

Joseph Smith

Appearances of troubles among the nations became more visible this season than they had previously been since the Church began her journey out of the wilderness. The ravages of the cholera were frightful in almost all the large cities of the globe. The plague broke out in India, while the United States, amid all her pomp and greatness, was threatened with immediate dissolution. The people of South Carolina, in convention assembled (in November), passed ordinances, declaring their state a free and independent nation; and appointed Thursday, the 31st day of January, 1833, as a day of humiliation and prayer, to implore Almighty God to vouchsafe His blessings, and restore liberty and happiness within their borders. President [Andrew] Jackson issued his proclamation against this rebellion, called out a force sufficient to quell it, and implored the blessings of God to assist the nation to extricate itself from the horrors of the approaching and solemn crisis.

On Christmas day, I received the following revelation and prophecy on war. [section 87, quoted.] (HC 1:301, December 25, 1832.)

Orson Pratt

Well, it seems as if the Lord, our God, is giving the nation a pretty thorough warning; He told this nation by revelation, twenty-eight years before it commenced, of the great American war. He told all about how the Southern States should be divided against the Northern States, and that in the course of the war many souls should be cut off. This has been fulfilled.

I went forth before my beard was gray, before my hair began to turn white, when I was a youth of nineteen, now I am fifty-eight, and from that time on I published these tidings, among the inhabitants of the earth. I carried forth the written revelation, foretelling this great contest, some twenty-eight years before the war commenced. This prophecy has been printed and circulated extensively in this and other nations and languages. It pointed out the place where it should commence in South Carolina. That which I declared over the New England States, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and many other parts in the East, when but a boy, came to pass twenty-eight years after the revelation was given.

When they were talking about a war commencing down here in Kansas, I told them that was not the place; I also told them that the revelation had designated South Carolina, "and," said I, "you have no need to think that the Kansas war is going to be the war that is to be so terribly destructive in its character and nature. No, it must commence at the place the Lord has designated by revelation."

What did they have to say to me? They thought it was a Mormon humbug, and laughed me to scorn, and they looked upon that revelation as they do upon all others that God has given in these latter days—as without divine authority. But behold and lo! in process of time it came to pass, again establishing the divinity of this work, and giving another proof that God is in this work, and is performing that which He spoke by the mouths of the ancient prophets, as recorded in the Book of Mormon before any Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was in existence. [Ether 2:8-10.] (JD, April 10, 1870, 13:135.)

Anthony W. Ivins

Nearly thirty years before it occurred, Joseph Smith predicted the great civil war which should occur in our own country. Well, the unbeliever says, "Any far-seeing man might have known that the Southern states would be divided against the Northern states and there would be war." But the Prophet states more than that. He told us just where the war would begin. He told us just what the result would be, and has the sequel not proven that that war began just as this revelation said it would begin, in South Carolina? We might have some reason to doubt or to question the inspiration of this prophet of the Lord, if during that war the Southern states had not called upon Great Britain for assistance. There might be some reason to doubt if in a single detail there had been a mistake, but it chanced that the Southern states did call upon Great Britain, and we were very nearly at war with that nation because of her participation in behalf of the Confederacy in that struggle. (CR, October 1914, pp. 94-95.)

Wilford Woodruff

Many persons have looked forward to the year 1860 with great interest; and this has been the case with many of the Latter-day Saints. What took place in that year? The dissolution of the American Union; for in that year the South took a stand against the North, and the North against the South, in fulfillment of a certain revelation given by Joseph Smith thirty years before it took place. Joseph Smith predicted that there would be a great rebellion in the United States—the South and the North warring against each other, and that this rebellion would commence in South Carolina, and would end in the death and misery of many souls and that in process of time—after many days, the slaves would rise against their masters, and that one nation would call for aid upon another, for war would be poured upon the whole earth. I wrote this revelation twenty-five years before the rebellion took place; others also wrote it, and it was published to the world before there was any prospect of the fearful events it predicted coming to pass.

Joseph Smith once said in a speech at Nauvoo, to a company, that whosoever lived to see the two sixes come together in '66 would see the American continent deluged in blood. That was many years before there was any prospect of a rebellion. The history of '60 and of '66 is before the world, and I do not wish to spend time in referring to it. (JD, January 1, 1871, 14:2.)

Charles A. Callis

Joseph Smith was an inspirer of souls. He said he did nothing but what the ancient prophets said he would do. He was a fulfiller of Bible prophecy. [isa. 29; Mal. 4:5; Micah 4:1-2; Acts 3:19-21; Rev. 14:6-7.] Consider some of the prophecies which he uttered: The exodus of the Saints to the Rocky Mountains, where they would become a great and a mighty people; his prediction of the Civil War, twenty-eight years before it occurred—and only a month before that bloody conflict, statesmen were saying—"'Peace, peace, there will be no war." But the God of heaven had spoken and desolation swept over the land. Oh, if those statesmen had only heeded the words, if they had only accepted the remedy, the solution which the great statesman-prophet, Joseph Smith, gave to them, a million lives would have been spared and eight billions of dollars in property would not have been destroyed! (CR, April 1934, p. 50.)

Orson Pratt

How is it that the American war has terminated without all or any of the nations being drawn into it? How is it that Great Britain has not been called by the Southern States to assist them against the Northern States? . . .

Answer: First, there is nothing in the revelation, alluded to, which either indicates or declares that all nations, or even one foreign nation should be drawn into the American war. Second, the Southern States did, by their representatives sent to England expressly for the purpose, call most earnestly upon Great Britain to assist them against the North! but Great Britain did not yield to their entreaties [in "being drawn into" the war] . (MS, August 18, 1866, 28:51.)

James E. Talmage

And then war shall be poured out upon all nations

A prominent instance of Latter-day prophecy, already fulfilled in part, is embodied in a revelation given through Joseph Smith, the Prophet on December 25, 1832. Consider this: [sec. 87:1-3, quoted,]

This prediction was treated as but baseless conjecture on the part of the Prophet; yet in due time the outbreak began through the defection of the State of South Carolina; the Southern States were arrayed against the Northern States; the assistance of Great Britain was sought; and from the time of the great Civil War in America preparations for war among the nations of the earth went forward, until in August, 1914, the storm broke, marking the beginning of what is recognized as the greatest armed conflict in human history—the World War.

This revelation was printed and published in 1851—a full decade before the outbreak of the Civil War; but it had been made of record twenty-eight years prior to that outbreak, and had been proclaimed by the missionaries of this Church throughout the interim.

Now as to the opinions expressed by men of learning before the outbreak of the World War. In his widely-read book, War and Waste, issued as late as 1913, David Starr Jordan expressed a conclusion to which many leading thinkers had come, that any war of major proportions, involving the great nations, was impossible. Note this brief extract:

"What shall we say of the Great War of Europe, ever threatening, ever impending, and which never comes? We shall say that it will never come. Humanly speaking, it is impossible.—The bankers will not find the money for such a fight, the industries of Europe will not maintain it, the statesmen cannot. So whatever the bluster or apparent provocation, it comes to the same thing in the end. There will be no general war until the masters direct the fighters to fight. The masters have much to gain, but vastly more to lose, and their signal will not be given."

The eminent author spoke to the same effect from the pulpit of the Great Tabernacle in Salt Lake City in the early part of 1914. But the World War came, with all its horrors and frightfulness; and now, twelve years after its close, the nations are staggering under the terrible burden of its cost in terms of lives and material wealth. (Sunday Night Talks by Radio, 1931, pp. 480-81.)

Only a few months before the outbreak of the terrible world conflict [World War I] . . . there stood here in this pulpit, where I now stand, one of the nation's great men, who set forth the results of his study and his investigations regarding certain problems; and who declared, as a result, that the conditions of the nations were today such as to make great international war impossible. There would possibly be, said he, little uprisings, such as then had already begun in Mexico, but a war between the great powers could not take place. He emphasized by reiteration. The financial affairs of the world, he averred, were such as to link and weld the nations together; and should emperors, czars, or kings declare war, the bankers would veto their decision. I spoke with the gentleman here in this stand, at the conclusion of his address, in substance to this effect: "I wish I could believe you, Doctor." "You don't?" "I do not." "What is wrong with my deductions?" "They may be logically drawn, but your premises are wrong. You have failed to take into account certain essential factors; you have discarded and ignored the predictions of the prophets; and on such a question as this I shall accept the word of the prophet rather than the conclusion of the academician, even though he be as distinguished as yourself, sir." I could not discuss the matter at length, but such I said. Within a short span of months after that time, several of the most powerful nations of the world were locked in the deathgrapple, which has been tightening with the passage of the years. So, as I read the words of the prophet that war should be poured out upon all nations, and that in this day and dispensation, in which we live, this the land of Zion should be the only land wherein safety might be found, I said to myself again: Yea, let God be true, though all the world's wise ones be liars. [Rom. 3:4.] (CR, October 1916, pp. 74-75.)

John A. Widtsoe

And then war shall be poured out upon all nations

The prophecy [section 87] went on to say that "the days will come that war will be poured out upon all nations." World Wars I and II, three quarters of a century and more later were complete fulfillments of this part of the prophecy.

This great and remarkable prophecy still stands as evidence of Joseph Smith's mighty prophetic power. (Joseph Smith, 1951, p. 279.)

[Traveler]

A lot of people have asked me about the last part of this verse, saying that Joseph Smith was a false prophet because war was not poured out upon ALL NATIONS during this time of civil war. What sayest thou?

The Civil War by many historians is considered to be the beginning of modern warfare. In like manner the Pharisees discounted Jesus as the Christ.

The Traveler

[Hemidakota]

Part of the D&C 87 - the war to remember in the near future that a few here may be firsthand witness of this sinful event, will be over 200-million strong. It will be known as the world's largest army ever to be assembled by the Anti-Christ and his confederations of League of Nations (10 confederations total will make up this league), from the north and from the far-east to make its last stand in the Israel as fore told. What will be left of this vast array army will be no more than 30-million souls (those who will repent and acknowledge their Savior). It will be a sad day for them in witnessing this event when the Lord comes and unleash His destroyers upon them in that valley.