Today's Maxwell Quote

From All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (1980), 17:

If God did not know our predilections and our choices even before we made them, and had not planned accordingly, we might well have ended up having Joseph Smith born in Manchuria and the Book of Mormon plates buried in Belgium! A less than omniscient god would be more like the earnest but fumbling Caesars who dot the landscape of history than a living, all-knowing God.

Though His plans are known to Him, there is no premature exposure of the Lord's plans. This could bring unnecessary persecution upon an unready Lord's people. Further, a premature showing of His power and strength in support of His Saints could cut short the trial of our faith.

Where God has immersed His people for His purposes in larger events, we do not, therefore, always see secular history that confirms spiritual happenings. (See D&C 121:12.) For instance, there appears to be no conclusive secular record of Moses and the Exodus in Egyptian history. There is even some disagreement among scholars about which pharaoh was the pharaoh of the Exodus.

Human history has its limitations, but obscurity its usefulness.