history--chance or design

As a Latter-Day Saint, I worship God as omniscient and omnipotent. Without interfering in free agency, He influences and intervenes in the activities of the world to bring to pass His purposes. Since He knows history and the outcome of things before they happen , a causes certain spirits good and bad to be born in certain places. For example, because He knew that certain unscrupulous people would lose or steal the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon translation, he commanded Nephi to keep two sets of records, the small and large plates. When it came to light that the pages were gone, Joseph Smith was commanded to translate a different account of the same events from the small plates. Shaping the events of modern history, God frustrated the plans of evil men by planning far ahead for the event. The Book of Mormon has taken its place as an influential part of modern history, witnessing that God does not leave history to chance and does not destroy the agency of his children.

"And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;" Acts 17:26

Satan was cast out into the earth instead of somewhere else like Jupiter to tempt and torment man for the purpose of selection, dividing the wheat form the tares or the sheep from the goats. Those that choose evil unwittingly bring about the purposes of God. Take for instance the selling of Joseph into Egypt. One would at first think that a young man being sold into slavery was a horrendous calamity. But it was not. Because Joseph was the kind of man he was and because he was in Egypt at the right time, the nation of Israel was saved from extinction. And then there was Moses...his mother defied the law and saved her son. But she could not raise him only loving him from far off after weaning. Moses became a great man in Egypt before fleeing the country. While in hiding, he became a prophet. The miracles he performed in Pharaoh's court did not persuade the unrighteous ruler to righteousness but proved to the Israelite slaves that he was an evil man. When he led the children of Israel out of Egypt, these children of promise were preserved once again. Israel has had a great impact on history ancient and modern, which would not have occurred if God had not shaped them and preserved them as a peculiar people.

God exercises this power over history with discretion and godly wisdom. Making man's predictions foolish, He has foreknowledge of all events and sends prophecies about the most important ones. God has pointed out flaws in Marxist/Socialist philosophies of history and dialectic. Even though the Marxist factions of the world seem to gain success in precisely the way that Marx and Lenin predicted, Marxism will eventually fail.Those that seek power over their fellow men do not know and cannot predict the future, but God can as revealed in the Book of Mormon. God will preserve freedom and the Church. This does not mean we won't have to pay the awful price of standing by and letting evil overtake our precious gift of liberty, but God will save what is important to save. God will place babies in possessions to become the 'righteous remnant.'  God was responsible for placing the Founding Fathers at precisely that time and place in history to perform that marvelous work, He will do likewise to preserve His kingdom and Zion.

"And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed; for the Lord will not suffer that the blood of his saints, which shall be shed by them, shall always cry unto him from the ground for vengeance upon them and yet he avenge them not. Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be. Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up. For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning. Wherefore, I, Moroni, am commanded to write these things that evil may be done away, and that the time may come that Satan may have no power upon the hearts of the children of men, but that they may be persuaded to do good continually, that they may come unto the fountain of all righteousness and be saved." Ether 8:22-26

In an old song, the lyrics state that God is watching us from a distance, implying that He is a loving but hands off God. This is not so. While He will not interfere with the agency of man, he does intervene by manipulating the placement of infants. LDS believe that spirit lived with God before the foundation of the world, learning and making choices. Just as parents are quite aware of the faults of their children, God knows us intimately. We each come to earth with certain strengths and weaknesses that we can use for good or evil through our choices. God knows what the influences of parents and environment will have on each of us. He manipulates events in this way to preserve His kingdom.