This is Nephi’s vision of the ultimate triumph of God’s purposes and God’s people. God’s people will not be forever trodden down. They may spend a season as the earth’s servants and ministers, declaring repentance to a world which has little use for them, but ultimately even the kings of the earth will fall down and worship. The day will come when “every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess, while they hear the sound of the trump, saying: Fear God, and give glory to him who sitteth upon the throne, forever and ever; for the hour of his judgment is come.” (D&C 88: 104.)
Between the time of the Restoration and the time of this ultimate triumph, however, the Lord’s Saints are going to be much like their Lord. They will be those who man despises and nations abhor. In this respect, the Saints will find their lot akin to Joseph Smith’s, where the Lord inquired back to Joseph (after listening to his complaints):
“if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?” (D&C 122: 7–8.)
Saints are not made through triumph and popularity. The refinement required to become something useful to the Lord, requires a season in the furnace of affliction. We can’t get there otherwise. Nor can we relate to our Lord, or be worthy of Him until we have, in some measure, suffered like Him.
Intermediate failure is required, but we are promised ultimate triumph. How futile the effort to please the world will prove to be. Saints are not welcome here. They are always unwelcome strangers on this earth; always a “peculiar people” who fail to conform to prevailing cultural norms. We ought to accept the role and relax as we occupy it. Whenever God has a people on the earth, the world will find them unacceptable. It is our heritage. It is the inevitable consequence of living in conformity with heaven’s expectations. We cannot both please the world and please the Lord. It is this inevitable conflict which makes any attempt at good “public relations” ultimately a futile effort, and contrary to how it has been prophesied by His servants.