I don't have time this week for a point for point comparison, but it needs to be done. I wasn't able to verify that this Section preceded the "translation" of Matthew 24 we now find in the Pearl of Great Price that we call Joseph Smith-Matthew. That chapter is an inspired stretch of corrective that restores lost meaning to the King James text, and one day--perhaps during a New Testament study year--I'll do a close comparative reading of both. But, based on Stephen Harper's contextual commentary, I don't believe it was complete and fresh on Joseph Smith's mind as he received Section 45.
If true, this makes Section 45 a truly one-off commentary, directly from the Savior Himself, on His own "Olivet" discourse given nearly 1800 years prior. During His last week, the Lord spoke to crowds and railed against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, but as He dropped the prophetic hint that He would be leaving Jerusalem desolate for a time, but would return in glory when they were ready to acknowledge Him, several of the disciples asked Him for further explanation. His reply is recorded not just in Matthew 24, but in all of the synoptic Gospels (Mark 13, and Luke 21). It details conditions of depravity, and prophecies destruction and calamities both shortly to befall the Apostles, and later to form our current "latter days."
The bleak woes pronounced in Matthew come with a solemn charge to the faithful: be ready! And this is precisely why I often fail to dwell on the specifics. It doesn't matter if I remember the moon turning to blood, the wars and rumors of wars, or the hearts of humankind waxing cold. My role is the same no matter if I memorize the prophecy or not: be ready! As one who tries to be ready, I'll no doubt have more awareness than those not trying--to them the signs will be markers of being too late--but the point is not to be the smartest analyst of the signs of the times, the point is to be the most faithful keeper of the charges we're given as His servants. That way it doesn't matter when He comes--He doesn't even know!--He'll find us doing what we were asked anyway.
But think, now, about what a chapter full of woes and lamentations might mean to the three chronologically separate peoples referenced in Section 45: the few faithful in Enoch's day who removed themselves from the wickedness around them and established Zion; the few faithful in Peter's day who converted and removed themselves from the wickedness around them to establish the Church; and the few faithful in Smith's day who converted and removed themselves from the wickedness around them to re-establish the Church. Especially to this latter group was newly centralized in Kirtland, not yet settled enough to push back on the rhetoric, but alarming enough to the local rumor mills because of the "weird" doctrines and even economic practices they live by to gin up significant opposition--soon to the point of armed mobs tarring and feathering leaders. What purpose do dire predictions serve for a group already anxious about the immediate future and all the suffering it seems likely they'll face? These people came for peace, and seem to be caught up in its opposite.
My hypothesis for all three groups, is that the prophecies ARE the now. The Lord isn't telling them essentially that it will get worse before it gets better. But He IS insisting that the peace He brings isn't like the world's peace. His is eternal. If they remain faithful, the prophecies that they get (and the outside doesn't) helps them know how to hold on just that little bit longer in patience and in faith. It gives them specifics on which they can hang their doubts about whether it's worth it, because they know that they were told in advance, we prepared, and now the they can set their eyes of faith so far beyond the sufferings that they have no effect on the now. Prophecies of doom promise deliverance, and they therefore deflate worry and enable purpose. Tribulation loses trepidation when the forewarned can contextualize them as merely the middle of the match--the final score is known, and we are already on the winning team.
The Saints could receive doomsaying with joy, because the doom is no longer their lot. There may be sufferings to wade through in this mortal period, but Eternal life starts as soon as you accept the Redeemer, not just after judgment day, so enduring to the end is merely a matter of holding on in the sure knowledge that your Savior saves from the effects of that too.
Let Him swallow up what you're going through. Yoke with Him, and let Him pull your burden for you.
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