Friday, July 17, 2015 (last updated Tuesday, October 13, 2015)
This morning as I read Mormon chapter 2,
I was amazed at the kind of person Mormon was. And with current events the way
they are, this topic has been on my mind.
At age 10, he was approached
by a prophet named Ammaron who observed that Mormon was a “sober child,” and
“quick to observe,” and that when he turned 24 to get the plates and make a
record of his people and the things he saw. How would you feel if, when you
were ten years old, that President Monson
came to you and asked you to go find certain plates that he would leave in a
mountain cave and record all of the doings of your civilization? Would you feel
maybe a little overwhelmed? Humbled? Wanting to prepare as much as possible? I
think if I were in his shoes, I would probably start making a record so that
later I wouldn’t have to rack my memory later of everything I’ve watched
unfold.
At age 11, he moved with his
family to “the land southward.” I’m sure this wasn’t an easy thing. No one
likes to move during their pre-teen and teen years. At least I didn’t.
At age 15, he is visited by
Christ and “knew of the goodness of Jesus.” Wow. It seems to be one of the
Lord’s patterns with many of his chosen prophets who prepare themselves—that
they are called from a young age. Jeremiah was about 8. Samuel was about 12.
Joseph Smith was 14. We have little recorded of Christ’s early years, but we do
know he was found in the temple at age 12. What were you up to at that age? Can
you imagine if Christ had visited you at age 15?
At age 16, he is appointed
as leader of the Nephite armies as a war was stirring with the Lamanites. He
first leads 42,000 Nephites in defense against 44,000 Lamanites. Would you be
ready to lead an army at age 16? How about an army of 42,000?
At age 24, he retrieves the
plates from the hill Shim where they are deposited and makes a record of all
that he has witnessed thus far.
In his late twenties or early
thirties, he leads another Nephite army of 30,000 against a Lamanite army
of 50,000.
He lived in constant turmoil.
He watched all of the disciples get taken away (Mormon 1:13, 16).
He watched miracles, healings, spiritual gifts, and the Holy Ghost
cease because of the iniquity, wickedness, and unbelief of the people (Mormon 1:13-14).
He was stopped by the Lord from preaching to the people because “they
had willfully rebelled against their God” and because of “the hardness of their
hearts” (Mormon
1:16, 17). How awful to have to sit back and watch a continual scene of
wickedness and not even be able to go out and proselyte!
He had to live in a land that was cursed insomuch that people couldn’t
keep their property and where Satan’s power was unleashed because of the
people’s wickedness (Mormon 1:17-19).
He witnessed wars, “blood and carnage,” and continual robbery, murders,
and dark arts. Mormon records that “a continual scene of wickedness and
abominations has been before mine eyes ever since I have been sufficient to
behold the ways of man” (Mormon 1, 2:8, 10, 18).
No wonder he was considered a sober child. How would you feel living in his
time? Reading the news every day, I feel that our eras are very similar. No
wonder latter-day prophets have said that the Book of Mormon was written for
our very day and time! President Ezra Taft Benson taught:
“The Book of Mormon was written for us today. God is the
author of the book. It is a record of a fallen people, compiled by inspired men
for our blessing today. Those people
never had the book—it was meant for us. Mormon, the ancient prophet after
whom the book is named, abridged centuries of records. God, who knows the end
from the beginning, told him what to include in his abridgment that we would
need for our day. Mormon turned the records over to his son Moroni, the last
recorder; and Moroni, writing over 1, 500 years ago but speaking to us today,
states: ‘Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not.
But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.’ (Mormon 8:35.) …
“As we read and teach, we are to liken the Book of Mormon
scriptures unto us ‘that it might be for our profit and learning.’ (1 Ne. 19:23.)” (Ensign, May 1975; emphasis added.)
President Benson spoke again of
the reason we have the Book of Mormon today in another general conference of
the church:
“Once we realize
how the Lord feels about this book, it should not surprise us that He also
gives us solemn warnings about how we receive it. After indicating that those
who receive the Book of Mormon with faith, working righteousness, will receive
a crown of eternal glory (D&C 20:14), the Lord follows with this warning: ‘But
those who harden their hearts in unbelief, and reject it, it shall turn to
their own condemnation’ (D&C 20:15).
“It is not just
that the Book of Mormon teaches us truth, though it indeed does that. It is not
just that the Book of Mormon bears testimony of Christ, though it indeed does
that, too. But there is something more. There is a power in the book which will
begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book.
You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to
avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path.
“…Brethren and
sisters, I implore you with all my heart that you consider with great solemnity
the importance of the Book of Mormon to you personally and to the Church collectively.”
(Ensign, November 1986.)
This great prophet was constantly teaching that we must flood the earth with the Book of Mormon:
“The time is long
overdue for a massive flooding of the earth with the Book of Mormon for the
many reasons which the Lord has given. In this age of the electronic media and
the mass distribution of the printed word, God will hold us accountable if we
do not now move the Book of Mormon in a monumental way.” (Ensign, November 1988.)
He served and loved the people
regardless of their evil ways.
He sought to bring them the word of God to help them repent and find
true happiness but was forbidden by the Lord (Mormon 1:16-17).
He fortifies and strengthens every city and gathers every people that
he brings his army to, protecting them as much as he can with his armies
against the Lamanites (Mormon 2:4-8, 20-21).
He magnified every calling and
assignment he received.
I am amazed at Mormon’s ability to be both detailed and broad. His great task was
to take the heaps
and heaps
of records that had been passed down from prophet to prophet (from 600 BC
to about 400 AD when he lived) and abridge them—to take those parts which are
most “plain and
precious” and compile them into one book. He was a great historian. He was
a great steward, as we see in his ability to take care of many cities, peoples,
armies, and records. I believe he had a natural talent or spiritual gift for
such, and was born, just as we all are, at the time on earth when God needed
him the most.
So why did it have to be so hard for Mormon?
And why is it so hard for all of us
who are striving
to do what is right?
That is largely a topic for another discussion, but suffice it to say:
“It is the way it is because
we must learn to be righteous in the dark.” (Brigham Young’s Office Journal, 28 January
1857.)
Spencer W. Kimball taught: “If
all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected
and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and
the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would
have to live by faith.” (Read entire lesson to learn more. I love the direct, no-nonsense way
President Kimball taught.)
C.S. Lewis clearly put it: “No man knows how bad he is till he has
tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not
know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to
resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength
of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the
strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who
gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would
have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very
little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We
never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight
it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is
also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only
complete realist.”
In
a General Conference address, Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the
Twelve said, “I appreciated the conference address President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
gave in 2010 about the famous marshmallow experiment conducted at Stanford
University in the 1960s. You will remember that four-year-olds were given a
single marshmallow. If they could wait for 15 or 20 minutes without eating it,
they would receive a second marshmallow. Videos have been produced showing the
contortions that many children used to avoid eating the marshmallow. Some did
not succeed.
“Last year the professor who
conducted the original experiment, Dr. Walter Mischel, wrote a book in which he
said the study grew in part out of his concerns about self-control and his own
addiction to smoking. He was particularly concerned after the U.S. Surgeon
General’s report of 1964 concluded that smoking caused lung cancer. After years
of study, one of his professional colleagues reported that ‘self-control is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it
gets. Avoiding something tempting once will help you develop the ability to
resist other temptations in the future.’
“A principle of eternal
progression is that exercising self-control and living righteously strengthen
our ability to resist temptation. This is true both in the spiritual realm and
in temporal matters” [emphasis added].
God respects our ability to choose so much that he will never force us
to do anything—we must choose for ourselves how close we want to be to Him and
to our Savior.
My husband is
currently reading an old favorite, The
Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. As I discussed this blog post
with him, he was reminded of a dialogue between two of the main characters. The
wrongfully imprisoned Dantes spoke to an old, wise man who is also imprisoned,
named Abbe Faria:
“I was reflecting upon the
enormous degree of intelligence and ability you must have employed to reach the
high perfection to which you have attained; - if you thus surpass all mankind
as a prisoner, what would you not have accomplished as a free man?”
Faria: “Possibly nothing at all; -
the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated
in a thousand follies; it needs trouble and difficulty and danger to hollow out
various mysteries and hidden mines of human intelligence.”
Cannons only fire because of intense
heat and pressure. We too find out our own true inner capabilities when under
great pressure, and Mormon was no different.
The prophet Lehi,
teaching one of his younger sons, spoke of the need we have for opposition so
that we can make choices:
“For it must needs be, that there is an
opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness,
righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither
holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.
“And now, my sons, I speak unto you
these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath
created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them
are, both things to at and things to be acted upon.
“And to bring about his eternal
purposes … Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for
himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was
enticed by the one or the other.” (2 Nephi 2:11, 14-16.)
But how did Mormon survive living among such sin and
darkness?
Where did he find hope? Where did he find solace?
How did he stay faithful when it seemed he was the
only one?
He focused on the Lord.
He found purpose in following the commandment the Lord gave him (Mormon 3:16) in
writing to us--the Gentiles, the house of Israel, and the ends of the earth—he
wrote to everyone! If I was him, I too would be saying, “Everyone and anyone,
listen! Hear what I’ve seen! Hear what is coming! Hear what I have to say and be prepared!” Thus, here are some things
he hoped we would do:
1)
He urged us to know that we will stand before
the judgment seat of Christ to be judged of our works whether good or evil (Mormon 3:20, 7:5, 8, 10).
4)
He urged us to repent, be baptized, and prepare
for that judgment day with God (Mormon 3:22; 7:5, 8, 10).
6)
He urged us to lay down our weapons of war,
delight not in shedding blood, and not to take them up again unless God
commands (Mormon
7:4).
7)
He urged us to read and believe in the veracity
of the Bible and the Book of Mormon (Mormon 7:8-9).
I know that Mormon was a real person. He lived and
did everything he said he did. The Book of Mormon is a true record. If we read
it with a humble heart, we can develop a close relationship with our Savior,
Jesus Christ, of whom this book testifies. That relationship will bring us more
joy, more peace, and more security than anything this world has to offer.
I hope some of my thoughts here have been inspiring.
I hope they have given you a little more courage to know that you can be righteous when it seems you are
the only one. You, like Mormon, can serve and love people regardless of their
sins, magnify every calling and assignment you receive, and focus your life on
the Lord.
