Living Righteously in a Wicked World

While reading Moroni 7 this morning it occurred to me, Mormon, whom Moroni is quoting, is speaking in “Sacrament Meeting.” Moroni was old enough to take notes and remember this talk his father gave. I’ve written in previous times of the great lessons in the talk so I won’t restate them today. If you’d like to read them, here are links: Judging, and Faith, Hope and Charity.

What’s significant, is this is the time when Mormon wrote the Nephites were given over to awful depravity and wickedness. Mormon never mentions these good people and only hints at them when he recounts the awful losses at the Cumorah Massacre. So how could he speak in church in such a wicked society?

Mormon was the military commander of a nation at war. As such, he was exposed to the whole horror of a fallen people in a conflict which brought out their most wicked and vile aspects. Moroni was still at home and it's him who’s speaking now. His subjective experience of the Nephites was different. He saw and lived things which his father didn’t see. Moroni saw the righteous saints who lived in this world gone crazy with wickedness. That was the difference he needed to see this talk as important.

Because Moroni saw our day too, he felt impressed to use a lot of his precious remaining plate space to tell this story. Why? Because we would find ourselves living in a similar time. Think about it. We live in a world gone crazy where as Isaiah prophesied, “good would be called evil and evil good.” Just as those righteous few struggled to determine what was good and what wasn’t, we do too. Which is why this sermon, which touches on how to judge between good and evil, is so important.

Moroni 7a - Judging

The tenor of the the Book of Moroni is completely different from the rest of the Book of Mormon, for in it Moroni is not telling a story, he’s reciting some of his father’s sermons. It’s much more didactic. There is so much in Moroni chapter seven there’s no way cover it all in such an entry as this. There's more than enough material to fill a book.

For this reason, I’m splitting it in two with this entry on judging and another on faith, hope and charity. God has given us the ability, commanded us even, to choose, to make choices. The prerequisite to making them is determining which decision is the best one for us. That requires judging.

Moroni 7, is the clearest exposition in all scripture on God’s expectation and counsel to us about this great gift. It is: choices which bring us closer to God are good, anything else is bad. Actions, circumstances, events, the words of others, which bring us closer to God are of God, anything else is of the devil.

Moroni observes it is easy to judge. Christ counsels us elsewhere that the ruler by which we judge the world around us, is the one He will use on us. So judge because we must. Just do it wisely.

As an aside, the fact this is a sermon which Mormon gave, tells me there were at least a small number of Nephites who remained faithful to the end.

3 Nephi 14 - The Scariest Scripture... Ever

3 Nephi 14, is the Savior's continuation of the "Sermon on the Mount" which He gave to the Nephites. It's loaded with inspiring counsel and teachings, but standing above all the content of this passage is the dire promise of verse two: "For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

This theme shows up elsewhere in the scriptures: Mosiah 4:17 (the warning to not judge the poor and using that to withhold your help), and Matt 18:24-35, where we should forgive all men of their trespasses against us.

There is a certain tension between this verse and Moroni 7:15, about judging good from evil. The simple act of choosing to do good requires judging what is good or evil. So, how to deal with the warning? When you must decide if something is good or evil, Moroni's counsel is indispensable. It's when you interact with another human being, the warning of this verse comes into play.


I've always tried to reconcile the tension by helping others based upon need. Determination of worthiness should never be an issue in these cases. It's how God treats me. Since I'd like that to continue and because He's not afraid to apply tough love on me when I get full of myself, I don't want to rock that boat.