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.

Alma 59-61 - Capt. Moroni and Pahoran

There is not a better example in scripture of statesmanship than that of Pahoran’s response to a Capt. Moroni’s scathing letter. I’ve mentioned in a previous post where Moroni’s temper gets the better of him. Here it shines. Yet, it’s hard for me to fault him when you think of the context in which he wrote the letter.

It was a difficult time, and that’s a huge understatement. While there was some good news from Helaman about the war, there was considerable cause for concern too. Helaman’s small force had recaptured all the Nephite cities in that part of their nation. Yet his undermanned forces, were hurting for supplies, and ill fed. They held on through sheer faith.

Moroni just heard of the loss of the City of Nephihah. Additionally, his forces were understrength and underfed too. Without food and supplies, you don’t have an effective fighting force. Such were the conditions of Moroni’s army.

When you combine their dire straits with the shocking news of the Nephihah, you can begin to understand how concerned and fearful Moroni was. He knew from first hand experience, the government could send more men and supplies. That it wasn’t told him things were not well at home. Like us, Moroni knew the greatest threat to the Nephite society came from inside. Rot from inside would destroy them faster than an invading army could.

With these things weighing on his mind, he penned a letter to Pahoran excoriating him for betrayal and dereliction of duty. When I think of the craven, self-righteous and self-serving politicians we have today, there’s no way Moroni would survive writing such a letter to our current leaders. Not so with Pahoran. To his everlasting credit, he didn't take offense but saw the anxiety and fears in the letter and answered those.

I can’t help but think that in a quiet, personal place, Moroni’s prayer of thanksgiving to God for Pahoran’s reply was more than a little emotional. Such is the patriotism and faithfulness of Moroni to the cause of liberty and his people. Such was Pahoran's statesmanship. Would that we had such men as these in our military and government today.

Moroni 10 - Farewell

Reading this chapter brought back a lot of memories. So, more than a commentary, this entry is my personal testimony of the Book of Mormon.

On January 2, 1974, while I was a Junior in high school, I finished reading it all the way through for the first time. I remember kneeling at my bedside, with my (now well worn Book of Mormon) laying on my bed in front of me opened to Moroni 10:4-5. For several days leading up to this moment, I'd read with anticipation, wondering what kind of answer I'd get when I took "Moroni's Test."

No sooner than I'd started praying, I found out. Imagine the heat you feel in your face when you're majorly embarrassed and are blushing. Now, move that "heat" sensation to your chest and expand it so it fills your entire body. That's about what it was like for me. It went on for minutes. How many I don't know, but I lingered in the prayer because I didn't want it to end. That's about as close as I can come to the feeling, but even that doesn't do the experience justice.

Suffice it to say, it changed my life. The next day, I had a similar though less pronounced ( as in shorter duration ) experience witnessing to me about Harold B. Lee and Spencer W. Kimball. The question there was, "are they prophets?" The answer... a resounding, yes.

So, for me, the promise worked spectacularly well. Since that time 'till now, I've had a lifetime of other experiences with the Spirit that have strengthened my testimony and revitalized my memory of that evening. In many ways, it has proven again and again Joseph Smith's observation that a man can get closer to God through this book than any other.

FYI, I will start over with 1 Nephi and go through at least to Helaman to cover the entire book in this blog. After that... we'll just have to see. Thanks for coming along with me on this journey so far.

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.

Moroni 1-6 - Being Alone

Most of this is a series of short chapters which focus not on a narrative or sermon but on procedures in the church: how to bless the sacrament, how to set someone apart in a calling, how to conduct meetings, sort of thing. Included in them are the sacrament prayers for both the wine/water and bread. These more than likely played a role in the revelatory process which led to the sacrament prayers in D&C 20. My guess is  the Savior revealed these prayers when He appeared to the Nephites/Lamanites hundreds of years earlier.

Chapter one is different. When you think of the recent shootings in Oregon, Moroni’s declaration of his faith and that he fears for his life because he won’t deny Christ, hits with more force than normal. Here is a military officer, who by today’s standards would have been a division commander, a two-star general. This is a brave man who survived the slaughter of his entire command, so he was painfully aware of his mortality. Rather than denounce Christ, he did the only thing he could do in those circumstances, he ran and hid. Not out of cowardice, but out of an earnest desire to stay alive long enough to finish the job his father gave him. Once he had, I imagine he hid the plates and quit hiding so he could join the rest of his family… who were already dead.

I wonder if we fully appreciate the human cost wrapped up in the Book of Mormon? Chapter one gives just a taste… a hint.

Ether 12 - Jesus Christ

In some respects, Ether 12 is THE reason why that book is included in Book of Mormon. (In reality it’s loaded with great doctrine and truths, but Chapter 12 is one of the best in all scripture, ranking up there with Mosiah 4, Isaiah 53, D&C 76, D&C 84, and John 17.)

While Ether 12:27 is well known for its great promise of Christ’s grace in helping us be strong, a lesser known jewel, but no less valuable scripture is v. 39. “And then shall ye know that I have seen Jesus, and that he talked with me face to face, and that he told me in plain humility, even as a man telleth another in mine own language, concerning these things.”

This casts the rest of the chapter into its correct perspective. It is the transcript of a conversation between Jesus and Moroni. It is our great privilege to have it for our perusal and spiritual blessing.

As an aside, like so often happens when God speaks to man to answer a question, the answer often goes far afield from the original topic. The Jaredites never had Ether 12. Not even the Nephites… we are the recipients. For I suspect by that time in Moroni’s life, there was no one for him to share it with.

Like the rest of this most amazing book, it was written for our day. For us.

Ether 1 - The Power of Prayer: God

With the end of the Nephites' story, Moroni still had room on the plates, so he gave us the story of the Jaredites. I'm grateful for what he wrote, but I wish he'd thought differently about including the creation story. While we have an account in the Bible and two in the Pearl of Great Price, I would love to have read Ether's version. Sigh.

The standout message in this chapter though is the powerful story about prayer. I wonder though, why Jared didn't pray? Why did he feel the need to go to his brother instead? Yet he did and that's what we have. But here is the lesson...

Three times Jared asks his brother to cry to the Lord for help. Each time he does and every time, God answered. The first is to ask the Lord to not confound them and their families so they could still understand one another. Which makes me wonder, did they know it was going to happen by revelation? Or, was the process such, they could see it happening in real-time and wanted to avoid it? I don't know, but either scenario is plausible.

The second time was to extend that blessing not only to their families and kin but to their friends as well. Again the Lord granted their request.

The third time was to ask... "if you're going to drive us out of the land, where do you want us to go? And if so, could we go some place nice?"

In reply, God says, and I'm paraphrasing here, "You are going to be scattered, but since you asked, I will lead you to a choice land and there I will make you into a great people." And we'll see, that's exactly what happened.

My take away is this, it never hurts to ask God. You just have to be willing to do what He says when He answers, if you want His answers to continue coming.