Mormon 8:8-41
8:8-13 - Now that all the Nephites are dead, the Lamanites “are at war one with another; and the whole face of this land is one continual round of murder and bloodshed; and no one knoweth the end of the war.” Whenever we go to war thinking that we are going to destroy the problem, that never happens, because the problem never was the people that you are trying to wipe out, the problem is always within ourselves. I’m a firm believer that “if they’ll do it with you, they’ll do it to you.” That used to be applied to cheating for me, like if a man will cheat on his wife with you, then he’ll cheat on you with someone else, but I’ve realized that it’s like that with every situation and not just bad ones. For instance, it always astounds me in the movies that drug dealers are devastated when it is their turn to be murdered, when that’s what they’ve been doing all along. But also, if you and a friend do service together, then if they’ll do service with you, then they’ll do service to you, a little bit more positive perspective on that, but I really believe that it’s true, all the way around, the loyalties that are held among people, especially when it comes to committing crimes and murders and all that are pretty much nonexistent. Now that they’ve all hunted Nephites together, and the “problem” is gone, they aren’t saying “wow, glad that’s over, let’s go back to our farms now,” no, they have the taste for blood, they fiend for it, and so they start killing each other. Moroni says that the wickedness among the people is so great that “there are none that do know the true God save it be the disciples of Jesus, who did tarry in the land until the wickedness of the people was so great that the Lord would not suffer them to remain with the people; and whether they be upon the face of the land no man knoweth. But behold, my father and I have seen them, and they have ministered unto us.” I’ve wondered many times what the three Nephites are doing today, where are they? What have they seen? It’s just interesting that Moroni and Mormon keep making sure that they are still in the record, reminding us that they are still there. Interestingly, Moroni continues, “And whoso receiveth this record, and shall not condemn it because of the imperfections which are in it, the same shall know of greater things than these.” My question is what are the “these” that he is referring to? Is it the knowledge of the 3 Nephites? Is it what’s written on the plates? Whatever he’s referring to, he’s telling us that we can have great knowledge if we receive the record and “not condemn it.” I’ve found that to be true in my life, as I’ve studied the Book of Mormon I’ve learned things that I never even imagined, I’ve grown in ways I didn’t know that I could, the Lord has definitely made known “greater things than these,” to me as I’ve embraced His word, it’s honestly been a miracle. HN comments on people’s lack of reception of the Book of Mormon saying, “Then he asks us to receive this record with an open mind, and that’s what people don’t do. They condemn it. All they have to do it hear the words angel and gold plates, and the issue is settled. There’s no further discussion necessary. So nobody reads the Book of Mormon, including those who criticize it, because you don’t have to go any further. It would be a waste of time talking about angels and things like that (they feel)- even the great Eduard Meyer, who was absolutely electrified by the (message) and couldn’t leave Joseph Smith alone. He decided it was the greatest thing ever but would not read the Book of Mormon. He thought of various excuses- it was written in crude English and all this sort of thing. Once he said, the minute it says the word angel, that’s hallucination and that settles it, forgetting that the Book of Mormon is not a hallucination.” I hadn’t considered this but yeah, it’s true, most antagonists of the Book of Mormon haven’t even read it.
8:14-18 - Now Moroni goes into the conditions of the bringing forth of the Book of Mormon, “whoso shall bring it to light, him will the Lord bless. For none can have power to bring it to light save it be given him of God; for God wills that it shall be done with an eye single to his glory, or the welfare of the ancient and long dispersed covenant people of the Lord. And blessed be he that shall bring this thing to light; for it shall be brought out of darkness unto light, according to the word of God; yea, it shall be brought out of the earth, and it shall shine forth out of darkness, and come unto the knowledge of the people; and it shall be done by the power of God.” This demonstrates to me that Moroni not only knew about the explicit purpose of the Book of Mormon, but also the details about it. There’s a primary song that really bugs me about this, it’s called “The Golden Plates,” and the line that rubs me the wrong way says, “The golden plates lay hidden deep in the mountain side, until God found one faithful, in whom he could confide.” This gives the wrong impression entirely, it implies that the gospel could have been brought back to the earth sooner except there were no righteous people left on earth, and clearly that’s not the case as we have hundreds of examples of those who courageously furthered the work, Tinsdale, Gutenberg, Martin Luther, lots of people who were righteous, but the time wasn’t ready yet. It also implies that God was just waiting for the “right” person to come along, searching for him, but when in fact, Joseph Smith was foreordained to be the prophet of the restoration, and it was always going to be him. The IM teaches, “Mormon 8:16 refers to the Prophet Joseph Smith, who was chosen to bring the Book of Mormon to the world. Many of the ancient prophets were aware of Joseph Smith and prayed for his success to translate and publish the gold plates, thus fulfilling the purposes of God. President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, spoke of the role that Joseph Smith plated in bringing forth the Book of Mormon: ‘The truth is, simply, that he was a prophet of God- nothing more and not one whit less! The scriptures did not come so much from Joseph Smith as they did through him. He was a conduit through which the revelations were given… The Prophet Joseph Smith was an unschooled farm boy. To read some of his early letters in the original shows him to be somewhat unpolished in spelling and grammar and in expression. That the revelations came through him in any form of literary refinement is nothing short of a miracle.” It’s interesting because I just talked to my kids about this last week; we were talking about the differences between our religion and other people’s and their insight in quite incredible. I said that a main difference is that we have the Book of Mormon and other churches don’t, which sparked the conversation about why the Book of Mormon sets us apart. I basically told them, “There’s only two ways to explain the existence of the Book of Mormon. The first way is to believe that God himself commanded many ancient prophets to write his words, and published it in our day with his power, or we have to believe that Joseph Smith was so smart at 23 years old that he could write in many different writing styles using references to ancient cultures that weren’t even discovered when he was writing this.” Basically, that’s what it comes down to, after reading and studying the Book of Mormon, it seems almost impossible to me that Joseph Smith could have written the Book of Mormon, especially after listening to so much HN. It was also interesting to me that it says that the ancient prophets prayed for Joseph Smith’s success, I thought “why would they pray for his success? Would they be at all jealous that he got to be the prophet of the last dispensation?” Then I thought, “no they themselves bore the burden of prophetship, and by the time you get to that point spiritually, it’s not a crown of privilege, it’s a burden of responsibility, the Lord has his holy prophets bear the mantle like King Benjamin, not King Noah. The ancient prophets knew the greatness of their burden, and I’m sure that they knew that it would be even greater for Joseph Smith as the first in this dispensation, so instead of being jealous, they were probably heart sick for him, knowing how difficult his task would have been, that’s why they prayed for him, like verse 25 talks about.
8:19-32 - Moroni talks quite a bit about judgment here, from judging the Book of Mormon, to judging the work of God to “the same that judgeth rashly shall be judged rashly again; for according to his works shall his wages be; therefore, he that smiteth shall be smitten again, of the Lord. Behold what the scripture says- man shall not smite, neither shall he judge; for judgment is mind, saith the Lord, and vengeance is mine also, and I will repay.” This goes back to the concept that HN was talking about from our lesson a few days ago, the Nephites were so intent on getting revenge that it ended up being their downfall, because they wanted blood. And what I find the most interesting about this is that usually when people think about revenge and the Lord’s stance of “vengeance is mine also, and I will repay,” most always go directly into thinking that the Lord is going to punish their enemies, but sometimes we are the ones at fault, kind of like “cast the beam out of thine own eye so you can clearly see the mote in thy brother’s eye.” We are not perfect, we have hurt people, all of us have had negative effects on others, so we should be hopeful that the Lord is merciful to us concerning our own imperfections, which also means that we need to be merciful concerning the imperfections of others, easier said than done, I know. The IM quotes Elder Dallin H. Oaks as teaching, “I speak of the final judgment. This is that future occasion in which all of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to be judged according to our works… I believe that the scriptural command to ‘judge not’ refers most clearly to this final judgment, as in the Book of Mormon declaration that ‘man shall not… judge; for judgment is mine, saith the Lord.’” When I was younger, I was terrified that I wouldn’t be accepted at the judgment day regardless of what I did, and so I took this saying very literally, I made a conscious effect to not judge people so that at the last judgment I wouldn’t be judged too harshly. It was and still is a work in progress, I’m not perfect at it, but I’ve really put an effort into minding my own business and helping when I can. There’s a lot more that comes into what the conditions will be in the time when the Book of Mormon will come forth, “it shall come in a day when it shall be said that miracles are done away; and it shall come even as if one should speak from the dead. And it shall come in a day when the blood of saints shall cry unto the Lord, because of secret combinations and the works of darkness. Yea, it shall come in a day when the power of God shall be denied, and churches become defiled and be lifted up in the pride of their hearts; yea, even in a day when leaders of churches and teachers shall rise in the pride of their hearts, even to the envying of them who belong to their churches. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be heard of fired, and tempests, and vapors of smoke in foreign lands; And there shall also be heard of wars, and rumors of wars, and earthquakes in divers places. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth; there shall be murders, and robbing, and lying, and deceivings, and whoredoms, and all manner of abominations; when there shall be many who will say, Do this, or do that, and it mattereth not, for the Lord will uphold such at the last day… Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins.” If that doesn’t sound like our day then I don’t know what does. I thought that the phrase “when the blood of the saints shall cry unto the Lord, because of secret combinations and the works of darkness,” was interesting. To me this implies that these days, the secret combinations and the works of darkness are causing the saints of God to die, and short of the open murdering of Christians, and individual atrocities, I didn’t see where the vastness of the numbers came from that would warrant mention in the scriptures. But then I remembered a friend who’s mom died in her twenties from cancer, and I think that the founds that we eat and the environment in which we live is dangerous to our bodies, so I can understand that phrase if it refers to these entities making the saints sick, in fact I’m reminded of when I worked in Utah and in someone came in with cancer, one of the first questions we asked was “are you a down winder?” Meaning that in the decades previously, there was a lot of nuclear testing done in southern Utah, and the people who lived “down wind” from those testing sites got cancer early and often, and historically who lived in southern Utah? Latter-day saints, so I can definitely understand it in that context. Another context in which it makes sense is what I said earlier, the mass murder of Christians like is happening in Iraq and Syria right now. I know that they are not necessarily “Latter-day Saints,” but being murdered for their belief in Jesus Christ, because as far as I know, they are given the option to convert to Islam and are only murdered if they refuse, so they remain true to their belief in Christ and are murdered for it, that makes them a saint in my book. The IM quotes Elder Joe J. Christensen as teaching, “We all hear and read a great deal these days about our polluted physical environment- acid rain, smog, toxic wastes. But… there is another kind of pollution that is much more dangerous- the moral and spiritual. In a recent conference, Elder Boyd K. Packer said, ‘As we test the moral environment, we find the pollution index is spiraling upward.’ The Apostle Paul foresaw ‘that in the last days perilous times shall come.’ And speaking of the last days, the prophet Moroni declared, ‘Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth.’ Sadly, the effects of this great pollution are perhaps most evident in the mass media, films, television, and popular music. Of this, Senator Robert D. Byrd said, ‘If we in this nation continues to sow the images of murder, violence, drug abuse,… perversion, (and) pornography… before the eyes of millions of children, year and year and day after day, we should not be surprised if the foundations of our society rot away as if from leprosy.’.. In most areas of the mass media there seems to be a declaration of war against almost everything the majority treasures most: the family, religion, and patriotism. Marriage is degraded, while premarital and extramarital relations are encouraged and glamorized. Profanity and the foulest of vulgar gutter language bombard the ears of all who listen… Human life itself is trivialized by the constant barrage of violence and killings.” Very interesting, and oh so very true. There’s a really catchy song on the radio that my kids love and the first line of the song is, “She has the body of an hourglass, but I’ll give it to you all the time.” The first time I heard this, I was like “wait, what?” Once I figured it out, I thought, “I would never tell my daughter, ‘her body might look better than yours, but if you have sex with whoever wants you then they will like you.’” If I wouldn’t tell my daughter that, why would I let some song on the radio tell my daughter than, it made me furious, and the whole entertainment industry is like that. I mean, we can always take the stance of complete disengagement, where we don’t listen to anything on the radio, don’t watch movies or tv, don’t go on the internet, we can totally seclude ourselves to the point that we don’t interact with anything vile from the world, and that would mean not even passing a billboard on the street, but that’s not very reasonable in this world in which we live, and like we talked about earlier, even HN said that he can get overwhelmed being overloaded with spiritual material all the time, even he has to take a break and find a balance sometimes. The solution is to find a middle ground, a way to be in the world but not of the world.
8:33-41 – Moroni condemns us in our day heavily, saying, “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.” If I was able to look forward and see people in a much future generation, what would I tell them so that they can be happy? Probably the same things that Moroni is telling us here. There is a significant amount of condemnation, and honestly I don’t really want to go into it because I’m tired and I feel like I’m trying personally very hard to be a good person. But seeing our day definitely was an advantage to Moroni, as far as what he needed to write, and the IM quotes President Ezra Taft Benson as teaching, “We must make the Book of Mormon a center focus of study (because) it was written for our day. The Nephites never had the book; neither did the Lamanites of ancient times. It was meant for us. Mormon wrote near the end of the Nephite civilization. Under the inspiration of God, who sees all things from the beginning, he abridged centuries of records, choosing the stories, speeches, and events that would be most helpful to us. Each of the major writers of the Book of Mormon testified that he wrote for future generations…Mormon himself said, ‘Yea, I speak unto you, ye remnant of the house of Israel.’ And Moroni, the last of the inspired writers, actually saw our day and time… If they saw our day and chose those things which would be of greatest worth to us, is not that how we should study the Book of Mormon? We should constantly ask ourselves, ‘Why did the Lord inspire Mormon (or Moroni or Alma) to include that in his record? What lesson can I learn from that to help me live in this day and age? And there is example after example of how that question will be answered.” Very good idea, and a different way of studying the Book of Mormon, asking “why did Mormon include this? What lesson can I learn from this that will help me in my life?” I know that I’ve done this a few times and it’s always been profitable to me.
8:14-18 - Now Moroni goes into the conditions of the bringing forth of the Book of Mormon, “whoso shall bring it to light, him will the Lord bless. For none can have power to bring it to light save it be given him of God; for God wills that it shall be done with an eye single to his glory, or the welfare of the ancient and long dispersed covenant people of the Lord. And blessed be he that shall bring this thing to light; for it shall be brought out of darkness unto light, according to the word of God; yea, it shall be brought out of the earth, and it shall shine forth out of darkness, and come unto the knowledge of the people; and it shall be done by the power of God.” This demonstrates to me that Moroni not only knew about the explicit purpose of the Book of Mormon, but also the details about it. There’s a primary song that really bugs me about this, it’s called “The Golden Plates,” and the line that rubs me the wrong way says, “The golden plates lay hidden deep in the mountain side, until God found one faithful, in whom he could confide.” This gives the wrong impression entirely, it implies that the gospel could have been brought back to the earth sooner except there were no righteous people left on earth, and clearly that’s not the case as we have hundreds of examples of those who courageously furthered the work, Tinsdale, Gutenberg, Martin Luther, lots of people who were righteous, but the time wasn’t ready yet. It also implies that God was just waiting for the “right” person to come along, searching for him, but when in fact, Joseph Smith was foreordained to be the prophet of the restoration, and it was always going to be him. The IM teaches, “Mormon 8:16 refers to the Prophet Joseph Smith, who was chosen to bring the Book of Mormon to the world. Many of the ancient prophets were aware of Joseph Smith and prayed for his success to translate and publish the gold plates, thus fulfilling the purposes of God. President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, spoke of the role that Joseph Smith plated in bringing forth the Book of Mormon: ‘The truth is, simply, that he was a prophet of God- nothing more and not one whit less! The scriptures did not come so much from Joseph Smith as they did through him. He was a conduit through which the revelations were given… The Prophet Joseph Smith was an unschooled farm boy. To read some of his early letters in the original shows him to be somewhat unpolished in spelling and grammar and in expression. That the revelations came through him in any form of literary refinement is nothing short of a miracle.” It’s interesting because I just talked to my kids about this last week; we were talking about the differences between our religion and other people’s and their insight in quite incredible. I said that a main difference is that we have the Book of Mormon and other churches don’t, which sparked the conversation about why the Book of Mormon sets us apart. I basically told them, “There’s only two ways to explain the existence of the Book of Mormon. The first way is to believe that God himself commanded many ancient prophets to write his words, and published it in our day with his power, or we have to believe that Joseph Smith was so smart at 23 years old that he could write in many different writing styles using references to ancient cultures that weren’t even discovered when he was writing this.” Basically, that’s what it comes down to, after reading and studying the Book of Mormon, it seems almost impossible to me that Joseph Smith could have written the Book of Mormon, especially after listening to so much HN. It was also interesting to me that it says that the ancient prophets prayed for Joseph Smith’s success, I thought “why would they pray for his success? Would they be at all jealous that he got to be the prophet of the last dispensation?” Then I thought, “no they themselves bore the burden of prophetship, and by the time you get to that point spiritually, it’s not a crown of privilege, it’s a burden of responsibility, the Lord has his holy prophets bear the mantle like King Benjamin, not King Noah. The ancient prophets knew the greatness of their burden, and I’m sure that they knew that it would be even greater for Joseph Smith as the first in this dispensation, so instead of being jealous, they were probably heart sick for him, knowing how difficult his task would have been, that’s why they prayed for him, like verse 25 talks about.
8:19-32 - Moroni talks quite a bit about judgment here, from judging the Book of Mormon, to judging the work of God to “the same that judgeth rashly shall be judged rashly again; for according to his works shall his wages be; therefore, he that smiteth shall be smitten again, of the Lord. Behold what the scripture says- man shall not smite, neither shall he judge; for judgment is mind, saith the Lord, and vengeance is mine also, and I will repay.” This goes back to the concept that HN was talking about from our lesson a few days ago, the Nephites were so intent on getting revenge that it ended up being their downfall, because they wanted blood. And what I find the most interesting about this is that usually when people think about revenge and the Lord’s stance of “vengeance is mine also, and I will repay,” most always go directly into thinking that the Lord is going to punish their enemies, but sometimes we are the ones at fault, kind of like “cast the beam out of thine own eye so you can clearly see the mote in thy brother’s eye.” We are not perfect, we have hurt people, all of us have had negative effects on others, so we should be hopeful that the Lord is merciful to us concerning our own imperfections, which also means that we need to be merciful concerning the imperfections of others, easier said than done, I know. The IM quotes Elder Dallin H. Oaks as teaching, “I speak of the final judgment. This is that future occasion in which all of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to be judged according to our works… I believe that the scriptural command to ‘judge not’ refers most clearly to this final judgment, as in the Book of Mormon declaration that ‘man shall not… judge; for judgment is mine, saith the Lord.’” When I was younger, I was terrified that I wouldn’t be accepted at the judgment day regardless of what I did, and so I took this saying very literally, I made a conscious effect to not judge people so that at the last judgment I wouldn’t be judged too harshly. It was and still is a work in progress, I’m not perfect at it, but I’ve really put an effort into minding my own business and helping when I can. There’s a lot more that comes into what the conditions will be in the time when the Book of Mormon will come forth, “it shall come in a day when it shall be said that miracles are done away; and it shall come even as if one should speak from the dead. And it shall come in a day when the blood of saints shall cry unto the Lord, because of secret combinations and the works of darkness. Yea, it shall come in a day when the power of God shall be denied, and churches become defiled and be lifted up in the pride of their hearts; yea, even in a day when leaders of churches and teachers shall rise in the pride of their hearts, even to the envying of them who belong to their churches. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be heard of fired, and tempests, and vapors of smoke in foreign lands; And there shall also be heard of wars, and rumors of wars, and earthquakes in divers places. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth; there shall be murders, and robbing, and lying, and deceivings, and whoredoms, and all manner of abominations; when there shall be many who will say, Do this, or do that, and it mattereth not, for the Lord will uphold such at the last day… Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins.” If that doesn’t sound like our day then I don’t know what does. I thought that the phrase “when the blood of the saints shall cry unto the Lord, because of secret combinations and the works of darkness,” was interesting. To me this implies that these days, the secret combinations and the works of darkness are causing the saints of God to die, and short of the open murdering of Christians, and individual atrocities, I didn’t see where the vastness of the numbers came from that would warrant mention in the scriptures. But then I remembered a friend who’s mom died in her twenties from cancer, and I think that the founds that we eat and the environment in which we live is dangerous to our bodies, so I can understand that phrase if it refers to these entities making the saints sick, in fact I’m reminded of when I worked in Utah and in someone came in with cancer, one of the first questions we asked was “are you a down winder?” Meaning that in the decades previously, there was a lot of nuclear testing done in southern Utah, and the people who lived “down wind” from those testing sites got cancer early and often, and historically who lived in southern Utah? Latter-day saints, so I can definitely understand it in that context. Another context in which it makes sense is what I said earlier, the mass murder of Christians like is happening in Iraq and Syria right now. I know that they are not necessarily “Latter-day Saints,” but being murdered for their belief in Jesus Christ, because as far as I know, they are given the option to convert to Islam and are only murdered if they refuse, so they remain true to their belief in Christ and are murdered for it, that makes them a saint in my book. The IM quotes Elder Joe J. Christensen as teaching, “We all hear and read a great deal these days about our polluted physical environment- acid rain, smog, toxic wastes. But… there is another kind of pollution that is much more dangerous- the moral and spiritual. In a recent conference, Elder Boyd K. Packer said, ‘As we test the moral environment, we find the pollution index is spiraling upward.’ The Apostle Paul foresaw ‘that in the last days perilous times shall come.’ And speaking of the last days, the prophet Moroni declared, ‘Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth.’ Sadly, the effects of this great pollution are perhaps most evident in the mass media, films, television, and popular music. Of this, Senator Robert D. Byrd said, ‘If we in this nation continues to sow the images of murder, violence, drug abuse,… perversion, (and) pornography… before the eyes of millions of children, year and year and day after day, we should not be surprised if the foundations of our society rot away as if from leprosy.’.. In most areas of the mass media there seems to be a declaration of war against almost everything the majority treasures most: the family, religion, and patriotism. Marriage is degraded, while premarital and extramarital relations are encouraged and glamorized. Profanity and the foulest of vulgar gutter language bombard the ears of all who listen… Human life itself is trivialized by the constant barrage of violence and killings.” Very interesting, and oh so very true. There’s a really catchy song on the radio that my kids love and the first line of the song is, “She has the body of an hourglass, but I’ll give it to you all the time.” The first time I heard this, I was like “wait, what?” Once I figured it out, I thought, “I would never tell my daughter, ‘her body might look better than yours, but if you have sex with whoever wants you then they will like you.’” If I wouldn’t tell my daughter that, why would I let some song on the radio tell my daughter than, it made me furious, and the whole entertainment industry is like that. I mean, we can always take the stance of complete disengagement, where we don’t listen to anything on the radio, don’t watch movies or tv, don’t go on the internet, we can totally seclude ourselves to the point that we don’t interact with anything vile from the world, and that would mean not even passing a billboard on the street, but that’s not very reasonable in this world in which we live, and like we talked about earlier, even HN said that he can get overwhelmed being overloaded with spiritual material all the time, even he has to take a break and find a balance sometimes. The solution is to find a middle ground, a way to be in the world but not of the world.
8:33-41 – Moroni condemns us in our day heavily, saying, “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.” If I was able to look forward and see people in a much future generation, what would I tell them so that they can be happy? Probably the same things that Moroni is telling us here. There is a significant amount of condemnation, and honestly I don’t really want to go into it because I’m tired and I feel like I’m trying personally very hard to be a good person. But seeing our day definitely was an advantage to Moroni, as far as what he needed to write, and the IM quotes President Ezra Taft Benson as teaching, “We must make the Book of Mormon a center focus of study (because) it was written for our day. The Nephites never had the book; neither did the Lamanites of ancient times. It was meant for us. Mormon wrote near the end of the Nephite civilization. Under the inspiration of God, who sees all things from the beginning, he abridged centuries of records, choosing the stories, speeches, and events that would be most helpful to us. Each of the major writers of the Book of Mormon testified that he wrote for future generations…Mormon himself said, ‘Yea, I speak unto you, ye remnant of the house of Israel.’ And Moroni, the last of the inspired writers, actually saw our day and time… If they saw our day and chose those things which would be of greatest worth to us, is not that how we should study the Book of Mormon? We should constantly ask ourselves, ‘Why did the Lord inspire Mormon (or Moroni or Alma) to include that in his record? What lesson can I learn from that to help me live in this day and age? And there is example after example of how that question will be answered.” Very good idea, and a different way of studying the Book of Mormon, asking “why did Mormon include this? What lesson can I learn from this that will help me in my life?” I know that I’ve done this a few times and it’s always been profitable to me.
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