Mormon 9:28-37
9:28 - Verse 28 brings out a few different concepts that I think are interesting, first is the concept of the next life, “be wise in the days of your probation.” There is an implied “before and after” this life in this statement with “probation.” The next is the importance of this life, which is also an interesting concept for me because from different sources that I’ve read, the capacity for learning is largely increased in the next life, but the ability to repent is largely decreased, which seems like contrary statements to me, I don’t understand how both states of being can coexist? If repentance was really that easy in the next life, then obedience and spiritual growth wouldn’t be very important in this life, but Moroni indicates the importance of spiritual growth in this life by counseling us to “be wise.” I guess another way to look at it is that the premortal life and the next life we were and will be without our physical bodies, so this will be our first time, our first “test” with our bodies to see if we will be obedient. This test with our bodies and the physical temptations that come with it are the “lusts” that Moroni is referring to. We are learning to master the use of our physical bodies, and learning to govern ourselves by our spirits so that we “ask not, that ye may consume it on your lusts, but ask with a firmness unshaken, that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and living God.” In the October 1980 general conference talk entitled “President Kimball Speaks Out on Morality,” President Spencer W. Kimball taught, “’God made me that way,’ some say, as they rationalize and excuse themselves for their perversions. ‘I can’t help it,’ they add. This is blasphemy. Is man not made in the image of God, and does he think God to be ‘that way’? Man is responsible for his own sins. It is possible that he may rationalize and excuse himself until the groove is so deep he cannot get out without great difficulty, but this he can do. Temptations come to all people. The different between the reprobate and the worthy person is generally that one yielded and the other resisted. It is true that one’s background may make the decision and accomplishment easier or more difficult, but if one is mentally alert, he can still control his future. That is the gospel message- personal responsibility.” Interestingly, I listened today to an April 2009 Ensign article called, “Fasting with Power,” and this goes right along with the concept of the physical submitting to the spiritual. In the article Elder Shayne M. Bowen taught, “A person who can disciple himself to fast on a regular basis in the way God has designed can resist every temptation, overcome any burden, and become free from any yoke… An omniscient Father in Heaven has provided ‘every needful thing’ so that His children can call upon Him with confidence and feel His love. He provided tools to allow us to overcome the temptations that beset ‘the natural man.’ One of the most powerful and often-neglected tools that God has given us is the law of the fast… Fasting requires discipline. Fasting helps us accomplish one of the vital purposes of life: developing self-mastery... Whenever hunger pains come, use them as a reminder to pray again about the purpose of your fast.” Moroni tells us that prayer is the way in which we can overcome temptation, “but ask with a firmness unshaken, that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and living God.” It’s not just fasting that is the way to go here, because you can’t fast all the time, you’ll starve to death, but you can pray all the time, in fact we are commanded to. Like the article suggests, whenever we feel hunger pains we can use it as a reminder to pray, likewise, when we feel the pain of temptation or heartache or regret or sorrow or despair, we can use that as a reminder to pray so that slowly and surely we can overcome our natural man and “be wise in the days of (our) probation.” Next comes another reminder that Moroni is talking about personal spirituality as he counsels “See that ye are not baptized unworthily; see that ye partake not of that sacrament of Christ unworthily; but see that ye do all things in worthiness.” Worthiness is a personal issue, I mean, there’s repentance with the Bishop and others as needed, but for the most part, worthiness is between us and God.
9:30-31 - Moroni knows that future generations will have the Book of Mormon and he asks “condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.” Isn’t that what most people want for others, especially their children? For others to learn from our mistakes so that they need not suffer? I am very open with my children about my mistakes, the terrible things that I’ve done, they don’t know everything but they know quite a bit and hopefully when the time comes for them to make their choices, they will remember the suffering that I endured because of my poor choices and ultimately the suffering that THEY endured because of my poor choices and choose to follow Jesus instead. There’s another sentiment here, one of humility. We know that Moroni was a great prophet and warrior, but in the April 2001 general conference address entitled “To Walk Humbly with Thy God, “Elder Marlin K. Jensen taught, “I am often deeply moved by evidences of humility in the scriptures. Consider John the Baptist declaring of the Savior, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’ Think of Moroni pleading with us not to condemn him because of his imperfections, but to thank God that He made Moroni’s imperfections manifest to that we can learn to be wise than Moroni was. Nor should we forget the exclamation of Moses, who, after experiencing the greatness of God and His creations, acknowledged that ‘for this cause I know that man is nothing, which think I never had supposed.’ Is not Moses’ recognition of our complete dependence on God the beginning of true humility? I resonate to the English author John Ruskin’s memorable statement that ‘the first test of a truly great man is his humility.’ He continued: ‘I do not mean, by humility, doubt of his own power… (But really) great men… have a curious… feeling that… greatness is not in them, but through them… And they see something Divine… in every other man…, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly, merciful.” I really liked that, great scriptural examples of humility, and a really good insight there to how people can do big important things and still not be overrun by a sense of selfishness or self-centeredness. The difference between thinking you’re great and knowing that other people are great is huge, even if the outward behaviors are the same. If one is truly humble, they know that the greatness that comes through them can and should also come through others and they are desperate for others to be able to do so.
9:32-37 - Here’s some interesting facts here and it has to do with their language. Moroni says that they have written in “reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also, and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.” This was very interesting to me, first to learn that writing in Hebrew takes up more space than writing in reformed Egyptian and that they would have chosen the latter because of that reason. The second interesting thing to me is that the “imperfections” came because of the difficulty of the written language, and that the languages were different enough for one to be more easily used to express spiritual thoughts. The IM comments, “Moroni stated that he had the ability to write in at least two languages: Hebrew and Egyptian. He noted that if the ‘plates had been sufficiently large’ he would have written in Hebrew; however, those who kept the record used ‘reformed Egyptian’ due to the lack of space. Previously in the Book of Mormon, both Nephi and King Benjamin acknowledged their use of Egyptian. Nephi stated that he wrote in ‘the language of the Egyptians’ when he engraved the small plates. When speaking to his sons about the importance of the brass plates, King Benjamin noted that Lehi could read the record because he had ‘been taught in the language of the Egyptians.’ Therefore, we understand that Lehi taught the gospel and Egyptian ‘to his children, that thereby they could teach them to their children.’ Evidently, this pattern continued through the generations of record keepers that followed until Moroni learned the language form his father. However, Moroni’s statement that he wrote in ‘reformed Egyptian’ indicates that some adaptations in the use of the language had occurred over the thousand years from the time of Lehi. This could also explain why Moroni concluded with the comment that ‘none other people knoweth our language’ but that God had prepared means for the eventual interpretation and translation of the record.” A little bit of insight there into the language usage there. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what the record was written in, because “the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that non other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof.” It honestly wouldn’t matter what language was used or what words were written, the power of God brought forth the Book of Mormon and when Joseph Smith was translating, it was Jesus who put the words in front of his eyes and it would have been whatever he had in store anyways. Moroni ends what he thinks is going to be his final record saying, “And behold, these things which we have desired concerning our brethren, yea, even their restoration to the knowledge of Christ, are according to the prayers of all the saints who have dwelt in the land. And may the Lord Jesus Christ grant that their prayers may be answered according to their faith; and may God the Father remember the covenant which he hath made with the house of Israel; and my he bless them forever, through faith on the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
9:30-31 - Moroni knows that future generations will have the Book of Mormon and he asks “condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.” Isn’t that what most people want for others, especially their children? For others to learn from our mistakes so that they need not suffer? I am very open with my children about my mistakes, the terrible things that I’ve done, they don’t know everything but they know quite a bit and hopefully when the time comes for them to make their choices, they will remember the suffering that I endured because of my poor choices and ultimately the suffering that THEY endured because of my poor choices and choose to follow Jesus instead. There’s another sentiment here, one of humility. We know that Moroni was a great prophet and warrior, but in the April 2001 general conference address entitled “To Walk Humbly with Thy God, “Elder Marlin K. Jensen taught, “I am often deeply moved by evidences of humility in the scriptures. Consider John the Baptist declaring of the Savior, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’ Think of Moroni pleading with us not to condemn him because of his imperfections, but to thank God that He made Moroni’s imperfections manifest to that we can learn to be wise than Moroni was. Nor should we forget the exclamation of Moses, who, after experiencing the greatness of God and His creations, acknowledged that ‘for this cause I know that man is nothing, which think I never had supposed.’ Is not Moses’ recognition of our complete dependence on God the beginning of true humility? I resonate to the English author John Ruskin’s memorable statement that ‘the first test of a truly great man is his humility.’ He continued: ‘I do not mean, by humility, doubt of his own power… (But really) great men… have a curious… feeling that… greatness is not in them, but through them… And they see something Divine… in every other man…, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly, merciful.” I really liked that, great scriptural examples of humility, and a really good insight there to how people can do big important things and still not be overrun by a sense of selfishness or self-centeredness. The difference between thinking you’re great and knowing that other people are great is huge, even if the outward behaviors are the same. If one is truly humble, they know that the greatness that comes through them can and should also come through others and they are desperate for others to be able to do so.
9:32-37 - Here’s some interesting facts here and it has to do with their language. Moroni says that they have written in “reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also, and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.” This was very interesting to me, first to learn that writing in Hebrew takes up more space than writing in reformed Egyptian and that they would have chosen the latter because of that reason. The second interesting thing to me is that the “imperfections” came because of the difficulty of the written language, and that the languages were different enough for one to be more easily used to express spiritual thoughts. The IM comments, “Moroni stated that he had the ability to write in at least two languages: Hebrew and Egyptian. He noted that if the ‘plates had been sufficiently large’ he would have written in Hebrew; however, those who kept the record used ‘reformed Egyptian’ due to the lack of space. Previously in the Book of Mormon, both Nephi and King Benjamin acknowledged their use of Egyptian. Nephi stated that he wrote in ‘the language of the Egyptians’ when he engraved the small plates. When speaking to his sons about the importance of the brass plates, King Benjamin noted that Lehi could read the record because he had ‘been taught in the language of the Egyptians.’ Therefore, we understand that Lehi taught the gospel and Egyptian ‘to his children, that thereby they could teach them to their children.’ Evidently, this pattern continued through the generations of record keepers that followed until Moroni learned the language form his father. However, Moroni’s statement that he wrote in ‘reformed Egyptian’ indicates that some adaptations in the use of the language had occurred over the thousand years from the time of Lehi. This could also explain why Moroni concluded with the comment that ‘none other people knoweth our language’ but that God had prepared means for the eventual interpretation and translation of the record.” A little bit of insight there into the language usage there. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what the record was written in, because “the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that non other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof.” It honestly wouldn’t matter what language was used or what words were written, the power of God brought forth the Book of Mormon and when Joseph Smith was translating, it was Jesus who put the words in front of his eyes and it would have been whatever he had in store anyways. Moroni ends what he thinks is going to be his final record saying, “And behold, these things which we have desired concerning our brethren, yea, even their restoration to the knowledge of Christ, are according to the prayers of all the saints who have dwelt in the land. And may the Lord Jesus Christ grant that their prayers may be answered according to their faith; and may God the Father remember the covenant which he hath made with the house of Israel; and my he bless them forever, through faith on the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
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