Mórmon 1-6 | Percepções do Livro de Mórmon com Taylor e Tyler

I'm Taylor and I'm Tyler Mormon 1 through six today with additional insights from Mormon 7 and the words of Mormon we will be talking about Mormon today and if you want to learn more about Mormon as a person scripture Central has a fabulous short little essay and video about Mormon and you can look up noi number 226 you'll find the link below this is an interesting set of chapters today and I'll tell you of all the times I read The Book of Mormon when I get to this part I just think maybe this time it'll

be different maybe this time the people will finally listen to Jesus to his words to the scriptures to the prophets and I had to laugh at myself every time I read the book of Mormon I just hope it'll be different I hope that the people will really listen and sometimes it can be extremely discouraging to read these chapters of Mormon and just watch what happens as people suffer the consequences for a lack of faithfulness to God but despite all that I find it fascinating that despite the incredible discouragement that Mormon must have seen in the

world around him living in such difficult times here is what he says to his son Moroni in one of his letters now this comes from Moroni 9 25- 26 my son be faithful in Christ and may not the things which I have written grieve thee to weigh thee down unto death but make Christ Lift thee up and may his suffering and death and the showing his body unto our fathers and his mercy and longsuffering and the hope of his glory and of eternal life rest in your mind forever and May the grace of God the

Father whose Throne is high in the heavens and our Lord Jesus Christ who sth on the right hand of his power until all things shall become subject unto him be and abide with you forever ever amen I find that absolutely powerful actually in some ways those are the very last words we get from Mormon at least according to Moroni is that phrase after everything that Mormon has written including the difficulties of his own lifetime what does he focus on all these beautiful truths and so we invite all of us we live in a world of

difficulty and challenged to remember the words of Mormon echoing through the centuries preserved lovingly and Faithfully for us in our day revealed now that we like Mormon as he told his son Moroni focus on Jesus Christ focus on all that he did to show love and salvation his longsuffering the hope of his glory his eternal life his grace so even though what we're about to talk about might be hard in some cases to listen to remember that ultimately it's the love and grace of God that gives us hope and that is one of the main

purposes of the Book of Mormon to provide a second witness to that idea in Moroni chapter 9 uh notice chapter 5 in Mormon so Mormon 5 verse 8 Now Behold I Mormon do not desire to Harrow up The Souls of men in casting before them such an awful scene of blood and Carnage as was laid before mine eyes but I knowing that these things must surely be made known and that all things which are HID must be revealed upon the housetops and also that a knowledge of these things must come unto the remnant of these

people and also unto the Gentiles who the Lord has said should scatter this people and this people should be counted is not among them therefore I write a small abridgment daring not to give a full account of the things which I have seen because the wickedness and the sorrow is just overwhelming is basically what he's telling us now as Taylor has already introduced the the difficulty that you have this week with these chapters 1 2 3 4 all the way up to chapter six in the book we call Mormon this is painful it's very sad

to watch a people who you know we've watched their trajectory they've had their ups they've had their downs they've struggled with secret combinations and wars and and bad things before with a lot of uh a lot of tragedies and then Jesus came in third Nephi and he establishes Zion among them and they get 200 years of absolute perfect society and everything's wonderful and then the second half of fourth Nephi you watched this decline pretty serious decline away from Zion and then you pick up the book called Mormon and starting in chapter 1 and two and

three and four and five and six that's what we get for our scripture block today is it's the ultimate destruction of these people who are called uh the nephite nation traditionally when I'm teaching a class uh on the entire Book of Mormon I'll spend maybe 3 minutes or four or five minutes in these chapters because of the heavy nature of them it's important for us to know about this The Book of Mormon is written for our day president Benson said and made that very clear and Mormon who saw our day and he gave us the

reason why he wrote it all things must be revealed upon the housetops and he says I'm not going to give you a full depth of detail of everything that I'm seeing but it's important for us to know what can happen to a society a people even a people who has at one time been so enlightened and so filled with with goodness and truth that you can't take that for granted and say oh all is well in Zion Zion Prosper I can I can relax in my faith we have to keep finding ways to connect and

stay connected with heaven and move forward with that background let's jump in to Mormon chapter 1 to the beginning of the story and we're going to go on this little journey through the life of Mormon who by the way is one of my alltime heroes in scripture I love Mormon because he's an unsung hero there are a lot of times in my life when I've actually thought I want to be more like him why because here's a a guy who is surrounded by opposition he's surrounded by wickedness he's surrounded by tribulation and trials and bad

things going on everywhere he looks and yet he stays faithful he never lets the the bad stuff in his environment become bad stuff inside of him he's able to stay on the Covenant path and press forward Faithfully in the face of incredible opposition second reason I want to be more like Mormon is because he quietly does what God asked him to do without drawing attention to himself without having you walk away from the book focusing primarily on him he tells you the stories of Jesus Among the Nephites he tells you the stories of of King

Benjamin and aadii and Elma and all the way down even Sam know he he's he's including all these stories but they're coming to us through the through the lens of Mormon and uh I love that being able to be a window to the heavens a window to God's love and his goodness without drawing attention to the window I want to be more like that so notice how his Story begins chapter 1 verse one he tells you he's going to make a record of the things which I have both seen and heard and call it the

Book of Mormon up to this point he's been writing in third person predominantly now it's his turn to tell his own story so he shifts into everything now first person about the time that amaron hit up the records unto the Lord he came unto me I being about 10 years of age in the quick timeline of Mormon's life the the elements that we know about starting at a about 10 years of age you'll notice by the time he's writing this he's going to be quite a bit older and it's not exact and I love the

fact that it's not exact because for us when you think back to your early teenage years and your 8 9 10 11year old years it's kind of fuzzy and I love that this early part is kind of fuzzy for him as he's going back in time using words like about so we're going to go from about 10 years old until the last battle at kamora when he's about 73 years old that's the lifespan that we're going to be covering and looking at different elements that are going on not so you can be experts on Mormon's

life but so that you can see a very real person a Son of God who is doing the best he can to fulfill his life's Mission but he didn't understand his life mission here nor here nor here his life Mission just kept unfolding as God brought more and more and more responsibilities Commandments and requirements and opportunities into his life as he pressed forward on the Covenant path line upon line precept upon precept I like that pattern so we start at age 10 amaron coming to him this is odd because if you look at the scenario

amaron is The Keeper of the entirety of the nephite record records and all the other things associated with those records armaments uh Treasures that were told in some of the accounts that this huge repository of everything that represents all of the history of the Nephites and the jaredites down to this time now here's this guy he's getting to the end of his life he looks around at his society and says H who am I going to turn these records over to this this huge repository in the C in the hill shim in the land ANM

who am I going to turn these over to look what he says I being about 10 years of age and I began to be learned somewhat after the manner of learning my people and amaron said unto me I perceive that thou art a sober child and art quick to observe therefore when ye are about 20 and4 years old I would that you should remember the things that you had observed concerning this people and when you're of that age go to the land Anem unto a hill which Shall be Called shim and there have I deposited

unto the Lord all the sacred Engravings concerning this people that's bold turning all of that over to a 10-year-old saying wait until you're about 24 years old then go get them this is where they're hidden the amount of trust placed in a 10-year-old notice the two qualifying factors you're a sober child and you're quick to observe I think it's pretty clear that what he's saying is you're not a typical 10-year-old Mormon you're very very mature you're you're thinking clearly you're thinking deeply you're not like the other the other families and the other kids in this

in this wicked society and I believe that God inspired Amron obviously to go to this particular kid who was raised up for this purpose notice also Thou Art quick to observe that tells us that amaron didn't just walk down the street one day and say oh there's a kid he looks different boom it seems that amaron had some association with this family he knew what kind of a kid Mormon was and this phrase quick to observe probably does mean he was very good at seeing the world around him and understanding and be able to explain

and interpret what was going on we see that throughout his text I wonder if there's also a secondary meaning of quick to observe what about observing the Commandments judgments and statutes of God if you actually look throughout scriptures the way the word observe is used it's often in relation to faithfulness covenantal faithfulness of how well people do at keeping God's Commandments and even at this young age there may be something going on here that Mormon was quick to do the word of God it's a beautiful Insight because for for us as latterday readers of this

record I don't know know that it's as applicable to us to think oh good Mormon was an observant kid he he was he was bright brilliant picked up on things very quickly versus saying he was probably some of that but also he was quick to observe the Commandments he kept his commitments even as a 10-year-old and we can all try to follow that same example look now at verse 4 behold ye shall take the plates of Nephi unto yourself and the remainder you shall leave in the place where they are and you shall engrave on

the plates of Nephi all the things that you have observed concerning this people you'll notice amaron didn't say kid when you get older you're going to be the one who needs to go into this repository with all these records look at this image from our 3D Mormon's cave look at this huge collection plates now if you look here at this particular what you might call a large bookshelf it's an artistic representation we don't know what it actually looked like we don't know how many were actually there but you you look at this large collection right

here this is called the plates of Nephi the large plates of Nephi amaron simply told him go to that collection and they're towards the end where I have written my last section which was the finishing part of fourth Nephi you pick up there where I left off and you keep writing the history of the nephite people that you have and will observe in your own lifetime that was the command that's it so it's later on when Mormon has been working through this process of writing down the record that the Lord would have given him the

command or the direction to say okay the end is near for these people so I need you to go and now read all of that record and make new plates no longer called the plates of Nephi this time called the plates of Mormon this new record that is going to be the means whereby all of this is going to get translated in the latter days and carried forth into all the world as the instrument for the Gathering of the House of Israel wow that's a bit overwhelming but you'll notice Mormon wasn't given that at age

10 what he was given probably felt overwhelming to a 10-year-old to look forward to when he was 24 down the road but God's going to give him those instructions line upon line precept upon precept notice the next event verse five I Mormon being a descendant of Nephi and my father's name was Mormon so it's interesting we often overlook this this is Mormon the younger do you remember one of the defining features of Nephi physically back in 1 Nephi chapter 1 2 3 and four it he used on a couple of occasions this phrase being exceedingly

young nevertheless being large in stature he's a big strong kid for his age well what do we know about Mormon here we know some pretty interesting things are going to come to him at a very young age so it's it's as if he's taking after physically his ancestor way up the line Nephi that this is going to be a a large kid very very uh big for his age notice the next event came to pass that I being 11 years old was carried by my father into the land Southward even to the land of zarahemla

so at 11 he leaves the land northward because his dad has to relocate the family probably a war ready to start if you jump down to verse 8 came to pass in this year there began to be a war between the Nephites and the lamanites and it breaks out in the land where they' just gone to and later he's 15 16th year he becomes the chief captain now can you imagine today our chief military leader being some 15 or 16y old kid now I wonder if Mormon's father had been the chief Captain had died in

the war and as heredity Mormon got that position we actually have lots of stories throughout the ancient world like Alexander the Great his dad had been the king of the macedonians and when when Philip was assassinated Alexander the Great became the next king and we have lots of evidence in the Book of Mormon where father to son the responsibility passes from father to son so in addition to him being this Mighty Man it may have also been a family duty but the most important thing is who he is as a person both physically and spiritually

he stood out among his people physically but because of his spiritual capacities and the gifts and the the mission given to him by God his his name now will never be forgotten uh in in any future time moving forward because this book Bears his name notice verse 13 wickedness did Prevail upon the face of the whole land in so much the Lord did take away his beloved disciples and the work of Miracles and of healing did cease because of the iniquity of the people this is an important concept for us to understand in our day

and age when there aren't Miracles when there aren't healings when there aren't wonderful things happening it's not always because of the the reasons Skeptics give that God doesn't care God's not powerful God's not there God's not capable of of doing these things you'll notice the reason they weren't there is because of the iniquity and the wickedness and the unbelief of humanity at this time verse 14 there were no gifts from the Lord and the Holy Ghost did not come upon any because of their wickedness and unbelief and I being 15 years of age and being

somewhat of a sober mind therefore I was visited of the Lord and tasted and knew of the goodness of Jesus notice he's 15 when he sees the Lord he's in a society that is so wicked that is so bad that there are no Miracles the Holy Ghost isn't coming upon any and it's widespread rampant sin and iniquity and yet in the midst of that darkest of times the Lord appeared to this young 15-year-old and he tasted and knew of the goodness of Jesus when I hear this word tasted of the goodness of Jesus it automatically

gets me to think way back to first Nephi chapter 8 and the Tree of Life with that beautiful Delicious Fruit that Lehi called his family to taste of and we encourage you to look at the scriptures how they use the phrase to taste particularly when it comes to tasting the love of God and I also wonder if there might be some beautiful word play going on because in Mormon 1:1 15 where it says he knew of the goodness of Jesus the word Nephi our best understanding is that is an Egyptian word that means good lovely

beautiful or desirable and so when Mormon says I tasted of the goodness of Jesus if we translate this back into Egyptian he would have used a variant of the word or the word itself Nephi to talk about the love of God if you go back to first Nephi chter 8 when Nephi is describing the fruit of the tree of life he uses such words as beautiful and desirable and all of these in Egyptian would have just been Nephi's name so imagine for Nephi how lovely it would have been for him to be able to describe

the love of God using the meaning of his own name and here is now Mormon centuries later experiencing that same love but identifying himself as a descendant of Love or Nephi the descendant of goodness or Nephi the descendant of beautiful things Nephi and he talks about tasting of the powerful love of God and he uses that lovely phrase of goodness we invite you again two things to look at how the word taste is used in The Book of Mormon particularly when it comes to partaking of the atonement of Jesus Christ we also invite you to

think about when have there been times in your life you have tasted of the goodness of Jesus when have you experienced the lovely beautiful desirable truths that come from God and most importantly when have you taste of the beautiful desirable lovely good love that comes from God to each of his children so here's the grand irony of all of this verse 16 I did endeavor to preach unto this people but my mouth was shut and I was forbidden that I should preach unto them for behold they had willfully rebelled against their God and the Beloved

disciples were taken away out of the land because of their iniquity he's trying to spread the goodness the desirable the beauty he's trying to say look just I have tasted I know how good this is I know how wonderful life can actually be not this misery that you're living through and his mouth is shut he can't give them this desirable message this good news the Glorious news of the gospel because of their iniquity and their rebellion and notice they had willfully rebelled this wasn't something that they accidentally fell into that they they're sinning in ignorance

this is a willful Rebellion which is very different than somebody who who sins in ignorance notice he's among them but the gadon and robbers are now rising up and infesting the land so Treasures become slippery the Lord's cursed the land they couldn't hold them nor retain them again they can't hold on to anything the very things that the devil entices them with become slippery all of the treasures and the power and the glory of the world is so fleeting that it's not just that they lose it at death in this case they've gotten to the

point where they can't hold on to it at all they're living in this constant um uh fear of death and being robbed and iniquity surrounding everything that they're doing look at chapter 2 it came to pass that in that same year there began to be a war again between the Nephites and lamanites and notwithstanding I being young was large in stature H sounds a lot like first Nephi therefore the people of Nephi appointed me that I should be their leader or the leader of their armies so he clarifies I'm not the government leader they just

put me in charge of the armies possibly if not probably because it's a family Legacy a family line look at verse two therefore it came to pass that in my 16th year I did go forth at the head of an army of the Nephites 16th year means he's still 15 years old and he's uh going to war at the head of an army of the Nephites look at verse three it came to pass that in the 320 and7th year the lamanites did come upon us with exceedingly great power in so much that they did Market

frighten my armies therefore they would not fight and they began to retreat towards the north countries I think perhaps that's one of the reasons we need these these difficult chapters so that we can see these contrasts between good and evil right and wrong light and dark that we human beings are capable regardless of how strong we've been in the past we're capable of getting to the point where we are driven by fear rather than Faith where we stop fighting we stop trying to to overcome and resist opposition or Temptation or addiction and we run instead

or we give up notice verse four they came the lamanites drove us out of this City verse 5 they drove us also out of the city of David so they're gathering in seven there's this huge destruction this huge lament and now you come down to verse 10 it came to pass that the Nephites began to repent of their iniquity and began to cry even as had been prophesied by Samuel the prophet okay so what we have here is Mormon looking at the people thinking okay we're good because remember the pride cycle Pride leads to deeper

sin which leads to destruction which leads to sorrow and lamentation which leads to humility and that humility will lead us to repentance and repentance leads us to blessings and those blessings will Mount up and build up to lead us to Great prosperity and unfortunately Prosperity often leads us to Pride and we talked about this back in Helman a few months ago where are we in the pride cycle in Chapter 2 they began to repent they began to cry verse 11 thus there began to be a Mourning and a lamentation in the land because of the

things these things and more especially among the people of Nephi so he's thinking wonderful the destruction has led them to this intense sorrow and now they've begun to repent they're getting humble they're going to turn to God and because he's so longsuffering he's going to forgive them and he's going to give them blessings and we're going to end up prospering again verse 12 it came to pass that when I Mormons saw their lamentation and their mourning and their sorrow before the Lord my heart did begin to Rejoice within me knowing the mercies and the longsuffering

of the Lord therefore supposing that he would be merciful unto them that they would again become a righteous people but behold this my joy was vain for their Sorrowing was not unto repentance because of the goodness of God but it was rather The Sorrowing of the Damned because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin brothers and sisters this is one of the saddest moments in the entire Book of Mormon where you see that this entire population of people has gotten to the point where they've been built up in their pride

and their sin and iniquity to the point where the Holy Ghost can't even be given to any according to what he says there they've experienced incredible destruction they're sad and what did it do it led them to deeper Pride and deeper sin which is going to lead to deeper destruction so we talked about back in helan the fact that the pride cycle can actually turn into a destruction cycle if you're in the bottom of Despair the pit of despair because of Destruction and you don't choose to turn to God but rather become more prideful this

is the pattern that happens in The Book of Mormon look at verse 14 they did not come unto Jesus with broken hearts and contrite spirits but they did curse God and wish to die nevertheless they would struggle with the sword for their lives notice 15 came to pass that my Sor did return unto me again and I saw that the day of Grace was passed with them both temporally and spiritually for I saw thousands of them heun down in open Rebellion against their God and heaped up as dung upon the face of the land so

notice what he does to try to get his people ready to go fight the the lamanites again here's this righteous leader Mormon surrounded by all these people who are who are cursing God but they're willing to fight for their lives that's about it notice how he rallies them and gets them ready for battle verse 23 it came to pass that I did speak unto my people and did urge them with great energy that they would stand boldly before the lamanites and fight for their wives and their children and their houses and their homes if you

like writing cross references in your scriptures in your margins you could write Elma 46 verse1 12 next to that verse because if you look at Elma 4612 you'll remember that that was the incredible passage that talked about Mormon's uh hero named captain Moroni his title of Liberty where he said in memory of our God our religion our freedom our peace our wives and our children remember that notice the difference here that's how Captain moronai got his men to fight it's worth fighting for these things people let's go and it worked back in 73 see now

here we are with Mormon with a group of people who have cursed God totally turned their back on God they've lost all sense of a connection with Heaven which what Rel what religion means to reconnect they have no more freedom once again Satan keeps enticing everybody with this idea of get rid of Liberty and have freedom to express yourself and to live your life and do what whatever you want whenever you want however you want and with whomever you want that's his plan that's his idea and that leads to bondage not Freedom you ask these

people how free do you feel right now they're on the Run there's no freedom and there's no peace in all of their cursing of God and doing what they wanted to do notice what they've gained for it you know brothers and sisters when one serves the devil one needs to be ready to receive wages from the devil and what you're seeing in Mormon chapters 1-6 are the wages of sin the wages of iniquity this is the paycheck you receive when you turn your back on God when you when you reject connections with Heaven called religion

true religion not the world's definition of of organizations and you lose freedom and you lose peace what do they have left they have their wives and their children and notice what else he added to the list your houses and your homes and how long is it going to be until they lose those once again you give up God and it's just a matter of time before you lose all of these things on the list so in chapter 3 notice how he addresses this issue in chapter 3: 2 it came to pass that the Lord did

say unto me cry unto this people repent ye and come unto me and be baptize and build up again my church and ye shall be spared come unto me build up again my church you'll be spared it it's not too late brothers and sisters it's never too late if if you're struggling if you're wrestling with addiction or with a major Faith crisis or with issues with people and trying to forgive or you trying to repent and overcome sin in any degree it's never too late if you repent come unto him be baptized build up again

his church ye shall be spared so verse three I did cry into this people but it was in vain and they did not realize that it was the Lord that had spared them and granted unto them a chance for repentance and behold they did Harden their hearts against the Lord their God so we begin another cycle of this downward destruction that is that is pending notice they have this little Victory the Nephites do in chapter 3 look what it did verse 9 because of this great thing which my people the Nephites had done they began

to boast in their own strength and began to swear before the heavens that they would avenge themselves of the blood of their Brethren who had been slain by their enemies and they did swear by the heavens and also by The Throne of God that they would go up to battle against their enemies and would cut them off from the face of the land it's no longer a def defensive War for them now they say because of this we we've proven we're so good and we're so strong we're going to go down among the lamanites and

totally destroy them which you can mark it this is the uh ultimate turning point in the war and we We Begin our final descent starting at this point verse 11 it came to pass that I Morman did utterly refuse from this time forth to be a commander and a leader of this people because of their wickedness and their abomination and now Mormon starts to lament a little bit verse 12 behold I had led them notwithstanding their wickedness I had led them many times to battle and had loved them is this sounding like uh an echo

of how the Savior might feel about us his love regardless of our of our deserving that love it's it's always there notice it says I had loved them according to the love of God which was in me with all my heart and my soul had been poured out in prayer unto my God all the day long for them nevertheless it was without faith because of the hardness of their hearts and he had delivered them three times before and then he finishes chapter 3 with some beautiful invitations to us he kind of shifts away from the

Carnage The Bloodshed and the wickedness and the iniquity of his day and he turns his attention forward in time to us look at this this is beautiful verse 17 therefore I write unto you Gentiles and also unto you House of Israel when the work shall commence that you shall be about to prepare to return to the land of your inheritance y behold I right unto all the ends of the Earth y unto the 12 tribes of Israel he basically says this messages for everybody in the latter days verse 20 these things doth the spirit manifest

unto me therefore I write unto you all and for this cause I read unto you that ye may know that ye Must ALL stand before the Judgment seat of Christ ye Every Soul Who belongs to the whole Human family of Adam and you must stand to be judged of your works whether they be good or evil and he wants us to believe the gospel and he invites the Jews the Covenant people look at verse 22 I would that I could persuade all ye ends of the Earth to repent and prepare to stand before the Judgment

seat of Christ and then he goes back into the awful scene that was playing out before him now have you ever thought about this as Mormon is working his way through his life he's fighting all these battles with the lamanites he's trying to defend the people he's trying to preach to the people as the prophet role that he's taking and not only that he's raising a family we know he's got Moroni coming along so he has all these hats that he's wearing and he's trying to be good have you ever had the experience in Morality

of pausing and realizing that you have more on your plate to accomplish than you have energy or time or resources to to actually get through have you ever had one of those sickening moments where you you realize it just kind of hits you I'm not doing anything really well I'm doing a million things partly I I'm chipping away at a whole bunch of things but I'm not doing anything really really well I love Mormon's story for when I have those experiences and I have them more frequently than I should because Mormon's Story shows me that

I can be surrounded with Incredible opposition and have really important things to do not to the level of Mormon's mission to accomplish but if I stay focused on that which matters most which is God and I stay humble and I keep going to him he facilitates all of my time and energy resources to be accomplishing the things that need to happen for his kingdom to roll forward and for me that's my biggest takeaway from Mormon chapter 1-6 is watching this one guy and we know that it's not just one guy even though she's not mentioned

we know he's married we know he has a sweetheart and we know that there's a partnership here as those two are moving forward accomplishing things in the face of great adversity it gives me hope for when I'm struggling to do the things that I'm asked to accomplish in life look at chapter five he's leading them to battle again we're getting closer to the end look at verse 12 now these things are written unto the remnant of the House of Jacob and they are written after this manner because it is known of God that wickedness will

not bring them forth unto them and they are to be hid up unto the Lord that they may come forth in his own due time when he seeth fit that they come forth so you'll notice Mormon saying I don't know for sure when this is going to happen but God does and I love the fact that you get this other prophet in our day Joseph Smith who is also surrounded by a lot of iniquity not to the level of Mormon but he now gets the opposite responsibility to translate the record that was written by Mormon

and Nephi and Jacob and later on Moroni in the face of incredible adversity um having to move from place to place keep in mind if you look in Mormon's cave at that whole set of Records he doesn't just have to read all of those records he has to decide what to include what to leave out he has to abridge that record onto these plates that are going to end up in our hands today and I love the fact that God did did his work through an instrument in the face of such great adversity that gives

me hope in my own life now we go to chapter six the last battle we're at the hill kamur he lists here his numbers probably aren't exactly down to the individual person but they're rough rough guesses that are probably pretty close he's talking about the different groups of 10,000 of his men who died if you do the math here it's over 230,00 Nephites killed at this last battle and only 24 of them survive which by the way Mormon is one of them that survived he was wounded so badly on that last battle that the lonit

passed over him thinking he was dead and then he's writing chapters 6 and 7even after that point we don't know how far after is it days is it weeks is it months is it years we don't know because he doesn't tell us but if he was wounded so badly that they thought he was dead it's possible while while he's writing these words he's feeling the Pains of those wounds from that battle and that adds context to what he says here as he laments over his people notice verse 16 my soul was rent with anguish because

of the slain of my people and I cried oh ye Fair ones how could you have departed from the ways of the Lord remember what Taylor was is telling you about Nephi Fair beautiful goodly blessed oh ye Nephites how could you have departed from the ways of the Lord how could you have rejected that Jesus who stood with open arms to receive you behold if you had not done this you would not have fallen but behold ye are fallen and I mourn your loss oh ye Fair Sons and Daughters ye fathers and mothers ye husbands

and wives ye Fair ones how is it that ye could have fallen this is such a sobering set of passages as I said earlier every time I read the book of Morman I just hope it'll be different this time now there is hope that we all get to look at our own lives and say am I willing to receive the Embrace of Jesus who stands open and willing to fully receive us and we don't have to repeat what we see in the Book of Mormon and I think there's some beautiful literary things going on in

this very sorrowful passage we have the word Nephi which proposals recommend means fair in Egyptian and there's another word in Hebrew nephl and it means to fall and I just think it's interesting here that Mormon who's this very capable writer may also the same time be creating literary Beauty in the original languages he's talking about how the the Nephi have neph the Nephites have fallen the fair ones have fallen and so he's actually playing almost as if he's bit like Shakespeare or in Isaiah with words to make the case that even if you are named

fair and beautiful it's not much of a change to do this if you walk away from God in our own lives we want to ask ourselves do we want to be fair like the Nephites or do we want to get puffed up in the pride of all that God has given us or all that we believe that we have accomplished with our own own hands and experience the fall and that's the lesson that's here is that we can learn from these people what not to do now as he finishes chapter 6 he ends with chapter

7 which we'll cover in much greater detail next week but you'll notice his audience the primary Target for chapter 7 in fact you could just label your chapter 7 dear lamanites love Mormon it's a letter to them directly he talks to them in loving kind ways these Latter-Day descendants of the very people who are going to kill him ultimately he knows that and who have who have given him wounds to the point where he was on the battlefields half dead they passed him over this group of people who's killed off all of his family and

people ultimately and yet what does he do he writes to them with arms of mercy and love extending uh this beautiful message to them there's something beautifully Christlike about that now we started by talking about Mormon's desire not to Harrow up The Souls of men and casting before them such an awful scene of blood and Carnage as was laid before mine eyes and so we hope that as we've gone through here the focus isn't in on all of the bad of the Nephites but rather that it gives you a sense of hope in your own

life that regardless of what the opposition is surrounding you you have great capacity to be humble turn to God repent plead for his help and his guidance and receive his Blessing and ultimately his salvation in closing I want to share with you a story from the Old Testament that many of you may be familiar with but it's worth repeating here because it's so applicable there was a kingdom of Syria that was making war against the northern kingdom of Israel and every time the king of Syria would move his men to a certain place to make

the perfect attack the kingdom of Israel would have their armies perfectly positioned to stop the attack and this happened multiple times eventually this king of Syria who may not have been the the sharpest guy but he was smart enough to figure out this isn't normal so he sat down with his his uh generals his captains of his army and he said who is it that's the Spy one of you is giving our secrets to the king of Israel because it's impossible that he would know everything we're doing and one of his uh captains said none

of us is a spy there's a man in Israel he's a prophet and he tells the king of Israel everything you say even in your bed chamber at which point this uh King thinks that through and says well let's secretly find out where this guy lives so we can go and Surround that City or Village and capture him so he'll stop telling the king of Israel everything I saying well they said he lives in Dothan so the Syrian Army Goes and surrounds the city of Dothan where Elisha this great prophet lives the next morning Elisha's

servant comes out of the house and sees the entire Village surrounded with chariots and soldiers waiting for the word to come and take Elisha the servants really nervous Elisha comes out of the house and he's not really nervous he's calm and the servant doesn't understand and Elisha says basically can't you see and the servants wondering can't you see and Elisha prays Lord Open the Eyes of the lad that he might see and he tells the boy they that be with us are more than they that be with them at which point the lad's eyes are

opened and he sees the mountain of the Lord the the whole Sky filled with flaming horses and flaming chariots brothers and sisters Mormon and his little family were completely surrounded by sin and iniquity they had no worldly reason or Earthly reason to Hope but Mormon had eyes to see he knew that when you're on the Lord's Side when you're doing the best you can even though by worldly standards it doesn't look like a lot it doesn't feel like it's making a difference if you put the very best you have on the Altar and say Lord

this is the best I can do today he is so powerful that he will take our best effort and magnify it and multiply it and bring us the victory in the end not just in this life but in the eternities brothers and sisters as you face those uh those chariots in all of their forms today in your life please plead with the Lord to have eyes to see and ears to hear and as you do so and as you cast your eyes upward you will be reassured that they that be with you are more than

they that be with them and we leave that with you in the name of Jesus Christ amen [Music]