Hello there my name is Tyler Griffin and I'm Benjamin Griffin and this is scripture study insights by scripture Central today ether 12 through 15 and this is a a wonderful privilege for me to get to have Benjamin join today he is our oldest child oldest son out of 10 children and Benjamin is more comfortable standing behind this camera than in front of this camera he actually work here at scripture Central so very Very briefly what are some of the things that you you produce here at scripture Central that people maybe haven't haven't been aware of
well that a good question there's a lot that we do here at scripture Central if you look at scripture Central almost like a Grand Central Station where all of the trains and buses are coming and it's kind of a central hub for all things related to the scriptures and supporting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints um We're actually an independent advocate of the church um but we're trusted by them to to produce good content and so it's we have so many initiatives and so many projects that we're working on that it would be
it would take up the whole episode to go into any depth there but I would encourage you to go to our website scripture central.org to see the breadth and depth of what we are doing um anything from research written research uh all the way to video podcasts like This uh and then anything in between we have a little bit of something for everyone in the church that's awesome and it's a it's a pleasure to get to volunteer my time to help out this organization in their in their mission to illuminate and defend the faith across
the world it's quite remarkable to watch watch the products that have come out and it's really fun for me in my role as the director of international operations where I oversee all of the The foreign languages that scripture Central is involved with and to see us building the kingdom in all of these areas around the world we're truly a global organization at this point which is which is so wonderful it's beautiful thank you for for joining and today we we have the exciting privilege of studying these scriptures here towards the very end of the jedite
civilization which once again is these are these are difficult chapters when you get past Chapter 12 13 14 and 15 to watch an entire civilization implode and and self-destruct and if you look at the reason why it's pretty clear it's a second witness as to why the nephite nation imploded and self-destructed it was because they rejected the Lord and they rejected His prophets and they turned to the things of the world and so before we we spend too much time talking about that Rejection gratefully we get to to dive down deep into chapter 12 which
is filled with the antidote to that major major problem that these two nations are experiencing and the antidote is to believe in to have faith in to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and to follow His prophets yeah I love that because like like you said it ends with a very um this this segment of chapters ends with a very depressing ending U I'm hoping by the end of this Lesson that we can kind of sandwich that in between some hopeful messages but I'm really excited to dive into this this ether chapter 12 where it
really we we have some hopeful messages yeah so so on this on this topic initially of prophets it's important for us to understand what is the role of a prophet you won't see in scriptures any time God calling a prophet or calling a person a chosen vessel a witness of his Name in all the world and then commissioning them to go and tell the people to keep doing exactly what they were doing prophets by design by Divine Design are called to give guidance to give correction to give reassurance to to encourage people to move forward
in a positive direction towards the Savior on the Covenant path so prophets aren't called by God to go to people and say keep up the good work don't change anything prophets are called to to give Guidance to give instruction to give correction to give encouragement to to a group of people to move forward on the Covenant path and that's not always popular when when a prophet comes and tells you what you're doing wrong or paints a picture of what the ideal is for what the Lord is wanting for people it means we have to be
humble not prideful we need to be meekly receive their words and then move forward and you see that here in chapter 12 right at The beginning verse two it says and ether was a prophet of the Lord notice he's not a prophet of the people the people didn't call him the people haven't commissioned him the people aren't giving him the direction it's the Lord who does that and the difference being false prophets will teach people what they want to hear true prophets will teach people what God wants them to hear there'll be mouthpieces for him
so you now see in Verse three he did cry from the morning even until the going down of the Sun exhorting the people to believe in God unto repentance lest they should be destroyed saying unto them that by faith all things are fulfilled yeah and I love going back to verse two where it says he could not be restrained because of the spirit of the Lord which was in him it it shows me that he is not in it for himself like You said like he is all in with the Lord and he can't even
be restrained he has to like I I've had very few experiences in my life that could even be sort of relevant to this where you know you feel so constrained that you need to do something and you just can't sit still until until you do it like as a prophet that must be quite the mantle and the weight that he is preaching repentance to the people even though it's probably not popular knowing uh how things end For these people um he's probably not getting uh roses he's probably getting Tomatoes thrown at him uh most of
most days so like it's just cool to think that if we follow the spirit if we if we are in tune with it the Lord will be with us but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to be having an easy life or people are going to receive us or appreciate us or any number of good things it's very possible that we will get rejected for doing what God Wants us to do yeah so the the amazing thing as as we watch this chapter start to unfold here the beginning part is Moroni telling the story
of of ether this great prophet and these people who are rejecting him and then he's going to shift into he can't hold back he then inter interjects himself inserts himself in and says okay I've got to talk through this but before we get to that part notice verse four um it's kind of a a middle ground where Moroni a Prophet who has watched his people do what ether's people are currently doing on the page in front of him as he's as he's writing this on the it's it's a beautiful crossover where Moroni can speak with
a high degree of authenticity and relevancy he he is speaking not just by bridging ether's record but he is speaking from his own experience look at verse four wherefore that wherefore sets up this cause and effect the cause came before In verse 2 and three the effect what what the takeaway lesson is now now follows in verse four wherefore who so believeth in God might with shity hope for a better world now that is a group of people who have all the need in the world for a better world to hope for and yet they
continually cut themselves off from the thread that binds them to the prophit of God and it sinks them into lower uh levels of happiness and hope and relationship to use uh Brigham Young's statement about when we choose to cut ourselves off from the prophet of God God's the one who chose the prophet and it's God's role to to replace that Prophet if need be and so instead of people looking inward saying what can I change they looked at the prophet and said how can we change him and how can we get rid of him and
how can we replace him and we've seen this pattern through many dispensations not just in ether's day not just in Mormon and moroni's day But in Jesus Christ's day in in Moses's day and more recently in Joseph Smith's day and Brigham Young and and subsequent prophets in the the period of the restoration so we jump back into verse four we're hoping for a better world World there have been incredible talks on Hope in the in the October 2024 General Conference Elder Neil L Anderson gave an incredible talk on this topic of Hope and what it
really is highly encourage You to to restudy revisit that talk notice what he says about the the outcome of this hope yeah even a place at the right hand of God which hope cometh of faith and maketh an anchor to The Souls of men which would make them sure and steadfast always abounding in good works being led to glorify God it's fascinating to me that you have faith you have hope and you have good works listed here in that one Verse and some because a as as Mortals we like things to make sense we like
them to line up logically and so a lot of people would say okay so which one comes first what's the root what's the the trunk and what are the branches or the fruits and the amazing thing about scriptures is that you can find places where it sounds like faith is the foundation for Hope and there are other places where it looks like hope Provides a foundation for Faith and good works can fit in in any phase of that process at the bottom in the middle or at the top the older I get the less concerned
I am about ordering these and recognizing that these three all play off of each other the more good works I have the more foundation for Faith and Hope those good works provide the more hope I have the more faith in good works I'm going to have and the more faith in Christ I have the more hope for a better world I I receive and I'm more likely to perform good works and it's this iterative spiral staircase that just keeps expanding upward in the process of time yeah and I think that for different people at different
points in their life they can experience more of an abundance of one of one of these three things and I mean you could even add faith hope charity um because I think good works kind of is Summed up by charity um which we learned later in in the book of I but for for some people maybe all they have is is hope maybe that's the only thing that they're holding on to for others I mean Faith and Hope are very interchangeable in a lot of ways but they but they are distinct but for some people
it might it might be their faith in God or their commitment to being charitable that keeps them going but I think I think you're right like you can't say charity Is better than Faith or more foundational or hope is more than you know all of these things so I yeah I think that's a good point to bring up the the reality is is there will be times in your life where you feel very little hope where maybe you've lost hope or a loved one has Lo lost hope or you feel very little faith or you
feel like your faith is is waning or it's weak the the reality is is regardless of what you feel you have complete control Over what you do we are not a victim of a lack of faith or a lack of Hope or a lack of feelings we we don't need to to feel victimized by that we are agents we can choose to act even if we're feeling a a lack of these things we can still engage further in good works we can live as if the the the faith is burning bright and the reality is
that's where the greatest spiritual growth potentially can come to us is when we do that which is right Even when there are a million reasons that we can come up with as to why we don't want to do what we're supposed to do but when we obey anyway there's incredible growth that comes from that yeah it reminds me of the the screw tape Letters by CS Lewis where um the for those that don't know what the screw tape letters are it's CS Lewis satirically writing as a senior devil to a junior devil like a lower
I don't know maybe it's a higher devil in the Hierarchy I don't know how that works achy in yeah yeah so he's he's writing to a junior devil who is tempting his client and um the he says something to the effect of you know his client is at a really low point in his life and he's like you know you need to be really really worried when people get to those low points in life because that's when they start turning to God that's when they start um finding Hope and Faith um and so not that
we want to take advice From a devil but you know turning to God in those low hopeless moments is probably one of the only things we can do that will that will put us forward on the Eternal path which than thank you for mentioning that that's letter eight in the screw tape letters if you if you want to grab the book and and read it he talks about the law of undulation there as you're talking that through Benjamin it it brings to mind this concept of what are we really trying to do in life What
what is our what is our real purpose when you peel back all the layers why are we here and what what is what is the purpose one of the the incredible opportunities given to us is to create a covenant relationship with God to say I want thee to be my God and I want to be thy people well stop and think about every meaningful relationship in your life right now how many of those relationships are described like this You never talk to the person you never address the person unless you're in a moment moment of
of Crisis or a moment of need or an emergency and and you need to be bailed out you need help then you run to that person and you say hey oh I'm so glad you're here I need this and I need this and I need this and I need it by this time in this way and then that person gives you what you need and then you never talk to them again until the next time when you need something But all other interactions with them are just really casual that is not a meaningful relationship that
is not the kind of of Covenant connection with a person that would provide lasting Joy how often do you and I treat God as if he's just the 911 call center in the sky that we only go to him in the hour of of greatest need now if that's what you do that's that's better than not going to him but better than just at those points would be to go to him Frequently go to him when good things happen and say Hey I Just Want to Thank thee for this incredible blessing that was that was
manifest in my life or hey today I want to I want to share with thee my experiences now he knows about those experiences better than we do but it's in US turning to him which increases our connection with him and our focus on him and we're building a relationship with God we're we're talking to him not just in moments of of Crisis or moments of need but throughout our day that's the kind of relationship that will sustain us even when things get really tough and will provide the the fuel for us to be able to
move forward with good works even in a trough of Life as we move forward yeah and when we like I I think about that concept of of just constant upward success right like we want to have connecting points to God on a daily basis we want to have daily experiences in the scriptures or Communing with him through prayer or going to the temple or um attending church chur or fill in the blank with XYZ gospel principle and so sometimes I get into a more routine likee check the box living of the Gospel where I'm doing
it just because I'm supposed to but I don't think we should be too hard on ourselves if we're doing what we're supposed to do even if it's maybe not for the right reasons because those are all touch points to God and as long as We're thinking about him and he's on our mind like every day that is that is better than just being like Oh I don't have one hour to really get into the scriptures today so I'm not going to do it at all I'm not going to think about God at all it's better
to get into the scriptures even if you're doing it just for the sake of doing it um because that is going to in the long run move us in the direction that we want to go it's kind of like here let me borrow this It's kind of like a like a mountain that you have to climb like I'm starting right here let's see oh that's let's see how do we do that there we go I'm starting right here and I need to here I that is a huge task but if I take it one step
at a time with little steps every day maybe maybe in a year I'll be right here and I'll look back and be like wow look at the progress I made I still have a long way to go but at least I was moving in the right direction the Biggest problem is if we if we ignore God and if it it just becomes too hard to live the gospel and we're like okay I'm just going to sit down then in a Year where are we we're right there and maybe we've moved a little bit or more
likely the not we've moved we've slid down to even further and so it's really important that we remember that God wants us to connect with him every single day and it doesn't matter how big or how small it is the important thing Is the direction that we're facing and where we're moving so the key of what you're describing there in in my mind Benjamin is that there's there's generic faith and there's generic hope with like Elder Anderson said in his talk in October of 24 we can hope for a lot of things but the hope
that is going to help us progress up the path or up this make progress in life especially Eternal kinds of progress is only if our faith and our hope are rooted in focused on And founded in Christ it's hope in Christ it's faith in Christ that will give us that energy to be able to do those good works and make those good works actually effective at at moving us forward on the Covenant path which brings us to verse 5 and six and he says and it came to pass that ether did prophesy great and marvelous
things unto the people which they did not believe why didn't they believe them these are Great and marvelous things they're living in a society that is that is degrading and imploding why wouldn't they hold on to these great marvelous things that are being prophesied it says because they saw them not to your Mountain analogy here here in Utah most mountains aren't shaped like that most mountains are shaped like this and when you're standing here all you can see is the first what we would call fault Summit It's the first phase but you can't see the
end goal so they're back here saying I don't believe what you're telling me ether I don't think that's possible cuz I can't see it and the reality is is that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy you will never see it if you sit down on the path and give up and not strive to perform those good works we will only see it our faith will increase our hope will increase only as we move forward in faith it's kind of ironic how it's kind Of the idea of a testimony is to be found in the bearing of it
you don't wait until you have it to share it you share it and as you share it you discover it and it's that way with every principle of the gospel and even every secular principle like you can't expect to become good at math by thinking about it you have to actually do it and then you become good at it and to your point like just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean that it's not Real like just cuz this guy right here at the bottom of the mountain is saying heyy you know there's there's
not a peak that's x amount of thousands of feet like I'm not going to even start the hike he sees this and he's like oh it's like only 2,000 ft it's not 6,000 just because he can't see the peak doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that is is brought up in verse six where it says faith is thing in things which are hoped for and not seen wherefore dispute not Because you see not for you receive no witness until after the trial of your faith so in order for him to receive that knowledge he
has to hike the mountain he has to put in the work nothing in life that's worth anything uh will come just freely you have to give something of yourself this is a really important point and I think we need to to spend a little bit of time here that sometimes people get this perception or this idea that okay well I'll have faith Today or this week I I'll I will live as if it's all true and then I will expect all of the fruits of that faithful living brothers and sisters the Gospel of Jesus Christ
is not intended to be an event in our life it's intended to be the focus and the process of our life it's every single day and some of these things we do them over and over and over again some people feel like wow here I am in the church I pray I read my scriptures I go to church I go to the Temple I have family home evening I do my ministering I serve in my calling and then I go to church and I pray and I read my scriptures and before you know it they
say I'm going in circles well they are going in circles but if you shift the camera angle from the bird's eye view down to this Earthly view you see that the circles that they're going in are taking them to progressively higher and higher levels in the the Gospel of Jesus Christ so yes We do the same things over and over but I hope that we're doing them differently now than we did them last week or the year before or back when we were young same thing maybe the thing hasn't changed but in the Gospel of
Jesus Christ we have changed and we have become better think about every meaningful relationship in your life and think about what you do in that relationship there are things you do Again and again and again and you never stop doing them and if you take a negative view of that you'd say man in this relationship I'm just going in circles I we just keep doing the same thing over and over again yes that's part of the process of becoming is learning how to not just do the same things over and over again but how to
ref Define the way we're doing those things over and over again so that it takes us to higher and Holier ways of Connecting with God connecting with each other connecting with His prophets connecting with the scriptures connecting with our our covenants it's a it's a beautiful principle of just because we can't see the end let's not dispute we keep moving forward in this process process forward with faith rooted in Christ and then he shifts in verse 7 to to discussing this faith and what its ultimate fruit will be is coming into the presence of Jesus
Christ yeah and kind of going back to what you're talking about how we like going in circles sometimes feels mundane but I found that sometimes in life not all the time but sometimes when you're doing kind of that more circular like feeling like you're ending up in the same spot every time in a particular relationship or um your relationship with the prophet or with God or with your spouse or your kids or whatever it is I I sometimes find that there there's That's one of the most joyful parts of the process Because by the time
you get to that you know wherever this point is I don't know we're not going to put a label on it but you're like wow like like it it feels the same but you feel elevated hopefully um so it's not a universal principle but sometimes enjoying the journey and and those those more mundane moments of life for lack of a better term uh I I've been able to find some of that Joy so it's it's not Necessarily like just an uphill slog like the whole time there's there's joy to be found in increasing levels as
you as you go up on this um what are we calling this spiral staircase or yeah yeah and you know this doesn't have to just be in relationships it can be in in the the normal Cho of everyday life it can be doing the dishes doing the laundry vacuuming cleaning going for a walk you can do the exact same thing every day but find increasing connecting Points with God even as you do those mundane things they're part of life they're part of mortality and God wants us to find joy in the journey and what an
amazing thing if we can do a better job of figuring out how to use even the mundane as opportunities for us to focus on connect with and talk to God and to be with God even even as we're doing that which which doesn't seem like anything religious or spiritual could possibly come of it it's amazing what The Lord could teach us if we involve him in All process processes of our Liv in all aspects of our life moving forward so now as we dive into verse seven we go from the opposite end of the spectrum
from the mundane or the daily to the the Eternal let's think Celestial here for a minute and look big picture verse 7 for it was by faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers after he had risen from the dead and he showed not himself unto them until after they Had faith in him there's the the sequence again the faith comes first the witness comes second Jesus Christ manifesting himself secondly I get it there are times in scriptures where the Lord the Good Shepherd comes when a person isn't asking for it or expecting it there
there are some exceptions to to this rule with Elma the younger with Paul and others uh Loni Loni's father many other experiences in Scripture But for the most part the general rule is we exercise our faith and then the Lord manifests himself unto us in a variety of ways and in this case it's it's uh in the resurrected form for these people that morona is talking about here he says wherefore it must needs be that some had faith in him for he showed himself not unto the world his pattern isn't to to stand at the
Heavenly podium and get on the megaphone and speak to everybody at once that's Happened a few times in the history of the scriptures but usually he Parts the veil and he picks those of great faith to be chosen vessels special Witnesses who now can go and spread the message to the rest of the world that's the pattern yeah and I just had like a thought that I like my whole life I've I've thought okay like prophets don't have faith because they have knowledge but it still takes a lot of faith even if you've seen Christ
even if you have have seen him in The flesh you've touched the wounds in his in his hands and in his side you still have to have faith to be able to carry out his mission because once after you come off of that Mountaintop experience of life and you come down into the dark and dreary and hopeless world it's it's going to be a lot more difficult to have that faith if you're not completely faithful and and exercising actively exercising that Faith because all the People that you interact with like very very few of them
are going to you know enjoy what you have to say as a prophet and so I I just had that thought as as you were explaining this yeah I would I would go as far as to say that at no point does a single individual in the history of the world check their faith at the door and say I no longer need it now some would say wait a minute I thought Elma 32 says well then is your faith dormant because you you have a Knowledge of these things I believe that if if we look
carefully there are two kinds of faith in in the Book of Mormon that we're talking about here and in fact Elder Bednar would say there are three types of Faith there's faith that is Assurance or belief and in Elma 32 once you once you see Christ or once you know for yourself you've touched those wounds the the belief part of your faith is dormant you you now have a knowledge but I love what you said you Still are required to have faith As you move forward because the second and third aspects are Faith to act
Faith as a principle of action and then Faith as a principle of evidence being manifest well those are yet to be revealed even if somebody's been visited by the Lord so in these degrees of faith if you're looking at the big overarching faith that the I think morona is talking about here we never check that at the door that always has to keep increasing And I think there's nobody on this Earth who has more faith in Jesus Christ than our prophets seers and revelators uh and I think it just keeps growing for them absolutely and
I love what it says in verse seven where this is kind of the precursor to the the next few verses where it goes into all of the individual examples of Faith but it says that um Christ showed not himself unto them until after they had faith in him and I think the ultimate manifestation Of Christ showing himself to us is Manifest in the Miracles that we see every day and now you know maybe somebody smiling at you at the grocery store wouldn't be considered a miracle but it kind of is because it's it's Christ showing
himself to you through somebody else whether we're bringing somebody dinner whether we're visiting someone that's sick whether we're ministering to our spouse or to our children or to our siblings or anyone That's in our life that is a miracle it's a you know maybe not like a like a massive miracle that could be written in the history books but all of those are Little Miracles and I think that that's important to note because we're going to talk about some huge Miracles that were rought because of Faith but the most important thing is that when we
exercise faith it will always precede a miracle no matter how small and in my scriptures I I mark my scriptures with uh different Topics by different colors faith is always yellow Miracles are always purple and if you read my scriptures and look at my markings there's always going to be a little bit of yellow followed by a little bit of purple and if and and if you can't find the purple it's probably because we either it's not written or we weren't looking hard enough I I love that and that's not just on the scripture page
my guess is is in your own life yeah there's been a lot of Yellow followed by a lot of purple yeah and when I don't when there's not a lot of yellow there's a lot of negative stuff yeah and if we're not careful then we blame God and say well it's his fault that there's not a lot of purple lot not a lot of miracles in my life when in reality God his promises are sure there there is a law irrevocably decreed before the foundation of the world and when we're obedient to a law we
receive the blessings that are Associated with that law to to quote Doctrine Covenant section 82 now you come down to verse 8 and it says but because of the faith of men he has showed him shown himself unto the world and glorified the name of the father I love that he he hasn't glorified his own name he always glorifies the name of the father and he's prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the Heavenly gift that they might hope for those things which they have not Seen powerful the interplay here again between
faith and hope that they they work together in this beautiful uh symbiotic relationship the more you increase the one you're going to increase the other and the opposite is also true the more you you uh reject the one the less of the other you're going to have as an outcome which now brings us to verse nine wherefore which is another one of moroni's cause and effect I I've taught You this Doctrine wherefore what's the the effect what's the outcome ye may also have hope and be partakers of the gift if you will but have faith
this is a perfect place to just pause for a moment and recognize this is Moroni who's writing this his people are gone his audience his his what he would have called his modern-day audience doesn't exist we are his audience he's writing these words to me and to you when he says wherefore ye may also he's not Giving a talk in his church he he's not having a conversation with a child of his as we maybe a few animals or something as he's writing on the plates maybe that's the only audience he has exactly it's he's
talking to you and me we can have hope we can be partakers of the gift if we will but have faith so here he puts Faith as a foundation and hope as an outcome but again we can find other scriptures that take it the other direction and that's great yeah whatever You find the most meaningful at any given point in your life is probably what God wants to teach you that's what you need scpt step on your progression up that mountain and and I love how it says that like that faith is a more excellent
way prepared by God and I think that President Nelson would probably compare that excellent way to the Covenant path if we if we are on that more excellent way we are on the Covenant path we are heading up that Mountain moving past all the false Peaks to get to the ultimate destination by the way I just have to say that of all the words Moroni uh could have chosen there and and of all the words that the Lord could have inspired as the English translation of whatever character it was that Maran scratched into the metal
plates the word excellent isn't usually a word that you associate with scripture not not usually it feels more more uh common a really Cool common word but in this context I love it that the Lord has prepared a more excellent way to excel to to go above to go beyond to rise up 110% yes it's just it's this isn't a mediocre approach to Faith this is like everything beautiful love that word and then you go down in your study verse 13 14 15 16 you get Alma AMC Nephi Lehi Ammon his Brethren and 16 all
they who wrought Miracles they did it by faith even those Who were before Christ and also those who were after and I love this as it said here all the Miracles were wrought by faith so in our own life you might have some challenges today some problems some decisions some relationship struggles and you may have tried multiple things and they failed they've let you down it didn't work and there comes that time when you have to let go of all of the world's solutions to those problems or those Decisions and say okay dear dear God
on high here I am I want to do thy will I want to trust thee more fully more completely I will be thy servant what would thou have me do and we move forward in faith alone and seek and expect miracles as president Nelson would also say yeah and the Miracles will come they they always do and it's not once again it's not necessarily going to be something Earth shattering or World changing it it will often times be something that seems more mundane but is really a a sign of God's Divine Providence in our life
and verse 19 says and there were many whose Faith was so exceedingly strong even before Christ came who could not be kep kept from within the veil but truly saw with their eyes the things which they had beheld with an eye of faith and so these people I have so much respect for anyone that came before Christ because for us I I Mean although it's not easy to have faith in in Jesus it takes work uh these people were having faith in a being that was yet to come it was he he had not shown
himself in the flesh to them and so I I have a lot of respect uh for these people who who exercised their faith righteously and they came to know Christ I don't think that this necessarily means in some cases it does but I don't think it necessarily means that Christ showed himself to them in in The flesh but it does mean that he showed himself to them in in a myriad of ways uh and I think that all of us in some capacity can say that Christ has shown himself to us through the actions of
others through uh little Hugs From Heaven as my mom calls it um with a sunset um with being out in nature being in the temple and having a quiet moment of contemplation where the Lord speaks to you in in your own personal way those are all ways that or most recently for Me looking in the eyes of my little newborn daughter and not being a very emotional person myself having tears well up in my eyes and and realizing that this little daughter of God is is my wife and I's little precious treasure to help raise
and uh teach and help and guide throughout this life that is seeing the face of God for me and yes it would be nice if Jesus could show up in my room one night and and tell me that everything was true and you know let me Touch his his hands and and feel the wounds in his side but I don't really need that because he's given me so much else in my life yeah few things are a manifestation of God's love or or a lens into heaven more than holding a little infant or laying down
with a little infant falling asleep on your chest as you just cut SLE that little baby it it reminds me uh as I've as I've even held our precious granddaughter that Benjamin's describing here it reminds me Of how God feels about us if you've ever if you've ever been crying or been scared or been frustrated or been elad and you you go to God with whatever it is you're experiencing much like a small child and you come into that loving Embrace brothers and sisters that's that's what life is all about is building that Covenant connection
with God trusting Jesus Christ coming to Heavenly Father coming to Jesus Christ And connecting with them in in these faithful ways even when at first we don't know how it's going to work out we hope for a more excellent way that he he provides for us so let's change gears here and go to this this new topic as he's been discussing all of these people and then he focuses starting in verse 20 on the brother of Jared and how the Lord couldn't withhold anything from his sight because of his Faith he he couldn't be kept
from without the Veil and so verse 23 becomes this very autobiographical moment for Moroni as he's discussing the brother of Jared and his writings and he says in verse 23 I said unto him Lord the Gentiles Will Mock at these things because of our weakness in writing for Lord thou Hast made us Mighty in Word by faith but thou Hast not made us Mighty in writing how many of you have certain Strengths in your life and you say yep I got that I can I can do that but then we also have these weaknesses where
we say h I'm struggling there I can't accomplish that on my own what happens here is Maron I just described we're Mighty in speaking we're able to share all kinds of things in in our discussions which is exactly what Nephi shared clear back in second Nephi CH 33:1 where he he lamented the fact that he couldn't write very well and that was Coming from Nephi who in my opinion one of the greatest writers of all time and now here's Moroni doing the same thing he says we are not very very good at writing verse 24
gives some clarification th has made us that we could write but little because of the awkwardness of our hands you can picture these large hands these these Mighty Men Mormon and Moroni and they're writing these dainty little characters on metal Plates to fit as much as they can in this in this small space and he said our our hands aren't Built For This Lord you made us weak in this writing capacity and then he does this comparison you haven't made us Mighty in writing like unto the brother of Jared for thou mest him that the
things which he wrote were Mighty even as Thou Art even unto the overpowering of man to read them so here's the guy who knows about the writings of the brother of Jared better than anybody as he's uh translating them and including them on the sealed portion that we talked about back in ether chapters 4 and 5 and I can picture these moments where morona is reading the brother of Jared's words and then he's looking and reading his own words and saying I'm a nobody I I I don't know what I'm doing I can't even compare
to the brother of Jared yeah which is really like you said it's kind Of ironic because morona is one of the one of my heroes in the Book of Mormon he's such a great example and um we obviously are catching him kind of in the middle of his story we I I don't know if we see the ultimate end of his story but he we we see what happens later as well um but it it it helps me to feel a little bit um relate to him a little bit better because sometimes we put these
profits on these massive pedestals and say okay like there's no Way that I could even come close to them in this life but I think that we can all relate to Moroni in in a certain capacity where we have weaknesses we have weaknessess and we just don't know how we can possibly never see the light of day and and yet Moroni is being very vulnerable with us and telling us some of his struggles and and what's making him feel anxious for lack of a better term and verse 26 is really powerful when it says and
when I had said this so Talking about his weakness um in writing the Lord spake unto me saying fools mock but they shall mourn and my grace is sufficient for the meek that they shall take no advantage of your weakness and I as as I was studying the scripture um in preparation for for this lesson I I was thinking about this term fools Will Mock there is no shortage of fools mocking in this world we you can turn on social media turn on the news there are going to be hundreds of thousands millions of People
pointing fingers of scorn at any number of people from all walks of life um with little to no understanding of where they're actually coming from it's so so easy for us to criticize somebody for a a public action or words or whatever they have whatever they' have put on the record it's so easy for us to criticize them and we know very little about what they actually believe or where they're coming from and we all do it we all do it nobody nobody is Completely innocent of this um and the Lord is saying right here
fools are going to mock but they shall mourn because my grace is sufficient for the meek which to me is the the center turning point in this whole process it's the pivot point when God takes the focus off of Moroni and his self-diagnosed weakness of I'm a terrible writer why did you call me why why didn't you get somebody who was a Calligrapher a professional to do this I am not learned is a phrase that that shows up in 2 Nephi 27 referring to Joseph Smith when the book is delivered to him and he says
I'm not learned I can't do this I love in chapter 27 of second Nephi when in two verses in a row God says I am able to do my own work that's exactly what's going on here so we get to see these Divine tutoring the these these Tages between God and His prophets who are are feeling vulnerable they're feeling weak they're feeling insufficient like I I can't do this I don't have what it takes to accomplish thy Work and God's saying it's not about you my grace is sufficient so when Jesus is the one saying
my grace is sufficient it means it's not just barely going to get you over the Finish Line no he is a god of abundance when he's going to feed 5 Th000 with Five Loaves and two fish there are 12 baskets of leftovers it's sufficient and then some a lord of abundance his grace makes it so that our perceived weakness actually becomes a strength if we stay humble and he gives us that formula in this this next by the way this next verse if if you combine 26 and 27 these two are some of the most
empowering verses in all of scripture to teach us how we can move forward in Greater Faith how we can have more hope in Christ how we can abound in good works even when we don't feel very good even when we feel flawed like I am never going to get this right I am never going to be who I need to be the problem is is we're focused too much on us and our self diagnostic weakness and not focus enough on him and his power and his grace yeah and I think that often times we do
skip over verse 26 but I think that you can't really separate verse 26 From 27 it's kind of a little pairing there it's a package deal it's a package deal and before we jump into verse 27 which is where many of us are going to want to spend a lot more time um one other little insight from verse 26 where it says my grace is sufficient for the meek God is the only one who truly understands us he understands us more than we understand ourselves we we think we might think we know a lot about
ourselves but God knows so much about us Beyond what our comprehension and so I find that my worst critic the worst person that's the fool that's mocking is not the people out on social media and on the news and in the world it's myself it's it's the guy that's looking at himself in the mirror saying you are such a loser you're the worst you messed up again whatever it is uh and his grace the thing that God is telling us here through Moroni is my grace is sufficient for the meek and so the key there
is Meek if if I'm prideful it it's like this weird self-destructive cycle of like being prideful but then telling yourself that you're the worst and then you become more Pride like like and and this it's it's not helpful but if I can meekly look at myself in the mirror and say man I am flawed I am weak I have so much I need to work on but I'm going to trust you uh talking to God that is where he can really do his magic so if we look at the connection between verse 26 and 27
the the bridge to me the bridging factor is this word meek and the word if there we go so after we have so after we have been sufficiently humbled and become Meek that's where it factors into the word if if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness this if would not be in place if we if we weren't Meek we have to be meek before we come to God and then we get the just the wonderful stuff that Comes later here so I I love what you're doing here when you combine
this this meekness as the precursor the foundation for the coming unto him so the condition is met only if we're Meek notice the com the comparison here I'm going to go in a different color here for contrast look at this phrase we talked about it before my grace is sufficient and notice it's my grace it's Not your goodness it's not your capacity it's it's Christ's goodness that's why we have faith in him and hope in him now notice this verse 27 my grace is sufficient there it is again take two when something get repeated in
Scriptures it adds emphasis you pay more attention to it so my grace is sufficient for whom for the meek my grace is sufficient for whom for all men That humble themselves before me not humble themselves before the mirror not humble themselves before other people although are important things to do but the grace being sufficient is for all that's 100% of people who humble themselves before me so if we go back to our red for a moment here you get the word humble and meek two two words that are always associated with each other he's making
a point here we have to get to that degree of of teachability in our Life to where we actually turn to God come to him so that he look at the look at the pronouns if men come unto me I will show unto them it's not the mirror that is going to reveal the weakness it's not the comparison in a relationship that's going to reveal the true weakness now granted those relationships you can identify those weaknesses but here we're talking about Weakness The Human Condition the Frailty of Fallen man and woman and God is the
one who is going to do the showing here not not men and women and the amazing thing is is once he identifies the weakness he he actually tells you I give unto men weakness that they may be humble and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me now we get to this exciting conclusion of verse 27 when he Says for if you have the the two conditional statements in verse 27 here's the second one if they humble themselves before me so those are the conditions that need to be met and have
faith in me talking about faith again two things and this is coming from the stylus of Moroni who has incredible faith and who is intensely humble at this point in his Life as he's writing it says if you are humble and have faith come unto me then will I make weak Things become strong unto them so that which is weak gets turned into that which is strong if we go back to the Whiteboard you saw the weakness that was self diagnosed I'll put it in red here self-diagnosed by Moroni was I'm a terrible writer that
was if you were looking in The mirror that's it Maroni what's your problem what's your weakness I'm terrible at writing I just can't get it right the reality is when you come unto Christ Christ reveals the true weakness and I love the fact that we don't see moroni's writing ability all of a sudden take off and get astronomically improved and way better some of my favorite chapters ever written by anybody in any book at any time come in the beginning chapters of Ether and the last chapters of Mormon that Moroni wrote when he was self-diagnosed
as a terrible writer or weak in writing I don't see him making huge improvements in his writing ability between ethers chapters 2 and 3 and Moroni 89 and 10 they're all good why because Christ is the one who's in charge of this process I am able to do my own work he said I love the fact that not only do You not not see moroni's writing ability just massively improve you do see something improve Moroni never again Compares himself to the brother of Jared or to any other writer he never laments the fact that he's
not as good as somebody else it's possible that the lesson Maron I learned that day is that God showed him it's not not about your writing ability it's about my ability to do my work and I just need you to do the best you can put Down whatever you can on those plates to the to the best of your ability with the awkwardness of your hands I will make those weak Things become strong unto those who will receive them in the latter days and brothers and sisters as we study these chapters today you and I
are seeing the miracle unfold before our eyes we're seeing the miracle that Jesus Promised of weak things being made strong the true Weakness wasn't moroni's writing ability it was his his frustration with himself that came because he compared himself to somebody who was writing in a in a pretty amazing language because his language wasn't confounded at the Tower of Babel a perfect language and you're going to lose every time you make that comparison so in our life whatever it is that you're facing today and you might look at your efforts and they might seem Really
lame they might seem really inadequate and imperfect and weak If We Hold to the faith that God keeps this promise that he is the one who makes weak Things become strong then we don't have to keep focusing on us and what we're not good at and we can focus instead on Jesus Christ and what he is perfect at which is saving us his grace is sufficient for us and we we've spent a couple minutes just talking about moroni's weakness with writing but the Real take-home for all of us is how it applies to us in
our lives and the reality is is that all of us have our proverbial weakness in writing and I would venture to say that it's not just in one particular area of our life it's probably over a lot of different things we are weak as human beings we naturally have shortcomings but the key is that his grace is sufficient for the meek and he will make weak things strong unto us this is a complete surrender as our Evangelical friends would probably say it is a surrender to God and what is a surrender in in war times
this is where you give up all of your weapons you give up all your weapons of rebellion that that we've heard about in general confence confence very recently we give up everything there are no conditions we are giving ourselves completely to who to whom we are surrendering to this is this is there is no 80% on this this is 110% we are 100% surrendering ourselves To God and the the only condition is that when we do that when we turn everything to him he will make those weak Things become strong I don't know of anybody
that I would rather be associated with or anyone whose side I would rather be on we know who's going win this battle ultimately and so this is this is a no-brainer for us we want to surrender to God we want to give everything to him and his grace is sufficient that for the meek for the Humble that we can have those weak Things become strong to us so as we finish chapter 12 you see Moroni now with I love this with a newfound confidence in not having to focus on comparing his writing to the brother
of Jorge in fact he only mentions his weakness in writing one more time and it's over there in verse 40 when it says only a few of I written because of my weakness in writing but he never makes the comparison it's as if that weak part Of him of of feeling bad about himself because of comparison it seems to be become strong to him I think that's the solution that God gave him among others I'm sure there were many others but that's one that's pretty obvious here on the page so then you get things like
verse vers 33 mentioning God's love for the world as the motivating factor for why he does everything with us verse 36 the Lord giving grace to the Gentiles that they might have charity to to Reflect God's love and then you jump down to the invitation that he is going to see us before the Judgment seat so this This Promise This prophetic view of the future and then this incredible closure to this one of the the the best chapters ever written in my opinion look at How It Ends verse 41 and now I would commend you
to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written that the grace of God the father and also the Lord Jesus Christ And the Holy Ghost which beareth record of them may be and abide in you forever I love this verse let let's dive into just a couple of of key words here he says I would commend you to seek that is a very active word that isn't a passive exercise of any kind it's you're not waiting for these answers to come to you you're seeking them you're you're you're abounding in good works
trying to find them and what are you seeking this word often gets overlooked because It's such a simple word seek this Jesus brothers and sisters that to me is one of the key words in this chapter it's not to seek the Jesus of the world as described or defined by the philosophies of men or by well-intentioned well-meaning people who maybe are painting a different picture of who Jesus Christ is in fact in the October 2024 General Conference president Jeffrey R Holland talked about how the world is taking Jesus Christ the Son of God the Savior
and Redeemer of the world and reducing him in all kinds of ways for for all kinds of purposes I love this verse the way that Moroni worded it because it's seek this Jesus which one the Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written and we would say and spoken the one that they testify of not the one that the world teaches or the sanitized version or the the fairy tale version the real Christ the son of God Jesus of Nazareth who was born who lived the perfect life performed the perfect atonement and died and
was resurrected and sit it's enthroned in Yonder Heavens on the right hand of the father that's the Jesus that Moroni is encouraging and inviting us uh commending us to seek yeah and the it you could find just about any Scripture in the old New Testament book of Mormon doctrine of covenants where Jesus is speaking and take that out of context and say this is The Jesus that I worship he allows anything he loves everybody and yes that's true in that context but when you create a own your own version of Jesus that allows you to
live your own sinful lifestyle we are all sinful that is not what morona is inviting us to do he's inviting us to seek this Jesus and like you said this is a triangulated voice of the prophets old and modern written words of scripture it's it's very easy to figure out who That Jesus is if you follow that guidance and counsel so I think that that's such an important word and seek is such an important word as well because this isn't just a passive form of learning something you know I can sit in a in a
school class all day and the lecturer can can give me information but seeking means it implies that I am now invol invoking my agency in the process I am seeking this Jesus and I think that we can pull this back to um 26 and 27 Verse 26 and 27 where that act of seeking involves some form of humility where it forces us to say I don't know everything there is something more out there I'm going to seek this Jesus I'm going to follow him I'm going to become like him I'm going to become his disciple
I'm going to dedicate my life to him that's what seeking this Jesus means and then this is such a powerful thing that the grace of God the father and the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost this is the whole godhead that is being invoked here that the grace of the godhead which beareth record of them so they all are testifying of each other may be and abide in you forever amen that I think that often times we we we focus so much on seek this Jesus because it sounds so nice it's wonderful and and
I'm not trying to minimize the importance of that but the promise that if we seek Jesus and this is also the the end cap to coming unto him and Humbling ourselves before him so if we seek him we will have literally the whole godhead with us forever that doesn't mean that we'll always be free from weakness and sin but they will be with us and then he ends it with amen it's this is like he's adding emphasis I love this because it's back to this Covenant relationship this Covenant connection concept of we do all of
these things we're talking about not just because it's a it's a nice way to Fill our time but because it's the only hope for a a bright future a more excellent way it's the only chance we have to find true lasting happiness and joy um not only for ourselves but for our loved ones around us and I love Moroni being the one who's making this invitation a guy who is wandering all alone who's isolated who feels forsaken of the world and yet he's writing with so such power and such hope you can tell his faith
is rooted in Christ and it's Fascinating he is an eyewitness of the lord your four major authors on the plates Nephi Jacob Mormon and Moroni they're all eyewitnesses of Christ they're all people who have seen and tasted of the goodness of God and now he's not just sharing his faith with you you he's sharing his Apostolic uh special witness with you to say Seek this Jesus uh to to to accomplish th this outcome grace of God yeah I forgot to Mention that it's the grace of God which Grace is ultimately as as brother Brad Wilcox
has has has talked it's the it's that gap between us and God it's the ability it's everything that we can't do even after all we have done that God will fill up it's beautiful through through Christ's atonement and now we get to chapter 13 14 and 15 rather than going into all of the verses here we spent all of our time in chapter 12 let me just point out that The Book of Mormon is written in such a way for our day that even if you find yourself reading chapter 13 or 14 or 15 in
Phil like oh my Heavens this is deep this is dark this is this is depressing this is terrible The Book of Mormon is written in such a way that even in those deepest darkest pages of the book you can still feel feel and find connection with God if you're seeking for Christ if you're looking for lessons that are applicable To you don't treat chapters 13 14 and 15 as oh this is this is just depressing and I don't want to even read it it's part of the Divine record given to us by inspiration from God
and if we study it by inspiration his grace is sufficient for us as well that we can still walk away with Life Lessons Learned feeling closer to the Savior and understanding the opposition that we face in our own lives and the tribulations and trials that That might be staring you in the face today it shows us how to not live how oh if I do that I'm going to life is not going to be fun or good in any way and so the sometimes these non-examples are are a great teaching method that the Lord can
can give us through the scriptures but to finish up I would just like to share my testimony that when we seek this Jesus when we seek our Savior Jesus Christ and we keep his Commandments and we DED at our lives to Him even when it's hard even when there's Mists of darkness and there's Temptations and there are many many people in the great and spacious building that have a million in one things to say the fools that are mocking even when we have all of these tempests in life that are really combining against us to
to tear us down and to tell us to turn away from God if we seek Jesus if we stay focused on him if we turn to him in meekness and in humility His his grace is sufficient to help our weaknesses become strengths that we never knew we could possess and that through that Grace and through those strengths we will ultimately be able to be exalted with all of our loved ones and family in the Celestial Kingdom and I testify of that in the name of Jesus Christ amen amen thank you Benjamin know that you're loved
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