Week 44 is scheduled for study Oct. 28-Nov. 3, 2024. In our effort to persuade others to repent have we included our self? Christ may stand with open arms to receive us, but we need to go to him, not the other way around. He is the immovable eternal standard of all things. We are the moving targets. When we finally decide to go to Christ we can always depend on him being where he is supposed to be.
Day 1
Mormon 1-6 – I can follow Jesus Christ regardless of what other people do.
Mormon wasn’t alone in his discipleship, but he nearly was. Here is Moroni 1:2-3.
2 For behold, their are exceedingly fierce among themselves; and because of their they every Nephite that will not deny the Christ.
3 And I, Moroni, will not the Christ; wherefore, I wander whithersoever I can for the safety of mine own life.
I make this point of Mormon not being alone in his discipleship only because I think it is important to also note that he wasn’t in a comfortable majority of believers either. Historically speaking disciples of Christ are almost always just a tiny minority of the population. It is easy to leave the church and disappear into the crowd of unbelievers. Despite the overwhelming number of unbelievers around him, Mormon still valued and cherished his testimony and the life his devotion to Christ made available to him. He was genuinely grateful for the Holy Ghost in his life and his ability to petition the heavens and receive answers to his prayers. Mormon had a happiness in his life that no one around him could even comprehend, and he knew it came from his belief in and devotion to Christ.
As you read these chapters in Mormon did it occur to you that he focuses on his own love for those around him and not on what people could do for him? He served them as their commander and chief for a good 65 years before he just couldn’t do it any more. Even then they prevailed upon him to lead them one last time in their final battles with the Lamanites. He relented and did it for the sake of his people. That is godly love. The whole time he recounts the history of his people in his day he states over and over again that their lives were filled with wickedness, abominations, and whoredoms. He hated the sins and would not partake in them, but he loved the people and served God in all things. We can do the same.
Day 2
Mormon 2:10-15 – Godly sorrow leads me to Christ and to lasting change.
Mormon 2:13 is the verse I would like to address.
13 But behold this my joy was vain, for their was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the of the , because the Lord would not always suffer them to take in sin.
First, let’s look at the last comment of the verse – “the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin.” We talk all the time about how there is no happiness in sin, for sin cannot create happiness. That is what the commandments create. The point to be remembered here is that we need to look at this statement from the perspective of God, who sees everything from the standpoint of eternity. Righteous living creates happiness that lasts eternally. That is the nature of living in that way. Evil can create happiness that is temporary, maybe even lasting for years, but eventually it always sours and can no longer bring the happiness we saw in it when we began to commit sin. Some sin’s give a sense of happiness that is as illusory as the shadow of a cloud passing overhead. Other sins last longer, but none of them can create happiness eternally, for “wickedness never was happiness.” That is the long or eternal perspective God wants us to use when we make decisions. He wants us to be happy forever, not just for today.
Now let’s go back to the beginning of the verse. Worldly sorrow is that sorrowing that comes from no longer being able to find happiness in our sinning. Godly sorrow is that sorrow that causes us to be more humble and to seek God for a change of heart so we can bring our life into line with His commandments. When we seek the happiness God wants for us we sometimes have to seek for a complete change of heart. The change of heart is something only Christ can give us. Only his atoning sacrifice has the ability to change our very disposition from desiring to do evil all the day long to one that desires to do good all the day long. We cannot make such a change, only Christ can affect such a change in the human soul.
We must seek Christ and exercise faith in his commandments in order for him to be able to make this life-changing miracle in our life. This is the process of putting off the worldly man/woman and becoming a child of Christ. When we become tired enough of the suffering that being worldly causes in our life, we decide that whatever Christ demands of us is worth the effort to be free of our worldly burdens. This is when we yoke ourselves to Christ and choose to obey his commandments no matter the cost to our personal life. This is when we find freedom from sins and instead find peace in our soul.
Mormon’s people were not experiencing godly sorrow, for they had deliberately rebelled against God and purposefully chose Satan’s way of living. They knowingly put off all the commandments for the promises of power, riches, influence, and worldly pleasures he offered. So now, near the end of their miserable lives they experienced the sorrow of the damned, for that is what they had earned for themselves, but still were not interested in turning to Christ and repenting of their sins. They had invested too much into being wicked to give it up. The Spirit had ceased to strive to save them and they were left alone to be tormented by Satan until they were destroyed, which is always Satan’s end goal. He lured them away from God, now he wants them dead.
Until the day comes that the Spirit no longer can reach us and help us, because we have pushed him away consistently, there is always time and a way to repent. The Savior’s atonement is for all people at every point in their life. It is never too late to repent, as long as you are still drawing breath. The question is, do you want to? As I mentioned in yesterday’s lesson the change that takes place in our soul is a lasting one, for Christ’s goal is for us to be happy eternally, not just for today or for this hour.
Day 3
Mormon 3:3, 9 – “They did not realize that it was the Lord that had spared them.”
God has always commanded that His people were never to go to war, except for a couple of conditions. The first condition was that God commanded them to kill someone. Then war was good, because it was commanded by God. This is what happened when the Israelites needed to move into the promised land. The people had become ripe in iniquity and God wanted them all dead, so when Israel left some of them alive they were punished by the Lord for not killing all of them.
The second condition, which is the one the Nephites were always under was that they were not to ever go to war and be the aggressors. They were to defend themselves only. As long as they only defended themselves the Lord promised to fight their battles for them and preserve them. As wicked as the Nephites were at this time in their history, the Lord was still honoring His promise to save them from their enemies, but only as long as they only fought when they were defending themselves.
They were so wicked, and had developed such a love of shedding blood that they decided that they were going to become the aggressors and attack the Lamanites. This was the last straw, the final offense against God. By His own promise He could no longer protect them. From this time on the Lamanites began to sweep them from off the face of the earth. It was their own fault. God had protected them up to this point in their history, but they had long since stopped giving Him credit for anything good that happened to them. They now believed it was all them, so they became arrogant and cocky. They felt it was within their power, after the marvelous ways in which they had been successful in their previous campaigns, that they could easily destroy the Lamanites once and for all. God’s mercy and protecting influence was not even a consideration any longer.
Day 4
Mormon 5:8-24; 6:16-22 – Jesus Christ stands with open arms to receive me.
I think we all agree that the Nephites in Mormon’s day were pretty far gone. They had given themselves completely over to their lusts and their chosen sins. They no longer had any desire to do good or be good. As the scriptures say, they delighted in the shedding of blood. Yet for all their wickedness and abominations Mormon still tells them that Christ stood with open arms to receive them.
This unimaginable willingness to forgive and forget demonstrated by Christ for all of us should give us hope. We sometimes feel we are so entrenched in our sin that we just don’t see how he could, or would, be willing to freely forgive us. But that is what he promises us and that is what his prophets teach us. Christ is forgiving. Perhaps the problem is not that he will not forgive us, but that we don’t feel forgivable. We must learn to let him shoulder the burden of forgiveness so we can see just how forgiving he can be. If we make the choice for him then we just end up denying ourselves of his forgiveness needlessly.
Personal Study
Help others share what they learn.
There is something akin to magic in expressing one’s feelings. Something about saying what we think and feel out loud makes them more real to us. As long as we brood in silence everything inside us remains a jumble. Expression brings clarity and solidifies our real feelings. This is the principle behind our Fast and Testimony meetings each Fast Sunday. This is our chance to state publicly how we feel and what we have experienced. These opportunities to share with others the feelings of our heart turns what is so often ethereal into concrete reality.
When you participate in your Come, Follow Me class twice a month do you take the opportunity to express yourself? Do you try to find the words to express the feelings you had as you read the scriptures and contemplated the truths of the lessons? Hopefully your teacher is giving you ample opportunity to do so. I admit that it takes a level of bravery to publicly attempt to put your thoughts and feelings into words for others to hear. There is something about that expression of your inner self that changes and cements your feelings. After you have done it you are left with more convictions and fewer doubts.
Expressing ourselves to others about the gospel of Christ is a way to strengthen our own testimony and our own resolve to live and keep the commandments. This is why we should always welcome this experience and offer this experience to others. We all need to have this experience on a regular basis. Stating our beliefs just once isn’t enough. This is something that needs to happen regularly to be most effective in our life.
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