mormon mysteriesWe  are an inquisitive lot. We spend our lives trying to answer questions for which no one currently has answers. Sometimes we get lucky and think we have stumbled upon the answer to a particular mystery. We rejoice in our cleverness for a while, only to find that new evidence tells us that we were completely wrong in our first conclusion. So we revise our answer and move on, feeling safe in our own cleverness once again. We sometimes look down on the world for this practice, but there are Mormon mysteries as well.

First a basic principle

In Jacob 4:14 Nephi’s brother Jacob teaches us about our own nature, the nature of God, and the relationship we have with Him. First I’ll give you the verse then start at the end of the verse and work backwards with the principles he is teaching. In Jacob’s culture they started with the end of the story then explained it. Sometimes it is easier to understand Book of Mormon verses when we look at them in reverse.

14 But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble.

God gives us the desires of our hearts. If there was ever a deadly gift that rivaled that of the touch of King Midas, it is that God gives us the desires of our heart. In Greek mythology King Midas, a greedy man, lusted after gold. His desire was granted when he was given the “gift” that whatever he touched would instantly be turned to gold. This delighted the greedy king until he discovered that his food also turned to gold. This was a consequence he had not expected.

His final unexpected consequence was to have his beloved daughter touch him and she was instantly turned into gold. A couple of the lessons available in this story are that our desires are often very short-sighted, and that when we finally do receive what we so desperately coveted, what we longed for turns out to be more of a curse or a burden than a blessing.
 
There are multiple prophets in the scriptures, starting with David in the Psalms, extending into the Doctrine and Covenants that tell us that God gives us, and will judge us according to the desires of our hearts. Depending on what we have set our hearts upon this could either be a great blessing or a great curse. If we desire the things of God we will be given the things of God. If we desire the things of this world then that is what we shall receive. But in the end we will discover that happiness is only found in the things of God.
 
In our verse in Jacob we are told that the Jews desired above all else to know of things they could not understand, so that is what God gave them. The result is that they spiritually stumbled and fell. Why? Because they were not ready for what they demanded of their Father in Heaven. But such was their true desire, so that is what they were given.
They looked beyond the mark. In the sport of archery the target is called the mark. The mark is what you intend to hit with your arrow. In spiritual terms the Lord gives us our mark. He tells us what it is we are aiming for and how to hit it, so to speak. The jews were not satisfied with what the Lord had given them and wanted to understand things that were too advanced for them or that were completely counterproductive to their own salvation.
How often are we guilty of the same thing? We are taught the basic principles of the gospel, but not being satisfied with spending our lives learning to master these basic principles, like service, charity, forgiveness, and kindness, we seek for the mysteries, like can we progress from kingdom to kingdom in the hereafter. This is akin to the old argument monks used to spend countless generations arguing over, which was how many angels could stand on the head of a pin. Talk about wasted effort!
 
A modern equivalent may be some people’s efforts to justify why God should not condemn today the sins He has condemned since the beginning of man’s time on earth. We try to wrest (twist) the scriptures to match the political sophistries of the day. We want God to become politically correct in order to ease our own guilty conscience.
 
At some point in our lives most of us are guilty of looking beyond the mark. We do it for individual reasons, and some of us only do it temporarily, while others will move from one mark to another, never actually seeing the forest the Lord wants us to comprehend for all the individual trees standing in our way.
Blindness causes our fall. Jacob said that “because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it.” When we seek to run faster than we have strength or to unwisely desire to grasp what we are not prepared to comprehend, we cease to be able to grasp even the simplest of spiritual concepts. We become blind to these plain and precious truths.

This is one of the grand truths about the gospel – it is easy to comprehend. It is not hard. It is we who make it difficult by trying to add rules of our own design or by trying to put things where they don’t belong. Be kind. Practice pure religion, which is to visit the widows and the fatherless, and to care for the poor.

We balk at such simplicity. We chafe at such easy doctrine. We want and long for the mysteries the Lord has not given us instead of struggling to comprehend the encompassing depths of that which is simple. I wrote a multi-part series on ldsblogs.com on service. Something as simple as doing something nice for someone else easily turned into four articles, and could have easily turned into a book. There is tremendous depth and wisdom hidden in that which is easy on the surface.
 
That brings us to the beginning of Jacob’s verse. The Jews despised “the words of plainness.” They sought for that which they were not prepared to receive. That was the desire of their hearts. That is why they fell from grace with God. That is why they rebelled and killed the prophets. That is why they were called a stiffnecked people. The Lord could not turn their attention to the truth because they were set in the desires of their hearts on things the Lord had either already said no to, or had not seen in His wisdom to give them.

Gotcha!

I fear that the title alone for this article will cause many to read it, hoping to read about a mystery they hadn’t encountered before. I named it Mormon Mysteries for this very reason. It is to demonstrate that we too are often enticed by that which is not important to our salvation. Too often we get sidetracked with these less weightier matters of the law and we end up losing our spiritual way back home because we are so busy focusing on the minutia of the non-essential mysteries.
 
In the end we will be judged on the desires of our hearts. The Lord has listed time and time again what is important for us to learn in mortality. Pure religion is at the top of the list. To practice pure religion is to keep the second great commandment, which is necessary in order to keep the first great commandment. For we cannot truly love God above all others until we have learned to love His children as ourselves.