After telling Moroni about the depravity of the Nephites, he
says he cannot recommend them to God. If he did, he fears He would smite him.
Mormon will recommend his son to God. He trusts in Christ he
will be saved. He prays He will spare his life. “And my prayer to God is
concerning my brethren, that they may once again come to the knowledge of God,
yea, the redemption of Christ; that they may once again be a delightsome people”
(Words of Mormon 1:8).
He wants Moroni to either witness the return of his people
to the Lord or their destruction if they refuse. “But if ye will repent and
return unto the Lord your God I will turn away mine anger, saith the Lord; yea,
thus saith the Lord, blessed are they who will repent and turn unto me, but wo
unto him that repenteth not” (Helaman 13:11).
If they fail to repent, the will become like the Jaredites
who were destroyed because of the desire for blood and revenge.
“And it is impossible for the tongue to describe, or for man
to write a perfect description of the horrible scene of the blood and carnage
which was among the people, both of the Nephites and of the Lamanites; and
every heart was hardened, so that they delighted in the shedding of blood
continually.
“And there never had been so great wickedness among all the
children of Lehi, nor even among all the house of Israel, according to the
words of the Lord, as was among this people” (Mormon 4:11-12).
“[W]hen the inhabitants of the Promised Land seek blood and
revenge for whatever reason, they must perish like the Jaredites and Nephites
before them (Moroni 9:23). As for the wicked enemy, ‘Behold, the judgments of
God will overtake the wicked; and it is by the wicked that the wicked are
punished’ (Mormon 4:5).”[1]
Many have deserted to the Lamanites. “But whosoever
remaineth, and is not destroyed in that great and dreadful day, shall be
numbered among the Lamanites, and shall become like unto them, all, save it be
a few who shall be called the disciples of the Lord; and them shall the
Lamanites pursue even until they shall become extinct. And now, because of
iniquity, this prophecy shall be fulfilled” (Alma 45:15). More will desert.
He writes these words to Moroni. He knows he will die, but
he still must deliver sacred records to him. “Behold I, Moroni, do finish the
record of my father, Mormon. Behold, I have but few things to write, which
things I have been commanded by my father” (Mormon 8:1).
“Although as a nation the Nephites were dissolved in the
tragic denouement of the Book of Mormon, individual Nephites, who ‘mixed’
through intermarriage with the Lamanites or ‘dissented’ to them, forfended
their total dissolution as a race or ethnic group. Mormon, in a letter to his
son Moroni, wrote that ‘if it so be that they perish, we know that many of our
brethren have deserted over unto the Lamanites, and many more will also desert
over unto them’ (Moroni 9:24).”[2]
25 My son, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things
which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ
lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto
our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of
eternal life, rest in your mind forever.
Mormon tells his son to be faithful in Christ. He hopes he
will not experience the things he did, but instead he hopes he will be lifted
up by Christ. “[M]ay his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto
our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of
eternal life, rest in your mind forever” (Moroni 9:25).
“And may the grace of God the Father, whose throne is high
in the heavens, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth on the right hand of his
power, until all things shall become subject unto him, be, and abide with you
forever” (Moroni 9:26).
[1] The
Uses and Abuses of Patriotism, Hugh Nibley, Maxwell Institute.
[2] “Holy
War”: The Sacral Ideology of War in the Book of Mormon and in the Ancient Near
East, Stephen D. Ricks, Maxwell Institute website.
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