Day 325 Repentance vs. The Sorrow of the Damned

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and in the same sentence offers a warning that savorless salt is good for nothing. Join me in an attempt to be savory salt as I share each day one verse of scripture and one small thought. Perhaps this small daily emphasis can lead to greater savor in your life and ultimately you and I can be savory salt.

Hello, my friends and family, wherever you're listening from. Thank you for joining me and know that I'm cheering for your every success. Wickedness never was happiness.

Welcome to day 325. We are getting so close on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together. Today, you're going to be reading Mormon chapter 2, verses 5–22.

Middle of that chapter. And you're going to continue to see the wickedness roll on. And there's a window here where Mormon believes that perhaps there's a chance that some repenting may occur.

Wickedness in the land has become so awful that they can't even hold onto their things. Everything is just slippery and gone. And so there's this great frustration in the land, and it says that they start to cry about it.

And he's like, 'Oh, maybe, maybe this crying is going to be crying to repentance.' And so he gets excited that this mourning might actually turn the hearts of the people. And then we get Mormon chapter 2, verse 13, which says: '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.' This one got me thinking a little bit about our tendency as human beings when we come upon hard times. They are certainly experiencing a hard time at this point.

I see it really as two roads that kind of happen when we come across hard times. And that could be hard times that are just challenging times to us, or hard times like these people are experiencing—you know, someone stole their stuff, robberies and thefts and murders, right? Like, hard, hard times.

And it seems that there are really one of two reactions. When experiencing hard times, one reaction that we see scripturally recorded is turning to the Lord. Right?

Someone gets to the point in their life where they are so challenged and struggling so much that they stop and go, 'You know what? Maybe the Lord has a bit of an answer to this, and I should turn to Him.' Then there's the other path. And the other path inside of challenges and struggling is bitterness and anger at God, and anger at your own circumstances.

And in many cases, these circumstances are from our own choices. We brought them upon us. Sometimes that's not the case.

But I think it's interesting here that the frustration that these people are experiencing, the sorrowing of the damned because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin. These are people that are struggling because of their choices in wickedness. And when things don't turn out the way they want, they don't turn around and consider repenting.

Instead, they get angrier at God. Their sorrow and their crying out and their frustration is frustration. In fact, it talks about how they hate life so much that they want life to end, and yet they will hold their swords and continue to kill other people rather than have their lives end.

This is such a dark place inside of this. But the lesson for us is: hey, in those challenging times, you absolutely can go one of two roads. But what Mormon was hoping they would do was go the road of a softened heart and turning.

And always seek to be savory salt. I'll be here tomorrow and I hope you are too.