Day 333 Moroni's Prophetic Vision of Our Day

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. One of those successes being congratulations on 90% of the Book of Mormon being completed.

I hope you are experiencing personal change, and I hope that savor in your life is increasing. And that you and I are both becoming more like our Savior Jesus Christ. Welcome to Day 333 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together.

Today, an interesting one. You're going to be reading Mormon chapter 8, verses 22 to 41. You will finish that chapter.

Now, you're going to see inside of this chapter some very, very clear prophesying. Moroni is going to tell you exactly what the world is going to look like at the coming forth of this record, the record of the Book of Mormon. And then he is also going to give us an interesting insight from our verse for today.

Before we get there, I want to actually tell you a story before we get to the verse for today. When I was on my mission in Mongolia, we did not have a completed translation of the Book of Mormon. Because we didn't have the Book of Mormon in Mongolian, we only had selected chapters and verses.

One of the ways that we would talk to people about it to try and help them have a testimony of a book that they couldn't read was the example of a chocolate cake. And we would say, "Can you imagine for a second this chocolate cake? And if you were to just take a slice of the chocolate cake and taste it, would you be able to say that the rest of the chocolate cake is good if that single slice is delicious?" Now, I know that that's a very, very simplified way of bringing logic into something as important as whether the Book of Mormon is true or not.

And yet, sometimes simplified logic is exactly the type of logic we can use. We tend to like to complicate things. Thinking through that for just a second, this section, and specifically the verse we're going to look at today, is one of those pieces of chocolate cake for me personally.

I read this and I go, "There's truth here. And if there's truth here, there's got to be truth through the rest of it." Let's look at the verse for today, and I'll give you the example on the backside. Mormon chapter 8, verse 35.

Moroni says, "Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not; but behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing." Now, that's just the beginning of the rest of the chapter there. And the rest of the chapter, Moroni is going to tell you and I what he saw about us, about our day. He's going to give us a specific list of what it was like for him to see us.

And here's the hinge point for me. If the Book of Mormon is not real and not true, then Moroni never actually existed. And if Moroni never actually existed, then Christ never showed Moroni our day.

And as such, Moroni never actually wrote these words. And so the warnings that he gives here don't actually exist. You see, for me, this is a very logical if-then.

If Moroni is no such person, then the things that he writes here are absolutely useless for us. And yet, if you go through verses 36 to the end of the chapter, I'm interested in what you see inside of your day as you look at the world around us. Do you see pride surrounding us?

Do you see people focused on very fine apparel? Do you see envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions? Iniquity all over?

Do you see churches polluted with overabundance? That, by the way, is only verse 36. It continues. 37: Do you see love of money?

Do you see people's love of substance, getting as much as they possibly can, also known as consumerism today? Do you see those dressed in fine apparel, adorning themselves rather than helping the poor, and the sick, and the afflicted? You know, it's fascinating as I look at this, I see Moroni, number one, as a real prophet.

I believe him to be real. And if he is real, then what he says here is true as well. He was shown our day by Jesus Christ.

He tried to give us a message. I would encourage you to dive into verses 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41. See what it means for you.

See if you can find yourself in what Moroni is describing there. And then, if so, what you and I can do to change it and to be more like our Savior Jesus Christ. That's all for today, my friends.

Remember that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt. I'll be here tomorrow, and I hope you are too.