2.87 They Shall Be a Pure and Delightsome People

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends.

Great to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. We have said goodbye to Doctrine and Covenants, sections 27 and 28.

We are continuing inside of our reading in 2 Nephi, chapters 28 to 32 this week. And we're going to shift as much as I wanted to pick something inside 2 Nephi 29. You're going to have to read that one.

And we're going to move into 2 Nephi 30. Again, I love the context here that Nephi puts on seeing our day and being able to give us a little bit of guidance. What I want to look at inside of 2 Nephi 30, our verse for today, is verse 6.

He is talking about those that are going to accept the gospel and those that are going to hear it and receive it and rejoice. And this is what he says in verse 6: "And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and delightsome people." Now, I love the view here, the symbolism inside of this. I don't think Nephi is trying to tell us that like weird scales of darkness are going to fall off people's eyes.

I think he's talking about the awareness and the light that comes through living the gospel and through living the covenant path. And he talks about how not many generations are going to pass away and they're going to be a pure and delightsome people. My friends, have you witnessed when somebody doesn't know the gospel of Jesus Christ and they embrace it?

They have new life inside of them, and they truly do become a pure and delightsome people. But what caught me inside of this that was kind of interesting was this idea of not many generations passing away among them as this purification and delightsomeness happens. And so, not to get too mathematical here, but I just did a little bit of research on—it was really, really hard to get global research.

So forgive me for my example, but it's just a quick illustration of the power that can come inside of one or two people changing their lives and embracing this gospel and rejoicing. Today, the Church of Jesus Christ has—at least, numbers inside of the United States show—a fertility rate higher than the average of the United States. That shouldn't be too surprising there, right?

But the Church averages about 2.8 children per woman, right? Is that—that's kind of the way that they calculate it. And so I just rounded up to three, but think about this for just a second.

If one couple embraces the gospel of Jesus Christ and they just average three kids, and then those three kids get married and they have three kids, right? We just do this for one or two generations. You know, it's interesting, by the third generation you're talking about 53 people that have been impacted by their embracing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that's way oversimplification of just, you know, three kids having three kids having three kids type idea. But look at what happens when people embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not just for them.

People around them are affected. Their children are affected. Their children's children are affected.

And I love this idea that they go from the scales of darkness into a pure and delightsome people. Truly, the Lord knows what he's doing when it comes to helping us find the light and then embrace the light and have it in our lives going forward, affecting generation after generation. What a beautiful idea.

That's all for today, my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave unto the covenants you have made, and together we will be savory salt. Let's worship together.