Mormon's Present and the Lamanite Onslaught
Book of Mormon Notes - Friday, April 12, 2024, Mormon 4
I would like to pause for a moment in our study to acknowledge when Mormon pauses in his narrative to address his latter-day audience directly. It is remarkable to consider that all of the Nephite prophets, and indeed all of the Lord’s prophets throughout time, have in one way or another pointed toward the work of the Lord in the last days, or in the days in which we now live.
When Mormon was about fifty-two years old and saw that his people refused to repent, he utterly refused to lead them anymore against their enemies. Even though the Lord, through Mormon, had delivered them three times from the hands of their enemies, the Nephites refused to acknowledge that it was the Lord who had delivered them and granted them a chance for repentance. The Lord then instructed Mormon to stand as an idle witness and manifest unto the world the things which he saw and heard, according to the manifestations of the Spirit which had testified of things to come.
The Spirit testified to Mormon of things to come in the near future:
aVengeance is mine, and I will brepay; and because this people repented not after I had delivered them, behold, they shall be cut off from the face of the earth. (Mormon 3:15)
But the Spirit also testified of things to come in the distant future. Thus Mormon turns from his abridged account of his own larger account on the plates of Nephi regarding the things that he observed during his own lifetime to his own prophesies that directly address his future audiences, mainly the Gentiles, the House of Israel, and the Jews. Other Nephite prophets such as Nephi himself followed this same pattern.
I imagine that as soon as Mormon utterly refused to lead his people, he suddenly had a lot more time to write, or to inscribe upon the plates. Perhaps it is during this time, when he was about fifty-years old, that he worked on his records. In fact, Mormon’s direct address to his latter-day audience brings us into Mormon’s present once again. And Mormon’s present is like his son Moroni’s present: because of his prophetic foresight, Mormon, like his son Moroni, wrote unto us as if we were present:
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. (Mormon 8:35)
Think of it. Mormon knew everything about his own moribund civilization, past, present, and future, but he also knew everything about us and our own moribund civilization, past, present, and future. It makes sense to me that Jesus Christ showed us to Mormon in the same way that He showed us to his son Moroni. It also makes sense that Jesus Christ showed us to both Mormon and Moroni in the same way, or a similar way the He showed us to many previous prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, John the Beloved, Nephi, and the Brother of Jared (See Abraham 3:11-12, 3:22-23; Moses 1:6-8, 27; Jeremiah 1:4-5; Isaiah 6:8-10; 1 Nephi 14:19-27; 1 Nephi 11-14; Ether 3:25-36).
Do we realize what this means? It means that the Lord, the Great I Am who knows the end from the beginning, before Whom all things are present, showed His prophets - including Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, John the Beloved, Nephi, the Brother of Jared, Mormon, and Moroni - all things, all the inhabitants of the earth, including you and me. Thus when Moroni writes that he speaks unto us as if we were present, and that Jesus Christ showed us unto him, and he knows our doing, he is telling the truth. In a similar way that all things are present with God and He knows and loves us all, God made us present with the prophets so that they could know us and prophesy of Jesus Christ and of the things that would help us to repent and come unto Him.
This brings us back to Mormon’s present as he addresses his latter-day audience, namely us, directly, as if we were present. Mormon knows us better than we know ourselves, and he writes to us directly as if we were present with him:
Therefore I write aunto you, Gentiles, and also unto you, house of Israel, when the work shall commence, that ye shall be about to prepare to return to the land of your inheritance;
Yea, behold, I write unto all the ends of the earth; yea, unto you, twelve tribes of Israel, who shall be ajudged according to your works by the twelve whom Jesus chose to be his disciples in the land of Jerusalem.
And I write also unto the remnant of this people, who shall also be judged by the atwelve whom Jesus chose in this land; and they shall be judged by the other twelve whom Jesus chose in the land of Jerusalem.
And these things doth the Spirit manifest unto me; therefore I write unto you all. And for this cause I write unto you, that ye may know that ye must all stand before the ajudgment-seat of Christ, yea, every soul who belongs to the whole human bfamily of Adam; and ye must stand to be judged of your works, whether they be good or evil;
And also that ye may abelieve the gospel of Jesus Christ, which ye shall bhave among you; and also that the cJews, the covenant people of the Lord, shall have other dwitness besides him whom they saw and heard, that Jesus, whom they slew, was the every Christ and the very God.
And I would that I could persuade aall ye ends of the earth to repent and prepare to stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. (Mormon 3:17-22)
I take this to mean that Mormon created his entire abridgment of the large plates of Nephi and his own record, the Book of Mormon within the Book of Mormon, and added the small plates of Nephi to his record specifically for us (Gentiles, House of Israel, the Lehite Remnant, Jews, and all the ends of the earth). And here Mormon reminds us once again of his purpose, why he writes to us:
So that we may know that we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ to be judged of our works, whether they be good or evil
So that we may believe the gospel of Jesus Christ which we have among us
So that the Jews, the covenant people of the Lord, shall have other witness besides Jesus Christ Himself
In order to persuade each one of us to repent and prepare to stand before the judgment-seat of Christ
This is why each of the Lord’s prophets wrote, to help us to repent, to come unto Christ, and to prepare to meet God:
For behold, this alife is the time for men to bprepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of cthis life is the day for men to perform their dlabors. (Alma 34:32)
Why were the prophets so good at helping us to repent and to prepare to meet God? One reason is because they had repented and met God already. Each of the aforementioned prophets knew and communed with the Lord like Mormon’s son Moroni (See Ether 12:38-41). This is why each of the prophets have written, to commend us to aseek this Jesus. We can keep these things in mind as we continue our study of Mormon’s narrative of the things that he observed during his own lifetime.
Not coincidentally, in the very place where the Jaredites were destroyed, in the land of Desolation, the Lamanites began to destroy the Nephites. It seems significant to me that the Nephites did not fight defensive wars like they did under the leadership of Chief Captain Moroni. The Nephite went on the attack and were repulsed. Mormon confirms this observation:
And it was abecause the armies of the Nephites went up unto the Lamanites that they began to be smitten; for were it not for that, the Lamanites could have had no power over them. (Mormon 4:4)
Sadly, the Lamanites had already conquered the land that Chief Captain Moroni had formerly named the land of liberty. (See Alma 46:17) The Nephite land of liberty and life quickly became a land of captivity and death. The city of Teancum, the great Nephi warrior and hero, became the Nephite refuge for a time. As is his custom and practice, Mormon extracts a vital lesson from the Nephite defeats:
But, behold, the judgments of God will overtake the awicked; and it is by the wicked that the wicked are bpunished; for it is the wicked that stir up the hearts of the children of men unto bloodshed. (Mormon 4:5)
The Lord Himself declared that this same principle will apply in the last days:
I have sworn in my wrath, and decreed wars upon the face of the earth, and the wicked shall slay the wicked, and fear shall come upon every man; (D&C 63:33)
In Mormon’s time, the wicked who stirred up the hearts of the people to bloodshed were both Nephites and Lamanites. In our own time, it is common to consider one party or another, democrats or republicans, as the party of war and bloodshed, or to suppose that only tyrants like Hitler stir up bloodshed. But the past several decades reveal, even after the great World Wars, that warmongers like the Clintons, Obamas, Bushes, and Bidens continue to stir up the hearts of the people to bloodshed from both parties.
The Nephites gained a victory in the city of Teancum, and in their boastfulness and pride, they conquered the city of Desolation again. It was a see-saw battle with no end in sight. Thousands were slain on both sides. All the while, Mormon stood as an idle witness to mourn and record these sad events. When Mormon was about fifty-six years old, the tide turned against the Nephites again because the Lamanites were so numerous. Mormon mournful description of the battles is remarkable:
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 adelighted in the shedding of blood continually.
And there never had been so great awickedness 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)
In essence, the Nephites and the Lamanites at this time, almost four-hundred years after the coming of Christ, were the most wicked people who had ever lived. If I’m reading these verses correctly, these Nephites and Lamanites were even more wicked than the Jews in the meridian of time, during the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. They weren’t just hard-hearted and bloodthirsty, they delighted in the shedding of blood continually. It’s one thing to commit such heinous sins and to perpetrate such terrible evil, but it’s even worse that they delighted in the shedding of blood continually. Contrast these wicked Lehites’ delight in evil with Nephi of old whose soul delighted in the scriptures, in the things of the Lord, in the words of aIsaiah, in aproving unto his people the truth of the bcoming of Christ, in aplainness, and in prophesying of Christ.
Mormon was like Nephi of old, and his heart sickened to see the wickedness of his people. The Lamanites conquered and took possession of the city of Desolation again, and then they conquered and took possession of the city of Teancum. Certainly Teancum, Chief Captain Moroni, Lehi, Helaman, the stripling warriors, and all the brave Nephites who had fought to preserve the liberty of the Nephites in previous generations rolled over in their graves, just like the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and all the brave Americans who have fought to preserve American liberty are now rolling over in their graves.
The Lamanites were so evil and ferocious that they were not content to merely conquer and take possession of Nephite cities. Like the ancient Egyptians in the time of Abraham who offered human sacrifices to the god of Elkenah, the god of Libnah, the god of Mahmackrah, the god of Korash, and the god of Pharaoh, and like the ancient Israelites who offered human sacrifices to Baal and other false gods, the Lamanites took women and children as prisoners and offered them up as asacrifices unto their idol gods.
The Nephites were furious, and when Mormon was about fifty-seven years old, they retaliated. When Mormon was about sixty-five years old, the much more numerous Lamanites began to sweep away the Nephites as a dew before the sun. It is a powerful simile, reminiscent of the similes of Homer in the Iliad or the similes of Virgil in the Aeneid.
After their defeat in the city of Desolation, the Nephites retreated to the city of Boaz where they withstood the Lamanites with boldness for a time, but then they were driven and slaughtered with an exceedingly great slaughter and the Lamanites again sacrificed the Nephite women and achildren unto idols. The Nephites fled in panic. When Mormon saw that the Lamanites were about to overthrow the land, he went to the hill aShim, and gathered up all the brecords which Ammaron had hid up unto the Lord. I imagine that Mormon’s son Moroni helped him with this great task because there were so many records, and they were made of metal.
Because Mormon refused to lead his people in battle, he had more than a decade of time during which to complete his abridgment from the plates of Nephi, and he had direct access to all of the records. It may have been during this time that Mormon searched among the records and found the small plates of Nephi. (See Words of Mormon 1:3) With his entire nation on the verge of destruction, and with wagon loads of records and the sacred Nephite relics, Mormon retreated with his people before the Lamanite onslaught.