The Sermon at the Temple

Book of Mormon Notes - Wednesday, January 31, 2024, 3 Nephi 14

One very useful exercise is to compare and contrast the Lord’s teachings in the Old World with His teachings in the New World. His Doctrine and His Gospel are the same, and His words are in many cases identical. But the Lord was addressing two different audiences. John W. Welch - whom I spoke with a few days ago and learned that he has been assigned to assist with the Church’s new biography of the Prophet Joseph Smith - has written extensively on this topic. (See here, here, and here, for example).

Welch refers to Jesus Christ’s teachings in the New World (those that correspond to His teachings in the Old World that are now known as “The Sermon on the Mount”) “The Sermon at the Temple”. It is significant, I believe, that our Lord’s teachings to these ancient Nephites took place at or near the Temple. We may recall Jacob’s teachings in the Temple and King Benjamin’s teachings at the Temple much earlier in the Book of Mormon. Whatever Jacob and King Benjamin taught in or near the Temple was certainly preparatory for this generation of Nephites who enjoyed the inestimable privilege of basking in the light and love of the Lord’s presence as He taught them personally at the Temple in Bountiful.

If I remember correctly, the city of Bountiful had once almost been completely lost to the Lamanites during the great civil wars. Had it not been for Moroni, Lehi, Teancum, Helaman, the Stripling Warriors and other great Nephite heroes, the city of Bountiful and its Temple might not have been preserved. If I’m not mistaken, the Temple in Bountiful was a separate Temple from the Temple that Nephi originally built, because the first Temple in the Promised Land was built in the Land of Lehi, or in the Land of Nephi soon after Nephi and his followers had separated themselves from their brothers. Bountiful was also one of the few cities that was preserved from the great calamities that destroyed so many other cities. Bountiful was a special place, like the Bountiful in the Old World which was probably somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula. Remember that the original Bountiful was a place of rest, refuge, fruit, honey, and provisions that the Lord had prepared for Lehi’s family after their very arduous journey through the wilderness.

In the original Bountiful, we also remember that Nephi resorted many times to the mountain tops in order to commune with the Lord and to receive direction regarding the building of the ship and other important things. Thus Nephi’s Temple in Bountiful was natural and preparatory for their great journey across the ocean. Similarly, the Temple in the city Bountiful that the Nephites built was preparatory to the Lord’s coming and to the establishment of a Zion community among them. It would be interesting to consult the prior sermons at the Temple - particularly those of Jacob and King Benjamin - in connection with the Lord’s Sermon at the Temple. I’ve noticed before that the entire Book of Mormon is itself a Temple text, complete with the teaching of the Gospel, instruction on ordinances and covenants, and preparation for communing with the Lord and rending the veil, as Moroni puts it (see Ether 4:13-15 in particular). By the time that we reach 3 Nephi 11, Mormon - along with all the previous prophets - has prepared us - just as the ancient Nephites were prepared - to meet the Lord in the great gathering at the Temple. Later in the Book of Mormon, Moroni prepares us to do the same along with the great Brother of Jared in the Book of Ether.

These digressions may serve to remind us of the audience, the place, and the purpose of the Lord’s teachings that are unfolded in the fourteenth chapter of Third Nephi. In other words, although the original audience consisted of the ancient Nephites who had survived the terrible calamities, and although the original place was at the Temple in the once captured Nephite city of Bountiful, Mormon prepared these things for the purposes that he mentions in his introduction and title page to his book, namely, to invite each one of us, now, to come unto Christ. Mormon, in his Temple text, has prepared us to meet with and learn from the Lord and His Spirit on an individual basis. Thus, as the Lord teaches the ancient Nephite those things that are very similar to the things that He taught to the Jews in the original Promised Land of Palestine, we are invited to imagine ourselves present. Mormon and his forebears have painstakingly prepared us to metaphorically sit at the feet of Jesus Christ and learn.

After Jesus Christ concluded His special instructions to His twelve special disciples, He turned again to address the multitude. Only Jesus Christ can truly begin His sentences with the prefatory “verily, verily” because He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It is interesting, and noteworthy, that the Lord begins His teachings in this portion of His sermon in almost exactly the same way as He began this portion of His Sermon on the Mount, even though we know that Joseph Smith added his inspired interpretation or translation as follows:

Now these are the words which Jesus taught his disciples that they should say unto the people.

Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged; but judge righteous judgment. (JST Matthew 7:1-2)

I’m sure that Welch addresses this topic in his excellent essays and books, but what stands out to me is not just the amendment of judgment to specify “righteous” judgment, but that the Lord taught His disciples to teach these things instead of teaching the people directly. In the New World, however, the Lord taught the people, and He teaches us, directly:

^aJudge not, that ye be not ^bjudged.

For with what ^ajudgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what ^bmeasure ye mete, it shall be ^cmeasured to you again. (3 Nephi 14:1-2)

Joseph Smith’s inspired translation and interpretation helps us to understand that which Elder Oaks has repeatedly taught:

As a student of the scriptures and as a former judge, I have had a special interest in the many scriptures that refer to judging. The best known of these is “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (3 Nephi 14:1, Matthew 7:1).

I have been puzzled that some scriptures command us not to judge and others instruct us that we should judge and even tell us how to do it. I am convinced that these seemingly contradictory directions are consistent when we view them with the perspective of eternity. The key is to understand that there are two kinds of judging: final judgments, which we are forbidden to make; and intermediate judgments, which we are directed to make, but upon righteous principles. Today I will speak about gospel judging.

Thus the Lord in His Sermon at the Temple teaches us how to make righteous intermediate judgments while leaving final, ultimate judgment up to the only One who is capable, qualified, and authorized to do so. He also helps us to understand that even when it comes to intermediate judgments, the best place to start with proper introspection and self-examination:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother: Let me pull the mote out of thine eye—and behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou ^ahypocrite, first cast the ^bbeam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye. (3 Nephi 14:3-5)

This reminds of President Monson’s teachings on the same topic:

I begin with a short anecdote which illustrates a point I should like to make.

A young couple, Lisa and John, moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while they were eating breakfast, Lisa looked out the window and watched her next-door neighbor hanging out her wash.

“That laundry’s not clean!” Lisa exclaimed. “Our neighbor doesn’t know how to get clothes clean!”

John looked on but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, Lisa would make the same comments.

A few weeks later Lisa was surprised to glance out her window and see a nice, clean wash hanging in her neighbor’s yard. She said to her husband, “Look, John—she’s finally learned how to wash correctly! I wonder how she did it.”

John replied, “Well, dear, I have the answer for you. You’ll be interested to know that I got up early this morning and washed our windows!”

Tonight I’d like to share with you a few thoughts concerning how we view each other. Are we looking through a window which needs cleaning? Are we making judgments when we don’t have all the facts? What do we see when we look at others? What judgments do we make about them?

Said the Savior, “Judge not.”¹ He continued, “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”² Or, to paraphrase, why beholdest thou what you think is dirty laundry at your neighbor’s house but considerest not the soiled window in your own house?

None of us is perfect. I know of no one who would profess to be so. And yet for some reason, despite our own imperfections, we have a tendency to point out those of others. We make judgments concerning their actions or inactions.

There is really no way we can know the heart, the intentions, or the circumstances of someone who might say or do something we find reason to criticize. Thus the commandment: “Judge not.”

Elder Uchtdorf recently taught a similar lesson:

Once there was a man who enjoyed taking evening walks around his neighborhood. He particularly looked forward to walking past his neighbor’s house. This neighbor kept his lawn perfectly manicured, flowers always in bloom, the trees healthy and shady. It was obvious that the neighbor made every effort to have a beautiful lawn.

But one day as the man was walking past his neighbor’s house, he noticed in the middle of this beautiful lawn a single, enormous, yellow dandelion weed.

It looked so out of place that it surprised him. Why didn’t his neighbor pull it out? Couldn’t he see it? Didn’t he know that the dandelion could cast seeds that could give root to dozens of additional weeds?

This solitary dandelion bothered him beyond description, and he wanted to do something about it. Should he just pluck it out? Or spray it with weed killer? Perhaps if he went under cover of night, he could remove it secretly.

These thoughts totally occupied his mind as he walked toward his own home. He entered his house without even glancing at his own front yard—which was blanketed with hundreds of yellow dandelions.

Elder Uchtdorf expounds upon this principle:

Does this story remind us of the words of the Savior?

“Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? …

“… First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”²

This business of beams and motes seems to be closely related to our inability to see ourselves clearly. I’m not sure why we are able to diagnose and recommend remedies for other people’s ills so well, while we often have difficulty seeing our own.

Some years ago there was a news story about a man who believed that if he rubbed lemon juice on his face, it would make him invisible to cameras. So he put lemon juice all over his face, went out, and robbed two banks. Not much later he was arrested when his image was broadcast over the evening news. When police showed the man the videos of himself from the security cameras, he couldn’t believe his eyes. “But I had lemon juice on my face!” he protested.³

When a scientist at Cornell University heard about this story, he was intrigued that a man could be so painfully unaware of his own incompetence. To determine whether this was a general problem, two researchers invited college students to participate in a series of tests on various life skills and then asked them to rate how they did. The students who performed poorly were the least accurate at evaluating their own performance—some of them estimating their scores to be five times higher than they actually were.⁴

This study has been replicated in numerous ways, confirming over and over again the same conclusion: many of us have a difficult time seeing ourselves as we truly are, and even successful people overestimate their own contribution and underestimate the contributions that others make.⁵

It might not be so significant to overestimate how well we drive a car or how far we can drive a golf ball. But when we start believing that our contributions at home, at work, and at church are greater than they actually are, we blind ourselves to blessings and opportunities to improve ourselves in significant and profound ways.

The Lord continues His teachings, commanding the ancient Nephites, and us, not to give that which is ^aholy unto the dogs or to cast our pearls before swine. Then He commands them, and us, to ^aask, ^bseek, and knock, to live by the Golden Rule, to enter in at the ^astrait gate, to beware of ^afalse prophets, and to be doers of the word, and not hearers only:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall ^aenter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Many will ^asay to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And then will ^aI profess unto them: I never ^bknew you; ^cdepart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Therefore, whoso heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, who built his house upon a ^arock—

And the ^arain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it ^bfell not, for it was founded upon a rock.

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a ^afoolish man, who built his house upon the ^bsand—

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell, and great was the fall of it. (3 Nephi 14:21-27)

There is also a helpful Joseph Smith Translation here in this corresponding portion of the Sermon on the Mount:

JST Matt. 7:33 And then will I say, Ye never knew me … Ps. 101:4; Matt. 25:12; Mosiah 26:27 (23–27); 3 Ne. 14:23.

Of course the Lord knows each and every one of us. The extent of our knowledge of and familiarity with the Lord, however, depends on the degree to which we serve Him and strive to put into practice His teachings.

On this last point of building upon the rock, I am reminded of an important message in the most recent general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

Recently, a good friend taught me something I hadn’t noticed before about the parable of the wise man who built his house upon a rock. According to the account in Luke, as the wise man laid the foundation for his house, he “digged deep.”⁵ It wasn’t a casual or simple endeavor—it took effort!

To build our lives on the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, we need to dig deep. We remove anything that is sandy or superfluous in our lives. We keep digging until we find Him. And we teach our children to bind themselves to Him through sacred ordinances and covenants so that when the oppositional storms and floods come, as they surely will, they will have little effect upon them “because of the rock upon which [they] are built.”⁶

This kind of strength doesn’t just happen. It is not passed on to the next generation like a spiritual inheritance. Each person must dig deep to find the rock.

Speaking of digging deep and strengthening foundations, this was also a major theme in President Nelson’s recent talk “The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation,” and in the more recent worldwide discussion event for youth on discipleship.

These are a few of my reflections today on our Savior’s Sermon at the Temple.