Episode 25: Mormon 7 - 9

Shiloh and Ben discuss Mormon's finale chapter before he is killed in battle, as Mormon's son, Moroni, steps in to finalize Mormon's personal history. If all you had known in your lifetime was wickedness, death, carnage, and the extinction of your people, what would you feel are the most important messages to leave future generations who will one day read your record? Mormon and Moroni focus in on themes of repentance, baptism, the atonement of Jesus Christ, faith, and resurrection to name only a few. In our wickedness, we view the consequences of our actions as the punishment of a wrathful, vengeful, and violent God. But are these true descriptions of the eternal nature of God? Both Mormon and Moroni speak of this wrathful God, as was surely the common belief in God in their day by those who lament that they cannot find happiness in sin (i.e., living their 'false self'). Yet, this is one of the most powerful messages of repentance from the dust: to avoid the fates of civilizations long since extinct, we need to learn that repentance (as the LDS Bible Dictionary defines) is to see God in a fresh and new way -- a way that he revealed to us all through the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon at the Temple.