1 And
now, I speak also concerning those who do not believe in Christ.
2 Behold,
will ye believe in the day of your visitation—behold, when the Lord shall come,
yea, even that great day when the earth shall be rolled together as a scroll,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, yea, in that great day when ye
shall be brought to stand before the Lamb of God—then will ye say that there is
no God?
3 Then
will ye longer deny the Christ, or can ye behold the Lamb of God? Do ye suppose
that ye shall dwell with him under a consciousness of your guilt? Do ye suppose
that ye could be happy to dwell with that holy Being, when your souls are
racked with a consciousness of guilt that ye have ever abused his laws?
4 Behold,
I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just
God, under a consciousness of your filthiness before him, than ye would to
dwell with the damned souls in hell.
5 For
behold, when ye shall be brought to see your nakedness before God, and also the
glory of God, and the holiness of Jesus Christ, it will kindle a flame of
unquenchable fire upon you.
6 O then
ye unbelieving, turn ye unto the Lord; cry mightily unto the Father in the name
of Jesus, that perhaps ye may be found spotless, pure, fair, and white, having
been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, at that great and last day. (Mormon
9:1-6)
When I have read this in the past, I have mentally been
prone to say, “Yeah, you tell ‘em, Mormon! Stick it to those atheists and
agnostics!”
However, I eventually came to the interesting point of
wondering how atheists and agnostics would have a chance to read Mormon’s
words. I suppose the Lord can
bring about those circumstances somehow, but it is more likely that Mormon meant
to address unbelievers in the church itself.
After all, Latter-day Saints have the book and plenty of
opportunity to read it. And it is
true that no matter what the dispensation, there have been people part of the
church who go through the motions, hollowed-shells of performance without
faith. Mormon certainly would have
seen far too much of that in his day, as he watched the Nephites (who were
supposed to be Christians) self-destruct into depravity. And he’s desperate to say something to
help these people, to shake them out of apathy and show them the danger they
are in.
In verse 2, Mormon asks the unbelieving reader whether they
will persist in their unbelief at the day they are brought to stand before God
to be judged. It might be tempting
for some to disbelieve in the judgment as well as Christ, but Mormon’s
experience precludes that. Mormon
is an ancient apostle of Christ, one who has seen the resurrected Christ
Himself. He knows there is a Christ, and he knows there will be a final judgment. The whole reason there is a Christ is
to make a way for that final judgment to happen and to make a way to escape the penalties of sin at that day.
So, the unbelieving reader must exert themselves to imagine
a day of final judgment, of standing before God. It is something made even more
inescapable and inevitable than death.
And what if the unbelieving reader persists in not believing
in God until that day when they are actually resurrected and come face to face
with God in judgment? Well, then
it is too late to prepare. Because then you’re there and there’s no time left. The preparing has to happen before you come face to face with God. So to prepare, one must
believe that event will happen and get ready.
In verse 3, Mormon asks the unbelieving reader to imagine
whether they would feel comfortable in the presence of God once they realize
that they had broken, scorned, and avoided all the commandments God gave. Mormon points out that if the
unbelieving reader has always broken and abused the scorned God’s laws, they
will know they have sinned. That knowledge will make it very miserable for them
to face God, and they’ll be more comfortable with the damned.
Clearly, the takeaway is, don’t abuse God’s laws, even when
having a hard time with them. They are there for a reason, even if that reason
doesn’t make sense. They are there
to discipline us to become more like God. They are exercises adapted to the
capacity of a mortal, physical body to allow the body to experience spiritual
things and develop divine characteristics.
Verse 5 tells us that when an unbeliever is brought face to
face with God and comprehends how holy and just God is and then compares him or
herself, that comparison will be very painful and kindle an unquenchable fire
of misery.
This isn’t going to be an all-at-once comprehension, but a
questioning and reporting process in which the unbeliever’s every excuse will
be shown to be hollow and insincere.
The unbeliever will see and honestly acknowledge the incredible efforts
Christ made to reach them. They can
no longer take refuge in self-deception; they will be brought to comprehend and
assent to all the mercy and long-suffering of God. It will be understood that Christ know all their pain and
sin and could have and would have healed them, but the unbeliever would not
even try to accept the gift.
This is all very uncomfortable to contemplate, but the happy
thing is the unbeliever can come out of this kind of thought exercise realizing
they still have time to prepare in this life.
So what’s unbeliever to do? Verse 6 gives Mormon’s best answer. At the very least, the unbeliever must realize they have to be
cleansed from sin. Mormon advises the unbeliever to turn to the Lord and pray
mightily in the name of Jesus that perhaps they might be found spotless and
pure at that judgment day. At the
very least, pray that you’ll be found clean in the end. Pray that every day, even if you can’t
muster the belief in anything else. I notice Mormon gives no guarantees; He
makes no judgments about what the results will be because God is the judge. But
the fact that He advises that course of action shows that if an unbeliever does
that they will be spiritually better off than if they did nothing at all. Raw repentance and prayer counts for
something in the eternities, even if we don’t know what.
Faith in Christ is one of the first principles of the
gospel. Jesus said He was the vine
and we are the branches (see John 15:5). Yet faith in Christ is easy to forget
among all our efforts to keep the commandments, which means we are all at risk
of becoming one of the unbelievers.
We are prone to wander.
For me, this reminds me how important faith in Christ is. I feel my faith could be improved.
I hope you will join me in an experiment to see how our
lives can be made better by living through our days and solving our problems
with a conscious (rather than merely subconscious) faith in Christ.
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