Mosiah 27-29

1. Mosiah 27-29 Mosiah 27:8-11 “Never give up on anyone!” This is evidence that even the most Godly of men and women can have the most wicked of children.

2. Joseph Fielding Smith said, “I think the greatest crime in all this world is to lead men and women, the children of God, away from true principles” (C.R., April, 1951). “Always keep good company. Never waste an hour with anyone who doesn’t lift you up and encourage you” (Spencer W. Kimball, Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 262).

3. Mosiah 27:1-33 Speaking about a man who said he had prayed for the visitation of angels, President Wilford Woodruff said: “I said to him that if he were to pray a thousand years to the God of Israel for that gift, it would not be granted, unless the Lord had a motive in sending an angel to him. I told him that the Lord never did nor never will send an angel to anybody merely to gratify the desire of the individual to see an angel. If the Lord sends an angel to anyone, He sends him to perform a work that cannot be performed only by the administration of an angel.

4. I said to him that those were my views. The Lord had sent angels to men from the creation of the world, at different times, but always with a message or with something to perform that could not be performed without. I rehearsed to him different times when angels appeared to men. Of course, I referred to the angel visiting Joseph Smith. The Revelator John said that in the last days an angel would fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwelt on the earth. The reason it required an angel to do this work was, the Gospel was not on the earth. The Gospel and the Priesthood had been taken from among men. Hence God had to restore it again.

5. “Now, I have always said, and I want to say it to you, that the Holy Ghost is what every Saint of God needs. It is far more important that a man should have that gift than he should have the ministration of an angel, unless it is necessary for an angel to teach him something that he has not been taught” (“Discourse Delivered at the Weber Stake Conference,” Deseret Weekly, 7 Nov. 1896, 1).

6. Mosiah 27:13-14, 16 “Who prays for you?” Patrons in the Temple, parents, teachers, missionaries, leaders, etc. That’s a lot of people and a lot of prayers in your behalf.

7. Mosiah 27:25 “Being Born Again” President Benson said, “We must be careful, as we seek to become more and more godlike, that we do not become discouraged and lose hope. Becoming Christ like is a lifetime pursuit and very often involves growth and change that is slow, almost imperceptible.” “We must be cautious as we discuss remarkable examples, though they are real and powerful, they are the exception more than the rule.” For every Paul, for every Enos, and for every King Lamoni, there are hundreds and thousands of people who find the process of repentance much more subtle, much more imperceptible. Day by day they move closer to the Lord, little realizing they are building a godlike life. They live quiet lives of goodness, service, and commitment (A Mighty Change of Heart, Ensign, Oct. 1989, 5).

8. “As far as we degenerate from God, we descend to the devil and lose knowledge, and without knowledge we cannot be saved, and while our hearts are filled with evil, and we are studying evil, there is no room in our hearts for good, or studying good. Is not God good? Then you be good; if He is faithful, then you be faithful. Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, and seek for every good thing. “The Church must be cleansed, and I proclaim against all iniquity. A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge, and consequently more power than many men who are on the earth. Hence it needs revelation to assist us, and give us knowledge of the things of God” (Joseph Smith, Teachings, 217).

9. Mosiah 27:31-37 “Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before him!” “Obey now or obey later!” “Zealously striving to repair all injury to the Church.” Mosiah 28:1-9 v. 3, James 5:20 Conscious is a Celestial spark to save our soul, put in every man (David O. McKay).

10. Mosiah 28:3 “Salvation should be declared to every creature” “A great indicator of one’s personal conversion is the desire to share the gospel with others. For this reason the Lord gave an obligation to every member of the Church to be missionaries (The Teachings of Howard W. Hunter, ed. Clyde J. Williams [1977], 249).

11. The following story by Elder Boyd K. Packer emphasizes the point that when we have great love and concern for someone we are willing to do all we can to save them.

12. “I recall on one occasion, when I was returning from seminary to my home for lunch, that as I drove in my wife met me in the driveway. I could tell by the expression on her face that something was wrong. ‘Cliff has been killed,’ she said. ‘They want you to come over.’ As I hastened around the corner to where Cliff lived with his wife and four sons and his little daughter, I saw Cliff lying in the middle of the highway with a blanket over him. The ambulance was just pulling away with little Colleen. Cliff had been on his way out to the farm and had stopped to cross the street to take little Colleen to her mother who waited on the opposite curb. But the child, as children will, broke free from her father’s hand and slipped into the street. A large truck was coming. Cliff jumped from the curb and pushed his little daughter from the path of the truck --- but he wasn’t soon enough.

13. “A few days later I had the responsibility of talking at the funeral of Cliff and little Colleen. Someone said, ‘What a terrible waste. Certainly he ought to have stayed on the curb. He knew the child might have died. But he had four sons and a wife to provide for. What a pathetic waste!’ And I estimated that that individual never had the experience of loving someone more than he loved himself” (“Problems in Teaching the Moral Standard”).

14. We Don’t Have to be Perfect Right Now! “I’d like to append to them the fact --- and this is a true gospel verity --- that everyone in the Church who is on the straight and narrow path, who is striving and struggling and desiring to do what is right, though is far from perfect in this life; if he passes out of this life while he’s on the straight and narrow, he’s going to go on to eternal reward in his Father’s kingdom.

15. “We don’t need to get a complex or get a feeling that you have to be perfect to be saved. You don’t. ‘There’s only been one perfect person, and that’s the Lord Jesus, but in order to be saved in the Kingdom of God and in order to pass the test of mortality, what you have to do is get on the straight and narrow path --- thus charting a course leading to eternal life --- then, being on that path, pass out of this life in full fellowship. I’m not saying that you don’t have to keep the commandments. I’m saying you don’t have to be perfect to be saved. If you did, no one would be saved. The way it operates is this: you get on the path that’s named the “straight and narrow.” You do it by entering the gate of repentance and baptism.

16. The straight and narrow leads from the gate of repentance and baptism, a very great distance forward, and if you die, you’ll never get off the path. There is no such thing as falling off the straight and narrow path in the life to come, and the reason is that this life is the time that is given to men to prepare for eternity. Now is the time and the day of your salvation, so if you’re working zealously in this life --- though you haven’t fully overcome the world and you haven’t done all you hoped you might do --- you’re still going to be saved. You don’t have to do what Jacob said, “Go beyond the mark.” You don’t have to live a life that’s truer than true.

17. You don’t have to have excessive zeal that becomes fanatical and becomes unbalancing. What you have to do is stay in the mainstream of the Church and live as upright and decent people live in the Church -keeping the commandments, paying your tithing, serving in the organizations of the Church, loving the Lord, staying on the straight and narrow path. If you’re on that path when death comes --- because this is the time and the day appointed , this the probationary estate --- you’ll never fall off from it, and, for all practical purposes, your calling and election is made sure” (“The Probationary Test of Mortality,” Address given at University of Utah, January 10, 1982, 11). D&C 67:13

18. Hope for Parents of Wayward Children “The Prophet Joseph Smith declared --- and he never taught a more comforting doctrine --- that the eternal sealing's of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return.

19. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God” (Orson F. Whitney, C.R., April, 1929, 110). Proverbs 22:6

21. Mosiah 28:13 “Two Stones” “Joseph Smith received with the ‘breastplate’ and the plates of the Book of Mormon, the Urim and Thummim, which were hid up by Moroni to come forth in the last days as a means by which the ancient record might be translated, which Urim and Thummim were given to the brother of Jared” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 1:161-62).

22. Mosiah 29:25-26 “The Voice of the People” “I have a complete confidence in the aggregate wisdom of the … people if they are given and made to understand the facts. The wisdom of the mass is always greater than the wisdom of the individual or of the group. The few may be more subtle, more agile-minded, more resourceful” they may for a time push to the front and scamper ahead in the march; they may on occasion and for a time entice us down the wrong highway at the crossroads.

23. But the great slow-moving, deliberate-thinking mass plods along over the years down the Divinely appointed way. Led astray, they slowly, cumbrously swing back to the right road, no matter what the toil or the sacrifice may be, and when they start the return, they crush whatever lies in their path. So has humanity come up through the ages” (J. Reuben Clark Jr., in Jerreld L. Newquist, comp., Prophets, Principles, and National Survival, 110).

24. Mosiah 29:26-27 The Danger of the Majority Choosing “That Which Is Not right” Elder Maxwell warned that we must not be indifferent to wickedness in society, because destruction awaits nations that choose unrighteousness. Cultural decline is accelerated when single-interest segments of society become indifferent to general values once widely shared. We actually have an obligation to notice genuine, telltale societal signs (C.R., Apr. 1999, 28-30).

25. President Packer also spoke of the recent trends of distorting tolerance: It is one thing to be tolerant, even forgiving of individual conduct. It is quite another to collectively legislate and legalize to protect immoral conduct that can weaken, even destroy the family. “There is a dangerous trap when tolerance is exaggerated to protect the rights of those whose conduct endangers the family and injuries the right of the more part of the people. We are getting dangerously close to the condition described by the prophet Mosiah (“Children of God,” BYU Women’s Conference, May 5, 2006, 6).

26. Mosiah 29 “Judges replace Kings” Mosiah 29:40 A tribute to King Mosiah! “As a lawmaker Mosiah may be regarded among the most eminent this world has ever produced.