INTRODUCTION

The Book of Mormon offers a remarkable promise to those seeking knowledge of the truth. Over the years, I have heard members and missionaries offer a variety of explanations about its meaning. A close examination of the three key verses—Moroni 10:3-5—will show us that their meaning is far more profound than many of us might have thought.

In addition to the great promise in these verses which helps those who are investigating the gospel to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, the process Moroni teaches here can be used in confirming all truth. This is a process we can go through every time we wish to have eternal truth confirmed.

VERSE 3

Verse 3 tells us: "Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts."

The last five words of the verse offer an important admonition—"ponder it in your hearts." What is the antecedent of "it"—the thing that we are to ponder? It is "how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things." We are to remember how loving, how provident, how good, how forgiving our Heavenly Father has been toward us.

VERSE 4

"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost" (Moro. 10:4).

It is interesting that within verse 3, the verb for what we are to do with the teachings of the Book of Mormon changes from "read these things" to "receive these things." Then verse 4 begins with the words, "And when ye shall receive these things," and goes on to tell us what we are to do after receiving something. Why the word change from read to receive? Because Moroni is talking about two different states of mind. It is one thing simply to have something to read; it is quite another thing to be willing to let that which we read enter our minds and hearts in order to give it full consideration. Thus, in his usage of receive in verse 3, Moroni asks us to receive into our minds and hearts the realization of God’s mercy from the Creation until now, a realization that comes after remembering God’s goodnesses to the children of men. Now, in verse 4 he again uses the word receive in exactly the same way—but this time he is talking about the thing we have in our hands to read—the Book of Mormon. He is talking about the step of receiving the teachings contained in that which we have read—considering them or receiving them into our minds and hearts so that we can ponder them in order to be prepared for the next step, which is to accept an answer from our Heavenly Father.

Let me restate this process: it is plain that receive, as used by Moroni, means more than simply having the Book of Mormon come into our hands, or passively allowing its words to come into our consciousness. When we receive the teachings of the Book of Mormon in the way that Moroni intended, we ponder the "things" that we are receiving; thus, as outlined in verse 4, we prepare ourselves to accept answers from our Heavenly Father.

But notice the special manner in which we receive answers from God: we are to "ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ." Consider the language again of "having faith in Christ." This signifies an important state of mind. To have faith in Christ means that we accept that there is a God; accept that through the power of his Son Jesus Christ, God can answer our prayer; and believe that God can manifest truth to us. We place ourselves off the neutral line by thus exercising faith in Christ. We act! Even though our faith may be small, we do as Alma taught: we "exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if [we] can no more than desire to believe [that God can help us], let this desire work in [us]" (Alma 32:27).

In fact, in D&C 9:8-9, the Lord tells us even more about receiving this confirmation of truth:

"But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong."

VERSE 5

Moroni now tells us something that is of great value to all seekers of any kind of truth. In verse 5, the promise of confirmation is expanded far beyond verifying that the Book of Mormon is true (as important as that is to us). Here we are told:

"And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

Thus, while a first-time reader and ponderer may receive the needed confirmation of the book’s divine origin, members who long ago passed that milestone may have other new truths added to their spiritual store as they search the scriptures and follow the process described in Moroni 10:3-5. The promise is extended to confirming "the truth of all things" (emphasis added); there is no restriction on the amount of truth we may receive through this process.

AN EXAMPLE

After four years of Brother Smith’s [not the real name] struggle to obtain sufficient testimony and faith to be baptized, something happened that changed his life. It followed a telephone conversation in which I told him, basically, that the Lord would not wait on him much longer. He had been given a number of witnesses that the Book of Mormon was true, and he needed to act on this knowledge. I challenged him to seek a final confirmation and then to be baptized.

In the course of our conversation, I asked him to explain to me once again how he was reading the Book of Mormon. He said he was reading it to find out if it were true. While we were talking, it dawned on him that he had never read the Bible that way; he had always read it in faith that it was from the Lord, and then he had sought confirmation of its truths. He had a change of spiritual perspective as he realized that the process for reading the Book of Mormon should be exactly the same. He promised me that he would honestly ask God in the same manner; he would treat the Book of Mormon as truth—as the word of God, like the Bible—and would humbly and receptively seek a confirmation.

A day or so later, Brother Smith called to tell me that he had had a tremendous spiritual experience in which the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon was confirmed to him, and he was now ready to be baptized. He said that after confirmation of the truth had come to him by the Spirit, he had received added assurance through a familiar means—inspiration to turn to specific scriptural references.

SUMMARY