President Gordon B. Hinckley on the Book of Mormon

"I take in my hand the Book of Mormon. I read its words. I have read Joseph Smith's explanation of how it came to be. To the unbelieving it is a story difficult to accept, and critics for generations have worn out their lives writing books intended to refute that story and to offer other explanations than the one given by Joseph the Prophet. But to the open-minded, this critical writing has only stimulated them to dig deeper; and the more deeply they dig, the greater the accumulation of evidence for the validity of Joseph Smith's story. Still, as has been demonstrated for a hundred and fifty years, the truth of the Book of Mormon will not be determined by literary analysis or by scientific research, although these continue to be reassuring. The truth about the origins of the Book of Mormon will be determined today and tomorrow, as it has been throughout the yesterdays, by reading the book in a spirit of reverence and respect and prayer."
(Praise to the Man, Ensign, Aug 1983, 4)

Monday, December 6, 2010

Day 99: 3 Nephi 7-9

“Here another lesson is obvious. Throughout ecclesiastical history we find that those who rejected the prophets and failed to repent of their wickedness were struck by calamities which caused them literally to weep and to mourn and to regret their failure to heed the warnings of the prophets. We know that Christ was crucified and some of his apostles persecuted and stoned simply for trying to establish the kingdom of God and bring people to repentance and a happier way of life.

Today the world is rejecting the messages of the prophets of God. Is it not true that there is weeping and wailing over the face of the land because men are at war one with another? Do we not have among us many who lament the waywardness of their youth and the tragedies that befall them as they turn away from righteousness and suffer the consequences of tampering with alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, and other forbidden things[pornography]? How many mourners do we have as a result of the lawlessness that is extant in our communities? We need to heed the lessons from the history of the past lest we be consumed as were some of those earlier civilizations.” (Elder N. Eldon Tanner, Conference Report, May 1975 Ensign, p. 34)

Let us look forward to the coming of Jesus Christ with hope and happiness, no matter what befalls around us. Let us keep the faith, fight the good fight, and be found worthy to present ourselves before our Savior in purity and love.

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