When reading through
the summary part of this chapter it talks about how there are those who
"dwindle in unbelief" and the first question that came to my mind is
- is it those who know naught where to find the truth of the gospel or the true
church or is it simply those who have found the truth and refuse to accept it
as being the truth? And I guess that's a hard question to answer because there
are so many different things that influence our beliefs on a daily basis. For
some of us it's family and friends and other things are our own beliefs. For
me, I was raised in a Catholic family. Needless to say, some of the Mormon
beliefs are quite different. And it makes you sort of wonder if those who dwell
in disbelief, is it because they can't or don't know where to find the truth or
is it they've mentally discarded the truth and done their best to ignore it?
For me, part of
finding the truth was talking to the missionaries, but the bigger and I'd say
the biggest part was simply getting on my knees and asking Heavenly Father if
the Book of Mormon is true. I've also asked Him about other things like baptism
and each time I've received an undeniable confirmation that this is in fact the
true church. So then you have those that find the truth, but then they leave.
Is it because environmental factors affected them in such a way that they
changed their beliefs? Because what is true is true forever and ever. So I
would guess that those people simply are trying to ignore the truth and if you
put enough effort in, you can easily ignore the truth. It truly is not that
difficult of a thing to do.
In the first few
verses Nephi speaks of the inhabitants fighting against each other, much like
the world does today. Some wars are over religion. Some are full out country
verses country wars and some are just small and in a group of people, rather
than a mass amount. I think so often in our world today we have so many
religious arguments between people because they don't want to listen to hear
the truth because they believe their belief is the one and only true one. But
they don't want to listen to others to test that. If you really believe you
have the truth, you should not fear listening to others to hear about their
religion because if you know the truth, what others say shouldn't matter.
"And
the mists of
darkness are the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the
hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into broad roads, that they perish and are
lost" (verse 17). The Gospel is simple and is definitely not complicated
by any means. The mists of darkness, I think, is a symbolic representation of
the darkness we feel and experience when we've done something wrong. When we do
things that are against Heavenly Father's commandments, we can feel the
presence of the Spirit decreasing. Heavenly Father gave us these commandments
to protect and guide us and we really need to listen to Him. He knows what's
best for us. The more bad things we do, the more we refuse to acknowledge the
bad things which can ultimately blind us in such a way where we don't realize
we continue to do bad things. We end up hardening our hearts against the truth
and do what we feel is right rather than listening to Heavenly Father. If He
knows what's best for us, we should listen to Him, right? After all, we can't
see our lives as a whole. The only things we see are the past and present, and
that's not really very much at all.
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