Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon

At one point in our study of the four Gospels, we had been thinking about Jesus’s 40-day trial in the Judean wilderness. In only two verses, Mark tells us about those days (Mark 1:12–13). Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, make use of a time-honored literary structure to tell us of the tests put to Jesus as He prepared to begin His messianic responsibilities. All three accounts express Jesus’s perfect discipline in response to evil enticements that offended the laws of God. Matthew and Luke may clothe the testing in the elegance of traditional poetic forms, but the themes in all three accounts of Jesus’s experiences in the wilderness remain the same. Whether the accounts are cryptic or complicated, it became clear to us that the devil perverted what Alma described as the relationship between the principle of justice, our ethical responsibility to love God and each other, and the merciful application of His laws in an individual’s life.

INTRODUCTION: How about a little quiz to for starters?

Most of us have heard the scripture referring to the Second Coming as the “great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Malachi 4:5), but why is it that most of us forget the “great” part and focus on the “dreadful” side of things?

Preparation: Make separate word strips for each scripture reference (see below). Gather the pictures needed from lds.org, the Gospel Art Kit, or Gospel Art Book (see below). Post the pictures from the time of Christ down the left side of the board. Post the modern pictures down the right side of the board (mix up the order). Place the scripture reference word strips in random order down the center.

Sharing appropriate details can help prepare those entering the temple for the first time, so they are not surprised by what takes place.

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When the coast-to-coast telegraph was completed in Salt Lake City in October 1861, Brigham Young sent a clear signal to President Abraham Lincoln: “Utah has not seceded but is firm for the Constitution and laws of our once happy country.” Less than eight years later, on May 10, 1869, hundreds gathered at Promontory, Utah, to witness another coast-to-coast completion. The driving of the last spike of the transcontinental railroad reverberated continuity to a once broken nation.1

Thank goodness that the Mormon Moment has finally come to an end. It’s been six months—a year, maybe—and what with all the Broadway musicals, billboards and radio ads, magazine spreads, the op-eds and the letters responding to the op-eds, the television news stories, the daytime pundits, the night-time pundits, the op-eds responding to the pundits and the letters excoriating the op-ed responses to the pundits, this Mormon is exhausted. Now that the country has voted the highest Mormon in the land back to Boston or Wolfeboro or wherever, I’m looking forward to a well-earned break from the country’s daily construction of my identity.

There are at least three significant details in John’s report of this particular night during the Feast of the Tabernacles or Sukkot—one of the three most important feast-days and celebrations of the Jewish calendar year—that make for enriched interpretation of Jesus’s declaration in these verses.