On Values and Consequences

The following two passages from The Book of Mormon are taken from times of war, and describe the efforts of a top military official. Let’s do a comparison:

1. “And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it – In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children – and he fastened it upon the end of a pole… And it came to pass that when Moroni had proclaimed these words, behold, the people came running together with their armor girded about their loins…” (Alma 46:12, 21). 
2. "And it came to pass that I [Mormon] did speak unto my people, and did urge them with great energy, that they would stand boldly before the Lamanites and fight for their wives, and their children, and their houses, and their homes. And my words did arouse them somewhat to vigor, insomuch that they did not flee from before the Lamanites…” (Mormon 2:23-24).

In case you missed it, there are two main differences: that for which the people where to fight for, and the ensuing enthusiasm for the fight. What we have with this comparison then, is an interesting look at values and consequences.

When Moroni inspired his people, he used a specific order of things, and the best way to describe this order is to use the domino theory. When people lose their God, they lose their religion. Moroni suggests that subsequently they would lose their freedom, then their peace, then their wives, and lastly their children. But do we have proof of that? In fact, we do – just look at Mormon’s people.

In the second passage, Mormon starts with wives and children, not because he was less inspiring than Moroni, but because the people he was working with were in a very different situation. They had given up their God, and subsequently their religion. Without this, they had been through numerous wars in which they lost/ gave up their freedom and their peace, and now all they had left were their wives and children. In no doubt a desperate effort, Mormon threw in houses and homes for the people to fight for.

The importance of these values can be seen in the people’s response to the charge; the people of Moroni came running to him, “armor girded” ready to fight to the death. The people of Mormon? He simply stopped them from hightailing it from the Lamanites. Yes they fought, probably for their wives and children, but with much less enthusiasm than the people of Moroni.

More convincingly, the importance of these values is revealed by the aftermath of the two situations. The people of Moroni came together, and soundly defeated the Lamanites. The people of Mormon were utterly destroyed; men, women, children, everyone. In fact, not fifty years after Mormon’s charge the Nephite nation – a nation that had been in existence for almost 1000 years – was extinct.  

The people of Moroni valued God first, and as such He watched over and protected them; all other values were protected as well. When the people of Mormon rejected God, they lost that protection and everything consequently crumbled.

And for us?

The moral of the story is clear: first and foremost, we must value God.