Bade Him That He Should Read

I was impressed again by the power of the vision that Lehi received as I read 1 Nephi 1. After first seeing a pillar of fire from the Lord while he was praying, he went home and “cast himself upon his bed,” being overcome with the Spirit. Nephi recorded, “And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.” He saw God (the Father, I believe) who was on His throne. He then saw the Savior: “And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day.” Lehi then beheld the twelve apostles: “And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament.” It was then one of the apostles who came to him in the vision: “And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth; and the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read.” They gave him a book! He was in the middle of a vision of the Father and the Son and their servants, and the way that they communicated with Lehi was to give him a book to read. What happened when he read the book? “He was filled with the Spirit of the Lord” (1 Nephi 1:6-12). Surely this is symbolic for each of us. When the Lord sends His servants among the children of men, what do they say to the people? They give them a book and bid them to read. That’s what our missionaries do today: they give people a book (the Book of Mormon) and bid them read. And that’s what the prophets and apostles do every general conference: they invite us to open the sacred books of scriptures and read. One of the major ways that the Lord communicates with us is through sacred books.

                 I love this invitation of Isaiah: “Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read” (Isaiah 34:16). That should be what we seek to do every day: seek out the book of the Lord and read from it. Isaiah also prophesied of the coming of the Book of Mormon in this passage: “And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.” The Lord and His servants likewise say to us, “Read this, I pray thee.” Some will say, “I cannot; for it is sealed.” Figuratively, that is the response of those who say that it is too hard to understand. Others will say, “I am not learned.” Some feel they aren’t smart enough to read the scriptures. But neither of those is the right response. We can read it even if we feel it is too hard to understand or that we are not learned enough. Isaiah continued, “And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 29:11-12, 18-19). The book can make even the deaf hear and the blind to see. That is the effect the book can have on us as we choose to seek out of the book of the Lord and read.

                The Book of Mormon begins with the story of a prophet who was invited to read the word of the Lord. And it ends with a prophet inviting us to read the word of the Lord: “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… 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” (Moroni 10:3-4). There is no way around the fact that the Lord wants us to read His word. Alma said to the Zoramites, “Now behold, my brethren, I would ask if ye have read the scriptures?” That question is surely for all of us, and what Alma said next highlights why we are to do such reading, “If ye have, how can ye disbelieve on the Son of God?” (Alma 33:14) The scriptures ultimately point us to the Son of God, and that is why every day we should indeed seek out of the book of the Lord and read.