Fully Ripe

One of the warning messages of the Book of Mormon is the destruction that will come upon the land of America if the people become fully ripe in iniquity.  We see that emphasized particularly in Ether 2 when for four verses in a row this same basic message is repeated by Moroni:

·         V8: “Whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them.”

·         V9: “Whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity.”

·         V10: “Wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fulness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off.”

·         V11: “And this cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of God—that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done.”

The message is clear: when we are ripe in iniquity then the fulness of the wrath of God will come and we will be “swept off” from the land.  Moroni apparently wanted to make sure that we didn’t miss it and so he repeated himself multiple times, and as verse 11 shows, he was writing to us in our day.  He had no audience in his own day, and part of the reason for telling the Jaredite story was so that we could avoid repeating it in our day.  

                This isn’t the only place, though, that we get this message from the Book of Mormon.  Moroni would again say later in his Jaredite abridgement: “[The Lord] commanded that whoso should possess the land should possess it unto the Lord, or they should be destroyed when they were ripened in iniquity; for upon such, saith the Lord: I will pour out the fulness of my wrath” (Ether 9:20).  Alma told the same thing his son Helaman: “Yea, and cursed be the land forever and ever unto those workers of darkness and secret combinations, even unto destruction, except they repent before they are fully ripe” (Alma 37:31).  The land will be cursed to us when we are full of “workers of darkness and secret combinations,” a description that unfortunately seems to fit our society all too well.  Alma later repeated this message in the very last recorded words that we have from him: “And he said: Thus saith the Lord God—Cursed shall be the land, yea, this land, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, unto destruction, which do wickedly, when they are fully ripe; and as I have said so shall it be; for this is the cursing and the blessing of God upon the land, for the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (Alma 45:16).  Lehi likewise emphasized the consequences of wickedness upon this land in particular: “For if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes….  But behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord… the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them.  Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten (2 Nephi 1:7, 10-11).  All of these verses give us pause to reflect as we consider the downward spiral of our culture and the increasing rejection of the principles of the gospel.  At what point are we “fully ripe”?  Apparently we aren’t there yet, but it’s not hard to believe that this is exactly where we are headed.  The solution is simple and yet rejected more and more by the world around us: “This is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ” (Ether 2:12).  While we can’t control the general trend of wickedness in society, we can make that our mantra personally and in our families: we will serve the God of the land, even Jesus Christ.