A Focus on the Future

One common thread that we see in some of the Book of Mormon figures is a focus on people in the distant future.  Many of the prophets who wrote spoke of and thought about and prayed over people who would come to earth hundreds and even thousands of years after them.  I sometimes have a hard time seeing past tomorrow, but these prophets had a vision for and desire to be a part of the people who would come many years after them.   For example, some of the writings were specifically directed at us who live in the last days.  Mormon’s final chapter was addressed this way: “I would speak somewhat unto the remnant of this people who are spared… yea, I speak unto you, ye remnant of the house of Israel” (Mormon 7:1).  Moroni spoke of the day in which the Book of Mormon would come forth and made it clear he was speaking to us: “O ye wicked and perverse and stiffnecked people, why have ye built up churches unto yourselves to get gain?...  Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing” (Mormon 8:33, 35).  Nephi likewise appeared to have directed his final words at his latter-day audience.  After speaking much in the previous chapters about what would happen in the last days with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he said to us, “And now, my beloved brethren, all those who are of the house of Israel, and all ye ends of the earth, I speak unto you as the voice of one crying from the dust: Farewell until that great day shall come” (2 Nephi 33:13).  The Nephite writers clearly had their latter-day audience in mind as they wrote the Book of Mormon. 

                There are other Book of Mormon passages that aren’t specifically directed at a future audience but which still show their preoccupation with future generations.  For example, Nephi’s vision showed him his posterity that would exist at the time of the Savior as well as at the time of their destruction around 400 BC.  After the vision Nephi wrote, “And it came to pass that I was overcome because of my afflictions, for I considered that mine afflictions were great above all, because of the destruction of my people, for I had beheld their fall” (1 Nephi 15:5).  Even though these descendants of his wouldn’t be on the earth for 1000 years, Nephi was devastated at their suffering and wickedness.  Samuel the Lamanite was another who focused on this time when the Nephites would be destroyed.  He warned the Nephites of his day: “The sword of justice hangeth over this people; and four hundred years pass not away save the sword of justice falleth upon this people” (Helaman 13:5).  In some respects it seems like quite an innocuous threat: “If you don’t repent then something really bad will happen to your descendants in 400 years long after you have died.”  But the Nephites, it seems, had their eye to the future and the fate of their posterity mattered to them.  Enos showed us this in his prayers to the Lord: “And now behold, this was the desire which I desired of [God]—that if it should so be, that my people, the Nephites, should fall into transgression, and by any means be destroyed, and the Lamanites should not be destroyed, that the Lord God would preserve a record of my people, the Nephites; even if it so be by the power of his holy arm, that it might be brought forth at some future day unto the Lamanites, that, perhaps, they might be brought unto salvation” (Enos 1:13).  Enos desperately wanted their record to be able to go to the Lamanites at a future date and prayed for this even though he would be long gone by the time it happened.  The Lord told him, “Thy fathers have also required of me this thing; and it shall be done unto them according to their faith; for their faith was like unto thine” (Enos 1:18).  So he wasn’t the only one with eyes to the future who earnestly hoped that their record would be of value to future generations.  And apparently they knew a lot about what was to come for they not only prayed about their records being preserved but they also specifically prayed for Joseph Smith who would bring it forth: “And behold, their prayers were also in behalf of him that the Lord should suffer to bring these things forth” (Mormon 8:25).  The great Nephite leaders clearly had a vision of what was to come and could see past their own circumstances to put hope and faith in the future.