My love affair with the word of God

I love the Book of Mormon. I love the doctrine of Christ it teaches. I love the witness of Christ it bears. I love the spirit that accompanies it.

There is no book I have read more thoroughly or consistently throughout my life. I first read it as a twelve-year-old boy, influenced largely by my Grandma Batt, and it formed an important foundation for my faith and understanding and testimony. I do not know how many times I may have read it through in the years since then, but it has been more than once a year ever since President Ezra Taft Benson in the mid-1980s put renewed emphasis upon its centrality to our faith and testimony. So perhaps fifty times.

My love affair with the Book of Mormon in no way diminishes the regard and esteem and appreciation I have for the companion volumes of sacred writings compiled in the Holy Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price.

A simple insight from tonight's reading in 3 Nephi, that portion of the Book of Mormon that contains some of the resurrected Savior's teachings to the Nephites, echoing His similar teachings to the people in the Holy Land:

Jesus said, "Beware of false prophets" (3 Nephi 14:15). Much of the rest of the Christian world would esteem Joseph Smith and his duly appointed successors down to our day to be false prophets, but without regard it seems to me to the verse that follows: "Ye shall know them by their fruits" (3 Nephi 14:16).

The abundant fruits of Joseph's mission are public record, beginning first with the Book of Mormon itself. It is a remarkable achievement by any standard. John Taylor mentions some of the other fruits in what is now section 135 of the Doctrine and Covenants (see, for example, D&C 135:3). I think I could list a dozen more positive fruits that are evident from the life and ministry and teachings of the Prophet Joseph. Perhaps on another occasion.

The morning breaks

I have many favorite hymns. And through the various times and seasons of my life, different hymns speak to my soul in ways that strengthen my faith, fill me with love and thanksgiving, draw me closer to my Savior, and bring me peace. Some hymns remind me of important truths about life and God's tender mercies toward me and my family. And others celebrate His dealings with His children, centering often and appropriately in His redemptive sacrifice as Savior and Redeemer, but ranging also from the glorious restoration of His gospel in these latter days to His interventions in our daily lives to His anticipated and approaching Second Coming.

In this maiden post I reflect on one of my favorite hymns, a hymn text that celebrates the dawning of a brighter day, the breaking of a glorious new morning, the literal opening of the heavens as a part of the latter-day restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A phrase from the hymn serves as the theme and title of my blog.

"The Morning Breaks" comes from a poem written by Parley P. Pratt (1807-1857):

The morning breaks, the shadows flee;
Lo, Zion's standard is unfurled!
The dawning of a brighter day
Majestic rises on the world.

The clouds of error disappear
Before the rays of truth divine;
The glory bursting from afar
Wide o'er the nations soon shall shine.

The Gentile fulness now comes in,
And Israel's blessings are at hand.
Lo, Judah's remnant, cleansed from sin,
Shall in their promised Canaan stand.

Jehovah speaks! Let earth give ear,
And Gentile nations turn and live.
His mighty arm is making bare
His cov'nant people to receive.

Angels from heaven and truth from earth
Have met, and both have record borne;
Thus Zion's light is bursting forth
To bring her ransomed children home.

This hymn celebrates the opening of the latter-day dispensation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, beginning in the spring of 1820 when the Father and the Son appeared to the boy prophet Joseph Smith. I think it appropriate, therefore, that it also appear as the opening hymn in the current Latter-day Saint hymnal (published in 1985) as hymn number 1.