Mosiah 3

I have some other things to foretell, these ones given me by an angel. I was sleeping and he woke me up to say that he had really good news. God had heard my prayers, he said, and judged me righteous. He also said to the people that not far in the future—though God’s time is hard to measure—God himself would come to earth and become human, walking around on two legs just like you and me. He would be known mostly for healing, curing blindness and deafness, killing off viruses. and fixing neurological symptoms,

To be a man, of course, is to be tested. So after all that healing he’ll have to suffer excruciating bodily pain, superhuman in his endurance. He’ll also have extreme anxiety for the world’s sins. That will even cause a rare disorder in which blood oozes from the pores of his skin.

In this form God will be known as Jesus Christ, Son of God, Father of heaven and earth, Creator of all things from the start. Oh, and his mom’s name is Mary.

It doesn’t matter how many “wow”-type events he pulls off, people will not only dismiss any claims he has to superhumanity, they will try to prove he’s just a man by whipping him and nailing him to a cross of wooden planks—some bizarre Roman thing. (We got out of Palestine just in time.) He’ll return to life after three days and eventually judge the world. The blood of his murder fosters that Great Reconciliation about which we speak. It is a compensation God accepts for Adam’s sin or the sins of anyone who didn’t know God’s laws.

As for those who do know God’s laws, that’s another story. Don’t rebel, or at least know that you’re rebelling. If you do, you’ll have to change before you can get square with God. This is hardly a new concept. God’s sent messengers for centuries, all over the map, announcing that his Anointed One would come for the reasons I’ve said. People have to climb out of their sin-holes if they want to live full lives. Jesus will reach down to pull up anyone who tries to do so.

First, as you know, God gave a law to Moses. But he tried to show people over and over that this was a halfway measure. Just a way to get people to see how they fall short. But it doesn’t save anybody. Ultimately, only Jesus’ blood can do that. No one else’s blood, by the way. Just his.

Obviously, infants can’t sin, so they’re off the hook. But grown-ups aren’t. They have to find ways to get back to the innocence of their own infancy. Adam’s fall affected us in ways I can’t grasp. But since that fall we’re drawn to the dark side, the God-enemy side of life. That won’t change unless we become like children regarding the traits of humility, submission to God, meekness, patience, and great love. To God we’re still little children anyway, though we’re prone to think otherwise.

At some point this message will spread more efficiently to all lands. We’ve got a long way to go before that can happen. But when it does, no one will be innocent but little children. I’m telling you what God wants you to hear. Tough talk for a basically good people. But you and I can all be better.

So, teach these things to your neighbors, loosely defined. Jesus is the only way to settle the storms of your soul.

I’m getting all these thoughts from God. When you go to his courtroom, remember them. He’s let me know that the upshot of forgetting is this: Get ready to join a different coalition of tribes. Because my concepts are nation-defining. Anyone who acts to the contrary loses his privileges.

Our move from here to the afterlife will be like riding in a glass-bottomed boat. We’ll look down and see the offscourings of our lives, no matter how hard we’ve tried to reach a strange version of perfection. We’ll wish that boat had a bottom. Because no one will like what he sees. For some they’ll wish they were dead, till they realize they already are. They’ve drunk that soul-poison I warned you about.

Adam ate the fruit, they drank the poison. The natural outcomes of both are irrevocable.

If we don’t let Jesus help us out of the ditch we’ve all dug for ourselves, hell awaits. And whatever your concept of hell is, it’s worse.

Angels’ words can shake you.