"13 Therefore, I would that ye should behold that the Lord truly did teach the people, for the space of three days; and after that he did ashow himself unto them oft, and did break bbread oft, and bless it, and give it unto them.
14 And it came to pass that he did teach and minister unto the achildren of the multitude of whom hath been spoken, and he did bloose their ctongues, and they did speak unto their fathers great and marvelous things, even greater than he had revealed unto the people; and he loosed their tongues that they could utter.
15 And it came to pass that after he had ascended into heaven—the second time that he showed himself unto them, and had gone unto the Father, after having ahealed all their sick, and their lame, and opened the eyes of their blind and unstopped the ears of the deaf, and even had done all manner of cures among them, and raised a man from the bdead, and had shown forth his power unto them, and had ascended unto the Father—
16 Behold, it came to pass on the morrow that the multitude gathered themselves together, and they both saw and heard these children; yea, even ababes did open their mouths and utter marvelous things; and the things which they did utter were bforbidden that there should not any man write them.
17 And it came to pass that the adisciples whom Jesus had chosen began bfrom that time forth to cbaptize and to teach as many as did come unto them; and as many as were baptized in the name of Jesus were filled with the Holy Ghost.
18 And many of them saw and heard unspeakable things, which are anot lawful to be written.
19 And they taught, and did aminister one to another; and they had ball things ccommon among them, every man dealing justly, one with another.
20 And it came to pass that they did do all things even as Jesus had commanded them.
21 And they who were baptized in the name of Jesus were called the achurch of Christ."That sounds so amazing. And then after Christ left them, they lived in peace, with no contention at all, and prospered in great ways. The scriptures speak of great miracles and faith at that time. I can imagine the immense happiness and joy they must have experienced.
But, as always happens, certain groups of people began to change. They became proud, focusing on vain, worldly things and lifting themselves above others. Soon the people were again divided into groups and many rebelled against the gospel of Christ. It is interesting that in verse 38 it says, "they did not dwindle in unbelief, but they did wilfully rebel against the gospel of Christ." So, they chose to go a different way. This is the part I can't understand. With such experiences, why would anyone choose another way? I know that with subsequent generations they may forget, but the scriptures clearly say they didn't slowly lose the knowledge, but chose to go against it. Eventually, in Mormon we read that the people fought with each other until one group was completely destroyed, and, as the scriptures say, the disciples were taken away, there were no more miracles and the Holy Ghost could not be with them.
I am so struck by the contrast. I would love to experience what those in the Americas experienced when Christ came to visit them and soon after. It seems like such a superior existence.
Fortunately we have been promised that the gospel, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will never be taken from the earth again. Christ will come again and we will have that existence they had for a brief time in the Book of Mormon.
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