Welcome to my free coloring pages.
Today's new drawing is from The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
The drawing is of the great prophet general
Mormon lamenting the destruction of his people.
Mormon's Lament for his People
In The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, there is a book called the "Book of Mormon." It tells of the final destruction of the Nephite nation. Their last general was a prophet called Mormon. He had gathered their records of about a thousand years and made an abbreviation that we now know as: The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ. That recorded included an account of when Jesus Christ visited His people in the Americas after his resurrection.
Mormon tried to get his people to repent, but most of them had become bloodthirsty and full of hate and practicing the vilest of behaviors. At one point the Nephites swore vengeance on their enemies, the Lamanites. At that point, Mormon refused to lead his people in a war of vengeance.
The Nephites started the war and because of that and their extreme wickedness, they were soon losing the war. Mormon could not stand idly by and watch and so he repented of his oath and became their military leader once again. He did his best to lead his people, but their wickedness made it so they wouldn't even obey his orders in battle. Mormon knew that their destruction was assured.
The Nephites finally were destroyed in a huge battle in a place called Cumorah. That area has a Hill called the Hill Cumorah. After the battle, General Mormon and his son General Moroni were among the few survivors. They viewed the destruction of their people from the top of the hill and Mormon lamented their loss. What Morman said is:
17 O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you!
18 Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. But behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss.
19 O ye fair sons and daughters, ye fathers and mothers, ye husbands and wives, ye fair ones, how is it that ye could have fallen!
20 But behold, ye are gone, and my sorrows cannot bring your return.
21 And the day soon cometh that your mortal must put on immortality, and these bodies which are now moldering in corruption must soon become incorruptible bodies; and then ye must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, to be judged according to your works; and if it so be that ye are righteous, then are ye blessed with your fathers who have gone before you.
22 O that ye had repented before this great destruction had come upon you. But behold, ye are gone, and the Father, yea, the Eternal Father of heaven, knoweth your state; and he doeth with you according to his justice and mercy.
-Source: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/morm/6?lang=eng
Mormon, before he was killed, gave the record he had made of his people to his son, Moroni. Moroni lived for over 30 years avoiding the Lamanites because the Lamanites of that era would kill anyone who would not deny Christ. I can't imagine the loneliness Moroni mush have felt. But he was not idle. He translated and abridged the record of the Jaredites and that book is called the "Book of Ether." The Book of Ether is the second to last book in The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ. Moroni finally grew old and he buried the record, written on gold plates, in the Hill Cumorah around 421 A.D.
Over 1,800 years later the young prophet Joseph Smith was directed to the gold plates and through the gift and power of God was able to translate the record. The record was printed in English in Palmyra, New York, USA. This book has now been translated into around 110 languages. Portions of the book have been translated into 20 more languages.
The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ has a very unique promise in it. It says that if you read the book and ask God that he will tell you whether or not it is true. I don't know of any other book that says that. If this intrigues you then look up The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and ask for a visit from the missionaries.
We Mormons or Latter-Day Saints or members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints... go on missions. Or at least some of us do. My wife and I went on our missions in our youth. She went to Arizona & Southern Nevada... and I went to New Mexico, Southern Colorado, & West Texas. My wife's brother and his wife have gone on missions as senior missionaries to California and to England. Today my nephew reported on his mission in what we called Sacrament Meeting. He went on his mission to the state of Maine, USA.
So, missionaries put their life on hold for 18 months to 2 years to serve the Lord... and to serve their fellowmen by teaching them about the Savior Jesus Christ and His atonement for our sins. Jesus also sends us the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit to comfort us in our times of trial. I can imagine that the Holy Ghost comforted Mormon as he watched his people live in terrible sin and eventually be destroyed. And Mormon's son, Moroni was certainly comforted in his long years of loneliness after his family and all his people were killed.
My own father believed that the admonitions in The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ to take care of the Lamanites in the latter days were real; and so he put his medical practice on hold and he moved his family to Guatemala and started a medical mission. I went to half of first grade in Santa María Cunén, Guatemala.
A final note on this topic, my favorite chapter in The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ is in the Book of Moroni... the last part of the book. It is chapter 7 and it is in the Book of Moroni, but it is Moroni writing what his father had taught the people. The chapter gave me great comfort when I was in the hospital in Boston, (nearly 2,500 miles from home) and the doctors told me that I was not going to make it. We believe that God still talks to Man via His Holy Spirit. My doctor had just told me that I was not going to make it and when he walked out the Holy Ghost told me, "It is OK to go but if you want to stay I will help you but it won't be easy." I thought of my 13-year-old son and I chose to stay... in mortality. And that was 15 or 16 years ago.
There is a verse in Moroni chapter 7 that says,
"Wherefore my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven, and has sat down on the right hand of God to claim of the Father His rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men? For he hath answered the ends of the law, and he claimeth all those who have faith in Him; and they who have faith in Him will cleave unto every good thing; wherefore He advocateth the cause of the children of men; and He dwelleth eternally in the heavens. And because He hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men."
I read and re-read these verses and my miracle happened. There is no medical reason for me to still be alive, but I have benefitted from the medical miracle that only God could do. So I know that God will comfort you in YOUR trials because he comforted me and gave me my miracle. From an eternal perspective, death is just the next part of life. We need not fear the next life, but we should be willing to stay in mortality until our time is done and we have passed the tests that God gives us.
ARTIST NOTE: This clothing and armor in the drawing is based on the possibility that the Nephites and Lamanites lived in what is now Central and Eastern North America. Hence the obsidian swords and the padded armor. Of course, there is also some thought that perhaps the events in the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ took place in what is now Central America and Mexico. We don't know where exactly it all happened at this point. But the Hopewell and Mississippian cultures in North America did have metal smelting and were far more advanced than is generally known. Also, if you have read The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ you know that tens of thousands died at Cumorah, but I couldn't bring myself to draw any more dead bodies. Did you notice that there is a sunset over the nearby drumlin hill? The hills in Upstate New York are drumlin hills and so they were formed by glaciers. The Hill Cumorah is also a drumlin hill.
By the way, to my English readers: I am re-posting this in multiple languages then I will re-post in one more time in English.
To get to the printable version of this drawing just click on the button labeled . . . . . . . Religious. Remember to scroll down because the new drawings are at the bottom of the list of drawings.
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