You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/
If you are not familiar with the Book of Mormon and wonder what it really says, the best advice I have for you is to read it. If you read it, you will find that its record-keepers and prophets come back again and again to one central theme: Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Savior of the World, and in charge of the great effort to bring Heavenly Father’s children back to Him and to lift them up to their potential to truly become (in the words of Paul in Romans 8) “joint-heirs” to all the Father has and is.
After King Benjamin winds up the immediate business he has with his people, the Nephites, in making sure they understand his love for them, his concern for the state of their souls and his son Mosiah’s role as their new servant-king, Benjamin speaks in a more intimate way, as though the crowd of thousands that had gathered are a small group of confidants that he has brought together to share a very special secret. “I have things to tell you concerning that which is to come” (verse 1). And these things come from an angel.
For those of us familiar with the story of the Nativity (Christ’s birth) in the Gospel of Luke, verse 3 should alert us to what Benjamin is about to share. The angel tells him that he has come to declare “glad tidings of great joy.” Not surprisingly, those glad tidings are a summation of Jesus’ birth, life, ministry, suffering, death, Resurrection, and judgment—about 125 years before Bethlehem, the manger at the inn, the shepherds and the wise men. The glad tidings also make very explicit reference to Christ’s role as the “Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning” (verse 8), so we understand that Jesus played an active part in the creation of the world on behalf of His Father.
After sharing this testimony of truth, Benjamin relates what the angel tells him about why it is vitally important for the people of the world (which, of course, includes us and other readers from our day). We learn that the physical reality of Christ’s willing sacrifice has some very specific consequences for men and women everywhere. These consequences may seem miraculous, and at times difficult to believe because of their power to overcome the effects of sin and death.
But in sharing these details with Benjamin (who then shares them with his people and with us), the angel approaches the subject in a way that reminds us of Nephi. He is very straightforward and wants to show that we can understand some important things about how the Atonement of Christ works even if we don’t understand all things about it.
One thing the angel explains is that true prophets share the message that salvation comes through Christ by faith and repentance. Other teachings, such as the law of Moses with its various do’s and don’t’s, only have power for us in the sense that they point us toward the Atonement and how we can make it effective in our lives.
The advice the angel gives is a variation on what Jesus Himself taught in Matthew 18 when he placed a child before his disciples and said that whosoever will humble himself as a little child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It includes some particularly powerful counsel in verse 19 that teaches us how to rid ourselves of a rebellious attitude and to receive inspiration from God rather than repel it:
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
This is a reminder to us that whatever we think our limited time on this earth is about, at some level it is essentially a contest between good and evil for our allegiance. Our bodily desires are powerful, and will naturally lead us to do things opposed to God’s plan to get us back to Him unless we choose to focus on following the messages He sends us through the Holy Spirit. The great consolation in this somewhat harsh truth (including the fact that choosing good can feel like something “inflicted” upon us because it can be challenging) is that God is sending us communication that can deliver us from evil if we listen.
But the notion that we naturally dwell on neutral ground and can make a leisurely choice between good and evil like deciding where to shop inside a mall is a false one. We are subject to temptation and will succumb to it unless we act on the heavenly inspiration that (thankfully) comes to each man and woman. Through Benjamin, the angel also reassures us that those who go through life without a full recognition of God’s law—whether they die as little children (verse 16) or just are not properly informed about the difference between right and wrong (verse 11)—will find salvation through the sacrifice Jesus makes for us.
The angel then describes for us the consequences that will surely come if we are unable to put off the “natural man” and choose good over evil. He assures us that the “knowledge of a Savior shall spread throughout every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” (verse 20). In a situation where there is general understanding that good and evil exist and are opposed to one another, everyone is accountable.
And then Benjamin (through the angel) is just bearing pure testimony. We will feel the full weight of sin if we don’t repent and turn to Christ. In saying this, Benjamin is following directly in the footsteps of Nephi (in 2 Nephi 33) and Jacob (Jacob 6), who also unfolded a vision of final judgment to us that may seem harsh but is ultimately born from deep love that would have us avoid eternal misery.
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