Jacob was the third prophet of the Book of Mormon. He called his people together in the temple to chastise them for their wickedness, and their failure to live the gospel that had once defined them. To help them see the risks they faced, he also prophesied of the future challenges faced by the Jews in Jerusalem, which is where his people had come from themselves. He warned them some of the Jewish people would reject the Savior when He came because they were looking for someone different from the person they saw and for a gospel more complex than what He was offering.
Instead, the Savior would offer a gospel that was filled with plain and simple truths. The complexities of the Law of Moses would be removed. The intellectualism some craved would not be a part of the gospel. Those who wanted a gospel too hard to understand would be disappointed, because the truth is not complex. However, we can see from Jacob’s warning that God would give them what they wanted, if they insisted on it, but to their own detriment.
“14 But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble. (Jacob 4)
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/jacob/4
While God glories in our intelligence, which He gave us, we must not allow intellectualism or a desire for the complex and fancy to overshadow our need for the very basic, very beautiful in their simplicity, gospel truths. Sometimes people who wish to attack the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will focus on small fringe ideas, ideas which were never canonized, but only speculated on by early leaders and others, as intelligent people sometimes do. They entirely miss the heart of the gospel, which begins when a young boy kneels in the woods and God appears, introducing young Joseph Smith to His Son, Jesus Christ. This simple moment in unpretentious, God-made surroundings, teaches the heart of the restored gospel. God lives. Jesus is His literal Son.
From this other simple truths were taught over time. God loves us with all His heart. Jesus redeemed us out of love. God sends prophets to teach us even today because He loves us. He has given us the Holy Ghost, if we choose it, to allow us to communicate directly with God anytime we choose, and this too, because He loves us.
The plain and simple truths of the gospel are the ones centered in love, and they are the heart of the gospel that is truly taught by the restored gospel. Don’t look beyond the mark, as the early Jewish people sometimes did, and miss what is right in front of you: The truth, in all its simplistic glory.
The late Terrie Lynn Bittner—beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and friend—was the author of two homeschooling books and numerous articles, including several that appeared in Latter-day Saint magazines. She became a member of the Church at the age of 17 and began sharing her faith online in 1992.
