When people
are being taught the Restored Gospel, they are typically asked to pray to know
the truth of the message there are hearing, with a focus on the truthfulness of
the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith being a prophet of God. In Moroni 10:3-5,
we read a pericope often referred to as “Moroni’s promise”:
Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read
these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, and ye would
remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of Adam even down
until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your
hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye
would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are
not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having
faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the
Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all
things.
Many
Evangelical critics of the Church argue that to pray about the Book of Mormon
is misguided at best; Satanic deception at worse. They argue, for instance,
that praying about the Book of Mormon is blasphemous, as one is “testing” God.
However, as with many criticisms one hears from Evangelical detractors of the
Church, such is based on biblical illiteracy (notwithstanding their claims to
represent so-called “Biblical Christianity”).
In the book
of Judges, we read of Gideon asking God for a sign (“testing God” to use the
anti-Mormon terminology), and God actually obliges, giving Gideon the sign (on
more than one instance) he requested as proof that he would be the instrumental
means of saving Israel:
And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by
mine hand as thou hast said, Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor;
and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside,
then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said.
And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece
together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. And
Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak
but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it
now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And
God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew
on all the ground. (Judg 6:36-40)
