Mormon now goes out of his way to remind us of the youthfulness of Chief Captain Moroni as he leads the forces of the Nephites against this onslaught. He was only twenty-five years old. Mormon himself was a young leader, so he could especially relate with Moroni.
One of our keys to success in the modern world is looking to our youth, empowering them, and relying on them to help give us answers in a world that they are in greater touch with. Can young people help us to be prepared with innovative ideas that will help us in our life’s battles? When Captain Moroni comes on the scene, the first thing that he says is, “We must have better armor. We must have better weapons.” And that worked! It worked so well that, when the Lamanites were defeated, they essentially said, “It is not that your God gave it to you, it is just that you had these new-fangled kinds of armor.”
Those defensive and innovative ideas, I think, came from the young Captain Moroni. It did not come from old military leaders entrenched in their own ways of doing things. It helped to have someone not too deeply or rigidly committed to doing things the way things were done before.
The Savior himself was not very far beyond that age-group when he took upon himself the battle of the Atonement. Neither was the Prophet Joseph Smith. The average age of the first Quorum of the Twelve called in 1835 in Kirtland, Ohio was under 30. These were people who were idealistic and were ready to cast their lot with Joseph Smith. They did not have vested interests and built-in resistance. In fact, the ones who had the hardest time getting on board with the gospel were the older ones—Martin Harris, an establish land-owner, and David Whitmer, who liked certain doctrines the way he had always known them. As all the new revelations were coming forth, some people could not keep moving with the Prophet Joseph. In many ways, the Restoration was, and is, a young people’s movement, a Church of those who are continually young at heart.
Book of Mormon Central, “Why Was Moroni’s Young Age an Advantage? (Alma 43:17),” KnoWhy 151 (July 26, 2016). “Moroni followed divine counsel in wartime preparations and by so doing succeeded in the face of impossible odds. He not only preserved the Nephite people from a dangerous adversary, but he also secured his place in Nephite history. President Nelson directly declared, of the millennial generation of the church—those who are close to the same age as Moroni was when he assumed command of the Nephite armies: ‘As a True Millennial whom the Lord can count on, you will make history too! You will be asked to accept challenging assignments and become an instrument in the Lord’s hands. And He will enable you to accomplish the impossible.’” (See President Nelson, “Becoming True Millennials,” at lds.org).