In this covenant speech, Jesus began by explaining in these verses how all of Israel will be scattered and lost, but that there would be a day of the Gentiles when they would be the nursing fathers to help bring the gospel back to the people who had been scattered. The key point is that the coming forth of the Book of Mormon will be the sign (21:5, 7) that will let everyone know that the word of God is coming forth again to the scattered Israelites, and that the Gentiles, if they will believe, can then become members of the House of Israel. The people there in Bountiful had a crucial role to fulfill in the covenant of God with the children of Abraham, providing a visible sign that God had set His hand again to fulfill that covenant.
Jesus explained how this will happen, how people will rejoice, how people will be gathered in, how a New Jerusalem will be formed, and how the victory of God over the forces of evil and separation will eventually be complete. This promise would have been especially meaningful to these people who had recently witnessed such massive destruction and tragedy.
Nephi, as recorder, and Mormon, as compiler, structurally retained this culminating climax of Jesus’ covenant speech. Mormon sacrificed his life to preserve these records, especially because he knew that Jesus had taught that the coming forth of this record would be a sign that God’s covenant is being fulfilled. This covenant speech is a Nephite document emphasizing the Nephites’ role in the Father’s plan of salvation and of the fulfillment of God’s covenant.
This is also part of our role today among God’s people, to take the Book of Mormon to the world in order to bring to pass the fulfillment of the great covenants and promises of God. We as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are the inheritors of this record, and thanks to publishing and technology, we are able to take it to all the world as an ensign (a banner) to the nations. The Lord has promised that people from all the nations of the earth will flow unto the House of the Lord and unto the covenant of the Lord, so that they may be blessed eternally. As we become members of this covenant, we become children of God in receiving the blessings of all that the Father has and all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through all the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.