Moroni 9 is Mormon’s final epistle to his son Moroni. Why do you suppose Moroni included this final admonition in his record? Do you think he wanted to show us what can happen to a people who completely lose the Spirit of the Lord? What are some of the characteristics of such a condition? How did the people react to the “word of God”? (v. 4). What had they lost? (see v. 5). What admonition did Mormon give to Moroni? (see v. 6). Should we ever cease trying to save souls? Note Mormon’s description of virtue in verse 9How precious is virtue?
How does Mormon describe his people in verses 18 through 20
Elder Neal A. Maxwell commented on the meaning of past feelingas follows:
“President Harold B. Lee has called our attention to the phrase ‘past feeling’ which is used several places in the scriptures. In Ephesians, Paul links it to lasciviousness that apparently so sated its victims that they sought ‘uncleanness with greediness.’ Moroni used the same two words to describe a decaying society which was ‘without civilization, ’ ‘without order and without mercy, ’ and in which people had ‘lost their love, one towards another.’ … Nephi used the same concept in his earlier lamentation about his brothers’ inability to heed the urgings of the Spirit because they were ‘past feeling.’ The common thread is obvious: the inevitable dulling of our capacity to feel renders us impervious to conscience, to the needs of others, and to insights both intellectual and spiritual. Such imperceptivity, like alcoholism, apparently reaches a stage where the will can no longer enforce itself upon our impulses” (“For the Power Is in Them,” p. 22).
Elder Maxwell also commented on how people reach this state:
“Our capacity to feel controls our behavior in many ways, and by inaction when our feelings prompt us to do good, we deaden that capacity to feel. It was Jesus’ striking sensitivity to the needs of those about him that made it possible for him to respond in action.
“At the other end of the spiritual spectrum are individuals such as Nephi’s erring brothers; Nephi noted their increasing insensitivity to things spiritual: ‘[God] hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words.’ [ 1 Nephi 17:45.]
“When we become too encrusted with error, our spiritual antennae wilt and we slip beyond mortal reach. This can happen to entire civilizations. In his lamentation to his son Moroni, Mormon notes the deterioration of the Nephite society. The symptoms include a wickedness so profound that Mormon’s people were described by him as being ‘past feeling.’ [ Moroni 9:20.] The Apostle Paul lamented the destructive lasciviousness of Church members in Ephesus because they had developed such insensitivity in their satiation that they were ‘past feeling.’ [ Ephesians 4:19.] A sex-saturated society cannot really feel the needs of its suffering members because, instead of developing the love that looks outward, it turns man selfishly inward. Imperviousness to the promptings of the still small voice of God will also mean that we have ears but cannot hear, not only the promptings of God, but also the pleas of men”
(A Time to Choose, pp. 59–60).