1 Nephi 12 - Prelude giving the Book of Mormon message

The Book of Mormon is known for several key messages. Two of those are mentioned prominently in 1 Nephi 12. 1 Nephi 11-14 is when Nephi is given the explanation of what his father's vision of the tree of life means. At the same time, he's shown the future of his people, which connects so well with the tree of life as some of his people come to Jesus and some do not.

The two main messages I noticed in 1 Nephi 12 are:

1) all who come unto Jesus will be washed clean forever through his blood

2) those who are prideful and fall prey to the temptations of Satan will be miserable

Here's the verses showing #1:

10 And these ^atwelve ministers whom thou beholdest shall judge thy seed. And, behold, they are righteous forever; for because of their faith in the Lamb of God their ^bgarments are made white in his blood.

11 And the angel said unto me: Look! And I looked, and beheld^athree generations pass away in righteousness; and their garments were white even like unto the Lamb of God. And the angel said unto me: These are made white in the blood of the Lamb, because of their faith in him.

Not only are the 12 disciples made holy, but so are all people throughout 3 generations. So many were/are saved through their faith in Christ and his blood spilt for them.

#2 is in these verses, just after witnessing the destruction of his people:

17 And the ^amists of darkness are the temptations of the devil, which ^bblindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into ^cbroad roads, that they perish and are lost.

18 And the large and spacious ^abuilding, which thy father saw, is vain ^bimaginations and the ^cpride of the children of men. And a great and a terrible ^dgulf divideth them; yea, even the word of the^ejustice of the Eternal God, and the Messiah who is the Lamb of God, of whom the Holy Ghost beareth record, from the beginning of the world until this time, and from this time henceforth and forever.

19 And while the angel spake these words, I beheld and saw that the seed of my brethren did contend against my seed, according to the word of the angel; and because of the pride of my seed, and the^atemptations of the devil, I beheld that the seed of my brethren did ^boverpower the people of my seed.

Because of pride and temptations of the devil, his seed were overpowered by Satan. They did not have the help of the Lord, and they faltered and were destroyed.

This is the story of the book of Mormon. All can be saved, if you come unto Christ; if you do not come to Christ, you lose your peace, happiness, and eventually will be destroyed. Those who don't follow Christ do so because of their pride or because Satan gets them unfocused/confused.

This helps to reinforce the next 500 pages of text that we read. In addition, it was probably a fascinating thing for Joseph to translate considering he translated the entire Book of Mormon from Mosiah through Moroni before starting over with 1 Nephi. I'm sure he was convinced Nephi was a prophet after Joseph had already seen and learned the 2 lessons above in the rest of the Book of Mormon.