Ranks of Power and a New Cabal in Ancient America

Book of Mormon Notes - Tuesday, December 19, 2023, 3 Nephi 6

Whenever I study this chapter I am amazed at how accurately it describes our own modern American society - and these are things that took place among the ancient Nephites only a few years before Christ’s coming among them. It reminds me that the Lord’s Second Coming is nigh.

The Nephites defeated the Gadianton robbers, at least for a time, and they recolonized the land - northward and southward - that had been occupied by the robbers. The Nephites began to prosper and to enjoy a very brief era of peace and order. Mormon observes:

And now there was nothing in all the land to hinder the people from prospering continually, except they should fall into transgression. (3 Nephi 6:5)

Mormon also notes that the influence of righteous individuals such as Gidgiddoni and Lachoneus made all the difference. Mormon attributes this era of peace and prosperity and order to them.

The people prospered, rebuilt cities, built new cities, roads, and highways - infrastructure as we now call it. But as you can probably imagine, this era of peace, prosperity, and order did not last long. Such eras seldom do. You can also probably guess the cause. There were disputes among the people and some were lifted up unto pride and ^aboastings because of their exceedingly great riches.

Exceedingly great riches. What is it about riches, and particularly exceedingly great riches that is so difficult for us mortals to cope with? Brigham Young was right:

The worst fear that I have about [members of this Church] is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and his people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution, and be true. But my greater fear for them is that they cannot stand wealth; and yet they have to be tried with riches (quoted in Preston Nibley, Brigham Young: The Man and His Work [1936], 128).

The Nephites withstood mobbing, robbing, poverty, persecution, famine, and many other deprivations, but as soon as the became wealthy, pride crept in. Some people began to boast because of their exceedingly great riches. They could not stand wealth. They were tried with riches and found lacking.

Rather than be too hard on these ancient Nephites, we would do well to consider our own circumstances and disposition toward the wealth and exceedingly great riches with which we have been blessed.

I remember that my father once told me of an experience that he had while playing basketball one day at the university gymnasium. For some reason, a boastful young student who was also playing basketball taunted my dad who is a faculty member at the university. As part of his taunts, this boastful young man jeered: “I make more money than you do.”

It sounds ridiculous and absurd, and it is. But this is the way that too many of us think about the riches with which we have been blessed. Rather than thank God for our blessings, material and otherwise, we think of our salaries, our wealth, our possessions, and our money as a kind of status symbol and indication of our superiority to those who make less than we do. Furthermore, we find it difficult to be content with having sufficient for our needs, and in an endless and foolish rat race we compete to keep up with, outdo, and elevate ourselves above the Joneses. If we would ever stop to really think about what we are doing, and the rationalizations and justifications that we make for these kinds of attitudes and behaviors, then we would probably be shocked at our own foolishness.

Nevertheless, we, like these ancient Nephites, often fail to see things as they really are until the truth is brought forcibly to our immediate attention. This is one reason why I prefer the Book of Mormon mirror learning method to learning things the hard way (even though I often learn things the hard way as well). The Book of Mormon is a kind of mirror into which we may frequently gaze in order to gauge our own state and condition before God.

The growth in peace, order, and prosperity brought with it an increase of ^amerchants, ^blawyers, and officers. Business was booming again among the Nephites. The strange thing is that financial and commercial prosperity are blessings for which the Nephites ought to have been grateful. But as the saying goes: “more money, more problems.”

Why was there such a great increase in ^amerchants, ^blawyers, and officers? Perhaps because when there is more money, then there are more people who want to buy things. When there are more people who want to buy things, then there are more people who want to sell things - merchants. When there are more people who want to sell things and buy things, then there are more disputes. When there are more disputes, there is more of a need for lawyers (although it could also be that the increase in lawyers preceded the increase in disputes). When there are more people who want to buy and sell things, more merchants and merchandise, more disputes, and more lawyers, then there will also be more officers, more people who want to regulate business. I wonder what kind of officers these were? Were they government officers, an army of bureaucratic busybodies? If so, think of how this Book of Mormon mirror might reveal to us the nature of our own sprawling, bureaucratic network of agencies and officers, and how all of these things led to the next step of corruption:

And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their ^ariches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ^bignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great ^clearning because of their riches.

It is never enough for us mortals to receive riches and learning and to thank God for them. It is never enough for us mortals to thank God for the things with which He blesses us on a daily basis. President Benson so astutely observed and so acutely warned that:

Someone has said, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.” Of one brother, the Lord said, “I, the Lord, am not well pleased with him, for he seeketh to excel, and he is not sufficiently meek before me.” (D&C 58:41.)

The two groups in the Book of Mormon that seemed to have the greatest difficulty with pride are the “learned, and the rich.” (2 Ne. 28:15.) But the word of God can pull down pride. (See Alma 4:19.)

That person to whom President Benson referred was, of course, C.S. Lewis:

Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man... It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.

―C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

For these ancient Nephites just a few years before Christ’s coming, it wasn’t enough for them to be blessed with riches and with learning. They had to show how their riches and learning supposedly made them superior to others in their society who were less fortunate. They began to be distinguished by ranks. These ranks were ordered according to their ^ariches and their chances for learning.

Let’s hold up this Book of Mormon mirror for a moment to take a look at ourselves in modern America. Are there any kinds of ranks that have been established according to riches and chances for learning? Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with being blessed with riches and learning. In fact, it seems to me that the Lord wants to bless us with prosperity in both ways. As Jacob put it: “But to be ^alearned is good if they ^bhearken unto the ^ccounsels of God.”

But problems arise when we begin to consider that our riches and our chances for learning are our own doing and that they make us inherently better than others to whom we compare ourselves. Problems arise because the two groups who seem to have the greatest difficulty with pride are the “learned, and the rich.” (2 Ne. 28:15.)

Nevertheless, pride is a universal problem and sin. It is not unique to the learned and the rich. Elder Joni L. Koch recently taught:

Some people confuse being humble with other things such as, for example, being poor. But there are actually many who are poor and prideful and also many who are rich and yet humble. Others who are very shy or have low self-esteem may have an outward appearance of humility but deep inside are full of pride sometimes.

Why would I continue to pound on this Gospel piano key of pride, something that I know so much about from my own experience? Because Mormon, and his son Moroni, clearly demonstrate that it was the sin of pride that destroyed the Jaredite and the Lehite nations, and that it is the sin of pride that threatens to destroy the nation that has been raised up upon the ashes of these two great and previous civilizations.

Even though Tocqueville rightly complained that democratic moralists too often inveigh against the vice of pride, Mormon was not a democratic moralist. He foresaw things about the time in which we now live, including the ways in which we would be distinguished by ranks, according to our ^ariches and our chances for learning. Mormon foresaw that some would be ^bignorant because of their poverty, and others would receive great ^clearning because of their riches. He foresaw that some would be lifted up in pride, and others exceedingly humble. He foresaw the railing, ^apersecution, and ^bafflictions, of those who were humble and penitent before God.

Mormon then describes “a great inequality” in all the land that contributed to the breaking up of the Church. What kind of great inequality and distinguishing by ranks do we see among us today? What does the Book of Mormon mirror help us to see? As we decline rapidly into a neo-feudal society, what might we learn from these ancient Nephites and Lamanites?

It is interesting that Mormon mentions a great inequality in all the land. What was in all the land before the great inequality? What does Mormon mean by the great inequality? The Nephites and the Lamanites weren’t precisely democratic societies in which all were considered equal in the way that we now think of equality, even going all the way back to the time of Lehi. There were kings and rulers and chief judges and all kinds of hierarchies in Nephite society, not to mention the kinds of patriarchal hierarchies in the Church and in families that radical modern feminists loathe. The great inequality of which Mormon writes is something different from but perhaps not completely unrecognizable from the great inequality in modern America.

What strikes me is that the great inequality and the ranks by which some were distinguished were not natural or based on character, excellence or merit. It wasn’t part of the natural aristocracy or an aristocracy of merit. It was an artificial, self-appointed aristocracy that began to tear apart the ancient American society. Ranks were established according to riches and chances for learning. Furthermore, riches and learning were combined. Some were ^bignorant because of their poverty. Other received great ^clearning because of their riches. It was like a bunch of wealthy doctors, lawyers, Ph.Ds, business men, government employees, and offices sprang up and started calling each other by their titles. It reminds me of the Lord’s description of the scribes and the pharisees and His warning to us:

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,

Saying, The ^ascribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ ^bseat:

All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they ^amake broad their ^bphylacteries, and enlarge the ^cborders of their garments,

And love the ^auppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,

And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, ^aRabbi.

But be not ye called ^aRabbi: for one is your ^bMaster, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.

^aAnd call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, ^aeven Christ.

But he that is ^agreatest among you shall be your ^bservant.

And whosoever shall ^aexalt himself shall be ^babased; and he that shall ^chumble himself shall be exalted. (Matthew 23:1-12)

And what kind of learning did the rich Nephites receive? What kind of great ^clearning was there? These guys weren’t studying the ancient Greeks and Romans, reciting Shakespeare, or pontificating about Nietzsche or Hegel. Perhaps the most important thing to consider is that this great inequality, this distinguishing by ranks, this ^bignorance because of their poverty, and this great ^clearning because of riches were types and shadows of things to come in the last days. Just look around our own communities in modern America. What do you see?

The problems for the ancient Americans points to our problems today. We aren’t afflicted by kings, dukes, earls, counts, and other nobles who oppress the peasants. But as Tocqueville so clearly foresaw, the need for aristocracy doesn’t disappear in a democratic society. Our new overlords - many of whom are distinguished by ranks according to their riches and their chances for learning - sometimes come from the business class. Men with last names like Rockefeller - or in more recent times, like Bezos, Zuckerberg, Trump, or Musk - become the new robber barons. But as Tocqueville also indicated, such robber barons do not feel the same kind of love toward and responsibility for their peasants, namely their employees and the rest of us. American lawyers also fill the aristocratic void, but not always with the kind of qualities that we admire.

In many foreign countries things are much different. But in the United States it is likely that even in a single ward in the Church there will be a select few very wealthy members (politicians, doctors, lawyers, professors, businessmen, government officials, etc. - from whom are gleaned most of the leadership), perhaps several middle class families, and a lot of good people who are ^bignorant because of their poverty. To some extent this is normal, but the normal ranges of wealth distribution according to varying degrees of ambition and money-making talent have begun to give way to the aforementioned neo-feudal society.

We can already see how the Church in the United States has been broken up in some ways by political currents, with many of the wealthiest and supposedly the most educated leaning toward the progressive interpretation of everything, including Christ, His doctrine, and the fundamental principles of our religion. Of course there are also radical individualistic and libertarian factions in every ward and branch as well, including followers of Denver Snuffer, Phil Davis, and the anti-polygamists. Variety and diversity of opinion are healthy and can be strengths in a Zion society, but the unhealthy kind of inequality that Mormon discovered in his study and abridgment of Nephite history, and that he also foresaw among his readers in his latter-day audience, led to the disintegration of the Church, except among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the true faith.

It’s not a coincidence that it almost always seems to be the faithful and converted Lamanites that strengthen and steady the Church all along the way. Mormon points forward to a parallel in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Often the most firm, steadfast, immovable, and diligent members of the Church, the converts and the lifeblood of the Church, are those who might be compared to the converted Lamanites. Furthermore, the converted Lamanites in the last days, the seed of Joseph and Lehi, the remnant, will build the New Jerusalem. Only the penitent and converted gentiles will join them in their labors. The converted Jews will build the Old Jerusalem. If I’m not mistaken, many of the merely cultural “Mormons” and other members of our stratified modern American society will probably endure the same afflictions and suffer from the same kinds of problems that we will soon read about among the ancient Nephites just prior to Christ’s coming among them.

And what exactly were those problems? Mormon reveals that, in essence, pride took hold of the hearts of the people:

Now the cause of this iniquity of the people was this—^aSatan had great ^bpower, unto the stirring up of the people to do all manner of iniquity, and to the puffing them up with pride, tempting them to seek for power, and authority, and ^criches, and the vain things of the world.

And thus Satan did lead away the hearts of the people to do all manner of iniquity; therefore they had enjoyed peace but a few years. (3 Nephi 6:15-16)

In case we might consider that we are immune to such temptations to seek for power, and authority, and ^criches, and the vain things of the world, I am reminded, and I remind myself of Elder Oaks recent general conference talk on this very topic: “No Other Gods.”

The people descended once again into a state of awful wickedness, willfully rebelling against God, and angrily rejecting the men inspired from heaven that God sent among them to call them to repentance and to come unto Christ. Mormon recounts that it wasn’t just Lachoneus or Gidgiddoni or the prophets who did all of the work, but that there were also others whom the Lord inspired to assist them:

And there began to be men ^ainspired from heaven and sent forth, standing among the people in all the land, preaching and testifying boldly of the sins and iniquities of the people, and testifying unto them concerning the redemption which the Lord would make for his people, or in other words, the resurrection of Christ; and they did testify boldly of his ^bdeath and sufferings. (3 Nephi 6:20)

Naturally, the self-appointed elites were not happy with these inspired men. So what did the corrupt oligarchy do about the pesky religious gadflies among them? They had them put to death secretly. Even though the secret execution of the righteous enraged a few people, the wicked judges and elites got away with it because they had many friends and kindreds, and they combined together into a ^acovenant one with another against the people of the Lord in order to destroy them and to deliver those who were guilty of murder from the grasp of justice. This is precisely the kind of illegal, immoral, and wicked activity that Whitney Webb describes in her excellent books One Nation under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein, volumes 1 and 2.

Thus we see that these ancient members of the cabal set at defiance the law and the rights of their country, and thus we see that Mormon gave us a type and a shadow of things in our own time. The new cabal, the new secret combination was set up, and their goal was to destroy the governor and to establish a ^aking over the land. Their goal was to destroy liberty, and subject the people to kings, or rather, tyrants. Sadly, as we shall see, they were very successful in their wicked endeavors.