Ripening Again for Destruction
Book of Mormon Notes - Thursday, December 7, 2023, Helaman 11
We can never loose sight of Mormon’s overarching aim in his project, nor can we loose sight of the intended audience for and the means by which this record was produced. Just as the Book of Mormon authors inscribed, abridged, compiled, and transmitted this record by the gift and power of God, so too did Joseph Smith translate or interpret this record by the gift and power of God. Whatever profit of understanding we obtain from the Book of Mormon must also come by the gift and power of God.
The Book of Mormon was composed by way of commandment and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation, and the reader is invited to understand the Book of Mormon in the same way, by the same spirit of prophecy and revelation. Mormon’s specified audience was the Lamanites, a remnant of the House of Israel. But the Book of Mormon was also written to both Jew and Gentile. Mormon’s specified purpose for creating this record with his own hands was to:
show unto the remnant of the house of Israel (the Lamanites) what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers
that they (the Lamanites) might know the covenants of the Lord
to convince Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations
By the time we reach the Book of Helaman, we have already seen many of the great things that the Lord has done for the fathers, or the ancestors of the Lamanites, from Lehi to the sons of Helaman, Nephi and Lehi. Mormon has also revealed the covenants of the Lord. Most importantly, Mormon’s record builds up to the coming of Jesus Christ, the Eternal God, who manifested Himself to the Nephites. And Mormon’s purpose isn’t just to persuade Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, but to convince.
In the years leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ, from about 20 to 6 B.C., Nephi, son of Helaman consistently sought and accomplished the will of God while the majority of his people, the Nephites, continued to oscillate between periods of wickedness and brief periods of repentance. Wars, contentions, secret combinations, wickedness, and destruction plagued the Nephites, and all of their hopes for deliverance seemed to depend upon one man, namely the prophet Nephi.
Nephi saw that it was necessary for the Lord to afflict and chasten his people, but his love for God and his people impelled him to pray and to intercede on behalf of his people, petitioning the Lord to replace their war with a famine:
And it came to pass that in this year Nephi did cry unto the Lord, saying:
O Lord, do not suffer that this people shall be destroyed by the sword; but O Lord, rather alet there be a bfamine in the land, to stir them up in remembrance of the Lord their God, and perhaps they will repent and turn unto thee. (Helaman 11:3-4)
In my mind’s eye, or my mind’s heart, I can see a latter-day Nephi offering up a similar petition. Because the ravages of war are so terrible, a merciful servant of the Lord in our time must also have prayed, or might now being praying for the Lord to replace war with famine. Of course neither war or famine are desirable conditions, but the scriptural pattern throughout history, whether for the Nephites or for us, is that people must be stirred up in remembrance of the Lord their God in order to repent and turn unto Him. If the Civil War, the great World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, and a variety of wars and rumors of wars in our own time, in Ukraine, and in Israel, have not been sufficient to stir us up in remembrance of the Lord our God in order to repent and turn unto Him, and if tragedies like 9/11, natural disasters such as hurricanes, and the so-called pandemic have also failed to do the same, then what will it take? There must be a latter-day Nephi somewhere who has cried unto the Lord, petitioning Him to be merciful and try the bfamine method.
Remember that the Lord had specifically given Nephi power in this regard:
Behold, thou art Nephi, and I am God. Behold, I declare it unto thee in the presence of mine angels, that ye shall have power over this people, and shall smite the earth with famine, and with pestilence, and destruction, according to the wickedness of this people. (Helaman 10:6)
Remember too that the Lord had promised to bless Nephi forever, to make him mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works, even that aall things would be bdone unto him according to his cword. (Helaman 10:5) The Lord knew and trusted Nephi completely because Nephi would dnot ask anything that was contrary to the will of God. Nephi’s will was swallowed up in the will of God.
Just as the Lord had promised, there was a great famine upon the land according to the words of Nephi. Armed conflicts died down for a time, but the work of destruction by famine became sore. The famine continued until thousands in the more wicked parts of the land perished and the people saw that they were about to perish by famine. The famine had the desired effect of stirring up the people to aremember the Lord their God, and the people also began to remember the words of Nephi.
The wicked Nephites who had been humbled by the famine abegan to plead with their chief judges and their leaders to petition Nephi to turn away the famine so that they would not be destroyed. They may not have listened to Nephi before. They may not have believed his words when he prayed from his tower or when he identified the murderer of the chief judge by inspiration. But when the people realized that they were on the verge of destruction by famine, they were finally ready to arepent, to humble themselves in sackcloth, and to admit that Nephi was a man of God.
When Nephi perceived their penitence, he petitioned the Lord once again:
O Lord, behold this people repenteth; and they have swept away the band of Gadianton from amongst them insomuch that they have become extinct, and they have concealed their secret plans in the earth.
Now, O Lord, because of this their humility wilt thou turn away thine anger, and let thine anger be appeased in the destruction of those wicked men whom thou hast already destroyed.
O Lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, yea, thy fierce anger, and cause that this famine may cease in this land.
O Lord, wilt thou hearken unto me, and cause that it may be done according to my words, and send forth arain upon the face of the earth, that she may bring forth her fruit, and her grain in the season of grain.
O Lord, thou didst hearken unto amy words when I said, Let there be a famine, that the pestilence of the sword might cease; and I know that thou wilt, even at this time, hearken unto my words, for thou saidst that: If this people repent I will spare them.
Yea, O Lord, and thou seest that they have repented, because of the famine and the pestilence and destruction which has come unto them.
And now, O Lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, and try again if they will serve thee? And if so, O Lord, thou canst bless them according to thy words which thou hast said. (Helaman 11:10-16)
According to his promise or covenant with Nephi, the Lord turned away his anger and sent arain. As we can well imagine, the Nephites were elated. They rejoiced and glorified God. Strange, isn’t it, that we mortals usually don’t recognize the hand of the Lord or His blessings to us until they become scarce. This reminds me of the profound and true observation that Elder Bednar shared in a devotional address given at Brigham Young University on October 23, 2001:
The enabling power of the Atonement of Christ strengthens us to do things we could never do on our own. Sometimes I wonder if in our latter-day world of ease—in our world of microwave ovens and cell phones and air-conditioned cars and comfortable homes—we ever learn to acknowledge our daily dependence upon the enabling power of the Atonement.
These Nephites learned the hard way their complete dependence upon God for rain, for food, and for everything. The famine and drought changed their attitude toward God and toward His servant Nephi:
And behold, the people did rejoice and glorify God, and the whole face of the land was filled with rejoicing; and they did no more seek to destroy Nephi, but they did esteem him as a agreat prophet, and a man of God, having great power and authority given unto him from God. (Helaman 11:18)
The lesson? One obvious lesson is that we can rejoice and glorify God, support and sustain His servants, and esteem them as the prophets and men of God that they are, with great power and authority from God, before any droughts or famines come along. It shouldn’t take near starvation and destruction for people to recognize the hand of God and to hearken unto the words of His servants the prophets.
I was beginning to wonder what had happened to Nephi’s brother Lehi. Recall that Lehi had accompanied Nephi in a mission to the land of the north. But since the miraculous deliverance of Nephi and Lehi from prison and their departure for their mission in the north, we haven’t heard anything about Lehi until this point in the narrative. Mormon had not forgotten about Lehi, but just to make sure that his readers had not forgotten about him, Mormon inserts this brief and intriguing comment:
And behold, Lehi, his brother, was not a awhit behind him as to things pertaining to righteousness. (Helaman 11:19)
Mormon could not write everything, and he probably knew a lot more about Lehi than he could tell us. But Mormon’s abridgment focuses on Nephi and his ministry for a time. There were at least two righteous men among the Nephites during this time, and their influence was indispensable for rescuing the Nephites from utter destruction. Without them, we might not have a Book of Mormon. Nephi and Lehi were firm, steadfast, and immovable, built upon the Rock of their Redeemer, the rock of revelation, especially the rock of continuing revelation. The devil had sent forth his mighty winds, his shafts in the whirlwind, and his hail and his mighty storm, and had it not been for Nephi and Lehi upon the Rock of their Redeemer, the entire Nephite civilization would have been dragged down to the gulf of misery and endless wo. (see Helaman 5:12)
I’ve also always thought that there is a type and a shadow in Nephi and Lehi that points toward the two great prophets in Jerusalem in the last days.
Thanks to Nephi and Lehi, the Nephites began to prosper again in the land. They started to rebuild, to multiply, and to enjoy peace, even great peace. How long would it be until they had forgotten everything that had happened during the famine? Perhaps unsurprisingly it was only a matter of a couple of years before more contentions and strife arose. Interestingly, the few contentions that arose concerned “the points of doctrine which had been laid down by the prophets”.
I need to pause here to note that it was only a couple of years ago that we each endured the trials of what has popularly been called “the worldwide pandemic” - the plandemic really. Sometimes I wonder if we have forgotten about this even more quickly than the Nephites forgot about the famine that almost destroyed them. I would also like to note that contentions have arisen within the Church regarding “the points of doctrine which had been laid down by the prophets.” The day in which we now live is very similar to this period in Nephite history only a decade or two before the birth of Christ. Since the United Nations plan to transform the world by 2030 with their ridiculous 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, anyone who is paying attention can see that time is running out. (see also here)
Soon there was much strife again amongst the Nephites, but Nephi and Lehi, and many of their brethren who knew concerning the true points of doctrine, preached unto the people and put and end to their strife. How did they do it? Mormon notes that Nephi and Lehi and their associates had “many arevelations daily”. This is a perfect description of what it means to build ones life upon the Rock. As important and as valuable as all of the records and the teachings of past prophets were and are, the Rock of our Redeemer sends forth fresh, living waters that are crucial for spiritual survival:
Our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, will perform some of His mightiest works between now and when He comes again. We will see miraculous indications that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, preside over this Church in majesty and glory. But in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.
But, my dear brothers and sisters, so many wonderful things are ahead. In coming days, we will see the greatest manifestations of the Savior’s power that the world has ever seen. Between now and the time He returns “with power and great glory,”1 He will bestow countless privileges, blessings, and miracles upon the faithful.
Once again war broke out because of dissenters from the Nephites, and robbers and murderers began to infest the mountains, the wilderness, and secret places. Very quickly an exceedingly great band of robbers was formed. They sought out the bsecret plans of Gadianton, they became robbers of Gadianton, and they made great havoc and destruction among both the Nephites and the Lamanites. Not even the Nephite armies could defeat the new Gadianton robbers because they had grown so powerful and numerous. The Nephites were terrified because of the Gadianton robbers who murdered, plundered, and kidnapped women and children. When I read about these new Gadianton robbers I am reminded of the mafia, the drug cartels of South and Central America, child and human trafficking, and other secret combinations that infest our own country.
Because they had forgotten about the famine and the Lord’s deliverance only a few years earlier, this new great evil - the Gadianton robbers - which came unto the people because of their iniquity temporarily stirred them up again in aremembrance of the Lord their God. But almost as soon as they were stirred up in remembrance, the Nephites began again to aforget the Lord their God, and they began to wax strong in iniquity. This time they did not mend their ways. Mormon contrasts the ripening in iniquity of these Nephites to the former growth in righteous of the Nephites who waxed stronger and stronger in their humility and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ:
And it came to pass in the eighty and fifth year they did wax stronger and stronger in their pride, and in their wickedness; and thus they were aripening again for destruction. (Helaman 11:37)
This was the condition of the Nephites just seven years before the birth of Christ, and Mormon’s record provides an apt description for our own condition in the United States of America, just seven years before the completion of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. The coming of the Lord drew nigh for the Nephites, and His Second Coming draws nigh for us.