The Power of the Word

I'm getting ready for the lesson on Sunday (and it's not even Saturday yet). We're doing Helaman chapters 1-5 this week, and what jumped out at me was the emphasis on the power of the word of God to really change people's lives.

Lemme e'splain... No. There is too much. Lemme sum up...

Chapters 1-4 deal with the on-going military struggles between the Nephites (captained by Moroni's son, Moronihah) and the Lamanites. It's a good read, I would highly recommend you take the time to go through it on your own. As a result of the Nephites' disobedience and pride "...and their boastings in their own strength, they were left in their own strength; therefore they did not prosper... until they had lost possession of almost all their lands." (Helaman 4:13)

I love that phrase, because of "their boastings in their own strength, they were left in their own strength". These guys were probably doing fairly well in the muscle department. I did 20 pushups this morning and thought I was going to lose the use of my arms for the rest of the day (in my defense, my feet were on one of those big inflatable exercise balls at the time, and I was using the fancy push-up bars for an added degree of difficulty). But I digress...

Moronihah and Nephi and Lehi (sons of Helaman 'the 2nd') preach repentance to the Nephites and they are able to regain half of their lands before they give up on trying to take back any more territory (Helaman 4:16-18). Even if the story stopped there, it would be impressive. Simply teaching the gospel humbled the people to where they were obedient again. But the story doesn't stop there...

Nephi and Lehi decide to preach to the Lamanites starting in Zarahemla,

"...they did preach with great power, insomuch that they did confound many of those dissenters who had gone over from the Nephites, insomuch that they came forth and did confess their sins and were baptized unto repentance, and immediately returned to the Nephites to endeavor to repair unto them the wrongs which they had done." (Helaman 5:17)

Not bad, huh. I'll have to look into it further, but I think this is the first recorded incident when a Nephite dissenter was converted back. But wait, it gets better. Eight thousand Lamanites were also baptized. That's a lot, in case you were wondering... But it gets even better.

They head towards the land of Nephi and are met by an army of the Lamanites who cast them into prison (okay, so that part's not better, but it ends on a positive note). I used to be good at math, but I can still figure out that it doesn't take an army to arrest two men. If that wasn't enough, they leave them in prison for "many days without food" before going in "that they might slay them" (Helaman 5:22).

Long story short, Nephi and Lehi are surrounded as if by a pillar of fire, the Lamanites are a little stunned when they see the two men aren't burned or harmed. A voice from above tells them to repent, and the 300 who came to kill Nephi & Lehi are converted and run around converting others, "insomuch that the more part of the Lamanites were convinced of them" and "did lay down their weapons of war, and also their hatred" (Helaman 5:50-51).

I think Mormon chose this account very carefully to contrast the results achieved through the Nephite military efforts with the results of the changing power of the gospel. There's no doubt Moronihah was a very righteous man, and had the Nephites as a whole been more humble and faithful, I think he could've been more successful with his armies.

On the other hand, two men armed only with the power and authority from God were able to set at defiance the Lamanite army. To me, the climax of the story is the last verse in chapter 5:

"And it came to pass that they did yield up unto the Nephites the lands of their possessions." (Helaman 5:52)

Moronihah's army was only able to regain half of their lands through battle and bloodshed. The preaching of the word caused the Lamanites to voluntarily return to the Nephites the all the lands which had been taken without any loss of life.

"And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them..." (Alma 31:5, emphasis added)

Ammon & Lamoni

Ammon has long been one of my biggest heroes. And, as luck would have it, it wasn't my week to teach when this lesson came around.

I had a couple of "wonders" during the lesson today:

1. Lamoni offered one of his daughters to Ammon as a wife (Alma 17:24). I wonder if this was a political move on his part, like in European history when the king of one country would marry the queen of another country. Ammon is King Mosiah's son, which would make him a prince in our day. Could Lamoni have been using this as an opportunity to get a foothold in the Nephite 'royal family'? Apparently he wasn't watching the news when Mosiah introduced the system of judges.

2. Lamoni puts Ammon on shepherd duty (Alma 17:25). I wonder if this was a way to get rid of Ammon, as this job had a reputation for employee termination. Let the kings sheep get scattered or stolen, and you're dead (literally). Maybe that was in some small way contributing to the king's amazement when the servants returned. Not only did Ammon not get killed, but he saved the flocks and the other servants, and managed to 'disarm' his opponents.

3. This one isn't so much of a wonder as a reverential amazement. We often glaze over the queen's experience as King Lamoni is presumed dead during his spiritual experience. As near as we can tell from the story, she was not taught by Ammon, but knew that he could help her. At Ammon's word alone, she stayed at her husband's bedside waiting for the time when Ammon said Lamoni would arise. "...Blessed art thou because of thy exceeding faith; I say unto thee, woman, there has not been such great faith among all the people of the Nephites" (Alma 19:10).

Anyhow, I hope to one day have the opportunity to ask Ammon and Lamoni (and Mrs. Lamoni) for all the details of their experience. Maybe on judgement day while I'm waiting in line for my turn (letting everyone cut in line ahead of me).

Zeezrom - An Unlikely Hero

On Sunday we were introduced to Zeezrom as Alma and Amulek were preaching in Ammonihah (Lesson 23, Alma 8-12) and we get to continue his story in next week's lesson (#24, Alma 13-16). Sure, his story didn't start out on the right foot. He was "the foremost to accuse Amulek and Alma" as they taught (Alma 10:31) and seems to be a 'big shot' among the city's lawyers. He was also an "...expert in the devices of the devil, that he might destroy that which was good..." (Alma 11:21).

I'm not going to go through the story of his conversion experience, you can look it up in Alma 11-15. The short & sweet of it is that he was converted and stayed faithful.

I think one of the key points in this story is the power of the Atonement to change lives. Not just the lives of the "good" people, but any life. Here is a man who was actively engaged in fighting against the prophet Alma. In that respect, he's no different than those who came before him - such as Nehor. What made him different, however, was the fact that somehow he found the humility to listen to the prophet and change his life. It's not easy for any of us to admit we're wrong, and here is Zeezrom sincerely asking Alma to teach him.

I never made the connection before, but these two men were very similar in their backgrounds. Both had been actively engaged in trying to break down the church of God and after their conversions spent all their efforts in teaching others. Who better to reach out to Zeezrom than Alma? In both cases, it was their new-found faith in Christ that saved them. I'd like to imagine Alma giving Zeezrom a pep talk. Imagine the genuine love and empathy in his voice as he says, "Z, I know what you're going through, trust me. Remember what we told you about Christ and the atonement." (don't bother looking for that in the scriptures, I made that part up). This part is true though:

"And Alma said: If thou believest in the redemption of Christ thou canst be healed." (Alma 15:8).

What a powerful statement! Christ can heal us! He has already carried our pains, sicknesses, and sins (Alma 7:11-12) and knows perfectly how to heal our wounded souls and hearts. I think we know He can heal us, but we often don't believe it.

To me, Zeezrom is a great example of the atonement in action. If it can make such a dramatic change in his life, I have to believe it can work in my life too.

Abinadi – A Renewed Appreciation

In our ward we have three Gospel Doctrine teachers and two classes, so every third week I get a week off. I was fortunate enough to be able to cover both of the Abinadi lessons (Mosiah 11-17). I gained a renewed appreciation for his example of being “steadfast and immovable”. Here are some of the things that impressed me.

1. I learned that in Hebrew, ‘Abi’ means ‘my father’ and ‘nadi’ means ‘present with you’. So together, the name Abinadi would mean something along the lines of ‘my father is present with you’. Way cool, because God was certainly with him.

2. In Mosiah 11, we are introduced to Abinadi, who enters the scene prophesying against the people’s wickedness and exhorts them to repent. King Noah put out an “arrest order” on Abinadi with the intent of killing him. Two years later, Abinadi returns to the city in disguise and says “Thus has the Lord commanded me, saying – Abinadi, go and prophesy unto this my people…” I wondered what’s the point of wearing a disguise if you’re just going to tell everyone who you are anyway. Then I realized Abinadi was only worried about getting into the city, not getting out. I think he went in knowing that he wasn’t coming out again. I can’t imagine getting a mission call that said “you’re going to be the first martyr recorded in the Book of Mormon”.

3. I didn't realize just how extensive the results of his mission really were. I had a vague idea that most of the Book of Mormon from that point on was a result of Abinadi's influence, but I had to see it on paper to really get it. Because I like playing with CorelDraw, and also because a good visual aid never hurts, I made a chart of Alma's family. Every Nephite record keeper up to Mormon was a direct descendent of Alma the Elder. Three of them were also Chief Judges. Two were among the 12 chosen by the resurrected Savior to be special witnesses. I wonder if Abinadi was given a glimpse of just how far his influence would reach. In a way, any of us who read the Book of Mormon are indebted to Abinadi.

4. As often as I read the account, I will always be impressed and awed at how he stood in defiance of King Noah's priests. I try to imagine this prophet of God standing before his accusers, much like Christ stood before the Sanhedrin, as they tried to find some grounds to charge him. Trying in vain to catch him with their clever questions, instead being "confound[ed]... in all their words" (Mosiah 12:19). Picture the priests and those in the court cowering before an unarmed prisoner as he boldly declares, "Touch me not, for God shall smite you if ye lay your hands upon me, for I have not delivered the message which the Lord sent me to deliver..." (Mosiah 13:3).

If you want an interesting exercise, compare Abinadi's teachings in Mosiah 15 & 16 with Alma the Younger's teachings. You'll find that Alma uses a lot of the same language and phrasing used only by Abinadi. I wonder how often he heard Abinadi's teachings from Alma Sr. during Family Home Evening. This is totally unwarranted speculation, but I wonder if the angel who visited Alma the Younger (both times) could have been Abinadi.

I used to think there may have been a connection between Abinadi and King Benjamin because there are several similarities in their teachings, but then I realized Abinadi was killed approximately 24 years before King Benjamin's final address.

Anyhow, as it always does, studying the material for the lesson somehow gets me into the scriptures in a way I don't normally reach in my own personal study. I hope I have half of Abinadi's faith and courage when my time of testing comes.

Captain Moroni

We were asked to speak in our ward today and I must say this was probably the most fun I've ever had preparing a talk. The bishopric approached us before the meetings last week and gave us the topic (the speakers they originally had lined up weren't available for some reason). I started penciling in some notes for my talk, then Brother Jensen from the high council got up and gave a great talk on faith. He covered everything I had written down already, so I had to do something that wouldn't sound like a rerun. So I decided to talk about Captain Moroni as an example of faith in Christ. Rather than post all five pages here, I thought I'd just post the link and let you download it if you're interested (you'll need a PDF reader).

Click here to download.

I had so much fun with it that I want to work on it more and fill in all the parts I had to glaze over because of time restraints. Maybe I'll do another running series here when I get all the parts put together. This could easily turn into enough content for a fireside, there was a lot of content that I couldn't put into the talk.

It was a very interesting experience this past week, because I also had to teach the Gospel Doctrine class today. I had a talk that practically fell together as fast as I could get it on paper. Then I had a lesson that I couldn't pull together to save my life. I don't know what I am supposed to learn from this yet, hopefully it'll make sense at some point in the future.

The Example of Enos, or “Why My Prayers Suck”

The lesson on Sunday (number 14, for those who may be keeping track) deals with the books of Enos, Jarom, Omni, and the Words of Mormon. As I read the account of Enos praying in the wilderness, I feel like I’ve been reading Miracle of Forgiveness and stopped before I get to the reassuring part at the end. I can’t help but compare with my own life and come up short on the balance. Enos goes off and prays all day and into the night, and if I kneel down at night there’s a good chance I’m falling asleep before I’m done.

Enos is on a hunting trip and from verse two seems to be concerned about a remission of his sins. There is a parallel here with Joseph Smith’s First Vision. One of Joseph’s first accounts (did you know there was more than one?) was in 1832 where he recounted his search for the true church from age 12 – 15. Part of his search was driven by a desire to obtain forgiveness and remission of his sins, recognizing that proper authority was necessary. (Milton V. Backman Jr., “Joseph Smith’s Recitals of the First Vision,” Ensign, Jan 1985, 8).

Anyhow, I don’t think there is any room here to assume Enos was guilty of any serious transgression. As the Prophet Joseph Smith taught:

“The nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 51)

Our friend Enos was probably a habitual jay-walker or maybe he waited until the 20th to do his hometeaching every month. Whatever it was, he was moved by the Spirit to seek forgiveness as part of his process of improvement. I’m always impressed at how he describes his experience. He only uses the word ‘prayer’ (or variants) three times in his narrative (in verses 4, 11, & 12). He uses other descriptive phrases ten times. For example:

-“wrestle … before God” (vs 2)
-“my soul hungered… and I cried unto [my Maker]” (vs 4)
-“supplication” (vs 4). Interesting side-note, ‘supplication’ comes from Latin, meaning to bend or yield.
-“did… raise my voice high” (vs 4)
-“pour out my whole soul unto God” (vs 9)
-“struggling in the spirit” (vs 10)
-“many long strugglings” (vs 11)
-“labored with all diligence” (vs 12)
-“cried unto [the Lord] continually” (vs 15)
-“did cry unto God” (vs 16)

Elder David A. Bednar in conference last week started out by saying, “Simply saying prayers is quite a different thing from engaging in meaningful prayer.”

How long do you think it had been since Enos merely “said his prayers”? Look at how he describes his prayers, he felt his prayers! He was familiar with the process, he was used to praying under the direction of the Spirit. Check out verse 13, that’s a pretty specific “what if” to just pull out of the air.

Some have used his desire for a remission of sins to claim that this was a great turning point in his life. I feel that this was simply the next logical step in his spiritual progression. One doesn’t just jump right into an all-day, all-night prayer marathon after saying routine prayers at home. Try praying for just 30 minutes, how long would it take you or me before we could pull a ‘prayer-a-thon’ like Enos did?

Elder Bednar also said “meaningful prayer requires both holy communication and consecrated work.” Well, Enos had both of those marked off. He “labored with all diligence” (vs 12) while praying, and then when he got back home, he testified “of the things which I had heard and seen” (vs 19) and “declared [the truth] in all my days” (vs 26).

On a different topic, something jumped out at me as I was reading verse 1. Enos describes his father Jacob as “a just man” who “taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord…” What does it mean to be “taught… in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”? At first, I figured it must mean that Jacob taught him the gospel. But why not just say “he taught me the gospel”? Especially considering the difficulty involved with the engraving process. Enos, like his father, chose his words very carefully. So, what did he mean? May I suggest a few possibilities…

Could this be his way of saying Jacob taught him about the Lord’s nature? Our Perfect Parent nurtures us and encourages our growth and admonishes us if we start to wander off (admonish: ‘to advise, caution, to reprove in a mild and good-willed manner’).

Maybe he is describing Jacob’s parenting style? To paraphrase, ‘my father used the nurture and admonition of the Lord to teach me’. It’s not a stretch to see gentle Jacob as the nurturing type, and it’s easy to see him admonishing in his sermon at the temple (Jacob 2-4).

Anyhow, I’m not exactly sure what he meant. Just thought I’d throw that out there because it is the part that stuck with me the most over the last couple of days.

The "Isaiah Barrier" - Key 5

I'm finally getting around to the 5th and last key in the series. Then maybe I can back-track and cover a few thoughts I've had about other topics.

In 2 Nephi 25:4, Nephi describes what is possibly the most important key to understanding Isaiah's writings:

"...the words of Isaiah... are plain unto all those that are filled with the spirit of prophecy..."

Okay, if we have to have it, maybe we should figure out what it is. Revelation 19:10 tells us that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

So, does that mean if I don't understand Isaiah that I must not have a testimony? I think that might be over-simplifying things a little. I don't think Nephi is implying a direct correlation between the strength of our testimony and the degree to which we grasp Isaiah. Here's what I think: the same principles involved in gaining our testimony are required to understand any scripture, not just Isaiah.

How do we gain our testimony? Ammon and his brothers, some of the most effective and powerful missionaries we have on record, "had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God. But this is not all; they had given themselves to much prayer, and fasting: therefore they had the spirit of prophecy,..." (Alma 17:2-3)

How did the sons of Mosiah gain the spirit of prophecy, or testimony of Christ? Through prayer, fasting, and diligent searching of the scriptures (not searching for their scriptures as we often do on Sunday mornings). How do you think they approached their scripture study? Do you think they begrudgingly read a few chapters before falling asleep so they could mark it off on their daily to-do list? Let me share an insight I had a few years ago, something which may help us with scripture study, especially Isaiah.

Ammon has always been one of my heroes. At first, I must admit the whole chopping off of the arms was the hook for me. But as I got older (I won't say 'mature' because no one will believe that), I became more interested in the other aspects of Ammon's character. I read Alma 17:2-3 several times before something jumped out. I think the phrase "that they might know the word of God" has a dualistic meaning. The first meaning is exactly what it seems on the surface, they studied the scriptures to learn the gospel.

To approach the second meaning, let me first cross-reference with Revelation 19:13. John, in speaking of Christ, wrote "...and his name is called The Word of God." Using both passages together, the sons of Mosiah "searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know [Christ]". The two meanings are complimentary and I believe as we focus on the first, we are lead to the second. We start off diligently trying to learn the things that Christ has taught in the scriptures, then we are gradually drawn towards coming to know the Author - often without even recognizing it.

That, I believe, is what Nephi is trying to tell us. Read Isaiah and "search... diligently" for the Savior. Once you learn to see Christ in Isaiah's writings, it'll be easier to understand. I was feeling ambitious during the Old Testament year in Sunday School and I made a chart listing all the references to Christ that I could find in Isaiah. If you're curious, you can download it to see what I missed. It was a great exercise for me, because when I was done I realized that Christ was everywhere in Isaiah. You can't go more than a few verses before running into another reference to the Savior.

Nephi prefaced his reference to Isaiah by saying:

"Behold, my soul delighteth in proving ... the truth of the coming of Christ... And my soul delighteth in proving... that save Christ should come all men must perish." (2 Nephi 11:4,6)

What does Nephi write after his Isaiah marathon? In 2 Nephi 25, he talks about how Christ shall come in the flesh and be crucified (vs 12-13) and then resurrected (vs 14). He speaks of the restoration and how the Jews will be convinced of Christ's role as Messiah (vs 18), how Christ's is the only name by which men can be saved (vs 20), Nephi's labors to persuade others to believe and be reconciled to Christ (vs 23), how they are made alive in Christ because of their faith (vs 25), how they "talk of Christ, ... rejoice in Christ, ... preach of Christ, ... prophesy of Christ" (vs 26). He says "the right way is to believe in Christ...and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul" (vs 28, 29).

Are you starting to see a trend? To Nephi, the Book of Isaiah was about his Savior. He delights in the promises that Christ will again gather the scattered branches of Israel. I really believe that as we tune ourselves to the Spirit, we will see how Christ is the central theme in all of Isaiah's writings. Like the principle of sympathetic resonance. Huh? Lemme 'splain... no, there is too much. Lemme sum up... If you have two tuning forks that are tuned to the same pitch and frequency (eg. Middle C), striking one will cause the other to vibrate as well. Nephi's 5th key to understanding Isaiah is (and I'm grossly simplifying here) to make sure our tuning fork is on the same pitch with the Spirit so we can use our testimony of Christ to recognize Isaiah's testimony in his writings.