Helaman 7-12: Come Follow Me Book of Mormon with Sam

     Welcome to Come Follow Me with Sam! Things were looking so good last time before they all went up in smoke again. In the next few chapters, we get Nephi's (yes, the Knight Radiant) view on things. Yes, he also becomes a Bond Smith. Before it was cool.

Give up your war

I see chapter 7-12 as a terrifying follow-up to chapters 1-6. In the last blog post I mentioned some interesting factors that will help understand these chapters

1. Nephi and Lehi accomplished what 500 years of prophets and generals could only dream of. They ended the war between the Nephites and the Lamanites.

2. This does not solve their problems though because the war was never about Nephite vs Lamanite in the first place. It was about fighting the darkness in their own hearts. Now that the face of the enemy was gone, the Nephites and Lamanites are left to deal with themselves (and it turns out the Lamanites overall do it better, although they are more split than the homogenous Nephite nation.)

3. The Lamanites used the word of God to utterly destroy the band of Gadianton. They dealt with the problem.

4. The Nephites embraced the band of Gadianton. The band of Gadianton took over the government and destroyed the system of law. This stuff comes straight from the adversary.

In the New Testament, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman and a sinner at the well of Jacob. The Samaritans and the Jews had been in ideological war for hundreds of years. Jesus had no problem telling her that salvation was of the Jews. He also told her that the time was soon coming to worship in spirit and in truth. It was an invitation to leave the war and follow Him. The Samaritan, who 'knew not what she worshiped', was able to follow Him while many Jews, who 'knew what they worshiped', did not.

It is similar here. the Lamanites, who were more prepared to follow God, yet did not know to follow Him, were fighting and killing the Nephites, who knew to follow God, but were actually more hardened. Lehi and Nephi came onto the scene and told Lamanite and Nephite alike, after the Lamanites and dissenters had slain and driven the Nephites out of all of their cities except Bountiful, to give up their war and follow Jesus Christ. In one stroke they ended the wars by telling the people to worship in spirit and in truth.

Obviously the Nephites did not just abandon their armies to follow Jesus when there were hostiles; they would have been murdered and enslaved. The problem was that once the physical threat was gone, they found they were missing the power to worship in spirit and in truth. They were supporting the war they were fighting against by building up dissenters and robbers during, and robbers and wicked judges after. They weren't worshiping in spirit or truth, they were worshiping in bitterness and envy.

We need to avoid the same mistake. We need to give up our stupid war. We need to seek justice, but with a heart at peace. We need to come unto Christ in all things because we do not want to go down the path the Nephites took. These chapters show how that plays out and where that leads.

Circles of Evil

Avraham Gileadi points to 7 steps to heaven in Isaiah's ladder in the Isaiah chapters. One things he doesn't usually mention is that half of those steps are actually steps to hell.

There is the idea of successive steps to good or bad in the Bible and Book of Mormon, and I find those somewhat applicable in this situation. In Helaman 7, Nephi works through a pretty hefty list of charges and finishes by reminding them that they united with the band of Gadianton. In the last chapter, we have a really good contrast between the Lamanites rooting out the band, and the Nephites uniting with it.

So, this charge that they are united with the band of Gadianton is pretty serious. It raises the question, was the entire Nephite nation generally united and supporting a band which was supposed to be secret among them, and was in fact trying to destroy them? Really?

Short Answer: Yes. Really. They may not all have been in the upper circles of Gadianton, but they all had Gadianton in their heart.

Long Answer: Just as with Isaiah's ladder, there are lower steps and bigger circles in these issues. There were probably multiple factions of the band of Gadianton, all competing for different power. Within these factions, there was probably the in-it-to-their-toes conspirators, followed by people who knew, aided, and abetted them, but didn't necessarily partake in the inner circle's doings, followed by those who aided and abetted but didn't realize what they were doing. At the bottom, there was a heck ton of Nephites who didn't know exactly what was up, but their hearts were on getting gain, and they fed a system that trampled the laws and got gain.

Lesson here: just because you aren't stabbing people at night doesn't mean you aren't supporting secret combinations today. You probably are supporting a number of them :(. The best thing to do is to have the spirit and keep your covenants... being a good church member is not enough though. Sorry. Barring that, (or in addition to), always aim for truthful speech, and for building up Zion without gain for yourself. In fact, always point back to Christ and question where your heart is really set. Don't let any type of deceit or dishonest doing get a hold in your heart, and help any stranger as you would yourself.

Here is another thing to chew on. You don't get Gadianton out people's hearts by lynching everyone you think is supporting Gadianton. In the first place, you should probably hang yourself first, so let's not cast the first stone against others. Lehi and Nephi did not stop the war by slaying all the Lamanites by God's power, and they sure as heck aren't going to stop the Gadiantons by slaying all the so-called evil people by God's power. Nephi didn't even call out the people in the crowd who were Gadiantons and said 'throw these people in jail and your problem will be solved'. He told them that they needed to stop supporting the Gadiantons and start seeking a path back to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is telling them to give up the war in their heart.

An evil twist

Well, as it turns out, there were some of the pure-breed Gadianton types in the multitude on the road, and plenty of others supporting them one way or the other, and in their usual twisted way, they began to say that he had reviled the law, and he had spoken against the people, and most interesting to me, that the cities were mighty and could not be destroyed.

The accusation that the priests of King Noah used to ensure his death was that he had reviled the king. Isn't it an interesting parallel that they are trying to do the same thing here? The tricky thing in both situations as well was the law really was corrupted, whether by the king or by the judges, so it needed fixing. But it was the corruption of the law that was the problem, not the law itself. In both cases, the antagonists were the ones destroying the law, yet they accused Nephi of reviling it. Nephi was stating the corruptness of the law with the intent to preserve it.

Here is what really gets my goat, and the reason we need to give up our stupid wars. Think about the situation for an instant. Satan takes a God-inspired system of government, and a God-inspired church, and fills it with pride and makes divisions among the groups. He waters down the gospel, and creates as much separation as possible between God and man. He encourages the lawmakers to seek pleasure and ease and popularity rather than truth, justice, and rule of law. He fills the hearts of office seekers with getting gain, monetary or otherwise. Slowly he corrupts or renders ineffective these two bulwarks against sin and suffering. He then plants hate, envy, and greed into Nephites hearts. He leads them to the secret oaths that go back to Cain. He creates opposition to the institutions he has corrupted. As ammunition to tear these institutions down, he has his forces point to the very corruption he created!! These foul reformers then propose to change the affairs of the country or the church, not by restoring back justice and connection with God, but by corrupting the system even more by instituting themselves to power. They destroy the system even more and then use that as evidence to sell more destruction!

They are doing the same God-forsaken tactic to Nephi and we can see exactly how it plays out. Pigs.

They say 'seize him and bring him forth that he may be condemned according to the crime which he has done.' Do you see what they are doing? They are inciting a lawless mob in the name of justice to try him because of accusations which can't actually be substantiated. Joseph Smith had to go through the same ridiculous charade over and over again. At least a good portion of the time, his enemies would go to the law to arrest him instead of a mob to see him. Also true that a good portion of the time, it was straight-up the mob instead. Here, those worthless Gadiantons are literally trying to whip up a mob in the name of the law, to condemn someone on charges that he is reviling the law. And the reason they level that claim is that Nephi is pointing to the corruptness that THEY INSTITUTED! 

Isn't it amazing how a few nobodies in the crowd spoke up and were able to stop the wicked ones among the group? This is an example of that truthful speech we need. Notice how it also stopped the mob mentality among the crowd. the mob mentality is to do great violence without taking responsibility for any of it, among other things. Truthful speech stopped it.

Nephi takes the new direction

Nephi spent the last little while laying out a pretty solid list of charges that the crowd needed to repent from. Now he takes a new direction. He tells them, like back in the prison with the Lamanites, to give up their stupid war and worship in spirit and truth. 

He shows that prophets have looked to Christ and his coming for thousands of years and that there was ample demonstration of their ability to know these things. He then points to Christ's coming to look forward to in the future. He then tells them that they know better, but they are choosing to not take this path, which we will see later, is absolutely correct for many of them. He then says that this only leads to destruction, there is no out from that path and oh, by the way, the chum of yours that knows this best is your evil Gadianton chief judge, who is getting stabbed to death.

mic drop.

The World of the 5 turns upside down

Five people take action from the crowd. They didn't believe Nephi, but they were willing to take action and that turns out to make a big difference for salvation. They get to the judgement seat. And their world turns upside down. That is why they fell there and didn't move until they were captured. Nasty shock to the system.

Important point is that they didn't fall down because Nephi correctly prophesied that the chief judge was dead. They fell down because they realized that everything Nephi said was true, and that meant that they were in a bad place and needed to get out.

Nephi does not join the war.

This next part is interesting. They try to bring Nephi into the mess they made for themselves. Nephi says 'I have no part in your stupid (metaphorical) war, and just so you know that, the side you are accusing me of being on is going to tell you'. And that's what happens.

Who will accept a prophet?

There is a great, somewhat forgotten play by George Bernard Shaw on Joan of Arc. In the Epilogue scene, all enemies, friends, and people praise her. She jests with them, asking if she came back what would they do? They all flee in a panic of confusion. She says 'What! Must I burn again? Are none of you ready to receive me?...O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?'

So it is with the scattering of people before Nephi. Some believe him. some say he is a prophet. Others say he is a god. Thus they argue and scatter. And leave Nephi alone. 

I find this symbolic. People caught in the clutches of the world are seeking an escape and know Nephi is different. But they have lost so much of the gospel, they aren't sure how to follow anymore. I think some good did eventually come for some of those people. For now, Nephi the prophet, the deliverer of nations, and the war, both physical and spiritual, is left alone to ponder all this.

Now think about this. If you were to preach and prophesy, and the results are confusion and everyone wishing to contend, and no one following you... what state of mind would you be in? I would be crushed without hope. I would wonder how anyone can escape the ceaseless war. He was much cast down, which I assume is the same thing. As the apostles of Christ said, 'who can be saved'? Christ replied that it was impossible.

He then said that for God, this impossible thing was indeed possible. and in similar pattern with Nephi, he gives him the sealing power. This is a symbolic moment because the sealing power comes from heaven and is impossible on earth without heaven.

In modern vernacular, or at least Sandersonian vernacular, he becomes a Bond Smith.

The parallels are striking, but since I'm not technically supposed to focus on that in this blog, I'll leave it to another day.

What is so interesting is that the power of God was with them, and it was enough for him to turn around and immediately begin the ministry again. It was enough whether people listened to him or not.

The war in their hearts plays out to war in their lives

Since the people did not or could not listen to Nephi, they could only have war in their hearts. Since they could not remove the war in their hearts, they had war in society.

I hope I sound like a broken record at this point, but I wish to state again that if we do not worship Jesus in truth and spirit, we can't choose out of war where no one wins and everyone suffers. Only the gospel will save the world from the calamity of it's own self destruction.

The Nephites chose war. Nephi, being a Bond Smith, changed that to a famine. Slowly the people pleaded with their leaders to talk to Nephi to lift the famine.

Which means that they knew all along that Nephi was a prophet. And they still chose not to follow him.

Some of them may not have known how to follow Nephi's teachings on Christ. The sad part is that that doesn't matter. They inevitably suffered the consequences of not doing what they needed to do to avoid that situation. Maybe it felt impossible. Maybe it was because they were too caught up in themselves. With God, even something like ending war is possible. 

Is there hope?

Mormon is so caught up in these events that he writes a chapter to summarize and mourn the impossible way to salvation and the unstoppable power of God to bring men there.

Our world today wants war. Satan has had hundreds to thousands of years to corrupt our institutions, and suck the soul out of them. He was done everything in his power to stop man from ever learning the great secret - that men can walk with God in like manner as God can walk with man. He entangles us in endless conflict with one another and destroys the safeguards of our society with the pretense of preserving them. Who cannot echo Joan of Arcs last words in the play 'O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?

There is only one ultimate way out of this. I'm going to skip ahead a few chapters to share the answer

will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?

Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me.

Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God.