Latest / Scripture Central / Mosiah 7-10 | Book of Mormon Insights: Revisited

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Mosiah 7-10 | Book of Mormon Insights: Revisited · Scripture Central

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OK, I want to begin with a little scenario.
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Picture in your mind the following There's a family
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sitting together in their living room, scriptures open on their
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laps, and they're reading through a chapter of the Book of
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Mormon. As they're going, Dad is
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dutifully reading some verses out loud.
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Mom is looking across the room and noticing A troubled look on
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her daughter's face, and she picks up on that expression and
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she wonders how she could possibly help this daughter, who
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she knows is struggling with certain things.
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One of the sons is curled up in a ball covered with a blanket,
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with his scriptures propped up on his knees and his eyes are
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slowly closing. He's clearly not engaged in
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what's going on. And other family members are
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sitting there with their their eyes are open, their scriptures
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are in front of them, Dad's reading and their eyes may
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actually be covering the page, but they have no idea what's
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being read. Their mind is completely
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somewhere else. Now that's the scenario.
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How? How reasonable is that?
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Or how much of A fairy tale is that?
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I've mentioned this before, this phenomenon that occurs when we
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sometimes get into our scripture study.
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We treat it as if it's something we have to do in order to be a
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good member of the church. We need to do our daily personal
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and family scripture study. So check we did it.
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So we come into this experience, we read our scriptures and then
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we go out of this experience and then go back into real life,
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right? There's a problem with that.
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It's treating, it's treating this experience as if it's not
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part of real life, as if it's just a duty that we have to
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fulfill in order to feel better about our our discipleship or
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our membership in the church. The reality is that these
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scriptures are the words of God. So if we can reverse this
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mentality, and instead of seeing our scripture study or our
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church attendance or our prayers as checklist items, but rather
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these connecting points with heaven, these opportunities to
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come unto Christ and to hear His voice speaking to us, it will
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change what happens in those family settings.
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It will change what happens in those personal settings or in
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those public settings in church. Quite a few years ago now, Elder
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Jeffrey R Holland in General Conference said something like
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this. Why do we go to church?
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Is it to learn a few new gospel facts or to renew some old
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acquaintances? Says that that's important and
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that will happen. But the reason that people
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really go to church is they want their faith fortified.
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They want their testimony strengthened.
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They want their hope renewed. They want something to give them
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motivation and encouragement and inspiration to keep moving
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forward in faith, trusting in God, and in our uncertain times
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and in our troubled world. Now, more than ever before, we
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need help from the Lord. So what would happen if instead
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of treating the scripture study time as I have to serve a
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sentence, so to speak, almost like we're we're we're putting
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in jail time so that we can then get back to life?
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What if we brought all of our problems, all of our concerns,
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all of our sins and temptations or addictions into these
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experiences? And as you find that your mind
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wanders and zones out and you recognize that that's what's
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happening, pay attention to what it zoned out to and then come
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back into the scripture experience with that on the the
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front of our mind and say Heavenly Father, I need help
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with this or take a time out in your family discussion.
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And instead of just dutifully reading scripture, which is a
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good thing, but to take it to the next level, we could say
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now, what are our concerns collectively?
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That we need help with that we need answers.
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For that we need heaven's guidance and light on.
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Let's take those with us as we now go in and study these
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chapters today and look for principles.
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Look for the voice of God speaking to us here now for our
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time and our setting as we liken all scriptures unto us.
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That is a beautiful opportunity for families and individuals to
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literally hear the voice of the Lord speaking to them through
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the words of these prophets. Now with that foundation, we
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would just encourage you to pause for a moment, pause the
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video and reflect on what are the struggles that I'm facing,
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the questions that I have, the wrestles that I that I deal
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with, with spiritual or physical or financial or emotional areas
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of my life. And keep a prayer in your heart
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that the Lord will guide you and help you make sense of those
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things. And then be open to those.
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Those thoughts and feelings that will come probably won't be a
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heavenly choir singing to you or an angelic visitation.
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It'll probably come in simple ways in your mind as you think
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of connections or come up with some solutions.
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And then you, you move forward in faith, acting on those.
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Now let's jump in Chapter 7. In this chapter you'll notice we
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had King Benjamin gave his speech three years ago.
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So it's now been three years that King Mosiah his son.
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So Mosiah is Benjamin's father and Mosiah is Benjamin's son,
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the two same names. So now Mosiah his son after
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three years of being the king. In Chapter 7, verse one, he
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tells us that after he'd had continued peace for three years.
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So it's now been six years since King Benjamin's speech.
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He he says wow, we have a whole group of people who left the
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land of Zarahemah, a large group of people.
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It's been about roughly 80 years ago.
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And so they on on the map, they've left here in Zarahemah.
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Zenith LED this large group and they went S they went up to the
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land of Nephi. So Mosiah #2 is concerned about
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them. We haven't heard from them for
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80 years. And this this huge group of
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people and many of our family members and friends from the
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past that they're gone. We just need to go and see how
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they're doing. So he sends 16 strong men and
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Ammon is their leader. So you have Ammon with 15 strong
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men to help him. Now look at the the beautiful
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overlay here in a Plan of Salvation perspective that you
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have the land of Zarahemla up north that's friendly to the
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Nephites. This group left there went down
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to the land of Nephi on our map, or up as far as the geography is
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concerned. They went up to the land of
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Nephi in a place that isn't very friendly to Nephites, and they
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are in bondage. So this nice overlay, this
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microcosm for the plan of salvation.
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God sends the heavenly King sends a very strong person and,
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and I get it later on, he's going to say I don't feel worthy
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to to baptize Limhi's group, so the analogy breaks down very
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quickly. But at this level notice he
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sends Ammon and 15 strong men to leave the safety of Zarahemla,
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go to Nephi, and get these people out of bondage to bring
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them back home to where they're safe in Zarahemla.
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There's a nice little symbolism there.
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I don't know that that Mormon or Mosiah intended to purposefully
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have have it be Ammon plus 15 strong men.
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But boy, in the latter days as we liken all scriptures unto us,
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we can find little Nuggets of of symbolic tie insurance to what
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we're experiencing and the Savior himself in in this
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symbolic sense. Plus the First Presidency in the
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Quorum of the 12:15. Very, very strong.
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Men, spiritually speaking, are on a mission.
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They're on a mission in a world that is fallen, that is not very
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friendly to to heavenly beings, so to speak, that all of us who
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have come down as children of our heavenly parents, and
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they're here to help us, they're on a mercy mission to help us
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find peace and safety and deliverance from the bondage
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that each of us experience in in a variety of ways in life.
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So they wander, they get lost for 40 days in the wilderness
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until they finally are able to locate the city of Nephi and
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Shilom, where this little band of Nephites resides.
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And they're in, they're in slavery, Lemhi's people.
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So you'll notice we had up here in the north, you had Mosiah,
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Benjamin and Mosiah. So this is in the land of
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Zarahemla, and down in the land of Nephi we have Zenith, then
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his son Noah that we'll cover next week, and Lemhi and these 3
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kings are down in the land of Nephi.
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They're all they're all Nephites.
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But we've got to get these people out of bondage because
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it's now been 80 years. So this is where we're doing
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some time warp in the book of Mosiah, but just keep your eye
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on the dates and it helps us keep the story straight.
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So they arrive here. Limhi's people think that
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they're the priests of King Noah, and so they arrest Ammon
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and four other guys that he takes with him to go in, and
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then they have this fun little sequence that you're going to
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read about in Chapter 7. This story of the people of
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Limhi is significant in so many ways.
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In some ways, their story echoes the Exodus story that we have in
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the Bible, where God saves his people from Egyptian bondage and
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brings them out into the wilderness, makes covenants with
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them, and then leads them into the Promised land.
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And so you might take that as an opportunity to study and compare
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and contrast. How are the people of Limhai
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similar and different to the people in the time of the
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ancient Israelites in Egypt? And of course, the major
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difference there is I'll just give you a few hints.
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The people of Limhi got themselves into bondage because
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they weren't keeping the commandments.
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The ancient Israelites were actually just living in Egypt
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because God had brought them there to save them from a
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famine, and that eventually the Egyptians just took them over.
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But there's something significant here that we should
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point out. I have a phrase written up here
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on the board. It's the phrase the God of
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Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If you look back at verse 19,
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listen to how Limhi teaches his people.
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He says lift up your heads and rejoice and put your trust in
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God, in that God who is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
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Now listen how he goes on. He's actually trying to drive
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home to the people. You can trust God to deliver
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you. Why?
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Well, let's remember, what did we learn in scriptures?
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This is the same God who brought the children of Israel out of
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the land of Egypt and caused that they should walk through
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the Red Sea on dry ground and fed them with manna that they
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may not perish in the wilderness, and many more things
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he did do for them. Limhi wants to remind the people
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that they are in covenant with a God who himself has covenanted
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to deliver them, and that actually is tied into the
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Abrahamic covenant. We've talked about the covenant
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path before. There's two major covenants, the
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Abrahamic Covenant, where God obligates himself to His people
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to provide them posterity, property, priesthood, and
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prosperity. And in return the Mosaic
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covenant explains our obligations to God, which is to
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keep the commandments. The Abrahamic covenant is being
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invoked by this phrase, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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And of course what is the people's duty?
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If they keep the commandments, they shall prosper the land.
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And it turns out under King Noah the people had not kept the
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commandments. That is why Abenadi was sent to
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the people as a Moses figure, to teach them the 10 commandments,
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the things that they should be living so they could prosper in
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the land. That's the Mosaic covenant.
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And now Limhi is basically saying you guys can trust God
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and if you guys keep the commandments, God will deliver
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you. And we see this beautiful
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deliverance story that happens here in the book of Mosiah.
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In fact, it's another similar story as repeated later on, that
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we'll talk about with the people of Alma, who also go into
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bondage, and eventually the same thing.
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God invokes Abrahamic covenant. He's the God you can trust.
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He's a God who is coveted with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to
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provide blessings to their children of posterity, which are
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the people we find in the Book of Mormon.
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And all of us, either by blood or by adoption, are the children
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of Abraham. And so we have full access to
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all that God has offered. He simply asked us to keep the
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commandments. And every week it's sacrament.
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When you partake in the sacrament, you're making a
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promise to do these very things. And as you do, the promise back
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from God is you will receive the Spirit to be with you, which is
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a form of prospering. Turn over to Chapter 7, verse
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31. Now as we finish off this
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chapter, in this part, limb High is still telling Ammon and the
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the men who he's brought with him about Abinadai and some of
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the things that he taught the people.
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Look at verse 31 and again, he saith, If my people shall sow
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filthiness, they shall reap the east wind which bringeth
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immediate destruction. There's a pattern throughout the
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Bible talking about E wind over in Jerusalem.
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It's pretty obvious because the way that the geography is laid
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out, you have Galilee, Jordan River, Dead Sea.
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Here's Jerusalem here, this is West, this is east.
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As the winds prevailingly come from the West, they bring with
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them the moisture they bring with them life.
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And they they keep this a very green and fruitful land.
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You drop over to the other side of the Ridge, and all of this is
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very, very desolate. It's dry, it's brown.
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It's it's not good in the biblical context.
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And E wind always brings with it destruction and famine and bad
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stuff, and what brings that on? He says.
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If you sow filthiness, then you're going to reap the east
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wind. One of the main messages of the
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Book of Mormon that President Henry B Eyring has talked about
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on a couple of occasions is the law of the harvest, that you're
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going to plant certain things and you're going to harvest
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whatever it is that you plant. You cannot plant wickedness and
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filthiness and expect to live in such a way that God gives you
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the rewards of righteous living and covenant keeping.
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It just doesn't work that way in the Book of Mormon context.
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For those of you who want to dig a little deeper, carry hole my
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my colleague at BYU in ancient scripture, he's done a lot of
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research on the East wind in an American context on this side of
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the planet and it's beautiful. You could look up a a wonderful
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article that he's written on that topic.
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Now look at the opposite verse 33, if you will turn to the Lord
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with full purpose of heart. Taylor's talked about this on
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other occasions as well the idea and other many people have
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talked about this President Ukdorf.
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The idea of when you turn, that is the ultimate sense of of
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repentance is to turn towards God.
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So if we turn to the Lord, that's repenting with full
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purpose of heart, and put your trust in him and serve him with
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all diligence of mind. And if you do this, he will,
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according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of
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bondage. That is a beautiful promise from
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the Book of Mormon for our day as well, that he gives us some
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things there, some some actions we have to employ in order to
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really say to him, I want you to be my God, and I want to be thy
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people. I want to connect with with
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thee, and he will deliver us out of bondage.
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Then he shifts into Chapter 8, where Ammon is teaching them the
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things that have happened in the 80 years since his since these
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people have been gone. And now it's Limhai's turn to
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teach Ammon and the others about what's happened here during
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those 80 years. And he he says, look, we were,
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we've been brought into bondage and we tried to get out.
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We sent 43 men to try to find Zarahemla. 43 men left the
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cities of Nephi and Shiloh down here in the land of Nephi, and
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they must have gone either to the east or to the West.
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And they missed Zarahemla, the center of the land, and they
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went up past Bountiful, and they made it up into the land
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northward, up in land desolation.
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And they found this huge, destroyed civilization.
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Verse eight, they found this land covered with bones of men
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and of beasts, covered with the ruins of building of every kind.
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It's only been 80 years since they left and they see this
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entire destructive area of the Jaredites up in the north, and
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they assume that all the Nephites are now dead.
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They don't realize that they've totally missed Zarahemla and
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found a a different land because it was their grandparents who
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had come to the land of Nephi. And they bring back 24 plates,
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they bring back breast plates and swords and hilts and blades
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conquered with rust. And they now think, OK, we're
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stuck, there's no way out because there are no Nephites
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who can come and deliver us. We're on our own.
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We're just going to be slaves for the rest of our lives,
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basically. So they have these 24 plates.
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And Limhi says, can you read these Ammon?
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And Ammon says, no, I I can't read that language, but I do
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know somebody who can. Mosiah happens to be a seer.
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He talks about in verse 13 interpreters.
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That he has the ability to see things, and he's going to
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describe what a seer is. So as you read verse 13 through
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20, pay close attention to the descriptions that they give here
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of what a seer is, what a seer does, and the value of having a
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seer with you. Now in our day, in the
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dispensation of the fullness of times, what a blessing it is to
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have 15 prophets, seers and revelators in here.
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In verse 16 it says a seer is a revelator, and a prophet also,
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and a gift which is greater can no man have, because we're 17
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Seers know of things which are past and things which are to
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come, and by them shall all things be revealed.
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That gives me great comfort in a world that is in in upheaval and
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in with so much uncertainty to know, Surely the Lord God will
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do nothing except He revealeth His secret unto His servants,
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the prophets, and in this case, prophets, sears and revelators.
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They know things and they'll tell us what we need to be aware
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of moving forward. Now pay attention as we shift
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into Chapter 9, because what happens in Chapter 9?
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This was chapters 7 and eight, Ammon dealing with Lim high.
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And by the way, that Ammon, just to make sure we're on the same
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page, is a is a different Ammon than the one who's going to cut
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off people's arms in Alma 17. That's, that's the son of
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Mosiah. So Mosiah has a son.
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Well, he has four sons, Ammon, Aaron Omner and Hymni.
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That's a different Ammon than the one that came down here.
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So these were chapters 7 and eight.
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Now we're going to shift into a flashback going back 80 years
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and we're going to pick up 9:00 and 10:00 and then Noah's story
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is going to be 11 through 19. So now you can these are all
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chapters in Mosiah, the book of Mosiah.
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So we've got 7 and eight. Then we do a flashback to hear
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and then we're going to move forward and tell his story in
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next week's lesson. And then we'll tell Lim High and
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Alma's stories and in the following week.
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So that's 20 through 22. We're going to pick up Lim
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High's Deliverance story, So that's kind of a quick 30,000
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foot overview of the story. So as you read this story,
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notice that Zenith was sent on a mission originally in Chapter 9
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to destroy the Lamanites, but he saw that which was good among
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them and he didn't want to destroy them.
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And there's this, this scuffle and many people die on this spy
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party. And he comes back home in
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Zarahemla and he tells King Mosiah the 1st, I I want to
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leave is there a hamlet and I want to go back home where we
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came from in Nephi. So look at Chapter 9, verse
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three. A zenith goes and takes these
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people, a huge group of people with him that want to return to
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the land of Nephi to live, he says.
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And yet I, being overzealous to inherit the land of our fathers,
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collected as many as were desires to go up to possess the
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land and start it again. On our journey they were smitten
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with sore afflictions, for we were slow to remember the Lord
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our God. The Book of Mormon just keeps
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dropping these these hints along the way that when we think we
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can go it alone, when we get overzealous and try to do our
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own thing, then we don't prosper like we could when we try to
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say, I I don't need God to do what I'm, I'm going to do here,
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That's a problem. And that problem exists not just
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in in movements of the people like this, but in in our world
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today. It's like this experience you
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have reading scriptures, studying the scriptures,
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studying the gospel with your family that we talked about at
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the beginning. If you think you can do that
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alone without heaven's help, then you're not going to
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prosper. You're going to struggle.
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You're going to wrestle with this versus saying help.
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We're we're not slow to remember our God teach us.
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So they they finally get down there.
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They talk to the King Layman and say, hey, would you allow us to
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live among you? And King Layman says, Oh yes, I
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will give you the land of Nephi and Shalom to the north.
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And he tells all of his people to leave.
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That should have caused some serious red flags for Zenith and
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his people, but they didn't pick up on that. 12 years later,
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after they've moved in, they build up the houses.
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They've repaired all of the cities. 12 years later, the king
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of the Lamanite says, OK, we're ready, let's go enslave them so
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they come to war, verse 16 says. And it came to pass that I did
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arm them with bows and with arrows with swords and with
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scimitars and with clubs and with slings and with all manner
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of weapons. Just a really, really quick
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tangent. Quick side note, and by the way,
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it's OK to take tangents, because if you don't, you're
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going to just end up talking in circles.
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The Book of Mormon plates written in reformed Egyptian.
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There was no punctuation on the plates.
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There was no punctuation in the original manuscript.
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There was no punctuation on the original printer's manuscript.
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It was delivered to EB Grandin's print shop and John Gilbert the
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typesetter, the guy who's putting each individual letter
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into place to print the book. He took a pencil and in the
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printer's manuscript, he went through and added all of the
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punctuation marks that we currently have in our Book of
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Mormon. And by the way, he was semi
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colon happy. He he really liked that.
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As you'll notice, I just throw that out there because you're
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going to run into things like this verse over and over again
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in the Book of Mormon where they don't have things like a comma
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to separate items in a list. So when you see long lists,
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you're going to see those lists separated with words or
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characters. And that is not great English,
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but it's beautiful Egyptian and Semitic in in in its origin.
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So just as a side note, don't make judgment calls on doctrine
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or interpretation based on punctuation in the book because
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it it's not prophetic. It it wasn't put there by the
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Prophet Joseph or by Oliver Cowdery.
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The punctuation marks were put there by the typesetter.
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That's that's just a side note. Now back to our topic.
26:48
They've prepared themselves with all these things.
26:51
Now they come look at the contrast, verse 17.
26:54
So he prepared his people with all these physical things.
26:57
But here's the real reason they're going to win.
26:59
Yeah, in the strength of the Lord did we go forth to battle
27:04
against the Lamanites. For I and my people did cry
27:08
mightily to the Lord that he would deliver us out of the
27:11
hands of our enemies. For we are awakened to a
27:13
remembrance of the deliverance of our fathers now in our world
27:17
today. I think it would be really
27:19
instructive for each of us to spend time remembering the
27:23
captivity of our fathers through different generations of time.
27:28
As the title page of the Book of Mormon would suggest that we
27:31
don't just live our life right now, but we we keep learning
27:35
lessons from the past. They remembered how God had
27:38
delivered their fathers, and so they it strengthens their faith
27:43
to call upon God in their current struggles.
27:46
And boy, those were major struggles that they're facing.
27:49
And God did hear our cries and did answer our prayers, and we
27:54
did go forth in His might, and we did go forth against the
27:58
Lamanites. And in one day and a night we
28:00
did slay 3043. So God allows them to do all of
28:05
these things. We just slew 3043 Lamanites.
28:10
And in contrast, He tells you that only 279 of his brethren
28:17
were killed. That kind of gives you an idea
28:19
of the scope and scale of size of the group that he brought
28:22
with him, that we're going to be breaking off 450 souls for
28:28
Alma's group. We're going to have a big group
28:30
with limb high that that's going to be delivered.
28:34
But in the process, we lost 279 people here in this first
28:38
battle, this first instance. So this is, this is a sizable
28:41
population that we're talking about.
28:43
That's about an 11 to one ratio. I would say we won that war
28:49
handily as Nephites. Now that's looking at black
28:54
words on a white page. That's looking at numbers,
28:57
That's doing statistics and simple math.
29:00
But brothers and sisters, to think that if we pause for a
29:03
minute, these are real people. There are 3043 Lamanite families
29:10
that night who aren't going to have that individual return.
29:16
There are 279 families in the land or in the cities of Nephi
29:22
and Shalom who that night, they're not going to see that as
29:26
a victory. They're not going to see, Oh
29:28
yeah, we won that. There is some excitement that
29:30
OK, we're not slaves, we we haven't been brought into
29:33
bondage. But I think those emotions are
29:37
probably going to be overpowered by the fact that that Dad's not
29:41
coming home tonight and he'll never come home again in this
29:44
life. Or you've lost your son, or a
29:47
brother, or a spouse, a husband. And all the questions that then
29:52
come up of now what in the world am I going to do?
29:56
Brothers and sisters, this is part of life for 279 Nephite
30:02
families. They were put in a place where
30:04
they can no longer rely completely on themselves.
30:07
They have to turn more than ever before heavenward and say help
30:12
me, I don't know what I'm going to do.
30:15
I I don't know how I'm going to how I'm going to make this work
30:18
moving forward. But if we put our trust in God
30:22
and and sow seeds of righteousness and covenant
30:26
keeping and our best efforts to be good and to turn to the Lord,
30:31
he will deliver and and good things will happen.
30:34
Now turn the page over. Chapter 10 begins and we think,
30:39
OK, well we won. We we took care of the the
30:42
problem. But as is the case in every
30:46
chapter in the Book of Mormon where there's war involved, just
30:49
because you win one war doesn't mean you can go on vacation and
30:53
say, OK, we're done, we never have to fight again.
30:56
The Nephites realize that the minute one war ends, another
31:00
battle's going to be coming. And one thing for you to
31:03
consider, either as an individual or as a family, is
31:05
this. Sometimes we get so good at
31:11
focusing on the past of what worked in the past that we don't
31:16
turn to heaven to figure out how to make sense of those past
31:20
successes, to then move forward into the future.
31:24
I heard a beautiful insight from Brother Dan Judd, a good friend.
31:29
He shared this concept that in matters of physical war,
31:34
sometimes we get really good at training new soldiers and new
31:38
officers on how to win yesterday's wars, but we don't
31:45
do a great job of teaching them how to win tomorrow's battles.
31:51
The world's changing now. They're definitely things that
31:53
can be applied, but in your family and in your personal
31:56
life, I think the Book of Mormon would be teaching us this
31:59
principle of you can't just relax and keep doing all of the
32:03
exact same things that we've always been doing.
32:06
We have to grow line upon line, precept upon precept, to be able
32:10
to face those battles that are coming at us and those conflicts
32:15
that we're going to have to to overcome in the future.
32:18
And you can't do that alone. And you can't do that based on
32:22
your your knowledge of the past experiences and other people's
32:26
past experiences alone. That's where we need a prophet,
32:31
We need Sears. We need to be connected with
32:34
heaven so personal revelation can guide and direct us as we
32:38
move forward in faith. One of my favorite concepts
32:43
about living by the Spirit or teaching by the Spirit is a
32:47
concept that Elder Neil A Maxwell alluded to when he was
32:50
the Commissioner of Education many, many decades ago.
32:53
He said something like this. Teaching by the Spirit or we
32:58
could add, living by the Spirit, is to give the Lord the lead of
33:04
an already informed mind. So we learn the lessons from the
33:09
past. We inform our mind and our
33:11
heart. We we become aware of all these
33:13
situations. But then we give the Lord the
33:16
lead and say, OK, now help me make sense of this moving
33:19
forward because I I don't know what I'm doing and there are
33:22
good things that happen whenever we we put our trust in Him at
33:26
that level, so we know the Lamanites are going to come
33:29
again. Chapter 10, verse 6.
33:31
King Laman died and his son began to reign in his stead.
33:35
So we know they're going to be coming.
33:37
His son's going to going to bring vengeance.
33:39
And so they do Again verse 8. And by the way, verse 8.
33:42
Notice another long list separated with and with and with
33:46
and with. Instead of just commas like we
33:48
would do in English. Look at verse 11.
33:52
Now the Lamanites knew nothing concerning the Lord nor the
33:55
strength of the Lord. Therefore they depended upon
33:57
their own strength. Yet they were a strong people.
34:02
As to the strength of men, Zenith is pausing his narrative
34:06
here to instead of telling more of the story, he says, OK, now
34:11
let me explain something about the the Lamanites and how they
34:14
how they live their life and how they see us and how they see
34:17
themselves. Verse 12.
34:20
They were a wild and ferocious and a bloodthirsty people
34:26
believing in the tradition of their fathers.
34:28
Which is this? So you could highlight their,
34:31
the tradition of their fathers. So what he's what he's going to
34:36
give us here is the tradition of the Lamanites.
34:41
This is what they have passed on to their children for
34:45
generations. This is what they believe this
34:49
these are their traditions. This is their narrative, their
34:51
story. And by the way, another little
34:54
tangent here. This won't get you into heaven,
34:57
but it's it's interesting to be able to watch these these little
35:02
shifts take place in the book. Mormon.
35:04
When Mormon, the chief of Bridger here goes from third
35:08
person voice to first person when he does a copy paste job,
35:13
when he's allowing somebody to speak directly to you through
35:18
his own pen, he he's not. He doesn't seem to be putting a
35:21
lot of himself in here. He's just copying Zenith's words
35:24
over word for word. So you'll notice this is all
35:26
written in first person coming to us from Mormon.
35:30
And you'll notice he shifts from first person when Zenith dies at
35:34
the end of chapter 10 to third person when Noah takes over.
35:37
He's not going to let Noah speak directly to us, he's going to
35:41
give us the interpretation in third person.
35:43
And so you just watch who Mormon allows to have a first person
35:49
voice with you. It's kind of fascinating in your
35:51
study as you move forward back to our tradition coming at us
35:55
from the pen or the stylus of Zenith, who is under attack for
36:00
the second time. And he says, I just need you to
36:03
understand what we're fighting against.
36:05
So a few lines down in verse 12, the Lamanites believed that they
36:09
were driven out of the land of Jerusalem because of the
36:11
iniquities of their fathers, and that they were wronged in the
36:14
wilderness by their brethren, that they were also wronged
36:17
while crossing the sea. Notice there's the word that
36:25
starts this all off. The Lamanite tradition is We
36:29
were wronged in Jerusalem. We were driven out of Jerusalem
36:33
because of the iniquity of our fathers.
36:34
We were wronged in the wilderness.
36:36
We were wronged while crossing the the sea.
36:40
Now we have the Nephite record in front of us.
36:45
We know the stories that Nephi tells about what happened in the
36:48
wilderness and on the sea. But it doesn't take a genius in
36:52
this context to figure out how Lehmann and Lemuel might have
36:56
told those stories differently. You can stop and think about the
37:00
wilderness experience. They could easily tell their
37:02
children. You know what?
37:04
We almost died in the wilderness because Nephi broke his bow.
37:10
He he did something stupid and broke his bow.
37:12
He almost killed us. They could say Nephi shocked us.
37:17
Nephi forced us to do things. Nephi did this.
37:22
Lehi did that. They can repurpose the reality
37:27
in whatever way they want to make themselves look like the
37:30
good guy in any of these stories.
37:32
And that's what gets passed on through generations.
37:35
Now notice it doesn't end there. Verse 13 again.
37:37
They were wronged while in the land of their first inheritance.
37:40
Look at verse 14. And his brethren were wroth with
37:44
him. There's a pattern here.
37:46
If you allow yourself to feel wronged or offended long enough,
37:52
it will always tend to lead you to a feeling of wrath.
38:00
They were wrath with him because they understood not the dealings
38:05
of the Lord. They were also wrath with Him
38:06
upon the waters because they harden their hearts against the
38:09
Lord. Verse 15 again they were wroth
38:11
with him after they had arrived in the Promised Land because
38:14
they said that he had taken the ruling of the people out of
38:17
their hands and they sought to kill him for Lehman and Lemuel.
38:22
The thing that keeps coming up over and over again is they want
38:27
to be in charge of the ruling of the people.
38:30
They're focused on who gets the the glory, the throne, the the
38:34
power over the people. It galls them.
38:38
It makes them so angry that Nephi took the ruling of the
38:43
people out of their hands, so they sought to kill him.
38:45
What adds more verse 16 again, they were wrath with him because
38:51
he departed into the wilderness as the Lord had commanded him.
38:54
And he took the records which were engraving on the plates of
38:56
brass, for they said that he robbed them.
39:00
That's an interesting narrative. Nephi robbed us of that which
39:06
rightly belong to us. Those brass plates.
39:08
That's what Layman and Lemuel have been teaching their
39:10
children. Those plates were ours.
39:13
There's no mention of how the plates were actually attained in
39:18
the 1st place, but Layman and Lemuel aren't going to tell that
39:21
part of the story because in his in Layman's mind, he is the
39:25
first born son. He he should get a double
39:29
portion of everything that his father owns.
39:32
And in his mind his father owns the brass plates, not Nephi.
39:35
And when Nephi departs and takes the brass plates with him, away
39:40
goes this, this connecting point back to the old World, this
39:44
incredible status symbol of whoever has these brass plates
39:49
that were obtained from from Laban, A ruler among the Jews, a
39:53
ruler of 50. Whoever has those, it's a sign
39:57
of power. It's a sign of of ruling
39:59
capacity. I'm not sure if Lehman was
40:03
really concerned about losing the plates because now he didn't
40:07
know what scriptures he was going to be able to use to read
40:09
to his family in their sacrifice meetings because they don't have
40:13
sacrament meetings back then. It's sacrifice meetings or what
40:16
he's going to read to his family on the family home evening.
40:20
I I don't know that he cares much about what's in the
40:23
scriptures as much as the status symbol of what the brass plates
40:27
represent. And now Nephi has stolen them
40:31
from the from the Lamanites and it makes them very, very angry.
40:36
Now watch the progression. Or in this case, watch the
40:39
digression. If you allow yourself to feel
40:43
angry long enough because of past wrongs, it will lead you to
40:50
another element. Look at verse 17.
40:52
Thus they have taught their children that they should hate
40:56
them. So this is speaking.
40:57
Let me let me translate. Thus the Lamanites have taught
41:00
their children that they should hate the Nephites, and that they
41:03
should murder them, and that they should rob and plunder them
41:05
and do all that they could to destroy them.
41:08
Therefore they have an eternal hatred towards the children of
41:13
Nephi. I want to give you an
41:15
opportunity to look closely at some verses in Mosiah chapter
41:19
10. The English words that are used
41:21
there are very interesting, particularly in verses 12
41:25
through 16. I want you to look for words
41:27
that begin with the letters in English WR, and it's interesting
41:32
in English Words that begin in WR have at their core meaning
41:36
something that's being twisted. And I've written a number of
41:39
words up here, not that these actually show up in those
41:42
verses, but there's. I want you to look at these
41:45
words in English, for example, the word wrong, that means
41:49
something's been twisted out of place.
41:51
Wrath. You've been twisted into anger.
41:54
A wreath, right? We hang them up at Christmas
41:56
time. We twist them into shape.
41:58
A Wraith. If you happen to be a Lord of
42:00
the Rings fan, you have the ring race.
42:02
These these guys have been twisted out of their normalcy
42:05
and they become evil. A wrist is something that
42:08
twists. In fact, you also have the word
42:11
right because you have to twist your wrist as you're writing to
42:14
wrangle. You might think of like a cowboy
42:16
wrangling with the animals, a wreck.
42:19
Somebody gets twisted and mangled, a Wretch or rot or
42:23
wrinkle. I need to add another word in
42:25
here, Roth, OK, where somebody gets all bent out of shape with
42:30
anger to writhe or wrinkle. So I want you to think about how
42:35
the WR words are used in verses 12 to 16 and think about the
42:39
twisting that's going on. And what do we learn about what
42:43
God is teaching us about what happens when people don't listen
42:47
to him, and what they're going to receive when they don't keep
42:51
the commandments? What I want you to particularly
42:53
look at is the stories that were being told in Book of Mormon
42:57
times, and we can apply it to ourselves.
42:59
I'll just give one example. We're talking about why the
43:03
Lamanites took over the Nephites.
43:06
And Lemhi is explaining to his people that their ancestors,
43:10
Laman and Lemuel were wroth. They were twisted out of shape
43:13
into anger against Nephi and against Lehi, and it caused this
43:17
division and that division, The stories that they told ended up
43:22
creating all this conflict. And so we might ask ourselves,
43:25
what stories do we tell ourselves about ourselves, about
43:29
others? And are we allowing God's love
43:33
to put us back into place instead of being twisted out of
43:37
place because of our anger or a misunderstanding?
43:41
And when we let God's love wash through us, we can be
43:44
straightened out on the straight and narrow.
43:47
Now back to our little diagram here, our digression of where
43:52
we've watched the Lamanites feel offended, get angry, and have it
43:57
lead to hatred. We need to make something very
44:00
clear. There are two kinds of wrongs.
44:04
There are real wrongs, and there are perceived wrongs to the
44:12
person who feels offended or the person who feels wronged.
44:15
It's really hard in that moment to distinguish between what is
44:20
real and what is perceived, because to them, everything
44:23
feels real. That is their reality.
44:26
I was wronged. Even if they don't understand
44:28
all of your intention, everything that you meant,
44:30
everything that was going on, they feel wronged.
44:34
Here's the question for us to wrestle with based on the the
44:39
written record of Nephi. Who was really wronged in the
44:43
wilderness? Who was really wronged on the
44:45
boat while crossing the sea? Who was really wronged in the
44:48
new world? And was was had multiple
44:51
attempts on his life being taken.
44:54
The person who really was wronged in those situations did
44:59
not get angry consistently. Now he Nephi tells us in second
45:05
Nephi four that he he's frustrated with how angry and
45:08
upset he gets at his enemies, And we know who his enemies have
45:11
been. And so we can assume that he
45:13
isn't perfect at this. But he has sought very
45:16
diligently to teach his children to love the Lamanites, to do
45:22
good to them, to to bless them, lift them up, try to reclaim
45:25
them back to the gospel. So he made a conscious choice
45:30
to, instead of getting angry, to seek to forgive.
45:37
So even though the Book of Mormon doesn't put focus in this
45:40
chapter with Zenith on the High Road, it's worth time sometimes
45:46
as a family to pause and talk about or as an individual to
45:49
pause and ponder or journal about what are the lessons that
45:54
we learn from the scripture page sometimes that aren't there.
45:58
So we've talked about the black words on the page, the printed
46:01
words, but there are a lot of white words on the page.
46:04
And you have to kind of slow down, take more time, read
46:07
between the lines and say, hmm, so this is a decision point.
46:12
We see what the Lamanites chose to do.
46:15
What happens if we choose the opposite?
46:17
What happens? Let's follow that for a minute.
46:21
So Nephi who was really wronged chose to forgive.
46:25
And there are multiple cases where it says I frankly forgave
46:28
them. And when you forgive and you
46:31
keep forgiving long enough, it leads to love.
46:37
And if you want the ultimate love, charity.
46:40
But the pure love of Christ. Now, brothers and sisters, the
46:45
key here is there was one person who was really wronged.
46:50
Like completely wronged in infinite proportions.
46:55
That was Christ. He didn't get angry.
46:59
He chooses to forgive, and he chooses to love with with
47:05
perfect love, his infinite suffering.
47:08
The real wrongs he endured for us didn't lead him to hate us
47:13
and to seek vengeance. God sent not his Son into the
47:16
world to condemn the world. He sent his Son into the world
47:20
to save it. And so Jesus takes all of these
47:25
real wrongs, endures them, suffers them, and in response
47:29
says, I want to forgive you because I love you with an
47:33
eternal love. Now, what you see in this
47:38
Scripture story is a window into something much more profound
47:44
than just the tradition of the Lamanites.
47:47
I don't think they're making this up for their of their own
47:51
accord. I think they're hearkening to a
47:54
voice from below, and that voice is still shouting at us today,
48:01
trying to get us to to believe the same things and to follow
48:03
the same path. What you see in the Book of
48:07
Mormon is this extreme contrast between ultimate good and
48:12
ultimate evil. Here you have Christ's path
48:17
diagrammed for you, and here you have Lucifer's path diagrammed
48:22
for you. If you want to be more like the
48:24
devil, you know the pattern. Here's how to do it.
48:27
Just go around. And whether it was real wrongs
48:29
or perceived wrongs, it doesn't matter.
48:30
Just feel offended as much as you possibly can and get more
48:35
and more and more angry at people.
48:36
Don't let it go. Don't let them forget all the
48:39
bad things they've done. Hold on to it and get more angry
48:42
by the minute and it will lead you to an eternal hatred towards
48:46
people, a distrust, A frustration.
48:50
You can imagine that the the corridors of hell are not filled
48:53
with with spirits down there who are saying, you know, we were
48:57
really dumb up in the premortal world.
49:01
We messed up. We should have just trusted our
49:04
Heavenly Father. We should have had faith in
49:07
Christ and followed him. I I could be wrong.
49:11
I have. I have no authority for these
49:12
things. But I I just don't think those
49:14
conversations are happening down in the boardrooms of hell today.
49:18
I think what you have going on is a whole group of people who
49:22
feel very wronged, who feel very angry and upset and and who are
49:27
filled with an eternal hatred and are doing everything they
49:30
can to destroy God's plan to the best of their ability because of
49:35
that hatred and because of those feelings of wrong.
49:37
Now that's a real downer, so let's not focus there, let's not
49:41
stay there. Let's go to the good side.
49:43
You have Christ's pattern that you can be wronged in very, very
49:49
real ways, but you can forgive through His power, because He
49:55
will grant us that capacity, that ability to forgive and move
49:59
on, which will then replace those feelings of frustration
50:03
and those feelings of deep offence and abuse and hurt with
50:06
feelings of His love for us. It's not our job to make sure
50:12
that justice is served on somebody in the eternal realm.
50:18
We dropped out of the Lord's feet and we let Him deal with
50:21
this the the person who wronged us.
50:25
And we allow Him to replace those feelings of hurt with
50:29
feelings of love and forgiveness.
50:31
Here's the sad irony to this story in Mosiah chapter 10.
50:37
If you look at the dates for this chapter, we're roughly 178
50:41
BC, give or take. We're talking about wrongs that
50:45
occurred 422 years in the past 420 years ago.
50:53
We're out in the wilderness, so to speak.
50:56
Just to give you a frame of reference, 422 years ago, your
51:02
ancestors wronged my ancestors. Therefore, I'm going to have
51:07
this eternal hatred for you. There comes a time, brothers and
51:11
sisters, when we need to let things go, when we need to
51:14
forgive. As humanity, we need to come
51:17
together in our context. Today.
51:19
Picture one of your ancestors doing something to one of my
51:24
ancestors in the year 1598 and me coming to you saying I have
51:30
an eternal hatred for you because of what your ancestors
51:33
did back in 1598. I can imagine that your response
51:37
would be I am so sorry that that happened, but I didn't do that
51:42
to you. Can we figure out how to how to
51:45
get along today? Because our ancestors didn't
51:47
figure out how to get along. Apparently, as we move forward
51:50
in time, there's no virtue in being angry and hating people
51:56
because of things in the past. Now a quick a quick side note
52:01
here. This is not an invitation to
52:03
keep putting yourself or other people in harm's way.
52:08
If there's an abusive situation, if there's real hurt or real
52:12
abuse taking place, we do everything we can to stop that
52:17
and prevent that. That is, that is not in question
52:20
here. It's just that once we've we've
52:23
got things into a safe position. The Lord's invitation to us is
52:27
to walk the High Road and to find a way, through His power,
52:31
his merits, and His mercy and His grace alone, to find ways to
52:36
forgive and to let go of the pain, so that the bitterness and
52:41
the hurt and the hate can be replaced with with loving
52:45
kindness. Know that you're loved.