1 Nephi 13:1-10
The vision chapters are a little bit difficult for me because I don't want to read into it wrong, or I don't know, it's just a little bit much for me. But I'll try.
13:1-6 - Now the angel shows Nephi "many nations and kingdoms" of the gentiles, and among the gentiles is set up a "great church." Now I think there are a couple of facets to this description that can be a little hard to understand. First it is called a "church" which implies it is a religious institution. Now the vast majority of religious institutions are built upon the premise of Jesus, or at a minimum, peace and brotherly kindness, for the vast majority. So there is a disconnect when this "church" is described later as "abominable" and founded by "the devil." This description doesn't really match up with what our society's definition of a "church." The second issue with this description is that it is "a" church, implying only one, there is only one entity that encompasses all this evil. Now the Institute manual says that the "great and abominable church" consists of not just one religion, but of many, many different organizations, governmental, police, religious, etc. So maybe a better way to think about this is, instead of imagining one huge, evil empire, it's more like a "secret combination" if you will. It's an organization with it's own hidden agenda, with members throughout the world in all types of positions, with the power to control military, police, etc. The horror of verse 5 though, when it says these people torture the saints of God. I would like to think that if I lived back then that I would have believed in Jesus and been considered a saint of God, and to think that I could have been tortured and killed or been put into various types of slavery, just because I believed in God, now that is a sobering thought. I love my religion and my God but I'm not threatened with violence or death because of it. It makes me think, if my life was at stake, would I be as valiant about my beliefs?
13:7-10 - So naturally, what motivated the people who are in this evil church? Power, money, and sex. The big 3 always run together. The gospel of Jesus Christ inspires positive change in the hearts of anyone who even wants to believe. It brings peace, happiness, and joy to the believers. A happy, hopeful, joyous people are very difficult to control and rule over. People can only be ruled when they are afraid, and fear is the opposite of faith. People can only be ruled with an iron fist when they have given up all hope of freedom or justice. The Arbinger Institute put out a quote "The love of liberty is the love of others, the love of power is the love of self." These evil people who wanted power had to destroy this new uprising of faith and love, or they would lose their power of a people who wanted to be free, who were kind to each other. So they killed the believers, but that didn't stop them, so then the tortured and killed the believers and still that didn't stop them. What kind of powerful, life changing message is the gospel of Christ if it can be hand carried by only a few firm believers, protected in their hearts even during the most horrific times of humanity, and then brought forth again and shared with others? What peace and happiness does the love of God bring to people's lives that they will march to their death before they will give it up? Who is this God that mighty people are willing to die for? Who is He that can fight all the powers of evil and hell and win? The gospel that Jesus preached and the church that he set up while he was alive the first time was changed after his death, but still, the very being Jesus, just the simple knowledge of Him and the fractional parts of His message that was left was so precious to so many that there was no amount of evil on this planet that could make people part with it. They would die, cast themselves into the unknown simply to know Jesus. Am I willing to do that? Am I that committed to the gospel? I don't face any of those dangers, yet I am more lax in my beliefs and my love of God and others.
See, here I was mistaken again. In the beginning I said that these vision chapters were more difficult to understand and honestly I wanted to skip them, but here I am at the end, and I have been truly touched by the Spirit while learning about these few verses, and for that lesson I'm deeply grateful.
13:1-6 - Now the angel shows Nephi "many nations and kingdoms" of the gentiles, and among the gentiles is set up a "great church." Now I think there are a couple of facets to this description that can be a little hard to understand. First it is called a "church" which implies it is a religious institution. Now the vast majority of religious institutions are built upon the premise of Jesus, or at a minimum, peace and brotherly kindness, for the vast majority. So there is a disconnect when this "church" is described later as "abominable" and founded by "the devil." This description doesn't really match up with what our society's definition of a "church." The second issue with this description is that it is "a" church, implying only one, there is only one entity that encompasses all this evil. Now the Institute manual says that the "great and abominable church" consists of not just one religion, but of many, many different organizations, governmental, police, religious, etc. So maybe a better way to think about this is, instead of imagining one huge, evil empire, it's more like a "secret combination" if you will. It's an organization with it's own hidden agenda, with members throughout the world in all types of positions, with the power to control military, police, etc. The horror of verse 5 though, when it says these people torture the saints of God. I would like to think that if I lived back then that I would have believed in Jesus and been considered a saint of God, and to think that I could have been tortured and killed or been put into various types of slavery, just because I believed in God, now that is a sobering thought. I love my religion and my God but I'm not threatened with violence or death because of it. It makes me think, if my life was at stake, would I be as valiant about my beliefs?
13:7-10 - So naturally, what motivated the people who are in this evil church? Power, money, and sex. The big 3 always run together. The gospel of Jesus Christ inspires positive change in the hearts of anyone who even wants to believe. It brings peace, happiness, and joy to the believers. A happy, hopeful, joyous people are very difficult to control and rule over. People can only be ruled when they are afraid, and fear is the opposite of faith. People can only be ruled with an iron fist when they have given up all hope of freedom or justice. The Arbinger Institute put out a quote "The love of liberty is the love of others, the love of power is the love of self." These evil people who wanted power had to destroy this new uprising of faith and love, or they would lose their power of a people who wanted to be free, who were kind to each other. So they killed the believers, but that didn't stop them, so then the tortured and killed the believers and still that didn't stop them. What kind of powerful, life changing message is the gospel of Christ if it can be hand carried by only a few firm believers, protected in their hearts even during the most horrific times of humanity, and then brought forth again and shared with others? What peace and happiness does the love of God bring to people's lives that they will march to their death before they will give it up? Who is this God that mighty people are willing to die for? Who is He that can fight all the powers of evil and hell and win? The gospel that Jesus preached and the church that he set up while he was alive the first time was changed after his death, but still, the very being Jesus, just the simple knowledge of Him and the fractional parts of His message that was left was so precious to so many that there was no amount of evil on this planet that could make people part with it. They would die, cast themselves into the unknown simply to know Jesus. Am I willing to do that? Am I that committed to the gospel? I don't face any of those dangers, yet I am more lax in my beliefs and my love of God and others.
See, here I was mistaken again. In the beginning I said that these vision chapters were more difficult to understand and honestly I wanted to skip them, but here I am at the end, and I have been truly touched by the Spirit while learning about these few verses, and for that lesson I'm deeply grateful.
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