Mosiah 12
12:1-8 – We see Abinadi comes back 2 years later and there are just a couple of interesting anomalies that I want to point out. First the record specifies that Abinadi “came amoung them in disguise, that they knew him not,” but then when he speaks, he says that “thus has the Lord commanded me, saying – Abinadi…” So he came back in secret, but stated his name, which makes me wonder if that was a really common name or that no one remembered his name before. Maybe this was a situation like when the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they knew that if they lost the fight, the would be executed, maybe this is Abinadi’s point of no return, maybe he knows going into it, that he will not come back, and that’s common for many great prophets, and that would make sense. So when he preached then left 2 years ago, God’s warning was “repent or you will be brought into bondage” and since the Lord’s message now is “they have repented not of their evil doings…because of their iniquities, shall be brought into bondage… and it shall come to pass that except they repent I will utterly destroy them from off the face of the earth.” So now, it’s “you will definitely be put into bondage, but you can repent and not be destroyed.” So the message and intensity has escalated which indicates to me two things. First, when Abinadi preached 2 years ago, it wasn’t some obscure, little known happening, it was notable and demonstrable enough to make the people as a whole accountable for the words that he taught. Because if Abinadi had stood on a street corner one time, and only a handful of people heard him, that that would not be just to sentence the entire community to death since the vast majority of the people didn’t have the chance to hear the message and choose whether or not to be obedient. The IM teaches that “the failure of the people of Noah to hearken to Abinadi’s first warning led to a more serious warning when he returned two years later. The consequence became that they would be destroyed. This is often the case in life – when we put off obedience or delay following the prophet, we bring more serious consequences upon ourselves.” The second point that I can infer from the escalation of the warnings is that this is just another example of how nothing in this life stays static, it’s either growing or dying, because surely the Lord didn’t escalate his threats because the people weren’t worsening in their behavior. Line upon line goes for spiritual growth, but the opposite can be true for spiritual degradation. So Abinadi continues with what is going to happen and what can be avoided, and the imagery of what is going to happen is pretty intense and awful, it’s bondage and torture and nature at its worst and starvation and being burned alive, “and all this will I do because of their iniquities and abominations.” But wait, there’s more, and if at that point, even after all those horrible horrible happenings, if you STILL will not repent “I will utterly destroy them from off the face of the earth.” I couldn’t imagine living through the hell Abinadi describes is coming without some sort of self-examination, but to continue living the lifestyle that goes against not only what holy men of God taught, but that I feel in my heart is right too, I would just like to think that I wouldn’t push it to that point. The last interesting point in this section is in verse 8 when the Lord says that after he destroys them off the face of the earth, “yet they shall leave a record behind them, and I will preserve them for other nations which shall possess the land; yea, even this will I do that I may discover the abominations of this people to other nations.” The IM doesn’t mention this part, neither are there any specific references, so it would just be my speculation, but I wonder why that would be important. First I wonder why the record would be important and second I wonder why telling the people that there will be a record would be important. Well, I answered my own question about why the record would be important, because ultimately the Book of Mormon is the record of a people who were destroyed because of their wickedness, in fact the record of 2 distinct civilizations that were destroyed because of their wickedness, and it’s so very valuable. But then the question, what is the significance of telling the people that when they are destroyed that their records will be shown to other nations, I’m going to have to think about this one.
12:9-16 – After Abinadi had preached to the people, “they were angry with him; and they took him and carried him bound before the king.” This verse signifies to me that the plague of wickedness wasn’t isolated to King Noah or the communities leadership, but it was a malignant widespread, the evil lifestyle has totally consumed the whole society, so it’s not just a “king is rich and can do what he wants” type of attitude. The people say things a little bit different when they report to king Noah than what we have recorded here specifically said by Abinadi, so I wonder if these are part of the “many things did Abinadi prophesy against this people,” or were the people making it up to try to make it sound worse than he said, kind of like “then he called you ugly and said you can’t read good.” This is another example of king Noah’s excessive capability to become “stirred up,” he’s one of the most easily provoked men that I can think of and this is just another example of why it’s so important to make good choices, to stay grounded in the gospel and our devotion to Christ, and to be have the Spirit to be with us so that we can discern truth from error. One of the Sunday School manuals asks “why do you think they defended Noah?” And there are probably many answers to this question, but the one that sticks out to me the most is that if they condemned the acts of Noah as wickedness, then they were really condemning themselves, because it was a totally wicked society. So by pardoning the king’s sins, they were in essence pardoning their own sins. Another reason that sticks out to me is that they had no desire whatsoever to give up the lifestyle that they were living, and acknowledging the truth of Abinadi’s teachings would mean that their conscience would force them to adopt a righteous lifestyle. They proclaimed “we are guiltless, and thou, O king, hast not sinned.” It is self and lifestyle preservation at its finest. Maybe I’m reading into this a little bit too much but if we compare the self-perception of these people vs. the self-perception of righteous prophets, there is a marked difference. The people here believe in their own mind that they are not committing any sin, which by default I would imagine implies that they are perfect, and we all know that no one is perfect, except for Christ. Compare that attitude of perfection to that of Nephi who agonizes over being a “wretched man” and is acutely aware of his sins, he knows that he is righteous in the desires of his heart, but turns to Christ to be cleansed and purified from the impurities that dot his life. This is the attitude of humility and of greatness. So compare the wicked attitude of “we are guiltless” to the attitude of “oh wretched man that I am.” There’s a big difference, not only in lifestyle, but also in quality of life and outcome. This is something that we can think about when we are both justifying and condemning ourselves, who has which attitude and who are we to follow, that’s right the prophets. Hopefully that will give us the insight that we need to make course corrections and to give us courage and hope on our journey.
12:17-24 – It’s interesting to me that Noah must consult with his priests before he decides what to do with Abinadi. And now a lot makes a lot of sense, if we observe societies where the king is almighty, powerful, and dominant, take Nebuchadnezzar for instance, his priests were afraid to give him the wrong answer. He dished out judgment and decision and law because of his own personal thoughts and opinions. But here is a man, Noah, who consults with his “friends” about everything, he caters their lifestyle, instead of “taking care of his own” he takes it to another level where they live just like him, just like kings. And it also makes sense about the special chairs for the priests to sit in that let them rest their arms and heads on while doing their “civic duty,” because if you think about it when Abinadi accuses them of “spend(ing) your strength with harlots,” they are so worn down from their “riotous living” that they are literally exhausted, too tired to even hold their heads up while officiating in the governmental system. Ok, so that makes sense now, it seems to me that king Noah is one of the most cowardly and selfish people of all time, not just because of this reason, but there are just little things here and there that astound me consistently. So the first clue that maybe Abinadi isn’t just a crazy guy on the street corner is that when questioned by the priests “he answered them boldly, and withstood all their questions, yea, to their astonishment; for he did withstand them in all their questions, and did confound them in all their words.” Pretty impressive for a man to go up against those who were supposedly experts in the scriptures, and if the answers were enough to astonish them, maybe it’s something to think about. But then comes the ridiculousness of the questions, one of the priests asks Abinadi to explain the meaning of a super complex set of verses rich in imagery and symbolism, it’s far too advanced for me and I’m not even living a crazy wicked lifestyle. I wonder why he chose this section to question Abinadi?
12:25-37 – Abinadi has great answers, “you are priests and you are asking me what the scriptures mean?” Classic! He doesn’t immediately answer their question, not because he couldn’t but because they aren’t really interested in the answer, they don’t really care, this is the opposite of humble and teachable. Abinadi tells them why they are not capable of knowing the answer “ye have not applied your hearts to understanding; therefore, ye have not been wise.” In an October 2012 general conference address by Elder Walter F. Gonzalez entitled “Learning with Our Hearts” he teaches “one way to come unto Christ is by seeking to learn essential truths with our hearts. As we do so, impressions that come from God will give us knowledge that we cannot get my any other means… The prophet Abinadi explained the role of feelings that come from God to our hearts. He taught that we cannot understand the scriptures completely unless we apply our heart to understanding.” Noah and his priests, and their people for that matter were so hard hearted that they were incapable of letting in any light or knowledge, so explaining the meaning of those verse would have been pointless and by avoiding that explanation, Abinadi showed his reverence for that which was sacred. The priests claim to teach to the people the law of Moses, and Abinadi after denouncing them as hypocrites because if they teach the law of Moses, they do not obey it, and they “cause this people to commit sin,” but then he asks a question “doth salvation come by the law of Moses?” Here’s an interesting question. We know that the general idea of an atonement or in depth knowledge of the law of Moses might not have played such a big role in the lifestyle of the people from the time of Jacob until king Benjamin, so it’s understandable that the details and the way of salvation might not have been well known. But we can see that king Benjamin went into his reign with the same knowledge that king Noah had, but as Benjamin teaches in his sermon, his knowledge of the atonement and the covenants were taught to him by an angel because of his righteousness and the righteousness of his people. So there’s no reason that the priests of king Noah couldn’t have had the same knowledge brought to them by angels because of their righteousness and that of their people. In fact Abinadi had been raised in the same society as Noah probably but he had to learn these truths somehow, how did it come to him? Probably the same way as Benjamin, so the opportunity to learn was there they just actively chose not to participate. Abinadi rectifies the situation by beginning to teach them the basics, they want to know complicated ideology and scripture, but first we must learn from the very beginning, he starts with the 10 commandments, which are the basic rules of behavior for the law of Moses. The IM quotes President Gordon B. Hinckley as teaching “(the) Ten Commandments (were) written by the finger of Jehovah on tablets of stone for the salvation and safety, for the security and happiness of the children of Israel and for all of the generations which were to come after them.” I wonder if at this point, the priests really believed in their hearts that they were righteous, I don’t think so. I think they knew they were wrong. We will continue on tomorrow in chapter 13, when Abinadi continues his teaching.
12:9-16 – After Abinadi had preached to the people, “they were angry with him; and they took him and carried him bound before the king.” This verse signifies to me that the plague of wickedness wasn’t isolated to King Noah or the communities leadership, but it was a malignant widespread, the evil lifestyle has totally consumed the whole society, so it’s not just a “king is rich and can do what he wants” type of attitude. The people say things a little bit different when they report to king Noah than what we have recorded here specifically said by Abinadi, so I wonder if these are part of the “many things did Abinadi prophesy against this people,” or were the people making it up to try to make it sound worse than he said, kind of like “then he called you ugly and said you can’t read good.” This is another example of king Noah’s excessive capability to become “stirred up,” he’s one of the most easily provoked men that I can think of and this is just another example of why it’s so important to make good choices, to stay grounded in the gospel and our devotion to Christ, and to be have the Spirit to be with us so that we can discern truth from error. One of the Sunday School manuals asks “why do you think they defended Noah?” And there are probably many answers to this question, but the one that sticks out to me the most is that if they condemned the acts of Noah as wickedness, then they were really condemning themselves, because it was a totally wicked society. So by pardoning the king’s sins, they were in essence pardoning their own sins. Another reason that sticks out to me is that they had no desire whatsoever to give up the lifestyle that they were living, and acknowledging the truth of Abinadi’s teachings would mean that their conscience would force them to adopt a righteous lifestyle. They proclaimed “we are guiltless, and thou, O king, hast not sinned.” It is self and lifestyle preservation at its finest. Maybe I’m reading into this a little bit too much but if we compare the self-perception of these people vs. the self-perception of righteous prophets, there is a marked difference. The people here believe in their own mind that they are not committing any sin, which by default I would imagine implies that they are perfect, and we all know that no one is perfect, except for Christ. Compare that attitude of perfection to that of Nephi who agonizes over being a “wretched man” and is acutely aware of his sins, he knows that he is righteous in the desires of his heart, but turns to Christ to be cleansed and purified from the impurities that dot his life. This is the attitude of humility and of greatness. So compare the wicked attitude of “we are guiltless” to the attitude of “oh wretched man that I am.” There’s a big difference, not only in lifestyle, but also in quality of life and outcome. This is something that we can think about when we are both justifying and condemning ourselves, who has which attitude and who are we to follow, that’s right the prophets. Hopefully that will give us the insight that we need to make course corrections and to give us courage and hope on our journey.
12:17-24 – It’s interesting to me that Noah must consult with his priests before he decides what to do with Abinadi. And now a lot makes a lot of sense, if we observe societies where the king is almighty, powerful, and dominant, take Nebuchadnezzar for instance, his priests were afraid to give him the wrong answer. He dished out judgment and decision and law because of his own personal thoughts and opinions. But here is a man, Noah, who consults with his “friends” about everything, he caters their lifestyle, instead of “taking care of his own” he takes it to another level where they live just like him, just like kings. And it also makes sense about the special chairs for the priests to sit in that let them rest their arms and heads on while doing their “civic duty,” because if you think about it when Abinadi accuses them of “spend(ing) your strength with harlots,” they are so worn down from their “riotous living” that they are literally exhausted, too tired to even hold their heads up while officiating in the governmental system. Ok, so that makes sense now, it seems to me that king Noah is one of the most cowardly and selfish people of all time, not just because of this reason, but there are just little things here and there that astound me consistently. So the first clue that maybe Abinadi isn’t just a crazy guy on the street corner is that when questioned by the priests “he answered them boldly, and withstood all their questions, yea, to their astonishment; for he did withstand them in all their questions, and did confound them in all their words.” Pretty impressive for a man to go up against those who were supposedly experts in the scriptures, and if the answers were enough to astonish them, maybe it’s something to think about. But then comes the ridiculousness of the questions, one of the priests asks Abinadi to explain the meaning of a super complex set of verses rich in imagery and symbolism, it’s far too advanced for me and I’m not even living a crazy wicked lifestyle. I wonder why he chose this section to question Abinadi?
12:25-37 – Abinadi has great answers, “you are priests and you are asking me what the scriptures mean?” Classic! He doesn’t immediately answer their question, not because he couldn’t but because they aren’t really interested in the answer, they don’t really care, this is the opposite of humble and teachable. Abinadi tells them why they are not capable of knowing the answer “ye have not applied your hearts to understanding; therefore, ye have not been wise.” In an October 2012 general conference address by Elder Walter F. Gonzalez entitled “Learning with Our Hearts” he teaches “one way to come unto Christ is by seeking to learn essential truths with our hearts. As we do so, impressions that come from God will give us knowledge that we cannot get my any other means… The prophet Abinadi explained the role of feelings that come from God to our hearts. He taught that we cannot understand the scriptures completely unless we apply our heart to understanding.” Noah and his priests, and their people for that matter were so hard hearted that they were incapable of letting in any light or knowledge, so explaining the meaning of those verse would have been pointless and by avoiding that explanation, Abinadi showed his reverence for that which was sacred. The priests claim to teach to the people the law of Moses, and Abinadi after denouncing them as hypocrites because if they teach the law of Moses, they do not obey it, and they “cause this people to commit sin,” but then he asks a question “doth salvation come by the law of Moses?” Here’s an interesting question. We know that the general idea of an atonement or in depth knowledge of the law of Moses might not have played such a big role in the lifestyle of the people from the time of Jacob until king Benjamin, so it’s understandable that the details and the way of salvation might not have been well known. But we can see that king Benjamin went into his reign with the same knowledge that king Noah had, but as Benjamin teaches in his sermon, his knowledge of the atonement and the covenants were taught to him by an angel because of his righteousness and the righteousness of his people. So there’s no reason that the priests of king Noah couldn’t have had the same knowledge brought to them by angels because of their righteousness and that of their people. In fact Abinadi had been raised in the same society as Noah probably but he had to learn these truths somehow, how did it come to him? Probably the same way as Benjamin, so the opportunity to learn was there they just actively chose not to participate. Abinadi rectifies the situation by beginning to teach them the basics, they want to know complicated ideology and scripture, but first we must learn from the very beginning, he starts with the 10 commandments, which are the basic rules of behavior for the law of Moses. The IM quotes President Gordon B. Hinckley as teaching “(the) Ten Commandments (were) written by the finger of Jehovah on tablets of stone for the salvation and safety, for the security and happiness of the children of Israel and for all of the generations which were to come after them.” I wonder if at this point, the priests really believed in their hearts that they were righteous, I don’t think so. I think they knew they were wrong. We will continue on tomorrow in chapter 13, when Abinadi continues his teaching.
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