Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

50:1-24 - We meet some of my favorite people in this chapter, Teancum and Pahoran. The Lamanites attacked the city of Noah even though it was a ridiculous venture and were slaughtered, over a thousand of them dying, while the Nephites had some wounded but no one died. After the Lamanites retreated back to Amalickiah, “Moroni did not stop making preparations for war, or to defend his people against the Lamanites.” CM continued to ensure the safety and preparation for his people, he didn’t let his guard drop and he didn’t let the victory make him over confident. He fortified the cities and “caused that his armies should go forth into the east wilderness; yea, and they went forth and drove all the Lamanites who were in the east wilderness into their own lands, which were south of the land of Zarahemla.” These preparations and success of CM’s armies motivated the people to join with him and “his armies, which did increase daily because of the assurance of protection which his works did br...

49:16-30 - The Lamanites went to attack Ammonihah, but because CM had fortified it so heavily, the Lamanites were discouraged and left to attack the city of Noah, which previously had been very weak. Knowing that this would be their pattern, and knowing that they would expect Noah to be easy pickings, CM had fortified the city of Noah "even to exceed the strength of the city of Ammonihah." Bummer for the Lamanites. Here we meet an amazing man named Lehi. We have encountered him before, "it was that same Lehi who fought with the Lamanites in the valley on the east of the river Sidon." But apparently, Lehi and his soldiers left such a lasting impression on the Lamanites that after finding out that Lehi commanded the city of Noah, "they were again disappointed, for the feared Lehi exceedingly." This makes me wonder what Lehi did that was so phenomenal, did he have an elite fighting force? Was he kind of the Nephite equivalent of Spec Ops? Another righteous mi...

49:1-15 – I have just a few minutes, and I wanted to hit some main points that could be learned from here. The Lamanites come upon the Nephites to fight and when they got to Ammonihah “how great was their disappointment; for behold, the Nephites had dug up a ridge of earth round about them, which was so high that the Lamanites could not cast their stones and their arrows at them.” Likewise, when the Lamanites left Ammonihah and went to the land of Noah to attack there “behold, to their astonishment, the city of Noah, which had hitherto been a weak place, had not, by the means of Moroni, become strong, yea, even to exceed the strength of the city of Ammonihah.” CM had prepared his people for battle, and here I thought that we could liken this to being spiritually prepared for the temptations and the trials that come with daily life. I have heard it taught before that if we choose in the beginning that we will not do something, when the opportunity presents itself, the decision is clear ...

48:1-10 - The last chapter was kind of all over the place, but we ended up with Amalickiah plotting and becoming king of the Lamanites and marrying the Lamanite queen (who is a total martyr here.) But now being king of the Lamanites is not enough, because "he should also to reign over all the land, yea, and all the people who were in the land, the Nephites as well as the Lamanites." How is he going to become king? He has to fight, to physically remove freedom from the Nephites and enslave them, but the Lamanite army is quite reluctant to go back into battle, so Amalickiah is at a cross roads, how does he get an army to fight against an enemy of whom they are so terrified, they defied their own king and ran away? Propaganda of course, "yea, he did appoint men to speak unto the Lamanites from their towers, against the Nephites... Therefore he had accomplished his design, for he had hardened the hearts of the Lamanites and blinded their minds, and stirred them up to anger, ...

47:1-18 - Amalickiah has taken off into the land of the Lamanites, shedding anyone who wasn't absolutely essential, and now he wants what he wanted before... to be king. The plots and plans that he made are pretty complex, and as intriguing as they are, I think that there are a few spiritual points that can be made in this chapter. Amalickiah "had taken those who went with him, and went up in the land of Nephi amongst the Lamanites, and did stir up the Lamanites to anger against the people of Nephi, insomuch that the king of the Lamanites sent a proclamation throughout all his land, among all his people, that they should gather themselves together again to go to battle against the Nephites." He hates the Nephites so much that he is trying to get the people who were just beaten by them to go and fight again, but here's the interesting part, "And it came to pass that when the proclamation had gone forth among them they were exceedingly afraid; yea, they feared to d...

46:23-33 - The freedom loving people had just thrown their coats at Moroni's feet with a covenant to fight to defend freedom, and also to remain a righteous people. CM goes on to expound to them the concept of Jacob's coat of many colors saying, "yea, let us preserve our liberty as a remnant of Joseph; yea, let us remember the words of Jacob, before his death, for behold, he saw that a part of the remnant of the coat of Joseph was preserved and had not decayed. And he said - Even as this remnant of garment of my son hath been preserved, so shall a remnant of the seed of my son be preserved by the hand of God, and be taken unto himself, while the remainder of the seed of Joseph shall perish, even as the remnant of his garment." Very interesting concept here, one that I'm not familiar with in any way, so I'm just going to turn to the IM here, "The torn coat of Moroni- the title of liberty- was a reminder of the preserved remnant of the coat of Joseph of Egy...

46:1-10 - The people in the church are beginning to turn to wickedness again, “notwithstanding the preaching of Helaman and his brethren, yea, notwithstanding their exceedingly great care over the church, for they were high priests over the church… (And) notwithstanding their great victory which they had had over the Lamanites, and their great rejoicings which they had had because of their deliverance by the hand of the Lord.” And the leader of these dissensions “was a large and a strong man; and his name was Amalickiah. And Amalickiah was desirous to be a king; and those people who were wroth were also desirous that he should be their kind; and they were the greater part of them the lower judges of the land, and they were seeking for power.” So a few points here, first off, Helaman and the other leaders of the church are working hard to keep the people close to the Lord, but Amalickiah has that much more pull on the people, and to an extreme degree at that, making his followers angry,...

45:1 - Again, there's not a lot on this chapter, but let's see what we can find. The Nephites have just defeated the Lamanites in battle, or at least compelled them to give up their weapons of war and make a covenant of peace, and "the people of Nephi were exceedingly rejoiced, because the Lord had again delivered them out of the hands of their enemies; therefore they gave thanks unto the Lord their God; yea, and did fast much and pray much, and they did worship God with exceedingly great joy." It's interesting to me that, while yes, they were victorious against all odds, and they were deeply grateful to God, and rightly so, but there were a lot of Nephite casualties as well and surely there were crops and goods lost, and I'd imagine that lots of work went undone as much of the working force went off to fight. Over all, I'd imagine that this was also a time of great tribulation for the Nephites as well, but still the praised God. I just so happened to list...

44:1-9 - There's not a lot on this chapter, in fact the IM doesn't have anything, but I bet we can still find some stuff that's profitable. The Lamanites are surrounded and CM sees that they are terrified so "they did stop and withdrew a pace from them." If we think about it strategically, this is the perfect time to either a.) slaughter all the remaining soldiers, ensuring a weakened Lamanite nation or b.) take them as prisoners of war and enslave them, forcing them to do who knows what, ensuring free labor as well as a weakened Lamanite nation. Either way, this is their chance to keep these specific individuals from coming back to war against them. But CM declares to their leader Zerahemnah "we do not desire to be men of blood. Ye know that ye are in our hands, yet we do not desire to slay you." CM goes a completely different route, he desires peace with them, he wants the Lamanites to keep their blood in their own bodies and to just be cool. He points...

43:14-22 - We left off discussing the different motivations of the Nephites and the Lamanites, good and evil, respectively, now we get to the preparations for war on both sides, and there are some interesting points that I think can be learned here. The first issue is that of the disproportionate numbers, the Lamanites were "so much greater than the Nephites," so the Nephites are outnumbered. But there's also a difference the ways in which they have prepared for battle. The Lamanites show up in the land of Antionum but "behold, the armies of the Nephites were prepared to meet them in the land of Jershon," and that was a strategy devised by CM, being the most logical place for an attack. CM armed his people with offensive weapons such as "swords, and with cimeters, and all manner of weapons of war." But he also "prepared his people with breastplates and with arm-shields, yea, and also shields to defend their heads, and also they were dressed with t...

43:1-3 - This is going to sound really morbid, but now we are getting into the war chapters, and these are my favorite, why? Because I’m military, my family is military, and I think I’ve mentioned this before, but war effects every generation and the effect is large, war is one of the absolute worst of the human experience, whether you are fighting, whether you are supporting, whether you are at home worrying and picking up the slack, I’ve filled all of those roles and they all suck equally. War changes people, makes them stronger and makes them weaker, some grow in their humanity and some wither away into psychopathic stalks of craziness, many people lose their salvation in during wartime, so this critical concept must be mastered during peace time because during the throws of war is not the time to decide. The IM states that “Some people wonder why the Book of Mormon contains so much about war. President Ezra Taft Benson stated that ‘from the Book of Mormon we learn how Disciples of ...