Helaman 13:24-39
13:24-29 - Samuel now confronts the people with their complete and utter rejection of the prophets who have come to call them to repentance. He accuses the people of saying “If our days had been in the days of our fathers of old, we would not have slain the prophets; we would not have stoned them, and cast them out.” Hindsight is always 20/20, it’s so easy to look back and say “oh yeah that guy was a prophet because his prophesies came true. Interestingly, I heard a quote today that really fits in here that says something like “as a society we celebrate living conformists and deceased trouble makers.” This is applicable to this case because we “admire” or at least accept those who went against the grain, such as prophets condemning wickedness, but we don’t want to hear it right now, don’t come into our time and tell us to change. Hugh Nibley teaches “Now we come to a very important thing. It looks just like routine platitudes about self-righteousness and the like, but this is a very, very important principle that we overlook… This is the great obstacle to repentance here; it’s the beautiful self-image which we cultivate today. It’s the unbreachable wall- not criticism or questioning can penetrate it. You don’t have to bring specific charges or anything. You are just sweetness and light.” That’s a great point, this is self-righteousness exactly, condemning their ancestors for rejecting the prophets while they themselves were doing the exact same thing. But Samuel tells them that they are worse than the previous generations that they are condemning because they reject the true prophets of God for not telling them what they want to hear, and then when a false prophet comes and teaches them “Do this, and there is no iniquity; do that and ye shall not suffer; yea, he will say: Walk after the pride of your own hearts; yea, walk after the pride of your eyes, and do whatsoever your heart desireth- and if a man shall come among you and say this, ye shall receive him, and say that he is a prophet.” They reject the true prophets, to which the IM teaches by quoting Elder M. Russell Ballard as saying “Now, my dear brothers and sisters, please pay attention to those things that the leaders of the church have taught… Apply the teachings that will help you and your family. Let all of us, regardless of our family circumstances, bring into your homes the teachings of the prophets and the apostles to strengthen our relationship with each other, with our Father in Heaven, and with the Lord Jesus Christ. I promise you in the name of the Lord that if you will listen not just with your ears but also with your heart, the Holy Ghost will manifest the truth unto you of the messages delivered by (the President of the Church,) his counselors, the Apostles, and other leaders of the Church. The Spirit will prompt you to know what you should do as individuals and as families in order to follow out counsel, that your testimonies might be strengthened and that you might have peace and joy.” There are a couple of points here that I find interesting, the first being that he asks us to follow the counsel of the prophets, but not blindly. When there are corrupt organizations that use the tool of religion to control people, there isn’t usually very many leaders at the top who can give edicts, there’s usually the top guy who makes all the rules and decisions and announcements, then there are some lesser goon types as enforcers, but there usually is only one, maybe two guys at the top making the calls. The reason for that is because when the motivation is power and control and money, the person who is in charge is selfish and unwilling to share much of the spoils with anyone else, unless he needs to in order to get them to cooperate, but he takes the lion’s share of the profits and power and recognition. In our church and at the request of Elder Ballard, he asks us to hearken to the counsel of ALL the Church leadership. For one there is no money to be shared, they certainly aren’t getting fat off of the tithing funds, there’s really no power to share, and the prominence is minimal at best. He asks us to listen to all those called and chosen, not just him, not just the prophet, everyone. Secondly, he asks us to hearken to the counsel of God and the Holy Ghost who will teach us personally and privately what we are to do. Seekers of power and very specific and manipulative in their preaching, but Elder Ballard does not give direct details on what to do in our own lives, sometimes that counsel comes but many times it’s up to us to seek out our own personal revelation from the Spirit. Another interesting point that I thought about when reading this was my own personal experience learning the hard way to follow the prophets, even when it seems ridiculous. I’m not perfect and I can’t follow them exactly because it’s not possible to be perfect in this life, but I can do my best. I know that sometimes my LDS friends on Facebook will post that they just saw an R rated movie and it makes me sad, I think “really, for a stupid movie?” Or when I’m tempted to just put something on my credit card, I think “the prophets have counseled us to avoid debt.” In fact, I read another article last night that talked about Same Sex Attraction and how we can be firm in our beliefs and still act as the Savior would. In this article, well, I guess it’s the home page of the church sponsored website Mormons and Gays, which I think it fantastic; it quotes Elder Quentin L. Cook as teaching “As a church, nobody should be more loving and compassionate. Let us be at the forefront in terms of expressing love, compassion and outreach. Let’s not have families exclude or be disrespectful of those who choose a different lifestyle as a result of their feelings about their own gender.” I remember having a conversation with a friend once about this issue and I asked him “if your brother was gay and wanted to bring his boyfriend home for thanksgiving dinner, what would you say?” And this was a difficult question for him to answer, and I myself have been really torn because I want to stand for truth and righteousness, but I also deep down can’t justify to myself that telling my brother and his boyfriend that they are not welcome in our home is truly what Christ would have done. But I’ve never heard counsel either way, and now that I have, it sounds very much in keeping with what I’ve felt in my heart. I know that as I’ve come to seek and heed the teachings of the prophets, my quality of life has improved but also the quality of my relationship with the Savior has grown exponentially. There’s nothing that can compare to that. What do these Nephites do when they have a false prophet that they like? They "lift him up and ye will give unto him of your substance; ye will give unto him of your gold, and of your silver, and ye will clothe him with costly apparel." I initially thought that this basically mean that they would give him money, like people do with churches now but Hugh Nibley says "Then there is a very interesting thing here. The only surviving book from the Mayan civilization of Central America is the Chilam Balam. It tells us that when a man was acclaimed as a prophet, the people would dress him in fine apparel, put him on a sedan chair, lift him up and carry him around town on their shoulders. That is exactly what happens here. If he tells you what you want to hear... The prophet is accepted. He is dressed in fine apparel. You notice the outrageous overdressing of these people. They put him on a sedan chair, lift him up and carry him around town. Well, every word of this rings true. Alas, alas that it should be so." It would seem like there would be a lot of competition to become the next prophet, and ultimately, who decided if you were "esteemed" a prophet? The people, so your teachings would be even remotely concerned with truth, only with popularity.
13:30-39 - Samuel tells the Nephites in no uncertain terms that the Lord is angry with them because of their wickedness and that only bad things are coming if they don't repent. But, as the prophets usually warn of death and destruction and war, Samuel has to hit these people, apparently a little closer to the heart... the pocket book. He says that "ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then ye shall weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts." Sounds pretty awful and terrifying, what evil faces them that suddenly brings out this terror? "Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land." That's right, they lost their money and now they are regretting the murder of the prophets. Crazy. They wish that they had repented so that they could remain rich. Let's substitute other words for rich in there, if they had repented they could have remained happy, comforted, joyful, loved. As we repent of our sins, we can experience all those things. The IM teaches that "iniquity is contrary to the Nature of Happiness saying "Samuel warned the Nephites that they had been seeking happiness in doing iniquity, which is contrary to the nature of happiness. Speaking of this problem and how true happiness comes, Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles pointed out that happiness only comes with righteousness: 'Have you noticed how Satan works to capture the mind and emotions with flashing images, blaring music, and the stimulation of every physical sense to excess? He diligently strives to fill life with action, entertainment, and stimulation so that one cannot ponder the consequences of his tempting invitations. Think of it. Some are tempted to violate the most basic commandments of God because of seductive actions portrayed as acceptable. They are made to seem attractive, even desirable. There seems to be no serious consequence, but rather apparent lasting joy and happiness. But recognize that those performances are controlled by scripts and actors. The outcome of decisions made is likewise manipulated to be whatever the producer wants. Life is not that way. Yes, moral agency allows you to choose what you will, but you cannot control the outcome of those choices. Unlike the false creations of man, our Father in Heaven determines the consequences of your choices. Obedience will yield happiness, while violation of His commandments will not." It's interesting to me that he says that we are distracted by the loud music, bright lights, and very eye opening to me was when he said that the Satan stimulates "every physical sense to excess" in order to distract us from remembering the consequences of his temptations. I had never thought about it like that but as I look back on my own personal experience, yes, that is exactly the case. In the relationship between happiness and wickedness, Jack H. Goaslind taught in an April 1986 general conference address entitled "Happiness" saying "The suffering that results from sin is most tragic because through our own choices we can choose to avoid it. We have that power. We also have the capacity to repent of our sins and to experience the sweet joy of forgiveness. If we are unhappy, let us examine ourselves to see where we need to repent. Is we have questions about what we need to do, or not do, we need only listen to our conscience and follow the promptings of the Spirit." Our happiness is up to us, we control whether or not we are happy and much of that happiness comes from keeping the commandments of the Lord to the best of our ability. Another general conference talk from October 1989 entitled "Running Your Marathon," Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught "Satan will try, at every step of the way, to lead you off course. His objective is to make you unhappy and miserable like he is. Vast sums of money are spent each year to package and disguise sin and evil to make them appear enticing, attractive, even harmless. However, regardless of appearances, 'wickedness never was happiness' and never will be. Never find yourselves in the position of the Nephites just a few years before the birth of the Savior. They 'sought... for that which (they) could not obtain;... for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head. You cannot find happiness in sin and iniquity. The Lord has given you the gift of agency and instructed your sufficiently to know good from evil. You are free to choose and are permitted to act, but you are not free to choose the consequences. With absolute certainty, choices of good and right lead to happiness and peace, while choices of sin and evil eventually lead to unhappiness, sorrow, and misery."
13:30-39 - Samuel tells the Nephites in no uncertain terms that the Lord is angry with them because of their wickedness and that only bad things are coming if they don't repent. But, as the prophets usually warn of death and destruction and war, Samuel has to hit these people, apparently a little closer to the heart... the pocket book. He says that "ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then ye shall weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts." Sounds pretty awful and terrifying, what evil faces them that suddenly brings out this terror? "Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land." That's right, they lost their money and now they are regretting the murder of the prophets. Crazy. They wish that they had repented so that they could remain rich. Let's substitute other words for rich in there, if they had repented they could have remained happy, comforted, joyful, loved. As we repent of our sins, we can experience all those things. The IM teaches that "iniquity is contrary to the Nature of Happiness saying "Samuel warned the Nephites that they had been seeking happiness in doing iniquity, which is contrary to the nature of happiness. Speaking of this problem and how true happiness comes, Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles pointed out that happiness only comes with righteousness: 'Have you noticed how Satan works to capture the mind and emotions with flashing images, blaring music, and the stimulation of every physical sense to excess? He diligently strives to fill life with action, entertainment, and stimulation so that one cannot ponder the consequences of his tempting invitations. Think of it. Some are tempted to violate the most basic commandments of God because of seductive actions portrayed as acceptable. They are made to seem attractive, even desirable. There seems to be no serious consequence, but rather apparent lasting joy and happiness. But recognize that those performances are controlled by scripts and actors. The outcome of decisions made is likewise manipulated to be whatever the producer wants. Life is not that way. Yes, moral agency allows you to choose what you will, but you cannot control the outcome of those choices. Unlike the false creations of man, our Father in Heaven determines the consequences of your choices. Obedience will yield happiness, while violation of His commandments will not." It's interesting to me that he says that we are distracted by the loud music, bright lights, and very eye opening to me was when he said that the Satan stimulates "every physical sense to excess" in order to distract us from remembering the consequences of his temptations. I had never thought about it like that but as I look back on my own personal experience, yes, that is exactly the case. In the relationship between happiness and wickedness, Jack H. Goaslind taught in an April 1986 general conference address entitled "Happiness" saying "The suffering that results from sin is most tragic because through our own choices we can choose to avoid it. We have that power. We also have the capacity to repent of our sins and to experience the sweet joy of forgiveness. If we are unhappy, let us examine ourselves to see where we need to repent. Is we have questions about what we need to do, or not do, we need only listen to our conscience and follow the promptings of the Spirit." Our happiness is up to us, we control whether or not we are happy and much of that happiness comes from keeping the commandments of the Lord to the best of our ability. Another general conference talk from October 1989 entitled "Running Your Marathon," Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught "Satan will try, at every step of the way, to lead you off course. His objective is to make you unhappy and miserable like he is. Vast sums of money are spent each year to package and disguise sin and evil to make them appear enticing, attractive, even harmless. However, regardless of appearances, 'wickedness never was happiness' and never will be. Never find yourselves in the position of the Nephites just a few years before the birth of the Savior. They 'sought... for that which (they) could not obtain;... for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head. You cannot find happiness in sin and iniquity. The Lord has given you the gift of agency and instructed your sufficiently to know good from evil. You are free to choose and are permitted to act, but you are not free to choose the consequences. With absolute certainty, choices of good and right lead to happiness and peace, while choices of sin and evil eventually lead to unhappiness, sorrow, and misery."
Comments
Post a Comment