Helaman 14:1-13

14:1-13 - Samuel is continuing his teaches here and "did prophesy a great many more things which cannot be written." He then begins to preach, as the IM describes "One of the most specific prophecies in scripture is the one by Samuel concerning the birth and death of Jesus Christ." The IM has also made these charts that I found pretty interesting. He tells of "a new star arise, such an one as ye never have beheld." But we also hear of the "one day and a night and a day, as if it were one day and there were no night; and this shall be unto you for a sign; for ye shall know of the rising of the sun and also of its setting; therefore they shall know of a surety that there shall be two days and a night; nevertheless the night shall not be darkened; and it shall be the night before he is born." We know from the scriptures that in the Eastern Hemisphere they saw the new star, but that was their sign, we know that the wise men in the east saw and followed it, but they didn't have the night that shined like day. I wish I could find it, but I remember reading somewhere something to the effect of, the reason why the western hemisphere got the greater sign of his coming was because he didn't get to be with them during his mortal ministry, and it was a type of compensation for them. Hugh Nibley interestingly teaches "Now notice these signs are all a matter of timing. Or 

course, the meteors that are going to show in the heavens are already on their way. Then for 36 hours it will be like one night and one day. Apparently a supernova. Those things have happened- the one in 1054 A.D. could be seen all over the world. It was almost as bright as the sun. The supernova exploded and became the Crab Nebula today. You can still see it, only it's just a nebula scattering in all directions. 'And behold, there shall a new star arise.' Well, there's a nova all right. That's the Star of Bethlehem." Supernovas exploding, meteors coming, these all take years to make their appearances, sometimes hundreds and thousands of years, for these events to make their appearance, it has to be put into motion much earlier in the future. Samuel also goes on to accurately predict that they will not be interested in his message because he 

is a Lamanite. The Nephites, especially the self righteous ones feel that they are better then the Lamanites and so for one of them to come out and tell them that they are wicked and to repent is like my daughter telling me to lose weight. They may be right but I don't want to hear the truth coming out of the mouth of someone I'm supposed to be in charge of. Samuel continues saying "and ye shall hear my words, for, for this intent have I come up upon the walls of this city, that ye might hear and know of the judgments of God which do await you because of your iniquities, and also that ye might know the conditions of repentance." The IM dedicates almost an entire page to the concept of the conditions of repentance. It's long so I'm just going to copy and paste it because I also like the style that they did it in.

I think that most of these are pretty straight forward, but I would like to go a little bit more into the first part, sorrow for sin. In "Putting on the Armor of God" the author teaches "there are at least two kinds of guilt which affect repentance: worldly and spiritual. Worldly guilt is merely the pain of being caught. It is the sorrow one feels when one cannot indulge in sin and get away with it. The higher, spiritual guilt is given to us by a loving Heavenly Father to help us correct our lives... The sorrow of the world is certainly to be repented of, but the higher remorse, the 'godly sorrow,' motivates us to repent because, as true disciples, we do not want to do anything that would hurt the Lord... If we truly love the Lord, we will be anxious to repent as fast as we can. Don't you know, asked Paul, that 'the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?' Is we truly appreciate the sacrifice Christ made so that we could repent and receive forgiveness, one of our greatest priorities will be to honor that sacrifice by refusing to do anything that would disappoint or hurt him." How can guilt and sorrow come from a loving Heavenly Father? Wouldn't the very definition of love contradict that concept? I'm reminded

of a time when my daughter bought a tablet with money that she had earned and saved over a long period of time, and despite that, she was still very careless with is at school. She consistently left is just lying around the playground, and one day I saw it literally sitting on the ground as tons of people walked by, so I took it and hid it in her brother's backpack. When she realized that it was missing and she couldn't find it, and I wasn't forth coming with the information, she started crying, not just sniffling, she did the ugly cry, terrible noises came out of her and big fat tears. It was incredibly painful for me to watch even though I knew that the tablet was safe and that she would get it back again, I felt like the worst mother in the whole world, honestly, it was painful. I love my daughter, and I didn't take her tablet out of it's secure location where she had cared for it, it was very likely to get stolen, if not this time then the next, I simply let her experience the pain that would have come if natural events were allowed to take their course, while I still had the power to restore her item to her. This is similar to godly sorrow, with some obvious exceptions. The first exception is obviously that Jesus has the power to restore righteousness to us always, whereas I had to catch the tablet before it actually got stolen. But I don't believe that God does anything but mourn with us when we experience any kind of pain, and that includes the pain that comes with godly sorrow. Just as my heart broke for my daughter's pain even though I felt like this was a lesson that she needed to learn, I believe that His heart breaks for our pain, even when we've brought it upon our selves. This life is a purifying time for us, God is there to help us learn and grow, He is not here to coddle us or to keep us from the consequences of our choices. However, godly sorrow can be felt at varying times of our downward spirals into sin, and it doesn't even have to be serious sin, because godly sorrow can be felt even when our sins don't appear to be serious. For instance, when I'm snotty to someone, I experience godly sorrow, I truly feel terrible for disrespecting another beloved child of God, I feel awful for handling that situation in a way that is not in keeping with how the Savior would have handled it. Sometimes I wish I could just watch how he handles people and things and events and situations so that I could learn what he would do in my situation, but I can't so I guess that it's up to me to strive to always be worthy of the Spirit and always mindful of the Lord. Because I am aware of and acknowledge my guilt when I step out of line, it's easier for me to stay within the boundaries of where I am spiritually and move forward as I experience that guilt, repent and vow to do better next time. And when I do do better the next time, I'm rewarded with the opposite of guilt, which is joy and comfort, very interesting. with guilt on one side of the aisle and joy on the other, we are slowly perfected. Very interesting. The other part of what Elder Scott said that I want to address is the last part, when he says that it is crucial for us to recognize the Savior and be able to feel forgiven, at least that's how I interpreted it. Also in "Putting on the Armor of God," the author writes "Because of his cunning attacks, we fall from the straight and narrow path and plunge into the waters of sin and unworthy habits. Many of us are nearly strangled from the guilt and hopelessness we feel as we find ourselves entangled beyond our own ability to break free. We suffocate from self-loathing and gasp for a breath of forgiveness and freedom. But we no longer need to despair because now we know that our loving Savior has the power and the determination to rescue us from our captivities and lead us gently, step by step, while he works out the process of rescue and transformation, so that our victories will be complete and we are fully his... To win our battles with Satan we need to think about the rejoicing that occurs in heaven when we are cut free from our entanglements with sin. And we need to project ourselves forward in time and space to that glorious reunion that will someday take place on the other side of the veil. We need to envision the future joy and rejoicing that we will experience as we receive the welcoming embrace and approval of our Father and Mother in heaven, and the Savior, who made it all possible. Cling to that vision. Dream of it, long for it, keep it alive in your mind and your heart, and someday it will be yours." This encouraging message is what the embodiment of repentance really is. So many people associate it with gloom and doom, sadness, despair, humiliation, but that's not the case, as the IM quotes Elder Jeffrey R. Holland as teaching "we must change anything that we can change that may be part of the problem... We thank our Father in Heaven we are allowed to change, we thank Jesus we can change, and ultimately we do so only with Their divine assistance. Certainly not everything we struggle with is a result of our actions. Often it is the restul of the actions of others or just the mortal events of life. But anything we can change we should change, and we must forgive the rest. In this way our access to the Savior's Atonement becomes as unimpeded as we, with our imperfections, can make it. He will take it from there." Repentance is about embracing the Atonement and all the amazing things that Jesus provides, it's about joy and happiness and the changes that the Lord can make in our hearts when we truly yield them to Him.