Helaman 15

15:1-4 - We start off in a kind of different place, Samuel is now telling the Nephites what will happen if they don’t repent and it’s some pretty scary stuff, “your houses shall be left unto you desolate.” It’s interesting to me that he goes right to the home first, and I mean really it is where the people live whom his audience loves most, usually, their family. This phrase can mentally send all those who can hear his voice to their homes where conquerors have come in a destroyed everything and murdered everyone, this is hard hitting, if anyone is soft hearted even a little bit this should knock the wind out of them. The next verse really hits home as far as family goes, “yea, except ye repent, your women shall have great cause to mourn in the day that they shall give suck; for ye shall attempt to flee and there shall be no place for refuge; yea, and wo unto them which are with child, for they shall be heavy and cannot flee; therefore, they shall be trodden down and shall be left to perish.” I guess it’s because I’m a woman and so I imagine that Samuel’s audience is co-ed and maybe it is, so I guess it’s really a double whammy, but it always bothered me when it talks so plainly about the murder of pregnant women and nursing mothers and maybe that’s why he’s using it here because, there’s nothing and no one more vulnerable than pregnant women and mothers of young children, because for the most part they won’t leave their children, they will die with them. If there are women in the audience, they can mentally imagine themselves trying to run away from an attacking army while huge pregnant or while trying to rescue their young children at all. I think that if Samuel were to say something like “you men will all be killed,” the proud men would automatically think “no, we’d fight and win, you’re an idiot,” but by bringing their wives and young children into it, there’s a whole different aspect that they really can’t control, anyone who cares for their children even a little bit will be shaken by this information, but they aren’t so maybe that’s why they are bring threatened with destruction, because they are past the point of caring about the welfare of their families. But I’m just speculating here. Samuel states bluntly that the Nephites “have been a chosen people of the Lord; yea, the people of Nephi hath he loved, and also hath he chastened them; yea, in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened them because he loveth them.” This is an interesting concept, because logically, it would seem counter-intuitive to say that “I chasten you because I love you,” but really what would the alternative be? Let the people you love run around like maniacs, especially if you know that what they are doing will make them unhappy. There’s this parenting program that they use at my kids' school called Accountability Concepts, which I absolutely love. It's basically the idea that you do fun things with your kids and when they "have their pyramid up" they get to participate in the fun activity, but when they misbehave their "pyramid is down" and they don't get to participate in the fun activities until they have righted the situation. It's really worked miracles for our little family and even though I'm not perfect at it, I really felt from the beginning that this was something that I had to master, in fact I think that I need to get on it more hard core, but it works for us. Anyway, but it was interesting when I realized that this is essentially Heavenly Father's disciplinary strategy for us. He won't force us to be happy by following His rules, He won't force us to be blessed by keeping the commandments, but when we do, we do get to "have fun" or grow in our relationship with Him and be blessed. There is a way to "earn your pyramid back" just like there is repentance, and when the pyramid is down the parent gives opportunity to earn it back, just like the prophets calling on the people to repent. Granted when the pyramid is down, it's not usually death and destruction that follow, but God withdraws His Spirit when it's not wanted, and when that happens, the devil takes hold of people's hearts and they destroy themselves. I think that there's this belief that just because God is telling the people that they will be destroyed if they don't repent that somehow it means that he's the one who does the destroying. Let's think about that for a second, maybe there are a few examples of fire raining down from heaven on to wicked cities, but for the most part, it's when other people come and physically destroy a place, does God put the idea of murder and destruction into the heads of the attacking army? Of course not, but who does? That's right Satan. Now if the people were righteous there are a number of things that God could do to preserve his people, but when they are wicked he might not do those things and allows them to be destroyed. The people told God to leave, they told God that they wanted to follow Satan by their actions and rejection of the gospel, and so he withdraws and leaves them to suffer the consequences of their choices, to allow them to reap the fruit of allegiance to Satan. Problems arise when we are not righteous and we forfeit God's protection, comfort, and guidance, and he allows that to happen, he allows us to experience the pain and heart ache that comes because He loves us. Still doesn't make sense? There are people called enablers, they are those who essentially don't allow others to feel the consequences of their actions by always fixing it before it becomes painful. For instance, when my daughter "lost" her tablet (I really hid it so that she would think that she lost it and know how it felt so that she would be more careful next time,) if I would have immediately picked it up and gave it back to her, even if it was accompanied by a stern warning, I would be enabling her carelessness because she wouldn't have really known what the consequences would have been because she wasn't taking care of her stuff. When she thought it had been stolen, she cried, terribly, and it was painful for all of us, but I let her experience that so that hopefully, she would remember that pain and be more careful. I did that because I loved her and I didn't want her to experience MORE pain when it really did get stolen. Likewise, when we are disobedient or wicked, God let's us feel the painful consequences of our choices because he's hoping that we will learn that happiness only comes through Him and that we will turn back and be righteous so that we can be happy. The sooner we learn that wickedness brings only misery, the less misery we have to experience, but imagine that we sin and experience misery from the wickedness, then because we never learn that there is a better way, a happy way, we spend our whole lives in misery not knowing that we could have truly been happy, that's the tragedy right there. The IM teaches "The Lord loves all people but cannot tolerate sin. Although Helaman 15:4 states that the Lord hated the Lamanites 'because their deeds have been evil continually,' Samuel is an example of the many Lamanites who were taught the gospel message and gained God's favor once they were converted. Elder Russell M. Nelson addresses the subject of God's love for those who sin: 'Does this mean the Lord does not love the sinner? Of course not. Divine love is infinite and universal. The Savior loves both saints and sinners. The Apostle John affirmed, 'We love him, because he first loved us.' And Nephi upon seeing in vision the Lord's mortal ministry declared: '... Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.' We know the expansiveness of the Redeemer's love because He died that all who die might live again." 

15:5-17 - Samuel, being a Lamanite, is using his own people's conversion to demonstrate the fact that even those that God "hated" has been able to repent and live lives of valiant righteousness. The Lamanites "do walk circumspectly before God, and they observe to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments according to the law of Moses," and the do so "with unwearied diligence that they may bring the remainder of their brethren to the knowledge of the truth." How did they do that? How did the Lamanites with all their false traditions and rampant wickedness turn from their wicked ways to lives of devotion to God? In an October 2012 general conference address entitled "Converted unto the Lord" Elder David A. Bednar teaches "Samuel the Lamanite identified five basic elements in becoming converted unto the Lord: 1. believing in the teachings and prophecies of the holy prophets as they are recorded in the scriptures, 2. exercising faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, 3. repenting, 4. experiencing a mighty change of heart, and 5. becoming 'firm and steadfast in the faith.' This is the pattern that leads to conversion." If we remember, the sons of Mosiah used the scriptures to teach the Lamanites the gospel, and many believed. The IM quotes President Ezra Taft Benson as teaching "Social, ethical, cultural, or educational converts will not survive under the heat of the day unless their taproots go down to the fulness of the gospel which the Book of Mormon contains." I really like when he said "social, ethical, cultural or educational converts" because I hadn't thought about it before, but social converts, those who join the church to be part of the group, ethical converts, those who join because they like what we stand for, cultural converts, those who join because that's what their society does, or educational converts (and this is my favorite) those who join because it all makes logical sense to them, this is not enough, this is not enough to keep the commandments when faced with temptation. And interestingly, there are many who would appear to be rock solid members who are still in those categories of not fully converted, I know that I was there even though I had been active in the church again for like 6 years. Just a side note about the Book of Mormon containing the fullness of the gospel, in the book "The Infinite Atonement" Hugh Nibley is quoted as teaching "It has often been claimed that the Book of Mormon cannot contain the 'fullness of the gospel,' since it does not have temple ordinances.' He then responds, 'As a matter of fact they are everywhere in the book if we know where to look for them, and the dozen or so discourses on the Atonement in the Book of Mormon are replete with temple imagery." I really liked that when I heard it the first time, I thought that it was quite profound, because I've thought the same thing many times, pretty much every time I heard the phrase "the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of the gospel," I thought "what about the temple?" So yeah, I really liked that. Anyway, there is one aspect of the Lamanite conversion that I thought was profound and that is "that they have buried their weapons of war, and they fear to take them up lest by any means they should sin." I know that we've heard this before, but this time it hit me that they didn't say "ok we'll only fight to defend ourselves," or "ok, I'm not going to fight anymore, but I'm still going to keep my sword right next to my bed." That would be like saying "ok I'm not going to sleep with my boyfriend anymore, but we're not going to break up," or "I'm going to go on a diet, but I'm going to keep ice cream in the freezer." These are all ways to set ourselves up for failure, I know we've discussed that the need for these particular Lamanites to give up the right to defend themselves was very specific to them, but they buried their weapons. Buried weapons take much time, energy, and effort to retrieve, buried weapons are exposed to the elements and rust and canker easily, making them unusable. They not only made the promise, but they made it so that they could keep the promise, like so many things is our lives, when we decide to do something, we need to prepare ourselves for success. For instance, the Lamanites didn't wait until there was an incoming enemy before they decided to not fight back, they decided and prepared to execute their decision long before the opportunity arose to make it happen. Because I'm working on not complaining so much or getting caught up in drama, I have to condition myself to recognize when a conversation is going that way and then either stop my involvement in it, or turn it into a positive direction. It's just a little something that I'm working on. Lastly, in verse 15 Samuel tells the wicked Nephites that if the unbelieving Lamanites "had the mighty works been shown unto them which have been shown unto you, yea, unto them who have dwindled in unbelief because of the traditions of their fathers, ye can see of yourselves that they never would again have dwindled in unbelief." This is a comparison statement but I like it because it gives some perspective. Sometimes it's nice to see that what you're feeling or thinking is rational or acceptable based on the standards of someone else, if that makes sense.