They Might Be Giants - Moses 7:13-19

7:13 - All the people are being taught the gospel by Enoch except the people of Canaan, and presumably those who believed in what he said went to live in the congregated place with the other righteous people. Of course, probably most people rejected the gospel which led to the people of God having enemies. It’s interesting because it never says that Enoch is a warrior by trade or experience, and he doesn’t have a superior military mind where he sees strategy everywhere and is cleverer than everyone else. Enoch military strength comes from his faith in God. And he didn’t lead the people of God to slaughter all his enemies. In fact, listen to the words used here to describe the situation, “so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them.” It doesn’t say that Enoch led the people of God into battle against their enemies, it says that their enemies came to them while Enoch was their leader, spiritually and temporally presumably. There is no description of battle, but instead Enoch “spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness.” It reminds me of the end of the movie Avatar when the Na’vi were being slaughtered by the humans because the humans had better weapons and then the earth came started to defend itself against the humans as well and all the animals came and started “neutralizing” the humans and the plants and everything. It is such an interesting concept to think about, and it makes complete sense but because I can’t think of a time when I’ve seen natural forces come around to defeat an enemy of God, it is so foreign to me. The IM quotes Elder Bruce R. McConkie as teaching, “Faith is power; by faith the worlds were made; nothing is impossible to those who have faith. If the earth itself came rolling into existence by faith, surely a mere mountain can be removed by that same power.” It’s like when the prophet Nephi summoned a famine instead of allowing war to hassle the people because they were wicked, or when the Camp of Zion had their enemies right across from them in the night and a storm came and pushed the enemies away. We think about Book of Mormon battle strategy and all the amazing lessons that we can learn from that when it comes to combat, but something that this account contributes to that isn’t necessarily addressed in many other places is God’s ability to defend his people by Himself. The moving of mountains, the earthquakes, the rivers and oceans, all the animals, and the whirlwinds, all that is controlled by God alone, we have nothing to do with it and it’s far superior in power than anything humans can do. 7:14-19 – Another natural occurring event is mentioned even though Enoch is not attributed to having caused it by the power of faith, which is “There also came up a land out of the depth of the sea,” and the people were so afraid of the power of God in his people that they “fled and stood afar off and went upon the land which came up out of the depth of the sea,” and this includes “the giants of the land.” So it seems that more land was created “out of the sea” which could just mean lava creating land like it does naturally, but I’m not sure, it could have been an earthquake that changed the landscape. This new land must have seemed like a good buffer zone for the enemies of God to get away from God’s people because they were afraid of them, so they went there and the people of God seems to have remained in the original land. The enemies of God’s people had “a curse” placed upon them, which we can assume means that they were deprived of the Spirit, which is what the Lamanites were cursed with in the Book of Mormon. These enemies fell into a violent society and after they went into the newly created land “from that time forth there were wars and bloodshed among them; but the Lord came and dwelt with his people, and the dwelt in righteousness.” The people of God were “blessed upon the mountains… and did flourish. And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.” Whenever I heard this story when I was younger, I always thought “well of course everyone was righteous, it’s easy to be good when you’re rich.” It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized just how Christ-like a society has to be to have all their citizens be equal in their material goods. It seems at this point, now that the righteous and the wicked were physically separated, Enoch stopped trying to preach to the others and just focused on teaching “unto the people of God.” And Enoch with his people “built a city that was called the City of Holiness, even Zion.”