Helalman 9
This whole experience for Nephi is very interesting to me because it immediately precedes the Lord giving him the sealing power. He was obviously very spiritually in tune before all of this, but after the experience he was ready to receive the unbounded confidence of the lord because of his desire to do whatever was asked of him – what is it that changed? (I’m sure it was one of those minute final steps – it was not a great change of heart.) I wonder if he felt abandoned at any point or if this was simply an exercise in leaving Nephi to push onward through challenge after challenge without special instruction or assurance from the Lord. The Lord had not instructed Nephi to go out among the Nephites. Nephi had simply been praying and found a crowd gathered. He had said what the Spirit dictated, but it was not because he had received a call from the Lord to speak. He was then arrested and charged with conspiracy and he knew it was because of the wickedness of the people, but he did not cower or blame the Lord for abandoning him.
If the judges had not been more interested in convicting Nephi they might well have allowed the five who ran to be convicted for the murder. This is apparently how their system of justice worked – the judges used any crime as reason to prosecute those they had grievances with regardless of any real evidence or guilt. Their plan was to convict Nephi of consiracy and obstruction if he claimed not to know who had killed the judge, and conspiracy if he knew who the murderer was. They were thwarted by Seantum declaring that Nephi could not have known.
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