Tag: Helaman

I notice that as Mormon enumerates potential cursed he sticks to those he has observed in his time and he goes from the lightest to the most impactful. All the curses relative to wealth or fortune fall below the curse to be cut off from the presence of the Lord. Others might have considered the…

Nephi was known to be righteous and to have spoken out against wickedness so that the people sought him out to end the famine even though few if any knew that he had called down the famine in the first place. I’m sure Nephi pled privately with the Lord for famine to replace war. Few…

When the Lord have Nephi the sealing power and explicitly told him that he had power to call down destruction on the people he must have known that avoiding the destruction of his brethren was the greatest motivation Nephi could have. That was why Nephi would be uniquely passionate about inviting the people to repent…

The five who went to see about the judge weren’t believers, they were opportunists. They ran to the judgement seat expecting to prove Nephi wrong but confident that they would know one way or another of he was a prophet. They are the type of people who would have believed Jeremiah as soon as they…

I just realized why Nephi was given to prophesy about the murder of the chief judge – it was an immediately verifiable prophecy to reinforce the prophecy concerning the Messiah that couldn’t be immediately verified. This was a parallel to the prophecies of Jeremiah about the fall of Jerusalem and the coming Messiah. I also…

I imagine that Nephi felt the great stories that he did because of things he learned as he was returning from the land in the north. He likely heard stories about how the government was being run and about the price of Zerahemla (and probably other places too). His stories didn’t come simply because he…

The difference in the effectiveness of preaching righteousness compared to using military power is obvious. Moroni was able to defend and retake their land but it only made the Lamanites careful or timid, not friendly. Moronihah was able to retake half the land that had been lost but no more. On the other hand, the…

I had always assumed that when Nephi yielded up the judgement seat to Cezoram it was he who chose his replacement, like when Alma choose Nephihah. Tonight I considered other alternatives. Nephi might have called for an election or vote of confidence as he was finding it hard to govern a wicked people. Alternatively the…

Eventually the Nephites recognized that their wickedness had made them week like the Lamanites and that they had lost any protection from the Lord. I look at the events this year and it prices the same thing about the United States. We are no better than any other country and in many ways worse than…

Even though they weren’t at war with the Lamanites the Nephites found themselves with increasing divisions. Eventually many moved to the land northward. That would reduce the pressure but it wouldn’t solve the fundamental problems of pride that were driving the division. That’s where we are in this country – we have great divisions and…