Week 26 - Looking Back

Want an interesting study in interpersonal skills? Then you should read the drama that plays out between Mornoni and Pahoran. Lots of things to be learned from them, that’s for sure. After spending weeks and weeks and weeks in the book of Alma, we reached the finish line on a sad note. Moroni died at about the age of 43. He spent approximately the last five years of his life enjoying a peaceful retirement. He had led the Nephite army for about thirteen years before that. He taught us so much.

At the end of Alma, the Nephite nation was ravaged by war with the Lamanites and civil war between the king-men and freemen. The book of Helaman reveals a new threat, much more insidious, lurking within the fabric of Nephite society. It was the rise of a secret combination known as the Gadianton robbers. Mormon declared, “This Gadianton did prove the overthrow, yea, almost the entire destruction of the people of Nephi” (Helaman 2:13).

Up to this point, there were times when the Nephites were righteous and times when they were wicked. Now, they go back and forth between the two so often that it can be confusing. And, for the first time, the Lamanites were often more righteous than the Nephites. One of the most memorable prophets, in fact, was a Lamanite named Samuel.

The book of Helaman ends just before the birth of Jesus Christ. Pres. Benson taught that “the record of the Nephite history just prior to the Savior’s visit reveals many parallels to our own day as we anticipate the Savior’s second coming.” Realizing the power that the Gadianton robbers had during that time is pretty scary when you stop to think about the influence that is wielded in high places not only in our country but throughout the world by organized crime, drug cartels, gangs, terrorist groups, etc. We only have to look to our southern border to see horrific violence in the country of Mexico because of powerful drug cartels and corruption in law enforcement and government. Wickedness that has found its way into high places threatens not only the citizenry, but those men and women who represent them who would dare oppose such flagrant evil. There can be no question that these “secret combinations” exist for the sole purpose of getting gain – no matter what the cost to others. Elder Russell M. Ballard stated, “If we are not careful, today’s secret combinations can obtain power and influence just as quickly and just as completely as they did in Book of Mormon times. Do you remember the pattern? The secret combinations began among the ‘more wicked part’ of society, but eventually ‘seduced the more part of the righteous’ until the whole society was polluted (see Helaman 6:38).”

Quotes from the week:

One day…I lost consciousness of my surroundings and thought I had passed to the Other Side. I found myself standing with my back to a large and beautiful lake, facing a great forest of trees. …I began to explore, and soon I found a trail through the woods which seemed to have been used very little, and which was almost obscured by grass. I followed this trail, and after I had walked for some time and had traveled a considerable distance through the forest, I saw a man coming towards me. I became aware that he was a very large man, and I hurried my steps to reach him, because I recognized him as my grandfather. In mortality he weighed over three hundred pounds, so you may know he was a large man. I remember how happy I was to see him coming. I had been given his name and had always been proud of it.

“When Grandfather came within a few feet of me, he stopped. His stopping was an invitation for me to stop. Then—and this I would like the boys and girls and young people never to forget—he looked at me very earnestly and said: ‘I would like to know what you have done with my name.’ Everything I had ever done passed before me as though it were a flying picture on a screen—everything I had done. Quickly this vivid retrospect came down to the very time I was standing there. My whole life had passed before me. I smiled and looked at my grandfather and said: ‘I have never done anything with your name of which you need be ashamed.’

“He stepped forward and took me in his arms, and as he did so, I became conscious again of my earthly surroundings. My pillow was as wet as though water had been poured on it—wet with tears of gratitude that I could answer unashamed. I have thought of this many times, and I want to tell you that I have been trying, more than ever since that time, to take care of that name. So I want to say to the boys and girls, to the young men and women, to the youth of the Church and all the world: Honor your fathers and your mothers. Honor the names that you bear, because some day you will have the privilege and the obligation of reporting to them (and to your Father in heaven) what you have done with their name” (Pres.George Albert Smith, Improvement Era, Mar. 1947, 139).

*****

“Someone once said you can’t visually tell the difference between a strand of cobweb and a strand of powerful cable—unless stress is put on the strand. Our testimonies are that way, and for most of us, the days of stress for our testimonies have already begun. It may not be the death of a loved one. We might not yet have been asked to give up something that is really precious to us, though the time for such a test may well come to us by and by. Our current stress is more likely to come in the form of overpowering temptations, which show us that a shallow acceptance of the gospel does not have the power to cope with the full fury of the powers of darkness. Perhaps there is a mission call to a place of illness and disappointment, when we had planned on a mission to a place of unbounded opportunity. Or perhaps there are too many questions to which our limited knowledge simply has no answer, and those who claim to know more than we do taunt us with what appears to persuasive certainty.

“When those times come, our testimonies must be more than the cobweb strands of a fair-weather faith. They need to be like strands of cable, powerful enough to resist the shafts of him who would destroy us. In our days of stress and trouble, we must be build ‘upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, …that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea his shafts in the whirlwind, …and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you, …because of the rock upon which ye are built’ (Helaman 5:12).” (Elder Bruce C. Hafen, The Believing Heart, 21-22).

*****

“Pride causes us to become overly concerned, as we compare ourselves with others, about how intelligent we think we are, the brand of our jeans or other clothing—the ‘costly apparel’ we wear, to what organizations we belong, on which side of town we live, how much money we have, what our race or nationality is, what kind of car we drive, even to what church we belong, how much education we have been privileged to acquire, and on and on and on.

In the scriptures there are many indications that pride has risen to destroy individuals, nations, and in some cases even the Church itself. …It has been calculated that no fewer than thirty times throughout the Book of Mormon the cycles of prosperity and peace were destroyed, principally by the effects of human pride.” -- Elder Joe J. Christensen