Nothing Without Adversity - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Nine (Mosiah 9)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/9?lang=eng

Now that we have been introduced to King Limhi and his people, our narrator/abridger Moroni takes us back to how Limhi’s grandfather Zeniff brought a group of Nephites and settled in this Lamanite-controlled land. The story of the three generations that follow span the next 14 chapters, 16 if you count the follow-on story of the prophet Alma (the Elder) and the group of people who fled the larger group because of its wicked leadership before Limhi. Apparently a record was kept by Zeniff’s family line (with a separate one kept by Alma) and was ultimately given to King Mosiah, to combine with the larger record handed down from Nephi and his descendants over—at this point—about 500 years.

So as we rewind to Zeniff’s time, we go back from about 120 B.C. (the time of Limhi and Ammon) to 200 B.C. Zeniff starts as a spy on the first expedition to reclaim the land of Nephi, and when he sees good among the Lamanites, he tries to convince the expedition leader not to fall upon the Lamanites in violence, but to seek negotiations with them. The resulting disagreement leads to conflict among the Nephites who were together on the expedition, and after many are killed, Zeniff and the other survivors regroup at their homes in Zarahemla (verses 1-2).

Zeniff still wants to possess the land of Nephi, so he recruits those who are like-minded, and himself leads the next expedition. A telling remark in verse 3 admits that the people are slow to remember the Lord, and therefore meet with famine and other afflictions on their journey.

Once they reach the same place, Zeniff takes a few of his men and goes into the city to meet the Lamanite king, whose name is Laman. The king agrees to let Zeniff’s people possess some of the land and orders his own people on that land to relocate (verses 5-7). We don’t hear about anything King Laman requires in exchange for allowing these Nephites to come in. That should give us an immediate clue that this might be “too good to be true.”

We then learn that King Laman had a plan all along to bring the Nephites into bondage. After 12 years, they have made the lands that they received prosperous. Before the Nephites get to the point where they are also too strong and numerous for the comparatively lazy Lamanites to overpower, Laman stirs up his people to make war with them. The Lamanites’ main objectives are (first) to ensure that they always have the upper hand in strength, and (second) to enrich themselves at the Nephites’ expense by taking the fruits of Nephite prosperity (verses 12-14).

But initially, even though the Lamanites have superior strength and numbers, they cannot overtake the Nephites’ defense of their cities, because the strength of the Lord bolsters the Nephites. The Nephites gather from their farms into the two stronghold cities of Shilom and Lehi-Nephi, Zeniff arms them for battle, and they proceed to inflict on the Lamanites more than ten times the casualties (3,043) that they suffer (279) (verses 15-19). The Nephites successfully fend off the Lamanites—for now. But they still have cause to mourn great loss.

The Nephites’ illusion of being able to live in a world without serious adversity has been rudely overthrown. It sets the scene for the action that will take place between Nephites and Lamanites for the rest of the book. Because of their proximity, they can’t ignore each other. So, for the next 600 years, either they fight one another, or they find a way to transform their relationships from that of enemies to friends. War will be the rule, and transformation the exception, with transformation only possible through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ to hearts open enough to receive it. 

The Nephite Reunion Continues: Sharing Records - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Eight (Mosiah 8)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/8?lang=eng

After Limhi has gathered his people, given them hope, and reminded them of the need to avoid wickedness, he invites Ammon to catch them up on the history they’ve missed of their brothers and sisters in the land of Zarahemla. This includes the heavenly address made to the people three years before by King Benjamin (in Mosiah 1-5) about the power of Jesus Christ and the ability of the people to be transformed in His name (verses 1-3).

Once the people return home, Limhi shares his people’s record with Ammon to catch him up on their history. Additionally, Limhi tells Ammon about a 43-person expedition Limhi previously sent to find Zarahemla (in hopes of getting help to deliver his people from Lamanite bondage). This expedition did not locate Zarahemla, but instead came upon a vast land of desolation and destruction. Limhi regales Ammon with the account: bones of men and animals of innumerable scope scattered everywhere, ruins of buildings, and interesting metal artifacts (verses 4-8).

Among these artifacts, in addition to armor and weapons, there were 24 gold plates with an engraved record (verse 9). Limhi presumes that this record will tell the tale of this unknown civilization and their destruction (verse 12). Limhi has a keen sense for the value of such a record, given the fact that he and his people have learned hard lessons from the wickedness of his father’s reign. He seems to instinctively grasp that the translation of this record will have great importance for the Nephites. Limhi may be especially desirous to benefit from this record because it appears possible that when his grandfather (Zeniff) left the main body of Nephites, he and his people may not have been diligent in taking copies of the then-existing sacred records with them.

Limhi asks Ammon if he is able to interpret languages in order to translate the 24 plates, for none of his people had been able to. Ammon says that he can’t, but tells Limhi that King Mosiah can because he is in possession of something he calls “interpreters.” According to Ammon, a seer can be directed by God to look into the interpreters to translate any kind of ancient record (verses 12-14).

When Limhi responds that a seer is even greater than a prophet, Ammon follows by saying that a seer is, by definition, also a prophet and a revelator. By him, “secret things shall be made manifest, and hidden things shall come to light.” There is no greater gift among men (verses 15-17).

From other passages in the Book of Mormon, we get a better understanding of what these interpreters actually were. In Mosiah 28:11-14, we learn that they are two stones fastened into the rims of a bow. In the record eventually translated from the 24 plates, known as the Book of Ether, we learn (in Ether 3:23-28) that the Lord provided a promise to the long-destroyed civilization that the Book of Ether would come forth by the aid of the same interpreters they had, which were known by the name of Urim and Thummim. (See here for a brief Internet description of the Urim and Thummim in the Bible.)

We don’t know how the Urim and Thummim went from the people in the Book of Ether (whom we will later know as Jaredites) to King Mosiah, but it is possible that these interpreters came to Mosiah’s grandfather (the first King Mosiah) when the Nephites learned of this past civilization from an inscripted stone that they brought to Mosiah’s grandfather for translation (perhaps the Urim and Thummim were found along with this inscripted stone) in Omni 1:20-21. The Urim and Thummim are ultimately packed in with the sacred record (the plates) along with some other objects by the final Book of Mormon recordkeeper Moroni around 400 A.D., to be found 1400 some years later (in 1827) by Joseph Smith.

The chapter ends with King Limhi expressing a contrast between the marvelous nature of the Lord’s workings and the tragic foolishness of men and women who reject wisdom and understanding, and thus deny themselves the benefits of the miracles that the Lord accomplishes (verses 20-21).

Reclaiming Lost Brothers - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Seven (Mosiah 7)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/7?lang=eng

Mosiah, the new Nephite king and high priest, does not forget those of his people who had gone back to the land of Nephi (about 80 years before, or 200 B.C.) in hopes of reclaiming lands from which they were driven during the reign of his grandfather (who was also named Mosiah). After three years as king during a time of peace, Mosiah sends 16 strong men on an expedition to learn about what has happened to these people, partly because the other Nephites have been inquiring about their fate (verses 1-2).

The leader of this expedition is a man named Ammon (one of the people of Zarahemla, or Mulekites, whom the Nephites discovered when coming to the land they now inhabit), and it takes the group 40 days to enter the area where their lost brethren have settled. Ammon takes three of his brothers with him to investigate more directly, with the others based at a hillside camp. Ammon’s party happens to come upon the king of the lost Nephites outside the gates of his city, which is known as Shilom. Not knowing who they are, and fearing for his safety, the king has his guard imprison Ammon and his brothers. Two days later, they are brought before the king to explain themselves (verses 4-8).

When Ammon reveals to the king that he is from the land of Zarahemla, the king is relieved and rejoices. The king tells Ammon that his name is Limhi. Limhi reveals himself as a person of great faith, as he immediately perceives that Ammon’s arrival signals the deliverance of his people from the bondage they face at the hands of the Lamanites. What bondage? More about that later. Limhi’s first order of business is to release his four prisoners and treat them and the 12 they will retrieve from the hillside camp as honored guests (verses 9-16).

The next order of business is for Limhi to gather his people together at the temple that they have presumably built during their time in the land (verse 17). It is interesting to consider that our “narrator” Mormon segues pretty directly from the account of King Benjamin addressing his people at the temple located in Zarahemla (Mosiah 1-5) to the account of King Limhi addressing his people (three years later) at the temple located in Shilom. 

What’s the common thread? Righteous leaders recognize the value of gathering near temples, where physical closeness to the structures betoken symbolic closeness to the covenants made within those structures connecting people to their God. And when something momentous is taking place in the shared history of a people (leadership transition, opportunity to escape bondage), the temple is where a leader can bring the people to forge shared commitment to a course of action. Benjamin’s people committed to becoming the children of Christ. Limhi’s people will focus on the need to achieve temporal freedom in order to improve their spiritual state as well.

As King Limhi speaks to his people by the temple, he recounts to his people—and to the rescue expedition led by Ammon—some of the tragic experiences that they have endured. Limhi’s grandfather Zeniff was the leader of the initial group who set out to return to the land of Nephi. The Lamanite king (named Laman) who Zeniff encountered when he entered the land preyed upon Zeniff’s overzealousness to inherit the land. King Laman made a treaty with Zeniff granting him and his people a place to live and possess, but Limhi says that this was part of a deception on Laman’s part to lure Zeniff’s people into bondage (verses 21-22). The rest of the story will unfold in the following chapters.

King Limhi doesn’t dwell on Lamanite treachery. Rather, he focuses on two things. First, his gratitude for the Lord’s blessings, with (as mentioned above) the arrival of Ammon’s expedition as a sign of deliverance. And second, the wickedness that brought his people’s afflictions upon them.

He helps his people understand that the Lord’s intervention is part of a much larger pattern. He does not abandon His covenant people, despite their own failings. This was the case with the Israelites in Egypt who were led back to Israel, and it was also the case with Lehi’s family who were led out of Jerusalem to the promised land in the New World (verses 19-20). Such deliverance points to the even more significant deliverance we all can find through the forgiveness of sin Christ provides as we have faith in Him and repent.

Limhi is very clear about which sinful act propelled his people into darkness. It was their inability to hearken unto the Lord’s words, and their willful rejection and murder of a prophet sent by the Lord to testify of the coming of Jesus Christ and their need for salvation from error through Him (verses 25-32). In coming chapters, we will learn of the courage of the prophet Abinadi, the wickedness of Limhi’s father (and Zeniff’s son) King Noah, and the raising up of another prophet (Alma, the first of two by that name) who will carry forward the message of the first.

Limhi’s closing message is that just as the people suffered greatly from their earlier rejection of the Lord, their turning back to the Lord can save them now (verse 33). 

Benjamin Gives Up Earthly Power - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Six (Mosiah 6)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/6?lang=eng

This is a fairly brief chapter. Yet, there are still important points to note.

The first point has to do with recording the names of those who entered into the covenant with the Lord in the previous chapter. As in Mosiah 1 when King Benjamin explains the importance of the various records on the brass and gold plates that keep sacred matters firmly in their minds, and in other places throughout the Book of Mormon, we see that the Lord works according to order. Keeping complete and accurate records of revelations and of individual covenants and ordinances is crucial to ensuring that those things are also recorded in heaven (verse 1). We learn the remarkable fact that every person of age among the Nephites within earshot of King Benjamin had entered into the covenant and taken upon themselves the name of Christ (verse 2). The power of the moment and the strength found in the people’s unity cannot be overstated.

Benjamin does two things before dismissing the gathering of his people (verse 3). The first is that he consecrates his son Mosiah to be king, and gives him immediate temporal charge over the kingdom. Appointing his successor before his death endows the appointment with legitimacy, and it also gives Mosiah the ability to use his father as a resource as he learns to become a king.

The second thing Benjamin does is appoint priests to teach the people, and in particular to follow up with them regarding the importance of remembering and keeping the covenant they made in chapter 5 to keep all of the Lord’s commandments. At its essence, aside from actually administering the ordinances with their accompanying covenants, this is what the priesthood and Church in our day are intended to do. Provide the structure that we need to remember our covenants. The recurring ordinance of the sacrament is at the center of this process in our day. At this time (124 B.C.), the law of Moses remained in effect, so it is likely that recurring sacrifices continued under priesthood authority to remind people of and point them toward the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

I find it interesting that even after giving over the kingdom to Mosiah, Benjamin retains ecclesiastical and spiritual authority to appoint priests. This foreshadows the choice made later in the Book of Mormon by Alma to give up his role as temporal leader and to focus on spiritual leadership. Evidently, Benjamin also believes in the primacy of things spiritual. It is a reminder to us that the priesthood is eternal, and does not end when our responsibilities over worldly things are transferred elsewhere.

Unsurprisingly, Mormon (our narrator) informs us that Mosiah walks in the way of the Lord as his father had taught, and as an example to the people who had all just taken the name of Christ upon them. He also labors for his own sustenance among his people, rather than succumb to a prideful expectation that he is entitled to the fruits of their labors. This heightens the contrast between Mosiah and some who follow him—most notably the wicked King Noah (in Mosiah 11-19).

The Children of Christ - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Five (Mosiah 5)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/5?lang=eng

In these opening chapters of Mosiah, we glimpse something extremely hopeful. That it is possible for sinful men and women to transform themselves. The choice, ultimately, to submit to temptation is ours. And we can fortify ourselves to the point where we are much less inclined to it.

As King Benjamin asks his people whether they believe his words to them, and they respond with a convincing yes, they go beyond an audience that merely accepts a teaching in principle. They are fully committed to the spiritual power of the moment, shown by their proclamation that the Spirit of the Lord “has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (verse 2). The power is such that the people tell Benjamin that because of their faith in what he taught them, God has shown them visions of the future (verses 3-4).

Something marvelous takes place next. The people tell Benjamin that they are willing to enter into a covenant with God. Is the covenant associated with a particular ordinance? Baptism? Something else? The record doesn’t say explicitly. My own feeling is that if the covenant is associated with any ordinance, it is probably beyond baptism, because these people seem like they would have already been baptized given their established patterns of worship. Perhaps it is an ordinance associated with the temple, given that Benjamin in speaking right next to the temple.

Even if we don’t know if an ordinance is part of this covenant, the covenant itself is straightforward. The people agree to do God’s will, and “to be obedient to his commandments in all things…all the remainder of our days” (verse 5). It is pure and total obedience to the Father, of the kind that Jesus showed in carrying out his atoning sacrifice for them and all of us. No equivocation.

In praising his people, Benjamin tells them that through their obedience they will be made free (verse 8). It seems like such a paradox, this idea that following someone else is freedom rather than captivity. Unless we accept the teaching that there is a battle between good and evil going on for our souls, Under this teaching, which has the added benefit of being true(!), the good path is where obedience comes through persuasion from someone who wants us to be happy and to receive everything he has. The evil path is one where we think we are acting perfectly free by “escaping” the obedient, good path, but little do we know we are actually being compelled to act by a miserable being who wants us to dispossess us of all we have so we can be miserable with him. And once we follow that path, we realize that we have weakened ourselves and are prisoners to pain and prone to further weakening unless we make a redoubled effort to get on the good path.

And the rub is this. Every man and woman who comes to earth is a child of a Heavenly Father. We have divinity within us. However, the defining question for each of us once we have come to earth is whether we choose to be a son or daughter of Jesus Christ as well as of Heavenly Father. Becoming the children of Christ, which is what is happening here with the Nephites gathered to hear King Benjamin, means that “your hearts are changed through faith on his name” and “ye are born of him” (verse 7). By covenanting to become like him and being willing to give for others, we actually remove from ourselves the burden of full suffering for our own sins because of what he voluntarily bore. That is part of what being free means, beyond simply being able to choose between two different things. We can be free of sin, free of sorrow, and yes, free of fear. And as we become Christ’s children, we also inherit His name (verse 9). If we don’t take His name, we “must be called by some other name” (verse 10). There is no neutral ground.

As Benjamin finishes speaking to his people, he implores them to retain Christ’s name “written always in your hearts,” to hear and know his voice (verse 12) and be “steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works,” that they may come to know Jesus intimately and that he may “seal you his…that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life” (verse 15). Sounds like a pretty good path to take compared with that other one. To be a Christian, and to embody the characteristics of the best person who ever lived.

Humility and True Commitment Lead to Deep Knowledge - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Four (Mosiah 4)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/4?lang=eng

I’m not sure that there’s a more powerful or speedy response by a people to its spiritual leader in recorded scripture than that of the Nephites under King Benjamin in this chapter. We had seen earlier that the people instinctively responded to Benjamin, but it’s one thing to come to hear the leader speak for a day or two, quite another to make a deep commitment to follow his teachings for the rest of your life.

We get this great show of humility by the Nephites as they fall to the earth after hearing Benjamin share the words from an angel about the absolute necessity of following the gospel of Jesus Christ (verse 1). It seems the people are truly struck by the reality that their choices have consequences, and they want to make the right choices.

Usually, we conceive of repentance as something very personal and private between a single person and the Lord, but here we see that it can also happen in a more communal setting. Presumably many of those gathered had already entered into covenants through baptism, but we in our day can appreciate that recommitment to earlier covenants is critical in dealing with the challenges we constantly face in mortality.

As they recommit, the people are filled with joy and feel peace of conscience. Of course, this assurance in our beliefs is so important in helping us take those next steps along the pathway of faith and righteousness.

At this point, King Benjamin senses that the people are in such a humble and receptive place that he can teach them boldly about things that are critical for them to embrace if they would follow in the footsteps of the Father and the as-yet unborn Jesus. These things include:

• Key qualities that God has (goodness, matchless power, wisdom, patience, long-suffering) and that we need to have for salvation (trust in the Lord, diligence in keeping His commandments, and continuing in faith throughout mortal life) (verse 6).

• Reiterating what the angel told him to relate (in chapter 3) about Christ’s atonement for our sins being the only way to salvation, and our need to repent and sincerely seek God’s forgiveness (verses 7-10).

• Retaining a remission of sins through daily, steadfast prayer and action (verses 11-12). This echoes the “doctrine of Christ” Nephi previously shared more than 400 years before (in 2 Nephi 31:20-21) and that is found in the record Benjamin has kept throughout his life.

• Caring for our children temporally and spiritually, which involves helping direct them away from the devil’s ways of contention and disobedience, and toward the Lord’s ways of love, service and “truth and soberness” (verses 14-15).

• Finding ways to help the needy in our world, rather than finding ways not to help them or to condemn them, under the rationale that we all are ultimately beggars at the feet of God for what we need in life and to reunite ourselves with him despite our tendencies to sin.

Lest Benjamin’s people find themselves overwhelmed by the number of responsibilities he lays at their feet, he leaves them with two guiding principles. They can be summed up as (1) pace yourself and (2) watch yourself. None of us can do everything. One of our Apostles, Elder Neal A. Maxwell, wrote one time (citing author Anne Morrow Lindbergh) that he simply did not have the time or capacity to reach out to everyone to whom his heart responded.

We too must determine those things that are centrally important to accomplish, and recognize that we can only help a little at a time. We can hopefully learn how our actions can inspire others to help a broader circle of people, so that through the ripple effect of our influence we might be able to help more people than we can simply from a time- and energy-limited standpoint. Verse 27 says, “And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.”

King Benjamin Prophesies of Christ - Book of Mosiah, Chapter Three (Mosiah 3)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/3?lang=eng

If you are not familiar with the Book of Mormon and wonder what it really says, the best advice I have for you is to read it. If you read it, you will find that its record-keepers and prophets come back again and again to one central theme: Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Savior of the World, and in charge of the great effort to bring Heavenly Father’s children back to Him and to lift them up to their potential to truly become (in the words of Paul in Romans 8) “joint-heirs” to all the Father has and is.

After King Benjamin winds up the immediate business he has with his people, the Nephites, in making sure they understand his love for them, his concern for the state of their souls and his son Mosiah’s role as their new servant-king, Benjamin speaks in a more intimate way, as though the crowd of thousands that had gathered are a small group of confidants that he has brought together to share a very special secret. “I have things to tell you concerning that which is to come” (verse 1). And these things come from an angel.

For those of us familiar with the story of the Nativity (Christ’s birth) in the Gospel of Luke, verse 3 should alert us to what Benjamin is about to share. The angel tells him that he has come to declare “glad tidings of great joy.” Not surprisingly, those glad tidings are a summation of Jesus’ birth, life, ministry, suffering, death, Resurrection, and judgment—about 125 years before Bethlehem, the manger at the inn, the shepherds and the wise men. The glad tidings also make very explicit reference to Christ’s role as the “Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning” (verse 8), so we understand that Jesus played an active part in the creation of the world on behalf of His Father.

After sharing this testimony of truth, Benjamin relates what the angel tells him about why it is vitally important for the people of the world (which, of course, includes us and other readers from our day). We learn that the physical reality of Christ’s willing sacrifice has some very specific consequences for men and women everywhere. These consequences may seem miraculous, and at times difficult to believe because of their power to overcome the effects of sin and death.

But in sharing these details with Benjamin (who then shares them with his people and with us), the angel approaches the subject in a way that reminds us of Nephi. He is very straightforward and wants to show that we can understand some important things about how the Atonement of Christ works even if we don’t understand all things about it.

One thing the angel explains is that true prophets share the message that salvation comes through Christ by faith and repentance. Other teachings, such as the law of Moses with its various do’s and don’t’s, only have power for us in the sense that they point us toward the Atonement and how we can make it effective in our lives.

The advice the angel gives is a variation on what Jesus Himself taught in Matthew 18 when he placed a child before his disciples and said that whosoever will humble himself as a little child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It includes some particularly powerful counsel in verse 19 that teaches us how to rid ourselves of a rebellious attitude and to receive inspiration from God rather than repel it:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

This is a reminder to us that whatever we think our limited time on this earth is about, at some level it is essentially a contest between good and evil for our allegiance. Our bodily desires are powerful, and will naturally lead us to do things opposed to God’s plan to get us back to Him unless we choose to focus on following the messages He sends us through the Holy Spirit. The great consolation in this somewhat harsh truth (including the fact that choosing good can feel like something “inflicted” upon us because it can be challenging) is that God is sending us communication that can deliver us from evil if we listen.

But the notion that we naturally dwell on neutral ground and can make a leisurely choice between good and evil like deciding where to shop inside a mall is a false one. We are subject to temptation and will succumb to it unless we act on the heavenly inspiration that (thankfully) comes to each man and woman. Through Benjamin, the angel also reassures us that those who go through life without a full recognition of God’s law—whether they die as little children (verse 16) or just are not properly informed about the difference between right and wrong (verse 11)—will find salvation through the sacrifice Jesus makes for us.

The angel then describes for us the consequences that will surely come if we are unable to put off the “natural man” and choose good over evil. He assures us that the “knowledge of a Savior shall spread throughout every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” (verse 20). In a situation where there is general understanding that good and evil exist and are opposed to one another, everyone is accountable.

And then Benjamin (through the angel) is just bearing pure testimony. We will feel the full weight of sin if we don’t repent and turn to Christ. In saying this, Benjamin is following directly in the footsteps of Nephi (in 2 Nephi 33) and Jacob (Jacob 6), who also unfolded a vision of final judgment to us that may seem harsh but is ultimately born from deep love that would have us avoid eternal misery.