Our Own Strength

In the third and fourth chapter of First Nephi, there is an interesting account of the return of the brothers to Jerusalem and their acquisition of the brass plates. Yes, this is a familiar story, but I think that some of the details in it warrant further discussion.

Background

In the first part of the Book of Mormon, Lehi, a prophet in Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah, is commanded to leave the city. The Lord knew that the time prophesied by Jeremiah (and Isaiah, and others...) was about to enfold. Lehi, having seen in vision the destruction of Jerusalem, gathers his partially-willing family and supplies, and heads out of town into the wilderness bordering the Red Sea.

Let's assume for a minute that "the borders near the shore of the Red Sea" simply refers to the Gulf of Aqaba, a jut of the Red Sea on the east side of the Sinai peninsula. This is a distance of almost 180 miles. When Laban and Lemuel complain that it is hard, they have a point -- it's a significant journey each way! Lehi reminds his sons that the Lord commanded it. This great distance also gives some insight into Sariah's fears in chapter 6.


View Larger Map

Nephi accepts the assignment on simple faith, believing that the Lord will make it possible for them to accomplish the task.

The Interesting Question

Now comes the real question.  The Lord knew that they would need the plates as they were leaving Jerusalem.  Why then did he not have them get the plates while still there, or while they were closer to the city?

Here's my speculation on this:

• We read of Laban's character - he was a thief, and an attempted murderer.  It may have been out of safety that the family should be established out in the wilderness before the attempt could be made.
• The family's mindset needed to be sufficiently separated from their life at Jerusalem.
• And my favorite answer: Nephi needed to learn how to rely on the Lord, how to receive spiritual guidance, and needed to learn something about himself.

Attempt 1 - All we have to do is ask....

When they thought it would be hard, they were probably only thinking of the journey, and not considering that getting the plates might be the hard part.   "Oh, so we have to do a long, grueling journey, to pick up the plates from someone."

It seems that they gave very little thought to their first attempt to get the plates, relying on chance alone to determine the unlucky one.  Even Nephi, it seems, doesn't put any spiritual energy at all into it.

Of course, Laban doesn't go for it, and sends his guards to kill Laman, who high-tails it out of there.

This makes me think of the First Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War.  The common belief was that the battle was going to be easy (a laugh even), and that the Confederate Army wouldn't put up much resistance.  Some of the wealthy Washington elites, including some congressmen and their families, came to picnic and watch the battle!



The Union Army was defeated soundly, and had to retreat quickly (and were blocked by the panicked civilians in their carriages).  They were green, they were raw, they didn't consider the rebels to be much of a challenge.  They tuck their tail between their legs and head back to Washington in disgrace.

Laban turned out to be far more reluctant to give them the plates, and far more dangerous than they had ever imagined.  The sons lick their wounds, they are depressed and about to return in shame, when Nephi comes up with a plan.

Attempt 2 - My Way (good, my way... which way's my way??)

It seems like a reasonable plan, a good old-fashioned swap.  Nephi knows he's on the Lord's errand, and uses this fact to make the case for his plan.  It takes some convincing, but Laman and Lemuel (surprisingly!) come on board.  However, even though they're on the Lord's errand, they still only rely on their own strength.  When it doesn't work (not surprisingly, considering Laban's character), Laman and Lemuel go ballistic.

Perhaps up until this point, the idea of going back to Jerusalem must have seemed like a real possibility to Laman and Lemuel.  Now their family property is gone, and the avenue of return is truly closed.  (It's brought up periodically later until they actually board the boat, but after this they know there's nothing left to which they can return.)  They take out their grief and anger and fear on Sam and Nephi, and act in disbelief to the message of the heavenly messenger.  They honestly believe now that there is no way to succeed.

Attempt 3 - The Lord's Way

Nephi goes this time, with no specific plan other than to follow the Spirit.  His temporal avenues gone, knowing no way he could accomplish the task using his strength, he must rely completely on the Lord.  The Lord prepares the way, and he succeeds.

Nephi previously had prayed and received an answer about leaving Jerusalem.  The Lord had softened his heart.  Here he learns to rely on, and to listen to, the Lord's direction as he is proceeding forth in faith.

He also learns about the imperative nature of the scriptures, how necessary they are for our (and our posterity's) spiritual survival.  Interestingly enough, even Laman and Lemuel attach value to them - one of the laundry list of complaints the Lamanites held for centuries against the Nephites was that the plates were stolen from them.

His will to follow the Lord deepens, and is tested.  It becomes far more than the journey to pick up some plates; it is the making of a man of God, willing to submit to the Lord's will and able to walk into the unknown.

Lesson From This

I think the first lesson from this is: seek the Lord first.  When I get complacent about receiving direction, or act faithlessly or pridefully, I set myself up for failure.

A wise man does not willingly walk blindly into a minefield, after seeing the danger signs.  He reads the signs carefully, learns where the clear path is, makes a detailed map of it, and follows it carefully.  A foolish man walks out without careful consideration and acts surprised when he is caught.

I live in a world with spiritual mines all around me.  Complacency and pride are foolish.  I have seen the danger signs.  I have a map presented for me.  I can choose to ignore it, or to make blind assumptions, or to consult it infrequently.  I can see others proclaiming a shorter, easier path, and follow them instead of the map of safety.

Another lesson is this: the Lord has a plan for me.  My trials, my weaknesses, my talents, my strengths are given to me for a reason.  That reason is not obvious.  That reason is obscured from my limited view, as those challenges are what builds me, what helps me to move forward.  Some situations I may have will seem redundant, or unnecessary, or overly difficult, or overwhelmingly painful, but the Lord can and will see me through, but only as I submit to His will.

Modern Tools For Understanding Isaiah: Wikipedia and Google Maps!

I was reading through Second Nephi again (the Isaiah chapters), and found that my mind was glossing over it.  I wasn't getting anything out of it.  We know that Isaiah's words are important:

And there are many things which have been spoken by Isaiah which may be likened unto you, because ye are of the house of Israel.

The Lord Himself asked us to study Isaiah:

And now, behold, I say unto you, that ye ought to search these things. Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah.

I find, however, that my mind wanders and I tend to just push through it.  And yet we're supposed to rejoice over them:

And now I write some of the words of Isaiah, that whoso of my people shall see these words may lift up their hearts and rejoice for all men.

How can we rejoice over something we do not understand?  Nephi said that even those one generation removed from living at Jerusalem had trouble understanding his words:

For behold, Isaiah spake many things which were hard for many of my people to understand

They had Nephi there to give them a frame of reference!  What hope do we have?

I was musing on this problem while reading the 20th chapter of 2 Nephi (Isaiah 10).  The chapter heading says, "The destruction of Assyria is a type of the destruction of the wicked at the Second Coming".  While that is interesting, it doesn't help with verses such as:

9 Is not Calno as Carchemish? Is not Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samaria as Damascus?

The problem with this verse is context.  With no context, it's akin to taking one of those word-game tests in school (apple is to helicopter as golf club is to ....?).  Meaningless.

It occurred to me that I could look these things up in Wikipedia.  They are names of cities in Syria that were destroyed by the Assyrian army.  I suppose you could use a World War II analogy:  "Isn't Amsterdam as Warsaw?"  (both taken over by the German army)  Or: "Isn't Hiroshima as Nagasaki?", "Is not Dresden as Tokyo?" - far away cities completely decimated by the incoming forces.  The news of the destruction of these cities and the ruthlessness of the Assyrian invaders was spread far and wide, causing a panic.

The same context problem shows up later in the chapter, starting in verse 28:

28 He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages.
29 They are gone over the passage; they have taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramath is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled.
30 Lift up the voice, O daughter of Gallim; cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth.
31 Madmenah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee.
32 As yet shall he remain at Nob that day; he shall shake his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

I looked up these name in Wikipedia - I wasn't familiar with any of them.  They are names of towns along the invasion route from Assyria to Jerusalem, each closer than the last.  I tagged each of them in my scriptures with the relative distance from Jerusalem.  I then had the idea to plot these places on Google Maps.



View Isaiah in a larger map

There you have it!  The Assyrian army is invading, the people are scared, and these "lines in the sand" are falling, one by one before the conquerors.

"The passage" is a crossable point over the ravine just south of Michmash.  The ravine's walls look pretty difficult for an army to cross anywhere but over "the passage".

Nob is right by the Mount of Olives, adjacent to the city.  Can you imagine the panic of the inhabitants of Jerusalem?  Here they've swept across vast portions of the country, and have reached the outskirts of the capital city.  Assyria's army is figuratively "shaking its hand" or "waving its raised fist" at the city.

The army taunts the people (who are under the rule of a good king, Hezekiah), as it says in 2 Kings 18:

28 Then Rab-shakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and spake, saying, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria:
29 Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand:
30 Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.
33 Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
34 Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand?
35 Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?
36 But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king’s commandment was, saying, Answer him not.

Hezekiah goes into the temple, and seeks the Lord's help (chapter 19):

1 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.
4 It may be the Lord thy God will hear all the words of Rab-shakeh (he's the general of the Assyrian army sent to intimidate them), whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God; and will reprove the words which the Lord thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left.
5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

Isaiah's response from the Lord:

6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
7 Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.
10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Hezekiah prayed again:

14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.
15 And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.
19 Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only.

Isaiah's response from the Lord, a great promise:

20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.
27 But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.
28 Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.
32 Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.
33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.
34 For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.

The Lord fights the battle, and the army retreats and goes home:

35 And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.

Wow, after all that, and as the Lord said, not a shot was fired into the city!

So what's the point for us?  We live in an age where there are wars, and rumors of wars, and where men's hearts shall fail them out of fear.  We live in an age where there is ruthless mocking of those who have faith, and there is an incoming tide of filth.  It's scary!  We've seen what has happened to other people distant to us, and now we're seeing it approaching our doors.

The Lord will fight our battles, if we put our trust in Him, and if we live as He would have us live.  Satan's bounds are set.  We can take courage - we know that God will protect us.

Wow, what was once a mind-numbingly painful chapter to read has become a powerful chapter for me! Thank you, Wikipedia and Google Maps!

Repentance

In the state of Pennsylvania there lies a small town called Centralia. It was a quiet, peaceful town, and had been blessed with tremendous potential: a large anthracite coal seam ran for miles underneath its borders. It had everything it needed to be successful, and the townsfolk had begun to tap into this vast economic treasure. 

One day, however, with an excess of town garbage, a determination was made to clean up the landfill by dumping the garbage into an abandoned open pit mine and setting it alight. This was done with the approval of the town council in spite of the dangers they knew it could pose.

The main part of the fire took days to extinguish, but the town failed to put out a part of the fire that had spread down into the coal seam. Although there were some signs of the fire burning beneath the town (carbon monoxide, smoke in random places, periodic stench of fire), and there were some futile attempts to deal with the problem, no one really thought much of it, and the effects were largely ignored.

Nearly fifteen years later, the gas station owner lowered his dipstick down into the underground gas tank, and thought that it felt hot. He lowered a thermometer, and was surprised when he saw its temperature: 175 degrees! The matter became even more of a concern a year later, when a giant sinkhole collapsed under the feet of a young boy, who was fortunately rescued.

With the danger now everywhere around them, smoke and carbon monoxide pouring out of cracks in the pavement, the town was laid waste and its residents all were compelled to leave. Its potential had been destroyed by first carelessness and then by complacency - ignoring the problem until it had grown far too late.

Some of us have started, through our carelessness, or even through explicit defiance of the principles which we know are right, a blaze within us that burns our soul, a little each day. Some days we do our best to ignore its effects and the pain it causes.  We see its effects spilling out of us, its toxic fumes being seen as anger and impatience with others. This turns into unrighteous judgment and hypocrisy, and eventually to complete disavowal of the principles that we ignored to get us in this mess.

We may realize the problem and make token efforts to quench the flames. While these efforts may help and seem like they have solved the problem for a time, the signs of the unresolved issue keep returning.

The only hope to resolve this problem is a price of unfathomable cost. The entirety of the problem must be excavated, just be laid open, so that the quenching balm may be administered. Concealment only continues the spread of the fire.  Our only hope is the healing balm of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He has paid the terrible cost, he provides the tools.

Our limited view sees the outside layer - "Do you mean we'll have to raze all of the buildings in town to open up our path to the coal seam?" - our own embarrassment at the situation, and the humiliation we may endure as the problem is out in the open. Yes, the only solution is His solution. No half measure will suffice. True repentance requires complete honesty, and complete abandonment of the practices that caused the problem in the first place.

The length of the repentance process depends on the size of the problem, but we must accept His timetable. We must acknowledge that His ways are the right ways, and seek no more to rebel against those principles we know are right.

I know this is true. I know that the Lord heals us, and helps us rebuild after the repentance is complete. He will remake us into something beautiful, something we cannot yet imagine. Trust Him!