In Helaman chapters 1-6, the Lamanites become the righteous and the Nephites the wicked. How does this switch come about? And the new enemy are the Gadianton robbers, who capture the allegiance of many of the Nephites. Things happen fast in the Book of Mormon, a roller coaster of righteousness and wickedness. I used to think it was hard to imagine such reversals and drama in such a short period of time, until we all entered these tumultuous times in our own nation. 

You can also find it on any of these platforms by searching for Meridian Magazine-Come Follow Me.

Maurine and Scot Proctor have taught Book of Mormon for many years in Institute and have spent extensive time in the Arabian peninsula, following Lehi’s trail. They are the creators of a foundation that has sponsored a multi-year archaeological study of the best candidate for Nephi’s Bountiful in Oman. They have written a book on the Book of Mormon, as well as immersed themselves in the culture, history, and geography. of the scripture.

Maurine

In Helaman chapters 1-6, the Lamanites become the righteous and the Nephites the wicked. How does this switch come about? And the new enemy are the Gadianton robbers, who capture the allegiance of many of the Nephites. Things happen fast in the Book of Mormon, a roller coaster of righteousness and wickedness. I used to think it was hard to imagine such reversals and drama in such a short period of time, until we all entered these tumultuous times in our own nation. 

Scot

Hello friends, we’re Scot and Maurine Proctor and this is Meridian Magazine’s Come Follow Me podcast, this week looking at the first six chapters of Helaman and called “The Rock of Our Redeemer.” If you haven’t yet gotten Eleven Things You Probably Didn’t Know about the Book of Mormon, this is the time. Buy it for only $6.99 at latterdaysaintmag.com/eleventhings. That’s latterdaysaintmag.com/eleventhings with eleven spelled out. I think you will enjoy it. Also if you aren’t coming to Meridian Magazine every day, you are missing great content that is inspiring and insightful from some of the best Latter-day Saint writers. Get all the breaking news of the Church right at latterdaysaintmag.com. You’ll be glad you did.

Maurine

Today we start the study of the book of Helaman. To remind you of this prophetic line: we have Alma, who served in the court of King Noah, followed by Alma the Younger, followed by his son Helaman, and now his son Helaman, whose record this is.

Sometimes you think you’d like to see the end of the Nephite contentions and issues, but in these chapters they continue to spill out. The Pahoran who was the chief judge and wrote Moroni the forgiving letter now has passed away, and as we open our story there is a hot contention about who will assume his place. He has many sons but only three are interested, and there are three contesting divisions among the people about who should get the position.

Scot

Finally, Pahoran, his father’s namesake, is appointed by the voice of the people, and while the next son Pacumeni, united with his brother, the third contender, Paanchi did not and “raised up in rebellion and sought to destroy the liberty of the people” (Helaman 1:8). Someone is always ready to pounce and steal liberty. Through history, liberty is most precious, and always up for grabs by the tyrants.

For leading a rebellion, Paanchi is sentenced to death, and his followers sent one nasty man, Kishkumen, to the judgment seat where he assassinated Pahoran. 

“And he was pursued by the servants of Pahoran; but behold, so speedy was the flight of Kishkumen that no man could overtake them.

“And he went unto those that sent him, and they all entered into a covenant, yea, swearing by their everlasting Maker, that they would tell no man that Kishkumen had murdered Pahoran
(Helaman 1: 11,12).

Maurine

Since Kishkumen had been disguised when he did the murder, he and the others simply melted like a stream of underground rot into the Nephite society. Pacmeni became the chief judge, but this, too, wasn’t to last for long.

Meanwhile, with the Nephites attention diverted to the dissension in their own government, it was the perfect time for the Lamanites to attack, and they came with fierce weapons and “with head plates and breast plates and shields of every kind” (Helaman 1:14). Clearly, they had learned their lesson from the way Moroni had protected his army.

And note the sleight of hand. While everyone’s eyes are upon the drama of murder and contention in Zarahemla, the Lamanites, coming from the south, boldly march an army right into the center of the Nephite land into Zarahemla itself. Nothing makes a nation more vulnerable to attack from the outside than contention within.

Scot

The leader of the Lamanites, who is an apostate Nephite named Coriantumr, kills the people in his way in Zarahemla, including women and children, and pushes Pacumeni right up against the city wall where he is slain.

The Nephites are again minus a chief judge, but Coriantumr has horribly miscalculated. Moronihah, the leader of the armies has fortified all the cities on the borders of the Nephite land and the Lamanites are surrounded and must yield themselves to the Nephites.

You would think this was a happy ending, but it never is. Peace is established and Helaman is put on the judgment seat, but the Gadianton robbers are still a reality.

Maurine

Now Kishkumen comes to murder Helaman as well. The band has now been taken over by one man named Gadianton, who being expert with words and the “secret work of murder and of robbery” has promised the group that if they would put him in the judgment seat, he would give them “power and authority among the people” (Alma 2:4).

Yet, as Kishkumen went forth to destroy Helaman, one of the chief judge’s servants had been out by night himself and had “obtained, through disguise, a knowledge of those plans which had been laid by this band to destroy Helaman” (Helaman 2:6).

The suggestion is that Helaman’s servant is some kind of spy, for he knows the secret sign to give to Kishkumen, who then, in turn reveals all his dark plans and expects the servant to lead him to the judgment seat to murder Helaman.

Scot

The servant stabs Kishkumen to the heart, who falls without a sound, and though Helaman sends forth to catch this band of robbers and secret murderers, when Kishkumen did not return, they took their flight into the wilderness. So we have murder, intrigue, dark plots in high places, attempts to take over the very seat of power. This is a secret combination at work.

So what do we know from scriptures about secret combinations? First we learn that secret combinations were the demise of both the Nephite and Jaredite nations. We are reminded of that as if to say, “Take note.” The manner of their oaths and combinations are had among all people. (Ether 8:20) That means even our times.

Maurine

Secret combinations are Satanic in nature, receiving revelation from him, authored by him and held up by him.

“And behold, it is he who is the author of all sin. And behold, he doth carry on his works of darkness and secret murder, and doth hand down their plots, and their oaths, and their covenants, and their plans of awful wickedness from generation to generation according as he can get hold upon the hearts of the children of men” (Alma 6:30). It is more organized, more systematic, more universal than we ever imagine.

Cain founded the first secret combination and the oaths and covenants were passed down to subsequent leaders of secret combinations.

Scot

We learn that in the Nephite society, “they did have their signs, yea, their secret signs, and their secret words; and this that they might distinguish a brother who had entered into the covenant, that whatsoever wickedness his brother should do, he should not be injured by his brother, nor by those who did belong to his band, who had taken this covenant (Helaman 6:22).

Their goal is to murder to get gain and often to grab governmental power. They work in darkness, under the radar, and lie to get their way. Members of secret combinations believe their secret works and society to be good. They pretend to act on behalf of their people in reclaiming their rights.

The secret combination in this Nephite period, did not get their oaths and covenants from the records that Helaman held. His father Alma had warned Helaman about them. They came directly from Satan himself.

Maurine

Satan lies, plots, pretends his plans are for the good of humanity all to wrench power and destroy the work of God. He always finds many willing allies among mortals for his great power grab.

In a talk in 1988 when Ezra Taft Benson was the president of the church, he spoke of many things he testified to be true, including giving his witness of Jesus Christ.  He said then:

“I testify that wickedness is rapidly expanding in every segment of our society (See D&C 1:14-16; D&C 84: 49-53). It is more highly organized, more cleverly disguised, and more powerfully promoted than ever before. Secret combinations lusting for power, gain, and glory are flourishing. A secret combination that seeks to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries is increasing its evil influence and control over America and the entire world. (See Ether 8:18–25.) Ezra Taft Benson, “I Testify”

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/10/i-testify?lang=eng

If secret combinations have always been among mortals, of course, they would be now when so much power is at stake.

Scot

Helaman came to fill the judgment-seat with justice and equity, seeking to do “that which was right in the sight of God continually” and, of course, leading his people to do the same. This is a very Book of Mormon moment. What we see is that it is not weapons or strategy or being stirred to passionate anger about their injustices that brings peace to the Nephites, but staying true to their covenants. The result is peace and happiness and the protection that was promised them.

The gate of heaven is open to all who will make Christ the center of their lives, but the Nephites always ultimately resist.  They turn from the bright promises they have of peace to weep in division and misery.

Maurine

“Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide  asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked—

“And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out (Helaman 3:29,30).

The only safety is in Christ and His covenants. All these chapters and chapters on war are to remind us of this and shows us what heartache comes to people when left to their own devices. Any corruption in mortal beings is exploited without the safety of the Spirit. We must have Christ to be safe. The world’s bombardments are bigger than any of us without Him.

Scot

Whatever peace the Nephites find, does not last long because dissenters, yet again, side with the Lamanites and begin to gobble up vulnerable cities in the south of the Nephite land.

We read, “Now this great loss of the Nephites, and the great slaughter which was among them, would not have happened had it not been for their wickedness  and their abomination which was among them; yea, and it was among those also who professed to belong to the church of God.

“And it was because of the pride of their hearts, because of their exceeding riches, yea, it was because of their oppression to the poor, withholding their food from the hungry, withholding their clothing from the naked, and smiting their humble brethren upon the cheek, making a mock of that which was sacred, denying the spirit of prophecy and of revelation, murdering, plundering, lying, stealing, committing adultery, rising up in great contentions, and deserting away into the land of Nephi, among the Lamanites—(Helaman 4:11,12).

Maurine

Anyone who studies the Book of Mormon learns about the pride cycle. We can say it easily. The righteous prosper and therefore become proud and wicked. They face destruction, war and division, which humbles them and the cycle starts again. Sometimes I think we can even get cartoonish ideas about pride. We think it is the Nephites wearing fine apparel, like maybe fancy feathers, strutting around like they are better than others.

Our thinking has to be more sophisticated than that about pride, because living in a fallen world, pride is our great temptation and is the author of most other sins.  Because it is laced into our environment, it hard not to absorb its poison.

What makes it even harder, is that most of us are blind to our own pride. As President Ezra Taft Benson said in his classic General Conference address called “Beware of Pride”, “Pride is a very misunderstood sin, and many are sinning in ignorance. In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride—it is always considered a sin.”

Scot

He said, “Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing.

“The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means ‘hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.’ It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.

Pride is essentially competitive in nature.”

Let’s talk about competition for a minute. We live in a world that most of us conceive as hierarchal and dominance matters. We can easily tell who are the winners or losers. We afford great importance to wealth, to how one dresses, to ones position or resume or even calling in the Church.  Just like hens with a pecking order, we have a sense that some people are more important or more worthwhile than others. They have got it. They have figured it out, and we just didn’t.

Maurine

That pecking order does call to us, like it or not—even in a family or a small gathering. We want our opinion to matter the most, our point of view to be well heard. We want to right and admired. We want our word to have weight. We want our life to amount to something noteworthy. We want to be noteworthy. We want to be noticed. We want to be smart. We want to be competent. We want to be seen.

We want our goodness to be clear and we want to be rewarded for our goodness.

Now, isn’t all that just natural? And, after all, don’t we have to have these needs met? That doesn’t sound to me like feeling like a big deal, wallowing in arrogance, and pridefully letting other people know how important you are.

Scot

Yes, but, what is ironic is that the state of pride is on a spectrum with arrogance at one end and humiliation or worthlessness or shame or never feeling like you are measuring up at the other. They are all manifestations of pride, because all of this puts you at odds with other people. It keeps you at enmity with them. Others are not brothers and sisters who need your service and love, but people you are competing against for some limited prize. Instead you are on a ladder either looking up or looking down, hoping you can hustle enough to be good enough to find your place in a hierarchal dominance.

Other people can sometimes become just objects to you. They are your audience or your competition or those who overlook you. In all those cases they lose their personhood. It is a form of enmity to refuse to see people, because your own needs to be built up are clamoring so loudly.  

Maurine

President Benson said, “We are tempted daily to elevate ourselves above others and diminish them. (See Hel. 6:17; D&C 58:41.)

The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others. In the words of C. S. Lewis: ’Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.’” (Mere Christianity, New York: Macmillan, 1952, pp. 109–10.)

It is like the man who was so happy to get a raise at work, only to have it spoiled by finding out that a colleague had received a higher raise.

Scot

President Benson said, “Fear of men’s judgment manifests itself in competition for men’s approval. The proud love ‘the praise of men more than the praise of God.’ (John 12:42–43.) Our motives for the things we do are where the sin is manifest. Jesus said He did ‘always those things’ that pleased God. (John 8:29.) Would we not do well to have the pleasing of God as our motive rather than to try to elevate ourselves above our brother and outdo another?

“Some prideful people are not so concerned as to whether their wages meet their needs as they are that their wages are more than someone else’s. Their reward is being a cut above the rest. This is the enmity of pride.

When pride has a hold on our hearts, we lose our independence of the world and deliver our freedoms to the bondage of men’s judgment. The world shouts louder than the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. The reasoning of men overrides the revelations of God, and the proud let go of the iron rod. (See 1 Ne. 8:19–28; 1 Ne. 11:25; 1 Ne. 15:23–24.)

Maurine

President Benson continued, “Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves. Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. (See 2 Ne. 9:42.) There is, however, a far more common ailment among us—and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous.”[endquote]

No wonder pride is so serious. It is also the source of anger, self-centeredness, whining, resentment and entitlement.

It is pride that goes around complaining that it didn’t get what it deserved.  It is pride that is forever seeking to protect itself and blaming others. It is pride that won’t accept life’s trials and suggests that they are unjust to you. It is also pride that may sometimes raise a fist and blame God for all the things that didn’t happen that you think should have happened, for life not turning out quite as you prescribed. Pride says, “I want what I want and I want it now.”

Scot

Pride exhibits itself when you are slightly ruffled when someone corrects you or when you resist counsel. Maurine and I are not only married, we work together all day every day to produce Meridian Magazine. It has been a great opportunity to see how we each respond to the others’ helpful suggestion on a project. Even as we record this podcast, one of us will say to the other, “I think you should do that line again. You need a different emphasis.” How easy it is to find some resistance in your spirit when someone else only wants to help you. It assaults the idea that you are always right and you don’t like it. That’s pride.

Another funny, prideful moment comes to mind. Taking our very large family on a driving trip across the country, we stopped at a charming country rest stop. Our children all went in and were friendly with the owners, and I was the last one in the store. The owners gave us suckers for everyone in the car.

Do you remember what you said, Maurine?

Maurine

Yes, I asked you where you had gotten them?

Scot

And I answered that the store owners had given them to us because we were so nice. Then, Maurine, you said something that was so much better. “No, Scot” you said. “They gave us those suckers because they are so nice.” That was just a little moment of truth, that made my pride clear.

Maurine

Pride is sneaky and we are blind to it in our own souls, but it isn’t small. It is a powerful tool of Satan, and the reason why he fell from heaven and we find it taking several iterations as we make our way day by day through life. We might say, “Oh no, there it is again” as we begin to come to see it in ourselves.

President Benson said, “When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of “my will and not thine be done.” As Paul said, they ‘seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.’ (Philip. 2:21.)

Our will in competition to God’s will allows desires, appetites, and passions to go unbridled. (See Alma 38:12; 3 Ne. 12:30.)

“The proud cannot accept the authority of God giving direction to their lives. (See Hel. 12:6.) They pit their perceptions of truth against God’s great knowledge, their abilities versus God’s priesthood power, their accomplishments against His mighty works.”

Scot

President Benson said, “Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers. The proud wish God would agree with them. They aren’t interested in changing their opinions to agree with God’s.” (Ezra Taft Benson, “Beware of Pride” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1989/04/beware-of-pride?lang=eng )

Those who are proud are so busy looking down on others that they cannot look up and see God.

Maurine

Now we learn something compelling:

“And because of this their great wickedness, and their aboastings in their own strength, they were left in their own strength; therefore they did not prosper, but were afflicted and smitten, and driven before the Lamanites, until they had lost possession of almost all their lands” (Helaman 4:13).

We learn from Paul the apostle, “I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13), but when we boast in our own strength, we are left in our own strength. What a terrifying idea to be left in your own strength.

I remember lying in bed the night before I was to face a great challenge the next day, thinking I can’t do this. I don’t have the strength or competence or intelligence for this. Then I remembered that Christ could give me His strength in the challenge I met the next day, and my fear began to evaporate.

What I’ve learned is that I can’t handle life’s very complex challenges in my own strength. I can’t think of how to give the counsel my children sometimes need without God’s strength. I can’t think how to solve the problems life sends my way without God’s solution. I wouldn’t know how to stay hopeful in this tumultuous time without God’s strength or endure the trials that I sometimes face. I couldn’t have endured the loss of our daughter without the strength of the Lord. If life has taught me anything, it is certainly that my strength is not sufficient.

Scot

President Henry B. Eyring said, “When I was a young man, I served as counselor to a wise district president in the Church. He tried to teach me. One of the things I remember wondering about was this advice he gave: ‘When you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble, and you will be right more than half the time.’

I thought then that he was pessimistic. Now, more than 40 years later, I can see how well he understood the world and life. As time passes, the world grows more challenging, and our physical capacities slowly diminish with age. It is clear that we will need more than human strength. The Psalmist was right: ‘But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in the time of trouble.’

So many things beat upon us in a lifetime that simply enduring may seem almost beyond us. That’s what the words in the scripture ‘Ye must … endure to the end’ seemed to mean to me when I first read them. It sounded grim, like sitting still and holding on to the arms of the chair while someone pulled out my tooth.

Maurine

President Eyring continued, “It can surely seem that way to a family depending on crops when there is no rain. They may wonder, “How long can we hold on?” It can seem that way to a youth faced with resisting the rising flood of filth and temptation. It can seem that way to a young man struggling to get the training he needs for a job to support a wife and family. It can seem that way to a person who can’t find a job or who has lost job after job as businesses close their doors. It can seem that way to a person faced with the erosion of health and physical strength which may come early or late in life for them or for those they love.

“But the test a loving God has set before us is not to see if we can endure difficulty. It is to see if we can endure it well. We pass the test by showing that we remembered Him and the commandments He gave us. And to endure well is to keep those commandments whatever the opposition, whatever the temptation, and whatever the tumult around us. We have that clear understanding because the restored gospel makes the plan of happiness so plain.”

Scot

He said, “That clarity lets us see what help we need. We need strength beyond ourselves to keep the commandments in whatever circumstance life brings to us. For some it may be poverty, but for others it may be prosperity. It may be the ravages of age or the exuberance of youth. The combination of trials and their duration are as varied as are the children of our Heavenly Father. No two are alike. But what is being tested is the same, at all times in our lives and for every person: will we do whatsoever the Lord our God will command us?”

(Henry B. Eyring, “In the Strength of the Lord” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2004/04/in-the-strength-of-the-lord?lang=eng

Doing what the Lord has asked us is what qualifies us for His strength and even here, it is the Lord who gives us the strength to do that.

Maurine

As Elder David A. Bednar said, “

The enabling power of the Atonement of Christ strengthens us to do things we could never do on our own….

“The Savior has suffered not just for our iniquities but also for the inequality, the unfairness, the pain, the anguish, and the emotional distresses that so frequently beset us. There is no physical pain, no anguish of soul, no suffering of spirit, no infirmity or weakness that you or I ever experience during our mortal journey that the Savior did not experience first. You and I in a moment of weakness may cry out, ‘No one understands. No one knows.’ No human being, perhaps, knows. But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He felt and bore our burdens before we ever did. And because He paid the ultimate price and bore that burden, He has perfect empathy and can extend to us His arm of mercy in so many phases of our life. He can reach out, touch, succor—literally run to us—and strengthen us to be more than we could ever be and help us to do that which we could never do through relying upon only our own power.” (David A. Bednar “The Atonement and the Journey of Mortality” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2012/04/the-atonement-and-the-journey-of-mortality?lang=eng

Scot

Another name for the strength we are given is grace, and it is always through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Elder Bednar notes, “In Alma 31, Alma is directing a mission to reclaim the apostate Zoramites, who, after building their Rameumptom, offer a prescribed and prideful prayer.

“Notice the plea for strength in Alma’s personal prayer: ‘O Lord, wilt thou grant unto me that I may have strength, that I may suffer with patience these afflictions which shall come upon me, because of the iniquity of this people’ (Alma 31:31; emphasis added).

Alma also prays that his missionary companions will receive a similar blessing: ‘Wilt thou grant unto them that they may have strength, that they may bear their afflictions which shall come upon them because of the iniquities of this people’” (Alma 31:33; emphasis added).

Maurine

“Alma did not pray to have his afflictions removed. He knew he was an agent of the Lord, and he prayed for the power to act and affect his situation.” (David A. Bednar “The Atonement and the Journey of Mortality” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2012/04/the-atonement-and-the-journey-of-mortality?lang=eng

 
In our own lives that strength comes in so many ways, and it may not be dramatic. Fear will ease. Despair is comforted. Wounds are healed. Consolation given. An idea will come right when we need it.

Chase Olson, a young friend we met when we were serving at BYU, recently wrote this on his Facebook page.

Scot

“I had a special moment yesterday. I was praying to God. I was thanking him for what I had. I was telling him about how I haven’t had a lot of peace lately with the things going on in my world. Not long after I was saying that, alone in my car, I felt something in my heart. It was an overwhelming sense of peace. Like something I can’t exactly put into words. It made me cry. I wanted to stay in it. Soak it in. Let it fill me up with calmness. It was sweet.

“These moments happen from time to time for me. For some reason, God seems to recognize that I need to feel his presence in that moment. I call them pockets of peace (because I like alliteration). I learned about peace in Christ from the restored gospel. And I would say that is one of the best things that helps me overcome today’s challenges – waiting as patiently as I can for those pockets of peace.”

Maurine

This is how strength is poured into our souls. “Nevertheless, they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation..because of their yielding their hearts unto God” (Helaman 3:35).

Humility opens heaven’s doors and our hearts to receive the direction from the One who is “more intelligent than they all.”

Waxing stronger and stronger in humility is the opposite of waxing stronger and stronger in pride. For the proud, as the Nephites were in these wars with the Lamanites, “the Lord did cease to preserve them by his miraculous and matchless power” until “they must unavoidably perish.” What a stark contrast. Where do we want to stand in our own lives?

Scot

Helaman has two sons, Nephi and Lehi, and eventually Nephi wearies of the iniquity of the people, gives up the judgment seat and seeks “to preach the word of God all the remainder of his days” (Helaman 5:4).

Nothing he can do as the most powerful man in the land can stabilize the people. It is as his father taught him, “

“And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the arock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your bfoundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty cstorm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall (Helaman 5:12).

Maurine

Now note what happens in the strength of the Lord. “They did preach with great power, insomuch that they did confound many of those dissenters who had gone over” from the Nephites. They did have “power and authority given unto them that they might speak, and they also had what they should speak given unto them.” They did speak to the “great astonishment of the Lamanites.” (See Helaman 5: 17-19.)

When they are thrown into prison, God’s power penetrates those walls, too. They are “encircled about as if by fire”, and Nephi and Lehi stand forth, saying, “Fear not, for behold, it is God that has shown unto you this marvelous thing”. The others are “overshadowed with a cloud of darkness and an awful, solemn fear” (See Helaman 6: 23-28).

Scot

Then the voice of God speaks and “when they heard this voice…it was not a voice of thunder, neither was it a voice of a great tumultuous noise, but behold, it was a still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper, and it did pierce even to the very soul” (Helaman 6:30) The walls of the prison come tumbling down and thousands are converted.

Could we have a more visible demonstration of the strength of the Lord and its power as we walk in our life. If we can just sacrifice pride, seek the Lord in humility, what a profound treasure we receive.

Maurine

Thanks for being with us. We’re Scot and Maurine Proctor and this has been Meridian Magazine’s Come Follow Me Podcast. Next week we will be studying Helaman 7-12 called “Remember the Lord”. Thanks to Michaela Proctor Hutchins our producer and to Paul Cardall for the music that begins and ends this podcast. See you next time.