Come Follow Me LDS- Helaman 1-6 (Aug 17-23)
Aug 17, 2020
"Gadianton Robbers"
- Kishkumen assassinates Pahoran the Chief Judge
- The Lamanites take Zarahemla and kill Pacumeni
- Nephi & Lehi preach to the Nephites and the Lamanites. They are encircled about by fire.
- The Gadianton Robbers and their Secret Combination begin to take over the Nephite Nation
Raw Transcript
all right
all right in this come follow me episode
we are moving on to the book of helaman
we are going to be covering chapters one
through six
i want to start out here with uh how
mormon opens up the book of helaman
here's what he says
just in the first verse here it says an
account
of the nephites their wars and
contentions
and their dissensions again i think that
that encapsulates better the idea of
what the entire book of mormon is
it's their wars and contentions which
are never ending
but it they are mostly started
right these are initiated by the
dissensions
from the lamanites themselves
so it's not just the book of helaman
this is the entire book of mormon and
we're going to get of course
more dissension from the nephites over
to the lamanites
and we open up this book with pahoran
the chief judge has now passed away
and the chief judge seat
is up for grabs so to speak
now it appears i think i've mentioned
this before
that as we go through the chief judges
starting with alma
right we are looking at a succession
that goes from father to son typically
so even though there is a representative
government
it looks like this is offered to one of
the sons
of the chief judge right keeping it
within the line
of direct descendants of nephi and if
there are no sons that
want it or are capable of being the
chief judge then it is passed on
to a different descendant of nephi
but the people do get to choose
apparently
between those that are willing to fill
the seat
of being chief judge of the land of
zerahimla
so pahoran has three sons and here we're
getting back to the pa
right in these few chapters here
at the end of alma here and and in in
the beginning of helaman
the first part of helaman we get all
these names all of a sudden that start
with pa which is kind of interesting
why would that be i don't have an answer
but i find it kind of interesting
what does it mean of course there's
pehorin that we've already spoken of
well what are the names of his three
sons they're all pa
names they are pahoran pawanki
and pakumenai i'm going to get to that
third one here in a minute because that
also
has elements of another name that is
found a lot
in these chapters so it's up to the
people and of course again when you
open up a vote where people are
saying okay i have a say well your say
doesn't always go
the way you want it to i think in the us
we're going to see
those that are not happy with this vote
coming up in november
for example there's going to be a lot of
very unhappy people
right regardless of which way it goes
especially now just because it's it's so
divisive right now
but the people the voice of the people
is the term that we get for their
representative government
the voice of the people choose pahoran
the son pahoran
well pacumennai is fine with that
he acquiesces he concedes and he backs
up his brother
but pawankai is not happy right and this
is the
the power dynamics within a family even
that we get as far as who is going to
reign
instead of their father this is
an eternal conflict that we get over and
over again throughout civilization
and everyone's going to pick their
champion right
to succeed on the throne so ponchai
and those that are following him are as
we're told
roth over this now think about what
would be happening in this type of a
situation we never get a lot of
specifics on this
but what faction would be behind
an overthrow of the voice of the people
well it's not the majority obviously but
it's those that are looking for
something different
if we follow the pattern of the nephites
throughout their history here going back
to nephi even in layman and lemuel
there is always a feeling of of
you know there's always a conflict of
overthrowing
and there are accusations thrown from
each side
for example layman and lemuel were older
but nephi
gets the birthright so to speak nephite
is the leader
and so layman and lemieux are going to
claim
oppression they're going to claim that
they
what was rightly theirs has been taken
and that
nephi has manipulated this and who knows
maybe he did to some degree
that doesn't mean he wasn't being
righteous in doing it but there is
animosity there and so whatever
these people want that are backing
ponchai
it appears to be something very
different from
christianity and liberty because that is
the pattern that has been put in place
since the very beginning of this book
and sure enough that's what's going to
happen so we're told here in verse 7
of chapter 1 it says that ponchai was
about to flatter away those people to
rise up in rebellion
against their brothers so again just
thinking about what would the
accusations be here
right if we if we ponder over some of
these things i think that we can
apply them more to our lives in our
current situations
in our own societies what power dynamics
are at play
what change in government are these
backers of pollankai looking for
and why are they willing to dissent now
in the past it's typically been because
they're going they've been promised
power it has been a theological divide
it has been tyranny they want a monarch
and they want to bring down the church
all of those things apply
to those that are supporting ponchai we
can look at this portion of things
a lot like what we get in the book
of ether right all the secret
combinations
all all of the death it's like going
back to the days of rome where it seems
like
every year there was an assassination of
the newest
the newest uh caesar so as he's about to
do this
right he was tried according to the
voice of the people
they're very careful to always put that
in there this is not
something that just for example pahoran
the son pahoran
is choosing it's perhaps this is some
type of a jury
and he's condemned unto death for
treason for he had raised up in
rebellion
and sought to destroy the liberty of the
people so
the nephites are going to have a
law in place here again that says
if you commit treason if you're trying
to take away the liberty of the people
the consequence for that the sentence
for that is death
so one of these supporters of pongkai it
looks like
named kishkuman i'll get to that name in
a minute
is angry here and he's willing to risk
his life
because of his emotion his state his
purpose
his hatred so he goes up to the judgment
seat
and murders pahoran and then
very quickly runs away so that he is not
caught
so this is something that we haven't
seen before in the nephite record
we've got it with the jaredites but we
haven't seen this yet where there's
specific assassinations right
kishkuman is an assassin where instead
of raising an army
you murder one person for what
for gain to change things in your favor
and so he goes back to those that sent
him again i think we've got to look at
the followers here of polanchi
as probably that group and he goes back
to them and they all entered into a
covenant yay swearing by their
everlasting maker
that they would tell no man that kish
kuman had murdered pahoran
so here we're going to start going into
the secret combinations here just like
we have with the jaredites
and think about what this does when you
you make that agreement right it's just
like anything we do it's like
honestly it's on the flip side of that
the righteous side of that it's what we
do in the temple it's what we do at
baptism
it's what we do with the sacrament it is
something that raises our commitment
level
to do righteous things it
places it in our mind again okay this is
i've got more resolve
as we make those covenants well on the
flip side of that
right you're gonna have more resolve and
you're going to put yourself especially
when it's public
right you're going to put yourself in a
position where you're going to be shamed
or murdered if you don't follow suit
with this
so all of a sudden let's say for example
the oath is that you're going to be
killed if you ever reveal who did this
right you you've got pretty good reason
now regardless of where your heart ends
up moving
even if you start having sympathy for
the other side eventually
you're kind of stuck where you are
because you feel like well
i'd rather be more callous
than be killed and it creates an
environment where you're able to
be covert in achieving your ends
and so kishkuman continues to go among
all the people because he's in disguise
people don't recognize who he is
and so kishkuman is able to mingle among
the people
right they're not out up on a soapbox
trying to sway people politically
with their influence they've got a
different design this is different from
amisai this is different from nihor this
is
different from malachia
this is going to turn into guerrilla
warfare so now that
horan has been killed his brother
pakumanai
gets the judgment seat right and why
does he get it in verse 13 it says it
was according to
his right so if he's willing to do it
right then it's his right maybe he came
in second place in the voting
maybe he was in kind of a vice
presidential
type of a position and now in this time
again they've got these problems
internally
and then they're going to have these
external problems that are coming up
we have here in verse 14 the lamanites
had gathered together an
innumerable army of men and armed them
with swords and with simmeters and with
bows and with arrows
and with head plates and with
breastplates and with all manner of
shields of every kind
all right so they're not going to make
the same mistake
like they did before where so many of
the lamanites were uncovered
right they're going to have on their
garb their their war garb
and they're led by a man named
coriantomer
and he was a descendant of zarahemla so
he is
a mulekite and he was a dissenter
of course from among the nephites and he
was a
can we get it again a large and a mighty
man
that's a very derogatory statement it
seems
and may have some additional connotation
that we're not aware of
therefore the king of the lamanites
whose name was tubaloth
well he supposes that coriantomer being
a mighty man
can stand against the nephites so the
king
and his people and coriantomer they stir
everybody up again
and they go after the nephites but
they're going to go directly into the
heart
of the nephite land and go directly to
zarahemla
well because of the contention and
everything that's happening here they're
not really
on their game there in defense of
zarahemla
and they had placed a lot of their
troops on the in the smaller cities
thinking that that's where the
lamanites would attack if they attacked
again
so they come into a poorly defended city
so they go into zarahemla and they take
possession of it
and coryantomer did smite pakumeni
against the wall in so much that he died
so now all three of the brothers it
looks like
are dead and so then coryantomer sees
how easy that was
he thinks that he's going to be able to
go against one of the other stronghold
cities which is bountiful and he drives
toward
he drives his army toward bountiful but
because all of the
outskirt cities were more heavily
defended
what he actually ends up doing is
driving into the middle of
all of these nephite groups these
nephite armies these battalions
and he becomes surrounded and they
battle a fierce battle and coryantomar
ends up being slain
and the surviving lamanites are taken as
prisoners
and then they're let go and so now with
all three brothers
dead that were willing to take on the
judgment seat
where does this go to well it ends up
going to
helaman and who is helaman it's not the
helaman we've been speaking of
that led the 2000 stripling warriors
it's that helaman's
son and he is going to fill the judgment
seat
by the voice of the people
so seeing the success that they've had
before
with these plots of murder kishkuman is
again going to
make plans to assassinate helaman the
new chief judge
i want to go over the name kishkuman
because
the second part of that is another i
and i'm no expert on words or names
but cumin this one here it's spelled
with a k
is all another name that is all over the
place here in these chapters
right we had previously a few chapters
back the city of kumanai
we have kumanaiha we have one of the
sons of pahoran who is
pakumanai and then we have here kish
kuman something's going on here
right something or is this just like
we get a lot of common names right now
in in especially
in the church right this new brand of
names
or is there something of meaning here
and there's been a lot of work done on
some of these proper names
but there's nothing really that solid
it's it's all somewhat guesswork that we
go through
pa for example the the pa um
names that are in here i i see something
really interesting from
a listener that is
i think she's maori but she gave me she
just sent me a wikipedia page
with the letters pa on it and in maori
pa means kind of a place of defense
well you see what's going on here with
the nephites and they're
creating these places of defense now is
there come some kind of
similarity in the languages there i
don't know
i'm not saying that there is a
conclusive relationship between these
two but it is interesting
right they've got a in this article
there's a picture of
mangawa or mount eden
as it's called that marks the site
of the defensive palisades and ditches
interesting right of this former paw
well we've just heard a lot about
ditches and defensive palisades
with moroni right it says here
in the article that this can refer to
any maori village
or defensive settlement but often refers
to hill forts
so that's kind of interesting so
kishkuman plans on killing helaman right
on the judgment seat
but the nephites seem to have a
servant of helaman that is a spy among
this group
he knows the language he knows the
people he knows the signs and the tokens
that they have
right that they would use to recognize
each other
something that can be done hidden even
when you're among a lot of people
you know kind of like robert redford and
paul newman in the sting
right the touching of the nose there
but this spy comes in contact with
kishkuman
and gives him the right signs and so
kishkuman divulges what he's going to do
and so this servant of helaman
says oh follow me and starts marching
him toward the judgment seat
but sometime during their walk toward
helaman
the servant turns and kills kishkuman
so they disrupt this plan now we do get
some new words here that are
important right we get this here in
verse 8
about this group of people
these followers of pongkai apparently
that it was the object of all those who
belonged to his band this is now
the band of kishkuman or we get now
gaddyanton who becomes the real
leader to murder and to rob
and to gain power remember
in the story of cain and abel
in the book of moses we get this that
this was the great
secret of cain and those that were with
him
is that you murder for gain
right or in that can be gained in
property that can be gain
in power whatever it is
that's one of the great secrets and so
we can say well that's obvious well
or even looking back at abel and kane we
think oh that's brand new and this is
something that cain is just now learning
i think that's the wrong way to look at
it
right it's it's not a great secret
because
as we're told in the book of moses in
fact i'm going to go there in a minute
because cain is just now discovering
this necessarily
in the sense that he never knew about it
rather it's a great secret
because it works in a short term
unfortunately right it's something that
is done in hiding right that's the great
secret the secret is
that it is covered up the secret is is
that it's done
in a clandestine manner it says and this
was their secret
plan right their hidden plan and their
combination now what does combination
mean we get that word here that was a
common name
even before the time of joseph smith a
common word that was used for a group
that's all it is it's a group of people
and it can be a positive group
or it can be a negative group if you put
secret in front of it secret combination
then you're giving it a negative
connotation it's just
a secret group or a group of
conspirators
right secret makes it that they are not
out in public
and so gaddy anton who has now become
the leader when he finds out that
kishkuman is not returned
he grabs his band of brothers so to
speak
and their families and he hightails it
out of zarahemla
and they go off to the wilderness and
these gadient robbers now as they're
called are going to be a problem
a major problem for the nephite nation
from here on out
and when i say problem i don't mean it's
just that they're the adversary
right that they're there to take down
the freedom
and the christianity of the nephites
the problem the biggest problem as with
all of these dissenting groups is their
influence that's the most
powerful thing with them is that the
dissenters grow
in number every time until in this case
it's going to overwhelm the nephite
population
so mormon tells us here in the last
couple of verses of
chapter 2 and behold in the end of this
book you shall see
that this gaddy anton did prove the
overthrow
yea almost the entire destruction of the
people of nephi
behold i do not mean the end of the book
of helaman
but i mean the end of the book of nephi
from which i have taken all the account
which i have written so
his reference to the book of nephi is
not first or second nephi
his reference to the book of nephi is
all of the records
that have been pulled together or at
least the a reference to
his abridgement of those records all the
way up
to his time that is mormons time
now as we see oftentimes politically
right again this is all about influence
this is all about
grabbing the hearts and minds of
individuals
and the book of mormon gives us a stark
contrast between
the righteous influencers and the
dissenters
and so i want to go over that just a
little bit so we can kind of
think about it at least what's going on
here we do get the word secret
combinations here
in verse 23 and chapter three right
there's peace
more or less except it is the secret
combinations
which gaddy ant and the robber had
established in the more settled parts of
the land
so again they're quiet they're going to
rob
they're going to help support their band
in the wilderness
they're going to murder here and there
they're going to gain
converts to their cause and what is the
cause again it's it's guerrilla warfare
over the establishment of the nephite
theology the church and the
representative government
that's what they're trying to overthrow
but with that kind of news and knowing
what's happened with these murderers
and the lamanites here actually
succeeding for real quickly going into
zarahemla
well what's that also going to do to a
lot of the other people
right there is reaction that comes up
with these things that comes up
with all of this again i think back to
for example the 60s
in the united states right you had you
had these new political movements
that brought in some good and some bad
right and there was a reaction to it
there was even a strong reaction from
the church with all of this of what was
going on in the 60s
he had some good things for example in
in parts of the civil rights
movement but it brought in a lot of
other things right it was conflated with
a lot of other things
and so there is a reaction to that and
that creates
split groups that become even more
defined and i'm not placing
just good and bad on one side of the
other i'm just saying that politically
that's that's how these factions work
something stirs the pot and then there
is a reaction to it
and so here that's what happens they
have these
murders and these plunderings throughout
these villages these cities
you have the lamanites having come all
the way into zarahemla
you have the murders of two of the
chief judges the attempted murder of a
third and the
coup attempt from one of the sons of
helaman and so in response to that what
happens well there are
thousands that join the church they're
baptized are baptized and repent
in fact thousands then it goes to tens
of thousands
that are united to the church of god
and we get this one verse here that i
think is important in 29 it says yea we
see that whosoever
will lay hold upon the word of god the
iron rod
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 straight
and narrow
course straight as in narrow across that
everlasting gulf
of misery this is imagery of lehi's
dream 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 you can see why
the focus here is on something that is
straight and narrow the word is straight
and narrow
and if you know don't grab onto that and
understand
that the course is straight and narrow
then you're going to have
a real problem if you start to widen
that course which is the natural thing
for each of us to try and do
and is probably where these dissenters
each time try to start with that they
try to widen that
and they especially are taking their eye
off of christ
and then he backs that up a little bit
with an interesting
phrase here about the dissenters
and and about a narrow course
he says and in the 50 and first year of
the reign of the judges there was peace
also save it were the pride which began
to enter into the church
not into the church of god
let's pause for a second here what is he
saying here
remember that church also means assembly
and congregation
right so he says the pride isn't
entering into the church of
god but into the hearts of the people
who professed to belong to the church of
god
so you can read that in two different
ways
is this other churches that are
professing to be the church of god kind
of like
the dissenters have done in the past or
is he
saying the groups or the churches of
people within the church
that are dissenting right that
are professing to be part of the church
but they're not acting like being a part
of the church
i think there's a couple of ways of
looking at that remember not all the
nephites are
members of the church we really don't
know
how much of them are members of the
church
also overall the people of the nephites
are very prosperous and this
wealth that they have allows for a lot
of pride to enter into
their lands this is going to become a
major problem
and then we're told here at the end of
the chapter that helaman dies and his
son
his eldest son nephi begins to reign in
his stead
now in chapter 4 there's not a lot i'm
going to go into here
other than understanding that there's a
lot of dissension
again that starts to happen among the
people here in verse 1 and it came to
pass in the 50 and 4th year
there were many dissensions in the
church and there was also a contention
among the people and so much that there
was much
bloodshed it's just constant
and this is the way most ancient
civilizations worked right
especially without tyranny if you you
know oftentimes
you can look at other parts of the world
right now if there's tyranny even though
there's definitely bloodshed
that seems to keep things in line a
little bit more
as brutal and cruel as it is and as
wrong as it is it's the idea that we
have to keep things
peaceful with a bully club
liberty and representation
is a very difficult thing to manage and
so these new dissenters now again
they go over to the lamanites and what
do they do of course they stir them up
to come to war again against the
nephites
well this time it's going to prove to be
somewhat of a loss
for the nephites and they come directly
into zarahemla again
they take possession of the land of
zarahemla they also take possession of a
number of the nephite cities
we're told even unto the land which was
near
the land bountiful and so what that
basically means is if we look at maybe
the southern
part maybe even half the southern half
of the nephite lands is taken over by
the lamanites
all right this is pride entering into
the nephite nation
that probably does a number of things
right it lowers their defense
it takes their eye off the ball of what
is most important
it lowers their resolve to fight the
passion for liberty
may be weaker well they lose we're told
here in verse 12
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 revelation again that is something
that goes right along
with the doctrine of christ it's
important to understand that
and murdering and plundering and lying
and stealing committing adultery rising
up in great contentions
and deserting a way into the land of
nephi among the lamanites
all right so we might even look at this
as a a constant progression
of moving down right the pride comes in
and the sin comes in
and they're moving down southward so to
speak down to the land of nephi
kind of like the people of judah and
israel looked at egypt sometimes
right moving down into a dark and dreary
world
an unbelieving world and so they try to
fight back and they just they can't do
it they can't regain all of these lands
and there's a lot of introspection that
happens at this point because there's a
great amount of slaughter
and loss and we're told that they begin
to remember
at this point right forced to the point
here to remember the prophecies of alma
and also the words of mosiah and they
saw that they had been
a stiff-necked people and that they had
said it not the commandments of god
and they had altered and trampled under
their feet the laws of mosiah these were
laws of liberty
and that they had been a stiff-necked
people and they see that their laws had
become
corrupted have we seen that in our own
lands
where laws become corrupted because of
pride
and we're told that they saw that they
had become a wicked people
in so much that they were wicked even
like unto
the lamanites we're going to get a cross
over here
in the book of healing right the
nephites are now looking at this like
okay there's some realization
because you don't always see that when
you're steeped in it you're steeped in
iniquity
right you you sometimes have to be
reminded you need an intervention and
unfortunately sometimes
it's from brutal consequences but they
see that they are now
like the lamanites and soon what's going
to happen is the lamanites are going to
become more like what the nephites were
and it's because of this iniquity and
this pride
that the lord did cease to preserve them
by his miraculous and matchless power
so they are humbled by force
now in this same year while this is
happening nephi the son
of helaman the son of helaman nephi
gives up the judgment seat just like
alma did
so that he can go preach right with his
brother lehi his younger brother lehi
he gives up the judgment seat to a man
named
cezorum and now we get a little lesson
here on democracy
right it's a risk it's just like the
risk in the war in heaven
it's like the plan of the father the
plan of the father
risks each one of us for the ability
to grow and to learn but it risks
the consequences of bad choices
right here we get the lesson on
democracy in verse two it says for as
their laws and their governments this is
the nephites
were established by the voice of the
people
and they who chose evil were more
numerous than they who chose
good therefore they were ripening for
destruction for the laws had become
corrupted so
if the voice of the people is going to
start changing the laws
right more toward iniquity well that's
a risk that democracy runs
and it can change very quickly well here
we get the words
of their father helaman who's now passed
away given to us in chapter five
and he basically says look i've named
you nephi and lehi
after our fathers and you need to carry
on the legacy of their names
and they're going to try and do this by
going out and preaching they can see
that they need to change the hearts of
the people
and we get these words from helaman to
nephi and lehi that are really important
because this is what their message is
when they go out as missionaries
oh remember remember my sons the words
which king benjamin spake
unto his people ye remember that there
is no other way nor means whereby man
can be saved only through the atoning
blood of jesus christ
who shall come ye remember that he
cometh to redeem the world
and then this importantly about our
actions
right about our works and remember also
the words which amulek sp
spake unto zazrum in the city of
ammonica
for he said unto him that the lord
surely should come to redeem his people
but that he should not come to redeem
them in
their sins but to redeem them
from their sins so that's what we're
getting a lot here
that's happening again right there is no
judgment there's no death
no spiritual death for you don't worry
about it you can act as you please
and therefore you don't need a redeemer
right the lord does not
redeem us in our sins
we need repentance we need to try and
improve ourselves
we need to grow we need to become like
him
the atoning sacrifice has power with us
when we repent this is backed up again
immediately following where it says and
he hath power given unto him
the lord from the father to redeem them
from their sins because of repentance
and then again hear from it looks like
mormon you know
giving us the environment that they're
in that nephi and lehi are in right now
with all these dissensions and iniquity
it says and now my sons remember
remember that it is upon the rock of our
redeemer
right this is where they everyone's
falling away it's the nihor principle
it is a it is on the rock upon the rock
of our redeemer who is christ the son of
god that ye
must build your foundation that when the
devil shall send forth his mighty winds
think of all the dissensions here think
of all the new ideologies that are being
thrown in here to justify sin
or to justify even sympathy
sometimes or to justify
over judgment sometimes
yea his shafts in the whirlwind yea
when all his hail and his mighty storm
shall beat upon you it shall have no
power over you
to drag you down to the gulf of misery
and endless woe because of the rock upon
which he are built
a foundation where on if men build they
cannot fall
so these people these dissenters are
falling away it always is based on that
idea
of the doctrine of christ
in some way at least in a broad sense
so they go out and they preach very
strongly and they get
a lot of those who were were dissenters
to repent and to come back to the church
and they preach unto the lamanites this
is probably in the land southward that
is
has been taken now by the lamanites and
many of them
were baptized right in the lands of
zarahemla and other places because
again a lot of the lamanites and and
nephites are now mixing in these
different lands
and so with this success that they've
had among the lamanites in the land
southward they end up going all the way
down to
the land of nephi the center the core of
of the land of the lamanites and there
they're thrown into prison
and they have somewhat of a similar
prison experience as alma and amulek
in ammoniah and they're going to slay
them
right they're going to go down take them
out and they're going to slay them
they're going to sacrifice them
but we're told here in verse 23 of
chapter 5 and it came to pass
that nephi and lehi were encircled about
as if by fire
even in so much that they just not lay
their hands upon them for fear unless
they should be burned
nevertheless nephi and lehi were not
burned and they were as standing in the
midst of fire and were not burned this
is
like other experiences we've seen with
some other prophets
in fact in one account this happened
with abraham
so those that are in this prison are
lamanites and dissenters
right the centers from the nephites
and they're all overshadowed with this
darkness the cloud of darkness
and out of this cloud comes a voice
as if it were above the cloud of
darkness
saying repent ye repent and seek no more
to destroy my servants whom i have sent
unto you to declare
good tidings that's the gospel of jesus
christ
and this was a still voice a of perfect
mildness
as if it had been a whisper and it did
pierce
even to the very soul something similar
to the example of
the story of elijah with a still small
voice
but the cloud does not disperse and so a
second time the voice comes and then a
third this is just like what happens to
those at bountiful
when christ appears to them the
resurrected christ
right the voice the third time comes to
them
and so among the dissenters here is a
man and everybody asks them what do we
do what do we do
right because he knows about the gospel
he says we need to repent
we need to repent and believe on jesus
christ
so they do so and the cloud of darkness
is lifted and they become encircled
around by the fire
and then they have a vision right they
see the heavens open and angels come
down
out of heaven and minister unto them
not an everyday event but important to
have
every once in a while as an anchor
of story and faith it just can't be that
prevalent for us
or we would not have faith now there's
about 300 of these individuals that are
there 300 is an interesting number we
get this a lot anciently
it may have a certain significance kind
of like 40 right remember the spartans
how many of them were there there were
300 and then how many with gideon
in the old testament right there were
thousands and thousands ready to fight
in the battle and they whittled it down
to 300.
even j.r.r tolkien goes with this number
when gandalf leads an army to battle
against the dark forces
and so these 300 go out and minister to
everybody else
and because of this of what happens here
the more part of the lamanites were
convinced of them
because of the greatness of the
evidences which they had received
and as many as were convinced it lay
down their weapons of war
and also their hatred and the tradition
of their fathers
right now again we get sometimes this
idea of culture
every culture is wonderful every culture
is great well there's
great things in every culture but not
every culture is equal
in my opinion right the culture of the
lamanites is not equal to the culture of
the nephites some people don't want to
hear that
why because the nephites have the gospel
at least
and it's not unless they give up on the
gospel and on christ
that they start to dwindle right they
have problems
but if you have that and you follow that
based on different degrees of how well
you follow the gospel
that's going to increase your level of
your civilization freedom
and liberty allow a lot of growth
and so they actually yield up their
lands to the nephites
probably a a lot of those southern lands
and then rounding things off here in
chapter six
we get this switch now right everything
changes over now after this event we
were already getting close to that
and and now it's happened where the
more part of the lamanites were more
righteous
than the more part of the nephites we
are now sitting at
this will be from 29 to 23 bc
so this is the stage that is set coming
up toward the birth of christ
and now because of this and and the
correspondence and the trade and
everything else that's going to go on
now between the lamanites and the
nephites
right the barriers have been dropped
there's even
more wealth produced the economy is
flying
but there's also more iniquity that
comes in and in the sixty and sixth year
of the reign of the judges
cezorum is murdered by someone who is
unknown
and in the same year his son is murdered
by someone who is unknown
right so the gadiant robbers are very
strong
throughout all of this and so many
hearts
are turned toward murder and robbing and
plundering
and these are those who follow
gadianton and there are many of the
nephites that go over to
the guardian robbers but there's even
more lamanites
very possibly among the dissenters of
the nephites that were counted as part
of the lamanites
and here's the difference now that we
that we get here
when the lamanites discover that there
are guardian robbers among them
they get rid of them they put the law
down
they use every means in their power to
destroy them off the face of the earth
right this is a disease this is a virus
and it's going to destroy their
civilization
it's an ideology that is very concerning
but with the nephites right but with the
nephites
they end up uniting with those bands of
robbers
and a large portion of them enter into a
covenant
and following their oaths so that they
are aligned again
with keeping their murderings and their
robbings
all private out of the public eye
and they end up with these secret oaths
in these these secret covenants that
alma was commanded not to reveal
from the books that you had from the
jaredites
the records of the jaredites but it's
put into their hearts by the adversary
and we get this again here right with
cain yeah it's the same adversary the
same being who did plot with cain
that if he would murder his brother abel
it should not be known
unto the world that's the way it always
is right
again there's no consequences there's no
judgment don't worry about it go ahead
that's the covenant we're going to try
and get rid of judgment
and it's the same being that entices the
people to build the tower of babel
it's the same being that enticed adam
and eve to partake of the fruit from the
tree of knowledge of good and evil
and it's the same being that put into
the heart of gadianton to still carry on
the work of darkness
and of secret murder and it is he who is
the
author of all sin
we even get a phrase here that we rarely
get in the book of mormon
right the nephites did trample into
their feet the commandments of god
and to turn unto their own ways and to
build up
unto themselves idols of their gold and
their silver
we rarely get any of that in the book of
mormon and a word of warning
and it came to pass that these
iniquities did come unto them in the
space
of not many years it can happen very
quickly
and so we see in verse 34 that the
nephites did begin to dwindle in
unbelief
and grow in wickedness and abominations
while the lamanites began to grow
exceedingly in the knowledge of their
god
and so the lamanites get rid of the
gadian robbers among them
and their cities while the nephites
actually build them up
and so we see that any people right god
is no respecter of persons
any people who follow the word of god
and who humble themselves and who repent
are the covenant people of god and any
of us
if we're not careful right can become
dissenters
and we can support things that are not
good based on our decisions
and moving in here to the time of the
birth of christ
we get this reversal where the more part
of the lamanites are good
and the more part of the nephites are
not and the guardian robbers
end up here in verse 39 obtaining the
soul management of the government
in so much that they did trample into
their feet and smite and rend and turn
their backs
upon the poor and the meek and the
humble followers of god
so they're not just robbers anymore in
disguise they have
taken over the government i think that's
certainly
a an important lesson for us to
understand
in warning us against these secret
combinations
and it's not about conspiracy theories
it's not about strange tales but it is
about
righteousness and it is about protecting
ourselves
by hanging on tightly to the word of god
i'll talk to you next time
Come Follow Me LDS
Book of Mormon Helaman
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