Come Follow Me LDS- Helaman 13-16 Pt 1 (Aug 31 - Sep 6)

'Slippery Treasures'
- The "Emperor's New Clothes"

- Samuel the Lamanite preaches repentance to a city drowning in a new morality.
- Treasures not hidden up to the Lord are slippery and lost
- Some ideologies invite with compassion but hide the consequences.

 

 Raw Transcript

 

all right
all right this week's come follow me
lesson is
on helaman chapters 13 to 16. this is
the prophecies of samuel lamanite
my first thoughts with this in in in go
having gone through this
is something similar to what i think
about with lehigh
and jeremiah who is samuel
right we are we hear that he's a
lamanite we don't have
really was he from the people of
ammon right the anti-nephi lehi's is he
newly converted was he
did he experience the uh
the fire right that engulfed
nephi and lehi here the the current
nephi
in lehi in in the land of nephi
who is he where does he come from we get
these
these accounts that are kind of isolated
right and it's hard to imagine that
someone like
samuel here is just some guy that was
reading
the scriptures and decided that he was
going to go out and start preaching
i think it's the same thing with lehi
did lehigh know jeremiah
did he know uriah another prophet at the
time
and and is there some type of a
hierarchy
or priesthood hierarchy that would be in
place are they in a
quorum together of some sort that's what
i think about with samuel here
what is his relationship with nephi here
you know where
where is he is he in a part of a first
presidency so to speak is he in part of
a quorum
he is a prophet right he's going to have
things that are put into his heart
that he is going to discuss but let's go
into his account here and and find out
what he has to say to the
now more wicked nephites
this is what we get in verse 1 in
setting the stage here it says
in the 86th year that's of the judges
the reign of the judges the nephites did
still remain in wickedness
again i'm going to go over what what i
read into that
right it's not a bunch of people that
are trying to be wicked
it's a new morality right it says here
yea
in great wickedness while the lamanites
did observe strictly to keep the
commandments of god
according to the law of moses so again a
big shift here
and so samuel the lamanite comes to the
nephites
and starts preaching repentance to them
and he's turned away
right they cast him out but
like alma at amo niha the word of the
lord comes to him
and says go back and this is similar to
you don't need to think about what needs
to be said right he's got a relationship
with the lord
to the point that the lord says look
you're going to go back
and you're just going to preach whatever
i put into your heart
it's kind of like don't worry about
person script
i'll take care of these things you just
need to go you are
a tool in my hand so to speak and just
like the idea of
not bringing person script with you
right he's not bringing a
prepared speech and what i think is
is being stated here by the lord is look
this
is from me i am in charge
and what is going to be spoken to the
nephites here
is directly from me and so what's put
into his heart
to start off is destruction right he
goes off he goes on and says that in 400
years from now
the sword of justice is going to fall
upon you and the people are going to be
destroyed
unless there is repentance
and faith on the lord jesus christ right
that's the core
problem and then just a brief statement
here on
the condescension of god he says the
lord jesus christ who surely shall come
into the world right being born of mary
and shall suffer many things right he's
mortal in that sense
and shall be slain for his people
and slain by his people so he's going to
lower himself below everyone so
he's talking about the doctrine of
christ and where does he get this
information well here we're told
like alma and others that an angel of
the lord hath declared it
unto me and he did bring glad tidings to
my soul that's the good news
of the doctrine of christ and then he
gives us a principle
that is i think very common
i think it's easy to look at history for
example and say
well the people back then weren't as
smart or weren't as
knowledgeable and certainly
there are
aspects of that that are true right in
other words we live in a much more
for the most part a much more educated
world
than they had in ancient times or only a
select few
that were educated but there is a
principle i think that
exists also that goes completely against
that
which is that as iniquity comes into a
civilization
and it starts to fall apart and
disintegrate
that true knowledge is lost
that wisdom goes out the door
and so those two things seem to go
together right this idea of true
knowledge
of wisdom going together with
civilization with growth
and as that gets put to the side right
two plus two equals five then what you
end up with is a loss of order
a loss of knowledge a loss of light
and that brings you onto a path that
heads toward destruction
and so that's a very natural thing right
i i
i don't know how you feel about this and
i'm not saying i know this is right i
don't
but but a lot of times i feel like when
the lord says something like i'm going
to take away my word from them
if they don't repent i feel like
this is because of the rules that the
lord has already put in place
it's not like he's reaching out and
taking away
the knowledge you know in a sense it's
like okay well this is just how the lord
works
this is how the stage is already set for
us
and when we become wicked individually
and as a society
then that is the natural consequence
truth becomes even more slippery then he
goes on to something else here he says
yea woe unto this great city of
zarahemla
right so he's in the heart of the
nephite nation for behold it is because
of those who are righteous that it is
saved
yea woe unto this great city for i
perceive saith the lord that there are
many
yea even the more part of this great
city
that will harden their hearts against me
saith the lord so
there's still a lot of good people right
there's still a lot of people that
haven't lost their hearts and their
minds
and that's oftentimes a difficult thing
to gauge in society where we have now
mass communication
because there's such a few there's such
few organizations and technologies
that that control the narrative
and so you don't really know all the
time what where are we at right now what
who believes what how many what what's
the percentage of people that believe
this that believe that
surveys are still probably one of the
better ways to understand those things
not political surveys because those are
always going to be skewed but
surveys like pew and whatnot they go out
and
try and find out information generally
but here he's saying there's still
quite a few maybe not now even half
anymore remember
that just last week we talked about
nephi
and the people that were standing up for
him right not everybody
is wicked not everybody is in these
oaths and covenants these secret
combinations of the gadian robbers
not everybody has completely lost their
faith but it doesn't take a lot
right it takes really a small minority
of people
to make massive changes in the culture
in the laws in the government
right i mean look at the bolshevik
revolution in russia it was a very small
weak movement that had timing on their
side
and passion and the right circumstances
but this is an interesting statement
here we get the same thing back with
abraham
remember when abraham is saying please
save
sodom here and gomorrah and you have
that discussion back and forth between
abraham and the lord it's like well wait
a minute if there are
still 50 people here that are righteous
will you save the city
how about 10 how about one
right and it comes it brings it down to
the level of an individual and here the
lord is saying look i'll preserve this
because there are still righteous people
here but once the righteous are taken
out
or destroyed or kicked out
expelled from society then it's over
and that's the natural way that things
go
right the wicked play right into that
scenario
they create their own orthodoxy and
their laws
and their culture and their language
all become manifestations of that so
this is kind of how this process works
right he says here
in 14 but behold it is for the righteous
sake
that it is spared right the city of
zarahemla but behold the time cometh
saith the lord that
when ye shall cast out the righteous
from among you
right that is one of the conditions that
is one of the
it's easy to prophesy that because we
know that's exactly what will happen
in that type of a scenario they're not
going to tolerate those that are still
holding on to those traditions
that are holding on to that
righteousness when ye shall cast out the
righteous from among you then shall ye
be right for destruction
and then he goes into the curse right of
the treasures
a curse shall come upon the land saith
the lord of hosts because of the
people's sake
who are upon the land yea because of
their wickedness and their abominations
and it shall come to pass saith the lord
of hosts yea our great and true god
that whoso shall hide up treasures in
the earth
shall find them again no more because of
the great curse of the land
save he be a righteous man and shall
hide it up unto the lord
so this is very interesting
right there's a lot of principles that
can be tied around this
is this something we should take at face
value
are they taking coins and
burying them or gold or silver and
bearing them and then losing those
treasures maybe
is this a curse of the land that you
might have for example landslides
right that you go out and now you can't
find anything
or is this something where people are
putting their money
with others and investments and
it's being stolen from them right the
money is being taken from them there are
there's fraud everywhere because the
society
is breaking down and trust is being lost
and those that put their treasures to
the lord even if you're talking about
you know precious metals and coins
is it being put to good work and with
people that are not
going to be taking the money from you
it's very similar to what we get from
the savior himself
with the sermon on the mount right if we
go to matthew 6
19-20 here's what he says lay
not up for yourselves treasures upon the
earth
where moth and rust doth corrupt and
where thieves break through
and steal but lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt
and where thieves do not break through
nor steal
so this is an obvious reference in this
case
right to the temporal as compared to the
spiritual
it follows with this for where your
treasure is
there will your heart be also so if our
treasure
is where that is the thing that we look
forward to
that we're trying to build if that's
based on
spiritual attributes
and and spiritual principles then that's
something that obviously goes with us
into the next life
it's about becoming and so with the
nephites
very similar here they're going to lose
their treasures
in my mind i think of again a society
that is really breaking down in trust
and even a trade and an economy
that these are things are going to have
massive interruptions
and as the guardian robbers have gotten
into positions of power
and they are about murder and plunder
it's easy to put your money somewhere
where eventually
that is going to go to the wrong place
now another way to look at this is that
what they used to do is that they used
to
hide up money to the temple
and to the priesthood to be used later
on right you'd basically say here's this
i have no more right to this and this is
going to be used
for the church and they would hide up
that money
and then he continues here and in 24 he
says yea woe unto this people because of
this time
which has arrived all right think about
that
because of this time that has arrived
to me as i read that what it's saying is
look you're going through a very
natural process here this isn't that
hard to follow
right it's not that hard to see that as
you start
letting in into the society into the
city here
the bad guys and bad laws
and bad ideas and ideologies and
philosophies
that you're eventually going to arrive
at a certain place
that's your culture that's the the
circumstances of your economy that's the
circumstances of
what holds that society together the
trust
the language the interpersonal
relationships
right this is all built off of a process
that we can all follow in our own time
as well
but he says because of this time which
has arrived
that ye do cast out the prophets
and do mock them and cast stones at them
and do slay them and do all manner of
iniquity into them
even as they did of old time so again
what
what brings the culture the people to
this point
right where you have such a large amount
of people that are going to cast out the
prophets
to me in my mind what i see here is a
new orthodoxy
right you're not saying the right words
you're not
following the right phrases
you're not uniting with the right
ideologies
and when you put those things together
you create an orthodoxy
that does not allow for anything outside
of that
new box that's been created because
things that are built
on falsehoods they can fall very easily
unless you can keep any attacks of it
outside so basically what's happening
here
is that samuel the lamanite is coming to
them and he's the one pointing out that
the emperor has no clothes
as many people already know that and
other peoples are trying to convince
themselves
that he does right and just go along
with everything
you know it's amazing those stories that
we had as kids that aren't told as often
anymore
how much wisdom we see in those things
like aesop's fables
and even mother goose that have been
removed
right because they all talk about
natural processes real things that
happen
and consequences we seem to be moving
more toward a place where
we don't like the idea of consequences
so they're now in a time where they're
not only just going to cast them out
they're going to mock them
right they're in a position where they
have held up a superior narrative to
them
of their culture of their language and
samuel the lamanite does not fit into
that you see what i'm saying on that
in other words the new language and the
new ideas
have enough strength here now that what
they can do is they can
metaphorically cast arrows and stones at
him
through their language by mocking what
he is saying
you can't do that when you unless you've
built up
this other this other language this
other
set of ideas and of course the whole
idea
is to expel him or extinguish
him to slay him he doesn't
follow the orthodoxy and he is a
threat to that orthodoxy
again these are people that are not
saying we're wicked
there no one's doing that they're not
going to say that what they're saying is
our new morality is right
and they're going to have reasons in
their minds
to accuse samuel as
being wicked or wrong or dangerous
that's how that works and that's what
we're going to see more and more of i
believe today
and this next statement falls right in
line with that in verse 25 it says and
now when you talk you say
if our days had been in the days of our
fathers of old
we would not have slain the prophets we
would not have stoned them and cast them
out
why are they saying that right again see
this is this is a religious people still
in in the sense that they have they have
their religion they're just
altering it a numerality they don't want
to think that they would have killed the
old prophets and yet they're going to
kill these prophets
why the only way that really works in my
mind
is that you have created a new morality
and the prophets the new prophets
are breaking that they do not fall in
line with that
they are blasphemous they are evil
they are a threat to society they are a
threat to certain individuals
that's what these people are going to be
thinking now of course at the highest
levels where
where you have the those that are put in
as the chief judges
of the gaddian robbers then mostly
what's what you're talking about there
is probably power
right it's a threat to their power
ultimately
but i think for the majority of the
people that are not in those positions
of power
it is an issue of morality it's an issue
of language
it's an issue of ideology and he follows
up a little further with them
samuel does he says behold ye are worse
than they
worse than those that killed the
prophets anciently
for as the lord liveth if a prophet come
among you and declareth unto you
the word of the lord which is now
inferior the real word of the lord is
inferior to the new morality
which testifieth of your sins and
iniquities
ye are angry with him so again their
sins and iniquities yes it's about pride
yes it's about
probably greed yes it's about power and
all those things
but the sins are that they're missing
the mark the sins are they are not
focused in on the real doctrine of
christ
that's what's making everything fall
apart their sins are their new system
that they believe is righteous
is only righteous in their minds it is
only being justified
by denial and distraction
and so therefore from their perspective
now remember these are the same people
that not that long ago
would have been supporting helaman and
others right
but he says now you will say that he is
a false prophet if he does this
and that he is a sinner and of the devil
because he testifieth that your deeds
are evil
right so again everybody wants to feel
like they're in the right
and when i say the right i mean
righteous
that they're doing the right thing and
if
someone is attacking you and saying
you're not then you're going to say that
they're wrong think about especially in
the us right now
my reference point those that follow
more the democratic party and those that
follow more the republican party
what are and i don't follow either what
what are your views of the opposing
party
and those that participate in that
opposing party
right that's a natural human response
to say okay i'm right and i'm not
talking about whether you're right or
wrong here at all but
the it's a natural response to say well
i'm right
and since somebody else believes
something different
it's not that they're just wrong it's
just it's that they're maybe they're
sinners
right they're out there they're they
want something that is less righteous
than what i want and that's taking
religion out of it
but that's the natural desire that we
have is to be right
on a moral platform so they're saying
that samuel the lamanite is of the devil
that he is a sinner that seems very
natural to me
right he's he's a blasphemer and then we
get down again to the
idea of no judgment right that seems to
always come into play
with the destruction of the doctrine of
christ again if you don't
have consequences and there's no
judgment
or limited judgment you know you what do
you need a savior for
they go hand in hand so if a man comes
among you and says do this and there is
no iniquity
do that and you shall not suffer yea he
will say
walk after the pride of your own hearts
you walk after the pride of your own
eyes
and do whatsoever your heart desireth
and if a man shall come among you and
say this
ye will receive him and say that he is a
prophet
right it sounds good to me you're
preaching to the choir here
to me that tells me that oftentimes we
need to
we need to listen to individuals
that don't have the same ideas that we
do
right it doesn't mean that we have to
accept them and maybe others are going
to teach us something wrong
and dangerous but at the same time you
you've got to be able to
grab onto the principles of the gospel
first
and then look for additional truth
as we're told in the doctrine covenants
right reading good books
finding truth in other areas
is a very difficult thing if you're
always in your own bubble
it's kind of like the light never going
out into the darkness it's like the
light never going out into
the void the unknown so then he goes on
and talks about their treasures again
and how those riches that they have are
going to become
very slippery right in other words
you're going to lose them
and that can happen we all know very
quickly to anybody
we're not always as in control as we
might think we are
and there are consequences to our
decisions
and he says when that time comes and
there is desolation and destruction and
you've lost your riches
and then you will say all that i had
repented and had not killed the prophets
and stoned them and cast them out right
now that the consequences are real
because i didn't want to believe that
there really were consequences or i
didn't want to think about it
now that reality is at my door which is
where we really find
real realities in suffering quite
frankly because it's an experience of
consequences nothing is more real
than consequences and oh that we had
remembered the lord our god in the day
that he gave us
our riches and then they would not have
become slippery
that we should lose them so again i
don't know
what is physically happening here with
all of this
if there's a bunch of bandits that could
be the get in robbers
and just things are stolen from
everybody all the time they're living in
a
a society now where that becomes very
normal for a lot of people
just stealing things or if there's
something else physically that is
happening here you'll lay down a tool
you lay down your swords and on the
moral they're gone
sounds to me like theft putting words in
their mouth
in that day also he says behold we are
surrounded by demons
yea we are encircled about by the angels
of him who hath sought to destroy
our souls so why don't they see that now
right what keeps them going and saying
the emperor does have clothes or not at
least pointing it out
right it's that pushing away of
consequences
instead of being surrounded by angels
numerous concourses of angels
or encircled around by the fire the
glory of god like nephi and lehi
right they're encircled around by the
demons now this could be
the important thing to understand i
think about this about being surrounded
by
demons whatever you want to make of that
here he says we're encircled about by
the angels of him who hath sought to
destroy our souls
so how do we succumb to those demons
how do we succumb to those that want to
destroy our souls
it's usually through flattery and
through
ideas that tug at our
heartstrings in one way or another or
tug at something
that seems admirable right it seems
good it's the wolf in sheep's clothing
and the way that we fall into those
things is not thinking of
the consequences the very possible or
likely consequences
of adapting that type of belief system
or that specific belief or putting our
money
in a certain place and he continues here
but behold your days of pro
probation are passed this is really bad
news here
your days of probation are passed
ye have procrastinated the day of your
salvation
until it is everlastingly too late
and your destruction is made sure
so for them at least in the society not
individually because there's some
individuals that get out of this but
as a society here at zarahemla it seems
like
they are either in now or they are about
to get to
going through this process that he's
been talking about they're about to get
to the point of no return
where where they're going to be
destroyed and again here's
here's what we get at those those heart
strings right and and
and being presented with what appear to
be
moral opportunities moral belief systems
he says for ye have sought all the days
of your lives for that which he
could not obtain and ye have sought for
happiness right they're searching for
happiness
in doing iniquity which thing is
contrary to the nature
of that righteousness which is in our
great
and eternal head so again it's it's
it's where we are all natural men and
women
in the sense that we without
intelligence without
the spirit without effort we naturally
move downwards
however being created in the image of
god we
naturally want to be right and
righteous we naturally want
a good morality to follow but unless
we're able to look at things with
a a reasoning mind
and listen to the words of the prophets
who have the proper
ideology the word of god
so that we can help decipher some of the
things that are thrown our way the
stories the narratives
the philosophies that are swirling
around
us like a tornado right now
without that word of god and that anchor
of hanging on to that that
iron rod right we're going to
end up wandering off
not because we don't want to do what's
right necessarily
that certainly happens right there's
temptation
that happens but oftentimes it's because
we see something that seems like it's
it's good we see something that is a
wrong
morality and it entices us
in a way that is compassionate
and on the flip side of that maybe for
some people something is
enticing because it it is
solely for pride right it's what's going
what you're going to gain out of it
more riches more power more
public approval samuel here
is the light in the darkness and i think
it's important that we see this in a way
that we are following
the profit in our day
we may not be at this point yet in most
of
the places that we live in the world but
we're certainly in a storm
we'll finish up with this in part two
i'll talk to you next time

 

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Book of Mormon Helaman Samuel the Lamanite

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