Today I read Helaman 11, where Nephi uses the sealing power the Lord has granted to him. As I was pondering this morning reading this chapter, I remembered what it was about and I was thinking about it. In this chapter the Nephites begin a war which goes one for a couple of years, and Nephi asks the Lord to send a famine in the land.
I was pondering this morning before my reading just why Nephi would ask the Lord to send a famine when they were already killing themselves with the war. The answer came to me during my reading. When people, especially men, start fighting, the adrenaline starts pumping and they generally do not have much capacity for rational thinking at that point. Thus one can conclude that if the Nephites were to continue to fight their war, they would not remember the Lord their God but rather just keep remembering the unreasoning anger towards each other until they were destroyed. We see this happen not once but twice in the Book of Mormon, with the Jaredites and the Nephites at the end of their civilization.
It is rare that a war will stir up people's remembrance to the Lord, especially when so many of the wars are fought in His name, or as His will, Crusades anyone? However, a famine, now that will stir up the people to remember the Lord their God and to repent of their ways and cause the people to repent of their sins. And it truly did, it worked exactly like Nephi wanted it too, and for a number of years they were righteous again. But then, sure enough the people started getting wicked again.
I've always found this chapter to be interesting because it talks about the Nephites and Lamanites sending armies into the hills and mountains to try and destroy the Gadianton Robbers and how they were unsuccessful. I have always wondered how that could be, and then about 3 weeks ago I was driving from Indiana to Utah with my wife's family and we were in Wyoming and I was looking out at the landscape and I could easily understand who whole armies of robbers could hide in those hills and never be found or use them to their advantage and kill the armies being sent against them even given the high visibility in areas like that. I pointed out my observation to my father-in-law and he commented on much the same thing. It's not so hard to believe when confronted with an area where it is possible to hide for years and never be found.
Sadly though, this chapter shows not only the repentance but also the return to wickedness to the point that in only 10 years the people where just as wicked as when they had started. We have already talked about how that is possible in a previous post and how actually in most cases a society can go from extremely righteous to wicked in a very, very short amount of time. Mormon actually examines this very concept in the next chapter.
It has been years, even thousands of years since a prophet used the sealing power to bind the heavens, that we know of. Today we use it for much more happy purposes of eternal marriage, for which I am very, very grateful because it made possible my marriage to my wonderful companion. I am forever grateful to my Father in Heaven for making it possible to have this wonderful woman by my side, not just for this life, but for eternity. I hope you treasure your eternal companion too if you are so blessed to have one. May we all heed President Monson's Sunday Morning talk from this past October General Conference and be grateful for what we have, and not focus on what we don't have. Until tomorrow.
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