Recently I noticed there are two difference incidents
involving enemy armies detected from the top of a tower in the Book of
Mosiah. In the first, King Noah is
trying to escape from Gideon, who wants to kill him, and King Noah flees and
gets on the tower.
6 And Gideon pursued
after him and was about to get upon the tower to slay the king, and the king
cast his eyes round about towards the land of Shemlon, and behold, the army of
the Lamanites were within the borders of the land.
7 And now the king cried out in the anguish of
his soul, saying: Gideon, spare me, for the Lamanites are upon us, and they
will destroy us; yea, they will destroy my people.
8 And now the king was not so much concerned
about his people as he was about his own life; nevertheless, Gideon did spare
his life.
9 And the king commanded the people that they
should flee before the Lamanites, and he himself did go before them, and they
did flee into the wilderness, with their women and their children.
10 And it came to pass that the Lamanites did
pursue them, and did overtake them, and began to slay them. (Mosiah 19:5-10)
I have no idea just what Noah thought getting on the tower
did for him in his extremity; maybe it allowed him to fight from height? But from the top, he just happens to
notice a Lamanite army in the borders of the land.
In the second incident one chapter later, it is Limhi who is
on top of the tower.
6 And it came to pass that when the Lamanites
found that their daughters had been missing, they were angry with the people of
Limhi, for they thought it was the people of Limhi.
7 Therefore they sent their armies forth;
yea, even the king himself went before his people; and they went up to the land
of Nephi to destroy the people of Limhi.
8 And now Limhi had discovered them from
the tower, even all their preparations for war did he discover; therefore he
gathered his people together, and laid wait for them in the fields and in the
forests.
9 And it came to pass that when the
Lamanites had come up, that the people of Limhi began to fall upon them from
their waiting places, and began to slay them. (Mosiah 20:6-9)
King Limhi manages to discover all the Lamanite preparations
for war from the top of this tower.
Now, whenever there are similar incidents, in the Book of
Mormon, it is helpful to make a comparison between them to see what we can
learn from the similarities and differences.
Similarities
Both King Noah and King Limhi used the same tower. They both used it to spot the Lamanite
armies. This makes me think that
tower was built for that very purpose as sort of an early warning system. It was more economical than surrounding
the land with guards because it only required one man on the tower, but for
guards it required an army which would have to be paid to stand idle. In that small Nephite community, men
were at premium (or at least that is the impression I get).
I think the watchtower is meant to be a symbol for
prophets. Just as the tower
allowed the watcher to see the enemy army when it was still far away, prophets
can see spiritual threats before they become obvious to the rest of us. They warn us ahead of time so we can
prepare to fight them.
Differences
King Noah seems to have not used the tower nearly as well as
Limhi did. King Noah only happened
to notice an invading Lamanite army, whereas Limhi seems to have made a habit
of getting on the tower to see what he could see.
King Noah only got on the tower when he was in trouble, but
Limhi seems to have got on the tower regularly, even when he was not in
trouble. We learn from this that
listening to the prophets can’t be something that you do only when you are in
trouble because then you won’t be able to deal with the larger issues and
threats that come. Instead, you
have to regularly consult them for advice (in the Ensign magazines and conference addresses) and make their messages
a real part of your life so that you’ll be able to pick up on the patterns that
indicate an advance warning.
King Noah only saw the Lamanite army just as it was
invading, so there was no time to prepare a defense. All he and the Nephites could do was retreat and hope to
escape. Limhi, on the other hand,
saw all the Lamanite preparations, so
he knew what was coming. He didn’t
dismiss what he saw; he knew what it meant, and so he took action. He prepared his people to fight back,
and when the Lamanites invaded, the Nephites had the advantage of surprise.
One example of an invading “army” we have been warned
against by the prophets is pornography.
Our society is becoming more porn-ified. We have been warned against it, and not only do we need to
resist it in our media consumption, we have to raise our voices for decency in
our society. I have
mentioned to grocery store managers (in a nice way) about how I’m bothered by
certain magazine covers in the magazine racks. Today I sent an email to a local news organization objecting
to footage of dancing inside an adult entertainment business. I’m almost beginning to think
that it might help me to streamline future protests by making up some sort of
form letter conveying my general concerns about the pornification of society,
how the particular media organization/store is contributing to that trend, and
facts about the harms of pornography, which I can then customize with pertinent
conditions of a particular exposure to indecency and then send it quickly.
The above insight about King Noah’s vigilance versus King
Limhi’s vigilance has crystallized for me the conviction that we have to see these different
incidents as part of a general invasion that requires us to fight.
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