Warnings in the way the Nephites’ wickedness progressed

In these verses, Mormon chronicles the Nephites’ descent from great order to great lawlessness from the 27^th year to the 30^th year after the sign is given of Christ’s birth. It starts with pride, persecution, and inequality. Then we get this:

15 Now the cause of this iniquity of the people was this—Satan had great power, unto the stirring up of the people to do all manner of iniquity, and to the puffing them up with pride, tempting them to seek for power, and authority, and riches, and the vain things of the world.

16 And thus Satan did lead away the hearts of the people to do all manner of iniquity; therefore they had enjoyed peace but a few years.

17 And thus, in the commencement of the thirtieth year—the people having been delivered up for the space of a long time to be carried about by the temptations of the devil whithersoever he desired to carry them, and to do whatsoever iniquity he desired they should—and thus in the commencement of this, the thirtieth year, they were in a state of awful wickedness. (3 Nephi 6:15-17)

I notice there are three statements about what Satan does and how the people respond.

Satan stirred people up. It’s a very interesting image there of a pot of liquid that is stirred. It is as though people would be calm and content if left alone, but then Satan stirs them up to do iniquity, trying to convince them they are not happy as they are, that the need power, authority, riches, and vain things of the world.

Satan did lead away the hearts of the people. This idea of leading away hearts is another interesting image. It tells us that Satan managed to engage people’s affections and desires in the iniquity they were doing. That’s very troubling because emotions are very powerful. When one want to do iniquity and don’t want to do good, then doing good starts to feel very unpleasant, like one fights with oneself to do it, and it isn’t very enjoyable.

The people were delivered up…to be carried about by the temptations of the devil. This image of delivering people (like a package) and being carried about, almost like a baby, is pretty sickening. It makes it sound like the people have no choice in the matter, like something made them sin. But the reality is that they simply gave up the fight. They gave up fighting temptation and decided to do whatever they wanted, even though it broke the commandments. The reality was, it was actually what Satan wanted, so they essentially yielded their agency.

Now, sad as it is to read about this, I think it gives us some important warnings for our own lives. It tells us to be alert to notice when we are being stirred up or when our hearts are being led away toward evil or when it seems like we’re just being carried about without our choice. Half the battle is realizing we are in the predicament, discerning the devil’s machinations in our lives.

I’ve recently felt like I’m being stirred up with agitation, frustration, desperation, and anxiety. My head knows that I’m in a place where I’m being asked to grow in a number of different directions at once, that I have to exercise patience, that I have to buckle down and get to work. I’m in a place of stretching, but all the same, it is very difficult because of the strong emotions that are pulling me back and forth, this way and that. It makes it hard to concentrate.

The only way to make it through is to yield my heart to God, to resolve to do His will, no matter what my lying feelings shriek at me. I must trust that each day my righteous efforts will bring me closer to Him.

Feeeelings… nothing more than feeeeelings. Or something else?

Do you ever find yourself in a mental-emotional place where your feelings contradict the thing you know to be true?  Or when you don’t feel good about the thing you know to be right, or feel bad about the thing you know to be good?

It’s annoying, but it happens on occasion, and it is important to at least be able to recognize what is going on so that the feelings don’t get the upper hand.

I’m going to tell about a weird conversation I had with the Lord to illustrate how I discovered Satan had been working on me to try to stop me from making progress.

Heavenly Father, I don’t understand what’s going on. I have to finish these minutes for the meeting, but I don’t want to do it. But I also want to do it, and here I am folding clothes when I should be working on finishing the minutes. I’ve already done the biggest part of the minutes job, and it shouldn’t be a problem to finish it, but it feels like it is a huge job hanging over my head and I don’t want to do it.  I know I’m mostly finished, but I don’t feel how close I am. I know it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it feels like a big burden. Why am I feeling like this?  I know I have troubles finishing tasks as a symptom of ADD, but this seems different.

I also know that as I make the action list from the minutes, I will be creating a task list for myself as well as the other people in the organization. And when I’m done, I’m going to feel like I have to do all those tasks immediately instead of getting on to the tasks that are most important to me that I want to do today. I know I’m going to feel like this because this has happened in the past. It is possible I’m folding clothes because I’m trying to show myself I can do some tasks anyway that are important to me before I finish the minutes. That seems to make it a control issue; I’m trying to show I have control over what I choose to do.

This seems like a situation in which my feelings are lying to me. I don’t like that. Please help me to do what I know I need to do.

Feelings? Really?  Is it “nothing more than feelings”? 

Sometimes it is Satan.

It is Satan who attempts to hijack feelings like that. Feelings are very powerful, and they are useful for motivation, but they are changeable and can be manipulated. This is why it is a great safeguard that we are promised in the D&C the Lord will tell us things in both our mind and our heart.

When I finished my prayer, it was clear to me that Satan had been trying to attack me through my feelings. And if he’s doing that to me, he probably does that to you too. My prayers to Heavenly Father talking about the situation helped me realize it and know what I needed to do. (I trust that when I get done, I will feel happy about it, and the obstructing feelings will dissipate.)

Don’t let Satan win.

Satan’s attempt to further destroy Zeezrom

After the tragedies and difficulties at Ammonihah, we get this little bit:

3 And also Zeezrom lay sick at Sidom, with a burning fever, which was caused by the great tribulations of his mind on account of his wickedness, for he supposed that Alma and Amulek were no more; and he supposed that they had been slain because of his iniquity. And this great sin, and his many other sins, did harrow up his mind until it did become exceedingly sore, having no deliverance; therefore he began to be scorched with a burning heat.

4 Now, when he heard that Alma and Amulek were in the land of Sidom, his heart began to take courage; and he sent a message immediately unto them, desiring them to come unto him. (Alma 15:3-4)

I notice that Zeezrom began to be tormented about his sins, and he thought his wickedness caused the deaths of Alma and Amulek. He had no knowledge of their true fates, but he assumed the worst. It is easy to understand that he might feel like he deserved to suffer for what he did.

But on the other hand, it could be argued that he didn’t deserve to feel this way because when we look at his actions, even though he began by attacking Alma and Amulek, his heart changed, and he began to defend them instead.  But that seemed to count for nothing with him. Something made him forget his more recent better works and only remember his wickedness.

Satan really wanted Zeezrom to be miserable, so he played upon Zeezrom’s ignorance about Alma and Amulek’s fates and put a ton of blame and torment upon him, using Zeezrom’s awakened conscience against him.

Happily, when Zeezrom heard Alma and Amulek were alive and in Sidom,, this immediately showed him his fears concerning them were false. This gave him the courage to act and call them to come. It would take courage to again face those he had feared he had so badly wronged, but he did it, and through more faith in Christ, was able to gain full relief from the rest of his suffering.

I think there’s an important lesson for us here. Satan tries to make our sins seem so awful that there is no hope. He wants us conscious of our awful state, but he also wants to catastrophize the consequences and steal our hope that we can ever escape, or repent, or improve—all to make us miserable.  (And he will try to make things seem particularly bad when we are tired, hungry, lonely, bored, stressed, or sick.) We just have to remember that Satan LIES. Things are not as bad as he makes them seem.   We have to take courage and act in faith, believing that Christ can heal us, help us, give us strength, forgive us, save us.

The Cunning Plan of the Evil One

27 But wo unto him that has the law given, yea, that has all the commandments of God, like unto us, and that transgresseth them, and that wasteth the days of his probation, for awful is his state!

28 O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

29 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God. (2 Nephi 27-29)

It’s a well-known scripture, memorized by many seminary students over the years.

Recently I was reading it over, and I noticed some things.

I noticed Jacob observes on the cunning plan of the evil one, but he doesn’t seem to elaborate on what that cunning plan is, but goes on talk about “the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men.”

I realized that we have to infer some things. We have to realize it is the devil who tries to use those things. He also tries to make us think our learning makes us wise enough that we don’t have to listen to the counsels of God.

Learning doesn’t automatically translate into wisdom, as I’m sure many of my readers know. “Learning” in the gospel is like knowing in your head that stealing is a sin, but “wisdom” could be represented as the point where you can realize when you’re being tempted to steal and you can resist it successfully once and for the rest of your life.

Jacob mourns over the vainness, frailties, and foolishness of men. It hit me this time reading that after having had a number of temptations recently targeted specifically at my vanity, frailties, and foolishness.  Satan really does try to use those things against us.

Vainness is our pride.  Because of our divine nature, we know we have the potential to become something so much greater…  But Satan tries to use that against us, twisting it into a desire for ascendency, hostility toward authority, notions that we are better than others.  He tries to use it to destroy any notion that we need to be humble. He wants to keep us from achieving the meekness that we need to turn to Christ, to repent, and to grow, and to learn from anyone else. 

Frailties represent our mortal weaknesses and limitations. We can’t live long without discovering we have these, yet Satan will try to conceal them from us.  Or he will try to make us think that we can’t overcome them, to make them into our prison. Or he will stress us in moments of weakness (hunger, loneliness, fatigue, discomfort) to get us to sin.

Foolishness.  Today we think this means “stupidity,” but it had a different meaning before, evoking the tendency to backslide, to err, to go apostate, to wander from the truth, or even to rebel.  Mormon observed on man’s falseness and unsteadiness, quickness to do iniquity and slowness to do good, how quick to be proud and slow to be humble. (see Helaman 12:1,4-5)  We all have a tendency to wander or divert, which we have to recognize and curtail whenever we notice it starting to take over. Satan tries to use it and exacerbate it.

Our best weapons against vanity, frailty, and foolishness are probably humility, grace, and repentance.

The Father of Lies

17 And I, Lehi, according to the things which I have read, must needs suppose that an angel of God, according to that which is written, had fallen from heaven; wherefore, he became a devil, having sought that which was evil before God.

18 And because he had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind. Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. (2 Nephi 2:17-18)

I noticed as I was reading these verses that Lehi has just given us a little about premortal life, and even more interesting, he says some of this is according to what he has read. So the brass plates had some info on them about premortal life, particularly the origin of the devil as 1) once being an angel of light, 2) had fallen from heaven, and 3) his fall made him miserable forever, and 4) his goal became to make mankind miserable as well.

Lehi emphasizes the devil is the father of all lies, and reiterates the arguments used to get Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit. It’s sort of an interesting challenge to think about where the lies are.

“ye shall not die” – It is true Adam and Eve did not physically die immediately. Their lives were prolonged so they could repent. But they did die spiritually at once. Did Adam and Eve know that? They may not have, in which case Satan was exploiting terminology and lying in a way they would not have understood yet.

“ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil” – What did Satan mean by “know” here? Know intellectually? If so, Adam and Eve already knew they should not eat the fruit, and Satan was trying to convince them they didn’t really know. Did Satan mean “know by experience”? But you don’t have to do evil to experience it. Sooner or later it will be done to you. Know by doing evil? Does God get to be God by doing both good and evil? By doing good, yes.  By doing evil, no.  Jesus hasn’t done evil, and He is part of the Godhead. So that’s a lie about what it takes to become like God.

In Genesis there is an additional wrinkle thrown in, an implication that God knew eating the fruit would open their eyes, implying He forbade it to keep them out of godhood. The lie there is a malicious slander against God’s motives for forbidding the fruit.

I can see Satan was already attacking what must have been a very visible desire in Adam and Eve to become like God. He was trying to turn them out of the right way.

Another thought I had is about that title “father of lies.”  I wondered who first thought of it, and how they came up with it. In what way was Satan a father of lies? I realized they were comparing how Satan works to the conception process. Satan injects little thoughts/lies in our minds. If we believe those lies, sin conceives in our hearts.  

So now I’ll ask you: how does knowing this help us?

Satan wanted to sift Peter as wheat

31 ¶ And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:

32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. (Luke 22:31-32)

This little bit happened at the last supper as Jesus gave instructions to His disciples.

For a long time I wondered what was meant by “that he may sift you as wheat” and what was bad about it. In my head it evoked an image of a person with wheat on a screen and trying to force it through to strain out the non-wheat. But that confused me because it seemed more like a purification message. But Satan doesn’t want to purify us. So I knew I wasn’t getting something.

Finally, I realized that Jesus didn’t mean “putting through or filtering,” he meant the “shaking” part.  Because sieves have to be shaken hard to get the wheat through. The image of sifting is that of trying to make us feel unstable in our faith and jerked back and forth by what's going on around us. That made a lot more sense. Satan does want to shake us; he wants to keep us from moving forward in faith.

Also, it was an appropriate time for Jesus to warn Peter of this. Jesus had preached that His followers were to have faith in Him, and then Jesus was about to allow Himself to be taken, tried, condemned, beated, mocked, whipped, and crucified to sacrifice His life.  He knew it might shake their faith. He knew Peter, as chief apostle, would have an especially hard time with it.

The JST has another interesting bit. “Satan hath desired you, that he may sift the children of the kingdom as wheat.”  This tells us that Satan didn’t just want to shake Peter; he wanted to take possession of him and thereby shake the rest of the kingdom of God. This tells us how important it is for leaders of the church to keep their faith strong so that they can help strengthen the rest of the church.

I think the verses also have two important principles to help when Satan tries to shake us: prayer (praying for ourselves and others) and preventing our faith from failing. Fervent prayer is a great way of re-orienting my wandering or sin-enticed or fearful thoughts toward Christ. Also, I know by experience that if I continue to act—keeping the commandments, doing my duty—that keeps my faith from weakening. Action builds faith, and faith leads to action. “Tis better far for us to strive, our useless cares from us to drive.”  

I can also testify that our Heavenly Father continues to warn us of difficult experiences that we will have to face. I've seen that in my life. I haven't been warned of everything difficult, but I've been warned of enough things that I can testify of it. It has showed me that Heavenly Father knows the end from the beginning, that He knows me, and that He knows when a warning will help me better than allowing me to walk through it blindly. Getting the warning doesn't make me special, it just means that Heavenly Father knows I need it for my salvation and deliverance.

Lessons from the Lord’s curse upon Satan in the Garden of Eden

And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: (Genesis 3:14)

I was thinking about this recently and I started to wonder, “If Satan was already cursed because of being cast out of heaven, why curse him again?” and “How does it help us to know this curse?”

If we think this is just about a serpent, it seems like the curse is obvious. It’s implied that the serpent used to have legs and here has them taken away. It’s also implied that it used to eat something better, but is now relegated to only eating dust.  Our view of snakes today is perfectly in line with the seemingly physical conditions God describes.  Serpents have to slither everywhere. And they’re always sticking their tongues out, so it looks like they are licking the ground. (Of course, today we know that the tongue action is the way snakes sense things.)

As I thought about it, I wondered if maybe the Lord was making a statement about the curses that come to those who tempt like Satan does.  Satan is already cursed, but it is us who must be warned from becoming his servants and tempting others.  Eve briefly became Satan’s servant when tempting Adam to eat the fruit, so the warning is appropriate.

“upon thy belly shalt thou go” – This curse is about how faster travel has been somehow taken away. I think the larger theme is about progression.  It teaches that those who tempt others will have their own spiritual progress substantially slowed to the point that everyone goes much faster.  Not a pleasant prospect.  Not only that, but any movement would happen on the belly instead of on legs.  That may refer to how a tempter’s core motivation for acting would become satisfying their appetites.  One might even say that a tempter would be enslaved by their appetites.

“dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” –  This curse seems to be about what a tempter finds nourishing.  A tempter feeds not on something sweet, but on gross stuff. If they want to eat dirt all their life instead of something that tastes better, their taste has become corrupted.  They call evil good, and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). Who wants to eat dirt?  Not me.  I’d rather eat tasty fruit from the tree of life than dirt.

So, I think this bit of knowledge can help us when we are being tempted. It helps us discern the consequences.  We don’t want our progression slowed, we don’t want our appetites to be our motivation, and we don’t want to be have our moral and aesthetic tastes corrupted.  

It can also help us think about what we have to offer others when we are trying to persuade them to try something.  Will it stop their progression, enslave them to an appetite or corrupt them in some way?  If so, then we shouldn’t try to pull them in, and we shouldn’t be in it either!

Who Hinders Us?

7 Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?

8 This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.

(Galatians 5:7-8)

Here Paul talks to the Galatians to try to get them to recognize they have been diverted from the true gospel, but I think it is applicable in all cases when we find ourselves suddenly stopped in our efforts to press forward.

If we’ve been diligent and careful and obedient in the past, who is it that is trying to prevent us from continuing that path? Of course it is Satan.

Satan uses a variety of arguments to try to convince us we shouldn’t continue. If we resist one type of argument, he will switch to another type, even if it is opposite to the first type.  (For instance, once I noticed an argument of “Oh, you don’t need to do that until your husband gets home. You’ll work better when he’s around” which, when my husband came home turned into “Oh, you don’t need to do that. You want to enjoy time with your husband now that he’s home.”)  Satan doesn’t care about logical consistency; he just wants to get us to stop our good works.

If we listen to one of his arguments (which are have some kernel of lie in them), he will use that as much as possible and try to apply it to other aspects of our faithfulness to stop that too. If there are cracks in our obedience, Satan will use his arguments like a chisel to widen the crack.

And as I said before, if we resist, he will switch arguments and keep trying anything he can think of.  He will also use feelings of low energy, apathy, depression, irritation, disappointment, and so on to try to divert us and make us think that now is not the time. Those feelings lie to us.

The Lord wants us to continue our diligent obedience. Anything that tries to persuade us otherwise is not of God.

How does this help us? It is like turning on the lights in a dark room where a fight is occurring. When the lights go on, suddenly you can see who is fighting whom, and then you know which combatant needs to be hand-cuffed.   Satan would like us to think we are fighting ourselves instead of him. So recognizing the real source of those persuasions is the important first stop to learning to resist and ignore them.

Why a Serpent in the Garden of Eden?

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? (Genesis 3:1)

I have wondered for a while why the writer of Genesis used a serpent to represent Satan in the story of the Fall.

Lately, because of some experiences I’ve had, I’ve realized why. As Genesis says, the serpent was more subtle than any beast, and Satan is also subtle.  Satan will slither into our thoughts just like a snake when we don’t notice and he will try to plant some lie there. If we’re not aware, we will believe it, and then we’ll make choices based on the lie, which will get us into trouble.

So what do we do? We have to do our best to club him to death when we are presented with his lies or notice them sneaking in.

When God confronts Satan for tempting Adam and Eve, He says this:

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15)

That bruising the serpent’s head expresses beating down the lies and not listening to them. Satan keeps trying to tempt us though, so we have to kill the lies over and over again.

In the temple narrative, however, God says something slightly different. Instead of saying that the seed of the woman would bruise Satan’s head, God says the woman’s seed will crush the serpent’s head.  To me that prophesies of several things: 1) how Christ would resist every temptation presented to Him, 2) that Christ would defeat spiritual death with the atonement, 3) that Christ would overcome physical death so we would not be endlessly dead and subject to the devil, and 4) that with Christ’s help we will be able to resist temptation.

I take great comfort in that bit about crushing the serpent’s head. If I can keep beating down the lies as they are presented, by the grace of God, someday they will be crushed, never more to rise again.

King Laman as an analog of Satan

I ran across these verses as part of Zeniff’s record in the Book of Mosiah where Zeniff summarizes the trouble with living by the Lamanites:

17 And thus they [the Lamanites] have taught their children that they should hate them, and that they should murder them, and that they should rob and plunder them, and do all they could to destroy them; therefore they have an eternal hatred towards the children of Nephi.

18 For this very cause has king Laman, by his cunning, and lying craftiness, and his fair promises, deceived me, that I have brought this my people up into this land, that they may destroy them; yea, and we have suffered these many years in the land. (Mosiah 10:17-18)

If you substitute “Satan” in place of “King Laman,” you can see how appropriate this is as a lesson about what Satan tries to do.  He will use cunning, lying craftiness, and fair promises to deceive us, to bring us into a dangerous place so he can destroy us, or else cause as much suffering as possible.  He will also teach his children to hate, murder, plunder, and do all kinds of destruction to the children of light.

The trouble is, Zeniff, who is in this predicament, was the other part of the equation.  He contributed to his own beguilement because he wanted to live in the land near the Lamanites. He saw something he thought was good among them, and he thought that would preclude the Lamanites from trying to destroy him and his people.  But it didn’t.

So, this tells us that we, like Zeniff, also contribute to our own beguiling. We see something we think is good in Babylon, and we think that will preclude Satan from hating us and trying to destroy us. But it doesn’t. In Satan’s case, the good is a deception, a counterfeit. Any good he offers is only a fair promise given with lying craftiness to draw us in.

Today let’s pray for discernment to see Satan’s fair promises as the lies they are, and pray for the power to resist.

John chastises the Pharisees and Sadducees

As John is baptizing, we get this little bit:

7 ¶But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: (Matthew 3:7-8)

The question John puts to the Pharisees and Sadducees—“who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”-- has always puzzled me.  It seemed so odd.  I couldn’t get a grasp on what he was trying to say.  It is obvious he is trying to persuade them to repent, but what exact argument he was making seemed garbled.

Eventually I realized John was demonstrating great discernment about their spiritual state.  John knew they knew they had been called to repentance.  He also knew they knew they would suffer the wrath of God if they didn’t repent.  He also knew they were uncertain about whether their sins were that serious and whether they really needed to be concerned about them.  (Of course we know the answer to that—all sins require repentance.) He also knew they were uncertain about the source of this message.

The warning to repent was an opportunity to flee from the wrath (of God) to come (at judgment day), and John asked them to consider what source would want them to repent and escape God’s wrath.  It’s an easy answer—it’s God.  Satan doesn’t encourage repentance; only God does.  So they needn’t hesitate to repent and worry about the source of the message.

It’s a good message today.  Who tells us we’re fine how we are and we don’t need to change?  That’s a message Satan would like us to swallow.  Who instead warns us to repent?  God.  

For commentary on "generation of vipers," see another of my posts.

Watch For The Thief

42 ¶Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

43 But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. (Matt. 24:42-44)

These verses come in the chapter in which Christ discusses the signs of the times and signs of His second coming on the earth.

When I read this most recently, it struck me as odd that Jesus underlines that we don’t know exactly when He’s coming and in the very next sentence gives a little parable about a man who would have watched IF HE HAD KNOWN when the thief was coming.  Why talk about what we could do if we had known when He’s just said we can’t know? 

It is then that I realized that I had been assuming that the thief coming in this little parable represented Christ’s coming.  So it must be that the thief coming represented something different, something that it is possible to know when it will occur. 

One of the characteristics of the thief (besides stealing) is that he breaks up the house.  I suspect the thief represents Satan and temptation because not only does Satan try to steal the Saints’ possessions of spiritual gifts (along with cheating souls, leading them carefully down to hell), but he is trying to break up the family (the house) and break up the covenantal foundation of our lives. 

This brings us to a very interesting question.  Is it possible for us to know the hour that the thief (Satan, temptation) comes?  I suspect that it is, if we are alert to notice what kinds of things “set us off.”  I suspect that Jesus wants us to learn to recognize the patterns of circumstances in our lives—our frame of mind, our energy level, our thoughts, the surroundings we are in, the desires that we have—that in the past have led to us sinning.  He wants us to consider those times “the hour when the thief comes” and to guard ourselves to keep from having our house broken up.   The cool thing is, if we do that and guard our houses carefully, we will automatically be ready for Christ whenever He comes because we will have kept ourselves pure.

I’ve written before about how I’ve noticed a tendency to get stressed during breaks of general conference.  That is only one small example of an hour of temptation for me.  When I went through some depression, I noticed I was particularly vulnerable to a heavy feeling of despair right at sundown and dusk.  That was another hour of temptation.  I have hours of temptation due to PMS.  I have an hour of temptation after I’ve worked very hard without much break and I’m tired.  I have an hour of temptation related to the computer and doing my writing.  These are patterns that I can think of immediately, but I know I have a lot of little hours of temptation associated with interacting with my husband and my family.  I have to watch for those hours and guard myself and my house. 

I get two other principles from these verses.  I notice that Jesus calls it an “hour” and not a day or a week.  That teaches me that these periods are relatively short.  Repulse the thief and he will leave eventually.  Second, it strikes me that Jesus was teaching a principle that He practiced (as our perfect example), which gives us insight into His inner life.  He had hours when He was tempted and He resisted.   After a while, He recognized the pattern such that He was able to predict when it was going to happen.  He learned this principle, not from noticing the pattern of the times He was giving in (because He never gave in), but the times when He had resisted.  He wanted us to learn about this too.

Another Examination of the Third Temptation of Christ, Matt 4:8-10

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Every once in a while I reread through the Gospels and I keep finding things that I hadn’t thought of before.   This time I was thinking about the third temptation of Christ.

8 And again, Jesus was in the Spirit, and it taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

9 And the devil came unto him again, and said, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4:8-10, JST included in blue)

5 And the Spirit taketh him up into a high mountain, and he beheld all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.

7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Luke 4:5-8, JST included in blue)

While it is not stated in the account, it is possible Satan may have been trying to make Jesus think of this scripture in Psalms:

7 I will declare the decree:

the Lord hath said unto me,

Thou art my Son;

this day have I begotten thee.

8 Ask of me,

and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance,

and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.  (Psalms 2:7-8)

Satan would see how Christ might apply verse 7 to Himself as meaning the day of His baptism at the hands of John the Baptist (though later Paul would use that verse to apply to Christ’s resurrection instead (see Acts 13:33)). 

Satan may have been trying to get Christ to think that verse 8 meant He could pray for anything and get it, even if it were riches and power.  Satan wanted Christ to think God gave Him permission to have a triumphant life of ease and wealth and complete dominion instead of a suffering servant life.  (Think how the atonement would have been frustrated if Jesus had believed that!)  It could be that Satan was playing upon Jesus’ righteous desire to establish the kingdom of God and was offering Him a chance to have it without suffering, waiting, living in relative obscurity, or allowing others the choice to refuse Him.

So how did Jesus resist this temptation?  

“thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve” –  First, I have to wonder how quick Jesus’s response was.  Was it instinctive and immediate with clear knowledge about who he was refusing?  Or did He have to work through it with reference to righteous principles and confidence in His divine mission?

At any rate, Jesus understood the implications for the salvation of man if He decided to take dominion of the world immediately.  To do so, thinking to avoid the coming suffering and sacrifice of the atonement, would be self-serving to the extreme.  Even though Satan only mentioned worship and not service, Jesus knew that whomever He served He would be worshipping too.  So, if He served Himself by asking for and taking dominion now, it would be as if He were worshipping Himself, but that would put Him in direct opposition to Heavenly Father’s plan for the salvation of mankind, and this would constitute worship of Satan instead.  (This gives us a profound principle—serving one’s self is worship of Satan because it puts us in opposition to God.  Even for Jesus to serve Himself would constitute the worship of Satan.)

This is why Jesus parried Satan’s temptation with quotation of the commandment to only worship and serve God. 

Now, we know that verse 8 must be fulfilled.  We know that Jesus as the King of kings and Lord of lords will someday rule over all the earth, though His authority isn’t universally acknowledged now.   Yet, there is an additional way to interpret verse 8 that would be consistent with Christ’s sacrificial mission, and according to that interpretation it is being fulfilled at this very moment.  According to this interpretation, v8 is a prophecy of Christ’s intercession for all men. 

Ask of me,

and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance,

and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Happily, the Doctrine & Covenants speaks of the intercessory conversation that Jesus has with the Father in which He asks and is given what He wants :

3 Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—

4 Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified;

5 Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life. (D&C 45:3-5, emphasis added)

Jesus asks the Father to spare us and give us to Him.  When we come to Christ, we become His possession as His sons and daughters.  Thus it is love, self-sacrifice, and serving God that must bring about the fulfillment of the prophecy in Psalms 2:8.

Thoughts on Amalickiah’s Rise to Power Through Treachery, Alma 47-48

--> In Alma 47:1- 48:3, we see how Amalickiah rose to power among the Lamanites, and it is mostly through betraying people’s trust in him.

1)   He was trusted with the loyal part of the Lamanite king’s army.  He betrayed the army by making a secret agreement with Lehoni by which he tells Lehonti how to conquer the army.

2)   He betrays Lehonti’s trust by having him poisoned by degrees, even when Amalickiah was second in command.

3)   He betrays the Lamanite king by having him murdered.  This also betrays the part of his army that loves the Lamanite king.

4)   He betrays the trust of the part of the army that didn’t want to fight by having speakers of propaganda stir the Lamanites up to anger against the Nephites so that they want to go to war.

Clearly Amalickiah was an equal opportunity betrayer.  Being this guy’s friend was dangerous.

I used to have this idea that uniting his army with Lehonti’s automatically made the army united in purpose, but now I don’t think so.  I suspect that much of Amalickiah’s shenanigans after Lehoni’s death were efforts to keep the army together.  He had to play each side off the other and take turns giving each side what they wanted.  

I suspect that he promised Lehonti a united army would be more effective at resisting the Lamanite king’s command to fight.

He probably used the pro-war part of his army to administer poison to Lehonti, making them think this was all part of the plan to remove the anti-war resistance.

For the march back to the Lamanite capital, he probably assured the pro-war faction that they had succeeded, and then soothed the anti-war faction into compliance with the return by suggesting that assassinating the Lamanite king would be the perfect means of ensuring that they would not be subjected to go to war.

When the Lamanite king was assassinated (most likely by the anti-war faction of Amalickiah’s army), Amalickiah’s pretended anger and gave the pro-war faction opportunity to get revenge by allowing them to go after the supposed culprits, the king’s servants. 

The escape of the Lamanite king’s servants to Zarahemla was probably  a great excuse for Amalickiah to start war.  He could accuse the Nephites of planting assassins in the palace and make avenging the death of the king the reason why the Lamanites should go to war.  And the anti-war faction would have to go along with it or risk having their crime exposed.

Amalickiah is a very true type of Satan. Just like Amalickiah was not loyal to those who allied themselves with him, Satan does not support those who trust in wickedness.  A lot of people think they can break the commandments, keep the evil consequences under control, and have evil serve them, but Amalickiah’s treatment of Lehonti shows how Satan prefers to make us think we’re in control while his other forces take control and destroy us.

Another thing we learn about Satan from watching Amalickiah is that Satan’s forces are not united.  Satan uses this by playing each part off the other until he gets what he wants.  He gives side A chance to destroy side B for a while, then gives side B chance to destroy side A for a while, then vice versa.  Each side thinks they are the favored ones, but Satan’s only concern is to get more power and to destroy.

And notice, Amalickiah never does the dirty work himself; he only incites others to do it.  Likewise, Satan might argue he’s not personally responsible for the evil of the world; he doesn’t have a body, but he tries to influence people by giving them the bad ideas.  He tries to make those ideas look attractive and like they will give them what they want. 

Reading about Amalickiah, I always find myself wondering how Lehonti could ever have known Amalickiah was a bad guy.  How could he have protected himself?  John Bytheway has noted that Lehonti should never have come down from his mountain to talk to Amalickiah, yet something about that bothers me just a little bit.  What if it had been Captain Moroni with an army that was asking for a parley?  To me, to refuse to come down and even listen to a proposal before you even know what it is sounds close-minded. 

Eventually I realized that Amalickiah tipped his hand when he offered to betray his own army to Lehonti.   While this sounded like a very attractive offer to Lehonti, it should have been a big red flag that Amalickiah was not a man to be trusted.  A man who betrays his own people as a goodwill gesture to make friends with someone will think nothing of eventually betraying the new friend when advantage is to be gained elsewhere.

Different Ways We May Yield to the Devil

15 And because of my mourning and lamentation ye have gathered yourselves together, and do marvel; yea, and ye have great need to marvel; yea, ye ought to marvel because ye are given away that the devil has got so great hold upon your hearts.

 16 Yea, how could you have given way to the enticing of him who is seeking to hurl away your souls down to everlasting misery and endless wo?  (Helaman 7:15-16)

 This isn’t a very cheerful block of verses.  Here the prophet Nephi is speaking from his garden tower to the people of Zarahemla who have been marveling at his grief over their wickedness.  Nephi tells them that instead of marveling at him, they ought to marvel at themselves and their wickedness.

He uses three different “away” phrases that capture different aspects of how they have gone astray (and how we may also go astray).

“ye are given away” – This captures the sense of how some of them have given themselves to the devil as if as a gift.  (“Here, Mr. Devil, let me make you a present of my eternal soul.”)

“you have given way” – This captures how some have stood strong against the devil for a while like a strong city, but after continued attacks they have given up and given way all of a sudden, collapsing.

“him who is seeking to hurl away your souls” – This corresponds to how some seem determined to destroy themselves as quickly as possible with terrible choices, treating themselves like trash.  This is exactly as the devil wants it.  He doesn’t treat souls gently.  He wants to trash them, to throw them down into depths of misery as quickly as possible. 

There’s two contradicting images of the devil here—one of him having great hold on people’s hearts and the other with him seeking to hurl souls away to everlasting misery.  But they are both true.

May we never give ourselves away, nor give way, nor throw ourselves away.