Transcript of Edgemont Stake Book of Mormon Classes by John W. Welch, 2007 to 2009
Helaman 7-11 Nephi’s Trials and Great Blessing
Conference Reports
Last December, I was invited to speak to the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.Fuller is one of the leading Baptist Evangelical colleges in the world, and they wanted me to speak in a series of monthly lectures they were giving on different religious approaches to leadership.They had a Rabbi talk about Jewish leadership styles.They had a Catholic priest come and talk, they brought people in from all around, and I was the Mormon speaker.They were interested at that time especially because of Mitt Romney.They wanted to know what kind of a leader a Mormon would make in the White House, so I talked about some our basic leadership principles.When we talked about the Kiwanis—they are involved in leadership—I thought that would be a subject that people would be interested in.
(Student) I think Jack did a good job of remembering what he was going to talk about so we will all give him a hand…
You just had to get me on the right foot.
(Student) Monday morning at 10:00.
At the Eldred Center.One other announcement would be, for next week we will finish the Book of Helaman.So finish your reading on that.
I will tell you a little bit about my trip to London and Cambridge.I spoke, actually I was invited to speak, to the British Society for the Study of Christian Ethics,and after some twenty years of annual meetings, I think I was the first Mormon that they had ever had at this conference, let alone as a speaker at the conference.For those of you who know that there are some question in some people’s minds about whether we are Christians or not, this created a bit of a buzz to have a Mormon presenting a paper there.The reason I was invited was the whole conference— three days—was on the ethical foundations of Christian morals in the Sermon on the Mount.Some of the organizers had become aware of the book that I wrote a few years ago on the Sermon on the Mount called Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple.They wanted to hear how temple themes help to strengthen morals and to create ethical formation and so that was the topic of my paper.
We will be talking about the Sermon on the Mount in a couple of weeks when we get to 3 Nephi, chapters 12 to 14.We may take a long time on the Sermon on the Mount, and I do not know how quickly we will get through that material, so I will not give you much of the gist of what I said. We will bring those topics up as we encounter them going along. Let me just say that it was a rich experience.The people were very gracious.Lots of interesting papers were presented and the lunch, breakfast, and dinner conversations were conducted in many languages. There were people from all over Europe, and although they were interested in the paper that I presented and I got plenty of questions about that, they were much more interested in just asking, “What is it that Mormons really believe?Do you believe in Jesus Christ?Do you accept the cross?Do you…? You know, those basic questions.I was on a mini-mission and had a great time.
(Student) …how many were at this conference?
There were about 90 people at this conference.
(Student) …from all over the world?
Well, yes, I guess so.There was one from Australia and some from Switzerland and Scotland but most were from England and several from Germany, Austria, and Belgium.It is a leading society.One of the keynote speakers on our Saturday night banquet at Westminster College in Cambridge, which is the main place where Presbyterian ministers are trained, the speaker was a Member of Parliament from one of the inner-city districts in Leeds, which is in the Midlands.I have some ancestors from Leeds so it was interesting to— my ancestors came from the neighboring district from where he was—and he had some very interesting things to say.He had been Tony Blair’s religion czar when Tony Blair was in power, and so he just had a lot of really interesting things to say.The bombers who bombed the tube, the undergroundin London, came from his district, so many religious issues come up but what a wonderful talk he gave about getting along with each other, caring about each other, and building neighborhood values.He told some wonderful stories about reconciliation—things that we wish had happened in the Book of Helaman but did not.It was quite an interesting conference.
(Student) did you stir up any …emotions…do you feel like you…?
Oh, I think so.I mean, sometimes the conversations would begin, “Are you Christians?” I hope I convinced them that we were.Rather than a lot of mistaken notions, it was just a lot of ignorance.The people just— theyknew more about Arches and Bryce than they knew about Salt Lake City, so we still have a long way to go to reach the whole world.
(Student) What was the organization?
It is the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics.Anyway, let us not lose more time on that, but like I said, we will get to the details of some of those things when we get to the Sermon on the Mount.
Nephite Legal Cases as Turning Points
Tonight we are really privileged to deal with Helaman chapter 7 to 11 and chapters 7 to 9 are the account of the trial of Seantum.Those chapters are absolutely in the dead center of the Book of Helaman, just like the trial of Abinadi is in the very middle of the Book of Mosiah.
It is interesting that these legal cases keep coming up as important turning points in the history of the Nephite world.Obviously, one of the reasons that the trial of Seantum is here is because Nephi was able through prophecy and the gift of the spirit to know what had happened and to disclose the murderer.There are a lot of interesting little twists and turns in how that person was finally arrested, detected, and convicted.However, the reason that this event is here in the middle is to validate Nephi as a great prophet of the Lord,and that becomes really important.It is not only Nephi who is a prophet; we have Samuel the Lamanite who is a prophet, so the Book of Helaman becomes a prophetic forewarning laying the groundwork for the prophecies of the coming of Christ, which event we will meet in the first part of 3 Nephi.We will see how difficult it was for people to believe the words of the prophets.
What Will it Take to Get People to Listen to the Prophet?
My first question to you is thatwe see here that Nephi was a great prophet and he used many ways to try to get people to listen to his prophetic voice.He showed signs, he put on some interesting demonstrations,—he brought converts. Think of all of the things this great Nephi did, but people still did not really listen to him. My question is, "What do you think it will take to get people to finally listen to a prophet’s voice?" We sang at the beginning of class, Come, Listen to a Prophet’s Voice, but these people in England are still a long way from listening to a prophet’s voice.What is it going to take?
Can we do anything?What do you think?
Be Pro-active:
(Student) Mitt Romney helped many people be interested and want to know more about it.
So you think it would help if we were a little more proactive and a little more visible?
(Student) If we were more knowledgeable, people that were more educated in spiritual things as well as things of the world…
Well, I felt as the Lord says, we do not light a lamp and put it under a bushel.If you put it on a menorah, you put it on a candelabra where it can light the whole house.So letting our light shine might be a way to do that.
(Student)I am reminded of President Hinckley. Here is a prophet with great powers of articulation that a wide range of people find very easy to accept…writing books…so the people— we have many friends who are not members of the Church who love Gordon B. Hinckley.
And standing for something.
(Student) Yes, if you love the man and you accept many of the things that he says then maybe you will accept more of the things that he says….be led, step-by-step, to recognizing that he is a prophet.
Did you give your friends the books?
(Student)We did.
Well that is good.That is something we could do more of and with the internet, maybe there are opportunities for us to download things and send them to our friends and say, "Here is something that might be helpful." Some of you may know Robert Grow.He wasJoe Cannon’s partner for a while, a lawyer up in Salt Lake, and Robert’s youngest son has made quite a sensation with YouTube.Now you and I probably do not know much about YouTube but it is a phenomenon that anybody under 25 spends a lot of time with, right Stacy?And six months ago this Daniel Grow was disturbed that if you went on YouTube and wanted to see some of these little video clips— they have like one to three minute clips where you can just watch something about some sound byte of interest—if you put in Mormon or temple or something like that, it was completely dominated by anti-Mormon postings.He started looking at this and found out that a lot of those guys were playing against the rules. He blew the whistle on them, and he got things pulled off.There is a system on ratings.The more hits you get the higher your rating is, so it is like when you Google-search something it is going to come up first if it is been hit a lot of times.Well they were putting many hits through the same computers, which you are not supposed to do, boosting their ratings.He decided that he wanted to begin putting up things that were positive, and the first thing he did was to put up clips from President Monson’s first speech as the Prophet in April conference, and without any boosting or padding of the voting, that YouTube posting went to the top of the list. He began targeting— he showed me a chart of what he has done by targeting different subjects, and he has now taken over the top 100 anti-Mormon postings on YouTube.That is one person.Maybe there are things like that we can do to help people come listen to a Prophet’s voice.
Short-Term Effect of a Crisis
(Student) People sometimes do not listen until there is a crisis in life or in the nation.
Did you see any of that in your reading of Helaman 7 to 11?When things finally got bad enough.How long did it last?A couple of years and they were back at it again, but at least they were there for a little while.They have to hit bottom and they sometimes have to be hit over the head with a 2x4.Did Nephi know that?Yes!I think sometimes people will come and listen to a Prophet’s voice when the Prophet speaks in unambiguous, passionate, really vigorous terms and I think we see Nephi doing that here.
(Student) 9/11 was a good example— a modern-day example of these sorts of things. For those first few months, everybody was listening to their religious leaders and turning to God, but it does not last long.
We can see that that is exactly the way the Book of Mormon tells us it is going to happen.
Pleading of Leaders
(Student) We were in Australia on a mission, and after we were home, they had some terrible fires and they were awful. They are not a particularly religious country at all, and so after about two months of the fires, they still did not have them under control, the Prime Minister suggested they try prayer.
Did they?
(Student)Well I do not know, I did not hear.
The Prime Minister in Australia or in England can do that because the church is still a part of the government. Inthe Church of England, the Queen is still the head of the church, nominally.The thing that struck me about Helaman,chapter 7 was the way in which Nephi, as the prophet, decided that he was going to plead with the people and to speak in unequivocal terms to let them know how bad things were going to be for them.It is really harsh language here.There are some interesting woes, but I think one thing that will help bring people to listening to prophets’ voices is when we listen to their pleading for us.When we hear them, and I would bet we hear some of this in the coming general conference.I do not know about you, but I think, as I have listened to conference over the last several years, and maybe it has been since 9/11, I have heard more really sincere pleading with the saints.I think of President Eyring coming to tears.We did not see that from the general authorities ten years ago, pleading with people to be righteous, to follow the spirit, and to do what the Lord wants us to do.I think of Elder Holland’s talks—very passionate, and I suppose you could go down a lot of others.Elder Scott always just straight at you with some very, very deep-seated pleadings.I think Nephi is in that mode when he gets up on his tower and begins to lament and mourn.
Nephi on his Tower
I asked you the next question here, what do you imagine Nephi looked like?What was he doing? It says that he is mourning, he is lamenting, and people as they walk by, what are their reactions? They start calling people— they start looking around. What do you think his tower looked like?
(Student) High enough they could see over the wall.
There is a wall. He has some kind of an enclosure.Why is his garden, his little enclosure right there near the main garden— near the main market place, and right by the highway?
(Student) One my favorite things from FARMSwas the paper that he wrote about this— I really felt the spirit.
Good, tell us about it.
(Student) I do not remember much but this was the way it was in their ancient and biblicaltimes. They had theirtowers right by the market place because it was the way the roads went. This matches exactly the description of…
That is right.We know how cities in ancient America were laid out.They had minor market areas in the outlying neighborhoods, and the houses were fairly far apart because people had lots of gardens and animals and things like that.Then there would be main roads that came into the main market— the center of town— and one of these towers probably would have looked like a pyramid of some kind— would have been stone. It is not a wooden tower, so probably a stone pyramid with a flat top on it— a level place at the top.It is right there near the main market, which is prime real estate, right?This is probably the most valuable land in the City of Zarahemla, which is the capitol city.How does Nephi get that land?It is his inherited land, right?That is where, who else probably had his house?His father, grandfather, it was probably where Alma the Younger had his home as the chief judge of the court system and so on.The temple is probably not far away— the temple where everyone gathered to hear King Benjamin.It is the same city; it is the same neighborhood.
As Nephi is up here on the top of this pyramid, he makes enough of a spectacle of himself that a crowd starts to gather.There is something unusual going on here.Barbara, do you remember any of the things that were suggested about what he might have been doing? We do not know, of course, well it does say that as they are gathered there, he in verse 15 asks why they are there?What are you watching out for?Is it because of my mourning and lamentation that you have gathered?What would that imply?
(Student) We are very reserved in our prayers but Hebrew people, Native American people, Hispanic people, they are very vocal and wail and …
Why Will Ye Die?
Good, good. So there he is on the top of the tower, and he is probably tearing his hair and he does not have his priestly robes on, I mean here is the prophet probably wearing sackcloth and ashes.He iswearing rags, and he is putting on quite a performance.What do they think?They think somebody’s dead.Who has died?Did your wife die?Somebody in the royal family has died.What is going on?Of course, what is the answer? He turns around and says, “Why will ye die?” and that will there may be ambiguous. “Why will ye die?” may be a future tense,but we all will die, so that is not much of a question.I think it is more likely saying, “Why are you willfully acting in such a way that you arewillingly dying?”
(Student)They are dying spiritually.
That is right, and he calls them to repentance— he heaps woes upon them, and there is a woe at the end of verse 16 and then three more woes, a triad of them at the end of 25, 26, and 27. As you read these words with that sort of background in mind, this was a pretty dramatic calling to repentance especially with the curses added on top.These words werenot going to go down very easily with people.What is their reaction in chapter 8verse1?The judges start saying, “Let us arrest him.”Now think about that.The Judges are going to arrest the President of the Church, arrest the Prophet.This is not an ordinary, daily event.I ask you, why do you imagine that the judges do not arrest Nephi?They think he is broken the law.They think that he has reviled against the government and that is against the law. Exodus chapter22 says thou shalt not revile God, the king, or thy rulers, and obviously Nephi is doing that.It says, “Ye shall not curse people. These kinds of woes got Abinadi in trouble, so why do not they just arrest him if he is broken the law?