The darkness lasted three days. The morning of the fourth day, the Sun rose
and the darkness was gone. The shaking
of the earth and chaotic nose ceased.
This had been prophesied by Samuel the Lamanite. “Yea, at the time that he
shall yield up the ghost there shall be thunderings
and lightnings for the space of many hours, and the earth shall shake and
tremble; and the rocks which are upon the face of this earth, which are both
above the earth and beneath, which ye know at this time are solid, or the more
part of it is one solid mass, shall be broken up” (Helaman 14:21).”
The weeping and wailing of the survivors ended and they
began to praise and give thanks to Christ.
Nephi1 had written about prophesies concerning this event.
And
the God of our fathers, who were led out of Egypt, out of bondage, and also
were preserved in the wilderness by him, yea, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob, yieldeth himself, according to the words of the angel, as
a man, into the hands of wicked men, to be lifted up, according to the words of
Zenock, and to be crucified, according to the words of Neum, and to be buried
in a sepulchre, according to the words of Zenos, which he spake concerning the
three days of darkness, which should be a sign given of his death unto those
who should inhabit the isles of the sea, more especially given unto those who
are of the house of Israel.
For
thus spake the prophet: The Lord God surely shall visit all the house of Israel
at that day, some with his voice, because of their righteousness, unto their
great joy and salvation, and others with the thunderings and the lightnings of
his power, by tempest, by fire, and by smoke, and vapor of darkness, and by the
opening of the earth, and by mountains which shall be carried up.
And
all these things must surely come, saith the prophet Zenos. And the rocks of
the earth must rend; and because of the groanings of the earth, many of the
kings of the isles of the sea shall be wrought upon by the Spirit of God, to
exclaim: The God of nature suffers.
1 Nephi 19:10 - 12
In Acts, Luke wrote, “But
those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets,
that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled” (Acts 3:18).
Those that survived were the more righteous part of
society. They accepted the prophets and
did not shed the blood of the saints.
Nephi1 wrote about these people, “But behold, the righteous that hearken unto the words of the prophets,
and destroy them not, but look forward unto Christ with steadfastness for the
signs which are given, notwithstanding all persecution—behold, they are they
which shall not perish” (2 Nephi 26:8).
Richard Rust described the Nephite cycle.
Frequently, the people move through
what has been called a cycle of humility-prosperity-pride-collapse but which
might be more vividly seen as a wave that intensifies as the book progresses.
The preservation at Christ's coming of the "more righteous part of the
people" (3 Nephi 10:12) and at the same time the calamitous destruction of
many cities confirms the oft-repeated Book of Mormon motto. Through every major
prophet the Lord declares: "Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye
shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye
shall be cut off from my presence" (2 Nephi 1:20). The reality of the
second half of the promise is confirmed vividly by Mormon and Moroni, who
recount the descent of the Nephites into total destruction.[1]
They were spared major suffering during the destruction that
occurred throughout their land. Mormon
challenged his reader, “now, whoso
readeth, let him understand; he that hath the scriptures, let him search them,
and see and behold if all these deaths and destructions … are not unto the
fulfilling of the prophecies of many of the holy prophets” (3 Nephi
10:14).
The Nephites are a remnant of Joseph, Moroni1 reminded them, “Yea, let us preserve our liberty as a remnant
of Joseph; yea, let us remember the words of Jacob, before his death, for
behold, he saw that a part of the remnant of the coat of Joseph was preserved
and had not decayed. And he said—Even as
this remnant of garment of my son hath been preserved, so shall a remnant of
the seed of my son be preserved by the hand of God, and be taken unto himself,
while the remainder of the seed of Joseph shall perish, even as the remnant of
his garment” (Alma 46:24).
Mormon also wrote: “Yea, and surely shall he again bring a remnant
of the seed of Joseph to the knowledge of the Lord their God. And as surely as
the Lord liveth, will he gather in from the four quarters of the earth all the
remnant of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon all the face of the
earth” (3 Nephi 5:23 - 24).
Mormon writes that, at the end of the thirty-fourth year,
Christ did manifest Himself unto them, after his ascension into heaven.
And
when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a
cloud received him out of their sight.
And
while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood
by them in white apparel;
Which
also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
Acts 1:9 - 11
He showed them His body, and ministered to them.
Mormon closes this part of his record with somber words, “Therefore for this time I make an end of my
sayings” (3 Nephi 10:19).
[1] "To
Show unto the Remnant of the House of Israel" - Narrators and
Narratives, Richard Dilworth Rust, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed
November 27, 2012.
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