Samuel asked how long they believed the Lord would tolerate
the wickedness. How long will they follow “foolish and blind guides” (Helaman
13:29). “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow
their own spirit, and have seen nothing” (Ezekiel 13:3).
“Yea, and there shall be many which shall teach after this
manner, false and vain and foolish doctrines, and shall be puffed up in their
hearts, and shall seek deep to hide their counsels from the Lord; and their
works shall be in the dark” (2 Nephi 28:9).
“Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if
the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Matthew 15:14).
“Woe unto you, ye blind
guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but
whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor” (Matthew 23:16).
How long, he asks, will they follow the false prophets and
choose darkness over light? “And this is the condemnation, that light is come
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds
were evil” (John 3:19).
“They are of those that rebel against the light; they know
not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof” (Job 24:13).
The Lord’s anger burns against you because of your sins. The
land has been cursed. The day will come when you will not be able to keep your
riches. “Moreover I will cause to cease in Moab, saith the LORD, him that
offereth in the high places, and him that burneth incense to his gods. Therefore
mine heart shall sound for Moab like pipes, and mine heart shall sound like pipes
[OR flutes] for the men of Kir-heres: because the riches that he hath gotten are perished” (Jeremiah 48:35-36).
“But I did remain among them, but I was forbidden to preach
unto them, because of the hardness of their hearts; and because of the hardness
of their hearts the land was cursed for their sake.
“And these Gadianton robbers, who were among the Lamanites,
did infest the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof began to hide up
their treasures in the earth; and they became slippery, because the Lord had
cursed the land, that they could not hold them, nor retain them again.
“And it came to pass that there were sorceries, and
witchcrafts, and magics; and the power of the evil one was wrought upon all the
face of the land, even unto the fulfilling of all the words of Abinadi, and
also Samuel the Lamanite” (Mormon 1:17-19).
Brigham Young recounted how Porter
Rockwell and others had searched for treasure. According to Rockwell, they
found treasure but were unable to withdraw it because it kept sliding back into
the earth. After sharing the cave experience, President Young said: “Now, you may think I am unwise in
publicly telling these things, thinking perhaps I should preserve them in my
own breast; but such is not my mind. I would like the people called Latter-day
Saints to understand some little things with regard to the workings and
dealings of the Lord with his people here upon the earth.” Therefore, in
reporting the cave story, Brigham Young seems to have been teaching that, as
part of the “workings and
dealings of the Lord,” the earth’s
treasures belong to God, who can either bless or curse them (see Helaman 13:31,
33, 36; Mormon 1:18).[1]
Instead of riches, they will live in poverty. Then they will
cry to the Lord. They will weep and howl because of their circumstances.
Then they will weep and howl they should have repented and
not killed the prophets, stoned them, or cast them out. Mormon would describe
the situation towards the end of the Nephite civilization. “And it came to pass
that the Nephites began to repent of their iniquity, and began to cry even as
had been prophesied by Samuel the prophet; for behold no man could keep that
which was his own, for the thieves, and the robbers, and the murderers, and the
magic art, and the witchcraft which was in the land” (Mormon 2:10).
Towards the end of the Savior’s ministry, He would lament, “O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest
the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered [GR have I desired to gather] thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not” (Matthew 23:37).
They will cry they should have remembered
the Lord when they had their riches. We would not have lost them.
Things will be so bad, Samuel said, if they lay down a tool,
it will be gone in the morning. Swords are taken from them when they searched
for them for a battle. Hidden treasures are lost because the land is cursed.
They will continue to cry they should have repented when the
word of the Lord had come to them through the prophets. They are surrounded by
demons, the angels of the devil who wants to destroy their souls. King Benjamin
warned, “But, O my people, beware lest there shall arise contentions among you,
and ye list to obey the evil spirit, which was spoken of by my father Mosiah” (Mosiah
2:32).
Samuel told them their “days of probation are past” (Helaman
13:38). “And it came to pass that my sorrow did return unto me again, and I saw
that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually;
for I saw thousands of them hewn down in open rebellion against their God, and
heaped up as dung upon the face of the land. And thus three hundred and forty
and four years had passed away” (Mormon 2:15).
They have procrastinated the day of salvation until it’s too
late. Their day of destruction is at hand. “And now, as I said unto you before,
as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate
the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is
given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while
in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor
performed.
“Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis,
that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for
that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of
this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that
eternal world” (Alma 34:33-34).
They have spent their lives searching for happiness through
iniquity. “Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration,
that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness
never was happiness” (Alma 41:10).
But a God of love does not leave us
to learn by sad experience that “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10;
see also Helaman 13:38).
His commandments are the voice of reality and our protection against
self-inflicted pain. The scriptures are the touchstone for measuring
correctness and truth, and they are clear that real happiness lies not in
denying the justice of God or trying to circumvent the consequences of sin but
in repentance and forgiveness through the atoning grace of the Son of God.[2]
They will never find happiness by doing that which “is
contrary to the nature of that righteousness” (Helaman 13:38). “And now, my
son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state,
are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without
God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore,
they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness” (Alma 41:11).
Richard Williams writes, “I have pondered a bit about what
the opposite of faith is. I believe the anchor opposite faith is darkness,
nihilism, despair—that state of the soul that comes from living ‘without God in
the world’ (Ephesians 2:12; Alma 41:11; see Helaman 13:38; Mormon 2:12–13).”[3]
Samuel hoped they would hear his words. “And I pray that the
anger of the Lord be turned away from you, and that ye would repent and be
saved” (Helaman 13:39).
See comments by Elder Russell M. Nelson, "It's too late."
[1] Cumorah’s
Cave, Cameron J. Packer, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 13/1–2 (2004):
56.
[2] The
Blessing of Scripture, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, April 2010 General
Conference.
[3] Faith,
Reason, Knowledge, and Truth, Richard N. Williams, FARMS Review 20/1
(2008): 104.
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