17 But behold, if the inhabitants of the earth shall
repent of their wickedness and abominations they shall not be destroyed, saith
the Lord of Hosts.
18 But behold, that great and abominable church, the
whore of all the earth, must tumble to the earth, and great must be the fall
thereof.
19 For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they
which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will
grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and
perish;
After warning that the fate of the wicked is destruction, Nephi writes, “if the inhabitants of the earth shall repent of their wickedness and abominations they shall not be destroyed” (2 Nephi 28:17). Here, again, we see that the destruction promised by the Lord for the wicked will not occur if they wicked simply repent!
Ultimately, the great and abominable church of the devil
must be destroyed. It is referred to as
“the whore of all the earth” (2 Nephi 28:18).
John wrote, “For true and righteous are his judgments: for he hath
judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and
hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand” (Revelation 19:2).
Nephi was told by the angel guiding him through his great
vision:
“And that great pit, which hath been digged for them by that
great and abominable church, which was founded by the devil and his children,
that he might lead away the souls of men down to hell—yea, that great pit which
hath been digged for the destruction of men shall be filled by those who digged
it, unto their utter destruction, saith the Lamb of God; not the destruction of
the soul, save it be the casting of it into that hell which hath no end…
“And when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out
upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the
earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father
shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which
he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel” (1 Nephi 14:3, 17).
It has always seemed appropriate that the church of the
devil would be referred to as a whore. As
we’ve been studying Nephi’s words in Chapter 28, we learn that the wicked will
do what they do for power and gain. There’s
something in it for them. They sell
their souls to devil. A very appropriate
analogy.
The day will come when the devil’s kingdom will shake,
attempting to stir up his follower to repentance. Nephi told his brethren:
“And the righteous need not fear, for they are those who
shall not be confounded. But it is the
kingdom of the devil, which shall be built up among the children of men, which
kingdom is established among them which are in the flesh—
“For the time speedily shall come that all churches which
are built up to get gain, and all those who are built up to get power over the
flesh, and those who are built up to become popular in the eyes of the world,
and those who seek the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world, and to
do all manner of iniquity; yea, in fine, all those who belong to the kingdom of
the devil are they who need fear, and tremble, and quake; they are those who
must be brought low in the dust; they are those who must be consumed as
stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet” (1 Nephi 22:22-23).
Following Alma2, Amulek taught the people, “For
behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death,
behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal
you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no
place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final
state of the wicked” (Alma 34:35).
If those following the devil refuse to repent, they will
become wrapped in his chains forever. When
offered the kingship by his people, Alma1 refused and told them, “And now I say
unto you, ye have been oppressed by king Noah, and have been in bondage to him
and his priests, and have been brought into iniquity by them; therefore ye were
bound with the bands of iniquity” (Mosiah 23:12).
Confronting Zeezrom, Alma2 explained what is
meant by the chains of hell. “And they
that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word
until they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken
captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction. Now this is what is meant by the chains of
hell” (Alma 12:11).
Elder Neal Maxwell explained how to avoid these “stumbling
blocks.”
“Earlier, Nephi wrote of how the Lord would, ‘in word, and
also in power,’ remove stumbling blocks in order to help some people believe (1
Nephi 14:1). In our time, the prevailing intellectual pattern is secular, and
an ‘exceedingly great many do stumble’ over and experience difficulty in
accrediting and taking seriously revelations and sacred records (1 Nephi
13:29). Nephi also advised that the Lord will stir, even ‘shake,’ the kingdom
of the devil in order to help bring some therein to repentance, which is a
topic for another time (2 Nephi 28:19). For the meek, however, the Book of
Mormon removes some very large stumbling blocks…”[1]
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