One of the most remarkable sections of the entire Book of Mormon, in my opinion, on a lot of levels and for a variety of reasons. Helaman 13 through 16. Number one, look at how it starts. Last week, you'll remember, we were in the pride cycle and watching how many times the Nephites were just going around this almost like a Ferris wheel, this pride cycle.
Now look at chapter 13 verse 1, it came to pass in the eighty and sixth year the Nephites did still remain in wickedness, yea, in great wickedness, while the Lamanites did observe strictly to keep the commandments of God according to the law of Moses. So you get this total reversal of the Lamanites and the Nephites that sets the stage here. And it came to pass that in this year there was, notice how Mormon words this, there was one Samuel. a Lamanite. Now, the question is, is there only one Samuel in all the land and he happens to be a Lamanite?
I don't think that's what he means. I think it's just a common guy. There's one Samuel among many Samuels and he happens to be a Lamanite.
We know nothing, absolutely nothing about this guy's background. We don't know his parentage. We don't know if he's part of the group of the anti-Nephi-Lehites or if he had been in the same group with the stripling warriors. We don't know where his hometown is. We don't know who taught him the gospel, how he got converted for sure, if it was Nephi and Lehi in his mission, if he was part of that group.
We know nothing about him. We don't know if he's married. We don't know if he has children. We don't know where he lives currently.
So he just shows up. He came into the land of Zarahemla and he begins to preach to the people. Now just as a side note.
There are very, very few people in the scriptures that Jesus mentions specifically by name in the context of make sure their record is included or paid attention to. In 3rd Nephi chapter 23, Jesus teaches the people about the importance of searching diligently the words of Isaiah, but then in the latter part of that chapter, he talks to Nephi. the main record keeper, and he says, bring the records forth, and he brings them forth, and he says, didn't I command my servant Samuel to prophesy unto this people that at my resurrection the graves would be opened and many people would see these risen saints who have been resurrected? And Nephi says, yeah. And Jesus'question was, did that not happen?
Yes, it did. Well, then why isn't it recorded in here? So what we don't know. is if Nephi had included all of Samuel's prophecies and teachings but somehow had left out that little detail about the resurrection, or if he had left out all of Samuel's words and Jesus is saying, no, we need Samuel's words in here in this Book of Mormon record, and so Nephi goes and puts them on. We don't know which it is.
All we know is Jesus is paying close attention to what he had commanded Samuel to prophesy. and it needed to be included in the record. Why is this unique?
We've got some bad speeches in the Book of Mormon, but he is the only Lamanite prophet to have his words, his speech, included in the Book of Mormon. Unique on many, many levels. And perhaps one of my favorite things that makes these chapters unique is the kind of prophet Samuel is. I like to refer to him as Samuel the Specific.
Because what you'll get in the Old Testament, and you'll even get it to a degree in the New Testament and other Book of Mormon prophets, you'll get prophecies. They'll give you a general idea of what's going to happen, and often it's conditional prophecies. If you don't repent, then you're going to be brought into bondage, or if you don't do this, then this is going to happen.
Samuel's different. He doesn't give very many general prophecies at all. It's very specific.
He tells you. It's going to be a day and a night and a day. It's going to be 400 years from now.
It's going to be in the third generation it's going to pass away and in the fourth generation. Let me give you the script of what people are going to say. The sinners lament and he'll give them specific phrases and words that are going to be used that then get repeated exactly in 3rd Nephi when it actually happens. His clarity of focus in his prophecies is uncanny. I can't find personally and I'm probably I'm going out on a limb here, but I can't find another prophet in scripture that has a higher number of just absolutely spot-on specific prophecies about what's going to happen.
down the road. So as you go through these chapters 13 through 16, pay attention to this style of his prophesying. The other thing to pay attention to is when Samuel shifts from speaking about the Lord in third person to when he starts speaking for the Lord in first person.
He does this a lot and oh, how it must have galled those Nephites to have this. Lamanite up on their wall speaking to them in first person as if he were the Lord. I, the Lord, say this and I am angry with you for this and I… they're not going to appreciate that.
What's fascinating is actually the meaning of his name ties into all this. His name could mean two things. You want to be looking for this because he often says, thus saith the Lord.
So Samuel's name could come from two possibilities, Shem El, which would be name of God. So, he's speaking in the name of God, or as if he is God himself, as God has come down. Or it could be Shem El, would actually mean heard of God, which is interesting because it's... does he say? I'm going to speak whatever I hear or whatever God puts into my heart to say.
So, Samuel is actually hearing the voice of God and speaking for God right there. It's very, very powerful that his name happens to represent exactly what's going on in his conversation or his preaching to the Nephites. I love Samuel the Lamanite. I hope that sometime in the next life he's one of those on my short list of people that I want to go and meet personally and just thank for being such an inspiring person in my life.
I love his story, I love his teaching, I love his faith, his diligence and his obedience. And let's dive in. Notice in verse 2 that he came into the land of Zarahemla and he began to preach unto the people and it came to pass that he did preach many days repentance unto the people and they did cast him out and he was about to return to his own land.
So this wasn't just an afternoon, this was many day experience and they cast him out and you can picture him about to return to his own land when verse 3 occurs, but behold. "...the voice of the Lord came unto him that he should return again and prophesy unto the people whatsoever things should come into his heart."So he's properly named. He hears God. Beautiful.
Now, brothers and sisters, we did this with Alma coming out of Ammonihah, the same experience. Can you imagine the natural man response, the mortal? carnal, sensual, devilish nature that we all have to wrestle with to one degree or another in our life.
Can you picture that part of Samuel interacting with the spiritual side of Samuel when the voice of the Lord comes to him and says, go back into the city and preach whatsoever things I put into your heart. I can just picture the devil on the shoulder analogy whispering in his ear, oh come on, you were in there many days, you saw how they appreciated you. You saw how much they loathe you.
You saw the bias that they have against you. You think they're going to listen to you the second time. And by the way, why didn't God put those things into your heart the first time you were in there?
You'll notice how easy it is to play devil's advocate. You'll notice how easy it is to play the skeptical card in this type of scenario. I love the fact that Samuel pays no heed to any of the negative voices that would have dissuaded him from going back into the city, but he simply turns around, goes back, verse 4, and it came to pass that they would not suffer that he should enter into the city. I can picture this scenario.
Samuel comes back to that entrance to the city because it is a walled, fortified city, so there's an entrance point, and I can picture those men standing there going, you again? Seriously? I thought we've already dealt with you. Get out of here. Go home.
And they probably called him some names. I love the fact that Samuel doesn't turn around and walk away dejected and say, well, Lord, you gave me a commandment. You told me what I was supposed to do, but you didn't tell me how to do it. So I tried, but I gave up.
I've got two strikes against me now. I spent many days in their teaching and now I tried to go in again and they rejected me. So If you want them taught, you're going to have to come up with some other way to do it. Samuel doesn't do that. He takes the command of the Lord and he keeps trying until he finds a way to fulfill it.
I can picture him stepping back away from the city and looking, thinking, hmm, how can I deliver this message? Interesting. Where there's a wall, there's a way. So, he goes and he gets onto the wall. He stretched forth his hand.
and he cried with a loud voice and prophesied unto the people whatsoever things the Lord put into his heart."You'll notice he didn't pull out of his satchel a scroll with his prepared talk. He stretches out his hand and he begins to speak for the Lord. It's beautiful. Some of you will remember a few weeks ago when we had Jack Welch here talking about chiasmus. If you want to have some fun with chiasmus, Samuel the Lamanite's speech to the Nephites begins with a beautiful chiasmus. It's in verse 5 through 9, and I'll just give you the first half of the chiasmus, and you can go through and look for the elements in the second half. So quick review, chiasmus is where you give a list of things. then you give that same list in reverse order that can either be the exact same thing or the opposite of that thing depending on the the nature of the chiastic structure. In this one, notice how he starts and notice the specific nature of some of these prophecies. Starting in verse 5, the first element is he tells them that the sword of justice hangs over their head. Then he tells them, 400 years from now, your Nephite nation is going to be destroyed. A lot of people have wondered, why in the world would Samuel go there? Why would people who are wicked Nephites living in the capital city of Zarahemla, why would they care that 400 years from now, all the Nephites who live that far down the road, Our nation, our geopolitical identity is going to exist no more. Why would they care? This would be a bit like the pilgrims arriving in 1620 and one of their leaders saying, in 400 years this civilization on this new land is going to fall apart. For the pilgrims who are trying to eke out an existence in a pretty hostile wilderness, like, how's that relevant to us? So it's a great question that you've raised. The reason we raise that question is because we are saturated in a Greek mindset. a Greek perspective which is dominated by the individual identity, that your sense of self comes as an individual, predominantly, whereas the Hebrew mindset that these people come out of, out of an Old Testament context, you identify as a group, as a collective, as a body, as a tribe, house of Israel. Nephites, Lamanites, that collective group and your posterity and your ancestor, that is a far bigger deal in a Hebrew culture than it is in a Greek mindset. So to say to them, 400 years from now, all of your legacy, all of your identity that you're building as a people, it's going to be gone. That's cut into the heart for them. Then he says, heavy destruction. awaiteth you."Then he says, nothing can save you that you're going to try to do except for, so nothing's going to save you except for your willingness to repent and have faith in Christ. That's the only hope you have because he is going to come down and die for the people. in order to save the people, and an angel came and declared this to me. The angel delivered this to me, and what did he deliver?
These glad tidings. And then, what did God do? He sent me to you. He sent me.
That's what an apostle is, somebody who is sent by God. I'm not saying Samuel's an apostle, I'm just saying the same essence is here. He's a witness of some things sent by God to declare these glad tidings to the people.
There's your first half of the chiastic structure that a prophet was sent by God to declare these glad tidings to the people. Now you can take from verse 7 through verse 9 and look for the comparisons coming out of the chiasmus. As we now launch into the rest of his speech, I would just say let's not leave this back in 5 BC. But let's bring this forward to our day and make sure that we don't do what the Nephites are doing with this message because we have prophets and apostles who have seen things, who know things, and they're declaring glad tidings. They're giving warnings and we can think we're smarter than the prophets.
We can think we know better or we can trust the world's experts more than them. We have our agency to do that. But if we do, then we follow this exact same pattern that is outlined here in 5 BC. It's almost as if this book really were written for our day, not just a history book of what's going on in their time. In the rest of this opening chapter, 13, he's going to describe all of the various ways that they are choosing iniquity.
and some of the consequences and the curse that's going to come upon the land. They're becoming more ripe for destruction because of the wickedness and the abominations in their society. In verse 22, he transitions from talking about their present struggles and their future destructions and he then starts to talk about how they've arrived at this point, what caused all of this. Look at verse 22. And by the way, this is relevant today as much as it ever was back then. Ye do not remember the Lord your God in the things with which he hath blessed you, but ye do always remember your riches, not to thank the Lord your God for them.
Yea, your hearts are not drawn out unto the Lord, but they do swell with great pride unto boasting, and unto great swellings, envying strife, malice, persecutions, and murders, and all manner of iniquities. Look at verse 24,"...woe unto this people because of this time which is arrived that ye do cast out the prophets, and do mock them, and cast stones at them, and do slay them, and do all manner of iniquity unto them, even as they did of old time."And he's talking about walking after the pride of their hearts and accepting the false prophets. Verse 29,"...O ye wicked, and ye perverse generation, ye hardened, and ye stiff-necked people, how long will you suppose that the Lord will suffer you?" Yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides? Yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than the light?
"There's a little concept here that we need to talk about. In this whole discussion, you're seeing all of these things that the Nephites are turning their heart toward. Everything that they've set their hearts upon are treasures and riches and things of the world. You'll notice The pattern? Satan doesn't offer you anything. He doesn't give you anything. All Satan does, he encourages and tempts you and entices you to take the things that God has given us and then Satan tries to get us to misuse those. Look at verse 31,"...behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them, and that in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them." And then he says something very shocking in 32,"...and in the days of your poverty you shall cry unto the Lord, and in vain you shall cry, for your desolation has already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure."Let's talk about the solution to the problem because chapter 13 is all about the problem. Now let's talk about the solution, chapter 14. He gives these prophecies of Christ's birth and he's not just going to say, yeah, sometime really soon the Lord is going to come. No, this is Samuel the specific. Right? Verse 3, behold, this will I give unto you for a sign at the time of his coming. For behold, there shall be great lights in heaven, insomuch that in the night before he cometh there shall be no darkness, insomuch that it shall appear unto man as if it was day. Therefore there shall be one day and a night and a day, as if it were one day and there were no night. So he gives them that specific prophecy. Verse 5, behold, there shall a new star arise. Verse 6, behold, this is not all, there shall be many signs and wonders in heaven. Isn't it interesting that the way he describes how they're going to know that God, the Son of God has been born into the world is through heavenly manifestations of light. Taylor's talked about this before in a previous episode, how when Jesus comes into the world, all of the prophecies and all of the signs are associated with an increase of light coming to the world. And when Jesus is going to die and be buried in the tomb, what is the sign? Darkness. so dark that they can't kindle a fire. It's pitch dark for these people. I am the light of the world, Jesus said, and I think it's portrayed beautifully with these symbols. He shifts to talk about the death and the signs that will follow his death, but that comes towards the end. In the middle, Samuel gets into great depth. and great detail about the plan of salvation that is remarkable. Look at verse 11, Helaman 14, 11,"...and ye shall hear my words, for for this intent have I come up upon the walls of this city, that ye might hear and know of the judgments of God which do await you because of your iniquities, and also that ye might know the conditions of repentance."This is one of the themes that that Samuel takes up here and really fleshes out in a way that I think is as good as any prophet anywhere in scripture. What are the conditions of repentance? And what does it mean? And why should we really care? Look at verse 12. And also that you might know of the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and of earth, the creator of all things from the beginning. By the way, this won't get you into heaven, but it is interesting to note. that Samuel just used 20 words, word for word, from Mosiah chapter 3 verse 8, King Benjamin's speech, starting with Jesus Christ on line 2 all the way down through from the beginning. Those 20 words, word for word, come straight out of that third chapter of Mosiah. Hmm, that's interesting because that's the same chapter that King Benjamin told us he's delivering the words of an angel. And Samuel told us at the beginning, an angel hath declared these words unto me. You're getting this intertextuality in the book. They're saying the same things and the focus here is on Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the creator of all things from the beginning. And that you might know of the signs of his coming to the intent that ye might believe on his name. He's trying to increase the faith and the trust in Christ, believe on his name. That's why I'm telling you all of this, he says. Verse 13, and if ye believe on his name, ye will repent of your sins, that thereby ye may have a remission of them through his merits, not because you've done this. Brothers and sisters, this is such an important concept. Sometimes we get this notion that I'm doing all of this work to have faith in Christ and repent of my sins and that's what forgives me. It's kind of like in a physical sense, if you think about medicine for a minute. If somebody's sick, they've got a fever, so you give them some Tylenol or Ibuprofen, and you think, this is going to fix them. The Tylenol doesn't fix the fever. The Ibuprofen doesn't fix the fever. It becomes a catalyst for the body to fix the fever. Notice that if you give Tylenol or Ibuprofen to a body that isn't alive, the Ibuprofen does nothing for that body. because the body isn't working. Just like if I try to repent in isolation of Christ or cut off from Christ, that repentance will do no more good than to try to give medicine to a dead body. It won't serve me. It's only his merits, it's his life, it's his perfection, it's his righteousness that makes my little meager efforts actually become a catalyst to take effect and to help change my life. Now look at verse 14, behold again another sign I give unto you, yea, a sign of his death. For behold, now notice the wording here, he surely must die. that salvation may come. It wasn't optional. He had to die in order for us to have salvation. Yea, it behoveth him, and becometh expedient that he dieth, to bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, that thereby men may be brought into the presence of the Lord. We need to pause here and talk about the overall plan of salvation in a big 30,000 foot view. When we use the phrase plan of salvation, many people instantly go in their mind to this version of the plan where you have circles and lines. You have the premortal life, you have birth, you have the earth life, here's the veil, you have death. spirit paradise, spirit prison, then you have the resurrection, then the judgment, and then you have the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms. Oh, and then there's this thing called outer darkness as well. That's traditionally where we go when it comes to plan of salvation teaching and plan of salvation overview. This is a model that is, you'll notice, dominated by location, location, location, with a few events in between. We could call this the real estate version. of the plan. And we do need to make this clear. This is not the plan of salvation. You don't take the infinite plan of our Heavenly Father for our salvation and put it into a total of a dozen drawings on a board and say, that's the plan. This is simply one of many lenses through which we can see certain aspects of Heavenly Father's plan of salvation. Is that clear? Not the plan, but a representation of elements in the plan. Years and years ago when I was teaching seminary at Box Elder High School in Brigham City, a good friend and colleague, Donnie Anderson, shared with me a different lens that I have used ever since then and I love it. You'll notice with the circles and lines, it's actually possible to teach that entire overview of the plan of salvation without ever once mentioning the name of Jesus Christ or talking about his infinite atonement. So, in this representation, let's take a different look. We'll call this one the real state version, not real estate version, because this is about the states of being that we pass through. We'll start with the dotted line. You're on the dotted line if you're with God or if you're like God. Then you're on the dotted line. You'll notice that in the pre-mortal, realm, in the pre-mortal state, we were with God. We were on the dotted line. We weren't like him completely, spirit children of our heavenly parents, but we were at least with them. Then there comes this time when we say, we want to be like you. Brothers and sisters, is the purpose of the plan of salvation to get somewhere, or is the purpose to become something? That's obviously a trick question because the right answer is C, all of the above. But you'll notice often when we speak about salvation and eternity and heaven, we talk about it in terms of just the location being kind of the main focus point. I want to return to live with God. I want to go to heaven. The point that I'm trying to make here is, We already lived with our perfect heavenly parents in the perfect home, heaven, but apparently it wasn't ultimate happiness. Just being in heaven apparently wasn't the end goal for us. We wanted to live with God. but also to be more like our heavenly parents. So for that, he says, we need three things in place. We call these the three pillars of eternity. The first pillar is the creation. There had to be a place where we could live, not in their presence, where we could be tried and tested and learn and grow and develop and establish relationships and gain experience. There had to be a fall. Keep in mind, the three pillars of eternity, creation, fall, and atonement, these were put in place before the foundation of the world. The creation wasn't an accident. The fall wasn't an accident. The atonement wasn't plan B. This was the plan laid out. Once the world is created, Adam and Eve are walking and talking with God in his presence. but when they partake of the forbidden fruit, it introduces two things that cause them, spiritually and physically, to leave this line. Two deaths. Death in the Gospel implies a separation of two things. So you have a physical death and you have a spiritual death. So, a physical separation is the body and the spirit being separated. Your spiritual death is you being separated from the presence of God. Adam and Eve fall from the presence of God the Father. They're no longer with him and they're not like him and thus begins. So they were, at this point, they're in a state of innocence. Oh, and by the way, every one of us We're born into a physical world and for about eight years, we're, for all intents and purposes, we're still on the line because we're in a state of innocence where we can't sin. We don't partake of a forbidden fruit, but we give in to the enticings of the flesh and of temptation and we experience our own carnal nature, our own falls to a degree. But we've automatically inherited both of these deaths from Adam and Eve, our first ancestors. If it weren't for Jesus Christ and his I'll make it big and his infinite atonement, this is why I like this particular lens to look at aspects of the plan of salvation, is because it puts Jesus front and center at the core. Everything comes to him and everything revolves around him fulfilling this infinite atonement. this third pillar of eternity. If it weren't for that, these dots would become arrows and we would just keep getting further and further and further away. There's no hope. But because of Christ and his infinite atonement, he's going to fix these problems. Now watch. If I were to ask most members of the Church, what do you have to do to overcome Adam and Eve's physical death that you inherited in our fallen bodies? What do you have to do? I think most people in the church would very quickly respond, nothing. You're going to get resurrected free of charge. In fact, good, bad, or ugly, everything, everyone who ever lived is going to be resurrected free of charge. And it doesn't matter what you do or don't do, that's going to happen. Then we would say, well, what do you have to do to overcome? the spiritual separation from the presence of God that we all inherited from Adam and Eve, just like we inherited that one. And I think most would say, well, you have to have faith in Christ and repent and get baptized and endure to the end after you get the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then you can be brought back into the presence of God. Watch what Samuel Lamanite says, second half of verse 15, Jesus dieth to bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, that thereby, the thereby referring to the resurrection of the dead, men may be brought into the presence of the Lord."Wait a minute, to be brought into the presence of the Lord, that sounds like you're no longer separated from God's presence. That sounds like this spiritual death is now overcome. Look at verse 16,"...yea, behold, this death bringeth to pass the resurrection, and redeemeth all mankind." mankind from the first death."What percentage of mankind get redeemed from the first death? All. That's 100%. Everyone. It doesn't matter what you do or don't do, you're going to be redeemed from the first death. And then notice he clarifies that spiritual death. For all mankind, that's 100%, by the fall of Adam, being cut off from the presence of the Lord, are considered as dead, both as to things temporal and to things spiritual. We are cut off from the presence of God and we will die physically and now, because of Christ's resurrection, all will be resurrected and brought back into the presence of God. Look at verse 17. Behold, the resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all. mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord."That pre-Adenic state. We were all in the presence of God in the premortal realm. Adam and Eve walked and talked with God.
They fall from his presence and he's saying, everyone, all are going to be redeemed and brought back into his presence. Now some of you are thinking, hold on a minute. I've spent my whole life talking about how you have to have faith and repentance and baptism and gift of the Holy Ghost in order to be saved.
He's not talking about salvation. He's talking about a state of redemption. where we're redeemed from the grave and from our fallen separation state from the presence of God.
We will all be resurrected and brought back into the presence of God, but it's not a guarantee to last. Remember, he said, I'm going to show you the conditions of repentance. Look at verse 18. Yea, and bring it to pass, the condition of repentance, that whosoever repenteth, "...the same is not hewn down and cast into the fire. But whosoever repenteth not is hewn down and cast into the fire, and there cometh upon them again a spiritual death, yea, a second death, for they are cut off again as to things pertaining to righteousness."From his perspective, he's saying, look, if you haven't met the conditions of repentance, you're going to die again. You're going to fall from God's presence again.
So, this will be very temporary. You'll notice Nephi is the one who says, no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God. He didn't say no unclean thing can come into the presence of God, he said dwell.
To dwell means to live, to stay, to abide, to make your home there. If you haven't met the conditions of repentance, you're not going to be comfortable in the presence of God. It's the last place in the world you're going to want to be.
So, basically what you see here diagrammed is Adam and Eve's fall and what we inherited. It's overcome for everybody. But there is a second part here that Samuel is alluding to. I've also inherited this carnal nature. And if I don't use the conditions of repentance, so these conditions of repentance that are laid out in the book of Acts, I'm going to Book of Mormon and in the Scriptures are basically the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is trust Jesus, have faith in Christ, repent of your sins, get on that covenant path, endure to the end with the gift of the Holy Ghost.
That's a simple way to define what the condition of repentance is. Now, we don't have to worry about physical death. We don't have to worry about the particular spiritual death that we inherited from the fall.
Those are taken care of by the Savior's infinite atonement and his resurrection. In addition to those two deaths from the fall, we inherited a carnal nature, a fallen nature. Ironically, we can't overcome that in isolation of Jesus Christ either. We have to rely on him, his merits, his mercy, and his grace.
to be able to meet those conditions of repentance that will permit us to not persist in our own carnal nature. Let's clarify. The resurrection brings everybody out of the grave, brings everybody back into the presence of God to be judged, and those who have met the conditions of repentance are, it is given to them to abide in his presence in our...
Doctrine and Covenants section 76 context, we would say celestial glory. We have now come back into the presence of God. We live with him and we have become like him through the infinite atonement of Jesus Christ, through his merits and his mercy and his grace alone. But those who chose not to meet the conditions of repentance, according to Samuel, they fall from the presence of God a second time and now combining with a In section 76 context, you would say, well, there are degrees of glory in that the people in the terrestrial kingdom get to be in the presence of Jesus Christ, and the people in the telestial kingdom get to have the presence of the Holy Spirit with them, and those who cannot abide any law, heavenly law.
end up in an outer darkness. That is what 76 would call the spiritual death, the second death in its fullness is this outer darkness realm. Let me see if I can translate this into simpler terms for a moment. Why would Samuel be teaching big, huge doctrines about the fall and the redemption and the judgment and then the ultimate rewards or punishments in some cases? to these people of the wicked city of Zarahemla, these Nephites.
He's setting up the conditions of repentance. He's trying to help people understand, look, there has been a price paid for you that is infinite. in its scope and scale and in its capacity to heal. Jesus has paid a price that you couldn't pay.
What do I mean by that? Nobody on their deathbed can lay there and look at their loved ones and say, oh, don't mourn for me. It's okay, you can bury me if you'd like, but I'm just going to go ahead and resurrect myself someday. Nobody can say that.
None of us have any power over physical death. It's final for us and if it isn't for Jesus and his infinite atonement. Jacob tells us in 2nd Ephesians 9 that our bodies would rot and crumble to its mother earth to rise no more. Same thing here. There's not a single person on this planet who can say oh yeah, I committed a sin, I did something wrong.
Oh, don't worry about it. I can fix that. I can reverse that.
Nobody can go into the past, change a bad behavior and make it right. and be perfect and then move on forward. Nobody can do that.
Nobody can fix this death, nobody can fix that death. So Jesus comes and he says, I will redeem all of you without any effort on your part from the physical grave and I will redeem you from your separation from God's presence. I'll bring you back into the presence of God.
Now whether or not you're comfortable in the presence of God, It totally depends on the second half, but it's as if this is happening. Jesus says, I will pay a price to justice that you can't afford and you can't pay, you have no way to pay it. I'll pay it for you and then in return, I'll turn to you and I will give you some new conditions that you can meet. He says, will you just trust me?
Will you have faith in me? Will you repent of your sins? I'll forgive you if you will.
I'm not going to hold you hostage to your past like we often do to ourselves. And then would you form a covenant connection with me? Would you please trust me enough to take my hand and walk this path with me?
And I will promise you the gift of the Holy Ghost to be your constant companion as well. And then endure to the end on that covenant path. That is the conditions of repentance.
in simple terms. And he's saying, you can do that. You couldn't do this, but I already did that for you.
But you can do this. Oh, and by the way, you can't do this alone. You can't even hope to have faith without my help. You can't even hope to repent without my help. You can't get baptized unless I provide that for you.
You can't get the gift of the Holy Ghost unless I send him. and you can't endure to the end unless I'm helping you every step of the way. Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is at the heart and core and center of everything that is in this view of the plan. You'll notice a pattern with Book of Mormon prophets. They'll teach big concepts like this.
They'll teach eternal doctrines, eternal truths. but then they don't just leave it hanging. They always come to a call to action. They always give an invitation.
Verse 19, because of all this that I've taught you, Samuel's saying, what's the effect? Therefore, repent ye, repent ye, lest by knowing these things and not doing them, ye shall suffer yourselves to come under condemnation, and ye are brought down unto this second death. So his invitation is Nephites, there is such a huge price that has been paid for you, therefore, just repent.
It's not rocket science. It's not hard. It's going to be temporary suffering. Repentance causes some pain to change and turn.
It's painful, but it's temporary pain with eternal, enduring joy as the reward versus what Satan offers you, which is temporary pleasure and fleeting feelings of enjoyment and temporary happiness in exchange for an eternity of regret, an eternity of, what was I thinking? So now, can you imagine that day when we come into the presence of God and we see him? One of my favorite quotes of all time. regarding God comes from President Ezra Taft Benson when he said something like this, nothing is going to startle us more than when we come into the presence of God to realize how well we knew him.
This idea of how familiar his face is to us, how familiar his voice is to us, how at home we feel in his presence. And brothers and sisters, after having left his presence to then come on our mortal sojourn, our time of testing, all with the opportunity not just to return to live with him, but to become more like him, it will be... Shocking, I think, to most of us to think how could the veil have possibly been thick enough to make me forget my God, because we know, we know what that feels like so well, so familiar to us. And now we'll come full circle.
At that point, you can picture these prophets like Samuel saying, just repent so that this can be a glorious reunion. that goes on forever and ever and ever rather than a temporary moment of, I missed it. Notice he now says, you need to know that this infinite atonement is going to occur. And I'm going to give you some signs about his death.
And these are very specific. Look at verse 20. The sun's going to be darkened, the moon, the stars. There's going to be darkness for three days. He gives them the timing.
Verse 21. thunderings, lightning, the earth's going to shake and tremble for the space of many hours, rocks are going to be rent both above and beneath the earth, they're broken up, found in seams, there are going to be tempests, the mountains are going to be made low, the valleys are going to become mountains, highways broken up. He's giving them basically a description of 3rd Nephi chapter 8, 9, and 10. And then verse 25, you may want to mark verse 25, put some lights around it or something, because that's the verse that prompted Jesus to tell Nephi. You didn't have this in the record.
So again, we don't know whether he meant that Nephi had just left out this part or if he had left out all of Samuel's teachings. Text isn't clear but verse 25 is the part that Jesus mentioned."...many graves shall be opened, and shall yield up many of their dead, and many saints shall appear unto many."It's almost as if Jesus is saying, it's important that everybody knows about my resurrection, but the thing that he emphasized was, the universal nature of the resurrection. Then he finishes his speech there, that doctrinal part of his speech, and look how he opens up chapter 15, which to him, it wasn't a different chapter.
It's all part of the same speech, right? Now, my beloved brethren, did you catch that? Here's a Lamanite standing on a wall that had been built as a fortification wall to keep Lamanites out. of their city.
Now a Lamanite is standing on that very wall looking in and he's calling these people his beloved brethren. I love that. He says, my beloved brethren, he's looking at these people in an eternal context.
We're all children of God. We're all part of the same family, and it has nothing to do with race or nationality or language. It's my beloved brethren.
Those two words. are so needed today in our culture and in our world. He says, behold, I declare unto you that except ye shall repent, your houses shall be left unto you desolate. Now for the conclusion of this story. Chapter 16 opens by telling us that there were many who heard the words of Samuel the Lamanite, which he spake upon the walls of the city, and as many as believed on his words went forth and sought for Nephi, and they confessed their sins and they were baptized.
Verse 2,"...but as many as there were who did not believe in the words of Samuel were angry with him, and they cast stones at him upon the wall, and also many shot arrows at him as he stood upon the wall. But the Spirit of the Lord was with him insomuch that they could not hit him with their stones, neither with their arrows."To finish today, I love a statement that C. S. Lewis made once when he said, in the end, there are really only two kinds of people. those who say to God, thy will be done, and those to whom God must say, thy will be done. Brothers and sisters, of all the things that we could say at the end of a lesson like this on the plan of salvation, I'm going to choose to use Samuel's own words. Therefore, repent ye, repent ye.
That's the message to me and that's the message to you. Christ has freely paved the way to redeem all of us and if we'll meet the conditions that he has then laid out, those conditions of repentance, live his gospel, stay on the covenant path, he will welcome us into salvation, into eternal life, not just living with God in heaven but being a joint heir with Christ. I know he lives and though people might say it's unreasonable that such a being as Christ should exist, I know he lives.
He is our Savior and our Redeemer and I leave that with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.