They Did Smite Us Even With a Rod

1 Nephi 3:22 - 31, NC 1 Nephi 1 pars. 13 - 14

And it came to pass that we went down to the land of our inheritance, and we did gather together our gold and our silver and our precious things.  And after we had gathered these things together we went up again unto the house of Laban.  And it came to pass that we went in unto Laban and desired him that he would give unto us the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, for which we would give unto him our gold and our silver and all our precious things.  And it came to pass that when Laban saw our property, that it was exceeding great, he did lust after it insomuch that he throust us our and went his servants to slay us that he might obtain our property.  And it came to pass that we did flee before the servants of Laban, and we were obliged to leave behind our property, and it fell into the hands of Laban.  And it came to pass that we fled intothe wilderness, and the servants of Laban did not overtake us, and we hid ourselves in the cavity of a rock.  And it came to pass that Laman was angry with me and also with my father - and also was Lemuel, for he hearkened unto the words of Laman - wherefore, Laman, and Lemuel did speak many hard words unto us, their younger brothers, and they did smite us even with a rod.  And it came to pass as they smote us with a rod, behold and angel of the Lord came and stood before them, and he spake unto them, saying, Why do ye smite your younger brother with a rod?  Know ye not that the Lord hath chosen him to be a ruler over you and this because of your iniquities?  Behod, ye shall go up to Jerusalem again, and the Lord will deliver Laban into your hands.  And after the angel had spoken unto us he departed.  And after the angel had departed, Laman and Lemuel again began to murmur, saying, How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands?  Behold, he is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?

Is it a principle in this life that our resolve to keep the commandments of God will be continually tested?

The Prophet Joseph taught,

"After a person has faith in Jesus Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost, which is the first Comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted.  When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which the Lord hath promised to the Saints,...Now what is this Comforter?  It is no more nor less than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself;..." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pg. 150)

Again, the question arises, Who is it who tests our resolve and how?

Given the nature of things in this world, will men use their agency to oppose those who seek to keep the commandments of God?

Does God cause this to happen or does God allow this to happen to fulfill His purposes?

Is it possible for the Lord to see that an individual will serve Him at all hazards by observing the diligence and heed an individual gives to His commands while living among and associating with those who do not believe what the Lord has declared?

As Laman and Lemuel and Sam and Nephi brought the family fortune before Laban to purchase the brass plates did God cause Laban to rob them and seek to kill them or did God allow Laban to use his agency to do so?

If God wanted Nephi and his brothers to succeed in getting the plates, why did He allow such a thing to happen?

Are there any other examples in the Book of Mormon that demonstrate this priciple of testing resolve?

Alma and Amulek were sent by the Lord to preach to the people of Amonihah.  The people there had become exceedingly wicked and conspired to destroy the freedom of the Nephite people.

After witnessing to the people and confounding the lawyers and judges there by the word of God Alma and Amulek were aprehended and false witnesses came to condemn them.

One of the lawyers, Zeezrom, having seen his wickedness and desiring to repent, came forth and declared that Alma and Amulek were innocent.  He pled for them.

This is how the leaders and the majority of the people responded.

"And they spit upon him (Zeezrom) and cast him out from among them and also all those who believed in the words which had been spoken by Alma and Amulek.  And they cast them out and sent men to cast stones at them.  And they brought their wives and children together, and whosoever believed or had been taught to believein the word of God, they caused that they should be cast into the fire.  And they also brought forth their records, which contained the holy scriptures, and cast them into the fire also, that they might be burned and destroyed by fire." (Alma 14:7 - 8, NC Alma 10 par. 6)

Alma and Amulek were brought bound to the horrid scene and forced to watch.

When Amulek urged Alma that he and Alma should stretch forth their hands and exercise the power of God which was in them Alma responded that the "spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand."

Then Alma said,

"For behold, the Lord receiveth them up unto himself in glory.  And he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just.  And the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day." (Alma 14:11, NC Alma 10 par. 7)

God allowed the wicked to destroy and kill the righteous that His puposes and judgments might be just.

The righteous believers demonstrated their resolve by remaining faithful inspite of what was being perpetrated upon them.

Another example from the Book of Mormon is the account of the descendants of Laman and Lemuel, after having been converted, burying their weapons of war.

They saw that the Lord had in His mercy forgiven them and made them clean and they were determined to remain in that clean state so they covenanted that they would never again lift a weapon to hurt or kill anyone not even to protect themselves.

"...and all the people were assembled together, they took their swords and all the weapons which were used for the shedding of man's blood, and they did bury them up deep in the earth.  And this they did, it being in their view a testimony to God, and also to men, that they never would use weapons again for the shedding of man's blood, and this they did vouching and covenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would give up their own licves, and rather than take away from a brother they would give unto him, and rather than spend their days in idleness they would labor abundantly with their hands.  And thus we see that when these Lamanites were brought to believe and to know the truth, they were firm and would suffer even unto death rather than commit sin, and thus we see that they buried the weapons of peace, or they buried the weapons of war for peace." (Alma 24:17 - 19, NC Alma 14 par. 9)

Their resolve was tested by their fellow Lamanites and the Nephite dissenters who lived among the Lamanites.

"And it came to pass that their brethren the Lamanites made preparations for war and came up to the land of Nephi for the purpose of dethroning the king and to place another in his stead, and also of destroying the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi out of the land.  Now when the people saw that they were coming against them they went out to meet them and prostrated themselves before them to the earth and began to call on the name of the Lord and thus they were in this attitude when the Lamanites began to fall upon them and began to slay them with the sword.  And thus without meeting any resistance, they did slay a thousand and five of them, and we know that they are blessed for they have gone to dwell with their God." (Alma 24:20 - 22, NC Alma 14 par. 10)

Did the Lord allow this to occur?

Could He have saved them from all of this?

Is their an eternal principle at play here?

When one is having their resolve tested are they offering sacrifice to God?

We talked of faith unto life and salvation in an earlier post and learned from the Lectures on Faith, Lecture 6th that the sacrifice of all things in this world, even not holding back one's own life if necessary, is necessary in order to know that the life one is living is in accordance with what the Lord desires.

That is one of the three necessary things in order to obtain faith unto life and salvation.

Are God's purposes being fulfilled by allowing the wicked to test the resolve of the righteous, even though the righteous must lose their lives in the process?

Is this an easy thing to accept?

Is the principle of resolve being tested the same in all three examples of Nephi and his brothers, the believers in Amonihah and the converted Lamanites?

Is God causing any of the actions of the wicked to occur?

In every case are the wicked allowed their agency to act and thus create the situation where the resolve of the righteous is displayed?

Could it be said of these folks in another creation cycle, "Being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil, therefore they having chosen good and exercising exceeding great faith are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with and according to a preparatory redemption for such..." (Alma 13:1 - 3, NC Alma 9 par. 10)

Is God's foreknowledge of these folks in a future creation cycle informed by their having successfully demonstrated their resolve to be exceedingly faithful to Him here?

If God knows in a future creation that He needs rulers or teachers who He can trust to accomplish what must be done can He Look at these folks from their experience here and declare that they are "good souls"?

Will God use lead to do something that He knows requires iron?

If there is a difficult task to be done in a future creation, from what they have done here, can God determine that they will be faithful to fulfill such a task?

Are God's purposes Eternal?

What does that mean?

Are actions taken in this life on this creation limited in their effects to this life only and this creation only?

Is this at all tied together with what the Prophet Joseph taught?

"God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!  That is the great secret....It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God,...Here, then is eternal life - to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power...When you climb a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the Gospel - you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation.  But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil before you will have learned them.  It is not all to be comprehended in this world; it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.  (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pgs. 345 - 348)

As we demonstrate our resolve, by facing the opposition of those who do not believe the word of God and being able to sacrifice in the face of that opposition in order to be obedient to the commandments of God, does that prepare us to go from one small degree to another and from a small capacity to a great one because God's foreknowledge of us in a future creation will be informed by our exceeding faith and good works in this creation?
Is that what the Prophet Joseph means as he is talking about ascending step by step until you arrive at the top?

Is this part of what it means to learn our salvation and exaltation beyond the grave?

What would this do to our understanding of "eternal progression"?

Would agency be respected for all eternity with this understanding of "eternal progression"?

We see that in this experience with Laman, Lemuel, Nephi and Sam that Laman and Lemuel fail in this test.

Maybe their failure was inevitable because of the fact that they murmured right from the beginning.

Could it have been possible for them to repent at any time during the test?

What caused them to come apart at this point?

For Laman, his life has been threatened twice now.

They have lost the family fortune and if at this point Laman and Lemuel had any thought of returning to Jerusalem their ability to live the life they were accustomed to before is gone.

Could these two things be contributory to them coming apart?

Is it because they were unwilling to sacrifice, that they had no faith?

Is this another symptom of the affliction we discussed in an earlier post; "Knowing Not the Dealings of That God Who Created Us"?

Is it important for me to look inside myself to see if I am suffering from the same affliction?

Would I respond any differently?

When the angel appears they are completely unimpressed.

Here we see that the appearance of angels does not cause or create faith.

If I have no faith will I always have fear of mens' power on the earth?

In addition to informing them all that the Lord will deliver Laban into their hands the angel informs Laman and Lemuel that Nephi has been given a ministry to teach them because of their iniquities.

Is this simply a rebuke or is it also a statement, given by grace, to Laman and Lemuel that they ought to listen to the words of Nephi in order to repent?