3 Responses to “Helaman 13”

1. Chas
   September 19th, 2008 @ 7:47 am

   My wife, Jenni, just introduced me to this site. What a cool idea.

   Hel. 13:4
   I’ve always been impressed with Samuel’s faithfulness. Twice he’d been thrown out of the city – one of the times was even after the Lord had directed him to return. Many of us at this point would go back to the Lord and say, “Well, I tried. I did my best, but they wouldn’t let me in. Oh, well.” But Samuel would not take no for an answer from anyone when the Lord gave the command.

   This principle of fulfilling a commandment despite all odds is demonstrated many times in the scriptures. Nephi is also a great example of this. It took him a number of tries to finally get the plates.

   How often do we make one attempt to do home-teaching, or one attempt to get the family together for scripture study, and then give up at the first failure? I’m glad the Lord has given us good scriptural examples of how He always prepares a way for us to fulfill His commandments, even when our first attempts fail.

2. Tom Johnson
   September 19th, 2008 @ 11:27 pm

   Chas, thanks for participating on the site. I enjoyed reading your comment.

   I agree that we give up too easily and assume (falsely) that if we’re commanded to do something, we should be able to accomplish it on the first try.

3. Tom Johnson
   September 20th, 2008 @ 9:03 pm

   Samuel really lays it on thick here, with a strong and prolonged condemnation of the Nephites’ wickedness and imminent destruction. One verse stood out to me. Samuel says the people are both cursed because of their riches, and their riches are cursed.

   Reading these verses, and all the spiritual forgetfulness that often results from wealth, I can’t help but think of my wife’s brother-in-law, who became wealthy on ebay, moved into an eight-thousand square foot house, spent most of his free time at a wind tunnel, as well as taking helicopter lessons and playing video games, and then one day up and left his wife and 3 kids in the middle of the night, filing for divorce just a few weeks later.

   Sure, money itself isn’t evil, but it’s a powerful beast that’s hard to control. It changes people. I think Mormon includes it here to warn us.

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