Day 59: Helaman 13-15

Welcome to Day 59...

 

And now we get to read about Samuel the Lamanite! What an incredible guy. The Lord told him to deliver an important message to the wicked Nephites, and he just went for it! Up on a wall, amidst rocks and arrows, he declared, "Behold, I Samuel, a Lamanite, do speak the words of the Lord which he doth put into my HEART..." (Helaman 13:5)  He exclaimed that God would “utterly destroy them if they continued to reject the prophets and set their hearts on riches. "How long will ye choose darkness rather than light?" (Helaman 13:29)   

"If ye believe on [Jesus] name ye will repent of all your sins, that thereby ye may have a remission of them through his merits." (Helaman 14:13) But it's up to us - we are"free to act for [ourselves]...that we might choose life or death."  

Opening Song: "Lonely"

• Begin study session with prayer
• Scripture Study: Helaman 13-15 (listen)
• Study Guide: (here)
• Video: Discussions on the Book of Mormon

Helaman 13-16

• Video: "Samuel the Lamanite"

Video: Elder Russell M. Nelson talks about how some people procrastinate the day of their salvation until it is too late. (Helaman 13:36–39) 

" And now remember, remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you acknowledge and he hath made you free. He hath given unto you that ye might know good from evil, and he hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death; and ye can do good and be restored unto that which is good, or have that which is good restored unto you; or ye can do evil, and have that which is evil restored unto you."  Helaman 14:30-31

                        

"And it shall come to pass that whosever shall believe on the Son of God, the same shall have everlasting life." Helaman 14:8 

Carefully read Helaman 14:15–19, and then study the diagram below.

(click to view larger)

After reading Helaman 14:15–19 and studying the diagram, consider the following points:
•Being born into mortality may be termed a spiritual death because we are separated from the presence of our Heavenly Father.
•Through His death and Resurrection, Jesus Christ redeems all mankind from the Fall so we can return to God’s presence.
•Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, all mankind are brought back into the presence of God to be judged.
•At the Final Judgment, people who continue to refuse to repent will experience another spiritual death—being cut off from God’s presence forever.
•Jesus Christ redeems us from a spiritual death on conditions of repentance.

“I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force against religious bigotry, priestcraft, lawyer-craft, doctor-craft, lying editors, suborned judges and jurors, and the authority of perjured executives, backed by mobs, blasphemers, licentious and corrupt men and women-- all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there. Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty, who will give me dominion over all and every one of them, when their refuge of lies shall fail, and their hiding place shall be destroyed, while these smooth-polished stones with which I come in contact become marred.” --Joseph Smith

Ponder the following statement from President Ezra Taft Benson concerning how people of the world respond to modern-day prophets: “The prophet will not necessarily be popular with the world or the worldly. As a prophet reveals the truth, it divides the people. The honest in heart heed his words, but the unrighteous either ignore the prophet or fight him. When the prophet points out the sins of the world, the worldly, rather than repent of their sins, either want to close the mouth of the prophet or else act as if the prophet didn’t exist. Popularity is never a test of truth. Many a prophet has been killed or cast out. As we come closer to the Lord’s second coming, you can expect that as the people of the world become more wicked, the prophet will be less popular with them” (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson [1988], 133).

“When we reject the counsel which comes from God, we do not choose to be independent of outside influence. We choose another influence. We reject the protection of a perfectly loving, all-powerful, all-knowing Father in Heaven, whose whole purpose, as that of His Beloved Son, is to give us eternal life, to give us all that He has, and to bring us home again in families to the arms of His love. In rejecting His counsel, we choose the influence of another power, whose purpose is to make us miserable and whose motive is hatred. We have moral agency as a gift of God. Rather than the right to choose to be free of influence, it is the inalienable right to submit ourselves to whichever of those powers we choose” --Henry B. Eyring

• Record impressions and favorite verses in your journal.

• Close study session with prayer and have a spiritually nourished day! :)

Excellent Book:


My family loves this Liken DVD "Samuel the Lamanite":

                           

Day 58: Helaman 9-12

Welcome to Day 58...                        

             

Nephi boldly declared everyone needed to repent or they would be destroyed. A basic prophetic message with a typical reaction. The corrupt judges bound him, put him on trial and accused him of being a murderer!

With the help of the Spirit, Nephi declared who the guilty party truly was. As a result, SOME of the people accepted him as a prophet, BUT,"...notwithstanding that great miracle which Nephi had done in telling them concerning the death of the cheif judge, they did harden their hearts."  (Helaman 10:13)

Mormon expressed: "And thus we behold how false and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men...yea we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him."   (Helaman 12:1)  

"O how foolish and how vain, and how evil, and devilish, and how quick to do iniquity, and how slow to do good, are the children of men; yea, how quick to hearken unto the words of the evil one, and to set their hearts upon the vain things of the world!" (Helaman 12:4)

Nephi is blessed with the sealing power because of his faithfulness: "...whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Helaman 10:7) He continues preaching repentance to the people despite their great wickedness and support of the Gadianton robbers.

Review of the "Pride Cycle:"
                    
Chapters 11 and 12 in the book of Helaman cover 14 years of Nephite history in which the people pass through the Pride Cycle of righteousness and wickedness. This account shows how quickly people forget the Lord and how He chastens them to motivate them to repent and return to Him. 

"Therefore blessed are they who will repent and hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; for these are they that shall be saved...they that have done good shall have ETERNAL LIFE and they that have done evil shall have EVERLASTING DAMNATION."  (Helaman 12: 23,26) 

The choice is up to us!  Life and freedom, or death and captivity. Great job choosing to live by reading the Book of Mormon today! 

• Opening Song "Away in a Manger"
• Begin study session with prayer
• Scripture Study: Helaman 9-12 (listen)
• Study Guide: (here) 
• Video: "Nephi Receives Great Power"

• Video: "Hold upon Your Hearts" (Helaman 7:15–22) Elder M. Russell Ballard warns of ignoring the future by focusing only on the present.

• Video: Want the cure for the PRIDE CYCLE? President Henry B. Eyring tells us the cure for forgetting God (Helaman 12:1–6)

• Video: "Beware of Pride" by Pres. Benson, 

(Classic talk, as read by Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley)                         

                           

"Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity. And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with  death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him." Helaman 12:2-3

                                                 
"Therefore, blessed are they who will repent and hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; for these are they that shall be saved." Helaman 12:23

“When there has been wrongdoing and then there has come repentance, followed by forgiveness, then literally the offender who was lost is found, and he who was dead is made alive. How wonderful are the blessings of mercy and forgiveness.” --Gordon B. Hinkley

“We need to remember Edmund Burke’s statement: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ We need to raise our voices with other concerned citizens throughout the world in opposition to current trends. We need to tell the sponsors of offensive media that we have had enough. We need to support programs and products that are positive and uplifting. Joining together with neighbors and friends who share our concerns, we can send a clear message to those responsible.”--Elder M. Russell Ballard

• Record thoughts and impressions in your journal

• Close study session with prayer and have a fabulous, faith -filled day!

Day 57: Helaman 6-8

Welcome to Day 57...

                                          
Nephi and Lehi preached the gospel throughout all the land, but surprise, only the Lamanites listened! "They did fellowship one with another, and did rejoice one with another and did have GREAT JOY." (Helaman 6:3) 

The Nephites on the other hand, had become "Hardened...impenitent and grossly wicked." (Helaman 6:2) They actually supported the Gadianton robbers, resulting in a total loss of the Spirit. HOW did they get to this awful state? WHY would anyone enthusiastically follow Satan?  

                     
Nephi asked these same questions! He LOUDLY lamented on a tower in his garden which drew a crowd. "HOW could you have given way to the enticings of him who is seeking to hurl away your souls down to everlasting misery and endless wo? O repent ye, repent ye! WHY will ye die?" 

Then he answers his own question.  "It is BECAUSE your have hardened your hearts and not hearkened to the voice of the good shepherd...ye have set your hearts upon the riches and the vain things of this world..."  

He then prophesied that if they continued to live in wickedness, they would perish. To prove he was a prophet, he declared,"the chief judge is murdered and he lieth in his blood...and he hath been murdered by his brother." (Helaman 8:27)  Tomorrow we'll read the aftermath of that declaration!

A main message from today's reading is that as we obey the Lord, He pours out His Spirit upon us which brings peace and happiness. But if not, His Spirit withdraws and we are left to the buffetings of Satan, which ultimately results in misery and death.

The ultimate reward for following the Lord: "As many as should look upon the Son of God with faith, having a contrite spirit, might LIVE, even unto that life which is ETERNAL." (Helaman 8:15) 

• Opening Song "Joy to the World"
• Begin Study Session With Prayer
• Scripture Study:Helaman 6-8 (listen) 
• Study Guide: (here)
• Video: "Discussions on the Book of Mormon" Helaman 7-12 

                     

• Video: "The Murder of the Chief Judge"

                    

• Video: Elder Russell M. Nelson (Helaman 7:17–20)

 

              

     

"And as many as should look upon that serpent should live, even so as many as should look upon the Son of God with faith, having a contrite spirit, might live, even unto that life which is eternal." Helaman 8:15

"Nevertheless, the people of the church did have great joy because of the conversion of the Lamanites, yea, because of the church of God, which had been established among them. And they did fellowship one with another, and did rejoice one with another, and did have great joy." Helaman 6:3
                      
“We knew before we were born that we were coming to the earth for bodies and experience and that we would have joys and sorrows, ease and pain, comforts and hardships, health and sickness, successes and disappointments, and we knew also that after a period of life we would die. We accept both the favorable and unfavorable. We eagerly accepted the chance to come earthward even though it might be for only a day or a year. Perhaps we were not so much concerned whether we should die of disease, or accident, or of senility. We were willing to take life as it came and as we might organize and control it, and this without murmur, complaint, or unreasonable demands.”– Spencer W. Kimball. Faith Preceded the Miracle, 106.

• Record thoughts and favorite verses in your journal.

• Close Study Session With Prayer

                                              
EXTRA STUDY: Love John Hilton III! Check out his dad's work on wordprinting then his own article on the use of ONE word in the Book of Mormon, "resurrection". Fascinating stuff!!

"My grandfather did several WORDPRINT STUDIES on the Book of Mormon. http://davies-linguistics.byu.edu/ling485/for_class/30.3Hilton.pdf The basic idea is that the Book of Mormon was authored by different prophets and so we would expect their writing styles to be different from each other. I’ve tried to pick up a thread of his research by looking at how different Book of Mormon authors use certain key words. 

Read John Hilton III's article here:
http://www.johnhiltoniii.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/Hilton-and-Johnson-final-Journal-21-2-2012-1-page-spread.pdf