Post by Lemuel –
Our father and his visions are enough to make a guy crazy. Or should I say make two families crazy. Laman has been trying to explain to us what all this stuff our father said means. He got so confusing, there were times I wished Nephi was around, but he took off somewhere.
Because Laman’s interpretation made less sense than no sense at all, we got into a friendly little discussion, ok an argument over what this all meant. During one of these little debates, Nephi shows up. He looked pretty down, even lower than when we had some fun beating him with some rods. He wasn’t bleeding and didn’t seem to have any bruises, so I guess it was something else that had taken a real toll on him.
After a while he mustered enough strength to ask us what our argument was about. He can be so dense. I explained that we couldn’t understand what our father had taught.
Defying Laman, I asked about the natural branches of the olive-tree and the gentiles. He foolishly asked if we had asked the Lord? Of course we hadn’t. He knew very well we didn’t ask, because the Lord never tells us anything.
Nephi, then true to form, launched in asking why we don’t keep the commandments of the Lord? How is it that we will perish, because of the hardness of our hearts? Didn’t we remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If we would not harden our hearts, and ask the Lord in faith, believing that we would receive, with diligence in keeping His commandments, surely the Lord would tell us what all this stuff means. If I didn’t actually want to know what it meant, we probably would have gone to get the rods again.
Nephi told us that the Spirit of the Lord which was in our father, compared the house of Israel to an olive-tree, and our family is broken off from the house of Israel, and we are a branch of the house of Israel.
He told us what our father meant concerning the grafting in of the natural branches through the fullness of the Gentiles. It meant that in the future, when our posterity will have dwindled in unbelief for many many years, many generations after the Messiah had come to the earth in person, then the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ will come to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles will bring it to our posterity— As confusing as that may sound, it was better than the nonsense Laman was peddling.
He said that when that day comes – not that I care about something happening thousands of years from now – our posterity will figure out that they are of the house of Israel and are the covenant people of the Lord and they will learn about us and learn the gospel of Jesus Christ their Redeemer and then be able to come unto Him. Nephi went on about all that rejoicing and being saved stuff. He gets caught up how wonderful that will be.
I think the important thing Nephi was trying to stress in his own way was – in the future when our posterity blows it, a longer time in the future our posterity will be brought back with the help of the Gentiles. The Gentiles will have to do it because the Jews will reject the Lord just as our posterity will eventually reject Him.
Nephi reminded us of the covenant the Lord made to our father Abraham, saying: In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. He talked about Isaiah – who I never understand and how Isaiah has prophesied about all this as well.
After hearing all that prophesying we got back on subject and asked about the meaning of the tree that our father saw. He said it was a representation of the tree of life. We asked about the rod of iron and he told us it was the word of God and whoever obeys the word of God will get past all the temptations of the devil. Then Nephi went off on all the calling us to repentance again and telling us to keep the commandments. Can’t he just answer a simple question?
I was almost afraid to ask another question. But I did – what did the river of water mean? Nephi said it was not just a river but it was a filthy river and it was an awful gulf between the saints of God and the wicked, and it represented that awful hell prepared for the wicked.
You have to know Nephi, he can’t just answer a question without lots of detail, so I am summarizing a bit here, but when we wanted a little clarity of when this awful hell stuff takes place, he told us it represented both the temporal and spiritual – clear as mud – then he said the day will come when we will be judged by our works done in the days of this our mortal days of probation. He said that if we have been wicked and have not repented, we will be cast off forever
From what I understood from the next lecture, was we will all be brought to stand before God to be judged of our works and if our works have been “filthy” as Nephi describes it, then we will remain filthy and we cannot live in the kingdom of God because filthy things cannot be with God or God would be filthy also. So, since no unclean thing can enter the kingdom of God there must be a place where the filthy folks can go. This is what Nephi called that awful hell and the devil is the preparator of it – whatever that means. So in other words, if you are clean you get to dwell in the kingdom of God but if not, you don’t.
One more thing he said about the tree of life. He said its fruit was the most precious and most desirable above all other fruit and it is the greatest of all the gifts of God and the wicked can’t have it.
I think Nephi is being a little over dramatic. If God really loved us wouldn’t he want all of us to have it?
(Book of Mormon | 1 Nephi 15:1 – 36)
