[Studying a Part of the Scriptures Does Not Suffice]
[Angels Help With Conversion of a Few]
[Accurate Records Predict Signs and Destruction]
33 3 Nephi 7:14 Racing along here, we’re in the next chapter already. We’ve done one chapter, and we’ve been going too fast at that. I’ll call attention to verse 14. You’ll notice this is a beautiful summary of the splinter group movement. There have always been splinter groups in the church in every age—among the Jews, the early Christians, etc. Verse 14 talks about the splinter groups that always take place. You’re always going to find them, and they’re characteristic. This is the way it happens. You notice how rich this verse is. First of all, “they were divided into tribes [you know the tribes], every man according to his family, kindred and friends.” The family is the basis of all these splinter groups which Russell Rich (who just died recently) studied. He devoted his time to specializing on the splinter groups, of which there are over 100. There have been over 100 attempts to refound The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by individuals who thought they had special revelations, and they all wither by the way without exception. But these are the characteristics they all have. First, they are formed around families originally. Then the families extend to kindred, that is, wider associations. And they are all very peaceful. They want to get away and found a new Zion by themselves.
33 3 Nephi 78:14 “They would not go to war one with another; but they were not united as to their laws.” They all had different ideas about things. Invariably they always form about a strong individual; they depend on the leader. When he’s gone, the group usually collapses and disappears. It says they had peace in the land; they didn’t trespass against one another. But, if you disagree with them in doctrine or if you drop out or something, look out. Then they play rough, you see. “They did stone the prophets and did cast them out from among them.” The prophets were among these people, but if anybody had his own idea about the doctrines and started preaching, he was kicked out. They not only kicked them out, they denounced them.
33 3 Nephi 7:15 This is the difference, of course, in verse 15. Here we are entering a new dimension entirely. It’s Nephi who makes the difference. Notice he’s impressed by the appalling spread of the turnover [from righteousness to wickedness] here. The voice of the Lord and angels had witnessed [to him], and he had power. Well, he had been visited by angels and received power. This solves it. Unless you get this, we’re just going to go on squabbling forever. The upper world, the other world, has to intervene sometime and enter into the picture. Otherwise, we’re just going to go around in a circle, hold meetings, have our committees and conclusions, and fight with each other. You get nowhere. Reformation is not restoration. Restoration is the new word that churches are adopting now. They’ve adopted it only since 1960. Before that it was a dirty word. They said, “Reformation, yes, but restoration, no. The gospel was never taken away.” But now, even the Roman Catholic Church is talking about restoration. They’re restoring things.
34 3 Nephi 7:15 “And having had power given unto him that he might know concerning the ministry of Christ, and also being eyewitness [that’s what I was talking about] to their quick return from righteousness unto their wickedness and abominations”—these lightning switches. He witnessed it and was impressed by it. This is introducing something more, now. The gospel is something more than a successful and happy life or something like that. No, it’s an eternal life, which is a different thing entirely. People don’t talk about that; they don’t think of it as real, but that’s the one. This is what we’re talking about, the eternities. We’re introducing them into the picture now.
33 3 Nephi 7:16,17 Then he [Nephi] has powerful motivation here. From his vantage point everything is black. Remember Plato’s cave? In this world we’re in a dark cave. The real world, the sun, is shining from behind our backs, but we’re facing the wall here. We see our shadows on the wall, and we say “That’s the real world. That’s the real thing.” And when we get on the outside, we’re absolutely dazzled—we’re blinded by it. We want to get back to our comfortable real world, which is actually in the dark. That’s what you have here. Verse 16: “Therefore, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts,. . . [he] went forth among them ... to testify,” to minister to them. Frem his vantage point they were in the cave. He was grieved to see them there, and he went forth to minister to them. Minister is used a lot in the Book of Mormon; you see it in verse 17 here. When Christ comes and ministers, when angels come and minister, what do they do? To minister is to help people, to give people something they need. But, above all, it’s to teach them the words. You minister with words. “These are the words which he ministered.” We have that expression used in 3 Nephi here when the Lord comes. And the angels come and minister to the children. The picture we get is that they walk among them and chat with them, comfort them, discuss things with them—talk with the children, with the people. That’s a very clear picture that we have later [in 3 Nephi] that so impressed the greatest Lutheran divine today, Krister Stendahl. He gave a talk on that here in 3 Nephi, which he regarded as one of the great books of scripture, though he’s the head of the Swedish Lutheran Church. He’s the bishop of Lund, the top man. But anyway, 3 Nephi made an impression on him. We’ll get to that [the coming of the Savior] soon enough.
34 3 Nephi 7:17 But notice here that he ministered, and many of the things “cannot be written.” They minister things that can be written. It’s the words they minister, but they can’t be written here. He says an interesting thing. You wonder why we’ve been taking things so slowly [because of these details]. He wouldn’t write them down. If he could “a part of them would not suffice; therefore, they are not written in this book.” I won’t give you a part of them; you have to get the whole picture here [he said]. Won’t you give us just a few of these angelic words [we might say]? No, “a part of them would not suffice,” you see. You must get the whole picture here. We must see what these verses have to tell us. We haven’t yet; we skipped through them.
34,35 3 Nephi 7:17-20 Well, he ministered these things, but these things can’t be written. So that’s how we study the scriptures. We don’t study the scriptures in part—that would not suffice. We [shouldn’t] go through these things on roller skates; we take a little time here. “And Nephi did minister [to them] with power and with great authority.” So, we ask, does part of the Book of Mormon suffice? He’s given as much as we can take, all we need, and all that we should have, too. So that’s an important note on curriculum, isn’t it? And did Nephi’s charisma turn the tide? Absolutely not; they were angry with him. Oh, I should be asking questions here. Well, here we go. Why do you think they got angry with him? Why do you think he offended them? Why do you think he worried them? Notice what their reaction was. They didn’t say “Oh, the guy’s a nut,” and just forget about it. He wasn’t going around shooting people or anything like that. Why would they get angry with him? It says because “it were not possible that they could disbelieve his words.” He had proof. What was the nature of that proof? “Verse 19 says and in the name of Jesus did he cast out devils and unclean spirits; and even his brother did he raise from the dead. “And the next verse says, “The people saw it,” you see. They couldn’t deny it. They witnessed it. Of course they got angry. But what would shock them about that? What was the fatal crime of Jesus when they decided to put him to death? The high priests, the elders, and the Pharisees didn’t plot against Jesus to put him to death until what miracle? Raising Lazarus. When he raised Lazarus from the dead, that decided it. That was too much. This [news] went around, so they decided from then on that he would have to be put to death. So we have it here. They were angry because they couldn’t deny it. It was a culture shock, you see. You don’t like to be pulled out of a warm bed on a cold morning. This is a thing that made them furious. They were wild; it was just like they reacted to Joseph Smith. It would have been all right without that. They tell us now there were dozens of cults and revivals and nuts running all over the place in Joseph Smith’s day. Why couldn’t he be dismissed just like that? It was the Angel Moroni that spoiled everything, and then he turned up with the Book of Mormon. The people saw it and they were angry because they saw his power, and they couldn’t deny it.
35,36 3 Nephi 7:21 In spite of all that, though, would you expect there would be general conversions, In the next verse, is this the expected result? “There were but few who were converted.” And what converted the only ones who were converted? They were visited by the power and spirit of God. They were visited; something came down. It doesn’t mean it dwells in you forever after, but you receive a visit. A visit means something coming from afar to you— something coming to you that wasn’t with you before. It is the power and spirit of God that visits you, and when that comes, you forget about all your arguments.
37 3 Nephi 7:25,26 It’s all your own doing; it’s all been up to you. The Lord’s going to talk a lot about that here [in 3 Nephi] when he comes. So, that was it. They were angry, and there were a few converted. Those who were converted were visited by the spirit of God. And he “did truly manifest unto the people.” In these verses he baptized them, and they founded a church here. Verse 25: “There were ordained of Nephi, men unto this ministry.” Let me see if we have any shrewd questions here. The baptisms, you’ll notice in verse 26, started picking up on the eve of the great disaster.
37 3 Nephi 8:1,2 Now chapter eight is psychologically a marvelous thing, isn’t it? This is the great destruction. Notice how [the writer] approaches it. “And now it came to pass that according to our record, and we know our record to be true, for behold, it was a just man who did keep the record.” Why does he knock himself out to convince us? And notice the second verse: “. . . if there was no mistake made by this man in the reckoning of our time . ..” He takes these first two verses to reassure us. And why do you think he does that? We recorded this as well as we can; we’re trying to be as accurate as we can here. Is he going to report an ordinary, everyday affair that everybody would take for granted? You get the impression that he is preparing us for what? Yes, he’s going to tell a whopper. You might not believe this, but this is what happened, you see. These things happen—that’s exactly it. He has to reassure us and make sure this is exactly the way it was. Not making it up, but he says, “if there was no mistake made by this man.” He makes allowance that humans make mistakes, but it was an honest man. He did the best he could keeping the record, and it was the thirty-third year, after the Lord had passed away. Then notice how psychologically he builds up here.
37 3 Nephi 8:4 We’re getting into literature now, but what’s the sense of this fourth verse? Brother Towery, what is the sense when he starts saying, “And there began to be great doublings and disputations among the people, notwithstanding so many signs had been given.” That’s marvelous prose, incidentally. It’s building up; there’s a tension. There’s an ominous hush here; you know something’s going to happen. What’s he preparing us for? What’s going on here? Already here we get this mounting tension. “He’s preparing us for the greatest event that has ever happened.”
Yes, but he’s preparing them here for something pretty terrible, you see. The great event comes after this. It is after the same thing happens in the Old World. It is after Sinai—remember Sinai was a volcano and the earth shook and the people couldn’t approach it. Any that approached were killed, and they had terrible [experiences] in the crossing of the Red Sea. After these terrible upheavals of nature, then the Lord came and spoke to Moses and established a covenant. After these terrible upheavals here, then the Lord came and established it again. And in these last days after the great upheavals, it’s the last time he will come. Then he will come again and bring Zion with him. So it follows that pattern all along here.
38 3 Nephi 8:4,5 Well, this is the tension. First, people began to look with earnestness for the fulfilling of the sign that there should be darkness for three days. It’s going to come. Verse 4: “And there began to be great doublings and disputations among the people, notwithstanding so many signs had been given.” There was a restless feeling of malaise that something was going to happen, like you have before an earthquake. Then they give the date here for a big event, the big bang, “In the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm.” It just begins with an ordinary storm. These things always begin that way. Then the storm turns to a hurricane, you notice. Where does the word hurricane come from? Anybody know? In Central America the HURCAN is the god of winds, and the word HURRICANE probably comes from the Aztec or the Toltec language. HURCAN was the god of the hurricanes, the great storms that sweep in from the Caribbean there. So the storm turned to a hurricane. We’ve all seen that happen.
39 3 Nephi 8:7 Well, then what comes next? Verse 7: “And there were exceedingly sharp lightnings.” That’s what you’re going to have, of course—updrafts and downdrafts with all that friction up there and all those ionized particles flying around like crazy. You’re going to have these terrific exceedingly sharp lightnings.
39,40 3 Nephi 8:8-11 So the first thing that happens in a major earthquake, everything starts catching fire, and this is what happened. Notice that the whole “city of Zarahemla did take fire” (3 Nephi 3:3). It would appear from the account of the Nephite disaster that the main cause of the destruction was fire in the cities (verses 8-11 here). “And the city of Zarahemla did take fire. And the city of Moroni did sink into the depths of the sea.” (The city of Moronihah is another thing.) This agrees with the major cities’ problem. Earthquakes are largely a city problem, mainly because the first heavy shock invariably sets fires all over the town.
40 3 Nephi 8:9: 3 Nephi 9:7 “And the city of Moroni did sink into the depths of the sea” because of this tsunami or sea wave. Along with this, however, we have in the Book of Mormon recorded what seems to be a permanent submersion of coastal areas. The waters came up in the stead thereof and remained. Notice 3 Nephi 9:7. It tells us the waters came up in the stead thereof, in the place of what there had been.
40,41 3 Nephi 8:10 “And the earth was carried up upon the city of Moronihah, that in the place of that city there became a great mountain.”
41 3 Nephi 8:19-21 And then what other phenomena do we have? We have [discussed] the volcanic phenomenon. The quakings of the earth lasted for about three hours (verse 19). Of course, the aftershocks, tremblings, and groanings continued for three days. You always get aftershocks. There had been no studies of earthquakes. What would Joseph Smith in New York know about this sort of stuff, or anybody else? And then there was this thick darkness. This was really something. They “could feel the vapor of darkness. . . . Neither could there be fire kindled ... so great were the mists of darkness.” When we talk about God sending down fire and destroying [people], that’s volcanic activity.