A Study Guide Companion for The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ
HELAMAN CHAPTERS 12 - 16
Helaman Chapter 12
God saved the Nephites from famine and from pestilence; He continually sent prophets to warn and advise them, and with infinite love, He kept calling them to come back to Him—yet continually they got off the righteous track.
They did not remember God and His teachings when they were prosperous—so for the sake of their Salvation—God sometimes found it necessary to send afflictions to bring them to remembrance of Him and His message of Redemption. the people were wicked because they did not properly and thankfully deal with their prosperity as a gift from God, but they used it to promote laziness, pride, and wickedness.
Not only could they fail to progress Eternally, they could not even live temporally.
Since they misused and abused their Earth “treasures,” or prosperity, God cursed that prosperity and ensure that the riches could not be used to hinder the progress of His holy Kingdom. Regarding wicked intents, the false person and the false treasure which was misused would be cursed. The most terrible curse is to be cut off from God’s holy Presence.
The Lord, Jesus Christ, through His atoning Sacrifice, declared repentance, (made repentance possible) so that mankind might be saved:
People might be brought unto repentance and good works
People might be restored unto grace for grace, according to their works
All people might be saved.
But all people have agency and can make their own choices, for good or evil.
CHAPTER 13
For several years, especially since the great conversions in Nephi and Lehi’s early missions, Lamanites were more faithful than Nephites.
God called a faithful Lamanite, Samuel, as a prophet to preach to the wicked Nephites, calling them to repentance.
Samuel was a Lamanite trying to preach to Nephites. Most Nephites felt themselves to be better than the Lamanites, even though Nephi, the son of Lehi, told his people hundreds of years earlier, and Alma also told the people many years before, that God favored the righteous over the unrighteous—not a particular race of people. He is Heavenly Father of the whole human race and Jesus Christ lived, suffered, and died for everyone.
Samuel—and the messages he was sent to deliver—were both completely rejected. In fact, he had been bodily “cast out” of the city of Zarahemla. However, Samuel was God’s prophet. God commanded him to return to the city.
The Nephites would not let him enter the city, so he climbed on the city wall and loudly proclaimed the Lord’s words.
Samuel began by introducing himself, referring to the authority of God by which he spoke. Then, saying what God put into his heart, he began prophesying (1) of the final destruction of the Nephite nation and (2) how it could be avoided by repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Nephites were very proud of their nation and of their cities. They refused to believe, even with the withdrawal of God’s protection—which they did not believe would happen—that they could be destroyed.
Samuel had been visited by an angel—who explained to him the great Plan of Salvation. This visitation filled Samuel with great joy—and then the angel told him to share the wonderful message with the Nephites, that they also might be filled with joy.
But then Samuel reminded the people that they had rejected him and his message—so the Lord sent him again, this time to warn them.
When Samuel prophesied, hope was not yet lost. The Lord, in His great love and mercy, called to the Nephites to change—and to avoid heading toward a disastrous end—by repenting and ceasing their wicked living.
A righteous minority lived among the wicked people of Zarahmela. It was because of them that the city was not destroyed.
Samuel envisioned the time when the righteous would be so persecuted by the wicked that they would be cast out of the city; then the wicked would not be protected by God.
A curse would come over the land. Because the people loved worldly treasures to the point of murder and plunder, the wicked who hid their treasure during the calamity would not ever find them again.
There were some righteous people who valued God’s treasures—His Holy Scriptures and words of His prophets. Because of necessity, their treasures would need to be hidden from wicked people. The righteous also “hide their treasures up unto the Lord” when their treasures are their testimonies and righteous works. These foster the ultimate treasure of Eternal Life. Samuel said that the Lord would bless these treasures.
The Nephites had a disastrous cycle of calling out to God when they were in trouble—and then very soon after God answered their prayers, even blessing them with great prosperity, forgetting Him…but not forgetting riches. They clung to them, as the most important parts of life—and they even stole and murdered to get more.
Samuel reminded the people that it was their own behavior that would bring about terrible consequences.
The Nephites were blessed with copies of original scriptures from the Brass Plates and from all Promised Land prophets since Lehi.
Samuel told the people of Zarahmela that they were worse than the early Israelites.
They became angry and actually murderous when they were chastised for their wickedness.
Samuel asked the people to answer to themselves some pointed questions:
How long do you suppose the Lord will allow your nation to exist?
How long will you allow yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides?
How long will you choose darkness rather than Light?
The lack of riches will finally force them to open their eyes and admit that they have been obeying the devil. They will then know they have been doing the will of the devil and his angels, and that they will be destroyed by the evil one who they have obeyed. Again, as in many times past, they will try to get God to overlook all of the horrible things they have been doing—and save them.
The Lord sent Samuel to preach to the Nephites so they would have every possible opportunity for Eternal Life.
The Lord must always be angry at evil, and when the people continued in wickedness, the Lord’s righteous anger was kindled against them. However, He did not want to be angry at them. His purpose is the Eternal Life of mankind (Moses 1:39). He wanted them to repent, live righteously, and return to Him so He could turn away His anger.
As is true with all other of God’s holy prophets, Samuel’s desire and purpose was also the Salvation of the people. Even though they had mocked him and tried to cast him out of their midst, and would certainly have killed him if it had been achievable—he wanted them to listen to God’s message and be saved.
CHAPTER 14
Samuel bravely and surely witnessed the terrible wickedness of hostile listening Nephites. He also prophesied of many things that, for reasons known to the Lord, could not be written.
Samuel prophesied of Christ’s shortly impending birth:
For almost 600 years Nephites had been told that the Savior, Jesus Christ, would be born. Prophets—on the western hemisphere and earlier prophets Nephites read of from the Brass Plates—told them that Christ would come to Earth, live and die for them, and that He would redeem all who believed in Him and lived righteously, obeying His commandments.
Thousands over the centuries had believed the prophets; even though Jesus had not yet been born, they took His holy name upon themselves and looked forward to the great day of Salvation. Samuel said that the long awaited blessing of Christ’s birth would take place in just five short years.
Samuel told of wondrous signs that would accompany Christ’s birth:
And behold, this will I give unto you for a sign at the time of His coming; there shall be great lights in Heaven; that in the night before He comes there shall be no darkness; it shall appear unto man as if it was day.
There shall be one day and a night and a day,
as if it were one day and there was no night;
and this shall be unto you for a sign;
for you shall know of the rising of the sun
and also of its setting;
therefore they shall know of a surety
that there shall be two days and a night;
nevertheless, the night shall not be darkened;
and it shall be the night before He is born.
Samuel told the Nephites that belief in Jesus Christ would allow the full repentance process to begin and if they followed the conditions of repentance, they could yet inherit Everlasting Life.
The whole purpose for Samuel’s being where he was—was the great Plan of Salvation of which Jesus Christ is the center. So the birth, life, Atonement, death, and Resurrection of Christ was the reason the Lord had commanded Samuel to warn the Nephites—that they may take part in this glorious Plan rather than continue down the devil’s deceptive path.
Samuel realized the Nephites thought they were superior to the Lamanites—that they highly resented a Lamanite telling them of their wickedness. But then Samuel told them—whether or not they liked what he said—they would have to listen to him.
Samuel identified Jesus Christ as—(1) the Son of God; (2) Father of Heaven and of Earth; (3) the Creator of all things from the beginning.
Samuel told the listening Nephites that they could have another chance. There are conditions to repentance, but true repentance is possible for everyone. Repentance for remission of sins is possible because of Christ’s merits.
Samuel then told them about necessity for Christ’s death:
Samuel stressed that, for the Resurrection and Salvation of humankind, it was necessary for Jesus to die. He said “…whatsoever things the Lord put into his heart.” It was only Christ’s Atonement—including His death and His Resurrection that would redeem us from the “spiritual death” of being born and being thus originally “cast out from God’s Presence.” We will all return to God to be judged.
In the pre-mortal life, all of us were in the Presence of Heavenly Father and His Son, our Brother, the God Jehovah—Jesus Christ.
Adam and Eve, ordained parents of the human race, partook of the forbidden fruit that allowed the rest of us to come to Earth to experience mortality. However, becoming mortal “cast us out” from God’s continuous Presence and we must learn to walk by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7). All mortals are subject to both spiritual death and temporal death.
Thus, “spiritual death,” precedes temporal death; being born, separates us from God’s continuous Presence. The only way to overcome this spiritual death and to enter into God’s Everlasting Kingdom to live forever is to go back in purity—because “no unclean thing can dwell with God” (1 Nephi 10:21). All of us except Jesus Christ have committed sins and made mistakes, which causes us to be impure.
The great Plan of Salvation necessitated a Sacrifice—to release us from temporal death and, on the condition of repentance, to pay for our sins and mistakes, to release us from spiritual death.
Jesus Christ, because of His love for His Father, and His love for us, agreed to be that atoning Sacrifice.
Because Christ was resurrected, all mankind will be resurrected, releasing all from the temporal death brought about by mortality.
Our Savior, Jesus Christ’s Atonement and Resurrection made possible the “conditions of repentance.” Although all people will be resurrected thus redeeming us all from temporal death, only those who repent will be able to live with God forever.
This message tells us that Samuel spoke, at least in part, to Nephites who had experienced and partaken of God’s holy Power and were now rejecting it deliberately, defying God and intentionally lying about the truth while looking at the Light.
Samuel prophesied of many signs which would accompany the death of the Savior.
But behold, as I said unto you concerning another sign,
a sign of His death, behold, in that day that He shall suffer death,
the sun shall be darkened and refuse to give his light unto you;
and also the moon and the stars; and there shall be no light
upon the face of this land, even from the time
hat He shall suffer death, for the space of three days,
to the time that He shall again rise from the dead.
Samuel told of other calamities that would bombard the western hemisphere during the darkened three days.
Next Samuel prophesied that many righteous people, who had died, would be resurrected following Christ’s Resurrection.
Perhaps Samuel repeated the prophecy of the signs for emphasis, or perhaps he wanted to draw attention to the important fact that they came from the authority of God through an angel. An important purpose of the signs was that no one who was left alive would have excuse to doubt that they were fulfillment of prophecy.
If, after seeing such explicit manifestations, people still chose not to believe, they would bring on their own condemnation.
Samuel reminded the Nephites that God gave them agency. He also gave them knowledge of good and evil. If they, with their agency, chose good, the consequence was Eternal Life; conversely, if they chose evil, the consequence was eternal separation from God. They could not blame anyone but themselves for their choices.
CHAPTER 15
Samuel reminded them that the choices they made as they used their God-given agency, would bring either good or evil consequences resulting from those choices.
In a completed circle, Samuel again prophesied of the condition of the Nephites’ final days if they did not repent, reminding them—the Lord’s Hand was outstretched, welcoming them to repent and to return to Him. Choices of the present day Nephites could affect their descendants.
Evil choices would leave future generations a legacy of wickedness, weakening descendants at a critical time. Consequences of the descendant Nephites—if they chose to buy into the evil of their ancestors and escalate it—would be terrible; the Nephite nation would be completely demolished.
Samuel tried to appeal to finer feeling of his listeners, hoping that they would promote righteousness, so that awful things would not happen.
The Lord loved the Nephites. He had watched over them and had nurtured them with scriptures and prophets. He had protected them from their enemies these many centuries in the Promised Land. He chastened them only to bring them back to righteousness.
Samuel was inspired that because many Lamanites, although without a prophets and scriptures to guide them, whole-heartedly accepted the message of Salvation, the Lord chose to “prolong their days.” Prolonging one’s days includes keeping descendants in existence.
Samuel asked the Nephites to notice what converted Lamanites were doing—and follow their examples. Before the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law of Moses, Israelites were commanded to live by that law.
Those Lamanites who were converted to the Gospel diligently worked to convert the rest of their fellow-citizens—and they were having great success. The Nephites were well aware of the Lamanites—and although they refused to acknowledge that the Lamanites were living more righteously, they knew it.
Rejecting years of evil traditions, large numbers of Lamanites embraced the Holy Scriptures and lived with faith in Jesus Christ—which had brought them to true repentance—and they were blessed with God’s Holy Spirit
Samuel was speaking to members of the Church and to those who had dissented from the Church after they had once been enlightened. Although most chose to later reject the truth, many of them had once experienced “coming to faith and repentance.”
Although most Lamanites were righteous at that point, Samuel knew, through prophetic revelation, that they would eventually “dwindle in unbelief.” Yet they would not be completely destroyed, as the Nephite nation would be. Instead, unbelieving Lamanites would experience terrible hardships and be driven and scattered throughout the land. Then in the latter days, they would be blessed
as they accepted the true Restored Gospel.
Samuel catalogued a brief summary of the Lamanites’ current state, and then he prophesied of their future as a people. Next, he told the Nephites that if they did not repent, they would be worse off than the Lamanites.
When the Lamanites believed in something, they were steadfast in those beliefs. Samuel told the Nephites that had the Lamanites experienced the same mighty miracles as the Nephites, instead of having only wrong traditions passed down to them, they would have believed and would never have lost their faith—or “dwindled in unbelief”. The Lord recognized the mighty faith of righteous Lamanites, so He would preserve the Lamanites until the latter days.
But the Nephites were a different case. Regardless of many mighty protections and miracles and prophets and scriptures, the Nephites determined to be stuck in a disastrous cycle, refusing to appreciate the Lord their God. Because they loved wickedness more than righteousness, they refused to keep God’s commandments.
CHAPTER 16
While the prophet Samuel the Lamanite spoke to Nephites from the wall surrounding Zarahemla, the prophet Nephi, as head of the Church, and other faithful followers of Christ (who were in the minority among the Nephites) were preaching to and baptizing those who came to them in faith, because upon hearing Samuel’s words, some Nephites had a change of heart, and they repented and sought out Nephi for baptism.
The Lord had given Nephi great Power and he was using that Power to bless people and to show them that Jesus Christ would soon be born. Nephi was making sure that the Nephites heard the prophecies so that when they came true, they would recognize the fulfillment of that which was told beforehand.
Many more Nephites rejected Samuel’s message than those who accepted them. Angry that he presumed to admonish them for their wickedness, they threw stones and shot arrows at him. When their stones and arrows did not make the mark, most of the wicked Nephites, rather than admitting that Samuel was under the Lord’s protection, they falsely charged Samuel with wickedness.
Samuel, having completed the mission the Lord sent him to do, leaped down from the wall as the captains climbed up to get him. He left Nephite territory to go preach to the more receptive Lamanites and, to their own loss, the Nephites never saw or heard him again.
Eighty-seventh, eighty-eighth, and eighty-ninth years
of the reign of the judges
Most of the people remained in their pride and wickedness.
The lesser part of the people walked more circumspectly before God.
And there was but little alteration in the affairs of the people, save it were the people began to be more hardened in iniquity, and do more and more of that which was contrary to the commandments of God…
Ninetieth year of the reign of the judges
For the faithful Nephites who loved God, the ninetieth year was an amazing time of wonder. The prophesied signs began to appear, angels appeared to wise men, declaring the anticipated fullness of time about to come—when Christ the Lord would be born. For years the scriptures had told of the wondrous things that were now beginning to take place.
When signs and wonders became too obvious to ignore, most of the wicked Nephites, rather than admitting that the Samuel was a true prophet, listened to the devil’s lies and let their hearts further harden against the Holy Spirit’s influence. Depending on their “own strength and upon their own wisdom,”
The devil has always appealed to people’s pride—to encourage them to reject the words of prophets. The so-called learned people of the day had their own brand of Satan-inspired logic that they tried to use. The scriptures, including the Brass Plates and those written by their own prophets in the Promised Land,
told that Christ would be born and then live His mortal life in the land of Jerusalem.
These Nephite logicians tried to promote that if it was true that Christ, the Son of God, would come, it would be reasonable for Him to live His life on the western hemisphere as well as in Jerusalem.
It did not matter that Christ did not live His Earthly life in the western hemisphere. He was a Sacrifice for people of all times everywhere, including other countless worlds He created. Furthermore, Christ did show Himself, to “other sheep” in the west and in places that we do not now know, after His death (John 10:16).
Taking a page out of the wicked Lamanite rhetoric, the wicked Nephites, under the influence of Satan, then inferred that the whole idea of a Christ was a “wicked tradition” that had been passed on to the present generation for some unknown nefarious reason by unscrupulous ancestors. They said because Christ’s birth and life would take place in a distant land and they could not “witness it,” it must not be true.
One of Satan’s oldest tricks is to take his own wicked intentions and attribute these to God’s servants. Following the devil’s evil blueprint, the wicked Nephites used Laman’s old argument that somehow the righteous were using prophecies to enslave the people (2 Nephi 5:3; 16:21). In reality, Satan has always wanted to enslave the rest of us in his unholy chains—while Christ’s Truth makes us free.
Successfully appealing to pride and greed of these Nephites—who did not remember or admit the countless miracles and wonders the Lord showed them—Satan was able to recruit many of them.