Before I get into the Book of Mormon, I want to share some feelings I have. My grandson, Ryan, my oldest grandchild, was not accepted for a mission because of his learning disabilities. I believe this is a mistake, that his learning disabilities while they were very difficult in his young years, and even up until his Sophomore year in high school, he has overcome them so well that someone meeting him now would not even know he had any. Yet, he was deemed unable to serve a proselyting mission and was given an honorable release. He was referred to the Family and History Administration mission in SLC, but after several weeks of interviews and waiting, he was turned down for that, too. He so much wanted to serve. It breaks my heart that he won't be able to, but I have God's solemn promise that Ryan will not be denied any blessings or promises because of this mistake, whosever mistake it is. God knows Ryan's heart, and his worthiness, and He will make things right in the end.
Now to the Book of Mormon, Chapter 3, and I am going to have to speed this up if I am going to read the entire book by the end of the year.
One interpretation that I often hear is that when the 4 brothers went back to Jerusalem to get the brass plates, that they first tried it man's way, and then they did it the Lord's way. No, that is wrong. It is the Lord's way to give the person the best opportunity to prove himself, and so the Lord gave Laban the opportunity to simply give up the brass plates at the request of Laman. That would have been Laban at his noble best. Then the Lord used Laban's greed to get him to part with the plates -- and the brothers offered to buy them from him. Still Laban resisted. That left the Lord blameless for taking Laban's life. The Lord works the same way with us -- he always appeals to our best nature first, then to our base human nature.
It's curious to me that the Brass Plates even included the prophecies of Jeremiah, Laban and Lehi's contemporary. Someone was very dutiful in keeping the brass plates up to date, even with prophets that were rejected by the Jews. I wonder what access Laban had to hear the prophecies of Jeremiah.
I've often wondered what relationship Lehi's family had with Ishmael's family. I don't believe they were strangers. Perhaps there was already an expectation of marriage between the children. At any rate, it was the 4 sons that convinced Ishmael and his family to come along. I can't see that Laman and Lemuel would have been very negative about it, as that wouldn't have been very persuasive.
After they leave Jerusalem with Ishmael's family, there is another rebellion. Nephi asks them, "how is it that ye have forgotten what great things the Lord hath done for us," and that is our problem, when things go bad, we forget all the good things the Lord has done for us. And that is the temptation now, with this situation with Ryan -- are we going to forget all the good things the Lord has done for us? People make mistakes -- but people are imperfect, as we are imperfect. I need to these next few days remember what good things the Lord has done for me and my family.
The overwhelming problem for them seems to be their disbelieve that Jerusalem would be destroyed. After all, the Lord had always protected Jerusalem in the past, why wouldn't He continue to do so? Some Jews just didn't believe the Lord would allow his holy city and his holy temple to be destroyed. Nephi told them very bluntly that if they returned to Jerusalem, they would perish along with everyone else. I think if I had been Nephi, I would have just said Go. But he didn't want them to return to Jerusalem because he didn't want them to perish.
Another interesting thing about Laman and Lemuel is that they always repent -- they are always sorry -- until they weren't. That's the danger in sin/repent cycles, at some point the sin isn't followed by repent. It's a very dangerous way to live.
Chapter 8 is Lehi's vision of the tree of life, so I will pick up there tomorrow.
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