Our Only Security

The terror attack in Nice, France yesterday hit home to me because I’ve spent time at that place and walked along the then-peaceful Promenade des Anglais over which the attacker drove his truck.  The utter brutality and inhumanity of the event makes us wonder how anyone’s sense of the value of human life can be so low as to do such a thing.  The scripture that comes to mind as I think about what happened is the vision of Enoch who saw the Lord mourning for the wickedness on the earth: “And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept.”  When Enoch questioned how the Lord could weep, this was His reply: “Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood” (Moses 7:28, 32-33).  As we witness these increasing number of terror attacks, surely the perpetrators and supporters are “without affection” and “hate their own blood.”  And perhaps the most frightening part of it is that there seems to be no way to prevent it—how could authorities have possibly known that a petty criminal in a truck was going to use this everyday machine to murder so many people? 

                That question I think points us to the only real solution that we have—to turn to God.  Only He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart and can help us to prevent such secret combinations.  The Book of Mormon teaches us that the way to defeat our enemies is through putting our trust in God.  For a very specific example, we see that the Nephites were able to defeat the Lamanites in Alma 16 because they had gotten direct revelation from the Lord on how to do it: “And it came to pass that Alma inquired of the Lord concerning the matter. And Alma returned and said unto them: Behold, the Lamanites will cross the river Sidon in the south wilderness, away up beyond the borders of the land of Manti. And behold there shall ye meet them, on the east of the river Sidon, and there the Lord will deliver unto thee thy brethren who have been taken captive by the Lamanites” (Alma 16:6).  The people of Ammonihah were destroyed because they would not turn to the Lord, and then the Zoram and his sons were able to defeat the Lamanites because they sought direction from and followed the very specific revelation from their prophet.  The Lord knew where the Lamanites were and how to defeat them, and He of course knows the same about today’s terrorists.  At a later point in the Nephite history they were in a terrible situation with the Gadianton robbers who “had become so numerous, and did slay so many of the people, and did lay waste so many cities, and did spread so much death and carnage throughout the land” that the Nephites were forced to fight against them (3 Nephi 2:11).  Lachoneus told the people, “As the Lord liveth, except ye repent of all your iniquities, and cry unto the Lord, ye will in nowise be delivered out of the hands of those Gadianton robbers” (3 Nephi 3:15).  This they did, and when the Gadianton robbers attacked the Nephites fell “to the earth, and did lift their cries to the Lord their God, that he would spare them and deliver them out of the hands of their enemies” (3 Nephi 4:8).  It was that complete trust in the Lord and turning to him through repentance and prayer that ultimately saved the Nephites from the terrorist of their day.  And surely turning to God through repentance and prayer in our time is the only real security for us as we combat the Gadianton robbers of today.