The Blessing of Commandments

One of President Nelson’s questions from his last general conference for us to ponder was this: “How have the events that followed the First Vision made a difference for me and my loved ones?” An experience today has helped me to ponder one of the great blessings of the Restoration that I’m continually grateful for: commandments.  I went today to visit a friend in prison and was again appalled to hear the stories of what happens there amongst the prisoners.  His description of the violence and inhumanity there caused me to reflect upon the great protection that the gospel provides us through the commandments of the Savior.  In Primary from a young age we learn over and over to “choose the right”, to be honest and not steal, to control our greed by giving tithes and offerings to the Lord, to be clean in our thoughts and actions, to master our selfish desires through fasting, to avoid addictive substances by keeping the Word of Wisdom, and to show love as the Savior did instead of hate.  If only these hardened criminals in prison could have grown up being taught to live these simple commandments!  Surely there would be far fewer of them there if they could have learned to live the laws of God.  As Isaiah put it, “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea” (Isaiah 48:18).

               The scriptures indeed emphasize that our greatest safety and protection comes from the Lord and keeping His commandments.  For example, when the Gadianton robbers were threatening to destroy the entire Nephite nation, Lachoneus declared to them, “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.”  The Nephites did indeed strive to repent and keep the commandments for they “did exert themselves in their might to do according to the words of Lachoneus” (3 Nephi 3:15-16).  They were miraculously preserved from the hands of those Gadianton robbers through the protection of the Lord, and “they knew it was because of their repentance and their humility that they had been delivered from an everlasting destruction” (3 Nephi 4:33).  Repentance—or, equivalently, keeping the commandments—protected them from those robbers bent on their destruction.  The Lord declared how similarly in the last days our only safety will be in Zion, the New Jerusalem, where only the righteous—those who keep the commandments—will dwell: “And it shall be called the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God; And the glory of the Lord shall be there, and the terror of the Lord also shall be there, insomuch that the wicked will not come unto it, and it shall be called Zion. And it shall come to pass among the wicked, that every man that will not take his sword against his neighbor must needs flee unto Zion for safety. And there shall be gathered unto it out of every nation under heaven; and it shall be the only people that shall not be at war one with another” (Doctrine and Covenants 45:66-69).  At some future day, only in Zion, where the pure in heart dwell, where the commandments of the Lord are honored, will there be peace.  And right now our safety lies in the stakes of Zion, in living the commandments of the Lord, which offer us “a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and a covert from storm and from rain” (2 Nephi 14:6).