Revelations Daily

Helaman 11 is a chapter that seems to have been very frustrating for Mormon to write. When he was done describing how this people went from their wickedness to righteousness and then back to wickedness, he spent another chapter lamenting “how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men” (Helaman 12:1). One way to read the chapter is to compare that unsteadiness of the people with the steadfastness of Nephi who sought so diligently to help the people to repent. When the people were wicked, Nephi pled with the Lord to bring a famine: “O Lord, do not suffer that this people shall be destroyed by the sword; but O Lord, rather let there be a famine in the land, to stir them up in remembrance of the Lord their God, and perhaps they will repent and turn unto thee” (v4). He never gave up on them but was undeterred in his pursuit of their righteousness. After the Lord brought the famine, and the people started to repent, he pled again on their behalf with the Lord: “And now, O Lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, and try again if they will serve thee? And if so, O Lord, thou canst bless them according to thy words which thou hast said” (v16). The Lord did as he asked, and Nephi continued to watch over them and teach them when they had disputations about doctrine: “And in the seventy and ninth year there began to be much strife. But it came to pass that Nephi and Lehi… did preach unto the people, insomuch that they did put an end to their strife in that same year” (v23). Despite his great care over the church, they subsequently did “wax stronger and stronger in their pride, and in their wickedness; and thus they were ripening again for destruction” (v37). The chapter covers about 14 years, and Nephi never stopped preaching repentance to the people. They were repeatedly unsteady in their devotion to the Lord, but Nephi was “steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works” as King Benjamin invited all of us (Mosiah 5:15).

            So, what was the key to Nephi’s steadfastness amidst a people so uncommitted? I believe it is found in this description: “Nephi and Lehi, and many of their brethren who knew concerning the true points of doctrine, having many revelations daily, therefore they did preach unto the people” (v23). Nephi sought revelation daily—he could not be moved from his faith because each day he heard the voice of the Lord and received knowledge from Him. This is similar to how Mormon described Nephi’s son many years later when he also was living in a time of wickedness: “And it came to pass that Nephi—having been visited by angels and also the voice of the Lord, therefore having seen angels, and being eye-witness, and having had power given unto him that he might know concerning the ministry of Christ,… for so great was his faith on the Lord Jesus Christ that angels did minister unto him daily” (3 Nephi 7:15, 18). He too had revelations daily—revelations given by angels. Surely this was what kept them faithful even in times of wickedness; they could not be moved because they built their lives on revelation every day. Perhaps Mormon wanted us to see the connection between these daily revelations that Nephi received with the famous instruction given to him by his father Helaman: “And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall” (Helaman 5:12). Nephi built his foundation upon the rock of Jesus Christ, and he did that through revelations daily from Him. This kept him firm even when so many other succumbed to the “mighty winds” of the adversary. The message for us today from Helaman 11 is that if we want to be steadfast and immovable in the face of the wickedness around us, we must seek the Savior daily through revelation like Nephi.