All Is Well
As Nephi
described the devil’s work in the last days, he said that the adversary would
lull people away into “carnal security, that they will say: All is well in
Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well” (2 Nephi 28:21). A few verses later Nephi reiterated the point
by simply saying, “Wo be unto him that crieth: All is well!” (2 Nephi
28:25) That verse has always caught my
attention because it is a phrase so familiar to us in the Church—we sing in the
hymn Come, Come, Ye Saints these
words: “Oh, how we’ll make this chorus swell—All is well! All is well!” The words are the same between the hymn and
Nephi’s warning, but clearly the meaning is very different.
We have another occurrence of the phrase later in the Book of Mormon that is employed with the same meaning as Nephi’s usage. When Samuel the Lamanite was preaching to the Nephites, he told them that they embrace the false prophets who would come saying “do whatsoever your heart desireth.” Samuel continued, “Because he speaketh flattering words unto you, and he saith all is well, then ye will not find fault with him” (Helaman 13:27-28). I think this helps clarify what Nephi’s phrase meant; here I think we could rephrase by saying that these false prophets would say that there was no need for repentance or change. When Satan lulls the Saints into saying that “Zion prospereth, all is well,” he is telling them that there is no need to change or worry about keeping the commandments. It seems to be the same idea as those would say, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us” (2 Nephi 28:7). Messages from the true servants of God are the polar opposite of this; they say, “Repent ye, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (D&C 42:7). Even those who are living good lives and have repented in order to receive baptism must still “watch and pray always” or else we will be “tempted by the devil” and “led away captive by him” (3 Nephi 18:15). As King Benjamin would put it to those who were righteous and had accepted the Savior, “But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish” (Mosiah 4:30). We cannot sit back, relax our principles, and say that all is well. So if this is the case, then what does the “All is well” mean in the anthem we sing with such enthusiasm? I think that the idea is that expressed by Isaiah: “Say unto the righteous that it is well with them; for they shall eat of the fruit of their doings” (2 Nephi 13:10). In other words, if we are striving to follow the Savior, then everything will work out for us in the end—we will eventually eat of the fruit of our labors, even if in the moment it appears that we suffer despite our righteousness. All will eventually be made right through the Savior if we hold on faithful. The Saints were suffering greatly in the trek across the continent, but they trusted in the Lord that whether soon or late, all would be right in the end. As the song says, “Gird up your loins; fresh courage take. Our God will never us forsake.” Because we know that our God will not forsake us when we trust in Him and hold to our covenants, we can unashamedly sing that indeed “All is well.”
We have another occurrence of the phrase later in the Book of Mormon that is employed with the same meaning as Nephi’s usage. When Samuel the Lamanite was preaching to the Nephites, he told them that they embrace the false prophets who would come saying “do whatsoever your heart desireth.” Samuel continued, “Because he speaketh flattering words unto you, and he saith all is well, then ye will not find fault with him” (Helaman 13:27-28). I think this helps clarify what Nephi’s phrase meant; here I think we could rephrase by saying that these false prophets would say that there was no need for repentance or change. When Satan lulls the Saints into saying that “Zion prospereth, all is well,” he is telling them that there is no need to change or worry about keeping the commandments. It seems to be the same idea as those would say, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us” (2 Nephi 28:7). Messages from the true servants of God are the polar opposite of this; they say, “Repent ye, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (D&C 42:7). Even those who are living good lives and have repented in order to receive baptism must still “watch and pray always” or else we will be “tempted by the devil” and “led away captive by him” (3 Nephi 18:15). As King Benjamin would put it to those who were righteous and had accepted the Savior, “But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish” (Mosiah 4:30). We cannot sit back, relax our principles, and say that all is well. So if this is the case, then what does the “All is well” mean in the anthem we sing with such enthusiasm? I think that the idea is that expressed by Isaiah: “Say unto the righteous that it is well with them; for they shall eat of the fruit of their doings” (2 Nephi 13:10). In other words, if we are striving to follow the Savior, then everything will work out for us in the end—we will eventually eat of the fruit of our labors, even if in the moment it appears that we suffer despite our righteousness. All will eventually be made right through the Savior if we hold on faithful. The Saints were suffering greatly in the trek across the continent, but they trusted in the Lord that whether soon or late, all would be right in the end. As the song says, “Gird up your loins; fresh courage take. Our God will never us forsake.” Because we know that our God will not forsake us when we trust in Him and hold to our covenants, we can unashamedly sing that indeed “All is well.”
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