Fighting the Robbers in the Mountains

In Helaman 11 we read that the Gadianton robbers “did carry on [a] work of destruction and wickedness,” causing terrible things among the Nephites.  Nephi prayed for a famine in order to get the people to repent, and it worked.  In fact, Nephi prayed to the Lord saying, “They have swept away the band of Gadianton from amongst them insomuch that they have become extinct.”  After the Nephites repented and the Lord brought back the rain, though, it didn’t take long for them to become wicked again.  Within a few years the Gadianton robbers were back in full force, but this time they developed a different tactic.  Whereas they had previously been among the people in hiding, now they grouped together in the mountains: “They did commit murder and plunder; and then they would retreat back into the mountains, and into the wilderness and secret places, hiding themselves that they could not be discovered.”  The robbers did “make great havoc” among the people and the Nephites had to figure out what to do about them: “It was expedient that there should be a stop put to this work of destruction” (Helaman 11:2, 10, 25, 27, 28).

               The Nephites tried two different tactics for fighting with the Gadianton robbers who were in the mountains.  The first is what they did as described in Helaman 11 when they went up to the mountains and attacked the robbers.  “They sent an army of strong men into the wilderness and upon the mountains to search out this band of robbers, and to destroy them.”   This didn’t really work for them, though.  The first time the Nephites went up against them they were driven back, and the second time they went they “did destroy many” but were met equally with much destruction.  Mormon recorded, “And they were again obliged to return out of the wilderness and out of the mountains unto their own lands, because of the exceeding greatness of the numbers of those robbers who infested the mountains and the wilderness” (Helaman 11:28, 31).  This was right before Samuel the Lamanite came.  Several years later the problem was again so bad that the Nephites were forced to do something: “And it came to pass in the thirteenth year there began to be wars and contentions throughout all the land; for the Gadianton robbers 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 it became expedient that all the people, both the Nephites and the Lamanites, should take up arms against them” (3 Nephi 2:11).  This time they all gathered together and they were led by a righteous man named Gidgiddoni.  The people said to him, “Pray unto the Lord, and let us go up upon the mountains and into the wilderness, that we may fall upon the robbers and destroy them in their own lands.”  This is what they had done many years earlier and they wanted to try the same thing.  But Gidgiddoni responded, “The Lord forbid; for if we should go up against them the Lord would deliver us into their hands; therefore we will prepare ourselves in the center of our lands, and we will gather all our armies together, and we will not go against them, but we will wait till they shall come against us; therefore as the Lord liveth, if we do this he will deliver them into our hands” (3 Nephi 3:20-21).  So this time they did not go searching them out in the mountains but waited and prepared for the robbers to come to them.  And this proved to be the right solution as they were able to save themselves from their enemies in the mountains.

               Is there anything for us to learn from the fact that in the first case they went into the mountains to attack the Gadianton robbers, and in the second case they instead stayed back and fortified the people?  Gidgiddoni didn’t give a reason for why they shouldn’t go make a preemptive attack other than that the Lord forbid it.  It seems to me, though, that there may be something symbolic in the story to teach us how we should resist evil in our own lives.  For example, to fight pornography in our families we are probably not going to go out and seek to get rid of all of the evil and conspiring companies who produce the filth.  Rather we will be much more effective in resisting it by teaching gospel principles to our families and preparing them spiritually to reject the evil and choose good.  Our greatest defense against the wickedness of the world is our own spiritual preparation and armor, and I think these stories in the Book of Mormon help us see that it is at home that we must focus on fighting sin.  We don’t need to make preemptive attacks on the world; we need to make our homes steadfast in the faith and preempt the fiery darts of the adversary that will surely be sent.