Sufficiently Humble

After several righteous kings among the Jaredites (including Omer, Emer, and Coriantum), Heth rebelled against his father Com the king. He killed Com and took over the throne, and the people became exceedingly wicked. We read, “And there came prophets in the land again, crying repentance unto them—that they must prepare the way of the Lord or there should come a curse upon the face of the land; yea, even there should be a great famine, in which they should be destroyed if they did not repent.” But, as is often the case, the people did not hearken to the words of the prophets, casting them out and killing them. Since they didn’t listen to His servants, the Lord sent something else among them to teach them: “And it came to pass that there began to be a great dearth upon the land, and the inhabitants began to be destroyed exceedingly fast because of the dearth, for there was no rain upon the face of the earth.” In addition to sending a famine, he also sent snakes in an effort to incite the people to repent: “And there came forth poisonous serpents also upon the face of the land, and did poison many people.” That surely got their attention! The snakes caused the animals to flee to the south, and they blocked the way so that the people could not get to the animals for food: “And it came to pass that the people did follow the course of the beasts, and did devour the carcasses of them which fell by the way, until they had devoured them all.” Finally, after prophets and a dearth and snakes and extreme hunger, the people started to turn to the Lord: “Now when the people saw that they must perish they began to repent of their iniquities and cry unto the Lord” (Ether 9:28-34). Mormon was perhaps thinking of this people when he wrote in lament, “And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him” (Helaman 12:3). The implicit invitation of their story is to turn to the Lord before He has to send famine and pestilence and snakes and death to get us to repent and humble ourselves before Him.

            At the end of this story the people did in fact repent. We read, “And it came to pass that when they had humbled themselves sufficiently before the Lord he did send rain upon the face of the earth; and the people began to revive again, and there began to be fruit in the north countries, and in all the countries round about. And the Lord did show forth his power unto them in preserving them from famine” (Ether 9:35). From this it appears that there was some minimum level of humility that the Lord was waiting for the people to have before He would take away the curse from them. We see similar language in other places in the scriptures. For example, Alma questioned the people at Zarahemla, “Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God? Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble?” (Alma 5:27) That is certainly a question we should all ask ourselves—am I sufficiently humble before the Lord? The Lord similarly said in our day of Martin Harris: “Behold, I say unto him, he exalts himself and does not humble himself sufficiently before me” (Doctrine and Covenants 5:24). The Savior also gave this promise to the early saints: “And again, verily I say unto you that it is your privilege, and a promise I give unto you that have been ordained unto this ministry, that inasmuch as you strip yourselves from jealousies and fears, and humble yourselves before me, for ye are not sufficiently humble, the veil shall be rent and you shall see me and know that I am—not with the carnal neither natural mind, but with the spiritual” (Doctrine and Covenants 67:10). Again the Lord’s requirement included a minimum level of humility in order to receive His blessings. Ultimately the Lord will have a humble people, and we can wait to be compelled to be humble like the Jaredites of old, or we can choose to see our lowly state before Him and humbly seek His blessings as He invites us. If we do, we will be able to realize our righteous desires as promised to Martin Harris: “If he will bow down before me, and humble himself in mighty prayer and faith, in the sincerity of his heart, then will I grant unto him a view of the things which he desires to see.”