They Truly Testify of Christ

The Come, Follow Me lesson this week says this about Jacob 7: “The Nephites’ experience with Sherem is often repeated today: people are trying to destroy faith in Christ. How did Jacob respond when his faith was attacked? What do you learn from his responses? What can you do now to prepare for times when your faith in the Savior will be challenged?” I think this story of Sherem indeed helps us see what we have to do to build, strengthen, and protect faith in Christ for ourselves and our children. Jacob wrote, “[Sherem] had hope to shake me from the faith, notwithstanding the many revelations and the many things which I had seen concerning these things; for I truly had seen angels, and they had ministered unto me. And also, I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in very word, from time to time; wherefore, I could not be shaken” (v5). Jacob had had revelations and had heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him, and so he could not be dissuaded from the true faith. That is exactly what President Nelson has invited us to do: “The very first word in the Doctrine and Covenants is hearken. It means ‘to listen with the intent to obey.’ To hearken means to ‘hear Him’—to hear what the Savior says and then to heed His counsel. In those two words—'Hear Him’—God gives us the pattern for success, happiness, and joy in this life. We are to hear the words of the Lord, hearken to them, and heed what He has told us!” As we hear the voice of the Lord through revelation, we will be protected from the “billions of words online and… marketing-saturated world constantly infiltrated by noisy, nefarious efforts of the adversary.” Jacob had spent his life learning to hear the voice of the Lord and receiving revelations, and so Sherem’s “flattery, and much power of speech” could not shake Jacob from what he had heard and knew to be true (v4).

                Ultimately what protected Jacob was the Holy Ghost which he had received as he sought to hear the voice of the Lord throughout his life. He recorded, “But behold, the Lord God poured in his Spirit into my soul, insomuch that I did confound him in all his words” (v8). He bore his testimony to Sherem this way: “It has been made manifest unto me, for I have heard and seen; and it also has been made manifest unto me by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, I know if there should be no atonement made all mankind must be lost” (v12). He also highlighted one other way that his faith in Jesus Christ had become unshaken: “And I said unto him: Believest thou the scriptures? And he said, Yea. And I said unto him: Then ye do not understand them; for they truly testify of Christ. Behold, I say unto you that none of the prophets have written, nor prophesied, save they have spoken concerning this Christ” (v10). He had written earlier about how the scriptures had indeed strengthened his faith in Christ: “Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken” (Jacob 4:6). As we search the scriptures, we can receive revelations and develop unshaken faith through the witness of the Holy Ghost that the testimony of the prophets concerning Christ is true.

                Interestingly, Jacob did not tell Sherem, “I have seen Christ”, though he did reference without details how he had “heard and seen.” Nephi told us, “And my brother, Jacob, also has seen him as I have seen him,” but that wasn’t where the unshakeable testimony of Jacob had come from (2 Nephi 11:3). And we do not need to see Him with our natural eyes here on earth to gain a similar witness of Him. Rather, like Jacob, we must search the prophets and seek to hear Him and receive the power of the Holy Ghost to teach us. We will have plenty of Sherem’s to face in our day, and so we must come to know for ourselves through the Spirit that “Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations” (Title Page of the Book of Mormon). I know from the words of the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ, and that these words of the premortal Jehovah to the brother of Jared are true: “Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters” (Ether 3:14).