We can learn much from this chapter. Unfortunately, this is going to sound a bit negative. But when you think about what Nephi saw, that was really negative.
Laman and Lemuel don't understand and they don't understand because they are not willing to pay the price to learn. Think how Nephi feels. He is completely devastated by having seen the destruction of his people and total collapse of the Lamanites into a society that is backward, ignorant, and murderous. He knows that much of this will start with Laman and Lemuel. It's not hard to understand why he tried to teach them with "all the energies of my soul, and with all the faculty which I possessed" in order to get them to understand in some hope that maybe what he was shown in vision could be averted. Laman and Lemuel at least ask questions and from these they learn what the symbols in the vision of the tree of life stand for. But they only ask Nephi to tell them. They don't try to learn for themselves. So they can never put it together. Church leaders and missionaries see this all too often. People convert on the basis of what others have told them and not what they have learned for themselves by the Spirit. Eventually, they fall away and assume it isn't true. It's like a person who has never been outside and seen the sun. People tell them there is a sun and they believe it for awhile. But since they refuse to go out themselves, whether there is a sun or not becomes irrelevant and there is not need to believe it. Even though the sun is always there for them to find and enjoy.
I want to comment on just one symbol in the vision of the tree of life and that is the river of water. Nephi says this was filthiness. I think it's important to realize how filthiness in the last days is portrayed here. It is coming to us like a flowing river, not as a stream or a brook. At the rate the world is going, it will not be long before it is a raging torrent. Sadly, this inundation of filth is being accepted more and more every day. Satan uses this river to corrupt the most beautiful things in life, such things as romance, love, marriage, and parenthood. It is sad because there is so much that is beautiful in the world to enjoy, things that can elevate a person and help them know what their true worth is.
2 comments:
I loved how Nephi sets the example in inquiring for himself, the things that his father saw. And then he ask his brothers if they did the same. The message I receive from reading about it is, that I can inquire and receive an answer. Ask and you shall receive.
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