45 Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God. Ye have seen an angel, and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words; wherefore, he has spoken unto you like unto the voice of thunder, which did cause the earth to shake as if it were to divide asunder.
This verse teaches an important principle about receiving personal
revelation. We receive revelation in our mind and in our heart, or in other
words, in our thoughts and in our feelings. D&C 9:8–9 teaches that after
giving a question or issue due diligence (study, ponder, pray), our answer will
come as a burning in the bosom, “therefore you shall feel that it is right” (emphasis added), or you will receive the
stupor of thought. If you never give yourself the chance to hear the still, small voice of the
Spirit, you won’t feel his influence.
Or if you ignore it often enough, you no longer feel it. You go past feelings,
and the Holy Ghost stops trying (see Ether 15:19 and Moroni 9:4). I think that
Laman and Lemuel probably felt the Spirit in their younger days, but for
whatever reason, they stopped heeding it, or maybe they never heeded it. But
everyone is born with the Spirit of Christ (see Moroni 7:16). With righteous
parents like Lehi and Sariah they had to have been taught these things in their
youth, just as Nephi had. There comes a time in everyone’s life that they have
to decide whether or not they will give heed to and live according to the
Spirit of Christ that they have. If the decision is “no,” they no longer feel
those impressions. They are “past feelings, that [they] could not feel his
words.” The Lord, however, because He loves us, will at times still try to get
our attention. But if we won’t listen to the still, small voice, He will speak
louder, “like unto a voice of thunder.” Whether we listen or not is always a conscious
decision. Laman and Lemuel decided to not listen. Back in chapter 15 they told
Nephi they didn’t pray for understanding (revelation) because, “the Lord maketh
no such thing known unto us” (1 Nephi 15:9). Of course, the Lord would have
made those things known to them if they were not hard in their hearts, and past
feelings. The heart is where those feelings reside.
