11 And it came to pass that Laman and Lemuel did take me and bind me with cords, and they did treat me with much harshness; nevertheless, the Lord did suffer it that he might show forth his power, unto the fulfilling of his word which he had spoken concerning the wicked.
Who can second-guess the Lord? The way He thinks really is
different than the way man thinks, especially carnal man. The Lord told Isaiah
that His thoughts and ways are higher than ours (see Isaiah 55:8–9). Some
people use that fact as justification or evidence that there is no God. I think
it’s silly to say that just because we don’t understand Him God doesn’t exist,
but this is a good example of the kind of thing that happens to shake peoples’ testimonies.
They think that only good should happen to good people. For example, everyone
dies, but if a good person dies as a result of an act of violence, there is
evidence in some peoples’ minds that either God does not exist, or if He does
exist He doesn’t love or care for His people. Of course, the problem is not in
God; the problem is in us humans that don’t have the brains to understand, or
the faith to believe without understanding. The fact is that the Lord has told
us in the scriptures why He allows the wicked to prevail on the righteous, as
is happening here with Nephi.
In Alma chapter 14, Alma and Amulek are forced to watch the
believers, people they helped to convert in many cases, and the scriptures they
believed in thrown into the fire. Amulek wants to save them by stretching forth
their hands and exercising the power of God. Alma replied that “the Spirit
constraineth me,” to not do that (Alma 14:11). He basically said that they
needed to let the wicked “do this thing…according to the hardness of their
hearts, that the judgments which [the Lord] shall exercise upon them in his
wrath may be just.” This is clearly related to agency. If the wicked are always
stopped, and never allowed to act wickedly, how can they possibly be judged or
punished for being wicked? Technically they never were wicked because they were
not allowed to be. That is what Satan’s plan was all about (see Moses 4:1).
Sometimes, in our limited understanding, it seems like the wicked get away with
murder, while the righteous suffer. That may be because Satan is allowed free reign
here in this life. But if we are to understand this life, we can’t look only at
the few years of mortality. We simply must put the mortal portion of our lives
in context of our whole lives,
stretching into the eternities. That’s how the Lord understands it. That’s why,
“The Lord shall laugh at [the wicked]: for he seeth that his day is coming”
(Psalms 37:13 (8–13)). In the mean time, the Lord uses these persecutions to
test and try His people (see D&C 98:14). If we take a more eternal view of
life we would not “care for the body, neither the life of the body; but care
for the soul, and for the life of the soul” (D&C 101:37 (36–37)).
So I believe this is what Nephi understood. I think he was
much less concerned for his life and comfort than he was for the success of
their mission and what this might do to their ability to keep the commandments
of God.
- Psalms 37:9 (8–13)
- Alma 14:11
- D&C 98:14
- D&C 101:36–37
