14 And on the fourth day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be exceedingly sore.
It’s almost as if the Lord is simply turning up the intensity
of this storm the longer they wait to repent. Laman and Lemuel forget that in
this fight with God all they have going for them is their stubbornness. The
Lord controls the elements and everything else. Laman has no chance to win this
standoff. Even if he doesn’t give in to the storm and lost that way, he
eventually loses. If the storm kills him in this rebellious state, his eternal
consequences don’t look good, so he still loses (see Alma 20:17). What does it
take for these people to believe that the Lord wins, no matter how you try to
get around it? There just is no beating the Lord. He comes out ahead every
time. Incidentally, this also applies to obedience as much as disobedience, as
King Benjamin taught (see Mosiah 2: 20–25). Not only can we not gain the
advantage of the Lord through our stubbornness, as Laman clearly attempts, we
can’t get ahead of our debt to the Lord no matter how thankful and obedient we
are, as King Benjamin taught. I would say that given the choice (and we have been given the choice), it would be
better to try and get ahead in obedience than to try and win an unwinnable war
with God.
