Mosiah 11-12

Mosiah 11

King Noah is a trouble-maker. In a short period of time, he turns around the righteous culture of Zeniff’s people as they follow after Noah’s bad example. Here are a few of the details of King Noah’s lifestyle:

2 For behold, he did not keep the commandments of God, but he did walk after the desires of his own heart. And he had many wives and concubines. And he did cause his people to commit sin, and do that which was abominable in the sight of the Lord. Yea, and they did commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness.

 5 For he put down all the priests that had been consecrated by his father, and consecrated new ones in their stead, such as were lifted up in the pride of their hearts.

6 Yea, and thus they were supported in their laziness, and in their idolatry, and in their whoredoms, by the taxes which king Noah had put upon his people; thus did the people labor exceedingly to support iniquity.

14 And it came to pass that he placed his heart upon his riches, and he spent his time in riotous living with his wives and his concubines; and so did also his priests spend their time with harlots.

Not coincidentally, the Lamanites begin creating more trouble. They start by attacking small groups of Nephites working in the fields, and eventually they start a battle. The Nephites are lucky enough to win again… for now. But their victory won’t last long with their new attitude:

19 And now, because of this great victory they were lifted up in the pride of their hearts; they did boast in their own strength, saying that their fifty could stand against thousands of the Lamanites; and thus they did boast, and did delight in blood, and the shedding of the blood of their brethren, and this because of the wickedness of their king and priests.

At this time, a prophet begins preaching to the people. His name is Abinadi (pronounced Uh-bin-uh-die). He tells them that the Lord has commanded him to tell the people to repent, or destruction and bondage will come to them. The people, of course, don’t like to be told they need to repent—and neither does King Noah—and they try to kill Abinadi but “the Lord delivered him out of their hands.” This isn’t the last we will hear from Abinadi.

Mosiah 12

After 2 years, Abinadi comes back—this time in disguise! He continues prophesying the destruction of the people if they do not repent. Actually, this time there is no “if you do not repent” condition—he prophesies that bondage and destruction WILL come to King Noah and his people because they did not repent. Notice all the calamities that Abinadi prophesies in vs. 2-7, because you will see them come to pass in future chapters.

This story always makes me think of how many chances God gives us in life. We are taught, we are warned, we are counseled—sometimes lovingly, sometimes strictly, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly. And whenever we insist on persisting in behavior that we know is not right, negative consequences will come. And I believe it isn’t usually God “punishing” us for the bad decisions. I believe the consequences are natural results of our decisions, and that is what God has been trying to warn us of all along. He isn’t trying to take away all our fun—he is trying to warn us of harm we will naturally bring on ourselves.

Abinadi is taken captive and brought to the King and his high priests for questioning. They pepper him with questions, trying to catch him in his words, but Abinadi strongly answers all their questions. He calls the priests out in their hypocrisy—they claim to teach the Law of Moses (keep in mind this is B.C. times) but they do not keep it themselves.