Day 264 Destroying Wickedness: The Lamanite Example

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and in the same sentence offers a warning that savorless salt is good for nothing. Join me in an attempt to be savory salt as I share each day one verse of scripture and one small thought. Perhaps this small daily emphasis can lead to greater savor in your life and ultimately you and I can be savory salt.

Hello, my friends and family, wherever you're listening from. Thank you for joining me and know that I'm cheering for your every success. To join or not to join?

That is the question that comes in our reading today. Welcome. Today, Day 264 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together.

We have officially reached 70% of the Book of Mormon doing just a little bit of reading. A little bit each day. Congratulations.

And that should also tell you then by kind of logical arithmetic or whatever you want to use, mathematical calculations here, that we have just 30% of the Book of Mormon left to read together. Today you're going to be reading Helaman chapter 6, verses 6 through 24, the middle of that chapter. And you're going to actually have a time of peace here.

And that peace is going to be based off of one: no wars between the groups. They're going to both cease the warring for just a little bit. And two: they're going to open up trade with each other and actually have kind of economic prosperity for just a very short time.

Because at the end of our reading today, the Gadianton robbers are back in action as there are two consecutive chief judge murders. Seezoram and his son are both murdered very quickly in a very short time span inside of this. And there's not really an idea here on who does the murdering.

And so we have a rise of the Gadianton robbers and that gets us into our verse for today. When these robbers come into the civilizations, we really have a stark difference in how the Lamanites and how the Nephites reacted to these robbers. That's what I want to take a look at today, at least one side of them.

Today's verse is Helaman 6:20, and it says, "Every means in their power to destroy them off the face of the earth." This one's very interesting because if you continue reading in verse 21, you find out the way that the Nephites responded to the Gadianton robbers. What did the Nephites do? Yeah, they joined them.

They united themselves with them. They learned their oaths and their covenants and they bought into this deception and this robbing and plundering and murdering. The Nephites accepted this behavior and the Lamanites did not.

And I love the phrase inside verse 20 here. They did use every means in their power to destroy them off the face of the earth. My friends, don't allow the tiny cracks to open up and become giant holes in our lives when it comes to the wickedness of the world.

Seal those up. Use every means in your power to destroy those influences out of your life and to hold strong. Otherwise, we tend to kind of have this problem where just a little bit comes in and then a little bit comes in.

If you ever heard the analogy of the camel in the tent, right? The camel's nose comes in just a little bit, and then his head comes in, and then pretty soon you've got the entire camel inside the tent. Maybe that's not an analogy you're familiar with, but that's the one that comes to mind here.

My friends, be like the Lamanites here. Use every means possible. First, become aware of the wickedness around you.

See it for what it is, and then I'd encourage you to be like the Lamanites and do everything in your power to destroy those influences from your life. You will be better for it as we see the roads of the Lamanites and the Nephites and where they go based on their acceptance of the wickedness of the Gadianton robbers. That's all for today, my friends.

Remember that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt. I'll be here tomorrow, and I hope you are too. We'll see you next time.