Second Nephi 8:11

Therefore, the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy and holiness shall be upon their heads; and they shall obtain gladness and joy; sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

Isaiah prophesies of the time when the Jews will be released from bondage and return to their homeland. As great as will be their joy and rejoicing at their liberation, their temporal salvation is only temporary. Greater yet will be our everlasting joy and eternal gladness when we are redeemed, not from our temporal bondage, but from our spiritual bondage. When Israel is gathered for the last time at the Second Coming of Christ, they will return not just to their earthly homeland but to their heavenly home, which is the kingdom of God, embodied in Zion. Their joy will then be uninterrupted. They will then experience true gladness and a fullness of joy. Sorrow and mourning for sin will flee away by the power of the atonement, which brings about mercy, forgiveness, and pardon. When guilt is swept away, mourning will cease.

Second Nephi 8:9

Awake, awake! Put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days. Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?

Isaiah interjects a prayer to Jehovah to call forth the Messiah, who is the arm of the Lord. Isaiah pleads for the Messiah to arise and come to the defense of His people. Isaiah has seen that Christ will vanquish the devil, just as He will defeat the king of Babylon, just as he defeated Pharaoh and freed captive Israel from Egyptian slavery. Over and over God has rescued His children from temporal captivity. He will do so again and again. But these deliverances are only symbols of the eternal deliverance that Christ ultimately performs for all through the ransom of the atonement, which brings about redemption from sin. The ultimate enemy is not an earthly king but Satan. Just as God performs miracles to defeat His worldly enemies, He will employ the miracle of the atonement to defeat His spiritual adversary, who is truly the enemy of our souls.

Second Nephi 8:7

Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart I have written my law, fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.

When we follow God, we can expect persecution, but we should not fear it. In the eventual justice of God, those who follow Him will triumph over all their foes, and the enemies of God will be vanquished. God’s ability to save is not diminished by the opinions and opposition of men. Those who fight against God will ultimately be disappointed. Their puny efforts will prove to be ineffectual, and they will be consumed. The enemies and detractors of the Church one by one are discredited or lose interest as they fail to make their case, while the Church moves ever forward and thrives.

Second Nephi 8:5

My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arm shall judge the people. The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.

God is ever near to us. It is we who draw away from Him. He has done the work of salvation. The atonement is complete. If we are to come unto God and partake of the atonement, we must trust in Him rather than in ourselves. We do not save ourselves. Jew and Gentile alike must lean on the arm of Christ and learn to depend on His power.

Second Nephi 8:4

Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation; for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light for the people.

God pleads with us to listen to the prophets whom He sends. Revelation has come again from God into the dark world to be a light to show the way back to Him. It is be a steady beacon to draw us to Him.

Second Nephi 8:3

For the Lord shall comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

In the Last Days, God will gather Israel and restore the gospel. He will dispel the wastelands of apostasy with the verdant garden of revelation. Those who accept the gospel will rejoice, be grateful, and sing the song of redeeming love. The restoration is in full swing, and the revealed gospel is in full bloom. I am learning the lyrics of the song of redeeming love daily.

Second Nephi 7:11

Behold all ye that kindle fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks which ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand—ye shall lie down in sorrow.

Whether we walk in the dim light of our own conceit or accept the life-giving Light of the World is our choice. We may think we have light and truth in our intellectual pursuits, but without revelation, we see only sparks. The time will come when we will see what we have missed, and we will be sorry we did not open our hearts to the fullness of the gospel.

Second Nephi 7:10

Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light?

Some may appear to keep the commandments and believe in God, yet they may nevertheless ignore the Holy Spirit and refuse to accept revelation. This describes the leaders of the Jews in Jesus’s day. They were zealous towards the Law, and yet they missed the point of the Law and refused the light Jesus offered them. Let us not be Pharisees who refuse the light when it is offered to us.

Second Nephi 7:9

For the Lord God will help me. And all they who shall condemn me, behold, all they shall wax old as a garment, and the moth shall eat them up.

No adversary can stand against Christ, for the power of God is in Him. Those who oppose Him will find themselves on the losing side. They will be destroyed. Their cause will fade away, cankered through and through by its own corruptness.

Second Nephi 7:8

And the Lord is near, and he justifieth me. Who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is mine adversary? Let him come near me, and I will smite him with the strength of my mouth.

In the strength of the Lord in His calling as the Messiah, Christ will stand with us. He will be our advocate and our protector. His weapons are not armies but the words He speaks. He who spoke and the world was and the heavens came into being, will speak His words on our behalf, and our enemies of sin and sorrow will be vanquished.

Second Nephi 7:7

For the Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.

Knowing of all that He will suffer, the Messiah is nevertheless determined to do what needs to be done to bring about our redemption. He trusts the Father will help him. He will not be thwarted in the mission for which He will be born. He will not fail. That is His promise to ancient Israel. And having accomplished all that He was called to do, His promise to us in our day is that He will not fail us either.

Second Nephi 7:5

The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.

Speaking as the Messiah, Jehovah prophesies of His obedience as Jesus. He will hearken to the commandments of His Father. Unlike us, He will never rebel, and He will never turn His back on the will of His Father.

Second Nephi 7:4

The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season unto thee, O house of Israel. When ye are weary he waketh morning by morning. He waketh mine ear to hear as the learned.

Jesus will speak and teach as one who has studied the law. He will be able to stand toe to toe with the greatest scholars of his day. He will teach the Jews the truths they need to hear to bring them to salvation, if they will accept him.

Even though we get tired as we struggle through our mortal trials, God does not get tired. He is always available, always listening, always ready to come to our aid when we call upon Him. When we ask Him, He teaches us the truths of His gospel.

Second Nephi 7:1-3

Yea, for thus saith the Lord: Have I put thee away, or have I cast thee off forever? For thus saith the Lord: Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement? To whom have I put thee away, or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Yea, to whom have I sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away. Wherefore, when I came, there was no man; when I called, yea, there was none to answer. O house of Israel, is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem, or have I no power to deliver? 

God never really abandons us, but it may feel like it when we abandon him. The very purpose of the Messiah is to work out the atonement so that when we return to God, he can take us back. If the Lord can rescue Israel from Egypt, surely He can rescue us from sin.

Second Nephi 6:5

And now, the words which I shall read are they which Isaiah spake concerning all the house of Israel; wherefore, they may be likened unto you, for ye are of the house of Israel. And there are many things which have been spoken by Isaiah which may be likened unto you, because ye are of the house of Israel.

Just as the Nephites were commanded to study Isaiah because they were of the house of Israel, we likewise are under the same commandment, for we too are of the house of Israel. We can liken his words to ourselves, meaning that we can relate to them. Isaiah wrote to us as well as to the ancient Israelites.

Second Nephi 5:27

And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness.

Happiness comes not from what we have but from how we live.

Second Nephi 5:25

And the Lord God said unto me: They shall be a scourge unto thy seed, to astir them up in remembrance of me; and inasmuch as they will not remember me, and hearken unto my words, they shall scourge them even unto destruction.

God allows hard things to come into our lives to help us and to humble us. He will not remove all evil from the world until the Millennium. In the meantime we will always have scourges to contend with. A scourge is as much a gift from God as is a blessing.

Second Nephi 5:3

Yea, they did murmur against me, saying: Our younger brother thinks to rule over us; and we have had much trial because of him; wherefore, now let us slay him, that we may not be afflicted more because of his words. For behold, we will not have him to be our ruler; for it belongs unto us, who are the elder brethren, to rule over this people.

The only trials the older brothers had were of their own making. They had trials of their faith because they were faithless. They suffered in the wilderness because they would not obey. Their pride was hurt because they would not be humble. Nephi suffered far more at the hands of his brothers than they suffered because of Nephi. If anyone should be thinking of murder, it should be Nephi. The brothers have become so hardened in their self-justification and so consumed by their unbridled anger and envy, that they cannot simply turn their backs on their pesky brother and ignore him. Murder is the only option that will satisfy them. The same was true of the mobs in Joseph Smith's day. The Gentiles outnumbered the saints by orders of magnitude. They had all the power on their side. Yet they could not be satisfied until Joseph was dead. Persecution will rise again, fueled by the same anger and jealousy that Satan plants in the hearts of all those who align with him and fight against the truth.

Second Nephi 5:1

Behold, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did cry much unto the Lord my God, because of the anger of my brethren.

Our trials and afflictions are designed to cause us to cry to God. If that is our response, then our trials are truly blessings. Without the opposition of his brothers, Nephi would not have been the prophet he was. Because he turned to the Lord instead of to bitterness or revenge, he grew strong in the Spirit, and God could bless him greatly.  The stronger the opposition, the stronger we can become if we rely on God instead of our own strength. It is ironic that we can be the strongest when we feel the weakest.

Second Nephi 4:35

Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen.

God gives us more than we ask for. Nephi can testify of this truth because he has experienced it. He asked to see his father's vision, and he got much more. Moses went to see a burning bush and got called as a prophet. Joseph Smith wanted to know which church to join and became the head of a dispensation. We just need to open the door a crack, and God will swing it wide open to us.

With this last post for the chapter known as the Psalm of Nephi, I offer this beautiful musical tribute:
I Love the Lord - BYU Mens' Chorus, April, 2007

Second Nephi 4:34

O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm.

Whether or not Nephi encounters stumbling blocks in his way -- and in fact many are still ahead of him at this point -- he knows how to get over them. His faith in God has gotten him over every obstacle thus far, and he will build on his experience of faith to see him through to the end. He knows he cannot depend on his own strength. He just said he is a wretched man. But God has kept his promises thus far that the righteous will prosper in the land. Nephi's money is on God over man every time.

Second Nephi 4:33 (part 2)

O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness! O Lord, wilt thou make a way for mine escape before mine enemies! Wilt thou make my path straight before me! Wilt thou not place a stumbling block in my way—but that thou wouldst clear my way before me, and hedge not up my way, but the ways of mine enemy.

Why would Nephi be concerned about God putting a stumbling block in his path? Does God ever put stumbling blocks in our way when we want to repent and increase in righteousness? Perhaps he doesn't create the stumbling blocks, but he certainly permits them. It often seems like just when we are trying our best, things go the worst for us. That is God taking our good intentions and stretching them.

Second Nephi 4:33

O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness! O Lord, wilt thou make a way for mine escape before mine enemies! Wilt thou make my path straight before me! Wilt thou not place a stumbling block in my way—but that thou wouldst clear my way before me, and hedge not up my way, but the ways of mine enemy.

For the Lord to encircle us in his robe, we must be next to him in his presence. His robe of righteousness is the authority and power of the priesthood. Nephi wants to be drawn into the bosom of God and surrounded and immersed in his influence. He wants to shun the world and put off the natural man so that he can become one with God. We could have no loftier ambition.

Second Nephi 4:31

O Lord, wilt thou redeem my soul? Wilt thou deliver me out of the hands of mine enemies? Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin?

Nephi has no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually. I feel the great love he has for God and his Redeemer. He desires with all his heart to be faithful, noble, and loyal. In this moment his heart is right before the Lord. Nevertheless, despite his best intentions, Nephi is not done with sin. None of us are so long as we remain in the flesh. But for a moment at least, he had put his enemy, the natural man, behind him. We can all live for such moments.

Second Nephi 4:28

Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.

Do not be depressed and discouraged because of sin. For those who seek after righteousness, temptation is the enemy. We lose many battles and carry many scars, but we cannot give up. Christ will lift us up. He will fight our battles with us, and he will heal all our wounds and remove all our scars. Be of good cheer, the Savior commanded, for he has overcome the world for our sakes.

Second Nephi 4:26

O then, if I have seen so great things, if the Lord in his condescension unto the children of men hath visited men in so much mercy, why should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow, and my flesh waste away, and my strength slacken, because of mine afflictions?

Nephi asks searching, searing, introspective questions. In essence, he says his spirit is willing but his flesh is weak. Why do we give in and then get discouraged? Because it is our fallen mortal nature. Why do I fail every day? Because somewhere along the line every day I forget to lean on the Lord, and I try to operate on my own. The thing is, God wants us to learn self reliance and to be agents. But in this life we cannot walk many steps without his strong and steady hand. Like Peter, we may have the faith to get out of the boat, but when the storm rages and the waves are high, we get distracted. We catch ourselves sinking, and if we are wise, we call out to the Lord to save us. And every day he does save us.

Second Nephi 4:24

And by day have I waxed bold in mighty prayer before him; yea, my voice have I sent up on high; and angels came down and ministered unto me.

Nephi first prayed, and then angels ministered to him. What kind of a mighty prayer brings down angels? How did Nephi learn how to pray this way? He himself gives us the answer at the end of his writings. Nephi taught: "For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do" (2 Nephi 32:5).

Second Nephi 4:23

Behold, he hath heard my cry by day, and he hath given me knowledge by visions in the night-time.

Nephi wanted more than anything else in life to know God and learn from him. The price for admission to God's presence and trust is absolute faith, unwavering devotion, and diligent seeking.  If we let anything else come between us and our quest to know God, we will fail the test and fall short.