Second Nephi 9:41

O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him, and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name.

Christ is the one and only way to return to God's presence. No one is an acceptable substitute. We should honor and obey the prophets, but they cannot save us. They can only point us to Christ. The scriptures are vital tools, but they cannot save us. Their words can teach us of Christ, but ultimately it is we as individual sinners who must come unto Christ. Using everything we know and everything we believe, we must exercise faith in Christ until we come to him as he stands at the gate. He will not ask us how many Sunday School classes we have attended or how many scriptures we have memorized. He will ask, rather, how many people we have fed and clothed in his name and whether we love him more than the natural man and the worldly world. If he lets us enter the gate, it is not because we are worthy or have earned it, but because he loves us and has paid for us and atoned for us.

Second Nephi 9:31-32

And wo unto the deaf that will not hear; for they shall perish. Wo unto the blind that will not see; for they shall perish also.

Belief is a choice. Faith is a decision we make every time we face a trial or adversity. We make ourselves deaf to the whispering of the Spirit and blind to the tender mercies of God by intentionally making wrong choices. It is not our occasional or even frequent mistakes that will condemn us, but our refusals to hear and see.

Second Nephi 9:40

O, my beloved brethren, give ear to my words. Remember the greatness of the Holy One of Israel. Do not say that I have spoken hard things against you; for if ye do, ye will revile against the truth; for I have spoken the words of your Maker. I know that the words of truth are hard against all uncleanness; but the righteous fear them not, for they love the truth and are not shaken.

The guilty take the truth to be hard. Unless the light of Christ is extinguished, they know they are wrong, and when their transgressions are pointed out to them, they become doubly uncomfortable.

Guilt is like pain to our spirits. It warns us of danger. It motivates us to stop doing the thing that causes the pain. If we put our hand on a hot stove, we do not debate the philosophy of heat; we move our hand. Yet how many times do we debate the morality of our sins, which are hurting us, instead of  stopping the harmful behavior. Would we justify burning our hand because it is such a small part of our total body mass? Or because we can take a painkiller and forget about it? Or because we figure it will heal eventually, so there is no permanent damage? Or because everyone else is doing it? Do we ignore the warning indicator that says the cook top is hot, with the attitude that no silly red light is going to stop us from doing what we want? The natural man goes to great lengths to protect the physical body but cares not at all for the spirit within it.

When we hear someone say they have heard enough talks and lessons about the word of wisdom or chastity or tithing or Sabbath observance, it is likely that they are taking the truth to be hard because it is sharpening their guilt.

The righteous, on the other hand, or at least those who strive for righteousness, love to hear the truths of the gospel taught, discussed and reiterated. They are validated by the truth, rather than convicted by it. They grow in their desire for righteousness. They feast on the truth and drink it in like a thirsty person.

Second Nephi 9:39

O, my beloved brethren, remember the awfulness in transgressing against that Holy God, and also the awfulness of yielding to the enticings of that cunning one. Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal.

To be carnally minded is to be focused on the appetites of the flesh. To be spiritually minded is to focus on the appetites of the Spirit. If we let the flesh overcome us, we are headed away from God. If we encourage the spirit to overcome the flesh, we are headed towards God. We never escape the flesh completely in this life, but where we focus our thoughts and intentions is critical.

Second Nephi 9:30

But wo unto the rich, who are rich as to the things of the world. For because they are rich they despise the poor, and they persecute the meek, and their hearts are upon their treasures; wherefore, their treasure is their god. And behold, their treasure shall perish with them also.

Our god is that thing in which we trust and to which we give our time and devotion. Our true worship can be measured by the priority of the thing in our daily lives. That thing for which we will sacrifice all other interests and loyalties is our god. Where is our focus?

Second Nephi 9:28-29

O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.

Knowledge and wisdom are not the same things. One can have vast knowledge of facts, but not know how to apply those facts to make a better life. We cannot be saved in ignorance, but neither can we save ourselves through our own intellectual powers. We must know whom we worship and through whom salvation comes. Sometimes we can be just too smart for our own good. Werner Heisenberg said, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.”

Second Nephi 9:37

Yea, wo unto those that worship idols, for the devil of all devils delighteth in them.

The devil is not trying to destroy all worship, but only to misdirect it. He is happy to let us worship whatever and however we want, so long as our worship is not directed at the true God and according to the true spirit.

Second Nephi 9:26

For the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice upon all those who have not the law given to them, that they are delivered from that awful monster, death and hell, and the devil, and the lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment; and they are restored to that God who gave them breath, which is the Holy One of Israel.

I have to assume that the salvation of the ignorant heathen is not the same as the exaltation of the righteous. Otherwise we would all be better off in a state of blissful ignorance from which state Christ's atonement saves us automatically. To have knowledge of the gospel is a privilege and a blessing for which we are held accountable but from which can also gain rich rewards. What we believe and what we do matters.

Second Nephi 9:23

And he commandeth all men that they must repent, and be baptized in his name, having perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel, or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God.

We must have faith in Christ, but in whom did Christ have faith?  In the Father. He had to have faith that his Father would keep his promises, that the plan of salvation would actually work, that he could really suffer and die for our sins. Though Jesus may have had superior knowledge, he nevertheless had to walk in faith every day.

Second Nephi 9:20

O how great the holiness of our God! For he knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it.

The previous verse praises the Redeemer for his mercy. This verse praises him for his knowledge of all things. The next verse talks about his mission to save us. The three concepts are related. God is merciful because he is full of love. Nevertheless, he is not merciful out of ignorance. He knows us completely and perfectly. Nothing about our lives, our desires, and our weaknesses escapes him. Because he is merciful, he is willing to save us. Because he knows all things, he is able to save us. He will not miss a single detail of what we need to be saved. Therefore, he has worked out our salvation through the Atonement. Without mercy and knowledge, he could not have been our Savior.

Second Nephi 9:18

But, behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.

The crosses of the world are the humiliation, persecutions, and cruelties the world puts upon the saints because they believe in Christ. They are the prejudices and miseries heap upon the disciples of Jesus and the restored gospel. To be fit for God's kingdom, we must be willing to endure everything the world and the god of this world will perpetrate upon us to get us to deny the faith.

The shame of worldly persecution is the loss of respect that we experience. The intent of the world's crosses is to discredit the disciples and their message so they cannot be effective in spreading the good news of the restoration.

To despise something is to look down upon it with contempt. We may be taught to turn the other cheek, but that doesn't mean we have to like it. We must stand firm, steadfast and immovable in our testimonies and not allow the persecutions to overcome us and destroy our faith.

In addition, we take up our cross when we choose to follow Christ in all things and deny ourselves the worldly pleasures of sin. We despise the shame of sin when we turn away from it, repent, seek forgiveness, and turn our lives over to Christ.

Second Nephi 9:14

Wherefore, we shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness; and the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness.

Who are the righteous? Are they not sinners, like the rest of us, but who have repented and come unto Christ and washed away their stains in his blood? The judgment is not about sin but about mercy and whether we have received the saving ordinances and made covenants and bring a broken heart and a contrite spirit to the judgment seat. The judgment will only confirm what we already know.

Second Nephi 9:12

And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel.

Happy Easter! Joyous Easter! Hopeful Easter! Christ, the Lord, is risen today! Hallelujah!

Second Nephi 9:10

O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.

The good news of Easter is just one day away!

Second Nephi 9:7

Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more.

Christ had to pay for every single sin of every single person who ever has or ever will live. He could not leave a single sin unaccounted for. If he had missed even one tiny sin, and that sinner chose to repent, Christ could not offer him perfect forgiveness and perfect salvation. God would be a liar. He has commanded all men to repent, and he must provide a way for them to keep the commandment. Therefore, if for no other reason, God must know everything. If we could surprise him even once, he would cease to be God, and we would be lost. As we are reminded elsewhere, however, God does not cease to be God, and so he knows all, and has atoned for all, and thus all can be saved.

Second Nephi 9:5

Yea, I know that ye know that in the body he shall show himself unto those at Jerusalem, from whence we came; for it is expedient that it should be among them; for it behooveth the great Creator that he suffereth himself to become subject unto man in the flesh, and die for all men, that all men might become subject unto him.

We are all subject unto Christ in that we owe him. He has purchased us with his blood and his death. Sooner or later we all must acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer, the Lamb of God. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. We may or may not choose to follow him and obey him, but we cannot ignore him.

Second Nephi 9:4

For I know that ye have searched much, many of you, to know of things to come; wherefore I know that ye know that our flesh must waste away and die; nevertheless, in our bodies we shall see God.

It is good to seek for revelation and the hope and comfort that it brings. God is anxious to reveal many things to us about his plans and purposes. He delights to bring us into the light of his knowledge, as far as we can bear it.

Second Nephi 9:3

Behold, my beloved brethren, I speak unto you these things that ye may rejoice, and lift up your heads forever, because of the blessings which the Lord God shall bestow upon your children.

Prophecies are given to bring us hope. Even prophecies of doom are accompanied by promises of hope, mercy, and restoration. When we understand the Lord's plan of salvation and his great love for all his children, we have much cause to rejoice. God does not bring us sorrow. We do that to ourselves. He always offers hope and good things if we can endure the trials.

Second Nephi 8:25

Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, O Jerusalem; loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

The bands about our necks of our own making. We choose to be bound with bands. We can also choose to be released from them. If we are captives of sin, habits or addictions, it is because we have turned over our agency to the forces of the devil and the natural man. Choosing to be free is not all that is required to throw off our shackles, but it is the first and most powerful step.

Second Nephi 8:21-22

Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, and not with wine: Thus saith thy Lord, the Lord and thy God pleadeth the cause of his people; behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again.

The Lord gives Israel and all of us the promise of hope. The message of hope from Jehovah to Isaiah’s people was that their sore afflictions were coming to an end. Having wrung out the bitter dregs of disobedience and stubborn pride, they would be given another chance.

God constantly calls for us to come to Him, humble ourselves, give up our rebellion, bury our pride, and rely on His mercy. Every time we turn to Him in sincerity, He welcomes us back and gives us another chance. He does not expect us to be perfect, but He expects us to always be striving for perfection. When we stumble, He helps us up and encourages us to keep going. When we refuse His help, He lets us suffer through the consequences of our foolish pride and enmity. When we come to ourselves and turn to Him, we find Him standing right where we left Him with outstretched arms. The omnipotent Jehovah, the majestic Messiah, the loving Christ is our Savior, our Redeemer, our Advocate with the Father. He stretches out his wounded palms and pleads with our Father to give us one more chance for His sake. Not that we deserve another chance, but He mercifully offers it anyway, simply because He loves us.

Second Nephi 8:20

Thy sons have fainted, save these two; they lie at the head of all the streets; as a wild bull in a net, they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God.

The rising generation is trapped by the sins of the parents. They cannot break free from the traditions of their elders. They are caught in a net of their parents’ making. They have inherited the consequences of their parents’ rebellion.

We damn our own children by our poor decisions. We may think that our decisions affect only us, but the effects flow down through the generations that follow us. Our children have their agency, and they are free to choose a better path, but it is hard for them to see the opportunities to make better use of their agency when they are faced with a lifetime of bad examples from their parents. The Lord says He visits the sins of the parents on the children unto the third and fourth generations. It is not that God forces the children to be guilty, but the effects of a wayward parent on his posterity can be far-reaching and hard to overcome.

Second Nephi 8:17

Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury—thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling wrung out.

The Lord calls upon the apostate Jews of Isaiah’s day to awake and arise, to live up to their privileges and expectations. Even though they have suffered terrible afflictions as a people because of their disobedience, that time will come to an end. The Lord takes credit for their afflictions. It is not happenstance that has thrust them into their terrible situation. The Lord could have protected them if they had trusted in Him. But they trusted instead in political and military alliances - the arm of flesh. And so the Lord let them experience the results of their faithlessness. He has let them sink to the very bottom where only the bitter dregs are left. The cup of trembling is so full of bitterness that it makes them shiver. The people have chosen to drink the bitter dregs because they refused the sweet and wholesome liquid that had originally filled their cup. Having stubbornly wrung out every last bitter drop of those dregs, the Jews will finally be ready to repent and return to the Lord.

When we ignore the commandments and turn our backs on God, He may turn His back on us for a time to let us experience the natural consequences of our choices. He will not continually bail us out if we use our agency against Him. He still loves us, but He wants us to understand the importance of maintaining our relationship with Him. When we ignore His gentle invitations, He uses other means to get our attention. The harder we push away from Him, the bitterer He lets the dregs become for us. His hope is that we will eventually wake up to the bitterness of our situation and desire to return to the sweetness of His presence. When we decide to change, He is right there waiting with open arms to welcome us home. While some may need to wring out the dregs to the last drop before we come to ourselves, we do not have to go that far. The choice is ours.

Second Nephi 8:16

And I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion: Behold, thou art my people.

God gives us His word through revelation. He offers us protection. But we must stay close to Him to receive His word and enjoy the power of His protection. He has created the heavens and the earth with one purpose in mind: to create a Zion people and to claim them as His own.

Second Nephi 8:14

The captive exile hasteneth, that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.

We tend to rely on our own power and ingenuity in the hopes of saving ourselves. And rightfully so, we are expected to put forth our best efforts. But it is not our efforts that save us. The works we do demonstrate our sincere desires to repent and receive the mercy and grace of the atonement, but it is the redeeming power of Christ’s atonement that truly saves us, looses us from the bands of guilt, lifts us from the pit of despair, and feeds us with the bread of life. As miraculously as God divided the Red Sea to enable the escape of Israel from Egypt, He will part the gulf of sin that bars our way from escaping the bondage of guilt. When we submit to Him, we join the hosts over whom Christ is Lord.

Second Nephi 8:12

I am he; yea, I am he that comforteth you. Behold, who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of man, who shall die, and of the son of man, who shall be made like unto grass?

Christ, the Messiah, is the only One who can comfort us. No one else offers the gift of the atonement, which is the ultimate comfort. Why, He asks rhetorically, are we afraid of mortal men, who have no more power than we do, and fail to rely on God, who has infinite power? If we have faith in God, our enemies do not stand a chance against the power of the All Mighty. While many people experience temporal oppression in many forms, we all face spiritual oppression from the enemy of our souls. Yet just as God can deliver people from political, economic, social and other forms of oppression, so He can deliver us all from spiritual oppression of sin and guilt. We do not need to fear Satan, for we can be confident that Christ has overcome the world and the devil who reigns over it. Satan’s fury is no match for God’s love.