Seminary: 74 Helaman 3-4

Background: Kishkuman attempts to kill Helaman but is killed instead by Helaman’s servant. The Gadianton Robbers leave the land of Zarahemla and go into hiding.


Current Headlines of turmoil and wickedness:

• Seeds of pilot’s rage were sown decades ago (San Antonio Express-News, 22 Feb 2010)
• 2 Arrested in Church Fire Case (San Antonio Express-News, 22 Feb 2010, A9)
• New Gay Theater More Love than Politics (New York Times, 22 Feb 2010, 1)
• A Murder suspect’s worth to science (New York Times, 22 Feb 2010, 1)
• House said Toyota Misled Public on Safety (New York Times, 22 Feb 2010)

Do these headlines fall into the category of Peace and Righteousness or turmoil and wickedness?

What are some other evidences of turmoil and wickedness in the world?

Do you believe that turmoil is increasing or decreasing? Why?

What impact do events like these have on the church and its members?

State of the Nephi World: Helaman 3:1-3

What was the state of the Nephites world at the beginning of these verses? (no contention among the people)

What was the state of the people at the end of the verses? (there was much contention and many people left northward because of it)

State of the Church among the Nephites? Helaman 3:24-26

What was the state of the Church at this time?

Why do you think that the church would experience such progress when the society is struggling?

What similarities do you see between then and now?

Helaman 3:27-30

What are three ways that members of the Church can help the Church proper in difficult times?

1. Call upon the name of the Lord with sincerity of heart

2. Believe on the name of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God

3. Lay hold upon the word of God

-Discuss each point

What is the result for those who do these things? (land their souls at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven)

What can we do to become “new” men and women of Christ?

After a period of great progress some of the members of the Church began to fall away.

Helaman 3:33-35

What does it mean for a person to “profess” to belong to the Church?

What allowed the humble to become “stronger and stronger” and “firmer and firmer” in the faith?

Elder Bruce R. McConkie:

“Truly, the Holy Ghost is a sanctifier, and the extent to which men receive and enjoy the gift of the Holy Ghost is the extent to which they are sanctified. In the lives of most of us, sanctification is an ongoing process, and we obtain that glorious status by degrees as we overcome the world and become saints in deed as well as in name”

How do we become truly sanctified?

For most people is there one instance where we become sanctified?

Pride continued to inflate the hearts of the Nephites which caused a even more contention. Many of the Nephite dissenters joined the Lamanites and they attack the Nephites.

Nugh Nibley:

“No matter how wicked and ferocious and depraved the Lamanites might be (and they were that!), no matter by how much they outnumbered the Nephites, darkly closing in on all sides,…they were not the Nephite problem. They were merely kept there to remind the Nephites of their real problem, which was to walk uprightly before the Lord”
(Since Cumorah, 2nd ed. [1988], 339-40; see also 1 Nephi 2:21-24).

As the Nephites were under much tribulation due to the Lamanites they began to remember the Lord

Helaman 4:21

What does the word remember Indicate the Nephites were guilty of?

How did forgetting the Lord and his Prophets affect the Nephites?

Helaman 4:21-26

What are some of the transgressions that the Nephites were guilty of?

1. Forgot the words of the prophets

2. Stiffnecked and set at naught the things of God

3. Altered and trampled under their feet the laws of Mosiah

4. Disbelieve in the Spirit of Prophecy and the Spirit of Revelation

5. Fallen into a state of unbelief