17 AD - The Nephites leave their homes and gather together to defend themselves
18 AD - The Nephites are gathered together. The Gadianton robbers prepare for battle.
19 AD - Battle ensues - Giddianhi he dies. The Nephite armies return to safety.
20 AD - No battle but also no peace treaty-they are just "waiting"
21 AD - Skirmishes begin as the robbers lay siege on all sides. The leader of the Gadianton robbers is captured and hanged. War ends as those who enter a covenant of peace return home and all others are "punished according to the law."
22-25 AD - Peace
26 AD - The Nephites return to their homes
27-28 AD -Peace
29 AD - Pride and boasting of their "exceedingly great riches" is now taking place. The people are now ranked by wealth and opportunity.
30 AD - "Great iniquity in all the land" - The chief judge is murdered and the "regulations of the government" are destroyed.
Satan had great power, unto the stirring up of the people to do all manner of iniquity and to the puffing them up with pride, tempting them to seek for power, and authority and riches and the vein things of the world.
Talk about chaotic times! I felt like I was right there with them. My circumstances may be different but surely our sense of security has been pulled out from under us here in 2020 - just as it was for them.
On a personal level, the answer is to develop inner peace. 3rd Nephi 6:14 talks about the faithful few. "For they were firm, and steadfast and immovable, willing with all diligence to keep the commandments of the Lord.".
Finding that inner peace is essential during these tumultuous times but at the community level and with government the answers are not so simple. I cannot preach repentance on the street corner nor in the halls of Congress. But I can speak out in favor of ethical government.
I have been grateful to discover the group that calls itself "Mormon Women for Ethical Government". Their principles of ethical government have helped to finally put a finger on what has been bothering me lately. I love America but so much of what it happening is just not ethical.
MWEG’s Principles of Ethical Government are organized
around three basic concepts:
- the government’s duty to adhere to the rule of law;
- the human and civil rights of all people; and
- the civic duties and mutual accountability of people one toward another.
This is not the day and age to allow yourself to ignore politics. Too much is at stake. I am an LDS woman committed to doing my part to speak up for truth and righteousness in a world gone mad.
As a side note my husband and I were talking about how during the course of our lives (having been born in the 1940s and not remembering those years of the war) we were privileged to live with peace and stability throughout our entire lives. We have a problem relating to the Nephite nation and their continual ups and downs cycles. It seems that peace never lasts very long for them.
Then we asked ourselves are there any places since in the world that would even relate to the Nephites? How could we even ask such a question!
We were overwhelmed with humility as we realized that so many places in the world go through this all the time. It is not just in the Middle East but certainly there. Many African nations have struggled with constant inner turmoil and civil war.
But closer to home, we are coming to understand more fully that our black Americans have been feeling this every time there is another story of a black person killed by the police, shot in the streets, sent to prison for a traffic violation. There are so many around us whose lives are chaotic all the time - the homeless, the refugees, the poor. It left us humble as we realized how fortunate we had been over the course of our lives.
I don't know why some suffer and other shave privilege. I do know that those of us who have lived with privilege didn't understand. We got so busy with living that we didn't look out the window to see what was going on with others. We thought we had created our happy little worlds all by ourselves and never even noticed the myriad of souls around us who paved our way. We didn't know. But here in 2020 we are beginning to understand. . .
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