Lesson 4: The Things Which I Saw
While I Was Carried Away in the Spirit

1 Nephi 12-14

Purpose: To help class members understand Nephi’s vision of the future and how the warnings and promises in it apply to us today.

Scripture Discussion and Application

1. Nephi sees the future of his descendants and his brothers’ descendants.
2. Nephi sees the formation of the great and abominable church, the colonization of the Americas, the Apostasy, and the Restoration of the gospel.
3. Nephi sees the blessings promised to the faithful; he also sees the destruction of the great and abominable church.

Today we’ll continue reading and discussing Lehi’s vision, and the vision that Nephi saw when he asked the Lord to see what his father had seen.

Let’s start by reading three scattered verses in Nephi’s text before we reach the vision.

1 Nephi 2:15

15 And my father dwelt in a tent.

1 Nephi 9:1

1 And all these things did my father see, and hear, and speak, as he dwelt in a tent, in the valley of Lemuel, and also a great many more things, which cannot be written upon these plates.

1 Nephi 10:16:

16 And all these things, of which I have spoken, were done as my father dwelt in a tent, in the valley of Lemuel.

What is repeated in each of these verses? Nephi tells us elsewhere that he reserved these plates for only the most important and sacred events of his family’s history. And yet here he is, using those plates to tell us three times the seemingly trivial fact that his father dwelt in a tent in the wilderness, between the time he left Jerusalem and later sailed to the New World. That repetition must mean something – but what?

Well, it turns out, according to LDS scholars and others most familiar with this period of Israelite history, that it does have significance, and meant something to Lehi’s generation that isn’t obvious to us today.

You’ll remember that Zedekiah was king of Judah when Lehi and his family left Jerusalem. Zedekiah was a son of Josiah, who had been king of Judah for about 30 years – Josiah would have been the king that Lehi grew up with, and the events of Josiah’s reign would have been very familiar to him. The Old Testament tells us that Josiah was a righteous man, who realized that the Kingdom of Judah had neglected to follow the Law, and he decided that the Kingdom of Israel, which had recently been carried into Assyrian captivity, had fallen because of the people’s failure to keep the Law. So when Lehi was a young man, about 20 years before the opening of the Book of Mormon, Josiah instituted a series of reforms in Judah: The groves where idolatrous worship had been conducted were cut down, false priests were put to death, the Temple at Jerusalem was declared to be the sole place for sacrificial worship, and the king’s counselors began a careful study of the Law and teaching it to the people.

Biblical history, written by the priests in office after Josiah’s reforms, presents all of this as a good thing – idols were destroyed, the people began observing Passover again, and so on. But we have some clues, perhaps, that everything done during Josiah’s reforms was not quite what the Lord would have had them do. For one thing, it is during this time of reforming the law that the Jews begin defining the law in a new way – it was not enough to teach, for example, the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy; the temple priests began to define the precise instant when the Sabbath day began, and what constituted impermissible work, and all of the other innumerable laws that, by the time of the Savior, had resulted in the Pharisaic minutiae that Jesus condemned. Also, it is just at the time of these reforms that Jeremiah begins his prophetic ministry, warning the king that Judah has gone off-course; according to the Book of Mormon, many prophets appeared during that generation to preach repentance, until Lehi himself was called and left Jerusalem.

When Lehi left Jerusalem, he also left the reforms of Josiah and returned to an earlier way of Israelite worship. For instance, he left behind the rule that said sacrifice could be offered only at the temple in Jerusalem, and adopted the exception to that law: Israelites who lived more than three days’ journey from Jerusalem could build an altar of uncut stones and offer sacrifice – and that is exactly what Lehi did, when he traveled three days into the wilderness and built his altar and offered sacrifice. By repeatedly noting that Lehi “dwelt in a tent,” Nephi seems to be telling us that Lehi has returned to the practices of the patriarchs, like Abraham, who dwelt in tents rather than in fixed houses.

Much of the time of Lehi and his family must have been devoted to sheer survival: raising crops, hunting game, securing water, raising children – but Lehi, and probably Nephi, also spent much of their time in study and prayer.

1 Nephi 5

10 And after they had given thanks unto the God of Israel, my father, Lehi, took the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, and he did search them from the beginning.

11 And he beheld that they did contain the five books of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents;

12 And also a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah;

13 And also the prophecies of the holy prophets, from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah; and also many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah.

14 And it came to pass that my father, Lehi, also found upon the plates of brass a genealogy of his fathers; wherefore he knew that he was a descendant of Joseph; yea, even that Joseph who was the son of Jacob, who was sold into Egypt, and who was preserved by the hand of the Lord, that he might preserve his father, Jacob, and all his household from perishing with famine.

15 And they were also led out of captivity and out of the land of Egypt, by that same God who had preserved them.

16 And thus my father, Lehi, did discover the genealogy of his fathers. And Laban also was a descendant of Joseph, wherefore he and his fathers had kept the records.

17 And now when my father saw all these things, he was filled with the Spirit, and began to prophesy concerning his seed—

18 That these plates of brass should go forth unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people who were of his seed.

19 Wherefore, he said that these plates of brass should never perish; neither should they be dimmed any more by time. And he prophesied many things concerning his seed.

20 And it came to pass that thus far I and my father had kept the commandments wherewith the Lord had commanded us.

21 And we had obtained the records which the Lord had commanded us, and searched them and found that they were desirable; yea, even of great worth unto us, insomuch that we could preserve the commandments of the Lord unto our children.

22 Wherefore, it was wisdom in the Lord that we should carry them with us, as we journeyed in the wilderness towards the land of promise.

So there we have Lehi, dwelling in a tent like his patriarchal forefathers, studying the prophecies and revelations of those patriarchs. Nephi is evidently doing the same thing – he is studying the words of Isaiah, at the very least. Both men have prepared themselves to receive further revelation from the Lord, and both are blessed to receive a vision of the tree of life.

Although both men saw the vision of the tree of life, and the rod of iron, and the great and spacious building, and so on, their visions were not identical – or, at least, they did not always notice or understand the same details about the vision. We mentioned one difference last week – do you remember what it was? [Nephi reports that the river running alongside the iron rod was filthy, but that his father, concentrating on other details, did not notice its filthiness.]

There is another, perhaps more significant, difference between the two visions, though. At the end of Lehi’s vision, he saw who partook of the fruit of the tree of life, and who did not.

1 Nephi 8:35-37

35 And Laman and Lemuel partook not of the fruit, said my father.

36 And it came to pass after my father had spoken all the words of his dream or vision, which were many, he said unto us, because of these things which he saw in a vision, he exceedingly feared for Laman and Lemuel; yea, he feared lest they should be cast off from the presence of the Lord.

37 And he did exhort them then with all the feeling of a tender parent, that they would hearken to his words, that perhaps the Lord would be merciful to them, and not cast them off; yea, my father did preach unto them.

So Lehi’s attention turns immediately to his two sons, and his fears for them, and his attempts to help them.

But Nephi’s experience is quite different. After he sees the tree of life, his thoughts do not turn to his brothers Laman and Lemuel. Instead, when the angel asks him “What desirest thou?” Nephi replies, “To know the interpretation thereof.”

And then Nephi is shown a vision that apparently Lehi had not seen. What does he see first? [1 Nephi 13-20: the birth of the Savior at “the city of Nazareth”]

The angel shows the meaning of the tree of life by visual images – the coming into mortality of Jesus Christ. But then he asks Nephi to translate that visual image in words.

1 Nephi 11:21-23

21 And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

22 And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.

23 And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul.

The vision doesn’t stop there. Nephi sees scenes from the Savior’s ministry, and his crucifixion, and his visit to the descendants of Lehi in the New World.

Then Nephi’s vision takes another turn, away from his descendants and those of his brothers, and he sees a vision of the future history of the world.

1 Nephi 13:1-6

1 And it came to pass that the angel spake unto me, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld many nations and kingdoms.

2 And the angel said unto me: What beholdest thou? And I said: I behold many nations and kingdoms.

3 And he said unto me: These are the nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles.

4 And it came to pass that I saw among the nations of the Gentiles the formation of a great church.

5 And the angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity.

6 And it came to pass that I beheld this great and abominable church; and I saw the devil that he was the founder of it.

[Briefly review the genre of “apocalypse” that we discussed last month, especially the fact that everything in an apocalypse is either/or, good/evil, saved/damned.]

I won’t tiptoe around this, but will just be blunt: Although some Latter-day Saints of the past have identified this “great and abominable church” as the Catholic Church, they are mistaken. How do we know this?

What is the “great and abominable church”?

1 Nephi 14:10

And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.

What debts do we owe to the Catholic Church?

Can there be good – truth, beauty – in churches outside our own?

Nephi’s vision continues:

1 Nephi 1:10-12

10 And it came to pass that I looked and beheld many waters; and they divided the Gentiles from the seed of my brethren.

11 And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethren.

12 And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.

We have traditionally interpreted this passage as referring to Christopher Columbus, and following verses to the Pilgrims of New England, and the American Revolution.

What reasons do we have for this interpretation?

Is it the only possible interpretation?

Could there be any problems with insisting that this narrow interpretation is the only possible one?

As always, there isn’t enough time in Sunday School to discuss the entire vision shared by Lehi and Nephi. In summary, Nephi sees more of future – he sees the preservation of the word of God in the scriptures, both a somewhat distorted word in the Bible and a pristine word in the Book of Mormon. He sees the restoration of the gospel in the last days, and he sees Lehi’s descendants receiving the gospel from the Gentiles. And when his vision closed, he told his family about it, and exhorted his brothers and the rest of their small community:

1 Nephi 15:25

Wherefore, I, Nephi, did exhort them to give heed unto the word of the Lord; yea, I did exhort them with all the energies of my soul, and with all the faculty which I possessed, that they would give heed to the word of God and remember to keep his commandments always in all things.