Lessons from King Limhi's People

For just under a month I have been studying the story of the people of King Limhi. I am so thankful that there is such a detailed history of what these people went through. There are many lessons to be learned. Granted, I feel that the history may be a little biased because of the man who wrote most of it, Zeniff, but it is not all sugar coated. A group of people leave Zarahemla during the reign of King Benjamin to reclaim the land of their inheritance, the land of Nephi, now occupied by the Lamanites. This is mentioned in the closing verses of the book of Omni.

Zeniff, although not the leader of this group, he does keep the record. He wrote that he was sent as a spy to see if the Nephite armies could destroy the Lamanites. According to Amaleki (in the book of Omni) they wanted to take back the land of Nephi. The leader of the group wanted to destroy everything, but Zeniff, like King Saul, seeing all that was good did not want it all destroyed. This created a civil war that killed all but fifty of them. They went back to Zarahemla, but Zeniff gathered more people and led them back.

He decides to see what the King is like and ask him if they can move in. The blood-thirsty, yet patient, King Laman just gives them the land. Supposedly to bring them into bondage, but he allows them to dwell there for twelve years before he decides to implement the next step in his plan. He attacks the people of Zeniff, but the Lord is on the side of the Zeniff and they win. King Laman dies and a new king attacks, still the Lord protects and helps them and he loses also.

All went well when they were righteous, but Noah, the son of King Zeniff, takes over. He replaces all of the priests with his friends and they live the high life for a while, living off the taxes of the people. Abinadi comes along to call them to repent, but they kill him. Finally the people are fed up, they try to kill King Noah, but the Lamanites are attacking.

Noah and his priests and other cowardly men flee to the wilderness, where they kill him and try to kill his priests. The people who stayed who no less cowardly. They sent their daughters to soften the hearts of these ferocious, blood-thirsty, angry warriors. Luckily for them it works, but with a high price tag. They have to pay a tribute to the Lamanites of one-half of their substance. Eventually Ammon comes along and they work together to help them escape.

This is a sad, sad story. God gave them opportunities to repent, but they didn't take them until almost too late. The good news is that they did repent and God made the best of their bad situation, Lesson #1 Repent right away.

God sent them a prophet but they did not listen because he had no credentials. Lesson #2 Lack of credentials does not mean that someone is not a prophet and telling the truth. The Spirit will tell us if what we are hearing is true not matter who is speaking.

They humbly and patiently accepted the situation they caused, but hoped and prayed for deliverance. Lesson #3 Be patient, the Lord will relieve our suffering when it no longer benefits us.

In the beginning they chose to live among the Lamanites instead of eliminating their influence. This proved fatal after twelve years of peace. Lesson #4 The World always takes over unless we eliminate it from our lives.

On the surface Abinadi's mission seems to be a failure because only one person believes what he had to say. That one person was enough to bless generations of Nephites and Lamanites after. Lesson #5 Success is measured by God's standard not our own.

I know there are more lessons, but this is enough for me to work on for now. I love the scriptures and how they are tailor made for each of our situations and lives.