AN AMERICAN COVENANT: JARADITES/NEPHITES

I've titled my blog Covenant Keepers to underscore the fact that men have made covenants with God since the pre-existence.  We make individual covenants when we enter the waters of baptism; we make further covenants when we enter the temple. We renew our covenant each time we partake of the Sacrament.

We also make group covenants. The Abrahamic Covenant, while named after the Patriarch, is an eternal covenant involving posterity, prosperity, and priesthood. That covenant was given to Adam and was renewed with patriarchs and prophets throughout earth's history. The promise is really simple: we remember and obey God and He will protect and bless us.  We forget God: we have no promised.  

We first encounter this Covenant as it relates to America with the Jaradites at the Tower of Babel.  God preserved their language and led them away from Babel to a land choice above all other lands.  The Lord told the Brother of Jared that God would led them to a choice land and protect them and prosper them in freedom if they would worship the God of this land, Jehovah/Jesus Christ.  He warned them that if they chose wickedness or forgot their God, they would be swept from the land.  

They did and they were. (See Ether 2, 9, 13)

That same covenant was renewed with Lehi and Nephi, with the same promises and the same warning.  He was told that if he would keep his covenant with God, he would prosper, and . . . be led to a land of promise; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands. (1 Nephi 2:20) 

Any who fail to keep their covenants will be cut off.  God said that in that day that they shall rebel against me, I will curse them even with a sore curse, and they shall have no power over thy see except they shall rebel against me also. (1 Nephi 2: 23)

As Nephi continued to share his vision, he recalled being shown his descendants and also the descendants of his brother, Laman and Lemuel, in constant warfare. (See 1 Nephi 12: 2, 3)

In the beginning, the Nephites were the more righteous of the groups.  They entered into war only for defense.  One great Nephite captain, who was also named Moroni, tore his cloak as a sign of mourning and wrote upon it: In memory of our God, our religion and freedom, and our peace, our wives and our children. (Alma 46:12) 

The Lord blessed the Nephites as they rallied to Moroni's standard.  They knew why they were going to war and had written it upon what became known as The Title of Liberty.

Nephi then saw his people deteriorate into wickedness, despite have prophets and a system of judges.  Not only did Laman's descendants fight them, but so, too, did other Nephites who had apostatized from the Church and who had become more hardened than the Lamanites.  

Nephi then saw a great mist of darkness covering the entire land, an event that would happen just prior to the coming of Christ.  Nephi saw the Savior's visit to His other sheep and saw twelve disciples chosen to direct the Church after He returned to heaven.

For three generations following the coming of the Savior, the Nephites lived in complete peace and harmony.  They had a Zion society similar to the City of Enoch. But in the fourth generation, some began to forget their covenant with God.  They rebelled with eyes wide open.  It was then that Nephi understood the reality of the fountain and river of filthy water because he saw it being lived out.  He understood the mists of darkness that blinded them and the Great and Spacious Building of pride that hardened the people's hearts beyond all softening.  Nephi's people had become even more wicked than their adversaries. By then, the terms Nephite and Lamanite didn't refer to an ethnic separation.  Rather, the term Nephite was applied to the covenant keepers and the term Lamanite was applied to those who deliberately separated themselves from the mercy of God through covenant violation. (See 1 Nephi 12: 15-23)

You will recall that the American Covenant made with the Nephites promised freedom and protection when the Covenant was kept, and annihilation when they had become wicked beyond the point of repentance.  What happened to the Jaradites happened to the Nephites.  When they were ripe with iniquity, 
the Lord withdrew His blessings and protection and they were left to the consequences of their own choosing.  The final wars they fought were not defensive wars as they had been in the days of Captain Moroni; they wars of offense, driving by hatred and jealousy and a desire for revenge.  Nephi would learn to his sorrow that his people would eventually be swept from the land. 

Nephi saw these things in vision before they occured.  We read about them in retrospect in the Book of Mormon.  This should be a cautionary tale for us in modern America.  We are under the same American Covenant as they were.  Unfortunately, I see so many in my country who are bloated with pride and selfishness; those for whom the lust for power has approached a state of madness; those whose blind hatred is directed at anything or anyone who is keeping the Covenant.  My heart breaks for America.  

If America is ever  brought down into captivity, it won't be from an outside source.  It will be from the internal cancer of pride, lust, greed, and hatred. We who are the Covenant Keepers must never let go of the rod.  We must keep the American Covenant so that we are not destroyed as they were. 

©January 2020, Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson