1 Nephi 15

When I returned from my visitation with the Spirit of God, I went to my father’s tent and found my brothers arguing with one another about the things my father Lehi had told them. Because they had little faith in God, our father’s words were difficult for them to take seriously or to find meaning in.

Because of what I’d just seen regarding the fall of their progeny and the destruction of mine at the hands of their descendants, I was saddened by the hardness of their hearts. I asked what they were arguing about.

“We cannot agree on what father means when he talks about the branches of the olive tree and the Gentiles.”

“Have you thought to ask God about the meaning of this for yourselves?” I asked.

“No,” they replied, “God doesn’t talk to us of such things.”

“How can you fail to keep God’s commandments?” I asked. “Do you want to perish because your hearts are closed to him? God has said that if you humble yourself before him and have faith, keep to His commandments and maintain belief, you will receive God’s blessings and all things will become known to you. The olive tree is a metaphor for the descendants of Israel. Our family is descended from Israel, yet now we are broken off from it, as a branch is broken from an olive tree. We are to be transplanted in the promised land to which we travel.

“Many generations from now, a Messiah will reveal himself to the world and introduce a gospel of God’s commandments, and many generations after that, the descendants of Gentiles will introduce this full and true gospel to our descendants in the promised land. The grafting on of the olive branch will be complete when this gospel is known to all. Our descendants will then come to recognize that they are remnant descendants of Israel. They will see how our descendants came to be in the promised land, and will have the opportunity to be saved. In these latter days, God, in his power, will also give his blessing to those Gentiles who receive him because the Jewish people will have rejected him. Our father speaks not only about our descendants, but about the entire family of Israel and the fulfillment of the covenant that God made with Abraham that all of his descendants would be blessed.”

I explained how in the latter days the Jewish people would be restored to the land of their inheritance, and rescued from their confusion as described by the prophet Isaiah. When I finished explaining these things, my brothers calmed down and became humble again before God. Then they asked, “What then is the meaning of the tree, the iron handrail, and the river that father has seen in his vision?”

“The tree is the tree of life,” I explained. “The iron handrail leading to the tree is the word of God. If you hold fast to God’s word, you will not perish or be led astray, which can happen if you let go. The river of filthy water is the gulf between you and God that separates the wicked from the tree of life, and from God. The river is a representation of hell in which lost souls will drown forever.

“Our father,” I told them, “has seen God’s justice as a bright, blazing fire, forever ascending to God that divides the wicked from the righteous.”

“Does the fire represent the burning of our bodies, as torment, during this life?” they asked. “Or does it signify the state of our souls after death?”

I explained that it represented the passing of earthly things and also the spiritual trials which await us. “A day will come,” I said, “when we will be judged by how we’ve lived our earthly lives. If we die in wickedness, we will be cast away from God. Filthy people will not be fit to live with God, for there is no filth allowed in his kingdom. A place for filth has been prepared. It is called Hell, and the devil is its proprietor. God’s great justice calls for all souls to either live with him in his kingdom, or be cast away from it in judgment. This is how the wicked are separated from the righteous and also separated from the tree of life whose fruit is the most desirable of all things known, and the greatest of God’s gifts.”