Helaman 13

Year 86: The world continued upside down: Nephites horrifyingly perverse, Lamanites pious and solicitous as lambs. Mosaic lambs, I should add, ready to lie down on the altar of the Torah.

That year an itinerant Lamanite preacher named Samuel came to Zarahemla. He preached for days till people threw him out of town. Amazing it took days.

He was heading home and God told him, “Go back and speak from your heart. Nothing scripted. You know this stuff.”

But he couldn’t get back in the city gate. So he climbed up onto the top of the thick wall and with no apparent fear of heights started shouting at the top of his lungs to the people below. I was able to piece together this transcript:

I’m Samuel and I’m a Lamanite. I’m just going to say whatever God puts in my heart. Or has already put in my heart long ago. It all gets jumbled. But that’s not really my point.

He’s dangling a sword of justice over you. It will fall in four hundred years. Usually I don’t predict that far out. And it doesn’t really affect any of you. But I like to go Big Picture.

If you have national worries, now would be the time to start salving them. The best healing agent would be a mix of repentance and faith in Christ.

An angel told me to do this. And it felt right. Because this is really good news, though you don’t get it and you wave your arms in disgust.

Fine, God says. You keep this up and I won’t give you any more news—good, bad, or indifferent. I’m turning off the transmitter, dropping the megaphone. You’re on your own. And you’re really in no position to be.

Four hundred years. That’s all you have left. Pretty generous. That’s as good news as you’re going to get. After that, all bets are off. Expect the worst.

Now I know you’re a proud bunch. So think of this: your bitterest enemies, who shall remain nameless, will enjoy watching you fry. That will really gnaw at you, or whatever is left of you to be gnawed at.

So, my promise: if you will start changing right now, remolding this culture into something one could really be proud of, even God could be proud of, God will back off.

By the way, why the four hundred years wait? God is not only patient, he’s got lots of investments here. A minority, to be sure. But there actually are some devout, truly Christian people stranded among this landscape of moral and ethical horrors. Emulate them and you’ll be spared. If it weren’t for them, by the way, God would have burned you to the ground long ago.

But at some point your anti-religious biases will lead you to throw even these pious minorities out of town. Marking their clothing, maybe. Then rounding them up to be thrown into, I don’t know, relocation camps or something. Once you do that, it’s over for all of you.

Gideon City is bad, too, by the way. Actually, pretty much all the cities in your cultural orbit are doomed.

Though God is not ready to demolish all these cities, he is ready to curse them. How? Well, for one thing he’ll prevent you from discovering any more gold or silver—especially any of it that righteous people hide from you.

Now if you reprobates try to bury your treasures, I’ll make it so that the righteous find them. And you’ll be out everything you’d thought to save.

But enough talk about gold and money and economics. This isn’t about that. They’re like sand thrown in the eyes of people trying to escape the desert. They blind you, confuse you. You think they are some sort of guide. But they’re all hoaxes.

Three-fourths of “Gold” is “God,” by the way. And that’s your problem. Gold has become your surrogate god. But the true God is the real source of all gold, all wealth. You obsess about the creation instead of the creator.

You have enlarged hearts.

But not the kind that mean generosity and tenderness. Rather, the kind that are just swollen, throbbing with vanity. You should look outward: “How can I be kinder, gentler?” you should ask. Instead of the usual question: “How can I suck more blood into my own veins?”

Your talent for envy, competition, inequity, and iniquity has earned you God’s latest round of curses, a genre in which he’s developed considerable skill over the centuries.

As for your public reaction to truth-speakers like me, let’s just say you would have been good stoners— but not the type you claim to be. I’m talking about real stones here. Big rocks.

Stop threatening prophets and maybe they’ll stop threatening you.

Stop saying prophets are from the devil. Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds?

Anyone who doesn’t kiss up to you might be your enemy. But don’t play the religion card when you’re so utterly unreligious.

I get it. The only “divine” prophets are the ones who are so divine as to say how marvelous you are, how handsome, how brave. “Follow your hearts,” they say, even if that means follow them into the gutter. “You’re all good people.” Or, “We’re all doing the best we can”—one of the worst lies, because doing the best you can is a confession of intrinsic insufficiency. That can only be remedied by a Savior.

These are the kind of prophets you give free wardrobes to, pass jewelry to under the table, give honorary degrees to, huffily honor in civic ceremonies, the kind you write big long-lined poems for, poems that will be forgotten the next day. Because for you it’s all about newness. Whatever’s the next new thing. Whatever’s “trendy.” Because, at bottom, that’s your religion.

How long do you think the real God can take this? I think four hundred years is pretty darn generous. Meanwhile, he snuffs when he sees you being led around by the nose by stupid people who know nothing more than how to game the self-help system.

Real light isn’t trendy. It has always been. Real darkness, though, does come in many new varieties, shades, and flavors.

Okay, here’s some new light for you: God is mad at you every day. Ever heard that? Okay, old light. But his new tactic is this: all your wealth will get slipperier and slipperier. He’ll show you, metaphorically at least, that you can’t take it with you. Not just to the grave. Sometimes you can’t take it with you across the street.

At some point this sermon will bring tears to your eyes. You’ll get all choked up, mostly because you’ll have found at least some of what I’m saying is true. Unfortunately, by the time you start sobbing and brushing your cheeks, your fate will have been sealed. Too late to undo any of your losses.

I can just hear it now. Something like:

“Oh God, how I wish I’d changed sooner. I’m truly sorry about throwing rocks at your prophets till they bled to death on the outskirts of town. And I’m even sorrier that I can’t hold onto my fortune. It was a good fortune, too, like a pup that comforts you as you and he age together.

“And I’m starting to understand what’s wrong with stealing from my friends. They start to steal back. No point in laying anything down on the table anymore. You turn around and—poof!—gone. Some magic trick, eh?

“In retrospect, I can see what Samuel and others were trying to tell us. And I wish I’d changed for the better when I had the time and inclination. They say it’s the thought that counts. Can you credit me for this thought? Just checking.”

That’s how you’ll talk. But it will be too late. It’s probably already too late. Because you’ve warped your minds into the undying search for more to own. That’s the worst thing you can look for. Well, maybe second worst, since I’ve seen some of the things you pursue after hours.

I’m just free enough of Schadenfreude to hope that, indeed, none of what I’m saying comes true. (Except the “repent and God will bless you” part.)