This writing is focused on the precept found in Nephi’s response to Laman and Lemuel following their question and answer session described in 1 Nephi 15. Laman’s and Lemuel’s response to Nephi’s answers was simply tragic, “Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear” (1 Nephi 16:1). Nephi’s response is part of a larger Book of Mormon message about truth and hearts, “I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth.” However, Nephi explains that “the righteous [he had] justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day” (1 Nephi 16:2).
The Book of Mormon offers some perspective on the important precept of “hard things” being said and received. For example, toward the end of his life Nephi noted that “there are many that harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, that it hath no place in them; wherefore, they cast many things away which are written and esteem them as things of naught” (2 Nephi 33:2). In other words, hard hearts make the things of God hard to understand and apply for the hard hearted. Indeed, God’s truth “speaketh harshly against sin, according to the plainness of the truth; wherefore, no man will be angry at the words which I have written save he shall be of the spirit of the devil” (2 Nephi 33:5).
Hard heartedness will be particularly acute in the latter-days when the rebellious “will not hear the law of the Lord.” Instead, they will “say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.” In a further demonstration of their hard heartedness, they will even tell God’s prophets to “get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us” (Isaiah 30:8-13). Prophets can be so annoying when they are so plain spoken about our efforts to blaze our own path through life. An astonishing display of hard hearted arrogance! Lest we think membership in Christ’s latter-day church immunes us from such hard heartedness toward His prophets, soberingly, Nephi was shown in vision that in the latter-days “the house of Israel” would be “gathered together to fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (1 Nephi 11:35).
Interestingly, Enos, Nephi’s nephew, observed that “nothing short of...exceedingly great plainness of speech,” which included “exceeding harshness, preaching and prophesying of wars, and contentions, and destructions, and continually reminding” his people “of death, and the duration of eternity, and the judgments and the power of God, and all these things—stirring them up continually to keep them in the fear of the Lord...would keep them from going down speedily to destruction” (Enos 1:23). A sad commentary on the nature of the hard hearted natural man.
Additionally, while describing King Benjamin’s early days as king, Mormon notes that he and those who served with him “did use much sharpness because of the stiffneckedness of the people” (Words of Mormon 1:17). It would appear that the Book of Mormon antidote to stiffneckedness—another Book of Mormon word for hard heartedness or pride—is sharpness, meaning precision. No wonder the people plead for prophets to speak smooth things, because sharp things cut so deep when a heart is so hard. Indeed, as Nephi explains to Laman and Lemuel, “the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center.”
Contrariwise, a positive example of someone accepting hard words, even when undeserved, is that of Pahoran when undeservedly rebuked by Captain Moroni as described in Alma 59-61. Captain Moroni saw the Nephite army being weakened by the government not providing any reinforcements or provisions to sustain them. In anger, he wrote a stinging letter of censure to the Chief Judge Pahoran accusing him of not doing his job and threatening to gather an army to remove him from office. To this factually unjustified rebuke and threat, Pahoran responded with the following meek reply, “you have censured me, but it mattereth not; I am not angry, but do rejoice in the greatness of your heart” (Alma 61:9). The chief civil authority dealt with an ill informed and threatening military officer without anger. He not only was not angry, he rejoiced in the greatness of Moroni’s heart. What a contrast to Laman and Lemuel.
The reality is, when we choose to be faithful, “it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to [us] a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for [Nephi and Lehi] to give heed to [the Liahona], which would point unto [us] a straight course to the promised land” (Alma 37:44).
In summary, Nephi provides one of the most concise and powerful statements of the nature of the true disciple that exists in scripture. As a student of logic, 1 Nephi 16:3 is simply elegant, inspired reasoning. It might be helpful for those untrained in logic to see the verse presented in a common logic structure:
If
ye were
righteous
and
willing to hearken to the truth
and
give heed unto it
that
ye might walk uprightly before God
then
ye would not
murmur because of the truth
and
say: Thou speakest hard things against us.
Nephi’s summary is as incredibly elegant and succinct logic as it is true. The Lord provides a wonderful definition of what it means to “walk uprightly before God” while instructing the Prophet Joseph. In what some might consider hard language, the Lord commands Joseph “to repent and walk more uprightly before me.” He then, with sharpness (precision) adds, “and to yield to the persuasions of men no more” (D&C 5:21). Joseph was yielding to the persuasions of men rather than the revelations from God. 1 Nephi 16:3 contrasts divine logic with the logic of men. At the heart of discipleship is a willingness to hearken to (accept) God’s word and give heed to (apply) it and to not yield to the “persuasions of men.” This is actually a test of whether or not we are hard hearted—choosing the persuasions of men over the word of God, which can sometimes be hard or sharp, particularly when we need it most.
Nephi is offering a complementary teaching to the Apostle Paul:
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12)
The word of God’s precision (sharpness) helps us discern our own thoughts and intents of our hearts. If we reject the word our hearts are hard. Furthermore, accepting and applying God’s truth is the great antidote to murmuring. As noted in another writing (http://www.themostcorrectbook.org/2017/07/murmuring.html):
Murmuring is a slippery spiritual slope that all too often leads to mocking, anger, and even violence against, prophets and believers alike. The antidote to murmuring is submissiveness, seeking to know the dealings of God with his children at large and with us personally. Seeking God softens our hearts towards his prophets and believers when we seek after him. We will see this contrast illustrated again between Nephi and Laman and Lemuel later (1 Nephi 15:1-9) and throughout the rest of The Book of Mormon. The fundamental issue with murmuring is that, left unchecked, murmuring goes well beyond the dictionary definition of “a subdued or private expression of discontent or dissatisfaction” and becomes mocking, anger, or violence toward God and his servants and disciples at large.
Like his father (see 1 Nephi 8:37), Nephi “did exhort [his] brethren, with all diligence, to keep the commandments of the Lord.” In what proved to be a momentary display of submissiveness, Laman and Lemuel “did humble themselves before the Lord.” Ever hopeful, Nephi “had joy and great hopes of them, that they would walk in the paths of righteousness” (1 Nephi 16:4-5). As we will see, the humility was transitory and they soon returned to their hard heartedness.
The precept to be derived from this is that inspired teachers are often required to speak “hard things” (see Jacob 2:6-11 as an example). For the disciple the choice is rather straightforward—will we harden our hearts and choose to be offended by the word of God and view it as “more than we are able to bear,” or will we soften our hearts and choose to welcome the instruction and apply it. Interestingly, for those with hearts to receive, “hard things” means the instruction is durable and dependable. Its effect is to strengthen the heart to trust in God rather than harden the heart and trust in self.
