1 Nephi 19

(July 18, 2015)

                I will sometimes forget that the Lord isn’t really in the business of saving communities, nations, or countries.  The Lord is in the business of saving souls.  So when the Lord is speaking to a people (such as Isreal), He is in fact speaking to a number of individual people rather than to a collective people.

                That understanding makes certain things that He is saying more enlightening.  When the Lord tells Israel that they shall wander in the flesh and become a hiss and a byword, He is not speaking to a nation but rather to the individual members.  When He says that in the day they turn aside their hearts no more against the Holy One of Israel, He is again speaking to individuals.

                We are of the House of Israel, and the promises that He made to Israel are made to us.  There are times, as the world turns further and further away from the truth, that we may feel as though we are wandering in the flesh and a hiss and a byword.  But the same promise holds to us – in the day we no more turn aside our hearts from the Holy One of Israel, He will remember the covenants He has made with our fathers as well.