This week’s “Come, Follow Me” study guide covers Ether 6-11, which includes the Jaredites arriving in the promised land and their fall into wickedness.
Following are a few quotes from past and present Church leaders about these chapters in the Book of Mormon.
Ether 6
“The Master of masters caused ‘a furious wind’ (Ether 6:5) to blow the Jaredites toward promised blessings. Similarly, we can decide to serve as a humble gust of wind in the Lord’s hands. Just as ‘the wind did never cease to blow’ (Ether 6:8) the Jaredites toward the promised land, we can help others progress in their journey to receive God’s blessings. …
“Each of us — and those around us — faces our own storms of opposition and waves of trials that submerge us daily. But ‘the wind [will not] cease to blow towards the promised land … and thus [we shall be] driven forth before the wind’ (Ether 6:8).
“Each of us can be a part of this wind — the same wind that blessed the Jaredites in their journey and the same wind that, with our help, will bless the unrecognized and forgotten to reach their own promised lands.”
— Elder Aroldo B. Cavalcante, General Authority Seventy, October 2024 general conference, “The Wind Did Never Cease To Blow”
“Prophets have testified that we all accepted the Lord in the premortal existence, because we knew His promise to be our Redeemer and Savior was sure. We knew it would be hard but knew it would be much harder without Him. We knew we would face challenges but when it was time to cross the veil, we commended ourselves into the hands of the Lord as we entered the ‘boat’ of earth life. We knew we would be buried by the waves of trials and attacked by the monsters of the deep (see Ether 6:4-12), Lucifer and his angels, but we trusted in the Lord. …
“If we allow Him, Jesus Christ will be the light in our vessels, He will keep the darkness away. We will feel His strength bearing us up during those debilitating trials of everything — our great deep.”
— Elder Kevin Brown, Area Seventy, in the March 2023 Liahona article “The Trial of Everything”
“Like the Jaredites, you allow the Lord to take you to the promised land as you get aboard your vessels and set forth into the sea. For you who so commend yourselves to the Lord, even the wind, the waves and the storms you face will blow you toward the promised land (see Ether 6:4-10).”
— Sunday School General President Paul V. Johnson, then a General Authority Seventy, in the January 2022 YA Weekly article “Go Forward With Hope and Faith”
“Remember the brother of Jared and his people, who were directed to build barges according to the instructions of the Lord? The barges were small, light on the water and tight like a dish.
“And in an act of tremendous faith, those Jaredites got in the barges they had built and ‘many times [were] buried in the … sea, because of the … waves which broke upon them. … And … the wind did never cease to blow … while they were upon the waters,’ until after 344 days they arrived at the promised land (see Ether 6:6, 8, 11, 12).
“But recall that before the Jaredites got into the barges for the promised land, while they were traveling in the wilderness, they ‘did build barges, in which they did cross many waters, being directed continually by the hand of the Lord’ (Ether 2:6). They had been practicing barge building and practicing faith in the Lord before their 344-day journey began. Of course, the Lord could have led them around those bodies of water while they were traveling in the wilderness. But He didn’t! He let them practice barge building, and, importantly, He gave them opportunities to practice their faith in Him. I think their practice prepared them for that very long journey to the promised land.”
— Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson, then the Primary general president, in the February 2022 Liahona article “Practicing Perfection”
“Regardless of their source, Heavenly Father allows these trials to come. As an omnipotent Being, He has the ability to stop bad things from happening to us, but He lets us face adversity because we need it to learn and grow.
“Take the story of the people of the brother of Jared, for example. They were instructed how to build barges and commanded to put their trust in the Lord and cross the ocean. They were out on the ocean for almost an entire year (see Ether 6:11), facing ‘great and terrible tempests which were caused by the fierceness of the wind’ (Ether 6:6).
“That fierce wind could be seen as a terrible trial — after all, what kind of weather could be worse when you’re out on the ocean? But the scriptures say that it was ‘the Lord God [who] caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land’ (Ether 6:5). So it was the Lord who caused the furious winds to blow, and there was a reason for it! And those people rejoiced and thanked and praised the Lord because of it (see Ether 6:8-9). Who knows how much longer they might have been out on the water or where they might have ended up without that furious wind?
“That’s not to say that the Lord causes the trials in our lives. … He allows trials to come to us knowing that He can turn all those trials to good for those who love Him. He sees the end from the beginning, so no matter what those terrible winds are in our lives or where they are coming from, God can use them to move us toward our promised land.”
— Mindy Selu in the February 2020 YA Weekly article “Personalized, Purposeful and Sometimes Ironically Painful Trials”
Ether 8
“We live in a time of war, that spiritual war that will never end. Moroni warned us of secret combinations (see Ether 8:20, 23-24). Atheists and agnostics make nonbelief their religion and today organize in unprecedented ways to attack faith and belief. They are now organized, and they pursue political power. You will be hearing much about them and from them. Much of their attack is indirect in mocking the faithful, in mocking religion. Their arguments are not so different from those in the Book of Mormon.
“You who are young will see many things that will try your courage and test your faith. All of the mocking does not come from outside of the Church. Let me say that again: All of the mocking does not come from outside of the Church. Be careful that you do not fall into the category of mocking.”
— The late President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the January 2015 New Era article “Lehi’s Dream and You”
“Pride results in secret combinations which are built up to get power, gain and glory of the world (see Helaman 7:5; Ether 8:9, 16, 22-23; Moses 5:31). This fruit of the sin of pride, namely secret combinations, brought down both the Jaredite and the Nephite civilizations and has been and will yet be the cause of the fall of many nations (see Ether 8:18-25).”
— The late President Ezra Taft Benson, President of the Church, April 1989 general conference, “Beware of Pride”
Ether 10
“In the Book of Mormon, we read about the Jaredites who ‘were exceedingly industrious …
“’And they did work in all manner of ore … and all manner of metals …
“’And they did work all manner of cloth …
“’And they did make all manner of tools to till the earth. …
“’And never could be a people more blessed than were they, and more prospered by the hand of the Lord’ (Ether 10:22-25, 28). …
“Spiritual and temporal well-being are personal responsibilities of each and every one of us — and can only be achieved through obedience to God’s laws. We also see that the spiritual and temporal are inseparably connected but that we need to become spiritually self-reliant before temporal self-reliance can be reached. Just like the pedal — connecting to the rear wheel of a bicycle through a chain — produces the movement to speed up the front wheel, spiritual self-reliance gives all the efforts and strength to our temporal well-being.”
— Elder Elie K. Monga, Area Seventy, in the July 2018 Liahona article “Spiritual and Temporal Well-Being: Our Personal Responsibility”
“Every human being is a begotten spirit son or daughter of our Heavenly Father. ‘Begotten’ is an adjectival form of the verb ‘beget’ and means ‘brought into being.’ ‘Beget’ is the expression used in the scriptures to describe the process of giving life (see Matthew 1:1-16; Ether 10:31).
“In God’s revealed pattern for righteous families, the birth of a child is the result of a conscious and loving choice. It is the miraculous result of caring and deliberate actions taken by parents to participate with Heavenly Father in the sacred process of creating a mortal body for one of His spirit children. Knowing that our life is the result of a loving choice and a deliberate act can give us a sense of our great personal worth in mortality. That sense of worth can reassure us of our potential and protect us from temptations.
“Satan is pleased to use the less-than-ideal circumstances of some mortal births to cause some of us to question our personal worth and potential. Regardless of the circumstances of our mortal birth, we are all spirit sons and daughters of heavenly parents. God is a righteous and loving father. Our spirits came into being out of love and a deliberate choice to give us life and opportunity.”
— Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the February 2012 Liahona article “The Doctrine of the Father”
“Previously, society has often had helpful, though subtle, balancing and restraining mechanisms — including families, and churches, and schools — to check-rein excessive individual behavior. But too often some of these mechanisms are either missing, malfunctioning or equivocating.
“Moreover, the foregoing trends are further accelerated by the fashionable nonjudgmentalism which excuses whatever wrong individuals do — as long as they do anything else commendable. After all, didn’t Mussolini make the trains run on time? Violators of the seventh commandment may still make useful contributions, but they pay a hidden, personal cost. Of King Morianton we read, ‘He did [deal justly with his] people, but not [with] himself because of his many whoredoms’ (Ether 10:11). Apparently a fair, no-respecter-of-persons leader, Morianton did not respect himself! His self-inflicted wounds were masked by the outward ornamentation of riches and buildings (see Ether 10:12).”
— The late Elder Neal A. Maxwell, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, October 2001 general conference, “The Seventh Commandment: A Shield”
Ether 11
“Disciples of the Lord are defenders of traditional marriage. We cannot yield. History is not our judge. A secular society is not our judge. God is our judge! For each of us, Judgment Day will be held in God’s own way and time (see Romans 2:5; Alma 33:22; Ether 11:20; Doctrine and Covenants 88:104; 133:38).”
— President Russell M. Nelson, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in the August 2015 Ensign article “Disciples and the Defense of Marriage”
“The Book of Ether gives an account of the Jaredites — a great nation that flourished in America for some 2,000 years following the confounding of tongues at the great tower. To them ‘came many prophets, and prophesied of great and marvelous things, and cried repentance unto the people, and except they should repent the Lord God would execute judgment against them to their utter destruction’ (Ether 11:20).
“Ether, their last named prophet, prophesied ‘unto the people, for he could not be restrained because of the Spirit of the Lord which was in him.
“’For he did cry from the morning, even until the going down of the sun, exhorting the people to believe in God unto repentance lest they should be destroyed’ (Ether 12:2-3).
“To all these warnings the people turned a deaf and hostile ear. Ether lived to see and make record of a fratricidal war in which every member of that society except himself was killed. They learned, as did the antediluvians, in the hard way, the truth of the message, ‘Repent or perish.’”
— The late President Marion G. Romney, then second counselor in the First Presidency, in the April 1975 Ensign article “Repent or Perish”
