1 Nephi 17:53 - 18:2

1 Nephi 17:53 And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me: Stretch forth thine hand again unto thy brethren, and they shall not wither before thee, but I will shock them, saith the Lord, and this will I do, that they may know that I am the Lord their God.

After a while the Lord told Nephi to touch them so they themselves could experience with less power what Nephi was talking about. It would be a demonstration that Lord was really with Nephi and that this whole enterprise was the will of God.

I can imagine that the boys were still skeptical about this power that Nephi said he had, but considering past events they did not take the chance they were wrong. Once burned twice shy as they say.

1 Nephi 17:54 And it came to pass that I stretched forth my hand unto my brethren, and they did not wither before me; but the Lord did shake them, even according to the word which he had spoken.

Anyway by the command of the Lord he touch them each. They immediately felt the shock and shuck violently. However they were not killed.

1 Nephi 17:55 And now, they said: We know of a surety that the Lord is with thee, for we know that it is the power of the Lord that has shaken us. And they fell down before me, and were about to worship me, but I would not suffer them, saying: I am thy brother, yea, even thy younger brother; wherefore, worship the Lord thy God, and honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee.

They now confess, again, of the Lord being behind the mission and they were sure, again, that Nephi had the power of the Lord with him. However these boys were about to worship Nephi, himself because of this demonstration, but obviously Nephi would not allow that.

I wonder what kind of people the older boys were that they would worship a man? They might have even been like some of the folks back in Jerusalem that were worshiping idols and such.

I wonder what it is that causes a person to think that a inanimate object has special powers? What makes people want to worship idols rather than go with their feels of right and wrong that the spirit of the Lord gives to people?

Do you have to be told about the Lord before you will worship him? Or is it that it is natural for people to worship something which is a feeling they naturally have and since they might not know about God, they will substitute an idol until someone comes along to educate them on the Gospel or some other mystical creed. It is similar to the coming of Mohammad which took away the idols from the Arabs and substituted God for them.

Nephi tells the boys that they need to keep the fifth commandment which is to honor their parents so that they would have along stay and a happy one in the land of promise. This was certainly was an effort to get the boys to have confidence in the mission given to Lehi to make this journey.

Again Nephi reminds them he is only their younger brother. He is not to be the object of their worship only the Lord. If they would worship on the Lord and honor their parents they would have a long and prosperous life.

1 Nephi 18:1 And it came to pass that they did worship the Lord, and did go forth with me; and we did work timbers of curious workmanship. And the Lord did show me from time to time after what manner I should work the timbers of the ship.

The boys do as Nephi suggest and did worship the Lord. Now that they were reprogrammed to be loyal to the Lord, they were ready to help Nephi with the building of the ship which is to fiery them across the great ocean to the promise land. I wonder if they had any idea just how long a trip that was? It is at least 12,000 miles as the crow flies and since they probably followed the coast lines of the various continents they would travel by it would be even longer. It they were traveling at say 15 miles and hour it would probably taken as much as two or two and a half years to get there.

1 Nephi 18:2 Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men.

They now start construction of the ship and Nephi specifically tells us that the construction was not like the local ship building procedures. It was shown by the Lord how the ship was to be built. This was new and different than was know by the people of the area.