Abinadi the prophet of the Lord, was only one against the many who sought his life, yet he showed no fear. His anxiety was for those who persecuted him. Humbly, his thoughts were like those of David's, when, in exultation, the Jewish king cried, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear." (Ps. 27:1-3) In their rendition of this heroic poem, the Jews add to the last line, "For thou art with me."
The assembled throng dared not interfere with Abinadi, nor did they molest him, for they saw in his countenance, the Spirit of God, making it bright like "Rays of Living Light." His face shone with exceeding luster, the Sacred Record says, even as Moses' did while in the mount of Sinai, while speaking with the Lord. ( 35)
Moses spent forty days and forty nights in the Mount of Sinai in close communion with God, conversing with the Lord. Amid thunders and lightnings, and fire that did not burn, he received from Yahweh "the words of the covenant, the ten commandments," written by the finger of God upon tables of stone.
At the end of this period of divine instruction he came down from the mount, and, "Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked" with the Lord. He came down "greatly enriched and miraculously adorned." Enriched because he had in his possession the two tables of the law which God had given him, and adorned by the glory of Him with whom he had sojourned, and with Him who imparted to Israel, the sacred promise, "I will be thy God."
Let us now turn to the record in the Book of Mormon of the sons of Helaman, Nephi and Lehi. (Hel. 5) Here we will read of these servants of the Lord who were sustained by His power, and who by diligence in serving Him, turned the wicked purposes of men to the glory of God, and to His honor. Their faces, too, shone as did Abinadi's.
Anxious in the service of God, and zealous in their mission to preach the Word of the Lord to the Lamanites, Nephi and Lehi went far south into the Land of Lehi-Nephi, where they were thrust into prison by the guards of the king of that land.
In prison, Nephi and Lehi were outraged by all the indignities the cruelness of their captors could suggest, or evil power achieve. Their clothes were taken from them; for many days they were without food; they were fastened to their cell with chains of iron.
The walls of the prison rocked beneath the surges of an earthquake. Those who had gathered there to revile the servants of God became afraid, as if a "solemn fear came upon them." They could not move, they could not flee, a sudden darkness enshrouded them about. In the tumult which followed, scenes they had never before witnessed, contrasts so striking, through the darkness that encircled the Lamanites, they saw Nephi and Lehi in the attitude of prayer, singing praises to God. Their faces "did shine exceedingly, even as the faces of the angels."