Sherem attempted to arrange a meeting with Jacob for the purpose of undermining his testimony, but the prophet had received too many revelations and conducted too many interviews with angels to be dissuaded from what he knew. The Lord himself had personally spoken to Jacob, so he was unshakable—as we, too, can be as we daily feel God’s love through our obedience.
Sherem approached “Brother Jacob” in a false spirit of brotherhood and challenged his preaching of “the gospel, or the doctrine of Christ.” The antichrist held up the law of Moses as “the right way” and labeled as blasphemous the future coming of a Messiah, “for no man knoweth of such things; for he cannot tell of things to come.”
In fact, that is the message of secular learning today: logic dictates that there is no such thing as predictive prophecy or supernatural events. If you can’t see it or quantify it, it isn’t true (an unfortunate inheritance from the Age of Reason). Such is the basic premise of all unbelievers—that prophetic preview is impossible (compare Alma 30:13). Believers, on the other hand, know that God has perfect foreknowledge of all things (see commentary at 2 Nephi 9:20) and that he can and does give revelation of future events and future personalities to those who need to know and are worthy to know.