The Wicked Can Change

There are many examples in the Book of Mormon where specific individuals in need of repentance are preached the word of God.  The first two people in this group that the reader encounters are Laman and Lemuel, and if we stopped reading after their story we might be discouraged concerning the ability of the wicked to really change and accept the gospel.  But there are many examples of those whom we would not expect to repent who do in fact change their ways and cast off their wickedness.  These include Alma in King Noah’s court, his son Alma, the sons of Mosiah, Zeezrom, Lamoni, Lamoni’s father, and Corianton.  There are of course other groups who repent, but these are the individuals of whom we have personal details in the text who are able to make real changes in their lives.  This should give us great hope that people indeed can turn from even great wickedness and repent, even when reason would tell us that they are beyond hope.  For example, when we first see Lamoni’s father, he commanded Lamoni to “slay Ammon with the sword” and when he wouldn’t do it, the Lamanite king “drew his sword that he might smite [Ammon] to the earth” (Alma 20:16).  This is not exactly the kind of golden contact that get missionaries excited, but only a couple chapters later he pled with the Lord, “I will give away all my sins to know thee” (Alma 22:18).  The message for us is that we should never lose hope that someone can repent even after committing serious sins.  There are of course many others like Laman and Lemuel who have the gospel preached to them but reject it, including King Noah, his priests, Antionah, Sherem, and Nehor.  We don’t really know why, for example, Laman never accepted the gospel but Alma the Younger did other than that ultimately it all goes back to the agency of the individual.  The Book of Mormon stories should give us hope, though, that anyone can really change if they so choose.  

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In Process of Time

In Mark 8 there is an interesting story about a blind man of Bethsaida whom Jesus heals.  The text tells us that “they brought a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him.”  Jesus then took the man by the hand and “led him out of the town” and spit on the man’s eyes and started to heal him.  Jesus then asked the man “if he saw ought.”  The man responded “I see men as trees, walking.”  Jesus then laid his hands on the man’s eyes again and “made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly” (Mark 8:22-25).  There are a couple details in this story that seem fairly unique among the miracles of Jesus.  First, when the man was brought to Him, the Savior didn’t heal him on the spot but took him by the hand and walked with him all the way out of the town.  Second, when Jesus finally did start to perform the miracle, He didn’t do it all at once.  The man was partway healed at first so that he could see something, but when he looked at other men they were blurry like “trees”.  Only after Christ put His hands on the man for the second time was the sight fully restored.  Perhaps one of the lessons that we can learn from this small story is that healing from the Savior can take time, and we shouldn’t be alarmed if solutions to our problems don’t come all at once.  Surely Jesus could have healed the man in the city on the spot where he was brought to Jesus, but for some reason He decided to walk with him all the way out of town, and then heal him only partway at first.  This reminds me the account of Enoch and Zion, a people who also “walked with God” (Moses 7:69).  We read that “Zion, in process of time, was taken up into heaven” (Moses 7:21).  I think that phrase “in process of time” is an important gospel principle to understand; very often we don’t get change or healing or answers immediately, but as we choose to “walk” with the Savior, He will gradually help us find solutions to our challenges just as He healed the blind man in Bethsaida.

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In the Strength of the Lord

I love King Lamoni’s attitude when Alma told him that he needed to go get his brothers freed from prison.  The new convert said, “I know, in the strength of the Lord thou canst do all things.  But behold, I will go with thee to the land of Middoni; for the king of the land of Middoni, whose name is Antiomno, is a friend unto me; therefore I go to the land of Middoni, that I may flatter the king” (Alma 20:4).  What strikes me about his response here is that he both expresses faith that through God’s strength all things can be done, but he also recognizes that he should also do that which is in his power.  To me this little exchange is an example of the gospel principle taught by Nephi: “For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23).  Salvation—and by extension, success in our temporal challenges—always come through God’s power and grace.  This does not mean, though, that we are not required to do what is in our power to do.  I think Nephi himself demonstrated this principle when he and his brothers went to retrieve the plates.  After the angel told them that the Lord would “deliver Laban into your hands” they went back up to Jerusalem to the outer walls (1 Nephi 3:29).  But Nephi didn’t just sit there outside the walls waiting for the Lord to bring Laban to him (which may have indeed been the attitude of Laman and Lemuel).  No, Nephi realized he still needed to act himself, and he went into the city by night and was “led by the Spirit” (1 Nephi 4:6).  It was at that point that the Lord then provided the miracle and he was able to obtain the plates.  Nephi, Lamoni, and others in the scriptures teach us that it is always the grace and power of God that brings miracles and saves us when we are seeking to solve our own problems.   

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Two Women of Faith

There are two accounts in the Book of Mormon telling of the “tears” of a righteous woman, and I think both show us examples of great faith.  The first is in 1 Nephi 18:19 when Nephi was tied up on the ship and his brothers would not let him go.  He wrote in describing the event, “My wife with her tears and prayers… did not soften the hearts of my brethren that they would loose me.”  That’s all the details that we have about what Nephi’s wife did, but it clearly shows she was a woman of faith, putting her trust in the Lord.  Her prayers did not soften the hearts of Laman and Lemuel, but surely they did cause the storm to continue to the point that Laman and Lemuel finally gave it up and let Nephi go.  Nephi’s wife did everything she could in the situation, which was simply to prayer and trust in the Lord.  The second story is that of the Lamanite woman Abish who tried to help in the conversion of the Lamanites after Ammon came and started teaching the king and queen.  She gathered all of the people together so that they could see what had happened to the king, but her plan seemed to somewhat backfire as it caused a great contention among the people.  We read that “when she saw the contention which was among the multitude she was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto tears” (Alma 19:28).  At that point she took what I think was a great leap of faith, walked up in front of the whole crowd, and pulled the queen up off of the ground.  It must have taken great courage to do that, especially considering that she was the servant approaching the queen uninvited.  But I think she knew that she had to do something or the situation could have become much worse, and so putting her trust in the Lord and boldly brought back the queen.  Both of these examples seem to illustrate that when we are in critical moments and our power to bring solutions to difficult situations is very limited, we can still put our trust in the Lord and do something to allow the Lord the opportunity to show forth His power.      

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Considering Their Kings To Be Powerful

I love the little interjection that Mormon gives us in Alma 18:13 concerning the Lamanite views on their king.  One of the king’s servants called Ammon “Rabbanah, which is, being interpreted, powerful or great king, considering their kings to be powerful.”  That last phrase—“considering their kings to be powerful”—reminds me a bit of Joseph’s words in D&C 121:39 when he spoke of why many are called but few are chosen.  He wrote, “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.”  Again the emphasis here is that what man thinks is power and authority is not at all what God views as power.  True power comes by “long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge” (D&C 121:41-42).  The world would teach that power is equivalent with the ability to command and control people; the Lord teaches here that power comes from the ability to love and persuade people in righteousness.  I think this is in essence the idea behind Elder Maxwell’s statement about the power of righteous women: “When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses?” (Neal A. Maxwell, “The Women of God,” Ensign, May 1978, 10–11.)  True power to control the nations comes first and foremost from the love, gentleness, and kindness of mothers who raise up righteous children to serve the Lord, and in the end we will ultimately view the power of “great” men who made laws and ruled countries and controlled people as of little importance.  The Lamanites considered that Ammon was powerful because he could slay the wicked scatters of the sheep; but in reality he was powerful because of his love, humility, and righteousness, and he did more to change the hearts of the Lamanites than any leader with mere physical control could have done. 

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From Kings to Servants of Kings

After Paul had received his life-changing vision from the Lord, Ananias was told to go to him.  Upon expressing his fear of this man who had done so much to persecute the Saints, the Lord said, “He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:15).  With the exception of the mention of going to the Gentiles, that description could apply also to Ammon and Aaron in the Book of Mormon.  They had a similar vision that altered their destructive course and turned them into lifelong missionaries.  Just as Saul gave up great power in Jerusalem in order to become a missionary (for he had obviously had a position of prominence among the Jews), so too did these two sons of Mosiah give up the chance to be king of the Nephite people.  Instead they choose to bear the name of the Lord, and in particular they were called to do that before “kings” just like Paul did.  Ammon went before King Lamoni and Aaron went before the king of all the Lamanites, and both testified of the Savior before them.  The prediction concerning Paul that he would suffer “great things” surely applied to the sons of Mosiah as well, of whom we read that they “had many afflictions; they did suffer much, both in body and in mind, such as hunger, thirst and fatigue, and also much labor in the spirit” (Alma 17:5).  As we think about their lives of service, we are left to ask ourselves which kind of life we would choose if given the same choice: to be kings with servants or to be servants preaching Christ to kings amidst great persecutions.                  

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Aaron's Humility

I think that Aaron showed great humility throughout the story of him and his brothers.  It would appear to me that he was in fact the oldest of the sons of Mosiah.  I don’t believe that we are told anywhere for sure, but he is the first one that the people want to call as their king in Mosiah 29:2.  Aaron’s decline to accept the position of king was clearly his first great example of humility.  That typically would have been the oldest son in their patriarchal society who was to be the next king.  Mormon, on the other hand, always listed the four brothers with Ammon first and Aaron second so I’m not sure who was actually the oldest (e.g. Mosiah 27:34).  When they went on their mission, Mormon said this about their relationship: “Now Ammon being the chief among them, or rather he did administer unto them” (Alma 17:18).  Ammon gave them all blessings and therefore seems to have been the spiritual leader of the group.  Aaron, whether oldest or not, obviously let his brother lead and I think showed great humility throughout their mission as Ammon in many respects gained the most fame from the missionary labors.  He was the one to have success right away whereas Aaron was met with great difficulty and ended up eventually in prison.  In fact Aaron had to rely on his brother to finally get him out (Alma 20:28).  That must have been very humbling to Aaron and caused him to wonder why his brother had seemed to have had it so easy whereas he had been met with such disappointment.  Eventually Aaron did have great success too like Ammon in the missionary labors, but ultimately it was by Ammon’s name that the converts were called by as they joined the Nephites.  We get one hint that perhaps Aaron struggled to some degree with his relationship with Ammon and the great notoriety that Ammon received.  When Ammon praised the Lord for the great success they had as missionaries, Aaron suggested to his brother, “Ammon, I fear that thy joy doth carry thee away unto boasting” (Alma 26:10).  It’s actually the last words of Aaron that we have in the Book of Mormon, and to me represent his great humility in serving the Lord.  

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Zoram and Sons

I really like the story about Zoram and his two sons Lehi and Aha in Alma 16.   Zoram was the “chief captain over the armies of the Nephites”, and he and his sons had a specific mission to get those who had been taken captive by the Lamanites and carried into the wilderness.  What was their first approach to the problem?  They went to the prophet and asked for guidance on where the Lord would have them “go into the wilderness in search of their brethren” (Alma 16:5).  Alma asked the Lord and received very specific direction: they were to go to the east of the river Sidon in the south wilderness and meet the Lamanites there.  Zoram and his sons followed the directions from the Lord and successfully took their brethren back, and “there was not one soul of them had been lost that were taken captive” (Alma 16:8).  This is the only mention of Zoram that we have in the Book of Mormon, but he left us an excellent example of how to seek and follow counsel from the Lord.  I do wonder what happened to him and to his sons.  This was in about 81 BC, and the next war with the Lamanites was about four years later and was mentioned in Alma 28.  It was a “tremendous battle” and many people died, and so it’s possible that Zoram was killed in this battle.  We do know that he was no longer leading the Nephites about three years later in 74 BC since that’s when Moroni was first mentioned as the chief captain over the Nephites (Alma 43:16).  I also have to wonder if the Lehi who was first mentioned in Alma 43:35 was not Zoram’s son.  He was a great Nephite leader throughout the long war in which Moroni was chief captain, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in the text to suggest that he couldn’t have been the same Lehi who helped saved the Nephite captives in Alma 16 (other than the fact that Mormon doesn’t tell us this was so).  In fact, it’s very interesting because when Lehi is introduced in Alma 43, it is in the context of fighting the Lamanites on the east of the river Sidon.  That’s exactly the description of where Zoram and his sons went originally: “on the east of the river Sidon” and so Lehi the son of Zoram would have known the area well (Alma 16:6).  I don’t think we can know for sure whether this was indeed the same Lehi, but either way, Zoram and his sons, as well as other later Nephite generals, gave us a great example of how to confront difficult challenges. 

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Alma and Amulek

We don’t have a whole lot of details about what Amulek and Zeezrom did after they left Ammonihah and Zeezrom was healed.  I have to wonder, though, if the two did not become great friends and companions.  We know that both of them most likely lost all of their family since the righteous women and children were destroyed by the wicked people of Ammonihah, and the rest of the people were subsequently destroyed by the Lamanites.  We know that after Zeezrom was healed, “he began from that time forth to preach unto the people” (Alma 15:12).  Similarly, “Alma and Amulek went forth preaching repentance to the people” and did “preach the word throughout all the land” (Alma 16:15).  About seven years after Zeezrom was healed by Alma and Amulek, Alma choose the two of them to go with him to preach to the Zoramites. We read that he took “also Amulek and Zeezrom, who were at Melek,” and that latter phrase seems to imply that they were together at Melek (Alma 31:6).  I have to think that they were great friends, missionary companions, and brothers in the gospel whose experiences at Ammonihah and Sidom ultimately brought them—former enemies—together.  I think this is such a great story because it was the gospel that changed both of them; you never would have guessed that these two would serve as missionaries together upon reading their exchange in Alma 11.  Zeezrom tried to trap Amulek in his words in front of the people, and Amulek called Zeezrom a “child of hell” (Alma 11:23).  But the Spirit changed the heart of Zeezrom and ultimately brought them together in repentance and service to the Lord.  

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Those of Great and Little Faith

The Savior seemed to be impressed by the faith of some of the Gentiles that He met and often condemned the lack of faith that He saw in the House of Israel.  When a centurion came to him and requested that Jesus heal his servant without even going, Jesus “marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel” (Matt. 8:10).  When the “woman of Canaan” came begging Him to heal her daughter, He said, “O woman, great is thy faith” (Matt. 15:28).  On the other hand, when speaking to his disciples He said, “O ye of little faith” as He told them to not worry about how they would meet their needs as missionaries (Matt. 6:30).  When the disciples awoke him on the ship because they were afraid of the storm, He said, “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” (Matt. 8:26).  When they were in another storm and Peter was attempting to walk on water, again Jesus asked Him, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” (Matt. 14:31).  When the disciples failed to understand His words and thought He spoke of physical food when referring to the “leaven of the Pharisees” He again said to them, “O ye of little faith” (Matt. 16:8).  Jesus clearly was concerned about the level of faith that His followers were developing, and faith was much more important than lineage.  When some of the Pharisees were proud because Abraham was their father, He told them bluntly, “God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Matt. 3:9).  Being children of Abraham didn’t do them any good without faith and righteousness, and there will not be any special privileges for those who do not show forth faith in Jesus Christ, regardless of their heritage.  We must focus on developing the pure faith of the centurion and woman of Canaan, remembering that no matter who our ancestors are, the Lord expects great faith in us.

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Alma's Anticipation

After Alma was turned to righteousness by the angel, he told those who had fasted and prayed for him, “I rejected my Redeemer, and denied that which had been spoken of by our fathers; but now that they may foresee that he will come,… he will make himself manifest unto all” (Mosiah 27:30).  The fact that the Savior would soon come then became a theme of Alma’s as he taught the Nephites.  He told the people of Zarahemla, “I know that Jesus Christ shall come, yea, the Son, the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace, and mercy, and truth.  And behold, it is he that cometh to take away the sins of the world….  The Son of God cometh in his glory, in his might, majesty, power, and dominion….  The kingdom of heaven shall very soon shine forth among all the children of men” (Alma 5:48, 50).  Soon thereafter he told the people of Gideon: “There be many things to come; and behold, there is one thing which is of more importance than they all—for behold, the time is not far distant that the Redeemer liveth and cometh among his people” (Alma 7:7).  He then told the people of Ammonihah, “And not many days hence the Son of God shall come in his glory” (Alma 9:26).  He also prophesied to them, “We only wait to hear the joyful news declared unto us by the mouth of angels, of his coming; for the time cometh, we know not how soon” (Alma 13:25).  Later Alma and Amulek went forth with others to “preach the word throughout all the land…, holding forth things which must shortly come; yea, holding forth the coming of the Son of God” (Alma 16:15, 19).  Alma clearly waited with great anticipation for the 1^stcoming of the Savior, and he didn’t know whether that time would be in his day.  I think it was this anticipation that led to his great desire to be one those angels who could “speak with the trump of God, with the voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!” (Alma 29:1).  This desire that Alma had for the Savior’s coming should be the same kind of anticipation that we have for the 2^ndComing of the Savior.  Like Alma we don’t know whether or not it will be in our day, but we do know that it is “not far distant,” so “now is the time to repent, for the day of salvation draweth nigh” (Alma 13:21).  

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Order of the Priesthood

The word “order” appears to be strongly related to priesthood in many places in the scriptures.  The Book of Mormon refers to Alma devoting himself to “the high priesthood of the holy order of God” (Alma 4:20).  When Alma spoke about priesthood and the premortal world he referred to the “order of the Son” and of those who were “ordained unto the high priesthood of the holy order of God” (Alma 13:2, 6).  In Joseph’s revelation on the three degrees of glory he spoke of those who are “priests of the Most High, after the order of Melchizedek, which was after the order of Enoch, which was after the order of the Only Begotten Son” (D&C 76:57).  Paul likewise spoke of the “order of Melchisedec” and the “order of Aaron” (Hebrews 7:11).  The name of the priesthood itself is called the “Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God” (D&C 107:3). So with this understanding that the word “order” is closely related to and sometimes a synonym for “priesthood”, this gives us one more meaning of the description of God’s house as a “house of order” (D&C 88:119).  After speaking of the sealing power and the keys of the priesthood, the Lord said, “Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God” (D&C 132:8).  I think we could use the word priesthood instead: “Behold, mine house is a house of priesthood”.  That is where the most sacred and important of priesthood ordinances take place and where the keys of the priesthood are fully utilized.  

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Abraham's Obedience

As I reflected on examples we have in the scriptures of those who have “lived by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord,” I thought about Abraham.  He was constantly seeking the will of the Lord and physically following where God led him.  In Abraham 1:2 we read that he was “desiring to receive instructions,” and shortly thereafter the Lord led him on the long journey from the land of Ur to “the land which [they] denominated Haran” (Abraham 2:4).  He didn’t get to stay there long, though, and he then followed the Lord’s counsel to go “to the land of Canaan” with “eternity” as his covering and dwelling in tents (Abraham 2:15-16).  But he didn’t get to stop there, either, and he continued—we can only assume at the direction of the Lord—to the land of Egypt.  He eventually came back to the land of Canaan, and there fulfilled all of the commandments that the Lord gave him.  The most famous of those was the command to slay Isaac, and Abraham proved that he “fearest God” and indeed would live by every word that God commanded.   It’s no wonder the Lord would declare of Abraham to his son Isaac: “Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, my laws” (Genesis 26:5).  Our goal should be for the Lord to be able to say that about us at the end of our lives!

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Tribulations of the Last Days

As we see the incredible challenges the world faces every day, it is important to reflect upon the fact that the great tribulations of the last days have all been prophesied.  We read of “an overflowing scourge” that will take place in our generation with “a desolating sickness [that] shall cover the land” (D&C 45:31).  We know that there will be “a great hailstorm sent forth to destroy the crops of the earth” and the Lord “will send forth flies upon the face of the earth” (D&C 29:16-18).  We read that “a desolating scourge shall go forth among the inhabitants of the earth” and will continue if “they repent not” (D&C 5:19).  We know that there will be “famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places” (JSM 1:29).  The scriptures also tell us that “war shall be poured out upon all nations” and that there will be “wars upon the face of the earth” (D&C 63:33, 87:3).  Knowing of these prophecies and others, we should not be surprised or alarmed or scared by the events we read of in the news each day.  The Lord has told us that “if ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30).  He also told his disciples after describing tribulations that would come upon them, “These things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them” (John 16:4).  In other words, when great challenges come upon the children of men that cause fear and trembling, we should not fear because we know that the Lord foresaw all of these things and will “make a way for your escape” if we are willing to keep His commandments (D&C 132:50).  I don’t know if specific troubles like Ebola are part of these prophecies from the Lord, but I do know that our own personal protection will come from keeping God’s commandments and holding fast to the words of Christ.   

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Every Word that Proceedeth Out of the Mouth of God

Moses told the children of Israel that the Lord suffered them to hunger and gave them manna in the wilderness, “that he might make [them] know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deuteronomy 8:3).  This idea has been repeated by the Lord a few times since then.  When Satan tempted Him with bread after the 40 day fast, Jesus responded, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).  In our dispensation the Lord said this as part of what we now call the oath and covenant of the Priesthood: “Give diligent heed to the words of eternal life.  For you shall live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God” (D&C 84:43-44).  About a year later the Lord repeated this idea again: “Ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God” (D&C 98:11).  So how do we live by every word that comes from God?  President Joseph Fielding Smith suggested that it means at least in part that we will keep all of God’s commandment: “We cannot say that some of them are small and insignificant and therefore the Lord will not care if we violate them.  We are commanded to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith, pg 233).  It seems that it is really the quest of a lifetime to obey all of God’s commands, and living after every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God should be a goal we work towards throughout our life.  

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Zeezrom and Nephite Money

Like I’m sure many others, I’ve often wondered what the purpose of including verses 5-19 in Alma 11.  One reason is clearly to show that the six onties of silver offered to Amulek by Zeezrom was a large sum of money, but that fact could have been stated without the drawn out description of all the different values of gold and silver.  I think a common reaction to these verses giving the details about Nephite money is, “This has no spiritual value—I’ll skip over this part.”  Perhaps that’s actually the whole point.  Alma 11:20 tells us that these lawyers’ “sole purpose” was “to get gain” and that they stirred up wickedness in order “that they might have more employ, that they might get more money.”  They were constantly focused on money, just like so many of us in our day, and perhaps the reason Mormon included these comments about the fine details of the Nephite monetary system was to emphasize just how obsessed they had become with money.  And so if we do say to ourselves, “This has no spiritual value,” then we might also pause for a second and say, “Wait, but I’m just as focused on money and the pursuit of things in my own life—and that too has no spiritual value.”  Amulek accuses Zeezrom, “Thou knowest that there is a God, but thou lovest that lucre more than him” and we might question whether the same holds true in our own life (Alma 11:24).  To his credit, Zeezrom was able to put behind him the things of the world, repent of his sins, and “he began from that time forth to preach unto the people” (Alma 15:12).  The record doesn’t tell us specifically, but given that Ammonihah was destroyed it’s almost certain that he lost all of his worldly wealth as he focused on preaching the gospel.  This then leaves us to wonder whether we could and would do the same for the gospel’s sake.      

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Giddonah's Rejection

From Alma 10:1 we learn that Amulek was the son of Giddonah, and we have a couple other details about him in the text.  Amulek told the people how Alma had come and “dwelt at [his] house” before they then went out to preach to the people.  Amulek told of the great blessing it was to have Alma in his home: “He hath blessed mine house, he hath blessed me, and my women, and my children, and my father and my kinsfolk; yea, even all my kindred hath he blessed, and the blessing of the Lord hath rested upon us according to the words which he spake” (Alma 10:10-11).  Clearly Alma performed a great service to Amulek and his family when he stayed at his home, and in particular he blessed Giddonah.  We obviously don’t know precisely in what manner he was blessed, but surely Giddonah felt the Spirit of the Lord as a prophet was among his family serving them.  Unfortunately, though, after Amulek and Alma left Ammonihah Mormon told us that Amulek had “forsaken all his gold, and silver, and precious things, which were in the land of Ammonihah, for the word of God, he being rejected by those who were once his friends and also by his father and his kindred” (Alma 15:16).  So ultimately Giddonah rejected Alma and the word of the Lord, even though Alma had stayed in his home and blessed him and his family.  It must have greatly saddened Amulek when Ammonihah was subsequently destroyed, for his father Giddonah was among those who died.  The Lord gave him the opportunity to accept the word of the Lord through Alma and his own son, but for reasons we don’t know he chose to reject it.  The story is a reminder to us that all men and women have their agency and even though the Lord might send a prophet personally to minister to someone, they might still choose to reject God’s word.

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Writing on the Wall

Amulek began his preaching to the people of Ammonihah with a reference to the otherwise unknown story about his ancestor Aminadi who “interpreted the writing which was upon the wall of the temple, which was written by the finger of God” (Alma 10:2).  This obviously brings to mind the story of Daniel who interpreted the writing on the wall of the palace of Belshazzar. The writing upon that wall was interpreted as, “God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Thou are weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians” (Daniel 5:25-28).  Essentially Daniel revealed to Belshazzar that God would take away their kingdom because of their pride and wickedness, and I have to wonder if this Nephite story was in that same kind of context.  In other words, was the Nephite interpretation also a warning message to them about impending destruction?  This would then make sense why Amulek would bring up the story at all; he and Alma were giving Ammonihah its own warning about the destruction awaiting them if they did not repent.  Of course the Nephites would not have known the story of Daniel because it happened after Lehi left Jerusalem, but they apparently knew about this story from their own history.  If I had to guess I would say that this Aminadi lived around the time of the second Nephite separation (i.e. the time of the first Mosiah).  This was when the Lord warned the righteous to leave the land of Nephi before (presumably) all of the other Nephites were destroyed.  Perhaps God had sent a message to them by writing on the wall of the temple, just as in the days of Daniel. 

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Suffering Pains and Afflictions

Alma taught the people of Gideon that Christ would “go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind” in order to “take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people” (Alma 7:11).  I’ve always thought of this as a reference only to the two days in which He performed the atonement, but I think it is even broader than that.  Surely He had great sufferings during His mortal life before that last week which enabled Him to understand first-hand the difficulties of mortality.  The angel told King Benjamin that He would suffer “temptation, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death” and I think we see much of that in the Gospels (Mosiah 3:7).  We know for sure that He did have temptations, the most well-known of which happened at the beginning of His ministry when Satan tried three times to tempt Him.  At the end of that experience Luke records this phrase: “When the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season”, clearly implying that there would be more temptations the Savior would be called upon to endure (Luke 4:13).  In terms of hunger and thirst, we know that He fasted for forty days, which would have killed any normal man.  We can only imagine what it would feel like to be forty times as hungry as when we fast for a day.  Christ must have also experienced great fatigue in all of His travels and the endless throngs of people that tried to get His attention.  We get a sense of this in the account of the great storm that the disciples encountered on a ship.  It was so bad that “the waves beat unto the ship, so that it was now full.”  But Jesus was “in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow” through it all and they had to awaken Him to get His attention (Mark 4:37-38).  To be able to sleep through that kind of storm indicates that He must have been utterly exhausted.   Also as Elder Holland pointed out in this last general conference, Christ suggested that at least during part of His ministry He was quite literally homeless: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matt 8:20).  All of this shows that He not only suffered infinitely at the end of His ministry in the experience of the atonement, but He suffered throughout His life and ministry so that He would “know according the flesh how to succor his people” (Alma 7:12).

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Fear God More Than Man

The Lord told the Prophet Joseph after the incident losing the 116 pages, “For, behold, you should not have feared man more than God” (D&C 3:7).  I think this is the challenge of a lifetime to always prioritize God’s will above the people that influence us.  Elder Robbins gave an excellent talk about facing God instead of facing man in this general conference, and he shared numerous scriptural accounts related to this idea.  He suggested that the ordering of the first and second commandments is in itself a key lesson for us: God comes first.  Here are a few other scriptures that help to teach us this principle.  When Christ came to the Americas, one of the very first things He said was, “I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning” (3 Nephi 11:11).   A crucial part of His message that He taught by word and deed while visiting the Nephites was that He always does what the Father wants.  Nephi clearly showed that he feared God more than man when he walked back into the city of Jerusalem by night after his brothers refused to go any further (see 1 Nephi 4).  Abinadi likewise showed great courage and trust in the Lord when he refused to be made afraid by Noah’s threats.  He did what God commanded him—deliver his message—and refused to do that which the priests and Noah requested of him (to deny his message).  Ultimately he was burned because he feared God more than man.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego likewise showed great courage in the face of man’s punishment as they refused to obey commands of man that conflicted with the commands of the Lord (see Daniel 3).  There are many others that we could discuss, and at some level all of the prophets of the past have shown us great faith in God and little concern for what the world would think. 

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Administer of Your Substance

Elder Holland taught us in this last general conference that we should be more concerned about caring for the poor and needy.  He suggested that this is one of the most often repeated commandments from the Lord.  Here are some of the references to this that we find in the scriptures.  King Benjamin taught, “Ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain” (Mosiah 4:16).  Alma questioned the members of the Church in Zarahemla: “Will you persist in turning your backs upon the poor, and the needy, and in withholding your substance from them?” (Alma 5:55).  Amulek taught the poor Zoramites: “If ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need… ye are hypocrites who do deny the faith” (Alma 34:28).  The Savior also taught that if we would give meat to the hungered or take in a stranger or clothe the naked, it would be the same as if we had done it unto Him.  And to those who did not these things, He would say, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire” (Matt. 25:35-41).  In our dispensation the Lord declared of the Church, “They shall look to the poor and the needy, and administer to their relief that they shall not suffer” (D&C 38:35).  Likewise He told the Saints, “Ye must visit the poor and the needy and administer to their relief” (D&C 44:6).  Again He said, “Remember in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple” (D&C 52:40).  There are many other references in the scriptures related to helping the poor and needy, confirming Elder Holland’s statement that this commandment has been repeated again and again from the Lord.  

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After the Manner of Happiness

In general conference Elder Scott gave us four tools that we should use in our lives to protect us from the power of the adversary and find peace and happiness: prayer, scripture study, family home evening, and temple worship.  These four are basic to our personal worship, and they match well what we learn in 2 Nephi 5 about living “after the manner of happiness.”  In that chapter we see all of these principles lived by Nephi and his people.  Nephi “did cry much unto the Lord” because of his challenges, and because of this the Lord warned him and preserved the people (2 Nephi 5:1).  Prayer was clearly an essential part of Nephi’s life.  Scriptures too were central to their society: He wrote that he “had also brought the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass” (2 Nephi 5:12).  Nephi obviously had a great love for the scriptures and would spend much of the remainder of his record simply quoting from the book of Isaiah as he taught his people.  He must have studied about the Jerusalem temple in the scriptures as well, for he “did build a temple” and did “construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon” (2 Nephi 5:16).  We don’t know much about temple worship among the Nephites we see clearly that it was important and played a critical role among Nephi’s people.  Lastly, we see that the family was paramount for Nephi and the group that followed him.  In this chapter as Nephi was inspired to leave Laman and Lemuel and those who followed them, he told us, “I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters” (2 Nephi 5:6). Clearly Nephi was greatly concerned for his family and did everything he could to keep them together.  It caused him great grief to have to leave his wicked brothers, for despite all they had done to cause problems in the family, they were still family to Nephi.  So we see all of these principles that Elder Scott discussed in the formula given in 2 Nephi 5 for living after the manner of happiness: prayer, scripture study, temple worship, and a focus on the family.  That second witness—among so many others—should motivate us even more to follow Elder Scott's counsel and seek to improve in each of these areas of our lives.     

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Ponder the Path of Your Feet

President Monson counseled us this general conference using the words of Proverbs: “Ponder the path of thy feet” (Proverbs 4:26).  I love this short phrase because it emphasizes that we should consider the path itself and not just our current location.  The injunction isn’t just to examine where we are today, but to understand where we are headed and where the decisions we are making today will take us.  This idea I think was part of the message of the message of Elder Carlos A. Godoy who was asked the question “Will the life you are living fulfill the promises in your Patriarchal Blessing?”  In other words, where are the actions of today taking us?  President Monson’s emphasis was on making sure that the path we are taking is “the path which Jesus walked.”  Ultimately we want our path to take us to the Savior, and I think that means both living up to the potential that the Savior sees in us as well as becoming as He is.  To become like Him, President Monson suggested that we must live our lives like He did.  We have to take the same paths as the Savior: President Monson mentioned some of those paths: the path of disappointment, the path of pain, the path of obedience, and the path of prayer.  All of these imply a need to look forward on our path past our current situation.  To succeed on a path filled with disappointment and pain means that we must be looking to the future and understand that where we are today is not our permanent location.  To be on a path of obedience also suggests an expanded vision of where we are going and not just a consideration of where we are today.  Obedience requires the faith to trust that the Lord’s promises will be fulfilled in His due time.  Likewise to have our path filled with prayer means that we are constantly looking upward and forward to understand God’s will for us and have a greater vision of life than merely what we see in our current circumstance.  Ultimately President Monson’s invitation is to make the Savior the center of our lives and see to it that our current trajectory leads to Him. 

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Sam: Just and Holy

We know relatively little about Sam in the Book of Mormon, but we do see clearly that he was a righteous man.  When Nephi made known to Sam the things that the Lord had revealed to him, Nephi tells us that “he believed in my words” (1 Nephi 2:17).  In 1 Nephi 3:28 after their failed attempts at retrieving the plates, Nephi recounts that “Laman and Lemuel did speak many hard words unto us, their younger brothers, and they did smite us even with a rod.”  The “us” his description can only mean him and Sam, so clearly Sam was faithful to Nephi and the task the Lord had given them.  Later when Lehi had his vision he said that he had “reason to rejoice in the Lord because of Nephi and also of Sam,” which clearly indicates that Sam was righteous and followed the Lord (1 Nephi 8:3).  Sam and his “family” followed Nephi when he split from his brothers, and Mormon summarized later that “Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam… were just and holy men” (Alma 3:6).  It’s interesting that there is never a reference to the descendants of Sam as a group of people: we read of Lamanites, Lemuelites, Nephites, Jacobites, and Josephites, but no Samites (Jacob 1:3).  Sam’s descendants, as promised by Lehi, were completely mixed with the descendants of Nephi.  And in some sense we are all to seek to be like Sam--most of us won't be the prophet or hold great leadership positions, but we can be "just and holy" and faithfully follow the oracles of God.       

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Weeping for Zion

On the day of the dedication of the church, the Lord spoke these words of the Prophet Joseph: “Yes, his weeping for Zion I have seen, and I will cause that he shall mourn for her no longer; for his days of rejoicing are come unto the remission of his sins” (D&C 21:8).  At this point in the church, there wasn’t yet a concept of Zion as a gathering place for the Saints in the revelations that Joseph had received.  It wasn’t until July of 1831, more than a year later, that Joseph revealed that Zion would be “in the land of Missouri” with Independence as the “center place” (D&C 57:1,3).  It was after this that all of the great difficulties related to the persecution from Missourians came--so what “weeping” was the Lord referring to here in 1830?  The verse tells us that Joseph would rejoice because of the “remission of his sins”, and so I think that the “weeping for Zion” here was the weeping of Joseph for his own sins.  Zion is more than just a physical place, and so perhaps we can think of it here in this context as a matter of personal worthiness: Zion in one sense means forsaking sin and being pure before the Lord.  Joseph wept in many instances because of his own sins and weaknesses, such as with the incident of losing the 116 manuscript pages.  Later Joseph would reveal that Zion is “the pure in heart,” and I think it’s with exactly that connotation here in D&C 20 that the Lord is using it (D&C 97:21).  So when we personally try to follow the Lord’s charge to “seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion” we should focus first on becoming pure in heart ourselves and forsaking our own sins.  Only then can an actual gathering of righteous Saints come together to build the physical city of Zion.

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Nehor's Teaching

It’s very interesting to see why so many people started to believe Nehor when he taught priestcrafts among the Nephites.  Alma 1:5 tells us that “he did teach these things so much that many did believe on his words.”  It was not that his arguments were convincing or that what he was teaching reflected truth that made it so people believed him.  It was at least in part because of the repetition of his ideas that people started to believe him.  Satan doesn’t have truth on his side so he can’t simply let his arguments speak for themselves in order to convince us, so one of his tactics is to repeat false ideas so much that they become accepted.  I think we see this a little in his encounter with Moses.  Moses had just seen God, and the devil came to him saying, “Moses, son of man, worship me” (Moses 1:12).  Moses in great wisdom and by the power of the Spirit rebuked Satan for the next six verses in the account, and how did the deceiver respond?  He simply repeated himself louder: “I am the Only Begotten, worship me” (Moses 1:19).  Moses started to fear but called upon God and commanded Satan to leave.  He again just got more obnoxious and “cried with a loud voice, with weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth” until finally he was cast out (Moses 1:22).  He could not argue truth with Moses so he simply got louder and louder telling Moses to worship him.  In our own day there are certain philosophies of men that go against the teachings and commandments of the Lord that never would have been accepted by the general public a couple generations back.  But in our own day they are repeated so often—and sometimes so vigorously—that those of the rising generation simply accept the new moral standards as truth.  We have to guard against the teachings of the world that are accepted not because of their truthfulness but because of their prevalence.  

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Judgments of the Lord

From Ezekiel 18:23 to the end of the chapter is an interesting kind of dialog between the House of Israel and the Lord.  The House of Israel say that the “way of the Lord is not equal.”  Their reasoning is that if a man is righteous for part of his life and then turns wicked, “for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die.”  But if a man that is wicked for part of his life turns righteous, “he shall save his soul alive.”  The House of Israel seems to be suggesting that these two cases should be treated equally: both have been righteous part of their lives and wicked part of their lives.  Why does the latter get better treatment?  The Lord’s response is this: “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways…. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.”  The Lord seems to be telling them: “Forget about it—just repent!”  The Lord will be the judge and our job is simply to worry about our own transgressions.  This reminds me of the words of Alma to Corianton who likewise had trouble understanding the justice of God: “Ye should let these things trouble you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance” (Alma 42:29).  The Judgment for others is not something that we have to worry about, and we can have faith that God will be perfectly just.  We simply need to worry about repenting of our own sins and becoming the kind of person that we need to become.    

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