“Jesus Christ Will Come to Redeem His People”
Alma is given his most difficult assignment yet, but through his courage faith – and most importantly – the law of witnesses, he’s able to cultivate a harvest of souls, even in the stony ground of Ammonihah.
I’m Mark Holt, and this is Gospel Talktrine.
Welcome again to Gospel Talktrine. Today’s lesson is Alma chapter 8 through 12: “Jesus Christ Will Come to Redeem His People.” And as always, should you care to email the program, send me an email at gt@gospletalktrine.com.
Today we discuss an interesting chapter in the life of Alma, because, as we’ll see, Alma is sent by the same angel who originally appeared to him, on what will prove to be the most difficult mission of his life.
So, as we begin in chapter 8, Alma has just finished with what we read about in chapters 5 through 7: his mission from Zarahemla to Gideon.
And in Zarahemla he had a difficult time getting the people to repent, if you remember. And in Gideon he found a church audience, and audience of saints, who were much more receptive to message. So we come right on the tail of that.
He comes home for a few months, a few weeks – we don’t know – and then in the beginning of the tenth year of the reign of judges – now remember, the sons of Mosiah, they left in the first year of the reign of the judges, so they’ve been gone preaching to the Lamanites for ten years now; we’re going to catch up with them in a few chapters – but in the tenth year of the reign of the judges, Alma goes on another mission.
This time he begins in the land of the Melek. And it seems like in the land of Melek, everybody listens. And this must have been so pleasurable for him. This must have been just an amazing time.
So one thing I want to point out is, we know very little about his time spent in Melek. And I guess, what we are going to read a ton about is the difficult times in Alma’s life. And so I just wanted to point that out. It’s more of a philosophical point than a scriptural or religious point. But it seems like the good times just whiz right by, and the hard times are what we remember the most. And that’s certainly true in Alma’s record.
Later on, we get one of those chapter headings above the chapter heading, where it’s not in italics in your scriptures, and you know from that that it was written on the original plates. It wasn’t written by modern church editors, editing the scriptures, and it wasn’t written by Joseph Smith. It was translated Joseph Smith. So those, when it talks about Alma, that the following chapters are taken from Alma’s record, then we know that that was Mormon writing this down. So Mormon though it was important enough, that he spent way more time on it.
So, isn’t that interesting, that Alma had wonderful receptive saints in Melek? Everyone wanted to hear the gospel, they were all baptised, or at least everyone that it mentions in the scriptures. And then we talk for several chapters about nothing but the wickedness of the Ammonihahites. I’m not quite sure how to say that word! But the time that Alma spent there – we’ll talk about it for a little bit – it had to have been the most difficult chapter in his life. That’s my interpretation. And he had some very difficult times.
First thing that Alma does, he goes into Ammonihah, and they treat him horribly. The first thing they say – which I guess is reasonable – is, “We do not believe in your foolish traditions.” Now it’s a little bit rude, but that’s one thing. I’ve had people tell me that, on my mission I’ve certainly had people tell me “I don’t believe in your foolish traditions,” or the equivalent.
But then they reviled him, they spit upon him, and they cast him out. It doesn’t say much about Alma’s feelings, as he’s walking out of town. In fact, ancient records are conspicuously – to a modern audience, the feelings, the point of view of the main characters – are conspicuously absent. So, we have to sort of read between the lines. We’re going to be doing a little bit of that today. And especially next week. But Alma is, we can guess, we can surmise, that he is despondent, walking away from Ammonihah.
And then he receives a visitation from an angel. This is an important coming full circle for Alma. Because the angel shares with him, “Alma, you are a blessed man. Blessed art thou, Alma, because you have been faithful from the time that God had to send an angel to interrupt you, to this time. You’ve had some difficult times along the way, but you’ve never departed from the truth that you were given, once you were given it, once you made your change in heart. And, obviously you could have made better choices before that, but you are truly blessed because you’ve repented. And I can see now your repentance is real. And guess what, I am the same angel that brought that message to you.”
Now this is significant for me, because – let me back up a little and I’ll get to that. The Book of Mormon cycle that many people talk about is the “pride cycle.” And that is that the people of the Book of Mormon have been chastised or they’ve been destroyed, they’ve been punished in some way, and then they humble themselves to the dust. Because of that, they’re willing to repent, they’re willing to work hard, God is able to bless them, they have the guidance of the Spirit, they begin to prosper, and because they begin to prosper, they begin to adopt pride. And because they have pride then their obedience fails, and then they generally separate themselves, the wealthy from the poor, or the blessed from the unblessed, the haves from the have-nots, and become wicked again, forget God, and begin to persecute, and then they are destroyed again, humbled again.
If you were to talk to somebody, “What is the cycle of the Book of Mormon?” that is what they would tell you, I believe, most people.
And what I want to do is point out another cycle, an important cycle, in the Book of Mormon. And this is our first – just where it’s staring us right in the face – it’s already taken several iterations of this cycle but now it’s becoming truly unmissable, unmistakable. The first encounter that Alma had with this angel, was while he was – he’s described as on the road to destroy the Church. “While I went about my evil ways, seeking to destroy the Church,” Alma says later.
So in one of the letters to his sons – I believe this is in chapter 36, I didn’t take the time to look it up – but in one of the letters to his sons, Alma says, “While I was on my way to destroy the liberty, to destroy the Church, to destroy God’s truth among the people, then this angel appeared to me, and his voice was like thunder, he shook the earth.”
So the angel was first sent as a messenger. And Alma was the recipient of this message. And the message was, “Repent, or be destroyed.” And when we hear that message today, if we were to hear that message, if a preacher were to try to become popular, or try to go viral, you might say, with a message like that, I don’t think it would go over too well. We kind of feel like that message is harsh, that message comes over as very harsh to a modern audience.
But one of the things I want to make clear is – as I’ve said over the last few weeks – this is a message of love. Repent or you will be destroyed. It isn’t the prophet deciding they need to repent or here are the consequences, it’s the prophet recognising that the consequences are on their way, and here is how you avoid them.
This is an important point for all of us to understand. Because when the word comes to us to repent, then there is some form of destruction that will follow if we don’t.
Now it doesn’t mean that the Lamanites will come upon us, and from one day to the next they’ll kill everyone in our town, as they do in Ammonihah. But it does mean that the spiritual death, the destruction, the separation from God of one form or another is on its way. And the threat is that God will remove blessings – and I guess I shouldn’t say a threat – the inevitable consequence is soon to follow.
So it’s a message of love if someone tells you to repent. Now, obviously, unless they hate you! But if it’s delivered by one of the Lord’s servants, and even if it’s not, even if it’s not a message of love in the heart of the person delivering it, it’s a message of love on the part of God who sent it to you, probably somehow.
We all need to be watching for this message, which is, “Repent, or be destroyed. Repent, or have blessings taken away. You about to suffer consequences of evil deeds, of bad choices.” Now that’s not the cycle, that’s just the message.
So Alma has received this message. And now, the same messenger – this is, I believe, so explicit, so that we won’t miss it – the same messenger come to Alma and says, “Alma, now you are the one. Now you’re the one who is going to deliver this message.” So, there’s even more iterations of this cycle to come. But if you remember Abinadi – it began with Abinadi, the current group of cycles began with Abinadi – and Abinadi delivered this message, and he only had one person listen. (Or he might have had more people listen, but only one that we can read of.) And that was Alma the Elder.
Alma the Elder goes, creates a church, has many people listen, and among them is his son. And his son has to receive this message, and his son now comes. And in today’s lesson we’ll see that his son delivers this message to Amulek. Amulek delivers it to Zeezrom. Zeezrom becomes a missionary. But there’s almost like a side interlude, with this angel, where the angel delivers the same message to Alma, and has Alma deliver that message to Ammonihah.
To me, the parallels between Alma and Ammonihah are clear. It is that you have to repent or be destroyed. The same angel has been sent to deliver that message. Alma was studying how to destroy the Church. And one of the things that this angel says to Alma is, in chapter 8, he says “They are, even now, studying how to destroy the liberty of the Nephites.” [ Alma 8:17 ] So they are both bent upon – not just enjoying the rewards of sin for a brief time – they actually bent on destroying the liberty of those who are righteous. And that’s what Alma was doing.
So it went beyond mere weakness, it went beyond a tendency to give into temptation and then – even though you know what’s right, you can’t quite do it. For Alma it was very intentional that he would follow an evil path, and that’s what the Ammonihahites seem to be engaged in as well. That’s the path that they’re on.
Now, interestingly, you may remember the story of Peter denying Christ in the New Testament. And you may have heard – of course you remember that story – but you may have heard the interpretation that later when Christ appears to Peter, he gives him three opportunities to say that he loves Jesus. So Jesus says, “Do you love me more than these fish?” And he says it three times, and the third time, Peter is truly sad, and he says, “Yes! You know I love you.” And Jesus says to him, “Feed my sheep.”
So, there are those who have said that the three times that Christ asks Peter this question, and he gives him an opportunity to affirm his love, is him giving Peter an opportunity to make up for the three times that he denied him.
Whatever the case might be, that seemed to me to be an interesting analogue for what is going on here. Because, Alma has been tested and proven in the fiery furnace of adversity for ten years – or longer, maybe even eleven years by this point. And now he’s being sent back for his greatest test yet. But before that, the angel appears before him and says, “You have proven faithful over these things.”
So it wasn’t that God didn’t know he would be faithful. In my mind, Alma is going from salvation to exaltation in this mission to Ammonihah. He’s proven himself worthy of every blessing that God has to give him, and he’s truly repented. But as he later says, again in Alma chapter 36, to his son Corianton, he says, “I was the very vilest of sinners. I was going about to murder” – and this is what he calls when he leads someone from the truth – “to murder other children of God.”
So if you read, as we will read, about the people of Ammonihah, they’re also murderers, and they’re murdering those who believe in the Church of God, the doctrine of the prophets and the scriptures. They hate that so much that they will murder them. And Alma classified his behaviour the same way.
So to me, I wonder – I don’t have a definitive answer to this – but I wonder, was Alma being given an here opportunity to affirm his faithfulness in the face of people who were engaged in – if not the same acts as he was, something analogous – something that could also be described as murder. So that he could truly be forgiven, deeply forgiven, for the sins that he had committed all those years ago.
Now part of me rebels at the thought, because I certainly believe that Alma had understood the atonement, that he had applied the atonement, that Christ had truly forgiven him. So I guess what I would say is, that he’s given here an opportunity to gain back some of those blessings that he’s lost. Maybe that’s what it is.
In any case, there is an interesting parallel between how Alma has described his past behaviour, and now the people who he’s being sent to minister to, and to preach among. The people of Ammonihah are very similar to Alma before his vision from this very same angel.
As he returns to Ammonihah, Alma encounters a man named Amulek, right away. He says, “Would you give a prophet of God something to eat?” Amulek says something interesting here, he says, “I’m a Nephite.” That’s the first thing he says! This to me is further proof – we’ve talked about it a few times before – that the descendants of Lehi, they live in a tribal society. So much like the Israelites were divided into tribes based on the sons of their oldest patriarch, the twelve sons of Jacob who was renamed Israel, the descendants of Lehi were divided into seven tribes, based on his descendants, and it happened before he died.
So when Amulek says, “I’m a Nephite,” we reading this think, “Oh well, that’s obvious. If you’re not a Lamanite, you’re a Nephite.” But that’s not precisely true. And you can go back to where we discussed Jacob – I believe it’s Jacob chapter 1, it might be Jacob chapter 2 – there are three or four times in the Book of Mormon when Mormon lists the tribes of the Nephites, all seven of them, and they are always found in the same order. And even once in the Doctrine and Covenants, the tribes are listed, and they’re found in the same order. It’s the Nephites, the Jacobites, the Josephites, [the Zoramites,] and then the Lamanites, the Lemuelites, and the Ishmaelites. So those seven tribes – four of them on the side of Nephi, and three of them on the side of Laman – are how the people, the descendants of Lehi, have divided themselves.
Later on, Amulek will give his genealogy, so that’s further reinforcing this idea, and I don’t want to teach a deeper lesson here just to point this out. It seems to be consistent, it seems to be very consistent, throughout the Book of Mormon, that we find occasional evidences that they live in a tribal society. But it’s subtle enough that I cannot believe in a modern origin for this tendency amount the Nephites. In other words, I cannot believe that someone like Joseph Smith could come up with this, because it’s such a powerful parallel, and no-one until very recently has ever bothered to point it out.
Joseph Smith may have mentioned it one or two times during his life time, but after that no-one really paid attention to it. If Joseph wanted to “prove” – quote unquote – prove that he taken this forgery, the Book of Mormon, and put in it evidences that it was a genuine authentic ancient scripture, he would have pointed out things like this. This would have been the very type of thing he would have gone to, and made explicit, and drawn attention to.
Instead, he may have been oblivious to it, or at least, he may have been oblivious to how important we would feel it is today. So that to me feel like a powerful evidence for the authenticity of the ancient origin of the Book of Mormon.
You know it’s interesting, Alma asks Amulek for food, and then it says, “Will you give a prophet of God something to eat?” and then they go to his house and he puts bread in front of him. And he sees the bread and he’s grateful, and then he eats the bread. And after he’s done eating the bread he says, “I’ve fasted many days, thank you for the bread, I was an hungered, and now you’ve given me to eat.”
The food is mentioned six times in these eight verses between verse 19 and verse 26, in Alma chapter 8. I actually don’t know the significance of this, it just leapt out at me as something that kept being repeated. And then later on, when they’re actually teaching, the Ammonihahites, they mention this again, that Alma had fasted many days.
So it seems to be one of the key points that Mormon wants to put in front of us, that, number one; Alma was fasting many days, and the first time he came through Ammonihah he did not have success, and the second time he did. Was it because of his fasting? Was it because of his fasting that he found Amulek? Almost certainly, some of his success is due to the fact that at this point he was willing to make a sacrifice to God and fast.
Jesus told his disciples on an occasion when they were unable to cast out a certain devil, a certain demon, a certain evil spirit, from one of the people who were following them, Jesus said, “This kind goeth not out, except by prayer and fasting.” So fasting has important applications for us, as members of the Church, but even more so for prophets, missionaries – I shouldn’t say ‘even more so’ - it’s even more dramatic when someone like Alma has been fasting many days, and then he goes back to a city wicked like Ammonihah, and instead of being cast out again, he finds the few remnants of the faithful there.
Another Old Testament parallel I want to… or a Bible parallel I want to draw attention to, is Ammonihah and the city of Sodom. Now, you remember that Abraham met the destroying angels as they were on their way to destroy the city of Sodom. And he said, “Listen, I hope you won’t destroy the city of Sodom. He was thinking of his son-in-law, Lot. And he said, “What if you find some righteous people there?” And he kept asking questions, “What if you find, forty? What if you find thirty? How many righteous people will it take?” And he kept asking questions until he found the number – it was a much smaller number, I believe it was five people or ten people – that if God found that many righteous people in the city, then he would, it would be spared. He would withhold, or hold back, or reign in, his destroying angels.
And the city of Ammonihah is similar. It seems like there are some pure in heart, some people who are willing to humble themselves – buried, or hiding, or perhaps even hidden from themselves – among the population of Ammonihah. And Alma is not going to convert the entire city. But he will – perhaps because of his fast, or perhaps because of the participation of Amulek, or both – he will be able to find those people at least, and bring them out, and bring them out in a way that he never would have wished, as we’ll see next time.
Now in verse 31 of chapter 8, we read something interesting, that Alma and Amulek have power given to them, that they couldn’t be confined in dungeons, and no-one could slay them. We actually don’t know how they knew that they had that power. But it says they never exercised it until they were bound in bands and cast into prison.
To me, I read that, and the question immediately occurred to me, if they have power that no-one can confine them, they couldn’t be confined in dungeons, then how is that power any good, if they wait until they’re in the dungeon? We’ll see, at one point, they do actually exercise the power of God, and it gets them out of prison. But I guess I want to draw our attention to this point, that even though they have the power of God given to them, this did not free them from the suffering of being thrown into prison. They couldn’t be killed; this did not free them from the suffering of witnessing death, and having great abuse heaped upon them.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself, because the culmination of this gift we won’t see until the next lesson. But I want to put it in your minds, so you can be thinking about it, that they had power to prevent so many abuses, that they are forced to witness later on, and yet, the power, and the permission to use the power, seem to be two different things.
And Alma has an insight into when this power can, or should be, used, that Amulek lacks. But they both have this power to avoid persecution, to counter the forces of the world, the wicked use of force. And nevertheless, there are only specific circumstances, and very narrow ones, which they’re authorised to use that great power, the matchless power of God.
So now in chapter 9, it’s interesting, because at this point in the narrative – this is where we read above the heading of chapter 9, we read that introduction that I was talking about. These are actual words of Mormon that come above the heading of chapter 9. Those are ancient words, not modern words.
So here in chapter 9, it’s interesting that the narrative switches to first person. And it never goes back. Chapter 9 is the only chapter – I just point that out as somebody who occasionally edits other people’s stories. If I were to come across this switching of point of view in the middle of a story, I would point it out and say this is a violation of point of view.
So as we’re reading it, there are times when we recognise that Mormon is abridging. And there are times when Mormon takes ancient words and put them wholesale right in the middle of his record, of his abridgement. And this chapter seems to be one of those examples. As Mormon wrote at the top, “The words of Alma, and also the words of Amulek.” So he probably takes from the journals of Alma and Amulek to give us the next few chapters. And therefore, these are not written – much of the Book of Mormon, most of it in fact, is written by Mormon – but these next few chapters are not actually written by Mormon.
So, though the book of Alma was not written by Alma, there are parts of it that definitely are. And this is one of them.
And unfortunately, at first, the reaction of the people of Ammonihah is similar to their first reaction. They say, “We’re not going to believe in your foolish traditions. Even if you say the earth will pass away,” and Alma takes the trouble to mention, that they didn’t realise that actually the earth is going to pass away. “We won’t believe you if you say that God will destroy this city in one day.” And as we later find out, that will also happen.
So they say, “We’re not going to believe you, even if you tell us…” and then they mention a couple of things, that they would have been very wise to believe Alma, to tell them. So their foolishness… this is dramatic irony, that either Alma or Mormon is consciously creating. And I define that as, we as the audience, we as the readers, we know something that the characters in the story do not.
And what dramatic irony does, is it heightens the tension, and it also heightens our identification with the protagonist. So the protagonist in this case, Alma, we feel like we’re on his side, because we know how these people come out in the end. And everything that they’re saying, they’re being really foolish and they can’t see the future. We see their blindness, especially on subsequent readings of this passage. We understand that Alma is the wise one, and they are the foolish ones, even though they’re calling him foolish. That’s dramatic irony. It’s very powerfully done here in chapter 9.
One of the questions they ask in chapter 9 verse 6, they said, “Who is God, that sendeth no more authority than one man among this people?” But what I want to draw attention to, is “Who is God?”
You find this question maybe three of four times in all of the scriptures. It’s always a wicked population, the wicked denizens of a single city, and a prophet comes among them, and they say, “Who is God that he would do this?”
In the Old Testament, when you read “Who is the Lord,” for example, it has a slightly different meaning, because there is a multiplicity of gods throughout the ancient near-east. And so when they say, “Who is the Lord?” what they’re actually saying is “Who is Jehovah?” In other words, “Who is this god that you worship, that he would do this? As compared to, or as contrasted with, the gods that we believe in, who would not do what you’re saying, who would not destroy us for acting in this way.”
So it may be – as when we read “Who is God?” – it may be that the Ammonihahites are saying, “Who is your God? Who is Yahweh? Who is Jehovah, the god that you worship, that he would only send one person?
Now that’s an interesting insight, because I don’t know whether it’s true, but, as we learn later, the people of Ammonihah, they all have a religion as well. They do believe in God, but the god that they believe in doesn’t have a moral code for them, doesn’t expect any sort of quality of behaviour from his followers. And so, they may have taken the extra step, the added step, of recognising and acknowledging that they actually worship a different god from the Nephites, the rest of the Nephites. Or, they may just have been saying this in the prideful way that we interpret this, when we read this in a modern sense, when we read this statement, “Who is God?”
So it may have an ancient meaning, which is “Who is your god?” “Who is this god that is different from the one we believe in, that he would command in this way?” I think that’s worth thinking about, and considering, pondering on.
In Alma, throughout chapter 9, he has a message for the Ammonihahites, and at first his message is rejected, as it was before, but at least he’s now preaching, at least he now has a foot in the door, you might say. And he’s delivering it. So they have a chance to start hearing what he’s saying. They’re resistant to it, number one; because he has to condemn the wicked aspects of their society, namely their lawyers and their judges. This was the case in ancient Israel as well. It is their leaders who are failing to institute among the people righteous institutions.
And this is very important. The laws have to be administered properly for people to feel like there is justice in the world. And that’s why the shepherds of Israel, as Ezekiel called them, are held accountable for the sins of the people if they don’t perform their office with exactness, according to the commandments of God. Then the sins of the people will be answered upon their heads.
And in this case, we can see exactly how the actions of the civic leaders are at fault for the wickedness of the people. We’ll get into that in just a second.
But I want to mention quickly, I want to delineate the different messages that Alma gives to the people of Ammonihah. First, he draws their attention to God’s delivering of their fathers. This happens every time a prophet visits any descendants of Abraham, or of Jacob of Israel, they first mention how much God has done for their people in the past.
And then he talks about the Lehi covenant. He says, “Look, God promised Lehi, inasmuch as you will keep my commandments, you will prosper in the land. But if you keep not my commandments, then you have no promise. You’ll be cut off from the presence of the Lord. We can see this” Alma says, “in the history of the Lamanites. Because they stopped keeping the commandments of God, and you can see, all of us know, we have evidence, they have been cut off from the presence of the Lord.”
“However, now I’m going to draw a parallel, I Alma, am going to draw a parallel between you, the people of Ammonihah and the Lamanites. They don’t know better, and you do. Therefore, number one, they have promises extended to them that the Lord will be merciful; and number two, it’s going to be way more tolerable for the Lamanites than it will be for you on the day of judgement.”
“And number three, God is going to continue to let them do what they do, but in your case, because you’re sinning against greater light, he will not allow this to continue. At some point he will come and destroy you. You are on the path to destruction, and the destruction will be terrible and physical. It will be real. It’s not a figurative destruction; the sword hangs over your heads in a very literal way.”
Alma makes this clear, and it’s not a pleasant message to hear.
And the final point that he raises is that very soon, at a time that is not quite fully known, but we know that it’s within a few decades of this point – and the reason I say that is because Nephi gave the Nephites a timetable, they knew it was six hundred years from the time that his father left Jerusalem. So, Alma would have known roughly the timetable, and he would have said, “Look, it’s just going to be a few short years, and Jesus Christ will be living on the earth, and after his resurrection he will appear here. And let me remind you, people of Ammonihah, let me remind you that he will bring to pass the resurrection, and then we will all be lifted up.”
Here we have, again, the resurrection is almost never mentioned in the Book of Mormon, without mentioning the fact that we’ll all be lifted up for a purpose, which is to stand before God and accept and receive the accountability of for our works.
Again he describes hell. And I believe that the Latter-day Saint doctrine of hell has sort of – what should I say? – it has infected the other mainstream Christian ideas of what hell is. Because hell is, in the Book of Mormon, very clearly called a metaphor. The fires of hell, the lake of fire and brimstone. In the Bible, the lake of fire and brimstone is used, not as a simile, where they make clear that there is a comparison there. It is used as a metaphor. But the metaphor is not pointed out, it is never mentioned explicitly.
So there are many people across the Christian world, who for centuries believed – and some still believe – that there is some literal lake of fire and brimstone waiting for all of us.
Benjamin explained twice, in his one address, and Alma has explained already, that what this hell consists of, is us being brought face to face with the truth, in a situation where we cannot close our eyes.
So God will eventually show us all of the evil consequences, all of the hurt we did to other people and to ourselves, and to our God, through our sinful choices. And because we have not chosen to allow the Saviour to relieve that guilt, because we have chosen to maintain that guilt within our own hearts and within our own consciences, then at that day, when we are forced to be face to face with it, we will have to hide from the presence of God.
That is hell, as he explains again.
So he makes it very clear, and that to me – you could read the doctrine of hell, and think, “How could God be just, to put people in a lake of fire and brimstone forever. That’s awful.” And yet, when you read that description of hell, you think, “What could be more just?” That the thing that people have desired their whole life, which is to be free of the influence of God, should be able to enjoy that “freedom” – quote unquote – for the rest of eternity. That they should be able to flee the presence of God if that is what they want. They have lived without God in the world, and they will be able to live without God in eternity.
Alma makes that clear, and makes that more explicit. And now, when he talks about that, that’s when he starts to get a little bit of a foothold.
That takes us into chapter 10. And Amulek now takes over. One more thing I want to mention in chapter 9 is that twice – once at the beginning of the chapter, and once at the end – they try to lay hands on him. And Alma says, he doesn’t explain why it happened, but he says, “It came to pass that they did not lay hands on me at that time.”
So this might be the miraculous power of God that Alma has – that no-one could put him in prison – manifesting itself, showing itself.
You remember that this happened a few times with Jesus, as he was teaching in the region of Galilee, especially in Nazareth, his home town, the people gathered around him, and he passing through the midst of them went his way. That’s what this reminded me of, is that he doesn’t give a description as to how, he doesn’t say that “I called upon God to protect me, and he kept people at a six foot distance from me,” – you know, they were social distancing – “it was if I had a bubble around me.” It doesn’t say any of that. It just says “And it came to pass they didn’t do it.”
It doesn’t say whether they chose to not do it, or they were unable to, and we’re left to draw whatever inferences we can. It’s interesting that it happened twice in one chapter. That’s why it stuck out to me.
Now Amulek begins to speak. Beginning in chapter 10, verses 2 and 3, you can see that he gives his genealogy. And this pinpoints him in one of the tribes, the Nephite tribe, of the descendants of Lehi.
He also says something else. In verse 2 he says “I am the son of Giddonah, who was the son of Ishmael, who was a descendant of Aminadi” – it’s spelt almost like Abinadi, so maybe it’s pronounced Aminadi – “it was that same Aminadi who interpreted the writing which was upon the wall of the temple, which was written by the finger of God.”
Now, it is not the style of Mormon’s abridgement that he would put something like this in here with absolutely no commentary upon it. Usually when Mormon introduces something that is previously unknown to us, and requires some explanation, then he will provide that explanation, and modern editors will put it in parenthesis, because it’s obviously the note of an editor, telling us “Oh, by saying this, he was referring to x.”
In this case, Mormon doesn’t do that. And so, what I surmise – and there are other Book of Mormon scholars who have advanced this, this is hardly original with me, they have advanced this theory as well – is that there is a story well known to the people of Nephi, of how this happened. And, that story has been lost in the lost manuscript, that Joseph Smith gave to Martin Harris.
We know that this happened among the Nephites, because he says, “Aminadi was a descendant of Nephi.” [Alma 10:3] So this didn’t happen in the Old World. Remember there’s a similar story in the Book of Daniel. Daniel sees writing appear on the wall: “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN,” which he interprets to say, “You have been weighed, measured, and found wanting.” And that very night, the Babylonians are conquered by the Persians. [Daniel 5:25-31]
So the writing on the wall was written by the finger of God. It’s a very similar episode here, except this was on the wall of the temple, one of the Nephite temples. And it happened in the New World. So presumably we would have had a record of this very faith promoting story. The honour that attached to the man reading this writing on the wall of the temple was such that, generations later, one of his descendants would brag about this being in his family tree.
So Amulek is establishing his bonafides. “Look, everyone here in Ammonihah, I’m one of you. You know me as a man of reputation, I’m somebody who has established myself, it’s not like I’m one of the homeless people,” and I say that with no disrespect to homeless people, but there’s a certain respectability that comes with the fact that he’s worked his whole life to establish his family and his household.
And so he has that level of credibility, and he says, “I’m putting that credibility on the line to tell you that Alma is an honourable man. Everything he is telling you is true.” The people of Ammonihah are astonished that Alma, not only does he have a second witness – as the Bible tells us “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” – but that this witness is one of them. They have to pay attention, because they can really identify with Amulek.
And here is where we get a little bit of an insight into how Amulek is part of this missionary cycle of the Book of Mormon, or this “repent or be destroyed” cycle of the Book of Mormon. Because he has been called many times, and refused to listen. He’s part of this wicked town of Ammonihah. We don’t know to what extent he participated in their wickedness, but until Alma returned – maybe he saw Alma the first time through, and maybe he didn’t – but until Alma returned, he had been very obstinate in refusing voice of the Holy Spirit, and the voice of the Lord.
I think it would be reasonable to assume that he wasn’t guilty of the worst offences of the people of Ammonihah, because he was willing to listen. However, an angel appeared to him, and we can presume – I mean there’s one angel in this story, the angel already told Alma I’m the same angel that brought you this message before – we can presume, I would assume that it was the same angel that appeared to Amulek, and said, “I need you to head back towards home.” He was going to visit family, as he says, and an angel appeared to him and said, “I need you to head back towards home, because you’re going to meet and feed a prophet of the Lord who has been fasting for many days.” Amulek does just that.
Now it may be that this angel was used to summoning sinners back from the brink of their destruction. And that is the spiritual state in which Amulek found himself. Or it may be that he’d been prepared for this message, he was actually humbling his heart, we don’t know.
What we do know is that Alma stayed many days, as it describes, with Amulek before they began to preach. And we can presume that was sort of a missionary training centre for Amulek. That having this prophet under his roof, he was able to learn and gain the word of God, so that he could impart it later. And that is exactly what he is doing now.
He describes the blessings that have come into his household, as Alma stayed among them. And that is a statement later – we’ll talk about next week – he may have changed his mind about, at least for a time. Because the people of Ammonihah meet with some very grisly fates, and possibly Amulek’s family even, met with a grisly death. And unfortunately, that seems to be the case.
Nevertheless, Amulek has an amazing command of the doctrines of the gospel.
Let me read to you a little bit about what they’re up against. In chapter 11, the whole first half of the chapter describes the monetary system of the Nephites. And there is a reason for this, it’s sort of like a little aside, so that then we can get back to the story with some context, and when we hear what happens, we can know what exactly it means.
In the later part of chapter 10, Amulek is pointing out the injustice of their system of government, and the fact that they have entrusted their public safety to wicked men. Now the people are saying, “You’ve reviled our lawyers and our judges. This is a crime, we can take you, and put you in prison for this.” It’s obvious they were offended, deeply offended by this, and very threatened.
So now we learn a little bit about their monetary system. And all of this is so later on, we can understand when Alma and Amulek are offered a bribe. Now, Zeezrom is one of these wicked lawyers. And, as we learn in verse 20, I’m going to read this verse to you. This is Alma 11:20:
20 Now, it was for the sole purpose to get gain, because they received their wages according to their employ, therefore, they did stir up the people to riotings, and all manner of disturbances and wickedness, that they might have more employ, that they might get money according to the suits which were brought before them; therefore they did stir up the people against Alma and Amulek.
Now earlier it describes that lawyers and judges, they’re paid for the time that they sit in judgement, or the cases that they try, you might say. In other words, there is an agitator class that exists in Ammonihah. And because the people, because this agitator class are wicked, they are in the outrage business. This is, I think, a very timely message for us. We can look around today and see tons of people who are in the outrage business.
Now, one thing I want to be careful of, when we talk about those who are… iconoclastic, you might say, people who are in defiance of modern accepted norms, and they cause outrage. We have to include Jesus Christ on that list. Jesus went about, never fearing to cause outrage.
So, I guess the important distinction is: number one, the truth of what he’s saying. But, all of us are mortal judges, it’s sometimes hard to know what the truth of someone’s claims are. So I guess the most important distinction is the motivation of the person who is causing the outrage.
So Jesus went around and he said, “Scribes and Pharisees: hypocrites.” And this outraged many people, it caused the most powerful members of society to be absolutely livid with him. They went into a murderous rage over his words. But Jesus did not care about the outrage, he wasn’t in the business of causing outrage. He was in the business of speaking the truth, and exposing injustice, and exposing wickedness.
So, there may be people today who are causing outrage, but they’re motivation is to expose injustice and expose wickedness. In that motivation – and only they will know if that is what exists in their hearts – they are following in the footsteps of Jesus.
Now, it may be that there are undoubtedly some who are doing this in a righteous way that Jesus would be proud of, and there are undoubtedly some who are misguided. Who think they are exposing injustice, and perhaps, are partially exposing injustice and partially lying. However, if they believe what they’re doing is righteous – you might say – then we can’t accuse them of true evil, even though the end result of what they’re doing might not be what God would have done. Look, all of us have to make the best judgements we can, and if we make a mistake, at least, if we’re showing courage, then it was probably worth the effort.
But this chapter is talking about something in an entirely different category. And that is people who have the motivation to create outrage for its own sake. Now this is different to someone who mistakenly, in a misguided way, causes outrage for a cause that wasn’t worth it. Jesus caused outrage for causes that were absolutely worth it. He needed the wicked governments of the people of Israel and of Rome, he needed them to persecute him. Because that would expose them for not being able to tolerate true righteousness.
And again, I don’t want to repeat myself too many times, but there are those who believe that’s what they’re doing. They may or may not, with varying levels of success and varying levels of being misguided. All of us are misguided to some extent, I believe. We all do the best we can.
And then, then there are those who genuinely just want the outrage for its own sake. And we today, I would say – I am in no doubt of this – we have an agitator class in our society as well. It’s one of the worst attributes of Ammonihahite society, was their agitator class, who thrived on outrage. These lawyers and judges, they got paid only when everyone was upset, when they were angry with each other, when there was rancour, bitterness, resentment, and hatred, one towards another. That was when they prospered. And so, they wanted to stir up this feeling, this outrage, as often as possible.
You can see how such a society reacts when the messengers of God come among them, by how they treated Alma and Amulek, and what they accused them of. Eventually their charges are basically, “You reviled against our judges. You told us that our judges and our lawyers are wicked.”
And of course, they are. And so, for telling the truth, they get put in jail. The agitator class is totally intolerant of truth. You cannot reason with an agitator, because their job is not to get to the truth underneath, their job is to hide the truth. That is what Alma and Amulek discover.
And so Zeezrom, one of the cleverest of the them, he says to Alma and Amulek – and we’re instructed first in the amounts of the money of the Nephites – and then he says, “I’ll give you six onties of silver.”
Now I did the math, and it’s about forty-two days pay, which you might think of as two months pay, for a judge or a lawyer in today’s dollars – it’s so impossible, it’s not even hard, it’s impossible to truly translate this money into today’s dollars. But, one sort of formula we can follow is how many day’s labour is that. So if we were to take a modern lawyer or a modern judge, you might calculate that the bribe that Zeezrom is offering Alma and Amulek is anywhere from ten to maybe even thirty thousand dollars. So it is not an insignificant bribe. It is quite significant.
And he says, “Look, I’ll give you these six onties of silver” – a ton of money, he shows the money, everyone sees how much it is – and he wants to prove that these men are not sincere. “I will give you all of this money if you will just say that you don’t believe in God.” [Alma 11:22]
Now, what follows – I don’t think you would have to be truly inspired of God to read Zeezrom’s mind in this instance. I think any modern person would go, “Yeah, right! You’re not going to give me any money. I’m going to deny God, and you’re going to withhold the money.”
But in the case of Alma and Amulek, they see it not just as a sceptic person not wanting to get ripped-off would suspect, they actually have it miraculously revealed to him, with a 100% certainty that this is what Zeezrom intends. He just wants to lie to them in order to trap them.
And of course, he is full-on in agitator mode when he says this. He’s not trying to discover the truth about their beliefs, he’s trying to hide the truth. He’s trying to influence them to do something evil, rather than get to the good behind what they might be saying.
So, it is truly an evil act that Zeezrom is engaged in. And there are other evil people in chapter 12 that we’ll run into. But Zeezrom is the principle right now. And the reason that we read about all this money, the way that the money works, is so that we’ll understand how significant this bribe was.
And Alma and Amulek are never tempted for a moment to accept the money. The money means nothing to them. It means everything to Zeezrom, because he has traded his soul for what he is holding in his hand.
For him, he would not hesitate. There is nothing he would not sell for those six onties of silver. That is why he thinks it is a worthwhile bribe. That is why he is willing to offer it. Anyone who understands a true believer, even if you don’t share their beliefs, you wouldn’t think: “You know, if I take this religious terrorist,” – for example – “and I offer him a ton of money, maybe he will say his god is not real,” none of us would think that. We all know that his belief is sincere.
But if we truly had a mercenary heart, and we were of this agitator class, if we thrived on outrage, and it was our stock in trade, then we would have already sold our soul for the things of the world. And therefore we might think that everyone else operates on the same mercenary principle, as we do.
Zeezrom certainly thought that, about Alma and Amulek, and he learns otherwise. Not only does he learn otherwise, but when they tell him exactly what his thoughts were, and where they came from, he begins to experience a change of heart.
Interestingly enough, the change of heart for Zeezrom, happened in the same way that it did for Alma. Which is, it began with fear. He could see his impending destruction.
So, at the end of chapter 11, Amulek tells him, “I can understand that you have no intent to give us the money, so stop lying.” We don’t read at that point – the scriptures aren’t always chronological, so this may not be significant – but, at that point we don’t read that Zeezrom is afraid, that he trembles.
Amulek then discusses the resurrection and the restoration of all of us to our deeds – in other words, resurrection and judgement. When Amulek starts talking about that, that’s when Zeezrom gets interested. Then Alma hits him again, and reinforces the idea that we could see your thoughts, and hits again the idea of resurrection and judgement. That’s when Zeezrom begins to tremble.
So the fear now has taken him, in much the same way that the fear took Alma. Alma went insensible because of it. Instantly. But Zeezrom actually will become quite ill, but it takes some time. It begins to dawn on him slowly how deep of a spiritual hole that he’s built for himself by selling his soul, in order to create outrage for others. He was doing exactly what Alma was doing, which was going about to destroy the works of God, deliberately, deliberately.
So that is the definition of evil, by the way. Somebody who, he knows, he or she knows, that what they’re doing is destroying the faith of others. And they’re doing it deliberately, because they have some worldly gain.
There are plenty of people who meet this description, by the way. Almost all of them can repent. Almost all of them can stop what they’re doing, and be forgiven of God. But it is very difficult, when you have truly embraced evil. Because you really do have to turn 180 degrees, you can’t make slight correction in order to repent. You have to change your entire life. Alma shows us that, Zeezrom shows us that, Alma the Elder shows us that. There are plenty of examples in the Book of Mormon of people who had to make a full repentance, and it’s very, very difficult. It is painful.
And in chapter 12, we can see that Zeezrom questions now, he starts to ask then now – not in order to trap them – it seems like Zeezrom’s motivation has changed. He no longer wants to trap Alma and Amulek. He now needs to know the information that they’re sharing. He says, “Wait, wait, guys.” Alma and Amulek can see they are going to get nowhere with Zeezrom, and they seem to be moving on, and he says, “Wait, what were you saying earlier about resurrection and restoration; is it true that this will happen?” He is fearing now for his own immortal soul.
And this gives Alma and Amulek the opportunity to preach about the Fall. I’ve mentioned a few times, if you’re telling a story, good story-telling technique is to have your main character fall into a pit – you have to dig a pit for your main character, so later on you can pull him out of it. So when you’re telling the story of the Plan of Salvation, you have to begin with the pit that your character – mankind, humankind – is going to fall into. Which is this lost and fallen world. We’re going to become a lost and fallen people with the carnal and sensual, devilish nature. And because of this, none of us can find our way back to God. That is the pit that all of us fall into.
So if you’re telling the story, you have to make it more compelling by talking about Adam and Eve.
Now if you grew up in the Church, you may not recognise that Alma chapter 12 for the profound bit of very distinctive doctrine that it is. But his is where we learn the nature of the Fall, to such an extent – now there is another chapter, and that’s 2 Nephi 2 – but this is in that pattern of modern revelation that gives us an insight into the Fall. That helps us to really understand, number one, that God is in control.
This is one of the hard things about mainstream Christian understanding of the Fall, is that: if you believe that God created Adam and Eve with the intent that they would not fall, and then they did, and the effects of their fall were felt across humankind, well then you would think that God wasn’t very good at making plans, or selecting his representatives. Why would he send Adam and Eve to do this, if the very first people are going to screw up the whole thing for everyone. They ruin the whole earth, and it took Jesus Christ, the second Adam, to get us back on track. But, only after thousands of years of suffering.
If you read 2 Nephi chapter 2, if you read Alma chapter 12, you learn that the plan was never deviated from. In fact, Adam and Eve, they had to die. The question comes to Alma and Amulek, “What is the deal with the cherubim and flaming sword that guards the tree of life?”
And Alma had an answer for this. The answer is: God had promised them, if they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, if they ate that they would die. Then, if they had extended their hand, and eaten of this tree of life again, then the plans of God would have been frustrated. [Alma 12:26]
Now it’s interesting that he uses a counter-factual grammatical construction here: “would have been.” In other words, the plans of God were not frustrated. In fact, death coming upon mankind was the plan of God – that’s the implication – because if they had not had death, then God’s plan would have been frustrated.
So this shows us that the Fall was exactly what God planned, and that’s something you don’t learn in the Bible. You just cannot learn that from the Bible. The Bible teaches, and every Christian believes, that the Fall was a mistake. And that God has been scrambling for millennia to try to undo that mistake. It almost feels like it caught him unawares. And he was shocked and amazed and surprised, and knocked onto his heels by the fact that Adam fell, and Satan won a huge victory that day.
Instead of the fact that death came upon mankind. And the purpose of death, now we learn, the purpose of death is a very good one.
So Alma now, and Amulek, both, they start to frame our earthly life in the sense of a test. You and I grew up with this knowledge, so it doesn’t feel like it’s that revolutionary, but this is a shattering revelation. Life is a test, and it’s a test that has a definitive starting date, and a definitive end date. And without an end date, the test itself isn’t very pleasant.
In fact, the test is hell. Not in the truest sense, where we are face-to-face with our sins, and it feels like a lake of fire and brimstone. But he is saying we could not have been saved, we would have been lost forever, we would have been forced to endure this mortal life, this probationary state, which is not the reward of God. It’s in stark contrast to the reward of God, because we don’t enjoy the presence of God, and the rules are arbitrary, as we’re going to find out in the next lesson. The righteous are often punished, and the wicked go free or prosper.
And so, the probationary state is sort of like hell; it bears more resemblance to hell than it does to heaven. And this is the point of Alma: had they put forth their hands, they would have extended hell for ever, and the victory of Satan would have been complete.
That is the purpose of the cherubim and flaming sword; it was so that the purposes of God would be accomplished rather than frustrated, and that death would come upon mankind.
So we’re in Alma chapter 12, verses 23 to 24, 25. Now this life became – as he says, when death came upon mankind – this life became a time for man to prepare to meet God, a probationary state. And all of this is so that he can then again return to one of his favourite topics of this discourse, which is judgement. And he says, “Look, man – men and women – were not left alone to figure this out on their own. From the time of the Fall, God sent angels to converse with men. He didn’t leave us in the dark. We do have a choice of what to believe, but he gave us that choice by displaying the truth, and then giving us the option to believe lies instead.
So the implication of Alma was, “You have all chosen to believe in lies.” That was a tough message to sell. That is why prophets are almost uniformly persecuted in the scriptures. It’s because, what message does God have to send to anyone? It’s always the message that you need to repent. There is no-one that God would not send that message to. It’s very hard for that message to be met with approval and gratitude.
This is one of the reasons we should give thanks every day for modern revelation, and for the restoration. Because we live in a time where we don’t persecute the prophet! Anybody ever think about that? We value the prophet, and when he tells us to repent – hopefully, at least – we receive that with gratitude. Have you ever thought to yourself, what a historical anomaly that is? That there would be a prophet on the earth, and there would be millions of people who wanted to hear his message, and the message was, “You all need to repent.”
And he says it with love, right? This has always been a message of love. Nevertheless, we could receive it with anger, with defensiveness, with resentment, with bitterness. And instead, we gather in great numbers – whether in our homes or in public places and public venues – to hear the words of the prophet. And we read them as they come out; we receive them all with gratitude.
So, contrast what’s going on in ancient times, not just here in the Book of Mormon, but across the scriptures. There is rarely a prophet that has this sort of reception. Alma enjoyed that reception in Melek, but here in Ammonihah, not so much.
And the main tool that Alma uses in this discourse to drive his point home, is this idea of the second death.
So, the question of Antionah, this wicked judge – so Zeezrom is a wicked lawyer, and it’s almost like one of his superiors shows up, or perhaps steps in when he sees that Zeezrom is starting to waffle a little bit in his resolve to persecute Alma and Amulek – then Antionah steps in, and he asks about the cherubim and the flaming sword. [Alma 12:20-21] But that is a question that is intimately tied in with death. “Why should we all have to die?”
And Alma’s message really was, if you distil it, it was, “We have to die, a) because there is a probationary state that we want to end, but on a deeper level, we don’t have to die at all. We choose to die the second death, or we choose to escape it. We have that choice. And I’m here to help you escape it.”
So he almost takes the question, this entrapment question of Antionah, and he turns it around. And we don’t know exactly, we don’t have a video camera, we don’t know when Alma’s audience began to change their hearts. All we know is, that what we’re reading in chapters 11 and 12 is part of a discourse that ended up with a lot of converts. People who are willing to suffer a horrible death, rather than recant their conversion. And therefore, the things that he is saying – we’re going to talk about this a little more when we talk about chapter 13 next time – but the things that he is saying are powerfully convincing. We don’t know which of them – I wish we could know, I wish we had a little play-by-play commentary every few verses: “And it came to pass that the people reacted with oohs and aahs when Alma said this.” We don’t know.
So again, we sort of have to read between the lines to know exactly when they started to change their hearts.
But all we can do is understand what Alma’s message is, and then realise, this is part of the message so powerful that a people wicked enough to create an agitator class, to reject and cast out the prophets, later on to execute people for their beliefs, to merit several visits from an angel, inspiring people to say “repent or be destroyed,” this is the level of the wickedness of Ammonihah, and yet the message here, of Alma and Amulek, is so powerful that even this people could be convinced to repent (or at least a fair number of them).
So Alma and Amulek can gather out of Ammonihah, they’re in the process now of gathering out those righteous souls who are willing and capable of hearing the truth.
And I want to say one more thing about an agitator class: the longer it’s in operation, the harder it is for those people who are willing to change their minds, the harder it is for them to hear the voice of a prophet, the voice of the Spirit. The drowning out of that sort of outrage is too loud, spiritually. It hides the ‘still small voice’.
If you are in thrall, or if you’ve been deafened by the messages of an agitator class, of those who thrive on outrage, whose stock in trade is creating bitterness and resentment, then you can almost guarantee that you’re not going to be able hear the Spirit the way God needs you to, in order to rescue you from the destruction that surely hangs over all of us.
And the final message I want to echo, the final message of Alma that I want to echo, is slightly different, because he knew when – at least in rough terms – he knew when Jesus would come. But the message is the same. It won’t be too long, and the son of God will be among us. And he will raise us all, either raise us from the dead, or raise us to be with him.
At some point, the point of his crucifixion, as Jesus testified of this, was that “As I was raised up, God will raise all men up to the Father, to be judged according to their works.”
So again, one of the chief messages of the Book of Mormon is the tying together of restoration and resurrection. That there will come a day when Jesus comes again. And when that day comes, we will all have restored to us all that which we’ve sent out. The gifts of cleverness and wealth and cunning are all well and good, they all have their place. But as we can see in these chapters, Satan can pervert these gifts to his own ends. And so, it’s much better to have courage, faith, and loyalty, and love. Like Alma and Amulek. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.