Alma – 4th of July Post

It’s the evening of the 4th of July so the holiday is almost over but I have to write about Alma. As I studied Alma this year I noticed, more than before, that the long war between the Nephites and Lamanites teaches us the importance of liberty and freedom. In Alma 46:12-13 Moroni makes and raises the Title of Liberty. While Amalickiah was rallying his troops with flattering words Moroni was rallying his troops with a reminder of what the Nephites need to fight for and one of those things was freedom. There are so many verses about liberty and freedom I could go on forever. I will cite one more verse because this one caught my attention more than the others; that is Alma 61:15.

Therefore come unto me speedily with a few of your men and leave the remainder in the charge of Lehi and Teancum; give unto them power to conduct the war in that part of the land according to the Spirit of God which is also the Spirit of freedom which is in them.

I never caught this before that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of freedom and that the Spirit of freedom is in us. We are also taught many of the schemes of Amalickiah in getting both Lamanites and dissident Nephites to join them in his fight to destroy the Nephites and subject them to himself.

This got me thinking. Didn’t we fight for freedom in the pre-existence? Didn’t Lucifer fight to subject us to him in the pre-existence? He continues to fight to subject us to him, he’s been fighting the same battle all this time. The saying ‘freedom isn’t free’ is no joke. We must always fight for our freedom from the devil. Pahoran told Moroni something else I like in Alma 61:14.

Therefore my beloved brother, Moroni, let us resist evil, and whatsoever evil we cannot resist with our words, yea, such as rebellions and dissensions, let us resist them with our swords, that we may retain our freedom, that we may rejoice in the great privilege of our church, and in the cause of our Redeemer and our God.

The anti-Christs all used the same tool which is flattery. Amalickiah flattered the lesser judges with promises of governorship in exchange for their support. Korihor flattered people with teachings that were pleasing to the carnally minded. All the evil guys use flattery. I’ve always wondered how to combat flattery when it is so appealing. The plain truth never seems to be appealing yet here in verse 14 we learn that we must resist evil with our words which are words of truth. We may never have to fight evil with weapons but we have to fight with our words. We did it in the pre-existence, where we had no weapons, and we must continue here on earth or risk becoming subject to the devil. Then in the end we can say we fought the good fight and defended the faith. Happy 4th of July, Happy Independence Day!!!

Korihor – This Guy is GOOD

I was reading the arguments and reasoning of Korihor in Alma 30:23-28. In verse 53 he confesses that his arguments, which came from the devil disguised as an angel, were pleasing to the carnal mind. That’s why he had success. And when you look at what he taught it’s the same old same old stuff that people argue today. Some people never learn. But his arguments are really slick. If I were carnally minded I would believe him, too.

  1. Foolish ordinances and performances are meant to usurp power over the people and keep them ignorant.
  2. People are not free, they are in bondage(because of the commandments).
  3. The ancient prophecies are false.
  4. We are all guilty because of a single parent’s transgression(not taught by the prophets)
  5. No one knows that Christ will come.
  6. The prophets and priests were leading the people away because of foolish traditions and their own desires so that they could live off of their labors and keep them from enjoying their rights and privileges.
  7. They were using foolish traditions, dreams, whims, visions, pretended mysteries to keep people afraid of offending an seen and unknown god.

My sister said she was watching George Carlin on Youtube and he made the exact same arguments. Carnally, this is common sense. I saw a video on Youtube where a former member of the church said he left the church because of tithing. He claimed we need our money more than the church does, that he got sick and tired of paying tithing and he is all the more richer for leaving the church and keeping all of his money. Carnally, the making and keeping of sacred covenants through sacred ordinances in temples sounds secret society-ish or even cultish. Carnally, anybody with charisma can get up and claim to be a prophet of God and know of future events and convince people to follow them. But spiritually we know that through the Holy Ghost we can know the truth of all things. He said he had a lot of success.

What this tells me, I’m only speaking for myself, is that the church members who believed Korihor and followed him were not using their gift of the Holy Ghost to learn God’s truth. Either they were not fully converted unto Christ in the first place or they followed the prophet just because he said so and never sought any confirmation from the Holy Ghost. At that time they were living the Law of Moses which required many animal sacrifices. I can see how that could get old fast especially when they had to give their best first born animals that they could keep for themselves. But the Anti-Nephi-Lehis were so much more firm in the gospel than the Nephites.

When we use our gift of the Holy Ghost to learn truth from error God becomes our anchor. If an anti-Christ comes along and starts preaching we can know he is false by the power of the Holy Ghost. If the prophet tells us something we can know whether or not it is true by the power of the Holy Ghost. Otherwise we just believe the next good-sounding thing, being tossed to and fro with the wind. Or am I missing something?

Straight and Around

The other day I was reading Alma 37 and I noticed something I’ve never noticed before. In verse 12 it says that God’s paths are straight and his course is one eternal round. Huh? A couple of other verses in the Book of Mormon teach us the same thing. 1 Nephi 10:19 and Alma 7:20 say that the Lord’s course is one eternal round. Alma 7:20 says that he cannot walk in crooked paths or turn from right to left or vary from what he has said. But then I continued on to Alma 37:41-42 and I think I get it.

In chapter 37 Alma is counseling his son Helaman. Starting in verse 38 he teaches him about the Liahona and how it worked according to the faith and diligence of Lehi and his family. Then in verse 41 he tells Helaman that because they were not always faithful to the Lord the Liahona did not always work for them and they were halted in their journey progress through the wilderness. Verse 42 says, “Therefore they tarried in the wilderness or did not travel a direct course and were afflicted with hunger and thirst, because of their transgressions.” It took Lehi and the gang eight years to make their way through the wilderness. It didn’t have to take that long.

My understanding of God’s paths are straight and his course is one eternal round is this: The paths he sets for us are straight. The Plan of Salvation is set and all we have to do is follow it. The Atonement is in place for us to use and all we have to do is use it. The commandments are laid out clearly for us and all we have to do is keep the commandments. The required covenants are clearly laid out for us and all we have to do is make them and keep them. But his course is one eternal round. He is exalted and if we read in the Doctrine and Covenants the blessings of exaltation, they are endless. Abraham was shown God’s creations in the universe and he said he could not number them. This tells us that Heavenly Father goes through this process over and over again of creating worlds, having children, giving them physical bodies that they have to learn how to master, life never ends, creation never ends. For us, currently, we have to follow the straight path back to Heavenly Father. Then we can be on an eternally round course.

Record Keeping

Every time the question is asked, ‘What are some main themes of the Book of Mormon?’ or ‘What are some of the lessons we learn from the Book of Mormon?’ I always say, ‘Record keeping.’ And then I get weird looks from some people or questioning looks or insulted looks. Maybe record keeping doesn’t seem like an important lesson in comparison with the atonement, faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, prayer, etc. Or maybe I’m overreacting. But the more I read the book the more I see record keeping popping out of the pages.

When Lehi and his ohana left Jerusalem the Lord told him to go back and get the records kept by Laban. It was so important to retrieve these records that they were worth killing for. Nephi was told it was better for one man to perish than an entire nation to dwindle in unbelief. Right there we are taught the importance and power of those brass plates. Then when Lehi examines them in 1 Nephi 5:11-16 we find they contained what we have in the Old Testament down until king Zedekiah and we know there were many other things which we do not have today. These plates were to serve as their scriptures, history book, and genealogy book. I love verse 17 which says, ‘And now when my father saw all these things he was filled with the Spirit…’ Studying scriptures fills us with the Spirit.

Later in Mosiah 1:3-7 king Benjamin teaches us that because of the brass plates we can know the mysteries of God, the commandments of God, things will not be forgotten because they are written down, we will not dwindle in unbelief. But what he said in verse 5 caught my eye this time reading. He said that without the brass plates, “we should have been like unto our brethren the Lamanites who know nothing concerning these things, or even do not believe them when they are taught them because of the traditions of their fathers, which are incorrect.” ZAPP! When we teach our children things contrary to what the scriptures teach us we make it hard for them to believe the truth when it is taught to them. Every time the Book of Mormon talks about the traditions of the Lamanites’ fathers that’s Laman and Lemuel who had the brass plates in their faces but chose to teach their children something else. This makes me worried about what I’m teaching my Sunday school class.

The book of Omni certainly teaches us the dangers of not having records in verses 17-18. The Mulekites brought no records with them and because of that their language became corrupt, they had many civil wars, and they completely forgot about God. I wonder why they were not commanded to bring records with them or even to keep records. Maybe it’s because God would later send them the Nephites. Who knows? By the time everyone is gathered together in Zarahemla the people have a plethora of records. They have the brass plates, the plates of Nephi, the record of Zeniff, the record of Alma and the Jaredite record.

In the Book of Mormon record keeping is a commandment. In the Bible it is mentioned throughout the Old Testament, especially, that records were kept but not by way of commandment. I wonder if that is one of the plain and precious truths that was taken out of the Bible through its many translations.

Jacob 3:5-7 A Lesson From the Lamanites

In the beginning of the record of Zeniff he said that when he found the land of Nephi and observed the Laminates, he saw good among them(Mosiah 9:1). His original intent was to use force to kick them out but after what he saw he changed his mind. He figured they could be reasoned with. In these verses in Jacob we find out what that good was. They kept the commandment to have only one wife and no concubines or prostitutes. The Nephites, on the other hand, were not keeping this commandment and Jacob had to give them verbal cracks for this sin. But even more than that the Lamanites had loving families. Verse 7 tells us that husbands loved their wives, wives loved their husbands and together they loved their children. And before that in verse 6 we are told that because of their obedience to this one commandment that the Lord would bless them and preserve them. That’s how important families are. My question now is, is that why the Lamanites were always so much more numerous than the Nephites? The Nephites are always outnumbered by Laminates and even Mulekites. Who knows…

Mosiah 18:8-11 Baptismal covenants

This is my Easter post. Anybody else wanna make an Easter comment? Go fo’ broke! Anyway, this is when Alma is baptizing people at the waters of Mormon and he is about to baptize the first convert, Helam. Verse 9 is where the old YW theme came from, the whole thing about standing as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places.

I love how Alma tells them the sacrament prayer without saying the sacrament prayer. In the sacrament prayer we partake of the bread as a witness to God that we are willing to take upon ourselves the name of Christ. What religion are we? We are Christians. We are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We are NOT Mormons, nor are we members of the Mormon church. Alma asks the people in verse 8, “…and now as ye are desirous to come unto the fold of God and to be called his people…”. President Nelson has asked us to call ourselves what we truly are and he reminded us in this past conference that when we take Christ’s name out of His church we take Him out of the picture, as well.

The second reason why we take the sacrament is to witness to God that we always remember Him. Does this mean we merely remember Him without being inspired to do anything about what we remember? After we take upon ourselves the name of Christ I think the next big question we need to ask ourselves is, ‘do I think, speak, and act according to what I remember of Christ’s teachings?’ The primary song, “If The Savior Stood Beside Me”, asks all of these questions. In verse 9 Alma continues, “Yea and are willing to mourn with those that mourn: yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and stand as witnesses of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death…”. Always remembering Him means we think, speak, and act according to Christ’s teachings so that when we declare that we are members of His church people will say, “That makes sense.”

The third reason why we take the sacrament is to witness to God that we will keep His commandments. In verse 10 Alma continues, “…if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?” And this is exactly how the sacrament prayer ends with the promise to always have his Spirits with us. In this day and age how can anyone survive without the guidance of the Holy Ghost?

I don’t know why I think these verses are really cool, but I do. Verse 11, for me, was the real kicker. It says the people clapped their hands and joyfully declared, “This is the desire of our hearts.” And then Alma began to baptize everybody. This got me thinking about my attitude when I take the sacrament. I’ve been doing it all wrong. Getting baptized is exciting. Getting baptized was my first meaningful spiritual experience that I can remember. Taking the sacrament is the time for us to renew and remember our covenants we made with Lord at baptism and in the temple. But how many times have I taken the sacrament and remembered the joy I felt when I first made these covenants with the Lord, and how many times have I taken the sacrament and remembered the desire I had to serve the Lord and keep the commandments? How many times do I take the sacrament with joy in my heart because of my desire to keep these covenants? Seriously, zero, I’m always grouchy and stressed, not to mention tired and hungry. Today, these verses taught me that sacrament should not only be a reverent time for us to reflect on our spiritual progress and remember the atonement but it should also be a time of joy. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Words of Mormon 1:12-18 King Benjamin the Super Stud

Why have I never noticed these verses before? I wish I did. This is a seven verse summary of king Benjamin. To me, when king Benjamin gathers his people and gives them his speech in Mosiah 1-5, the man seems to appear out of nowhere. I remember in seminary and in institute class that the emphasis on him was always his speech and the setting of his speech at the temple and how he got the word out without a microphone and how we need to face the temple, etc. It’s an amazing speech no doubt but after reading these seven verses his speech is even more amazing. These verses teach us what kind of a king, what kind of a prophet, and what kind of a disciple of Christ he truly was.

In verse 12 Mormon tells us that there were contentions in the land. Verses 13-14 tell about battles with the Lamanites, that king Benjamin fought with his armies using the sword of Laban. He didn’t sit back on his throne and wait to hear how the fighting was going and wait to hear what his armies needed, he was out there on the battleground more interested in fighting for his people than preserving his own life. Verse 14 starts by telling us, “And in the strength of the Lord they did contend against their enemies…” He was a king that relied on the Lord to guide him and strengthen him and he taught his people to do the same.

Verses 15-16 tell us about the false people in the land. There were false Christs, false prophets, false preachers, false teachers, and many Nephites who dissented over to the Lamanites. That means that between Sherem and Mosiah chapter 1 the anti-Christs never stopped coming. The three infamous anti-Christs we read about and always talk about are just samples, according to these two verses. We know what happens when the falsies come. People follow them.

From verses 16-18 we are told that king Benjamin was a holy man and that he had holy prophets in the land. I love what verse 18 says, “king Benjamin, by laboring with all the might of his body and the faculty of his whole soul, and also the prophets, did once more establish peace in the land.” After fighting physically with his armies he then gathered his army of holy prophets and he fought spiritually for his people to establish spiritual peace in the land.

King Benjamin was both a fierce physical warrior and spiritual warrior. It makes sense then that when he called his people to gather at the temple they came. They didn’t come because he was the king and must be obeyed, they came because they were a people at peace due to his extremely hard work. And even though they were not all able to hear him and had to wait for papers to be passed out they did not leave because they knew that he had important things to say to them. I always read Mosiah chapters 1-2 and think if I were there in the hot sun, unable to hear him I would get bored fast and leave. But after reading these seven verses I know I wouldn’t get bored or leave.

We all know that Mormon did not have a lot of space to write and he always sounds like he didn’t have a lot of time and he always says he can’t write a hundredth part of all the records but some day I would love to be able to read all those plates about king Benjamin.

Jacob 7 Flattering speech, unshakeable faith and sign seeking

For me, there is a lot going on in this chapter. In verses 2 and 4 Jacob talks about the language skills of Sherem the anti-Christ. In verse 2 Sherem uses flattery to overthrow the doctrine of Christ. And in verse 4 he is said to have a perfect knowledge of the language of the people. I never thought about these verses before but now I can’t help but wonder — what kind of excessive, insincere praises can one give in order to overthrow the doctrine of Christ? I don’t know. It would be nice if some examples were given. Or maybe I do know but I just don’t know I know. Verse 4 also says that with his language skills he was able to flatter and use ‘much power of speech’. Is power of speech persuasion skills? He must have had a very high vocabulary so that he could sound intellectual.

Whatever kind of speech mojo Sherem had it worked. This is what always gives me chills when I read about the three anti-Christs specifically mentioned in the Book of Mormon. They were successful! In verse 3 it says that he was able to lead many away from the truth. YIKES! The people were that easy? Apparently yes. But for Sherem it wasn’t enough, he wanted Jacob.

In verse 5 Jacob lists the many spiritual experiences he had had with revelations, angels, speaking with the Lord and he ends the verse by saying, “I could not be shaken.” This statement got me thinking, what experiences have I had that render my faith in God and Jesus Christ unshakeable? I’m still working on that one but one thing I do know is that the scriptures teach us how to have unshakeable faith. They teach us what we need to know, what we need to say, and what we need to do. Honestly, this statement by Jacob kind of makes me nervous. Could I ever be that easy to sway from the truth?

One thing I’ve learned from studying the scriptures is that when the devil, his demons, or his earthly servants, like Sherem, command, the faithful do not obey. When Satan tempted Christ three times after he fasted for 40 days, Christ did not obey. He could’ve turned the rocks into bread but it would have been at Satan’s tempting. When Satan tried to get Moses to worship him, Moses did not obey. When Daniel and his three amigos were told to eat the king’s meat and drink his wine and worship his pagan god, they did not obey. And when Sherem told Jacob to show him a sign of the truth of Christ’s coming and atonement, Jacob did not obey.

Here’s what cracks me up about sign seekers. They want a sign to prove to them that there is a god but due to their lack of faith they will never be able to believe the truth about anything in the gospel no matter what signs they receive. In Sherem’s case it worked because he was actually in denial about what he already knew to be true and the sign was pretty severe. But I’ve finally come to understand the phrase ‘faith precedes the miracle’. Faith opens up our minds to see possibilities that have not yet materialized and enables us to then make things come true. The other thing about sign seekers is that they want physical signs to prove spiritual truth. Hmmmmm……….

Ezra 2:61-63 Know your genealogy!

These verses caught my eye because these sorry, lost people couldn’t find their names among the genealogy registers and were put from the priesthood and they were polluted and could not eat of the most holy things. I think they were polluted by genealogy, too. It says ‘most holy’ so I’m guessing there were degrees of holy things of which to partake. But these three short verses really got me thinking of the importance of genealogy in the grand scheme of things.

Securing our link back to Adam and Eve through genealogy research and the making and keeping of sacred ordinances links us into priesthood power. When we do temple work for the dead we give our kupuna the opportunity to make the choice to link themselves in the priesthood chain, or not. I remember Pres. Hinkley advised us to not be the weak link in our family chain. He did not talk about the family as a tree and warn us not to be the weak branch of the tree. He compared the family to a chain. I understood him then and I understand him now. But after these verses I see it a little differently.

As illustrated by these people in Ezra, in the eternal worlds we can only participate in the ‘most holy’ blessings of exaltation if we can find our names in the genealogy registers and be found unpolluted. If we refuse the ordinances of the temple or refuse to valiantly keep the covenants we made in the temple then we have no place in the genealogy registers and become ‘put from the priesthood’ as the good book says and can only partake of the lesser holy blessings of the lesser degrees of glory.

I guess that’s why we are taught that in the lesser degree kingdoms there will be no eternal families. Those will be the people who chose not to get linked in. They’re just individual links, even if a whole family makes that choice.

Acts 5:1-10 Ananias and Sapphira

I remember when I first heard this story either in Sunday school or seminary and I thought their punishment was crazy. But then when I read more closely I realized that at that time the saints were living the law of consecration. I’ve heard a certain tv preacher say, “They died because they lied to the Lord.” Well if they died because they lied wouldn’t we all be dead by now?

Under the law of consecration we consecrate everything to the Lord, we recognize that everything we have comes from the Lord, we willingly give all we have and use all we have to further His work. We are not sacrificing or giving up things for the Lord but rather we are giving back to the Lord what was always His. It is a higher law that requires a higher level of spiritual enlightenment, let’s call it. Isn’t it true that if one sins against a greater light one suffers a greater consequence? And that’s why they dropped dead. Auwe!