I would be remiss if I didn't comment about my long hiatus
from posting on this blog. My sincere
apologies! I hope my future posts will
not be so few and far between. All I can
offer as a flimsy excuse is writer's block, or intimidation, or time constraints,
take your pick. I certainly did not lose
my testimony of the Book of Mormon. For
some reason (as I said, pick one above) I delayed my posts...
That said, I will proceed with my comments, continuing with
Alma chapter 9.
This chapter contains Alma's address to the people of
Ammonihah, a city whose people " ...Satan had gotten great hold upon the
hearts of... " (Alma 8:9). You'll
recall that Alma had already been to Ammonihah and had been forcibly removed
from the city. In this chapter Alma
delivers a fiery message to the people, and the people responded angrily:
"...they began to contend with me, saying:
'Who art thou? Suppose ye that we shall believe the testimony of one
man, although he should preach unto us that the earth should pass away? We will not believe thy words if thou
shouldst prophesy that this great city should be destroyed in one day. Who is God, that sendeth no more authority
than one man among this people, to declare unto them the truth of such great
and marvelous things?'" (Alma 9:1,2,4,6).
I would speculate that they had not forgotten Alma’s previous
visit. I can imagine their reaction to
be something like “didn’t we throw you out once already?” I think that Alma’s previous visit must have
hit some tender spots with the people of Ammonihah for them to react so
strongly. Have you ever had a rocky
relationship with someone and then had a heated discussion with them? It seems that things past always come out in
such a situation, doesn’t it? Do we
hold any grudges? I would think that a
grudge is not something that the Lord would have us nurture. “Wherefore, I say unto you,
that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that
forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord;
for there remaineth in him the greater sin.” (D&C 64:9)
The Ammonihahites, stirred by their anger and undoubtedly
by Satan's promptings, tried to take Alma physically. Alma comments simply that they did not. I wonder how he avoided being
accosted... Perhaps his next words
stopped them short, for Alma asks them: “... have ye forgotten the tradition of your
fathers; yea, how soon ye have forgotten the commandments of God… Do ye not remember that our father, Lehi, was
brought out of Jerusalem by the hand of God? Do ye not remember that they were
all led by him through the wilderness?
And have ye forgotten so soon how many times he delivered our fathers
out of the hands of their enemies… do ye
not remember the words which he spake unto Lehi, saying that: Inasmuch as ye
shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land?” (Alma 9:8, 12-14,18-19,24)
Verse 14 of chapter 9 gives us Alma’s main theme of this
part of his address: “Now I would that ye should remember…” This is good advice for each of us. When we are tempted, we should remember the
goodness of the Lord in our lives. I
know that each of us has been touched in some way by the Lord’s goodness. He has blessed me many times, almost too many
times to remember, yet if I do remember these times, and remember them vividly,
my testimony is bolstered.
Alma then delivers the message that the Lord sent him back
to give. To the Ammonihahites, it should
be taken as a dire warning. He asks the people if they have forgotten the commandments
of God, then proclaims:
“Behold [the Lord] commandeth you to
repent; and except ye repent, ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God... he
has commanded you to repent, or he will utterly destroy you from off the face
of the earth; yea, he will visit you in his anger, and in his fierce anger he
will not turn away” (Alma 9:12). Alma
reiterates this grave warning and makes it clearly understood: “if ye
persist in your wickedness ... your days shall not be prolonged in the land,
for the Lamanites shall be sent upon you… and ye shall be visited with utter
destruction; and it shall be according to the fierce anger of the Lord”
(Alma 9:18).
Alma reminds the people of the Lord’s promise to father
Lehi: “Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land
[and] Inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from the
presence of the Lord” (Alma 9:13).
Alma then verifies the Lord’s promise “[The] Lamanites have not kept the commandments of God, they have been
cut off from the presence of the Lord” (Alma 9:14).
Finally, Alma reiterates the Lord’s warning: “…he
will not suffer you that ye shall live in your iniquities, to destroy his
people … after having had so much light and so much knowledge given unto [you]
of the Lord … The Lord has expressly… decreed that if ye will rebel against him
that ye shall utterly be destroyed from off the face of the earth” (Alma
9:18,24).
This should have been an alarming and sobering warning,
coming from the servant of the Lord, the high priest of the Church. Yet the people of Ammonihah, instead of being
alarmed and chagrined, were angered. In their anger, the people tried to cast him into their prison. The Lord did not permit them to do this,
though.
There are several things to think about from this chapter. I firmly believe that the Ammonihahites did
not devolve into their wickedness suddenly… it involved a slow slipping away
from righteousness, bit by bit, first inattentive to spiritual things, then neglectful,
then indifferent and so on until they were fully ripe for destruction. I hope I never fall away from the church, and
especially so far that I would warrant such a serious warning. But it makes me pause and wonder… what things do we allow in our lives that would draw us away from faithfulness? We must evaluate our spiritual well-being
while we are in the best position to remedy potential problems. One way to assess our faithfulness is by taking
a spiritual inventory of ourselves, coupled with sincere personal prayer on a
regular basis.
May we each strive to be obedient to the commandments our
Father has given to us. May we each
partake of his love and approval in our faithfulness.
Don
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