Book of Mormon Lesson
# 26 Alma 23–29
Converted unto the Lord
Introduction
Now we come full circle in the fourteen year missions of Alma, and Ammon
and his brethren. Alma has reconfirmed the churches in Zarahemla, and Ammon and
his brethren come back with thousands of Lamanites who call themselves the
Anti-Nephi-Lehies. You might ask what anti-nephi-lehies
means and why they would call themselves that (or why Lamoni’s father gave his
(Lamoni’s) brother that name). Good question. BYU has a study group working on
an onomasticon or origin of names,
and you can find their analysis here. https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/ANTI-NEPHI-LEHI. I am not sure we will know the
full answer until we can ask someone who was there. At any rate, they were no
longer aligned with the Lamanites and were not fully Nephites. Interestingly,
except for a lone Amalekite, they did not include any of the apostate Nephites
(Amalekites and Amulonites; see Alma 23:14). Was this lone Amalekite perhaps
Abish—again, a question for another time.
1. The Anti-Nephi-Lehies are converted to the Lord. Alma 23–24.
Few of us who have come into the Church from
other faiths will have to face the kind of trials that the Anti-Nephi-Lehies
did, nor, as missionaries, go through what Alma and Amulek, Ammon, Aaron and
their brethren did to get them there. It is remarkable that, according to Alma 23:6
and 27:27, “as many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were
converted unto the Lord, never did fall away. . . . And they were also
distinguished for their zeal towards God, and also towards men; for they were
perfectly honest and upright in all things; and they were firm in the faith of
Christ, even unto the end.” President Hinckley tells us how we can have this
level of commitment for ourselves and those who come into the Church from other
faiths: “With the increase of missionary work throughout the world, there must
be a comparable increase in the effort to make every convert feel at home in
his or her ward or branch. Enough people will come into the Church this year to
constitute more than 100 new average-size stakes. Unfortunately, with this
acceleration in conversions, we are neglecting some of these new members. I am
hopeful that a great effort will go forward throughout the Church, throughout
the world, to retain every convert who comes into the Church. This is serious
business. There is no point in doing missionary work unless we hold on to the
fruits of that effort. The two must be inseparable” (Ensign, Nov. 1997, 50). That was 1997; the Church has grown
nearly 6 million since then. Over a quarter million converts were baptized last
year alone.
Let’s look at what the people of Ammon, as
they came to be called, covenanted to do and did as a result: Alma 23:6; 16;
24:6–10; 15–17; 26:31. What was the reaction of the Lamanites and, separately,
the Amalekites and Amulonites? Lamoni’s brother is their king and he addresses
this people who have separated themselves from their brethren but are still in
Lamanite territory. And he shows just how well he has embraced the Gospel: “And
I also thank my God, yea, my great God, that he hath granted unto us that we
might repent of these things, and also that he hath forgiven us of those our
many sins and murders which we have committed, and taken away the guilt from
our hearts, through the merits of his Son” (Alma 24:10). Here’s Elder Packer, “For
some reason we think the Atonement of Christ applies only at the end of mortal
life to redemption from the Fall, from spiritual death. It is much more than
that. It is an ever-present power to call upon in everyday life. When we are
racked or harrowed up or tormented by guilt or burdened with grief, He can heal
us. While we do not fully understand how the Atonement of Christ was made, we
can experience ‘the peace of God, which passeth all understanding’ [Philippians
4:7]. … We all
make mistakes. Sometimes we harm ourselves and seriously injure others in ways
that we alone cannot repair. We break things that we alone cannot fix. It is
then in our nature to feel guilt and humiliation and suffering, which we alone
cannot cure. That is when the healing power of the Atonement will help. The
Lord said, ‘Behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might
not suffer if they would repent’ [D&C
19:16]. … The
Atonement has practical, personal, everyday value; apply it in your life. It
can be activated with so simple a beginning as prayer. You will not thereafter
be free from trouble and mistakes but can erase the guilt through repentance
and be at peace” (Ensign, May 2001,
23–24). I am reminded of Pres. Nelson’s story of the father and brother of the
two little girls whom he had not been able to save.[1]
Regarding burying their weapons, Elder L. Tom
Perry said, “While the message of the story is not to insist on universal
pacifism, we do learn that by not returning aggressions from others we can have
a profound effect on them. Literally, we can change their hearts when we follow
Christ’s example and turn the other cheek. Our examples as peaceable followers
of Christ inspire others to follow him” (Living
with Enthusiasm [1996], 127–28).
2. The Anti-Nephi-Lehies seek safety among the Nephites. Alma 27–28.
In chapter 25, we preface what have come to be
known as the war chapters. And we see
that the destruction of Ammonihah actually came about as a reaction to the
conversion of many Lamanites— a reaction against the Nephites, irrational
perhaps, but in the vein of “look what you made me do,” blaming the Nephites
for “making” them kill their brethren. One wonders if, given the chance, the
Ammonihahites would have dissented and joined the Amalekites as part of the
Lamanite nation if this had not happened. Chapter 25 also sees the final
destruction of the Lamanite/Amulonites (25:4) in fulfillment of Abinadi’s
prophecy. We will look at chapter 26 in
conjunction with chapter 29.
My master’s thesis was inspired by the Cities
of Refuge in the Old Testament, but I examined Jershon as a possible city of
refuge in the Book of Mormon. Certainly it was a place of refuge for the people
of Ammon and the terms for the original cities of refuge were obeyed to a
certain extent. There is an interesting “know-why” about Jershon here: https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/why-was-jershon-called-a-land-of-inheritance.
I had a chapter in the FARMS book Echoes
and Evidences in the Book of Mormon that talks about smiting off arms and
Jershon. You can find that here if you are interested: http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1082&index=13.
The Atonement is all-encompassing, and here,
for the people of Ammon as they were known when they moved to Jershon, a whole
people receives blessings and forgiveness through their faithful belief in
Christ who was yet to come. Pres. Hunter explains how the forgiving attitude of
those in Zarahemla, newly re-converted by Alma translates to modern life: “Consider,
for example, this instruction from Christ to his disciples. He said, ‘Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you, and persecute you’ (Matthew 5:44). Think what
this admonition alone would do in your neighborhood and mine, in the
communities in which you and your children live, in the nations which make up
our great global family. I realize this doctrine poses a significant challenge,
but surely it is a more agreeable challenge than the terrible tasks posed for
us by the war and poverty and pain the world continues to face. … We all
have significant opportunity to practice Christianity, and we should try it at
every opportunity. For example, we can all be a little more forgiving” (Ensign, Nov. 1992, 18).
Regarding Alma 27:27, Elder Renlund said, “Their zeal towards God likely
reflects an eagerness to please God and worship Him with fervor and passion.
Their zeal towards men suggests an ardent interest in helping and serving
others. Being perfectly upright and honest in all things suggests that they
held their covenants firmly and did not rationalize their commitments to God or
man. We further know that they taught their children the gospel in their homes.
We know that they buried their weapons of war, distancing themselves from
temptations. They must have frequently assessed the condition of their
spiritually changed hearts. They did not simply assume that all was well. By
figuratively examining their changed hearts, they could identify any early
hardening or rejection and treat it.”[2]
How can we emulate these characteristics and practices?
Elder Scott takes the example of these Ammonites through to a later time
in their lives: “It is a fundamental truth that through the Atonement of Jesus
Christ we can be cleansed. We can become virtuous and pure. However, sometimes
our poor choices leave us with long-term consequences. One of the vital steps
to complete repentance is to bear the short- and long-term consequences of our
past sins. Their past choices had exposed these Ammonite fathers to a carnal
appetite that could again become a point of vulnerability that Satan would
attempt to exploit. Satan will try to use our memory of any previous guilt to
lure us back into his influence. We must be ever vigilant to avoid his
enticements. Such was the case of the faithful Ammonite fathers. Even after
their years of faithful living, it was imperative for them to protect
themselves spiritually from any attraction to the memory of past sins.”[3]
The Nephites in brotherly love and forgiveness
protect the now-pacifist Ammonites in Jershon, with terrible consequences. Tens
of thousands slain of both Lamanite aggressors and Nephite defenders. The last
two verses of chapter 28 are some of the most poignant in the Book of Mormon in
my opinion: “And thus we see how great the inequality of man is because of sin
and transgression, and the power of the devil, which comes by the cunning plans
which he hath devised to ensnare the hearts of men. And thus we see the great
call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyards of the Lord; and thus we see
the great reason of sorrow, and also of rejoicing—sorrow because of death and
destruction among men, and joy because of the light of Christ unto life.”
3. Ammon and Alma rejoice in the accomplishment of the Lord’s work. Alma 26, 29.
Despite the great tragedy behind and before
them, both Ammon and Alma show their gratitude to the Lord for the miracle of
conversion both in the seven churches centered around Zarahemla and among the
Lamanites now living in Jershon. Both sets of missionaries desired to bring the
gospel to their mission areas Here is Elder Maxwell: “Desires … become real
determinants, even when, with pitiful naïveté, we do not really want the
consequences of our desires. … Therefore, what we insistently desire, over
time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in
eternity. … Remember,
brothers and sisters, it is our own desires which determine the sizing and the
attractiveness of various temptations. We set our thermostats as to
temptations. Thus, educating and training our desires clearly requires
understanding the truths of the gospel, yet even more is involved. . . . God
thus takes into merciful account not only our desires and our performance, but
also the degrees of difficulty which our varied circumstances impose upon us.
No wonder we will not complain at the final judgment, especially since even the
telestial kingdom’s glory ‘surpasses all understanding’ (D&C 76:89). God
delights in blessing us, especially when we realize ‘joy in that which [we]
have desired’” (D&C 7:8).
Br. Adair introduced us a
couple of weeks ago to the new “Teaching in the Savior’s Way” resource which is
downloadable to your Gospel Study app and here: https://www.lds.org/callings/teachers?lang=eng&cid=rdb_short-url_teaching_eng_teaching.
We are all teachers in one way or another, and
hopefully we all find the joy that Alma and Ammon express when we teach with
the Spirit and what we teach is received by the Spirit.
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