Book of Mormon Lesson #33 Helaman 1-5--Sara

Where did your name come from? Was it a name your parents just liked or were you named after a relative you never got to meet? Or were you one of the lucky ones whose parents decided to combine two names and create yours?

 When I was in elementary school, I remember my name was everything to me. I wrote it on everything and if there was another Sara (which there ALWAYS was) I felt like I had to prove that I was the BEST Sara. I would get mortally offended when someone would spell my name wrong and was fiercely proud that my name means princess. 

Names must be important to the Lord because one of the first things we can give children before the Lord is a name and a blessing. Then, at baptism, we take upon ourselves the name of Christ, then when we receive our endowment we receive a new name, and finally when women are sealed to their spouses in many instances they take on their husband's name. When I got married and changed my name, I loved the symbolism of it. I was choosing give up who I was before, the name everyone knew me under, so I could belong to my husband. I legally changed my identity so that the world would now know that I belonged to him.

Why are names so prevalent in the ordinances of the gospel? Why does the Lord want us to learn by using our names, giving us new ones, and sometimes even changing the ones we have? If you want a fascinating thing to study this week, look for the roll of names in the scriptures and how we are taught with them.

In Helaman chapter 5 verses 5-6, Nephi and Lehi reflect on what their father Helaman had told them about their names:

For they remembered the words which their father Helaman spake unto them. And these are the words which he spake:
Behold, my sons, I desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God; and I would that ye should declare unto the people these words. Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.

President George Albert Smith (1870–1951) had this experience:

“One day … I lost consciousness of my surroundings and thought I had passed to the Other Side. I found myself standing with my back to a large and beautiful lake, facing a great forest of trees. …
“I began to explore, and soon I found a trail through the woods which seemed to have been used very little, and which was almost obscured by grass. I followed this trail, and after I had walked for some time and had traveled a considerable distance through the forest, I saw a man coming towards me. I became aware that he was a very large man, and I hurried my steps to reach him, because I recognized him as my grandfather. In mortality he weighed over three hundred pounds, so you may know he was a large man. I remember how happy I was to see him coming. I had been given his name and had always been proud of it.
“When Grandfather came within a few feet of me, he stopped. His stopping was an invitation for me to stop. Then—and this I would like the boys and girls and young people never to forget—he looked at me very earnestly and said:
“‘I would like to know what you have done with my name.’
“Everything I had ever done passed before me as though it were a flying picture on a screen—everything I had done. Quickly this vivid retrospect came down to the very time I was standing there. My whole life had passed before me. I smiled and looked at my grandfather and said:
“‘I have never done anything with your name of which you need be ashamed.’
“He stepped forward and took me in his arms, and as he did so, I became conscious again of my earthly surroundings. My pillow was as wet as though water had been poured on it—wet with tears of gratitude that I could answer unashamed.
“I have thought of this many times, and I want to tell you that I have been trying, more than ever since that time, to take care of that name. So I want to say to the boys and girls, to the young men and women, to the youth of the Church and of all the world: Honor your fathers and your mothers. Honor the names that you bear, because some day you will have the privilege and the obligation of reporting to them (and to your Father in heaven) what you have done with their name” (“Your Good Name,” Improvement Era,Mar. 1947, 139).

 I was named after my great grandma and kind of my great aunt (she claimed me and was convinced I was named for her). Any time I am really tempted to do something bad I think of them saying, "Sara Evelyn, what do you think you are doing?!" Being accountable to someone who I know and can see their faces in my mind or feel like they might be watching, has made it a lot easier to avoid big pitfalls.

I love what Alison talked about last week about the smoke stacks in Provo. How tall they were and how long they had been there and how quickly they fell down. I've been thinking about that as I have been reading Helaman 5:12:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

 We live in the old heart of Provo. I think that I can safely say we have all seen bad foundations. In my last singles ward, one of the men's housing units had a tree growing up through their air vent! Usually when we think about poor foundations I think we have a mental image of the wise man and the foolish man where the complete house washes away or those smoke stacks being blown up. But cracks in foundations let things through...unwanted things and can lead to complete destruction.

Why is Christ the only sure foundation? How do we build on a foundation of Christ?

Elder David A. Bednar said:

Ordinances and covenants are the building blocks we use to construct our lives upon the foundation of Christ and His Atonement. We are connected securely to and with the Savior as we worthily receive ordinances and enter into covenants, faithfully remember and honor those sacred commitments, and do our best to live in accordance with the obligations we have accepted. And that bond is the source of spiritual strength and stability in all of the seasons of our lives.
We can be blessed to hush our fears as we firmly establish our desires and deeds upon the sure foundation of the Savior through our ordinances and covenants (2015–A:46, David A. Bednar, Therefore They Hushed Their Fears).

Going back to Helaman 5:12, what is the role of remembering in the gospel?

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) taught:

“When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is? It could be remember. Because all of you have made covenants—you know what to do and you know how to do it—our greatest need is to remember. That is why everyone goes to sacrament meeting every Sabbath day—to take the sacrament and listen to the priests pray that they ‘may always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them.’ Nobody should ever forget to go to sacrament meeting. Remember is the word. Remember is the program” (“Circles of Exaltation” [address to Church Educational System religious educators, June 28, 1968], 5).

A good way to build upon the foundation of Christ is to remember him. I hope that you earnestly try to remember Christ this week and that you can see His hand and know that He loves you and is there.

Stake Conference

And you thought because it was Stake Conference this Sunday that you wouldn't have a post to help prepare you? For shame. Alison and I decided to post the talk that the Stake Presidency wants you to read before Saturday so that the few of you who are in the habit of checking will have something for this week and next! Yes, we really do love you that much. Thank you so much for checking in!

A Prayer for the Children

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland 

April 2003

At the close of His first day teaching among the Nephite faithful, the resurrected Jesus turned His attention to a special audience which often stands just below the level of our gaze, sometimes nearly out of sight.

The sacred record says: “He commanded that their little children should be brought [forward]. …

“And … when they had knelt upon the ground, … he himself also knelt … ; and behold he prayed unto the Father, and the things which he prayed cannot be written, … so great and marvelous [were the] things … [He did] speak unto the Father. …

“… When Jesus had made an end of praying …, he arose; … and … wept, … and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and [again] prayed unto the Father for them.

“And when he had done this he wept again; … [saying] unto the multitude, … Behold your little ones.”

We cannot know exactly what the Savior was feeling in such a poignant moment, but we do know that He was “troubled” and that He “groaned within himself” over the destructive influences always swirling around the innocent.1 We know He felt a great need to pray for and bless the children.

In such times as we are in, whether the threats be global or local or in individual lives, I too pray for the children. Some days it seems that a sea of temptation and transgression inundates them, simply washes over them before they can successfully withstand it, before they should have to face it. And often at least some of the forces at work seem beyond our personal control.

Well, some of them may be beyond our control, but I testify with faith in the living God that they are not beyond His. He lives, and priesthood power is at work on both sides of the veil. We are not alone, and we do not tremble as if abandoned. In doing our part, we can live the gospel and defend its principles. We can declare to others the sure Way, the saving Truth, the joyful Life.2 We can personally repent in any way we need to repent, and when we have done all, we can pray. In all these ways we can bless one another and especially those who need our protection the most—the children. As parents we can hold life together the way it is always held together—with love and faith, passed on to the next generation, one child at a time.

In offering such a prayer for the young, may I address a rather specific aspect of their safety? In this I speak carefully and lovingly to any of the adults of the Church, parents or otherwise, who may be given to cynicism or skepticism, who in matters of whole-souled devotion always seem to hang back a little, who at the Church’s doctrinal campsite always like to pitch their tents out on the periphery of religious faith. To all such—whom we do love and wish were more comfortable camping nearer to us—I say, please be aware that the full price to be paid for such a stance does not always come due in your lifetime. No, sadly, some elements of this can be a kind of profligate national debt, with payments coming out of your children’s and grandchildren’s pockets in far more expensive ways than you ever intended it to be.

In this Church there is an enormous amount of room—and scriptural commandment—for studying and learning, for comparing and considering, for discussion and awaiting further revelation. We all learn “line upon line, precept upon precept,”3 with the goal being authentic religious faith informing genuine Christlike living. In this there is no place for coercion or manipulation, no place for intimidation or hypocrisy. But no child in this Church should be left with uncertainty about his or her parents’ devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Restoration of His Church, and the reality of living prophets and apostles who, now as in earlier days, lead that Church according to “the will of the Lord, … the mind of the Lord, … the word of the Lord, … and the power of God unto salvation.”4 In such basic matters of faith, prophets do not apologize for requesting unity, indeed conformity, in the eloquent sense that the Prophet Joseph Smith used that latter word.5 In any case, as Elder Neal Maxwell once said to me in a hallway conversation, “There didn’t seem to be any problem with conformity the day the Red Sea opened.”

Parents simply cannot flirt with skepticism or cynicism, then be surprised when their children expand that flirtation into full-blown romance. If in matters of faith and belief children are at risk of being swept downstream by this intellectual current or that cultural rapid, we as their parents must be more certain than ever to hold to anchored, unmistakable moorings clearly recognizable to those of our own household. It won’t help anyone if we go over the edge with them, explaining through the roar of the falls all the way down that we really did know the Church was true and that the keys of the priesthood really were lodged there but we just didn’t want to stifle anyone’s freedom to think otherwise. No, we can hardly expect the children to get to shore safely if the parents don’t seem to know where to anchor their own boat. Isaiah once used a variation on such imagery when he said of unbelievers, “[Their] tacklings are loosed; they could not … strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail.”6

I think some parents may not understand that even when they feel secure in their own minds regarding matters of personal testimony, they can nevertheless make that faith too difficult for their children to detect. We can be reasonably active, meeting-going Latter-day Saints, but if we do not live lives of gospel integrity and convey to our children powerful heartfelt convictions regarding the truthfulness of the Restoration and the divine guidance of the Church from the First Vision to this very hour, then those children may, to our regret but not surprise, turn out not to be visibly active, meeting-going Latter-day Saints or sometimes anything close to it.

Not long ago Sister Holland and I met a fine young man who came in contact with us after he had been roaming around through the occult and sorting through a variety of Eastern religions, all in an attempt to find religious faith. His father, he admitted, believed in nothing whatsoever. But his grandfather, he said, was actually a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “But he didn’t do much with it,” the young man said. “He was always pretty cynical about the Church.” From a grandfather who is cynical to a son who is agnostic to a grandson who is now looking desperately for what God had already once given his family! What a classic example of the warning Elder Richard L. Evans once gave.

Said he: “Sometimes some parents mistakenly feel that they can relax a little as to conduct and conformity or take perhaps a so called liberal view of basic and fundamental things—thinking that a little laxness or indulgence won’t matter—or they may fail to teach or to attend Church, or may voice critical views. Some parents … seem to feel that they can ease up a little on the fundamentals without affecting their family or their family’s future. But,” he observed, “if a parent goes a little off course, the children are likely to exceed the parent’s example.”7

To lead a child (or anyone else!), even inadvertently, away from faithfulness, away from loyalty and bedrock belief simply because we want to be clever or independent is license no parent nor any other person has ever been given. In matters of religion a skeptical mind is not a higher manifestation of virtue than is a believing heart, and analytical deconstruction in the field of, say, literary fiction can be just plain old-fashioned destruction when transferred to families yearning for faith at home. And such a deviation from the true course can be deceptively slow and subtle in its impact. As one observer said, “[If you raise the temperature of my] bath water … only 1 degree every 10 minutes, how [will I] know when to scream?”8

When erecting their sacred tabernacle in the wilderness of Sinai, the ancient children of Israel were commanded to make firm their supporting cords and strengthen the stakes which held them.9 The reason? Storms arise in life—regularly. So fix it, fasten it, then fix and fasten it again. Even then we know that some children will make choices that break their parents’ hearts. Moms and dads can do everything right and yet have children who stray. Moral agency still obtains. But even in such painful hours it will be comforting for you to know that your children knew of your abiding faith in Christ, in His true Church, in the keys of the priesthood and in those who hold them. It will be comforting then for you to know that if your children choose to leave the straight and narrow way, they leave it very conscious that their parents were firmly in it. Furthermore, they will be much more likely to return to that path when they come to themselves10 and recall the loving example and gentle teachings you offered them there.

Live the gospel as conspicuously as you can. Keep the covenants your children know you have made. Give priesthood blessings. And bear your testimony!11 Don’t just assume your children will somehow get the drift of your beliefs on their own. The prophet Nephi said near the end of his life that they had written their record of Christ and preserved their convictions regarding His gospel in order “topersuade our children … that our children may know … [and believe] the right way.”12

Nephi-like, might we ask ourselves what our children know? From us? Personally? Do our children know that we love the scriptures? Do they see us reading them and marking them and clinging to them in daily life? Have our children ever unexpectedly opened a closed door and found us on our knees in prayer? Have they heard us not only pray with them but also pray for them out of nothing more than sheer parental love? Do our children know we believe in fasting as something more than an obligatory first-Sunday-of-the-month hardship? Do they know that we have fasted for them and for their future on days about which they knew nothing? Do they know we love being in the temple, not least because it provides a bond to them that neither death nor the legions of hell can break? Do they know we love and sustain local and general leaders, imperfect as they are, for their willingness to accept callings they did not seek in order to preserve a standard of righteousness they did not create? Do those children know that we love God with all our heart and that we long to see the face—and fall at the feet—of His Only Begotten Son? I pray that they know this.

Brothers and sisters, our children take their flight into the future with our thrust and with our aim. And even as we anxiously watch that arrow in flight and know all the evils that can deflect its course after it has left our hand, nevertheless we take courage in remembering that the most important mortal factor in determining that arrow’s destination will be the stability, strength, and unwavering certainty of the holder of the bow.13

Carl Sandburg once said, “A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”14 For that baby’s future as well as your own, be strong. Be believing. Keep loving and keep testifying. Keep praying. Those prayers will be heard and answered in the most unexpected hour. God will send aid to no one more readily than He will send it to a child—and to the parent of a child.

“And [Jesus] said unto them: Behold your little ones.

“And … they cast their eyes towards heaven, and they saw the heavens open, and they saw angels descending … as it were in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister unto them.”15

May it always be so, I earnestly pray—for the children—in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.




References:

Right

1. 3 Ne. 17:11, 14–16, 18, 21–23.
2. See John 14:6.
3. 2 Ne. 28:30.
4. D&C 68:4.
5. See D&C 128:13.
6. Isa. 33:23.
7. In Conference Report, Oct. 1964, 135–36; emphasis added.
8. Marshall McLuhan, quoted in John Leo, “The Proper Place for Commercials,” U.S. News and World Report, 30 Oct. 1989, 71.
9. See Isa. 54:2; 3 Ne. 22:2.
10. See Luke 15:17.
11. See Joseph Smith, comp., Lectures on Faith (1985), 37 for a defining statement on the parental power of human testimony.
12. 2 Ne. 25:23, 26, 28; emphasis added.
13. I am indebted to Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet for the suggestion of this metaphor.
14. In The Columbia World of Quotations (1996), no. 48047.
15. 3 Ne. 17:23–24.

Book of Mormon Lesson #32 They Did Obey-Every Word of Command with Exactness

Book of Mormon Lesson # 32 Alma 53–63

They Did Obey-Every Word of Command with Exactness

Introduction

As we come to the end of Alma, the manual focuses on chapters 53–59—the story of the army of Helaman, the Stripling Warriors as they are called. Obviously this narrative stirs the hearts of our youth, especially the young men, with its seeming focus on glory in battle, but there are other lessons to be learned, and I hope we will pull these out during our class time.

Not part of the lesson per se, but nevertheless one of my favorite parts of the Book of Mormon are the letters written in chapters 61–62 between a very frustrated and, I have to say, aggressive Moroni and a faithful, beleaguered, but very patient and understanding Pahoran. Then finally in chapter 63, the successful quelling of the rebellion of the kingmen and the sad fate of Teancum round out this incredible book of Alma. I remember many years ago portraying one of the mothers of the Ammonite young men. It’s one of the few mentions women get in the Book of Mormon and features pretty much every Mother’s Day! To a large extent women are in the background in the Book of Mormon—unsung heroines as an article in the August 2016 Ensign points out.[1] But all the male heroes had mothers, wives, and daughters, and one can only imagine what their feelings were as they sent their loved ones on missions, to battle, to death even. Not much different than today. However, the 2,060 Stripling Warriors all came back to their mothers and sisters, not unscathed, but protected from death. My take on this is that we should all aim to return to our Heavenly Parents, quite probably scarred and wounded by the vicissitudes of life, but alive in Christ. Faithful and enduring to the end.

1.     Two thousand valiant young Ammonites covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites. Alma 53:10–19; 56:1–8

Last week’s reading focused on what was happening on the eastern side of Nephite territory. Now we cover two years of the same period but from the western front where Helaman and the two thousand stripling warriors were engaged with others in combat with the Lamanites.

The Institute Manual puts these conflicts into perspective with a quote by Hugh Nibley:

So it was a blessing to the Nephites after all to have the Lamanites on their doorstep to ‘stir them up to remembrance’—‘Happy is the man whom God correcteth’ (Job 5:17). No matter how wicked and ferocious and depraved the Lamanites might be (and they were that!), no matter by how much they outnumbered the Nephites, darkly closing in on all sides, no matter how insidiously they spied and intrigued and infiltrated and hatched their diabolical plots and breathed their bloody threats and pushed their formidable preparations for all-out war, they were not the Nephite problem. They were merely kept there to remind the Nephites of their real problem, which was to walk uprightly before the Lord” (Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, 2nd ed. [1988], 339–40).

You will remember that the people of Ammon made a covenant of peace, but then they had to watch the Nephites die, first in their defense and then in defense against the Lamanites as a result of Moroni’s call to arms (Alma 24:15–18; 53:10–11) 53:16–17 gives us details of the covenant that these sons entered into. We have seen how valiant their fathers and mothers were in adhering to the covenant they made when they buried their weapons of war, now we see the valour of their sons as they make a covenant to defend the Nephites. Last week’s Howard W. Hunter lesson was on the covenants we make when we partake of the sacrament. So my question for this week is what do covenants mean to us today and how are we trying to keep them? Here is Richard J. Maynes, “As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have also taken upon ourselves sacred obligations. We have done this in the waters of baptism and in the temples of the Lord. We call these obligations covenants. Covenants are promises we make to the Lord. They are extremely sacred in nature. The most important thing we can do in this life is to keep the promises or covenants we have made with the Lord. When we keep our promises to the Lord, He allows us to progress spiritually.”[2] And Elder Ballard: “Sometimes we are tempted to let our lives be governed more by convenience than by covenant. It is not always convenient to live gospel standards and stand up for truth and testify of the Restoration. … But there is no spiritual power in living by convenience. The power comes as we keep our covenants” (Ensign, May 1999, 86).

Alma 57:21 emphasizes the way the young men kept their covenants as Elder Bednar explains,

Praying, studying, gathering, worshipping, serving, and obeying are not isolated and independent items on a lengthy gospel checklist of things to do. Rather, each of these righteous practices is an important element in an overarching spiritual quest to fulfill the mandate to receive the Holy Ghost. The commandments from God we obey and the inspired counsel from Church leaders we follow principally focus upon obtaining the companionship of the Spirit. Fundamentally, all gospel teachings and activities are centered on coming unto Christ by receiving the Holy Ghost in our lives. You and I should strive to become like the stripling warriors described in the Book of Mormon, who did “perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them.… And they are strict to remember the Lord their God from day to day; yea, they do observe to keep his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments continually.”[3]

2. The young soldiers exercise faith in God and fight courageously. Alma 56:9–58:41.

For our class, besides examining ourselves and our commitment to our covenants with the Lord, we should be either contemplating or looking forward to our roles as parents or examples to children and youth. Elder Hales has some wise counsel:

For all of us, doing our duty to God as parents and leaders begins with leading by example—consistently and diligently living gospel principles at home. This takes daily determination and diligence. For youth, there is no substitute for seeing the gospel lived in our daily lives. The stripling warriors did not have to wonder what their parents believed. They said, “We do not doubt our mothers knew it” (see  Alma 56:47–48 Do our children know what we know? . . . Besides showing youth the way by example, we lead them by understanding their hearts and walking alongside them on the gospel path. To truly understand their hearts, we must do more than just be in the same room or attend the same family and Church activities. We must plan and take advantage of teaching moments that make a deep and lasting impression upon their minds and hearts.[4]

President Russell M. Nelson has specific advice for both mothers and fathers:

Attacks against the Church, its doctrine, and our way of life are going to increase. Because of this, we need women who have a bedrock understanding of the doctrine of Christ and who will use that understanding to teach and help raise a sin-resistant generation. We need women who can detect deception in all of its forms. We need women who know how to access the power that God makes available to covenant keepers and who express their beliefs with confidence and charity. We need women who have the courage and vision of our Mother Eve.[5] . . . . I urgently plead with each one of us to live up to our privileges as bearers of the priesthood. In a coming day, only those men who have taken their priesthood seriously, by diligently seeking to be taught by the Lord Himself, will be able to bless, guide, protect, strengthen, and heal others. Only a man who has paid the price for priesthood power will be able to bring miracles to those he loves and keep his marriage and family safe, now and throughout eternity.[6]

Although not set as reading in the lesson manual, the exchange between Moroni and Pahoran is a classic example of jumping to conclusions and not taking offense. Elder Bednar gave a wonderful discourse on the latter. Here are a few excerpts.

When we believe or say we have been offended, we usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense. However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something else. . . .

Endowed with agency, you and I are agents, and we primarily are to act and not just be acted upon. To believe that someone or something can make us feel offended, angry, hurt, or bitter diminishes our moral agency and transforms us into objects to be acted upon. As agents, however, you and I have the power to act and to choose how we will respond to an offensive or hurtful situation. . . .

As described by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, the Church is not “a well-provisioned rest home for the already perfected” (“A Brother Offended,” Ensign, May 1982, 38). Rather, the Church is a learning laboratory and a workshop in which we gain experience as we practice on each other in the ongoing process of “perfecting the Saints.” . . .

Understanding that the Church is a learning laboratory helps us to prepare for an inevitable reality. In some way and at some time, someone in this Church will do or say something that could be considered offensive. Such an event will surely happen to each and every one of us—and it certainly will occur more than once. Though people may not intend to injure or offend us, they nonetheless can be inconsiderate and tactless. . . .

One of the greatest indicators of our own spiritual maturity is revealed in how we respond to the weaknesses, the inexperience, and the potentially offensive actions of others. A thing, an event, or an expression may be offensive, but you and I can choose not to be offended—and to say with Pahoran, “it mattereth not.”

Do our efforts to live up to the covenants we have made put them in the forefront when we are faced with trials and tribulations—physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual? Do we link our obedience to those covenants to our ability to call upon Priesthood Power and the Atonement to help us withstand these fiery darts? It’s a good question and one that I shall be introspectively pondering before we meet together on the 21^st August.

---

[1] https://www.lds.org/ensign/2016/08/do-you-know-these-book-of-mormon-heroes?lang=eng.

[2] https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/10/keeping-our-covenants?lang=eng.

[3] https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/receive-the-holy-ghost?lang=eng.

[4] https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/our-duty-to-god-the-mission-of-parents-and-leaders-to-the-rising-generation?lang=eng.

[5] https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/a-plea-to-my-sisters?lang=eng.

[6] https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/the-price-of-priesthood-power?lang=eng.

Book of Mormon Lesson #31

Alma 43-52

for Sunday August 14th

A little over a year ago, a war was being waged in our neighborhood...or at least in my backyard. The victim? My vegetable patch. The enemy? Rabbits. Hundreds of thousands of rabbits...or at least that’s what it felt like. In any case I was severely outnumbered and over my head. They would dig their way under the fence, in between the bars of the fence, and even hop all the way around the neighborhood to enter into our yard in a less fortified area. I wish my kids were as crazy about vegetables as these rabbits were. I learned a lot about fortifications that year. I learned that surface level protection is not enough, the enemy will always find the areas that are least protected, and that you have to continually refortify and watch your fortifications so that you can prevent further problems. But other than rabbits or other such vermin, most of us have blessedly never lived in times of war. Yes, there are wars in our day and rumors of war. Wartorn countries, refugees, and terrorism flood our newspapers and our world. But somehow, we can know of such things and mostly be spared of them. This week’s scripture block is mostly about war.

Why do you think Mormon included so much information about war in the Book of Mormon?

How does learning about war in these chapters strengthen our faith in Christ? Why war?

I’ve been pondering this a lot. How is this going to apply into the lives of my students and friends? It then hit me. Is there any massive  trial that we could go through that isn’t manifest in times of war? Think about it. Economical hardship, famine, corrupt leaders/government, busy schedules, children suffering, not being able to get married, not enough priesthood leadership in the home or in the ward, broken homes, death of loved ones, family and friends leaving the church as things get hard, feelings of safety being demolished and the struggles and fears of evil being allowed to enter into our neighborhoods and homes without a hope of being able to stop it.

In a strange way, war times are a perfect teacher for helping us apply the scriptures into our lives through our trials. These chapters are like a little How to pamphlet entitled:

“How to believe in God when everything around you seems to lack him” or “How to be Christlike in dangerous times when you don’t know what or who to trust.”

We live in a very tumultuous battlefield. Arrows of pornography are continuously flying past our eyes. Spears of apostate beliefs are being hurled towards our hearts. Our spirits are tempted at every turn as we are completely outnumbered. And yet, we can find joy.

It’s amazing to me how righteous Nephites were successful and even happy in times of war. How can we find peace and happiness even during times of terrible wickedness?

What are some promises the Lord has made to the faithful that make happiness possible even when trials come?  (John 16:33;Romans 8:18; Hebrews 12:11; D&C 58:3–4; 121:33;122:1–2, 7–9.)

This wartime section included in the Book of Mormon is extremely applicable as we apply it to the war waged right now on our spirits. When viewing these chapters in that light, what spiritual symbolism can you see in the different aspects of war? (specifically in regards to: Fortifications and preparations, Armor [individual defense], Weapons [individual offense], Being outnumbered, Victory and Defeat, Fighting in the Lord’s strength or in our own strength)

President Harold B. Lee explained the application of these chapters in this way:

“We have the four parts of the body that the Apostle Paul said or saw to be the most vulnerable to the powers of darkness. The loins, typifying virtue, chastity. The heart typifying our conduct. Our feet, our goals or objectives in life and finally our head, our thoughts.

“… We should have our loins girt about with truth. What is truth? Truth, the Lord said, was knowledge of things as they are, things as they were and things as they are to come [D&C 93:24]. … ‘Our loins shall be girt about with truth,’ the prophet said.

“And the heart, what kind of a breastplate shall protect our conduct in life? We shall have over our hearts a breastplate of righteousness. Well, having learned truth we have a measure by which we can judge between right and wrong and so our conduct will always be gauged by that thing which we know to be true. Our breastplate to cover our conduct shall be the breastplate of righteousness.

“[By] what shall we protect our feet, or by what shall we gauge our objectives or our goals in life? … ‘Your feet should be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.’ (Ephesians 6:15). …

“And then finally the helmet of salvation. … What is salvation? Salvation is to be saved. Saved from what? Saved from death and saved from sin. …

“Well, now the Apostle Paul … had his armoured man holding in his hand a shield and in his other hand a sword, which were the weapons of those days. That shield was the shield of faith and the sword was the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God. I can’t think of any more powerful weapons than faith and a knowledge of the scriptures in the which are contained the Word of God. One so armoured and one so prepared with those weapons is prepared to go out against the enemy” (Feet Shod with the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [Nov. 9, 1954], 2–3, 6–7; see also Ephesians 6:13–17; D&C 27:15–18).

We also are introduced to Captain Moroni in these chapters. What makes him so incredible? I loved this insight from Hugh Nibly:

“The Lamanite campaign was directed by Amalekite and Zoramite officers, whose knowledge of Nephite military secrets and methods would have given them an enormous advantage over any commander but Moroni. Right at the outset his foresight had robbed them of their first and logical objective—the buffer land of Jershon (Alma 43:22). He had taken up his main defensive position there, but when the messengers returned from consulting the prophet he learned that the Lamanites were planning a surprise by directing their push against the more inaccessible but weaker land of Manti, where they would not be expected (Alma 43:24). Immediately Moroni moved his main army into Manti and put the people there in a state of preparedness (Alma 43:25–26).

“Informed of every Lamanite move by his spies and scouts, Moroni was able to lay a trap for the enemy, catching them off-guard as they were fording the river Sidon (Alma 43:28–35)” (Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, 297–98).

Moroni was a talented leader who was humble enough to seek the Lord’s will and guidance through a prophet of God. He understood this principle taught by President Spencer W. Kimball:

“Let us harken to those we sustain as prophets and seers, as well as the other brethren as if our eternal life depended upon it, because it does!” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1978, 117; or Ensign, May 1978, 77).

Captain Moroni realized that his earthly life also depended on it! But Moroni wasn’t the only hero here. President Howard W. Hunter (1907–95) taught that all righteous service is equally important:

“Even though Helaman was not as noticeable or conspicuous as Moroni, he was as serviceable; that is, he was as helpful or useful as Moroni. …

“Not all of us are going to be like Moroni, catching the acclaim of our colleagues all day every day. Most of us will be quiet, relatively unknown folks who come and go and do our work without fanfare. To those of you who may find that lonely or frightening or just unspectacular, I say, you are ‘no less serviceable’ than the most spectacular of your associates. You, too, are part of God’s army.

“Consider, for example, the profound service a mother or father gives in the quiet anonymity of a worthy Latter-day Saint home. Think of the Gospel Doctrine teachers and Primary choristers and Scoutmasters and Relief Society visiting teachers who serve and bless millions but whose names will never be publicly applauded or featured in the nation’s media.

“Tens of thousands of unseen people make possible our opportunities and happiness every day. As the scriptures state, they are ‘no less serviceable’ than those whose lives are on the front pages of newspapers.

“The limelight of history and contemporary attention so often focuses on the one rather than on the many” (“No Less Serviceable,” Ensign, Apr. 1992, 64).