Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Alma 8-15 Part 1 • Dr. Daniel Sharp • June 17-23 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

How can we teach the hard hearted? According to Dr. Daniel Sharp, Alma and Amulek proclaim the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the wicked in Ammonihah while teaching the power of prayer, missionary work, and the reality of angels.SHOW NOTES/TRANSCRIPTSEnglish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM25ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM25FRPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM25PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM25ESYOUTUBEhttps://youtu.be/hQGfKb35y-EALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE00:00 Part I  - Dr. Daniel Sharp01:40 Introduction of Dr. Sharp06:30 What to look forward to08:51 God raises up friends11:28 The Joseph Smith Papers and Webster’s 1828 Dictionary14:33 Alma 8:1-2 - Alma’s role and the order of the church18:38 More than one way to be a believer20:49 Alma 8:3-5 - Success in Melek22:04 Alma 8:6-15 - Ammonihah and Alma’s efforts25:10 A lesson about God’s timing30:07 A missionary's focus32:45 Dr. Sharp shares a personal story about missionary goals39:04 Nehor and the evils of Ammonihah40:10 Alma 16:11 - The Desolation of Nehors42:28 Alma 15:15 - Traits of the followers of Nehor43:24 Alma 8:13 - An angel commands Alma46:14 Zeezrom doesn’t question angelic visits47:58 Alma 8:19-32 -  Alma is fed by Amulek50:00 Alma 10:4-6 Amulek introduces himself51:37 Alma 10 and 11 - Amulek’s first talks52:51 Dr. Sharp shares why he decided to serve a mission as a new member54:10 Alma 10:6 - Living below our privileges57:06 Alma 9:1 - Alma and Amulek return to Ammonihah59:26 Alma 9:12 - Alma preaches the gospel and warns Ammonihah1:02:51 Alma 9:30 - Harsh language1:04:56 Alma 10 and 11 - a perfect junior companion1:06:45 Testimonies and two witnesses1:09:38 End of Part 1 - Dr. Daniel SharpThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith. I'm your host. I'm here with my non-Amanaiha-like co-host, John, by the way. John, you are not like the city of Amaniha. But we are going to discuss the city of Amaniha today. So what are you looking forward to? Oh, lots of things. When I was a kid, just parenthetically, I thought it said ammonia. We've seen Alma go into Zarahemla and go into Gideon, and boy, now he gets transferred to, what would we say, a tough area. One of the things I love about this is in our day, we have is in our day we have mission leaders who were doctors

or dentists or CEOs and they step down from that, kind of like Alma stepped down, and go into a place where they're very vulnerable. And it's so fascinating to think of Alma stepping down from where he was and now going where he gets all sorts of interesting experiences, shall we say. So I'm looking forward to that. John, we're joined today by Dr. Daniel Sharp. Dan, if we can call you Dan, what are we looking forward to today with Alma 8 through 12?

Like John said, there's a lot of interesting things about missionary work in these chapters we'll be looking at. We get introduced to Amulek, sort of a new character who's going to become a faithful friend and companion to Alma. What I'm excited to talk about is the doctrinal teachings and the plan of redemption that are in these chapters, and especially focusing on the role of Christ in that plan. And I think that's, along with the missionary story, some of the great content of these chapters. Fantastic. John Dan is new to our podcast. We haven't had him on before, so introduce him to everybody listening. Hank, I love reading these bios because I feel like our audience knows there are some

really brilliant people out there who are faithful Latter-day Saints. Dr. Daniel Sharp is a professor at Brigham and University Hawaii, or Hawa'i as my mom used to say it, where he teaches courses in history and religious education. He has a PhD from Claremont Graduate University in religious study with an emphasis on New Testament studies. His dissertation focused on singular readings and three early Coptic manuscripts of the Gospel of John. Since 2017, Dr. Sharp has been a research specialist in charge of the papyri for the Bodmer Lab Project, which is a joint venture between the University of Geneva and the Martin Bodmer Foundation. I'm smiling because this is so cool. And this has led to several publications and presentations on the Bodmer papyri. In recent years, Dr.

Sharp has become obsessed with understanding the provenance of the Bodmer papyri and other related collections in tracing the illicit papyri trade of the 20th century from Egypt to Western institutions. How cool is this? Okay, keep going. Dan is a convert to the church. He joined the church when 18 years old. A year later he was called on a mission to Campinas, Brazil. After returning from his mission, he met his wonderful wife in a family home evening group in Provo, Utah. They've been married for almost 28 years, have five sons, three wonderful daughters-in-law, a grandson and another grandson on the way. I want to know what is the Bodmer papyri first of all? There was a gentleman named Martin Bodmer who was a Swiss collector and he collected lots of things.

He had the goal of creating a library of world literature. Part of his collection he collected some papyri. These include some of the earliest manuscripts of the Bible. Oh wow. There's a manuscript called Papyrus Bottom-Rick II, which is also known in the New Testament circles as Papyrus 66. It has multiple names, which just makes things even more confusing, but it's basically one of the earliest copies of the Gospel of John from roughly the second century. It's a little debated the date of it, but they also have some of the earliest manuscripts of non-biblical texts of things like

the Infancy Gospel of James, some of these apocryphal New Testament texts. And they also have some Iliad, some classical texts like the Iliad, the Odyssey, Plays of Menander. So it's this large collection, it's one of the most important collections. Of course, I'm biased, of course,

because I'm in charge of it, but it's one of the most important collections. Of course, I'm biased, of course, because I'm in charge of it, but it's one of the most important collections of a fiery in the world, especially in a private collection. In 2017, they decided they wanted to digitize it to make it available to the world. And they contacted a couple of specialists, me and another gentleman,

to sort of help them organize descriptions of it and get the content online. Wow. Real excited. Well, thank you for joining us, Hank. We interviewed some smart people on here. And some people just faking it, like me. Well, it sounds like we have a modern day

Indiana Jones almost. Yeah. We're gonna have to get you a hat. The Indiana Jones hat, yeah. We can play the music. One of my colleagues at the Bodmer Foundation, he drew me a little picture. I wish I'd brought it, but he called me Sharp Lock Holmes

is what he called me. He didn't say Indiana Jones, but Sharp Lock Holmes. And he had a little picture of, what do you call it? Deer hunter, deer stalker cap or whatever it was called. And a pipe and it said no tobacco inside because he knew I was an LDS. But anyway, he's a really fun guy. That's fantastic. All right, so we'll switch. But anyway, he's a really fun guy. That's fantastic.

All right, so we'll switch. We'll switch our music over to Sherlock Holmes. Dan, let's jump into the Come Follow Me manual and see where you want to go with these chapters. It says this, God's work will not fail, but our efforts to help with his work sometimes seem to fail. At least we may not immediately see the outcomes we hope for.

We might feel a little like Alma when he preached the gospel and Ammonihah rejected, spit on, and cast out. Yet when an angel instructed him to go back and try again, Alma courageously returned speedily, and God prepared the way for him. Not only did he provide Alma with food to eat and a place to stay, but he also prepared Amulek who became a fellow laborer, a fierce defender of the gospel, and a faithful friend. When we face setbacks and disappointments as we serve in the Lord's Kingdom, we can remember how God supported and led Alma, and we can trust that God will support and lead us to, even in difficult circumstances. And that seems to be what Alma is going to face. Difficult circumstances. And that seems to be what Alma is going to face,

difficult circumstances. So Dan, where should we start? Responding to the come follow me manual, I really liked that last sentence, even in difficult circumstances. If one were to come away from the manual and think, well, Alma had difficult circumstances, then God supported him and everything was fine

for Alma. That would be a mistake. That's not what we're going to see. I mean, some of Alma's most horrific experiences are going to be after this. We're going to see in the upcoming weeks that Alma and Amulek are going to have to witness the burning of people in front of them, believers, and he's going to wind up eventually being thrown into prison, which frankly is probably not as bad as watching people burn to death, but it's no lovely thing. And later in his life, he'll have a son on a mission who winds up having trouble and

having to go through a severe, serious repentance process. His struggles aren't over. God does comfort us in our trials, but he doesn't necessarily remove them. And to me, the greatest takeaway, one of the things that hopefully we can look at a little bit today is I think the most comfort he gets is Amulek. Having someone to support you in your testimony can make all the difference in your trials. During the early part of my marriage, my wife and I spent quite a bit of time on the East Coast. support you in your testimony can make all the difference in your trials. During the early part of my marriage, my wife and I spent quite a bit of time on the East Coast.

We lived for a few years in upstate New York. We lived a few years in Connecticut. And it seemed like we always had callings involving the young men and young women. As you said in the bio, I have five sons, two grandsons. We only seem to produce boys in the Sharp family. I don't know if that's why the Lord always puts my wife in young women's to sort of give her some women to hang out with. So we're always involved with the youth. And one of the things I noted when we lived on the East

Coast is a lot of these young people would sometimes be the only member of the church in their school. And that could be really hard. You feel so alone and there's no one there to support you. And sometimes all you need is just one friend, one person who will support you in your values, who will support you in your testimony. Maybe not necessarily a member of the same church, lots of people have good values, but one person stand by you. Both literally and spiritually, Amulek feeds Alma and gives him the support he needs. I love it.

Whenever I think of these chapters, I think of President Benson's quote, I'm sure you've both heard it. Men and women who turn their lives over to God will find out that he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. And he goes through this list of deepen their joy, expand their vision, quicken their minds, and then towards the end, raise up

friends. Raise up friends. As I hit these chapters, I wonder who are the friends that the Lord has raised up in my life? All of our listeners could say, oh yeah, this person and this person, just the right time and the right place in my life, we connected. I'm glad you brought that up first. Makes me happy. As I was thinking about preparing for this, you said we're gonna do Alma chapter eight through 12. And one of the things I like to do is look at context.

A little bit of what's going on, John talked about earlier in the intro, was this idea that Alma has been going to different cities. He was the chief judge over the Nephites and he was the high priest and he's stepped down, he gave up being the chief judge and is now focusing on being the high priest and he's gone to some different cities. He's going to get to the city of Ammonihah and Melek actually first in these chapters. I think a lot of listeners are probably aware, probably familiar with the idea that the verses that we have in the Book of Mormon are not part of the original Book of Mormon.

These verses were all added later. But what maybe at least my students seem to be less familiar with is the idea that the chapters that we currently have, the divisions, are also not part of the original Book of Mormon. There's a great quote from the church's website. If I could just read it says, the first edition of the Book of Mormon had consisted of large unnumbered chapters, which made citing a particular passage difficult. So in subsequent editions, some of these large paragraphs were divided in verse numbers were assigned to the paragraphs. But the paragraphs were still generally long.

In 1879, Elder Orson Pratt divided the Book of Mormon into small chapters and verses for easier reference. His numbering system became the standard for all Latter-day Saint editions. So the chapter divisions we're looking at now, when you say, hey, let's look at chapters 8 through 12, these are a modern way of thinking about the Book of Mormon. It's not the way Mormon would have divided up the Book of Mormon. The 1830 Book of Mormon has different chapter breaks and what most researchers think is that the chapter breaks in the 1830 Book of Mormon reflect the breaks that would have been on the gold plates.

The 1830 are the same as what we find in the original manuscript to the dictated parts of Joseph Smith's manuscript, right? What does any of this mean? Who cares? Great question. Glad you asked. We're going to read chapters eight through 12. I want to know how did Mormon divide that up? What would this have looked like on the plates? What was the original intention of the people who wrote this? How did they look at it? And luckily today in our day and age, that's easy to discover. It's free and anyone can do it. All you got to do is Google JSPP and then 1830 Book of Mormon.

So JSPP of course is Joseph Smith Papers Project. One of the top search results will be from the Joseph Smith Papers Project. One of the top search results will be from the Joseph Smith Papers website. And you click on that and you'll see a picture of the Book of Mormon. 1830 copy of the Book of Mormon. And on the top, the little thing is this table of contents. And if you click on the table of contents for the 1830 Book of Mormon, it'll give you a list of the original Book of Mormon chapter breaks. And then in brackets, it'll give you the modern chapter breaks.

If we do that for our particular section, what we'll see is chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, these five chapters in the original Book of Mormon are actually four different units. It's fantastic. I'm on the Joseph Smith Papers website right now. These pictures are high definition. It's a fantastic resource. My kids frequently say they get lost on YouTube for hours. And for me, it's the Joseph Smith Papers website. I could stay for hours reading through because you've got the photos right in front of you. You can even go read the printer's manuscript. Yeah, it's amazing the resources that are available

and available freely to anyone who wants them. For me, context is really important. Let me be clear. I am grateful every day for the modern chapter divisions. Today as we go throughout this, I'm sure we'll be saying chapter eight, verse nine, chapter 12, verse six, because it's so useful, so convenient. There's no getting around the utility

of these small chapters and verses. I think it's also important to understand that they don't reflect necessarily the intention of the original authors. And so it's important to also see how did they think about this. And to realize if we decide every day to read a chapter a night, that's great.

That's wonderful. That'd be a great goal. But that's totally arbitrary where we start and stop. Those chapters are just made up by Elder Pratt in 18, whatever it was, 1876. 1879. That's a skill I try to develop in my own reading. I have found it helpful. As we go through today, I want to talk about all these scriptures because they're all great, but I want to think about them in these four units. Unit one being chapter eight, unit two being chapter nine, unit three being chapters 10 and 11, and then unit four being chapter 12 to 13 verse nine. That's how Mormon thought about it as far as I can tell. It's at least how Joseph Smith thought about it. Yeah. So when we cut the lesson off at 12, we're cutting right in the middle of what

Mormon had written. Should we jump into chapter 8? Yeah, that'd be great. Alma 8 verses 1 and 2. And now it came to pass that Alma returned from the land of Gideon, after having taught the people of Gideon many things which cannot be written, having established the order of the church according as he had before done in the land of Zarahemla, yea, he returned to his own house at Zarahemla to rest himself from the labors which he had performed and thus ended the ninth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi." So in Alma chapter 4 verse 20 it says,

"'And thus in the commencement of the ninth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, Alma delivered up the judgment seat to Nephi, this other Nephite person who was gonna take over that job, and confined himself, Alma, holy to the high priesthood of the holy order of God, to the testimony of the word, according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy. It was the beginning of the ninth year

of the reign of the judges that Alma said, doing both of these jobs, wearing both these hats is too much. I'm gonna focus on just being the high priest. And now we see that we're starting, and thus ended the ninth year of the reign of the judges in chapter eight. It's been one year that he's stopped being the chief judge.

And in that time, as you pointed out, he's gone to a couple of cities already. In chapter five, he goes to the city of Zarahemla. And then in chapter six is when he goes to the city of Gideon to preach. So he's done these other cities and now he's going for rest, but years gone by. That's kind of the intro here. I noticed that in chapter eight, verse one, he taught a lot more things to the people of Gideon. And I don't like it when Mormon says, oh, I can't write all that because Gideon was an amazing place.

We talked with Dr. Below last week and the incredible things that he taught there. And then I read, oh yeah, he taught a lot more. I can't write it all down. Yeah. You know, they talk a lot about the difficulty of engraving on the plates. When I get to my daily journal, I get a little lazy sometimes and don't want to write it all down to summarize, you know. Yeah.

Thus it suffices me, right? In chapter eight, it says, now a Canaanite pastor, I'm returned from the land of Gideon, having established the order of the church. What is the order of the church? I mean, today I would think of the order of the church. What is the order of the church? I mean, today I would think of the order of the church being prophets and apostles and a quorum of the 70 maybe, we'll have a ward and stake. Like what is the order of the church in 83 BC?

Yeah. In Alma's time. What does that mean to establish the order of the church? It tells us earlier in the scriptures in chapter six, I think it gives the answer. So you're supposed to have that in mind as you read chapter eight. So let's refresh what it means.

Dan, I have that right here, chapter six, one through four. And now it came to pass that after Alma had made an end of speaking unto the people of the church, which was established in the city of Zarahemla, so that's chapter five, he ordained priests and elders by laying on his hands according to the order of God to preside and watch over the church. And it came to pass that whosoever did not belong to the church, who repented of their sins, were baptized under repentance and were received into the church.

And it also came to pass that whosoever did belong to the church that did not repent of their wickedness and humble themselves before God, I mean those who were lifted up in the pride of their hearts, the same were rejected and their names were blotted out. That reminds me of what his father did back at the end of Mosiah. That their names were not numbered among those of the righteous, and thus they began to establish the order of the church in the city of Zarahemla All right So Mormon expects us to remember when he tells us that in Gideon he did this same thing we go back chapter 6 Oh, I know what that means the point here is that Mormon has explained already what the order of the church is that the order of

The church is about how do people come into the church? How do people? Sadly sometimes have to leave the church is about how do people come into the church? How do people sadly sometimes have to leave the church? He explains about that they have this sort of elders and priests as far as ordained ministers. That's all we really know about that goes on here in the Nephites at this time anyway. Like I said, in my bio, I joined the church when I was 18. So I didn't grow up learning about Nephites and Lamanites or anything. But I think when I

joined the church, I had sort of the simplistic idea that all of the Nephites were always members of the church, except for when they were wicked. And all the Lamanites were never members of the church, except for a few examples, you know, here and there. But this idea that the Nephite society when they weren't evil, were all members of the church. But what we see here is, it suggests that there's within the city of Zarahemla, even though this is chapter six talking about where he's going to go to Gideon,

and this is referring back to his time in Zarahemla, that there were people there who could be baptized unto repentance and enter the church. So there's more than one way to believe or to exist in the Nephite society. They're not all of the same church. This is going to become important as we look at chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, because we'll see people from the order of Nihur, and we're going to talk about them, and we're going to see potentially, possibly another religious view also expressed in some of the questionings that go on there.

I think it's an important idea to understand that Alma's establishing the order of the church and part of that is baptizing Nephite people or at least people in the land of Zarahemla, maybe they were Mulekites or something, but people that had different religious understanding were joining this people of God. I really enjoy getting to know Mormon a little indirectly. And he expects us to be pretty close readers. He's like, well, you know what the order of the church is. We just talked about that. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. That brings me to another online resource I really love, and that's the scripture search that now I can just type in order the church and that phrase comes up and I'm like, oh, look, there's a connection to be made. We have so many resources. I don't know that Mormon necessarily is, I guess he saw our day, but I don't know that he saw churchjesuschrist.org search tools, but maybe so, I don't know. Or the app. Yeah, the app. Speaking of church organization, I noticed between verses two and three, Dan,

Alma doesn't get that much of a break. He's like, go home, got 10 minutes of rest, back out. I don't know exactly how long of a rest it is, but yeah, he's not down for very long. In verses three through five, he goes on this mission to the city of Melek. That one's quite successful. There's not a lot to say. This city does pop up a couple more times in the Book of Mormon. What we'll find out is that Amulek and Zezrom, two characters will meet in the upcoming chapters of 9 and 10.

They will actually wind up eventually living in Melek. They'll have to leave Ammonihah. And then the final mention of the city is in Alma chapter 45. It says Alma leaves the city of Zarahemla as if he was going to walk to Melech and no one ever saw him again. I don't know, it's kind of this city that apparently is close to Ammoniah. Don't know much about what happened there.

Talk about Mormon taking a little break or something. Yeah, don't know much about the preaching. One thing that Dr. Joe Spencer has pointed out that I really love is that Alma visits a number of cities, but Mormon chooses to highlight three, Sarah, Hamla, Gideon, and Ammonihah. And then Joe points out that later on he's going to highlight these three sons, Helaman, Shibuan, and Corianton. And it seems to fit that same pattern.

Parallel. Yeah. Yeah. These three cities parallel the three sons. Oh, interesting. At the end of verse six, he says, "'He came to a city which was called Ammonihah.'" That's the last of the line of verse six. And then verse seven says, "'Now it was the custom of the people of Nephi

"'to call their lands and their cities and their villages, "'yet even all their small villages after the name of him "'who first possessed them. "'And thus it was with the land of Ammonihah.'" The reason I think that's interesting is because I have no idea who Ammonihah is, but Mormon says that as if I'm supposed to know. We learned this interesting tradition. Oh, the Nephites named their cities after the people who first possessed them. Well, that's nice. Who's Ammonihah? As you use your online tools, or at least I could never find any, this is the first mention

of this in the entire Book of Mormon, if I were one prone to speculation, I wonder if this is something that might have been mentioned earlier by Mormon in some of the lost pages, if there was some story about Ammonihah or something. Because it seems to me that Mormon assumes the reader gets the reference. Sounds like I need to move to Hanksville. Are you the one who first possessed Hanksville? Yeah, I could tell people that after I moved there. Any of our listeners in Hanksville, please let me know.

So let me know if there's any houses for sale. We have a home for you here, Hank. Chapter 8 again, verses 8 through 13, we can get Alma's first attempt at Ammonihah. Mormon set this up, said, you know, he's gone to this other city, he's had some success, now he's come to Ammonihah, and we see here that things don't go quite as well in this first attempt. Well, frankly, they don't go that well

in the second visit either, but this is the first visit now. What's going on here is it says, they harden the heart heart saying to them, behold, we know they're Alma. He talks about how wicked they are, the hardness of the hearts. In Alma chapter eight, verse nine, Mormon gives us a little summary of the people who are in Ammonihah. It says, now Satan had gotten great hold on the hearts of the people of the city of Ammonihah. Therefore they would not hearken unto the words of Alma. And then it says, nevertheless, Alma labored much

in the spirit wrestling with God in mighty prayer, that he would pour out his spirit upon the people who were in the city, that he would also grant that he might baptize them unto repentance. Nevertheless, they hardened their hearts saying unto him, Behold we know that thou art Alma and we know that thou are a high priest over the church which thou had established in many parts of the land according to your tradition and we are not of this church and we do not believe in such

foolish traditions." There's a few things that are going on here but one of them is this word nevertheless. Alma knew the people were wicked, nevertheless he prayed for them. Even though he prayed for them. Even though he prayed for them, nevertheless they rejected them. And verse 10, you see the way that Alma prayed or what he prayed for for these people. He labored much in the spirit, he wrestled with God in mighty prayer, he poured out his spirit upon the people who were in the city that he would grant that they might baptize them under repentance.

Nevertheless, didn't happen. What did we learn about prayer or about God's timing? There's so often that we want things to happen. We beg God for them to happen and they don't. It happens to Alma, it happens to most of us. I think it's a beautiful lesson and a helpful lesson for missionaries because verse 10 that he might baptize them. President Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk at BYU. He said, In the summer of 2001, Sister Oaks and I were in Manaus, Brazil.

I spoke to about a hundred missionaries in that great city on the Amazon. I reminded the missionaries that some of our most important plans cannot be brought to pass without the agency and actions of others. A missionary cannot baptize five persons this month without the agency and action of five other persons. A missionary can plan and work and dwell within his or her power, but the desired result will depend upon the additional agency and action of others. Consequently, a missionary's goals ought to be based upon the missionary's personal agency and

action, not upon the agency and action of others." That's from a talk he gave called Timing. Thank you for that quote by Elder Oaks, and it ties exactly in because we'll talk more about Alma's failure in Emonahe in a moment and the people there in a moment. But Alma's praying that he can baptize these people and he gets rejected and cast out of the city. And then he meets an angel and the angel says in verse 15, blessed are thou Alma, therefore lift up thy head and rejoice for you have thou has great cause to rejoice for thou has been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the times thou receivest the first message from him. Alma is feeling down because he didn't baptize a lot of people. That's what he'd been praying for.

But like you said, that's beyond his control. The angel is trying to teach him. You have great cause to rejoice because you have been faithful in the things God commanded you to do from the moment I spoke to you and told you to do it. And that's what you can control. You can set your own goals. And I happened to serve my mission in Brazil. And frankly, it wasn't too hard to find people to teach and baptize. I had some friends in Austria and other parts of the world that struggled to find anyone

to baptize. And if we only measured our missions and our success in terms of baptism, I think we're missing the point. I think this is an important point, this idea that you can't force other people, you can only control your own self. And I think that's what the angel's trying to teach. I love that in verse 15, I have sent this as I've written to missionaries, PS, read Alma 8, 14 and 15.

When the angel says, thou has great cause to rejoice, Alma could have said, why? I've failed. Yeah. They spit on me. I had no baptisms. And the angel continues, you've been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time you received thy first message from him. And I just love that. You have done what you are asked to do. You've kept the mission rules, however you want to articulate that. And therefore you have great cause to rejoice." Then, the end of verse 15, I don't know how the

government in heaven works, but that last sentence, behold, I am he that delivered it unto you. Thank you, Mormon, for including that. I am the same angel who knocked you and your friends over in Mosiah 27. I don't know, I scared you so bad, but you're doing so great. Go back into town, you're going to meet your companion. I love the teaching moment there. You've done what you could do. Your goal in verse 10 was baptisms, but you've been faithful and keeping the commandments and you have great cause to rejoice for that. What would you say then? I don't know the answer to this question because my son has recently come off a mission. I have another son that's about to go on a mission and at least my experience

from my own mission and from what I've seen even recently is that still lots of mission goals have to do with baptisms. In the light of Elder Oaks's advice here in Manaus, how would you contextualize that? My kids served in France and Iceland. Getting someone to even talk to you was difficult. These verses helped them. Do what you're supposed to do. You set your goals according to what you can control. If I could set goals that my favorite college football team would win all the time, I have no impact on it. I guess I could set a goal for that. So why do I get so upset when they don't win?

That's why I set that goal. I know Hank is a big jazz fan. I set a goal that the jazz would win, but I don't really have anything to do with the outcome of that. They keep breaking my heart. Maybe I can be one voice in 65,000 at the stadium. I was really grateful that Elder Oaks said, you focus on what you can do. One of the sobering verses from the Doctrine and Covenants, this is section 138 and it's

verse 25. I understood the Savior spent about three years in His ministry among the Jews and those of the house of Israel endeavoring to teach them the everlasting gospel and call them unto repentance. And yet, notwithstanding His mighty works and miracles and proclamation of the truth in great power and authority, there were but few who harkened to His voice and rejoiced in His presence and received salvation at his hands. Even the Savior, even in his presence, not everybody listened and believed and followed. It's amazing to think about.

And we can assume that the Savior was perfectly obedient. This is the given. Yeah, so we can see that, you know, those results are not tied to obedience. Perfect obedience is not necessarily guarantee overwhelming success Having said that we should point out just to be true to the scriptures that Alma is kicked out of the city and spit upon but then he is going to return and eventually Zeezrom will be baptized. So, I mean,

it's important that his prayer is not answered necessarily the way he wants and not necessarily the time he wants. But in Alma 14.1, it does say that some people do believe and repent. This is outside of our scripture block, but these are people of Ammonihah in Alma chapter 14, verse 1. Yeah, it says the believers were cast out, so some believed him when he and Amulek went back in. Good point. And then eventually in chapter 15, verse 12, I think it is, Zezram winds up being baptized. And we don't know who Zezram necessarily is yet. We haven't talked about him, but he's going to wind up being antagonistic towards Alma in the upcoming chapters, and Alma baptized Zezerim. And maybe that's the way it turns out. Sometimes maybe we don't necessarily see the success. I also don't want to leave the

impression that, well, if you're faithful, you'll baptize one person, because that may not be true either. But just to be true to this particular scripture story, one person, at least the Israel, wound up being baptized. Maybe you guys have heard the idea of if you should bring, save it, be one soul, you know, from section 18, maybe that could even be yourself, that you become converted to the gospel while you're doing the Lord's work, which is wonderful if that's a result. I love that interpretation of that scripture and I think that's a result. I love that interpretation of that scripture. And I think that's really applicable. If I can share a story though about baptism goals and maybe how prayers might be answered differently than we thought, I was in a ward council.

I was the ward mission leader actually. Every year we were supposed to set a goal for baptisms. And I live in Laie, Hawaii. That's a place that's predominantly made up of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In fact, my ward boundaries, we knew every member. There were not that many people we could baptize. There's always people we could minister to. There's people that could be strengthened, that could help progress along the covenant path. But as far as actually getting them baptized, there were very few people. And the year before we'd actually baptized three people, which was like a record

setting thing in our ward. The ward councilist kind of said, you know what, our goal is zero. We're not going to baptize anyone this year. We're just going to focus on helping the three people we baptized last year progress along the covenant path, make sure they get to the temple and get sealed and these sorts of goals. About a week or two later, we come for another ward council. And the bishop says, well, the stake president says zero is not a goal. You know, he said, we need a new goal. So as a ward council, we're sitting there, I was just like, perhaps

I didn't have much faith. I don't know. But as the ward mission leaders like, well, let's just say one. I mean, one's good. We can find one person or at least have a goal and see what happens. And there were some other members in the ward council who were saying, why do we have such little faith? Let's say 20, maybe someone will move in. Why are we limiting God's possibilities?

Let's say 20. And it was a heated discussion. There was a lot of involvement. Then the bishop who has the keys of this council, he looked up at one point and he said, there are eight souls. And it was one of the most spiritual experiences. everyone in the Ward of Kalamazoo felt something right there. And we accepted eight souls as our goal. And as that year went out, I had no question and no doubt that we had received a spiritual revelation. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting with the whole ward about this goal and how we were going to work towards it.

And the year came and went. and at the end of that year, we had baptized zero souls. Not one person had been baptized. And I remember at the time really starting to question, was it a spiritual experience I'd had? Did I do something wrong? Was I not a good ward mission leader or maybe it wasn't? Maybe it was Bishop's fault, I don't know.

What happened? How do I interpret this? How do I interpret my spiritual experience the way I thought this would play out? And I thought about it for a long time. I don't know if struggled with it is the right word. It's not like I was gonna leave the church or anything about it,

but it was something I really thought about, how to interpret spiritual experiences. For us, the end of that story is, I still don't know exactly what it meant, but I do know about a year later or so, I can't remember exactly how much time, but after the goal had clearly passed, I met one of the young men who we had sort of thought about, one of the people who was actually not a member, and we had thought about focusing on to try to help them learn about the church,

and he was actually coming back from the temple, and he had been baptized. And in addition to having been baptized, he was actually from the Philippines and had a miraculous experience where he had met some family members that he didn't know existed, and had just come back from the temple from baptizing. Another person we had prayed for, there was a man in our ward who had adopted a

couple of young boys. They were not members of the church and we were kind of pressuring them to get baptized just so we could do a goal. We were trying to take their agency away. The father finally said, back off, we're going to handle this the right way. Bless him for it, putting me in my place, rightly so. The year was well gone, but over time, that young man did join the church and actually eventually served a mission for two years. And I have no idea how many souls he may have brought on to the Lord through that mission. I think sometimes things may be fulfilled a little bit differently. So I think there's still value in setting goals.

I don't know if, even though we set a goal of eight and at the end of the year, we hadn't reached that goal, working towards the goal united us as a ward. It focused our efforts and our prayers. And I think served a purpose, even if it was just to change me. And yes, we did see some fruits. I don't know if it adds up to eight or not, but I believe we had a spiritual experience.

And I believe that there's a value even if we don't always see how it works out. You focused on what you could do and you talked about you're still wondering. Look at that word in verse 10. I'm a labored much in the spirit, wrestling. I think all of us wrestle with things. I love the idea of a spiritual wrestle because you get stronger in the process. I actually saw that bishop who's recently called the Bishop President, which should be interesting given this story. He's going to be serving in Tokyo. It's been a few years since this happened. And

we talked about how this was really a spiritual experience for our ward and it blessed us. And I think the Lord can take the long view too. There was partly Pratt and then there's Brigham Young who took a couple of years. God has the long view and maybe doesn't put the kind of deadlines that we do sometimes. It's a good discussion to wrestle with. Yeah. And Dan, I liked your story because it wasn't the bishop saying, if we are faithful enough, this will happen. Because then everyone might be thinking, well, I'm just not faithful enough. I can picture a missionary in Iceland thinking, I'm not faithful enough. I can picture a missionary in Iceland thinking I'm not faithful enough. The work isn't happening when that's not the case.

You focus on the things you can't control. Isn't that what the angel said? Right? That's right. You have great cause to rejoice. You have been faithful. That's all you can control. Alma, I don't want to downplay the horrors that he's going to see in the coming chapters and the suffering he's going to have.

But in the end, in the long view, he's moment, because I think we need to set up a little bit more about why these people were so wicked, or at least why Alma and Mormon perceive them as so wicked. And part of that is we have to understand the relationship to Nihor. It's going to become important to understand some of the conversations that Alma's going to have later on and Amulek as well. The reason for tying the people of Ammonihah to Nihor comes from Alma chapter 16 11. It's a little bit outside of our reading assignment, but we can see that I'm not a miss to sort of make this connection. It happens later in our reading. A spoiler alert, in case you haven't read this before, is that Alma is going to wind up prophesying that if the people of Ammonihah do not repent that God will utterly destroy them

This is Alma chapter 16 Verse 11 John. Can you read that for us Alma 16 11? Nevertheless after many days their dead bodies were heaped up upon the face of the earth and they were covered with a shallow covering and Now so great was the scent thereof that the people did not go in to possess the land of Ammonihah for many years. And it was called desolation of Nihors, for they were of the profession of Nihor who were slain and their lands remained desolate." I wanted to bring the scripture up, not so much to focus on the sad destruction of these people that I'm sure you'll talk about in great detail

in the coming chapters, but just to sort of make this connection that they called this area the Desolation of Nihors because the people of Ammonihah were, at least many of them, of the profession of the Nihors. So in Alma chapter 14, verse 16 and verse 18, we see that many of the lawyers and the judges of these people are of the profession of knee horse.

Isn't this another place where Mormon has the expectation that we've read closely? He's like, you remember that? All the way back in Alma chapter 1, it was what I saw as doctrinal competition. Let the most popular doctrine win. Here in verse 4 of Alma chapter 1, it talks about he being Nihor, testified unto the people that all mankind should be saved at the last day, that they need not fear nor tremble, but they might lift up their heads and rejoice. For the Lord God had created all men, he had also redeemed all men, and in the end, all men shall have eternal life. That question about who was created by God, who's going to be redeemed by God, and who's

going to have eternal life, those questions are what Zizram, Amulek, and Alma are going to be sort of debating. The extent of the redemption, the extent of eternal life. The other thing that's going to be important, because they believe all mankind will be saved, there's obviously no need to repent. If you think everyone's going to be saved, everyone's redeemed, there's no purpose for repentance. And if someone disagrees with you, you can just smack him with your sword. You just kill him, because in the end you're going to be saved. What difference does it make? So another of the traits of the followers of Nihor, you can see in Alma

chapter 15 verse 15. Does someone else want to read that? But as to the people that were in the land of Ammonihah, they yet remained a hard-hearted and a stiff-necked people, and they repented not of their sins, ascribing all the power of Alma and Amulek to the devil. For they were of the profession of Nihur and did not believe in the repentance of their sins." The people of Ammonihur are Nephites, and yet not everyone who's a Nephite is a member of the Church of God. They specifically say, Alma, you're not our high priest, when he comes to preach to them and go, we don't have to listen to you Alma you're not our high priest when he comes to preach to them and go, we don't have to listen to you, you're not the chief

judge anymore, you're not the high priest of our church. So what church are they? At least many of them seem to be of the profession of Nihor and that's going to set the stage for some of their questions and comments and the way they behave really. That brings us back to Alma chapter 8. Alma has gone to the city of Ammonihah. He has been rejected of the people after praying. Verse 13, they caused that he should be cast out of their city. He departed thence, like it was his choice. I wanted to leave anyway. Anyway, I just think that's kind of funny. They cast him out, so he left. So then he leaves and then, like we mentioned already, an angel comes and appears to him. And as John him out, so he left. So then he leaves and then like we mentioned already, an angel comes and appears to him.

And as John pointed out, it's the same angel that had visited him when he was a rebellious youth. I heard in an earlier podcast how you brought up the possibility, not necessarily a doctrine, but the idea that what was taught by King Benjamin in the Book of Mosiah was given to him by an angel and that angel perhaps might've been a Benedi. And that this was a possibility because of the similarities between what King Benjamin teaches and what a Benedi taught.

What we will see in the coming chapters is that you cannot understand Amulek or Alma without understanding ainadi. It's imperative to understand Abinadi in order to understand how Amulek answers Zezen's questions. I have always assumed the reason for that is because Amulek is gonna learn from Alma.

We're gonna see in a moment that Alma's gonna spend a good deal of time in Amulek's house before they go out preaching together. John, you'd mentioned thanks, heavenly order, for allowing the same angel who came to visit this youth come back after his excess. I mean, we've seen Moroni be used over and over as sort of the prophet of the restoration.

And it'd be interesting to think if Abinadi had some sort of similar role. We're gonna see Amulek is also visited by an angel. It's not clear whether that's the same angel who visited Alma or a different angel. There's a few angels coming in this chapter, but there's clearly a connection between what Amulek teaches and what Abinadi teaches. I want that to be true because I just think it would be so cool that Alma who defended Abinadi, that Abinadi has now been watching over that family. So I hope that's true.

It reminds me of my favorite President John Taylor quotation. This is from Journal of Discourses, volume 23, page 222. This is so beautiful. God lives and His eyes are over us and His angels are round and about us and they are more interested in us than we are in ourselves. Ten thousand times, but we do not know it." The idea of they're more interested in us and then putting a multiplier on it, ten thousand times more interested? And I wonder if that could be a benedi, being so interested in Alma, the only one that he

got through to that day and Alma's son, Alma the Younger. One of the things that I also think is amusing coming up in this chapter we'll see in the coming chapters is Ziezram, this person we'll meet is going to question Amulek on a lot of things but one of the points Ziezram seems to just accept without ever questioning is the fact that Amulek sees an angel. He questions the existence of God, he questions the Messiah, all these things, but when Amulek says, an angel told me, that's how I know this is true, Zezer never just goes, what? You know, that's your best evidence? I never thought of

that before, that's interesting. You'd think he'd poke a little hole in that one, you know, if I tried to tell someone today, the reason I know this is because an angel told me. So perhaps for Zezra, the idea of ministering angels is not that foreign either. Maybe that's a given for him. Or maybe it was so absurd, it wasn't worth questioning. I don't know which one.

The returning now to Alma and this encounter with the angel, the angel tells him that he needs to return to Ammoniah. Alma chapter eight, verse 18 says, Ekeina passed that after Alma had received his message from the angel of the Lord, he returned speedily to the land of Ammoniah. I think there's probably many a lesson that's been made on that verse that when you get that spiritual prompting to go back. Good point. Reminds me of Nephi, this idea that God has commanded Alma to return to the city, but it's not easy. He's got to sneak in a back way and it's not going to necessarily

go all that well for him either when he gets there. The Lord commands Nephi to return to Jerusalem or tells Lehi who tells Nephi to return to Jerusalem to go get the brass plates and it's not easy. It takes several chances and a lot of violence in order to accomplish this task. When I read the end of verse 19, this guy used to be the chief judge and now he's begging for food. Whoa, will you give to an humble servant of God something to eat? I used to live when I was young in Bangkok, Thailand and you would see these Buddhist monks who were not allowed to ask for food but would go up and down the street with a bowl and people would willingly come out and donate food to them because of the work that

they were doing because they saw them as holy men and would provide for them even though they weren't necessarily begging or making them do it. Maybe this is a similar model of just devotion of taking care of those who need taken care of. I think it would be fun to see this arrangement that here's Alma coming back into the city going, I have no idea how this is going to work out. Here's Amulek going, really? I'm going to meet somebody and then to have those two intersect would be a fun thing for heaven to see, I think. Yeah. Now looking at Alma chapter 8, verse 19 to 32, this is where we get our introduction to Amulek

and who this guy is. He's gonna say some more about himself later when Amulek stands up to teach in Alma chapter 10, he'll introduce himself a little bit to the crowd he's talking to. He introduces himself, we learn a little bit about him. What I think is gonna be important later, which I didn't necessarily pick up on the first time I read this,

Amulek takes in Alma, he feeds him because an angel told him to, and then they're going to go and preach to the people of Ammonihah together. But that's not immediate. There's a passage of time that's covered in verse 27, sort of an undetermined amount of time. And Alma tarried many days with Amulek before he began to preach unto the people. I mean, it says in verse 26 he had fasted many days. That sounds pretty awful. So he had to get his strength back up. Yeah. As we get to know who Amulek is, maybe we should peek ahead to a little bit about what he says about himself.

If we cheat and look a little ahead to Alma chapter 10, he says about himself, for example, in verse 4, he talks about how he had acquired riches and had become an industrious man. So he's some sort of successful person. He's known amongst his town. People know who he is. But he does say in verse 5 and 6 that he didn't really know much about the ways of God. He didn't consider himself a religious person. He wasn't a great church member.

He wasn't a religious leader. That's not who he was. So this visit with the angel must have been quite a shocking experience to him. This is something new to him. The reason I think this is relevant is Amulek is going to wind up doing a great deal of teaching in the coming chapter. I think it's important as we look at how and what Alma teaches and the level that he teaches at to realize that this is a relatively new member and that he seems to have just learned from Alma, maybe from the angel, maybe from both some of these doctrines.

As he explains them, he's going to be explaining them in a rather simple way. And then Alma is going to get up afterwards and expound more upon the way Almulik taught. That's going to become important as we start to see what Almulik teaches and how he says things that we understand that he's new. I don't know if you caught it as you were reading my bio, but I joined the church and went on a mission a year later. I didn't know what I was talking about.

When I finished the two years, I felt like I caught up to my peers at my age level that I knew what was going on, but man, I was lost those first few times. Chapter 10, chapter 11, these are Amulek's first talks and his first area of his first mission. Maybe we're going to have to give him a little slack as we look at his teachings on redemption, resurrection, and mostly the first death. Amulek does say in chapter 10 verse 10, for behold, I say unto you that as the Lord liveth, even so has he sent this angel to make these things manifest unto me. And this he has done while this Alma hath dwelt in my house. He has blessed mine house. He has blessed me, my women, children,

father, kinsfolk. The blessing of the Lord hath rested upon us." It seems that Alma had done some teaching to Amulek and his family before they head out on this companionship. So I'm assuming this is during those days that he tarried there, back in chapter eight, verse 27, it says Alma tarried many days. And apparently the angel returned again. So Amilk has again seen this angel. There's some serious tutelage going on here. I mean, this is pretty good instruction, but yeah, he's kind of learning this stuff. That's important. And even though he's new, he's ready to testify. I like that. I like that about you, that you went out on a mission going, well, here we go.

Can I tell you why I decided to go on a mission? Please. I joined the church when I was 18. And when I was investigating the church, people let me kind of do whatever I want. And they let me go to Sunday school with people in high school. I was 18, I just had started college,

but most of my friends were in high school. So they let me go to Sunday school with seniors in high school and I learned and stuff. But as soon as I got baptized, they said, oh no, that's not where you belong, you're an eldest quorum. Suddenly, I was thrown into all these people who seemed really old to me. They were probably 27 or something, but they seemed ancient.

What am I supposed to do here? The one thing I noticed was it seemed every lesson these older gentlemen would share some story from their mission. How powerful a mission must be that 20 years later they're still calling upon those experiences and those experiences are still shaping their life. I wanted that for me and I wanted that strength.

That was one of the main reasons I went on a mission. And now that I'm 50 years old, then I've had a lot of spiritual experiences since my mission, but I still find myself relying on those experiences as being shaping, as being formative for my progression. Serving a mission is really important and that's one of

the reasons I went out there. Oh, I like that. Could we spend some more time on verse 6 of Alma 10? Amulek, I am fascinated by this character. Listen to the humility here, verse 6. I did harden my heart. I was called many times and I would not hear." And there's obviously a difference between would not and could not. Therefore, I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know. And I was, whoa, is it possible to say I know, but I don't want to know or to suppress a testimony type of a thing? So I went on rebelling against God until an angel says, go home you're gonna defeat a prophet of the Lord tonight. Reminds me of a statement Brigham Young made. He said, there's no doubt if a person lives according to the revelation

given to God's people, he may have the Spirit of the Lord to signify to him his will and to guide and to direct him in the discharge of his duties in his temporal as well as his spiritual exercises. I am satisfied, however, that in this respect we live far beneath our privileges." I've heard Amulek characterize as someone who is living beneath his privileges. I think all of us would say, I'm probably living beneath my privileges. But the Lord used him and made him an instrument and a powerful instrument. And I remember President Uchtdorf giving that talk called Your Potential, Your Privileges,

you remember that? Where he told the story about the guy in a cruise ship that was eating pork and beans in his room all week and discovered at the very end that his ticket had covered all of the meals he should have been eating. And President Uchtdorf says he discovered he'd been living far beneath his privileges. Yeah. Thank you. That's a great insight. I really liked they turned that Elder Uchtdorf talking to a little video. It's so good. You feel so bad for the guy that's been eating pork and beans and powdered lemonade in his room when he drops everything that was in his hands when he finds out I could have been eating at the banquet table every night. I'm living beneath my privileges. I see Amulek as that guy, which makes the story so great that the Lord would say, you're not as active as you could be or you're not

as fired up as you could be, but I'm going to grab you and use you. And you're going to be a great help to Alma. He still had to respond. It's incumbent upon us to then react to that time, to recognize we're living below our privileges and step it up. If it's not an angel, but a ministering brother or sister who comes to visit us. Now in chapter nine, Alma and Almulek are going to set out on their preaching to the people of Ammoniah. The first thing I want to point out is this is unit 2. We talked about how the Book of Mormon is

divided into different sections. This is a new chapter. It's also a new unit and what's interesting here is verse 1. This is Alma 9.1. And again I, Alma, having been commanded of God that I should take Amulek and go forth and preach again unto this people, or the people who were in the city of Ammonihah, it came to pass that as I began to preach unto them, they began to contend with me, saying... And then we get what he said. But what I want to point out is that shift in the beginning of verse 1 to the first person, I, Alma. In the podcast during the Words of Mormon part, is that shift in the beginning of verse one to the first person, I Alma.

In the podcast during the words of Mormon part, you talked about hearing the voice of Mormon and stuff and how he has made the Book of Mormon compiled it. Just above chapter nine, in the one I have, there's a little thing that says the words of Alma and also the words of Almulek. That little section, which should not be in italics if you have a modern edition, is actually part of the record of the plates.

Up until the point where it says comprising chapter 9 to 14 inclusive. The chapter heading, which is in italics, is added later. But what we see here is a shift. Mormon seems to actually, for chapter 9, literally copy word-for for word Alma's record. But this is word for word, the words of Alma. It's one of the few times in the Book of Mormon we don't get any editorial comment. In the next unit, which is chapters 10 and 11, in the original Book of Mormon, those go together.

In that unit, what we'll see is an interspersing of direct quotations from the record of Alma. But we also will see some commentary from Mormon. He'll talk about Alma in the third person and he'll give us some background on money that we need to know in order to understand the story. You get this kind of mixing of literary types and then from that point on it's just sort of Mormon's mostly his summary with some quotes, but you got that kind of mix Chapter 9 is unique this unit seems to be set apart because this is literally just Alma speaking

When you talk about getting to know the voice of Mormon, here's a chance to get to know the voice of Alma unedited unfiltered Alma unfiltered this may not change anyone's testimony or anything, but The complexity of the Book of Mormon is maybe a weird way to gain a testimony. But for me, it's just one of the testimonies of the beauty of this book and that this is not constructed by a farm boy from upstate New York, but that this is really an ancient record which shows various authors at various times. Let's do a quick overview of chapter nine.

I think one of the important things to see in Alma chapter nine is this new message that Alma brings with him, which is the message the angel gave to him. So originally Alma goes to Ammonihah, I assume he's teaching the doctrine of Christ, faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, this message.

But in verse 12, we see that there's something a little bit extra here, especially for this people. Hank? Yep, Alma 912, behold, now I say unto you that he comandeth you to repent, and except you repent, ye can in no wise inherit the kingdom of God. But behold, this is not all. 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." That's some good news to deliver. Yeah. So you see that this people, and this goes to a little bit how not every scripture is universally applicable. That in this one circumstance, this one people, he's universally, I say to you, he commandeth you to repent and except you repent, you can know why he's inherit the kingdom of God. I think that's probably a universal truth. But in this instance, to this people, if they don't repent, God's going to smite them off the face of the earth.

And we'll see as we already kind of looked at that that happens. In Alma chapter 16, that is what's going to happen. But as I was reading this, I was thinking, why are these people different? Alma's going to go on and he's going to talk about the Lamanites in the upcoming verses, how the Lamanites were cut off from the presence of the Lord. He's going to go on and say that the Lamanites of his generation, by the time Alma's alive, are just doing that because it's the tradition of their fathers. They're not openly rebelling against God. They're following the same things that they've been taught. And because of that, God is granting them mercy and they're not being cut off from

the face of the land. But he's saying, you, this people, Ammonihah, have been given so many opportunities, so many chances. And he goes on, he lists all of these sort of blessings that they've had, and yet they're choosing to rebel and harden their heart. And because of that, they're going to wind up being destroyed from the face of the land. As we look ahead to Alma discussing the plan of redemption in chapter 12 there is a slight parallel

between those of us who overcome the spiritual and physical death of Adam which through no fault of our own we've all been cut off from God's presence because of the fall. We're not being held accountable for that because it's not our fault. However, if we continue to rebel against God and refuse to repent, and if we harden our heart, we're going to suffer a second death and we'll be cut off from His presence. That's the plan of redemption that Alma's going to outline. And we see this almost on an earthly parallel between these people that are sinning

because they don't know any better and the people that are sinning because they are openly rebelling against God. I noticed that they knew what was coming. They're like, go ahead. I know what you're going to say. You're going to say, repent,. I know what you're gonna say. You're gonna say repent or this city's gonna be destroyed.

At the end, as shocking as it might be, the people of Ammonihah do not respond well to this message that God's gonna only destroy them. I don't know why. Specifically, Alma does use some rather harsh language. Do you wanna read verse 30 of chapter 9? Yeah. Alma 9 30, and now my beloved brethren, for ye are my brethren, and ye ought to be beloved, and ye ought to bring forth works which are made for repentance, seeing that your hearts have been

grossly hardened against the word of God, and seeing that ye are lost and have fallen people. Yeah, thems fightin' wards. Yeah, in verse 8 of chapter 9 he says, you wicked and perverse generation, and he calls them this as well, they don't respond well. In our own day, as we listen to prophets and apostles, they definitely deliver the message the Lord wants them to deliver. Sometimes as members of the church, we struggle with the way they deliver it and wish maybe they could have done it in a different way. I've heard Hank quote Matthew 26 22 a few times, Lord is it I, instead of thinking this must be for everybody else. Yeah. And sometimes

I think we pick things out that we don't like. Instead of hearing the overall message, I pick out a word, a phrase that the prophet used or this apostle used. I don't like that phrase. Instead of, I miss the message. We strain it in that. What's the expression? Yeah.

Strain it in that and swallow a camel. Yeah. You know, we're missing the whole message. I guess in this case, you miss the camel too, because you're focusing on that little tiny thing. Yeah, because Alma did say back in 26 and 27 that the Son of God is full of grace, equity, truth, patience, mercy, long suffering. He'll redeem those who are baptized under repentance and have faith on His name.

We see later that they're really upset about Him saying that there would be fire and brimstone. They picked that piece out to focus on. Yeah, let's move to the next unit, which would be Alma chapter 10 and 11. Because as we pointed out in the original Book of Mormon 1830 and probably on the gold plates, this was seen as one unit. It starts off with Amulek standing up and testifying to what Alma had said. Like you pointed out, this is first person. This appears to be a continuation of the record of Alma moving on from Alma quoting himself to Alma quoting Amulek.

It's not until later where we get Mormon inserting a little commentary on what's going on. But I'm assuming, and I could be wrong, that now these are the words which Amulek preached to the people. This is Alma saying this, I think. Basically what he does at the first, between verses one through 11 is Amulek introduces himself and shares a testimony. And his testimony basically is, all I know is what this other guy said was true. An angel told me it was true, so I trust it.

This guy's true. When you guys first contacted me about participating in this podcast and told me what chapters I'd be going over, I was talking to a friend of mine. Her name's Karen Bybee. She lives out in Geneva right now. She's on a mission for the church. She's a senior missionary. She's working with the UN there for the church. And she said how she loved Amulek and she loved these

chapters. And the reason she said really stood out to me and I think applies right here is when she was a junior companion serving her mission in, I believe it was Italy, she struggled at the beginning so much just to say anything in the language. She couldn't talk hardly. And all she could do at the beginning so much just to say anything in the language. She couldn't talk hardly. And all she could do at the end was bear her testimony and say, what that person said was true. I know that that was true. And she goes, that's why I love Amulek. He's the perfect example of a junior companion. Thank you, Sister Bybee. She was a great blessing to our life in many ways, and here she is still helping us. I like what Sister Bybee taught us there. I've thought about chapter 10 that there's two witnesses and we have these same two witnesses. One, we have the prophet,

and two, we have our neighbors around us. The prophet speaks in general conference and then my neighbor speaks in fast and testimony meeting. Maybe I'm thinking of it as like a macro witness. We have the prophet speaking to the whole church and then we have our micro witness, my neighbor saying that they believe in what the prophet has said. We all have almas in our lives and we all have amulets, those who stand up who have lived among us or who do live among us and say, I believe. Yeah, that's interesting. I tried with that person said, and yeah, it worked.

Yeah. I am not one to speak up in church all that often. At least I wasn't for a long time. Fast and testimony meeting, I would sit and listen. Sunday school and elders quorum, I would sit and listen. And then after reading about Amulek, I thought, it's important for those of us who know to tell our neighbors that we know. It's not like we need to get up every Sunday or every Fast and Testimony meeting to bear testimony. But we can be a little bit like Alma Amulek and say, I should have said something earlier. What'd you say, John? I knew.

But I would not know. But I would not know. Just a shout out to those who are willing to go up in Fast and Testimony meeting and tell their neighbors what they know. That is important. I think sometimes we feel like, oh, I've already said this or something, but it's important that we bear witness to each other.

Come together and be strengthened through each other's experiences. By learning from each other, how is it that you've tried to implement this in your life? How is it that you've tried to follow this command of God? How has it blessed your life? And seeing that and hearing that can help give us the motivation to step on, to keep going.

Those who are strong can help those who are weak. That will change, you know? Sometimes I'm the strong one, sometimes I'm the weak one. That's when Alma's people are delivered, it's Mosiah 24. Stand as witnesses for me hereafter, or is that Alma's people out of the land of Helam, that they're commanded to do that. I'm gonna deliver you so that you will stand

as witnesses for me hereafter." Mosiah 24, 14. R. And Dan's right. We sometimes think, oh, they don't want to hear from me again. I was up there 10 years ago. I'm sure everyone remembers. M. They remember. R. Coming up in part two of this episode. So the next question is, okay, wait a second, you know, Dr. Sharp, Daniel, Dan, whatever, Danny Boy, whatever you want to call me. You just went on explaining that Amulek is saying that there is only one God and that

God is Jehovah. And yet here, Zizram asks him, is the person who comes the son of God? And Amalek answers, yes. Doesn't this now suggest that the person coming is different than Jesus or different than Jehovah and isn't that false doctrine? What is really being said here?