Have you discovered, as many of us have, that there is an uncanny synchronicity between current events this year and the Church’s Come, Follow Me gospel study guide this year? I have to confess that I was late to join the party with the study program. For some four decades, I have studied the scriptures daily and I have pretty much followed my own plan. I read the Book of Mormon at least once annually and I kept a rotation going with the other books of scripture. That rotation didn’t always coincide with the volume of scripture assigned for study in Sunday School. For example, when I taught Seminary, the Seminary students were on a different volume than the Sunday School. Over all these years, I just followed my own system and made adjustments as I saw fit.
When Covid-19 caused us to be confined at home and “home church” became the new routine for my wife and I, we started using Come, Follow Me. For my non-LDS readers, this is more than a study schedule or study guide. The Church has always been on the forefront of using new technology to deliver gospel instruction. Back in the day, that might have meant providing missionaries with a filmstrip and cassette recorder, a VHS tape, DVD, and now iPads or tablets. The new general study curriculum synchronized all the organizations in the Church so Seminary students, Primary, Young Men/Young Women, and adult classes were all studying the same thing. Worldwide, Church members will be reading the same lessons within the same week or so. The lessons provide narratives, explanations, guiding questions, direct links to access related scriptures, and multimedia. The quality of the content is amazing. Best of all it’s free. Anyone, including members can download it for free from the Apple or Android app stores.
Once you start using it, you will notice that the lessons, which had to have been planned out at least a year in advance in order to allow for design, integration, and publishing of the courseware, is synching up with current events in a rather amazing way. It speaks to the inspiration behind the whole initiative to support home-based worship, an idea that the Prophet of the Church directed well over a year ago. The world didn’t know there was going to be a global pandemic that would shut down churches as well as businesses. Maybe the Prophet didn’t know it either, but the whisperings of the Holy Spirit impressed upon him the need to direct the change in delivering gospel instruction to the 16-million member Church. In individual lessons, the correlation to current events speaks to the timeliness of the Book of Mormon as well as the divine guidance poured out on those who determined lesson content and pacing.
This week’s lesson is about Alma’s ministry to the city of Ammonihah. For those unfamiliar with the characters and narrative of the Book of Mormon, the book relates an account of people from ancient Israel who were guided by a prophet to the Americas. In the Americas, they developed a civilization. They broke up into several groups over the time period the book covers. They faced fratricidal wars between factions. One faction was taught to believe in Christ, the Messiah to come. Among them, God called prophets to teach and guide them. The Book of Mormon comes from that faction and it contains the writings of some of these prophets.
Alma the Younger was one of the great prophets of the people. He is often referred to as the “Paul” of the Book of Mormon because of his travels and his preaching, but there were many differences. Alma’s father had been a priest under a king in one of the other factions who was converted to Christ. Alma the Younger, was not a believer and he went about trying to destroy his father’s church. (This is where the similarity to Paul comes in.) Eventually, while he was traveling about trying to undermine and destroy the Church, he was confronted by an angel who tells him to choose repentance or destruction. Alma succumbed after the vision and after several days, he recovered and became a mighty, born-again preacher.
Alma eventually took his father’s place as the head of the Church of God and, in a plebiscite, he was elected as the chief judge of his people in a democratic government. Just a few years into this experiment with democracy, Alma faced a subversive revolt and a civil war. After the war, he saw that the people of the Church in the land were struggling. He decided to step down from the judgeship he held and to focus on the ministry. He traveled to several important cities of his people, regulating the affairs of the Church, reteaching key doctrines, and ensuring that members understood their duties in the Church and society. Inequality was a constant challenge and he addressed that in several sermons.
Alma’s mission was not to outsiders. He was focused on administering the Church over which he had authority. When he arrived at the city of Ammonihah, he finds serious disorder and the spirit of apostasy. The people there no longer consider themselves members of the Church and they challenge Alma’s authority.
What is most impressive to me about the chapters 8 through 12 of the Book of Alma is the vehemence, rancor, and disrespect hurled at Alma. Here was a man who had been the Chief Judge over his people, who having stepped down from the highest elected position in the land voluntarily to preach God’s word, is met with the utmost derision. Imagine what it would be like if Trump were to step down from the Presidency and go to an Antifa stronghold to reason with them about the importance of obeying laws and serving their community. Yes, you can imagine that it wouldn’t go well. This is what it was like for Alma.
This past week, we observed Antifa and its riotous followers establish the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle. This group of anarchists and revolutionaries are trying to set up an independent nation inside U.S. sovereign territory. You just know that this isn’t going to end well. Within hours, the more idealistic members of the group were dismayed when homeless people ate all their food and they had to beg the people outside their fledgling community to bring them vegan food. Then, within the first couple of days, some rap singer asserted himself as a strongman, supported by some followers carrying guns and intimidating others. So much for the autonomous collective!
Yesterday a “street preacher” went into the CHAZ borders preaching Jesus. They choked him out. This was the spirit of the people of Ammonihah to whom Alma was sent. The first time he went among them, they taunted him, verbally abused him, and physically cast him out of their midst. On the way back to his home, Alma was commanded by an angel to return to the city with a new message: repent of be destroyed. It is interesting what the angel said about the people there. It wasn’t that they were just wicked people doing evil, ungodly things. The angel said, “For behold, they do study at this time that they may destroy the liberty of thy people, (for thus saith the Lord) which is contrary to the statutes, and judgments, and commandments which he has given unto his people.” (Alma 8:17)
This wasn’t just run-of-the-mill wickedness. This was a godless group that was calculating to overthrow the free, democratic government. We have several of those kinds of groups right now that are conspiring to do the same thing. When you watch videos of Antifa’s interactions with patriotic Americans, there is an almost irrational hatred on their part. I’m sure you have seen some of these videos where some guy or girl is simply screaming incoherently, almost animal-like, directly into the face of someone trying to challenge their point-of-view. The hatred and anger are so visceral and inarticulate that it is disturbing to see. These are people over whom Satan has taken control. They are no longer thinking. They are conditioned to react to any disagreement with rage.
Eventually, Alma reaches one less-active member, Amulek, who accompanies him on his mission to these people. Alma also converts one lawyer, who challenges him before the people in cross-examination, and he reaches a few other people who come back to the fold. The angry mob arrests them and puts Alma and Amulek into prison. Then they burn the holy books in a bonfire and then burn the few believers alive. Again, the irrational hatred is so Antifa-like, it is uncanny.
When Amulek pleads with Alma to use divine power to stop these atrocities, Alma teaches him a great lesson about God and suffering in the world. This is a valuable lesson because so many people lose faith in God when some terrible thing strikes them, like the loss of a loved one in a tragic accident, disease, crime, or war. Alma answers that God permits such evil to exist in the world out of a commitment to man’s agency. For the wicked to be judged and punished eternally, they must be allowed to act out their wickedness. Otherwise God’s justice is arbitrary. This means that, often, the righteous must suffer from the actions of those who do evil.
Eventually, God frees Alma and Amulek from prison when an earthquake destroys it following a prayer by Alma for deliverance. Yet the people of the city didn’t repent. A couple of years later, in the aftermath of war between two of the factional groups, the city is completely destroyed and left without any survivors. God’s judgment came upon them and they didn’t have time to prepare or react.
There are many lessons that can be drawn from the text of Alma’s preaching in Ammonihah. One of those that seems relevant right now is that wickedness has to have its space in order that the evil ones might fully earn their condemnation. That space provides them the opportunity to respond to the invitation to repent. Inasmuch as they revile against that, they become ever more hardened in their hearts.
Hardness of heart is really the core symptom of today’s problems. When people stop listening and refuse to see, they become hardened in their hearts. You can present them with facts and it doesn’t matter. You can attempt to peacefully persuade them and the goodwill just doesn’t penetrate. Alma’s sermon says that this hardening or resistance cuts the person off from receiving the spirit of God and it blocks them from accepting truth. When we die and face judgment, the resurrection restores unto us what we have become.
If we are people who are open and accepting of the spirit of truth, then more truth will come to us and spiritual progression continues. If we have hardened our hearts so much that we can no longer accept additional light or truth, then we become dead to it. When we are restored eternally, damnation results from the fact that we become what we were in the flesh. A person who rejected the light in the flesh won’t be prone to do otherwise in eternity. Today we are in the middle of a spiritual war between factions of light and darkness. Those who harden their hearts and revile against the truth won’t fare well in the end.
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