My Soul Standeth Fast in That Liberty in the Which God Hath Made Us Free

Alma 61 (The end of verse 9 is quoted in the title)

Pahoran understands the source, the terms and conditions of the freedom that he had been called upon to protect.

(BT – There is more to be internalized from these verses, but the day requires my attentions elsewhere. I feel that I am understanding now the actions that I have already taken, and why they were significant. This is about freedom and fighting for freedom.)

Flattering Words

The origin of the word “flatter” is Germanic and is related to the stroke, or the idea of making smooth, or smoothing out something. The word by very definition means to give insincere praise with the purpose of advancing one’s own objectives or purposes.

Doctrine and Covenants 10 (particularly verses 10 -41) give a detailed account of Satan’s efforts to destroy the work of God through flattery. He persuades people to lie because they think that they are being lied to.

It is also interesting to note that those dissenters from among the Nephites, who established a king over the land of Zarahemla thought in their hearts that they could safely enter into an alliance with the Lamanites for protection with the hope of becoming king over all the land of the Nephites. (See verse 8)

These motives of those who have risen in rebellion are no different than any other rebellion against the righteous.

The Will of God

In later verses, Pahoran talks of being subjected to the yoke of bondage if it were required of the justice of God (see vs. 12). But then he goes on to say that this is not the desires of God that the land in which they had been established be taken away from them.

I find myself asking these same questions right now. In our current circumstances, what is the will of God here, now?

Exaltation and the Family

We do because of what we believe. But we know because of what we have done.

If we say that we believe, but we do not act, then we do not really believe the thing of which we claim to believe. If we do not act based on belief, then we either do not act or we act based solely on fear.

The doctrine of exaltation.

I want to discuss with you a hard doctrine, especially for those of us who love deeply.

How does Pres. Nelson explain it:

Jesus Christ teaches the way back to our eternal home. He understands our Heavenly Father’s plan of eternal progression better than any of us… Repeatedly, scriptures record that despite all kinds of sins from all kinds of people, His arms are outstretched still.2

The spirit in each of us naturally yearns for family love to last forever. Love songs perpetuate a false hope that love is all you need if you want to be together forever. And some erroneously believe that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ provides a promise that all people will be with their loved ones after death.

In truth, the Savior Himself has made it abundantly clear that while His Resurrection assures that every person who ever lived will indeed be resurrected and live forever,3 much more is required if we want to have the high privilege of exaltation. Salvation is an individual matter, but exaltation is a family matter.

Families can be together forever through Heavenly Father’s plan, but families are not automatically granted forever status.

So, what is required for a family to be exalted forever? We qualify for that privilege by making covenants with God, keeping those covenants, and receiving essential ordinances.

This has been true since the beginning of time. Adam and Eve, Noah and his wife, Abraham and Sarah, Lehi and Sariah, and all other devoted disciples of Jesus Christ—since the world was created—have made the same covenants with God. They have received the same ordinances that we as members of the Lord’s restored Church today have made: those covenants that we receive at baptism and in the temple.

The Savior invites all to follow Him into the waters of baptism and, in time, to make additional covenants with God in the temple and receive and be faithful to those further essential ordinances. All these are required if we want to be exalted with our families and with God forever.

We Cannot Compel Anyone to Accept the Christ’s Invitation: Come, Follow Me.

What makes this hard? It is that we have family outside of the covenant path.

In our anxious longings to secure the blessings of exaltation for all of our family members, we cannot set aside our own righteousness with the vain hope of securing another’s righteousness. We must not, and we cannot safely step off the covenant path and hope to have the strength to pull another to where we want them to be.

Listen to the words of persuasion used by Pres. Nelson:

How I wish I could visit with them and invite them to consider seriously the enabling laws of the Lord. I’ve wondered what I could possibly say so they would feel how much the Savior loves them and know how much I love them and come to recognize how covenant-keeping women and men can receive a “fulness of joy.”8

They need to understand that while there is a place for them hereafter—with wonderful men and women who also chose not to make covenants with God—that is not the place where families will be reunited and be given the privilege to live and progress forever. That is not the kingdom where they will experience the fulness of joy—of never-ending progression and happiness.9 Those consummate blessings can come only by living in an exalted celestial realm with God, our Eternal Father; His Son, Jesus Christ; and our wonderful, worthy, and qualified family members.

Having Experiences with God.

Doing the spiritual work to come to know God.

Your physical body, your mind and heart have never been in the presence of God, but your spirit which gives your body life, came from the presence of God. It received lessons and instruction before you came in possession of a physical body. As you study the word of God and as you pray, you may begin to have experiences that are un-explainable to you, not because they are strange, but because they are familiar to you. You will recognize those feelings of familiarity and struggle to reason within yourself how these things can be, because they will seem new to you.

The reality is that God is our loving Father, and he painstakingly prepared each one of us for the experience of mortality. He could not give our minds or our hearts any pre-recorded messages, because that would void the very purpose of mortality: to see if we could recognize truth, to see if our spirits could recognize truth when housed inside a mortal body.

Conclusion

Brothers and Sisters, let us remember that what we do, is a direct reflection of what we believe. And that a testimony of the truth can only be gained by doing the truth.

Yet let no man deceive you into believe that the day of faith has passed, for exaltation is the work of lifetime and beyond. It will require faith all our days, action because of what we believe, to receive the knowledge or that final and crowning gift of life eternal.

…I plead with you who have distanced yourselves from the Church and with you who have not yet really sought to know that the Savior’s Church has been restored. Do the spiritual work to find out for yourselves, and please do it now. Time is running out.

To All Those Who Have Been Chosen… to Govern

Alma 60

The Spirit of the Lord bids me to consider this passage:

But behold, great has been the slaughter among our people; yea, thousands have fallen by the sword…

Alma 60:5

This is the motivating cause for which Moroni so strongly comes out against the leadership of their government.

But why did I just gloss over it when I first read it? A great slaughter among our people… thousands have fallen by the sword. What is the weight of loss that is described by Alma here?

What is the real value of a soul being slain? What is the value of one soul being saved? Then when we compound that number by 10 or a 10,000, I can’t comprehend one.

New reading: this letter is not exclusively to Pahoran, but ” also to all those who have been chosen by this people to govern and manage the affairs of this war.” (vs. 1) I always looked at this as a letter between Moroni and Pahoran, but he uses the pronoun “ye” throughout; Moroni knew who his audience was.

This falls into the category of “strong reproof with sharpness when moved upon by the Holy Spirit”.

Empezó a dudar

Alma 59

Cuando los nefitas pierdan la ciudad de Nefiáh, Moroni y sus capitanes en jefe, empiezan a dudar si podrán vencer contra sus hermanos, los lamanitas. Pensaron así porque tuvieron miedo que tal vez su propio pueblo fuera malo. Pensaron así porque los lamanitas habían logrado éxito en sus diseños contra los nefitas.

¿Porque pensaban así?

Uno de los temas principales del Libro de Mormon es esto: Si guarden el mandamientos de Dios, Él los prosperarán en la tierra.

Por un lado parece tan sencilla, casí risible. Pero la actualidad del principio es bastante difícil lograr. Entonces los mandamientos de Dios son suficiente claras y sencillas que uno puede entenderlo.

We Did Pour Out Our Souls

Alma 58

I needed this chapter this morning!

And it came to pass that we did wait in these difficult circumstances for the space of many months, even until we were about to perish for the want of food…

Therefore we did pour out our souls in prayer to God, that he would strengthen us and deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, yea, and also give us strength that we might retain our cities, and our lands, and our possessions, for the support of our people.

Yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that he would deliver us; yea, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him.

And we did take courage with our small force which we had received, and were fixed with a determination to conquer our enemies, and to maintain our lands, and our possessions, and our wives, and our children, and the cause of our liberty.

Verses 7,10-12

Él es quien nos ha librado

Alma 57

Claramente, si el relato de los dos mil sesenta es verídico, hay un punto de poder que ellos poseían por su fe, que el resto de los nefitas no tenían. Y Helamán lo explica así-

Y lo atribuimos con justicia al milagroso poder de Dios, por motivo de su extraordinaria fe en lo que se les había enseñado a creer: que había un Dios justo, y que todo aquel que no dudara, sería preservado por su maravilloso poder

Esta, pues, fue la fe de aquellos de que he hablado; son jóvenes, y sus mentes son firmes, y ponen su confianza en Dios continuamente.

Alma 57:26-27

Estoy dando consideración a lo que uno puede hacer con fe.

La respuesta de Gid también ilustra su fe en Dios. Y es ésto el razón que Helamán incluye esto aquí.

Entered Into the Rest of Their God

Alma 57

I read the accounts of the miraculous preservation of the Sons of Helaman, and I know there are people today that have that kind of faith. I know of stories from missionaries in the Philippines, groups of youth from my time at EFY, and many families across this broad church that have such faith.

The story of the stripling warriors is not the end of the affair in this chapter. Helaman goes on to share the circumstances of Gid who was given command over the Lamanite prisoners. As Helaman learns the story of Gid, he rejoices even more in the preserving power of the Lord in this their time of war.

There is a footnote at the very end of the chapter that takes me on a bit of journey. Helaman concludes that those who had been slain among the Nephites had entered into the rest of their God. The footnote takes me over to Alma 12, where it very clearly states:

Therefore, whosoever repenteth, and hardeneth not his heart, he shall have claim on mercy through mine Only Begotten Son, unto a remission of his sins; and these shall enter into my rest.

Alma 12:34

So the assumed fact in Helaman’s concluding remarks is that those that had died among the Nephites had in fact gone through this process of preparing their souls to enter into the rest of their God.

No dudamos que nuestras madres lo sabían

Alma 56

Dentro de la iglesia, cuando hablamos de convenios con Dios, usualmente referimos a las ordenanzas, que también son convenios. Pero aquí, se nos acuerda del convenio que hizo el pueblo de Ammón de no tomar armas de guerra. Aunque no fue ordenanza, ellos sin embargo hicieron convenio con Dios. Y la seriedad de este convenio fue tanto que aún en este tiempo de peligro, el profeta de Dios les avisó no violar su convenio. (versículos 6 – 8; véase también Alma 24:17-18)

Hay un sentimiento de entusiasmo juvenil en la respuesta de los hijos de Helaman. Lo reconozco en la espíritu de BYU, con experiencias de mi juventud. Siento que puedo tener este sentimiento aquí entre los jóvenes de Marshall.

Sus madres (de los dos mil joven) enseñaban de que si no dudaban en Dios, Dios los libraran. Esto fue su creencia publica. Esto es lo que enseñaban sus madres. Y sabían que sus madres sabían. Nos gusta hablar de los que vivan por el testimonio de sus padres. Pero muy poco hablamos de los que reciben un testimonio por causa del testimonio de sus padres y sus madres, o los jovenes que tienen un testimonio del testimonio de sus madres.

¿Y sobre cual doctrina o enseñanzas se base de que si confiaron en Dios, ellos estarían entregados de la muerte por mano de Dios?

Esto es la doctrina: Si uno pone su confianza en Dios, Él lo librará.

Al terminar este capitulo, me reflexiona sobre el milagro de los joven ammonitas. Tal vez mejor es no mirar a esto como un milagro increíble (aúnque lo fue), sino mirar lo como una muestra del poder verídico de Dios.

La Creatividad

Alma 55

La creatividad es el acto de crear algo que nunca se ha creado antes. He estado leyendo últimamente las palabras de Hugh Nibley referente a la creación. Uno de los podres de Dios, los llaves de la creación se ha reservado para después de esta vida. En estos capítulos, Moroni se inventa nuevos estratagemas para lograr sus propósitos. Si hubiera repetido un estratagema que ya habian empleado, el enimigo sabría como responder. Con la creativadad, uno nunca sabe como responder. Por definición la creatividad es algo que nunca antes había hecho.

La creatividad no supera la ley, sino utiliza la ley para lograr su exploraciones.

He Knew that [He] Knew

Alma 55

Moroni at the start of this chapter is angry with Ammoron because he (Moroni) knows that Ammoron knows that he is not justified in his actions of war against the Nephites. This knowledge that Moroni now has, this assurance of Ammoron’s fraud, (which he already had, but now having it expressly presented to him) changes the course and approach of Moroni in how he hopes to liberate his captive people. Instead of hoping for some peaceful compromise, he instead uses strategy to secure their liberty.

The interesting thing about Moroni’s anger, which is clearly a motivating force throughout this account (see Alma 51:14, 54:13, 55:1), is that it never causes him to lose control.

Take home: if you know the difference between right and wrong, and wrong is being presented as right or acceptable, then there is need to take action to correct that which is wrong, not in uncontrolled confusion, but in intentional clarity.