INTRODUCTION:
If you were a bookie making bets in Zarahemla between 100 and 92 BC, with the fore-knowledge provided by the Book of Mormon, you could have made a million dollars a day by giving long odds on this proposition: “I’m willing to wager 10,000 senines (the currency as that time) that Alma the Younger will one day be President of the Church!”
Anyone with money would have paid to “see that show” and get some of that action. The chance that Alma would one day be President of the Church was about the same as the chance as Noah’s ark flying at 40,000 feet in the air. But in about 91 BC, Alma became the leader of the Church, and the Chief Judge as well. All of which leads us to what is a major message of these chapters: when the Lord says, ‘I will forgive,’ what he really means is, ‘I will forgive!’
I: LIMHI AND ALMA’S PEOPLE JOIN MOSIAH’S PEOPLE IN THE LAND OF ZARAHEMLA (Mosiah 25)
Before we head deeper into this lesson we see another actor entering the Book of Mormon.
Q: Who was Mulek? (V. 1-2)
A: Robert F. Smith and Benjamin Urrutia, co-authors of the book “New Information about Mulek” explain:
Quote 1
“Mulek, the son of Zedekiah, is mentioned several times in the Book of Mormon but not in the Bible—at least not in a way that people have recognized, until just recently. Biblical scholarship now bears out this Book of Mormon claim: King Zedekiah had a son named Mulek.” (Smith and Urrutia, New Information about Mulek, p. 142)
So as we come to the end of Mosiah, the Nephite nation consisted of the Mulekites, the Nephites of Zarahemla, the people of Limhi, the people of Alma, and the children of the Amulonites (see Mosiah 25:12). These five groups became one group under the leadership of king Mosiah II, son of Benjamin. But “there were not so many of the people of Nephi and of the people of Zarahemla as there were of the Lamanites; yea, they were not half so numerous” (Mosiah 25:3). Omni chapter one verse 5 says:
5 Behold, it came to pass that three hundred and twenty years had passed away, and the more wicked part of the Nephites were destroyed.
Q: Who were the people of Zarahemla? (V. 2)
A: In Doctrinal Commentary it says:
Quote 2
“When Mosiah 1 led the more righteous position of the Nephites northward from the land of Lehi-Nephi (about 200 B.C.) he found [the people of Zarahemla]. … It was discovered that the people Zarahemla were descendants of a colony which had been led by the Lord out of Jerusalem in the year when that city was destroyed by the king of Babylon (587 B.C.) After wandering in the wilderness they were brought across the ocean and landed in the Americas. In the years that followed, they migrated southward to the place where they were found by Mosiah.” (McConkie and Millet, Doctrinal Commentary p 287-288)
Lucifer would like to divide us. If he could find a way to drive a wedge
between us and the people of the Lord, between us and the prophet,
between us and the Spirit, his efforts to make us miserable would be much
more effective.
In the Book of Mormon Study Guide: Start to Finish I found an interesting chart that compares the bondage and deliverance of Limhi’s people to Alma’s
As the chart shows, Alma’s people were humbled by the word of God rather than being humbled by their bondage. The Lord made their bondage easier to endure. The message is for us that it is better to repent sooner or later. The slower we are to harken to our Lord the slower he must be in responding to our needs.
II: MANY CHURCH MEMBERS ARE LED INTO SIN BY UNBELIEVERS (Mosiah 26; 27:1-7)
The challenge of conveying the testimonies of the fathers to the hearts of the children confronts every generation. But some generations seem to have handled it better than others. You could say the “Millennial” generation which are people born in from the early 80s to mid 90s have this challenge. The Pew Research Center found that this generation verses the baby boomers are the least religious in history. Only 27% of this generation actually go to weekly services compared to over half —51% of the previous generation. According to David Masci, a Professor of sociology at NYU who provided the commentary about the results said:
“Most age differences at any given time are the legacy of the times people grew up in. Many Millennials have parents who are Baby Boomers and Boomers expressed to their children that it’s important to think for themselves – that they find their own moral compass. Also, they rejected the idea that a good kid is an obedient kid. That’s at odds with organizations, like churches, that have a long tradition of official teaching and obedience. And more than any other group, Millennials have been and are still being formed in this cultural context. As a result, they are more likely to have a “do-it-yourself” attitude toward religion.
Is what we’re seeing with Millennials part of a broader rejection of traditional institutions or is organized religion the only institution being affected?
Oh, it is widespread. It’s just easier to quantify religious change because we have such good data on it. But Millennials’ faith in nonreligious institutions also is weaker than they used to be. You see evidence of their lack of trust in the labor market, with government, in marriage and in other aspects of life. General Social Survey data on confidence in the leadership of major institutions show that younger people particularly are not as confident as older adults when it comes to institutions like the press, government and churches. But I think trust is not the whole story.
For one thing, there has been a long list of scandals in recent decades, such as Watergate, that have undone the reputations of major institutions the Greatest Generation trusted. Millennials didn’t grow up trusting these institutions and then had that trust betrayed like older Americans might have. They didn’t trust them to begin with. And these institutions have let people, particularly young people, down.”
Even without this type of surveys I am sure many Nephites must have agonized when they saw their children make some of the same mistakes and suffer some of the same consequences as their parents. The dilemma facing the Nephites in Mosiah 26:1-4 is a classic example:
1 Now it came to pass that there were many of the rising generation that could not understand the words of king Benjamin, being little children at the time he spake unto his people; and they did not believe the tradition of their fathers.
2 They did not believe what had been said concerning the resurrection of the dead, neither did they believe concerning the coming of Christ.
3 And now because of their unbelief they could not understand the word of God; and their hearts were hardened.
4 And they would not be baptized; neither would they join the church. And they were a separate people as to their faith, and remained so ever after, even in their carnal and sinful state; for they would not call upon the Lord their God.
Benjamin’s sermon was instrumental in helping convert a nation. Everyone who heard it, believed, repented, and received a mighty change of heart. Is it possible that these converts assumed that their children would acquire the same conversion experience by osmosis? By association? By the trickle-down effect? We do not know, but is it possible that they were so converted that they failed to pay the price to convert their kids, never dreaming that their children would need more than the opportunity to live among believers?
These members of the ‘rising generation’ in the Book of Mormon had three problems, and the sequence in which those problems are mentioned is critical. First (because they had been too small to understand the words of Benjamin), they did not believe the traditions of their fathers. They did not believe in the resurrection nor in the coming of Christ.
Their first problem was THAT THEY DID NOT BELIEVE in Christ and his mission. And “because of their unbelief”, the word of God was incomprehensible to them. Their second problem, which came directly as a result of the first, was that THEY COULD NOT UNDERSTAND. This increased the problem, for their hearts were hardened.
The result of this lack of understanding was that “they would not be baptized; neither would they join the church . . . they would not call upon the Lord their God (Mosiah 26:1-4). Simply stated, THEY WOULD NOT OBEY the commandments.
I believe that this is the way it always happens. When people will not obey the word of the Lord, it is not necessarily because they do not want to…It is often because they do not understand. And they do not understand because they do not believe. People who believe will see–will understand–the meaning behind the commandments; and seeing, they will have an increased inclination to obey.
As we read in Mosiah 26:6 the problem among the people of Mosiah actually was increasing:
6 For it came to pass that they did deceive many with their flattering words, who were in the church, and did cause them to commit many sins; therefore it became expedient that those who committed sin, that were in the church, should be admonished by the church.
This was new ground of course, for “there had not any such thing happened before in the church” (Mosiah 26:10). Alma took the matter to the King who deferred to Alma, who then went to the Lord, “for he feared that he should do wrong in the site of God” (Mosiah 26:13)
Note that the Lord answered Alma about this matter “after he had poured out his whole soul to God” (Mosiah 26:14) Consider that phrase.
In Doctrinal Commentary we read:
Quote 3
“There are moments that matter, occasions when a supplicant is poignantly aware of the need for divine direction. Though we are continually dependent on the light of heaven to illuminate our paths, there are occasions that require a sure answer, occasions in which we ‘pour out our whole souls’ in prayer—we implore with an intensity and petition with a passion. Even our master, at the time of his greatest test, ‘prayed more earnestly.’’
What does it mean to pour out your whole soul in prayer? This is a phrase that
appears 12 times in the Book of Mormon. Even for one as righteous as Alma (In 26:20, the Lord covenants with Alma that he will have eternal life), the effort to obtain light and knowledge is a strenuous one. As the Lord conveys his will to Alma, he makes a remarkable statement about forgiveness—a statement that is worth a prominent place on every refrigerator in Zion. “And whomsoever you receive shall believe in my name; and him will I freely forgive.” (Mosiah 26:22, emphasis added)
Words such as eagerly, graciously, readily, and willingly are synonyms for freely. Mark this verse and memorize it. If we come to Christ and believe in his name, he will eagerly, graciously, readily, and willingly forgive us. He will freely forgive!
Note also that the first step for receiving this forgiveness is that we believe in his name. And he also promises “. . . as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me” (Mosiah 26:30)
A related verse in Isaiah teaches this same truth:
7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
The Lord’s revealed pattern for dealing with those who sin is still followed by
the Church (see Mosiah 26:29-32)
chrisandjoanne 