Latest / Scripture Central / Alma 8–12 | June 17–23 | John W. Welch and Lynne Hilton Wilson | Come Follow Me Book of Mormon

Transcript

Alma 8–12 | June 17–23 | John W. Welch and Lynne Hilton Wilson | Come Follow Me Book of Mormon · Scripture Central

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  Hello, welcome to Scripture Central.
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  I'm Lynn Hilton Wilson. And I'm Jack Welch, and it's
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  wonderful to have you with us and I hope everything is going
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  so well for you in your scripture study and come follow
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  me lessons this year. Today we'll be looking at Alma
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  chapters 8 through 12. This is the beautiful missionary
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  chapters where Alma is able to preach mainly to Ammani Ha.
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  And it doesn't end in chapter 12, though.
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  Ammani Ha continues on until next week as well.
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  That's right. It's amazing that Alma gives us
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  Chapters 8 through 16 on this experience, a terrible
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  experience that he's had in Ammaniah when you compare that
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  with and how much did we get when he went to the city of
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  Gideon? You know, that was last week and
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  they were righteous. They were good.
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  We got a little bit, and then today chapter eight starts out
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  with just a few verses on Melech.
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  They were righteous, they're baptized, they're good, and then
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  we get an enormous amount of information on the wickedness.
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  And of course, Alma is in Amaniah longer than in those two
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  places. Ten months, it says.
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  And much of that time in prison and torture, no doubt.
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  There's a lot to be said and Alma is seared by this
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  experience and it will change him forever.
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  In this week's lesson, it's interesting to see the themes
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  that Alma talks about. I just want to share something
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  you to look at when you're reading your scriptures. 21
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  times. He has the theme of repentance
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  or repented or repenteth. And this is so Christ centered
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  because it's all focused on the redemption.
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  And he's refers to the Redeemer and redemption and the plan of
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  salvation over and over again, hardening the hearts at least 13
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  times and then deliverance at least eight times.
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  I think these themes are all part of the preparation to
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  receive the Savior as the one who will save them and the one
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  who will judge them. And it's interesting that Alma
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  will use these words and teach these points even to his
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  staunchest enemies. We're in the 10th year at the
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  reign of the judges. And as you recall, Alma has
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  stepped down from being the judge over the whole Nephite
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  nation and is now focusing on his position as the high priest.
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  And as a high priest, he has the missionary responsibility, the
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  ecclesiastical responsibility, to visit the different cities to
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  make sure the church is well organized.
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  And we begin Chapter 8 with a wonderful city of Melek.
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  They're doing well. And then turn within a few
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  verses to this very difficult assignment to go to a very
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  wicked city that I assume he knew was wicked.
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  What do you think? Oh, I'm I'm sure he does.
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  He's with the chief judge. How could he not know?
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  Well, he knows for one thing that this place has become the
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  headquarters of the Nahorites. Now we learned about those back
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  at the Alma chapter one and this was the guy who wanted to get
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  money for being paid and he said there's no sin.
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  Anything you do, God will forgive you.
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  Isn't that's Nahor? Nahor was the person, as we've
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  said, that Alma had to execute. He was the chief judge and
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  because he had killed Gideon, there was blood that had been
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  spilled and the law required the life of of Nahor.
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  And theologically it's even worse because he's the one who's
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  preaching God will forgive all sin.
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  There is no sin and you should pay me for telling you that.
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  Well, that's true. But it wasn't a laughing matter
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  because these people really became seriously opposed to
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  Alma. And I think here we have Alma
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  still as the high priest, fulfilling his duty to go to
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  every city in the land. And he must have said to
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  himself, Lord, even Amaniah. And the Lord says, yes, go.
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  And Alma would have said, you know, I don't have a single
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  person in that city I could stay with.
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  He's going by the Spirit of the Lord.
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  The Spirit pushed him to go and he is having to trust in the
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  Lord. To me, this is back to first
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  Nephi with the four sons of Lehigh.
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  Going back to get the breast plates.
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  You know you were going because the Lord told us to, Not because
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  it's going to be easy, not because we want to, not because
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  we think it's a good idea for our missionary work.
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  And it it won't go very well for Alma.
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  That first visit, he goes in and they reject him and he leaves
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  and he's about to go somewhere else and.
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  The Angel comes and says turn around and.
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  Who do you think that Angel was? Well, we're told that, he says.
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  I am the Angel that first visited you when you were going
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  astray with the sons of Mosiah. So I to me, I just get so
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  excited when I see angels working in our lives and there's
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  continuity that they're that they're, they're cheering us on,
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  that they're trying to prepare the way and that they're helping
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  us do God's work here on earth. I believe this is in all of our
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  lives as well as Alma's. And in Alma 36, he will call
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  that Angel the Angel of the Lord, and many times that's a
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  euphemism for the Lord. Himself.
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  Yes, it is. And.
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  That in the Bible at least. And that Lord knows Alma and he
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  says, I'll be with you, be patient, go back.
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  And Alma does and this. Time.
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  He has a place to stay. He he will get one, but he
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  doesn't know that. No, no, no.
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  He turns around completely walking by faith, but it's the
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  Angel all another Angel comes to Amulek and says, OK, turn around
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  and I just kind of pause for a minute on these names.
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  Amulek again has take out the vowels from Hebrew and you read
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  MLK. We have the word for king again
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  and he's a very wealthy man. He's in a high position.
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  He's well established in the community.
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  I don't know what his mom was thinking when he named him this,
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  but we just see this repetition of these ancient names.
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  Another evidence that the Book of Mormon is an ancient text.
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  And in fact, the city that Alma had just been to, where he
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  baptizes a lot of people, is the city of Melech.
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  Chapter 8 verse You don't. Even have to take the olive off
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  of that one, which is the word for king.
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  The these cities, the city of Malik, it it was a royal city.
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  It was an important city in the region and people would have
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  gone through there and that's I think why Alma would have
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  stopped there and. And then the text says he takes
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  a three day journey. So he goes from Malik and he
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  goes N 3 days and he gets to Amaniah.
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  But I thought it was interesting that the text tells us how many
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  days it is just because we can read the scriptures as a story.
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  We can read the scriptures for theology.
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  But I think there's symbolism here, Jack.
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  Anytime it says 3 days and you're going to something very,
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  very difficult, he's going into. I mean, does this sort of remind
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  you of Jonah being sent to the enemy?
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  And Jonah says, I don't want to go there.
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  And then again, we have 3 days. And then of course this is a
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  type of. Christ yes.
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  And you know, when you mentioned Jonah, Jonah also had been
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  called to go somewhere. Nineveh, he doesn't want to go.
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  And Alma is in the same position.
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  I think so. And Alma is the high priest, and
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  I think there's some interesting, important symbolism
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  there too, because only the high priest could go into the Holy of
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  Holies. And as the high priest, he is
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  standing in the place of the Lord.
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  And Jesus our Savior also must tread the winepress alone.
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  He must go alone into that, for no one else could do what he
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  could do. And this becomes either an
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  Abrahamic sacrifice or a trotting of the wine press.
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  This becomes help me on this one.
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  Jack is, is this the hardest missionary message that he
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  gives? He's there for almost 10 months
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  in the 10th year at the rate of the judges.
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  Is this the hardest one that Alma does?
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  I mean, the whole city's destroyed.
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  All the people, the women are burned, the children are burned.
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  I I think the. Books are burned.
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  Yeah, the books are burned. I think this is the wicked the
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  most, this is the most difficult missionary transfer he has.
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  After the end of chapter 16, of course, we will then switch to
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  the story of the four sons of Mosiah and their missionary
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  experiences. After that point, Alma will not
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  go alone as a missionary again. The next time he goes will be to
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  preach to the Zoramites in the city of Antionum.
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  And interesting, his companion is the same companion he gets
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  here. It's Amulek.
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  So let's go back to meeting Amulek.
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  So when Alma turns around and goes back to ammonia, he goes in
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  by another way. Yeah, 'cause he has to sort of
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  go in disguise or, you know, and he's not going to get in maybe
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  the the through the front gate this.
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  Night. Well, that's right.
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  So in a way he's illegal in town.
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  He has been expelled, so he does go again, risking his life
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  already, but it's there that he will meet Amulek.
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  Yes. Who will say come and stay in my
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  house? As Amulek will later testify to
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  the people, Alma comes and he he is fed and he's protected.
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  And there's kind of a law of hospitality that's at work here.
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  When you stay at a person's home in the ancient world, you're
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  kind of within their protective custody.
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  And what also happens, we see this in Paul visiting in some
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  places, like in Thessalonica. The host is then legally
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  responsible if the guest does anything wrong in the city.
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  So Amulek is actually going out on a limb here to help Alma.
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  He feeds Alma, he he helps him. And Alma says he eats until he
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  is filled, and he'd been fasting many days.
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  Why does he include the detail about being full?
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  I just think of course he's going to eat till he's full
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  anyway. Was it a time period of
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  starvation? Why would he include that
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  detail? Well, in in Deuteronomy chapter
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  8, verse 10 of. Course, there's something in the
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  old law. You actually have a a rule that
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  when you eat a meal, and the Jews still do this today, that
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  you offer a blessing or a Thanksgiving at the end of the
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  meal. And you only have to offer this
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  lengthy blessing if you have eaten a full meal, if you just
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  have a snack, you don't have to pray or give thanks.
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  Oh, I love. So there's actually that little
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  detail. And then after that, in the
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  text, it says he went and blessed, and then it mentions
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  the different people he blesses. That's great.
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  Let's go. There are so many things about
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  the text. And.
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  Just keep diving deeper in your reading.
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  Don't read a shallow version of these verses.
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  And then in verse 27, in chapter 8, it says that Alma tarried
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  many days with Amulek. What do you think he was doing
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  during that many days? Well, it says later that he
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  taught in the gospel. He blesses his family.
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  How much do you think he's teaching Amulek?
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  Oh, I think he has to teach him everything he teaches in the
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  plan of salvation. Amulek really understands the
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  atonement. And when Alma needs a second
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  witness, because as they finally go out to speak, Alma will
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  condemn the people in Ammani, Huh.
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  And they will say to him, don't you have to have two witnesses?
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  Where's? Your second witness and Amulek
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  steps forward, and then he gives a wonderful explanation, I
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  think, repeating a lot of the training that Alma had just
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  given. I think that's what's happening
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  here. But as we look at the whole time
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  in Ammaniha from Chapter 9 to 16, there's a beautiful parallel
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  structure. And Alma is a master at small
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  little chiasmus, lots of parallels, and then these broad
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  overarching winds. And so let's take a look here.
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  This week's readings is just chapters 9 through 12.
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  And he starts out with Alma arriving in Amanihah for the
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  second time. He's giving his warning and
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  destruction. That's verse nine or Chapter 9.
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  Excuse me. And then in chapter 10, we
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  Amulek describes the his angelic visitation.
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  And then in Chapter 11, we get Zizrim's attack and his false
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  bribing and the terrible things like that.
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  And then in the same chapter 12, Alma answers Zesrim's questions
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  and he talks about the redemption and the resurrection
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  and the judgement. And that's where we finished
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  this week. But next week we get the exact
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  opposite order, starting with the high priest Melchizedek.
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  And we'll talk about how that all unfolds next week.
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  But just look small and look large when you're looking for
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  parallels in Alma's text. And then I think it's important
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  to mention that we are being told these things from the
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  record of Alma. The text makes that clear.
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  So Alma has actually written a book, and many different records
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  will go into the composition of the Big Book of Alma.
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  And of course, Alma won't even live past, as far as we know,
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  past Alma 43. But it's still called the Book
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  of Alma. His son Helaman refers to it
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  take over, and he refers to it as the Book of Alma.
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  But it's cobbled together with lots of different sections, and
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  this comes from the book of Alma.
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  Now we will learn later, as many people are already anticipating,
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  that in Alma Chapter 36 we have the most masterful chiasm maybe
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  ever written in sacred literature.
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  Think of that. If Alma is such a master of this
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  form of composition, we should expect that we would see other
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  instances of his use of this rhetorical device because
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  something like Alma 36 isn't just going to explode out of
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  nowhere. In today's readings for this
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  week, for this week, I have found at least one or two
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  chiasms or parallels or literary instructions in every single
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  chapter. And I am convinced that anything
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  that was important to him, he put in a beautiful poetic
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  setting. And I would really, it's so
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  helpful to read my scriptures when I can cut and paste and put
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  them on a laptop or something. And I can just see these
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  repeated words. It's very difficult to find them
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  sometimes in in my book. But if I use it online and move
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  things around, wow, he is so consistent with these.
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  I'll point out a couple as we go today.
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  And this rhetorical tool is especially useful in emphasizing
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  a turning point. And Alma will tell us of turning
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  points in these chapters where things also are in great
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  contrast with something before. And this is part of his theme of
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  repentance and forgiveness. And and that is a turning where
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  your life will turn. And so the the literary form
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  matches the content beautifully. It's absolutely masterful, and
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  if you don't appreciate it, we're missing half of the text.
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  I I really think we're Alma's going to give us some good
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  firesides in heaven on this one. In Chapter 9, we find Alma in in
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  sort of a legal context. Here they ask him questions.
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  He asked them questions and accusations are going back and
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  forth. Alma will quote the law or quote
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  Lehigh and saying, remember, didn't Lehigh say, and as much
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  as you shall keep my commandments, you shall prosper
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  in the land. Why aren't you people keeping
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  the commandments? That's verse 13.
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  And those commandments are still important.
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  The people and the Nahorite religion didn't think the
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  commandments were important. They didn't.
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  It's so important to know their theology here.
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  And so the Nahorites turn the tables and start asking Alma a
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  bunch of questions. Well, I appreciate even before
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  that when they're still asking him a question in verse four,
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  they say we will not believe thy words if thou shouldst
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  prophesied that this great city should be destroyed in one day.
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  And I think Alma includes that so that he can show how ironic
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  it is that that came out of their mouths.
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  And then it was fulfilled in chapter 16.
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  We'll talk about that next week. But there's some great
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  prophecies here when they're asking him, you know who's God
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  who are? You but notice in verses 20 to
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  22 He does remind them how successful and how blessed these
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  people have been. The Lord has promised if you
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  keep the commandments, you shall prosper in the land.
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  And in how many ways had the Nephite people been highly
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  blessed and prospered? A.
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  Dozen and 1/2. Of these, yeah, a dozen and a
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  half, Yeah, I counted 18. All things made known, visited
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  by the Spirit. They conversed with angels.
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  They heard the voice of God, the spirit of prophecy, the spirit
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  of revelation, many gifts of the Spirit, the gift of tongues,
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  gift of preaching, gift of translation.
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  That gift of tongues always is interesting to me because he's
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  teaching people in his own language, and yet sometimes we
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  have other people coming in. I think it was absolutely
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  necessary. Yeah.
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  And, you know, he says they were saved from famine, saved from
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  sickness and diseases. You know, some of these things
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  we say where where did that happen to the Nephites?
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  We don't know some of these stories.
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  Oh, of course not. Yeah.
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  We don't have all the records. Well, I think those two happened
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  even as they were leaving Jerusalem, it says they were
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  starving to. Death, and they probably would
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  have been in the Book of Lehigh. Yeah, yeah, but they're
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  mentioned too in. The in the 116 pages they get
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  lost. Yeah, in more detail.
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  So, but he knows all of this and he's just laying this out to
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  them, saying how can you contest the blessings that God has
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  given? Is there a lesson for us in
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  that? Oh yes.
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  Have we been blessed in more than eighteen ways?
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  And isn't it good to sometimes sit down and record them, you
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  know? And we sing count.
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  Your many blessings. Name them 1 by 1.
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  Yeah, and if we will count our many blessings, we get the
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  Spirit, we know that the Lord has been with us.
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  And then how do we turn away from that?
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  It's, you wouldn't want to turn away from that if you really
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  were counting carefully. And I think Alma's list here is
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  very it's. Just a great way to live in that
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  attitude of gratitude. We also get a beautiful
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  definition of the attributes of the Lord, the attributes of God.
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  This is still in Chapter 9, verses 26 and 27, and I just
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  counted up 10 right here in the text.
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  He's the Son of God. He's the only begotten of the
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  Father. He's full of grace and equity,
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  truth, patience, mercy, long-suffering.
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  He's quick to hear and answer our prayers, and he will redeem
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  those who will be baptized unto repentance, which I think is so
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  important as we're dealing with the Nihorites who say you don't
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  have to repent, there is no sin. And so he says absolutely, you
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  have to repent and you have to be baptized.
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  Yeah. And I think that's an
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  interesting number. We have the 10 commandments, and
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  they're important. Aben and I had quoted the 10
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  commandments, but now we have the 10 attributes of God.
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  Why does he give us commandments?
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  Pause and think for a minute why Alma would have wanted the
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  Nahorites especially to know these attributes of God.
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  Why? Why would this make sense for
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  Alma to have have told them? God will love you and help you.
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  I think it may be because they're denying that God really
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  requires anything of us. And if he doesn't require
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  anything of us, why would he be inclined to be kind to us
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  either? The blessings and the curses go
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  hand in hand with each other. We get these blessings when we
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  keep the commandments, but if we don't then there will be
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  trouble. And he's already prophesied of
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  the trouble. Yeah, and he will, and continue
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  to prophecy of the trouble. But he wants us to know.
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  Of course God gives us these commandments because he loves
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  us, because he is merciful and long-suffering will help us.
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  And because they misunderstand who God is, they have to have a
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  course correction on the identity of this of the divine
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  Supreme beings. Well, as we said the in Chapter
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  10, this case develops as they demand for a second witness and
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  the the law in Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15 says that in
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  the mouth of two witnesses shall all things be established.
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  And they know that. So they turn that against Alma
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  and say you've come alone. And Amulet stands up and he
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  starts out with his genealogy, which I think is really
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  interesting in case there's anyone here that doesn't know
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  who I am, I am a descendant of. And he goes all the way back and
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  to Lehigh and he says Lehigh was from Manassa.
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  This is where we get it. Is he right here in Alma Chapter
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  10? And why would he give that
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  genealogy? Well, I assume there's a lot of
• 21:34
  Mulekites there may have been intermarrying with some of the
• 21:36
  Jaredites. I assume that there's it's, I
• 21:38
  think it's a multicultural place right now.
• 21:40
  Yeah, and I think that's the way people in the ancient world
• 21:43
  often identified themselves. We think of ourselves just as
• 21:46
  individuals, but all of this heritage that he brings with him
• 21:53
  gives him gravitas, gives him credibility.
• 21:56
  Authority. Yeah.
• 21:57
  And he doesn't have someone who can introduce him and give a
• 22:02
  character reference. So he provides these things to
• 22:05
  say I am a legitimate person and he was.
• 22:08
  And then he also adds, I'm a legitimate person because I was
• 22:12
  called. That's verse six.
• 22:13
  I was called many times, but I would not hear until in verse
• 22:18
  seven, an Angel came. And at the end, the third
• 22:21
  credential that Amulex cites for himself is that he has been
• 22:25
  taught by a prophet, Alma. So that's in verses 10 and 11.
• 22:31
  And Jack, this whole thing is put together.
• 22:33
  I'm, I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but it's so
• 22:36
  exciting for me because I'm finding him for my first time.
• 22:38
  I'm cutting and pasting the text and there's a beautiful chiasmus
• 22:41
  here as we look. Starting in chapter 10, verse
• 22:44
  seven. He'll bless thee and thy house
• 22:47
  with the blessing of the Lord shall rest upon thee.
• 22:50
  And then in verse eight, this Angel and in verse 8 continues
• 22:56
  on that he's going to speak concerning the things of God.
• 22:59
  And then in verse 9, the angel's going to talk about here comes
• 23:02
  the center a holy man and then everything coming out wherefore
• 23:08
  I know that he is a holy man. He's talking now about Alma
• 23:11
  because the Angel of God repeating before and in verse
• 23:16
  10. Now we're going to repeat the
• 23:17
  things where of he hath testified are true.
• 23:21
  And then the last two, the Lord sent the Angel to make these
• 23:25
  things manifest. And then at the end of verse 10,
• 23:29
  he says, while this Alma dwelt in my house, repeating back to
• 23:33
  earlier, he sieved into my house.
• 23:35
  And then the last point paralleling the first, Behold,
• 23:38
  he hath blessed my house, my women, my children, my father,
• 23:41
  kinsfolk, a kindred, you know, blessings of the Lord hath
• 23:45
  rested upon us just perfect. It's it's beautiful.
• 23:50
  And congratulations, Lynn, for finding that.
• 23:52
  And of course, it centers on those two words, Holy, holy man,
• 23:55
  holy man. And, and I think when a witness
• 24:01
  is going to tell the truth, you know, you tell it forward and
• 24:05
  backward. And what Amulek is doing here is
• 24:09
  he is giving a very formal statement to introduce Alma to
• 24:15
  these people. That is a good practice when you
• 24:20
  are teaching something to reinforce by not just saying it
• 24:25
  once, but twice. And then fact is a scripture in
• 24:28
  the Old Testament says that says, yeah, the Lord speaketh
• 24:32
  once, the Lord speaketh twice, and his people still don't
• 24:36
  understand. So here at the end of Chapter
• 24:38
  10, what will happen is that both Alma and Amulek will now be
• 24:42
  accused. By.
• 24:44
  By the people. And also one of their chief
• 24:46
  lawyers. Names the Ezra the.
• 24:49
  Ezra. And so they then bring a legal
• 24:50
  action against them. And what's the legal cause of
• 24:53
  action? They have reviled against the
• 24:56
  city. They have cursed the people and
• 24:59
  they they are accused of lying about this and this is what they
• 25:05
  will be put in jail eventually for.
• 25:07
  They won't call witnesses, they won't conclude this case, but
• 25:10
  they will put Alma and Amulek in prison while they think about it
• 25:14
  for a while. Yeah, and it says they're kept
• 25:16
  from food and they're. Yeah, that's terrible.
• 25:20
  That won't happen until the end of chapter 13 in the beginning
• 25:23
  of 14. Well, Alma has to pause and say,
• 25:26
  oh, I've got to tell you about money, 'cause our money system's
• 25:29
  a little different and we've adapted it, but it is not
• 25:32
  inconsistent with the ancient world.
• 25:34
  And this is a powerful thing. Jack, you introduced this to me.
• 25:37
  Tell me, tell everybody about this.
• 25:39
  This is awesome. So as we turn the page to
• 25:46
  Chapter 11, Alma knows that this bribe that Zee Ezram is going to
• 25:51
  offer will be a six auntie bribe.
• 25:55
  That's a lot of money, supposedly.
• 25:56
  But he can't say this unless people know what an auntie is.
• 26:00
  And so he says, well, let me tell you how they what their
• 26:06
  system of weights and measures looked like.
• 26:08
  And this is another evidence, I think, that the book Mormon's an
• 26:11
  ancient text. This is fabulous a wonderful
• 26:12
  evidence. Quickly, what you see is that
• 26:15
  this is a binary system with one exception.
• 26:19
  Everything is an eighth, a fourth, a half, one, and then
• 26:24
  twice, four times and seven times.
• 26:27
  Now the Lemna or the Auntie, as you can see it says it's the sum
• 26:31
  of them all, which means the sum of 124.
• 26:36
  You add those together and you get 7, not adding in the
• 26:39
  fractional measures, but when you put them all together there
• 26:43
  are 8 units in this and it's essentially a binary system.
• 26:49
  And notice that also you can transfer from gold to silver.
• 26:53
  You know that a senum of silver is worth a C9 of gold, but gold
• 26:59
  is worth more, so that would mean the smaller amount of gold.
• 27:02
  The weights are different. What we find archaeologically is
• 27:06
  this is exactly the way ancient weights and measures worked.
• 27:09
  For example, here I ran across these weights from Lakish.
• 27:13
  This is 8th and 9th century BC, just West of Jerusalem.
• 27:17
  On these stone weights there were actually Hebrew letters
• 27:22
  written so you knew which weight it was, and each one of them
• 27:25
  again is in a multiple of 2. Just like we found in Alma
• 27:33
  Chapter 11. And you look at this, here is
• 27:36
  another set of weights. These were the royal weights.
• 27:39
  It's not a complete set. Where are these from?
• 27:41
  But these are from Jerusalem and these come from the official
• 27:48
  Judahite weights. So this is kind of the standard
• 27:52
  weights and measures against this royal set.
• 27:56
  Others would make smaller weights that they could use out
• 27:58
  in their own marketplace. But notice here that it goes
• 28:02
  from 1 shekel to two shekels, 48 and so on.
• 28:06
  Yeah, just the same. And here you can see how these
• 28:09
  would be used. The weight here on the left is
• 28:12
  in one pan of the scale, and what's being weighed is over on
• 28:16
  the right. Hand, whether it's your grain or
• 28:18
  your money, whatever. This was done all over the
• 28:20
  ancient world. Here are lead weights from
• 28:23
  Athens, and again you can see that these are in a mathematical
• 28:28
  sequence 1/2, a fourth and 8th and at 16th, and the Greeks slip
• 28:33
  in a third, a 6th and a 12th. So their system is really quite
• 28:37
  very efficient. But that's Greeks.
• 28:39
  I know those are the mathematical Greeks.
• 28:41
  Here we have more the Babylonian style all the way West in the
• 28:45
  Etruscan weights found in Gubbio, Italy.
• 28:48
  Wow, so you can see that it's all over the world and look how
• 28:51
  old it is. These are weights from the Old
• 28:54
  Babylonian period. That's sort of like the
• 28:56
  Jaredites. And the big one is Amina, which
• 28:59
  is about 500 grams, and the smallest one is 3 shekels. 1
• 29:04
  Minna was 60 shekels. And so twenty of these three
• 29:08
  shekels would add up to the 60 shekels.
• 29:12
  And likewise in binary steps, these go up in that same
• 29:17
  fashion. So this is from the Jaredite
• 29:21
  period. So this is how old these things
• 29:23
  are. So do you think the people in
• 29:26
  Amanihah and Sarah Hemla are using Jaredite weights then?
• 29:30
  Well, they might be. But it looks like they were
• 29:31
  consistent with 8th century Jerusalem as well.
• 29:34
  We don't know. It's pretty amazing though.
• 29:36
  But these things are, they're real.
• 29:39
  And let me show you here, this is an actual Minna weight.
• 29:44
  It's LED. Oh, it's.
• 29:47
  Heavy. I wasn't expecting it to be so
• 29:49
  heavy. Yeah.
• 29:51
  That comes from the time of Christ, and it has on it the
• 29:55
  marking of the ruler of the Agora, that this is an official
• 30:00
  the. Marketplace would use this.
• 30:02
  Awesome. That's great.
• 30:04
  So with that background about the monetary system, we can
• 30:06
  understand that the bribe was substantial.
• 30:09
  If it's six aunties and each aunty was seven C9's, which was
• 30:15
  a day's labor, has 42 days worth of work.
• 30:19
  And that's not just an average worker, that's for a judge.
• 30:22
  This is a lot of money. What's he being asked to deny?
• 30:26
  He's being offered a bribe, he said.
• 30:28
  I'll give you this money if you will deny that there is a
• 30:32
  supreme being. That's a pretty serious offense
• 30:37
  to deny God that God exists and what's he being accused of?
• 30:44
  If you don't deny this, we will accuse you of lying.
• 30:49
  And you think Zezrim, who's lying?
• 30:53
  Well, I, I, I appreciate it. I was reading your commentary on
• 30:56
  this Jack, and you said in this context Zezrim is actually
• 31:01
  breaking multiple laws from Deuteronomy and one of them is
• 31:06
  the judges are not allowed to take bribes or give bribes or
• 31:09
  use bribes of any kind. Actually, it only says that this
• 31:14
  is in Exodus 23 that a judge shall not take a bribe.
• 31:18
  OK, I'm sorry. No, that's OK, because it takes
• 31:21
  a lawyer like Zezrim to offer a bribe, knowing that there's a
• 31:25
  loophole in the law there. Certainly the spirit of the law
• 31:28
  is exactly the way you stated it.
• 31:30
  But how does Amulex silence Zezrim?
• 31:33
  I love this. He's been accused and asked to
• 31:36
  deny that there's a God. And Amalek turns right around
• 31:40
  and talks about the meaning of the word restoration and how
• 31:45
  there is a God and the Son of God and that the wicked will
• 31:49
  remain as if there is no redemption, That they will be
• 31:53
  restored to the perfect frame in the resurrection and not one
• 31:57
  hair will be lost. That's 11 verse 44.
• 32:00
  And that death of the mortal body will not be the end, but we
• 32:04
  will be raised to an immortal body.
• 32:07
  So I took this text and I cut and pasted it, and there's
• 32:10
  beautiful parallels. There's five parallels on the
• 32:13
  resurrection Here. He refers to initially, as you
• 32:16
  mentioned, the death of the mortal body.
• 32:18
  But then as you start looking at these parallels in verse 45, he
• 32:22
  talks about the first death where you'll die no more.
• 32:27
  And then of course, the spirit is going to be reunited with the
• 32:30
  body, never to be divided. And then he goes to the spirit
• 32:34
  and immortal. At the very end of verse 45,
• 32:37
  they can no more see corruption. So it's the progress of the
• 32:42
  resurrection. And what you, what these are
• 32:44
  called, are antithetical parallelisms where he's
• 32:47
  comparing the mortal death and then the resurrection and that.
• 32:53
  And it's a wonderful set of profound answers based on
• 32:58
  theology and truthfulness. And he wants that to ring
• 33:01
  memorably in the ears of all of the people who were there
• 33:05
  listening. It's, it's a, it's an elegant
• 33:08
  presentation. And, and I'm not sure that it
• 33:11
  was completely spontaneous. My guess is he had some idea
• 33:16
  that he would be asked to say this, but the Spirit is clearly
• 33:19
  with him and he testifies and answers exactly the opposite,
• 33:26
  that Zezrim wanted him to deny there was a God and he provides
• 33:31
  the evidence. Not only is there a God, but
• 33:33
  there will also be a resurrection.
• 33:35
  Well, and that's when Zezrim starts panicking.
• 33:42
  He starts really getting scared and Alma notices this and Alma
• 33:48
  steps in and this is now in chapter 12.
• 33:52
  And when Alma starts speaking in verse 3, he says, I see that you
• 33:56
  have been taken in thy lying and craftiness, for thou hast not
• 34:00
  lied unto men only, but thou hast lied unto God.
• 34:05
  And because he knows all of thy thoughts, and thou seest that
• 34:09
  thy thoughts are made known unto us by his Spirit.
• 34:13
  And then he says this is a subtlety of the devil, and he
• 34:16
  really chews him out here in verses 345.
• 34:18
  And in verse 15, Alma says that you will stand before the
• 34:23
  judgement bar of God. Well, Jack, that's the center of
• 34:26
  another Chiasma. It is, and it's focal focal
• 34:28
  point there stresses this point because the Ezram is a lawyer.
• 34:34
  Right. You know, so it works.
• 34:36
  Yeah, look at verse 11. They're taken captive by the
• 34:39
  devil, and he will sit down to destruction.
• 34:43
  And then in continuing on, he talks about the chains of hell.
• 34:47
  And then in chapter 12, verse 12, the Caiasmus continues to
• 34:50
  roll down concerning death and the judgement.
• 34:55
  He talks about being judged for our hearts if our hearts are
• 34:58
  hardened. And this is really beautiful,
• 35:00
  this little section here on the hardening of the hearts because
• 35:02
  it's sort of like in music, I would call it a trill or, you
• 35:05
  know, a little innuendo of of elaborating on the theme.
• 35:10
  But as he continues closer to this main point, he talks that
• 35:13
  his state is going to be awful, he's going to be condemned.
• 35:16
  And then in verse 14, he says, for our words will condemn us.
• 35:20
  Yeah, all our works will condemn us, and we shall not be found
• 35:25
  spotless, for our thoughts will condemn us and the awful state,
• 35:29
  you know. Then he just unfolds the
• 35:30
  beautiful chiasmus, going all the way to verse 17, down to the
• 35:34
  destruction and captivity of Satan.
• 35:37
  I think the real power of this is the turning point there where
• 35:40
  he's told our words, our works, our thoughts will condemn us.
• 35:45
  You know it's not just the Azram who has a problem with.
• 35:48
  Oh no, we all stand up. We.
• 35:50
  All do we will be accountable for, for not just the things
• 35:54
  we've done and not just the things we've said, but also the
• 36:00
  things that we think for. As a man thinketh, so is he.
• 36:05
  And our thoughts will rise with us.
• 36:07
  We hope the good thoughts will be there.
• 36:09
  We hope that somehow these things will be downloaded into
• 36:12
  our eternal wisdom. And we want to be sure that our
• 36:19
  minds are clear. And so we need to be sure that
• 36:22
  we fill our minds with righteousness and goodness and
• 36:26
  and try not to deal with problems and especially not to
• 36:31
  invite them into our minds. And as we saw back in Chapter 9,
• 36:37
  there was that list of 10 attributes of God, and that is
• 36:41
  when Alma is teaching Amulek these things.
• 36:45
  Notice that here in chapter 12, Alma will give another list of
• 36:52
  the attributes of God, and this time it will talk about all of
• 36:58
  God's glory, power, might, majesty, dominion, judgments,
• 37:05
  but that he will still be merciful and he will have power
• 37:08
  to save the repentant, which he had already said before, those
• 37:12
  who will repent and be baptized. But what we find here is that as
• 37:17
  Alma was speaking to Amy like you, remember how kind and
• 37:19
  merciful and all the gentle and loving attributes of God were
• 37:25
  mentioned. Now we get another set of
• 37:28
  attributes of God, and they focus on His power and His
• 37:33
  judgement and His might. His audience is different and
• 37:36
  they need a little sharper spanking.
• 37:38
  Well, so which is right? Which is God?
• 37:41
  Both. Absolutely.
• 37:44
  Yeah. God is all of these things.
• 37:45
  And so as is needed, we focus on the one Amulek needed to know
• 37:52
  that God would be loving and would forgive him.
• 37:55
  Zee Ezra needs to know that God will be judgmental and
• 38:00
  righteously because He is powerful and knows what needs to
• 38:03
  be done. This is why CS Lewis uses the
• 38:05
  image of a lion. With this, Alma then introduces
• 38:08
  this whole idea of the plan of redemption.
• 38:11
  The second-half of Alma chapter 12 will use this phrase plan of
• 38:17
  redemption seven time. Now we wonder, you know, are
• 38:21
  people really counting these things?
• 38:23
  Our scribes did count words. They wanted to be sure that they
• 38:26
  hadn't left any out. And maybe Alma wants to
• 38:30
  reinforce this. But you say something seven
• 38:33
  times and that is a complete set.
• 38:38
  And I think Alma wants Zezrim to know I am giving you a complete
• 38:43
  account of the great plan of redemption, which is the thing
• 38:49
  that has been misunderstood by the Nahorites.
• 38:52
  I started counting how many times plan of redemption was
• 38:55
  used and who uses it and where it is in the Book of Mormon.
• 38:58
  Since it's a unique phrase for us and Jack only Alma uses it 18
• 39:03
  times except once in Jacob chapter 6.
• 39:07
  So Jacob uses it first and then Alma uses it 18 times throughout
• 39:11
  his writings, you know, in his book.
• 39:13
  I was so touched that in addition to using that phrase,
• 39:17
  he's talking about the purpose of life.
• 39:19
  In verse 24, we see that death comes upon mankind.
• 39:23
  Yeah, the death which has been spoken of by Amulek is a
• 39:27
  temporal death. Nevertheless, there is a space
• 39:31
  granted unto man in which he might repent.
• 39:35
  I think he's just open the doorway, saying you don't need
• 39:37
  to live in this miserable state. Therefore, this life became a
• 39:41
  probationary state, a time to prepare to meet God.
• 39:46
  The purpose of life, according to this definition, is to
• 39:49
  repent. The purpose of life is to learn
• 39:51
  from our own experiences how to distinguish good from evil.
• 39:54
  And I really appreciate that this is the preparatory verse
• 39:58
  right before He begins the plan of salvation.
• 40:01
  Verse 26303233. You can just go through and just
• 40:05
  see them all. This last half of the chapter is
• 40:07
  just beautifully filled with Christ's redeeming nature, the
• 40:11
  most important part of His Father's message in organizing
• 40:15
  the church. Remember back in the waters?
• 40:16
  And Mormon, My husband calls it Waters and Mormon First Ward,
• 40:20
  where they refer to teach nothing but the redeemed,
• 40:24
  redemptive nature of our Lord. And here we are then, at the end
• 40:27
  of Chapter 12, which, as we said, is not really the end of
• 40:32
  Alma's speech here. Oh no.
• 40:35
  His speech will end at the end of Alma chapter 13, verse 9.
• 40:41
  So there are 10 more verses that we'll talk about next week.
• 40:44
  But before we get there, I want to point out what where Alma
• 40:48
  begins this discussion about this probationary period.
• 40:53
  He takes it all the way back to Adam, and in verses 22 and 23
• 41:00
  he's talking about the cherubim that was placed after they'd
• 41:05
  partaken of the fruit of the Tree of Life and Adam had
• 41:08
  fallen. This point about the doctrine of
• 41:10
  the Fall is not as clear in the English translations of the
• 41:14
  Bible that we have, and probably it was even clearer in the
• 41:18
  Scriptures that Lehigh had. The brass plates.
• 41:22
  Because he talks about Adam falling that men might be. 2nd
• 41:26
  ephi 226. And Alma then uses this here to
• 41:29
  say that, yes, Adam had fallen by partaking of the fruit, but
• 41:32
  then God had prepared a time, a probationary time, in which he
• 41:38
  could repent. And all of us are in that
• 41:40
  probationary period. The temple, of course,
• 41:43
  celebrates the beginning of mankind here on this earth, the
• 41:47
  creation, the fall, and the need for an atoning Savior.
• 41:53
  And as a part of that covenant that we make in the temple, the
• 41:58
  use of the higher priesthood or the Melchizedek priesthood is
• 42:01
  crucially important. That people can enter into an
• 42:06
  eternal covenant that will then help them as they go forth.
• 42:11
  Not just in this life, which the Aaronic Priesthood and the laws
• 42:17
  of the Law of Moses will help us with, but the need for a Savior
• 42:23
  comes from a higher level of priesthood.
• 42:26
  And that is your cliffhanger for next week, because next week we
• 42:29
  get to start talking about Chapter 13, which used to be
• 42:32
  part of the same sermon on the higher priesthood.
• 42:36
  Stay tuned and we will talk about Melchizedek next week.
• 42:40
  But let us testify that the plan of redemption is the Savior's
• 42:45
  way of helping us all to return to the presence of God to find
• 42:49
  joy in this life. And may your Scripture study
• 42:52
  bring you closer to Christ. This week we pray in the name of
• 42:56
  Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.