Come Follow Me Book of Mormon with Sam Alma 8-12 and Alma 13-16

Welcome to Come Follow Me with Sam! We are doing a combo of two weeks so that we get the Ammonihah experience end to end. (also because I am still catching up :D) Things get a little crazy here! Ammonihah is doing really bad things. Alma sees an angel. Amulek changes his entire life around (!!!) Wow. Here's the stuff.

Ammonihah round 1

Alma goes from Gideon to Melek and from Melek from Ammonihah. The preaching in both Gideon and Melek went fantastic. Ammonihah is a complete dead-end. No one listens and he gets cast out.If I were him, I would pat myself on the back and say 'good effort, let's go to some place that has a greater spiritual return on my life investment'.

Alma doesn't respond exactly that way, but he does decide his work is done. The difference is that it gives him 'weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul. Remember that Alma himself rebelled pretty hardcore against the church. When he sees someone turn away, I think he sees himself. If people didn't help him more than he deserved, he would be like the people who cast him out. 

Lucky him, the angel who came to him before comes and stops him. Notice the emphasis on commandments. he has been faithful in the commandments and is there to receive a new commandment. the commandment was that except they repent they will be destroyed. Then comes a slightly wacky part. Something really bad was happening in Ammonihah 'For behold they do study at this time that they may destroy the liberty of thy people'. I'm pretty sure this had everything to do with the Nehor problem. I don't think the Nehors believed in a free society. 

I see the angel as saying - you are in a bigger game than you think and it has to do with the entire Nephite nation. Go back, have faith, and walk through what's coming.

A little on Amulek (spoilers ahead)

Who is Amulek? We hear very little of his story, just hints here and there of a life altogether in the hands of God. Let's piece together some stuff here.

1. Amulek had an amazing lineage. In 10:1-3, he whips out one of his ancestors    named aminiadai, who read writing on the temple wall. We don't have that story. But everyone there knew what he was talking about.

2. Amulek is pretty good with money. He is well established, pretty wealthy, has some means (Alma 10:4)

3. Amulek is pretty good with family. He has many relations (Alma 10:4)

4. Amulek has a vision!? and immediately follows Alma! (Alma 8:20) This really blows me away. It is not what I would expect from a wealthy guy in a wicked city WHO ALSO admits he has not been very righteous himself!(Alma10:5-6) Maybe you think if you have a vision you will just follow it, but Amulek's neighbors had a prison drop on them and they still didn't figure it out (technically the watched a prison drop on their leaders, but you get the point). He was then able to preach in a fairly rapid manner with some power and authority, possibly because his experience was more in reach with that of the people.(Alma 10:12-17) Amulek was a very unique man, someone who had something in him.

5. Amulek asks to deliver the women and children in the fire. Think about this one. Amulek is a industrious man in this city with many family and kindred. Alma stayed with Amulek's family many days before going out to the people again.

Who do you think was in that fire?

In Alma 15:16, it says that Amulek was rejected by those who were once his friends and also by his father and his kindred. You almost want to sigh with relief that at least they didn't end up in the fire.

In Alma 14:12, it says "now Amulek said unto Alma: Behold, perhaps they will burn us also."

Sometimes I wonder if Amulek meant that after seeing what he saw, he wanted it to end for him too, not in fear that they would.

6. Amulek stays with Alma through it all! Just imagine if you had a lot of wealth and kindred, and you joined a guy to get yelled at, witness a quite horrific burning, and then get thrown in prison and beaten without food or water. What made Amulek stick through it?

7. Amulek is taken to Alma's house and strengthened in his affliction. Alma 15:18. I would need some strengthening after all that too.

8. Amulek continues to preach with Alma on other missions! In Alma 31, he goes to preach to the Zoramites, which means the work for him didn't end. It sounds like he gave up everything to be able to preach the gospel. Just think about that.

From where Amulek began to where he ended, I cannot think of a greater person in all the Book of Mormon.

The one-two punch

Alma waits until he is guided to preach and then he lets them have it again. If you read chapter 9, it feels like he lets them have it, no holds barred. He straight up commands them to shape up and repent. They aren't having it much until Amulek chimes in. It seems like this threw off their game plan. First there were two witnesses. Second, Amulek was one of them. I think that shook them up. Third, I think that these two were speaking with the spirit and their message was not a happy one. That cuts.

Zeezrom's experience

The Ammonihah story does not look kindly on lawyers. Zeezrom was one of these lawyers and he was not a good person. Apparently, the Nephites needed some anti-corruption practices because Zeezrom straight up bribes him to deny God. 

I try to picture how this was. Do you think that some would come up and contend one-on-one, and then call out to the crowed? It seems like there were times in this where Alma/Amulek were talking to everyone, and times when their comments were for other more specific bodies of people.

When outright bribery doesn't work, Zeezrom really twists at the Jesus man/God duality. We as members may not be too concerned by this, but it was a big deal in both the pre-Christ's ministry churches and the post-Christ's ministry churches. In fact, the nicene creed was in part resolving this issue, so its a big deal. It is also a disguised re-run of the accusations against Abinadai. New crowd, new gilding, same accusations, same malevolent spirit behind both.

Remember, the most dangerous truth on this earth is that God came down and was with us, and can be with us in Truth and in Spirit. Evil will always separate you from God. God's message is that man and women are created in the image of God, and that God came down among the children of men (Mosiah 7:27)

Amulek answers him quite frankly, which is a strategy that I believe you basically need the spirit to pull off. Zeezrom is basically twisting all his words, and Amulek is basically untwisting them.

Here's the trippy thing though. By the end of the chapter, Zeezrom changes his heart. Yes. A lawyer has a change of heart. What got him? What made this happen? Obviously it was the spirit; I'm asking what happened in the message that caused the change?

Amulek testifies of the divinity of Christ, of the redemption that Christ makes, of the judgement, of the resurrection, and of the law of restoration. Something in here did it.

Here is my theory. I may be way off the mark but I think it was a combo move. I think Zeezrom did not expect Amulek to say that Christ was divine, or in other words, when Zeezrom asked Is the 'Son of God the Eternal Father' he did not expect Amulek to say YES! 'Yea, he is ther very Eternal Father of heave and earth'. You probably didn't either. While the answer may be confusing to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ today, it is completely in line with our doctrine, just not our way of wording it. See my post on when Abinadai pulls off the same trick.

So here is Zeezrom and he begins to realize the same thing that Alma Sr. realized under similar situations in King Noah's court. God is not playing around. Jesus Christ was literally a God that walked among men. I think the Spirit came like an arrow to testify of the greatest truth one can know. And I think Zeezrom's guard was down so the normal barriers he would have didn't come up.

Then Amulek talks of redemption. Remember that the Nehors don't believe in repentance (HOLY SHIZ that is a terrifying thought that maps out to today). I think that Zeezrom saw for the first time ever that God Himself really came down, and if He sacrificed for sin, then redemption and repentance were real. I think the scales of darkness blinding him were shed away in a few short moments.

Then Amulek testified of death, resurrection, and restoration. I think at this point that Zeezrom realized that not only were these first things real, but that these last things were ABOUT HIM; that his part to play in the plan of salvation was real. The gospel became real, and he realized he was really part of the story.

I think that is the point where he began to tremble. Chronologically, I know it was because that is what it says in Alma 11:46

Alma keeps twisting the knife in chapter 12. I guess it worked because Zeezrom trembled even worse then.

At this point, a few things happen. It seems that Alma/Amulek turn their remarks more toward the believers, particularly Zeezrom, than just the whole crowd. (My marketing professor might have a lot to say to that.) Zeezrom goes into learning mode, and it seems as though Alma/Amulek get excited about this and expound more. At the same time, the other lawyers sense something went very wrong, and Zeezrom isn't leading the jabs like they expected him to, so they begin to step in (enter Antionah). Alma seems to mostly still focus on the believers. 

Long story short, something big happened for Zeezrom, and for other people too. This story may be as much about Zeezrom as it is about Amulek. Also if you ever wonder if people really can change, it is not easy but the answer is YES. They can, and the gospel of Jesus Christ really can change us.

That is really something to hope for.

Alma's Tangent?

Alma gets super excited at the beginning of chapter 13 about priesthood. He throws in deep doctrine, history, and other stuff. Then in vs 20, he pulls back and says, now I need not rehearse the matter... and he focuses back in on repentance.

Did Alma get excited and start expounding the greater things? :D

I think this is a sign that he saw the change in some people and he rejoiced in it and he wished to share great things with him. Then he remembered the hostile crowd and also the specific commandment of the angel to preach repentance and came back to that topic. That may not be exactly what happened but you can kind of see a pattern in there.

The craziness reveals itself

At this point, things go bat-shizam crazy. Here's a big take-away: beware the evil behind the smiling eyes. Ammonihah probably seemed like a fairly normal, albeit worldly, town before Alma and Amulek. I think that if you were in the crowd listening and watching though, you would see a real malevolence begin to play out. Your leaders would no longer seem like nice people by the end of the discourse. And if it wasn't apparent then, you would definitely see it come out when they started burning books and people. And stoning others. And if you still couldn't see something absolutely diabolical when the people of Ammonihah blamed the prison collapse on the devil's power, I might question if you were paying any attention at all.

Here's the thing - Alma and Amulek didn't bring evil with them. They confronted a masterfully disguised evil and made it play its hand. They showed the malice in the hearts of men.

There is a great short by Mark Twain called Hadleyburg. It may be worth comparing these two, although I think I would even choose Hadleyburg above Ammonihah. In any case, the lesson to apply is to stand up to evil when it is small, and clean the evil from your heart before it can grow. Start by paying attention.

Ammonihah is wiped out.

In chapter 16, Ammonihah is wiped out exactly as Alma and Amulek warned. Considering the long chain of previous events recorded there, I don't think there is much surprise as to why.