Come Follow Me Alma 53-63 (Aug. 10-16)

okay hi everybody i'm david butler i'm emily freeman this is don't miss this i think i just realized i start with okay all the time because you click it and i say okay to you and then everyone thinks i'm saying okay to them so okay that's your favorite word well it might be um y'all welcome to the last week of the summer of heroes here we are sad yeah and happy but a little sad it was so fun yeah it was super rad and uh if you're just joining us welcome to the last week of the summer of heroes summer's not ending i don't know when summer ends in september i think oh yeah 21st i think september 21st is that right yeah so still enjoy your late august nights everybody just still enjoy unless you live where it's winter and then just stay by the fire oh that's right our winner of warrior people down in the southern hemi um and school's about to start when you watch this which makes me so tired and while we're thinking about our people i just heard last night about this cute little group of women at the ivy a little retirement place that watches every week all together don't you just want to say hi to them i am going to say hi to you ivy ladies the ivy league my sister uh that's so awesome yeah so all um all of you we're just so glad you're here we're so happy to be with you and to be done with the book of alma we love the book of alma but it's kind of nice to check that one off the list you've said you feel like you made it through yeah and if you read one time only the whole summer no worries now here comes fall you can start reading scripture again because that's what happens to me i feel like we will recap all our heroes sometime in here as we get there because you can't help doing it on the very last day they're such good ones plus what about all the ones we didn't do right um we gave some mention to simon oh yeah anyways we wish we could have done more this section of scripture alma to 53-63 is so huge listen they should have renamed the book of alma let's do this if we're ever in charge of the book of heroes yes i want to rename all the books of scripture okay what if it just has underneath it a little subtitle it says alma and then it says the book of heroes everybody wants to read it now who's in charge of the pr for the bible i mean the book of mormon i think he's not in charge of the pr listen who named the book of numbers that person should be fired okay um at least alma gives you a sense of like i like that guy um 53-63 14 years of thick war history we haven't even talked about you jumped way too far ahead can we please talk about we're going to do 10 chapters that are going to be so good i just said that no we didn't talk about the war or the soundtrack or any of that because this is the second time recording it because emily's computer has a sickness it has corona remember i hate it when you talk about corona um yes say what you want to say but we have to say here's your suggestion before we even get into alma 5363 remember last week we talked about all the how to get fortified and setting up your event defense and all of that then this week we really go into battle everyone and it's serious battle they're not messing around so we have a couple ideas for you they're fun first of all i have to say this that before we push record emily said i get so nervous when i read this chapter as she's flipping through even though it's the 9 000th time that she's read it but because it's scary everyone and i get so nervous about what's about to happen also they use words that are really like pull you into the story so my heart starts beating a little faster yours does too my heart does yes yeah it does i i get intense about it um so jinx you owe me a dr pepper um okay your suggestion was pop popcorn you want to pop popcorn everyone you this is like a movie we're entering into the major motion picture part of the book of mormon we got no summer blockbusters this year so this is it yeah play like braveheart soundtrack or the last of the mohicans yes in the background while you're reading yeah that's what you want to do and um get someone good at reading too yes and then yeah that's exactly what you have to do every movie voice popcorn soundtracks cozy clothes this is gonna be you gotta get all cozy if you're gonna watch a movie oh okay that doesn't match the war yeah guard wear your battle outfits whatever you want and what about this idea who wants to get little army men and set them out talk about that okay i had this thought right before we pushed record i was like because it gets super confusing yesterday i tried to go through it really slow again to just be like okay who's who and where are they and you can get these maps you could just google one or we'll link one in the newsletter we'll find a good one where someone's like said like based off of the book of mormon's actual words this is where the land northward is this is where desolation is this is the ec whatever but even without that you can just move like get a risk game and move army people so that you can just visualize and see then they went over here and then you're gonna be even more nervous at that one part and then one chapter that i'm so worried about when all the stripping wires are being chased and you will have to watch it while someone's reading it yeah lego people see how excited you are for this week you can't wait for what's about to happen we are ending the summer of heroes with a bang yes we are um all right okay let's show on the board here's the board okay there's the board everyone we'll walk you through the board yeah okay the battle that we want to focus on the most um and the group of people we're gonna focus on is our last heroes for the for the summer of heroes and they kind of became our mascot i guess for it um there are a lot of people's mascots from i know they are so happy most of you guys um i don't remember what i was gonna say but so just their mascot um mmlx this is our big number it represents these 2060 stripping warriors so we're going to talk about we'll talk about the 60 in just a second but if you go to alma 53 um that's where we have to start where were we last time we just had remember amalakaya is kind of the leader of the lamanite armies and moroni is the leader of the nephite armies and they have just been clashing with each other moroni keeps saying this is in defense of our people of our our nation what you start have seen happen though is you start watching kind of a civil war happen within the nephites and this will get mentioned a couple times in the chapters that had we not been fighting among ourselves we wouldn't have been so vulnerable to the lamanite army so almost like you just realize the power of division and contention and what it can do to a situation right right and that's why this war kind of flames up again is is because of that um but at this time you have a new leader um his name he's a malachi his brother his name is amiron i call him a i it makes me just so happy what it just says and then a took over the lament i can't help but read it every time every junior high boy is so happy right now and all their moms are like amaran it's amarillo no if it's a bad guy you can call him a [Laughter] and then uh so you have a time period when things get really really intense in fact where's the verse that says in 53 that it's the most dangerous wait before you go there can we first do this and then it's in verse nine um i love this what's going to happen is we're going to have the 2060 who you love but there are a million other heroes in these 10 chapters and you might want to keep a list of those and like lehigh is one that we meet but pohorin and tiankum and there's all these people let's say the lehigh verse because i actually love that verse yeah that's where i want to go so it's um chapter 53 verse 2 and it says um and moroni went to the city of mulek with lehi and took command of the city and gave it to lehi and then you love this part now behold this lehi was a man who had been with with moroni in the more part of all his battles and he was a man like unto moroni and they rejoiced in each other's safety yay they were beloved of each other and also beloved by all the people of nephi and remember when we read about moroni and who he was that the very powers of hell would be shaken if all men ever were and could be like moroni and then you love that this lehigh was a man um who like unto moroni and we forgot to mention last week go make this cross reference it's alma 48 18 i think or maybe 19. um go there yeah yeah yeah yeah 17 is that one that where moroni's a hell shaker and wants to wear my t-shirt and bracelet in 18 it says this behold he was a man like unto ammon which you love he hears ammon yeah the son of mosiah and even the other sons of mosiah and alma and his sons for they were all men of god now behold helaman and his brethren and this is the line we love so much we're no less serviceable unto the people than was moroni you love that moroni gets to be a hell shaker and helaman is no less well it's cool because i like i like that it says this right after helen for they did preach uh the word of god and baptize and it's like i thought it was cool that everybody kind of has their own place and none of them are no less serviceable than the other there's different ways to shake hell is what i'm trying to say to you it's so good right yeah we we just love that they moroni sets the standard and everybody else is at that same level like they're all this group of people who are like um should we be good yeah let's do it let's be this good and it makes i don't know maybe this thought would have been cooler at the end of this but i might forget so i'll say right now that i think it's neat sometimes to think about that we kind of got placed on earth at the same time in in my uh in my mission there's a korean word for the group you came out with into the field your mtc group it was called your donghi and um you you just kind of like oh that's my donkey like we did mtc together and it makes me kind of think that in heaven these people are like oh moroni and lehigh are like remember that like they were their earth donkey you know like we did earth together we battled together like and there will be a kinship with the people that you battled together with um on earth i think for the rest of forever there will just be that connection that's there and it's really neat um so then we get to the part that you were talking about in verse nine um but before let's just talk about this remember when we talked about they built up all the places and the timbers and all that you're gonna see that happening in three and four and five they're making these preparations they're setting up guards and then it tells us in verse nine because of iniquity amongst themselves so it's exactly what you were talking about there was iniquity amongst themselves because of dissensions and intrigue among themselves which is so interesting because it's their own what's not right among them it tells us places them in the most dangerous circumstances that a little bit makes you feel nervous when you read it yeah um that they're gonna go into the most dangerous circumstances that they've been in so far and i think we'll see it's a major theme of next time's lesson um when we enter into the book of helam and like you really are going to see how how dangerous it is a prophecy of the full downfall all because of that very issue yeah um particularly in a book that we are told again and again and again is written for our time you're like ooh heleman is gonna like it's a little spooky actually yeah when you read it yeah as we get into helium and we're gonna want to be watching for what do we see in our own spaces and this is a really great place to start like what do we see of this in our own um communities and in our own countries and and where are we filling this um fight because you get that you get a warning for what you know it's not necessarily a prophecy but more it can be act as a warning like look what can happen because of it um so we go back to the anti-nephilihis remember the anti-nephi lehi's and um this clear back we looked up how long ago it was and it was between 13 and 26 years before now is when they made that covenant that they were going to bury their swords so that whole group of lamanites all of those people now um have not fought for that however many years that is at least probably 15 um somewhere between 15 and 20 is what i like to imagine in my head and they see this this big dangerous situation that they're entering into and they decide we probably need to help like we're we're not helping so we should probably go and dig up all of our weapons yeah the phrase in 13 that's so rad with that is that they were moved with compassion to defend um these people um they had been there if you look back two verses because of the pity and exceeding love of ammon and his brethren that they left they left the palace to come and rescue them and how can we not now take part in rescuing the rest and and so you just see it's awesome because that when we get these sons that are about to come i know you know the story that's not a spoiler when you get these sons that are about to come um they are a result of compassion love um integrity integrity right they're just an outgrowth of these people who've been surrounding them their their whole life and it's so interesting because as they start talking about this it's helaman remember helaman who jumps into the story and you kind of want to keep in your mind as we talk about hilumen what was his battle ready um challenge and it was to take care of sacred things right that's who helaman is he's we're gonna watch him be that throughout this and that covenant in helaman's mind was a sacred thing and and he feels that um so clearly that he doesn't think they should break that covenant it tells us in here he feared that they would lose their souls and so they were overpowered by the persuasions of helaman that's verse 14 and his brethren that they shouldn't dig up their arms but they were also um compelled because they're watching their brethren go through these afflictions and the dangerous circumstances and so as they talk about what they should do they realize they have a group of sons who never made the covenant who who hadn't buried their weapons and i think it's interesting too to think about at this time although they were sons who hadn't made the covenant they were also sons who had been raised up not with the knowledge of war they hadn't been taught and weaponry they hadn't been taught to use swords they didn't have those things in their homes or in their families so it's so interesting to me that the parents are like here let's use them this group of boys who haven't been trained for the situation they're about to be placed in which is really interesting because instead of relying on their own strength or their own knowledge or their own what they're good at they have to enter in relying on god that there's nothing else that they can rely on yeah and you see this lying about them i love in verse 16 when it says it came to pass they had many sons who had entered that covenant therefore this is the middle of the verse they did assemble themselves together at this time i think it's super rad that it was their idea that they see a situation and they're like wait there's actually something we can do about this and it wasn't like the young men's president's like idea it was like they assembled together and said we could do something about this and you love the thought of that um of the youth being empowered to say i'm gonna rise up to the challenge that we're facing and and actually do something and um as they rise up um and enter into that knowing what their weakness is but still it's it's all of them together that make them strong and they enter into their own covenant yeah in 17 and you almost want to ask the question where do you think they learned that from right they they immediately like okay we'll enter into our own covenant now i think right um let's do this one verse and then we'll look at this list maybe right here um but let's say i want to say this unless i forget it i probably won't forget it we look at the list but already you i think it's so awesome to start thinking am i the kind of person who uses all my persuasions to help people keep their covenants with god that's so good am i the kind of person who sees a need and then assembles my strength or other people together um or who do i have in my life that is an assembler or who is a persuader or yeah and it's just neat to think about um all of these people fought the war together and that's why they're gonna win is they have the influence of all their different spiritual gifts and and their capacities in 19 i think it's so neat that it uses this line now behold as they'd never hitherto been a disadvantage to the nephites so i think that it's like up to this point they weren't hindering anybody but they kind of were just there you know and sometimes people can be just there it's like you're not a disadvantage but you're not necessarily helping either it says and now they became at this period of time a great support and if you look ahead fast forward to the end of this story these um 2060 will actually be the turning point of the war they hadn't been a disadvantage up until now but now their entrance in it is going to make all the difference and it's interesting because right now they're only 2 000 so you want to watch because there's a great lesson that we'll enter into there are 2 000 right now you love it tell this in verse 9 and they would that helaman should be their leader 19 you mean yeah yes in verse 19. they would that he woman should be their leader and um i love this because helen at the time um what he would have been known for was um leading the people spiritually that was his job remember that's when he talked to when his dad talked to him he handed him down the plates and he in essence became the spiritual leader over all of these people and i love that the boys are like they don't choose the best warrior and they're not the best warriors and i'm not saying healing wasn't because maybe he was amazing at war but we know what he was amazing at was teaching the word of god and that spiritual leadership and i love that those boys are like we're gonna pick this is what makes us feel comfortable is having a leader who believes um the same way we believe and we're gonna let him lead us and as i was thinking about that as we were reading this i thought it makes me think a little bit of president nelson and remember when he um gave that challenge to the youth and as we were talking about when you said um it's so interesting because it was all those that age of boys that got together and said okay let's do this this is our idea this is what we're going to do we're going to make a covenant and we're going to enter into this situation and you think about where we are in the world today and i just think to myself i look at the kids who are between the age of 12 and then all the way up to the young single adult ages you know of 26 and 27 and i think to myself that is where our strength lies those are the people we need to say we we've never been a disadvantage necessarily but right now what we are going to become is the greatest help for our generation and for this time yeah and they bring each people each people all people bring like a different perspective and a different look at things but i like on that note over in alma 56 um 44 helium says this and i think this is cool like for those who aren't in that age group he says therefore what say ye my sons will you go against them to battle and i think it's neat that he them entrusts them to say okay you make the decision what do you want what do you want to do what should we do oh i love that where they're just like i love that he looks at him and says i'm you you entered into this this was your idea i'm going to let you lead and what comes out of that i love the call president nelson gave to the youth of the church and i'm just going to read you a couple lines but i just think they're so empowering he says would you like to be a big part of the greatest challenge the greatest cause and the greatest work on the earth today would you like to gather israel during these precious latter days would you who are the elect be willing to help find the elect who have not heard the message of the restored gospel then he says my dear extraordinary youth you were sent to earth at this precise time this most crucial time in the history of the world to help gather israel there is nothing happening on this earth right now that is more important than that this is the mission for which you were sent to earth um i love when he talks about um uh telling the youth to join the finest team for this the final phase he says those noble spirits those finest players those heroes are you i testify that the gathering is now and that it is real and i love that that you could each add your name to this list of um summer heroes and then this is what he said at the very end my beloved young brothers and sisters you are among the best the lord has ever sent to this world isn't that amazing um and then he says this i invite you to stand with the youth from all around the world and experience the thrill of being a member of the lord's youth battalion and i just you just can't help but see hints of this generation that was going to rise up and let this prophet lead them through what would be the most perilous time in the days that led up to jesus christ coming to the american continent it's just i love that enthusiasm and that engagement and that willingness to to enter in i'll never forget um you know how kids pass notes at school not as much lately as they did when my kids were in junior high because they text but in the olden days people pass notes in the ancient times one of my kids i remember had this big pile of notes in their room and i was cleaning their room and you never know what you should or shouldn't throw away do you know that as a dad i don't know but as a mom you have to be like really careful you don't want to intrude on someone's space but you also want to help keep things clean and so i was down there and i opened up this one no and it was just a short note and the person had said to one of my kids let's be good but not too good that's what the note said and i was like what's wrong with being too good yeah like why don't you want to have the type of friends that are like let's be good like let's do this you know what would happen if everyone that was in your group of friends was like let's let's be good let's just decide this year that's who we're going to be yeah and they're they're going to be good in their own way they're going to battle differently than the adults battle and or whatever like good doesn't mean nerdy you don't have to be like valiant and courageous in like this yeah you know yeah but some people want to be in a nerdy way which is fine but just be engaged in doing good and and what could happen um when my parents served as mission presidents um they chose a scripture that was going to represent their three years that they were there with all of um the young men and young women who would serve with them during that time and the verse that they chose was alma 53 20 and to this day it is one of my favorite verses in the whole book of mormon um it's a verse we talked about over and over again for those three years and and the missionaries would recite it and it says this and they were all young men and they were exceedingly valiant for courage and also for strength and activity but behold this was not all they were men who were true at all times and whatsoever thing they were entrusted and i love thinking about those words about courage and valiant and strength and activity and being true and um they were words we studied i was um in high school when my parents got called as a mission and i was the oldest so there were six of us those were words we studied over and over again for three years and they were words i wanted to be i wanted that to be if someone was going to describe me then maybe they would say that i had courage and strength and activity and i fell in love with that word valiant which is actually the opposite of apathetic isn't that interesting the opposite of apathy is valor or valiance it's it's just being all in to what you decide to be and um as a teenager sometimes that takes a a conscious choice right yeah because the default is apathy right that's just like our natural tendencies being carnal sensual and devilish is is to go that direction so we have in the study guide and you'll see on the board just a list of some of the adjectives that describe this group of people and we were just thinking as we wrote this list it's so awesome that like all these kind of describe all of the people that we've been looking at um all summer long and and it would be neat to do one or two or a couple things with this one might be to just talk about what do these things look like in in our lives or in our stories or who do you know i love that you know like yeah if you were going to write someone's name who keeps their covenants um who would be willing to fight for you in all cases who do you assemble with who's your greatest support who do you know that's exceedingly valiant who do you know that's great courage wouldn't it be fun to just list who are your heroes in that arena yeah and if i were a mom or a dad wait which i am it could be cool to kind of um like write the opposite kind of note that one of your kids got in high school and to just you know point out to friends or to your kids or to neighbors or someone like what you see in them one of these things that you see they're just like i just one thing that describes you is that you're true at all times or anyways there's a lot of really cool things that you can do with this list of adjectives of of these people um it continues um alma 53 17 through 21 is where we found a lot of these and also alma 57 verse 27. you can add that um on to it also um before we well i'm trying to think let's just take a pause right here because we're going to be right here before we go down to this next little part okay because we're talking so much about the youth and this generation that rose up and and just becomes exactly what is needed in that moment and we love that there is mentioned within here the fathers and the mothers of all those boys and i think it's important to look at what was it that the fathers were doing and what was it that the mothers were doing and what do we know about that group of people that would help us as parents to raise that kind of children and there's just a couple hints through scripture one thing you can do is go back to when ammon was actually teaching the people remember these are the people who never will fall away that's who these people are and so it's neat to go through and look at these anti-nephi lehigh parents and to go back into alma 23 and those chapters right there and look at and see what what adjectives would you use to describe their parents and what were they doing that they became so converted to their covenants that they would never fall away from them but two that we see in these chapters we see the dads in alma 56 27 we talk about the moms all the time we don't talk as much about the dads and in alma 56 27 it tells us in the second month of this year there was bra unto us many provisions they're talking about to the army and guess who brings the provisions um it's the dads it's the dads who come and can you imagine how hard that would be as a dad to walk into the front lines of battle and to see your boys there and to realize all you can do in that moment is offer like substance right food um and sustenance in that moment but i think sometimes that is true about where we are because we do see our youth on the front lines if you've ever walked into a high school uh you've you've been in the trenches you've seen the front lines and often all we can do we we can't enter into that situation with our kids can you imagine how mad your kids would be i think i'll come well if i teach seminary i might just you can't go into the world he's there what's your second period um that i think it's neat that the dads realized this is not our fight this is not our battle this is not our place but we can provide support that will strengthen you and these are dads who have seen war before and they know exactly what they're about to enter into and it's neat that they don't just like send them on their merry way but they are just they're right there with them i remember um even as a um as a missionary um as a young dad and even now like just my dad's been here before and i loved as a missionary getting letters from my dad because i just felt like oh he's been in this place before and he knows it and as a as a young dad i can remember one night in particular just kind of the burden of being a young dad like financially in um school and just all the things and just calling my dad the next day and what a support you know that was for me it's just it's awesome to to see that and and then in particular with my dad and these dads it's just they got so lucky that they had dads who were covenant keepers and that the only thing that would have caused them to break their covenant was compassion it's just neat that it was like that's something the only thing that would have caused them to break a covenant was compassion it wasn't selfishness it wasn't lust it was that was the only thing that tempted them to break that oath and it's just that's awesome and then you know the verses that everybody loves so much about their moms yeah in 56 47 it says they didn't fear death um and and they and they thought they did think more on the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their own lives um that's such an interesting covenant word because if i were to say what's the opposite of a covenant relationship it would be a consumer relationship which are okay to have in your life like if smith's isn't doing it for me then i'm going to go to you know mason's or something or somewhere else right but a consumer relationship says if you're not meeting my needs then i'm out but a covenant relationship says this relationship is more important than my needs and that you see that in the voice they're just like i thought more about the liberty of this people than i did about my own lives and then it says you know where we got that from from our moms which by nature moms are like that they can't help it where they have to put the needs of others in front of themselves you know we don't have to but they choose to and if we don't doubt um god will deliver us that is the lesson that they learned and you love that one line we do not doubt our mothers knew it and just the thought of you know what did their mothers know that instilled that kind of belief in those boys and i love the thought of that and that and just the power of that yeah even i was just thinking that last week my mom doesn't even know this she listens to this on her runs go mom speed up um but last week i was i was struggling a little bit like with some you know you just get into like a little faith slump sometimes and doubt can creep in and my mom just so naturally just expressed like her just belief in god being bigger than all the problems and it was such a strength to and she it was just spontaneous i didn't tell her what was going on and it's neat that there is that kind of power that can come you know from that yep and i love you see their moms again one more time in 57 we don't hear this verse as often but in 57 21 it says yay and this is describing the boys again they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness yea and even according to their faith it was done unto them and then helaman says i did remember the words which they had said unto me that their mothers had taught them and i loved the thought of that that their moms had taught them to obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness that's hard um you know especially when you're raising for some reason teenage boys my mom used to always say to my brothers um when she tell them go up to your room get this and this come back down and then they'd come back down with nothing but and they just stand in front of her and she'd be like what are you doing and they're like well i went upstairs but when i when i got up there i couldn't remember and she would always say put your hands on your shoulders and they would and then she'd say phil upward is anything there she would say all the time when my brothers were teenagers that's what she would say and so it's actually pretty awesome that these boys had learned to perform every word of command with exactness because it's not necessarily a trait of that age of boys but it's neat that they had learned that from their mothers yeah that's awesome i just it i someone said this one time and i just have always loved it that they said covenant keeping fathers and righteous mothers equal stripping warriors like that is the math equation that we're seeing in this they are an outgrowth of that we have on this paper why they're going to win and we've kind of gotten into this a little bit some of these verses here um that kind of show like wait they actually you know this that they win these two major battles that they have um they win the first one and then we'll talk about what happens in between the two of them um but these verses are so neat with why they win but where's that one that i just saw that was so awesome that i love my most favorite and in all of this um i wrote it down here oh yeah okay 56 16. i think this is so rad this verse when the people who are in that city so now when you get into chapter 56 this is helium and writing a letter to moroni telling him this is how the war is going on our front over on the other front and he says the people of the city that we came into they were depressed in body as well as in spirit for they had fought valiantly by day and toiled by night to maintain their cities and thus they had suffered great afflictions of every kind and now they were determined to conquer in this place or die just to the end of their ropes therefore you may well suppose that this little force which i brought with me those sons of mine gave them great hopes and much joy and i i think that is so beautiful that just their arrival they make up i did the math yesterday they make up only 20 of the entire army that's there but when they came in it just was like now all of a sudden it like lit a fire and everybody else was like okay we believe again we have hope again yeah we like this is something we can do yeah it's so good and you love that this time it's 2 000 that come and and give that reviving but then we're going to watch what happens again but i think it's fun to just fly through these things oh yeah 56 5 is the one where we talked about they chose helium and to be their leader and we love that that's one of the things um why they will win is because they chose a spiritual leader um to to run that whole situation and i love the thought of that the second one is the support of their dads that they just have people in their lives who are um bringing support they know how to surround themselves with those kind of people so they're going to win because of that the third one is their moms it's their moms and their obedience and and learning to be valiant and have courage and all those things that they learn from their mom and then the last one 57 25 we actually haven't gotten to yet but it's the best one out of all of them yeah and 57 25 says this um this is after the second battle yeah so let's talk about what should we do we have our extra 60 yeah and 57 yeah before we do that let's say one other thing that i thought of just just barely and it's this that they fight this battle and nobody dies in it um when they are wounded when they fight the second one it says every single one of them is wounded in the battle and i think that is so important to know first of all that everybody gets wounded in this battle that's not a sign that god isn't there and this first when i read it yesterday 56 26 was a little bit troubling to me and um it's that's a lie it's not that one it might be 57 26. um i just want to oh yeah yeah it says their preservation was astonishing to our whole army they should be spared while there was a thousand of our brethren who were slain and we do justly ascribe it to the miraculous power of god because of their exceeding faith in which they've been taught to believe that there was a just god and whoever didn't doubt they would be preserved by his marvelous power and then i was like i feel really bad for that thousand people who died in that verse because you're like the reason they lived is because they they believed and you know and and it was kind of like it made you think like well something goes wrong does that mean that i did something wrong or that god didn't care about the situation and then if you just continue on to the end of the chapter i think it solves it yeah it says again we are delivered out of the hands of our enemies and blesses the blessed is the name of our god for you behold it is he that delivered us yea he has done this great thing for us remember those great things we're keeping track of this year it says now came to pass when i healed him and had heard the words of gid i was filled with exceeding joy because of the goodness of god and preservingness that might not that we might not all perish yea and i trust to the souls of them who have been slain have entered into the rest of their god and i just think it is cool that that verse kind of shows both sides they were all good right you saw god in this place through this kind of deliverance but then you also saw a different kind of deliverance with those who died yeah and i i just think that so keep going to the end if you get troubled by that verse okay let's talk about in between the two battles this is our best part yeah we love it 57 verse 6. this has been our theme for the whole entire summer because what happens is they're fighting and people are still asking they're like wait you have 2060. and they're like why is it 2020. and why isn't it 2 000. it was like okay here's the answer friends everybody this is why it's 2060 because in alma 576 it tells us they receive a supply of provisions remember and it's coming from their dad so it's coming from their hometown that's where it comes from and this time with that supply of provisions they receive an addition to our army um to the number of six thousand men besides sixty of the sons of the ammonites who had come to join their brethren my little band of two thousand so now they're 2060 and it's at that point that helaman writes and now we were strong who loves that we all thought they were strong this whole time he was like it was actually those extra 60 people which is not very many people compared to like 2 000 or the 6 000 that came like in that same verse right and it's so funny that he mentions oh yeah and the 60 who joined our little group and do you like thinking sometimes about like what where were they in the first battle like were they afraid were they lazy were they did they not want to come do they like yeah where were they you know but it's awesome that once they come he says and now we were strong yep right this idea and then for the rest of the time you'll notice he always says my 2060. he changes it and he's like it's my two thousand my two things you love that every single one counts like every one matters um and no matter how those last 60 got there they import why they didn't come in the first place just the importance of the fact that they were there right that's all that mattered and we love asking this question of who is missing who is missing that would make us strong and we don't care what the reasons are you know that they are missing but that's such a great question to ask like where are those 60 who haven't joined in this fight they will come out of this battle believing in a god of that is bigger than beforehand and how sad if those 60 didn't get to be a part of that and experience that yep and i love the thought of um when we when we talk about asking um who's missing really asking who's missing because sometimes we're like oh yeah that's true and we should like look at the list and who's not here and but how many times do you really like sit down with a group of people and say who's missing that would make us stronger i had the most interesting experience i was teaching the new testament many many years ago to a group of kids and um we were teaching the wedding feast and when they send out the servant and um to go bring more and go bring more and um i asked my kids just it was kind of a figurative question because we're having a figurative lesson and i kind of was thinking they would just think about it in their head who would you invite that's what i said to this and it was early morning seminary and usually the kids were pretty sedate who would you invite and immediately this one kid goes dakota and then this other kid's like yeah we should invite dakota and pretty soon everyone's talking about dakota and i'm so confused because the lesson has like derailed now because who's dakota and also in my mind i'm like do they realize we're not really having a wedding supper like i was like just a nice something to think about well then they like they get into it in that moment they're like yeah dakota let's that's a great idea let's invite dakota and one kid's like i live two doors down from him i can pick him my mom and i can pick him up in the morning and this and he didn't have scriptures who was going to bring the scriptures and whatever like they make this whole i just stand there and watch and they make this whole plan and then everybody gets up and leaves that's the end of the lesson and this girl walks up to me after and says i hope you're fine if we invited dakota because um he's like he's not very good at being in a classroom situation like he gets kicked out all the time of a classroom situation so i hope you're okay if we invited him and i was like oh sure anyone can come to seminary and so sure enough the next seminary morning early morning in walks this new kid i've never met before and he actually had hair kind of like my hair is short here but really a long bang right here it didn't have hairspray in it it just hung right here so you couldn't really see his eyes he just walked in and he sat down and we did all seminary and he just sat through all of it and didn't really say anything and then left and i was like oh well that worked out perfect and then dakota came to the wedding supper and it was so fun well then he came again the next time and the next time and the next time and i got him a folder and everything that he needed and he came consistently every single day to seminary until one day he didn't come anymore and for a couple days he didn't come and finally i was like everybody what happened to dakota where is he and um turns out he really had been struggling with stuff over at the school and he had been asked to leave that school and so he was gone and then that was the end and at the very end of seminary you know what happens we clean out our all of our where our kids keep their stuff and i always look through to see if anyone's left something that they're gonna care that they left and i found a whole folder in the bottom and as i looked i saw oh it's dakota's folder and i open it up and i was just so interested um you'll notice that in all the important stuff all his paperwork everything empty not one thing he didn't write anything anywhere um i think he filled in one page of his journal but it's so interesting to me because on the other side of the paper i'm going to show this to you on the other side of the paper there's just this little note right at the very top can you read it and it says dear sister freeman thanks for teaching me the gospel and that's it and um he just left it there and i don't know if he knew it was his last day on his last day that he knew he wasn't coming back um but oh it is so neat to me that this kid who just when we asked who's missing who everyone was like we don't know if he's gonna really like seminary took a second on that day which probably wasn't a good day to write a little note in a folder that he didn't even know if a teacher would ever say to say thank you for teaching me the gospel and it just really makes you think to yourself who is missing yeah um who needs to even if it's just for a couple months who needs um that and the strength that they can bring to that situation because if you could find him again you'd almost want to say to him like oh dakota those other kids taught you the gospel yeah when they brought you yeah and we were not strong until you came yep right that's what's so not that you did it but really yeah you know but like what is it you know what is it it's com it's compassion right the only thing that was so that very last why they won 57-25 um is a line that says um everybody got wounded and all that stuff but there's a line right in the middle that says according to the goodness of god into our great astonishment so shocked about how good god can be and in that story the goodness of god was displayed you know with people going out to find who was missing so it's just a beautiful story and like how neat to look at all of these people um that we've seen throughout this entire summer remember at the beginning when we said this is kind of like a movie and you want to play the soundtrack well at the end of this you want to play that song you know when they played that song yeah and they put up the picture and they're like yeah no and now this guy's he's like here jimmy ended up getting the girl and they moved to jewelry as a coach for 40 years and one whatever it actually does that in at the end of alma who's happy about that at the end of the movie then you go to alma 62 and um then you get there and it says in verse 43 put up a picture of moroni right now and moroni yielded up the command of his armies into the hands of his son whose name was moroni ha and he retired to his own house that he might spend the remainder of his days in peace and pahoran did return to his judgment seat and helaman to take upon him again to preach unto the people the word of god and you just love that and then everyone just goes back to their regular life and that big battle story that epic battle that takes place um is is done for a time it's gonna come back up when we get into human but you just love that little that it just kind of gets you know wrapped up one thing that we hope that you would think about when you look at all of these words that describe the stripley warriors and when you look at all of these things that we talk about um with our our summer of heroes oh ps by the way our 2016. this is their verse one that's on your poster and then they were strong and the battle ready question is who is missing to ask yourselves that question and and man what remember everyone's going to go about that differently which is so cool but when you look at all of these people um what you realize is they all bear the marks of the son of god every single one of them reminds you of him you can't help but think of jesus when you read through this list and some of you might not have fathers like the stripping warriors did or mothers like them some of you might not feel like you have a leader like helaman but everybody has the son of god to look to and reach to and even though we've said like this is a book of heroes our big emphasis in the book of mormon this year is this is a story really about one hero they said the reason that we won was not because of this or this or this it really was because of the goodness of god he's the reason any of us are gonna win this battle or any battles that we're fighting and so it's just so cool to um be in this donghi of people you know who are looking to him as our leader and yep and yep so good all right y'all see you in the book of gila man next week thanks again it's to dr pepper

Channel: Don't Miss This

Views: 133,456

Rating: 4.7264218 out of 5

Keywords: Come Follow Me, Don't Miss This, Book of Mormon, Summer of Heroes, Podcast, Church of Jesus Christ

Id: 3ym2neS_H1M

Length: 51min 46sec (3106 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 03 2020