Come Follow Me (Insights into Alma 13–16, June 15–21)

I'm Taylor and I'm Tyler this is come follow me insights with Book of Mormons central as always we encourage you to look at all the great resources we have on our free scripture study app scripture plus so we encourage you to jump in explore and if you have questions put them into the comments below I think you've seen we we read all of those or respond to them we actually really appreciate the great insights that beautiful stories you've been sharing and thank you for all the blessings and encouragement we've received from all of you today I'm a thirteen to sixteen now let's begin with a quick overview with reference to the scripture itself you get chapter 13 which is this incredible chapter thrown into the middle of the story of M&I ha about the priesthood then you get the chapter 14 where you get the the awful slaughter of the women and children the burning of the scriptures and then um Alma and a mule a curse thrown into prison and they're abused and beaten and they're these people are going to kill them ultimately if they hadn't been delivered by God and then you get the story of healing as he has room and teaching and baptizing many many converts inside them and then you get chapter 16 where the entire city of Amman iha is destroyed in one day one day it's wiped out which is exactly what ailment Amalek prophesied to these people and they said oh this great city could never be destroyed in one day there's your quick overview and it's kind of its kind of disjointed in the idea that here you get this chapter about priesthood that's come in to the middle of the story and it almost feels a bit out of place unless you look at how they're talking about priesthood it's Alma here in chapter 13 talking about priesthood and he's referring to it as the order of the son of God this is what the essence of the priesthood is it's God's order it's how God does things it's the power of God to do his work now have to share this this other analogy with you for a minute we'll get to 14 and I'll show you the comparison between the two in a minute but I need to use this example first elder Dale G renlund wrote a great book about the the Melchizedek Priesthood and in there he uses the example of the earth here's the earth this this huge planet and we refer to it as the earth but if I take a little speck of dirt and I hold it out to you and you say what do you have in your hand one of the possible answers I could give you is I'm holding earth in my hand I'm not trying to say I hold the earth in my hand I'm holding dirt but we refer to it as earth I'm holding earth in my hand priesthood in the elder renlund Book priesthood is a lot like that we use we use words in language and we if we're not careful and if we don't define the terms and we don't understand what we mean and what we don't mean then sometimes we can miss apply or misunderstand what what the whole essence of what we're trying to teach is in this case this word priesthood is big priesthood is the power of God it's huge and sometimes he grants to us a portion of that divine power to people on the earth we hold a little piece of it but we don't hold all of it okay so chapter 13 is an incredible chapter about priesthood but it's not inte necessarily all of God's power it's whatever gets delegated to people on the earth now watch let's take it one more step look at chapter 13 let's dive into our scripture now verse 1 and again my brethren I would cite your minds forward to the time when the Lord God gave these Commandments unto his children and I would that you should remember that the Lord God ordained priests after his holy order which was after the order of his son to teach these things unto his people so God God has all of this power he gives some of it to people on the earth to what end it's to get these people so the power of God given to people on the earth to get them to turn outward that is the order of his son is to give God's light God's love God's goodness God's power to others it's to spread Liberty and agency it's to empower people to grow up to become more than they are right now it's to develop just in really quick contrast [Music] really quick contrast look at this this is the order of the son of God what is the order of the nee horse or the order of the devil the order of the devil that all of our Antichrist in the book Mormon are going to follow is what's in it for me what can I get from you the order of the son of God is what can I give to you how can i empower you how can I serve you how can i bless you and brothers and sisters the key here isn't to serve those who can benefit you in return the key is to serve all of God's children regardless of their ability to repay us regardless of their ability to bless us in return God gives us power to get us to become more like Jesus turned outward because it's in that process that more of his power and more of his love and his knowledge and his light and his truth can flow through us and it doesn't leave us the same as it found us it improves us we get enlarged um when's the last time you were walking down the hallway of a church previous to the time when we couldn't go to church and you saw an elderly gentleman in your ward and and he was walking down the hallway and he didn't feel well you could tell that he says I'm not doing well and he pulled out of his pocket his his consecrated oil on his key ring and he took some of that oil and then he stuck it on his head and then finished and then stuck his hands on his head again and and sealed that an anointing and gave himself a blessing chances are you've never seen that God gives power to us not so that we just use it to bless ourselves God gives us power to turn outward to bless other people to think outside of ourself that is the order of his son nothing Jesus did was calculated to give things to himself now in the process he gains eternity but that wasn't his focus his focus was on us his focus was on God it was turned upward and outward and so as we jump into this story isn't it an amazing contrast to as you go through your reading of chapter 13 to look for all of the the examples the Alma is giving of how God is trying to get selfish and inherently carnal sensual and devilish people to forget about ourselves turn outward start looking around who can I help who needs me as president Eyring would ask over and over again who needs me and and start saying or start believing when Jesus says he who gains his life shall lose it and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it you'll gain it you'll and not just it but you'll gain everything that he has in the in the process we're gonna add some phrases here that will help you to see some patterns throughout the Book of Mormon remember the Book of Mormon was preserved for our day so Tyler I'm just gonna add this up here so we have the order of nee hoor that we'll be talking about in chapter 14 and then this is the order of God and as you the Book of Mormon you will see this pattern throughout who is following the order and the ordinances of God and one of the consequences of those choices who is following the order of nee hoor and being self focused what are the consequences I'm going to add two other phrases here they don't really show up right now in the Book of Mormon but will show up later in the Book of Mormon but really relate to what's happening here first phrase is secret combinations see your combinations is all about groups of people binding themselves together or with oaths and promises to do terrible deeds to others to benefit themselves contrast that to what God asks of us sacred covenants look at the difference sacred covenants is what we do when we bind ourselves to others to serve them to serve God to get outside of ourselves all the things that we have been hearing in Scripture is that Tyler just summarized that is sacred covenants and one of the main purposes of the Book of Mormon is to reveal God's covenants the Covenant path and the things that we should be doing to serve others and then we have the contrast of what happens to societies who get involved in secret combinations and being self focused one of the great things Tyler and I have spent a lot of time in the field of education and one of the powerful ways that educators are trained in how to teach is to give an example and a non example you want something that do this don't do this in fact imagine the Book of Mormon imagine the story of Nephi without leaving a Lemuel Levite still be a pretty amazing character but without that stark contrast of the non example of laman and lemuel you wouldn't be able to actually show how powerful living the gospel is so what we have is the non example we have many of these stories and the example and right here in these passages today amma 14 is the non-example down the 13 is the example and these are put back to back so as we compare and contrast them we can see oh this is as clear as day it's black and white that God has invited me to participate in sacred covenants and to avoid see your combinations to stand against these things and to work against my fallen and carnal nature so I can become a child of God and have the order in my life where I feel his power so look at a look at a 30,000 foot overview of what what Taylor's just laid out here in the Alma 13 example you've got Alma who in many ways becomes a beautiful type or shadow symbol for Christ he he's the chief judge and he's the high priest and what does he do he gives up the throne so to speak he gives up the the government position Christ gives up everything the the ruling power that he had up in heaven pre mortally to condescend to come down among us and to serve us to take our sins our transgressions our pains our sicknesses our flesh and all that goes with that upon himself that's what in a small microcosm way Alma is doing symbolically here is he's showing us the order of the son what Jesus does you think about good parents you think about good priesthood leaders under the hierarchical order or part of the priesthood that we see in the church do do good parents in the patriarchal order the priesthood do good parents look at their children and say what can I get from you or do they say how can I help you can i nurture and admonish you how can I discipline you in appropriate ways to help you reach your full potential when you walk into a Sakura meeting do you look up on the stand and see a bishop drumming his fingers together looking greedily over the crowd saying what can I get from them because I'm in charge I have power here what can they do to serve me that isn't the order of God it's not the order of his son you walk into a Sakura meeting and you have bishops and you have priesthood leaders and you have Relief Society presidencies and young women leaders and and leaders that are ministers looking at people thinking what do they need dear Heavenly Father help me know how to serve them what what are they struggling with what are they wrestling with how can I help them to to do things after the order of God is not to rule over or or take power from people and Alma is showing us that through his own life and through the examples that he gives these people look let's just grab some verses now look at verse 3 in chapter 13 this is the manner after which they were ordained being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God on account of their exceeding faith and good works in the first place being left to choose good or evil therefore they having chosen good an exercising exceedingly great faith notice they've got this this contrasting opportunity to choose evil but they're choosing good it's beautiful now go down to verse go to verse 7 this high priesthood being after the order of his son which order was from the foundation of the world or in other words being without beginning of days or end of years being prepared from eternity to all eternity according to his foreknowledge of all things I don't know how you interpret that but the way I read that is to say huh this is the ideal pattern and it's been that way forever in the past and it's going to be that way forever in the future so it's not this idea that the plan of salvation is if I'll just endure the slog of mortality then someday I'll get to go up and relax on clouds and just float while people fan me and feed me grapes that's not heaven heaven is a realm where we for ever and ever and ever are going to find our greatest joy and our greatest fulfillment our greatest happiness eternally and serving and in loving and family and blessing people there's a there's a pattern here isn't there that we see in the way God wants us to exercise priesthood with how how it works in all of our relationships moving forward after his order now jump down to verse 17 he he begins talking about Melchizedek who happens to be one of the the great characters of the Old Testament that we don't have a lot of verses in the Old Testament about Melchizedek but look what he tells you here in verse 17 now this Melchizedek was a king over the land of Salem and his people had waxed strong in iniquity and abomination yea they had all gone astray what percentage they had all gone astray they were full of all manner of wickedness that sounds like an overlay once again of the world and Christ needing to come to help all who have gone astray all of us so Melchizedek becomes this type of Christ and you'll notice he was the king over the land of Salem Salem means peace right Shalom he's the king of Salem the king of peace Jesus comes and he spends significant parts of his ministry in a city called Jerusalem don't know exactly what that means but perhaps it refers to the city of peace ironically there's probably only one city that's experienced more war in the history of the world than Jerusalem is probably Istanbul Constantinople but other than that this has not been a city of peace there have been so many battles so much bloodshed and ultimately the the infinite blood of Christ was shed just outside the gates of the city of peace and so he's showing this beautiful example of melchizedek this amazing man from the Old Testament as this type of shadow of what we're trying to be and it's kind of ironic the section 107 verse 1 through 4 tells us that the the name of the higher priesthood gets called after his name to avoid the too frequent repetition of the sacred name of God and of his son we jump in on that that's really fascinating we use this word Melchizedek because the word Melchizedek and he comes from two Hebrew words melech which means king and the Duke or Zedeck which means righteousness and what is Melchizedek he is this king of righteousness and as a witness or as a symbol of Jesus Christ Christ Himself is the ultimate king of righteousness I want you to think about this in the Gospel as we pursue the Covenant path we all participate in covenants of the majestic priesthood and as we do it provides a pattern for us to become kings and queens of righteousness and so the name of the priesthood that we all participate in actually signals who we can become through Jesus Christ kings and queens of righteousness the name explains its purpose so the questions some of you might be asking in your mind is why in the world is Elmo spending so much time talking about the priesthood and high priests and the order of God and possibly the most wickedly fight city of that day what why is he spending this time I think one of the possible reasons is he's he's demonstrating an example of a personal cos ethic that is so christ-like symbolically and literally and where he lives and what he's doing and how he's accomplishing God's work that Alma Alma wants to be like that he's patterned his life after that Melchizedek is on on Alma's mind and he's relating to Alma now let's take that one step further here we sit in the 21st century reading this story from our Book of Mormon and he's casting his mind back to earlier time what does that then look like for you and for me it's as Taylor was talking about this isn't a story about past kings and past Queens this is a blueprint Alma is is following the pattern following the blueprint and he's building his own life with the help of the son working through him has a pattern for us today to say wait a minute I can do this too this is what I need to be doing with my life I don't ten thousand years from now what are you going to look back and say what are you gonna say about your life are you gonna say ten thousand years from now man I wish I would have made more money why didn't I spend more time playing video games or why tonight why didn't I spend more time just enjoying food and sights and sounds of the world I I could be wrong but I don't think anybody's gonna do that ten thousand years from now I think that there will be many who will look back and say oh I missed it I missed the whole purpose of going to earth and others will say wasn't it wonderful that God gave us these opportunities to serve and to struggle and to wrestle with difficult question and to go a long time with uncertainty because of what I learned about myself and what I learned about God in the process that's that's a beautiful part of mortality is figuring out how to forget myself and follow the pattern that Alma showed me that he's following a pattern that Melchizedek showed him and others and that all of these patterns are simply a small microcosm symbolic repetition of the real thing which is the Lord Jesus Christ here's the point for me of alma 13 it's that God is trying to do with me and my wife and my children and you what he showed us the pattern through his son which is to build up kings and queens of righteousness priests and priestesses not unto ourselves but unto God under under his order and it's it's beautiful but the language in this chapter is just beautiful look at verse 27 actually let's go to verse 25 he's speaking about the coming of Christ from back in verse 22 the glad tidings of great joy every time you see glad tidings of great joy in scriptures just think of the glorious pronouncements of the Son of God or God is going to be coming to the earth he's he's gonna come down he's gonna take upon him flesh and become a man and live with us and help us to overcome our struggles now look at verse 25 now we only wait to hear the joyful news declared unto us by the mouth of angels of his coming for the time cometh we know not how soon would to God that it might be in my day but let it be sooner or later in it I will rejoice notice here's this profit element he's saying I don't know when he's coming I know it soon I hope it's in my day but I don't know for sure I like I like that God doesn't give all the answers to his prophets all upfront that there are even things that the prophets have to move forward with faith on that's beautiful and it should be celebrated look at verse 27 now my brethren I wish from the end those part of my heart yayyyy with great anxiety even unto pain that you would hearken unto my words and cast off your sins and not procrastinate the day of your repentance I don't know how to say it other than that just try to say it this way that is the essence of the order of God of the order of of the son of God of priesthood of power of true leadership true leadership cares about the well-being and the welfare of people that we can serve the devil the order of the nee horse doesn't care if you're struggling doesn't care if you're hurting doesn't care if you you are lacking in something doesn't care about you because it's not about you it's about what you can give me how can i benefit from you true parenting true leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints is embodied in verse 27 where in the inmost parts of your heart you feel great anxiety even unto pain for your children and for those that you that you serve because you love them and your deepest desire isn't for your own welfare it's how can you help them not procrastinate the day of their repentance but to come to know God and to accept him as their king rather than themselves or the devil and the things of the world is their King so it for me verse 27 is the kind of the capstone concept of what it means truly to lead either in the home or in the church we want to give you an invitation at this point just to pause and look at some of the most important words you can find in Alma 13 and compared to Alma 14 and I'll just give you a couple of quick examples of the differences of words I'll just read a few of these Alma 13 right which is all about the priest and the order of God we have priesthood ordain holy order faith repentance righteousness sanctified joyful humble meek submission submissive fall of love long-suffering faith and hope there's probably more in there that I've missed but you might want to go through and look at those again and then compare the kind of words we see showing up all over chapter 14 lying revealing angry wickedness blindness guilty casting out casting stones casting into the fire I mean these are pretty stark differences and the words themselves reveal what is going on that Mormon and Alma put these two together alma 13 out of 14 to make it totally clear to us the distinction between the way of the devil and the way of God now using that contrast we've we've purposefully spent most of our time talking about the order of God and the priesthood rather than spending most of our time talking about the order of the nee in chapter 14 and the awfulness that's going on here but I love the way if you if you do what Taylor invited you to do looking at words from 13 and contrasting in the 14 by the time you're done with that exercise you're going to see a pretty good description of what it's what heaven is like and what hell is like what Christ is like and what the devil is like attributes of both now notice what happens chapter 14 begins Elmas done preaching look at verse 2 the more part of them so there are a few people actually many of them believed on Alma's words and amulets and began to repent to search the scriptures right but look at verse 2 but the more part of them were desires that they might destroy Alma and like for they were angry with Alma because of the plainness of his words unto Z is room and they said that a me look light and so they get their lawyers and judges together and they bring up the witnesses and they say all kinds of things and make all kinds of accusations against these two prophets and then they cast out Izzy's room they cast out the men who believe and then they perform the awful atrocities with the the wives and the children in verse 8 and 9 an element mu like have to watch it and then they come and they say these awful things to them like is this what we're gonna look like when we're condemned and they're making a total mockery of what's going on here after that they throw Elmen Amalek into prison now look at verse 14 now came to pass when the bodies of those who had been cast in the fire were consumed and also the records were true casting with them the chief judge of the land came and stood before Alma and a mule ik as they were bound and he smoked them with his hand upon their cheeks and that's when he asked them a question is this what we're gonna look like when we're cast into the lake of fire and brimstone so you can mark it that's the first time that they were smote on their cheeks verse 15 behold you see that he had not power to save those who had been cast into the fire neither has God saved them because they were of thy faith and the judge smoked them again upon their cheeks and asked what say ye for yourselves now the judge was after the order and faith of knee who slew Gideon 4:17 I came to pass the Alma now me luck answered him nothing and he smote them again and delivered them to the officers to be cast into prison are you noticing an interesting pattern here this is a judge in Amman AHA who's doing this to the being who used to be the chief judge over all the land who has condescended so to speak giving up his throne to descend among the people who's now getting beat up and falsely accused and falsely beaten for things that he doesn't deserve they're beautiful painfully symbolic connections here to Christ so they go into the the prison they're told verse bottom of verse nineteen know you not that I have power to deliver you up to the flames it's fascinating when people in in the devil's camp in scripture make claims the end of their capacity is all associated with this life the most they can do is get you out of this life and all they can do is kick you so to speak into heaven and in this kind of a context they can't they can't destroy you eternally they can just destroy the body as they've done in this chapter as painful as this is look at verse twenty came to pass when they departed when their ways they came again on the morrow and the judge also smote them again on their cheeks that's the fourth time and many came forth also and smote them so there's the fifth mentioning of smiting there verse 21 you want a description of Devils many such things did they say into them gnashing their teeth upon them spitting upon them and saying how should we look when we are damned and their many days in prison naked not getting the food and water they need and then he gives you a timestamp in verse 23 which tells you that from the time that Alma came into the city the second time I met a mule ik to this day it's been three months and eight days so all of this preaching from Chapter eight to chapter 14 it's been just over three months that's not going to get you into heaven but at least it gives you a sense of the time spread that this didn't just happen in a week they've been wrestling with this look in verse 24 the chief judge stood before them and smote them again and said on them if ye have the power of God deliver yourselves from these bands and then we will believe that the Lord will destroy this people according your words notice when you're when you're in this self-centered thing you're not gonna do any work you're not gonna pray fast read your scriptures to understand if somebody's telling the truth you're like show me a power show me a sign and then I'll believe that what you said is true yeah they are trying to change the rules for how the gospel works they're trying to set up the requirements for how belief works when God has already built it they're like nope it'll be in our way that's right look at verse 25 the seventh time that we get the smiting and it came to pass that they all went forth and smote them saying the same words even though the last and when the last had spoken unto them the power of God was upon Alma and mu liqu and they rose and stood upon their feet can you picture this moment there they've been stripped they've been starved they're weak they're bound with strong cords and these two men's stand up on their feet look at their prayer verse 26 Alma cried sang how long shall we suffer these great afflictions Oh Lord oh lord give us strength according to our faith which is in christ even unto deliverance and they broke the cords with which they were bound and when the people saw this they began to flee for this fear of destruction had come upon them you'll notice they saw assignment and what did the sign not lead to it didn't give them faith what's the word they fled in what fear that's what happens over here this is associated with that side this is associated with the devil and and hell they see a sign now they're filled with fear and the fear is of the destruction and they flee they fell to the earth they didn't obtain the outer door the earth shook mightily the walls of the were rent they fell to the earth notice the chief judge of em and I ha and the lawyers and the priests and the teachers were slain by the fall thereof so they don't even get out of prison they're killed so almond mu let come out of the prison and the people are all afraid in the city but they don't repent either and so the the promise from the prophets was your cities gonna be destroyed in one day if you don't repent well they don't repent and in chapter 16 the lame Knight army that consequently had just finished killing over a thousand of the people of anti Nephi Lehi that we might call them the people of ammon and Aaron and Amin and him night that were Lamanites converted from their 14 year mission in those seven cities they've just gotten through killing over a thousand of those those men and they're like this is done let's go fight any fights so they sneak in to the knee fight lands and come into a man die huh unannounced and wipe out the entire city and one day in chapter 16 so that's all I'm gonna say about that part let me go back now to an overview of chapter 14 why why would God let Elma an amulet be treated so badly and the women and the children treated and in this terrible way why would why would God allow such horrible things to happen to such good people who were trying so hard is an age-old philosophical question that's been debated for millennia I want to share just a little story that's totally made up it's just a parable to try to teach a principle it's it's kind of silly but here it is once upon a time there was a man who was carrying his cross that he had been given to bear in mortality and it was getting a little heavy he was a little tired of it and he happened to come upon the room where the all of the different crosses the people could bear were were stored and he asked the Angels there if he couldn't just maybe exchange his cross for somebody else's and the angel said short you can put yours down and pick any one you want so he put his down and he looked around the room and there are all these choices and he noticed one that was made out of gold pure gold it was shiny it was beautiful and he thought wow that would be glamorous compared to my old wooden thing here so he goes over and he said can I have this one the Ender said sure you couldn't care that Terry that one he got underneath it and he couldn't even lift it off the ground it was too heavy made out of gold because I never mind I don't want this one and then he saw one made out of beautiful polished oak it was it was shiny it was amazing he was able to pick it up but it was way heavier than the one he had been hearing so he's like nevermind I don't want this one then he noticed one that was made out of roses are you kidding me that is that would be so light compared to mine and it it's beautiful it would smell good I want that one Nana said go ahead so he went and he picked it up and he quickly put it back down with pokes and pricks in his shoulder he said never mind I don't want that one those thorns not not pleasant I don't want to carry that one that's fine this man went from cross to cross around the room and every new opportunity looked promising until he tried it and then it didn't work well for him and finally he came to one that was fairly small compared to the others and it was made out of balsa wood he picked it up and he kind of put on his shoulders and it just it fit it it it was just right for him and he said huh can I take this one and the angel said sure I knew you would pick that one in the end and then said how did you know that and the angel said well that's the cross you dropped when you first amen if there's a moral to this made-up story this made-up parable it would be that sometimes we are given this custom-made set of trials tribulations issues to have to wrestle with in mortality and sometimes it does get heavy and sometimes we wish we could get rid of that and look at others and compare and think I wish I had theirs or theirs or their set of trials when in reality one of the elements of faith in Lord Jesus Christ is a deep trust that he knows what he's doing we understand that there are some of you who have experienced in ordinance amounts of pain and anguish maybe it's because of physical disease or mental anguish or loved ones who are making choices that are just tearing your heart out and making you feel horrible the reality is if we turn outward trying to serve as we turn upward looking to God and trusting that he knows what he's doing when he gives us those individual trials and struggles to bear then we'll trust him more and spend less time murmuring about our own cross and spend more time bearing it and looking around and seeing who needs more help bearing the cross that they've been given to bear in mortality chapter 15 finds us leaving a maneja to go to sytem now by the way just as a side note a maneja is going to be utterly destroyed in that one day less than four months later so they're they're leaving and it's like three and a half months later when that lame entire army is going to show up so Elma and Amalek are getting out of there and they come down to sytem where they finds the is room who is laying sick on on a bed with a fever verse 5 chapter 15 they went to him immediately obeying the message which was the Ezra had sent unto them and they went in unto the house unto Xia's room and they found him upon his bed sick being very low with the burning fever and his mind was also exceedingly sore because of his iniquities and when he saw them he stretched forth his hand and besought them that they would heal him this is one of the beautiful examples of many in scriptures where people are making a transition from this kind of a life over to that kind of a life and that isn't something that just happens it's not like somebody just wakes up and says I'm gonna stop being like this and I'm gonna be like this getting rid of the natural man and the natural woman is painful and it hurts it's like extracting parts of what we've we've grown to become out of our soul and it's it's brought Xia's room down with this very low burning fever ironically who's the person that's gonna be healing him here there's another christ-like symbol I love Elma the youngers life in so many ways of how he how he becomes a lens for me to be able to see more clearly Jesus and the Savior's interactions with me and my own life Elma knows exactly what it's like to make this transition because Alma the younger experienced three days of a burning fever so to speak suffering the pains of a damned soul making that transition and so he's able to have this incredible compassion on Xia's room knowing exactly what he's going through and healing him through the power of the priesthood now look at verse 15 as the people that were in the land of a man died ha they were they yet remained a hard-hearted and a stiff neck at people and they repented not of their sins ascribing all the power of ailment Amalek to the devil for they were of the profession of knee and they did not believe in the repentance of their sins it's a guarantee that if you ever go to the Lord and say I don't need to repent I don't need to change then it's a guarantee that we're not over here because the minute we become more like the the savior and turn outward and and try to help other people is when we recognize our own flaw and say I need to do God's will not mine total opposite of what these people in in Emma and I are doing now finished with verse 16 came to pass that ailment a Mielec a mule ik having forsaken all his gold and silver and his precious things which were in the land of M&I ha for the word of God he being rejected by those who were once his friends and also his father and his kindred his close family his father rejected and he left behind gold silver and precious things in his land his his prestige was left behind let me ask a simple question if amulet we're standing right here today talking to us trying to tell us his own story do you think he would lament let me tell you what I lost in in gaining my faith and my conversion to Christ let me tell you about all the gold and silver in the land and and the vacation opportunities and the investments that I had and my my incredible relation let me tell you about what I lost I don't think he would focus on that for a moment I think a mule ik would say there is nothing nothing that this world has to offer you that can even come close to comparing with what God has in store for you if you'll give up your life for him so as we come to a close of looking at these chapters in in M&I hot our prayer our hope is that each of us can analyze our own life and recognize where we struggle on this side and where we can do better at taking the things that God has given us and to look outward and spend maybe less time focusing on murmuring and complaining about whatever cross it is that we have been given to bear and spend more time looking for some hands that hang down and for some feeble knees who were struggling under the weight of the cross that they've been given to bear and to build them up and grow in our deep trust and our faith but God knows what he's doing ten thousand years from now you won't look back and shake your fist at heaven and say why did you do that to me if you have the perspective of being on the Covenant path and trusting in God we just so appreciate you and how you love God you love the gospel we love your desire for righteousness it's just inspiring to us and we just really appreciate the opportunity to share our love with you about the gospel and God's beautiful love for all of us you

Channel: Book of Mormon Central

Views: 121,689

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Keywords: Come Follow Me, Come Follow Me LDS, Don't Miss This, Priesthood, Order of the Son of God, Alma, Amulek, Mormon, LDS, Sunday School, Lesson

Id: Ri_LVU1ZArc

Length: 49min 21sec (2961 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 08 2020