Amulon Finds Alma
Book of Mormon Notes - Sunday, July 30, 2023, Mosiah 23
There are still a lot of people wandering in the wilderness at this point in the Book of Mormon. King Noah’s wicked priests are still roaming about, and Alma’s people have fled into the wilderness in their escape from King Noah and his followers. Zarahemla has become the great Nephite capital, and it is growing with the addition of King Limhi and his people.
When Alma and his people were baptized, made covenants with Lord lord, and began to create a Zion society, did things automatically become easier for them? The answer is both yes and no. The Lord warned them, protected them, strengthened them, and prospered them. But He also chastened them, because He loved them.
First of all, the Lord strengthened them to flee from King Noah and his armies. Then the Lord brought them into a beautiful land with pure water. Then the Lord began to bless them and to prosper them in their new land, a land that they called Helam, probably after the same Helam whom Alma baptized. The Lord delivered Alma and his people and blessed them in many ways. In all of these things, the Lord shows us a pattern, the same pattern that President Benson described so well:
The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.
The Lord worked with Alma from the inside out. He took the slums out of Alma, changed alma, molded Alma, and converted him. The Lord worked from the inside of the Zenephite or Limhite society. He changed them internally through the instrumentality of Alma and by disposing of King Noah and his wicked priests. This is why I found a parallel in the way that pure flowing waters that became a baptismal font and a sacred grove in the place of Mormon replaced a wilderness that was infested by wild beasts. As the Lord continued to transform Alma and his people into true Christians, He also prepared them for a greater future in Zarahemla. Part of this preparation included more trials at the hands of the Lamanites and especially at the hands of King Noah’s wicked priest Amulon.
Mormon recounts the story of Alma and his people not just because the story is central to Book of Mormon history, but also because Mormon draws lessons from these events. Mormon shows us how the Lord works among His people. As Alma and his people repented, made covenants in baptism, and strove to live the Gospel, the Lord blessed and strengthened them, working from the inside out. But Helam was not the final destination for Alma and his people. The Lord was still molding them:
Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to achasten his people; yea, he trieth their bpatience and their faith.
Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his atrust in him the same shall be blifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people. (Mosiah 23:21-22)
I love this little editorial note from Mormon. Who better than Mormon would know how the Lord chastens and tries His people? Who better than Mormon would know how the Lord lifts up those who put their trust in Him? Mormon lived at the end of Nephite history, and he knew their history better than anyone. He had certainly experienced his own chastening trials and developed great patience and faith throughout his own momentous life.
Moreover, as Mormon contemplated his future audience - Lamanites, Jews, Gentiles, and everyone else - the Lord inspired him to include the stories and the lessons from those stories that are most important and relevant for the time in which we now live, and the time in which Mormon’s record would be read. Why, then, did Mormon want us to know about Alma and the trials of his people in Helam? What did Mormon see in his visions of the future that inspired him to include this specific episode from Nephite, Zenephite, Limhite, and Alma-ite history?
The first thing that I can see is that Alma and his people were pioneers and religious refugees much like the early Saints. In the same pattern of Lehi, Nephi, Jacob, Enos, and all of the preceding prophets, from Mosiah to Benjamin and onward, Alma was foreordained to lead his people to a place where they could worship the Lord according to the dictates of their own conscience. Like the early Saints who gathered in Kirtland, built a temple, and then move onward toward the place of the New Jerusalem, Alma and his people built up the city of Helam before being forced to flee once again.
But Alma and his people encountered even greater difficulties than King Limhi and his people. The trials of Alma and his people were more severe because they didn’t just struggle under Lamanite oppression. Mormon shows us that Alma and his people were brought into bondage, not just by the Lamanites, but by the wicked priest of King Noah, Amulon, who had joined with the Lamanites. As terrible as Lamanite oppression was, with exacting taxes and wars and other kinds of tyranny, the people of King Limhi had not yet been completely converted, baptized, and made into a covenant people. The opposition that they faced matched their preparation, or at least, the Lord did not allow more opposition than they could handle. Alma and his people, on the other hand, may have been more converted to the Lord, more spiritually prepared, and ready for more tutoring from the Lord. This tutoring came in the form of tyrannical pressure from Amulon.
Alma had formerly been a colleague of Amulon. Amulon’s hatred for Alma must have been even more intense than the natural hatred of the Lamanites toward the Nephites. Thus Alma faced intense opposition from his former colleague, not just because Amulon knew Alma and his past, but also because Alma was growing spiritually. As we all come to learn at one time or another, spiritual growth and spiritual experiences are often accompanied by testing, trial, and tribulation. These trials that befell Alma and his people were severe, but they turned out to be blessings for them. In fact, these trials certainly prepared Alma and his people for greater blessings in Zarahemla.
Mormon teaches us that only the Lord could deliver Alma and his people from the bondage, both temporal and spiritual, of Amulon and his group of Lamanites. The Lord showed forth His mighty power to Alma and his people who were in the midst of affliction. The Lamanites came upon Alma and his people in the Land of Helam, but the Lord strengthened Alma and his people to hush their fears, and to trust in Him. The Lord also softened the hearts of the Lamanites so that Alma and his people were preserved from destruction.
The wicked priests of Noah had begun to rebuild a city in a place that they called Amulon. Amulon was the leader of King Noah’s wicked priests. When the Lamanites eventually found them, Amulon and the other wicked priests of King Noah plead with the Lamanites not to kill them. They even presented their wives who were the twenty-four daughters of the Lamanites, to plead with the Lamanites. I have always wondered why the Lamanites didn’t kill Amulon and King Noah’s wicked priests then and there, because they had abducted these daughters of the Lamanites. Perhaps enough time had elapsed that these captive daughters of the Lamanites had grown to love their captors enough not to want to kill them. This doesn’t seem like the best explanation. Perhaps these were different groups of Lamanites who had little to no ties with the Lamanites from whom these daughters were abducted. This doesn’t seem like the best explanation either.
Whatever the case, when these captive Lamanite daughters pled before the Lamanites on behalf of the wicked priests of King Noah, the Lamanites soften their hearts. Then Amulon and his people joined with the Lamanites. Then, as Amulon and his Lamanite band went to search for the Land of Nephi, they stumbled upon Alma and his people in the Land of Helam. Alma and his people showed the Lamanites the way back to the Land of Nephi, but the Lamanites went back on their promise to grant them their lives and their liberty.
The great problem for Alma and his people was that Amulon began to rule in the Land of Helam under the power of the Lamanite king. In many ways, Amulon’s rule was as tyrannical or even more tyrannical than the rule of his trainer, King Noah. Amulon’s special hatred for Alma caused him to exercise even greater tyranny over Alma and his people.
Alma and his people had been blessed and strengthened by the Lord, converted to the Lord, and prospered in the city of Helam. But it was not long before their conversion, covenants, and newfound spiritual strength were put to a severe test.