Mormon Doesn't Want Us to Be Destroyed
Book of Mormon Notes - Friday, October 6, 2023, Alma 37 (continued)
Alma, Helaman, and a select few knew exactly what the Jaredites had been up to, in all the gory details and with all of their plans and oaths and signs and secrets before them. But Alma made sure that Helaman would only reveal what was necessary to teach the Nephites to abhor secret combinations and such evil, and to teach the Nephites to repent and exercise faith in Jesus Christ.
But as always, we must pause to ask ourselves, in a record that Nephi commanded should only contain the most plain and precious things and the things of most worth, why would Mormon include this verbatim record of Alma’s teachings to his son Helaman about the 24 golden plates and the record engraven thereon? One obvious reason is that Moroni was soon entrusted with these same plates, and his task was to abridge them for his future latter-day audience. But Mormon also knew that this account of Alma’s teachings to his son Helaman would benefit others besides his own dear son Moroni. Mormon knew that the latter-day Promised Land and the inhabitants thereof would suffer from the same problems that plagued both the Jaredites and the Nephites, and he hoped to warn us. Mormon knew that just as the Jaredites and the Nephites had been destroyed because of pride, priestcraft, and secret combinations, so too would the latter-day inhabitants of the Promised Land be threatened with destruction if they refused to repent. Alma the Younger’s teachings to his son Helaman about the 24 gold plates, and the fate of the Jaredites, is a warning to Helaman, a warning that Mormon understood and transmitted to us so well that we might want to pay careful attention to what Mormon wants to teach us.
What did Ether record about the Jaredites? What did King Mosiah translate? What did Alma know and teach his son about the Jaredites? And what did Mormon wish for us to know about them, and why?
The Jaredites were plagued with murders, robbings, plunderings, wickedness, abominations, works of darkness, and secret murders and abominations. They amurdered all the prophets of the Lord who came among them to declare unto them concerning their iniquities. The blood of those whom they murdered did cry unto the Lord their God for vengeance upon those who were their murderers. The judgments of God did come upon these workers of darkness and secret bcombinations. The Jaredites were destroyed.
Alma did not want the Nephites to be destroyed as the Jaredites had been destroyed, but by the time that Mormon included Alma’s message in his abridgment of the large plates of Nephi, Mormon knew that the Nephites would also be completely destroyed. And like Alma who desired to preserve the Nephites from destruction, Mormon recorded these things for our benefit in order to preserve us from destruction because he knew that we would be afflicted and oppressed by the same kinds of secret combinations and abominations that afflicted and oppressed both the Jaredites and the Nephites.
Murders, robbings, plunderings, wickedness, abominations, works of darkness, and secret murders and abominations? Are things really that bad? My guess is that with technology we are even worse off than the Jaredites and the Nephites. The Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were martyred, and I don’t think that we’ve dealt very well with the secret combinations that are among us today.
Therefore, what?
Therefore we need to learn and to teach the same doctrine and principles that Alma taught his son Helaman. The end of Alma’s teachings to his son Helaman contain some of my favorite verses of scripture of all time, and some of the best counsel ever given:
O, remember, my son, and alearn bwisdom in thy cyouth; yea, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God.
Yea, and acry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy bdoings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy cthoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.
aCounsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for bgood; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the cmorning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day. (Alma 37:35-37)
These are great verses to ponderize.
After instructing his son Helaman about the Jaredite plates and about how to draw closer to the Lord, Alma began to teach his son about the Liahona. I jumped over Alma’s presentation of the interpreters a little too quickly, because there is so much to learn about those sacred objects, but Alma seems to have had the Liahona particularly in mind when he was teaching his son Helaman about small and simple things. Therefore, the Liahona will be the subject of my next post. But I would also like to make a few notes about Gazelem…