Moroni Inspires Our Hearts
Book of Mormon Notes - Tuesday, October 17, 2023, Alma 43-44
My original goal was to finish the Book of Mormon by Christmas of 2023, which means that I am behind schedule because I should be well into the Book of Helaman by now. But I don’t want to rush through the “war chapters” either. Perhaps I will just pause to mention a few highlights or things that stand out to me along the way as I catch up to my original schedule.
I was wondering how Mormon obtained this record with direct quotations from Chief Captain Moroni. All of these things up to this point were contained in the record of Alma, but Alma was not present, as far as I’m aware, when Moroni commanded Zerahemnah and the Lamanites to depart with a covenant of peace. How did Alma receive word of Moroni’s deeds and words?
Remember that it was Alma’s inquiry and revelation that directed Moroni to protect the land of Manti and enabled him and his armies to surround and conquer the Lamanites. Alma’s inquiry and revelation were spot on. The Lamanites did try to attack Manti and Moroni and his brave soldiers were able to stop them. Somehow Alma received news of the Nephite victory and all that had transpired in the land of Manti. Alma recorded these words, and perhaps there had been a military scribe who recorded Moroni’s exact words as he spoke them.
However Alma received Moroni’s words, and Zerahemnah’s replies, Mormon included them, quoting them verbatim. We haven’t learned of Teancum yet, but I imagine that he, like Captain Lehi, was present during these battles. The Lamanites were as fierce as dragons and even more stubborn. But the Nephites were inspired by a better cause and they were following the commandments of the Lord regarding defensive warfare. I have little patience for “pacifists” or those who consider that the Book of Mormon is a “pacifist” text, especially when the Lord Himself declares His own doctrine of warfare:
And they were doing that which they felt was the aduty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: bInasmuch as ye are not guilty of the cfirst offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies.
And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall adefend your families even unto bbloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion. (Alma 43:46-47)
There are all kinds of scriptures throughout the standard works that corroborate this commandment of the Lord to the Nephites and teach the Lord’s principles of just warfare.
At one point in the battle, the Nephites were almost ready to retreat before their enemies, but Chief Captain Moroni inspired his soldiers - even better than Mel Gibson in Brave Heart - to persevere:
And it came to pass that when the men of Moroni saw the fierceness and the anger of the Lamanites, they were about to shrink and flee from them. And Moroni, perceiving their intent, sent forth and inspired their hearts with these thoughts—yea, the thoughts of their lands, their liberty, yea, their freedom from bondage.
And it came to pass that they turned upon the Lamanites, and they acried with one voice bunto the Lord their God, for their cliberty and their freedom from bondage.
And they abegan to stand against the Lamanites with power; and in that selfsame hour that they cried unto the Lord for their freedom, the Lamanites began to flee before them; and they fled even to the waters of Sidon. (Alma 43:48-50)
I love these passages. Moroni perceived that his soldiers had become somewhat discouraged and that they were even about to shrink and flee before the Lamanites. But Moroni would not allow it. He sent forth and inspired the hearts of his soldiers. When I think of the onslaught of evil in our day, and the many discouraging things that the world constantly throws at us, and I see how many of us want to shrink and flee from our enemies, I want to draw from the message of Moroni, to send forth and inspire hearts with these thoughts: thoughts of our lands, our liberty, and our freedom from bondage. Moroni’s encouragement rings through the centuries like Churchill’s rally cry:
You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period — I am addressing myself to the School — surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.
Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.
We can listen to the Moroni-voices of our time - sober but optimistic - that inspire our hearts with thoughts of our lands, our liberty, and our freedom from bondage, instead of listening to all of the voices of what President Hinckley fondly called “pickle-suckers”:
My dear young friends, don’t partake of the spirit of our times. Look for the good and build on it. Don’t be a “pickle sucker.” There is so much of the sweet and the decent and the good to build on.
Moroni’s encouragement together with the mighty, unified prayer of the Nephite armies called down the power of God for them and enabled them to encircle and even to terrify their enemies. Because of the Nephites’ faith in God, the Lord delivered their enemies into their hands. And Moroni acknowledged that it was God who had done it. Moroni’s powerful speech ranks highest in my mind among the great military and political speeches of history and literature, even above the speeches of Pericles, Henry V, Washington, Lincoln, and Simon Bolivar:
And it came to pass that they did stop and withdrew a pace from them. And Moroni said unto aZerahemnah: Behold, Zerahemnah, that we do bnot desire to be men of blood. Ye know that ye are in our hands, yet we do not desire to slay you.
Behold, we have not come out to battle against you that we might shed your blood for power; neither do we desire to bring any one to the ayoke of bondage. But this is the bvery cause for which ye have come against us; yea, and ye are angry with us because of our religion.
But now, ye behold that the Lord is with us; and ye behold that he has delivered you into our hands. And now I would that ye should understand that this is done unto us abecause of our religion and our faith in Christ. And now ye see that ye cannot destroy this our faith.
Now ye see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye see that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are afaithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith.
And now, Zerahemnah, I command you, in the name of that all-powerful God, who has strengthened our arms that we have gained power over you, aby our faith, by our religion, and by our brites of worship, and by our church, and by the sacred support which we owe to our cwives and our children, by that dliberty which binds us to our lands and our country; yea, and also by the maintenance of the sacred word of God, to which we owe all our happiness; and by all that is most dear unto us—
Yea, and this is not all; I command you by all the desires which ye have for life, that ye adeliver up your weapons of war unto us, and we will seek not your blood, but we will bspare your lives, if ye will go your way and come not again to war against us.
And now, if ye do not this, behold, ye are in our hands, and I will command my men that they shall fall upon you, and ainflict the wounds of death in your bodies, that ye may become extinct; and then we will see who shall have power over this people; yea, we will see who shall be brought into bondage.” (Alma 44:1-7)
But one of the things that most impresses me about this amazing scene in the Book of Mormon is Moroni’s soldier. Zerahemnah was absolutely incorrigible, and he rejected Moroni’s generous offer and refused to comply with Moroni’s command. In his anger, Zerahemnah rushed forward in the attempt to slay Moroni, but one of Moroni’s soldiers - perhaps Teancum or another brave soldier like him - smote Zerahemnah’s sword with such power that he broke it by the hilt, and then removed Zerahemnah’s scalp and lifted it up upon the point of his own sword, waving it before the Lamanite armies and declaring with a loud voice:
Even as this scalp has fallen to the earth, which is the scalp of your chief, so shall ye fall to the earth except ye will deliver up your weapons of war and depart with a covenant of peace. (Alma 44:14)
Who was this soldier? We don’t know. Whoever he was, he is one of my favorite characters in all of scripture.
(Just as a side note, this scalping seems to me to be just one other evidence that these ancient Lehites are the ancestors of the Native American peoples of North America, and that the main action of the Book of Mormon took place in the region that we now call the United States of America.)
But even without his scalp, Zerehemnah continued to rage against Moroni and the Nephite armies until the slaughter was so terrible that Zerahemnah finally relented and slunk away with the few remaining survivors. These events were recorded at the conclusion of Alma’s record, and Mormon included them for our benefit.