Truth and Testimony Cannot Be Terminated: Abinadi's Final Words
Book of Mormon Notes - Friday, July 21, 2023, Mosiah 17
Do you believe Abinadi? Are you persuaded that he spoke the truth?
If so, then you can follow Alma and his band of believers in their journey into the fold of God.
I know that Mormon included this record of Abinadi for a wise purpose, and that Abinadi was a real man who really testified of Christ before a tyrant and gave his life for the Lord.
King Noah was not at all pleased with Abinadi’s teachings, nor was he pleased that Abinadi refused to recall his words. King Noah was so enraged, in fact, that he commanded his wicked priests to seize Abinadi in order to put him to death. The coward King Noah didn’t dare approach Abinadi himself because he knew that Abinadi had spoken the truth, and because he knew that his accusations against Abinadi were false. False accusations to hide guilt are the tactics of cowards and tyrants like King Noah, but the Lord made sure that he didn’t get away with it.
Among King Noah’s wicked priests was a young man with a good heart named Alma. Alma was a descendent of Nephi, and he believed Abinadi’s words. He knew that Abinadi had spoken the truth. Alma knew that King Noah and his posse were wicked. But when Alma plead with King Noah to calm his anger and to spare Abinadi’s life, King Noah turned on Alma and threatened to kill him as well. This is typical tyrannical behavior. Tyrants attempt to suppress and silence any dissent or to intimidate anyone who poses a threat to his or her supposed authority. Honest discussion and debate are not welcome in a tyrannical regime. For his honesty and bravery, Alma was persecuted and threatened with death.
Thus Alma fled, hid himself, and began to write Abinadi’s words. This is yet another pattern in tyrannical regimes. Good and honest people are often forced to flee for safety, to hide themselves, and to write in secret. Think of Solzhenitsyn, Bonhoeffer, Hübener, and many others whose examples and writings now inspire us. Alma fled and wrote all of Abinadi’s words, or at least all of the words that Abinadi had spoken up until the time that Alma fled from King Noah’s wrath.
King Noah counseled with the remaining wicked priests for three days before he concocted a false accusation in order to condemn Abinadi to death. But Abinadi courageously resisted King Noah’s lies and willingly offered his life to seal his testimony of Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith may have drawn courage from Abinadi’s example, the kind of courage and faith that is evident in his letter to his wife Emma:
I will try to be contented with my lot, knowing that God is my friend. In him I shall find comfort. I have given my life into his hands. I am prepared to go at his call. I desire to be with Christ. I count not my life dear to me, only to do his will.
Abinadi was a friend of God who gave his life into God’s hands. He did not count his life dear unto himself, only to do the will of God.
Abinadi warned Noah yet again, particularly regarding the consequences of shedding his innocent blood. Noah almost relented because he feared Abinadi’s true warning and he feared that the judgments of God would come upon him. But as is often the case with tyrants, King Noah succumbed to the peer pressure of his wicked priests and burst out into anger again. Tyrants are angry people. They are filled with rage and often burst out in tantrums whenever they feel like they don’t get exactly what they want. Abinadi’s calmness, poise, and peace stands in sharp contrast to King Noah’s boiling rage.
The method for execution that King Noah and his wicked priests used demonstrates just how evil they were. They bound Abinadi and scourged his skin with faggots, or burning hot bundles of sticks that were bound together as fuel. From the heat and the flames, Abinadi continued his prophesies and warnings:
Behold, even as ye have done unto me, so shall it come to pass that thy aseed shall cause that many shall suffer the pains that I do suffer, even the pains of bdeath by fire; and this because they believe in the salvation of the Lord their God.
And it will come to pass that ye shall be afflicted with all manner of adiseases because of your iniquities.
Yea, and ye shall be smitten on every hand, and shall be driven and scattered to and fro, even as a wild flock is driven by wild and ferocious beasts.
And in that day ye shall be ahunted, and ye shall be taken by the hand of your enemies, and then ye shall suffer, as I suffer, the pains of bdeath by fire.
Thus God executeth avengeance upon those that destroy his people. O God, breceive my soul. (Mosiah 17:15-19)
Like Isaiah’s prophecies, all of Abinadi’s prophesies were fulfilled.
Sometimes it may appear as though the wicked, or tyrants, or others who revel in iniquity, get away with their awful deeds. But Abinadi reminds us that the Lord is in charge, and that vengeance is His.
Abinadi is a type of Christ and his martyrdom may remind us of the crucifixion of our Savior Jesus Christ:
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost. (Mosiah 17:19)
After Abinadi’s final testimony and warning, he fell, having suffered death by fire. Like Joseph Smith after him, Abinadi sealed the truth of his words by his death. In this and in many other ways, both Abinadi and Joseph Smith are types of Jesus Christ.
Notice that it is another tactic of tyrants to suppress speech. King Noah and his wicked priests attempted to silence Abinadi and to erase his testimony. They also attempted to silence Alma. Even though Alma fled, and even though Abinadi was killed, the truth cannot be erased and testimony cannot be silenced. Truth and testimony live on independently of any attempts to snuff them out, even when the lives of the testators are snuffed out by evil forces.