From Prosperity and Peace to Pride and Power
[Apostasy by Church Members]
[Alma Gives Power to Nephihah]
The Atonement
[Old Testament Law of Consecration]
[Yom Kippur—the Lords Release]
257 Alma 4:2,3 Now we have two extremely important passages; they are worth years actually. We are in Alma 4. In the fifth year of the reign of the judges all that fighting and terrible stuff happened. Now we are in the sixth year, and everything is going pretty well. In the sixth year there were no contentions, for once. Of course there were no contentions; they were suffering too much from the setback in the wars. It says, “But the people were afflicted, yea, greatly afflicted for the loss of their brethren, and also for the loss of their flocks and herds, and also for the loss of their fields of grain.” The place was ruined; their crops were trampled and destroyed. The losses had been so heavy “that every soul had cause to mourn; and they believed that it was the judgments of God sent upon them because of their wickedness.”
257 Alma 4:4,5 : “And they began to establish the church more fully; yea, and many were baptized in the waters of Sidon.” Weren’t there any other rivers around except the Sidon? It looks as if there were not very many. Notice that it was shallow—it was forded. That’s where all the battles took place, at the ford. They could pass back and forth over it; it was the border also, and it washed down into the sea. It was that kind of country; there were no big rivers around. “Yea, they were baptized by the hand of Alma, who had been consecrated the high priest over the people of the church.” He had his work cut out for him. Now another thing to notice: See how small this civilization was. He baptized not 35,000 but only 3,500 souls. Everybody was wanting to get baptized, but that’s how many he baptized in a year.
258 Alma 4:6 Then just two years pass, and it’s all over. In the eighth year they have gone sour again. Do things happen this fast really? You bet they do. “The people of the church began to wax proud, because of their exceeding riches, and their fine silks.”
259,260 Alma 4:6,7 And they had “costly apparel.” Notice they never call it “beautiful apparel.” It’s just costly. Usually it looks quite ugly, I suppose, but it’s costly. They overdo it, as you know if you’ve seen the vase paintings and the murals from Central America, Mexico, etc. They are all horribly overdressed; they look like walking Christmas trees—these grandees being carried around. It went to their heads again, and Alma took this very hard: “Now this was the cause of much affliction to Alma.” What’s wrong with this elegance? Note the sharp distance between the two lifestyles here; that’s what it is. Verse 7: “Yea, many of them were sorely grieved for the wickedness which they saw had begun to be among their people.” They were not compromising or anything. Alma was much afflicted, and the priests and elders were sorely grieved. They were coming down hard; they didn’t agree at all. We have a definite hostility here. The people went right on with it because they didn’t like how [Alma and the priests] were doing it. It was two diametrically opposed lifestyles. That’s what we’re up against. They saw what they called wickedness that had begun among the people.
260 Alma 4:8 : “For they saw and beheld with great sorrow that the people of the church [the church was the main culprit here] began to be lifted up in the pride of their eyes, and to set their hearts upon riches and upon the vain things of the world [here’s your equality], that they began to be scornful, one towards another, and they began to persecute those that did not believe according to their own will and pleasure.” That’s snobbery, contempt, intolerance, and meanness. But what about persecution? Do people actually go that far? Do we really act this way because we get rich? Well, we do, of course.
261 Alma 4:9 So what happens? Great contentions. Notice Alma 4:9: “There began to be great contentions among the people of the church; yea, there were envyings, and strife, and malice, and persecutions, and pride.” You have all these things within the ward, etc. Note the nature of these crimes—the meanness and the pettiness of it. There’s nothing that you can make a law against. You can’t go to jail for being envious of someone. You can’t go to jail for strife or competition. We believe in competition; ours is a competitive system. Or for malice—to catch up and get even with somebody. “Don’t get mad, get even.” That’s the slogan. With persecutions you put the pressure on. And there are the takeovers, hostile and otherwise, and the pride, “... even to exceed the pride of those who did not belong to the church of God.” The church members were worse than the nonmembers, in other words. Can it go that way? It does.
261 Alma 4:10 : “And thus ended the eighth year of the reign of the judges; and the wickedness of the church was a great stumbling-block to those who did not belong to the church.” This is a thing to notice. Here in this eighth year we come to the fatal turning point; from now on it’s all down hill. It seems rather early in the game for that to be happening, but notice we are going on to the time of Christ now. From now on things start getting serious when the church itself is the center of corruption. So this is what’s going to happen.
261,262 Alma 4:11,12 It tells us here in verse 11 that the church was corrupting the entire nation: “Alma saw the wickedness of the church, and he saw also that the example of the church began to lead those who were unbelievers on from one piece of iniquity to another, thus bringing on the destruction of the people. Yea, he saw great inequality among the people [there we are again; he always hits that], some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others [DESPICIO means ‘to look down on others’], turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry.”
262 Alma 4:13-15 But there were the others; this is the other side. Notice that this is a tract for the times. There are no -isms here. We are not talking about socialism, capitalism, fascism, or anything else. It’s just human beings dealing with each other. “Others were abasing themselves, succoring those who stood in need of their succor, such as imparting their substance to the poor and the needy, feeding the hungry, and suffering all manner of afflictions, for Christ’s sake, who should come according to the spirit of prophecy. Looking forward to that day, thus retaining a remission of their sins; being filled with great joy because of the resurrection of the dead [that’s where it pays off], according to the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ from the bands of death.... Alma, having seen the afflictions of the humble followers of God, and the persecutions which were heaped upon them by the remainder of his people, and seeing all their inequality, began to be very sorrowful.”
262,263 Alma 4:16 Alma had all three offices, so “he selected a wise man .. . and gave him power according to the voice of the people, that he might have power to enact laws according to the laws which had been given [all he was doing was enforcing the laws which people were ignoring] and to put them in force according to the wickedness and the crimes of the people.” They committed crimes, so Nephihah had these emergency powers. This was to free Alma to put the pressure on where it would count most.
263 Alma 4:18,19 “Now Alma did not grant unto him the office of being high priest over the church, but he retained the office of high priest unto himself; but he delivered the judgment-seat unto Nephihah. [This is what he wanted to do it for:] And this he did that he himself might go forth among this people, or among the people of Nephi, that he might preach the word of God unto them [it had reached the point that the only thing he could do was], to stir them up in remembrance of their duty, and that he might pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness, and all the contentions which were among his people.” All he could do was preach, and it went over, as I said, like a lead balloon—as you might expect. Notice that Joseph Smith didn’t invent this. You’d think a happy ending would come out, but happy endings don’t come here. It’s one calamity after another, “seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them.”
263 Alma 4:20 What good does it do to appoint special officers, make special laws, etc., if people are acting that way? Alma had all the principal offices, as we have seen—head of the church, army, and state. Law courts, judgments, sentences, etc., weren’t getting anywhere at all. There was only one way to do it, he said. He could see “no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them,” which is what Solon did, incidentally. And he was driven out of the city, of course. He left for ten years. Verse 20: “Alma delivered up the judgment-seat to Nephihah, and confined himself wholly to the high priesthood of the holy order of God, to the testimony of the word, according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy.” Only revelation and prophecy can make the breakthrough. [People] just keep calling each other names and going around in circles. You have to break the circle somewhere, and it can only come by revelation.
263,264 Alma 5:2,3 Now we come to one of the most remarkable chapters in the Book of Mormon, this long chapter 5 that is over 60 verses long. The same thing is told in Nephi 1-2 and in Alma 42. This is an account of the Law of the Atonement—of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. These are the ordinances performed at the temple in Israel by the law of Moses on the Day of Atonement. And that’s what we are told here. Alma went first to the people of Zarahemla. He was launching the movement there, and he did it this way throughout the land. “And these are the words which he spake to the people in the church which was established in the city of Zarahemla, according to his own record, saying:” These are formal words, and he repeated these wherever he went. That means the day of establishment, the day of founding which is Yom Kippur, the New Year, and Rosh ha-Shanah, etc. It has all those names. It is the day of the founding of the world in all ancient societies, when everything gets started. (I’ve written so many articles on this.) These are the words he spake when he established it. It tells us in verse 3: “I say unto you that he began to establish a church in the land which was in the borders of Nephi [following the same pattern].” This is an inauguration of the church, an initiation of the order. What we have presented here is the old law of Moses in its purity. Here you recognize the Day of Atonement—that’s what it is. As we have mentioned before, atonement is literally at-one-ment. The word is not found in the new revised version of the Bible; they use reconciliation instead.
264,265 Zachariah 14:18; Exodus 32:19; Deuteronomy 31:27-29 We can’t emphasize too much this law of consecration. I’m going to tell you what it was. It was the old law. This is point one: There was only one law given to Israel at any time— only one law given to the human race, and this was it. Point two: It was the minimum requirement. Incidentally you will find all this in the Old Testament in Zachariah 14:18 and following. It’s a minimum requirement. Anyone can be expected to keep it, like the Word of Wisdom which can be kept by the “weak and the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints.” It was given complete to Moses, but the people would only accept it in part. It has always been that way. As we are told in Exodus 32:19, when he smashed the tablets, they did not get the higher priesthood because they were not worthy of it. They got only the lower priesthood. Moses prophesied at the end of Deuteronomy in his farewell, just before he was about to leave the people. (It’s quite a speech here.) He says, you’re a stiffnecked people. If you are rebellious while I am still with you, what will you do when I’m gone [paraphrased]. Then he says, I “call heaven and earth to record against them. For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you” (Deuteronomy 31:27-29). And they did in record time. Therefore, he leaves upon them just what we have on the promised land. He says, Behold I set before you this day a blessing and a curse. They go together, and you understand why. If thou wilt not hearken, these curses are for you [paraphrased]. Then he lists the promises and blessings and the curses, which are the blessings in reverse in Deuteronomy 28:15. He says in short, “I have set before you [this day] life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Well, the people accepted the conditions wholeheartedly, just as they did in the time of King Benjamin. They all voted and chose to go into it. In one voice they shouted, “Amen,” for they were accepting the curse along with the blessing. It’s the same in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
265 Deuteronomy 7:6 This is the reason they have to be different: They can’t just go back and be like ordinary [people]. He really rubs this in, and you will find most of this in the book of Deuteronomy [Brother Nibley paraphrases most of it]. “Ye all stand this day before Jehovah your God that he may establish you this day for a people unto himself.” There are to be no mental reservations as to what you are to be sworn to; God is not mocked. Don’t say, “This won’t bother me; I’ll go just my way. I’ll take the oath.” The Lord will not spare him that does, but “all the curses written in the book shall be upon him.” Because you are something different from the world, he says—holy, set apart, chosen, special, peculiar, AM S GULLAH (that’s the word SEALED, A SEALED PEOPLE), not like any other people on the face of the earth. “God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6). That’s why you can’t do just like other people. He says this will remain the law until God himself sees fit to change it. That’s another point.
265,266 Then he told them what to do. This is what you do. First, you must establish the center, the temple, according to my instructions. This is the place which Jehovah, your God, has chosen out of all your tribes to put his name there for his dwelling. You shall seek that place out and go there. You shall bring your offerings there—your sacrifices, your heave offerings, your firstlings of your flocks. (Remember, they brought their firstlings at the beginning of Mosiah when Benjamin was going to speak to them.) There you hold your feasts before the Lord joyfully with your families. It follows the rule right throughout the Book of Mormon. And this is what you are supposed to do when you come there: The first thing you do in the new land when the holy place is established is to take all your first fruits in a basket and take them before the altar and recite this speech: “A Syrian was my father ready to perish from hunger.” This is Abraham, you see. Abraham was a Hebrew. The word AVAR means a person from the “beyond,” a homeless, an outcast, a bum—all sorts of disrespectful things. That’s what Abraham was, a wanderer. Remember, he never had a home or a place to settle. LEKH LKHA was the rule he lived by. “Keep going and don’t stop.” No one would put up with him very long. Then he says, and he went down into Egypt and there he became a nation. And the Egyptians treated us badly. The Lord brought us forth and brought us to this place and has given us this land. This is the Book of Mormon theme all the way through, too. The King James Version renders SIRION as AMORITE. The Hebrew word is AMORITE. He is a person from the beyond. And the word HEBREW means a displaced person, a tramp, an outcast, a homeless person.
266 You bring in your basket, etc. A tribute is a free-will offering of thine hand required at the feast of the weeks. The offering is required. You must bring it, but the amount is determined by yourself. So you are testing yourself here as to whether you will be willing. It’s a free-will offering, but it is required of you. It’s on the basis “of how much the Lord has given you.” The Septuagint has it better: “.. . to the limit of your ability.” The Hebrew says, “... according to that which he has given you, even with which your God hath blessed you.” It’s the law of consecration. From everything with which he has blessed you, you are supposed to bring. But you give according to your own free will; nobody is going to twist your arm. He requires you to take the test, which is whether you will try to short-change him. Three times a year—at the [feasts of] the unleavened bread, the weeks, and the tabernacles—all males come together. Every man shall give as he is able according to the blessings which the Lord has given him. And how much is to be given, it asks. Exactly as much as the Lord has given you. All of that with which the Lord has blessed you and with which he may bless you. So they had the law of consecration.
266,267 He says this twice in Deuteronomy: When you have eaten and drunk and are full, and silver and gold has piled up, and you say to yourself, “My ability and hard work have made this fortune for me,” don’t get the idea that you are telling the truth. Bear in mind that God has given you the capacity to get what you have only for the sake of confirming the covenant which he made with your fathers. If you forget that in any degree, you will be destroyed just like the other nations. Don’t get the idea that all this is being done because of your righteousness. “Speak not in thy heart saying, For my righteousness, the Lord hath brought me to possess the land, but for the wickedness of the nations, the Lord doth drive them out,’ because you are not a righteous people but wicked. You are stiff-necked people.”
267 At this point, special pleading by Moses is all that saves the people from destruction, actually. There is to be no dickering or cheating. Above all, the Lord detests one who tries to bargain with him. “Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord a bullock or sheep with any blemish or fault whatever, or any evil favor.” It’s your shearing time. You can’t use it or sell it anyway, so you might as well make a sacrifice of it. He says, don’t try to do that. Don’t try to cheat the Lord. It’s the type of tithe you bring. (Brigham Young said some very humorous things about a person who brings a horse or cow that is diseased and falling apart.) That is an abomination unto the Lord thy God to try to dicker with him.
267 Now this is the Yom Kippur; this is the Lord’s release. At the end of every seven years, every creditor must cancel all debts, never to be paid again. It’s quite a system! With all men either debtors or creditors, this is not a convenient arrangement, but it is the only way. Only God can draw the line and say, “Here, this business of exploiting each other must stop.” The Lord guarantees to make up any losses to those who keep the law, for the Lord will greatly bless you if you do this. But only if you carefully hearken and observe and do these commandments. The important thing is the spirit in which you do it; this is a very important part of the law.
267 Deuteronomy 15:8,9 “If there be a poor man of your brethren anywhere within your knowledge, thou shalt not harden thy heart nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother, but thou shalt open thy hand wide to him, and shall surely lend him sufficiency of need of whatever he is in want. And since it is a loan, beware there is not a thought in thy wicked heart saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand. If I give it to him now, he will not have to repay it, and I’ll never get it back,’ and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother and thou givest him not, and he cry unto the Lord and it be a sin unto thee. [This is not to be regarded as a business operation.] Thou shalt surely give him, and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest.”
268 Deuteronomy 15:11 Now comes the famous verse quoted by the Lord, “The poor you have always with you.” This is taken as proof that we will never get rid of the poor so why bother about them— there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. It was Judas who said, why don’t we sell this ointment and get a lot of money and then we can give it to help the poor? Knowing that Judas was a hypocrite and really didn’t mean it that way, the Lord said: Look, if you want to help the poor, you can do that anytime. The poor are always with you, but I’m only with you today and then I’ll be gone. If you want to help the poor, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to help the poor. That’s what he was talking about, but we twist that around and say, “Well, you can’t help the poor—no use trying because they are always there.” We love to play games, don’t we? There’s nothing like an economist going around and around the bush.
268 Deuteronomy 15:12-15 “After six years of service any and all servants must go absolutely free no matter what is paid for them and thou shalt not let him go empty. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, out of thy winepress, out of whatsoever the Lord God has blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. [Why?] And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondsman in Egypt, and Jehovah, thy God, redeemed thee.” God saved you and gave you eternal life, and in return the least you can do is remember that you were a bondsman in Egypt.
269 Alma 5:5,6 So that’s what we find here [in Alma 5]. We are going to get the law of Moses here, and we are also going to get the rituals and ordinances carried out in the Day of Atonement, which he refers to here. He tells us he is establishing it, and he tells us how his father, Alma Sr., began the whole thing by baptizing in the Waters of Mormon. It began with the baptizing in his community; then he organized the community. Verse 5: “And behold, after that, they were brought into bondage by the hands of the Lamanites in the wilderness [there must be a stirring below before there can be a stirring above; this gives us some vivid images here and eloquent passages], yea, I say unto you they were in captivity, and again the Lord did deliver them out of bondage by the power of his word [notice he is giving them the same introduction that Moses gave the people—my father Abraham was brought out of Egypt to a land of promise]; and they were brought into this land, and here we began to establish the church of God throughout this land also.” Now, he has used the word establish three or four times in a row here.
270 Alma 5:6 It is just like reading from Deuteronomy when he says in verse 6: “Have you sufficiently retained in remembrance the captivity of your fathers? [We are going to rehearse that all over again.] ... Have you sufficiently retained in remembrance that he delivered their souls from hell? [That’s a much better thing than delivering them from Egypt.] Behold, he changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word; yea, they were encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell, and an everlasting destruction did await them.”