Two chapters in particular are standing out to me. They are always chapters that stand out, but it feels more so. The world I was born into is not the one I currently live in. The world has literally been turned upside down. Quite literally good is evil and evil is good. I feel like the environment is ripe for destruction. That we can't go much further before we are in complete chaos. Everything that is good is hateful. There is a climate of cultural appropriations that has lost all touch with reality. The truth doesn't matter. Rules don't matter. Respect doesn't matter. Life doesn't matter. Sacredness doesn't matter. Nothing matters but what the tolerant secular police tell you matters, and if you don't comply, you should be fired from your job, ostracized from your community, financially destroyed, and run out of town. You can't have a charter school that teaches about the founders and has religious tones because they believe in manners and morals, and is gone after relentlessly to be shut down. They have taken over the public education system, but it's not good enough to leave well enough alone. To have confidence in your own way that you don't need to shut down an opposing view. There's no 'you do you boo' approach from the loudest preachers of inclusion and tolerance.
So, where is this all leading. I just want to put this here for prosperity. So that my children's children, when looking back on this time period and wonder where the sane people were. Wonder if people knew the death spiral their country was going into- much like we wonder about the people of Germany, or the people in the scriptures. They can know that I know. I'm driven mad by it. And I see it, and I'm doing my best to stand against the evil while at the same time showing forth love for all. There are many who don't agree with the love approach and feel the scriptures justify destroying the wicked and that the church isn't doing what it should. Everyone is taking up their own prophecies, and it's hard to find your way. Now, before we get all gloomy and hopeless. I have 2 chapters in Alma that I want to go over. Why? Because it reminds me that what we are going through is nothing new. The works of darkness are using their same old tired playbook. When you get ahold of the other teams playbook, you know how to defeat them! Sadly these plays are working on many good members who are deciding to walk after their own merits instead of the path God has given us. And this is the means whereby salvation cometh. And there is anone other salvation save this which hath been spoken of; neither are there any conditions whereby man can be saved except the conditions which I have told you. Mosiah 4:7-8
Let's start with Alma 30. Enter the ministry of Korihor. What were his beliefs that he sold to the people? (I am copying from my personal scriptures. I mark nonsense spoken with brown in my scriptures. The color of poo!)
*No Christ
* bound down under a afoolish and a vain hope, why do ye yoke yourselves with such foolish things?
*no man can bknow of anything which is to come.
*prophecies, which ye say are handed down by holy prophets, behold, they are foolish traditions of your fathers.
*ye cannot know of things which ye do not asee
*Ye look forward and say that ye see a remission of your sins. But behold, it is the effect of a afrenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of things which are not so.
*every man afared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and bwhatsoever a man did was cno crime.
Really what is being said there is that there in no right or wrong. No absolute truth. Only what society decided by consensus.
*causing them to lift up their heads in their wickedness, yea, leading away many women, and also men, to commit whoredoms—telling them that when a man was dead, that was the end thereof.
We look down in shame. Look up in confidence. He wants people to look up in shame because there is none. Boy howdy are we suffering greatly from that today! In fact if you dare to make anyone feel bad about themselves by pointing out sin or wrong doing, you're the evil one. Because compassion. Because judgmental. Because tolerance.
What happens next? He was brought before Ammon and Ammon gives the greatest course on how to deal with faith shakers. Which I've talked about before.
Korihor isn't going down without a fight and he continues:
I do not teach the foolish traditions of your fathers, and because I do not teach this people to bind themselves down under the foolish ordinances and performances which are laid down by ancient priests, to usurp power and authority over them, to keep them in ignorance, that they may not lift up their heads, but be brought down according to thy words.
24 Ye say that this people is a free people. Behold, I say they are in bondage. Ye say that those ancient prophecies are true. Behold, I say that ye do not know that they are true.
25 Ye say that this people is a guilty and a fallen people, because of the transgression of a parent. Behold, I say that a child is not guilty because of its parents.
Now, you're not good at leading people away if you can't lay down some truth bombs with your nonsense. A child is not guilty because of it's parents. That's the deceivers greatest tool. Mingling a little bit of truth with the teaching of man- or as I like to call it- secularism.
What else to dissenters of the church like to go after? The corporateness of the church. Companies owned. Salaries paid. Guess what. Korihor thought of this tactic long before you!
27 And thus ye lead away this people after the foolish traditions of your fathers, and according to your own desires; and ye keep them down, even as it were in bondage, that ye may glut yourselves with the labors of their hands, that they durst not look up with boldness, and that they durst not enjoy their rights and privileges.
What's another favorite of the Korihor mindset? 'The church' needs to keep people feeling bad about themselves so they will pay tithing. There is a shame culture to propagate the corporate machine.
28 Yea, they durst not make use of that which is their own lest they should offend their priests, who do yoke them according to their desires, and have brought them to believe, by their traditions and their dreams and their whims and their visions and their pretended mysteries, that they should, if they did not do according to their words, offend some unknown being, who they say is God—a being who anever has been seen or known, who bnever was nor ever will be.
Ammon speaks to all of those claims, but I want to now move on to Alma 35. Now this is where we get saints missing the mark. Alma has gone on a mission to the Zoramites. They were preaching that there was no Christ. They had the Rameumptom and they had cast out the poor from among them and kept them from worshiping. Amulek is also there along with others. They were preaching to those cast out and telling them to bear their afflictions with patience, but the high and mighty were having none of the preaching. Why were they mad?
they were angry because of the word, for it did destroy their acraft; therefore they would not hearken unto the words.
How did they feel about being told that their ways were perverted?
4 And they sent and gathered together throughout all the land all the people, and consulted with them concerning the words which had been spoken.
5 Now their rulers and their priests and their teachers did not let the people know concerning their desires; therefore they found out privily the minds of all the people.
6 And it came to pass that after they had found out the minds of all the people, those who were in favor of the words which had been spoken by Alma and his brethren were cast out of the land; and they were amany; and they came over also into the land of Jershon.
People don't like to be told that they are doing something wrong. People don't like rules. They need strength in numbers. If others go with me, I'm justified. I see many leaving the church who are saying everything practically word for word out of these 2 chapters. The philosophy is alive and well, and we should not be frightened by it or discouraged by it. It is heartbreakingly sad to see it work on the people we love. Agency is a very real and a very powerful thing. Showing forth an abundance of love is the only way. Else, where else shall they go. To whom shall they turn, if not to their own family. We cannot stoop to the tactics of the enemy by shutting down and casting out those who oppose us. We have some excellent examples to follow of how to deal with faith shakers and those who's faith is shaken. We know how this story ends. We know who the winning team is. The important thing is to not lose hope and not forget. The world may be falling into sin and wickedness all around us, and the great thing about increasing darkness is that the grey areas fade away and there is a stark contrast between good and evil. right and wrong. The light the saint's have will only shine brighter in a darkened world and be beacons of hope and life eternal.
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