Mosiah 7-25

Quotes of the Week:

"We may not be asked to die for our beliefs, but we have certainly been asked to live for our beliefs.  Let us realize that standing, living, and testifying for the truth is our duty."

--Unlocking the Book of Mormon, p. 180

"Faith and character are intimately related.  Faith in the power of obedience to the commandments of God will forge strength of character available to you in times of urgent need."

Richard G. Scott, Ensign, 11/10

Further Reading:
Lance B. Wickman, "But If Not," Ensign, 11/02
"Comfort in the Hour of Death," Teachings of the Presidents of the Church--Heber J. Grant, p. 43
Orson Scott Card, "Three Kings and a Captain, Nephite Leaders in the Land of Nephi,"  Ensign, 1/77
Robert J. Matthews, “Abinadi: Prophet and Martyr,” Ensign, Apr 1992, 25
Arthur R. Bassett, “Alma the Elder,” Ensign, Feb 1977, 5
Richard G. Scott, "The Transforming Power of Faith and Character," Ensign, 11/10 p. 43

Handouts:

Mosiah 8:13-18--Seer

 Theodore M. Burton, CR, Sep/Oct 1961, p. 121-22
The seer can bear personal testimony, not based on books not based on scholarship, not based on tradition, but based on the evidence of things that God Himself can reveal to him in an actual experience with Deity.

Mosiah 13:3--Missions Fulfilled

History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, Lucy Mack Smith, p. 309-10
[A blessing given from Joseph Smith Sr. to his son Joseph, as recorded by the Prophet's mother.]  "you shall even live to finish your work."  At this Joseph cried out, weeping, "Oh! my father, shall I?"  "Yes," said his father, "you shall live to lay out the plan of all the work which God as given you to do.  This is my dying blessing upon your head in the name of Jesus. . . ."

Mosiah 14--Isaiah

Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:23
Now Bible commentators will tell you that this [Isaiah 53] has nothing to do with the life of Jesus Christ.  To them this story is one concerning suffering Israel.  I want to tell you that it is a story, a synopsis of the life of our Redeemer, revealed to Isaiah 700 years before the Lord was born.

Mosiah 14:3--A Man of Sorrows

Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign, 11/99
I know some of you do truly feel at sea, in the most frightening sense of that term. . . . I testify of God's love and the Savior's power to calm the storm . . . .   Only one who has fought against those ominous waves is justified in telling us in such times to "be of good cheer" (John 16:33).  Such counsel is not a jaunty pep talk about the power of positive thinking  . . . No, Christ knows better than all others that the trials of life can be very deep, and we are not shallow people if we struggle with them.  Surely His ears heard every cry of distress, every sound of want and despair.  To a degree far more than we will ever understand, He was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."

Mosiah 14:5--Wounded for Our Transgressions

Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 14
It was in Gethsemane that Jesus took on Himself the sins of the world, in Gethsemane that His pain was equivalent to the cumulative burden of all men, in Gethsemane that He descended below all things so that all could repent and come to Him.  The mortal mind fails to fathom, the tongue cannot express, the pen of man cannot describe the breadth, the depth, the height of the suffering of our Lord--nor His infinite love for us.

Mosiah 14:10--It Pleased Him

Robert Millet, in Symposium on the Book of Mormon, p. 100
This is a verse which requires careful consideration.  God our Eternal Father loved his Only Begotten and, like any parent, surely anguished with the pain of his child.  And yet, as infinitely painful as it must have been for Elohim, the hours of agony were necessary--they were a part of that plan of the Father of which Jehovah had been the chief advocate and proponent in premortality.  Indeed it was needful that the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" be slain, in order that life and immortality might be brought to light.  And thus "it pleased the Lord [the Father] to bruise him," in the sense that Jesus carried out to the fullest the will of the Father, in spite of the pain associated with the implementation of the terms and conditions of that will.

Mosiah 15:7--Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father

Lance B. Wickman, Ensign, 11/02
Do not ever doubt the goodness of God, even if you do not know “why.” The overarching question asked by the bereaved and the burdened is simply this: Why? Why did our daughter die, when we prayed so hard that she would live and when she received priesthood blessings? Why are we struggling with this misfortune, when others relate miraculous healing experiences for their loved ones? These are natural questions, understandable questions. But they are also questions that usually go begging in mortality. The Lord has said simply, “My ways [are] higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9). As the Son’s will was “swallowed up in the will of the Father” (Mosiah 15:7), so must ours be.
Still, we mortals quite naturally want to know the why. Yet, in pressing too earnestly for the answer, we may forget that mortality was designed, in a manner of speaking, as the season of unanswered questions. Mortality has a different, more narrowly defined purpose: It is a proving ground, a probationary state, a time to walk by faith, a time to prepare to meet God. It is in nurturing humility and submissiveness that we may comprehend a fulness of the intended mortal experience and put ourselves in a frame of mind and heart to receive the promptings of the Spirit. Reduced to their essence, humility and submissiveness are an expression of complete willingness to let the “why” questions go unanswered for now, or perhaps even to ask, “Why not?” It is in enduring well to the end that we achieve this life’s purposes. I believe that mortality’s supreme test is to face the “why” and then let it go, trusting humbly in the Lord’s promise that “all things must come to pass in their time” (D&C 64:32).

References used by Elder Wickman:  Abr. 3:24–25; 2 Ne. 31:15–16, 20; Alma 12:24; Alma 42:4–13; Alma 32:6–21; Mosiah 3:19; 2 Ne. 31:15–16; Alma 32:15; D&C 121:8

Mosiah 15:5--Flesh Becoming Subject to the Spirit

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 9:287-88
We have to fight continually, . . .  to make the spirit master of the tabernacle, or the flesh subject to the law of the spirit.  If this warfare is not diligently prosecuted, then the law of sin prevails. 

Mosiah 17:2--Abinadi

Joseph B. Wirthlin, as quoted in Unlocking the Book of Mormon, p. 179
Abinadi may have felt that he failed as a missionary because he had only one convert, so far as the record shows.  However, that one convert, Alma, and his descendants were spiritual leaders among the Nephites and Lamanites for about three hundred years.  His son Alma became the first chief judge of the Nephite people and the high priest over the Church.  Alma's other descendants who became prominent religious leaders include his grandson Helaman; his great-grandson Nephi; and his great-great-great-great-grandson Nephi, who was the chief disciple of the resurrected Jesus Christ.  All of this resulted from Abinadi's lone convert.

Mosiah 18:8--Baptismal Covenants

Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant, p. 106
This declaration by Alma at the Waters of Mormon still stands as the most complete scriptural statement on record as to what the newly baptized commit to do and be.

Robert D. Hales, Ensign, 11/00
When we understand our baptismal covenant and the gift of the Holy Ghost, it will change our lives and will establish our total allegiance to the kingdom of God. . . . It is very important for us to understand the marvelous gift of the remission of sins, but there is much more.  Do you understand and do your children understand that when they are baptized they are changed forever? . . . How many [of us] really understand that when we were baptized we took upon us not only the name of Jesus Christ but also the law of obedience?

Unlocking the Book of Mormon, p. 181
Sometimes we use the terms "commitment" or "promise" as though they were synonymous with the word "covenant." For many people of the world that may be true.  The are meaningful and motivating words of behavior.  But a covenant is much more.  Covenants come from God by revelation, and the authority to bind man and God in a covenant relationship can only be bestowed by those authorized to represent Him in the performing of covenant ordinances.  No one outside the Lord's Church is involved in covenants, though others may make various kinds of commitments or promises.  But a covenant with the Lord  is of far greater significance.  We all need to give serious thought to the Lord's expectations of us and His promises to us as we fulfill our responsibilities.

Mosiah 18:12-18--Alma's Authority

Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 3:203
We may conclude that Alma held the priesthood before he, with others, became disturbed with King Noah.  Whether this is so or not makes no difference because in the Book of Mosiah it is stated definitely that had authority.
If he had authority to baptize that is evidence that he had been baptized.  Therefore, when Alma baptized himself with Helam that was not a case of Alma baptizing himself, but merely as a token to the Lord of his humility and full repentance."

 

Mosiah 23:21--Trials of Patience and Faith

Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, 10/80
Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe--rather than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance.  Too much anxious opening of the oven door and the cake falls instead of rising.

Mosiah 24:3-4--Language Differences

Unlocking the Book of Mormon, p. 193
Languages were so different that they had difficulty communicating with each other.  During the period of history between 145 and 123 B.C., the king of the Lamanites had Amulon and the priests taught the Lamanites the Nephite language.  Thus the two groups evidently start speaking the same language again.  This fact takes on added significance later in the Book of Mormon when we read about the missionary efforts between these two groups.

Mosiah 24:14-15--Burdens Eased

Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, 5/92, quoting from The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, Dean C. Jessee, 387
Concerning his personal suffering, Joseph was promised, "Thy heart shall be enlarged."  An enlarged Joseph wrote from Liberty Jail, "It seems to me that my heart will always be more tender after this than ever it was before. . . .  I think I never could have felt as I now do if I had not suffered."

Thomas S. Monson, Ensign, 5/92
When we are on the Lord's errand, we are entitled to the Lord's help.  Remember that the Lord will shape the back to bear the burden placed upon it.

Teachings of the Presidents of the Church--Heber J. Grant, p. 47-48
I was thoroughly convinced in my own mind and in my own heart, when my first wife left me by death, that it was the will of the Lord that she should be called away. I bowed in humility at her death. The Lord saw fit upon that occasion to give to one of my little children a testimony that the death of her mother was the will of the Lord.

About one hour before my wife died, I called my children into her room and told them that their mother was dying and for them to bid her good-bye. One of the little girls, about twelve years of age, said to me: “Papa, I do not want my mamma to die. I have been with you in the hospital in San Francisco for six months; time and time again when mamma was in distress you [have] administered to her and she has been relieved of her pain and quietly gone to sleep. I want you to lay hands upon my mamma and heal her.”

I told my little girl that we all had to die sometime, and that I felt assured in my heart that her mother’s time had arrived. She and the rest of the children left the room.

I then knelt down by the bed of my wife (who by this time had lost consciousness) and I told the Lord I acknowledged His hand in life, in death, in joy, in sorrow, in prosperity, or adversity. I thanked Him for the knowledge I had that my wife belonged to me for all eternity, that the gospel of Jesus Christ had been restored, that I knew that by the power and authority of the Priesthood here on the earth that I could and would have my wife forever if I were only faithful as she had been. But I told the Lord that I lacked the strength to have my wife die and to have it affect the faith of my little children in the ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ; and I supplicated the Lord with all the strength that I possessed, that He would give to that little girl of mine a knowledge that it was His mind and His will that her mamma should die.

Within an hour my wife passed away, and I called the children back into the room. My little boy about five and a half or six years of age was weeping bitterly, and the little girl twelve years of age took him in her arms and said: “Do not weep, do not cry, Heber; since we went out of this room the voice of the Lord from heaven has said to me, ‘In the death of your mamma the will of the Lord shall be done.’ ”

Tell me, my friends, that I do not know that God hears and answers prayers! Tell me that I do not know that in the hour of adversity the Latter-day Saints are comforted and blessed and consoled as no other people are!

Richard G. Scott, Ensign, 5/96
Sadness, disappointment, severe challenges are events in life, not life itself. 

Marianne Willaimson, Return to Love, 1992

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.