Post by Ammon –
The word astonish doesn’t do this post justice. I wish we had a better word to express our response to what just happened.
My three brothers and I, along with Alma, were numbered among the unbelievers by our parents and the priests and, well everybody belonging to the church. As I mentioned earlier, Alma was named after his father, the great high priest and he couldn’t have been more different. High Priest Alma was so dedicated to God, we mocked him and did everything we could to negate everything he tried to do for God. Now having had our recent astonishing experience we are embarrassed, no even embarrassed doesn’t do this narrative justice.
We became so very wicked and idolatrous it took a messenger direct from God to shake us up. And the word shake is intentional. Alma was a man of many words, and flattery was one of his powerful tools to lead people to follow us in our iniquities. I don’t even know if iniquities is a powerful enough word to express how evil and wicked we’d become. The dissension we created opened people up to the great power of the devil to destroy them.
Had we been subject to any rational thought, we would have known that High Priest Alma, my father the King, and the people as well as the priests were praying fervently that our efforts to destroy the church would fail.
As we were out on one of our missions rebelling against God, an angel of the Lord appeared to us. He descended as if in a cloud and with the voice of thunder, and believe me thunder is the right word. The very earth we stood on shook with so much power, we couldn’t stand. All five of us us hit the ground. As I said astonishment is too weak a word to describe it. In all that astonishment we didn’t even understand what the angel said.
He demanded again. This time it was clearly understood. “Alma, stand forth, why persecutest thou the church of God? For the Lord hath said: This is my church, and I will establish it; and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of my people.”
We laid there, struck with fear. The angel continued, “Behold the Lord hath heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant, Alma, who is thy father, for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee that thou mightest be brought to the knowledge of the truth; therefore, for this purpose have I come to convince thee of the power and authority of God, that the prayers of his servants might be answered according to their faith.”
Now that I am not shaking in fear for my very life, I chuckle that the angel felt he needed to point out he came with power. But he did. He boldly proclaimed: “behold, can ye dispute the power of God? For behold, doth not my voice shake the earth? And can ye not behold me before you? And I am sent from God.”
In any other circumstance, I may have displayed my irreverence for sacred things by saying something rude like “we get it” but not this time.
The angel got even more demanding: “I say unto thee: Go, and remember the captivity of thy fathers in the land of Helam and in the land of Nephi; and remember how great things he has done for them; for they were in bondage and he has delivered them. And now I say unto thee, Alma, go thy way, and seek to destroy the church no more, that their prayers may be answered, and this even if thou wilt of thyself be cast off.”
The part about remembering the captivity in the land of Helam was an additional point he made because one of our points of attack toward the church was to deny the escape from bondage was nothing more than coincidence.
Finally after all that, he departed. When the angel commanded Alma to stand forth, we all got up, well, at least we weren’t lying down anymore. But when the angel left we all fell down again, we were so astonished. With our own eyes we’d seen an angel, whose voice was like thunder and the earth shook. We knew there was nothing except the power of God that could shake the earth as if the earth would come apart.
This may be the most astonishing thing of all, Alma became dumb, he couldn’t say a word, which if you know Alma, never happened ever before. He couldn’t open his mouth, in fact he couldn’t even move.
That brings us to right now. We’re in his father’s house and we just shared all this with him. The astonishment continued, he rejoiced claiming he knew it was the power of God and was an answer to his prayers.
As I close this post people are gathering to witness what as High Priest Alma declares “what the Lord has done for his son.” Interesting he used the word ‘for’ instead of ’to’ I continue to be astonished.
