As we continue being inspired by the words of Alma, which cleansed and set in order the Church in Zarahemla, it might be well to take a quick glance at last week’s Thought for a Sabbath Day as a review of why we are doing such an extensive examination of the 5th chapter of Alma in The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
Alma 5
15 Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?
16 I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?
17 Or do ye imagine to yourselves that ye can lie unto the Lord in that day, and say—Lord, our works have been righteous works upon the face of the earth—and that he will save you?
18 Or otherwise, can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God?
19 I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?
20 I say unto you, can ye think of being saved when you have yielded yourselves to become subjects to the devil?
21 I say unto you, ye will know at that day that ye cannot be saved; for there can no man be saved except his garments are washed white; yea, his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain, through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins.
I have been striving during a large portion of my adult life to practice the principles of the Restored Gospel after the manner of Zen. That is, trying to stay in the present. However, we find Alma having previously instructed us that one of the keys of being faithful is remembering our ancestors who valiantly paid prices which have blessed our current daily walk and God’s role in our lives and now he teaches us that another key factor in maintaining daily faithfulness is looking to the future. It seems, he felt it especially important for us to remember that day when all of us will return to our Father.
He reminds us that in that hour our progress up to that point will be assessed. Many of us hope that even though we come to Him as prodigals, having wasted much of the days of our probation, He will greet us lovingly and with an abundance of Mercy. We are also reminded that in spite of His abundant Love, His judgements will be also be made according to the laws of justice. I am absolutely certain that on that day like no other day of our eternal existence our souls will be filled with appreciation for the Atonement of His Son, Jesus the Christ.
Alma expresses another key ingredient about our progress in these passages when he asks us if during our daily walk, those whom we encounter would judge our hearts to be pure, our hands clean and our image engraven with God’s image. Mark Twain, whose words have for the majority of my life held a place just below the Word of God, once made the statement that if most Christians were brought to trial to be judged of being Christians they would be found not guilty. I suspect had he been speaking to those of any religious leanings he would have been able to proffer the same
observation. Sadly, there seems to be a gulf between what we know we should be and what we are which is evident not only within ourselves, but is manifest to those we encounter during our daily walk.
There is another factor in this non-Zen form of living which I believe is imperative to the rate and direction of our progress. In many ways it seems to be of benefit if we do frequent evaluations of our personal progress during this mortal probationary period of our existence and set goals of improvement which will be mastered in the days which lie on our remaining earthly calendars.
22 And now I ask of you, my brethren, how will any of you feel, if ye shall stand before the bar of God, having your garments stained with blood and all manner of filthiness? Behold, what will these things testify against you?
23 Behold will they not testify that ye are murderers, yea, and also that ye are guilty of all manner of wickedness?
24 Behold, my brethren, do ye suppose that such an one can have a place to sit down in the kingdom of God, with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and also all the holy prophets, whose garments are cleansed and are spotless, pure and white?
One of the latter-day Apostles I have considered an important mentor in my life is Neal A. Maxwell. He has taught and I have believed that there is little benefit in comparing crosses or our life’s journeying and progression with others. I suspect he and Alma would agree in the non-productive exercise of making ourselves feel better or worse as we look around at those with whom we are constantly in contact.
As I was reading these previous quoted three verses, I had one of those ‘seeing something new in the scriptures’ experiences in spite of the numerous times I have read them before. First, Alma doesn’t ask us to see the individual when he is referring to evil, he asks us to compare our personal acts of evil. Second, he doesn’t ask us to compare our righteousness to that of others, but to a standard set by Prophets of God. My ‘aha’ moment came when I realized there were two comparisons not just one we were to judge our personal progress against.
26 And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?
In this verse Alma touches upon one of the most universally shared and most universally denied facts about us as we traverse the trials and tests of mortality. We all experience our testimonies being in a fairly continual state of flux. Such experiences as a weekend of General Conference, serving in the House of The Lord, hearing the testimony of a returned missionary, receiving inspiration in how to magnify our calling heighten the reality of principles of the Gospel. However, such experiences as being the only one to show up for a work assignment, misuse of agency, wars, deception, suffering can at times cause the strength of our testimonies to wane.
The General Authority who said it escapes my memory at the moment, but his words are remembered, ‘when progress is not measured there will be no progress.’ In this same vain I have strongly felt that the reason Alma presented these questions was a way of encouraging us to be constantly aware of the rising and falling of the loudness of the song which we should be singing and the depth of the change we should be feeling in our hearts.
(To be continued)
THOUGHTS FOR A SABBATH DAY – WILLIAM L. RILEY
EDITED BY – KATHLEEN W. RILEY
FAITH - HOPE - CHARITY - PEACE - JOY - LOVE
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