This week I have been studying Alma 30-35 in the Book of Mormon. It has been a great experience to reread about Alma the Younger's experiences with Korihor and the Zoramites. I love how Alma is so very dedicated to his efforts to share the light of the gospel. He teaches some amazing concepts as you read along. I love, for example, his testimony to Korihor (who teaches that there is no God or that Christ would not come). He teaches Korihor that everything in the universe shows that God exists. Korihor could not prove that there is not a God beyond his alleging that no one can know such things. Clearly, he was not feeling the Spirit or capable of doing so. It is really hard for someone who hasn't felt the Spirit to understand that such a feeling can be had. I think about Korihor and I wonder if he had ever felt the Spirit or if he had just been going through the motions because that was the acceptable thing to do in his family or community? Was he even involved in religion prior to his efforts to tear it down?
Moving on, I really find the situation with the Zoramites to be an interesting one. Within the LDS religion there have been groups of dissenters who have left the church for various reasons, sometimes forming their own religious organizations upon their excommunication. I have some relations who were part of one of those groups in Southern Utah. I wonder if there was a mass exodus of these "Zoramites" to a common area to practice their new religion or if they were just a community of people who were gradually persuaded to change their habits. It is clear that they had developed a strange idea of how to worship God as opposed to what they had been taught as part of the church in the ancient Americas. They had decided that they were a special group that God loved better than anyone else and they were going to be saved and everyone else were going to be damned. They met weekly at their synagogue and offered a prayer on what they called a "holy stand." They only offered one prayer and only one person offered it at a time from this stand. That was the extent of their worship. They then dispersed and nothing was said about religion or God from that point until the next week's service.
My concept of how religion should be is very different from what the Zoramites decided. I believe a lot like Alma, that we should be involving God in our every day lives. Alma took a group of missionaries to the Zoramites to try to help them improve their lives and return to the proper form of worshiping God. What he found was that the rich or more well-to-do Zoramites didn't care what he had to say. They were comfortable and needed nothing. Or so they thought. The poor Zoramites had a different experience. They were treated badly by the more wealthy and were not allowed to worship in the synagogue that they built. They were humbled by the experiences they had in their community, so they were willing to listen to the teachings of Alma.
One of the great sermons to be found in the Book of Mormon is taught by Alma to the Zoramite poor. He teaches them about how to obtain faith and how to grow it inside of ourselves. He compares the Word of God to a seed and allowing it to have a place in our hearts and nourishing it is developing our faith in the word. I love how this makes sense. When we allow ourselves to listen to the prophet or read the scriptures and then make a place for what we learn in our hearts, trying to do as we are taught or looking for opportunities to expand on what we have learned, we will find out for ourselves if the word is true. Alma described the experience as a swelling within our hearts.
I had the experience of having the swelling feeling within my heart this week. As I read the end of Alma chapter 33, the Spirit bore a strong witness of the truth of verses 21-23 to my heart. Alma was teaching the Zoramites about how the Israelites failed to look at the bronze serpent to be healed from the poison serpent bites. He explains as follows:
21 O my brethren, if ye could be healed by merely casting about your eyes that ye might be healed, would ye not behold quickly, or would ye rather harden your hearts in unbelief, and be slothful, that ye would not cast about your eyes, that ye might perish?
22 If so, wo shall come upon you; but if not so, then cast about your eyes and begin to believe in the Son of God, that he will come to redeem his people, and that he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins; and that he shall rise again from the dead, which shall bring to pass the resurrection, that all men shall stand before him, to be judged at the last and judgment day, according to their works.
23 And now, my brethren, I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts, and as it beginneth to swell even so nourish it by your faith. And behold, it will become a tree, springing up in you unto everlasting life. And then may God grant unto you that your burdens may be light, through the joy of his Son. And even all this can ye do if ye will. Amen
Alma 33:21-23
I love how he says that he desires that we plant the word in our hearts...that our Savior came to redeem his people, that he suffered and died to atone for our sins and that he rose from the dead, bringing to pass the resurrection that all of us will stand before him to be judged according to our works. This is the key thing that we are to learn, have faith in and work toward knowing perfectly. I know that this is true. I know that Christ came to the earth to show us how to live and then perform the perfect atonement so we can all have the opporunity to return to our God. I know He loves us perfectly. I share this, my testimony, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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