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Abinadi finishes his preaching and is sentenced to death. Alma believes his words, flees, repents, and begins preaching Abinidi’s message, the people of Limhi suffer much before they are finally delivered.
Mosiah 3:19
Alma 36:26
D&C 76:17
Mormon 8:20
Mormon 4:5
3 Nephi 7:24-25
D&C 20:37
Acts 8:14-17
Moroni 2:2
Moroni 3:2
Moroni 10:32-33
2 Nephi 10:24
Mosiah 13:6
Moroni 8:16
Mosiah 27:3
Alma 1:26
In the podcast you speculated that Abinadi’s prophecy concerning the descendants of Noah’s priests causing many to suffer death by fire might have been fulfilled in the city of Ammonihah when the believers were thrown into the fire with their records. I don’t think this is the case. Alma 16 tells us that the Lamanites destroyed the people who were in the city of Ammonihah. Alma 25 tells us that after the city of Ammonihah was destroyed, the Lamanites had many battles with the Nephites in which most of the seed of Amulon and his brethren (the priests of Noah) were slain by the hands of the Nephites. After this, the remainder fled into the east wilderness, usurped power over the Lamanites and caused many of them to suffer death by fire because of their belief. The Lamanites were so angry at this that the Amulonites began to be hunted by the Lamanites. Alma 25:9 explicitly says, “Thus the words of Abinadi were brought to pass, which he said concerning the seed of the priests who caused that he should suffer death by fire.”
A couple of things came to mind while I was listening. Firstly, you are right about the fear of death that comes upon the world because of their lack of faith. How terrible a monster is death and hell! As Jacob said:
10 O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.
11 And because of the way of deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel, this death, of which I have spoken, which is the temporal, shall deliver up its dead; which death is the grave.
12 And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel.
13 O how great the plan of our God! For on the other hand, the paradise of God must deliver up the spirits of the righteous, and the grave deliver up the body of the righteous; and the spirit and the body is restored to itself again, and all men become incorruptible, and immortal, and they are living souls, having a perfect knowledge like unto us in the flesh, save it be that our knowledge shall be perfect.
14 Wherefore, we shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness; and the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness.
15 And it shall come to pass that when all men shall have passed from this first death unto life, insomuch as they have become immortal, they must appear before the judgment-seat of the Holy One of Israel; and then cometh the judgment, and then must they be judged according to the holy judgment of God.
16 And assuredly, as the Lord liveth, for the Lord God hath spoken it, and it is his eternal word, which cannot pass away, that they who are righteous shall be righteous still, and they who are filthy shall be filthy still; wherefore, they who are filthy are the devil and his angels; and they shall go away into everlasting fire, prepared for them; and their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever and has no end.
17 O the greatness and the justice of our God! For he executeth all his words, and they have gone forth out of his mouth, and his law must be fulfilled.
18 But, behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.
19 O the greatness of the mercy of our God, the Holy One of Israel! For he delivereth his saints from that awful monster the devil, and death, and hell, and that lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment.
I love Jacob’s description! Notice too the two part “resurrection”. All are raised but then comes the judgement where we are raised again to our final state.
Another thing that came to mind is the operation of the priesthood. If we don’t pray and ask for God’s guidance before performing an ordinance then it is meaningless and will be ineffective. Who are we that we think we can use the power of God without asking?
36 That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
37 That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.
Notice that when the heavens and the Spirit are withdrawn a man has no priesthood authority. Thus, the inverse is also true, namely a man has priesthood authority only when the spirit is present within him. You can mumble some memorized incantation all you want having been ordained by someone who had authority, but nothing will come of it, if you do not ask and receive guidance and authorization from the Father through His Son to actually act. Think of Alma and Amulek watching the righteous being burned. Did Alma and Amulek have priesthood authority from God to intervene? Yes! So why did they not do so? Because Alma said that it was contrary to God’s will to do so. It is utter arrogance of the highest order that we think we can control the power of God because we inherited it from our fathers and then not think to ask Him if what we are doing is right. And then we wonder why we see almost no miracles in the church today, or here anything inspired over the pulpit. Ok I’ll stop ranting now. Excellent job once again guys, and I look forward to your dissection of conference.
Assuming both men and women are under the same commandments, I like the instruction in 2 Ne 32, which says something similar, but not specific to priesthood ordinances:
“But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.”