Alma 18

Lamoni demanded a full account re: the arms laid at his feet. All the slaves testified about Ammon’s improbable heroics, leaving Lamoni to blurt out, “Whoa. I’ve never heard of anything like this. Beyond human. I think this must be a great spirit, or should I say ‘The Great Spirit,’ come in human form to wreak vengeance. What do you think?”

One of Ammon’s bewildered co-workers spoke for the rest. “That’s a little beyond our pay grade to say. But I’ll tell you this: you can’t kill him and he’s on your side. So I’d lean toward the Great Spirit theory.”

“Done,” Lamoni said. “He must be the Great Spirit our ancestors talked about.” Yes, Lamoni had gotten that tradition from his father and his father and his father, and so on, a garbled version of what Ishmael had believed on the word of you-know-who. The concept, though, was that the Great Spirit stamped his approval on whatever people did. Now maybe the Great Spirit had a mind of his own. Lamoni shuddered. He’d actually blamed his slaves in the past for sheep-scatterings and killed them. Maybe he’d acted in haste. Maybe the Great Spirit was here to stick up for the slaves. And even kill Lamoni as payback.

(He had no idea that local gangsters had been doing this to his flocks for years. Only now, because of the harvest of arms, did he buy the story his soon-to-be-executed slaves had told him.)

“So where is Ammon now?” he asked.

“He’s feeding your horses and hooking them to your chariots.” Lamoni, you see, had earlier told his slaves to do this because of a feast he was to attend that night.

“Wow,” he said. “Even with all this excitement he remembered about the horses. If I paid you guys, I’d give him a raise. He’s the best.” He paused and said, “Of course, if he’s the Great Spirit a raise wouldn’t matter much to him. I’d call him in for a commendation but, frankly, I’m a little scared of the guy.”

Right then Ammon walked in. He didn’t like the weird look on Lamoni’s face so he pivoted and started to head back out. One of the servants (indoor slaves) said to Ammon, “Rabbanah”—the Lamanite word for “great king”—“the king wants you to stay.”

Ammon said, “Alright, my liege. What would you like me to do now?” Lamoni was so discombobulated he couldn’t answer the question for an hour. Ammon had to stand there and wait the whole time and the king knew it. Finally, Ammon repeated the question: “Hello? What can I do for you?” Still no reply.

Ammon felt God’s spirit trying to tell him what Lamoni was thinking. “Are you just completely blown away by my bloody roundup and revenge? Hey, I’m your slave and I do what you want me to. Or, in this case, need me to.”

The cause of Lamoni’s bewilderment wasn’t that hard to figure out, let’s admit. It was the talk of the whole royal court. But Lamoni went overboard in his retort: “Who the heck are you? The Great Spirit that knows everything?”

Ammon wondered at first if this was sarcasm. But he simply said, “Nope.”

The king said, “Then how did you know what I was thinking about? And by the way I’m still waiting for a full account of the pile of bloody arms you left at my throne. I deserve that at least. But I’ll tell you what: give me the full story and I’ll reward you with whatever you ask. I’ll even put you under military protection for the rest of your life—though I don’t know why you’d need it, since you can probably beat up the whole army anyway.”

“Here’s what I want: for you to hear me out on how I get this amazing power.”

“Oh yes, I’ll believe everything you say.” Right.

“Okay, do you believe there is a God—capital ‘G’?”

“Meaning what?”

“In your terms, a ‘Great Spirit.’”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I mean by ‘God.’ Do you believe this Great Spirit—God—created everything that exists?”

“Let’s say the earth. I don’t know about anything else. Certainly not anything called ‘heaven.’ Just what I can see and touch and taste, you know, yes.”

“Heaven is where the Great Spirit lives. He sublets space to the angels.”

“This is above the earth, right?”

Ammon knew he was getting somewhere, though wasn’t sure of the actual geography of heaven in relation to earth. “Right,” he said. “God is up there and looks down here. Not that he needs to look, really, because he can sense everything below him—including your thoughts and mine. Even our motives and hidden agendas. That’s one of the privileges of being the Great Spirit.”

“So far I’m with you. So did God send you to me?”

“Let’s put it this way: I’m a man. God created man to be something like himself. He has a spirit that you can’t see. That spirit assigned me to teach what I’m teaching—very little of which you’ve heard yet. His point is to get more people to believe in him and his plan. I even have some of that spirit inside me all the time. That’s where I get my power and cleverness, at least when I tap into it.”

Ammon was on a roll. He started laying out God’s plan from the creation, Adam, Eve, the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit, etc., everything he could think of from his Bible training and right up through Lehi’s life and work, the teachings, everything. the teachings, everything. God’s plan of salvation, how to live happily, on and on. Pretty comprehensive. the teachings, everything. God’s plan of salvation, how to live happily, on and on. Pretty comprehensive. And Lamoni stayed awake through the whole monologue.

“I totally believe this,” Lamoni said. Then he prayed loudly: “I sit here all amazed at your mercy, Lord. Not only to me but to the people I rule.” Then he fainted.

His servants thought he’d had a heart attack, scooped him up and carried him to his bed, where his wife and kids cried and made funeral plans for the two days that he was essentially comatose.

Doctors were completely ignorant back then.