Alma 9

Alma took the lead, showing off his locally well-known friend as his new partner.

The consensus: “Yeah, right. We’ve heard this all before. Doom and gloom. Give us a break.” Which showed how stupid they really were, since everyone knows nothing lasts forever, including the earth.

They dared him to say their city could be destroyed in a day. Obviously they didn’t know Yahweh very well. Then they upped the ante: “What kind of God would send one man to deliver such huge truths as you profess?

Let’s quote Alma on what happened next:

They tried to grab me, but God wouldn’t let them. I said:

What the? You are so unbelievably crude in how you’re taking this. I couldn’t have believed how cavalier you are toward what you’ve been taught for generations. And commandments? Hello? Don’t you recall how God led Lehi out of Jerusalem and through the wilds of the Old World and the New?

How many times he’s protected you and kissed you on the forehead like his little children? He could have sent us all to hell for our acts. But his patience and mercy demanded a different course. You need to change. If you don’t, that’s when he goes into Destroyer mode. Very primeval. You don’t want to see it.

Lehi had this all down. He taught it. Nothing new in what I’m saying. Look at the Lamanites. They’ve been sunk in the murk of primitivism for longer than any of you has been alive. But God will be more tolerant of them in the end, because you’ve always had the advantage, from Nephi himself on down. They inherited bad traditions. You had good ones. God will factor that into his longterm evaluation. (Besides, at some point he’ll show them the error of their sorry ways.)

You, on the other hand, have nothing to brag about. Because if you persist in behavior that’s beneath you, he’ll bring you lower than any group of people he’s known. His weapon of choice? The Lamanites. Irony city.

You’ve had all the advantages, which can turn to the biggest disadvantage in the end. With all that special knowledge—and a bonus promised land to start over in—you owe a lot. Angels, prophecy, seers, great soil, first-rate ore, etc. I could make a checklist, but I forebear. If you turn your back on him after all these things, he simply has to eradicate you. Because you’d have shown yourselves to be worthless.

Still, he’s giving you one more chance. That’s where I come in. And I’m only the messenger. I’m telling you to believe in the Anointed One, God’s son, the Lamb, the one with a host of names that by now should be permanently lodged in your collective psyche. He’s better than any of you will ever be or than you could ever imagine. His mission? To save you.

So prepare for his coming by rolling out the red carpet of repentance. Soon everyone will have to answer for his or her own evil. And we’ve all got some. He can help you, through his grace and example, to become like he is: righteous, truthful—i.e., filled with truth—worth all the favors you’ve been granted. Snub him and you’ll be like farmers who’ve planted poison seeds and now have to eat the grain that grows from them.

Or, to vary my symbolism: the devil wants to mow you down like dried grass. The kind you can only burn because no animal could stomach it.

Or, how about this: God will stub his toes on your hearts because they’re as hard and out of place as boulders in the field.

I’m riffing like an angel here. Can’t help it. You’re so lost I’d be nervous about turning a real angel loose on you. And you’re my brothers, really. Think if we weren’t related.

Well, this is the way I talked to them. No wonder they flew into a rage. But there was nothing serious they could do to me. God took care of that.

Then it was Amulek’s turn.