Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Alma 14





As more and more evil makes headlines, the question is often asked, “Why does God allow good people to suffer?”  The best answer I've found to that question is found in this chapter.  Alma and Amulek had priesthood power and faith to use it.  When the believers were being burned at the stake in Ammonihah and Alma and Amulek were forced to watch it as punishment for preaching the everlasting gospel, Amulek recommended to Alma that they use their priesthood power to save the people.  Alma’s response was “The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth my hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself in glory; and he doth suffer that…the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them…and cry mightily against them at the last day” (v. 11).  In other words, the Lord allows the wicked to dig their own graves, so to speak.  Otherwise His judgments upon them would not be just.

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