Come Follow Me LDS- Alma 43-52 Part 2 (Aug 3 - 9)
Aug 07, 2020
'Moroni, Oath & Blood'
- Moroni leads the "Cause of the Christians"
- These chapters have a theme of Covenant, Oath & Blood
- The name Amalickiah could have something to do with being Bloodthirsty
- Teancum enters scene as a great warrior
- The King-Men wont take up arms to fight
In this episode I refer to the names of the Amlici, Amalekites and Amalickiah with the common Hebrew letters represented by "A M L". There should be a "K" added to the end of that series. "Am Lak" has been interpreted by some Rabbis to mean, "A people who lick blood". I am suggesting that these similar names of Nephite enemies may not stated because of their common "M L K" for "Mulek", but for being enemies (Amalekites) to the Israelites and that "A M L K" may suggest "Enemy" and/or "Bloodthirsty".
Raw Transcript
all right
all right in this come follow me episode
this is part
two of alma 43-52
as you recall we last left our hero
captain moroni when he was
creating the title of liberty out of his
own robes right he was renting those
his own robes his own garment a
karatbarite
and creating a covenant so the banner
that you see there that he's
that that we have illustrations of
is a covenant itself right it's being
raised up
as a covenant and it's raised up
eventually throughout the entire land of
the nephites
that moroni is claiming under this
banner of
liberty under this title of liberty so
in a sense he's creating a
a covenant land and then those that join
him
throw their robes or garments out in
front of him
probably as he's marching to be trodden
underfoot
and also a covenant
that they are making to him tying them
to him
and tying them to the land right so
they're they're
it's a covenant ritual that is happening
here
and then you recall our foe when malachi
has
gathered as many people as will follow
him to himself
but he sees that they are less numerous
than those that will follow
moroni so he now leaves
and he's going to head toward the
lamanites
again where where all of the dissenters
go
where all of the anti-christs go
right everybody against the doctrine of
christ
but remember they have just lost a large
portion of this
of these zoramites to the lamanites they
don't want to now
lose the amalekia heights also to the
lamanites
they are in jeopardy of being overtaken
by this
new axis right
including the lamanites themselves the
amalekites the perhaps some of the
amlacites i think
actually they were different people the
descendants of the priests of noah
the zoramites and now possibly the
amalekia heights
so moroni takes his army to head off
amalekiah and his people that are
following him
before they get to the land of nephi and
his
aim is to put amalekiah to death
so some moral issues there right is this
the right thing to do he's taking
judgment into his own hands or is he
he's at least at least the people of the
nephites are taking it into their own
hands
right this is decided by the people that
he is going to go do this
if further events here later events are
a clue to us and so they they
stop the amalekiah heights and moroni
forces those people or a majority of
them
but a malachia kind of like
the priests of noah right they take a
small band
he takes a small band with him of his
men and they flee
right they run away and so moroni again
takes these people or at least the men
and he commits them to a covenant here
again so we're getting again kind of
this theme and this part of
mormon's abridgement and i'm going to
focus a little bit more on mormon than
the author here who would be helaman
because to me anyway it seems obvious
that as we move from
alma's record to helaman's record
that we get a lot more of the voice of
mormon here
than we do of helaman and so he says
look you're going to commit to a
free government or you're going to be
put to death
so taking that ultimatum there and
putting it into
a contemporary scenario that's hard for
us to probably
take but they know that they're in
trouble
if they lose the amount of the amalekia
heights
and there are a few of the amalekia
heights
who do not agree with this covenant
right they're probably
bloodthirsty they are furious they are
full of hate and they would rather die
than give in
and rather die than support freedom
and so then moroni causes that the title
of liberty
is hoisted up on every tower throughout
all the land of
the nephites again it's a covenant land
it's a
promised land it's kind of like at this
point the national flag for the nephites
and after this in the church and in the
land of the nephites
all the lands they have continual peace
for four years so moroni
has done his job but a malachia
in the meantime has gone to the land of
nephi
talked to the king of the lamanites
again it's kind of interesting we
rarely ever get the name of the king of
the lamanites
and he riles the king up and those
around
him to go to battle against the nephites
here's another dissenting group
and you can think of all the arguments
right he's going to talk about how
horrible the nephites are he's going to
talk about how their
system of government is horrible that
some people might get left out sometimes
that you don't have
someone who is appointed as the king
someone who is the rightful heir as king
running everything you king of the
lamanites could be
over all of their land think of your
heritage with your fathers and how
the fathers of the nephites took the
relics of the temple
and left to go to this land here for
at first the land of the of nephi and
every reason in the world
why the lamanites have a hatred toward
the nephites right pulling up
ideas of oppression and other things
that aren't true
but the majority of the lamanites
are not on board and they are not
willing to go to battle
and so the king of the lamanites puts a
malachia
in charge of those that are willing to
battle a minority
and so now a malachi is designed because
he wants to overthrow the king of the
lamanites
and then overthrow the nephites right he
wants to be king
over everybody right his whole goal
is power well those that did not want to
fight
they leave what appears to be the land
of the lamanites and they go to a place
called
oneida which is called the place of arms
now this may very well be the same place
called oneida
in the land of the zoramites where alma
and others preached to the poor
zoramites they were at oneida
we don't know if it's the same place
but it would make sense right that the
those that don't want to fight they go
out of the land of the lamanites to
a more distant place but that is still
friendly to the lamanites now in the
land of the zoramites
a good reference here for for this also
is
um matthew bowen at the interpreter
he goes over a likely meaning
for oneida but he only uses it in
reference to
alma and his preaching and he basically
draws the conclusion the likely
conclusion
that oneida means um you know a place of
affliction or
sorrow or humiliation right where the
the poor zoramites are
outside of the synagogues well that
would apply here as well right where
those that are
kind of cast out of their land in a
sense
the ones that don't want to fight the
lamanites that don't want to fight are
going to go to a place called oneida
so that would make now again we don't
know it's the same place but
now here in the land or larger area of
oneida there is a mount called
antipas and this is where they gather
which is another interesting name that
we we get anciently
which in the greek would mean something
more like like the father or like my
father
and this group does not want to be
subject to fight against the
nephites and so they set up their own
king and they prepare
to battle against the lamanites their
own people
so amalekiah the sneaky amelikaya
he sets up camp outside of this area he
sends several
messages to their king their leader
lahuntai
but he's not willing to go down to me to
malachi
so finally amalekiah goes up toward the
haunted's
camp and he says look come down
and by surprise you can surround my men
i will set this up for you
so that you can take them over remember
that amalekiah has a smaller army
so his design is to get the entire army
under his command so we're told that
it's
common that if the leader of the army
dies then the second in command is going
to take over
so malachi makes himself second in
command subject to
the haunted and then he has
his men administer little by little
poison
to lahantai and he dies and of course
who becomes
the new leader the new commander so then
amalekiah takes his entire the entire
army the entire lamanite army
marches back to the land of nephi and
his men some of his men go up before him
to bow themselves before the king
the king thinking that okay way to go
amalekaya you've got everybody now
in the army you've done a great job but
one of those men as
he has bowed down before him comes up
and
stabs the king in the heart and then
they make a malachi and his men make a
big ruckus saying that it was one of the
servants
that killed the king of the lamanites
and then we get a little bit more of a
mixture here right between the lamanites
and the nephites
so with think of the mob rule here of
what has just happened
to the king of the lamanites the
servants and this would be people that
would really
be loyal right to the king of the
lamanites
they flee they run and they actually go
over to
the people of ammon to the anti-nephi
lehighs and join in with them
so again we constantly get this back and
forth of dissensions to the lamanites
and fewer but some dissensions from the
lamanites over to
the nephites these are political groups
they're not races
we shouldn't look at it that way and so
now
he's got command of the entire lamanite
army
the king is gone and he's going to take
his place
even unto marrying the queen
so we're told that he is now king of the
entire people
of the lamanites the political group
which includes all of the dissenters
and all of the descendants of laymen and
lemuel and ishmael etc
but who are the most hardened of heart
it's the dissenters of course
those that came from the group known as
the nephites
in verse 36 and chapter 47 it says here
now these dissenters having the same
instruction
and the same information of the nephites
ye having been instructed in the same
knowledge of the lord
nevertheless it is strange to relate
not long after their dissensions they
became more hardened
and impenitent and more wild wicked and
ferocious
than the lamanites drinking in with the
traditions of the lamanites
giving way to indolence and all manner
of lasheviousness
yay entirely forgetting the lord their
god
now we can read that the hebrew that
last phrase
the lord their god in hebrew could very
well be jehovah
right the lord jehovah their god
and as we know all of the dissenters are
anti-christian
so amalekiah now as king of the
lamanites he begins to incite
all of the people against the nephites
his hatred and ambition
right are what drive him and it's gotten
him pretty far so far
so what does he do propaganda right he's
going to disseminate propaganda
throughout the entire land of the
nephites
it says here he did appoint men to speak
unto the lamanites from their towers
against the nephites well of course as
we know
in political campaigns right what works
better all of the great things about
amalekiah
or all of the horrible things about the
opposition
what kind of political ads do we
typically see especially in this season
unfortunately
it's all of the negative against the
opponent
down in verse 4 for he was determined
because of the greatness of the number
of his
people the lamanites to overpower the
nephites and to bring them
into bondage lose their liberty
and so he appoints chief captains of the
zoramites
because they are the most acquainted
with the ways of the nephites they are
the
more recent dissenters right
and larger group than the amalekia
heights are
and they're going to know about their
weakest positions
so with the malachia and the zoramites
going after
power and subjecting the nephites to
bondage we get this
again these opposite sides here that are
clarified over and over again by mormon
he says here in verse 7 now it came to
pass while amalekiah had thus been
obtaining power
by fraud and deceit remember that power
we can look at that as glory and
the war in heaven right and what what is
lucifer's position in the war in heaven
it's flattening the hierarchy
and it's gaining power and that's where
a lot of
the movements today are now that's
always been an issue but it's becoming
more and more of an issue
with the philosophies that are
especially in the west
starting to gain some traction where
things have no meaning
and everything is based off a power
dynamic
so moroni on the other hand had been
preparing the minds of the people
to be faithful unto the lord their god
that we get lowered their god again so
very opposite motives here and we're
told here
as we move further and further into
these war chapters now
that he had had been strengthening the
armies of the nephites and directing
small forts or places of resort
throwing up banks of earth round about
to enclose his armies
and also building walls of stone to
encircle them about
round about their cities and the borders
of their lands yea
all around about the land so again we
get this
idea of captain moroni here
what is his entire focus it is
preparing the minds of the people to be
faithful to the lord
right obeying the commandments so that
you can prosper in the land that's a
very
big thing that we're pulling over all
the way from alma's
words to his sons and defending
their liberty and their religion so as
we go through these war chapters here
and i've heard this a lot as we go
through these and and whether it's in
ces or other places and
it's a very valid point but a lot of it
has to do with individual
um individual protection right against
evil
but i think that we should not just
individualize
what's happening here with the war
chapters but we need to put it into a
societal
framework as well where certainly
individually this is
applies to us all the time it's likely
going to come
to pass if you will that
the ideas here in these war chapters not
necessarily of the temporal
strategies that moroni comes up with but
the
attitudes the obedience
and the idea of protecting liberty
and religion are what are gonna have to
really be focused
on by the people by the church
and by society so again here in verse 10
it says and thus he was preparing to
support their liberty
their lands their wives and their
children and their peace
and that they might live under the lord
their god
and that they might maintain that which
was called by their
enemies the cause of the christians
again this is so fascinating to me it's
just over and over again moroni is not
just
putting out this idea here right we're
not gaining this idea this coupling of
christianity and the doctrine of christ
with
liberty and just saying oh here's a
couple of messages from from from
mormon no this is this is a primary
focus
of mormon right what is the cause of the
christians
well it's their liberty and their
religion
this is what we need to identify in the
book of mormon
this is what is going to come under
attack if we read this properly i
believe
right in my estimation and then of
course we get
mormon here talking about moroni
with glowing reviews so much so that he
names his son
after captain moroni he says here in
verse 11 of 48
and moroni was a strong and a mighty man
he was a man of a
perfect understanding yeah a man that
did not delight in bloodshed
a man who sold the joy in the liberty
and the freedom of his country
and his brethren from bondage and
slavery
and you got to think about these people
that rise to the top like this
you know how how important this is how
people's lives
are so important to them that they have
this kind of a cause that they risk
their lives and that they
put themselves out there to be leaders
for liberty and for christianity
and he gives us this as well in 13 year
and he was a man who was
firm in the faith of christ and he had
sworn with an
oath i come back to this in a minute
here he had sworn with an oath remember
our whole theme here what's happening
in in this time period here of the
record of helaman this theme of covenant
he had sworn with an oath to defend his
people his rights and his country and
his religion
even to the loss of his blood
so what do we get with an oath what do
we get with a covenant
well it's blood right you've heard of a
blood oath
that's not some strange kind of an oath
that that is
part of covenant typically
right with the animals cut in half well
obviously there's blood if we're cutting
their throat obviously there's blood
the whole idea of the day of atonement
with the high priest
it's making a covenant of peace
with the lord and for all of the land of
of the israelites right it's a blood
oath
so he mentions covenant here again or
oath
and then he mentions the loss of his
blood i'm going to come back to that
and then some more rules on kind of
spiritual rules on war
he says the nephites were taught never
to give an offense
yay or an offense right never
moved toward conquering another people
and never to raise the sword
except it were against an enemy except
it were to preserve their lives
so that's part of the law of war
according to mormon why because if you
were going to an offense right if you
were
going to conquer well then that's
tyranny that's the exact opposite
of what he's talking about here
and then finally in his review here he
says about
moroni in 17 year verily verily i say
unto you
if all men had been and were and ever
would be
like unto moroni right he's talking
about this
fervor of defense of liberty and and his
religion
behold the very powers of hell would
have been shaken forever
yea the devil would never have power
over the hearts of the children of men
but of course most are not like moroni
and i want to bring up a phrase here
because this is something that's very
common with members of the church that
i've found
that as you read the book of mormon you
think it's
you have a different idea of who the
lamanites are right
it says here but as i have said
in the latter end of the 19th year
that's of the
reign of judges ye notwithstanding their
peace among themselves that's the
nephites
they were compelled reluctantly to
contend with their brethren
the lamanites so we read over those
things and again we think of
the the descendants of laman lemmel and
ishmael but really
the enforcers the leaders of the pack
are dissenters that's who the real
force behind the lamanites is it's
nephites
it's those from within and again we're
told often that the lamanites are there
which is true right to be a reminder but
who are the lamanites
i think we need to change our minds a
little bit on that
right they're a reminder for the
nephites to stay righteous
but it's really the dissenters that are
usually the problem here
we get this right here in verse 24
nevertheless they could not suffer to
lay down their lives this is the
nephites
that their wives and their children
should be massacred by the barbarous
cruelty
of those who were once their brethren
yea
and had dissented from their church this
is a big
focus right again this is a holy war in
many ways
and had left them and gone and had gone
to destroy them by joining the lamanites
now with all of the cities and the
battles i'm not going to go over all of
those i don't think this is the right
place to do that
but i do want to focus on a few things
here where we're going to dip down into
chapters 49 through 52. so the amalekiah
heights
they actually go to the land of ammoniah
well we know where ammonia high is right
where alma and amulek were well that
city
since it was destroyed previously by the
lamanites has been rebuilt
but it's been fortified and so the
lamanites as they go to each of these
cities and see how they've been
fortified they're astonished
at what they see because they've never
seen this before
on either side right again it's the
message of defense
it's the focus on the defense of liberty
and the defense
of religion words that are very much
brought up more and more
by the brethren by the way now we're
going to get something that goes hand in
hand with this name of a malachia
oftentimes i've said this previously in
the episode that i did on
the amla sites amalekites and amalekiah
heights
where they do have the mlk in their
names
and possibly this is a reference to the
mulokites and that's mostly who the
dissenters are
which is very likely it may not be
the reason for their names being so
similar
very possibly it is but there's another
option here
we get here in verse 10 of chapter 49 it
says now if king amalekiah
had come down out of the land of nephi
notice that nephi now is kind of the
center of everything for the lamanites
remember the land of nephi is where
nephi had taken his
group when they ran from the lamanites
originally in the original
setting where lehi landed or wherever
they had settled
and he built the temple there in nephi
after the the design of the
temple of solomon this is where zenith
goes back to when his son
king noah is at in nephi this is where
abinadi preaches but it becomes the
center
of things for the lamanites
but he says here that he came down from
the land of nephi that perhaps he would
have
caused the lamanites to have attacked
the nephites at the city of ammonia
for behold he did care not for the blood
of his people so the letters aml
that we get into amicites amalekites
and amalekiahites has a very close
reference in hebrew to
blood to being bloodthirsty
in fact so we get his name here in this
verse
a malachia with he did not he did care
not for the blood
of his people we're going to come back
to that again as well remember that
we've gone through this whole thing with
covenant
right and that blood is a part of that
and so there's a reference back to this
idea of
renting of the scalp of zarahemna
there's no blood with the title of
liberty or for the garments that are
thrown out there but they're rent
right they're broken they're cut so this
blood is part of this whole idea this
pervasive idea of
covenant that we've been going over here
in these these war chapters so far
so with these leaders of the zoramites
they know that ammonia
is is one of the weaker cities well not
anymore so they move on to the city of
noah
well not anymore that's also fortified
and here at the city of noah moroni has
put lehi the commander lehigh the one
who was on the east bank of the
riverside and before
with the lamanites who when they had
surrounded the lamanites
with zara hemna right so the lamanites
are freaked out about this they are they
are
very concerned they know how lehi and
his
band of brothers fight so
they have to save face so they're going
to attack
the city of noah regardless and so they
go up
trying to go up these embankments of
dirt and they lose over a thousand souls
well the chief captains are all killed
in this process here at the land of noah
the zoramites
while there was not a single nephite who
was lost
so again what is our what is our
spiritual lesson here as
certainly mormon is trying to tell us
about
a a spiritualized war here
and battles well the spiritualized
concept here is that we are well
defended against the adversary
and how do we do that what do we do
individually and as a society as a
church
as a nation whatever nation we are from
to defend ourselves spiritually
to defend our liberty and to defend our
religion
well malachi has not been out to battle
with the armies he's been back
at the land of nephi enjoying his new
life as king
we get this also it says that a malachia
was a nephite
by birth so the question there is
if it matters was he a nephite
by descendancy by blood
or was he a political nephite was he a
mulekite
like many of the dissenters certainly
were and if he is
a nephite by birth it seems like they
are talking about blood here
then the mlk in his name
does not mean that he is a mulekite but
may have something to do
more with blood which makes a lot of
sense with all this covenant talk
that's going on around this time of
amelicaia
so again down here in verse 27 with the
malachia
we get this he was exceedingly wroth
at his army and he did curse god
and also moroni swearing with an oath
that he would drink his blood
right there we get oath and blood again
and this because moroni had kept the
commandments of god
in preparing for the safety of his
people it's an interesting way for
mormon to put that
he's stating that because moroni is
responsible and that he's doing what's
right and he's obeying the commandments
that he has defended himself and his
people very well
and that makes amalakia furious and
again
juxtaposition here he says that the
people of nephi did thank the lord their
god
because of his matchless power in
delivering them from the hands of their
enemies
then here in chapter 50 we get a little
bit of a
rest from a malachia but more dissenters
among the land of the nephites there's a
little bit of a contention between those
that are of the
land of lehi and those that are of the
land of morianton
and morianton's gonna cause some
problems here he's the leader of those
at morianton
and we get the introduction of tiancum
who is leading an army here
to battle those of morianton who are
going to dissent it's a problem they're
actually up in the north
and if you can imagine you have more
dissenters up in the north they're not
going to allow that
right they're not going to allow
anything up from the south
to be the centers there's no way they
can do that at least the zoramites are
the very south end here
down with the lamanites but to be
surrounded on both sides
no way they can allow that but tiankim
is introduced to us
as a military leader and he's kind of a
special ops guy we can think of him that
way
we learn a little bit more about him in
a malachia here shortly
and we get a little bit of strategy here
about the lands
of the of the lamanites and of the
nephites and this is probably pretty
important to understand
as part of the conflict here between the
two political groups
this is moroni it says in 5010
and he also placed armies on the south
that's the border with the lamanites
in the borders of their possessions and
caused them to erect fortifications that
they might secure their armies
and their people from the hands of their
enemies all right makes sense right
that's
that's the nephite front and thus he cut
off all the strongholds of the lamanites
in the east wilderness yay and also on
the west
fortifying the line between the nephites
and the lamanites
between the land of zarahemla and the
land of nephi
are the two capitals from the west sea
running by the head of the river sidon
the nephites possessing all the land
northward
yea even all the land which was
northward of the land
bountiful according to their pleasure
so in other words what is he doing he's
cutting off the access
as much as possible for the need for the
lamanites to come from the south up to
the north
now this may have always been a problem
what what is it is is there something
additional that causes the conflict here
are there more resources to the north
is there better agriculture
is there less of a place to go for the
lamanites down south
this could very possibly be an
additional part of this conflict here
of the lamanites easily being
stirred up to go north now of course
they may have better cities and and more
order
in place with the nephites and that
might be what they're after
they want to take that now the other
thing we get in this chapter 50 here
is that nafija who has been the chief
judge
that he dies and pahoran replaces him
and we're going to talk about pahoran
here a little bit more next week
but here's an interesting point that
comes up here and again we're going to
get
covenant or oath right here in verse 38
we're told nevertheless this is
nephiha he had refused alma to take
possession of those records
and those things which were esteemed by
alma and his fathers to be most sacred
so helaman apparently is the second
choice
on this and he was actually going to be
giving it
to the king and maybe that's where it
kind of is supposed to be
or the chief judge i mean alma was
originally
the chief judge and it's mosiah the king
who gave him
the records and the relics
the emblems of the temple so alma might
be saying hey i had these as the chief
judge
originally even though i gave that up
and so i'm going to be passing this
along to nephi's who is the
chief judge but nephi how refuses them
and so alma gives them to his son
helaman
and so pahoran is the son
by the way of nephiha and that's what we
get continually that may
be part of the conflict of the
dissenters as well
is that they are led by the nephites
by blood right not by
the melakites and the melechites may
feel that they
are the true royal blood because they
are
judahites and the son
of zedekiah mulik
the founder of their people was the
rightful heir to the throne of judah
but here also in 39 we get just another
mention here
as pohorin replaces his father nephiha
it says
yeah he was appointed chief judge and
governor over the people
with an oath and sacred ordinance
to judge righteously to keep the peace
and the freedom of the people we see
this whole idea again of oath and
liberty
going together or oath and tyranny
and to grant unto them their sacred
privileges to worship
the lord their god ye to support and
maintain the cause of god
all his days and to bring the wicked to
justice according to their crime so
again
the oath here is tied together with
liberty
then surprise surprise in chapter 51
we get more dissenters and what do they
want
well pretty much the same thing
everybody else has wanted they want to
take power this time instead of being
the lord judges or some of the
power of the people this time it's the
elites it's the rich
it's the wealthiest those that are of
high
birth and this could be mulekites
or or it could be nephites or both
but it's the elite that are rebelling at
this point and these are the
kingmen and they go to government and
they ask for pohorin to
make some changes to the law well of
course you know everybody wants
when they want something for themselves
they want to start subtly moving it
toward that direction
move the football down let's get a first
down here we don't need a touchdown to
start
let's get a first down and then another
first down and eventually we will score
but pahoran won't do it right he doesn't
make any changes and the people haven't
supported it
but the king men as they're called now
wants to
dethrone so to speak pahoran
and put somebody else in his stead they
want
to overthrow as we're told here in verse
5 of 51
overthrow the free government and to
establish a king over the land
right so they also want to take away
liberty government
a free government and those that
supported horan and wanted
freedom and liberty in the government
they're called freemen so you've gotten
more
division here and we get this in verse
six
and thus was the division among them for
the freemen had sworn or
covenanted to maintain their rights and
the privileges of their religion
by a free government covenant again
so they have what might be a
referendum and the voice of the people
through their voting
vote to keep horan in as the chief judge
well the king men aren't having any of
it they don't believe in a free
government to begin with
and this is a very difficult time to be
going through this type of a dissension
we're told that a malachi had again
stirred up the hearts of the people of
the lamanites against the people of the
nephites
and he was gathering together soldiers
from all parts of his land
and arming them and preparing for war
with all diligence and then we get this
again
for he had sworn to drink the blood of
moroni
a m l and then 10 but behold we shall
see that his
promise that's the oath that's an oath
which he made was rash nevertheless he
did prepare himself and his armies
to come to battle against the nephites
and this time he's going to lead the
army himself
and then we get this again right now the
king men aren't actually going to end up
with the lamanites but they want to
right verse 13 and it came to pass that
when the men who were called kingman had
heard
that the lamanites were coming down to
battle against them
they were glad in their hearts and they
refused to take up
arms for they were so roth with the
chief judge
and also with the people of liberty he's
calling them
that's mormon that they would not take
up arms to defend their country
right they're siding with the enemy
right the enemy of my enemy is my friend
so to speak
again dissension from within it's a
cancer
so moroni's furious about this and he
gets the consent of the people again
mormon is very specific
about constantly going over this idea of
consent
from the people and the voice of the
people and he gets it from the voice of
the people
that down in 16 it says and it came to
pass that it was granted according to
the voice of the people what was granted
his first care to put an end to such
contentions and dissensions among the
people
for behold this had been hitherto a
cause of all their destruction
so moroni takes the army and he goes
after the kingman
and slays a number of them
in fact four thousand of these
dissenters were slain
and the leaders are taken into prison to
be tried at another point
not right now they're too busy getting
ready for malachi to come
and this is interesting especially in
our times today regardless of what your
opinion is on this this political
opinion but this is kind of interesting
right in chapter 51 verse 20 and the
remainder of those dissenters
rather than be smitten down to the earth
by the sword
yielded to the standard of liberty the
banner
and were compelled to hoist the title of
liberty upon their towers
and in their cities and to take up and
to take up arms in defense
of their country so again we get
this idea of these dissenters that want
to destroy
from within the nephites and the
religion
21 and thus moroni put an end to those
king men that there were not any known
by the appellation or name of kingman
they're done
and thus he put an end to the
stubbornness and the pride of those
people
who professed the blood of nobility
but they were brought down to humble
themselves like unto their brethren and
to fight
valid valiantly for their freedom from
bondage
i mean again once you get even if people
aren't motivated you get them into a
position of battle
you better believe they're gonna fight
right they're fighting at least for
their own lives
now amalekiah comes in to play here
again
and he goes and he takes the new city of
moroni there are several new cities and
these cities are smaller
and malachi and his army they start
plowing through some of these small
cities
and they possess them and then they get
to the land
bountiful with all this momentum
generated
but there again is tiankum and tiankum
has a very special unit this is like the
navy seals the green braves
in chapter 51 31 but behold he met with
a disappointment that being a malachia
by being repulsed by tiankim and his men
for they were great warriors
for every man of tiancon did exceed the
lamanites in their strength
and in their skill of war in so much
that they did
gain advantage over the lamanites so
where does that skill of war come well
some of it comes from experience
but tiankum is probably a leader of
training as well right he's got these
men ready to go
so after this battle from the heat of
the day we're guessing this is during
the summer time
the amalekiah heights they pitch their
tents out by the seashore
not far from the land bountiful and
tiankum by night while everyone's just
drained of energy and sleeping goes into
the tent of a malachia
takes a javelin or spear and puts it
through the heart of a malachia
and before amalekiah can say anything
he's dead
and so tiankum then sneaks right back
out of their camp and comes by
back and advises his men of what he has
just done
so amalekiah's brother amiron takes over
we get a little bit of a geogra
geography lesson here of the land of the
nephites in verse 9 of 52
and he also sent orders unto him that he
should fortify the land bountiful
and secure the narrow pass this is
unlikely
the narrow neck of land this is
something different more than likely
which led into the land northward less
than lamanites should
obtain that point and should have power
to harass them on every site so again
trying to keep everything as far south
as possible
and among the borders of this of the
seashores where these smaller cities
were that the lamanites
have overtaken and then here in 52
we get moroni and tiankum teaming up
to try and retake the city of mulic
and they have mulic has a leader who is
a zoromite called jacob
and they moroni asks for jacob to come
out with his army and to fight them out
in the plains
well jacob's not going to do it so they
devised a strategy wherein
tiankim takes a small number of men
right elite fighters
they go out on the east side of mulik on
the seashore
area and the spies of the
lamanites and of jacob see how small a
number they are and they go out they
take the armies out
they are their army out and chase
tiankem and his men well in the meantime
moroni comes in from the west
he puts some of his army into the land
into the city of mulic
they slay those that will not give up
their weapons of war it's interesting
that
mormon always says this they give them
the chance to give up their weapons of
war
but they slay those that won't probably
take captive those that
do and moroni leaves part of his army
there in munich to hold it
and then goes to tiancum
and the battle there well then we also
have
lehi and a small army there the
lamanites turn to fight against the the
the lehighs get back to mulic and
and make sure that they are holding out
of possession of
their city they don't realize that
moroni's coming up on the rear
and now again moroni's got them
surrounded with
his army and lehi's army similar to what
he did at the riverside
and as the lamanites are losing
moroni does the same thing he allows
those that are willing to give up
their swords to be spared
and those that don't well this time
they're taken and bound as
prisoners a very large number of them so
again as we go through these war
chapters i think the important thing to
understand in the spiritualizing
of these temporal wars
is to understand the position that
moroni captain moroni and mormon take
in their unfettered defense
of their liberty and of their religion
and if there's a single lesson to be
drawn out of this
aside from you know looking at the the
specifics of the strategies and
the earth being thrown up and the the
fortifications of all the cities it's
that
liberty and our religion are precious
and that this book the book of mormon
was written for us
in our time because
those things are under attack and will
be much more under attack
or so it seems to me so even though
captain moroni
is an amazing figure of a military
figure
what mormon loves about him
is that he will do anything to defend
religion
the freedom of religion and to be
faithful
to christ and to defend the liberty
of his people i'll talk to you next time
Come Follow Me LDS
Book of Mormon Alma Moroni
"I Take This Every Day!"
Learn more about why I accepted Cardio Miracle as a sponsor and why I take it every day!
- Greg Matsen
Cwic Study Group
Checkout our weekly Cwic Study Group!
Delve deeper!
Stay connected with Study Tips & Updates!
Donate
Be a part of our mission! Help us help others increase their understanding of the scriptures and increase their faith.
Cwic Merch!
Check out our Merch Store! Apparell and Accessories.
Cwic Audio Player
All of the Cwic Media podcast episodes on one page!
Recent Posts
What Happened To Exaltation? The Slippery Slope From Eternal Laws To A Prosperity Gospel
Mar 28, 2024
Isaiah Predicts Our Time With Precision
Mar 16, 2024
