Brothers and Sisters, I hope you have had a good week this past week and that you and your family are feeling well and staying safe during this difficult time. With all that has been happening, I was excited to hear the news that monthly Sacrament meetings will be resuming later this month! The Come Follow Me Lesson for this Sunday is Alma 8-12. I love the title of this lesson that our beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ would come to atone for our sins.

In Alma 8, we learn that our efforts to share the Gospel may require persistence and patience. While in High School, I had the missionary lessons taught to at least three of my friends but sadly not one of them chose to be baptized although one came close to doing so. Those of us who have served missions have learned this first hand. Missionary work involves a lot of rejection but it only makes our missionary successes and baptisms that much sweeter. As I have sought to share the Gospel with family members who are less active I have struggled to know what to say to try to share it in a way that they don’t feel judged or offended. Even Alma, who was the leader of the Lord’s Church in his time, experienced this rejection when he tried to preach the Gospel to the people of the wicked city of Ammonihah but the Lord sent an Angel to comfort him and tell him to return to the city where he met Amulek. The Angel told him that the people of Ammonihah were studying how to destroy the liberty of the Nephites, just as we have been warned in Ether 8:22-25 that secret combinations are doing in our own land today, and that if they did not repent of their sins they would be destroyed. Alma and Amulek were then given power to break their bands in prison and to prophesy unto the people with great power and authority from God.

Alma 8-9 teaches us the importance of our responsibility to do everything we can to help the full-time missionaries with referrals to teach our friends, family members and neighbors so that they can enjoy the same blessings that we do as active members of the Lord’s restored Church here on Earth. With all the restrictions on proselyting due to the pandemic, I believe they need our help now more than ever. We don’t need to be called as full-time or ward missionaries to do missionary work. We can do so as member-missionaries. Sometimes it takes courage to take a stand and defend the Gospel from others who might ridicule our Church, Church leaders and Church teachings, particularly those relating to morality and the family, and persecute us for believing in the absolute truths which the Savior taught during his sojourn here on Earth. On this matter, Elder Holland has counseled, “Friends, especially my young friends, take heart. Pure Christlike love flowing from true righteousness can change the world…Be strong. Live the gospel faithfully even if others around you don’t live it at all. Defend your beliefs with courtesy and compassion but defend them.” We have been especially proud of our daughters who have refused to cave to peer pressure and have chosen to reject the counterfeit moral teachings of the world even when most of their friends have accepted them, in opposition to Church teachings.

Alma 9 teaches that God judges His children according to the light and knowledge he has blessed us with. Alma 9:18-30 talks about how the Nephites would be cursed to destruction if they did not repent of their sins because of all the blessings the Lord had given them. Nevertheless, we are taught that salvation is an individual matter and regardless of the fate of our respective countries which are to be cleansed of most of the wicked before the Lord’s Second Coming, if we are righteous the Lord will ensure our deliverance if not in this life than in the Eternities. This teaches the importance of always guarding against personal apostasy to ensure that we do not lose the Lord’s blessings of spiritual and physical protection for ourselves and our families.

Alma 11-12 teaches us about God’s plan of redemption for His spirit children here on Earth. Jesus taught that only the penitent reap the full blessings of his Atonement and for those who reject Him and refuse to repent it is as if no Atonement had been made and they will have to suffer in Spirit Prison for their sins. In Alma 11: 39-40, it says that the Lord “shall take upon him the transgressions of those who believe on his name…Therefore the wicked remain as though there had been no redemption made except it be the loosing of the bands of death.” Though the Atonement of Jesus Christ all mankind receives the gift of immortality and resurrection and all but a few who live on this earth will be redeemed to a Heavenly Kingdom of Glory after Judgment Day. In Alma 11, we learn that when we are resurrected we will be resurrected to the same spirit we had in this life whether wicked or righteous to be judged according to our works.

I love the story of Zeezrom, who like Alma the Younger was a wicked man and an enemy of God early in life, but then in Alma 15 (in the next lesson) repented of his sins and served a full-time missionary with Alma. Their stories cause me to rejoice in the tender mercies of the Lord Jesus Christ and His atonement. They help me increase in my faith and truth in the Lord that all of us and our family members who might be less active and not keeping the commandments at this time might also be redeemed and forgiven of their sins if they but turn back to the Lord once more and repent of their sins.

In Alma 11, Alma teaches Zeezrom that there is only one God. The scriptures teach that the members of the Godhead, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, are “one God” while still being separate beings because they are one and united in purpose. Similarly, the Lord has commanded us as members of our families and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to be one and united in purpose. Over the past couple of weeks, our nation has been racked by violent riots, sparked by racial strife and division, whose most extreme perpetrators have sought to burn down our cities, overthrow law and order, allow violent criminals to go unpunished, incite civil war and ultimately to overthrow our God-given constitutional republic. The following Church video teaches the importance of emphasizing our unity and common divine heritage as sons and daughters of a loving God:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxS89yZtAmM

Our beloved Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, recently provided a beautifully-worded statement in condemnation of all racism and prejudice as well as all acts of violence and unrest. The Prophet has called for unity and peace and an end to racial division in the realization that, regardless of skin color, we are all spiritual brothers and sisters of equal worth before God. The Church has taught that each of us have been blessed with the divine potential to become like our Heavenly Parents, regardless of our racial origins. https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/president-nelson-shares-social-post-encouraging-understanding-and-civility

The Second Article of Faith states “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.” Here we learn that we are not guilty of crimes or offenses that may or may not have been committed by our ancestors from generations past, but rather will be held responsible before God solely for the individual acts of good and evil which we commit. I believe that is why racial prejudice and hating or resenting people because of their race, skin color or national origin has always been so wrong and so offensive to God because it is contrary to the Plan of Salvation and helps enable the Adversary to deceive us into denying our individual responsibility for our own sins and mistakes. At this time of increased racial division, hatred and strife, may we fast and pray that we may be filled with God’s love, increased compassion and greater understanding for others, particularly those of other races as the Prophet has urged us to do. As we strive to implement the Lord’s commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself” by loving and serving others, may we be filled with increased happiness and joy and find more fulfillment while the Lord helps our individual trials and tribulations to be lightened and our sufferings to be eased.

In this life, as in the pre-existence, God has blessed us with the freedom to choose good from evil and thus it is we who get to choose our own eternal outcome in terms of what Heavenly Kingdom of Glory we inherit. As President Monson stated, our “decisions determine (our) destiny.” Then as now, we have the choice to follow and serve God or Satan by faithfully keeping the Lord’s commandments or rebelling against them. If we choose the right, we are promised the blessing of enjoying the tender mercies of the Lord’s Atonement and receiving forgiveness for our sins but, if we do not then we are taught that we will be exposed to the demands of God’s justice and the mercies of the Lord’s Atonement will have no claim upon us.

In Alma 12:9-14, we learn that if we do not harden our hearts we can receive more of the word of God. As we strive to be diligent in keeping the Lord’s commandments and studying the Holy Scriptures, the Lord will bless us with greater understanding of Church doctrine and spiritual truths as he has done in the past with Church leaders past and present. We have been taught that the unrighteous choices of those who have apostatized from His Church cause them to lose the Spirit of discernment and enable the Adversary to cause them to forget the plain and precious Gospel truths that they once understood. The more we choose the right, the more of the Spirit of the Lord can abide with us and give us increased light and truth. If we choose wickedness the more blinded we become to the importance of God’s laws particularly those concerning the importance of morality and keeping ourselves virtuous and pure in our thoughts, words and actions, which are key to enabling us to increase in our individual faith and spiritual power.

As Church members we strive for a greater Celestial inheritance and have the hope and faith of one day being sealed to our families throughout all eternities and inheriting all that our Heavenly Parents have. While we have been warned of the extremely trying and difficult times to come as the Lord commences to pour out His righteous judgments upon the wicked, we can rejoice in the fact that we have been told by Church leaders that we are living at a time when most of us will live to witness the glorious Second Coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and live to see the Earth transformed into its Millennial glory in the flesh. We have been promised that the Millennium will be a time of unparalleled peace without temptation or sin where all of our mental and physical disabilities, sicknesses and sufferings, which we have previously experienced, will be done away. With all my heart, I look forward to that blessed day!

I am so grateful to have been blessed not to have been born into the Church but to have been raised in the Church from a young age so that I might know the commandments of the Lord so I can keep them. I am especially grateful for being blessed with the knowledge of my Temple Covenants so I could keep them. I love the Book of Mormon and I know that it was written for us in our time to help guide us to follow the Savior and be obedient to His commandments. I pray that we might be inspired in the coming weeks to know who to share the Gospel with so that they might have this great knowledge and blessings in their lives as well.

Brother Pyne