Brothers and Sisters, I hope you have been doing well this past month and that your families are staying safe. I know many of us including my own family have been having to endure unique health challenges which we did not have to endure before which have made life more difficult for us. It has been a challenging time for all of us as we have been restricted in attending Church and most especially from attending the Holy Temple during the past four months or so. I hope you are all continuing to enjoy the sweet Spirit that comes from holding Church at Home.

This week the Gospel Doctrine lesson is on Alma 30-31 which is titled “The Virtue of the Word of God.” Alma testified of the powerful effect of the word of God. One of my favorite scriptures is in Helaman 5:17-18 and 51-52 where it talks about how Nephi did speak with such great power and authority to the Lamanites, who were the enemies of the Nephites and had captured and occupied half of the lands of the Nephites in war, that they were converted to the Lord by the power of the word of God and gave up the lands of the Nephites and made peace with them. That is the power of the word of God to change lives and convert individual souls to Christ, convert enemies to friends and replace wars with peace.

In Alma 30, it talks about an anti-Christ named Korihor who tried to deceive as many Nephites as he could to apostatize from the Church. We are taught that an anti-Christ is someone who preaches a counterfeit to the true Gospel or plan of salvation and that openly or secretly works in opposition to our beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That is how Satan works to deceive us by setting himself up as a counterfeit to God and his teachings. Sister Julie Beck, former Relief Society General President taught that “Any doctrine or principle we hear from the world that is anti-family is also anti-Christ.

This chapter states that Korihor taught the same teachings as Nehor and not only denied that Christ would come to atone for the sins of the world but denied the very existence of God. Korihor taught that there was no such thing as sin leading many of the Nephites to commit sexual sins in the belief that when we die there was no afterlife and no God to judge us for our sins. Eventually, Korihor was bound and brought before Alma, who was the High Priest or leader of the Church, and also before Nephihah who was the Chief Judge to be judged for his crimes. Korihor told Alma that unless he showed him a sign he would not believe in Christ. Alma responded that all of the Holy Scriptures and Earth and all things upon it testified that there is a Supreme Creator. He then told Korihor that if he denied the existence of God again, he would be struck dumb which he was. Korihor then wrote that he always knew there was a God but he was deceived by the devil who appeared to him in the form of an angel to preach to the people that there was no God. After he was struck dumb, Korihor was forced to go from house to house begging for food and subsequently was trampled to death by the Zoramites showing that the Devil does not support his followers but instead drags them down to Hell.

I was recently contacted by a former member of my ward who called me to ask me what we can do as individuals to combat the ‘doom and gloom’ on social media that are saying the prophecies for the End Times for our nation and the world are set and that there is nothing we can do to change them. He asked me as someone who has served as a political party leader, who has spent much of my life studying how to solve national and world problems, what I think we can do to make a difference at this time of crisis, when we are suffering from the pandemic, a major economic recession and violent rioters seeking to overthrow our freedoms to help save our nation. I told him that I have always been a believer in the power of individuals to make a difference for good but that the most important thing we could do to try to stay the judgments on our nation is to first save ourselves, then our family and then everyone we know by preaching the word of God and converting them to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing more important that we can do.

In Alma 31:5, it states that “the preaching of the word (of God) had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just, yet it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword or anything else.” Studying the Holy Scriptures and heeding the words of the Prophet and the other General Officers of the Church will help us discern truth from error on various issues of contention and concern in our time. The Book of Mormon in particular stands as a guide and an answer to what we should do in our lives today. My favorite modern-day Prophet, President Ezra Taft Benson taught that the Book of Mormon can fortify us against “the evil designs, strategies and doctrines of the devil in our day. The type of apostates in the Book of Mormon are similar to the type we have today. God, with His infinite foreknowledge so molded the Book of Mormon that we might see the error and know how to combat false educational, political, religious and philosophical concepts of our time.”

The Book of Mormon helps us resist the influence of modern-day anti-Christs who preach that the leaders of the Church are deceived and that God’s standard of absolute morality are outdated and must be modified and adapted to the world’s teachings to embrace and even be proud of those who engage in gross immorality which serve as Satan’s counterfeit to God’s laws. The world teaches us that we must abandon our support for traditional marriage between one man and one woman and that families and marriage should be defined anyway individuals want them to be. The world teaches morality is relative rather than absolute morality and that the greatest sin is intolerance of the immoral choices and lifestyles of others. Modern-day secular humanists, such as Communists in China and North Korea, teach there is no God but the all-powerful State and its leaders and that we should worship and obey them not God.

The Lord has declared great and terrible judgments upon the wicked but He has also promised to be merciful to those who love Him and are diligent in keeping His commandments and being strictly obedient to the counsel of the living Prophet. I continue to see misguided friends posting on social media that Church leaders are being deceived on one issue or another and that they are not supporting freedom like Captain Moroni did and therefore they feel justified in ignoring their inspired counsel because they believe they know more and receive more revelation than Church leaders. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Lord leads His Church and reveals His will for us through the Prophet and other general officers of the Church. We have been promised that He will never allow the Prophet to lead us astray. Therefore, we must humble ourselves to accept and obedient to the counsel of the Lord’s anointed Church leaders if we have hope to be saved in the Celestial Kingdom of God and reap the rewards of eternal joy and happiness.

In Alma 31, there is an account of Alma’s preachings unto the Zoramites. Alma taught that God’s word has the power to lead people to righteousness. The leader of the Zoramites, whose name was Zoram taught his people to worship idols rather than God. Alma feared that the Zoramites might dissent away to the Lamanites and join them in military aggression against the people of Nephi. The Zoramites went up to a place called Rameumpton and all prayed the same prayer which denied the existence and divine mission of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Zoramites were focused on the accumulation of the riches of the world and were filled with the pride of their hearts, which we have been taught is the foundation of sin.

Alma took the sons of Mosiah along with his sons Shiblon and Corianton to preach the Gospel of repentance to them to convince them of the errors of their ways. This scripture states that Alma blessed them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. It also says that “the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they thirst and also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ” because Alma prayed in faith This is a wonderful scripture that gives us greater hope and faith that at this time in our individual tribulations relating to the pandemic, health issues, finances and other trials, if we pray in faith, the Lord can alleviate our afflictions as well and bless us with His Holy Spirit of peace, comfort and physical, spiritual and emotional healing especially for our noble children now serving on missions. I pray that it might be so in the Holy name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Message by Brother David Pyne