John Bytheway: 00:00 Welcome to Part Two with Professor Jack Welch. Alma 36-38. Speaking of looking at both sides here, I’m using paper scriptures. I’m looking at verses 12 and verses 19, and they’re straight across from each other. President Boyd K. Packer in April 2001 talked about verse 12. He mentioned the words racked and harrowed. He described in painful detail what a rack was, like an instrument of torture.

  00:31 And then he described what a harrow was with spikes on it that is dragged over hardened ground. And how this was happening to his hardened heart so that God could plant a new seed. But one of the things that on the other side in verse 19, he says, “I could remember my pains no more.” And I’ll bet that all of us have heard this and maybe asked the question ourselves. How do I know if I’ve been forgiven? I like the clue it gives us here. I love this phrase, I could remember my pains no more.

  01:12 Yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. It doesn’t say you don’t remember your sins anymore. Alma is telling us about his sins, but the memory of them didn’t harrow him up. It didn’t hurt anymore. And that seems to be a result of this repentance is that, oh, I remembered my sins but it didn’t harrow me up anymore. It didn’t cause pain anymore. And then verse 20, what joy and marvelous light I did behold, and my soul was filled with joy as exquisite as was my pain. Do you see the same thing there?

Hank Smith: 01:49 Oh, absolutely. How do I know, I like that you brought that up. How do I know if I’ve been forgiven of my sins? As we work towards the center of the chiasm here, it’s that your thoughts are centered on Christ. As soon as your thoughts are centered on Christ and you’re starting to feel that strength, you’re feeling the Holy Ghost, you know it’s working. It’s difficult to say at a certain point, oh, I’m forgiven, I’m done, right? But you’re trending in the right direction, but you’re keeping centered there on Christ.

John Bytheway: 02:23 And I remember one of our guests earlier quoting President Eyring, that if you are feeling the spirit that is evidenced that the atonement is working in you, but a caution then, who would really want to keep reminding you of your sins?

Hank Smith: 02:39 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 02:39 I love that little clue right there. Here’s how you know it’s not going to harrow you up anymore, but don’t let Satan try to do that because he will.

Hank Smith: 02:52 John, I’m reminded of our discussion with Dr. Spencer who said, “The evidence can convince you, but this, this converts you.” Verses 17 and 18, that’s center point. That is life changing from darkness to light.

Prof. Jack Welch: 03:09 I agree entirely with that. We need a little help in knowing, so what is it that we really should focus on? It’s perfectly obvious to us. It’s taken a while for us to really focus on that as the main important part of what the gospel of Jesus Christ really amounts to. Now to us we say, well, of course it’s that way, but it wasn’t always understood of coursely that way. Alma has left us with a wonderful personal record and let’s turn for a moment then to chapter 37. It’s rather straightforward. It’s mostly personal instruction to Helaman about his responsibilities as the guardian of the sacred treasures where he’s given the brass plates, the liahona, the other sacred relics and artifacts that were brought from the old world. These were in the custody of the high priest. And I imagine they were kept in what they would’ve called their holy of holies. Alma had used these, they were part of his life. He’s entrusting those to his oldest son. I imagine that he’s already trained Helaman. He doesn’t say, just well put them in a box somewhere. I think Helaman knows what to do with them. He also interestingly gives Helaman the 24 gold plates, which are not to be made public, but were very important treasures and they knew and understood that it contained the story of the Jaredites and we will get that in the book of Ether much later.

John Bytheway: 04:43 One of the things I love about Alma 37 is this phrase, it’s in verse eight, “And now it has hitherto been wisdom in God that these things should be preserved; for behold they have enlarged the memory of this people.” I’ve enlarged the memory of my laptops back in the day, but to enlarge the memory, I think my mission president used to say the weakest ink is better than the strongest memory. And the scriptures enlarged the memory of the Nephites by preserving their history and their testimony and keeping it alive, just the way our personal journals can enlarge the memory of our children and give them a sense of our family history. There’s another thing my mission president used to say, that wise people learn from experience, but super wise people learn from others’ experience. I think, what are the scriptures? They’re the experiences of others. They can enlarge our memories. I remember reading about this in sixth grade and I didn’t understand it at all, but people that thought that language and books are miraculous and now I get that. This is miraculous that we can preserve memories with little marks on paper called words, that we can enlarge our memories, our experiences, we can benefit from the experiences of others.

Hank Smith: 06:05 Absolutely. John, since you talked about your favorite part of Alma 37, if you don’t mind, I’m going to jump in. I’ve always loved these opening verses six and seven where it seems Alma is thinking Helaman might not take these things as seriously as he hopes him to because this sounds like a dad saying, now look, I know what you’re going to think. And he says, you may suppose that this is foolishness in me, but behold I say unto you that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. It’s a common phrase I think in the church, right? Is this by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. I think I could start it with almost any church member and they would be able to finish it, but I’ve always loved it because if you look at a painting, for example, if you take Starry Night, I think it’s the most valuable piece of art in the United States.

  06:57 I’m not sure, but I think it’s up there in the $180 million range. Let’s say you were to cut it up, I would cut up a replica. I wouldn’t cut up the original, but let’s say you take a replica and you cut it up into little pieces, you would find that Starry Night, this masterpiece, is created of just individual brushstrokes. They’re not all impressive. Each individual brushstroke isn’t super impressive, but man, when you back up and look at all those little tiny brushstrokes one after another after another, they become a great thing. Their very small and simple brush strokes are great paintings brought to pass. Can I read a little bit from, I wish I could say I got this idea myself, but it comes from Elder Bednar, this talk from 2009 more diligent and concerned at home. He says in my office is a beautiful painting of a wheat field.

  07:52 The painting is a vast collection of individual brushstrokes, none of which in isolation is very impressive or interesting. In fact, if you stand close enough to the canvas, all you can see is a massive seemingly unrelated and unattractive streaks of yellow, gold and brown paint. However, as you gradually move away from the canvas, all of the individual brushstrokes combine together and produce a magnificent landscape of a wheat field. Many ordinary individual brushstrokes work together to create a captivating and beautiful painting. Well, then he relates that to our homes. He says each family prayer, each episode of family scripture study and each family home evening is a brushstroke on the canvas of our soul. No one event may appear to be very impressive or memorable, but just as the yellow and gold and brown strokes of paint compliment each other and produce an impressive masterpiece, so are consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results.

  09:04 John, Jack, he adds this little discussion he and his wife had, he said, sometimes Sister Bednar and I wondered if our efforts to do these spiritually essential things were worthwhile. Now and then verses of scripture were read amid outbursts, such as he’s touching me, make him stop looking at me, mom, he’s breathing my air. Sincere prayers occasionally were interrupted with giggling and poking, and with active rambunctious boys, family home evening lessons did not always produce high levels of edification. At times, Sister Bednar and I were exasperated because the righteous habits we worked so hard to foster did not seem to yield immediately the spiritual results we wanted and expected. Today, if you ask our adult sons what they remember about family prayer, scripture study and family home evening, I believe I know how they would answer. They likely would not identify a particular prayer or a specific instance of scripture study or an especially meaningful family home evening lesson as the defining moment in their spiritual development. What they would say they remember is that as a family we were consistent. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.

John Bytheway: 10:26 Ah, I really like that

Hank Smith: 10:29 Jack, what are we going to look at next?

Prof. Jack Welch: 10:32 Alma 38 is interesting because it’s a short chapter but it divides exactly in half, but in a different way. Alma begins by telling the story of his conversion to his son, Shiblon. And he starts where he starts in Alma 36 and you can read through and in about four or five verses he goes through exactly those same steps, not in quite as much detail, until he comes to that point where he cries out, oh Jesus thou son of God, have mercy upon me. And Shiblon knows that that’s a turning point. You read through that, he finally ends there in verse eight. It came to pass that I was three days and three nights in the most bitter pain and anguish and so on, and never until I did cry out unto the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy did I receive remission of my sins. And then I did find peace.

  11:30 Now what he’s done here is he has given Shiblon half of Alma 36. Under Jewish law, and this comes out of the book of Deuteronomy chapter 21, the oldest son in the family was entitled to what was called the double portion of inheritance. If you have three sons, you divide your estate into four portions. The oldest son gets a half, two fourths, and the others each get their fourth. Now, why would the older son get double? He’s got more responsibilities. He’s got to take care of his mother. He might have to take care of other relatives or other people, but he’s the older son who’s taking the place of the father and will need more resources. Now, Alma doesn’t have a lot of money. He’s not leaving his sons with an estate. He was out in the missionary field. We don’t know where he lived or what kind of home he had, but he seems to have been more out on the road than he was at home.

  12:37 But what he gives to Helaman is a double portion. And what he gives to Shiblon is one portion. And then like he gave to Helaman, personal instructions about what Helaman was supposed to do in his calling as record keeper and guardian of the treasury. Now what will he do for Shiblon? With the second half of this, he now gives him personal advice on how he should live in his personal life. This is your responsibility, your stewardship to be a good man and you go through what you’re supposed to do. Be diligent and temperate in all things. See that you’re not lifted up in pride. Use boldness but not too overbearing. Bridle all your passions that you may be filled with love. Don’t pray the way the Zoramites did. Can you see this as personal advice that Alma is now giving, its advice, but it’s not the official advice like he would give to his first son. That explains why Alma’s giving a shorter blessing to Shiblon.

John Bytheway: 13:42 Jack, I’m glad you read that verse. I was one time in the JSB and Elder Neal Maxwell was there. This is probably before you were born, Hank. It was a conference on King Benjamin’s speech, but I don’t know how Alma 38:12 came up. He said, if you were to compress the missionary handbook into one verse, it could be Alma 38:12. And I had never thought of it that way, but think of this as the missionary handbook. This is prior to Preach My Gospel, we had this little white handbook we carried in our pocket. Think of this as a missionary, use boldness but not overbearing and also see that ye bridle all your passions that ye may be filled with love. See that ye refrain from idleness. Isn’t that interesting? Great advice for a missionary. I’ve heard lots of people talk about this idea of bridling your passions. That is a sermon in a sentence. He doesn’t say kill your passions or destroy your passions, but what’s a bridal? What do we use that for?

Prof. Jack Welch: 14:48 I’m not a horse person, but I’m pretty sure it’s a horse.

John Bytheway: 14:51 Right. Let me quote Elder Bruce C. Hafen, he said, is self-denial wise because there’s something wrong with our passions or because there is something right with our passions? Alma taught his son, see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love. He did not say we should suppress or eliminate our passions, but rather bridle them. Harness, channel and focus them. Why? Because disciplining our passions makes possible a richer, deeper love. And I love what comes after, bridle all your passions, not because that’s bad, bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love. How positive is that?

Hank Smith: 15:34 Sounds a lot like our appetites and passions are better used when they’re within the bounds the Lord has set.

John Bytheway: 15:44 We bridle a horse, not because horses are bad, but because they are so powerful and useful if we bridle them.

Hank Smith: 15:53 I love that.

Prof. Jack Welch: 15:55 That brings us to the end of today’s lesson. We might want to end with Alma’s blessing there, which I think is a beautiful farewell. May the Lord bless your soul and receive you at the last day into his kingdom to sit down in peace. Now go my son, and teach the word unto this people. Be sober, which is a way of saying be wise. My son, farewell. That is Alma, oh, he’s leaving. Well he says farewell. Well, he’s not through. Next week we’ll go through Alma 39 to 42 where he now will speak to Corianton. The topics he will cover there of course are the things that a wayward son needs to know about the plan of redemption, the plan of restoration, the plan of mercy, the plan of salvation. Alma will mention the word plan 10 times in those four chapters.

  16:57 I think it’s his way of saying, well, we know that there are 10 commandments, but the reason behind those 10 commandments are these 10 expressions and explanations of the plan of salvation, of mercy, of redemption, of restoration, and of happiness. And I’d like to conclude with the comment by Elder Maxwell. Sometimes we just talk about the plan of salvation. We’ve gotten better now and we sometimes talk about the plan of mercy. All of these different attributes of God’s plan are a part of Alma’s explanation of what is the plan really all about and how will it work in your life? And the point that Elder Maxwell made at the end of one of his books was that the principles of the gospel need each other as much as we people need each other in the church and in the kingdom of God. That the principles of the gospel are all together dependent upon each other. They are an organ with all the pipes and you have to have all the pipes playing.

  18:13 I think all of these ways in which Alma explains what the plan of happiness, salvation, mercy, redemption, restoration, and atonement are all about is a really unusually profound insight in a way. You read through those chapters and you can see a great mind and a great spirit and a fantastic testimony at work on his son Corianton. And it works. He converts, he repents, and wouldn’t that be a blessing to all of us as parents?

Hank Smith: 18:53 Everyone knows, all that we’ve been talking about today, our wonderful Team member Lisa Spice will make sure it’s in our show notes. Go to followhim.co. We’ll link it all over to Book of Mormon Central and all the other articles we’ve mentioned.

Prof. Jack Welch: 19:06 Well that’s great. Thank you for doing that. And again, you can go on the Book of Mormon Central Archive and you can look up another book that I’ve written. It’s called The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple, and it was published by an academic press in London called Ash Gate Publishers. What I wanted to do was show that each of the words, the elements in the Sermon on the Mount have temple significance. For example, when it says put your light on a candle, your lamp it says really, don’t put it under a bushel. Well, the word there for candlestick is luchnia, which is the word for the menorah. Put your light on the menorah. You’re adding your light to the light of the temple. There’s a temple connection, and you go through the beatitudes. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

  20:06 That’s coming right out of Psalm 24 where it says the pure in heart shall see God. And that’s a psalm the pilgrims sang when they were coming to the temple. You can go down through all of the elements in The Sermon on the Mount, and almost every one of them has important temple connections. And I’ll mention one last one. You remember when it says if you come to the altar and you realize that your brother has ought against you. The altar, how many altars were there in Jesus’s day? There’s only one altar. Here you come unto the altar of the temple and you’re told if you have ought against your brother, stop what you’re doing, leave your sacrifice and get out there and get reconciled. If there are any hard feelings, we can’t do at the altar what we need to do. Does that sound temple-ish to you?

John Bytheway: 21:06 It sure does. Yeah. The last time I was at the Mount of Beatitudes, I was drawing on my iPad and I thought, oh, this is cool if this is the Moses thing to go up into the mount. And I thought it was interesting that it was the Premortal Christ at Sinai. It was the mortal Christ at the Mount of Beatitudes and it was the resurrected Christ at the temple at Bountiful. I thought how interesting he was at all those places, but it was a different time. And in the Sermon on the Mount, they’re astonished because of his taught them as one authority and not as the scribes. And I love what the JST does with that, with authority from God and not with authority from the scribes. But then in the Book of Mormon, it sounds like they’re astonished because the law of Moses was coming to an end. We were talking our last episode about how often people get astonished in the Book of Mormon. You’ve heard me talk about this before.

Prof. Jack Welch: 22:05 Yeah. That’s great. Well, one other thing, what you’ve noticed there is you have Jesus in the preexistence, in the mortal, and then in the resurrection. You have the three stages of the plan of salvation.

John Bytheway: 22:20 Oh, that’s a good way to look at, yeah. When the Zoramites say in their prayer that you are the same yesterday, today and forever, I always ask my class, well, at one time he was a spirit. Another time he was immortal. And another time, well another time he was resurrected. What must that mean then about being the same? It’s a different, his reliability maybe instead of his form. The Zoramites, they had a truth in there, but they weren’t looking at it right. I always thought that’s interesting.

Prof. Jack Welch: 22:54 Yeah, yeah, that’s good. That’s good.

Hank Smith: 22:56 Jack, before we let you go, I was wondering if you could answer a question for us. And John, I’d like you actually to answer this question as well. I often ask this of our guests. John, why don’t I ask it of you and then Jack? We have people who listen all over the world. It’s one of the fun parts of our job is hearing from people in Germany and in Japan and in Madagascar and in Farmington saying, I’m listening to the show. John and Jack, let’s say I’ve listened to these stories of Alma talking to his sons, Helaman and Shiblon. What do you hope I walk away with? Maybe I haven’t told you this before, but we even have prisoners in jails and prison facilities who are allowed to listen to our podcast. What would you say to them? What’s your hope?

John Bytheway: 23:50 I love that Alma is not saying Helaman, I’ve done everything in my life perfectly and here’s how you should do it too. This is more like Helaman, Shiblon, I was a mess. I was in a bad place doing bad stuff. Here’s how I got through that. It was through Christ. He is our hope and our anchor and the way it’s presented is dazzling in chiasmus. But please don’t miss that this isn’t a perfect father talking to perfect sons. This is a father saying, I had really messed up and let me tell you how I got out of that. And it was all because I was delivered by Christ. The same way he delivered the Egyptians, he can deliver me and he can deliver you. That’s, I think, central to the whole thing.

Hank Smith: 24:48 I think of anyone who’s in Alma 37:45, anyone who’s in a veil of sorrow that you can listen to Alma as he says, the words of Christ, if you follow their course, can carry you beyond that veil of sorrow. Anyone who’s listening can know that it will come to pass. The Book of Mormon says frequently, and it came to pass. This veil of sorrow will come to pass. Jack, how about you? How would you answer that question?

Prof. Jack Welch: 25:19 Oh, that’s a great question and I hope first of all that anyone in that position will see Alma as a friend. See Alma as someone who has been in prison, he was imprisoned for several months, tortured, almost put to death. They hoped that he would die. He was delivered from that. I don’t think he ever forgot that. He knows your condition and what he’s telling everyone is the way in which no matter where you are or what your condition might be, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ that is eternal and is true. He talked about remembering the captivity and bondage of his own people and how he himself was suffering and under a type of captivity before he was liberated. Now that liberation can occur no matter where you are, even if you’re in prison. And then he talks to his son, Corianton, and he wants Corianton to realize that when you die, when it’s over, it’s not over.

  26:29 There is more to come. Alma makes a big point about how some people that he had had to work with there in his own society denied that there would be a judgment and an afterlife. And what Alma promises them in chapter 42 is that God will provide a way and a time, a length of time that judgment will not be entered until everyone has had time to repent. And Alma says that he will even give you a space of time. I think that’s very interesting that the word space is used there because that’s an opening. You’re not being confined. The time will be open and whether it’s in this life or before the resurrection in the next life, Alma says, the law of mercy is not that he will somehow just forget what you’ve done, but that you will be given time to repent. And that’s mercy, because God will not execute judgment.

  27:44 He will give you a stay of judgment and he will not execute that judgment until you have had all the time you are asking for and in his righteousness know that would be good for you and will leave you to have. This is something that you won’t find taught anywhere outside the Book of Mormon. I know that this is true. And I know that the Lord loves his children and everyone, no matter their condition, no matter their place in the world, no matter their problems, no matter their successes, he loves all of us and wants us to come back to him voluntarily that we choose him. And if we do, he will magnify us. I promise.

Hank Smith: 28:43 Jack, thank you for spending time with us and telling us about chiasmus and walking through these chapters with us.

Prof. Jack Welch: 28:49 You’re sure welcome. Thank you.

Hank Smith: 28:51 And with that, we want to thank Dr. Jack Welch for being with us today. It has been an absolute treat to walk through these chapters. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’re looking at Alma speaking to his son, Corianton, on followHIM. Before you skip to the next episode, I have some important information. This episode’s transcript and show notes are available on our website, followhim.co. That’s followhim.co. On our website you’ll also find our two free books, Finding Jesus Christ in The Old Testament and Finding Jesus Christ in The New Testament. Both books are full of short and powerful quotes and insights from all our episodes from the Old and New Testament. The digital copies of these books are absolutely free. You can watch the podcast on YouTube. Also, our Facebook and Instagram accounts have videos and extras you won’t find anywhere else. If you’d like to know how you can help us, if you could subscribe to rate, review, and comment on the podcast, that will make us easier to find. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Neilson, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra and Annabelle Sorensen.

President Russell M. Nelson: 30:11 Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn to Him. Follow Him.