Hank Smith: 00:00:04 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name’s Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with my co-host, John Bytheway, who I describe as if all co-hosts had been and were and ever would be likened to John Bytheway, the very powers of podcasts would be shaken forever. John, a perfect description of you. We’re also here with our guest, Dr. David Boren. John, let’s start with you. War chapters. You’ve literally written the book on the war chapters. As you look at this first half, what are you thinking about?

John Bytheway: 00:00:44 Where do I start? So many things. Some of these men held the priesthood. How do men who hold the priesthood go to war? What do they do? It’s interesting to see how often it is repeated. This is why we are fighting. This is what we are fighting for. This is what we are fighting against. How does a man of Christ go through this kind of a thing? That’s what’s really fascinating to see helpful for our day too.

Hank Smith: 00:01:09 I know you love studying history and wartime history, so it’ll be fun to see you go through this with our guest, Dr. David Boren. David, what are we going to look at today? As you’ve prepared, how are we going to walk through this?

Dr. David Boren: 00:01:23 There is so much here like John said. Definitely going to take a look at leadership and the importance of righteous leaders and their impact, and then just the fact that we are in a war and we can win this war with Christ as our captain. Really excited to look at how these warriors exemplify Christ and Christ-like leadership definitely relates to our day.

Hank Smith: 00:01:50 Beautiful. Both of you, I can tell I’m going to learn a lot today. John, David has never been on our show before. I’ve known him for quite a while. I’m guessing our audience doesn’t know David. So can you introduce him?

John Bytheway: 00:02:02 Absolutely. David Boren grew up in Mesa, Arizona and Sandpoint, Idaho. Served his mission to Concepción Chile, did I say that right? Learning the celestial language of Spanish. He attended BYU as an undergraduate. Studied elementary education and business management, met his fabulous wife, Sherry, on a blind date during his final semester right before leaving for China to do his student teaching. He’s been an educator for over 20 years. Teaching it in the public schools is exactly why we asked him to come and talk about the war chapters. He taught at the Provo MTC, worked as a public school teacher and administrator. During his time as a public school educator, he earned a master’s in PhD in educational leadership from BYU.

  00:02:50 In fact, here’s the fun part. He worked hard to keep Hank in line as they collaborated on trust research during their PhD programs. Hank, yours was trust relationships or something like that, right?

Hank Smith: 00:03:02 Yup, high trust relationships between principals and teachers, and I really rode the coattails of David Boren, who’s a couple of years ahead of me.

John Bytheway: 00:03:11 Brother Boren currently works as the director of BYU school leadership program. David and his wife Sherry have five amazing children, live in Pleasant Grove. His oldest son is currently serving in the Washington, DC South Mission. We’re thrilled to have you teach us some things about these wonderful chapters. Thanks for coming.

Dr. David Boren: 00:03:30 Happy to be here.

Hank Smith: 00:03:32 John, David, like I said, was a year ahead of me or so in our PhD program. I heard quite a bit about him from the teachers who had just had him. They would say things similar to what I said about you. If all PhD students could be likened to David Boren, everyone would get their doctorate in six months. They loved him so much that they took him on and hired him there. David, they took you right into that department you graduated from.

Dr. David Boren: 00:03:58 They hadn’t fixed me totally. They needed more time to fix me. Yeah, but I’m happy to be there. It’s a great place.

Hank Smith: 00:04:05 David, I’m going to read from the Come, Follow Me manual. These opening paragraphs of the manual are so well-written. It says this. “When we read these words at the beginning of Alma 43, ‘And now I return to an account of the wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites,’ it’s natural to wonder why would Mormon include these war stories when he had limited space on the plates.” He frequently tells us, “I can only tell you one hundredth.” It says, “It’s true that we have our share of wars in the latter days, but there is value in his words beyond the descriptions of strategy and tragedy of war. His words also prepare us for the war in which we are all enlisted the war we are fighting each day against the forces of evil. This war is very real and the outcome affects our eternal lives. Like the Nephites, we are inspired by a holy cause.”

  00:04:53 John, you talked about that. “What are we fighting for? “Our God, our religion and freedom and our peace and our wives and our children, what Moroni called the cause of the Christians.” It sounds like we’re starting a great inspiring movie. So David, where do you want to go? How do you want to start?

Dr. David Boren: 00:05:11 Before we even jump into these chapters, I just want to start off testifying of the Book of Mormon. Changed my life. I remember listening to Ezra Taft Benson as a young man. I’m just going to read a quote because I remember listening to it in our living room, listening to general conference, and it hit me so hard and it’s changed my life. He says, “There is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the straight and narrow path. The scriptures are called the words of life, and nowhere is that more true than in the Book of Mormon. When you begin to hunger and thirst after those words, you will find life in greater and greater abundance.”

  00:06:02 And when President Benson said that, I was a young man, it hit me so hard. I had never really read the Book of Mormon, but I started. I started reading every day. The young people know and all of us know that temptation is so real. I felt a power come into my life. It blessed my life and my studies. It blessed my relationships, and it continues to do so this day. And I’m not perfect in my study and reading of it, but I sure feel its power when I’m consistent there. I just want to start off saying that I love this book and it has absolutely been a lifesaver for me.

Hank Smith: 00:06:40 David, thank you so much. It’s a very powerful way to start. This book is unmatched. It’s unparalleled.

Dr. David Boren: 00:06:47 Yeah, I absolutely agree.

Hank Smith: 00:06:50 Before I let you jump into the war chapters here, David, I got to read something to you. I picked this up in a book the other day. This is from a great author. He says, “All of these reasons help us understand why the Book of Mormon discusses so many wars. I love the war chapters. I don’t love war, but I love these chapters, and I know that I’m not alone. Many of us love the war chapters because of their intriguing mixture of heroism, adventure, treachery, deception, faith and devotion. We’re fascinated by brilliant military tactics using prophetic reconnaissance and by deceptively simple stratagems, decoys and snares. We’re sobered when we see the effects of raw ambition and political upheaval on the children of Lehi, and we’re touched by the profound gratitude and deep sorrow among those who are spared in the aftermath.”

  00:07:43 That is quite a dramatic paragraph written by one John Bytheway in a book I have on my shelf, Righteous Warriors: Lessons from the War Chapters in the Book of Mormon. John, it’s been almost 20 years since you wrote that book. You still happy with it?

John Bytheway: 00:08:00 Yeah. I’m here to learn more. One of the things that President Packer said was that Mormon could not resist sharing a generous amount of military tactics and strategies because he was a general. Then he said this remarkable insight is also a testimony builder. Yeah, why is this all in here? Well, the person who abridged the book was a general. He saw the application of the principles of the gospel and of faith in Christ even and especially in these difficult times for the children of Lehi.

Hank Smith: 00:08:34 David, hopefully you don’t mind that I wanted to use a paragraph from one of my favorite authors. I don’t know if he’s my favorite author, but he is one of my favorite authors. All right, David. What do you want to do?

Dr. David Boren: 00:08:48 Yeah, a couple of background things. I wanted to read a quote by Thomas S. Monson real quick about the war chapters and war in general. He says, “The world can at times be a frightening place in which to live. The moral fabric of society seems to be unraveling at an alarming speed. None, whether young or old or in between, is exempt from the exposure to those things which have the potential to drag us down and destroy us, but we need not despair. It is a war we can and will win. Our Father in Heaven has given us the tools we need in order to do so.”

  00:09:24 It can be really depressing in these war chapters to see the evil it’s rampaging, and it can be depressing to watch the news today, to see the evil that’s creeping into personal lives, but I love that President Monson is full of hope. I get that same vibe from President Nelson and all the church leaders that, yeah, it’s hard, but this is a war we can win. We have the tools to do so. One of the things we’ll want to watch for in these chapters is what are some of those tools that the Lord’s given us to help us in this modern-day latter-day war?

Hank Smith: 00:09:58 All three of us work with young people, college students, and I’ve felt that way before, David. Looking at the world they face, it can be discouraging. How do you fight evil this big and the resources that they have to get to young people? I just think, “Oh, can we win?” So when I hear something like that, not only can we win, we will.

John Bytheway: 00:10:21 David, a great way to start the President Benson quotations about the promises, immediate promises of scripture study are power, power, power, power, four times in that paragraph, and I’m reminded of President Nelson. You read this book every day, you will make better decisions every day.

Hank Smith: 00:10:39 Every day. This is the tool to fight these wars.

Dr. David Boren: 00:10:44 The other thing I wanted to highlight before we jump into 43 is the importance of righteous leadership. When I was asked to be on the podcast, I did question a little bit. I don’t speak ancient Greek. I’m not a scholar of the Book of Mormon. I thought, “Man, what can I bring?” Maybe it’s a little unique that I might have some experience in the leadership. Principles is something that maybe I can offer a little bit of. I’m still trying to live those, but these chapters are full of really powerful leadership principles that can bless our lives and serve as some of those tools. Maybe John will use his voice and repeat this quote, but Elder Perry said this, “We live in a world that is crying for righteous leadership.”

  00:11:28 That’s more true today than ever, and Elder Maxwell said, “Our leadership skills have a carryover into eternity.” Learning how to lead, we lead in our families, we lead in our church callings, we lead often in our professions and our neighborhoods, our communities, and we don’t always have a lot of training in that and there are some really powerful principles that come through in these chapters and we’ll try to highlight those.

Hank Smith: 00:11:52 What was that quote from Elder Perry?

Dr. David Boren: 00:11:54 It’s from the October 2002 general conference. “We live in a world that is crying for righteous leadership.”

Hank Smith: 00:12:01 Now, everyone listening out there, John loves Elder Perry. He loves him so much, he can emulate him and his voice.

John Bytheway: 00:12:08 I’ll try. We live in a world that is crying for righteous leadership.

Hank Smith: 00:12:16 Oh, that was beautiful. That was beautiful. John, that was beautiful.

John Bytheway: 00:12:20 We met Elder Perry together, didn’t we, Hank?

Hank Smith: 00:12:22 We did.

John Bytheway: 00:12:24 In a motor home or something in Sacramento.

Hank Smith: 00:12:27 Such a great soul. Good, good, good to the core. I love both of those quotes, David, and I like that you’re bringing that experience. You’ve been training teachers and principals for how long? You’ve been a leader yourself in obviously your home and in schools, right? You’ve been a principal.

Dr. David Boren: 00:12:44 Yeah, it’s been a lot of years, probably 15 years.

Hank Smith: 00:12:48 Do you teach these same principles to your students?

Dr. David Boren: 00:12:51 It is the best job ever. To teach leadership in the context of the gospel is fantastic. I love it.

Hank Smith: 00:12:59 Let’s just jump right in.

Dr. David Boren: 00:13:00 We’re going to hit several leadership principles in chapter 43. Verse number one, and I just want to hit on Corianton for a minute. One leadership lesson is that great leaders see the best in others, help them to see that in themselves. Alma did such a beautiful job helping Corianton to see that in himself, to see his potential, to see who he really is because here in verse one, it says that, “It came to pass that the sons of Alma did go forth among the people.” Corianton, being one of them who had struggled on his mission, Alma helped him to repent to get back out on his mission. He turned his life around. I believe a large part of that was a righteous leader, his father seeing him the way God sees him and believing that he could change.

  00:13:55 President Monson gave a great talk several years ago. He said, “Men can change.” You might remember this. He says, “Between the 1940s and 1950s, an American prison warden, Clinton Duffy was well-known for his efforts to rehabilitate men in his prison.” Said one critic, “Don’t you know that leopards can’t change their spots?” Replied Warden Duffy, “You should know that I don’t work with leopards. I work with men and men change every day.”

  00:14:24 If you took a snapshot of Corianton while he was on his first mission, you’d think, “Man, this guy’s a loser,” but the Lord doesn’t just look at us in snapshots. He sees us with an eternal lens. If you looked at him 20 years later in a snapshot, he’d be a totally different person. One more story from Elder Eyring. This is one of my all time favorite stories. He tells the story of a man who had…

  00:14:48 When President Eyring was a bishop and a man that a member of his ward was driving drunk and drove into a bank, Elder Eyring was going to meet with this man after he’d been put in jail, and he was planning what he was going to say to really get after this guy, “Hey, you’ve embarrassed yourself. You’ve embarrassed the church,” and this is what he says, “I heard a voice in my mind say just as clearly as if someone were speaking to me. I’m going to let you see him as I see him, and then for a brief moment, his whole appearance changed to me. I saw not a dazed young man but a bright noble son of God. I suddenly felt the Lord’s love for him. That vision changed our conversation. It also changed me.”

  00:15:39 I believe that Alma saw his son Corianton the way God saw him and gave him that chance to change and I’m sure glad that people can see me that way. I hope I can see others that way. I think that’s one of the first leadership lessons is to see others the way God sees them and see the best in them and allow them to change.

Hank Smith: 00:15:58 Fantastic. I wrote that down right between chapter 42 and 43, just what you said, “Great leaders help others see the best in themselves,” and Alma did. He saw that in Corianton. It’s a very hopeful message, and it seems that Corianton got excited about what his father showed him in himself. That was really great.

John Bytheway: 00:16:21 When I was a bishop, I got the strangest prompting one day. I don’t even think you can do it now, but the prompting was to check the mugshots who got arrested today locally and I went on the computer and there was a member of my ward. I grabbed my bishop’s certificate and I went down to the jail, and with that certificate, they let you right in. This individual continued to ask me, “How did you know that I was here?” This person would not believe me, but it taught me that the Lord knew exactly who that person was and the Lord was mindful of that person.

Hank Smith: 00:17:01 David, I think just what you said there, I would parent differently if I could just keep that principle in mind, my daily interactions, and with my spouse as well, with Sarah. Everything would be different if I could keep this one principle in mind.

John Bytheway: 00:17:18 I think my wife treats me how she hopes I will become, right?

Dr. David Boren: 00:17:25 Another story came to mind from Elder Eyring as well. He tells a story that one of his sons was being really rowdy and jumping on the bed making noise and Elder Eyring was tired and he went in and grabbed his son while he was jumping on the bed and was going to tell him to just be quiet and stop making noise, and he said when he grabbed his son, he had the impression, “You are holding a great man.” He gently set his son down, and his son is a great man, but he said it absolutely changed the way he parented just seeing that vision of his son. You don’t think of that in the war chapters, but that first verse of 43, I believe that Alma followed that leadership principle really well.

  00:18:13 Also in Alma 43:1, Alma exemplifies another leadership principle. It says, “Alma also himself could not rest and he also went forth.” I believe that great leaders are action-oriented. There are examples of this all over in the scriptures. Ether, it says that Ether could not be restrained, and Jeremiah says, “I was weary with forbearing. I could not stay.” Enos says he was wrought upon by the power of God that he must preach and prophesize. There are obviously times when we are prompted to not act, but a lot of times, leaders have this orientation to act, to do something to move the work forward.

  00:18:57 Elder Uchtdorf, I love this quote. I remember when he said it, April 2011. He said, “Somewhere between the hearing, the writing of a reminder on our smartphone, and the actual doing, our “do-it” switch gets rotated to the “later” position. Let’s make sure to set our “do-it” switch always to the “now” position.” I love that Elder Uchtdorf taught that principle as well, that we need to be people of action. When we get those promptings, let’s act on it. Let’s be doers of the word. If we believe all these things, let’s see that we do them, not that we just think about them.

Hank Smith: 00:19:34 You’ve taken the first verse of this section and I’m inspired to be a better husband and father. That’s the power of the Book of Mormon right there and a great teacher in one verse. I’m feeling, “Okay, I can do this. I can be better.”

Dr. David Boren: 00:19:51 One more leadership lesson, I believe, that comes out in verse one is that great leaders engage in face-to-face leadership and lead with love. Alma knew that he had to go out and about among the people in order to truly lead them. I was in a leadership training recently for the Utah area and Elder Brian K. Taylor shared a quote that he once heard from Elder Holland that Jesus did not have an office because he was out among the people. I came across this quote from Pope Francis that I thought really exemplified that. He says, “The priest who seldom goes out of himself misses out on the best of our people on what can stir the depths of his priestly heart.

  00:20:39 This is precisely the reason why some priests grow dissatisfied, lose heart and become in a sense collectors of antiquities or novelties instead of being shepherds living with the smell of the sheep. This is what I am asking you. Be shepherds with the smell of the sheep.” That’s so beautiful.

  00:20:58 When I was 11 years old, we were living in Mesa, Arizona. My dad was an architect. Both of my parents the same week got the impression that they needed to move to a farm in Idaho. They didn’t know what that meant or how to do that, but they moved forward with faith. They were action-oriented, and long story short, they ended up selling the architecture practice and moving to Idaho. My dad became a watercolor artist and sold cowboy art. We starved for the first few years, but it actually worked out and it became really clear why we ended up moving there. I mean, my dad ended up being called as the stake president up there and had a lot of really neat spiritual experiences. I really appreciate their faith.

  00:21:46 One of the things that happened when we moved to Idaho to a little farm is my mom decided to buy sheep. She wanted sheep, and she loved her sheepies. She went out and visited her sheepies every day and would feed them. Each of them had a name. I hated the sheep. They were always getting out and I had to feed them and clean up after them. Well, I just remember one night the sheep got out. It was the middle of the night and my parents got the kids up and said, “Hey, we got to go get the sheep in.”

  00:22:16 My method for gathering the sheep was the stick and yell method. So I would run behind the sheep yelling and hitting the sheep and they just scattered every direction. They’re all over the place. I was not a shepherd with the smell of the sheep. I did not spend time with the sheep. I didn’t love the sheep. My mom wanders out to the barnyard and just smiles knowingly and she starts calling her sheep by name. They know her and love her and they come. She opens the corral gate, they walk right in. She closes the gate. And at first, I was a little ticked off, I was a little upset like, “Why did you get me out of bed? Why didn’t you just get the sheep?” But I learned such a valuable lesson about leadership, that if a sheep can tell when you love that sheep, people can absolutely tell. If you want to really lead people, you have got to be with them and be a shepherd with the smell of the sheep.

Hank Smith: 00:23:24 A shepherd with the smell of the sheep. That’s fantastic. Wow.

Dr. David Boren: 00:23:29 Alma was that type of leader and was out and about.

Hank Smith: 00:23:33 David, if I remember right, your dissertation work was on principal visibility. Now, if anybody’s listening going, “Wow, how did Hank know that?” It was because I was supposed to be just like David Boren, if everyone remembers. From your research, why do we have a tendency to hunker down in our office? Even as church leaders, we do that sometimes.

Dr. David Boren: 00:23:56 Well, I mean, first of all, there is a mountain of administrivia. There is so much to do, paperwork and policies and things that are right in our face. It takes time to be out and about. I’m an Elders quorum president right now and I struggle sometimes to get out and about trying to get the day-to-day stuff taken care of, ministering assignments, sometimes the administrative side of leadership can really make it hard to get to the ministering side, but I do find that when I make the time to be out and about and visiting as a church leader, that is really where the rubber hits the road as a leader and I can be a conduit of God’s love to other people.

  00:24:46 It actually reduces my administrative load because I learn things and take care of things that if I hadn’t have been out and about would grow and multiply and then they would be much bigger than if I hadn’t been out. Sometimes it’s easier to not be out and about. People are messy. We are all messy, but bishops, stake presidents, relief society presidents, our relief society president in our ward now, not to call her out, but she’s fabulous. She is a shepherd with the smell of the sheep. She gets out and about a lot and it makes a huge difference in our ward.

Hank Smith: 00:25:26 Jesus didn’t have an office. I wrote that down. Okay. What do you want to do next, David?

Dr. David Boren: 00:25:31 So let’s get started with the actual war. Verse two takes us into the war chapters and we find out about the Lamanites getting all riled up and they have a captain named Zerahemnah. He’s a piece of work. He also exemplifies some pretty effective leadership principles. Sometimes we think that wicked leaders or terrible leaders and what they do is they use leadership tools for a bad purpose, but they can be really effective. This is another leadership lesson. The leader sets the tone.

  00:26:07 There’s actually a lot of research on this that the person in the top position actually really has a huge impact on the culture, the beliefs and the values that are emphasized. Zerahemnah knew this. You see in verse six of 43 that he appointed chief captains from the Amalekites and the Zoramites. He wanted those that hated the Nephites the most to set the tone.

  00:26:37 There are just example after example of this. I mean, King Noah in the Book of Mormon, it says, “He did cause his people to commit sin,” and Jeroboam in the Old Testament, it says, “The leaders of this people caused them to err and made Israel to sin.” A wicked leader can have a huge impact. Fortunately, the same can be true for a righteous leader. I mean, King Benjamin, it says he appointed just men and teachers and kings who established peace and taught them to keep the commandments. He had a huge trickle-down effect because he set a really righteous tone.

  00:27:12 We’ve seen that with the leadership of the church. Think about President Nelson and the tone that he sets for the rest of the membership of the church. If our organizations are struggling, if our family’s struggling, it might be instructive for us to look in the mirror and just say, “Okay. What kind of tone am I setting? What kind of example am I setting?” because it might be trickling down.

Hank Smith: 00:27:33 I’ve heard it said, David, that a leader can be a thermostat and not a thermometer. You don’t just have to reflect back what the tone is. You can actually set the tone. You can change it.

John Bytheway: 00:27:47 For those who are listening, did you hear that name Zerahemnah and how much it sounds like Zarahemla? If you hear that subtle difference there, Hugh Nibley says, “Hey, this guy was probably a Mulekite from Zarahemla,” which is fascinating because some of the people that cause problems are the Kingmen and the Mulekites, Mulek was a son of King Zedekiah. Maybe when you see a name like that, you think these are maybe people who think by their genealogy they should be kings or they should be rulers. I just think it’s interesting. There’s names that are so close to Zarahemla and this one is one of those, Zerahemnah. We’re going to come to a Zemnarihah at one point too, so yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:28:33 It’s also interesting that Mormon points out that these other leaders, Amalekites and Zoramites, they’re also former Nephites. I think Mormon wants us to see that the Lamanites don’t seem to hate the Nephites as much as the former Nephites hate the Nephites.

John Bytheway: 00:28:51 When I do these chapters, you know the Amazon logo is the word Amazon with an A to Z underneath? I always say the war chapters. I reverse it that Captain Moroni had enemies from Z to A and they start with Zerahemnah and then they go Amalickiah, and then they go Ammoron, and then the Kingmen ruined it because it goes from Z to K, but still, I still put the Z to A thing right there.

Dr. David Boren: 00:29:20 Verse eight and verse nine are fascinating because it says what their reasons were for doing things. John referred to this earlier, but really, what is our purpose here? If you look in verse eight, it says for the Lamanites, this is Zerahemnah, his designs were to stir the Lamanites. And then if you look at verse nine, it says the design of the Nephites was to support their lands and their houses and their wives and their children.

  00:29:51 We’re going to talk a little bit today about how leaders inspire. Among all of the things that leaders do, followers are looking for someone that can inspire and there are lots of ways to do that. Frankly, John and Hank, you’re both really good at inspiring people for good, which is a real blessing to the church and to people around, but how? How do we inspire people?

  00:30:16 Let’s just take a quick look at one way here in verse eight that Zerahemnah inspires is by stirring up anger. It says that he does this, that he might usurp great power over them, the Lamanites. He’s stirring his own people up to anger so that he can control them, also that he might gain power over the Nephites. This is another leadership lesson. Effective leaders are really good at tapping into emotions, and there’s a lot of research on this. I find it fascinating that Zerahemnah, out of all the emotions that he could tap into, he chose to tap into anger. Looking at the emotion of anger, I just did a little research in social media is driven by engagement. The more clicks we get, the more money we make, and they have found that the emotion of anger and the emotions of fear get them more clicks. They feed us more and more content that makes us angry and that makes us fear and it stirs us up.

  00:31:32 Nothing against social media. We all use it. It’s a powerful tool, but it is designed to elicit a response and often that response is anger. Elder Maxwell says that sometimes anger can cause us to surrender our agency because we move out of our own control and into the control of the adversary. That’s one of the leadership lessons is we absolutely need to learn how to leverage and tap into emotions. I mean, a good speaker will do that. A good teacher will do that, but let’s just be really aware and cautious. If someone’s making us angry, they might be able to usurp great power over us. We just need to be really aware of leaders that are doing that.

John Bytheway: 00:32:15 The idea of a design, by design I’m going to use anger, love what you said there because I remember somebody saying, “What does some of these social media sites do?” They say, “What should we be outraged about today? What are we angry about today?” That’s their goal, and like, wow, it’s by design. I love that he uses that word. Thanks for pointing that out.

Dr. David Boren: 00:32:35 They find that people retweet and reshare angry posts more than others. Why would they not feed us more of those? Be really aware and cautious that that’s what we’re getting. I have seen it take control of people that I love in my life that have become bitter and angry.

  00:32:54 Let’s talk a little bit about this idea of motives and design, the reasons that we do things. In addition to tapping into people’s emotions, great leaders clarify and tap into people’s higher purpose, give them an inspiring reason to do things. If you look at Zerahemnah’s reasons, it was power, but the Nephites had a much better cause, and this comes up later and I’m highlighting it now so we can see it again and again.

  00:33:28 They are fighting for their homes and their children and their religion and their rights and their ability to worship God. There’s a great story, and I don’t know if it’s apocryphal or not of John F. Kennedy going to visit NASA. It was when they were trying to get a man on the moon. He asked one of the custodians at the NASA facility what he was doing, and the custodian said, “I’m putting a man on the moon.” He didn’t say, “I’m sweeping the floor,” or, “I’m taking out the garbage.” He says, “I’m putting a man on the moon.”

  00:33:57 There’s a lot of research on job orientation and how we frame what we do every day. There are three orientations. There’s job orientation, which is basically, “Hey, this is a job. It makes me money. I can pay my bills.” The second one is a career orientation, “I enjoy this and I can progress and move forward and make a name for myself.” Nothing wrong with that, but then the third one is a calling orientation, and this is where I feel this deep sense of meaning and calling and my work makes the world a better place. The research is very clear on that we all spend time in all three job orientations.

  00:34:36 There are times where I would just get up and go to work because I got to pay the bills. Other days where it’s a good career and I enjoy it, but there are other times where it’s like, “I am meant to do this and it is going to make the world a better place.” Those that are primarily found in the calling orientation, that spend most of their time living in the calling orientation world are much happier, are much more effective, much more productive, do their work much better. I think that the Lamanites didn’t quite have that calling orientation. Moroni, throughout these chapters, is tapping into this higher purpose.

  00:35:13 When I was an undergraduate trying to decide what to do for my career, I was major hopping, which a lot of undergraduates do. I was going to do business management and then I was going to do social work and then I was going to do marriage and family. I didn’t know what to do. So I called my mom up one Sunday and I bore my soul to her and said, “Mom, I’m wasting my time here. I’m spending a lot of money on housing and food and tuition and I don’t know what to do.”

  00:35:41 At the time, I was teaching at the MTC. This was after my mission. My mom knew that I loved teaching at the MTC, so she said, “Have you thought about teaching as a career?” And when she said that, I got that little prick that that might be something I need to consider, but immediately, I started putting up excuses, that I don’t make enough money, that it’s not very prestigious or kind of curmudgeony. I told my mom, I shared some of my concerns. And then I shared what I thought would be the bell ringer, that would totally resolve her concerns about me being a teacher.

  00:36:18 I said, “Mom, when I grow up, I want to make enough money so that I can serve missions with my wife. I want to work hard, retire and then have enough money to serve missions with my wife.” My beautiful mom said, “David, why don’t you make your life a mission?” And that really struck me.

  00:36:39 So for me, becoming an educator was part of fulfilling my life’s mission. It was a way for me to serve God and his children. You can make your life a mission in any profession anywhere on earth, and I know people that have done that. I know doctors and lawyers and dentists and accountants that have made their life a mission, but that mission or that calling orientation has a tremendous impact on the way we do our work and the way we bless God’s children. I appreciate that Moroni basically said, “Hey, this is our mission here. It’s a worthy cause.”

John Bytheway: 00:37:17 I saw a photograph once of a US Navy ship in the Middle East on the side of the superstructure of the ship in big black letters, “Why we are here?” and it listed September 11th, it listed the USS Cole, it listed …and I thought, “Isn’t that interesting? You need to know why we’re here. We’re going to be giving you orders to do things. We need to know why.” So I’m looking through my war chapters, how often I’ve written in the margin, “Why we are fighting. Why they are fighting. Why we are fighting. Why they’re fighting.” because as you said, they keep bringing it up and we need to know. I like the idea of a calling. Look at verse nine, their wives, their children, their rights and privileges, their liberty and that they might worship God and the title of liberty hasn’t come up yet, but you see it’s beginnings right here.

Dr. David Boren: 00:38:11 As we keep going through the chapter, it starts getting pretty scary. They find a leader to lead the armies of the Nephites, and I’m wondering, “Where did they find this guy?” if you go to verse 17. “And Moroni took all the command and the government of their wars and he was only 20 and five years old when he was appointed.” We’ll talk more about Moroni later. Wow. How did they vet their leaders and find Moroni? Because they scored big on him. Whatever process they had, maybe it was inspiration, whatever process they had, it resulted in a fantastic leader being appointed.

  00:38:57 One of the things that I love about Moroni, if we jump over to 23, it highlights another lesson on leadership. Great leaders are willing to be led. Moroni was willing to be led by the prophet of God. He knew that he needed God’s help, and he asked Alma, “What should we do?” So if you go to verse 23, he asked Alma, “Where are the Lamanites going? What can we do?”

  00:39:27 If I were playing a game of chess against a grandmaster and I had somebody that knew the future and could see what was going to happen telling me, “Oh, they’re going to move to this spot,” there’s almost no way I could lose. Why would I not tap into that? I love this quote. This is by M. Russell Ballard. He says, “Through the centuries, prophets have fulfilled their duty when they have warned people of the dangers before them. The Lord’s apostles are duty-bound to watch, warn, and reach out to help those seeking answers to life’s questions.”

  00:40:06 Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander said this, “To have living prophets, seers and revelators among us and not listen to them is no better than having them not at all.” It would’ve been so foolish for Moroni to ask Alma, “Where should we go and what are the Lamanites going to do?” and then to disregard that and say, “Oh, I disagree. I don’t agree with you.” Sometimes we do that. We take that cafeteria approach to following the prophet. It doesn’t work out.

  00:40:35 I’ll share one more quote. This is a great one by Elder Eyring, “The choice not to take prophetic counsel changes the very ground upon which we stand. It becomes more dangerous.” Every time in my life when I have chosen to delay following inspired counsel or decided that I was an exception, I came to know that I had put myself in harm’s way. Every time that I have listened to the counsel of prophets, felt it confirmed in prayer and then followed it, I have found that I moved towards safety.” Moroni understood that. There’s a prophet. If I will listen to the prophet and follow his counsel, we will find safety. It doesn’t mean there won’t be battles, but we will win.

Hank Smith: 00:41:20 I find that fascinating because if you were going to say, “Who knows more about war, Moroni or Alma?” it’s Moroni. He knows more about war, yet he goes to Alma the prophet for instruction. And I think we could do that in any career. Let’s say you’re a lawyer or an accountant or you are an entrepreneur and you think to yourself, “Well, I know more about this specific field than President Nelson does. So when I get counsel from him, I’m the expert,” but yet Moroni gives us a great example of, “Yes, I’m the expert, but I need a prophet.”

John Bytheway: 00:41:56 I tried to give a name to each one of these chapters, a name that indicates a spiritual lesson, and I love verse 23, and I call this The Prophets Know Where the Enemy will Strike chapter. Love that, like you said, Moroni sent spies. You can see it, “You, you, you, go follow their camp. Tell me where they’re going. You, go ask Alma,” because he is better than having an SR71, Google Earth. Reminds me of, listen to this, this is from 1972, “Satan’s greatest threat today is to destroy the family, make a mockery of the law of chastity and the sanctity of the marriage covenant.” That was Harold B. Lee in 1972.

  00:42:40 In 1972, I think the number one show on TV was Bonanza or something like that. They were pretty safe, but prophets can see things coming and they can tell us where the enemy’s going to strike. It was 1995 when President Hinckley at a Relief Society meeting, Proclamation to the World on the Family, and I think that verse, go ask the prophet where we go to defend ourselves is a great spiritual lesson.

Hank Smith: 00:43:12 That’s excellent. I remember 1995 hearing the proclamation of the family going, “Huh. A proclamation? Don’t we talk about this all the time?” But now, how long has it been? Almost 30 years and everything has changed. Everything has changed since that proclamation. David, where do you want to go next?

Dr. David Boren: 00:43:34 Moroni knows the intention of the Lamanites. It says that in verse 29, and then he is action-oriented. Russell M. Nelson in the 2018 general conference said, “The adversary is increasing his attacks on faith and upon us and our families at an exponential rate. To survive spiritually, we need counter strategies and proactive plans,” and that’s what Moroni did. He got busy. He jumped in and started making all sorts of preparations, arming his warriors, giving them shields and spears and weapons, and they did all sorts of things to build up their cities.

  00:44:19 President Kimball said this. “It is not a little skirmish with a half-willed antagonist, but a battle royale with an enemy so powerful, entrenched and organized that we are likely to be vanquished if we are not strong, well-trained and watchful.” I know it’s exhausting as parents and as leaders. Sometimes it just feels like, “Oh, my gosh, so much to do,” but if we’re not on our A game, we’re going to be in trouble, and we really have to do all that we can to proactively prepare purposely toward the enemy. So Moroni was really, really proactive.

Hank Smith: 00:44:58 The idea is if things feel relatively peaceful, act for when things are not going to be peaceful. Don’t wait until, “Oh, now we have another problem coming. We better prepare for it.” You have that time to prepare. I don’t know if Moroni knows exactly what to do, but he’s going to do something.

Dr. David Boren: 00:45:18 It’s better to get started and then get better than to just wait.

John Bytheway: 00:45:22 As I’m looking through this, I see in verse 29 why they are fighting. I see in verse 45 why we are fighting. I see in verse 47 why we are fighting. I see in verse 49 why we are fighting. That’s inspired leadership. This is what we’re doing here.

Hank Smith: 00:45:38 What is it, John? The main thing?

John Bytheway: 00:45:40 Yeah. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Dr. David Boren: 00:45:45 One thing that I believe you, Hank, brought up if we look at verses 45 through 47, I mean, it talks about being inspired by a better cause. The Nephites did not want to go to war. They didn’t want to fight. These were good people and they were men of God and they felt it was their duty to defend their families even unto bloodshed. I remember when President Hinckley talked about this. He addressed this because it’s a real concern for Christians, the cause of Christians to go out and kill people.

Hank Smith: 00:46:22 Fight.

Dr. David Boren: 00:46:24 President Hinckley said this. He says, “It is clear that there are times and circumstances when nations are justified, in fact, have an obligation to fight for family, for liberty and against tyranny, threat and oppression. When all is said and done, we of this church are people of peace. We are followers of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Prince of Peace. We are also citizens of nations and are subject to the laws of governments. Furthermore, we are a freedom-loving people committed to the defense of liberty wherever it is in jeopardy.” So hard. I don’t know the balance there, but there are times when as a nation and as a people, we have to fight to defend the things that are most dear to us.

John Bytheway: 00:47:11 The word you used there is defend. Interesting rules of warfare that come out here and the Nephites are usually told, “Don’t go up and attack them, but stay home and defend, and then the Lord will help you fight your battles.” I mean, we start to kind of see some rules of engagement, I guess. Look in the very last verse of 43. Moroni saw their terror, and what options does he have here? Wipe them out?

Hank Smith: 00:47:41 Finish them, yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:47:42 He could. They don’t even have armor. When he saw their terror, I just put in my margin, mercy. He called a ceasefire, except fire is usually a gun, so cease lunging at each other with sharp pointy objects, and that sets up Alma 44 when he calls this ceasefire, which is so dramatic.

Hank Smith: 00:48:05 So he’s in this battle, they’re in this battle with Zerahemnah and his armies and Zerahemnah’s men have figured out they’re going to lose.

John Bytheway: 00:48:14 Yeah, and then it’s really interesting to see. We get this amazing speech coming up in 44.

Dr. David Boren: 00:48:21 In 44 verse one, “And it came to pass that they did stop and withdrew apace” This highlights yet another leadership lesson that effective leaders take time to take a step back and reflect and assess where they are. It would’ve been so easy for Moroni just to let them keep slaughtering the Lamanites. He was merciful and took a step back and reflected on what was going on, and that allowed him to gather his thoughts and probably his emotions because they were running high.

  00:48:56 President Hinckley said this. He counseled us to pause and take stock of ourselves, “Pray for guidance, for help, for direction, and then follow the whisperings of the spirit.” We can get so caught up in the whirlwinds of life and the battles of life that we can forget where we’re going and why we’re going there. Moroni had the presence of mind to stop and take a step back and withdraw apace. And that allowed them to then make some of these really important decisions.

  00:49:26 He says, “I do not desire to slay you,” in verse one and verse two, “Neither do we desire to bring any one of you to the yoke of bondage.” And then in verses three and four, he gives all the credit to God in verse five. Great leaders do that. They give credit where credit is due and acknowledge God’s hand. I love in verses three and four how many times they talk about faith. That’s really fueling their work here. I love the word faithful.

  00:49:59 In verse four, when we think of the word faithful, we think of the word obedient, that we’re doing all of the things that we need to do, which I believe is part of it. I also believe that being faithful is being full of faith, full of belief, full of hope, and not just going through the motions because I can go through the motions and be pretty faithless as well and not believe.

  00:50:27 When the Lord urged Thomas in the New Testament, He said, “Be not faithless, believing,” it reminded me of Stephen Robinson‘s book, Believing Christ. I don’t just believe in Christ, but I believe Christ. It’s really easy for us as members of the church to go through the daily and weekly motions, which are really important, but to not believe. We all fall into that. We can ask the Lord to help our unbelief as we continue in those faithful motions, those faithful actions, but I believe that Moroni was helping his people to not only act, but to truly believe in what they were doing.

Hank Smith: 00:51:08 There’s a moment here where he’s talking to Zerahemnah, but you can tell he’s talking to his own men as well. Everybody’s listening in. He’s saying, “Zerahemnah, you cannot destroy our faith. It’s our faith in God. We will be faithful unto him.” So he’s looking at Zerahemnah talking to him, but I can hear his men going, “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, that is why we’re here.” I don’t know if that’s a leadership principle, David, but I’m going to teach you, but I’m also teaching everybody else in the room.

John Bytheway: 00:51:36 Thing that’s fascinating is he’s got them surrounded. He’s got them. He could go right to the terms of surrender, “All right. Swear an oath. Drop your weapons and go home or we will wipe you out,” but instead, “I would indeed be ungrateful if I didn’t stand on this rock this day and share my testimony of Christ with you.” One of the things that I love about this is in the last chapter, it says the Zoramites became Lamanites. And I thought, They’re the Rameumptom people. Thou hast made it known unto us there will be no Christ, and here’s Moroni saying, “Now that I’ve got your full attention, do you know why you’re surrounded? It’s because,” verse three, “of our religion and our faith in Christ,” and then five more times he mentions that faith in Christ. Remember that you didn’t believe in on the Rameumptom there? And then the terms of surrender come out.

Dr. David Boren: 00:52:33 Zerahemnah is like, “Hey, I’m not buying it. I don’t believe it’s your faith.”

John Bytheway: 00:52:36 “It’s not your faith.”

Dr. David Boren: 00:52:38 No. In verse nine, we do not believe that it is God that has delivered us into your hands, but it is by your cunning that has preserved you from our swords. They parlay it back and forth and Zerahemnah’s like, “We’ll give you our weapons, but we won’t make an oath.” Moroni has to make a decision there. That’s pretty good. We’ll win this battle. He decides, “No, I don’t want to win the battle. I want to win the war.” That’s another leadership lesson is that great leaders are resolute and courageous.

  00:53:08 Moroni was going with the long view here. He was playing the long game, “I want to win the war and not just the battle in the short term.” Recently, I was reading a book about Winston Churchill, his first year in office, the decisions he had to make, the criticisms that came his way and people wanting him to capitulate to win in the short term. And he said, “I refuse to do that.” And Hitler really wanted to get him out. Hitler knew that if he could get a different leader in, they could probably make a deal with Britain. It would make the war a lot easier.

  00:53:45 So I wanted to share a quote. This is a famous quote from Winston Churchill. He says, “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and the oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island. Whatever the costs may be, we shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”

  00:54:16 I’m hearing that same resolve from Moroni. We are not going to give up victory. Victory is our aim. This is just another Churchill quote that, “We will wage war with all our might, with all the strength that God can give us,” Churchill said. Churchill’s resolve really did save Britain and that British people as well, their resolve. I see that with Moroni here.

  00:54:43 There are so many times in my life where I question, “Man, is it worth the fight? I’m exhausted. I’m tired. I’m going to give in this once or give in to this demand or this request, and I might just capitulate and I’ll make an exception here, bring the peace for this short term.” I don’t see Moroni doing that. I see him courageously playing the long game, having the courage to do that, even though that was a really hard thing to do because after this, more people are going to die on his side.

John Bytheway: 00:55:15 There’s phrases in here that are so good. You know that these men are husbands and fathers. Listen to verse five, “By the sacred support which we owe to our wives and our children.” That is temporal support. That’s spiritual support. That’s emotional support, support which we owe, sacred support we owe to our wives and children. I love that he says, “Give us your weapons of war. Swear an oath and you can go home,” and they give him the weapons of war and he returns it. “Oh, you’re not going to … Okay. Here’s your sword back. Now we will end the conflict.” Whoa. I love that in the movie when they hand it back to Zerahemnah, “Okay. Here’s your sword. Now, behold, we will end the conflict.” How can you skip these chapters? This is amazing.

Hank Smith: 00:56:02 John, I love that phrase, sacred support. We could talk about our families that way. I’m grateful for the sacred support of my spouse, the sacred support of my children. I’m glad you pointed that out.

John Bytheway: 00:56:16 Speaking of the proclamation on the family, and this is, as you said, David, the motive of calling. This is what they’re thinking of, “I have to be here to defend because of my wife and my children and the sacred support I owe them.”

Dr. David Boren: 00:56:32 Gives the weapons back and they go at it again and the Nephites continue pounding them, and eventually, Zerahemnah says, “Okay. We’ll make an oath and we’ll hand in our weapons,” and like you said, John, Moroni is willing to live up to his end of the bargain and lets them go. That’s extremely merciful and that is hard for us to do in our personal lives.

  00:56:56 When we offer forgiveness to somebody or a second chance and they spit in our face, that can be extremely difficult to then later when they come and say, “Hey, actually, I’m really sorry,” it’s really hard to forgive at that point. You say, “Hey, I tried to give you a chance and you just spurned it,” but that’s what Christ does. 70 times seven, He’ll continue to forgive.

John Bytheway: 00:57:23 Moroni is so in control. It’s amazing. Verse 20, “It came to pass. Moroni caused the work of death should cease again.” So he called another ceasefire, as you just said, and then look at verse 21. The number of the dead was not numbered because the greatness of the number. Yea, the number of their dead was exceedingly great, both on the Nephites and on the Lamanites, and 25-year-old Captain Moroni has to go back to the widows and orphans, explained the price of freedom there. I’ve gotten on my margin, “Freedom isn’t free,” next to verse 21.

Hank Smith: 00:58:04 That verse 17, Moroni was angry because of the stubbornness of the Lamanites, it’s like, “Oh, this doesn’t have to happen. Why?”

John Bytheway: 00:58:14 Yeah, and yet he’s in control enough to call that second ceasefire. He could have wiped them out. I mean, what’s the saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, right? But he calls another, “Okay. Another ceasefire. Stop and we need some help putting away the chairs and you can go home.”

Hank Smith: 00:58:34 What did you say, David, earlier? He’s in control of his emotions. It seems like great leadership, doesn’t it?

Dr. David Boren: 00:58:41 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:58:42 Calm and steady.

Dr. David Boren: 00:58:43 One of the great lessons from chapter 44 is if you are in a battle and you’re losing sight of what’s most important, maybe take a step back, withdraw apace, gather yourself and offer yourself and the other party an opportunity to get control and to move forward productively. I love, John, that you pointed out that he did that again and again. It’s easy to get caught up in the emotion and not offer that, but how often in our lives when we get in a little fight with somebody and we forget what we’re even fighting about because we are fighting about our fighting and we don’t take a minute just to step back and realize what do we really want to have happen here?

Hank Smith: 00:59:29 Excellent. David, it looks like we just got through with Zerahemnah and we pick up another antagonist.

Dr. David Boren: 00:59:39 He’s even better. Let’s just jump into 45. There’s a little bit of a transition here with Alma talking to his son Helaman, but I did want to point out in verse one a little phrase because it comes up again later. So it’s talking about the people of the church and it says they did fast much and pray much and they did worship God with exceedingly great joy. It was so refreshing to read that. These people, they had just been through a pretty terrible war, a return to God with much fasting and prayer, and their worship is with joy.

  01:00:21 Frankly, there are times when I look down the bench on Sunday, I’m not seeing or feeling a lot of joy going on in our worship. I just wonder, “Can we find that type of joy in living the gospel?” And I know you, Hank, have done a lot of work on wellbeing and happiness and really finding joy in living the gospel. I’ve done a little work in schools on assessing and addressing student wellbeing. There is remarkable evidence that we can find great joy amidst our trials and difficulties and that in many ways that can actually bring more joy into our lives. So how can we worship God with exceedingly great joy?

John Bytheway: 01:01:11 We get used to it. It’s routine to be at church, to be worshiping, but when you think about what it means that there is a God, that there is a Jesus Christ, that He does forgive sins, that we will all live again, that we will all see our families, how can you not receive that with great joy? I mean, that’s what I was thinking. Without that, what is there to be happy about?

Hank Smith: 01:01:34 When I think of worshiping with joy, the automatic name that came to my mind was Ammon. This is Alma 26:35. “Have we not reason to rejoice? There were never men that had so great reason to rejoice as we. My joy is carried away even unto boasting in my God. He has all power, all wisdom, all understanding. He comprehends all things. He’s a merciful being.” He said, “How can I not be filled with joy? This is my joy and my great thanksgiving and I will give thanks unto my God forever.” There’s this sense of excitement about his worship that I would love to emulate a little more.

Dr. David Boren: 01:02:14 The gospel is a gospel of joy and happiness. I love this thought from Elder Uchtdorf. He says, “The problem comes when we put our happiness on hold as we wait for some future event, our golden ticket to appear.” I think we feel like we have to be martyrs sometimes in the church like, “Oh, I’m going to trudge through this worship service, but someday it’ll pay off. I’m going to do this family scripture study and it can be a howling success.” I mean, sometimes it is a howling success, more howling than success, but I don’t know that it has to be that way all the time.

  01:02:48 I love this quote from President David O. McKay. He said, “The principal reason the church was organized is to make life sweet today, to give contentment to the heart today, to bring salvation today. Some of us look forward to a time in the future, salvation and exaltation in the world to come, but today is part of eternity.”

  01:03:12 I firmly believe that the Lord would like us to find joy in our worship and in living the gospel today. There are a lot of ways to do that. Part of the struggle with that is a fundamental misunderstanding of God and who He is and our relationship to Him. You both know this quote. It’s one of my favorites by Heber C. Kimball. This is how he describes God. “I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured being. Why? Because I am cheerful, pleasant and lively and good-natured when I have His spirit. That arises from the perfection of His attributes. He’s a jovial, lively person and a beautiful man.” When we understand God and our divine nature and connect with Him, we feel joy. So hopefully we can find that exceeding great joy in our worship.

  01:04:09 One more from President Nelson, “Saints can be happy under every circumstance. We can feel joy even while having a bad day, a bad week or even a bad year. My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. He is the source of all joy. Jesus Christ is joy.” When Moroni said, “It is by Christ that we have done all these things,” that’s why they’re finding joy, exceedingly great joy in their worship of God. It’s likely focused on Christ.

Hank Smith: 01:04:48 I can’t wait to show my kids that fasting and joy were in the same verse together on chapter 45 verse one.

John Bytheway: 01:04:56 Brad Wilcox said once, “Fast Sunday. It’s the slowest Sunday in the church.”

Hank Smith: 01:05:01 It’s not super fast.

John Bytheway: 01:05:03 They’re fast about it.

Hank Smith: 01:05:04 Dinner on fast Sunday is a great joy.

Dr. David Boren: 01:05:08 Alma talks to Helaman, basically tells him, “Hey, here’s a little sneak peek about what’s coming up and it’s devastating.”

John Bytheway: 01:05:16 It’s not good.

Dr. David Boren: 01:05:18 We’ve worked so hard to defend our land and our people and our religion and to find out that at some point that the Nephites are going to be destroyed, that has got to be really hard to hear. Fortunately, Alma tells Helaman, “Hey, don’t share this broadly. We don’t want to dishearten everybody,” but that probably weighed really heavily on Helaman. We know it weighed heavily on Nephi. They suppose that Alma was buried by the hand of the Lord. We don’t know, but he departed out of the land of Zarahemla and went into the land of Melek and they didn’t hear from him again.

  01:05:54 Again, reflecting back on Alma’s life, where he started and what he went through and what he became, if we had taken a snapshot of Alma earlier in Mosiah, we would’ve said, “This guy is nothing but trouble.” The Lord can change us. The Atonement can change us, the power of Christ. Alma was absolutely a changed man.

John Bytheway: 01:06:16 He was not a leopard, right?

Dr. David Boren: 01:06:19 He was not a leopard. That’s right. He’s a man and men change every day.

Hank Smith: 01:06:24 I’m glad you brought this up, David, and maybe I shared this, John, way back when we did Mosiah 27 and 28, where Mormon, what does he call Alma the younger and his friends, the vilest?

John Bytheway: 01:06:36 Vilest of sinners, yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:06:38 And here we get to chapter 45 where it seems he’s translated. That’s quite a most improved award. Going from vilest of all sinners to translated prophet. Elder Holland said, “More pages are devoted to the span of Alma the younger’s life and ministry more than any other person in the Book of Mormon. The life of Alma the younger portrays the gospel’s beauty and reach and power perhaps more than any other in holy scripture.” I’m glad you brought that up, what you said in the beginning, people change. Alma the younger is the example that people change. They don’t just pretend to change. Everything about them, their natures change.

Dr. David Boren: 01:07:19 If anyone listening feels like they’re the vilest of sinners, I would testify that Christ can change you. Don’t give up.

Hank Smith: 01:07:29 He didn’t change himself, did he? He just opened himself up to the Lord’s power.

John Bytheway: 01:07:34 He is so good at remaking us. Look what he did for Alma, his start and his finish here, translated even like Moses.

Hank Smith: 01:07:44 So Helaman takes over.

Dr. David Boren: 01:07:45 Yup, Helaman takes over, and then it gets interesting real fast. If you go to verse 21, you see that a lot of little dissensions and disturbances pop up. In verse 23, it talks about there arose a dissension among them. We see this throughout the rest of the war chapters. These little disturbances and little dissensions, if they are not nipped in the bud right away, they grow and fester and they get out of hand. I mean, it’s like Elder Uchtdorf‘s only by a few degrees. You start a few degrees off and eventually you can get way, way off, and we see that in this chapter here, where they start these little squabbles and quibbles and fights and it gets nasty real fast.

John Bytheway: 01:08:32 Thank you for reading verse 21. This phrase, it became expedient that the word of God should be declared among them. This is my title for this chapter, Declare the Word of God in Times of War because it’s easy to think, “Hey, listen, we’re at war. Let’s put all this worship stuff on the back burner. We have bigger problems,” but this is reversed. “Oh, no, this is the time, the most important time to declare the word of God. It’s not a put it on the back burner.” It’s a spiritual preparation. It’s always first in the war chapters. It’s never, “Well, let’s solve these wars and then we’ll get back to church.” It’s never that. It’s always the other way around.

Dr. David Boren: 01:09:14 We’re letting the tail wag the dog. We’re hacking at the leaves when we’re fighting those physical wars. If we could change our hearts, that would end the war. That would change everything. They’re having these little squabbles and there’s some contentions and dissensions and pride. Then we transition to chapter 46 where it starts getting really out of hand.

John Bytheway: 01:09:41 Enemies from Z to A, and here comes our first A.

Dr. David Boren: 01:09:46 I mean, I’m starting to hear the death march here from Darth Vader. Amalickiah is going to show up.

Hank Smith: 01:09:53 It seems we’re getting set up for almost a satanic versus a Christ-like figure. Doesn’t it feel that way, that Amalickiah is really dark and really terrible and Moroni is this Christ figure who will even shed his own blood?

Dr. David Boren: 01:10:13 I’m kind of a Lord of the Rings junkie. I like Lord of the Rings. When Frodo and company first meet Aragorn and say, “Oh, I think an agent of the dark would look fairer and feel fouler.” Amalickiah was probably a really charismatic, really handsome, eloquent, I don’t know, but he was extremely influential and I don’t think he was this evil, ugly, ratty little guy that you could tell was, “Oh, this guy’s trouble.” I think he seemed good to a lot of people, I would assume.

Hank Smith: 01:10:49 Doesn’t Mormon point out he was a man of cunning device, a man of many flattering words, and didn’t you read, David, that he was tall and mighty?

John Bytheway: 01:10:59 Yeah, large and strong in verse three.

Dr. David Boren: 01:11:02 Large and strong.

John Bytheway: 01:11:03 Just look at Hank if you need what that looks like.

Hank Smith: 01:11:05 Yeah, I was going to say I can really identify here with-

Dr. David Boren: 01:11:12 I think we are setting up this Christ and Satan archetype. They really do exemplify a lot of those attributes. We’ll set up that’s getting dangerous and Moroni says, “Okay, this is exceedingly …” In verse seven, this is exceedingly precarious and dangerous. I’m a man of action. I am going to do something about this. That’s when he starts the title of liberty. He really draws a line in the sand.

  01:11:41 Part of the power in the title of liberty is that he had a physical symbol and was able to rally people around him, but I think the vocal minority sometimes seems like the majority. You have some of these followers of Amalickiah that are just making all sorts of noise. They seem to be taking over and Moroni is like, Wait a second. Now, there are a lot of really good people here still that still believe in Christ. They’re meek and kind, and they’re not saying anything. We’ve got to bring them out and rally them.

  01:12:18 Basically, it was their way of announcing, “Hey, I am a follower of Christ.” During medieval times, they had a standard bearer. The hosts would gather and then they would be ready to go to war. Moroni is basically saying, hey, everyone that believes in the cause of Christ and the Christians, show yourself, make it known because there are people that need to know that. Otherwise, they’re going to stay quietly in the shadows.

  01:12:45 I believe that the announcing, building, dedicating and serving in temples has been President Nelson’s rallying cry. That’s his title of liberty, his standard of truth. He’s asking us to rally to the temple, to unify with God, Christ and each other in making and keeping covenants. In verse 20 it says, “Let them come forth in the strength of the Lord and enter into a covenant.”

  01:13:10 Listen to last conference. I think the building and dedicating and serving in temples is our modern-day title of liberty, and that President Nelson is calling us to come forth in the strength of the Lord and enter into a covenant. I just think it’s beautiful.

  01:13:28 I was in the Hill Cumorah pageant with family, got to be a Lamanite, and every morning at the Hill Cumorah pageant, we would recite the Standard of Truth and that is etched into my soul. So I’m going to recite it here because I just love it. It was a really special experience to be on the Hill Cumorah, where the plates had been buried and where Joseph Smith brought them forth and Moroni had appeared to him. It was a really special experience to recite that every day and then to go act out those scenes from the Book of Mormon.

  01:14:04 “The standard of truth has been erected. No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. Persecutions may rage.” Sorry, sorry, I can’t say it. “Mobs may combine. Armies may assemble. Calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country and sounded in every ear till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say, ‘The work is done.'” Isn’t that beautiful? The Book of Mormon is part of that standard of truth. It’s so beautiful that we have that.

Hank Smith: 01:15:01 It’s got to be that same type feeling chapter 46, seeing that title of liberty go up, that emotion that comes? You’re right. You said earlier that great leaders channel that emotion. You can see Moroni doing that.