Ammonihah Today

I can’t help but think about our current society in America when I read this chapter and Alma’s description of the wickedness of the people of Ammonihah.  He tells them, “[The Lord] will not suffer you that ye shall live in your iniquities… after having had so much light and so much knowledge given unto them of the Lord their God” (v19).  He speaks of the great blessings they had received: “After having been such a highly favored people of the Lord; yea, after having been favored above every other nation, kindred, tongue, or people”—surely we could apply that statement to the United States (v20).  He speaks of how their ancestors had “been delivered of God out of the land of Jerusalem, by the hand of the Lord”—we were likewise delivered out of the hands of our enemies in beginning of the country and in every war since, “having waxed strong in battle” (v22).  Our society has been “prospered until they are rich in all manner of things” just as Alma says these Nephites have been (v22).  So surely we must expect a similar treatment from the Lord as this people received if we do not repent.  Alma tells them, “Has not the Lord expressly promised and firmly decreed, that if ye will rebel against him that ye shall utterly be destroyed from off the face of the earth?” (v24).  This people, so long blessed by the Lord, rejected His word completely and cast out the righteous from among them, killing many of them by fire including innocent women and children.  As soon as they did that the city was “in one day… left desolate” (Alma 16:10).  They were destroyed completely because they had “rejected every word of God, and they were ripe in iniquity” (1 Nephi 17:35).  I don’t know how close we are as a society to seeing that kind of judgment of God come against us, but from what I see on the news every day, we may not be far from it.