Stand as Witnesses

When the people of Alma were under bondage to the Lamanites in the city of Helam, they poured out their hearts to God for His help.  He responded with this promise, “I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions” (Mosiah 24:14).  One of the purposes of the Lord helping them and delivering them was that they would then become witnesses of the Lord and the way that He will visit His people in their afflictions.  This language reminds us of their baptism many years before, when they testified that they would be “willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death” (Mosiah 18:9).  As followers of Christ we are to be witnesses of Him at all times, but especially when He eases our burdens or delivers us from our afflictions. 

We don’t have a specific record of how this people fulfilled their obligation to be witnesses of the Lord, but what we do have suggests that they did.  Alma the Younger’s teaching to the people of Zarahemla in Alma 5 (probably about 40 years later) tells us that they had passed along their story and witness of how the Lord had delivered them.  After telling the account of how his fathers’ people had been “delivered out of the hands of the people of king Noah” and then “brought into bondage by the hands of the Lamanites in the wilderness,” Alma testified that “they were in captivity, and again the Lord did deliver them out of bondage by the power of his word.”  Alma then questioned the people, “And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, you that belong to this church, have you sufficiently retained in remembrance the captivity of your fathers? Yea, and have you sufficiently retained in remembrance his mercy and long-suffering towards them?” (Alma 5:4-6).  This certainly suggests that the people of Alma from Mosiah 24 had indeed passed along their witness to their children and to the people of Zarahemla that God had delivered them out of their afflictions.  The problem was that the people at the time of Alma 5 had not kept in remembrance this powerful story of their fathers, and they had become lax in their faith and observance of the commandments. 

This story seems to invite us to do two things as followers of Christ today.  First, we too must witness to those around us of how the Lord has visited us in the time of our afflictions.  We have a formal opportunity to do this each fast and testimony meeting, and I think we often hear disciples witness to how the Lord has supported them in trials as they testify along these lines, “I would be remiss today if I didn’t stand and bear witness of the blessings the Lord has given me….”  Surely it is the Spirit prompting these brothers and sisters to tell others how the Lord has visited them in their afflictions.  As the Lord helps us in big and small ways we are under the same mandate to “stand as witnesses” for Him thereafter.  Second, we must also seek to remember the ways that the Lord has delivered others, both in the scriptures and in our families, and this knowledge can give us confidence that He can do the same for us in our own lives today.  I have never been in peril for my life like the people of Alma, but I can bear witness that the Lord does answer our prayers, and as we too “pour out [our] hearts to him” He does indeed strengthen and sustain us through all our difficulties (Mosiah 24:12).