The First and Last Provocation

Alma taught the people of Ammonihah that the Father has called upon us in these words: “Whosoever repenteth, and hardeneth not his heart, he shall have claim on mercy through mine Only Begotten Son, unto a remission of his sins; and these shall enter into my rest.”  Alma then commented on this invitation, saying, “And now, my brethren, behold I say unto you, that if ye will harden your hearts ye shall not enter into the rest of the Lord; therefore your iniquity provoketh him that he sendeth down his wrath upon you as in the first provocation, yea, according to his word in the last provocation as well as the first, to the everlasting destruction of your souls; therefore, according to his word, unto the last death, as well as the first” (Alma 12:34, 36).  Here Alma mentioned a “first provocation” and a “last provocation” as well as a “last death” and a “first” death.  Earlier he had told them, “I say unto you then cometh a death, even a second death, which is a spiritual death; then is a time that whosoever dieth in his sins, as to a temporal death, shall also die a spiritual death” (Alma 12:16).  So this “second death” seems to refer to is a failure to return to the presence of the Father, the result of sin here in mortality without repentance.  The first death would have been that of mankind leaving the presence of God to come down to mortality, a death that becomes permanent, a second death, if we are “cut off again as to things pertaining to righteousness” (Helaman 14:18).  But what was the first and last provocation that Alma referred to?

            Jacob had earlier also written of the “provocation” saying, “Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest, lest by any means he should swear in his wrath they should not enter in, as in the provocation in the days of temptation while the children of Israel were in the wilderness” (Jacob 1:7).  So here the reference seems to be specifically to the time when the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness and couldn’t enter into the land of promise.  The children of Israel had “provoked” the Lord through their wickedness and hardness of hearts so that they were not allowed to enter into the physical place of rest He had prepared for them.  Paul gave the same message to the Hebrews, “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.”  Jacob and Paul were likely quoting from Psalm 95:8, “Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness.”  Their messages to their people were to not be like the children of Israel to not harden their hearts and provoke the Lord such that they can’t enter (permanently) into his rest.  This may be then what Alma meant by “last” provocation, that the people would be eternally cut off from the eternal rest of the Lord just as the people of Israel were temporally cut off from rest in the promised land in the first provocation.  Unfortunately most of the people of Ammonihah did indeed harden their hearts, and because of this the Lord did exercise “his wrath” upon them and that provocation came as they were destroyed (Alma 14:11).  The important message of all these passages for us is that we don’t bring upon us this last provocation, the second death, being cut off from the presence of God.  Jacob summarized it well: “Yea, today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts; for why will ye die?” (Jacob 6:6)