followHIM - Alma 32-35 Part 1 • Dr. S. Michael Wilcox • July 22-28 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Can we approach gaining and keeping a testimony using the Scientific Method? Dr. S. Michael Wilcox weaves science, faith, and testimony together while examining Alma’s treatise on faith.TRANSCRIPTSEnglish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM30ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM30FRPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM30PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM30ES YOUTUBEhttps://youtu.be/S1V18og_2PEALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE00:00 Part I  - Dr. Michael Wilcox00:53 What to expect03:08 Dr. Michael Wilcox’s bio05:45 Pyramid of faith07:12 Why societies fall10:33 Evidence, substance, and assurance12:43 Experience, authority, and reason15:33 Building faith17:50 Alma 32:27 - Scientific method19:41 Alma 31:1-21 - Humility23:50 Alma 32:21 - Remember God’s mercy27:16 Testimony is a living thing30:34 Alma 32:28 - Letting testimony grow32:43 Alma 32:33-4 - Testing our hypothesis39:33 Making conclusions40:49 Swellings, burning, and enlightenments44:30 Burning in the bosom46:08 Alma issues warnings48:17 Alma 32:29 - Our hypothesis: Jesus Christ lives51:55 Alma 32: 25-7 -The Book of Mormon is brilliantly constructed 55:03 How testimony becomes a law instead of hypothesis59:0 Alma 32:40 - What the tree is1:04:36 “Weed Your Brain, Grow Your Testimony”1:07:50 When silence is required1:11:05 What seed did Alma ask them to plant?1:24:54 -  End of Part 1 - Dr. Michael WilcoxThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Hello, my friends, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith. I'm your host. I'm here with my planted and rooted co-host and our wonderful guest, Dr. S. Michael Wilcox. John, let's start with you. This is Alma 32 through 35. Alma's with the Zoramites. I know this is one of your favorite blocks of scripture.

Tell me what you're looking forward to. I did this is one of your favorite blocks of scripture. Tell me what you're looking forward to. I did a lot of weeding as a teenager. My dad thought that should be part of my training. And I feel like I probably learned more about these agricultural parables working in a garden than just reading about them and thinking about them. So I'm excited to see how the ground, the seed, the season, the supper, all work together here. We have our guest here, John. He's been with us before, Dr. S. Michael Wilcox. Mike, what are we going to do today? How do you want to lay this out?

I love these chapters. Alma 32 is one of those chapters where you lay it in the scale against all the anti-Book of Mormon things you want to lay in, and it's going to weigh down. You just don't write something like this without being a prophet. It has a prophetic stamp on it, or just a profoundly prophetic stamp. And it addresses something that's very, very relevant to us all. How do you gain and maintain faith? John likes the agricultural sense of it. And you can key off some other words in Alma 32 and use a whole different image. You can key off the word experiment. And now I'm in the world of modern scientific research. And it's amazing for people to say, look, I can give you a scientific formula

how to learn spiritual truth. If you're in that chemistry, physics, biology, reason world, Alma's for you. You can key off the word exercise, and now you're in the Olympics and sports. Or you can key off the word tree and agriculture. So you've got a lot of metaphors to do here. And then Amulek is going to help us understand two words I love in terms of the Savior, his redemption, his atonement. It's infinite. What does that really mean? Infinite atonement and what I call the immediacy of Jesus's mercy. That's a whole theme. It is the major theme of the Book of Mormon. Mamulic deals with it there a little bit. We'll just have fun. Like you said, Mike, this is one of those chapters where you think, if Joseph Smith just gives us this chapter, and I've said that before, 2 Nephi 9, Moses chapter 1,

where you think, if it was just this chapter, but yet there's dozens and dozens of them. There are. Yeah, it's rich. John, Mike has been with us before, but just in case there's someone out there who's thinking, wait, who's this? Will you introduce him? Absolutely. We're so happy to have Dr. S. Michael Wilcox with us. He got his PhD from the University of Colorado, taught for many years at the Institute of Religion up adjacent to the University of Utah. He's spoken at BYU Education Week. Have you even counted how many tours to the Holy Land?

Oh, no, I'm moving probably towards 100. A lot, a lot. And to China and to church history sites and to Europe. We were talking about someone beforehand. He's quite the world traveler. I mean, really a world traveler. He has served in a variety of callings, including as a bishop and a counselor in a stake presidency. He's written many articles and books, including House of Glory, Ten Great Souls I Want to Meet in Heaven, Twice Blessed, Finding Hope. I have one that I love right here about holding on in the latter days.

Thank you for joining us again. I remember last time taking a ton of notes and really excited to have you back. John, I have to tell you my favorite Mike Wilcox story from my experience. I've known Mike for a long time now. It had to be five in the morning. We were taking a taxi in California. It was me and Mike and Whitney Perman and a taxi driver. I thought, oh, it's about 45 minutes to an hour ride to the airport. And I thought, it's five in the morning. I just closed my eyes. So I sat in the back behind Mike and Mike talked to this taxi driver about yo-yos. The taxi driver loved yo-yos and Mike talked to him the entire way.

This taxi driver was feeling so energized and I could tell he felt so important. I've made it a point, John, honestly, from that time forward to talk to my driver. You know, if they want to talk, sometimes they're like, why are you talking to me? Help people feel how important they truly are. I don't know anything about yo-yos, so I'm not sure what I said. Yeah. It was a blessing to watch. It really impacted me. The fact that I still remember it. I love Uber drivers because they want a good rating and you can talk to them about anything. That's a really great place to talk to folks, even share your testimony because they want a good rating. Yeah.

And they're stuck in the car with you, right? Yeah. We got 30 minutes on here about the gospel. Mike, let's read from the Come Follow Me manual. It says, for the Zoramites, prayer consisted of standing where all could see and repeating empty, self-satisfied word. The Zoramites had no faith in Jesus Christ, even denied his existence and persecuted the poor.

By contrast, Alma and Amulek taught that prayer has more to do with what happens in our hearts than on a public platform. And if we do not show compassion toward people in need, our prayer is vain and availeth nothing. Most important, we pray because we have faith in Jesus Christ, who offers redemption through his infinite and eternal sacrifice. Such faith, Alma explains, starts with humility and a desire to believe. Over time, with constant nourishment, the word of God takes root in our hearts until it becomes a tree springing up onto everlasting life. Well-written first paragraph there of the Come Follow Me manual. Mike, where do you want to go from here? Let's build a pyramid first. Both Alman Amulek do talk about prayer in the context

of how you gain faith. And just in terms of an introductory thought, the Book of Mormon is always relevant. The Book of Mormon is the story, if you think about it, of two peoples who can't live next to each other. That's the problem we have in a lot of parts of the world. The Book of Mormon begins and ends with the destruction of a people. What do societies do that cause their downfall, their weakening? It's relevant. You know, one of those things is the central government falls. People lose confidence in it, and they break up into tribes.

You're going to go next week into another great theme of the Book of Mormon, parenting. You want to know how to be a good parent? The best manual I know of you can read is the Book of Mormon. There are so many parent-child relationships, so many. Like I say, next week, it starts up. We'll maybe hit one great parenting thing in chapter 35 of Alma. There are these themes, principles of just war. You're going to come to that here pretty quick, all the war chapters. You want to know how to assess any war in history or going on, the Book of Mormon will tell you. And it's going to tell us how to build and maintain faith. That's where we're going to

kind of go today. This is probably the finest chapter of how to do that. And then we'll talk, as we get into Amulek in particular, the single greatest theme of the Book of Mormon, what I call the immediacy of Jesus in one's life. So if we would just visualize a pyramid, a pyramid is the most stable structure you can build on earth. That's why they're still in Egypt, they're in Central America. In the Book of Mormon, you find various, I call them faith shakers, interrupters. Korahor is an interrupter. He wants to interrupt people's rejoicing. Sherem and Nahor, they're faith shakers. So you want a testimony that you can't shake. I visualize it as a pyramid. We're going to take that pyramid and we're going to divide it into three sections,

the top, the middle, and the bottom. On the top, we're going to write faith, what I believe. This is what I affirm or attest to. This is the part that I say, I believe Jesus is the Christ. I know that God lives. I have faith that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Whatever it is you're affirming, you're going to put it in that top third of the pyramid. This is what I am attesting. But faith has to have a foundation underneath it. Paul is going to use a couple of words in Hebrews 11. Alma's going to use one of those words. Maybe you talked about it last week in Alma 30.

Evidence. If you think that faith, testimony, is based on emotion, emotion isn't a very stable foundation. And I think a lot of people feel that faith is based on kind of emotional things. Joseph Smith said that the ministers were trying to stir up religious feeling. That's not a real solid foundation. Faith is based on evidence. Paul also uses the word substance. And in the footnote, the Greek could also give it assurance. So in that second section of the pyramid, I'm going to write the words evidence, substance, assurance. Now in the lower one, what does evidence, substance, and assurance rest on?

So the foundation of my pyramid of faith that Alma is going to help us build, nobody helps us build it as good as Alma. I'm going to write three things. Faith, evidence, assurance, substance is based on reason and authority and experience. So I would say my experience tells me, provides me the evidence that what I believe or affirm is true. I haven't had the experience, but I trust the authority. We all have to trust the authority of other people, that things exist and that things work well. And I haven't had it, but I trust others' experiences. My reason tells me. A classic example of that in Alma, you would have talked about last week when he's talking to Korahor, and Korahor

asked for a sign, and Alma effectively lays his pyramid out and says, look, I know some things. I know Christ will come. I know there is a God, and I know why I know. That's the important thing. If the top part of our pyramid, we're saying this is what I know or believe, the second and the third layer says, and I know why I know. It's often important for people to just sit down and say, okay, this is what I have a testimony of. Why? What's the evidence in my life? What substance? What assurances hold that up? So that when things shake, it's not going to

fall? Yeah, you can roll a few stones off pyramid. There are some things on our testimonies that don't belong there anyway. So you can roll a few things off, but the building is going to stand because I not only know, I know why I know. He gives four reasons. And if you think about it, you're going to get experience, authority, and reason in all of them. He says, you have the testimony of all these thy brethren. This is the fact that if I sat in a classroom and I said, I want you all to think of an experience in your life that told you God was there and was aware of you. I'm going to give you 15 minutes. In almost every LDS class, probably Catholic, other religious classes, certainly in ours, I could say,

I'm going to call on one of you randomly, four or five of you, to share those experiences. And they would have them, the little things that you could say, well, maybe yours is coincidental, but there are millions of them. And Alma is saying, the experiences of all my brethren is evidence that he's there. Then he says, you have the prophets, that's authority. I haven't seen God. I haven't talked to him. But I trust the consistency and the message of those who say they have. Then he says, the scriptures are laid before you. That's his third one.

Scriptures involve all three of them. But the very fact they exist and that they work when you live them, as Alma's going to tell us. And then the last one is the stars, the earth and its movement and its motion testifies there's a God. That's reason. My reason tells me there is something intelligent and benign and good behind all these things. He's got a really good pyramid. Do you understand what I mean by a pyramid? I say we want to build a pyramid. He knows not only what he knows, but he knows why he knows

it. When we look at the prayer of the Zoramites, wouldn't you guys say it's an anti-Christ prayer? They say twice in there, our beliefs are not bound down to Christ, and thou hast made it known unto us there will be no Christ. I like where Alma goes in trying to plant this faith in Christ in their hearts. Responding on that, notice how he answers Korahor. He goes on the offensive, and he says, What evidence? There's that word. What evidence do you have there is no God. You don't have any evidence. It's just your word only. And if I were Korahor at that point, I'd say, wait a

minute, Alma, you stole my line. That's my line. That's the line that I, the unbeliever, the challenger gives. What evidence do you have there's a God? You only have your own word. And Alma is saying, you don't have any evidence, but I do have evidence. And here are my four evidences. So he's built a really good one. The Rambamton, if it was pyramid-shaped, was not very stable. What's holding up their beliefs isn't very stable. It's not based on evidence. Alma 32 becomes Alma's way of teaching all of us. I'm going to show you how to build the foundation underneath what you are believing, affirming, and we're just going to get it stronger and stronger and stronger. You go to Central America, they would build those pyramids over one another.

They just got bigger and bigger and bigger. So that's what we're going to do with faith. We're going to just get them bigger and bigger and bigger and all the earthquakes in the world aren't going to knock them down. And that's what Alma wants to help us do in Alma 32. We'll make them so big that tourists aren't allowed to climb on them. So big that even if the tourists climb on them, it won't lock them down, okay? He does use an agricultural because he's with an agricultural people metaphor. We are in a more scientific world.

I'm going to shift it just a little bit. And John, because you talked about agriculture and growing and weeding and things, you'd come in anytime you want. I'll come back to the tree idea. It's also important what tree we're trying to grow. Alma does specifically tell us what tree we're going to grow, and we'll get there when we get to that verse. There's always so many truths in any chapter. One of the truths of Alma, if you want to say, okay, missionaries, we're

going to get some lessons out of here, is be sensitive to your audience and know which audience is willing to listen to you. You don't have time to talk to an audience that won't listen to you or is not prepared. What does he do? He turns his back on the one audience and goes to the one immediately that he feels is prepared. There are times you, within three or four minutes, you kind of know, I'm not going to get anywhere with this person. So politely, tactfully, respectfully, you turn your back, although it seems like that's what Alma does. You focus on the audience that is listening, and that's prepared. And we'll see a key word in the first part of Alma 32 here in just a minute. Go to verse 27 for a second. I'm going to come back to some others. He says,

if you will awake and arouse your faculty, sometimes people don't have faith or testimony because they're too lazy. They don't want to put the work into it or they're apathetic. So he's saying awake and arouse and try and experiment. I can see Alma saying, look, I know you modern people like experiments and you like science and that's your world and you like empirical reasoning. You're not quite as attuned to nature as we were in my time. Let me talk your language. Now, what is the basic formula for you gather data, you experiment, you observe, and then you come to conclusions. And then you take those conclusions back up to your hypothesis and you say, do I have to change this hypothesis? Does it work? Or, well, it looks like it's true, but I'm not going to quit. I'm going to do another round.

You see, I'm going to keep doing it. So let's take that particular way and let's look at it. There are sometimes in math and science what we call givens. So there's some givens before I plant this seed, if you want to go back to the agriculture image, before I do my experiment, I gather my data,

I check my hypothesis, there are some givens. And there are four givens that he gives to us here. The first given really goes through about the first 21 verses. The given is, if you're going to find out spiritual truth, you start from a position of humility.

If you were to count and look at how many times he talks about humble. Now, the poor people are humble because they've kicked them out of their synagogues, and they have coarse apparel. There are reasons that they're humble. And Alma's going to say, look, I don't care whether you're compelled to be humble by your life or you are humble of your own choice. You recognize some things, and that makes you humble. But look at how many times, we won't go into great detail, verse 6, he beheld their afflictions, had truly humbled them. They were in a preparation to hear the word. C.S. Lewis said, a proud man will never find God. I'm paraphrasing somewhat. Why?

Because a proud man is always looking down on everything. And in order to find God, you have to look up. You have to recognize that there is something greater than you are in order to find him. So their humility prepares them. We go down to verse 12. You'll see that word again. It is well that you are cast out of your synagogue. Sometimes trials in our lives are good things. Why? Because they humble us. And a humble person is usually much better placed to receive understanding and spiritual truth, that you may learn wisdom.

End of verse 12, you are necessarily brought to be humble. So there's that phrase again. You go to verse 13. Sometimes if a man is compelled to be humble, he seeks repentance. Whatever causes you to be humble is okay. Sometimes I think, and a very appropriate prayer for a parent or someone who's worried about a child who's disaffected with the church, maybe the prayer isn't answer their prayers. Maybe the prayer should be, Lord, humble them because they're not prepared, because there's not humility in them.

That's an appropriate prayer. Bring some humility to them. Like the prodigal son, he got humbled first. This is Jesus' parable of the four kinds of soil. Alma turned his back on the hard soil, as you said, and now that their soil has been prepared because of their humility. Matthew 13 is part one of this story, and now we're in part two. Good soil has just walked up and said, what about us?

What do we do? Right, yeah. Humility is a plow. Yeah. Harrowing experiences, we might say. And Alma knew something about harrowing because that's the word he uses of his own experience. You can certainly apply the parable of the sower in Alma 32. Very easy to do that.

Yeah, in fact, it comes up in the footnotes in a bit. It's like Alma saying to them, you've been treated like dirt. That's wonderful. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, yeah. She's like, oh, good. So they've been heroes. We don't have to go through all of them.

You'll see humble twice in verse 14. You'll see it twice in verse 15. You'll see it again in verse 16. You see it twice in verse 25. Given number one, before I ever plant the seed, if you're going to use that metaphor, before you ever try the experiment, you start from the position of humility, the foundation that you're going to build your pyramid on. You're going to clear whatever's in the way. Ability needs ground cleared. So we're clearing the ground.

And humility is the cleared ground I'm going to build my faith on. Verse 21, you have echoes of Paul. As I said concerning faith, faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things. That's my fourth given. I'm going to come back to that. If you have faith, you have hope for things which are not seen, which are true. My second given is in verse 22. Before I try the experiment or go to God to try and find out truth,

I need to remember something. And so he says, I say unto you, I would that ye should remember God is merciful to all who believe on his name. He desires in the first place that you should believe even on his word. That's the second given. God wants me to know truth. He wants me to have a tree, realize that my hypothesis is truth, becomes a law in my soul, he wants me to believe. That's the second given. The third given is in verse 23. Not only does he desire me to believe

in him and on goodness and truth, but he imparts his word by angels unto men, yea, not only men, but women and little children. Third given is it doesn't matter who you are. He will answer. He will speak truth to you, men, women, children, because he wants you to know it. Now, the fourth one, we go to verse 26, and this is such an important given for people. Sometimes people think that faith is, I have it or I don't have it, and because we use the word no in our testimony so much, it gives the impression that it's, I got it or I don't have it. Alma gives us a very important fourth given, verse 26 and verse 21 up there. Now, as I said concerning faith, that it was not a perfect knowledge, even so it is with

my words, ye cannot know of their surety at first unto perfection. Any more than faith is a perfect knowledge. You're going to grow a tree. You don't pull the fruit off it the day after you plant it. If we're going to do an experiment, you don't turn a hypothesis into a law. Say, look, I've discovered one of the great laws of truth, of science, of nature, after one round of experimentation. You don't pull off the word exercise. He's going to say exercise a particle of faith. You don't go to the Olympics

after you've lifted a few weights one or two days. And sometimes people get the idea, I have it, I'm going to pray, I'm going to get an answer, and I've got the perfect knowledge. And Alma's trying to warn us of that. And there's a word that he's going to use again and again, humble. This is a grand chapter to really focus on repetitive words. He's going use the word and i'll show you some of those begin and beginneth so you can't know of a surety you know i remember my daughter coming to me when she's 14 i don't think i have a testimony she said the parent in you tries not to panic and so i started started talking to her. She had this idea that you had to have a perfect knowledge right at the beginning. I said to her, how do you feel

about your Father in heaven and the Savior and Joseph Smith and different things? And she had all kinds of positive feelings about them, but she had this impression that you know it all at once. A testimony is a living thing. That's what I like about the tree. It's constantly growing. I go back to our Central America pyramids. You're making them bigger and bigger. That's our four givens. Start with humility. God wants you to know. He will tell you. It's not going to come all at once. It's going to come to you as we say, line upon line, precept upon precept. Now, I think Alma says at this point, or God says, can you accept those four givens? And if we say, yes, I can accept those four givens, Lord, then Alma says, okay, we go back to verse 27.

Let's exercise a particle of faith. That's where we're going to start. Particle or a seed or one brick in our pyramid, one stone at the bottom. What is the particle? Even if you can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you even until you believe in a manner that you can give place for a portion of my words. If we go back to the science idea, metaphor,

a hypothesis normally i'm not the great scientific genius of the world but usually you state it in positive terms you are not trying to disprove something a lot of people when they want to examine spiritual truth, they come to it from a position of, I want to disprove it. You start positive. You can't be absolutely objective about anything. People like to say, well, I'm unbiased. I'm absolutely objective. If you're dead, you're probably objective, okay? But if you're a living thing, there's probably a bias. We have accepted in law and science at innocent until proven guilty. So if I can't get right exactly on an objective line, we have assumed that you're going to lean to the positive. That's all.

Just desire to believe. Don't desire to disbelieve. It's a big difference in people's lives. And don't be apathetic. Don't say, well, I don't care. You know, awake, arouse, desire to believe. Now he starts his seed thing. Now we will compare the word unto a seed. Verse 28 is such a magnificent. I'd put verse 28 alone in the scale of truthfulness. It's just so well written. I loved what you said about that idea of letting something grow. You can't know of a surety at first, which is one of the reasons I love the agricultural metaphor. If you plant an apple tree, how many years is it before you actually get an apple?

I think it's four or five or something like that. Later on, he's going to talk about faith and diligence and patience. And so I appreciate you mentioning that. This is an ongoing process that requires patience. And you can kill the tree. Yeah. As we're going to find out, if you're not careful. It's a living, growing thing. It's time we're looking at here. 28, he says, give place that a seed may be planted in your heart. If it be a true seed or a good seed, I love words.

He's going to drop one of those two words in the rest of the chapter. Which word do you think he's going to drop, true or good? He's going to drop true. In our culture, our LDS culture today, when we bear testimony of something, what word do we prefer? We prefer the word true. Alma is going to drop that. And so is there a difference if I said, I trust this church is good. I believe the Book of Mormon is good. I believe the Book of Mormon is good. And we don't want to eliminate true, it's just

that that's the word he drops. From now on, it's good, and he's going to use it a lot. Sometimes it's easier for people who are trying to build their pyramid of faith or grow their tree, test their hypothesis, or strengthen their spiritual muscles, sometimes it's easier to say, I need to decide if this is good. The ability to say, yes, I see goodness here is sometimes a little easier than true seems to be all or nothing. So now four things we're going to observe. If this is a good thing, if my hypothesis, and the hypothesis that he is testing here is, is Jesus the Christ? Is he the divine son of God?

The word I'm going to plant is have faith and believe in Christ. That's the word. We're testing that hypothesis. Does God live? Does he answer prayers? Are we led by living prophets? He is saying, if it's good, if your seed is good, if what you're trying to decide is true and is good, you're going to observe four things. The truth or goodness will impact you four ways. Way number one. So he said, if you do not cast it out by your unbelief that you will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will, one, notice, begin. It will begin to swell within your breasts. And when you feel these swelling motions, you will begin to say within yourselves, it must needs be that this is a good seed. Let me stop right there. This is the language we often use for understanding truth or believing a testimony, something in the hearts. I'm saying, number one,

you are going to have a spiritual, I don't even mind the word, physical reaction to goodness and truth. If the Book of Mormon is good and true, if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is good and true, if Jesus is the divine Son of God, we're going to see how you plant it. That's what 33 and 34 is about. How do you plant this thing? If it's good and true, you're going to have a spiritual, physical, I don't mind the word emotional response to it. I'm just not as comfortable with emotional response to it because you can manipulate emotion. And I like that that's not the only thing that he's going to keep going with other possibilities, which is why this is such a great verse. Yeah, it's such a wonderful one. That's the first. I'm going to feel something.

There's different ways of describing it. Alma's going to use motion metaphors. We sometimes use burning. That's a heat metaphor. Burning in the bosom. That's a heat metaphor. Somebody says, well, I don't know if I've ever felt a burning in my bosom. Well's a heat metaphor somebody says well i don't know if i've ever felt a burning in my bosom well have you ever felt a swelling you try and find the metaphor that works for you now second thing it's going to do i'm going to have a physical spiritual reaction to it he says it beginneth to enlarge my soul. I'm going to stop. That's number two. We're guessing a little bit sometimes on what these things mean. To me, number two is you're going to have a behavioral response to truth and goodness. If the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is good and true, if the teachings of Jesus are good and true, if the teachings of Jesus are good and true,

if the Book of Mormon is good and true, it ought to produce better people. It ought to make me a better person. I should look at Latter-day Saints and say, these are really good people. Not perfect, but these are really good people. Not perfect, but these are really good people. And if you examine members of the church or believing people of other faiths, that's exactly what you find. Now, we have our problems. We can be self-righteous.

We can be judgmental. We're trying to be as good as we can, but the soul is being enlarged. Mercy is enlarging you. Selflessness is enlarging. Your soul is getting bigger and bigger. You are kinder. You are more hospitable. You are more courteous.

You are more loving. You are more forgiving because your soul is being enlarged by your examination and understanding of the teachings of the Savior. So spiritual response number one, behavioral response number two. This is what I'm observing as I do my experiment. I'm observing this. I'm gathering this data. I'm trying to decide what it's doing in my own heart and life. What's the third thing? It beginneth, again that word, to enlighten my understanding. If I go to verse 34, at the bottom line in verse 34, I get the movement in the mind response also. Enlightened there, that's a light image,

that's a senses image. But at the bottom of verse 34, he says, again, your understanding doth begin to be enlightened and your mind doth begin to expand. That's just such good writing. I wish I could write this well. The mind expands. Now I'm having an intellectual response to truth. Questions should have answers. Wisdom should be imparted. Jesus says, serve me with all of your heart, might, mind, and strength. We want really smart people.

A testimony should make you smarter. That's the third thing. It'll enlighten or expand the mind. And the last thing, for yea, it beginneth, there's our word again, beginneth to be delicious to me. Now, delicious, I've got two sense perceptions here he's using, light and taste. He's going to combine them in just a second in a marvelous literary technique in just a second here. Delicious would mean you don't have to choke it down. If somebody says to you, Joseph Smith got a revelation that marriage is eternal, this woman that I love, the women that you love, will always be with you. When somebody

says that, you shouldn't say, oh, gack, that's a horrible idea. I can't choke that down. You ought to say, wow, that tastes good. Joseph Smith once said, the truth tastes good. It's easy to eat. Now I'm ready. I've done my experiment. I've gathered observed data. I've planted the seed. I can see that it's green, it's growing, it's pulling out of the ground. Now I'm ready for conclusions. If I'm going back to my science one, I'm letting Alma talk to the modern world. I wonder if this would be a good place to talk about people who have never felt a burning in the bosom and therefore don't think they have a testimony. Maybe we could help some people if they've never felt that. The four things, I'll give you an example. We'd like a combination of all four, but for me,

I'm more mind-oriented than heart. Some people are going to be more behavior. Some people are going to say, I believe the church is good because look at the wonderful people that are in it. Occasionally we say, well, maybe that's a social testimony. You just like the people and the culture. And Alma's saying that's absolutely fine. That is a testimony that you like, that the people are good and you feel comfortable with them, and that's part of it.

We focus too much on the swelling, burning thing. I remember a woman coming up to me after a class, and she's worried about her husband. She said, my husband's never had an answer to his prayer, a burning in his heart, a swelling. Now, I knew the man. He was very intellectual, a brilliant man. And I asked her some questions about him. If you asked him, why do you believe in the gospel? His answer would have been, because it makes perfect sense. Now, that is an enlightened mind response. So it's okay to have a mind testimony, and it's okay to have a behavior testimony,

and it's okay to have a burning in your bosom testimony. We're trying to provide evidence, and all these, there's different kinds of experience, authority, reason, substance that we put underneath it. Some of it is mental, some of it is behavioral, and it's okay. You just have to know a little bit about yourself. Some people are going to have more swellings, and some people are going to have more enlightenings, and some people are going to have more enlargings, and some people are going to have more deliciouses. And maybe at different points in your life, one or the other will become dominant. I don't know if that answers what your concern is.

But I think 28 addresses that for people who say, I've never had a burning. I've never had a swelling. I appreciate you talking about this. And I love that Alma lists all of them. That first one, a physical reaction. This is what then Elder Dallin H. Oaks said in March of 97. He said, I have met persons who told me they have never had a witness from the Holy Ghost because they have never felt their bosom burn within them.

What does a burning in the bosom mean? Does it need to be a feeling of caloric heat like the burning produced by combustion? If that is the meaning, I have never had a burning in the bosom. Surely the word burning in this scripture signifies a feeling of comfort and serenity. That is the witness many receive. That is the way revelation works. Truly the still small voice is just that, still and small. And Elder J.E. Jensen said once, as I have traveled throughout the church, I have found relatively few people who have experienced a burning in the bosom. In fact, I've had many people tell me that they become frustrated because they have never experienced the feeling, even though they

have prayed or fasted for long periods of time. I'm glad we're talking about this, and I'm glad that Alma talks about these different ways, and some of us lean more towards one than another. One of the things that swells is joy. It's an expansive kind of a thing. If you want some other words, what is it that's swelling? Well, maybe it's peace is a word that we often use, but for me, joy is probably the best word that causes that swelling and the heat of it. But we all are different people and we respond to truth and goodness in different ways.

Instead of focusing on always true and always burning in the bosom, Alma's given us some other things to assess as evidence as we try and build our pyramid, we grow our tree, we're trying to find eternal laws. The burning in the bosom verse is in Doctrine and Covenants section nine. I frequently tell missionaries, keep going over to section 11. There's a great description here to Hiram Smith of exactly what we're talking about. Verse 12. And now verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your trust in that spirit, which leadeth to

do good, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously. This is my spirit. I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my spirit, which shall enlighten your mind, which shall, you just said this, Mike, fill your soul with joy. Yeah, and you've got two of those in that thing. You've got the behavior one, and you have the mind one. You're going to respond to truth and goodness. It should make you a better person, and it should give you wisdom and understanding

and fill your soul with joy and fill your soul and sweat you actually got three and it's going to swell it what's going to swell the joy and the happiness is going to do it a question that alma could be asking here how do you know if a seed is good? What is the only way to know if a seed is good? Well, you have to plant it. And I feel like the long answer is verse 28, and the short answer is verse 32. Verse 32, if a seed groweth, it is good. If it groweth not, it is not good. The wonderful long answer, verse 28, is about this specific seed.

Now, he gives a few warnings so that you don't get to verse 32. You're going to throw it away because you started with a desire not to believe. So he says, don't start there. And even in verse 28, don't resist it. Some people can resist. You have to wake, arouse. And once it's growing, he's going to say, don't resist it. Some people can resist. You have to wake, arouse. And once it's growing, he's going to say, don't neglect it. It's growing.

It's not all at once. You've got to care. This phrase that Alma uses twice, at least where I'm looking twice, is, will you give place? Will you open up? I mean, here he is saying, okay, I heard the prayer on the Rameumptom, and I'm going to plant something new that you have not heard or don't currently believe. Please don't resist this. Will you give place? I love that little phrase, a willful suspension of disbelief idea. Well, it's also time.

Give it a little time. Give some place. Sometimes our hearts say, well, I've got so many other things in my life, and religion is not important. And that's a problem more and more in the world. No time, no desire to give place for eternal truth in my life. I've got too many other things I'm worrying about. And that's why the good soil just walked up to him, because they knew they needed something, those that were humbled. The others may be saying exactly, I don't need religion.

I don't have time for that. And that's why maybe a proper prayer for ourselves or somebody else is, Lord, something needs to humble me or someone I love so they're prepared. Because if you're not humbled, you're not prepared. That's one of the givens. Yeah. As you both have been talking about soil and seeds, the phrase comes to my mind is a broken heart and a contrite spirit. So I've got this hard heart, and the Lord says,

you've got to come to me with a broken heart or open soil. Give place. Yeah, there's got to be a crack in that soil to put the seed in. Yeah, that's a good observation. Well, he's ready to make some conclusions now. I've got my hypothesis.

Jesus is the Christ. God lives. I've planted it. It's beginning to do these things in my life. I come to my conclusions. He says, verse 29, now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, yea, then the warning, nevertheless, it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge. He's going back to what he said before. This is a process. But behold, as the seed swelleth and sprouteth and beginneth to grow, you must need say, here's my conclusion. The seed is good. There is something in this Book of Mormon. There is something in this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is something in this Book of Mormon. There is something in this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There is something in this man from Nazareth. Whatever it is, I'm trying to find out the goodness and truth of. Why? Because it sprouts and begins to grow. Now, behold, will not this strengthen your faith? Yea, it will strengthen your faith, for you will say, conclusion, I know this is a good seed. There's something here. There's something good in it.

Now, it's not perfect knowledge. It's beginning. It can die very quickly. But I see there is goodness here. Verse 31. Are you sure this is good? I say unto you, yes. Every seed bringeth forth unto his likeness. Then the verse you looked about, if it's not good, it's not going to grow. You're

not going to have mental, behavioral, physical, spiritual, you're not going to have those responses to it. If you truly were humble and you gave place and you didn't start with a desire to disbelieve and you didn't resist what was happening, I think Alma's saying, look, guys, I know what it's like to resist and be apathetic and not do this because that's what I did as a young man, okay? Trying to tell you don't do what I did because I killed my seed at one point in my life. So don't do that. And then 33, now behold, because you have tried the experiment,

planted a seed, it swells and sprouts and begins to grow. You must needs know the seed is good. Is your knowledge perfect? Yes, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, in your first round of experimenting, in the seeing of the seed sprout up, in the laying of your foundation of your pyramid. Your faith is dormant, and you know it has swelled your souls. It's your mind. He mentioned some of those things in 28. Your understanding begins to be enlightened. Your mind begins to expand.

Is not this real? I say unto you, yea, because it is light. And whatsoever is light is good because it is discernible. You can discern these things. This is not some nebulous spiritual thing you can see it you can see it in people's lives you can understand it in your own life and then he gives this wonderful again this the english major in me after you have tasted this light, there is an actual word, synesthesia. Okay, it's an actual literary term, synesthesia, when you mingle senses. So, there's a poem that talks about the silent sun. Usually,

it's a source of light. So, he's mingling. You don't taste light. You see light. And that's good writing. I just have to say that's good writing. When you see it in poetry and other places, you see it all over. Synesthesia. Here's a great example. You've tasted the light.

That's what you call the pen of heaven. The pen of heaven. Yeah, God's a good writer. Okay. He inspires. There are places in the Book of Mormon that as a person who likes to read good writing, I'd say this is really, really well done. It's well done in what it teaches. It's well done in its execution. It's well done in its choice of words. It's well done in its repetition of important words like good and beginneth, and as we're going to see, take root and nour tell. I love that point. There's a different feeling after a general conference talk than after the third quarter in a football game. It's different. It's discernible. And sometimes it's nice to point out, can you tell how different this feels like being in the temple as opposed to going bowling it's discernible I love

the phrase hope to point out to my kids can you tell how different this feels right now yeah the phrase that goes with that is not this real so you have both of those well now he's just gonna give his last final thing on this, 36. After you've tasted this light, is your knowledge perfect? That's the end of 35. Behold, I say unto you, nay, you know something, but you don't know all that you need to know, because this isn't enough to take you through life. This isn't going to get you through life. There's going to be, if we go to the parable in Jesus, there's going to be some hot days that are going to come. There's going to be some shaking that are going to knock your stones down. You can't lay aside your faith. You only exercised it to plant the seed to see if there was goodness in it. But behold, 37, as the tree, now we know what kind of a plant it is for the first time.

It's a tree. It's not tomatoes. It's not cucumbers. It's a tree. It's not the sower parable where it's grain. It's a tree. And we're going to find out what tree it is in a minute. As the tree begins to grow, you will say, let us, I like the us, let us nourish it with great care that it may get root, that it may grow up and bring forth fruit unto us.

Now behold, if you nourish it with much care, like great care, much care, it will get root. If I go back to my science analogy, you don't turn your hypothesis into a law after one experiment. The scientific community would throw you out. What do you do? You do it again and again and again, and you have other people duplicate what you've done. And after you've gone a few rounds, you begin to say, maybe my hypothesis is a theory. That's a little stronger. Now, I don't want a theory testimony. I want a law testimony.

And I've got to experiment a lot and observe a lot and gather a lot of data before I begin to say, I've discovered a law. There isn't anything I'm going to observe that's going to change my assumption that I made at the very, very beginning that I have found something true and good. If Alma's correct in this, at 74, my faith ought to be a lot stronger than it was at 18, shouldn't it? And at 25, and at 38, and at 57, and at 92. I'm at the point in my life now where I've gathered enough data, observed enough, experimented enough, watched the tree grow enough that I would say, there isn't anything you can show me or tell me that is going to shake this I'm in law territory now I ought at all even

better at 85 shouldn't I now in a sense as we look at the church who probably ought to have making comparisons here I'm doing this for fun. But in a sense, because he's continued to observe and gather data and water and nourish his tree, who probably has the strongest tree in the church? A man who's in his hundredth year. Okay? I think that's what he's saying. You never quit. You don't neglect it.

If you do, it'll wither away. And 39, it's not that it wasn't good. It's not that the fruit wouldn't have been desirable. It would have made you happier and fulfilled your life. But it's because your ground was barren and you wouldn't nourish it. So you can't have the fruit. There's a wonderful quote by Henry David Thoreau, who wrote in a letter to a friend, so I can pull it out, of his testimony of

his life and how he felt about God and truth and yet in some sense, whose kindred I am. I know the enterprise is worthy. I know that things work well. I have heard no bad news. And that's the way I feel about Christ and God and my faith and life. We're human. People are human. But I've heard no bad news. Hey, the enterprise is worthy. Things work well. There is a God who takes an interest in me. I am his kindred. Now, I suppose I could neglect it and the tree would die, even at 74. But I don't anticipate at this age of my life of anybody saying anything or scaring me out or shaking. I have enough evidence. Now I want to continue to produce evidence.

You do reach a point where you're starting to pull the fruit off the tree if you want. And now he tells us what the tree is in verse 40. What tree is this? If you will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, you can never pluck of the fruit of the tree of life. So if we asked Alma, where does the tree of life grow? His answer would be, in the human heart, the tree of life grows. We each grow our own tree of life that we will feed on for eternity. When we get to Amulek in 34, he's going to say there are four purposes of life. And the answer to every one of them is, I'm jumping the gun a little bit, but the answer to every one is grow a tree. Why? Because if you don't, you're going to starve when you get into heaven because you're going to eat the fruit off your own tree. And even in this life,

we begin to pull the fruit off our own tree. If we, key words again in 41, nourish it, nourish the tree. Here's our begin. It begins to grow. Nourish it by your faith, which means you continue to experiment and observe and gather data and great diligence, patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof. It will take root, and behold, it will be a tree springing up unto everlasting life. What is the food that will keep me in everlasting life? The fruit of the tree of life. Where does it grow? In my heart. So I'm going to feed myself. I'm not going to pull off your fruit. I'm going to pull off mine. And because of your diligence, your faith, your patience with the word in nourishing it, it may take root in you. By and by, you'll pluck the fruit thereof. Now I'm going all the way back to Lehi's dream, because the Book of Mormon is building.

Lehi's dream gives six adjectives to describe the fruit of the tree of life. Sweet, white, desirable, joyous, precious, beautiful. These are coming from Nephi, Lehi, and the angel. There are seven of them. Alma gives one. He's going to repeat some here. And if you go back and you look at 1 Nephi 8 and 11, you'll see that every time one of those words describing the fruit of the tree of life is used, it's couched in a comparative phrase. And Alma does the same thing here.

He's read as Lehi and he's read his Nephi. The fruit isn't just precious. It's most precious. There's nothing more precious than it. And it's not just sweet. We have an expression how sweet it is. Okay, well, you want to know what the sweetest thing? It's the fruit of the tree of life.

It's God's love. It's sweet above all that is sweet. And it is white above all that is white. Those are all repeated from 1 Nephi. And now Alma adds, pure above all that is pure. We could add beautiful exceeding all beauty, most joyous to the soul, and you'll feast upon this fruit until you are filled. You'll hunger not, neither shall you thirst. We're all looking for a fulfilled, Michael, you were born with the fruit in your hands.

Don't go out on some search out there thinking that you're going to find greater happiness or greater joy or greater peace, something more precious, something more desirable out there than you already have. You have the most sweet, joyous, beautiful, desirable, precious, purest thing. Don't waste time. Nurture it. Let it grow in your life. You'll not hunger. You'll not thirst. Your needs will be fulfilled. But then, my brethren, she would say to me, then, my son, you shall reap the rewards of your faith and your diligence and your patience and your long suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you. We don't need great searches in life. Alma's directing us to maybe because he wasted time in his own life. He's trying to say, I'm going to give you the sweetest, whitest, purest, most precious,

beautiful, desirable, joyous thing. Wow. That's Alma 32. I base my whole testimony of the Book of Mormon on that chapter alone. So good. I love it when we find sister chapters. First Nephi 8, Alma 32. You can take them both and put them side by side.

John, one of the first times I heard you speak live, we were speaking together. It was a best of EFY if you remember those. You were speaking first. I was speaking second. I was hoping that you would stick around to hear me speak. You didn't. But the talk was, weed your brain, grow your testimony. Is that right? Yes. That's a good way of saying it. We use the word gain for testimony a lot, which is a stock market term and a really good smelling

laundry detergent. But I feel like the scriptures use grow a lot more with metaphors like this. I had four S words and I still wish the last one were better. So maybe you guys can help me. But I feel like the process here is first prepare the soil. And that's the parable of the four types of soil in Matthew 13. That's the poor among the Zoramites were good soil. Alma asks them to plant this seed, which is this word. He compares to a seed. The word is Christ and his mission. And then there's a season. It needs time to grow roots. And that's where you have to nourish it with faith and diligence and patience. And then lastly, we just talked about it, the supper. I wish I had

a better S word than the supper, but that's the tree of life. Soil, seed, season, supper. Like you said, Hank, those are sister chapters. It sounds like they're all related because Alma talked about the tree of life and that's the supper. And in verse 39, he said, your ground is barren. And the footnote says, oh, go to Matthew 13. Your soil is not prepared. And Hank, you showed me something in verse 42, where it says, ye shall feast upon this fruit. And you showed me 1 Nephi 8, 28 is contrasting. And Mike, I'd love to hear your comment on this. The group that makes me nervous in Lehi's dream

are those who come to the tree, partake of the fruit, and then see the building and walk away. But it says in there, I think it's 1 Nephi 8. 8, 28. I have it in my notes. That they taste of the fruit.

Alma points out, you feast upon this fruit until you are filled. That you hunger not, neither shall you thirst. So I take that to mean you no longer care about the building because you're full. I think that's really good. If we're looking at the Lehi's dream, there's a number of lessons. One of the main ones is there isn't any more desirable than the fruit, so don't waste your time looking. Grab onto the rod, get through the mists and get there because the building is empty. They haven't got anything to do in there. That's why they're all looking out the windows, making fun of everybody because they're bored. But Nephi and Lehi are

saying, never underestimate the power of the building and its ability to pull you away or to distract you because it's powerful. Nephi says, or Lehi said, we heeded them not. You don't listen. Even in Korahor, you're taught how to deal with the distractors or the face shakers. The anti-Nephi-Lehi's in Jerushan, they basically say, look, we know moral nonsense when we hear it, so we're not even going to listen. They don't listen. Again, with Korahor, he doesn't make reply. So one of the ways you sometimes deal with it, it's not cowardice.

It's sometimes, depending on who it is out there that's trying to shake the faith, whatever, Zoramite or Korahor or Sherem or Nahor. You know, you got a number of them. Sometimes the wisest strategy is you don't need to listen and you don't need to reply. Even Jesus at his trial was silent. Sometimes the best thing is silence. The building's powerful. That's the world. It represents the world. When Jesus is at Caesarea Philippi, remember he asks his disciples two questions. Whom do men say that I am? And who do you say? Why that first question? Well, the first question is there because we are so darn concerned. We are herd animals. That's just what we are. We don't like to stray too far from the herd. We don't mind being in the left lane or the right lane of a six-lane highway. We don't want to be in the borrow pit. We don't want to get pushed off that much. We are constantly adjusting and looking and saying, what does the world say and think?

No matter what age we are, and sometimes you have to not heed the world. Be aware it's powerful. Be aware that it's powerful. It can even pull people away who have tasted the most precious, beautiful, most desirable, sweetest, purest thing. They've had it in their life. But I think your point is well taken. They haven't feasted on it yet.

They took a taste of it. The building's powerful enough to pull you away even after you've tasted. They will cause you to doubt that you ever thought it was sweet. So beware. Alma's got lots of warnings in here. He's the best person to do it. Why? Because of his own youth.

He knows something about resisting the spirit. God didn't speak to him in a still, small voice. He made the earth thunder and shake. It had to knock him over to get his attention. In today's world, Mike, it seems that you can poison the tree faster than before. You can go out and almost search for poison that kills the tree. Yeah, you can pull into your life.

This is a pretty good instrument to find things that you do have to be a little careful. Now, we don't shy away from Alma didn't. He goes out and does all he can to bring people to him. He does know what audience to talk to, though. That is a point that you see in there. People can put the wrong kinds of things in their tree and kill it. Be careful of what you're bringing into your life. What are you reading? What are you watching?

What environments are you in? Those are all very very important things in today's world. I have a test question for Alma 32 and 33. I ask my students, what is the seed Alma asked them to plant? And I always warn them, if you say faith, the only thing wrong with that answer is it's incorrect. The seed is not faith. He answers it in Alma 33, verse 22 and 23, and I'll edit a little bit. Begin to believe in the Son of God that he will redeem, atone, resurrect, and judge. Verse 23, now my brethren, I desire you plant this word in your hearts, and as it beginneth to swell, even so nourish it

by your faith, and behold, it will become a tree springing up in you. The word he's asking them to plant is exactly what the Zoramites said they did not believe in in their prayer. He's asking them to plant Christ and his mission in their hearts and nourish it with their faith. Yeah, that's the hypothesis He's wanting them to prove to be true. 33 and 34 is how you do that. What about my primary song, John? Faith is like a little seed. Faith is like a little seed. But what Alma specifically is talking about here is plant Christ and his mission in your hearts. Give place for this testimony of Christ, something that, according to what I just heard, that caused me to be astonished

beyond all measure, that you don't believe in. Give place that I can plant Christ and his mission in your hearts and see if it doesn't swell. And then it requires faith to plant it, but the seed isn't faith, not here anyway. So it's a testimony of Christ that is a little seed, and if planted, it will grow. Yeah, the word is Christ. Oh, I love it. The Son of God will redeem, atone, resurrect, and judge. Plant this word in your hearts. If we go to 33 and 34, we start to get a little bit practical. Sometimes you read Alma 32 and you would say, okay, plant the seed, do the experiment, talk to me in practical terms. What do I do to plant the seed or to test the hypothesis

that Jesus' faith is in him? Both Alma and Amulek were going to give us some things that are practical that I can do. Coming up in part two of this episode. What's the best way of preparing for eternity? And what is the best use of our time well in this life?