Here in one profound question is the dilemma facing every Saint. The question is asked beautifully in this scripture. The problem is universal. How well does the convert remain converted? Does the believer follow up their belief with progression in their understanding, behavior and intelligence? Or, instead, does faith atrophy and die?
This verse is from a talk given by Alma the Younger when he was the High Priest over all the Church in his land. He was touring the land and calling his people back to greater fidelity to the faith. They had lost much of their former enthusiasm for God, and he was reminding them of what they had and were now losing. Alma’s audience, like many of us, was once converted. But they had grown careless in their faith. He traveled throughout the land trying to convince them to return to a more lively form of their faith.
Christ taught a number of parables which raise this same issue of devotion to the Gospel. In one He asks us to reflect on how we are continuing in our discipleship, using the story of a sower:
And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.” (Matt. 13: 3–12.)
The simple image of seeds springing to life along a stony surface where they can begin life, but cannot continue, raises the issue about the spiritual survival of the converted. These seeds once sprang to life, but were later “scorched” by that opposition life gives to us. This opposition is the common experience of all converts. However, the opposition does not need to “scorch” away the life of faith. Unlike these who “withered away,” some bear the scorching and continue to believe, repent and persist. Faith is not an easy gift from God. It requires effort to keep it alive, just as seeds need attention in order to grow and bear fruit.
As in this parable, there are plenty of “thorns” in every life. They are the one constant in this fallen world. You don’t have to look for them; they come to live wherever you are. Every wind brings a new supply of thistle seed invading every garden. If allowed to do so, they will “choke” away faith. These images are chosen by Christ to remind us of the constancy and persistence of opposition. We all experience it. No one is spared. However, faith is possible. It doesn’t need to succumb to opposition.
This story is not about “good ground” and “bad ground,” where some people have it easy and some do not. The “goodness” of the “ground” is always measured in hindsight. In life, all ground has stony surfaces, thorns, and fowls which are eager to pick off the seeds of faith. But when a person keeps their heart soft in spite of this opposition, and continues in faith despite these challenges, they make themselves “good ground.” No one automatically becomes the source of “an hundredfold” fruit. They do so as a result of determined persistence against opposition.
The parable of the Prodigal Son was another illustration of the same question. This “son” was a member of the family, loved and accepted. He dealt foolishly with the great inheritance which was his. He demanded to use his inheritance before its time. Too young to be able to conserve the resources given to him, he “wasted his substance with riotous living.” (Luke 15: 13.) Only after the waste was finished and he was left destitute does he “come to himself.” Then “he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,” (Id., vs. 17–18). The son returns in embarrassment and contrition. This is the way of the penitent. They always feel some humiliation at the foolishness of their sins. His homecoming, however, was glorious.
In both the sower and the Prodigal Son, Christ uses images which presume the likelihood of a personal falling away. He knows any of us can fail in our efforts. Despite all our best intentions, we are all prone to wander. When we are ready to return to Him, He is ready to welcome us in return.
In the verse contemplated in this Chapter, Alma’s question is put to a body of Saints who have once been converted. But they are now struggling, wayward and losing their valor. His question reminds them of the great joy which once accompanied their conversion. Genuine conversion is a joyful thing. It brings light and truth, peace and contentment, and the feeling you are returning home to a God of love. Unlike some of the day-to-day struggles through the mundane responsibilities of living as a convert, the initial conversion process is wonderful. A whole new view of the world and of eternity is opened to view. Things which were mysterious and unexplained acquire new and exciting meanings. It is wonderful and edifying. But it is followed with the challenge of living this new way of life. Planting the seed is easy in contrast to caring for it. Beyond that, getting the seedling to bear fruit is a further challenge which makes the planting simple by comparison.
Consider the images Alma uses to describe this prior conversion: “change of heart” and “sing the song of redeeming love” and “feel so now.” They evoke a past passion, former love, prior joy and feelings of the heart. He wants to bring them home again. These phrases communicate a great deal in few words.
“Change of heart” is directed toward the inner life. Our “hearts” are the center of feeling. It is the heart that inclines us to do good and to show love. The image of changing the heart suggests going from hard-heartedness to more charitable and kindly feelings. Alma is reminding his listeners how they were once altered by their conversion.
“Sing the song of redeeming love” is a wonderful allusion to the image of vocal praise. At times prayer alone is not enough. Anthems of praise raise the expression of worship from one level to the next. When nothing else is strong enough, and words fail, then song can add more expression to the emotions felt. Here Alma ties this joyous singing to the “redeeming love” which forms the basis of true worship. It is not just love, but love which redeems. Love which provides a sacrifice for sin; and which provides a guide back to heaven itself.
“Can ye feel so now” is a question which ties back to the heart and feeling. Much of what goes on with the Holy Spirit is tied to our feelings. It sharpens our convictions. It hones our desires. This “feeling” is more than simple emotion, but involves communication of pure intelligence to the mind of man. As Nephi spoke to his older brothers, he lamented the darkness of their minds. They were unable to “hear” what God was saying because they were “past feeling” This concept of “feeling.” relating to original conversion bears consideration.
Losing that song does not happen solely by drifting away from faith into faithlessness. It can be lost by misdirected religion, as well. We will look at both these causes.
God speaks. The witnesses to this are not confined to scripture alone. Poets have thrilled us with truths which cut to our souls. Great writers have penetrated our hearts with insights that resonate from eternity. Great music touches our hearts. There have been songs written and sung which cause each of us to reflect or meditate. The American folk hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing is an example of such a hymn that touches me. The music is simple. It was borrowed from an existing American tune. The words were added by Robert Robinson in 1758, and read in part as follows:
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave that God I love;
Here’s my heart; O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
These are simple words, intended to be sung in a simple way. Adding flourish or embellishments only detract from the profound simplicity of the hymn. When it is allowed to speak, it can bring tears to the listener. However, when it is embellished, the listener may be distracted from the words and simplicity of the message, and fail to be touched by it. We do not always improve something by adding to it. We damage the simple things from heaven when we add to them. We remove from them their beauty which is inherent. We distract from their plain, ordinary, wonderful and profound ability to speak to the human heart. We tend to do this with everything. It should stop.
Christ came with simplicity. He taught the most profound truths using examples from everyday life. He was able to teach us about our greatest fears, and our loftiest ambitions, using simple allegories taken from common experience. These teachings contain an abiding beauty because they reduce these profound concerns to stories about wonderful and coherent symbols, readily recognized and easily applied in the lives of all.
In contrast to this, Isaiah wrote how Christ’s contemporaries would react: “when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” (Isa. 53: 2.) This is not a statement about His physical appearance. It is about His status (un-credentialed outsider) and His teachings (homely and plain). He lacked the appealing sophistication of the teachers of His day. There was no appeal to Rabbinic authority, no reasoning from the Talmud, no intellectual finery to support His statements. He was a “country preacher” in the full import of these words.
His words cut to the heart of the listener. Even now, two millennia later, His words speak across time, language and culture. They touch every generation because they speak to the feelings of the heart. He speaks about the “poor in spirit” and the “meek” and the “merciful.” While living in a time when there were persecutors of Him and His people on every side, He advised turning the other cheek. He actually turned His cheek to the Romans who beat Him, and allowed them to bruise and injure Him. In a life cut short by public execution, He advised us to love our enemies. Then He showed the way by forgiving the Roman executors who nailed Him to a tree, causing His barbaric and painful death. Bruised, beaten, bloody and torn, He exited this life as gracefully as He lived it. For anyone willing to pay attention to His message, His words touch the heart. His words and His life touch us. The grace and beauty of His spoken words are mirrored in His behavior.
It requires us to pause from our own self-interests and burdens to consider His message and life. It requires us to take time to reflect on Him to see the majestic single-mindedness of His commitment to this inner beauty. If we take the time to do so, we can find our hearts touched by the things this Man stood for.
We cannot improve on the Gospel by adding to it. Adding theological arguments, or Neo-Platonic thought to expand it does not help His message. Adding creeds and catechisms to insulate Him from our direct view only darkens the picture. The more directly we confront Him by studying His own words, the more His beauty becomes apparent to us. We cannot “help” His message by embellishment and ostentation.
Lincoln reflected upon the ground of Gettysburg after that great battle and observed: “we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or to detract.” (Abraham Lincoln. Gettysburg Address; November 9, 1863.) When men gave their lives as a willing sacrifice for the cause in which they believed, they sanctified the cause far above words. Lincoln recognized that. He dignified himself by confessing in few words how men’s sacrifices had been the true consecration for the battleground.
Christ hallowed the Gospel by His sacrifice. It does not end there, however. He asks for His followers to take up their crosses and live consecrated lives of sacrifice as they follow His path. It is not enough to find Him, convert to His ways, and find the joy of connecting with God. He requires enduring obedience. Singing the song of redeeming love once may make you feel born again. However, your faith can die in infancy if you do not nourish it through obedience and following Him. He gave the test for loving Him: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14: 15.) Without an effort to walk in His ways, there is no love for Him.
The perils of mortality face us all. Life was meant to challenge, confront, stretch and improve us. It is a time to be “proven” by the things which we experience. (Abr. 3: 25.) Alma describes it this way: “if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?” This life is hallowed through sacrifice. Christ is found with joy as you are born again. However, Christ is retained in your life and the song of redeeming love is sung through living a life of sacrifice and obedience. We’ve discussed this elsewhere, and will not repeat it here.
You can lose the song of redeeming love while actively involved in religion. It is not just faithlessness which tempts us away. For some it is caused by an excessive preoccupation with religion itself.
Every conversion has at its core a transcendental experience. The convert has heard from God. As a result of the experience, they decide to come onboard with the new faith, the new way of looking at things, the movement which delivered to them this experience. Religious movements begin with an individual soul gaining enlightenment. Some person profoundly connects with God and changes the course of history. “Religion” follows in the wake of personal or individual enlightenment as others are taught by the enlightened visionary. It is not easy to transfer a connection to God from one person to another, and religion is the unavoidable result of enlightenment as the transfer is attempted.
It is impossible to institutionalize enlightenment. Although that is the object of every religious movement at the start, none of them are able to reach that goal. What is institutionalized is an echo of the enlightenment experience. It is always left to the individual participant to find the experience for themselves.
Moses’ experience on Sinai resulted in a new Dispensation, because the heavens had opened and God had spoken. From this original contact with the ineffable, a religious construct was organized. It involved organization, priestly officiators, ordinances, rites, rituals, laws, social order and a body of teachings. The purpose of it all was to allow those who followed Moses and believed God had revealed Himself to Moses to worship in a form which would bring them into harmony with God. However, as the Old Testament account shows, those who followed in these religious observances would be at times cruel, mischievous, perverse, hard-hearted, vain and rule-ridden. Often, the whole of the Old Testament is viewed as a time of darkness and ignorance. The whole of the Mosaic Law is viewed by the Christian world as inferior to what was to come.
The Mosaic Dispensation was a time of religious importance, however. It lasted for more than a millennium and is still remembered for its religious rites and observances. This epoch was dominated by religion. There may have been seasons when there was precious little enlightenment for a time, but throughout the era the people are still remembered for being religious. As the New Testament unfolds, we find just how entirely possible it was to be devoted to the religion, and yet so unenlightened to the truth that people would reject God. This gulf between religious people and their God highlighted Christ’s ministry. Christ’s teachings attempted to bring people back to God by focusing on what was truly important. Before turning to Christ, however, there is another example which requires examination.
In the darkness of these Old Testament times, when religion was important but unenlightening, there came a man who attained such enlightenment that Jews, Christians and Latter-day Saints reverence his name today. He pierced the veil of unbelief, saw the underlying truths to which the ordinances pointed, and became the friend of God. When popular, new, false notions were being rapidly assimilated into Israelite beliefs, Elijah stood against these trends and distinguished himself as a prophet of God. The religious and political establishment did not welcome him. They aligned against him. But he was able to find God and attain enlightenment.
Elijah lived under the Law of Moses. He sacrificed in the pattern required by the Mosaic Law. (See, e.g., 1 Kings 18: 22–39.) His offering, however, drew down the power of heaven itself. All who were there were impressed by the presence of God’s power. He was one of the greatest prophets in history. And so we perceive the religion of the day was no impediment to individual enlightenment. Defects in group worship cannot prevent perfection in individual worship.
Christ came to end the Mosaic Dispensation and begin new forms of worship. The religious leaders of His day were so steeped in their form of religious observances they viewed Christ as a threat to the order of things. These were not irreligious people. Quite the opposite was true. They were devoted to the faith they practiced. It was their security, their tradition, their identity. Through it, their place in the world was established. The entire Roman Empire knew of the Jews. Their religious peculiarities were well known. Their synagogues were spread from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Alexandria to Rome. Paul’s later missionary efforts would use the local synagogues throughout the Mediterranean as places to preach. The Jewish faith was the seedbed from which Christianity sprouted. The leaders of this faith were justifiably proud of their religion’s successes. However, whatever light may have been possible to gain under this religion, the leaders were so opposed to Christ they conspired to have Him killed.
The religion established through a prophet of God became the superstructure used to kill the Lord who first revealed it to Moses. As these devoted followers of Moses’ law were killing Christ, they were satisfied their judgment was more than justified by their religion. Religion and the religious were the ones who opposed the Lord. The sinners and irreligious were His followers.
In Alma’s day, the tendency to drift from enlightenment to religion was again the challenge. Alma’s words are intended to remind the audience of what they once experienced. He is calling them to return to the former state of enlightenment.
All religions are prone to drift from what matters most to what matters not at all. Particularly in a hierarchical church, there are always those who confuse the expediency of having a hierarchy with the truths which save. Attention is distracted away from God and enlightenment and onto the hierarchy. God, knowing this great weakness of mankind has caused the slide into darkness among His people in all prior dispensations, warned in revelation about this very issue. He revealed: “Hence many are called, but few are chosen. No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—” (D&C 121: 40–42.) Salvation does not come through a hierarchy. It never has. It never will. Salvation comes as individuals are brought to have their hearts changed so they sing with joy the songs of redeeming love. People may help bring others to sing this song. And an enlightened hierarchy may lead others along that path. But it is up to each person to individually choose to have their hearts change. However good or bad leaders or others may be is irrelevant to individual salvation.
In any church with an orderly hierarchy, there are those who have sought for a position of authority to prove to themselves they are accepted by God. More often than not they have been dismayed, when their ambition is realized, to find they’ve accomplished nothing. God is just as distant from them as He was before. He is not found in popular acclaim or public recognition. His is the still, small voice which is available to the obscure and the meek. Generally speaking, leadership interferes with, and does not promote, contact with the Holy Spirit.
The questions put by Alma in the verse discussed in this Chapter are questions every individual must answer for themselves. No one is spared from the same searching inquiry. All are alike unto God. At various times in our lives we can either offer help or we need help. If we can help, we ought to do so. If we need help, we should accept it with gratitude and rejoicing. We are here in this life to minister to others and to be ministered to by others. For that, we do not need to belong to any hierarchy. Our own good works should stand as the testimony of whether we follow Christ.
The Lord established a Church through a prophet as part of this final Dispensation. However, whether any given individual member of that Church will choose to everlastingly sing the song of redeeming love is left to them. Each must choose for himself. Each must answer for himself. Whether or not I damn myself through pride will not control your destiny. Neither will your choice to follow Christ benefit me if I choose otherwise. God is no respecter of persons. Pride is corrosive to any soul. So whether you are “great or small,” you will have to answer for the life you lived and how you showed charity to others.
If you have been redeemed, are you still? Do you still feel the joy which accompanied your original discovery of God in your life? If not, then you need to seek Him again.