WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO AT: https://youtu.be/XU_krYYWgsc
ICEBREAKER
I like to begin this lesson talking a little bit about school. And one of the things I liked least about school was taking tests. And the most feared of all tests is the final. The final is exactly what it sounds like, it’s the final test at the end to the year where you are tested on everything you’ve been taught that year and it’s usually worth the majority of your grade. You have a bad final, and you will have a bad grade. But there is a different kind of test that teachers give during the school year called a midterm.
Ask: What is the purpose of a midterm?
My answer to that question would be “to help us to be prepared for the final”. To give you a sense of what the final might be like and ask some of the types of questions you’re going to find on it. Now if you do poorly on a midterm, usually, you can recover from that and still get a passing grade at the end. But if you do poorly on the final, well, you’re out of luck.
TRANSITION
Well, we’re going to take a little mid-term today. A spiritual mid-term. That’s the way I like to approach Alma chapter 5. Alma has a number of questions for us to consider and so I call this “The MidTerm of Life”.
The background: Alma is preaching a sermon to the people of Zarahemla who have started to become prideful and to persecute the more humble and impoverished members of the church. So Alma decides to step down as chief judge and commit himself fully to the ministry. To help his people to course correct. And as we begin, sometimes it’s good to determine the audience of any given sermon in the scriptures. For example, King Benjamin was addressing an overwhelmingly righteous audience. Abinadi, a very wicked audience. Alma is kind of dealing with an audience that’s somewhere in between. Which audience do you relate to most? For me, I see myself in that last group and I imagine that most could probably relate well here too. Alma wished to recommit his people to the gospel by giving them this self-examination, this spiritual midterm. And so that’s how I want you to approach it. Let’s say that Alma is speaking to you. And he walks over and says, Ok, I’m going to give you a choice here. Jesus is in an office just down the hall from here and he’s ready to give you your final judgment right now. You could go now and be judged, OR, you can delay it for six months and I’ll prep you with the questions that he’s going to ask, and then you can have your final. Which option would you choose? I think most of us would probably choose to delay a little so that we could prepare ourselves a little better. I think most would want the extra time. We want the mid-term, not the final. So let’s take the mid-term, and I have some good news for you! On this mid-term, to pass, you only have to get one question right. How’s that for a gracious teacher. But there's a catch. It has to be the right question. You can get all the other questions wrong, but if you get that one key question correct, you’ll be fine.
SEARCH
Scan through Alma 5 looking for question marks, then mark their accompanying questions
Invite your students to start scanning the chapter looking for question marks. Each time one is identified, pause at those questions, add some brief commentary to help them understand it a little better, and then give them a pondering moment for them to ask themselves those questions.
QUESTION #1
We’re going to find in verse 6 and thematically, the idea of this question covers from verse 6 all the way to 13. You’re going to see a lot of question marks in that section, but they all drive at the same idea. The key phrase is “Have ye sufficiently retained in remembrance?” And what it is that Alma wants them to remember sufficiently? Let’s see if you can figure it out. In verse 6, the captivity of THEIR fathers, God’s mercy, and long-suffering towards THEM. How God delivered THEIR souls from hell, how he changed THEIR hearts. How THEY were loosed from the chains of hell. How THEY were saved. How the words of Abinadi changed Alma’s father and how he changed THEIR fathers’ hearts by teaching Abinadi’s words to them. What do all these things have in common? It’s all about looking back, about remembering both the triumphs and mistakes of their fathers and what God had done for them. Why would God want them and us to do that? Because it will give us confidence that God will do the same kinds of things for us. Because it helps us to learn from their mistakes and spare ourselves reliving the same mistakes over and over again. Because their stories inspire us and give us the strength to make the same kinds of sacrifices. Remembering is an incredibly important idea in the Book of Mormon. In fact, the word “remember" or “remembrance" is found over 100 times in the Book of Mormon. What do we remember? The people in the scriptures and what they learned. In early times, they didn’t even call the scriptures. They called them “Book of Remembrance”. We need to remember our church heritage. The early Saints. The pioneers. All of us are beneficiaries of their sacrifices. We should remember them. And we should remember our own ancestors. No wonder family history work is such an emphasis in the church.
Perhaps share a story of one of your ancestors that inspires you.
So, I ask you, right now, have you sufficiently retained in remembrance your forefathers and mothers? I promise, that remembrance will strengthen you!
QUESTION #2
v. 14. Have ye spiritually been born of God?
Remember our lesson back in the beginning of Mosiah. King Benjamin’s sermon? In that talk, Benjamin spoke about becoming the children of Christ. About choosing Christ as our father instead of the adversary. Remember Isaiah’s question that Abinadi quoted back in Mosiah 15:10-12: "Who shall declare his generation?” or who will be his children. Abinadi tells us they are those that hear, hearken, and believe the words of the prophets and look forward to a remission of their sins through Christ. Do you match this description? Do you value the words of our living prophets? Do you rely on Christ? Have you chosen Him as your father?
QUESTION #3
Do you notice anything interesting about these celebrities and their children? They look very similar don’t they! You can tell who their famous parents are. They reflect their image. Well look at the next question, also in verse 14, and then the same idea is repeated in vs. 19. Have ye received his image in your countenances? And vs. 19, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances.
This question naturally follows the last. If we have been born of God and Christ is now our father, is there a family resemblance in you? It’s often easy to pair up parents with their children because they look similar. We say things like “You’re the spitting image of your father”, or “You have your Mother’s eyes”. There’s something in our appearance or countenance that ties us to them. Well, can people see Christ in you? And we’re not talking actual physical appearance now, but in spirit, in character. You know, you can often read things in people’s faces. You can see personality traits in them without them even saying a word. Sometimes you can see compassion in people’s faces, but you can also see anger and hatred. What we have in our hearts often shows up in our faces. What do you picture in Christ’s face? In his image. Imagine he’s sitting in front of you right now. What traits do you see there? Kindness, love, tenderness, understanding, but at the same time courage, expectation, and resolve? Well, do you see those same values reflected in you? Does his image reflect in your countenance? In your character? Can people tell that you are his child by the way you act, and speak, and dress, and treat others? And how firmly should those traits be seated in your countenance? Verse 19 uses the word engraven. I can write my name on something in pencil, or pen, or even magic marker and it possibly may fade. But if I engrave my name on something, it’s permanent.
QUESTION #4
Also in verse 14. Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?
What's the mighty change of heart? We talked about this back in Mosiah 5. We decided there that it was the attitude of “I want to be good”. I may not always choose good, sometimes my pesky natural man gets in the way, but my desire is there. I really want to be a good boy or a good girl. I want to do what’s right. I want to please my Heavenly parents. Do you have that attitude? Do you no longer have the disposition to do evil, but good continually? The mighty change is when we begin to follow our Father’s will because we want to. Not just for the praise of others, or because we feel obligated out of some sense of social pressure or routine.
QUESTION #5
In verse 15. Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you?
How’s your testimony doing? What’s the state of your faith in him who created you? Later in Alma, he’ll compare faith and testimony to a tree. Well, what does your testimony tree currently look like? Is it green and growing and bearing fruit? or is it dying? A Charlie Brown Christmas tree? Are you nourishing it? Caring for it? When the frosts and the storms of doubt come, is it capable of weathering the storm? The word Alma uses here is exercise faith. What a great word. We need to exercise faith. Exercise requires effort. It requires persistence. It requires pushing ourselves in sometimes uncomfortable ways. But it makes you stronger, faster, more capable the more you do it. It’s the same thing with faith. In needs to be exercised. Is your faith fit or flabby? Maybe you need to get it to the gym.
QUESTION #6
Again, here, I’m going to combine a lot of questions and ideas into one that I feel covers verse 15 all the way to 25. The theme here is visualizing the final judgment. How do you picture that day going? Is the question. If the first section of this test was about looking back, and the second was about looking inward, this portion is all about looking forward. So:
15 . . .Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?
How do you imagine that day going for you? Then, since this is a test, he gives you some multiple-choice options. A, B, or C. Which do you envision? Option A:
16 I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?
Right now, looking at where you are at this moment, is that what you picture him saying to you?
OR,
Option B:
17 Or do ye imagine to yourselves that ye can lie unto the Lord in that day, and say—Lord, our works have been righteous works upon the face of the earth—and that he will save you?
You know fingers crossed behind your back. Oh yeah, I was good. Hmmm. Is that going to work?
Or Option C:
18 Or otherwise, can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God?
Wow. For you, which scenario do you most likely see happening? And Alma whispers to us: Choose A, choose A. But we’ve got to live our lives in a certain way to be able to choose A or else we’re really choosing B.
QUESTION #7
The next question is related but we’ll give this one it’s own separate number: Question #7 in vs. 19.
Can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? Elder Bednar gave a great talk on this a number of years ago in conference about the importance of having both. He suggested that it was possible to have clean hands and not a pure heart. It’s not enough just to avoid being bad, but we need to strive to do good. He teaches that to have clean hands, we put off the natural man and overcome sin and evil, but that our hearts are purified as we receive the strengthening and enabling power of the atonement of Jesus Christ—that we can’t purify our hearts all by ourselves. We need to rely on and seek the strength of the Atonement to make our hearts pure. So are you working on both? Are you exerting yourself to refrain from sin? But are you seeking to improve yourself, to become more Christlike, and are you doing both these things by relying on the power of the Atonement and not just your own power?
I’m going to skip past the rest of the verses and questions in that section since the message is basically the same. And that is "Can you imagine the judgment going well for you if your hands aren’t clean and your hearts aren’t pure?” The answer. No, it won’t
Well, how are you doing so far? If you feel you aren’t doing well. Hang in there. Remember, you only have to get one question right here. So don’t lose hope.
QUESTION #8
in vs. 26.
26 And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, 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?
Here, Alma is encouraging them to look back again. But not to their father’s experiences this time. Their own previous spiritual experiences. Back to the times when they felt that “mighty change of heart”, that intense desire to do and be good. Have you ever felt that? You have! Good. Do you still feel it? If not, what happened? Let’s rekindle that fire. Think back to those experiences. Your answered prayers, your patriarchal blessing, experiences you had in gaining your testimony, experiences you had in childhood, what your parents taught you. If you are a convert, what first drew you to the gospel? The very act of remembering those times helps keep that flame burning. Why do we partake of the sacrament every week? For that very purpose. To remember. Why do we pray and study the scriptures daily? Why do we attend church meetings every week? Why do we have general conference every 6 months? To keep our faith burning bright. He talks about singing the song of redeeming love. Have you gotten to the point where you’re just singing one verse, without any enthusiasm, barely moving your lips, like my seminary students do sometimes? Or are you belting it out, all 6 verses, getting your lungs into it? If you’ve ever had those mighty change moments where you felt spiritually energized. Do you feel so now? If not, what are you going to do about it? What do you need to remember?
QUESTION #9
Three related questions in vs. 27
27 Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God? Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within
yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble? That your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins?
Have you been humble enough to accept Christ’s atonement for your sins? Humility is the key in this process. We have to have the humility to recognize that we need Christ to redeem us from our sins. Keeping ourselves blameless does not mean living without mistakes. The last question suggests that our garments will become dirty. But that they can be cleansed. Christ’s blood has that power. He will keep us blameless. Do you wash yourselves each week through the power of the sacrament? Are you humble enough to accept that sacrifice?
QUESTION #10
For this question I’m going to lump verse 28-30 together. There are three things Alma wants his people to rid themselves of. This would be the clean hands part of the equation. We will not be found blameless if we have these trespasses still on our record. What are those three things? Pride, envy, and persecution. We know that these were the three specific things that Alma’s people were struggling with at the time, so I think you can approach this question in two ways. One, do you struggle with any of these specific things? Are you prideful? Do you perceive that you are better than others because you have more, either physically, financially, intellectually, socially, or even spiritually? Or do you struggle on the other side of that equation, you perceive you have less than others and that fills you with envy for those that do? Do you resent those that have more? Is your heart filled with ingratitude towards God because others have been blessed with something more than you? Do you persecute others? OR, you could approach this a different way. If Alma named three specific things you needed to work on most, what would they be? Maybe your problem isn’t envy or persecution, but anger, lust, selfishness, laziness, or a critical attitude? Think of three specific things that you need to work on and then go to work on stripping yourself of them.
Now we’re going to jump ahead because there is a large section here without many questions. Don’t worry though, we’ll come back to it in a bit, but let’s finish off the question part of this chapter.
QUESTION #11
There is one final question to consider here and Alma asks it four different times in verses 53-55. Can you find the repeated question phrase?
And what is it? “will ye persist?” If your actions are not in accordance with God’s will, are you determined to continue down that broad path you're currently traveling? Will you continue to distance yourself further and further from your Redeemer?
WHICH QUESTION DO YOU HAVE TO ANSWER RIGHT?
SO, those are all the questions we’ll consider. How did you do? I often don’t always do very well. But, did you figure out the only question you have to get right? Which do you think it would be?
It’s got to be the last question right? Will ye persist? You can do poorly on all the others, but if you can answer that one right, you have hope! And if your answer is no, I will not persist in those things in my life that are out of order that I can improve on. I’ll change. If you can answer that honestly, well then, you pass! Remember the purpose of a mid-term. It’s about preparing you for the final. You can course-correct here! You can change! You don’t have to persist in this path! It’s not too late! There’s still time! Therefore the message of the rest of the chapter. You can read it in verses 31-62 and it really all drives at one specific point that I’ll simply summarize for you here. Repent. Change. You don’t have to persist. A few verses of note here:
33 Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.
34 Yea, he saith: Come unto me and ye shall partake of the fruit of the tree of life; yea, ye shall eat and drink of the bread and the waters of life freely;
I love the openness of that. He’s not a stern teacher that’s grading on a curve or hoping to trick his students. He’s inviting everyone to get an A in his class. Anybody that messed up on the mid-term can start over and try again. There is hope. Come, pass this class and enjoy the graduation. It will be a celebration like no other.
THE FINAL QUESTION
And then this key message in vs. 57. Perhaps adding one final question to our test.
57 And now I say unto you, all you that are desirous to follow the voice of the good shepherd, come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things; and behold, their names shall be blotted out, that the names of the wicked shall not be numbered among the names of the righteous, that the word of God may be fulfilled, which saith: The names of the wicked shall not be mingled with the names of my people;
So the final question: Will you come out of the world? Are you willing to be separate? Are you willing to stand up and stand out? The more wicked the world becomes, the more glaring the differences will be. The harder it will become to hide our candle under a bushel. Can you stand up to the scrutiny? Can you leave the unclean things of the world behind? I hope you can. And for who? The good shepherd. Because he’s calling each one of us. He says, come. You are my child. You bear my image in your countenance. You look forward to the judgment with an eye of faith. You have clean hands, and a pure heart. You sing my song of redeeming love. You walk blameless before me. You have stripped yourself of sin. Come. Partake of the fruit of my tree, and the water of my well. You don’t need the world. Come out of it and walk with me.
CONCLUSION
Well, now you know the questions on the final! Wouldn’t you love a teacher that did that! That said "I’m going to give you all the questions that I’m going to ask you on the final before I ever even give it to you. I want you to pass. I’m on your side. So take these questions. Prepare yourselves. Change what you need to change. And become what you need to become.
And you know what’s great about this sermon? It worked! The mid-term did change many of the people of Zarahemla. Just look at 7:4 It says that they had been "established again in the way of his righteousness.” If you have strayed, if you’ve become too comfortable with the world around you, if you feel you had to answer a lot of the questions in a less than desirable way, I encourage you to do what you can to become established again in the way of righteousness. And if you ever feel like you are straying from that path, you can come and take it again. Something Paul said comes to my mind here. In 1 Corinthians 11:31, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged”. What I think he means is that if I continually judge myself, and take the midterm often, and course-correct throughout my life, then when it comes to the final judgment, Christ won’t even need to judge me. He’ll say, you know, you’ve been judging yourself all throughout your life and keeping yourself in check and improving. I don’t even need to judge you. Enter into my kingdom, ye blessed.” I hope that’s what we’ll all hear him say on the final that really matters most.
ALMA 6 SUMMARY
Well, chapter 6 tells us how Alma sets things in order in Zarahemla and then how he makes his way to his next destination. The city of Gideon. Then chapter 7 gives us the sermon he teaches in Gideon. And you know what. It’s completely different. They don’t have the problems the people in Zarahemla had, so he gives them a different message. And I really like that. It’s not like he says, “You know, I gave this great talk back in Zarahemla. It went over really well. It’s already prepared, so I’ll just give you that message”. No, prophets are going to teach according to where you are at and what you need.
And since the Gideonites don’t have the problems of the Zarahemlans, Alma is able to teach them greater and deeper things. Sometimes I hear people criticize conference by saying that we just hear the same things every time. Maybe if we all really applied those things, they could go deeper and teach us more. Well, because of their righteousness, we get some of the most important and doctrinally significant verses on the atonement anywhere in the scriptures.
ALMA 7
And the fact of the matter is that I have already taught you my thoughts on these verses in a recent video. If you remember, at Easter, the Come Follow Me manual encouraged us to focus topically on what the Book of Mormon teaches us about the Atonement. In that video, I focused a large section of my thoughts on these particular verses. So, rather than repeating myself, I’m going to invite you to watch that portion of my Easter video and I’ll provide you with a link here: https://youtu.be/el28YXyYkgE. The part on Alma 7 is found starting at timestamp 23:48 and ends at 31:30.
But I don’t want to leave you completely empty-handed here in chapter 7, so one brief thought here and a way of introducing those verses if you were teaching them.
ICEBREAKER
So a brief icebreaker activity. I’d ask some “most important” discussion questions and invite them to discuss their opinions with a partner.
What’s the most important meal of the day?
What’s the most important subject you can study in school?
What’s the most important habit you can develop?
What’s the most important event in the history of mankind?
Everybody will probably have different views on the answers to those questions. But now I invite you to see what Alma’s answer is to that last question. What did he feel was the most important thing of all according to Alma 7:7?
He says, there is one thing of more importance than they all, that the Redeemer liveth and cometh and cometh among his people. Now I know that because of the hymn, and because of the way we often bear testimony of the Savior. When we hear that our thoughts immediately go to the resurrection. But that’s not the context that Alma is referring to here. He’s saying that the most important thing, is that Jesus Christ lived a mortal life and came among his people. So it’s not the "I know that my Redeemer lives again even after he was crucified". But the “I know that my Redeemer lived a mortal life like me”. That “I know that my Redeemer lived” is just as important as the “I know that my Redeemer lives” now. It’s vital for us to know that he shared mortality with us. That he knows what’s it like to live life at our level. He lived and knows what we've experienced. Jesus Christ didn’t come down to earth merely to observe life and what we go through, but to experience what we experience. And he did. Literally. He felt everything that each of us feels and will feel. And that’s the lead in that I would use to then teach verses 11-13. Those verses show us that Christ experienced all pains, afflictions, temptations, sicknesses, death, infirmities, sins, and transgressions of every kind so that he would know according to the flesh, not just by the revelation of the Spirit, but by real-life experience what it means to be mortal. Therefore, he understands.
ALMA 7 NOTES FROM EASTER VIDEO
PAINS, SICKNESSES, AFFLICTIONS, INFIRMITIES OF EVERY KIND
The last question. Do you experience difficult challenges, trials, or burdens in your life? Now, these are the kinds of burdens that come to us not because of the improper use of our agency, or bad choices, but the burdens and challenges of life.
I feel that one of the most important and illuminating references on the Atonement anywhere is found in Alma 7. If you’ve ever wanted to understand exactly what the atonement entailed, these verses explain it best. You may remember that Jesus compared his atonement to a bitter cup. Like drinking a cup full of something very bitter, like vinegar. Well, what was in that cup?
What exactly was he experiencing during his atonement? See if you can find the 8 different words that describe what he was feeling in Alma 7:11-13.
Pains
Afflictions
Temptations
Sicknesses
Death
Infirmities
Sins
Transgressions.
And not only certain kinds of pains and afflictions and temptations, but pains and afflictions, and temptations “of every kind”. That would be physical, social, mental, and emotional pains and afflictions. I think we often focus on the fact that Jesus paid for our sins and transgressions, which he did, but sometimes we forget that he also felt all of our pains, sicknesses, and infirmities too.
And the next question that these verses answer is why? Why did he take these things upon himself? Can you see any answers to that question:
:11 that the word might be fulfilled
:12 that he may loose the bands of death.
:12 that his bowels may be filled with mercy
:12 that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people
:13 that he might take upon him the sins of his people
:13 that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance
I’ve often asked myself, why would Jesus suffer my pains and my sicknesses. I understand him suffering for my sins and transgressions, that makes sense to me—that he pays the full price of justice for my errors to make me right with God again. But why my pains and sicknesses? Don’t I still feel those? How does Him feeling them, help me? And at least part of the answer to that question lies in vs 12.
BOWELS FILLED WITH MERCY
One, so that his bowels may be filled with mercy. Ultimately Jesus is going to be our judge. And he needs to be the perfect judge. Somebody in a court of law could possibly point to the judge after their sentencing and say, how dare you judge me this way, you don’t know me, you don’t know what I’ve been through, you don’t know what it’s like to be in my shoes. And they would be right. A judge can’t know those things for sure, they make their judgment based on the best information that they have. But this judgment concerns the eternity of God’s precious souls. This has to be fair. So who is going to do the judging in this case? Somebody that knows you better than you know yourself. Somebody that not only knows what your struggles were like but has actually been through your struggles, has felt your pains, your trials, your temptations. The atonement makes Jesus the perfect judge. The fairest judge to ever take the stand. It's comforting to me to know that somebody who truly knows me and everything about me will be holding the gavel. I don’t imagine anybody arguing with the judgments he pronounces. They will be uttered with the perfect balance of justice and mercy. All will recognize the fairness and the rightness and the wisdom of his judgments.
RUN TO HELP
Another reason, that he may know how to succor his people according to their infirmities. The word succor is an interesting word. It comes from Latin. The root words for succor suggest running and help, or rescue. In other words, Jesus felt these things so that he would know how to run to help you. There are two kinds of "I understand’” one can speak. If one of the youth from my ward came to my office and said “Bishop Wilcox, I’m really struggling right now, my parents are going through a divorce, do you have any counsel that might help me”. And in that situation I might say with great sympathy, oh, I’m so sorry, I understand that that must be very difficult.” And I would do my very best to counsel them through that difficulty. But of course, they could look at me and say, really, do you really understand, how could you, you haven’t been through it have you? And I would have to say No, you’re right, but I can imagine how difficult it would be. On the other hand, if that same youth went and spoke to my Dad, and told him the same thing, He could look back at them and say “Oh, I understand that’s difficult”. And his “I understand" would be different than mine”. Why? Because that did happen to him when he was young. He does know what that is like. Which of the two “I understand’s” is more powerful, do you think? The second right. It’s the difference between sympathy and empathy. Which of the two did Jesus want to be able to say to you? He wanted to be able to say “I understand”. And you know what, I actually think there is a third type of “I understand”, Jesus’s I understand is even more than empathy. It’s not just that he understands because he’s been through something similar, it’s that he has actually been through exactly what we have been through. He has suffered our specific pains, and sicknesses, and infirmities. It’s the most perfect “I understand” that can ever be uttered by the lips of another mortal.
ACCORDING TO THE FLESH
And there is an interesting phrase that keeps coming up in there. According to the flesh. Jesus knows our pains according to the flesh. Look at vs. 13. It starts by saying “Now the Spirit knoweth all things, nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh. What I think that means is that Jesus could have understood our pains through the power of the Spirit, that the Spirit could have communicated that understanding to him. But, for Jesus, he didn’t want to just understand on a spiritual level. He wanted to understand according to the flesh. Completely, absolutely, and in all its awful reality. Jesus understands, like no one else. Therefore, turn to him for help. He can offer help, and he will run to offer it.
How is that help offered? I think it can be offered through inspired church leaders, it can be offered through loving friends and family sent by God to help us, it can be offered through the scriptures, it can be offered by actual angels sent to us from beyond the veil, it can be offered through the comforting presence of the Holy Ghost. It can also be offered by an actual lifting or easing of our burdens.
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