RIGHTEOUS WARRIORS

I recently was watching the BYU cable channel and came in at the middle of a talk given at BYU Education Week in 2006 by John Bytheway.

Are there some people that you could listen to all day long? Among several others, John Bytheway is one of those for me. This talk was entitled "Righteous Warriors: Lessons from the War Chapter in the Book of Mormon." It was fantastic! I think he did publish this as a book, so you might already know about it.

I am always amazed at the interesting stuff some can pull out of the scriptures. I think that my brain works very differently. In school, I always loved Math, but hated English. Math is very straight forward....2 + 2 will ALWAYS be 4, but English always seemed very subjective. After reading a book, the tree might represent or mean something different to one person that to the next. One must hope that they came up with the answer that the teacher was looking for.

Therefore, I struggle with interpreting symbolism. When I read the scriptures I get the story, but it is hard for me to dig deeper and to figure out what the stories/parables etc. are trying to teach me, what I should learn from them. Once someone explains something to me, it makes sense, but I don't think that I ever would have come up with that on my own.


I missed the first part of this talk and tried to find it on the internet. I was only able to find it in audio & video form (not the text). If you are interested click here. He discusses one lesson from each chapter in Alma 43-62 (He only makes it to Alma 55). I just thought I would share some of the lessons from this talk.


Chapter 43 = If we are going to be attacked spiritually, our prophets can tell us where the enemy will strike.
Chapter 44 = Faith in Christ is a power to be reckoned with - with even in war. Moroni stands as a witness of God in all places.
Chapter 45 = It is expedient that the word of God be declared in times of war.
Chapter 46 = Covenants are power! Place reminders of your covenants everywhere. (Pictures of Christ, the temple, etc.)
Chapter 47 = Lehonti principle-Don't come down from your mountain (lower your standards).....not even a little bit.
Chapter 48 = Spiritual Preparation FIRST!
Chapter 49 = If you are prepared, ye shall not fear.
Chapter 50 = We have to be humble enough to obey what the "watchmen" (prophets) are telling us to do. They can see things we can't.
Chapter 51 = Beware of Pride - It will destroy you.
Chapter 52 = Don't leave your stronghold! Beware of the enticements, distractions & decoys of Satan.
Chapter 53 = If you know the church is true, be true to the church.
Chapter 54 = Fear God more than our enemies. Meekness does not mean weakness.
Chapter 55 = They were not slow to remember their God in their affliction.

He then summarizes the spiritual & temporal lessons.


Spiritual Lessons From The War Chapters

• Repent
• Prepare for attacks on your faith
• Beware of the nature of Satan's strategems (Heleman 3:29)
• Overcome fear with faith in Christ (D & C 6:36)

Temporal Lessons From The War Chapters

• Military Strength without spiritual strength is weakness
• Proper attitude towards war - sorrow to take up arms (Alma 48:22-23)
• Importance of righteous leaders
• When the world gets you down, let Christ lift you up (Moroni 9:25)

I am grateful to have people and resources to help me better understand these things.