Alma 7:1-6

The words of Alma which he delivered to the people in Gideon, according to his own record.

This heading was written on the plates by Mormon.  He decided Alma(2)’s words should be included in their entirety.  We should pay close attention to these words as Mormon felt they were important enough to include in whole.

Richard Rust wrote a short summary of Alma(2)’s sermon.

“The address Alma gives to the righteous people of Gideon—the city named after a martyred hero—is strikingly different from the one he gave to the worldly people of Zarahemla. It is a low-key, loving, and sensitive sermon, with each of the four main sections beginning ’my beloved brethren.’

“The structure is effective in its simplicity. Alma begins with his hope and expectation that he will find the Gideonites faithful and not ‘in the awful dilemma that our brethren were in at Zarahemla’ (Alma 7:3). The key word in his expression is trust, spoken five times in such phrases as, ‘I trust that ye are not lifted up in the pride of your hearts’ (Alma 7:6). Better than hope, trust emphasizes the confidence Alma has in this expectation.

“The central message, to be given to all the Nephites, is of repentance and belief in the Son of God, who will ‘take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people’ (Alma 7:11–12). Alma's desire is similar to King Benjamin's (whom Alma quotes): to stir his people to make a binding covenant with the Lord. ‘Show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins,’ Alma urges, ‘and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism’ (Alma 7:15). The person who does ‘shall have eternal life’ (Alma 7:16).” [1] (Emphasis mine)

Comprising chapter 7.

Chapter 7

Christ shall be born of Mary—He shall loose the bands of death and bear the sins of his people—Those who repent, are baptized, and keep the commandments shall have eternal life—Filthiness cannot inherit the kingdom of God—Humility, faith, hope, and charity are required. About 83 B.C.

¹ BEHOLD my beloved brethren, seeing that I have been permitted to come unto you, therefore I attempt to address you in my language; yea, by my own mouth, seeing that it is the first time that I have spoken unto you by the words of my mouth, I having been wholly confined to the judgment–seat, having had much business that I could not come unto you.  ² And even I could not have come now at this time were it not that the judgment–seat hath been given to another, to reign in my stead; and the Lord in much mercy hath granted that I should come unto you.  ³ And behold, I have come having great hopes and much desire that I should find that ye had humbled yourselves before God, and that ye had continued in the supplicating of his grace, that I should find that ye were blameless before him, that I should find that ye were not in the awful dilemma that our brethren were in at Zarahemla.  ⁴ But blessed be the name of God, that he hath given me to know, yea, hath given unto me the exceedingly great joy of knowing that they are established again in the way of his righteousness.

Alma 7:1-4 (Emphasis mine)

Resigning the judgment seat gave Alma(2) a freedom he didn’t have in the past.  He tells the people of Gideon that “it is the first time that I have spoken unto you b the words of my mouth.”  Resigning the judgment seat, Mormon tells us, allowed Alma(2) to “go forth among his people, or among the people of Nephi, that he might preach the word of God unto them, to stir them up in remembrance of their duty, and that he might pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions which were among his people, seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them” (Alma 4:19).

He was pleased to find the people faithful in living the gospel.  They were a righteous people.  Alma(2) had taught that “Jesus Christ is said to be ‘full of grace, and mercy, and truth’ (Alma 5:48) or ‘full of grace, equity, and truth’ (Alma 9:26; 13:9). Only once does Alma address the question of how people obtain grace. Alma tells the people that they must continue ‘in the supplicating of his grace’ (Alma 7:3), meaning that people had to ask for it.” [2] (Emphasis mine)

We also learn that the people of Zarahemla took his message to heart.  They had “given unto me the exceedingly great joy of knowing that they are established again in the way of his righteousness.”

⁵ And I trust, according to the Spirit of God which is in me, that I shall also have joy over you; nevertheless I do not desire that my joy over you should come by the cause of so much afflictions and sorrow which I have had for the brethren at Zarahemla, for behold, my joy cometh over them after wading through much affliction and sorrow.  ⁶ But behold, I trust that ye are not in a state of so much unbelief as were your brethren; I trust that ye are not lifted up in the pride of your hearts; yea, I trust that ye have not set your hearts upon riches and the vain things of the world; yea, I trust that you do not worship idols, but that ye do worship the true and the living God, and that ye look forward for the remission of your sins, with an everlasting faith, which is to come.

Alma 7:5-6 (Emphasis mine)

Alma(2) informs the church at Gideon that he was sure they would be in a state of belief.  They “ye are not lifted up in the pride of your hearts; yea, I trust that ye have not set your hearts upon riches and the vain things of the world; yea, I trust that you do not worship idols, but that ye do worship the true and the living God, and that ye look forward for the remission of your sins, with an everlasting faith, which is to come” (verse 6).

We each have a unique writing and speaking style.  Philip Allred looks at Alma(2)’s style and his use of the word state as used in verse 6.

“Another example of Alma’s tendency to reword with state is found approximately one hundred pages earlier. While visiting Gideon, Alma hoped to “find that ye were not in the awful dilemma that our brethren were in at Zarahemla” (Alma 7:3). Three verses later Alma defines the dilemma when he resumes the thought with, “I trust that ye are not in a state of so much unbelief as were your brethren” (Alma 7:6). After discoursing about the atonement he returns again to this topic and combines the two earlier phrases: “For as I said unto you from the beginning, that I had much desire that ye were not in the state of dilemma like your brethren, even so I have found that my desires have been gratified” (Alma 7:18). No other author in the Book of Mormon rewords with state—in this Alma stands completely unique.

“When only one writer displays this kind of preference for a particular term when restating, especially a nonessential word like state, the reasonable reaction is to believe that this writer is distinct within the larger work authored by other individuals.” [3]  (Emphasis on “state” in original, other emphasis mine)

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[1] "Know the Covenants of the Lord" - Sermons, Richard Dilworth Rust, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed March 18, 2012.

[2] The Grace of Christ, John Gee, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed March 18, 2012.

[3] Alma's Use of State in the Book of Mormon: Evidence of Multiple Authorship, Philip A. Allred, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, March 18, 2012.