Day 164 The Sparing Power of Righteous Prayer

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and in the same sentence offers a warning that savorless salt is good for nothing. Join me in an attempt to be savory salt as I share each day one verse of scripture and one small thought. Perhaps this small daily emphasis can lead to greater savor in your life and ultimately you and I can be savory salt.

Hello, my friends and family, wherever you're listening from. Thank you for joining me and know that I'm cheering for your every success. Welcome to day 164 on our 365 day journey through the Book of Mormon together.

And today you're going to be reading Alma chapter 10, verses 13 through 32. You're going to finish that chapter. Amulek, my goodness, we thought that Alma had some fire in his testimony.

Amulek is just going to start unloading his testimony to the people of Ammonihah here and hold on, it's awesome. One of the things that stands out to me is our verse for the day as Amulek starts to wrestle with some lawyers and those who are expert in their craftiness, in their language abilities, in their convincing power of the people. He's going to use the Spirit of the Lord to guide him and direct him.

And then he's going to say this in our verse for the day, Alma 10, he's going to say: "But it is by the prayers of the righteous that ye are spared. Now, therefore, if ye will cast out the righteous from among you, then will not the Lord stay his hand, but in his fierce anger he will come out against you. Then ye shall be smitten by famine, and by pestilence, and by the sword, and the time is soon at hand, except ye repent." Amulek is going to start prophesying here about the dangers these people are facing if they refuse to repent.

Now let's take a look at the front end of this verse and see what it can mean for us today. It is by the prayers of the righteous that you are spared. Prayer has incredible power.

We see this throughout the scriptures and yet regardless of its power, there are those that will reject it anytime, all the time. They don't see it in their lives and they refuse to see it when it does happen. It got me thinking about something that recently happened here locally and I'll try to describe it.

I'm going to describe it for those of you that don't live here locally, but I live in a state in the United States called Utah. It's a desert environment. It's a mountain desert environment.

It's very dry here. It does not rain very much here. And the reservoir and lake systems that we have kind of ebb and flow with the times.

Well, about two years ago we were in some historic levels of low reservoirs. Many of our lakes and reservoirs were down to minimum levels that they had been in generations. And there was a call to all those around Utah to pray and to fast and to ask the Lord for help.

There was enough of a public call that actually it became known around news cycles. It became known around even circles that would make fun of those that were praying for rain. It got onto a couple of TV shows nationally that were making fun of those praying and, "Oh yeah, you're just going to pray and change science," and, "Oh, all these types of things." It was really interesting to see the response because here was simply a large group of people that wanted to unite and ask the Lord for help.

And there were certainly those that rejected the possibility of the Lord even existing to have influence on the outcome. And yet here we sit two winters later. We've had two massive winters of snow.

Last year was record-breaking in all sorts of mountainous areas around the Salt Lake and Utah regions. Last year we had another, not necessarily record-breaking, but a good, even snow across the state. And yet here we sit in the timing of this podcast recording with reservoirs and lakes up into the 90 and 95% full scenario.

It got me thinking: Where are those people now? Those that are making fun of the prayers and the fasting of the righteous? Those that are saying prayer has no effect?

Where are they now? Because they certainly aren't speaking about it anymore. And I understand the temporary nature of the news cycle, and we need to get a headline now and speak quickly here, and then everyone forgets about it.

And yet the scriptures are here to remind us, don't forget about it. Don't forget about the power of prayer in your life. Because in this example in verse 23, it literally stays the hand of the Lord from the destruction of an entire people because of the prayers of the righteous.

And it has just as much power today as it did in the days of Alma and Amulek. Keep prayer an essential part of your life. Use its power in your life and see what the Lord can do for you.

That's all for today, my friends. Remember that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt. I'll be here tomorrow and I hope you are too.