2.185 He Robbed Our Fathers

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends!

It's great to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. Today's kind of a part two on tradition.

So if you missed yesterday, day 184, you're going to want to go back and kind of see the part one of that one. However, if you don't want to go back to the part one, welcome to the middle of the conversation. We are reading this week, Doctrine and Covenants section 71 through 75, as well as Alma chapters 20 through 24.

You know that I slow down in the Alma chapters. I love this segment here and I couldn't get off Alma chapter 20. And it also feeds into Doctrine and Covenants section 74 that we talked about yesterday.

Yesterday we talked about the blessing and the danger of tradition. If our traditions inside of our families or our cultures pull us away from making covenants with Heavenly Father, they do not serve us. Really, we could even attach it to what we talked about earlier in this week about feeding our soul as the ultimate stewardship.

If it doesn't pull us closer to a loving Heavenly Father and making covenants with Him and Jesus Christ, these traditions are not serving us. Let's take a look at Alma's point of view here. Well, at least in the Book of Alma, it's really Ammon and Lamoni that are experiencing this.

And see what we learned here. Our verse for today is Alma chapter 20, verse 13. Lamoni and Alma have just run into Lamoni's dad, who is the king of the Lamanites.

And Lamoni's like, dad, guess what happened? And he tells him this story. And here's the reaction of Lamoni's dad.

Verse 13: And now when Lamoni had rehearsed unto him all these things, behold, to his astonishment, his father was angry with him and said, Lamoni, thou art going to deliver these Nephites who are sons of a liar. Behold, he robbed our fathers, and now his children are also come amongst us, that they may by their cunning and their lying deceive us, that they again may rob us of our property. Now we know that the Lamanites held a grudge.

But something that I think I talked about maybe last season, but something that stands out to me is just how long the Lamanites held a grudge. If we look at the estimated time here up in chapter 20, we see that this is about 90 BC. We know that Nephi and Lehi left Jerusalem somewhere around 600 BC.

You telling me this is a 500-year grudge? The Lamanites have carried the tradition with them for so long—500 years! My friends, do some family history.

See where your family is, I don't know, around the 1500s and see if you can think about any family grudges that you still have from the 1500s. That's the level of tradition that is steeped inside of the Lamanites that prevents them from feeling the spirit. Now, we have an awesome conversion story here, but the message that I think we can carry on with tradition is this.

My friends, every generation is an opportunity to choose traditions that draw us to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Every generation. That means whatever happens to you in your past, you can continue in that anger and frustration, and you can pass it on to your.

Thank you for joining us today. We are in a world where the world is so different, and we have to deal with it. I think it's such a vital lesson that we see here as Lamoni is trying to tell his dad all of the wonderful things that have happened in his life and his dad simply passes it off for no other reason except his dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's dad's Dad was a liar and a thief.

My friends, you and I have a very pivotal role to play each part of our family line to decide that we will be the ones to establish traditions that draw our families closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. That is very powerful indeed when you consider the generational links that we do inside of our temple work. I love that one.

That's all for today, my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave unto the covenants you have made.

Be the strong link in your family line. And together we will be savory salt. For more information, visit us at www.allenroberds.org.