2.237 There Was Not One Soul of Them Who Did Perish

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. Shall we sneak one more day in the Book of Mormon before we switch over to the Doctrine and Covenants this week? I think so.

As we begin our week, we typically start inside of Doctrine and Covenants, which we're reading this week, section 93, but we're also reading Alma chapters 57 through 60. All right, so we're going to start with the Bible, Book of Mormon, and I want to begin the journey there a little bit because of our continuation of these thoughts that are inside of the Alma chapters we've been doing the last couple of days. So our verse for today is going to come from Alma chapter 57 today.

These war chapters are always interesting to me. As I've mentioned before, I don't necessarily look for tangible evidences of the Book of Mormon in my life. I rely on the Spirit's promptings and the Spirit's testimony to me as evidence enough.

But I always read through these ones, and I think, you know, if I actually read these war chapters and read through them through a historical lens of the war strategies and tactics and how accurate they are when it comes to different war strategies and tactics, I would tend to pause and say, 'How in the world would Joseph Smith, an uneducated farm boy, have any concept of some of these military tactics?' That's just what comes to mind as I read through these ones. Although their stories are miraculous, not just because of the tactics, but because of what happens inside of them. We continue inside of our 2060 stripling warriors, as the Book of Mormon refers to them.

And inside of it, we have a point at which they are down to the last man, right? They are battling and battling. And then we get the back end of the battle.

They win the battle, but then they have to count the body losses. And we find what happens there in Alma 57, verse 25. It says: 'When it came to pass, there were two hundred out of my two thousand and sixty who had fainted because of the loss of blood.

Nevertheless, according to the goodness of God, and to our great astonishment, and also the joy of our whole army, there was not one soul of them who did perish. Yea, and neither was there one soul among them who had not received many wounds.' This one's an interesting one because there's a lot of joy going on on the back end of this battle despite the fact that there's many wounds. In fact, all of them have many wounds.

How can that be? How can you experience joy in such a time of sorrow and loss? Many would ask: How can you experience joy when they're in their own lives experiencing death or war, even in the earth today?

And I think what we see inside of here is an interesting perspective shift that comes when you have the gospel of Jesus Christ. Elder Anderson, I want to kind of reference one of the General Conference talks I studied inside of kind of preparing this one. Elder Anderson gave a talk in 2018 called "Wounded." And I'll make sure that you have the link inside of this.

But the beginning of the talk here, it says: 'In the crucible of earthly trials, patiently moving forward, and the Savior's healing power will bring you light, understanding, peace, and hope.' And inside of this talk, he talks about the challenges that mortal life brings us. We all deal with them, right? We all experience them.

But he says this inside of the talk that I wanted to share with you. He says: 'We each understand that difficulties are part of life, but when they come to us personally, they can take our breath away. Without being alarmed, we need to be ready.' The Apostle Peter said that.

I want to just give one more piece here. He says: 'Never give up. However deep the wounds of your soul, whatever their source, wherever or whenever they happen, and however short or long they persist, you are not meant to perish spiritually.

You are meant to survive spiritually and blossom in your faith and trust in God.' My friends, I am so grateful that our Father in Heaven knows that through our trials we can learn and grow, and our challenges can become our greatest teachers. I am so grateful to Jesus Christ our Savior who has suffered for all of those challenges that we may become stronger through them and ultimately blossom in our faith and our trust in him. I know that there are those that are experiencing difficult trials and challenges in their lives.

And I know as well that those challenges and trials in the moment can be overwhelming, but we can turn, knowing, just as the warriors have here in the Book of Alma, that through their obedience and faith and hard work, they may not come through unwounded, but they will come through successful and the Lord will be there to help them. That is something I look forward to in my own life and hope you look forward to in yours as well. That's all for today, my friends.

Lift up your hearts and rejoice, even with your wounds. Cleave into the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt.