Application of the Speech

Put yourself in the audience listening to Alma’s speech in Alma 5. How would the speech have affected you if you were

• One of the 3,500 recent converts who had just joined the church (3:4)?
• A soldier who had been seriously wounded in the battle against Amlici?
• A widow of a soldier who had fought for Amlici and against Alma?
• An old-time faithful member of the church of Alma the Elder?
• A Mulekite friendly toward Alma but who still felt politically excluded?
• A member of the church who was still leaning toward the teachings of Nehor?
• A faithful father and mother with a rebellious teenage son?
• A senior citizen who had entered the covenant following Benjamin’s speech?

Alma was addressing all of these people. So, try to put yourself in the audience here. Think, first of all, "What if I am just a recent convert? I have just joined the church; that battle with Amlici was pretty bloody and I have decided to turn over a new leaf in my life; I have been pretty bad in the past and I am now a member in this church, and I listen to Alma. How do I react?" How would you react as you hear what he is saying? Is there anything there that you would really resonate with as a recent convert?

Would someone who had just recently joined the group have been overwhelmed with the questions that he was asking? He certainly does unload a lot on people here. But does he also reassure them? Does he speak of anything that they might have recently experienced, in which they would say, "Yes, there is hope. There is goodness here."

Throughout all these chapters there comes out loud and clear the importance of repentance and cleansing oneself, preparing oneself, and I think Alma, by all the questions and everything else, is saying that. So, he is giving great hope to the recent convert. He is speaking pretty harshly and very directly to longer time members. He is getting after them, and I think the new convert may have been saying to himself, "Hey, I have repented. I have cleansed myself. I am here," and I think that gives a new convert great hope, especially if they have just recently been baptized.

I do not know about you, but I remember coming home right after being baptized. It was a Saturday night, and I was eight years old. I felt a wonderful feeling of being perfectly cleansed, and I remember the thought, "All I have to do is hang on for about 80 years and I am okay." Well, that’s easier said than done, but that freshness does give us all as new converts optimism. On a couple of occasions, such as in verses 7 and 13, Alma talks exactly about that mighty change that has happened. It is an echo to Mosiah chapter 5, in which Benjamin talked about the mighty change that had happened in those people and the covenant, and being sealed unto God and unto the promise of eternal life (Mosiah 5:15).

Further Reading

Ed J. Pinegar and John W. Welch, Experiencing a Mighty Change of Heart: Alma’s Guide to a Deep, Lasting Conversion (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2020), 129: "Alma asks us, as he asked his audience in Zarahemla, a sobering question: could we say, if we were called to die at this time—right now—that we have sufficiently prepared, that our "garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins?" (Alma 5:27)."