Although the Holy Spirit did not make the time known to Alma when the Son of God should come among the Nephites—whether in His mortal tabernacle or not—it did say unto him, “Cry unto this people, saying—Repent ye, and prepare the Way of the Lord.”
The cry to repent has been a clarion call sounded to every generation of Israel. All the holy prophets have made repentance their message. Whether their voices come to us through the revelations of old, or through the seers of our own time, they bring a command of God. To repent is a direct order coming from Him who presides over all, and not through an ambitious priest who presumes to act as His vicegerent. Repentance from evil is the natural move of those who understand God’s holy purposes. To turn from pride, and humble oneself before Him is the mark of the true believer. It matters not who one is, we all have need to repent. There is only One who is good, only One who has no need to repent. That One is our Father in Heaven:
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Mark 10:18)
Repentance is a moral endeavor of the heart, not a vagrant conclusion of the mind. It is a resolve of the conscience, not a calculation. It is not a weatherglass that indicates the high and low of spiritual devotion, nor is it a mechanical proposition. It is not machine-made, having no though or feeling. A man may seek to apply stern mathematical rules to his behavior: he may add restraints and take away life’s pseudo-joys and follies, or multiply his philanthropies. But in the end, and notwithstanding his intents, his arithmetic will not prepare him for life in the Kingdom of God which is immortal.
Money is the god of such a man; he would fain buy the Lord‘s blessings and thereby make common merchandise of God’s most precious gifts. Using that formula of life, his solution of its problems is wrong, just as wrong as is the answer one receives who takes paper and pencil and attempts thereby to prove the Gospel true. It cannot be done!
God, our Father, has placed us here upon earth, and enjoined that we do His bidding. A keener awareness of His loving-kindness and His will, “a fuller and freer recognition of His presence and His power in all the experiences of our lives,” should turn us from pursuing life’s vanities and thereafter seek those heavenly treasures which “maketh truly rich.”
Repentance is a step forward and upward in the progress to our celestial home; it is proof that our steps are firm, and a witness to our integrity. Repentance, be it remembered, is a mandate from God.
To forsake one’s sins, with the added determination to do them no more, is repentance. Repentance means to “amend or resolve to amend one’s life as a result of contrition for what has been done or omitted to be done.” (Merriam Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary) A will to do good follows sorrow for things left undone that should have been done; and a contrition for doing that which never should have been done.
Notwithstanding our divine parentage and our birthright, too many, too often, day by day, perform their allotted tasks forgetting God’s wisdom and guidance. We have no time or thought for else than the world and worldly goods. The burdens we carry, the imposts life lays, its pursuits and pleasures, are the gods that fill the pantheon of our hearts. Pantheon means “a people’s aggregate gods, or a temple dedicated to all their gods.” We mean by the expression, “pantheon of our hearts,” that place where we honor most the things we love best. If we love the things of the world more than we love the things of God, we turn our hearts into pagan temples, and worldly goods into objects of reverence and adoration.
Repentance brings a change in one’s manner of life, it is a change of heart. It implies a change within; unless there is a change within there can be no change without.
And ye do know of yourselves, for ye have witnessed it, that as many of them as are brought to the knowledge of the truth, and to know of the wicked and abominable traditions of their fathers, and are led to believe the Holy Scriptures, yea, the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them—(Helaman 15:7)
When the righteous King Benjamin, in Zarahemla, preached repentance and faith in God to his greatly loved people, this change wrought in them through the power of God’s redeeming love was made manifest by them unitedly praising Him, and by them covenanting “with our God to do His will, and to be obedient to His commandments in all things that He shall command us, all the remainder of our days.”
And now, it came to pass that when King Benjamin had thus spoken to his people, he sent among them, desiring to know of his people if they believed the words which he had spoken unto them.
And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually....
And now, these are the words which King Benjamin desired of them; and therefore he said unto them: Ye have spoken the words that I desired; and the covenant which ye have made is a righteous covenant.
And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the Children of Christ, His sons, and His daughters; for behold, this day He hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on His name; therefore, ye are born of Him and have become His sons and His daughters. (Mosiah 5:1-7)
This brings us to the thought that the power of man may make a just and an upright person, the power of a priest may make an “ecclesiastic,” but the power of God, alone, can make a righteous man out of a sinner; can change into a good one, a bad heart, or “quicken one that is dead in trespass and in sin.” All these come through faith on His name, and repentance through Christ, our LORD.
Repentance changes the countenance of the sinner so that the old man (Ephesians 4:17-32) is not recognized, but is swallowed up in the likeness of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the Church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received His image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts? (Alma 5:14)
In commenting on the words heart and trust as the latter is used in verse 6, we refer the reader to words written by King Solomon:
My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep mine commandments:
For length of days and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee; bind them about they neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. (Proverbs 3:1-6)
Prepare the Way of the Lord. Among the ancient Orientals it was customary when a reigning monarch or a foreign potentate planned a visit to a friendly people for all of them to turn out almost en masse and prepare the way along which he would travel. They made straight any crooked paths and removed from his route any obstructions that might impede the progress of the royal visitor or his entourage. In general they repaired his way. In doing so, they made more pleasant his stay among them, and aided him in doing the thing he set out to do. This practice persisted until just recently when the old method of conveyance gave way to modern automotive transportation.
The analogy used by Alma, prepare the Way of the Lord, was also used by many of the great Hebrew prophets in exhorting the Jews to make ready for the promised visit of the King of kings. It, too, was a comparison easily understood by the Nephites to whom it presented an active desire to have all things ready for the day when He should come among them. In addition to that, it reveals to us another relic in the thinking of the Nephites which they had inherited from the people from whom their fathers had sprung.
Prepare ye the Way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah 40:3)
For this is He that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the Way of the Lord, make His paths straight. (Matthew 3:3)
And thou, child, shall be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His Ways. (Luke 1:76)
This refers to John the Baptist, whose mission was to “prepare the Way of the Lord.” The fact that Jesus had a forerunner, a herald, to proclaim His advent and command that the Way be prepared for Him, proves that He was more than a common mortal, more than a teacher and reformer. As we have noted that when kings and potentates in those days were about to travel, they notified their subjects that they were coming, and that the roads were to be repaired and straightened so that there should be no unnecessary delay.
A notable illustration of this oriental custom was furnished by the Sultan of Turkey, Abdul-Hamid II, when he, having received word that the German Emperor desired to visit Jerusalem, issued an order that the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem be prepared for the Imperial Visitor. This was done. Hundreds of men and women were drafted for work on the road.
Now the very mission of John proves that the advent of Jesus was the coming of a King to His kingdom. (See COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF MORMON, Volume I, p. 72)
For behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Alma’s admonition, “Repent ye, and prepare the Way of the Lord,” was not only a warning in advance of Christ’s coming, but a command for his listeners to make themselves ready for that great and long-awaited event of prophecy, the coming of our Lord, which he said, “was not far distant.” (V. 7) “Behold,” Alma cried, “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and the Son of God cometh upon the face of the Earth.”
To many it is a cause of great wonderment that the Nephites, they say, were blest far beyond their brethren at Jerusalem in the knowledge they had of Christ’s coming to Earth, His ministry, death and resurrection. This, however, is not the casel From the sacred records, the Book of Mormon and also the Bible, itself, we will show that supposition to be in error. The Gospel and its Divine Author, their Savior and Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, were proclaimed to the Jews from the time when Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage down to the close of the prophetic dispensation. How long before that time only those things are known which are revealed in the Book of Moses, now divided into five parts, and the books of modern revelation, including the Pearl of Great Price and the Book of Mormon.
Christ, himself, when, in marvelous condescension, appeared to the Nephites gathered about the Temple in Bountiful “marveling and wondering one with another,” and also “conversing about this Jesus Christ, of whom the sign had been given concerning His death,” introduced Himself by stretching forth His hand, saying:
Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world. (III Nephi 2:10)
A few days later as the Risen Redeemer preached His Gospel to the Nephites who had gathered in great numbers to hear Him, also said:
Behold, I am He of whom Moses spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that every soul who will not hear the Prophet shall be cut off from my people.