(In theology, an angel is a messenger of God.) This entire chapter (29) is a discourse made by Alma to himself, when in solitude, he contemplated the glory with which all mankind would be crowned when they yield to God’s command to repent. It is a soliloquy which finds Alma talking to Alma when none but God was near. It is a song of praise in which he exults in God’s goodness and mercy. It is an unselfish prayer for the welfare of each and all. In it Alma expresses the innermost desire of his heart: “To cry repentance unto every people.” “O that I were an angel,” he entreated, “that I might deliver this message to all the world.” “O that my voice would be as the sound of God’s trump”; that it be like thunder, the reverberations of which would shake the earth. Alma’s burning desire was that the Gospel of Jesus Christ should be proclaimed to every nation under Heaven; that it should be preached in power to every kindred, tongue, and people. That he should be an instrument in God’s hands to that end was the prayer he uttered.
It is the opinion of the authors hereof that when Mormon, the abridger of Alma’s record, saw this prayer that Alma had engraved upon the Larger Plates of Nephi, he, after reading it time and time again, copied it word for word, or nearly so, in the abridgment of the Nephite Records he was making, and which translated is the Book of Mormon. Thus we have preserved to us what we believe to be a full copy of Alma’s prayer.
In the 65th Section of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants is recorded another prayer which when read in conjunction with this one of Alma’s will illumine much that we now see as through a glass darkly, and makes clear many things that seem distorted and confused because of the imperfect glass above mentioned.
Alma saw, in the bitter contentions that rise between the forces of evil and the righteousness of the righteous, a never ending source of sorrow which eventually, like a flood of water, would inundate all peoples, bond and free, good and bad, male and female, alike. If he had, for so he yearned, a voice of thunder, his words, he mused, would penetrate even the most formidable barriers, and would therein summon all men to “repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the Earth.”
Jer. 6:14) The thought ran through his head: How can there be peace if sorrow prevails? And again, How can there be sorrow when peace is established? He thought of peace, and rest from sorrow through Christ, the Prince of Peace. He would enlist all men under His Royal Banners. Alma pondered over and over again that blessed day when sorrow would disappear, and hatred would be no more, and even its prospects brought him joy and gladness. Again he thought of sorrow and fear, also of the promised peace and rest. O what a gap between them! These last, Alma concluded were the marks of God’s presence, His power, and His great purposes.
As Presiding High Priest of God’s Church, Alma had in his possession the Smaller Plates of Nephi, and of their contents he was closely acquainted. About 500 years earlier than Alma’s time, Nephi, the son of the Prophet Lehi,—when the plates of which we have spoken were quite new—engraved a remarkable statement made to him by an angel from Heaven. This explanation of what the Lord will do is of exceeding great importance to every Latter-day Saint as it was no doubt to Alma. In its fulfillment he saw the fruition of his hopes:
1 Ne. 14:7)
Peace and Life Eternal go hand in hand.
All in all, Alma saw that by keeping the commandments of the Lord peace would be established, and Christ’s Millennial reign will be begun. It is the work of righteousness, ever, to establish peace and eliminate all sorrow. Peace, the Lord’s peace, is our portion. It is the source from whence springs our fulness of joy, and our gladness; our happiness and content; our love for God’s law, and again we repeat the Psalmist: “Great peace have they which love Thy law.”
And still again Alma thought of that day when sorrow shall disappear, and peace will cover the Earth. Silently Alma meditated long in prayer; fervently he inscribed these words upon the Larger Plates of which he was custodian:
“O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people.”
This wish of Alma’s had its inception in his own experience. In his conversion, when in gaiety he with the sons of King Mosiah went about persecuting the Saints of God, an angel from the Courts of Glory stopped them on their way, and with a voice of thunder which shook the earth upon which they stood, commanded them to no more follow the wicked course they then pursued, but to repent and serve the Lord thereafter. Alma remembered the awful sense of his guilt, and to save others from the fate to which he and his companions were headed, prayed for the same power as the angel’s that he might lead all mankind to glorify the Name of the Eternal Father.
We need go no farther back than Alma‘s words recorded in the preceding chapter to sense the terrific anxiety for the welfare of God’s Kingdom which imbued him, and caused him to write: “O that I were an angel, … ”
And thus we see the great call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyards of the Lord; and thus we see the great reason of sorrow, and also of rejoicing—sorrow because of the death and destruction among men, and joy because of the light of Christ unto life. (Alma 28:14)