The Book of Mormon contains examples of individuals who turn their intellect and talent to nefarious purposes contrary to the commandments of God.
Amalickiah is one of the most cunning and devious members of this rogues’ gallery of conspiring murderers. From him—and those like him—we can learn in a just few pages “the great wickedness one very wicked man can cause to take place among the children of men” (Alma 46:9). And by contrast, we can learn of the goodness and righteousness of individuals such as Helaman, the high priest; and Moroni, commander of the Nephite forces, who devote their careers to the preservation of the liberty of the people in the face of the treachery of wicked men.
Amalickiah is a Nephite dissenter (see Alma 49:25) with one goal in life: total power—at all costs. From around 73 BC until his death around 65 BC, when Nephite general Teancum plunges a javelin into his heart as he sleeps (see Alma 51:33–34), Amalickiah uses every artifice of deceit in his attempt to destroy the Church of God and the government of the people. When Moroni hoists the title of liberty and thwarts Amalickiah’s design to marshal the forces of treason in Zarahemla, Amalickiah flees to the Lamanite side, where he gains control not only of the Lamanite armies but also of the throne itself and even the wife of the murdered Lamanite king. Thereafter he unleashes a massive assault against the Nephite strongholds with brazen confidence in his plan to “reign over all the land, yea, and all the people who were in the land, the Nephites as well as the Lamanites” (Alma 48:2).
In this, however, Amalickiah is sadly mistaken, for he comes against a people of unprecedented wisdom “in preparing their places of security” (Alma 49:5), a people with convictions of supporting “their liberty, their lands, their wives, and their children, and their peace, and that they might live unto the Lord their God, and that they might maintain that which was called by their enemies the cause of Christians” (Alma 48:10). Against such odds, Amalickiah is decisively hindered in his design to become master ruler. Therefore, “he was exceedingly wroth, and he did curse God, and also Moroni, swearing with an oath that he would drink his blood; and this because Moroni had kept the commandments of God in preparing for the safety of his people” (Alma 49:27). But it is not to be. Amalickiah’s master plan is ultimately put down by Moroni and his forces, and he is sent, like so many of his confederates, “out of this world into an eternal world, unprepared to meet [his] God” (Alma 48:23).
In the contrast of opposites presented in the Book of Mormon account, we see clearly the verity of the principle that “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10) and the inexorable certainty of the Lord’s covenant as presented to Lehi from the very beginning: “Blessed art thou and thy children; and they shall be blessed, inasmuch as they shall keep my commandments they shall prosper in the land. But remember, inasmuch as they will not keep my commandments they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord” (Alma 50:20).