6 And
Ammon took three of his brethren, and their names were Amaleki, Helem, and Hem,
and they went down into the land of Nephi.
7 And behold,
they met the king of the people who were in the land of Nephi, and in the land
of Shilom; and they were surrounded by the king’s guard, and were taken, and
were bound, and were committed to prison.
8 And it came
to pass when they had been in prison two days they were again brought before
the king, and their bands were loosed; and they stood before the king, and were
permitted, or rather commanded, that they should answer the questions which he
should ask them.
9 And he said
unto them: Behold, I am Limhi, the son of Noah, who was the son of Zeniff, who
came up out of the land of Zarahemla to inherit this land, which was the land
of their fathers, who was made a king by the voice of the people.
10 And now, I
desire to know the cause whereby ye were so bold as to come near the walls of
the city, when I, myself, was with my guards without the gate?
11 And now, for
this cause have I suffered that ye should be preserved, that I might inquire of
you, or else I should have caused that my guards should have put you to death.
Ye are permitted to speak.
12 And now, when
Ammon saw that he was permitted to speak, he went forth and bowed himself
before the king; and rising again he said: O king, I am very thankful before
God this day that I am yet alive, and am permitted to speak; and I will
endeavor to speak with boldness; (Mosiah 7:6-12)
When Ammon and his buddies
meet King Limhi and his guards outside the city walls, somehow this is a
particularly taboo place and occasion.
It is so boldly taboo that King Limhi specifically tells them that the
only reason he kept them alive was to ask them why they were so bold.
This makes me wonder. Was external excess to King Limhi so
restricted that the only way Ammon would not be killed would be to meet the
king when and where he did? Or did
he meet the king at a particularly bad time (and any other time would have been
better) and only his boldness about breaking the taboo (on accident) saved
him? I really don’t
know. Either way the Lord brought
about the meeting, restrained King Limhi, and kept Ammon and his group alive so
that Limhi and his people could ultimately be saved.
It is interesting that in
this meeting both Limhi and Ammon are ignorant, and so in a sense, they both
wrong each other. Ammon approaches
the king at a bad time and place because he doesn’t know there is anything bad
about it. The king tosses Ammon
and his buddies in prison and was very close to killing them because he doesn’t
know who they are and what their intentions are. And yet they are both good and just men. I suppose this can teach us that
sometimes we may wrong each other out of ignorance of the full facts, and the
Lord can help us keep from doing something hasty.
Imagine if the king had
killed Ammon and his men, the very people who could lead them out of bondage
and show them the way to Zarahemla. It makes me wonder how often we might disregard the very things or people that
could help us out of our problems, disregarding them just because they do
something out of ignorance at first that offends us?
Another lesson we can get
from this story is from Ammon’s viewpoint. It may be that in order to save people spiritually we have
to break some cultural rules against mentioning religion in casual
conversation, speaking in times and places that our friends don’t think are the
best.
0 comments:
Post a Comment