Zeezrom’s questioning of Amulek and Amulek’s responses

I want to make some observations on the interchange between Amulek and Zeezrom at Ammonihah in Alma 11, but I’m going to quote a lot verses from this chapter because I want you to get clear in your mind what happened first.

21 And this Zeezrom began to question Amulek, saying: Will ye answer me a few questions which I shall ask you? Now Zeezrom was a man who was expert in the devices of the devil, that he might destroy that which was good; therefore, he said unto Amulek: Will ye answer the questions which I shall put unto you?

22 And Amulek said unto him: Yea, if it be according to the Spirit of the Lord, which is in me; for I shall say nothing which is contrary to the Spirit of the Lord. And Zeezrom said unto him: Behold, here are six onties of silver, and all these will I give thee if thou wilt deny the existence of a Supreme Being.

23 Now Amulek said: O thou child of hell, why tempt ye me? Knowest thou that the righteous yieldeth to no such temptations?

24 Believest thou that there is no God? I say unto you, Nay, thou knowest that there is a God, but thou lovest that lucre more than him.

25 And now thou hast lied before God unto me. Thou saidst unto me—Behold these six onties, which are of great worth, I will give unto thee—when thou hadst it in thy heart to retain them from me; and it was only thy desire that I should deny the true and living God, that thou mightest have cause to destroy me. And now behold, for this great evil thou shalt have thy reward.

26 And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is a true and living God?

27 And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and living God.

28 Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God?

29 And he answered, No.

30 Now Zeezrom said unto him again: How knowest thou these things?

31 And he said: An angel hath made them known unto me.

32 And Zeezrom said again: Who is he that shall come? Is it the Son of God?

33 And he said unto him, Yea.

34 And Zeezrom said again: Shall he save his people in their sins? And Amulek answered and said unto him: I say unto you he shall not, for it is impossible for him to deny his word.

35 Now Zeezrom said unto the people: See that ye remember these things; for he said there is but one God; yet he saith that the Son of God shall come, but he shall not save his people—as though he had authority to command God.

36 Now Amulek saith again unto him: Behold thou hast lied, for thou sayest that I spake as though I had authority to command God because I said he shall not save his people in their sins.

37 And I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of heaven? Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins.

39 And Amulek said unto him: Yea, he is the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth, and all things which in them are; he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last;

40 And he shall come into the world to redeem his people; and he shall take upon him the transgressions of those who believe on his name; and these are they that shall have eternal life, and salvation cometh to none else. (Alma 11:21-40)

Zeezrom’s first attempt to trap Amulek is, “Here are six ontis of silver that I will give you if you deny the existence of a Supreme Being.”

Now, our immediate assessment of Zeezrom would be, “This guy is an atheist, and he thinks Amulek is full of hooey. He thinks Amulek will drop it all if it is to Amulek’s financial advantage.”

However, Amulek, informed by the Spirit, knows otherwise: “Believest thou that there is no God? . . . Nay, thou knowest that there is a God, but thou lovest that lucre more than him.” (v24) Amulek pegs Zeezrom as a believer with a testimony who is masquerading as an atheist in order to get more money.

It is interesting to see how Amulek is inspired by the Spirit to give a spiritual assessment of Zeezrom’s condition so near the beginning of their exchange. There is no way that Amulek could have known all that about Zeezrom with just Zeezrom’s first attempt to trap him, bad as Zeezrom’s first attempt was.  So Amulek’s assessment of Zeezrom is shown to be true throughout the rest of their conversation, and I suppose that becomes a witness to all who knew Zeezrom that Alma and Amulek were speaking the truth about Ammonihah as well.

Before this, though, Amulek calls Zeezrom a child of hell, which is totally accurate, since only a child of hell would tempt someone as Zeezrom tries to tempt Amulek. Especially when Zeezrom knows the truth. 

The rest of Zeezrom’s plot, Amulek reveals, is that Zeezrom would have withheld the six ontis even if Amulek had fallen for the temptation. Zeezrom only wanted to get Amulek to deny God so that Zeezrom would have cause to destroy him.   The cause by which Zeezrom would destroy Amulek remains unspecified, but if we remember that the Law of Moses forbade blasphemy with a punishment of stoning for offenders, then we might speculate that Zeezrom meant to drop his atheist act and put on an offended believer act, and then accuse Amulek of blasphemy in order to have him stoned.

Now, would an atheist have tried to destroy another atheist?  Not very likely. So Zeezrom was definitely a believer who was trying to get Amulek to act like an unbeliever in order to destroy him.

If Zeezrom was a believer, then it was definitely true he had become more interested in money than in keeping the commandments, feigning unbelief in order to try to entrap a prophet.  And we can see by the quality of his other questions that he asks Amulek that he has specific knowledge of Amulek’s beliefs and doctrines.  It is knowledge at an unusually deep level for an unbeliever.

But eventually Amulek’s talk about the future judgment awakens Zeezrom to a consciousness of his guilt, and he begins to tremble and look for a way out of his sins.

Ultimately, Zeezrom’s problem was the problem of Ammonihah as well. They knew the truth, but they loved other things more.

I think there are several lessons from this exchange.

1)    Never flirt with denying the truth for money.

2)    If you believe, don’t ever start pretending you don’t just to gain material advantages. 

The world is getting more secular. It is tempting to hide who we are, but it may be that Zeezrom shows us the end of that road. If he hadn’t been brought to realize his errors, he would have been destroyed with the others in Ammonihah. 

Jesus prophesies of his disciples being offended

31 Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.

32 But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.

33 Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.

34 Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

35 Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples. (Matt. 26:31-35)

It is interesting to see what scripture Jesus is quoting.  It comes from Zechariah 13:7:

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.

If you take the time to look at the context of Zechariah 13, this verse comes in the middle of prophecies about the second coming of Christ.  The context maeks it confusing, but evidently Jesus had such a firm testimony of His coming sacrifice that He knew exactly what it was about.

Of course, when He tells His disciples, they can’t imagine any of it happening, even though He’s told them a number of times He’d be killed.  When He tells them they will be offended because of Him, they deny it.

This causes me to ask, “Why even tell them they will deny Him?”  If He were a manipulative person, it would have been to bind them even closer to Him through their protestations, but He’s not manipulative, so that can’t be it.  In some way it must actually benefit them.

The way they react with horror, we can see they think He means they will be permanently offended, but you can see that at the same time He warns them He also promises to lead them again to Galilee after He was risen. ("after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee")  He was trying to show them that they were going to act in an aberrational manner because of what would happen to them and Him.  He anticipated not only their self-preservational fear and scattering and Peter’s denials, but also He anticipated the shame and self-reproach that they would go through when they later considered their actions.  He wanted to comfort them ahead of time that they would re-commit to be true.  I think He hoped they wouldn’t cut themselves off from Christ, thinking He couldn’t forgive them.

Imagine if after He was resurrected, His disciples were reluctant to believe He could receive them because of their defection at His arrest?  What if they left their callings forever because of feeling unworthy?  I think that is precisely what Jesus hoped to avoid.

I think it also would help build their faith in Him because it showed He did know how the prophecies would be fulfilled, that He fulfilled them, so He was the Messiah.  Even prophecies that seemed to show them in a bad light while He suffered would be fulfilled.

Many of us are hesitant to share unpleasant truths with our friends and family, but Jesus seems never to have shrunk from it.  (I think His demonstrated love played a big part in that in anyone being able to receive those things.)  His commitment to truth and His mission was paramount, and He always seemed to share those things in such a way as to benefit His listeners most.

What’s kind of sad is that any way you look at it, the way His disciples protested their faithfulness would be painful to Jesus when He know they wouldn’t hold out.  It hurts to not be able to believe your friends.  But if He let Himself believe them, it would be much worse because He’d find Himself watching them run away and feeling bitter, saying, “They said they would never be offended or deny me!”

Another thing this story shows is the human tendency to disbelieve warnings when they indicate imminent dangers that are a reversal of our experience.  But our disbelief means we will be doomed to suffer for our lack of preparation unless we can have the faith to prepare for dangers we hadn’t ever imagined.

Also, this story makes me question how true to the Lord I can be.  I can’t condemn the disciples because I, like them, don’t yet know to what extremities I shall be brought to prove my faithfulness.  I do know, however, that if I am to make it through and remain true, it will be by relying on the Lord and not on my own strength.

Betrayal With a Kiss

48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.

49 And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him.

50 And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him. (Matthew 26:48-51)

We know it was really skunky of Judas to use a kiss as an act of betrayal and elsewhere in the Gospels we see Jesus was disturbed by this too, but why did Judas decide to use a kiss?  Why not point and shout, “That’s him, boys, the one who is kneeling!” or something like that?

I think it was because Judas wanted to maintain the appearance of being friendly.  He hoped that Jesus and the other disciples not connect the kiss with Jesus’s capture.  (We don’t often catch this point because in video dramatizations time is compressed so that it seems like the Jews come practically on Judas’ heels.)  He wanted the arrest to come as a complete surprise and he didn’t want to be seen as the cause and facilitator of it.  In short, it was hypocrisy.

Clearly it didn’t work.  Jesus knew what was happening, and the apostles knew about it soon too, though we’re not sure at what point they heard or figured it out.

Are there those today who are trying to betray Christ under the guise of a kiss of fellowship?  Yes.  The message of this story is that their part in the betrayal will be made known.  They may bring trouble on the Saints, but with the Lord’s help, the Saints will rise above it.  No unhallowed hand can stop the work of the Lord.