We are entering one of my favorite stories in the Book of
Mormon. But to understand the story we need to rewind. Remember Ammon and his
brothers who went on a mission to the Lamanites? They were the sons of King
Mosiah who used to be trouble-makers until an angel appeared to them and told them
to shape up, and then they totally turned their lives around and had incredible
success in converting thousands of Lamanites to the Lord, including their king.
Then those Lamanites—who called themselves the people of Ammon—made a covenant
with God to never fight or kill again, so they buried all their weapons deep in
the earth, and moved in with the Nephites for protection because the
not-converted Lamanites now hated them (see Alma
17-25 for a refresher).
Well, the people of Ammon are now second-guessing their
covenant to never fight again, because the Nephites and Lamanites are engaged
in this big war, and the people of Ammon want to help the Nephites. They
consider breaking their vow, but Helaman and other church leaders convince them
not to.
But there is an alternative solution! The people of Ammon
now have sons who are old enough to fight, and the sons never made the vow with
God not to fight. So these young sons sign up for the army—2000 of them
in total—and become known as the 2000 Stripling Warriors. These boys are my
heroes. You’ll read about their heroic acts later, but this chapter gives us a
glimpse into their heroic hearts.
20 And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted.21 Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him
 |
| We will learn later that the young warriors' faith is so great because their mothers taught them |
If you were to write a letter to a man who was causing a
war against your people—an unjust war for the sake of power and greed—what
would you say?? Captain Moroni writes to King Ammoron (brother of the late King
Amalekiah who started this war) about exchanging prisoners of war. Neither of
these men are softies, and they don’t sugar-coat. Give it a read! What insights into the characters
of these men do you gain from reading their letters?
Moroni decides not to exchange prisoners with Ammoron
because he doesn’t want the Lamanite army to have any more power. Instead, he
devises a plan to free the Nephite prisoners. First, he finds a small group of
converted Lamanites within his army. These Lamanites pretend they have escaped
from the Nephites, and approach the city Gid (where the Nephite prisoners are
guarded) during the night, carrying “stolen” wine. The Lamanite guards are
excited about their escaped comrades, and especially about the wine, and they
drink up! The wine is strong, and quickly knocks the Lamanites out in a drunken
stupor.
Cue Moroni, who quietly enters the city with his army,
and they pass weapons into the prison to all the Nephite prisoners, including the
women and children. Then the army retreats and surrounds the city. When the
Lamanites wake up in the morning, Moroni’s army has them surrounded on the
outside, and all the prisoners on the inside are armed. Naturally, the
Lamanites surrender and Moroni takes over the city Gid, and most importantly he
frees all the Nephite prisoners.
An important insight to Moroni’s character and motivations
is given in verses 18-20 when the Nephite army is secretly handing weapons to
the prisoners while the Lamanites are drunk:
18 But had they awakened the Lamanites, behold they were drunken and the Nephites could have slain them.19 But behold, this was not the desire of Moroni; he did not delight in murder or bloodshed, but he delighted in the saving of his people from destruction; and for this cause he might not bring upon him injustice, he would not fall upon the Lamanites and destroy them in their drunkenness.
No comments:
Post a Comment