What's the Opposite of This? | Alma 8-12 | June 17-23 | Week 25

Hi, friends! Welcome back to Primarily Scripture. I'm Cindy Young and I am so happy you're here.  This is a beginner's guide to scripture study focusing especially on big kids and teens, but also for anybody who wants a little bit of help diving into the scriptures. So we follow Come Follow Me and this week we are in Alma chapters 8 through 12.

Having a nice overview of the story is important so that you can follow what's going on.

So, check the   📍 free worksheets if you need help following the story. There's a quick synopsis on that first page that can help you,  but then also as you study, I want you to focus on   📍  📍 doing what the spirit wants you to do, okay? There are so many different ways that you can study, so many different techniques, and there are a lot of things in the worksheets that can help you, but it's definitely not all of it.

Remember that every time you study, you should be doing three things.

  📍  📍 Search,   📍  📍 ponder, and   📍  📍 pray. And if you don't know the primary song that goes with that, you should go look it up, because it is a great reminder that those are the basics of scripture study. Everything we do can be put back into one of those three things. Search, ponder, or pray. So, searching is when we're looking for things.

and pondering is when we're thinking about it and asking ourselves questions, and then of course pray about it and ask for the spirit to help you understand. Pray at the beginning, pray at the end, pray in the middle, pray all week long. Always be praying about what you're studying. So let's dive in.

  The study tip that we're working on this week is   📍  📍 look for opposites, okay?

So you'll find that on page two of the worksheets.

And this is a great tool.  Any time you're studying, if you notice that there are two different ideas or two different things that are opposites from each other, then just stop and think about it for a little bit, okay? 

You can look for the lessons, and listen to the spirit, and ponder why we've got these two different things. So we're going to open up to   📍 Alma chapter 8 verses 14 and 15.  Now on the worksheets, if you guys are familiar, remember in column 1, I have pure scripture, okay? And in column 2,  I put it into modern words.

 But, there's not always enough room to put all of the verses that I want onto this page, and so there will be a little dot, dot, dot, and that means that I skipped a word or a phrase or a sentence from that verse. It is still straight scripture. The prophets and apostles do this, too, when they quote scripture. Sometimes they skip part of it.  So you can read directly off of the worksheet, but I also encourage you, especially when you see that dot, dot, dot, go to your scriptures so you can get the full verse, because there's so much good stuff.  I wish I could put it all on the worksheet. It just doesn't all fit.   

So verses 14 and 15 have some of those dot dot dots. So instead of reading it off the worksheet this time, I'm going to go straight into my scriptures.

  Alma is preaching still. Remember last week he went to Zarahemla and he went to Gideon, and now he's gone to the city of Ammonihah. And when he gets there, the people are horrible to him.

Just absolutely horrible. And they even kick him out of the city. So that's where we are. And as we read,  what are we looking for? Do you remember?   📍 Opposites, okay? Pay attention and see if there are two things that are opposite from each other.  

"And it came to pass that while he was journeying thither, being weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul, because of the wickedness of the people who were in the city of Ammonihah, it came to pass while Alma was thus weighed down with sorrow, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him, saying: Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivedst thy first message from him. Behold, I am he that delivered it unto you."  And there's more to that story, we just don't have time to talk about all of it here.

So if you want more of that story, Go into your scriptures and keep reading. And also, the church has amazing videos that can show you this story. And I definitely recommend that you go find those videos and watch. Okay? So, did you find the opposites in those two verses? 

When I was reading, I just, I felt so bad for Alma at first. He was so sad. The wickedness of the people just made him feel awful. And then what did the angel say? Do you remember?  Lift up thy head and rejoice.   So the question on the worksheet is this. What do you notice in these verses that are opposites? We just found those, right? The   📍 sorrow that he was feeling, and then the angel telling him to   📍 rejoice.  And here's the question. What was the reason for each of these things?

Now we're into the pondering. We did the searching. We found opposites. Now, let's ponder it and think about it. Why do we have the two different things? What was the cause of the sorrow? Let's go back into verse 14 and see being weighed down with sorrow... because of the wickedness of the people.  He just was so sad at this situation.

And do you remember what had happened? I told you he went into the city and they were so mean to him, they even spit on him and kicked him out of the city. Like, that sounds like a horrible day.  Has anybody ever been mean to you? 

Alma just had that day. They were so mean, they said awful things, they spit on him and kicked him out. Of course he's gonna feel sad. He's in a really hard situation and people are being terrible. That would make me feel sad, too, and I'm sure you can relate that sometimes people around us just make us sad. 

 Now let's ponder why the angel said to rejoice. Let's go back into the verse and find it. We're searching again. Search for the reason that Alma has to rejoice.  "Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice,  for," here's the reason,  "for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God."  The angel says you can be happy because you have been choosing the right.  Have you ever felt happy because you were choosing the right?  Does it change the hard things that are going on around you? 

Now we're back to more of that pondering, right? We searched, we found the opposites, we pondered the reasons, we found the reasons. Now let's find the lesson. What can we learn from this and how does it apply to me? Hopefully you never have somebody who's calling you names and spitting on you and kicking you out.

That would be really hard. But what other hard things might you go through? Will you have times when people around you are just really hard to deal with?  Yes, you will. You absolutely will. I have.  Does that mean that we should be weighed down with sorrow and stay there?

We will feel sadness. We will feel upset in those situations. Of course we will.  But the angel told Alma that we can rejoice if we have been choosing the right and following Jesus. 

📍  I want to point something out real quick.   📍 Did you see that the angel did not say,   Be happy, rejoice, because we can fix all the hard things that you're going through?    No! He didn't say that!    📍 The world will try to tell you that happiness comes from your circumstances and what's going on around you.  But we  learn from the angel that 📍  📍 happiness comes  when we are living the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

📍  So, which one of those is more important? The way the world works or the way the Lord works?  The Lord has so many blessings for you and as the world is hard and doing all these terrible things, he will help you and there are always reasons to rejoice if you are following the Savior.  

You guys, there's more than 14 pages of scriptures to study this week, and you might not get through all of them, especially if you're a beginner at scripture study. It can be really hard, so I want you to slow down, pick just a few verses to read, and as you read, search and ponder and pray about it. And then the Lord can speak to you and can give you answers, and can help your testimony grow.

I love the scriptures! I love that they build my testimony and teach me about Jesus Christ. And that's the most important thing, is to learn about Jesus Christ every time you open the scriptures. He is there for you. I promise he is.  So, go open your scriptures and do some studying! 

I'll see you guys next week! 

  📍 Thanks for tuning in to Primarily Scripture with Cindy Young. Don't forget you can subscribe to the newsletter and download free worksheets on the website PrimarilyScripture. com. And if you like the channel, be sure to subscribe, like, share, and leave a review. See you next time!