Armor and the War Chapters

Just a side note ~ I really fell in love with the war chapters this time around ~ after all these years of reading them and dreading them. This time I looked for gospel principles being taught and WOW they are packed full of lessons on obedience and remembering and repenting...

When we got to Alma 43 we talked about how Captain Moroni fortified the cities ~ built strongholds around them ~ thus making it so that the Lamanities could not destroy those cities. Moroni also introduced to his armies ~ Armor ~ they not only fortified their cities but they fortified themselves.

I took most of the day's lesson from the Institute Manual ~ "What Protective Armor Do We Have Today?" (Alma 43:18-22, 37-38 ~ Institute Manual pg 250)

President Harold B. Lee (1899–1973) explained one way that we could apply these verses to our lives today:

“We have the four parts of the body that the Apostle Paul said or saw to be the most vulnerable to the powers of darkness. The loins, typifying virtue, chastity. The heart typifying our conduct. Our feet, our goals or objectives in life and finally our head, our thoughts.

“. . . We should have our loins girt about with truth. What is truth? Truth, the Lord said, was knowledge of things as they are, things as they were and things as they are to come [D&C 93:24]. . . . ‘Our loins shall be girt about with truth,’ the prophet said.

“And the heart, what kind of a breastplate shall protect our conduct in life? We shall have over our hearts a breastplate of righteousness. Well, having learned truth we have a measure by which we can judge between right and wrong and so our conduct will always be gauged by that thing which we know to be true. Our breastplate to cover our conduct shall be the
breastplate of righteousness.

“[By] what shall we protect our feet, or by what shall we gauge our objectives or our goals in life? . . . ‘Your feet should be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.’ (Ephesians 6:15). . . .

“And then finally the helmet of salvation. . . . What is salvation Salvation is to be saved. Saved from what? Saved from death and saved from sin. . .

“Well, now the Apostle Paul . . . had his armoured man holding in his hand a shield and in his other hand a sword, which were the weapons of those days. That shield was the shield of faith and the sword was the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God. I can’t think of any more powerful weapons than faith and a knowledge of the scriptures in the which are contained the Word of God. One so armoured and one so prepared with those weapons is prepared to go out against the enemy” (Feet Shod with the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [Nov. 9, 1954], 2–3, 6–7; see also Ephesians 6:13–17; D&C 27:15–18).

So I armored them ~ so to speak ~ or at least one of them... (Kara)