Korihor
On 20 July 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first human to
walk on the surface of the moon after the first successful manned lunar landing
in history by Apollo 11. It was an
exciting event. At the time, I was
serving my first mission in the City of Apeldoorn and remember getting up at
3:00 am to watch the historic event on the television in the “kosthuis”. With the cold war raging at the time, it was
remarkable that the USA simply broadcast on television to the world the lunar
landing and exploration. I suppose it
was good for propaganda to further the cause of personal freedom and the free
market system, but there was a high risk the expedition could fail and reverse
the good will. I met Buzz Aldrin a few
years ago in San Diego and enjoyed visiting with him about that historic
flight. Mr. Aldrin was the lunar module
pilot and the second man to walk on the moon.
I will never forget the televised image of the first manmade boot prints
in the lunar soil.
Suppose for a minute that after Neil Armstrong exited the
landing vehicle and began walking for the first time on the moon, that he
noticed something shiny in the moon dirt by the toe of his boot. Imagine him looking closer, reaching down and
picking up with his gloved hand a Timex wrist watch! What would be his first thought? I would have thought, “Someone has been here
before me and left this wrist watch. It
could not have just magically assembled itself without some intelligent being
building it and leaving it here.”
I find it interesting that this is essentially the same line
of reasoning Alma used with Korihor the Anti-Christ to prove the existence of
God. Korihor came into the land of Zarahemla
and began preaching against the prophecies which had been spoken by the
prophets concerning the coming of Christ.
Alma asked him, “Believest thou that there is a God?” to which Korihor
said “Nay.” Then Alma said,
“40 And now what evidence have
ye that there is no God,
or that Christ cometh not? I say unto you that ye have none, save it be your
word only.
41 But,
behold, I have all things as a testimony that
these things are true; and ye also have all things as a testimony unto you that
they are true…
44 … ye have the testimony
of all these
thy brethren [members of the church], and also all the holy prophets? The
scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God;
yea, even the earth,
and call things
that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion,
yea, and also all the planets which
move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator. (Alma
30: 40-41. 44)
It would be much easier and more logical to believe that the
parts of a clumsy Timex wrist watch somehow fell together on the surface of the
moon than to believe the universe with the earth and all its beauty, nature,
precision and complications have somehow fallen together.
Suppose you were a space traveler and after light years of
traveling through unorganized matter, you come upon this universe. Would you think as Neil Armstrong would have
thought that someone with intelligence had been here before to create this
complex universe? Or would you think, as Korihor, it just somehow fell together
after a big bang.
Sadly, the Anti-Christs are still among the people of the
earth. They manifest themselves in
several ways and in varying degrees that Korihor clearly summarized in Alma 30. Some people have all the attributes and
others have only one or some of the attributes.
They believe:
1. There
is no God. (vs. 37,38) The rest of the
attributes of an Anti-Christ are subsets of this foundational belief.
2. There
should be no Christ. (vs. 12) Remember Nephi’s prophecy of the last days and
the people would go to war, not against the church but, against the Lamb of God.
(1Nephi 14:13)
3. There
can be no remission of your sins; there could be no atonement made. (vs. 16,17)
4. Traditions
of your fathers including prophecies are foolish; Anti-Christs attack
traditions. (vs. 14,16)
5. Religion
binds people down with foolish and vain hope and foolish ordinances. (vs. 13,16,
23)
6. Living
the gospel and obedience to ordinances places people in bondage. (vs. 23.24)
7. Church
leaders glut themselves on the labors of the followers. (vs. 27,31)
8. No
man can know of anything which is to come.
One cannot know of things which cannot be seen. (vs. 13,15)
9. Every
man fares, prospers and conquers according to his own management, genius and
strength. (vs. 17)
10. Whatever
man does is no crime against God. (vs. 17)
11. Man should
be proud even in wickedness. (vs. 18)
12. Physical
death is the end; there is no life after death. (vs. 18)
13. Show me a
sign to convince me of God’s power. (vs. 43,45)
In these passages we also get a peek into the laws of the
land at that time. Their laws valued the typical Judeo-Christian ethics. It was against the law to murder, rob and
steal but they also included committing adultery as a crime which today most
countries do not include in their laws. Adultery
is only considered a religious offense by some people. (vs. 10)
I have always enjoyed the lessons about testimony, life and
human nature in the passages about Korihor, the Anti-Christ. It is interesting that Alma’s approach to
teaching the Anti-Christ, after he took offense to being accused of glutting
himself off the labors of others, was to teach about the reality that God
exists.
President Robinson
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