Thoughts on Revelation...How we know if Revelation is from Jesus Christ

Alma 6:8 was interesting to me this morning. Alma taught the word of God to the people in Gideon and this is what and how he taught, he declared the “word of God unto the church which was established in the valley of Gideon, according to the revelation of the truth of the word which had been spoken by his fathers, and according to the spirit of prophecy which was in him, according to the testimony of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who should come to redeem his people from their sins, and the holy order by which he was called.” 

There is a lot of meat in there. He taught the word of God, “according to the revelation of the truth of the word which had been spoken by his fathers...”. “The revelation of the truth of the word,” indicates to me that only those words others have spoken that the Spirit of revelation dictated were true. We are entitled to know “by the power of the Holy Ghost...the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:5). That same spirit is what settled upon him as he taught by the spirit of prophecy. He had this because of the testimony he had of Jesus Christ. Wow! That is so powerful!

In our family scripture study we were in Alma 44. We read the first 6 verses. It was powerful to me to identify the enemies of Christ, that President Benson taught are revealed to us in the Book of Mormon. The enemy described here is one that seeks for power over others to bring them into bondage. Bondage is being forced to do what others ask you to do. Moroni was the opposite. He sought for power to ensure that he and his people could exercise their liberty to choose and worship and live their religion as they saw fit. We must measure everything we do and our interactions with others in that light. Even if we want others to keep their faith we must never use a position of power to force someone to use their agency to live their religion the way we feel is best. At that point we have crossed the line and are then using the means of the evil one, seeking for power to bring someone into bondage and to force them to follow the dictates of our conscience instead of theirs.