You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/alma/8?lang=eng.
After having a very successful and heartening teaching experience in the land of Gideon, Alma takes a rest and then finds additional success in the land of Melek—an area further removed from his home in the Nephite capital of Zarahemla. We hear of baptisms “throughout all the land” (verses 3-5). If past patterns provide any hint, Alma may have put priests and teachers in place to watch after the newly baptized.
He then travels to a city called Ammonihah. From the specific mention of “city” in the record it sounds like Ammonihah was a thriving center of Nephite life (verse 6).
Alma begins to preach here too, as he had done successfully in Zarahemla, Gideon and Melek. But the people here are in a very different spiritual place. Our narrator Mormon says that “Satan had gotten great hold” upon their hearts (verses 8-9).
We can imagine that this may be a shock to Alma’s system. Most people can relate to the experience of sharing deeply-held views with someone they expect would have some reason for sympathy or connection and getting not only disagreement, but heated disagreement in response.
Yet, Alma is no stranger to opposition. From his own experience of rebellion, he knows that people with the closest possible access to the loving truth of God’s gospel can be those who—in a sad irony—most boldly reject it. Sometimes rejection can be a way we deal with something we know to be true deep down but don’t want to face for one reason or another. We try to get as far away from it as possible, in the naïvely mistaken hope that we can outrun our own conscience.
So Alma deals with this widespread rejection using the best means available to him—fervent prayer and redoubled effort. Mormon writes that Alma wrestles “with God in mighty prayer, that he would pour out his Spirit upon the people” and lead them to repent and be baptized (verse 10). The image of wrestling with God in prayer helps us recognize that stretching past our comfort zones is a natural part of the Lord’s plan for us. Sometimes we’ll need to really reach out to Him to help us deal with a tough situation. It is an interesting thing because at some level we need to accept that we may not be able to solve every problem the way we’d like to, but at the same time, the Lord is inviting us to expand our vision of what is possible beyond what we comprehend as our limits.
Wrestling in prayer is often the prelude to renewed effort and even struggle to see if we can accomplish something that we may shrink from at first. It is healthy for us to remember that the Lord can be a partner and ultimately the difference-maker, but that success is more linked to how we grow in the process rather than whether the people we’re trying to influence accept our efforts.
And in this case, the people of Ammonihah certainly don’t accept Alma’s efforts. Instead, they harden their hearts (maybe the most tragic phrase found in the scriptures) and taunt Alma, essentially saying “You’re not the chief judge anymore, so you have no authority over us. We don’t have to listen to a word you say! So what if you’re the high priest? We’re not a part of your foolish church!” To make sure Alma has no confusion about their disdain, they spit on him and cast him out of the city (verses 11-13).
No matter who you are, when other people—especially a big group—are so rabidly negative toward you, it’s hard to stay focused on the bigger picture of God’s truth and eternal perspective. As faithful as he is, Alma is weighed down with sorrow, much tribulation and “anguish of soul” due to the people’s wickedness (verse 14).
For the second time in our scriptural account of Alma’s life, we read that an angel appears to him. It’s the same angel who rebuked him and his friends and helped save him from his earlier rebellion against truth. Now the angel has a different purpose to his visit: to lift Alma from his sorrows. The angel insists that Alma has every reason to rejoice instead of sulk. Because he has faithfully followed the Lord’s direction, he is being blessed—with the angel’s visit a sure sign of that (verses 14-15).
With that blessing comes both expanded perspective and greater resolution to keep going. The angel helps Alma understand two things to motivate him to go back to the very people of Ammonihah who have so violently abused him. First, they are in great peril of spiritual and physical destruction because of their disobedience to the Lord’s commandments. They need to be warned, and the Lord is counting on Alma to do that. Second, the people of Ammonihah are plotting to destroy the liberty of all the Nephites. So just leaving them alone won’t work, because the negative consequences of their wickedness will have much broader effects on all the people (verses 16-17).
This is a powerful lesson to each one of us who is tempted to simply ignore wickedness in our midst or give up after an initial try with a situation. Each situation is different, so the right response can depend on a number of factors, but sometimes we need to keep trying to remind people of the way of goodness and light. How do you teach peace in peace? It probably starts with remembering that every person has light in them already because they are a child of God. And then seeking guidance to understand as best as you can how to appeal to that inner light, even if it’s hidden away very deeply.
Inspired by the angel’s reappearance to him—after all, the angel has been such a powerful agent of positive change in his life thus far—Alma returns to Ammonihah. And he doesn’t just trudge back hesitantly. He speedily returns (verse 18).
And then the story REALLY gets interesting. Alma enters the city by a way he hasn’t used before. Not surprisingly, he is famished because he has been traveling, and before that the people treated him inhospitably. He asks a man he encounters for some food (verses 18-19). That man, whose name is Amulek, turns out to be exactly who the Lord has prepared for this moment.
Amulek not only agrees to take Alma to his own home and give Alma much-needed nourishment, he declares that Alma is a prophet of God. Why? Because Amulek shares that an angel appeared to him (Amulek) and told him to receive Alma (verses 20-21). While the chapter doesn’t tell us specifically, it seems logical that the angel who appeared to Amulek is the same one who appeared twice to Alma.
Once Alma is refreshed, he thanks God and blesses Amulek and his house. He then explains to Amulek who he is (high priest of the church) and his divine mandate to preach the gospel and cry repentance. He tells Amulek about his initial rejection by the people of Ammonihah, and the command for him to return and testify against the people’s iniquities. He stays with Amulek for several days, presumably to regain his strength and prepare spiritually for the daunting task ahead of facing a hostile crowd who has already tried to get rid of him once (verses 22-27).
This time though, Alma won’t be preaching alone. He receives revelation from the Lord to direct Amulek to declare repentance alongside him. As the chapter ends, our narrator Mormon assures us that Alma and Amulek will be filled with the Holy Ghost and will be given power from the Lord to escape death and imprisonment, which gives us hints at what is to come (verses 29-32).
Here and here are two short video clips summarizing this chapter.
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