Alma 37

(April 14, 2014)
I have often wondered why it was that Alma needed to hide the 24 plates from the people.  After all, it is clear that they managed to get the secret oaths and covenants in a different way – I doubt Nephi son of Helaman was the one to reveal them – so it wasn’t to keep the oaths and covenants from those who sought them out.  But as I thought of it, the answer became clear to me.  Alma wisely said to hide the secret oaths and covenants for the combinations because knowing they existed would draw people towards them.  There are those who would be righteous (or, at least, neutral) in the continuation of the War in Heaven but for the existence of certain avenues of rebellion.  When these avenues presented themselves, they would take them.

We need look no further than the issue of homosexuality.  Statistics are difficult to come by, but I don’t think there is any disagreement that the prevalence of homosexuality was significantly less a decade or two ago than it is now.  Why?  Because these sins are out in the open and mainstreamed, many people follow this path (claiming, ironically, that it is a genetic predestiny rather than a choice, societal pressure, or nature/nurture combination).  Where homosexuality something that was still scrupulously kept outside the public’s eye, there are a large number of people who would not be homosexuals and would not have to deal with that difficult issue.

The Lord often tries to protect us from sin – and one way that He does this is to hide sin from our eyes.  Satan, on the other hand, seeks to normalize and publish sin – knowing that if he can get sin into the public square, he will have many more people within his grip.