Despite the millions of Mormons, we live in a very small church. We cross paths with one another after years of living in different states or different parts of the world.
As a result of how small our community is, I have run into people after years of separation and often times been astonished by the difference in them. One of the increasingly frequent things I have noticed comes from a verse in Alma.
Alma taught, “They that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction.” (Alma 12:11.)
I have noticed that the vindication of this doctrine is unrelated to whether my friends have had administrative success in the church. Many of those who have lost understanding and who preach against “knowing the mysteries of God” do so because they have had local administrative positions.
Alma connects losing knowledge of God’s mysteries directly to being “taken captive by the devil” and being “led by his will down to destruction.” So when these friends preach to me against the mysteries and claim they have no desire to know about them, I am troubled in my heart.
The less we trust the teachings of the Book of Mormon the more we draw distant from God.