Alma 53

Keeping Our Covenants

We all face tests in this life that can tempt us to break our covenants with God. The people of Ammon gave us a powerful example of keeping covenants even when facing difficult circumstances. The purpose of this lesson is to help increase your resolve to keep your covenants with God.

Teach students to be covenant keepers. Making and keeping covenants is one way we can show our commitment to become like Jesus Christ. Help students recognize the divine power, mercy, and influence they can receive by faithfully making and keeping covenants with Heavenly Father.

Student preparation: Invite students to look up the word covenant in the Guide to the Scriptures or Bible Dictionary and to be ready to share why it is important to keep our covenants with God.

Possible Learning Activities

The covenant path

Consider displaying the following image or drawing something similar on the board. You might choose to provide students with copies of the image rather than inviting them to draw the path in their study journal.

In your study journal, draw a path like the one in the following image to symbolize our lives and the essential covenants we need to make to return to Heavenly Father. Rather than drawing the circular pictures, you could write the covenants that each picture represents. For example, instead of drawing the fourth picture (counting up from the bottom), you could write “temple endowment” along the path.

Make a mark (or draw a figure representing yourself) indicating where you currently are on your personal covenant path.

Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love you and will help you in your efforts to stay on the covenant path, which leads back to Them. Take a moment to remember the covenants you have already made with Them and the ways you are striving to keep those covenants. (If it would be helpful to review the covenants we make at baptism and renew through the sacrament, read Mosiah 18:8–10 and Moroni 4:3.)

As part of President Russell M. Nelson’s first press conference as the newly called prophet, he taught:

Now, to each member of the Church I say, keep on the covenant path. Your commitment to follow the Savior by making covenants with Him and then keeping those covenants will open the door to every spiritual blessing and privilege available to men, women, and children everywhere. (Russell M. Nelson, “As We Go Forward Together,” Ensign, Apr. 2018, 7)

• What does it mean to you to “keep on the covenant path”?

• What blessings will Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ give those who keep on the covenant path?

You might want to write things like “eternal life,” “becoming like God,” “forever families,” and so on at the end of your drawing of the path.

On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being no determination or resolve and 5 being a strong determination or resolve), ponder your answers to the following questions:

• How determined are you to keep the covenants you have already made with God? Why?

• How determined are you to make the covenants with Him that still lie ahead of you? Why?

As you study today, seek help from Heavenly Father to better understand and desire to make and keep covenants with Him.

The people of Ammon

Display an image of the people of Ammon burying their weapons.

In Alma 24, a group of repentant Lamanites known as the people of Ammon made a unique covenant with God to protect them from falling back into their former sins after being cleansed by the Savior.

Read Alma 53:10–12 to review their covenant (or oath).

• According to verse 11, what were they willing to do to keep their covenant?

Later, when a powerful Lamanite army attacked the Nephites, Captain Moroni and his armies were forced into a terrible war. Read Alma 53:13 and the following statement by Elder Richard G. Scott (1928–2015) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, looking for the difficult decision the people of Ammon faced.

The people of Ammon were at a critical moment of their spiritual lives. They had been true to their covenant never to take up arms. But they understood that fathers are responsible to provide protection to their families. That need seemed great enough to merit consideration of breaking their covenant. (Richard G. Scott, “Personal Strength through the Atonement of Jesus Christ,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2013, 82)

Refer to your drawing of the covenant path. Between where you currently are on the path and the future covenants the Savior invites you to make, list situations that could tempt teenagers to break covenants they have already made and distract them from making future covenants, including temple covenants.

Invite volunteers to list situations or draw obstacles they thought of on the path on the board.

As you continue to study, reflect on how the Savior can help you move forward regardless of where you are and the challenges you currently face.

The prophet Helaman’s counsel

Read Alma 53:14–15; 56:7–8, looking for the prophet Helaman’s counsel to the people of Ammon. (Alma 56 is a letter that Helaman wrote to Captain Moroni explaining the situation.)

• How would you summarize what you learned about covenants with God?

You may have learned truths such as when we choose to keep our covenants with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, They will help us and strengthen us and if we choose to break our covenants with Them, we will lose intended blessings.

Elder Scott explained how God blessed the people of Ammon for keeping their covenants.

Their humble, lifelong commitment to forsaking their sins did more to protect their families than anything they could have done on the battlefield. Their submission did not deprive them of blessings. It strengthened them and blessed them and blessed future generations. (Richard G. Scott, “Personal Strength through the Atonement of Jesus Christ,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2013, 83)

Consider inviting students to brainstorm answers to the following questions in pairs or small groups. Then invite each group to write an answer on the board alongside the covenant path.

• What are some ways the Lord might strengthen and bless you as you strive to make and keep your covenants?

• How can keeping your covenants strengthen your relationship with the Lord?

Two thousand young men enter a covenant

The people of Ammon who had made the covenant obeyed Helaman’s counsel to not take up weapons. One way the Lord blessed them was through their sons’ choice to make and keep a covenant of their own. In future chapters we learn that God used these covenant-keeping young men in miraculous ways to defend their families and the Nephites.

Read Alma 53:16–22. Mark attributes and descriptions of these young men that would help them keep covenants. (It may be helpful to know that the word soberness can refer to being calm, serious, or thoughtful.)

• What attributes did you notice in these young men that would help youth today keep their covenants?

• How do you think their parents’ firmness in keeping covenants may have affected these young men?

• Who do you know who is a great example to you of keeping covenants?

Your covenant path

Record in your study journal what you learned or felt today that could increase your resolve to stay on the path back to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. You may include any temptations or distractions you face on your covenant path and how your determination and your trust in the Lord may help you overcome them.

Consider bearing testimony of how God has blessed you for making and keeping covenants with Him.

Commentary and Background Information

What can help me keep my covenants when it is difficult?

Sister Linda K. Burton, former General President of the Relief Society, taught:

Of all the reasons we ought to be more diligent in our covenant keeping, this reason is more compelling than all—love. …

Why was the Savior willing to keep His covenant with the Father and fulfill His divine mission to atone for the sins of the world? It was His love for His Father and His love for us. …

… Covenant keeping is one way to express our love for the incomprehensible, infinite Atonement of our Savior and Redeemer and the perfect love of our Father in Heaven. (Linda K. Burton, “The Power, Joy, and Love of Covenant Keeping,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2013, 114)

President M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared:

Sometimes we are tempted to let our lives be governed more by convenience than by covenant. It is not always convenient to live gospel standards and stand up for truth and testify of the Restoration. … But there is no spiritual power in living by convenience. The power comes as we keep our covenants. (M. Russell Ballard, “Like a Flame Unquenchable,” Ensign, May 1999, 86)

Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained:

The Power of Covenants

In times of distress, let your covenants be paramount and let your obedience be exact.

Divine covenants make strong Christians. I urge each one to qualify for and receive all the priesthood ordinances you can and then faithfully keep the promises you have made by covenant. In times of distress, let your covenants be paramount and let your obedience be exact. Then you can ask in faith, nothing wavering, according to your need, and God will answer. He will sustain you as you work and watch. In His own time and way He will stretch forth his hand to you, saying, “Here am I.” (D. Todd Christofferson, “The Power of Covenants,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2009, 22)

Watch the video “Standing in Holy Places” (5:36), looking for what helped the young woman keep her covenants and desire future temple covenants.

Standing in Holy Places

A young woman reflects on the blessings of walking the covenant path as she makes her journey to the temple.

Supplemental Learning Activities

Alma 53:9. “Dissensions … among themselves”

Write the following on the board: Priesthood Quorums, Young Women Classes, Wards or Branches, and Families. Then ask what could potentially divide these groups and what dangerous circumstances could result.

Invite students to read Alma 53:8–9. Help them identify a principle such as the following: If members of the Lord’s Church become divided, then we place ourselves in dangerous circumstances. Encourage students to share what they can do to prevent division in their own classes, quorums, and families.

Keeping our baptismal covenant

Toward the beginning of the lesson, consider inviting students to read Mosiah 18:8–10; Moroni 4:3; 5:2. Discuss and list on the board specific promises we make with God when we are baptized and then renew when we take the sacrament.

Then invite students to select one of these promises and think of two obstacles a teenager in your area might face as they try to keep that promise. Invite students to look throughout the lesson for how the example of the people of Ammon could help a teenager in one of those situations.