Scripture Passage Ratification

"According to my Prayer"

Excerpt from Letter to Lily Rayback (Greenhaulgh); Frebruary 26, 1995

While pulling this letter together this morning, I was blessed to run across yet another scripture that accords with the concept of praying on behalf of one who does not know God, and angels working on their behalf. These words flashed before my gaze as I flipped through the pages: "Now this thing was pleasing unto me, Jacob, for I had requested it of my Father who was in heaven; for he had heard my cry and answered my prayer." (Jacob 7:22.) At first, I thought it was King Mosiah, praying for his rebel son, Alma -- which would have fit the paradigm as well.

Actually, it was Jacob regarding Sherem, who said the following before the people before dying: "He spake plainly unto them and denied the things which he had taught them, and confessed the Christ, and the power of the Holy Ghost, and the ministering of angels. And he spake plainly unto them that he had been deceived by the power of the devil." (7:17,18.) He was one of the Book of Mormon's notorious anti-Christ's yet he was touched through the power of Jacob's prayer and testified of "the ministering of angels."

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