War Chapters - Fortify Your Weak Points

In Alma 49, a Lamanite army went to attack the Nephite city of Ammonihah. When they saw that they couldn't win there, they swore to destroy the city of Noah, and discovered that they couldn't win there either, but they attacked anyway and lost badly. There are a couple of mini-messages I could pull out of this chapter, including a message of the wisdom of not making oaths rashly. Or I could make this a message about perseverance or about trying alternate plans. But the message I'd most like to pull out of this chapter is the one that this chapter practically spells out to us: fortify your weak points.

It wasn't by random chance that the Lamanites chose to attack the city of Ammonihah first. Back in Alma 14, the people of the city of Ammonihah demonstrated extreme wickedness, burning Christians alive, along with their religious texts. After the surviving Christians left Ammonihah, the Laminites had come through and destroyed the city and all the remaining inhabitants. The Nephites later retook and rebuilt the city.

Behold, I said that the city of Ammonihah had been rebuilt. I say unto you, yea, that it was in part rebuilt; and because the Lamanites had destroyed it once because of the iniquity of the people, they supposed that it would again become an easy prey for them.
-Alma 49: 3

The Lamanites saw Ammonihah as a weak point, "easy prey," so when they decided that they wanted to kill some Nephites, Ammonihah was where they went. But the Nephites had rebuilt and fortified Ammonihah until it became a great stronghold, so, taking the path of least resistance, the Lamanites decided not to attack Ammonihah that day, but went to the city of Noah instead.

The choice to go to Noah wasn't a random one, either. It was another Nephite weak-spot that the Lamanites thought they could take out with ease.

But behold, to their astonishment, the city of Noah, which had hitherto been a weak place, had now, by the means of Moroni, become strong, yea, even to exceed the strength of the city Ammonihah. 

And now, behold, this was wisdom in Moroni; for he had supposed that they would be frightened at the city Ammonihah; and as the city of Noah had hitherto been the weakest part of the land, therefore they would march thither to battle; and thus it was according to his desires.
-Alma 49: 14-15

I've already written about the wisdom of Moroni in being diligent to keep working to defend his people even when they weren't under any immediate threat, but I can see now how all that diligence might have gone to waste if he had put it into the wrong efforts. Moroni knew which cities the Lamanites were likely to attack because he knew his nation's weak-points, and he knew that the Lamanites liked to take the path of least resistance. Knowing where your enemy is going to try to hit you can give you a great advantage in preparing for the attack. Thankfully, we have that advantage as well.

Satan, like the Lamanites, often takes the path of least resistance and tends to strike at us where he thinks we're weak. I wouldn't be surprised if, whenever he gets us to give in to any small temptation, he makes a note of which temptation worked on us, and continued using temptations like that against us in the future. That way, he learns our weaknesses, and those are the points at which he attacks us.

Ironically, we can use the exact same method to counter his attempts to tempt us. So, hypothetically, we gave in to temptation at least once before in our lives. What kind of temptation was it? What were the circumstances? How were you feeling (emotionally) at the time? Write down everything you can remember about the incident. If/When you give in to temptation again, write a new list about the factors in that temptation. Look for patterns and connections. In time, you'll start to get an idea of what strategies Satan uses against you - what your weaknesses are. Knowledge is power. He tries to get knowledge about your weaknesses so he can use those weak points to tempt you, but you can use the same knowledge to learn how to defend yourself against those temptations. When you learn what your weak points are, you can begin to fortify them, until... I was about to just share a part of a scripture, then I decided to share the whole thing.

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.
-Ether 12: 27

I take this to mean that God wants to help us learn about our weaknesses - to give us that tactical knowledge, so we can begin to fortify them, and if we humbly acknowledge our weaknesses and are faithful in our efforts to fortify them, God will help us turn those weak points into strongholds against the power of the enemy.

Man, I love the war chapters. There's so much powerful, tactical advice in there. And to think that if we learned from and applied all the knowledge we have available to us, we could become tremendously powerful soldiers in the war over souls. It's exciting. There's a reason it's my favorite part of the Book of Mormon.