Strength According to Faith - Alma 14:23-28

And it came to pass after they had thus suffered for many days ... that the chief judge over the land of Ammonihah and many of their teachers and their lawyers went in unto the prison where Alma and Amulek were bound with cords. And the chief judge stood before them, and smote them again, and said unto them: If ye have the power of God deliver yourselves from these bands, and then we will believe that the Lord will destroy this people according to your words. And it came to pass that they all went forth and smote them, saying the same words, even until the last; and when the last had spoken unto them the power of God was upon Alma and Amulek, and they rose and stood upon their feet.
And Alma cried, saying: How long shall we suffer these great afflictions, O Lord? O Lord, give us strength according to our faith which is in Christ, even unto deliverance. And they broke the cords with which they were bound; and when the people saw this, they began to flee, for the fear of destruction had come upon them. And it came to pass that so great was their fear that they fell to the earth, and did not obtain the outer door of the prison; and the earth shook mightily, and the walls of the prison were rent in twain, so that they fell to the earth; and the chief judge, and the lawyers, and priests, and teachers, who smote upon Alma and Amulek, were slain by the fall thereof. And Alma and Amulek came forth out of the prison, and they were not hurt; for the Lord had granted unto them power, according to their faith which was in Christ.

Now Alma and Amulek were thrown in prison precisely because they prophesied two things: That the Messiah would come in the flesh according to the scriptures, and that the people of that land would be destroyed if they would not repent. The response of these wicked people to those teachings was to commit an Auto-da-Fe, throwing all who "believed or had been taught to believe" in Christ into the fire. What's more, Alma and Amulek were forced to watch. Then the murderous people turned on Alma and Amulek and laid the deeds to their charge, saying "ye see that ye had not power to save those who had been cast into the fire; neither has God saved them"; attempting to palm their heinous crime off on them. Then interestingly, they threw them in a dungeon rather than causing them to suffer the same fate.

The subject quotation comes from the time after Alma and Amulek had been in prison for many days. The interesting thing is that the words of the perpetrators predicted what would happen. Their intent was to break them, to make them lose faith, by proving that God would not save them from their situation. Again, the words they said were: If ye have the power of God deliver yourselves from these bands, and then we will believe that the Lord will destroy this people according to your words.

Now it isn't always God's will to do such things, but in this instance, Alma and Amulek were given the words to say, which was the very thing that the perpetrators challenged them to do - deliver themselves from the bands. When God permitted them the power to break the ropes and bands that tied them, the perpetrators instantly knew they were done for, because they knew all along that they were doing wrong, and now it had been thrown in their face.

So why did it take so long? And why would God suffer such atrocities to be committed? Especially when it was by His command that Alma and Amulek preached and prophesied the things that they did. In one aspect, I suppose that they must have been very bad, and God had decided that things had gone on long enough, so it was time for them to have an ultimatum. God will always honor our free agency, but when we've gone on too long ignoring his pleadings and warnings without repenting, something's got to give. The arrival of Alma and Amulek signified His last warning to those people. And their response to that warning belies exactly where their hearts were. And their hearts were manifested by their heinous deeds - resorting to violence and murder of the innocent.

It is sad but true that men can descend into such a state. But the ultimatum came and those who did not get out of there (like Zeezrom) were part of the insanity that ensued. So, that's my opinion on what happened - the ultimatum came, and while some responded positively, some responded negatively and crossed the line. But back to the question - why would God allow such heinous deeds to be perpetrated on the innocent? The answer is in Alma's words in v. 10,11:

And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.

But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.

So it may sound crazy, but it appears that the leaders of the people had been plotting this act in their hearts already, and had only been waiting for an excuse to put their evil designs into action. Now they had one, and scapegoats to boot, so they enacted their evil designs. In other words, I don't think this was a spur of the moment decision, I think it was something that had been in their hearts already. I consider the 9/11 and other terrorist attacks to be of the same nature. The people have these evil designs in their hearts and only wait for something to happen so they feel justified in their actions.

Most of our worldly thinking leads us to believe that the worst possible thing that can happen to a person it to die or be killed. But from God's perspective, salvation is more important than survival. Or put another way, mortal life is not as important as eternal life. This is manifest by Alma's statement: "the Lord receiveth them up unto himself in glory". In other words, they're going to be just fine. Now, I am not saying that if something goes down where we could save somebody, that we should just stand by and watch - I'm saying that we should do what God tells us to do. And in this case, as in other cases, God has chosen to allow evildoers to perpetrate their acts for His own purposes.

In the end, Alma and Amulek left the wicked city and a short time later, a Lamanite army attacked and razed the city to the ground - leaving no one alive. In truth, it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished. (Mormon 4:5)