"And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness.
And now behold, is the meaning of the word restoration to take a thing of a natural state and place it in an unnatural state, or to place it in a state opposite to its nature?
O, my son, this is not the case; but the meaning of the word restoration is to bring back again evil for evil, or carnal for carnal, or devilish for devilish—good for that which is good; righteous for that which is righteous; just for that which is just; merciful for that which is merciful.
Therefore, my son, see that you are merciful unto your brethren; deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually; and if ye do all these things then shall ye receive your reward; yea, ye shall have mercy restored unto you again; ye shall have justice restored unto you again; ye shall have a righteous judgment restored unto you again; and ye shall have good rewarded unto you again."
Alma 41:11-14
The nature part is interesting because we usually think of nature as something good... get back to nature, respect mother nature, etc. but we also know that "the natural man is an enemy to God" (Mosiah 3:19, Mosiah 16:15), and that is the sense that it is talking about here. What it seems like to me is that we have a dual nature... a spiritual one and a physical one, and when we trust in that spiritual part of ourselves, or in other words, listen to God, who gives us access to that part of ourselves and helps us build it up, then we're on a good path, but when we let our physical selves rule, then we get off on the wrong track. Of course there is always pride... that is more mental, and obviously my analogy is breaking down with just spiritual/physical, but natural perhaps encompasses both of those, and spiritual is the other side... the side that we can learn to put in charge. The natural side of us is a gift, and can be a really good thing, but only if we keep it cared for and teach it to fulfil its needs in good and righteous ways. If not, then we are letting our whole selves grow wild, and producing "bitter fruit" as in the olive tree allegory (Jacob 5). I think that means the same thing it is talking about here... evil for evil. If we go wild and do bad things, then we're feeding ourselves evil, which is not going to work out very well in the end.
Sometimes we think that we need to be free of all these laws and restrictions and have the freedom to be whoever we want... but we already have that freedom. We can walk away from responsibility and good whenever we want. I think when we express things like that what we really mean is that we wish there were no consequences and that we could do whatever we want and still become who we want to be and get good things showered on us... and *that* is what is never going to happen, since "wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10). God would actually have to be evil to give us something like that... robbing justice, and making eternity unequal. What we have is *temporary* suspension of consequences while we figure ourselves out... a gift from Christ which lasts throughout our lives, but then we have to face who we have become at the judgement day. If we repent, then we escape our evil pasts, because Christ gives us a longer chance to learn goodness, but we can never stay evil and get good in return. Today, let's work towards good and get away from the bad part of our natures.
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