This week's lesson was on the Sealing Power and Temple Blessings, Chapter 17 of our Joseph Fielding Smith manual. Sis. Kristen Tanner did such a wonderful job of bringing the Spirit into her lesson and we all learned about the importance of this great work. "President Smith taught that family history is about more than finding names, dates, and places and gathering stories. It is about providing temple ordinances that unite families for eternity, sealing faithful people of all generations as members of the family of God." Before he dedicated the Ogden Utah Temple he said, "May I remind you that when we dedicate a house to the Lord, what we really do is dedicate ourselves to the Lord's service, with a covenant that we shall use the house in the way he intends that it shall be used."
In Malachi 4:5-6 it says, "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." The fulfillment to this promise came on April 3, 1836 when Elijah appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple. The keys of the priesthood to bind, or seal, on earth and in heaven were conferred to the Prophet Joseph "with the authority to seal for time and eternity on the righteous all the ordinances pertaining to the fullness of salvation."
A powerful video was shared in class regarding the importance of the sealing power and the way that the family is united because of it. This video is called, Including Me.
To prepare for salvation in its fullest, we must receive temple ordinances through the sealing power. President Smith teaches, "If you want salvation in the fullest, that is exaltation in the kingdom of God, . . . you have got to go into the temple of the Lord and receive these holy ordinances which belong to that house, which cannot be had elsewhere. No man shall receive the fulness of eternity, of exaltation alone; no woman shall receive that blessing alone; but man and wife, when they receive the sealing power in the temple of the Lord, shall pass on to exaltation, and shall continue and become like the Lord. And that is the destiny of men, that is what the Lord desires for His children."
"It is obvious that only a small portion of mankind has so far heard the word of revealed truth from the voice of one of the Lord's true servants. In the wisdom and justice of the Lord, all must do so." Temple work for both the living and our dead is such an important part of the plan of salvation. Of course the gospel is offered to all men. Through the sealing power and the temple we can see that every soul is precious in the sight of the Lord. President Joseph Fielding Smith says, "There is no work equal to that in the temple for the dead in teaching a man to love his neighbor as himself. Jesus so loved the world that he was willing to offer himself as a sacrifice for sin that the world might be saved. We also have the privilege, in a small degree, of showing our great love for Him and our fellow being by helping them to the blessings of the gospel which now they cannot receive without our assistance."
"There must be a welding, a joining together of the generations from the days of Adam to the end of time. Families will be joined and linked together, parents to children, children to parents, one generation to another, until we shall be joined together in one great grand family with our father Adam at the head, where the Lord placed him. So we cannot be saved and exalted in the kingdom of God unless we have within our hearts the desire to do this work and perform it so far as it is within our power on behalf of our dead."
There is always something, someway, that we can be helping move the work of the Lord forward. The Lord has made promises to us and our kindred dead if we do our best regarding the work in the temple. Elder Richard G. Scott said, "Decide to do something that will have eternal consequences."
Another video that is also wonderful about redeeming the dead is the following: Richard G Scott- The Joy of Redeeming the Dead
No comments:
Post a Comment