ROOT AND BRANCH

 

During His visit to the Americas the Saviour quoted two prolific prophets from the Old Testament. We usually focus and remember His references to Isaiah but  equally important are His quotations of Malachi.

Who can forget Malachi’s four iconic teachings:

·        Comparing the Saviour to a ‘refiner and purifier of silver’ in that great day when He comes to judge the world, to cleanse us through His Atonement like ‘fuller’s soap’ and prepare us to stand pure and spotless before the judgment seat (Malachi 3:2-3; 3 Nephi 24:2-3; D&C 128:24; see also Mormon Doctrine, 2^nd ed [1966], 624);

·        The promise that payment of tithing and offerings can open the windows of heaven and pour out revelation from God on the faithful who are willing to so sacrifice (Malachi 3:10; The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, ed. Clyde J Williams [1966], 206);

·        The promise that you can become a jewel in God’s crown if you remain faithful and thus have your name recorded in the book of remembrance (Malachi 3:16,17);

·        And this great promise: the great Elijah who would come to restore the priesthood keys that would seal families together and allow them to be complete – both root (ancestors) and branch (posterity) (Malachi 4:5,6). If not so, the purpose of this earth which was created for exaltation of human families would come to naught and the whole earth be wasted.

Imagine the tragedy of this:

In a Church general conference Elder Rudger Clawson of the Quorum of the Twelve related a marvellous manifestation received by one faithful Salt Lake Temple worker in which the status of married couples in the spirit prison who have not been sealed for eternity in a temple was revealed:

Upon one occasion I saw in vision my father and mother who were not members of the Church, who had not received the gospel in life, and I discovered that they were living separate and apart in the spirit world, and when I asked them how it was that they were so, my father said, "This is an enforced separation, and you are the only individual who can bring us together.  You can do this work.  Will you do it? - meaning that he should go to the House of the Lord and there officiate for his parents who were dead, and by the ordinance of sealing bring them together and unite them in the family relation beyond the veil.

"Temple Manifestations"  p. 77, 89, 131

"The story of Elijah's return can be found in D&C 110.  Obviously, there is no need to wait for him any longer.  This became the subject of conversation between Elder LeGrand Richards and the Mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek.  Elder Richards had just dedicated the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden on the Mount of Olives.  After the ceremony, the two conversed as they ate their lunch:

Elder Richards said:  "Mayor, I want to tell you something".

"What's that?" asked the Mayor.

Looking Mayor Kollek directly in the eye, the apostle said:

"Ten years ago I was here in Jerusalem and one day I went into three synagogues and hanging up on the wall in one of them was a large armchair.  I asked the rabbi what it was there for (I knew but I wanted him to tell me, which he did).  He said that it was so that if Elijah comes 'we can lower the chair and let him sit in it'.  Now Mayor, I want to tell you something and what I tell you is the truth.  Elijah has already been.  On the third day of April 1836 he appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple".

The Mayor said:

"I guess I better tell them to take that chair down."

(LeGrand Richards, Beloved Apostle, p.301)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Elijah Appearing in the Kirtland Temple by Dan Lewis)