POWER

 

I was going to write about the amazing sacrifices of the pioneers in building the Kirtland Temple. This first temple was no doubt the highlight of the early Church history. I am sure you have read about it.

What I want to write about instead is the infallible proof of the Saviour’s investment in our salvation. It begins with the dedicatory prayer that Joseph Smith received by revelation prior to the dedication which he read out instead of praying spontaneously. The dedicatory prayer of this temple is one of my most favourite sections of the Doctrine and Covenants.

This one promise from it has stuck with me for many years: “And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house ARMED WITH THY POWER, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them.”  (v 22)

Verse 23 speaks of the servants carrying the message of truth in power to the ends of the earth but to me this power means it is available to all members of the Church for their ultimate efforts in progressing toward perfection. I know this because I have felt this power wash over me at the veil several times when I have uttered the word POWER. You temple patrons will understand.

And this is what tells me of the Saviour’s investment in our salvation. In Section 95, the Lord indicated the temple should be built so He can endow those whom He has chosen with power from on high (v 8). Who are the chosen? They are those who make the covenants of obedience and who are presented at the veil. They are the chosen. Obedience is the principle of power.

How much does this tell us about the Saviour and His investment in our growth, our well-being, and our salvation? How much does this tell us about His love, His mercy, His grace, His compassion and His sacrifice for us? It tells us this much: “I am with you to bless you and deliver you forever.”  (D&C 108:8)

 

Your power and Your grace

flood my mortal being 

with everlasting hope

And bring me to Thee;

I love You more dearly;

I obey you more freely;

I become what I alone could never be.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Lord's Appearance to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple by Theodore S. Gorka)

WHEN THE ANGELS COME

 

There was a time in Joseph’s life when happiness outweighed the sorrows. Those were the Kirtland years. Joseph wrote that the saints 'patronised all the institutions of heaven' as they participated in weddings and such like joyful festivities (Donna Hill, "Joseph Smith, The First Mormon", p 194). The apex of their content was the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in March of 1836. It was the time when the angels came.

“A noise was heard like the sound of a rushing mighty wind, which filled the Temple, and all the congregation simultaneously arose, being moved upon by an invisible power; many began to speak in tongues and prophesy….and the Temple was filled with angels….The people of the neighbourhood came running together (hearing an unusual sound within, and seeing a bright light like a pillar of fire resting upon the Temple) and were astonished at what was taking place.

“The Saviour made his appearance to some, while angels ministered to others, and it was a Pentacost and an endowment indeed, long to be remembered, for the sound shall go forth from this place into all the world, and occurrences of this day shall be handed down upon the pages of sacred history, to all generations.” (“History of the Church”, 2:427-33)

Less than ten years later, the Church was under a cloud of darkness, dissension and apostasy with the dark spirit of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum hovering over Nauvoo while the saints were frantically attempting to finish the building of the Nauvoo temple. At the same time they were preparing their wagons for their trek into the westward unknown. They were poverty stricken, sick and desperate for the exodus. Despite the conditions of that period of darkness, the saints built a beautiful white sandstone edifice, towering over the countryside and visible for miles up and down the Mississippi.

“Part of the Nauvoo Temple was dedicated in October 1845, even before it was finished; and in December of that year, Brigham Young began to administer the temple ordinances day and night. Within a mere two months, the first company of wagons started across the frozen Mississippi, never to return.

"Within three years, the temple was burned by an arsonist, and two years later a tornado demolished what was left of it.” (Bruce C. Hafen, “The Believing Heart”, p 110-1). No angels came to the Nauvoo temple.

When the Saviour faced the moment of His crucible in the Garden of Gethsemane, an angel came to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43). And when He hung on the cross during the last three hours of that agonizing ordeal, all the pains and suffering of Gethsemane returned (see Bruce R. McConkie, “A New Witness for the Articles of Faith”, p 109). And no angel came.

Sometimes the angels will not come and you will have to go it alone. The heavens will be silent even though God is still watching and hoping this moment will be the making of you.

I am still unraveling the mystery of endurance….

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Artist Unknown)

TURNING OF THE HEARTS PART 2

 

The power of the Spirit of Elijah amazes me. It bridges time and space and unites families in miraculous ways. And in the process, it heals and changes us forever. I am a witness to this process.

It started with my father who gave me a priceless gift. He gave me the Gospel.

When he was just a youth growing up in a poor peasant household in the socialist republic of Croatia, my father rejected the expected role of the oldest son to remain on family land to inherit it along with the care of his parents.

He chose instead a trade at the expense of his father's displeasure and rejection....a trade which enabled him later to move our family to the city life when I was 3 years old. This heroic move led to another even a more heroic one which took our family to a land of more opportunity, Australia. I was 14 years old when we left our homeland.

We hailed from a strong Catholic community. I attended our local Church regularly but my parents and my sisters were not so committed. My father had never expressed any deep spiritual convictions and I had never seen him at Church.

Unbeknownst to him, my father had brought me to a country, by spiritual design, where I could receive the greatest opportunity of all: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was 17 when I approached my parents with my desire to join the Church.

My father does not show emotion but this news outraged and scared him. We were immigrants of 3 years in a strange country and my father’s fear was that I was joining a polygamous cult. He gave me an ultimatum. If I insisted on joining the Church, I had to leave home.

I was driven. The spirit of conversion burned inside me. I left home and was cut off from my family. It was the most devastating event of my then young life which ripped the fabric of my family for many years.

My sister stepped in and reconciled me with my parents a year later. All seemed well but our rift was never addressed properly and the reconciliation was too little too late. My father had become disillusioned with Australia and took my mother back to Croatia.

We corresponded over the years and I visited just once, after my mission. Whilst there I showed great interest in my Croatian roots and with my father’s help I gathered a lot of our family history, which pleased him greatly. So you see he was my accomplice in the temple work I did for my family.

I didn’t see my parents for 20 years before they passed away. I had their temple work done…….except for one ordinance. I was never sealed to them. For some reason, I didn’t feel the spiritual connection with them and could not see my father as someone who would accept the Gospel. The temple work I did for them was perfunctory. I did it out of duty.

And then ‘the turning of my heart happened’….. 15 years later. Suddenly I started thinking about my father. I was his favourite child and the magnitude of the pain I caused him when I left home bore heavily on me. I cried day after day….and I would plead in my prayers that he be told how sorry I am that I hurt him. I could not understand why after all these years I was sorrowing over that experience of my young life.

Then one day I understood, I was not sealed to my parents. The thought came to me that all that pain was wasted for something I believed in and sacrificed for that would never be ours. It was as if my father was speaking to me. I felt I had dishonoured my parents and basically rejected them and I felt enormous guilt. I made a commitment to get the sealing done. As I did so, the sorrowing left and I was at peace. I knew I had been forgiven.

Sometimes in ‘turning our hearts to our fathers’, some resolutions need to happen and most often than not they involve some form of forgiveness. Some of us hail from dysfunctional families, some from abuse, some from abandonment but all come from flawed humanity.

If something is holding you back from the sealing ordinances, know that forgiveness is the key. It will free and change you and it will replace all the grief that is in your heart with unearthly love.

We cannot be saved without our dead. Elijah was not the only one to appear at the Kirtland Temple. The Saviour came too, in acceptance of it to impress upon us this truth. To Him our salvation is everything because this is His work and His glory.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Lord's Appearance to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple by Theodore S. Gorka)

THE PROMISES

 

I often see a close and loving family outside the Church and wonder how they will feel after this life, unconnected with no ties throughout eternity. Some of them will never join the Church in this life.

Herein is the mercy of our God….

When angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith on 21 September 1823, he told him of an important part of the restoration that will take place 13 years later. He told Joseph that the sealing power of the Priesthood will be restored to the earth by the hand of Elijah the prophet who will ‘plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers’ (D&C 2:2)

This sealing power comes in two parts. The first part is the planting into our hearts the promises made to the fathers: “Who are the fathers? They are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom the promises were made. What are the promises? They are the promises of a continuation of the family unit in eternity” (Bruce R. McConkie, The Millenial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man [1982], 267l; see also D&C 27:10; Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual commentary for D&C 2:2).

The second part is the turning of our hearts to our own ancient fathers. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve said that not only has God made these promises to the ancient patriarchs but that we “undoubtedly made them to our own lineal fathers and mothers, those who came to earth before the gospel was restored but whom we promised to provide its saving ordinances” (Christ and the New Covenant 1977, p. 297)

So it is through this sealing power and the saving ordinances we provide for our kindred dead that we inherit the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant. If not, the creation of this earth would be utterly wasted “as a sealed, united, celestially saved family of God is the ultimate purpose of mortality”. (Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant, p 297-98)

But the earth’s purpose will not be 'utterly wasted' at the Saviour's coming (D&C 2:3) because the sealing power of the priesthood was restored to the earth by Elijah in the Kirtland Temple in 1836 through Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.

The spirit of Elijah whispers to Church members and non-members alike in the world today who are desperately seeking their roots. Even the ones who don’t know why, will one day give thanks to the God of this universe who made the family ties eternal and preserved the love that binds us together, now and forever…..

 

Your life has come and gone

But your footprints remain

And your blood courses through my veins.

Because of God’s eternal grace

We will once again embrace.

I weep not that we are now apart,

For I carry you with me,

I carry you in my heart.

 

-  CATHRYNE ALLEN 

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

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)

GODLY POWER

 

I am always enthralled by Nephi’s vision of us, the saints of the last days (1 Nephi 14:12-17). Compared with the rest of the world, Nephi says our numbers were few and we were scattered upon the face of the earth. Worse than being few in number is this: ‘the great and abominable church’ of the devil consisted of multitudes, and they gathered together to fight against the saints of the Lamb of God. Here is why this is scary: ‘the great and abominable church of the devil’ encompasses all organisations of whatever name or nature – whether political, philosophical, educational, economic, social, fraternal, civic, or religious, which are designed to lead people away from God’ – Bruce R McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 137-138))? Can you see ‘the multitudes’??? But there is good news.

Nephi tells us that the power of the Lamb of God descended upon us and we were armed with ‘righteousness and with the power of God in great glory’ (v 14). We all know that righteousness begins and ends with our obedience, but the spiritual and godly power comes from only one source, the Lamb of God, the God of glory, the God of our salvation. This power is bestowed on the righteous in abundance in one special place. In Kirtland in June 1833, Joseph Smith was given a revelation and divine direction to build the very first temple of the latter-days in which house the Lord indicated He intended to ‘endow those whom He had chosen with power from on high’ (D&C 95:8). When Joseph dedicated the Kirtland Temple in March of 1836, the dedicatory prayer given by revelation, included very clearly a petition for the saints ‘to go forth from this house armed with Thy power’ (D&C 109:22). Temple patrons of today receive this power at the veil of every endowment session. Cast your minds on the words and you will agree.

When all hell combines against us, we will see the reason behind the push for us to be a temple loving people. When the adversary sends out his ‘mighty winds, and his shafts in the whirlwind’ (Helaman 5:12) to derail us from the truth we have known, in every way he possibly can, we will want that godly power, more impenetrable than the coat of armour, to shield our faith, to preserve our families, to secure our salvation. We will want to run to the hills upon which the houses of God stand firm and unshakeable. We will want to be as strong as an oak tree to survive the strongest winds of hate, corruption, and evil. We will want to be a powerful army, the invincible souls, the spiritual giants, the covenant people of God….

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Brigham City Temple by Brent Borup)