The Work is Not Yet Done
by Neal Silvester
In the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, the character of Bruce Wayne is thrown into a prison at the bottom of a huge pit. The prisoners try again and again to climb out, but fail and fall every time. The idea of the prison is to induce true despair in its occupants, for, as the villain Bane tells Bruce Wayne, true despair must include some form of hope, hope that is never fulfilled, but constantly yearning. To add to this darkness, Bruce Wayne has severe injuries that preclude his ability to climb out of the pit. He lies broken at the bottom with several other prisoners, all whom have no real hope to ever escape.
And so Bruce Wayne takes it upon himself to rise up, to recover from his injuries and train his body to be able to climb out of the pit. After months of effort and failed attempts, he finally manages to do it. The key to this analogy is what happens next: as Bruce reaches the top and looks around, there on the edge of the pit is a rope. He almost casually tosses the rope down, thus giving the prisoners, who had no chance to escape on their own, the opportunity to be free.
Do you see the analogy, brothers and sisters? In this situation Bruce Wayne takes the role of Christ, conquering that formerly unbeatable foe of Death, thus opening the way for others to follow after, to be resurrected as He was. Both Bruce Wayne and Jesus Christ, by going first, built a bridge to liberate the captives of darkness and despair.
But there is another way to apply this scenario, similar but more applicable to us. This scene is descriptive of temple work, and the way each of us as Latter-day Saints can be like Christ, “saviors on Mount Zion” (Obadiah 1:21). We can perform, by proxy, saving and exalting ordinances for our dead, thus giving them the opportunity to go where they hadn’t been able to before. And thus the prisoners Alma told his son Corianton about in Alma 40 can cross that bridge and enter paradise, the presence of God. Keep this analogy and image in mind as we go through the rest of this talk.
2 Nephi 29:9 reads, “My work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man.” The Savior tells us quite plainly in this verse that His work is not yet done, and it won’t be until the era that He calls “the end of man.” We will return to that line later; for now I’d like to concentrate on what the first part means. His work is not finished. It wasn’t finished thousands of years ago when that verse was written, and it certainly is not finished yet, as clearly man has not ended.
So we have a question. What is the Savior’s work? It could be adequately summed up as the threefold mission of the Church --- Proclaim the Gospel, Perfect the Saints, and Redeem the Dead. But to what end is that work? What is it ultimately designed to accomplish? Gospel scholar Truman Madsen stated that the work is “to eventually prepare the whole world, every man and every woman, for temples and the privilege of communing with the living God” (29). In other words, to prepare to enter into and dwell in the presence of God. There is no doubt, brothers and sisters, that this is accomplished no more effectively and profoundly than in the holy temple.
The House of the Lord
The temple, as we all know, is the House of the Lord. But do we ever think about what that title means? What it means to me is that it would not or should not be unexpected to see the Savior Himself walking the corridors of that building. It is, after all, His house. A place where He dwells. A place where He “personally ministers” (14). A place as holy as heaven, a tiny piece of celestial real estate plucked from the heavens above and lowered down to earth. The chandelier in the celestial room of the Provo Temple demonstrates this idea perfectly to me. It is spherical in shape, and hangs down from an alcove in the ceiling, as if it once filled that gap, but was carved out and lowered so that we may enjoy a microcosm of the celestial whole that it represents. This, brothers and sisters, is precisely the function of celestial rooms, and temples themselves. A tiny slice of heaven, descended to our world so that we may bask in heavenly glory and prepare for that state of mind, that state of soul.
Thus the temple is the consummate place for preparation for the greater kingdom, for the presence of God and His angels and His Son. It is a house of learning, where we, like Christ, move from grace to grace, degree by degree. Brother Madsen calls the ordinances of the temple “the Lord’s graduate course” (6). A house of prayer, where we can be closer to God as we communicate with Him than at any other place. A house of revelation, where we can get answers to those prayerful supplications.
As the world degenerates, the gospel, through the temples dotting the globe, regenerates. It quickens the process of discerning between the wheat and the tares. As the world grows stronger, darker, and more wicked, the Saints, through the temple, will shine all the more brightly. For when we go to the temple, that house of light, some of its light transfers to us, and, as Paul discusses in 1 Corinthians 3:16, we become living temples in our own right, places where the Spirit can dwell, vessels that bear the Spirit of the Lord (Madsen 22-23). The spiritual power we can gain from the temple can drive every other aspect of our lives.
The temple is the House of the Lord, insomuch that the phrase “cut off from the presence of the Lord” (Alma 37:13), seen frequently in the scriptures, means, to our latter day, that one cannot enter the temple to commune with Him. Our highest goal, brothers and sisters, should be to keep and be worthy of our temple recommends at all times. Having our recommend entails everything else that is required of us, and shows that we are on the right track. If we’re still at the necessary spiritual speed, but in the process of deceleration rather than acceleration, worthy of our recommend but in a distinct downward direction, it means we need to get to the temple, fast.
Brother Madsen explains that “the Jews speak of the temple as the navel of the earth, the very place that heaven brings nutriment to earth” (36-37). It is the source of spiritual nourishment, emblematic of the dispensation of the fulness of times. Note how along with the Restoration brought about by the prophet Joseph Smith came temples. A true, legitimate temple had not been seen on the earth for nearly two millennia previously. It is possible that, in part, the Great Apostasy occurred because of the dearth of temples. Thus, the more work we do in the temple, brothers and sisters, the harder it will be for the Adversary to get us on the path to our own personal apostasies. The temples of Ancient Israel give evidence of their necessity to this work of soul-preparation. First there was the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies in the midst of the Israelites. Then Solomon’s temple, and after that was destroyed, the second Jerusalem temple. Now, it is doubtful they actually performed work for the dead, like we do today. But they were houses of preparation even so, as we learn from the Initiatory. Joseph Smith referred to the ceremonies, rites, and rituals of the temple as “the ancient order of things” (Charles 29). While we do know Adam and his children made sacrifices, we do not have records of actual temples among them, though we can assume they did because there are, after all, temples in every Gospel-centered civilization, including the Nephites. (According to Hugh Nibley, we call today’s secular version of these houses of learning “universities.” Secular graduation ceremonies even use a few of elements found in the endowment. I won’t detail them here, but the next time you attend a high school or college graduation, pay attention.) Wherever there has been the gospel, there has been some form of the ordinances meant to help us return to God, whether that be in Solomon’s grand and glorious temple or the second floor of Newel K. Whitney’s shop.
In fact, the work of preparing mankind to return to God’s presence began at the very moment we left God’s presence: at the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, when they were “shut out from his presence” (Moses 5:4) as the Book of Moses tells us. In the very next verse afterward, the Lord gives them commandments to uphold and principles to live by. The most noteworthy commandment was to offer sacrifices of the firstlings of their flock to God. The ordinance of sacrifice was the primary ritual whereby the Lord’s people would remember God and remember to look forward to the sacrifice of the Son, in which they could gain second birth, into a further preparatory state. Joseph Smith proclaimed, “Being born again comes by the Spirit of God through ordinances” (Madsen 48). Temple ordinances throughout the history of the world have always served these purposes, what Brother Madsen calls a “quickening...in mind, spirit, and body” (48). This work has been done for a very, very long time.
But, brothers and sisters, the work is not yet done.The Ancient Order of Things
It is interesting to note that the second temple in Jerusalem lacked certain things that Solomon’s temple did not, at least according to the Midrash, which is ancient Jewish commentary on scripture (Madsen 39). As a result of the Restoration, the Kirtland Temple, the first temple of this last dispensation, restored some of those things which were lost: among them, Brother Madsen lists, “the sacred fire,” or “the glory of God” that consumed the Kirtland temple at its dedication; the gift of prophecy; the holy anointing found in Exodus; even the Urim and Thummim (Madsen 39). But even the Kirtland Temple was not complete. It was, Brother Madsen says, “a preparatory temple [that] made way for the eventual complete temple experience” (39).
That complete temple experience---ushered in with the Nauvoo Temple, and later with the temples in Utah---included not just work for one’s self, but work for the dead. After receiving the blessings of the temple for themselves, the Saints were able to receive them by proxy for lost loved ones. The story goes that when this doctrine was first taught to the Saints at large, which was shortly before the Nauvoo Temple was completed, “people rushed down to the Mississippi... and began baptisms for about a hundred people” (Madsen 27). Brother Joseph put a stop to this, of course, saying that, as every other aspect of the Lord’s work, it had to be done “in order” (27). But look at that sentiment! Look at their faith, at the beginning of that holy work!
It has been nearly two centuries since that time, brothers and sisters, but the work is not yet done.
Our hearts must be as their hearts: touched and filled and turned to their fathers by the spirit of Elijah. Elijah represents the work of the dead; his spirit---as well as the priesthood keys he restored to our latter day---catalyzes this concern, this desire to help our ancestors receive the ordinances of the temple. Think of how many on this earth who have died without hearing or knowing about the Gospel. Can we calculate such a number? Brothers and sisters, that is the breadth of the work we must perform in this latter day! It is not yet done. And who must do it? We must, brothers and sisters. We must. It is our responsibility, our calling to help fulfill the mission of Elijah and be saviors on Mt. Zion, “redeemers of our families” (Madsen 85).
The verses in Malachi that describe this work are the last words of the Old Testament. They were quoted by the Savior when He visited the Nephites. They were rehearsed by the angel Moroni to Joseph Smith four times in one night in September 1823, doubtless to his puzzlement. It is clear that those words in Malachi must have some great import, as the prophet had not even begun his ministry yet when he heard them, and we know of no other message so heavily emphasized before the Book of Mormon was brought forth. From this alone we can surmise that, whatever the meaning, those words must be essential to this dispensation.
And they are, for they contain the very essence of the work. This day is when every single aspect of God’s work and God’s glory is restored and being practiced in its entirety, for both the saints of this dispensation and the children of God in every other age that has passed before it. This dispensation is meant as a “whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers,” that “glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time” (D&C 128:18). In fact, Brother Madsen notes that the Kirtland Temple dedicatory prayer has many similarities to “prayer fragments in the Old Testament relating to the temple of Solomon” (109), and that both share Hebraic dualism. Everything that was given to saints anciently in the various dispensations is restored here, the “ancient order of things,” including and especially the temple, the House of the Lord, and all the saving and exalting ordinances therein.
Of course, as Brother John Charles, another Gospel scholar, points out, the endowment as it is presented in our temple has indeed changed over the years and over the ages adapting to fit the needs and weaknesses of society at various times, so as to include “things that pertain to the dispensation of the fulness of times” as the Lord says in Doctrine and Covenants Section 124. God adapts to the world, not to match their standards but to address their particular problems. Brother Charles reminds us of 2 Nephi 31:3: “he speaketh according to their language, unto their understanding.”
One thing that has never changed is the sacrifice required at the hand of the Saints regardless of their dispensation, and especially where it concerns temples. Brother Madsen tells us that “It is a characteristic fact that the Lord has commanded the sacrifice of temple building at the times when apparently our people were least able to build them; and the sacrifice has been immense. But sacrifice brings forth blessings” (3).
Sacrifice
Sacrifice has always been required at the hand of the Lord’s people, and never more so than in the fledgling days of the restored Church in the commandment to build the Kirtland Temple, the first temple of this last dispensation, built by the “first laborers of this last kingdom” (D&C 88:74-74). Brother Joseph was told that the temple ”must be built by the sacrifice of the people” (101).
And sacrifice they did. That temple, according to Brother Madsen, “cost more per capita than any other building in American religious history” (25). Joseph Smith himself helped in the stone quarries, emulating the example of King Benjamin, who labored with his own hands for his support. The builders of the temple were impoverished and barely got by on what they had. To give it all away? To use all of one’s free time doing extra work, straining, staining, suffering work? Brothers and sisters, the dirtiness of the back-breaking labor of building that temple makes them, I think, more clean than many of us today. We have to consecrate our resources to the Lord and His work for it to be sanctified; it could not have been done without sweat and blood and tears; that was a necessary part of it, and it is from that work, that purging fire, that we are made perfect in Christ.
This kind of sacrifice is a way the Lord has of preparing and purifying His people. Sometimes He does this harshly, in stark chastisement. For a while, the Lord condemned the Kirtland saints for “a very grievous sin” --- not building the temple (D&C 95:3). This might sound overly harsh until one remembers what great and marvelous and eternity-changing works are done in the temple, and how magnificent and everlasting the blessings are that the Lord could only dispense to the saints through His house. As Brother Madsen reminds us, “great blessings depended on that work”---blessings for both the servants and for the served. The Lord’s commandment was for their own sakes, not just for His. It was a matter of preparation for greater things. Contributing to the building of the temple back then was just as much a commandment as being worthy of our temple recommend is today. Both are acts of preparation for the endowment of power from on high. And in today’s wicked, strife-filled world, our challenge, our trial, is generally more spiritual, not temporal, like theirs.
One way of looking at it is that building the temple with their own money and labor and perspiration is equivalent to our performing the temple ordinances today. We do not get paid for it, we do not get thanked; it is done on our own time and we are often asked to sacrifice to do so. Temples outside of Utah can often require multiple hours of driving to get to, and in other countries it sometimes takes days of traveling to reach one. Our personal sacrifices of a few hours’ time pale in comparison to these, and especially in comparison to the Kirtland saints.
Without such an output of devotion, would the saints’ faith have been strong enough to withstand the persecution that would follow? How is it for us who have not trials so severe? Do we appreciate what we have? Perhaps the trials of some of us are that we don’t have such trials, and we are expected to learn and grow and expand our souls without them.
The sacrifice of the Saints is all the more to be admired when one realizes that they didn’t understand what exactly the temple was about. They did not know of baptism for the dead, or the initiatories, or the endowment, or the exalting power of temple sealings. They sacrificed without knowledge of what that sacrifice was for, just as Adam sacrificed the firstlings of his flock for many days without knowledge of the reason. They did it because it was commanded of them, and only after it was finished did they come to know of the full extent of the saving and exalting ordinances. Such is the Lord’s pattern throughout the scriptures, throughout our own lives. “After much tribulation come the blessings” (D&C 58:4), He says, and only after we step into the darkness is the light turned on. Think: the Lord can only catch us once we’ve made a leap of faith.
The saints knew it was the will of the Lord, and so it was done. They believed Brother Joseph even if, like Adam, they knew not what purpose their sacrifice would bring to pass. This sincerity of faith was shown in their attendance of the dedicatory services, and here their faith and all their labor was rewarded. “The Kirtland Temple was an unprecedented sacrifice, and it was met with an unprecedented divine outpouring” Brother Madsen tells us (103). Those faithful saints were blessed and sanctified, and all their prayers answered as they saw miracles and witnessed events that had been prophesied in the ancient scriptures. They spoke in tongues and saw angels, felt the burning spirit that literally alighted on the dedicated House of the Lord. Christ Himself and the holders of the Priesthood keys of ancient times visited that House, and appeared to Joseph and Oliver Cowdery inside the veil. And as we learn from the Doctrine and Covenants, this was just “the beginning of the blessing which shall be poured out upon the heads of [Christ’s] people” (D&C 110:10). The BEGINNING of the blessing --- the blessing being temple work and thus salvation and exaltation, both for the living and the dead --- the beginning of temple work in our latter days.
Some thought at the time that because of the glorious miracles that had taken place and the intense joy that was spread to every faithful soul when the Kirtland Temple was dedicated, it was the ushering in of the Millennium (Madsen 111). But we know now it clearly was not. The year was only 1836, and the work had only just begun.
Brothers and sisters, need I remind you that the work is not yet done?The Endowment and Covenants
Brother Madsen relates, “They kept asking, What is it we are doing? Well, we build a temple. What for? And Joseph Smith told them on one occasion, ‘The endowment you are so anxious about, you cannot comprehend now, nor could Gabriel explain it to your understanding.’ But prepare, he told them, for great blessings will come” (3).
Well, we have temples now, and we understand their function. So what are those blessings that keep getting mentioned? What is the “endowment” that was promised to the saints?I will answer that question directly, through the words of David O. McKay:
“I believe there are few, even temple workers, who comprehend the full meaning and power of the temple endowment. Seen for what it is, it is the step-by-step ascent into the eternal presence. If our young people could only glimpse it, it would be the most powerful spiritual motivation of their lives” (Truman 24).
The step-by-step ascent into the eternal presence. Preparation for that time, that crucial moment, when it is our turn to enter into the literal presence of God, the Eternal Father. If you had questions about the temple, even doubts, the next time you go through the endowment, try approaching it with this perspective in mind. The truths taught and covenants made in that house, in that room, are essential to be known and kept, as they give us the capability to physically walk back to God’s presence. And that is one very important reason we should go back often: to memorize the words given and treat them as the eternally sacred knowledge that they are.
Elder John A. Widstoe declared that the endowment ceremony and in particular “the temple ordinances, encompass the whole plan of salvation,” and that “This completeness of survey and expounding of the gospel plan makes temple worship one of the most effective methods of refreshing the memory concerning the entire structure of the gospel” (Charles 70).
Like Aaron, the son of Mosiah, teaching Lamoni’s father (see Alma 22:12), it begins with the Creation of the earth and ends with the how of our future return to God’s presence. It depicts the Fall and alludes to the Redemption. It includes commandments given and covenants made, and shows how we got here---here, in this telestial world---and where “here” really is. Then it tells us quite clearly how to return to our heavenly home, via signs and tokens, covenants and commandments.This was the great blessing promised to the Saints building the temple. We too are promised this if we prepare properly and give the experience the sacredness and spirituality required. This is the sacrifice many of us in this modern era must make: a broken heart and a contrite spirit, what is essentially the will to live worthily, and then doing so. The mysteries of God are, as explained in Alma 12:30, “made known unto [us] according to [our] faith and repentance and [our] holy works.”
Concerning the endowment, Brother Charles points out that we, as the audience of this drama, are not only spectators but participants; notice when we are addressed directly by the characters on-screen and invited to “repeat certain symbolic actions”; this symbolizes Adam and Eve as our proxies in the ceremonial drama; we are meant to think of Adam and Eve as if they were ourselves (Charles 67).
Brother Madsen explains that the experience is repetitive because it is a pattern and an order, and has “need for continued participation” (Madsen 95), just as we pattern our lives after Christ and do as He did. We learn by example and practice, and not just by theory. Recall the story of Christ washing the feet of each of his apostles, one by one, and then commanding them to do likewise for those without the Gospel.
Interestingly enough, clean hands and feet, as Brother Charles notes, are among the qualifications for those who wish to return to God’s presence. This is something we gain by way of another ordinance, the prelude to the endowment: the initiatories. This ordinance is necessary so as to be fully clean before meeting our God. It is a ceremonial and symbolic cleansing, though it was done literally in ancient times as we learn from the Book of Exodus.
In addition to cleansing, the initiatory clothes us in temple garments, another symbol that we are washed clean. Our souls should be as pure as the whiteness of our robes. This too was practiced in ancient times, when only authorized priests were permitted to enter the temple. Today it shows that we are authorized to not just to enter the physical temple, but God’s literal presence as well. And note how this is no longer just the realm of the High Priest; because this is the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, all those with clean hands and pure hearts are invited into the most sacred place on all the earth, to become like unto God, priests and priestesses, kings and queens. This glorious end goal is brought about by doing the work---repetitive in nature, yes---for ourselves, and for our families.Brothers and sisters, the work is not yet done, not for ourselves, who are commanded to be continually about this work, nor for our families, who stretch far back to the grand beginning of the world. We must remember that most sacred promise of Elijah, and turn our hearts to our fathers, to our mothers, to all that came before us. By holding and using our temple recommends, we are upholding our covenant to do this.
Covenants can be very powerful, if enacted correctly. They are so powerful that they can bind God, the Omnipotent One, our Creator and progenitor, and compel Him, our Heavenly Father to action. This empowering equation has been offered by God to His children throughout all of time, and never more powerfully than in the temple. Covenants, brothers and sisters, are at the heart of temple work. The covenant of Elijah ushers us into the temple, and we make further covenants inside that put us on the path to return to God’s presence. That capability to return to Him is the overarching divine blessing we get from keeping those covenants, in both spiritual and physical terms.
Not only that, but, Brother Madsen explains, ”No covenant is ever required of us that isn’t immediately followed by a divine blessing to further enable us to keep it” (Madsen 18). The Lord knows of our weakness in living up to our promises, but also knows of our sincere desire to keep those covenants (if we have it) and so offers divine assistance in helping us . Remember, brothers and sisters, we are granted according to our righteous desires, and if it is our desire to do what God asks us to do, He will not only help us do so, but grant us even greater blessings upon our successful completion of that commandment, or fulfillment of that directive.
One might ask why formal covenants are so necessary. This line of inquiry has root in the same attitude that questions the necessity of baptism into one particular religion and proposes that God would just want us to be good people, and He’ll sort everything out in the end. This is an understandable philosophy, but all the same, a philosophy of men, not of God. We also hear often, from the same perspective, that marriage is just a piece of paper, and a man and woman don’t need that piece of paper for them to know they love each other. Well, brothers and sisters, this, too, is not of God. In God’s kingdom we make commitments, and we have them recognized by witnesses both mortal and angelic, to be recorded officially in the Book of Life and on the records of the church forever after. Covenants are a public declaration of truth and commitment to a cause. Elder Widstoe said that ”Temple covenants give tests by which one’s willingness and fitness for righteousness may be known.”
It is a similar principle to saying prayers. Why say prayers if God already knows what we need? Because we have to show faith first. Because we have to ask, to knock, to request of our own free will and choice, before God gives us something, before the treasures of heaven are poured down upon our head in whatever form we need at that time. Notice that God did not appear to Joseph Smith until after he asked, on his knees, in prayer, and after his faith was tested by a Satanic assault on his soul.
The same goes for making and keeping covenants. If we draw near unto God, He will draw near unto us. We must make that step willingly and thereby show our faith. Making a covenant and thus a commitment gives God an official reason to trust us, and so offers His blessings as a consequence. Those who are not committed are those who are lukewarm about the Gospel and this important work, and therefore are not of God.
The covenants made in the temple are the supreme covenants, and those who do not keep the covenants that they have made in that temple that day will be in Satan’s power. We can either choose to obey and hearken to God’s will and remain free, or be made slaves to the whims of the devil. This is one of the reasons the temple is such a powerful place: what happens inside can either exalt with glory or condemn to damnation.
But God wants so badly to exalt! That is why He wants to help us and to honor the covenants He makes with us! That is the essence of His work! I believe it is seen most elegantly in that crowning covenant of consecration, in which we pledge to give everything we have and everything we are to God---that includes all that He has given us and exactly one thing more: our will---and He promises to give everything He has to us in return. We know from Doctrine and Covenants Section 76 that those in the celestial kingdom “are they into whose hands the Father has given all things---they are they who are priests and kings,” and, I would add, priestesses and queens. The covenant of consecration could be said to encompass all the covenants, really. For it’s not just our time and talents that we must give away; the father of King Lamoni desired to simply know God, and offered in exchange to give away all---ALL---his sins. This should be our example, our type to model after. Consecration asks this of us, all our sins in addition to our entire temporal kingdom. This work requires ALL of it. And as you know, brothers and sisters, it is not yet done.
Our Role in This Work
In doing this work we invade Satan’s territory where he once invaded God’s. It was in the Garden of Eden, a place with startling similarities to the Lord’s temple, that Lucifer vowed to destroy the work and glory of God. It is in the temple that we cancel out his sometimes stunningly effective achievements in this mortal world by doing work for those in the next.
Once we ourselves are saved, it becomes our duty to help the Savior save others, for us to be “saviors on Mount Zion” (Obadiah 1:21). Brother Madsen points out that “Even the arithmetic of our temple service teaches us” (65). We only do our own ordinances once, and every time thereafter it is for others, much like how one can only use the Priesthood to bless others, never himself. Our lives, when bent towards the work, can be lives of pure service. To be an instrument of God is perhaps the greatest honor we can receive in this life, as President Monson has said time and time again.
The Lord does not expect to do all the work Himself. He expects us to do it, commands us to do it, offers us the privilege of doing it. And he does this for a very specific reason: the point of this world is to become like him, to be independent and, as CS Lewis has put it, “He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs” (Screwtape Letters, 207) to be agents for ourselves, to choose good on our own, to be good on our own, to become as He is.
In addition to the plethora of symbols in the gospel, both inside and outside the temple, we have a symbol that represents our role in this great and marvelous work. That symbol is the garment. The world mocks us with derisive terms for the garment, but we understand what it truly is, and I believe we have sinned if we forget about its function and purpose. It is meant as an emblem of remembrance, a little like a CTR ring that, when noticed, calls our mind back to the covenants we made in the temple. If we forget the reason we wear it, then, why wear it at all? In addition to this, the whiteness of the garment represents the purity we are spiritually clothed in as a result of Christ’s atonement. Our human bodies are mortal; they get dirty and at times function improperly, and though it may be cleaned and washed and administered to, can never be truly cleansed or purified on its own. Thus the white garments cover our nakedness, blanket us with the purity of the atonement of Jesus Christ.
And not only do we wear it so that we may remember our covenants and our experiences in the temple, but, if we remain true to those covenants, it symbolically shields and protects us until we finish our work upon the earth. As I was told once in a priesthood blessing, that is a long, long time, and it means that in this life we are perpetually on the Lord’s errand, meant to be doing the Lord’s work. We need to remember that. Remember who we are, what we’re here for. That is what the garment is designed to do. Elder Neal A. Maxwell once asked, “How much sin occurs because people momentarily forget who they really are?” One could say that all sin happens because we merely forget. So remember the garment and do not forget---as we human beings, including myself, are so prone to do---do not forget that as long as we are alive, we have been called to do His work.
And thus for all of us hearing or reading this today, that work is not yet done.
Reasons We Go
But there are more reasons one goes to the temple than just to do the work of the dead, as important as that is. The Lord knew this, and so He described the temple before it was even built as several different things, including a house of prayer and a house of learning. Sometimes we go to just pray to our Heavenly Father and feel close to Him. Sometimes we go to learn more of the mysteries of God through careful observation and contemplation of the endowment. And sometimes---perhaps most times---we go to receive an answer to a question or a solution to a problem that’s been bothering us.
An advisor in my old YSA ward once said that if we want an answer from a spiritual source, first we pray about it; then, if that doesn’t work, fast in addition to praying; if that doesn’t work, get a Priesthood blessing; and finally, if that isn’t enough, go to the temple. Brothers and sisters, I add my promise to the myriad of others who have borne testimony of the miraculous powers of the temple in telling you that if you go to the temple you will receive an answer to your prayer, whatever that prayer may be. It may take multiple visits to get the full answer; the answer may only be a promise of peace in this life, or the promise of a heaven-sent miracle at some point in the future, but it will come. It will come in the form of the Spirit, who comforts, brings peace, and whispers to our souls to be still and know that He is God. The Lord has promised us that “If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things---that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal” (D&C 42:61).
I bear testimony of this principle directly. I have received revelation every single time I have gone to the temple seeking it; much of this revelation has been a solution to writer’s block when I’m working on a story. Even with something as tangential to the gospel as that, the Lord can and will help. There was a specific time I went recently where the Lord promised me that very thought. Any problem I have is the Savior’s problem too. And He cares. That is the power of the temple, of the Lord’s house, of the Lord’s very presence. I have never failed to get an answer from the temple and sometimes I’d get so many ideas that I’d have to practically juggle them in my brain to make sure I didn’t forget them before I could write them down. I’d periodically bring one idea to the forefront of my mind and keep it there for just enough time before switching it out with another idea I also received there in the endowment room. My mind can be a very slippery place and it loses ideas if they’re not written down quickly enough. But Heavenly Father has always helped me keep that balance, and if I have forgotten something I learned in there, He always answered my prayer to bring it back eventually. But keep in mind, what you learn in the temple, in that house of learning, may not always be the revelation you want at that moment, but the revelation that you need, or will need, for the future. Whatever it is, I promise you you can receive an endless flow of inspiration when you faithfully attend the Lord’s temple.
A house of prayer. In Section 95 of the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord, when giving directions for the building of the Kirtland Temple, said the following: “And let the lower part of the inner court be dedicated unto me for your sacramental offering, and for your preaching, and your fasting, and your praying, and the offering up of your most holy desires unto me, saith the Lord” (D&C 95:16). This verse is interesting, because it shows that even our desires can be an offering of righteousness. In simple terms this could mean merely praying, which we can do anywhere. But I think a prayer in the temple has a different tinge to it, a more sacred significance. Though we may come to the temple seeking a special blessing, I believe that there, in the true order of prayer, we won’t be desiring things for selfish reasons. They will be the desires of our heart, of our soul, desires for spiritual gifts like increased faith, or greater worthiness, or the ability to share the gospel, or the desire to overcome a particular spiritual problem in our life---in short, those sacred requests that, if granted, will bring us closer to our Heavenly Father. And in the temple, we pray for others as much as for ourselves, if not more so. Putting on the prayer roll the names of those loved ones who are struggling is a powerful way of praying by proxy, and proxy work is, as we know, one of the primary functions of God’s holy temple.
A house of learning. I was told by my stake president before my endowment that during the ceremony I shouldn’t focus necessarily on trying to get everything immediately, but more on what I was feeling throughout. After all, he pointed out, I have my entire life to return to the temple again and again to learn more of what it’s about and what it all means. I relay that same message to you: though we are meant to learn the secrets and mysteries and sacred things of God in the temple, one shouldn’t feel stressed about learning something new each time. While this is a worthy pursuit, remember that our learning, while it should be regular, should not be rushed. Line upon line, precept by precept.
Brother Madsen reported watching fellow gospel scholar Hugh Nibley in the temple -- “Twice a month Ann and I go to the temple. We gain something each time. I hear people say: “But it’s the same thing. How can you stand the sheer repetition?” For the same reason that Hugh Nibley and his wife did. I used to watch him. He concentrated; he focused. It is never just ‘the same thing.’ This week there is greater depth of understanding; this week there is more of putting things together. In the temple Hugh Nibley was like a child on Christmas morning. So can we be” (42).
Now, it’s easy for Truman Madsen to say that there’s so much to it, but it’s a much harder thing to actually discern more each time the more ordinary soul goes. For many of us, I’m sure, it feels repetitive and frustrating. But bear in mind what Brother Nibley and Brother Madsen have done with their lives. They’ve devoted themselves to studying the gospel, to researching sacred history and religious anthropology. Throughout their lives they have widened their perspective on the Gospel, and as a result they are led to even further light and knowledge than the ordinary soul who goes to the temple. So what I’m saying is this: the more we devote ourselves to this Gospel and the search for the great truths of this world, the greater our understanding of the temple experience will be, and the more we can learn from it. It won’t come easily. We have to search for it. We have to go outside the core temple experience and learn the greater context of the temple and the ordinances therein in God’s plan. In doing this we come to better know God, which, as the Savior tells us, is the definition of eternal life, and even eternal lives.
We can go to the temple to be personally sanctified, to be cleansed from the grime of the world we live in, what is called in the scriptures and in the temple the “blood and sins of this generation.” The temple ordinances thus have the same power as the sacrament. The prophet Joseph wrote that “Being born again comes by the Spirit of God through ordinances.” The rites and rituals we perform in this church, and especially those found in the temple, are what Brother Madsen calls “the Lord’s pattern of nourishment.” There in His House we receive spiritual replenishing after our time fighting against and working in the world; it might be likened to taking a spiritual nap, which we emerge from strengthened and refreshed.
And so this work is not only about covering the basics, fulfilling the bare essentials and receiving the core ordinances necessary for salvation, as temple work does; it is meant to turn us into Beings like the Savior Himself. When we do work for the dead, it can be like how the Sunday School teacher learns more than those she teaches. We help others and improve ourselves and become like Christ all at the same time. This work is all-encompassing, all-enlarging. In the temple we further the work of perfecting ourselves in addition to redeeming the dead. So the temple isn’t just about work for the dead, but for our own personal growth as well. And, brothers and sisters, THAT work is not yet done, either.
So whatever the reason you attend the temple, let there be a reason. For though we are counseled to come to the temple often, we should not let it become something casual or without meaning. I believe there is danger in looking at our temple trips with an air of business-as-usual. That is not to say we shouldn’t go regularly and often; rather it is to say that we should treat every trip to the temple as a unique experience, one preceded by and occupied in prayerful purpose.
As in fasting, we cannot receive spiritual strength from the temple if we attend merely passively, as if we are merely working and crunching the numbers. This work isn’t about numbers: it is about individuals. You can’t make up for the loss of one individual by gaining another; this is not how God views His children, so neither should it be how we look at them, our brothers and sisters, all with the same spiritual DNA. So when you’re waiting there in the temple, take some time to look at the names for those whose work you will be doing. They are not simply pieces of blue or pink paper; those are real people who once lived, real people to whom you are tossing that rope down, enabling them to climb out of the pit, to ascend into heaven if they so choose.
What is more, the prophet Joseph Smith said that those on the other side of the veil, including our own ancestors and lost loved ones, “are not idle spectators” (Madsen 31). From accounts of prophets as well as ordinary individuals, we know they can witness their own temple work being done from the other side of the veil, and some on this side have been privileged to see them. So even if you go to the temple by yourself, you are surely never alone once you are inside. What an example of faith is the great woman Helen Keller, trusting that a whole world was out there, beyond her inability to hear and see. So it is for us with the spirit world. So when you look at that blue or pink card, try to look past their names, appreciate the life they lived, and feel their watchful presence, and know that they are as real as all those mortals around you. Treat the work you are doing and the soul you are doing it for with the sacredness and beauty it and they deserve.
The Atonement and Temple Work
President Hinckley has said, “[The temple] is a sanctuary of service. Most of the work done in this sacred house is performed vicariously in behalf of those who have passed beyond the veil of death. I know of no other work to compare with it. It more nearly approaches the vicarious sacrifice of the Son of God in behalf of all mankind than any other work of which I am aware. Thanks is not expected from those who in the world beyond become the beneficiaries of this consecrated service. it is a service of the living in behalf of the dead. It is a service which is of the very essence of selflessness.”
Brothers and sisters, President Hinckley just compared temple work to the Atonement of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Wow. What a comparison. But in reality, it makes perfect sense. The temple is an important function of the Atonement. It is there that we can be “at one” with God, and with our families, living and dead. Spiritual death is overcome by both the Atonement AND the temple; for in the temple we come back into God’s presence, albeit temporarily---but for that short time, we become at one with God again.
Elder Carlos E. Asay taught, “The temple is the bridge between heaven and earth---the seen and the unseen---and the bridge is love” (as qtd. in Madsen 68).
In speaking of the Abrahamic covenant, as well as covenants in general, President Henry B. Eyring said, “We are blessed by the Abrahamic covenant, and we are bound by it. But we are not bound by compulsion. We are bound by his love for us and by the love He evokes for us.”
Love is Heavenly Father’s sole motivation in blessing us with the temple and its ordinances. His love can permeate every corridor of our soul if we let it, just as His Spirit permeates every corridor of the temple, and the heart of every soul doing work there. Everything God does is out of love. Love builds and seals, while hate destroys and tears asunder. Love builds families, seals them together. Brother Madsen wrote of the temple, “It is the only place on earth where our families can be knit together, bound by a love which Jesus has demonstrated once and for all in the Atonement...The temple is the bridge of love between this world and the next” (75).
Sealed Families
But brothers and sister, the spirit of Elijah does not just cause us to look backwards. We also look ahead of us. We also desire for our future generations to be connected to us, literally sealed together eternally by the priesthood of God. And this is the note I’d like to end on: family.
Have you ever stopped to think about why this church places such heavy emphasis on the family? Many churches do, but ours sees something even higher in the concept of the family than others do. It is more than just the right environment to raise a child in, as important as that is. It is even more important than merely being together forever. Family is the core social unit not just for this life, and not just for living together for eternity, but for the role and purpose God has been preparing us to achieve from His own beginnings as our Heavenly Father. The reason we so highly value family and marriage only between a man and a woman is because that is how we become like our Heavenly Father. It is His social structure, how He is a god. It is in His very name: Creator, Progenitor, Steward, Father. And without a doubt the canonized words of Eliza Snow in the beautiful hymn “O My Father” indicate the existence our Heavenly Father’s eternal partner in this His work, His eternal work, without whom He Himself would be incomplete and unable to be our God, our Father. This unit is not just good, or enjoyable, but necessary, and not just necessary, but essential.
Brothers and sisters, that is why family is so important. In addition, it is how God’s children are organized, how we are all linked together. And make no mistake, our eternal salvation is not an individual attainment: it is a family dynamic. And so Brother Madsen says that we must “care more about family and the preservation and intensification of family than...about anything else in this world” (87). And that means we must sacrifice for them. For our ancestors and for our descendants and for those whose lives we influence and integrate with on a daily basis, those that we live with in our home. We know that the work of the temple can only be matched by the work of its mirror, the home, for these are the two most important places in the entire world. President Harold B. Lee taught that “Next to the temple, the home is the most sacred place on earth” (as qtd. in Madsen 96). Both God’s house and ours are places where we are prepared for greater things; children learning to be adults in one and adults learning to be like God in the other; and where everyone prepares to be in God’s presence via teaching and experience. Both God’s house and ours take telestial souls to the terrestrial, and then to the celestial. Both God’s house and ours are places where we can commune with God most privately and personally, and are houses of the most important instruction and inspiration. The work in the home prepares all of us for celestial society and celestial stewardship, while the work in the temple prepares us to physically and spiritually enter into the presence of God.
In the temple we learn that neither man nor woman is meant to live alone, that every king needs a queen and every priest a priestess, and vice versa (51). We learn that the necessity and glory of eternal marriage, eternal love, and eternal lives are only possible through the temple and the sacred ordinances therein. This is the supernally sacred role the temple has in the eternal scheme of things.
President Howard W. Hunter taught that “the purpose of the temple is to reunite the family of God” (Madsen 63). He said, “In the ordinances of the temple, the foundations of the eternal family are sealed in place.” Picture this, brothers and sisters: one grand web of light and priesthood power connecting every soul who ever lived, binding all of God’s children together throughout all of eternity. That is the grand goal and epic vision of temple work.
It is a work that is not yet done. As the Lord says in 2 Nephi 29:9, “My work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man.”
What is the end of man? It is the beginning of gods. It is the salvation and exaltation of God’s family. It is the end goal of all the temple work we do; every name, every soul we do work for is one step closer toward that glorious end. It is God’s chief purpose: eternal, celestial life for all of His spirit sons and daughters. Eternal lives: the everlasting generations of gods. That is the end, the finishing, of His work.
At the close of a sealing session I once did with my wife, the temple sealer told us something short, simple, but powerful, profound: he said to us, with a smile on his face, “Hurry back.” It struck me and I remember it to this day. Hurry back. Hurry back to the temple. Hurry back into God’s presence. God wants you there. I think it is good advice, and something we should all remember. The temple is a grand cause, something we cannot be apathetic about, something that should be returned to again and again, a “good cause” to be “anxiously engaged in” (D&C 58:27).]
So, brothers and sisters, as that temple sealer told me, hurry back, for the work is not yet done.In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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