Conference_Chronicles_Christofferson

The main ideas from this transcription are: - The gathering of Israel is the most important thing happening on Earth today and is connected to the sealing power. - The sealing power is the power of God that validates and authenticates actions and ordinances. - The sealing power binds marriages and families together forever. - The sealing power is necessary for ordinances to be valid and recognized in heaven. - The sealing power is a key aspect of the restoration of the gospel. - The sealing power has great significance and is worth all the pain and effort of the restoration. - The sealing power brings blessings of salvation and exaltation to all who receive them. - The sealing power is important not only for current members of the church but for the whole world. - The sealing power is overseen by the president of the church and is delegated to others. Surely, the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets. How blessed we are to have a living prophet today. Brothers and sisters, the Savior declared, whether by my own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same. Welcome to Conference Chronicles, where we systematically take one conference talk per week from the previous conference and dissect it and learn from it. I'm your host, Taylor Lithgow, and I firmly believe that as we listen to and apply the Lord's teachings through His living prophets, we will fulfill the full measure of our creation and we will be prepared for the Lord at His second coming. So please join with me each week as we take this quest called Conference Chronicles. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Conference Chronicles. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. You probably noticed I didn't release an episode last week due to the holiday, but I'm excited to jump right back at it. This week's talk is by Elder G. Todd Christofferson entitled, The Sealing Power. It was very interesting. As I read through this talk for the first and second time, it was kind of odd. I didn't really feel a deep connection to it at first, and I was kind of getting frustrated with myself. There was a lot of good doctrine being taught, but I wasn't feeling inspired or enlightened, and it was amazing. It wasn't until I actually gave myself some quiet, uninterrupted time that my brain and my heart finally was able to open like a cocoon and receive light and revelation. Once that happened, it was almost like the floodgates were opened, and I had so many beautiful experiences and thoughts in relation to this topic. So I'm excited to jump in. I'm kind of going to go over an outline of what I'm going to cover and what I would like for us all to understand as a result of this episode. So number one, I want us all to connect in our minds how the gathering of Israel and the sealing power are so closely related and dependent on each other. Number two, I want us to understand the gravity of sealing parents to children and children to parents and what that means in the context of our lives, but just also the whole world. Number three, I want to talk about the differences between salvation and exaltation. And then lastly, I want to discuss why and how this all makes sense to an outsider looking in. After recording the episode a few weeks ago by Elder Daines entitled, Sir, We Would Like to See Jesus, for every time I study these conference talks, I keep reviewing it through the lens of, how would somebody who's not a member of the church, who's essentially an outsider looking in, view and perceive these topics? So I would like to incorporate that into this as the final piece, is discussing how and why this can make sense or why it should make sense to an outsider looking in. Okay, so Elder Christofferson starts his talk by quoting from our prophet, President Nelson, and he talks not about the sealing power at the beginning, but about the gathering of Israel. He says that President Russell M. Nelson has spoken powerfully about the gathering of Israel, calling it the most important thing taking place on earth today. Okay, there's a lot of stuff going on in the world, I think we can all agree, and here we have the prophet of the Lord, one who speaks with our creator, and he says that this is the most important thing taking place on earth today. Maybe our ears should perk up, maybe we should be slightly interested. So what is the gathering of Israel, and why do we do it? And why is it important, and how does it bless us and the whole world? The gathering of Israel has been talked about and preached about for generations, from the Old Testament until now. After the gospel and the church was restored, there was a physical gathering, right? Saints literally traveled across the United States and gathered into Salt Lake City. Now when we refer to the gathering, we're mostly speaking of a spiritual gathering. Gathering of saints around the world into Zion, into the house of Israel, through making covenants. And the first covenant, of course, is baptism. So in his talk, he identifies a couple of key blessings associated with this gathering. He says, the Lord identified one purpose of gathering as the protection of the covenant people. He said, the gathering together upon the land of Zion and upon her stakes will be for a defense and for a refuge from the storm and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth. Wrath in this context may be understood as the natural consequences of widespread disobedience to the laws and commandments of God. You know what a key and subtle blessing of the gathering? The gathering together will be for a defense and a refuge from the storm. I can feel that in my life. When I gather with saints each Sunday, I feel a bit of peace. I feel that I really am not alone, that there are others that are fighting this fight with me. He then says, most importantly, the gathering is for the purpose of bringing the blessings of salvation and exaltation to all who will receive them. President Nelson expressed it this way. When we embrace the gospel and are baptized, we take upon ourselves the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Baptism is the gate that leads to becoming joint heirs to all the promises given anciently by the Lord to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their posterity. Beautiful, we get to assist in this gathering of unlocking the gate to the blessings promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to the rest of the world. Okay now, what is the sealing power then? To get started, I think we should review the definition of the word seal. There's a few of them and most all of them are actually very insightful. So all of these definitions I'm going to share are nouns. Okay so seal, a device or substance that is used to join two things together so as to prevent them from coming apart or to prevent anything from passing between them. Okay, seal, a design resembling a seal embossed in paper as a guarantee of authenticity. Seal, an engraved device used for stamping a design that authenticates a document. Okay so there's a couple of different definitions. Of course the first one is talking about when we seal or join things together so as to prevent them from coming apart or prevent anything from passing between them. That's kind of powerful, right, when we think about a marriage sealing, you know, a couple being sealed to each other into Heavenly Father. They're sealed together so as nothing can pass between them. That's beautiful. And then a few of the other definitions talk about a different type of seal that will authenticate or validate a document of some kind. And in relation to the sealing power, which in this instance, the way it's defined in a church setting is it's the power of God that validates and authenticates our actions and ordinances. It gives validity and it also binds on earth and in heaven when it's performed. I think oftentimes we think of the sealing power somehow just relating to sealings, right, marriages in the temple. But Elder Christofferson points out that it's just the power of God that seals all actions and all ordinances. He says, we tend to think of the sealing authority as applying only to certain temple ordinances, but that authority is necessary to make any ordinance valid and binding beyond death. For example, the sealing power confers a seal of legitimacy upon your baptism so that it is recognized here and in heaven. An example I like to think about with this is the great lengths that our Savior went to go be baptized by John. He knew he needed to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness and to follow his Father's commandments. Now, there might have been many willing to baptize, but he walked from Galilee to the River Jordan to be baptized of John. I looked up online the distance. There's a few different responses I got depending on the route that you take, but it looks like it could be upwards of 150 miles on foot. Can you imagine walking 150 miles just to be baptized by a specific person? The reason why it was important to go to that specific person is because he had the authority and the power to do so. He knew that his baptism would be validated and authenticated and sealed both on earth and in heaven. It would be recorded on earth and in heaven, only if it was performed by one holding that proper authority and that sealing power. Joseph Smith says it may seem to some to be a very bold doctrine that we talk of, a power which records or binds on earth and binds in heaven. Nevertheless, in all ages of the world, whenever the Lord has given a dispensation of the priesthood to any man by actual revelation, this power has always been given. Hence, whatsoever they did in authority in the name of the Lord and did truly and faithfully and kept a proper and faithful record of the same, it became a law on earth and in heaven and could not be annulled according to the decrees of the great Jehovah. Okay, so let's discuss the gravity of what this all means, not just to us as current members of the church, but to the whole world at large. Elder Christofferson says in this talk, The highest and holiest manifestation of the sealing power is in the eternal union of a man and a woman in marriage, and the linking of humankind through all their generations. Because the authority to officiate in these ordinances is so sacred, the president of the church personally oversees its delegation to others. President Gordon B. Hinckley said on one occasion, I have said many times that if nothing else came out of all the sorrow and travail and pain of the restoration than the sealing power of the holy priesthood to bind families together forever, it would have been worth all that it has cost. If nothing else came from the restoration but the sealing power, it would still be worth all of the pain, all of the travail. What a beautiful and powerful statement. Okay, now in Doctrine and Covenants section 2, verses 1 through 3, it reads, Behold, I will reveal unto you the priesthood by the hand of Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming. Okay, so we may have heard this verse, but let's ponder on what it's actually saying here. The earth would be wasted. The earth would be made void or meaningless. The purpose of the earth's creation would not be fulfilled unless children were sealed to their fathers, and fathers were sealed to their children. Ancestors upon ancestors upon ancestors, links in the chain, connected together. If this does not happen, then the earth will be wasted at Christ's coming. In preparation for this, I read another talk by President Nelson, but this was in 2005, so at the time Elder Nelson entitled, Now is the Time to Prepare, and he says it explicitly, quote, The church was restored and the earth was created so that families could be sealed in holy temples, otherwise the whole earth would be utterly wasted, close quote. Wow, what a powerful message. Fast forwarding a little bit in Elder Christofferson's talk, but on the same vein, he says, In the funeral services for Sister Pat Holland, wife of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, last July, President Russell M. Nelson taught, In time, Patricia and Jeffrey will be reunited. They will later be joined by their children and their covenant-keeping posterity to experience the fullness of joy that God has in store for his faithful children. Knowing that, we understand that the most important date in Patricia's life was not her birth date or her death date. Her most important date was June 7, 1963, when she and Jeff were sealed in the St. George Temple. Why is it so important? Because the very reason the earth was created was so families could be formed and sealed to each other. Salvation is an individual matter, but exaltation is a family matter. No one can be exalted alone. How beautiful is that? The very reason the earth was created was so families could be formed and sealed to each other. Salvation is an individual matter, but exaltation is a family matter. No one can be exalted alone. And to briefly kind of explain maybe why that might be is salvation at its root means to be saved. To be saved from what? To be saved from physical death and spiritual death. All of us will be saved from physical death because we'll all be resurrected and receive perfect undying bodies because Jesus Christ was resurrected. He overcame that physical death for us. He also overcame spiritual death, but there are conditions for us to receive that blessing. The conditions are repentance and faith and following and obeying the Savior. Now all of us can be quote-unquote saved and receive salvation as individuals completely independent of other human beings on the earth. But exaltation means becoming like God and that means having eternal increase just like him and creating spiritual children just like him. In the Doctrine and Covenants section 132 verse 17 it says, For these angels did not abide my law, therefore they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly without exaltation in their saved condition to all eternity, and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever. Now I wanted to delve a little bit deeper into this distinction between salvation and exaltation. In April 2008 President Nelson, at the time Elder Nelson, gives a talk. It's amazing how much he's been talking about these topics for years so boldly and powerfully and it just seems that the Lord was preparing him for his calling and assignment now as the prophet. In this talk he says, To be saved or to gain salvation means to be saved from physical and spiritual death. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ all people will be resurrected and saved from physical death. People may also be saved from individual spiritual death through the atonement of Jesus Christ by their faith in him and by living in obedience to the laws and ordinances of his gospel. To be exalted or to gain exaltation refers to the highest state of happiness and glory in the celestial realm. The time to prepare for our eventual salvation and exaltation is now. As part of that preparation one must first hear and understand the gospel. For this reason the gospel of Jesus Christ is being taken to every nation and kindred and tongue and people, aka the gathering. Okay I'm going to pause right here. What he's talking about is the gathering, you know, aka the gathering. By saying as part of this preparation for salvation and exaltation one must first hear and understand the gospel. For this reason the gospel is being taken to every nation, kindred, tongue and people. So I hope we can pause real quick and realize that this whole picture is starting to become a little bit more clear. All the dots are being connected. It's like the sun is rising in the distance. The connections that are being made between the gathering of Israel, the sealing power, salvation and exaltation. The gathering of Israel of course includes bringing the gospel to every nation. It also includes individuals making their first covenant of baptism. Now of course the sealing power is relevant in that because the sealing power validates and authenticates that baptism, that ordinance, and it also binds that ordinance and covenant on earth and in heaven. Now let's keep reading a little bit and make the final connections between salvation and exaltation. President Nelson goes on to say, Some years ago I met with a tribal king in Africa. When he realized that he was being taught by an apostle of the Lord, he was deeply moved. He said that throngs of his people would be baptized if he were to give them such a mandate. I thanked him for his kindness but explained that the Lord does not work in that way. The development of faith in the Lord is an individual matter. Repentance is also an individual matter. Only as an individual can one be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. Each of us is born individually. Likewise, each of us is born again individually, aka baptized. Salvation is an individual matter. He goes on to say, Individual progression is fostered in the family. So now we're starting to get into the exaltation part a little bit. The home is to be God's laboratory of love and service. I love that. The laboratory of love and service. There a husband is to love his wife, a wife is to love her husband, and parents and children are to love one another. Throughout the world, the family is increasingly under attack. If families fail, many of our political, economic, and social systems will also fail. And if families fail, their glorious eternal potential cannot be realized. Lastly, any discussion of family responsibilities to prepare for exaltation would be incomplete if we included only mother, father, and children. What about grandparents and other ancestors? The Lord has revealed that we cannot become perfect without them, neither can they without us be made perfect. Sealing ordinances are essential to exaltation. A wife and a husband need to be sealed together. Children need to be sealed to their parents. And we all need to be connected with our ancestors. Okay, so I know we've just talked about a lot. Let's wipe the whiteboards of our brains clean. And let's just get a recap here. Okay, so in summation, here's what we've talked about. The gathering of Israel is the most important thing taking place on the earth today. We've got that. It is a spiritual gathering where individuals are gathered into the fold by making covenants with God. The first covenantal ordinance being baptism. Now in order for baptism or any other ordinance to be made valid and to have God's stamp of approval and to be bound both on earth and in heaven, it has to be performed in God's authorized way, which is through his sealing power. Now in order for those gathered individuals to not just receive salvation, you know, to be saved, but also to receive exaltation, which is essentially to become like God and receive all that he has, we must also be sealed to our families. Because as President Nelson said, salvation is an individual matter, but exaltation is a family matter. Thus we see these threads, the gathering of Israel, the sealing power, salvation, and exaltation, all being joined together to form this beautiful tapestry. One cannot exist without the other. Now I want to take a moment to pause and ask, is there anyone feeling left out? Is there anyone listening that says, well, I don't really have a close relationship with my family. Maybe I'm not married. Maybe I can't have children. Maybe I have unstable, abusive, unholy family members and I'm not sealed to them. Or maybe you are sealed to them and you wish you weren't. Please know that all the blessings that our Heavenly Father has are yours, as you are faithful to your own covenants and commitments. I know one of the hardest things for us to do in this life is to just be patient through trials and tribulations, but I promise that all that he has in store is also waiting for you. And there's so much that will happen after this life. In this same talk, President Nelson says, what about those who are not able to marry in this life, or those who cannot be sealed to their parents in this life? We know that the Lord will judge each of us according to the desires of our hearts as well as our works, and that the blessings of exaltation will be given to all who are worthy. So if you didn't believe my words, take it from the words of the prophet of God. Okay, now the fourth and final point that I wanted to get to today on the agenda was addressing somebody on the outside looking in. Somebody who doesn't believe in God, and all of this stuff that we've just talked about for the last twenty-so minutes might not make any sense, and they might disagree with. So I thought of three potential questions or doubts that an individual might have. I'll read them, and then I'll go over how I might respond to that individual. Number one. Someone might say, religion is a man-made construct that helps us humans feel a bit of closure so we can just make sense of this crazy world we live in. I hope all that salvation and exaltation stuff helps you feel better about yourself. Okay, so in response to this question or doubt, I want to do a little exercise. I want for that individual to pretend or assume that there is a God, okay? The next few things that we're going to be talking about are operating under that assumption, that there is a God. So if there's a God, let's word it that way. First of all, before I get there, I'm going to quote from one of my favorite scriptures that does point to some logic of there being a God. In Alma 30, 44, Alma is speaking to Korahor, an antichrist. But Alma said unto him, Thou hast had signs enough. Will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, Yea, and all things denote there is a God, yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets, which move in their regular form, do witness that there is a supreme creator. Okay, so he says that the testimony of all the people around you, okay, so you look around you and you see, oh, there's lots of people that say they believe in God or say they've received a witness that there's a God, okay? Also all the holy prophets, so not only the people around us, but there are literally individuals that claim to have spoken with God directly and received his message for us. They are either crazy psychopath lunatics, or they're telling the truth. I think there's no real middle ground there. The holy scriptures, which are written by prophets, also the earth, and all the things that are upon the face of it, yea, its motion, and all the planets, which do move in their regular form, do witness there is a supreme creator. So all of these evidences are pointing to the fact that there might be a supreme creator. Now let's operate under that assumption, that there might be. Let's first say if. If there is a God, would he not want to pattern earth after heaven? Would he not want to give us a few clues along the way? And would our spirits also not want to naturally create some sort of systems and processes that we were used to in the pre-earth realm? We sometimes think that all of our systems, like our political, economic, and social systems are man-made. What if they aren't? What if we are just naturally patterning them after something we were already familiar with? Of course the family structure itself is the most basic and foundational unit to proceed all of the other systems that we have on the earth, and the family structure also takes precedent over them all in importance. Okay, so question and doubt number two. Someone might say, all that salvation and exaltation stuff sounds very exclusive, not very inclusive. I mean, if God loved all of his children, why would he kick some out of heaven and make them go to hell? It doesn't seem fair or loving. I've heard this one a lot, and I can have compassion and sympathy. With that being said, when I hear something like this, it makes it seem like God is standing there with a spreadsheet after we die, and is going down the list and says, hey, I'm so sorry, you missed it by three points. You can't be in heaven, you're going to hell. And we're going to be like, no, please, you know, check it again. You know, I think that you miscalculated, I think there's a mistake, let me in. And he's going to say, no, no, no, get out of here. That's just not how it works. You know, it is so much more natural and organic than that. Everything happening in our daily lives happens naturally and organically. Why would our judgment be so sterile and rigid? It's not. It reminds me of this story that is told by Elder Brad Wilcox, a talk called His Grace is Sufficient, which is a beautiful talk, and many of you have probably listened to it or heard it, and if you haven't, I really invite you to. He tells the story of a young man who just got out of prison again, had been in a lot of trouble, was making a lot of poor decisions, and he thought, well, if we could just get him to EFY, that will change him around, you know, get him right on the right path. So he and the young man's parents saved up some money, and they sent him to EFY. And after one day, he calls back and is distraught and says, get me out of here. He goes on to explain that oftentimes we view the final judgment like what I described earlier, where God's there with a clipboard and says, hey, you failed your essay question or something and you're not going to make it, when in all reality, it will be God as our loving Father begging us to come unto me. Please, come, live with me, have all that I have, experience all the joy that I have. And it will be us saying, get me out of here. I don't feel comfortable in your presence. I would rather be hid by a mountain to fall on top of me than to have to stand in your presence. He'll be begging and pleading for us to come as he is now, as he's doing right now. And it would be us saying, I don't feel comfortable here. There are so many examples of this. Think of going to very nice, like ballroom for a ceremony or something. And everyone is dressed very nicely and you show up covered in mud from head to toe. Nobody in that room needs to tell you that you are out of place. You'll know it yourself. You will feel it yourself. You will know that you are out of place. You will not feel comfortable there until you go and clean up and come back in a presentable way. In that same talk by Brad Wilcox, he shares that he has a lot of friends that will tell him, you Mormons are just trying to earn your way into heaven. And he makes a very clear and important distinction. He says, no, we're not earning our way to heaven. We are learning heaven. We're not earning heaven. We are learning heaven. And what a beautiful distinction that is. But doesn't that apply to everything? Again, like I said earlier, the final judgment, it will be natural and organic, just like our whole life is. Like for instance, if I went to the NFL, the National Football League, and said, hey, I love football, suit me up. I want to play in this game. And let's just say they did. I mean, of course, they wouldn't. They would say like, what the heck are you doing here, man? But let's just say they did. I suited up for a game. It would become so apparent so quickly that I did not belong there. I would get crushed by some 300-pound player that runs a 4'6", 40 or something crazy. Nobody would need to tell me that I didn't belong. I would pretty much just know, oh, wow, yeah, I don't belong here. What is it that would make me feel like I belonged in that situation or in any situation? And I think the key is what Brad Wilcox said. It's learning heaven. Okay, so for instance, with any skill we develop, we have to put in time and effort and energy to learn it. In order to get from A to C, we have to pass through B. What I do for work is I do sales. I do door-to-door sales for a solar company. I've been doing it for eight and a half years. And I help train many new people that are just hired on. And you know what? They feel so awkward and so out of place when they start. And they should. They should feel awkward and out of place. They've never done it before, right? I think sometimes we wish we could just hardwire, put a USB cord in my brain and connect it to their brain and we can just transfer all of the things that I know into their brain. But life doesn't work that way. We are learning how to play an instrument. We are learning how to sell. We are learning how to play football. We are learning how to be a good spouse. We are learning how to be a good parent, right? It doesn't matter how many manuals you read about marriage. They cannot prepare you for the real thing. You just need to get married and learn by trial and error. It doesn't matter how many manuals you read about being a good parent. You just need to have kids. And if you have good intentions, you'll learn along the way. We are learning heaven. In recap of this second point, I'll read a quote from that talk from Brad Wilcox that says, The miracle of the atonement is not just that we can live after we die, but that we can live more abundantly. The miracle of the atonement is not just that we can be cleansed and consoled, but that we can be transformed. Scriptures make it clear that no unclean thing can dwell with God. But brothers and sisters, no unchanged thing will even want to. I think that's a beautiful summation. Here's the third question or doubt that someone might have, and I'm sure there's many others, but here's just three that I thought of. Someone might say, All this salvation and exaltation stuff sounds very confusing. I mean, can I just be a good person and everything will work out? So first of all, who defines what it means to be a quote-unquote good person? There has to be some standard to compare what even good and bad means, right? It's all arbitrary, unless there's someone who defines what good and bad is. And that being is God, but that's a whole separate conversation. Let's go back to the question, All this salvation and exaltation stuff sounds very confusing. I mean, can I just be a good person and everything will work out? The short answer is, I believe, yes. Everything will work out. There are so many good people in the world that are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Will everything work out for a Christian of another faith, or a Buddhist, or a Muslim, or a person practicing Hinduism, that are honestly practicing with their hearts and are being good? Yes, everything will work out. But here's the long answer on what, I guess, working out actually means, or what being good actually means. It depends on if your idea of being a good person will ever include following God's standards in this life or the next. That's not a question I can answer for anybody, of course. They can only answer that themselves. But to give a few examples of what His standards actually are, right? We have a lot of people in this world that will tell us different standards. We can get so many different answers on what it means to be a good person. The beautiful part about it, though, is we don't need to do any guesswork. God has already revealed what it means to be a good person. So again, let's go back to a big if here. If there is a God, if He created this whole earth, if we are in fact His children, wouldn't you think He might know a little thing or two about how to navigate this earth He created? Wouldn't you think He might know some things that we should avoid, that might not invite happiness and peace? Wouldn't you think He would know a few things that we should do, that we should not avoid, to invite happiness and peace into our lives? He might have a few suggestions for us. He might even have a few commandments for us, if you want to word it in that way. So it's amazing that all the guesswork of what it actually means to be a good person can actually be taken out, because God's already revealed it to us. Let's take a few simple examples that every human on the earth can relate to. For example, how to behave in our family units. We've already discussed that the family is the central unit to all of society. Everything started with one family, and it has expanded to what we now know today in the world. But all of our systems and processes, all of our social systems, political systems, economic systems, they're all patterned after one basic system and unit, and that is the family. So that's why, as we read earlier, if the family crumbles and deteriorates on a widespread fashion, all the other systems that we know in the earth will also eventually deteriorate as well. So with that being said, you would like to think that the Lord would reveal a few things about maybe the best ways to navigate our families, and the scriptures are replete with examples of how to love and care for your family members. Number two, perhaps one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest gift that our Heavenly Father has given to us is the gift of agency, right? The ability to make choices for ourselves. He will never force us to do one thing or the other. As much as it might pain Him to see us make mistakes, He knows that He cannot take that gift away. It would paralyze us. The only way we can learn and grow is by making choices, making mistakes, making right choices and learning and growing from those. So how has He instructed us to use that agency? Well, as I mentioned earlier, He has given us some suggestions, some commandments even, on how to use that agency so that we can be happy in this life and in the next. For example, one of those commandments involves chastity, how we use the sacred gift of sex and creating life. This is a relatively polarizing topic, and we see differences on each end of the spectrum. On one end, you have devout religious individuals like nuns, for instance, who commit to never having sex. And then on the other end, you have individuals that preach that we should have sex with anybody and everybody that we can, anytime, all the time. And so with something so important and sacred as creating life, you would think that our Creator would have given us a few guidelines on how to use this sacred gift. Did He? Yes, He has. He has taught that sex is so important and good and sacred that it is to be kept within the bounds of marriage. That is how He has instructed us to safeguard this gift. And again, I can hear possibly a critic saying, look, all this stuff, all these commandments, all these rules that you're sharing, they're just these made-up, man-made rules that religion uses to control or constrain individuals. And again, let's backtrack to the very first step. Let's just say, again, we're just operating under the premise that there is a God, okay? Let's just assume that there is. If there is, do you not think that He would want to give us some sort of guidance on how to navigate this earth, on how to use some of these greatest gifts that He has given us, our families, the gift of agency, free agency, the gift of creating life, of having sex? To use another analogy that I shared recently with some of the deacons that I was teaching, I said, you know, oftentimes in the church, we talk about sex as if it's a bad thing, as if it's a scary thing that must be avoided. And that couldn't be any further from the truth. That's why we have people that have been taught this their whole lives, and then once they actually get married and have sex with their spouse, they feel guilty, like they've done something wrong, which they should be feeling the opposite. They should be happy and celebrating. But the real way to think of it is, it is something that's so amazing and so beautiful, but there is appropriate times to do it. Like, for instance, let's take basketball. Basketball, I think everyone can decide and agree on that it's a good thing, right? It promotes physical activity and health. It promotes team building and camaraderie. Generally speaking, it's a good thing, right? Now, would it be good if at the church building, while the sacrament was being passed, we opened up the accordion doors and started a pickup game? No, of course not. That would be extremely awkward and inappropriate. That would be an inappropriate time to play basketball, a good thing, right? The same principle applies to any of the gifts that God has given us. Sex, agency, families, right? They're all good things, but he has given us proper and appropriate times to use them and how to use them. Okay, so again, let's pause. We've just talked about a lot. Let's wipe the whiteboard in our brains clean, and let's just summarize and recap what we just talked about. Number one, if there is a God, which I firmly believe there is, would he not want to pattern this earth after heaven, even so down to the basic systems, processes, and units, the family being the most basic one, which then extends to social, political, and economic systems and societies? Don't you think that all the things that we experience on the earth right now is just a pattern of what we were already used to experiencing in the pre-earth realm? Number two, many of us have this fallacy that God is this domineering being who's waiting up there with a clipboard to fail us on our final test to go into heaven, and this is not so. We will be our own judges. We are not earning heaven. We are learning heaven, and we will be the ones who will determine if we feel comfortable in his presence. He will be beckoning for us to come, and it will be us who will decide and determine if we are comfortable there. And number three, if there is a God, which again, I firmly believe that there is, and he created us and this earth that we live in, do you not think he might know a thing or two about how to live in this earth that he created and how to find peace and happiness and fulfillment here? Would he not give us some guidelines, some suggestions, some commandments to live by so that we can find that peace and fulfillment? Now in conclusion, those are a lot of ifs. You know, if God exists, then would this earth life not be just a pattern of heaven? Or if God exists, don't commandments all of a sudden kind of start making sense and prophets start making sense? But perhaps through our discussion, those ifs might now be feeling more like becauses. And what I mean by that is because God exists, earth is patterned after heaven. Or because God exists, commandments and prophets, etc., all make sense. Or because God exists, this whole concept of the gathering of Israel and the whole concept of the sealing power and of salvation and of exaltation, actually all that makes sense because God exists. So these ifs might start really feeling like, yeah, maybe this is true. And if it isn't quite feeling like that yet for the outsider looking in, I would imagine that the ifs might be carrying at least a little bit more weight. They might feel like bigger ifs. For instance, if God exists, it really might be something I should figure out because that if might describe a lot of things. It might provide a lot of clarity to my life. It might provide a lot of context to my life. In fact, it might help me understand the very purpose of my existence. C.S. Lewis said, who was once an atheist from his teenage years all the way until he was 31 years old and converted to Christ, he said, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. In other words, if you replace the sun in this imagery with Christ, as we come to see and understand Christ, he helps us see and understand everything else. Everything else is given clarity and context. I want to testify that Jesus Christ is that sun, the literal son of God, and that he brings light and warmth just as the sun does. I know that as we come to know him, our lives will make sense. Everything will be put in its proper perspective and frame. Our lives will be given meaning and context and clarity. I testify that the gathering of Israel is the most important work happening on the earth today and we are in the middle of it and we can participate in it with both hands. I testify that the sealing power validates and authenticates all of the ordinances and covenants that we make and that it binds them on earth and in heaven. I testify that the purpose that the earth was created in the first place was so that we can be sealed as family links throughout all the generations. I know that this work can be and is being performed in holy temples all around us every day. It is a beautiful work and Jesus Christ is at the helm and I say that in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. I felt the spirit as I prepared and I hope and pray that you all did as well. Next week's episode is entitled, Love Thy Neighbor by Elder Ian S. Ardern of the Seventy. I look forward to talking with you next week. See you then.