Temple prep - "All Done in Order"

The following text is taken from the pamphlet "Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple" (2002) and annotated by me.

Following the dramatic events at the Kirtland Temple, difficulties and persecutions required that the Saints move. Wherever they located, the Lord revealed plans to build temples. The Lord just didn't have the foresight to see that the saints would be chased away. He really could have saved time and lives by just telling Joseph to take everyone out to Utah instead of some silly place like Missouri. This was true in both Independence and Far West, Missouri. In this period persecution fell upon the Saints with unprecedented rage and eventually they fled to Nauvoo, Illinois. Nauvoo was clearly not far enough. The Lord should have seen that. Here the revelation came again and the commandment to build a house of the Lord.

The Lord explained that the purpose of the building of the house was to reveal the ordinances. “And verily I say unto you, let this house be built unto my name, that I may reveal mine ordinances therein unto my people; for I deign to reveal unto my church things which have been kept hid from before the foundation of the world, things that pertain to the dispensation of the fulness of times.” (D&C 124:40–41.) Freemasonry was definitely not hidden "from before the foundation of the world" and yet that's what you get in the temple. Weird.

He had mentioned that the temple would be a place for them to conduct “your anointings, and your washings, and your baptisms for the dead, and your solemn assemblies, and your memorials for your sacrifices by the sons of Levi, and for your oracles in your most holy places wherein you receive conversations, and your statutes and judgments, for the beginning of the revelations and foundation of Zion, and for the glory, honor, and endowment of all her municipals, … by the ordinance of my holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name.” (D&C 124:39.) If you're an active LDS Mormon, you're probably wondering right now what solemn assemblies, what memorials for "sacrifices by the sons of Levi", what oracles "wherein [we] receive conversations", what statutes and judgments, and what revelations of Zion might mean with regard to the temple. Apparently there should be more to the temple than we now have.

Among the ordinances we perform in the Church are these: baptism, sacrament, naming and blessing of infants, administering to the sick, setting apart to callings in the Church, ordaining to offices. In addition there are higher ordinances, performed in the temples. These include washings, anointings, the endowment, and the sealing ordinance, spoken of generally as temple marriage. Boyd, you left out memorials for sacrifices and conversations with oracles!

How important are the ordinances to us as members of the Church? However important you we as members make them. The real question is "How important are these ordinances to Jesus?" Probably not very. He never really talked about them.

Can you be happy, can you be redeemed, can you be exalted without them? Answer: They are more than advisable or desirable, or even than necessary. More even than essential or vital. They are crucial to each of us. "Necessary", "essential", "vital" and "crucial" are synonyms. Your rhetoric is weak.

The Prophet Joseph Smith said he was frequently asked the question:

“Can we not be saved without going through with all those ordinances, etc.?” I would answer, No, not the fullness of salvation. You have to buy the whole set, folks, not just what Jesus was selling. Jesus said, “There are many mansions in my Father’s house, and I will go and prepare a place for you.” House here named should have been translated kingdom; and any person who is exalted to the highest mansion has to abide a celestial law, and the whole law too. Dude, Joe, you haven't been too good at translating. I'd give it a rest. Would you mind sharing with us where Jesus explained the "celestial law"? (History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 7 vols. [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1949], 6:184.)

President Joseph Fielding Smith said:

I do not care what office you hold in this Church, you may be an apostle, you may be a patriarch, a high priest, or anything else, and you cannot receive the fulness of the priesthood unless you go into the temple of the Lord and receive these ordinances of which the prophet speaks. Trust Joseph. He only lied when it saved his skin or made some money. No man can get the fulness of the priesthood outside of the temple of the Lord. Are you suggesting that when we go through the temple both men and women are given the fulness of the Priesthood? Like, even women have total god powers?? (Joseph Fielding Smith, Elijah the Prophet and His Mission [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1957], page 46.)

We spoke earlier of the higher ordinances performed in the temple. How can any ordinance be "higher" than another "crucial" ordinance? Can an ordinance out crucial another? These include the endowment. Is the endowment more crucial than the marriage sealing, or are you just giving us a merit badge checklist? To endow is to enrich, to give to another something long lasting and of much worth. The temple endowment ordinances enrich in three ways: (a) The one receiving the ordinance is given power from God. You'll be a totally badass wizard!  “Recipients are endowed with power from on high.” Which powers from on high do we get?? (b) A recipient is also endowed with information and knowledge. Secret passwords and slick handshakes! “They receive an education relative to the Lord’s purposes and plans.” You mean the plan that we all had memorized in Primary? That "Lord's plan"? (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966], page 227.) (c) When sealed at the altar a person is the recipient of glorious blessings, powers, and honors as part of his or her endowment. What blessings, powers and honors? How are we blessed? How are we more powerful? How are we honored?

There are two published definitions or descriptions of the endowment, the first by President Brigham Young:

Let me give you a definition in brief. Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being able to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell. Passwords and handshakes open the heavens, kids. That's how God rolls. Oh, and Brigham meant "crucial", not "necessary". (Discourses of Brigham Young, comp. John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1971], page 416.)

Elder James E. Talmage described the endowment thus:

The Temple Endowment, as administered in modern temples, comprises instruction relating to the significance and sequence of past dispensations, and the importance of the present as the greatest and grandest era in human history. "Past dispensations" here means back to the first half of the 19th century with a healthy dash of late Mideval Freemasonry. This course of instruction includes a recital of the most prominent events of the creative period, the condition of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, their disobedience and consequent expulsion from that blissful abode, their condition in the lone and dreary world when doomed to live by labor and sweat, the plan of redemption by which the great transgression may be atoned, the period of the great apostasy, the restoration of the Gospel with all its ancient powers and privileges, the absolute and indispensable condition of personal purity and devotion to the right in present life, and a strict compliance with Gospel requirements. This is actually a marginally helpful quote in terms of outlining the endowment (but not nearly as helpful as reading it or watching it online). However, now that we've gone over everything, you don't really have to go to the temple to review it again. Or just take a couple of hours to refresh that whole narrative peacefully at home. (James E. Talmage, The House of the Lord [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1962], pages 99–100; hereafter cited as The House of the Lord.)

This statement from Elder Talmage makes it clear that when you receive your endowments you will receive instruction relative to the purpose and plans of the Lord in creating and peopling the earth. You will be taught what must be done for you to gain exaltation. You've said this before in other sections with these same vague terms.

The blessing of the endowment is required for full exaltation. Don't you mean "crucial"? Earlier you said it was "more than" advisable, desirable, necessary, essential and vital. Does "required" mean all that? Every Latter-day Saint should seek to be worthy of this blessing and to obtain it. Otherwise they're selling themselves short! And saving countless hours of sitting through a lame movie, repeating oaths and promises they've already made in the catch-all covenant of baptism, getting dressed up like a clown, driving and parking, and worrying about why the ceremony is so unenlightening.

The ordinances of washing and anointing are referred to often in the temple as initiatory ordinances. It will be sufficient for our purposes to say only the following: Associated with the endowment are washings and anointings—mostly symbolic in nature, but promising definite, immediate blessings as well as future blessings. This is not very enlightening, Boyd. You really should say what the "definite, immediate blessings" are. You should also be telling us that we will be getting naked (this pamphlet was published before 2005) and touched by a stranger (now you just get gestures of touching while you sit in your new underwear). You should also mention the second anointing.

In connection with these ordinances, in the temple you will be officially clothed in the garment and promised marvelous blessings in connection with it. What marvelous blessings? These are all empty explanations. It is important that you listen carefully as these ordinances are administered and that you try to remember the blessings promised and the conditions upon which they will be realized. For us visual learners it would be useful to see the words.

The sealing ordinance is that ordinance which binds families eternally. Through more magic words while the couple, dressed in Masonic robes, is kneeling at an alter doing the handshakes. Temple marriage is a sealing ordinance. It used to just be for polygamous marriages. When a couple is sealed in the temple following a civil marriage the children born to them previous to that time, and therefore not born in the covenant, are sealed to them in a brief and sacred ordinance. The only temple ordinance that isn't brief is the endowment and it really could be shortened significantly.

Please be certain that your life is in complete order. Or else what? What are you trying to threaten these poor neurotic kids with? This only comes from receiving your temple blessings, your ordinances, for “in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest.” (D&C 84:20.) What "only comes from receiving your temple blessings" and ordinances? What is "this" in reference to? Don't leave us hanging!

Temple prep - "'We Saw the Lord'"

The following text is taken from the pamphlet "Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple" (2002) and annotated by me.

The day of the return of Elijah was a Sunday afternoon, April 3, 1836. A sacrament meeting had been held in the Kirtland Temple. Right, because the concept of the temple was more like a stake center or cathedral, not a Freemason temple. The Prophet described that afternoon in these simple terms:

In the afternoon, I assisted the other Presidents in distributing the Lord’s Supper to the Church, receiving it from the Twelve, whose privilege it was to officiate at the sacred desk this day. After having performed this service to my brethren, I retired to the pulpit, the veils being dropped, and bowed myself, with Oliver Cowdery, in solemn and silent prayer. After rising from prayer, the following vision was opened to both of us. (D&C 110, introduction.)

The veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our understanding were opened. So this is all imaginary...

We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber. You know where else Joseph saw visions of gold? In a hat.

His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying: This is sounds like one very horrifying acid trip.

I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father. Lord, are you really going to run through all your titles?

Behold, your sins are forgiven you; you are clean before me; therefore, lift up your heads and rejoice. Yay!

Let the hearts of your brethren rejoice, and let the hearts of all my people rejoice, who have, with their might, built this house to my name.

For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here; and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house. You're not pissed that they didn't built it by a beach or a lakeside resort, Lord? There's not even a patio for your sun chair.

Yea, I will appear unto my servants, and speak unto them with mine own voice, if my people will keep my commandments, and do not pollute this holy house. Is this where Mormons get the misguided idea that the prophet sees and hears the Lord? Who was the last prophet who said he saw Jesus in the temple?

Yea the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands shall greatly rejoice in consequence of the blessings which shall be poured out, and the endowment with which my servants have been endowed in this house. Tens of thousands? Proportionally to the world's population, that not very impressive.

And the fame of this house shall spread to foreign lands; and this is the beginning of the blessing which shall be poured out upon the heads of my people. Even so. Amen. The fame of the Kirtland temple is known abroad only to members and they have been given a whitewashed and embellished version of its history and meaning.

After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us; and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north. Ah, yes, the 10 tribes!

After this, Elias appeared, and committed the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham, saying that in us and our seed all generations after us should be blessed. The "gospel of Abraham"? Is that the gospel where you circumcise yourself, your sons and all other males in your household?

After this vision had closed, another great and glorious vision burst upon us; for Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us, and said: WHOA! Hang on a sec. You made a big booboo, Joseph. I think we can safely say you're pulling this vision out of your ass.

Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come—

To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse—

Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors. (D&C 110:1–16.) I can't wait for the day of the Lord. That's Sunday, right?

I saw Jesus in the temple. He was so beautiful.

It had happened! This signal event went unheeded by the world, but it would influence the destiny of every soul who has ever lived or will live. In the words of Ken Ham, WERE YOU THERE? How do you know this happened? The story appears grossly fabricated. Things began quietly to happen. What things?! The Church became a temple-building church. The Church is definitely not quiet about its temple building! It is very quiet about how the purpose of temples has drastically changed and even quieter about how the ordinances continue to change today.

In the world there emerged here and there, in a way thought to be spontaneous, people and organizations and societies interested in tracing genealogies. This happened thanks to John Farmer's efforts in the more heavily populated New England area throughout the 1820s, not Joseph Smith receiving "keys" in on of America's sparsely populated frontier towns in the mid-1830s. This has all taken place since the appearance of Elijah in the Kirtland Temple. Or do you mean Elias? Please reread my comments above.

From that very day, April 3, 1836, the hearts of the children began to turn to their fathers. Before that, all children hated their fathers and never thought of them, especially not to help them. Thereafter ordinances were not tentative, but permanent. Baptism was tentative before 1836? Ordination to the Priesthood was tentative!! Are you serious? The sealing power was with us. Rest easy, kids, this highly suspicious story Joseph Smith told means we've got the most powerful magic of any religion. You're in the right place! No authorization transcends it in value. So never ever under any circumstance take seriously what other religions say they have to offer. That power gives substance and eternal permanence to all ordinances performed with proper authority for both the living and the dead. You'll feel it, brothers and sisters. It will feel low key. Almost anticlimactic. Kind of like the awesomeness of it all was in what was said, not so much in what was done and what happened afterward. What I'm saying is don't expect to see the Lord or anything amazing like that. Keep your expectations to a minimum.

Smooth operator

Folks living in the Middle East and the Mediterranean are lucky sons of guns! They're blessed enough to live where olives have historically been cultivated and spread. Why does that matter? It matters because olive oil is the awesomest!

It's a magic healing elixir, folks. When consecrated by the power of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood, it has amazing healing powers.

It transforms people into priests.

It turns you into royalty.

It made Jesus the Oily One way awesomer than all the other Jesuses. (I guess there were olives in the Pre-Existence.)

It guarantees Celestial glory.

And it's edible.

The point is this olive oil is very cool stuff when backed up by the proper magic which is why Mormon men tend to be locked and loaded at all times.

Keep your barrels well oil, brethren.

The Apocalypse - a baptism by fire

In my study of the Bible I learned, thanks to the Church Institute manuals, that one reason why it was so important that the Earth literally be literally baptized by immersion by the Flood was because the Earth needed that ordinance in order to receive the Holy Ghost. This later ordinance would take place just before the Second Coming during the Apocalypse, when the entire Earth would be literally burned with fire and literally purified.

This information was a little hard to swallow for me. Really? The Apocalypse is the Refiner's fire? The entire world needs to burn LITERALLY, NOT SYMBOLICALLY? I swear I had never heard this silliness before in my life. Is it not obvious what a bad idea that would be? All that smoke and ash will be a very serious problem. Besides isn't it going to be bad enough with the Four Horsemen running around? Do we really need a global fire? Mormon's don't really believe this, right? At least not any more, I hope.