Talk given on 4/12/15
As
of late I have been awe-struck and overwhelmed with the messages in the
scriptures. I have been immersing myself in the scriptures and today I would
like to share with you some observations that the Holy Ghost has shown to me
and has born witness of its truthfulness to me. I want to take Kendra’s talk on
faith and build on that principle with some thoughts on the next principle of
the gospel, which is repentance.
Why did I choose
repentance? What experience do I have with repentance?
My credentials are these…I am a sinner
and the Lord has healed me. It is that simple. We are all sinners no matter the
sin…great or small. We are all in need of the Lord’s atonement. We are all
fallen in a telestial state and need to find our way back to the Lord in this
life. Just like the fall of Adam and Eve we all have a fall to overcome and we
all have to become once again as a little child and attain to a terrestrial
sphere where we are able to withstand the presence of our Lord. The Lord said the children are the
kingdom of God over and over in the Bible. In Matthew 18: 2-4 it
says… “And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of
them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become
as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the
same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Why does He repeat this concept so many times
in the Bible?
Because it is essential in coming to know Him
and becoming a part of His kingdom, the kingdom that will be established upon
the earth during the millennium that is soon upon us.
There is a process of
redemption that is taught in the temple that we need to go through in our own
individual lives right now. We are, each of us, literally either Adam or Eve.
We were all children at one point living on this earth in innocence during our
childhood. Children essentially live in a terrestrial sphere just as Adam and
Eve did in the Garden of Eden. As we get older we lose our innocence and become
hardened by life experiences, which is literally our own personal fall. We are
hardened by this lone and dreary telestial world and through sin, fears, doubts
and other life experiences where we lose our innocence we put up walls and shut
doors. We essentially turn away from God (which is the Greek translation of the
word sin…turning away from God) and we try to fill that void with things of
this world.
After we realize that this
world really doesn’t have that much to offer and filling the void with the
things of this world just isn’t satisfying…we begin to understand the awful
fallen state that we are in and desire to be back in the Lord’s presence. This
leads to us crying out to the Lord and asking for him to come to us, to redeem us
and save us from our awful sinful state. When we CRY to the Lord we
begin a process. A process of healing and of redemption. And as we slowly break
down those walls we erected and as we open those doors we once closed on the
Lord we once again become as a little child and we return to that terrestrial
sphere to be taught by the Lord and to receive more. We become once again as a
little child…submissive, meek, humble and willing to learn everything the Lord
wants to teach us. This is the process of redemption. That picture of Christ
knocking on the door…each of us have erected that door that is in the picture. We
shut him out. He is knocking. We need to open it and let him back in.
How do we begin this process? It is by
giving our will to the Lord. Our will is the only thing that each of us possess
that isn’t the Lord’s and the only thing he wants us to put on the alter. Everything
else we have can be taken from the Lord in a moments notice. After giving our
will to him we essentially give the Lord permission to fix anything that is
weak and infirm in us and anything keeping us from seeing truth and light and
filling us with his all encompassing love, mercy and charity. Once we are
filled with love, mercy, and charity we have no choice but to show forth those
attributes to others. These are things we cannot fake. They come from God and
once received from God we show forth these attributes to others. That is essentially
how we live the first 2 great commandments.
Matthew 22: 37-40
Says…”Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the
first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself. On these two commandments hang all the
law and the prophets.”
We are all fallen and need to be
redeemed by Him and Him only but it isn’t until we awaken to our awful fallen
telestial state and arise that the Lord shows forth his merciful hand and
redeems us. It isn’t until we cry to the Lord and show him that we are nothing
without him that he is able to do the heavy lifting for us. Do a search
in the scriptures of how many times the Book of Mormon says “cry to the Lord”.
There are 17 results in the Book of Mormon. 9 in the Old Testament. 2 in
D&C and 1 in the Pearl of Great Price. Searching other variations of “crying to the Lord” gives us
even more results in the Book of Mormon. There are numerous examples in the Book
of Mormon of people crying…not praying…but crying to the Lord. You should go
home and read the account of the brother of Jared and see what happens to him
after crying to the Lord. Are the scriptures that the Lord restored to us
through his servant Joseph Smith trying to tell us something here? When we cry
to the Lord it gets the ball rolling. It allows the Lord to come to you, to fix
you and to redeem you. And as a consequence of
that, the Lord shows us other things we may have not have considered before as
well. He reveals to us mysteries
or the greater portion of the word.
In Alma 12: 10-11 it says…
10 And therefore, he
that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word;
and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of
the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know
them in full.
11 And they that
will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until
they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken captive by
the devil, and led by his will down to destruction. Now this is what is meant
by the chains of hell.
The greater portion of the
word is the meat of the gospel and the lesser portion of the word is the milk.
Look what happens when we are content with the milk…the devil takes you
captive.
Those mysteries and greater portion of
the word are what make the gospel delicious. I would suggest most of those
mysteries lie in the pages of the Book of Mormon and anything brought forth by
the hand of the Prophet of this dispensation Joseph Smith. Those mysteries are
what fill the void that we try to fill with sin. Sin is anything that distracts
us from Christ. It is anything we
choose over following Christ and his plan for us. It is anything that distracts
us from finding out what our calling and election is in this life and making it
sure. We all have a void that we try to fill…whether it be through food, TV,
alcohol, electronic devices, an addiction of any type…even sports, shopping and
yes, even facebook. Anything we do in excess…we are trying to fill a void.
Sin is anything that turns us away from
what God is trying to show us and repentance is turning back to God to face Him
and learn from him by doing what he asks us which is essentially what keeping
the commandments means. Doing what he commands you to do individually. He wants
us to follow him. He wants us to learn from Him. This is all literal. This is
the life to do these things.
That
anvil that is holding you down and you are dragging. Don’t curse it. Bless it. Thank God he gave it to you.
It is that anvil that will cause you to fall to your knees and cry to the Lord,
give your will to him and to have him come to you to be healed. How he comes to
you is according to your faith. See what happens to the brother of Jared
according to his faith. What is the result of crying to the Lord? Look at the
process in the Book of Mormon. It’s all there. There is a process and there is
a result. God works in patterns and the patterns are laid out in the Book of
Mormon.
When
you give your will to the Lord and cry to him don’t be surprised where he takes
you. Don’t be surprised at what he is trying to show you.
Are
we redeemed because we keep “the checklist”? Is that checklist attainable or is
it set up, just like the Law of Moses, so that you fail and cry to the Lord and
say I can’t do it… I can’t win, please show me the way. Or, is it your heart
that matters the most? Do we have it backwards? I used to think that if I could just keep “the checklist” to
a “T”, THEN, I would be worthy of the Lord’s love, mercy and guidance. This is
not the case, He is always there for you. None of us will ever be worthy enough
anyway. That is what He came to fix. We need to focus on Christ and His will
for us and then all of those things that we think matter will just fall into
place by Him shedding forth His love. Love that we cannot even imagine, and in
return you show forth love to others, and achieve more of “the checklist” then we
ever thought possible.
I
also used to think that once we are sealed in the temple, then we were “good to
go”. Come to find out, that is only the beginning of our spiritual journey and
ascension in this life. Most of what happens in the temple is symbolic of the
real thing. You have to seek the real thing. You have to have everything sealed
by the Holy Spirit of Promise.
On
July 28th, 2014 early in the morning…the Lord showed forth His mercy and healed
me from sins I suffered with for close to twenty years. He literally came to me
and took upon Him my sins through the baptism of fire. I did not see Him, but I
felt my spirit connected to Him, and we were of one heart and one mind. I felt
the refining cleansing process within my bosom. I felt the warmth, the love and
his undeniable presence. I testify
to you that He will come to you. He will heal you. It is a literal thing. I owe
everything to my Lord and Savior for delivering me from the bondage of sin that
I was carrying with me for so long…essentially from the time of my own personal
fall…after I lost the innocence of my childhood.
As
I continue to break down walls and open doors back up, I look forward to the
day when I can ascend to the next level in this life… the next level being a
terrestrial sphere. The level we all need to attain to in our present life to be
able to bear the presence of the Lord when He returns for the second coming,
because when He comes His glory will be so great it will burn the wicked. Just like how the earth will be renewed
and receive its paradisical glory. We need to be as well. This is essentially
how we reach the celestial kingdom. It is all here and now. We cannot fool ourselves
into thinking we can procrastinate anything until the next life. The test is
now and it is upon us. The Lord is coming in judgment. We can either come to
him now as a lamb or we can wait until he comes in judgment as a Lion.
So,
after we cry to the Lord to be delivered from our awful fallen state and bondage
to sin, here is the process to receive the baptism of fire…it is in 3 Nephi 9:
20-22…
Verse 20 And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken
heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a
contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as
the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion,
were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.
21 Behold, I have come unto the world to bring
redemption unto the world, to save the world from sin.
22 Therefore, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me as a
little child, him will I receive, for of such is the kingdom of God. Behold,
for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again; therefore
repent, and come unto me ye ends of the earth, and be saved.
So what is it that we need to repent of? Do what Joseph
Smith essentially restored. Ask the Lord. We as Latter-day Saints do this to
see if the Book of Mormon is true but we stop there. We should be doing it for
everything. We should be exercising this practice with everything that is
taught to us. You should do it with this talk I am sharing with you today. He
cannot provide any new light, truth, and knowledge until we ask Him first. It
is not in the pattern of God to provide anything to us until we ask. Ask the
Lord. He will answer but you need to be listening and watching carefully. It
may start off really quiet…keep going…it gets louder.
I have learned for myself, through years of sin that it is
humility that matters. It is the heart that matters…
Look at Luke 18: 10-14
10 Two men went up
into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,
God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this publican.
12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that
I possess.
13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift
up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be
merciful to me a sinner.
14 I tell you, this man went down to his house
justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be
abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
I
testify these things to be true. I believe Joseph Smith was a true prophet of
God. I believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know the Lord is real because
He healed me. God is Love. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
