A temple covenant people#
St. Louis Missouri South stake conference, 2010-03-13.
Goal: listeners will
understand better why it is so important for us to make covenants
be motivated to make and keep sacred covenants, and to renew our temple covenants
and be more likely to accept a calling when they receive one
To prepare for my assignment to speak today, I’ve been pondering covenants, specifically why the Lord requires us to make them. I don’t think the answers are obvious. I commend that study to each of you. For today, let me start with the Old Testament prophet Daniel.
Daniel was strong even when facing the prospect of immolation in the king’s furnace: “O Nebuchadnezzar, … our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand. … But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up” (Dan. 3:16-18).
The apostle Paul knew that the Ephesians would “see [his] face no more” (Acts 20:25), but he still went, “bound in the spirit[,] unto Jerusalem. He said he went “not knowing the things that shall befall me there: Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth … that bonds and afflictions abide me” (Acts 20:22-23). “I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13). “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).
Similarly, in the April, 2009, general conference, Elder Christofferson mentioned a woman who was smiling despite having just lost everything she owned in the massive 2007 earthquake in Peru. She said, “I have prayed and I am at peace. We have all we need. We have each other, we have our children, we are sealed in the temple, we have this marvelous Church, and we have the Lord. We can build again with the Lord’s help.”
Like this good Peruvian saint, do we want to be “strong Christians who can persevere against hardship, who can sustain hope through tragedy, who can lift others by their example and their compassion, and who can consistently overcome temptations[?] … strong Christians who can make important things happen by their faith and who can defend the truth of Jesus Christ against moral relativism and militant atheism”?
Elder Christofferson instructs us that the “source of such moral and spiritual power … is God. Our access to that power is through our covenants with Him.”1
Pres. Henry B. Eyring made a similar point. “One of the purposes of mortal life is to prove to God that we will keep His commandments when that takes courage. … In [the] ordinances [of the holy priesthood] we receive power to serve God’s children and to withstand the influence of evil.”2
How is it that our temple covenants fortify us to do the right thing?
One answer is that they help to remind us of our duty.
When our daughter Kathleen Déia was a baby, my wife Winona performed in a professional musical theater show in St. Louis, a Sondheim review. (It was awesome, and she had a great solo.) One of the songs she sang with the company used God’s name irreverently. She was troubled by this and wasn’t sure how to respond. She knew the director wouldn’t share her concern and might replace her in the show. During this period of time, she and I went to the temple [in Chicago], and while there she was reminded of her covenants not to take the Lord’s name in vain. As the Lord instructed Moses, “ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:12). Winona felt the Holy Spirit strongly in the temple and that reminded her not only of the commandment but also that the Lord would be with her and strengthen her as she followed Him. Strengthened by her temple covenants, she told the director that she did not feel comfortable singing that line. It turned out that it wasn’t a problem, he said fine, just don’t sing that line, you aren’t even facing the audience then. But the important thing is that the reminder of her covenants strengthened her to do the right thing regardless of the consequence.
Covenants also oblige God to bless us according to the promises that he makes in the two-way contracts that we call covenants. He gives us commandments, or as He put it, “directions how you may act before me, that it may turn to you for your salvation. I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say” (DC 82:9-10). The Word of Wisdom is a well-known example of a covenant “with promise” (DC 89:3).
Elder Todd Christofferson pointed out that covenants also strengthen us by increasing our faith.
Our willingness to take upon us the name of Christ and keep His commandments requires a degree of faith, but as we honor our covenants, that faith expands. In the first place, the promised fruits of obedience become evident, which confirms our faith. Secondly, the Spirit communicates God’s pleasure, and we feel secure in His continued blessing and help. Thirdly, come what may, we can face life with hope and equanimity, knowing that we will succeed in the end because we have God’s promise to us individually, by name, and we know He cannot lie (see Enos 1:6; Ether 3:12).
Early Church leaders in this dispensation confirmed that adhering to the covenant path provides the reassurance we need in times of trial:
“It was [the knowledge that their course in life conformed to the will of God] that enabled the ancient saints to endure all their afflictions and persecutions, and to take … not only the spoiling of their goods, and the wasting of their substance, joyfully, but also to suffer death in its most horrid forms; knowing (not merely believing) that when this earthly house of their tabernacle was dissolved, they had a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Cor. 5:1.)” (Lectures on Faith [1985], 67).
They further pointed out that in offering whatever sacrifice God may require of us, we obtain the witness of the Spirit that our course is right and pleasing to God (see Lectures on Faith, 69–71). With that knowledge, our faith becomes unbounded, having the assurance that God will in due time turn every affliction to our gain. Some of you have been sustained by that faith as you have endured those who point fingers of scorn from the “great and spacious building” and cry, “Shame!” (see 1 Nephi 8:26–27), and you have stood firm with Peter and the Apostles of old, “rejoicing that [you] were counted worthy to suffer shame for [Christ’s] name” (Acts 5:41).
The Lord said of the Church: “Verily I say unto you, all among them who … are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice—yea, every sacrifice which I, the Lord, shall command—they are accepted of me. For I, the Lord, will cause them to bring forth as a very fruitful tree which is planted in a goodly land, by a pure stream, that yieldeth much precious fruit” (D&C 97:8–9).
But in addition, there is power when we make the covenants God prescribes for us. As the Lord taught the Prophet Joseph, “[T]he priesthood which is after the holiest order of God, … this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest” (DC 84:18-20).
Elder Christofferson’s talk in the April, 2009, general conference explained this power. I commend the whole talk to your study. For this occasion I will quote the following passage: “Our covenant commitment to [our Heavenly Father] permits [Him] to let His divine influence, “the power of godliness” (D&C 84:20), flow into our lives. He can do that because by our participation in priesthood ordinances we exercise our agency and elect to receive it. Our participation in those ordinances also demonstrates that we are prepared to accept the additional responsibility that comes with added light and spiritual power.3 In all the ordinances, especially those of the temple, we are endowed with power from on high. This ‘power of godliness’ comes in the person and by the influence of the Holy Ghost. The gift of the Holy Ghost is part of the new and everlasting covenant.”1
At the same conference, Elder Bednar also spoke of the power of covenants. When he served as president of BYU–Idaho, he and Sister Bednar hosted many visiting devotional speakers who had served first in the Seventy and then as temple presidents. Brother Bednar always asked this question: “What have you learned as a temple president that you wish you had better understood when you were a General Authority?” He was impressed that the answers had a consistent theme: “the protection available through our temple covenants and what it means to make an acceptable offering of temple worship. There is a difference between church-attending, tithe-paying members who occasionally rush into the temple to go through a session and those members who faithfully and consistently worship in the temple.” Elder Bednar continued, “The similarity of their answers impressed me greatly. Each response to my question focused upon the protecting power of the ordinances and covenants available in the house of the Lord.”4
As an example of this principle, Elder Bednar reflected on the “exodus from Nauvoo in September of 1846[, which] caused unimaginable hardship for the faithful Latter-day Saints. Many sought shelter in camps along the Mississippi River. When word reached Brigham Young at Winter Quarters about the condition of these refugees, he immediately sent a letter across the river to Council Point encouraging the brethren to help—reminding them of the covenant made in the Nauvoo Temple. He counseled: ‘Now is the time for labor. Let the fire of the covenant which you made in the House of the Lord, burn in your hearts, like flame unquenchable’ (in Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sept. 28, 1846, 5). Within days, wagons were rolling eastward to rescue the struggling Saints.
“What was it that gave those early Saints such strength? It was the fire of the temple covenant that burned in their hearts. It was their commitment to worship and honorably hold a name and standing in the house of the Lord. We do now and will yet face great challenges to the work of the Lord. But like the pioneers who found the place which God for them prepared, so we will fresh courage take, knowing our God will never us forsake (see ‘Come, Come, Ye Saints,’ Hymns, no. 30). Today temples dot the earth as sacred places of ordinances and covenants, of edification, and of refuge from the storm.” (emphasis added)
Elder Bednar concluded with his testimony “that the fire of the covenant will burn in the heart of every faithful member of this Church who shall worship and honorably hold a name and standing in the Lord’s holy house.”
How do we know if we are keeping our covenants? We tend to think of dramatic moments, of braving the king’s furnace with Daniel or proclaiming Christ in Rome with Paul. But is God asking you to do that? No. What is He asking you to do? What has He asked you to do through His authorized servants?
I believe we see our obedience to our covenants most clearly in the numerous quiet decisions of our life. Think of a husband and wife kneeling to pray for strength and wisdom as they ponder the modern prophets’ declaration that “God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.”5 Think of a brother on a business trip, in a hotel room far from home, facing viewing options on TV or the Internet. Think especially of an earnest conversation in the bishop’s office when he extends a calling to serve in the nursery.
Let me tell you a story about my friends Spencer and Colette Melby. Spencer is a heart surgeon who works nominally 80 hours every week. In truth, it’s probably a little more than that. Colette bears the lion’s share of the burden for caring for their five children. The faithless would say it was impossible for either of them to spend much time serving the Lord in church callings. But that would be before they came to know the Melbys and their faith that they are not volunteering, they are responding to a call from the Lord God. Both have served valiantly in demanding Church callings. Last year I sat down with Spencer and Colette Melby in their home. I asked sister Melby in private whether she had any reservations about her husband’s receiving a new calling. She said no, and she smiled. I asked brother Melby in private, “are there any circumstances in your life, whether of worthiness or time, that would prevent you from accepting a calling at this time?” He smiled a somewhat different smile. “President, you know what my life is like. I couldn’t commit to being there every day because I have to be at the hospital every few evenings and nights and even when I think I’m at home I may get called in. But other than that, my time is the Lord’s.” Then I sat down with both of them. I told them with no small lump in my throat how much their faith inspired me. Then I said, “brother Melby, the stake presidency has prayed for revelation, and the Lord has called you to serve on the stake high council.” I explained the duties and obligations. I also promised them in the name of the Lord that He would somehow not only make it possible for Spencer to serve, but would bless him and his family for his service. I asked if he would accept and if Colette would sustain the call, and they both said, “of course.”
Brother Melby could say yes because he understood the Lord’s covenant promises … and because he knew his wife understood them. President Eyring taught, “When [the Lord] calls us to serve, we have this promise: ‘And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up’ (D&C 84:88). … God has given more than enough help to banish fear and give us courage, whatever we may face in life. As we reach out for His help, He can lift us toward that eternal life we seek.”2
The Lord confirmed that it is in our sacrifices that our covenants are proved:
“Verily I say unto you, all among them who … are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice—yea, every sacrifice which I, the Lord, shall command—they are accepted of me. For I, the Lord, will cause them to bring forth as a very fruitful tree which is planted in a goodly land, by a pure stream, that yieldeth much precious fruit” (D&C 97:8–9).
I will close with another quote from Elder Christofferson. “In times of distress, let your covenants be paramount and let your obedience be exact. Then you can ask in faith, nothing wavering, according to your need, and God will answer. He will sustain you as you work and watch. In His own time and way He will stretch forth his hand to you, saying, ‘Here am I.’”
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Why are we blessed now?#
Additional thoughts not included in the talk: a discussion of why we receive many blessings of the Lord from covenants before our whole life has been tested for obedience.
God always keeps His promises. Perhaps that is one reason why He is willing to give us blessings when we have done no more than to promise to obey them.
“When God made promise to Abraham,” Paul taught, “because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, [Heb. 6:13] Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an ^a^high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
He expects us to keep our promises.
“ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord. (Lev. 19:12)
The temple also teaches us about how the Lord responds to covenant-breaking. Although He always fulfills his promises, He also knows we are, all of us, imperfect. Thousands of years ago He told His people by Isaiah’s mouth:
Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism, who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness. (1 Ne 20:1; cf. Is. 48-49)
The rest of the chapter goes on to say that the God of Israel knew we would “deal very treacherously” and would be “called a transgressor from the womb” (v. 8). But “for my name’s sake will I defer mine anger … that I cut thee not off” (v. 9). “For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (v. 10).
“Come ye near unto me; I have not spoken in secret; from the beginning … have I spoken … And thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I have sent him, the Lord thy God who teacheth thee to profit, who leadeth thee by the way thou shouldst go, hath done it. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments—then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. Thy seed also had been as the sand; … The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob. And they thirsted not; he led them through the deserts; he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them; he clave the rock also and the waters gushed out. … He hath done all this, and greater also.”
In the temple we are taught repeatedly, by precept and by symbol, about Christ’s mercy. To continue from Isaiah’s words (1 Ne. 21): “Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; for the feet of those who are in the east shall be established; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for they shall be smitten no more; for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not. For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.”
Marriage is another example. Everyone thinks they know what marriage means, though most people in fact do not. They know that a man and woman make promises at their wedding, and then immediately begin to enjoy all the benefits (and liabilities!) of marriage even though it will take a lifetime to test how well they have kept those promises.
In the revealed light of the gospel, marriage is an example of a holy covenant. Indeed, Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Twelve taught that marriage is not only representative of God’s covenants but central to them. “Everything that we do in the Church, … up to the time of marriage, is designed and intended to prepare us to enter into a probationary marriage arrangement, one that does in fact become eternal if we abide in the covenant made in connection with that order of matrimony. Then everything that we do for the remainder of our lives, whatsoever it may be, ties back into the celestial order of matrimony into which we have entered and is designed and intended to encourage us to keep the covenant made in holy places.”6
God acts similarly with all our covenants. Our solemn promise to obey His revealed requirements is enough for him to bestow upon us, immediately, though provisionally, all of the blessings of that covenant, even though we have not yet truly “abide[d] the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof,” that are required for a blessing at His hands (DC 132:5).
Elder McConkie refers to DC 132:7 as a “one-sentence summary … of the whole law of the whole gospel, [in which] we read three requisites. If, for instance, a person is going to have a baptism that lasts eternally, he must find first the right baptism; second, find a legal administrator to perform the ordinance for him; and third, have that ordinance sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit, in which event the baptism will admit the repentant person to a celestial heaven in the realms ahead. This matter of being sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise applies to every ordinance and every covenant and all things that there are in the Church. Do not talk about marriage and the Holy Spirit of promise unless and until you understand first the concept and the principle and its universal application.
“One of our revelations speaks of ‘the Holy Spirit of promise, which the Father sheds forth upon all those who are just and true’ (D&C 76:53), meaning that every person who walks uprightly, does the best that he can, overcomes the world, rises above carnality, and walks in paths of righteousness will have his acts and his deeds sealed and approved by the Holy Spirit. He will be, as Paul would have expressed it, ‘justified … by the Spirit.’ (See 1 Cor. 6:11.) Therefore, if a man is going to be married and wants a marriage that lasts for a week, or three weeks, or three months, or as long as is popular in the world today or even ‘until death do us part,’ he can be married by the power of man within the parameters and the limits that are set; he has that prerogative by the agency that the Lord has given him. But if he wants a wife to be his in the realms ahead, he had better find someone who has power to bind on earth and seal in heaven.
“In order to get a proper marriage one must do this: first, search for and seek out celestial marriage—find the right ordinance; second, look for a legal administrator, someone who holds the sealing power—and that power is exercised only in the temples that the Lord has had built by the tithing and sacrifice of his people in our day; and third, so live in righteousness, uprightness, integrity, virtue, and morality that he is entitled to have the Holy Spirit of God ratify and seal and justify and approve, and in that event his marriage is sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise and is binding in time and in eternity.
“So we Latter-day Saints struggle and labor and work to be worthy to get a recommend to go to the temple, for the Spirit will not dwell in an unclean tabernacle. We struggle and labor to get our tabernacles clean, to be pure and refined and cultured, to have the Spirit as our companion; and when we get in that state, our bishop and stake president give us a ‘recommend’ to go to the temple. We go there and make solemn and sober covenants, and having so done we then labor and struggle and work with all our power to continue in the light of the Spirit so that the agreement we have made will not be broken. If we do that, we have the assurance of eternal life. We do not need to tremble and fear; we do not need to have anxiety or worry if we are laboring and working and struggling to the best of our abilities. Though we do not become perfect, though we do not overcome all things, if our hearts are right and we are earnestly trying to follow a course to eternal life in the manner I indicate, our marriages will continue in the realms that are ahead. We shall get into the paradise of God, and we shall be husband and wife. We shall come up in the resurrection, and we shall be husband and wife.”7
- 1(1,2)
D. Todd Christofferson, “The Power of Covenants,” Ensign, May 2009, 19–23.
- 2(1,2)
Henry B. Eyring, “Moral Courage,” Liahona, Mar 2010, 4–7.
- 3
See comments at the end of this section, headed “Why blessed now?”
- 4
David A. Bednar, “Honorably hold a name and standing.” General conference, April, 2009.
- 5
The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “The family: A proclamation to the world,” 4^th^ paragraph.
- 6
Bruce R. McConkie, “Celestial Marriage: Part 2,” Tambuli, Apr 1979, 29.
- 7
Bruce R. McConkie, “Celestial Marriage,” New Era, June, 1978, 12.