Different Degrees of Glory.

[ALarson]

4 hours ago, california boy said:

Maybe deceptive is the wrong word.  The church makes such. a big deal out of "being sealed".  But what is the big deal?  What can a person do who is sealed to his parents that a person who is not sealed to his parents do?

I have asked that of members in discussions as well.  Most just say they don't know.

The whole sealing thing gets very messy when one actually starts analyzing actual situations.  I know of men and women who divorced and had their sealing cancelled who have children.  Some have been told the children remain sealed to both of them if they remain worthy.  So how does that look in the afterlife if both the husband and wife get sealed to other spouses and both go to the Celestial kingdom?  How about if they have more children with their new spouses?  I can go on and on with other examples that get messy too.  Many just simply have to concede that hopefully God will sort it all out.

Then there's the dynastic sealings back in the early days of the church.  Polyandry and men sealed to men as their sons, etc.  Brigham Young and others have children that are sealed to Joseph Smith....again one can go on and on.

Bottom line for me is that it is love that seals us together or binds us.  We will be with those we love (if they also desire to be with us).  

Edited June 11, 2018 by ALarson

[Tacenda]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

 I know of families where there are members who can't stand to be with each other.  Would you force them to be together to satisfy the desires of other members of their family to be together.

Would you, if possible, force one of your adult children to live next door, attend all the family reunions and holidays, put their own desires on hold for the needs of the group if they did not desire to be there?

Would you be deceptive to claim you made it possible for your family to be together if you gave that family member every chance to be there with the others, but they refused?

I listened to a Sunstone Symposium online with Carol Lynn Pearson, where they talked about her book, The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. Then people in the audience shared personal experiences and someone shared that their husband passed away within 18 months of their temple marriage. And after, when she would date it was difficult because the men would realize or knew that they wouldn't be able to be sealed to her.

She eventually found someone that married her anyway, and they had a child together. So if the plan is true, in the next life she will have to be back with her first husband, and their child wouldn't be sealed to anyone. So I guess it's extremely messy and hard to believe God would put up walls like that. 

But I'm almost sure you or someone else will say she can go to her bishop and then to the leaders about getting that changed, but from the sound of it that didn't occur or they were unable to do that. Of course I listened to this in the wee hours of the morning, so I may have it wrong.

 

[Bernard Gui]

On 6/9/2018 at 6:50 PM, changed said:

 

and those who have been abused, who have no family to be sealed to, who end up with anxiety and mental disorders and kill themselves because they were tried beyond their limits of endurance... the victims of war, the refugees, those not brought up in any church ...

how about those who cannot be happy without being sealed to their mother/father/brother/spouse - if your family chooses outer darkness etc. will you be happy?  you did not really love them anyways?  how exactly does that work out?  just get sealed to a stranger and forget everyone you knew in this life?

just?  there is nothing just or merciful in this life for many people.  

some get the easy route, others are tried beyond their limits of endurance.  

Forgiveness is the greatest gift of God. The time may come when we will yearn to forgive as we have been forgiven. The blood of Christ can wash it all away. That’s why he suffered for us.

Quote

So, when you are encompassed by sorrows and grief, behold the Man.

 When you feel lost or forgotten, behold the Man.

When you are despairing, deserted, doubting, damaged, or defeated, behold the Man.

 He will comfort you.

 He will heal you and give meaning to your journey. He will pour out His Spirit and fill your heart with exceeding joy.

He gives “power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.....”

 

As you accept His sacrifice, become His disciple, and finally reach the end of your earthly journey, what will become of the sorrows you have endured in this life?

They will be gone.

The disappointments, betrayals, persecutions you have faced?

 Gone.

 The suffering, heartache, guilt, shame, and anguish you have passed through?

Gone.

 Forgotten

Faith, hope, charity.

[Ahab]

On ‎5‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 11:42 AM, changed said:

 

Some believe getting sealed in the temple will allow them to be with their family for eternity... for me, the temple has torn my family apart.  

Is it ok to strive to be a guardian angel rather than... ↑↑↑?   The imperfect people I know and love are all imperfect guardian angels (not temple-recommend carrying saints)...  It is just a small little flock up there, and I would be kidding myself to think I was strong enough for all of that.  The kinds of tests that are dished out on this earth, I would never do that to anyone.  I hate all of the divisions and hierarchies on earth - heaven is going to be divided too? I just don't understand how anyone could ever be happy or strive for a "heavenly" hierarchy?  It just does not sound like heaven to me... 

I know everyone is going to jump on the free-will bandwagon, but I don't know anyone who is not interested in being loved and giving love - in a perfect educational system everyone could be taught to attain the same level of joy - to me it is not about free will, it is about providing correct educational experiences to everyone.  

thoughts? comments?  

I do not have a temple recommend over this.  I do not have a testimony that this system brings joy to everyone, or that this system binds families together.  

Somehow I have a feeling that everyone is providing educational experiences to everyone, and always will, and that every lesson will work out to teach everyone correctly. It just takes longer for some than for others.

We all choose who much of an education we want, though, just as we choose which educational experiences we will have, with some thinking and feeling like they are done before they have become as perfect as they could be.

[JulieM]

3 hours ago, ALarson said:

I have asked that of members in discussions as well.  Most just say they don't know.

The whole sealing thing gets very messy when one actually starts analyzing actual situations.  I know of men and women who divorced and had their sealing cancelled who have children.  Some have been told the children remain sealed to both of them if they remain worthy.  So how does that look in the afterlife if both the husband and wife get sealed to other spouses and both go to the Celestial kingdom?  How about if they have more children with their new spouses?  I can go on and on with other examples that get messy too.  Many just simply have to concede that hopefully God will sort it all out.

Then there's the dynastic sealings back in the early days of the church.  Polyandry and men sealed to men as their sons, etc.  Brigham Young and others have children that are sealed to Joseph Smith....again one can go on and on.

Bottom line for me is that it is love that seals us together or binds us.  We will be with those we love (if they also desire to be with us).  

I love this post.  You express my feelings exactly!!!

[Eek!]

7 hours ago, ALarson said:

...it is love that seals us together or binds us.  We will be with those we love (if they also desire to be with us).  

Given that a fairly large percentage of marriages that are "sealed for time and all eternity" in the temple end in divorce, obviously "sealed for time and all eternity" doesn't mean "forced to remain together against your will".   Instead, what actually seems to work (in this life anyway) is love, and I would imagine that, if anything, there are fewer barriers to love in the next life than in this one.

In other words, I agree completely with your statement.  I believe that our associations in the next life will be based on natural affinity rather than on oaths made (or not made) in this life.    

Edited June 11, 2018 by Eek!

[cinepro]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

She eventually found someone that married her anyway, and they had a child together. So if the plan is true, in the next life she will have to be back with her first husband, and their child wouldn't be sealed to anyone. So I guess it's extremely messy and hard to believe God would put up walls like that.

 

I'm pretty sure the policy or doctrine (or guess) on this is that the child will be sealed to the first husband.  The second husband is "raising up seed" unto the first, as it should be.

Truly, the gospel is simply wonderful and wonderfully simple.

[Ahab]

7 minutes ago, Eek! said:

Given that a fairly large percentage of marriages that are "sealed for time and all eternity" in the temple end in divorce, obviously "sealed for time and all eternity" doesn't mean "forced to remain together against your will".   Instead, what actually seems to work (in this life anyway) is love, and I would imagine that, if anything, there are fewer barriers to love in the next life than in this one.

In other words, I agree completely with your statement.  I believe that our associations in the next life will be based on natural affinity rather than on oaths made in this life. 

I think that if a man and woman want to be with each other forever, in what we consider to be a "married" type of relationship, that they will be able to be because that is what we offer to do for them in temples, even if they haven't already done it themselves in this life.

Even if they don't call it a "marriage", as we do.

Even if they don't consider their acceptance of that offer to be something that will get them labeled as being "Mormon" or "latter-day saints".

Even if one or the other of them has already been what we call "sealed" to someone else.

Not everything that people think of love is truly love, though.  Love will not cause someone to do something that is wrong for the other, even if one or the other considers that wrong to be good.

Sometimes what we understand something to be isn't what it really is, and vice versa.  And yes words sometimes do get in the way of correctly understanding each other, or some other thing.

[Eek!]

8 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Not everything that people think of love is truly love, though.  Love will not cause someone to do something that is wrong for the other, even if one or the other considers that wrong to be good.

Absolutely agreed! 

It's easy to think of scenarios where someone gets cheated in the next life because of who was or was not sealed to this or that person in this life.

However if God is love, and if "love will not cause someone to do something that is wrong for the other", then God has figured out a Heaven that wrongs nobody, where one person's gain is not another person's loss, but instead is everyone's gain.  

[cinepro]

37 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Even if they don't consider their acceptance of that offer to be something that will get them labeled as being "Mormon" or "latter-day saints".

Even if one or the other of them has already been what we call "sealed" to someone else.

Not everything that people think of love is truly love, though.  Love will not cause someone to do something that is wrong for the other, even if one or the other considers that wrong to be good.

 

That's one of the great things about the gospel.  Ultimately, you can just kind of wave your hand and say "Oh, maybe this because the thought of it makes me happy..." and it becomes so.  Much more so if you're a leader.

The ideas about "sealing" and "eternal marriage" get even more flexible because we are constantly trying to adapt them to our modern culture and ideas about "love" and what kind of relationships make us happy.  It's one of the parts of LDS Doctrine that got redefined based on ideas of romantic love as seen in Doris Day movies in the 1960s, and we've been trying to maintain and preserve those ideas as if they were eternal and established before the world was.

People just don't like the original ideas about sealings and eternal marriage, where families have an org chart with the husband at the top and his wives arrayed beneath him, providing endless increase.  Marriage and exaltation was hard work (like homesteading in the Utah territory), and involved sacrifice and subsuming your desire to marry the cute boy down the lane and instead being sealed to the cute boy's grandfather, because you were supposed to be on his org chart.

In the Church, we don't pick our callings based on what we want to do or what we "love" to do.  We don't pick our Ward based on who we want to be with.  We don't pick where we serve our missions based on where we want to go.  So the idea that we pick our eternal companions based on how we feel and who we "love" would probably make Joseph Smith and Brigham Young spit up in their mouths a little bit.

That's why the doctrine is so quick to dead end into nonsense once we get past the Hallmark card version of a happy family.  Because life is messy and complicated and ever changing, and the doctrine of "Eternal Families" promises an eternal life that is clean, simple and never changing.  It's as great as we can possibly imagine, but if we look at reality, it quickly becomes evident that it exists only in our imaginations.  Unless we wave our hand and God comes along to somehow make it all better.  Because magic.

[Ahab]

8 minutes ago, cinepro said:

That's one of the great things about the gospel.  Ultimately, you can just kind of wave your hand and say "Oh, maybe this because the thought of it makes me happy..." and it becomes so.  Much more so if you're a leader.

The ideas about "sealing" and "eternal marriage" get even more flexible because we are constantly trying to adapt them to our modern culture and ideas about "love" and what kind of relationships make us happy.  It's one of the parts of LDS Doctrine that got redefined based on ideas of romantic love as seen in Doris Day movies in the 1960s, and we've been trying to maintain and preserve those ideas as if they were eternal and established before the world was.

People just don't like the original ideas about sealings and eternal marriage, where families have an org chart with the husband at the top and his wives arrayed beneath him, providing endless increase.  Marriage and exaltation was hard work (like homesteading in the Utah territory), and involved sacrifice and subsuming your desire to marry the cute boy down the lane and instead being sealed to the cute boy's grandfather, because you were supposed to be on his org chart.

In the Church, we don't pick our callings based on what we want to do or what we "love" to do.  We don't pick our Ward based on who we want to be with.  We don't pick where we serve our missions based on where we want to go.  So the idea that we pick our eternal companions based on how we feel and who we "love" would probably make Joseph Smith and Brigham Young spit up in their mouths a little bit.

That's why the doctrine is so quick to dead end into nonsense once we get past the Hallmark card version of a happy family.  Because life is messy and complicated and ever changing, and the doctrine of "Eternal Families" promises an eternal life that is clean, simple and never changing.  It's as great as we can possibly imagine, but if we look at reality, it quickly becomes evident that it exists only in our imaginations.  Unless we wave our hand and God comes along to somehow make it all better.  Because magic.

Not sure what you were suggesting here.  That not every married couple loved each other in the past?  That even couples who were forced together because of circumstances, without love, will somehow for some reason choose a reason other than love to be together forever?

I'm sure even Joseph Smith and Brigham Young would approve of loving our spouses, however many spouses we have, regardless of the circumstances that brought us together with them.  Endless marriage without mutual love, real love, would be very depressing.

[cinepro]

26 minutes ago, Ahab said:

I'm sure even Joseph Smith and Brigham Young would approve of loving our spouses, however many spouses we have, regardless of the circumstances that brought us together with them.  Endless marriage without mutual love, real love, would be very depressing.

It might be depressing, but based on the wording of the Temple sealing ceremony, it's entirely optional.

[Eek!]

38 minutes ago, cinepro said:

It might be depressing, but based on the wording of the Temple sealing ceremony, it's entirely optional.

The temple ceremony is of no effect in the next life if not sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise.  I doubt that the Holy Spirit of Promise comes from someplace where love is optional.   

If God is love (and not the Doris Day version), then I seriously doubt that The Plan is anything less.  

It is easy to find and justify a pessimistic interpretation, one might even say that's the path of least resistance.  But it isn't all that difficult to find and justify an optimistic intepretation.  There is a wide enough variety of "evidence" out there that we pretty much see what we want to see.  

Edited June 11, 2018 by Eek!

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Ahab said:

I think that if a man and woman want to be with each other forever, in what we consider to be a "married" type of relationship, that they will be able to be because that is what we offer to do for them in temples, even if they haven't already done it themselves in this life.

Even if they don't call it a "marriage", as we do.

Even if they don't consider their acceptance of that offer to be something that will get them labeled as being "Mormon" or "latter-day saints".

Even if one or the other of them has already been what we call "sealed" to someone else.

Not everything that people think of love is truly love, though.  Love will not cause someone to do something that is wrong for the other, even if one or the other considers that wrong to be good.

Sometimes what we understand something to be isn't what it really is, and vice versa.  And yes words sometimes do get in the way of correctly understanding each other, or some other thing.

So you are arguing that proxy sealings can have full effect while rejecting all the other ordinances that clearly tie you to the LDS faith? Why do we not allow that in mortality then? Why do I have to get baptized, confirmed, receive the Priesthood, and deal with other temple covenants first?

You thinking it sounds nice does not seem to me to be a good reason to change covenants. That is how apostasies get started you know.

[changed]

On 6/10/2018 at 3:35 PM, mfbukowski said:

How about losing your whole family in the holocaust and being imprisoned in a concentration camp and there finding your meaning in life?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man's_Search_for_Meaning

https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/3403095/mod_resource/content/1/56ViktorFrankl_Mans Search.pdf

 

Some are refined in the fires, others lose their faith... see Heshel Reissman describes trying to maintain faith during the Holocaust  https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/video-testimonies.html

20 hours ago, USU78 said:

Question: Cutting yourself off from the Temple helps you how, exactly?

I am trying to be there for other family members who are also unable to attend the temple.  I can be closer to them, if I am there with them through this.

18 hours ago, Calm said:

For those who say how can they not want to be with family, how do you reconcile a lack of desire to be with God since he is certainly family to each and every one of us...assuming LDS belief (if you don't assume LDS belief, then no need to discuss which of the kingdoms you wish to end up in)?

It just doesn't sound consistent to me.  If it is family that is the ultimate driver of one's desires, then why is the Father and one's Brother and Mother not considered an intimate part of that as well?

It is not about being with G-d (if He really is our Father, and really is loving, merciful etc.)  ... it is about becoming like g-d, it is about becoming a parent as g-d currently is, and not wanting to follow in what appears to be ↑↑'s parenting style... not wanting to dish out the tests that are on this earth, not leaving people helpless etc.

11 hours ago, california boy said:

Maybe deceptive is the wrong word.  The church makes such. a big deal out of "being sealed".  But what is the big deal?  What can a person do who is sealed to his parents that a person who is not sealed to his parents do?

and, are sealings even eternal?  if g-d can "cease to be g-d" - there are scriptures for this,  it does not seem like anything is really eternal.  anything can be lost.

4 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Forgiveness is the greatest gift of God. The time may come when we will yearn to forgive as we have been forgiven. The blood of Christ can wash it all away. That’s why he suffered for us.

Faith, hope, charity.

I try not to hate anyone... I just hate nature, hate circumstances, hate ignorance... I can put my blame on non-human entities... that is, except g-d, I find a hard time not blaming g-d - if He is powerful, if He is not stopping the horrors... I just do not understand that.

4 hours ago, Ahab said:

Somehow I have a feeling that everyone is providing educational experiences to everyone, and always will, and that every lesson will work out to teach everyone correctly. It just takes longer for some than for others.

We all choose who much of an education we want, though, just as we choose which educational experiences we will have, with some thinking and feeling like they are done before they have become as perfect as they could be.

The end will justify the means for everyone? I don't know that we choose our educational experiences.  

[Calm]

2 hours ago, cinepro said:

That's one of the great things about the gospel.  Ultimately, you can just kind of wave your hand and say "Oh, maybe this because the thought of it makes me happy..." and it becomes so.  Much more so if you're a leader.

The ideas about "sealing" and "eternal marriage" get even more flexible because we are constantly trying to adapt them to our modern culture and ideas about "love" and what kind of relationships make us happy.  It's one of the parts of LDS Doctrine that got redefined based on ideas of romantic love as seen in Doris Day movies in the 1960s, and we've been trying to maintain and preserve those ideas as if they were eternal and established before the world was.

People just don't like the original ideas about sealings and eternal marriage, where families have an org chart with the husband at the top and his wives arrayed beneath him, providing endless increase.  Marriage and exaltation was hard work (like homesteading in the Utah territory), and involved sacrifice and subsuming your desire to marry the cute boy down the lane and instead being sealed to the cute boy's grandfather, because you were supposed to be on his org chart.

In the Church, we don't pick our callings based on what we want to do or what we "love" to do.  We don't pick our Ward based on who we want to be with.  We don't pick where we serve our missions based on where we want to go.  So the idea that we pick our eternal companions based on how we feel and who we "love" would probably make Joseph Smith and Brigham Young spit up in their mouths a little bit.

That's why the doctrine is so quick to dead end into nonsense once we get past the Hallmark card version of a happy family.  Because life is messy and complicated and ever changing, and the doctrine of "Eternal Families" promises an eternal life that is clean, simple and never changing.  It's as great as we can possibly imagine, but if we look at reality, it quickly becomes evident that it exists only in our imaginations.  Unless we wave our hand and God comes along to somehow make it all better.  Because magic.

Apparently God wasn't satisfied with the original ideas about sealing because he gave instructions on how to do them a better way to Wilford Woodruff.

I suspect that it was something along the line of 'I have seen how you have tried to do your best with the one talent sealing I have given you, here is a two talent sealing'.

Should we be anticipating a five talent sealing based on how we commit to making the most of the two talent sealing or should we just assume this is all that God intends to give us sealingwise?

For me, not only is it logical to speculate that how sealings function throughout eternity among a perfect loving family with no emotional hang ups and no severing of emotional or physical ties due to death or divorce or separation will be very, very different than how they function in mortality, we have several quotes about how our current knowledge and experience of the eternal ordinances is incomplete (post two in a few minutes, got to do Mom stuff).  I really don't get why anyone is insisting to judge sealings in eternity based on how we experience them now.  Sure, judge their current effect on us in how they may strengthen or hurt current relationships, but why increase pain by pushing the idea those problems are eternal ones?

[Eek!]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

Apparently God wasn't satisfied with the original ideas about sealing because he gave instructions on how to do them a better way to Wilford Woodruff.

Pardon my ig'nernce.   Could you elaborate?

[Ahab]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

Apparently God wasn't satisfied with the original ideas about sealing because he gave instructions on how to do them a better way to Wilford Woodruff.

I suspect that it was something along the line of 'I have seen how you have tried to do your best with the one talent sealing I have given you, here is a two talent sealing'.

Should we be anticipating a five talent sealing based on how we commit to making the most of the two talent sealing or should we just assume this is all that God intends to give us sealingwise?

For me, not only is it logical to speculate that how sealings function throughout eternity among a perfect loving family with no emotional hang ups and no severing of emotional or physical ties due to death or divorce or separation will be very, very different than how they function in mortality, we have several quotes about how our current knowledge and experience of the eternal ordinances is incomplete (post two in a few minutes, got to do Mom stuff).  I really don't get why anyone is insisting to judge sealings in eternity based on how we experience them now.  Sure, judge their current effect on us in how they may strengthen or hurt current relationships, but why increase pain by pushing the idea those problems are eternal ones?

I feel you on this, I think, being in an usual situation, myself. Not that there aren't others in the same or a similar situation as me and my wife and her first husband who had died when I met my wife who still has her sealing to her first husband.  Any other sealing ordinance could just be an elaboration on the details of how things will work out with the 3 of us, though, with all 3 of us being sealed to each other as well as the children from their first marriage.  I'll be sealed to my wife, who is and will continue to be sealed to her first husband and their 2 children, and I will be sealed to their children by being sealed to my wife who will still be sealed to her children;, and her first husband.  I will share in everything she has, as she shares in everything that I have, some of which is and will continue to be shared by her first husband.

I'm sure we'll all get to be good friends with each other, if we all have a celestial degree of glory/intelligence.  How could we not be.  It's the most intelligent way to be. It's all just a matter of how we will be connected to each other.  I think of a sealing as a life link to a person that helps us to find them and be with them when otherwise we may not know where they are considering they could be anywhere in the universe. 

[clarkgoble]

39 minutes ago, Calm said:

Apparently God wasn't satisfied with the original ideas about sealing because he gave instructions on how to do them a better way to Wilford Woodruff.

I think a lot of Woodruff's actions were systematizing what Joseph Smith told Brigham on the way to Utah -- at least according to Brigham who said Joseph visited him and told him a lot of the sealing/adoption was wrong. (One wishes Joseph had mentioned something about blacks and the priesthood while he was at it)

However I doubt you'll get many changes because most changes end up raising the spectre of polygamy and particularly polandry. Something the Church doesn't want to touch right now.

But it's undeniable there are some big missing pieces in our theology about sealing.

Edited June 11, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Calm]

1 hour ago, changed said:

 

I am trying to be there for other family members whoIt is not about being with G-d (if He really is our Father, and really is loving, merciful etc.)  ... it is about becoming like g-d, it is about becoming a parent as g-d currently is, and not wanting to follow in what appears to be ↑↑'s parenting style... not wanting to dish out the tests that are on this earth, not leaving people helpless etc.

and, are sealings even eternal?  if g-d can "cease to be g-d" - there are scriptures for this,  it does not seem like anything is really eternal.  anything can be lost.

I try not to hate anyone... I just hate nature, hate circumstances, hate ignorance... I can put my blame on non-human entities... that is, except g-d, I find a hard time not blaming g-d - if He is powerful, if He is not stopping the horrors... I just do not understand that.

The end will justify the means for everyone? I don't know that we choose our educational experiences.  

I doubt the ends will justify the means, I think it is more we don't understand the means at this time like an infant cannot understand why they are in pain due to surgery to correct a faulty heart valve, for example.  From what I have seen, the parents suffer emotionally and to a certain extent even physically watching their infant suffer, but they will often allow or even vigourously demand very painful, corrective surgery so their child can survive.  I consider God to be in that situation for reason we as his (infant in eternal awareness and knowledge) children do not comprehend.  I am guessing the universe including people can only operate in certain ways, God cannot remove the horrors of mortality without destroying the benefits of mortality.****

I don't know if Exaltation requires us to act in the same way our Father does.  Perhaps that is why our Mother is not as present, she will not be a part of those able to tolerate watching others in pain even with her awareness of what it will bring them.  I doubt that, I think it is more people putting her aside than her stepping back, but it occurred to me as I thought of whether or not exalted beings were required to function as Heavenly Father and His Son function to remain or rather be in the first place exalted...at this point I don't remember anything that does.

Even if exaltation requires fulfilling such a role, it is not the only way to be part of the Celestial Kingdom.  So sealings can be a benefit of far more than just exalted beings in my understanding.

The scriptures of God ceasing to be God sound more like a logic problem using impossibilities to show what won't happen than a discussion of reality.  Iirc, the logic is denied by saying God will never cease to be God, not saying it could happen.

****God is powerful not in the way that means he can do whatever he wants, but because he knows how things work according to Joseph Smith:

Quote

In knowledge there is power. God has more power than all other beings, because He has greater knowledge; and hence He knows how to subject all other beings to Him. He has power over all.

https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-22?lang=eng

Edited June 11, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

49 minutes ago, Eek! said:

Pardon my ig'nernce.   Could you elaborate?

 

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mormonism_and_polygamy/The_Law_of_Adoption

Quote

I have not felt satisfied, neither did President Taylor, neither has any man since the Prophet Joseph who has attended to the ordinance of adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt that there was more to be revealed upon the subject than we had received. Revelations were given to us in the St. George Temple, which President Young presented to the Church of God. Changes were made there, and we still have more changes to make, in order to satisfy our Heavenly Father, satisfy our dead and ourselves. I will tell you what some of them are. I have prayed over this matter, and my brethren have. We have felt as President Taylor said, that we have got to have more revelation concerning sealing under the law of adoption."

President Woodruff then announced to the General Conference and particularly to the presidents of the four temples in Utah that he had gone "before the Lord" to know who he should be adopted to and that the "Spirit of God" instructed him that he should be sealed to his natural father. Prior to this time it had been the practice to be sealed to the "prophets and apostles" in the Church. President Woodruff now pronounced the prior practice an incorrect procedure and called upon the membership of the church to accept as a revelation this announcement, which incidentally he had previously presented to his counselors and to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. [1]

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, changed said:

Some are refined in the fires, others lose their faith... see Heshel Reissman describes trying to maintain faith during the Holocaust  https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/video-testimonies.html

Of course.

The point is that some can make it and you can be one who does if you want to.

You actually have to put in an affirmative action to create/maintain meaning in your life.  That step is your choice, unless of course there are some who suffer from various mental illnesses and even those can be overcome  in some cases.

I know a person myself who has overcome schizophrenia through the gospel- and no longer takes meds.  He has devoted his life to helping the homeless.  He is about as close to the traditional picture of a "Saint" as I have ever known personally.

Edited June 11, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Calm]

Quotes showing there is more to the gospel (or God's teachings that bring salvation) and the endowment that we will learn in the next life and additional ordinances we will receive (so sealings as we know them are therefore incomplete):

https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-22?lang=eng

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When you climb up a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the gospel—you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil [died] before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world; it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.

 

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“It is not wisdom that we should have all knowledge at once presented before us; but that we should have a little at a time; then we can comprehend it.”²²

The quote Eek found for me earlier in the thread...implication is we don't know what sealings will eventually look like because we currently could not describe them...we can of course describe how the sealings are now and Brigham could have easily done so as well...and yet he couldn't even after he saw the sealing pattern:

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Joseph then showed me the pattern, how they were in the beginning. This I cannot describe, but I saw it, and saw where the Priesthood had been taken from the earth and how it must be joined together, so that there would be a perfect chain from Father Adam to his latest posterity. Joseph again said, “Tell the people to be sure to keep the Spirit of the Lord and follow it, and it will lead them just right.”

While we may not understand how commandments and ordinances get us there, the path they create is joy:

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In obedience there is joy and peace unspotted, unalloyed; and as God has designed our happiness—and the happiness of all his creatures, he never has—he never will institute an ordinance or give a commandment to his people that is not calculated in its nature to promote that happiness which he has designed, and which will not end in the greatest amount of good and glory to those who become the recipients of his law and ordinances. (Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.71)

https://scottwoodward.org/happiness_godslawscalculatedtomakeushappy.html

sealing knowledge came over time:

http://scottwoodward.org/sealingpower_whytheyusedtosealpeopletoprophets.html

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In the early days of the Church the Saints didn't know how to use this [sealing] power in behalf of the dead. Overjoyed when given the knowledge that they could baptize for the dead, they went to the river and began doing so. Elder Wilford Woodruff recalled those days as follows: "[Joseph Smith] never stopped till he got the fulness of the word of God to him concerning baptism for the dead. But before doing so he went into the Mississippi River, and so did I, as well as others, and we each baptized a hundred for the dead, without a man to record a single act that we performed."

It seems they just ran out to the river and began baptizing for their ancestors.

And then this: "Why did we do it? Because of the feeling of joy that we had, to think that we in the flesh could stand and redeem our dead. We did not wait to know what the result of this would be, or what the whole of it should be." (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 153.)

Similarly it took time for the Saints to understand the matter of sealings. They knew that there was a sealing, yet they didn't know quite what it was, so they began by getting themselves sealed to living prophets. I remember a story about that. Mantua, the little valley up above Brigham City, Utah, originally belonged to Abraham Hunsaker. Elder Lorenzo Snow, who founded the city and was president of the stake, persuaded Abraham Hunsaker to take Honeyville and give him Mantua, because they had a lot of Saints coming in from Scandinavia, and that little valley up in the mountains looked more like Scandinavia.

There was a little Danish woman up there about whom we in Brigham City used to hear this story. It seems that sometimes when she had visitors she felt close to—home teachers, for example—she would take them into the bedroom and then close the door. They'd wonder what this was all about until they would see on the back of the door a picture of President Lorenzo Snow, and she would say: "That's President Snow. I sealed to him."

Well, people used to be sealed to the prophets.

In April 1894, this changed. In general conference President Wilford Woodruff explained a little about what the Saints had been doing, and from the pulpit he talked to the temple presidents—"President Lorenzo Snow of the Salt Lake Temple, President M. W. Merrill of the Logan Temple, President J. D. T. McAllister of the Manti Temple, and President D. H. Cannon of the St. George Temple, and those associated with them." He told them: "You have acted up to all the light and knowledge that you have had; but you have now something more to do. We have not fully carried out those principles in fulfillment of the revelations of God to us, in sealing the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers."

For some time he had not felt satisfied with the way this important matter was being handled.

When I went before the Lord to know who I should be adopted to (we were then being adopted to prophets and apostles), the Spirit of God said to me, "Have you not a father who begot you?"

"Yes, I have."

"Then why not honor him? Why not be adopted to him."

"Yes," said I, "that is right."

I was adopted to my father and should have had my father sealed to his father, and so on back. And the duty that I want every man who presides over a temple to see performed from this day henceforth and forever, unless the Lord God Almighty commands otherwise, is, let every man be adopted to his father. That is the will of God to this people.

And that's when we got the lineage straightened out and we knew what this sealing of families was all about.

President Woodruff continued:

What business have I to take away the rights of the lineage of any man. What right has any man to do this?

I say to all men who are laboring in these temples, carry out this principle, and then we will make one step in advance of what we have had before.

Myself and counselors conversed upon this and were agreed upon it, and afterwards we laid it before all the apostles who were here (two were absent) and the Lord revealed to every one of these men—and they would bear testimony of it if they were to speak—that that was the word of the Lord to them. I never met anything in my life in this Church that there was more unity upon than there was upon that principle. They all feel right about it, and that it is our duty. That is one principle that should be carried out from this time henceforth.

We want the Latter-day Saints from this time to trace their genealogies as far as they can, and to be sealed to their fathers and mothers. Have children sealed to their parents, and run this chain through as far as you can get it. This is the will of the Lord to this people, and I think when you come to reflect upon it you will find it to be true. (Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p. 153-57.) 

The Prophet Joseph Smith very specifically said the word turn as Elijah used it or as it is used in the book of Malachi means "seal." Seal, bind, turn—that's what we're about. (Things of the Soul, p.214-216)

 

Edited June 11, 2018 by Calm

[Eek!]

35 minutes ago, Calm said:

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mormonism_and_polygamy/The_Law_of_Adoption

Thank you.  I had wondered what happened to the Law of Adoption. 

Quoting Wilford Woodruff:   

"When I went before the Lord to know who I should be adopted to (we were then being adopted to prophets and apostles), the Spirit of God said to me, "Have you not a father who begot you?"

"Yes, I have."

"Then why not honor him? Why not be adopted to him." 

"Yes," said I, "that is right."

I'm not convinced, and am not ready to concede that Wilford Woodruff's change was necessarily an improvement, in the sense of being a closer analog to the way things are in Heaven.  But ultimately I don't think it matters - I don't think an "incorrect procedure" has any power to hold anyone back.  Woodruff's change certainly was a simplification. 

I still think the real pattern is probably whatever Joseph showed to Brigham, as recorded by Brigham on February 23, 1847 (quoted in the 15th post of this thread; for some reason I can't make a simple link like you just did). 

Edited June 11, 2018 by Eek!

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

So you are arguing that proxy sealings can have full effect while rejecting all the other ordinances that clearly tie you to the LDS faith? Why do we not allow that in mortality then? Why do I have to get baptized, confirmed, receive the Priesthood, and deal with other temple covenants first?

You thinking it sounds nice does not seem to me to be a good reason to change covenants. That is how apostasies get started you know.

I was thinking about how words sometimes get in the way of someone accepting the gospel, or learning more about it.  My Dad and his second wife do not accept some parts of the truth relative to the gospel, as our Church teaches it, for example, and I think a lot of that is because they tune out when particular words are mentioned.  Like Joseph Smith, or Mormon, or temple sealing ordinances.  But I think they will accept these truths later when they are taught by people who don't claim to be "Mormons".  They do want to be with each other, as man and wife, forever, but at the moment they do not believe that is possible.  LDS telling them it is possible, notwithstanding.

I've had visions of them talking with people on the other side about baptism, too, for example. At some point they're going to hear something like "we don't have you on our records as being baptized".  They both believe baptism is necessary for salvation, and they both believe they have already been baptized.  He is a preacher of the church they accept as the true church of Christ, believing that one to be it, and he understands from the Bible that baptism is necessary for salvation.  But they're going to hear from someone beyond the veil that they (our Church reps) don't have any record of them being baptized, and they're going to hear from them, then, that they (who we would call "our" missionaries) are members of the church of Christ . And they (our missionaries) are going to ask them if would like to be baptized, to have it on record. And I don't think our missionaries there are wearing or going to be wearing name tags saying "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", or calling themselves "Mormons" or "latter-day saints".  And it would be better if they didn't, to avoid bringing up negative connotations my parents have when they hear those words.

So my point is that I'm sure our Father and his servants, including his missionaries on the other side of the veil, have ways to reach people who have negative and false connotations associated with particular words, such that they can teach the truth without using those particular words.  They can teach the correct principles and the correct ideas while using other words without those negative and false connotations.  No need to even mention Joseph Smith, because they won't need to have a history lesson about how the true gospel and true priesthood of God was at one time restored to us by that man.   For some people it's just extra baggage that prevents them from hearing and accepting the truth.  All they really need to know is what our Savior wants to teach them, whatever the name of our true Savior is.