OLD BOM 048 Being Reconciled to God

Transcription

1 OLD BOM 048 Being Reconciled to God By Mike Stroud It s good to have you here this morning again. Thank you for your faithfulness in coming to class. I pray that Heavenly Father s Spirit will be with us this morning. Today I want to talk to you about something that I think we need to be aware of as members of the church. I want Heavenly Father s Spirit to direct us so we understand correctly what I want to teach you. I don t want it to be misunderstood. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cannot save you. That s the first thing I want to say. The Church can t save you. The church can t change your heart. The church can t forgive your sins. In the church we sometimes place too much of our belief and values (I think that we fall into a little trap as members of the church and Satan is always eager to have us fall into that trap), we center our faith and everything that we hold dear in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints and that is a big mistake. You have a testimony of the church; you feel good about the church; you bear testimony that you know the church is true; and that s good. But if you are not careful, it takes you away from what should be your main focus of what the purpose of what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is. The church won t bring you back into the presence of the Father. The church is an organization. Where you need to be centered is not on the church; you need to be centered on Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ can save you; and will not the church. Jesus Christ can change your heart not the church. Anything that gets between you and the Savior, anything that comes between you and the Savior, will damn you. Men, organization or anything. You have to be real careful and see what the church is about. What is the purpose of the church? The purpose of the church is to bring you to Christ. That s the purpose. That s the whole purpose. Every program, every book, every talk, every general conference address, everything in the church covenants, ordinances, temples, everything, is designed to bring you to the Savior. So we need to remember what the purpose of the church is, and not center our whole lives, and our whole values on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is a wonderful organization. I am so grateful for my membership in the church. Everything that is good that has happened to me, to bring me to the Savior, has happened because of my membership in the church. I could not have been baptized a member of the church if the church had not been there. I could not partake of the sacrament every Sunday and renew all of my covenants without the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You can't just go up on the mountain up here and have a sacrament meeting. This man here holds the keys [in this location] as to where and who can partake of and officiate in a sacrament meeting. Right now we do it here within this beautiful building. I can't go to the temple without the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because the church administers all of the covenants and all of the ordinances of Jesus Christ. You can t have any ordinance or covenant without the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because that s where it s administered. We have handbooks to teach us how to make the church to operate. We get caught up in this if you're not careful we get caught up in the busy-ness of the church. When in reality, the purpose Page 1 of 13

2 of the church is to bring us to the Savior. That s the purpose. I don t want us to lose our focus on this. Everything is designed to come to Jesus Christ so that He can change you, sanctify you, perfect you, help you put off the natural fallen man, come to angels and have angels and the Holy Ghost take you to the Savior. And then guess what the Savior does? Once you come to the Savior, he takes you to the Father. The Holy Ghost and angels take you to church and then once you have come to Christ, the Savior, Jesus Christ, takes you to His Father. And the church is there to help us do that. When you go to the temple you make covenants. The first covenant is a covenant of obedience. You go to the temple and you enter into a covenant of obedience. That s number one. And there is a reason why it is number one. There is a reason why all of these covenants are in a sequence. One, two, three, four, five. Moving up. It starts with one and it goes all the way up to number five. Covenant number two is sacrifice. If you are going to become like your Lord and Savior, it is going to require from you sacrifice. Without sacrifice, there is no growth. What is the fourth verse of Praise to the Man say? Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. So, without sacrifice there s nothing that happens. You re going to be required to sacrifice something time, talents, whatever will be required. Covenant number three you covenant to live something called the law of the gospel. Maybe one time I will give a lesson on that what is that? What is the law of the gospel? Fourth covenant the law of chastity. The fifth one is the one I want to talk to you about. What is the purpose of the church? We can put up here, The fifth covenant is called the covenant of consecration. And the first four lead up to this, like a stair step. Obedience, sacrifice, law of the gospel, law of chastity, the law of consecration. In the temple what happens after you enter into the law of consecration, the next thing that happens is that you enter into the presence of the Lord you're taken into the presence of Jesus Christ. These are like a stair step. You are here and Jesus is up here, and here are these steps that lead you up to Him. The law of consecration says, You consecrate all of your time, talents and everything that the Lord has blessed you with, or everything that He may bless you with, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is the wording of the covenant. I am quoting the covenant for two purposes. You consecrate everything that you have time, talents, everything, you give to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for two purposes. Purpose number one: For the building of the Kingdom of God in the earth (this is what it says in the temple) Purpose number two: And for the establishment of Zion. I put up here, What's the purpose of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and right here in this covenant it tells you what the purpose is. Everything that you have you consecrate to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And if you are asked by your Branch President to fulfill a call, and you ve been to the temple and you ve entered into this covenant, and your Branch President calls you to serve, and you don t, you're breaking your covenant. You are now not a covenant keeper, you are a covenant breaker. Page 2 of 13

3 Now let s look at this for just a minute. What does it mean to build up the Kingdom of God in the earth? What is the Kingdom of God in the earth? It s right here it s the church. So what you are doing is you are covenanting to use your time and talents to help President [ ] build up the Tobegan Branch. Full-time elders like Sister Stroud and me and these two elders here, give their whole time for the building up of the Kingdom of God in the earth. That s what we re doing. We are stablishing and administering the church. Here is something you need to know. This here is a Telestial project, for lack of better terminology. Building up the kingdom of God where? In the earth. It s here. It s telestial. We re in a Telestial world now, and so we are to build up the church, administer the church, and help people know the church is here take you to the next level. The second purpose of the law of consecration of the church is to help you become Zion men and women. This Brothers and Sisters is a Terrestrial project. Before we can have a Zion place, we first must have a Zion people. So what is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints helping us to do? Bring people to the church, bring them out of Babylon, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, the sacrament, and the next thing is the church helps them become a Terrestrial person how to become Christlike, how to change your nature. But all of it is pointing towards who? It is all pointing towards the Savior because nothing can happen without our dear Lord Jesus Christ - He does it all. What I would like to do in our testimony meetings is change our focus a little bit. I would like to expand your focus in your testimony meetings. When you stand up and bear testimony, and you stand up and say, I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. But don t stop there! If you stop there and it doesn t go any further, the church is not fulfilling its purpose for you. You need to get from that point to, And I know that Jesus Christ is my personal Savior and redeemer. How I love Him. How He s helping me change my nature. How he s changing my heart. I want you to be able to get to a point where the gospel of Jesus Christ. Did you know there is a difference between the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the gospel of Jesus Christ? Those are two different things. Those are not the same. Those are different. The one brings you to the other. So if all we do is express our gratitude and feelings for the church, and that s all right, you should do that, but if it doesn t take you up past that then you are not experiencing what the Lord wants you to experience. He wants your heart to be changed. He wants you to get a feeling in your heart that when you talk about Jesus Christ, you talk about Him in these terms, He s changing me; my heart s changed; I see things differently I understand things differently; I look at people differently because He is inside me; His Spirit is inside me; I m being transformed; I'm being sanctified, I'm being cleansed, I'm being made holy. Isn t that wonderful how that works? Let s keep our focus on the Savior and nothing in-between you and Him. Don t stop in-between. Don t let your testimony be on the church. Let your testimony be centered in the Savior. And then guess what, down the road when you are tempted and when you are tried, you'll be able to withstand the temptation because you re built upon a foundation of Christ. Page 3 of 13

4 Let s go to Helaman 5:12. Let s see if this is true. Here is a scripture you may want to memorize. It s a scripture mastery scripture in seminary. I want you to notice how many times in verse 12 the church is mentioned.4 Helaman 5:12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. How many times is the church mentioned in verse 12? It isn t mentioned at all. What is the foundation? The foundation and organization that we teach as missionaries was that there was a great apostasy and that in this great apostasy the original New Testament church which had a foundation of apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone was taken from the earth and the apostles and prophets were all killed and then we restored that church in the last days in 1830 through the prophet Joseph Smith. And that church has a foundation of, according the Ephesians 2, the foundation of the church is apostles and prophets. What s the foundation mentioned here in the Book of Mormon in Helaman 12? The rock of our redeemer. That s where you want to put it. If you put your faith and values in anything less than church you are in danger. Use the tools. Use what the Lord s given us. Use general conference. Be faithful to the brethren. Listen to their word. But do you know what the general authorities are doing? They are pointing to Jesus Christ. President Monson and all of the Quorum of the Twelve, all of the Seventies, everything in the church, the organization itself are all pointing to HIM. Because nothing happens until you go to Him. Let me show you something else - that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a Telestial project and when we leave this Telestial world, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be left behind. Did you know in the millennium, in the Terrestrial world, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints won t be there. There will be another church. Do you know what the church is called in the Terrestrial world? It s called the Church of the Firstborn. Who is the Firstborn. Who is the Firstborn? That s Jesus Christ. So what the church in the Telestial world is doing is preparing you so that when we move into a Terrestrial level we will be qualified for membership in the Terrestrial church. The Terrestrial church is the church of the Firstborn. And there are ordinances that you have to go through in order to enter this church. What are the ordinances you went through to enter the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? First, you had to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is when you were not members. This is when you were outside the church. The missionaries taught you to have faith in church. As soon as you had faith in Christ you wanted to do something, you wanted to repent, because repentance Brothers and Sisters is the fruit of faith. Whenever you have faith, the first thing that you want to do is repent. If you don t have faith, you have no desire to repent. So the one leads to the other. Everything goes from portions to fullnesses, step-by-step. And repentance simply means this, you turn around from whatever direction you are going; turn around and face Christ. That s repentance. Page 4 of 13

5 If He s here and you are going ---> this way; stop going that way and you turn around <--- and you face Him and you go that way. That s repentance. And when He s here and you're not facing Him, the opposite of repentance is rebellion. So, you ve become a rebel and you need to repent and turn around and face Him. And then, after repentance and faith, the thing that you want to do is follow your master into the waters of baptism and follow His example. You enter into a covenant. These are the things that are required to get you into this church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And after you ve been baptized, somebody with the Melchizedek Priesthood lays their hands on your head and opens the door for you to receive the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. Whether you do that or not is up to you. If you continue to have faith and repent, and you ve been baptized, if you continue that, the Holy Ghost comes closer and closer to you revelation comes more you receive more. But if you don t face Christ, and turn around and rebel, even though you ve been confirmed a member of the church, you won t have the Holy Ghost. I promise you, you won t have it. The Holy Ghost only comes by obedience. Those are the ordinances that get us in here (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). What are the ordinances that introduce us to the church of the Firstborn? Have we entered into any of those ordinances yet? We ve all been baptized; we ve all received the gift of the Holy Ghost, have you been introduced to the ordinances of the Terrestrial heavenly church? Have you? You have! The minute you went into the temple. Initiated. Do you know what that means? An initiation is an invitation and an introduction for you to become a member of something. What s the first ordinance we participate in when we go to the temple? What s it called? Initiatory. It comes from the word initiation. So what s happening is, the minute you go to the temple, the first ordinance you participate in, Brothers and Sisters, is an ordinance called the initiatory. You're being initiated into something. You re being introduced and invited into something what? You re being prepared and introduced to become a member of the church of the Firstborn. Every ordinance in the temple is an ordinance of the church of the Firstborn. Does that mean when you have gone through all the temple ordinances that you are now a member of that church? No. It means you have to do something and you need to do more. There comes a point where an ordinance takes place and you actually become a member. See what the church is doing? The church is moving us upward, always upward. Even in the very beginning of the temple endowment, the Lord causes Adam and those of you who haven t been to the temple yet this is in a film our Father says to Jehovah, We will cause a deep sleep to come upon this man. So they put Adam to sleep. This is after he is formed. This is after he becomes a living soul his spirit is in his body and he is alive and the very next thing that Father in Heaven and Jehovah (Jesus Christ) do, is they say they will cause him to go to sleep. Then he goes back to sleep. And they bring him his wife. They bring him a woman her name is Eve. And then they wake Adam up and the first thing they say is, Adam, awake and arise. And he wakes up out of this sleep and he starts to understand things that he didn t understand before. He is progressing. He is being initiated into a process to bring him from where he is at, back to his father s presence. It s a step-by-step process, program, plan. Page 5 of 13

6 He brings in this woman and He says, We ve created this woman for you. She s going to be a helpmeet for you. All of the sudden, Adam was not alone in his journey. He has a helper. Somebody to support him. Somebody to be with him. Not out in front, not behind right here, next to him. This is the symbol of the rib. When Eve was made from the rib, that is symbolic. The Lord didn t open up Adam s rib, pull out a rib, throw it on the ground and say, Be thou a woman. That didn t work that way. It s a symbol. It s a one beautiful metaphor meaning that she was taken out of his side meaning that his wife should be right here close to him, under his arm. Not in front of him, not behind him, but right here close. And those two who were separate, now those two together make one. Isn t that beautiful? This is what the temple teaches you as you move forward. The purpose of the church, let your hearts, let your minds be focused on the rock of our Redeemer who is Christ the Lord. That is where we need to put our devotions; that s where we need to put our focus; that s where we need to place our hearts and our lives. There should be nothing more important and I mean nothing wife, husband, children, work nothing- comes before the Lord Jesus Christ in your life nothing. He is first and then everything else comes after that. The Savior first, and that s what the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is trying to teach you. If you come to that point, you don t have to worry about the future. You don t have to worry about danger; you don t have to worry about being deceived or falling away, you don t have to do that. Let s go over to Mosiah 5 and let me show you a beautiful scripture that talks about this. I love this scripture it means a lot more to me now than it did when I first read it. Just since I've been here in the Philippines it means a lot more to me. Think about what we ve talked about here for the last 35 minutes and think about this for a minute. Mosiah 5:15 Therefore, I would that ye should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal you his He can t do that if he s not the center of your affections. He can t do that if you re distracted and your loyalties are elsewhere, He cannot seal you to Him. Why does He want to do this? 15 that you may be brought to heaven, Who s going to bring you there? He is. And what's he going to do when He brings you? He s going to bring you and present you to His Holy Father. That s what coming to heaven is. This is not just a nice little trip up to some beautiful place, the purpose behind you being sealed to Christ is so that He can take you to the Father - and present you to the Father. And look at the rest of it. 15 that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, It isn t Christ, Brothers and Sisters, that bestows upon you eternal life. It s the Father. Put your finger here and go to 2 Nephi 31:20. We will come back to this. Let me show you who it is who bestows eternal life. Who is going to give you the gift of eternal life? The Holy Ghost? No. The Savior? No. It s going to be bestowed upon you by the Father. Look. 2 Nephi 31:20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ (there it is again, centered in Him), having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. Page 6 of 13

7 Now, go back to Mosiah again. Mosiah 5:15 that you may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of him who created all things, in heaven and in earth, who is God above all. Amen. See that! That s where we want to go. This is the first part of what I want to share with you today. Let s go to 2 Nephi 25 and let me talk to you a little bit about a term that is used in the Book of Mormon, and all the scriptures Doctrine and Covenants, really used a lot in the New Testament, and I want to help you understand it. Maybe you already understand it, but if you don t, I d like you to out today with a better understanding. I only want to read the first half of the verse we have already talked about the second half which is grace. Today I want to talk to you about the first half. These Nephites, watch how easy it is for me to do this. I had this pen and I had this whiteboard, and I put this on the board. That took, what, five seconds? What if I had to write that on a metal plate? How long would it take me to put those three words on a piece of metal using something called a stylus which is a little chisel. It s a little metal tool that you use to engrave on plates. How long would it take me to put that on a metal plate? It took me three seconds to do that. This is the way Nephi s writing. So, look, when it says in verse Nephi 25:23 For we labor diligently to write This is hard and what you have here today, written in English on a white page, took hours and hours, days and days, months and years. Mormon who abridged all of these plates into one small record, lived to be 73 years old and most of his life, when he wasn t fighting as a general and commander, was spent compiling, abridging, engraving and doing things on metal plates. It s a huge labor to do this - that we don t think about. 23 For we labor diligently to write (for what purpose?) to persuade our children, and also our brethren (To do two things the whole purpose of the Book of Mormon is to persuade us to, what?) to believe in Christ (I m not going to talk about that today, we talked about that one, it s the second one I want to talk about), and to be reconciled to God. (Who is this? This is God the Father. This is our Father.) Now, what does reconciled mean? And does reconciled come before or after believing in Christ? Does believing n Christ have to come first or can you be reconciled to God without believing in Christ? Can you do that? No. So this is the steps again. If you don t learn anything from Elder Stroud from these lessons, you ll learn that every time you see a stair step, you ll think about me, right, because this is what I ve taught you that everything moves from lower to higher, portions to fullnesses, a step at a time, here a little, there a little, line upon line, precept upon precept. And it s the same thing. This is another step. You have to believe in Christ before you can be reconciled to His Father. And who is the reconciler? Who does this? Who reconciles you to God? He does. Christ does. So, what does reconciled mean? It s a restoration, a coming back the best way I can describe this this word is used everyday millions of times in legal courts throughout the world. You have a husband and wife who got married and they loved each other and they are just so in love they are unified. Their covenant Page 7 of 13

8 of marriage makes them like this. And then something happens and they have an argument and they get angry with each other and what happens? As time goes by if you don t fix that they grow farther and farther and farther away. This can take place over years. Until, all of the sudden this man and woman who at one time were so much in love, and so happy to be together, are now way far apart. They are looking at each other and they are saying, What happened? That person you would have done anything for, now you can t think of anything good about them. All you think about is their weaknesses, their failings. You ve been separated. There s a separation. The wife thinks in her mind, We ought to give this another chance. We ought to try to save our marriage. And so they want to talk together, and every time they try to talk, it ends up in an argument. So every attempt to save this marriage ends up in a fight. Yeah, but, it s your fault. Well, you made me do it! If you hadn t said this I wouldn t have reacted that way. And so, every attempt just goes, ugh! And it just seems hopeless. Have you ever known anybody who has had an experience like this? This is very real. This is a very real deal that is happening all the time and it s happening right here in the Tobegan Branch. I ll bet it s even happened to somebody whose wife is sitting in this room. You all relate to this. So, you hire an attorney, a lawyer. You're separated and to keep it from going to divorce, you hire a lawyer and he tries to come between you and to bring you from this point closer, and hopefully to save the marriage and restore it. Bringing this together is called reconciliation. That s what that is. So if you are reconciled and you come back together, then you're united again and happy again and restored to unity. Now listen to these words I am using. Your family was saved. Your relationship was reestablished and saved. The keyword here is you saved this marriage. Now, Jesus is referred to in the scriptures, one of His names is the Bridegroom. This is one of His names. This is one of Jesus titles. He s the bridegroom. Well, you can't have a bridegroom without a bride. So, whose the bride? Us. We are all the bride of the bridegroom. Let s go over to the Bible and let me show you something that is very interesting. Go to John 14. This is the Savior speaking to His apostles and we are going to look at verse 18. This is just hours before Gethsemane just hours before Gethsemane. The Savior has told his apostles. I am going to leave you. And they are very upset. Where are you going to go? He says, Where I am you cannot come yet. In verse 18, look what he says, John 14:18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Now, I want you to look at your footnote under 18a and see what the Greek word for comfortless is. I will not leave you orphans. If you went back to the original Greek language, it wasn t Page 8 of 13

9 comfortless, it s orphans. What s orphans? No parents. So, here s Jesus and he looks at all of us as orphans right now. When you come down into this Telestial world, you become and orphan. You leave your mother and father in heaven. And the family is now separated and unless you have somebody who can reconcile you, restore you back to the family unit, bring you back one and in harmony and in joy; unless that happens you live and die an orphan. What is it that makes you an orphan? Why are you an orphan from your Father in Heaven? Why are you orphaned from Him? Because He is a perfect, sanctified, holy, Celestial, exalted man. And His wife is the same kind of woman. And when we come into this world we are just the opposite. We are unsanctified, our natures are carnal, sensual and devilish. We are sinful. This is all part of the plan. This is all supposed to be. But your natural state, unreconciled, your natural state makes you an orphan. What s more, it s impossible for Heavenly Father to reclaim you. You are in an orphaned state and your Father in Heaven cannot save you. By himself, he cannot reclaim you. Heavenly Father cannot reconcile these orphans back to his heavenly family. Do you know why He can t do it? Do you know why it s impossible for God the Father to reclaim you and bring you back? Student: Justice separates you. Mike: But can t He have enough power to do that? Doesn t He have mercy? Can t He forgive and say, That s okay, I forgive you. And set aside justice and bring you home? I feel bad that you are out of My presence; I miss you, let me reclaim you and bring you home. He can t do that. Why? There is no mercy without Jesus Christ. So God can t extend mercy except through His Son. Here s something else. Do you know what it takes to save you from this condition? Do you know what it means to bring you back into the family from your orphaned state? Do you know what is required to reclaim you? A God has to die. Just let that one sink in for a minute. A God has to come down and take upon Him a mortal body, subject to pain, and disease, and has to be killed. A God has to die in order to bring you back and reconcile you to your Father in Heaven. A God has to die. Not just suffer; but suffer, bleed and die as our hymn says. Sister Stroud: My mind is wondering why Heavenly Father who is a God can t do that. Mike: Thank you. Why can t Heavenly Father do that; that s what has to happen. Why doesn t the Father just do it himself? He s already resurrected. A person who s resurrected, has already gone through that process of birth, death and resurrection - and a resurrected being can t die. So it requires somebody other than your Heavenly Father to come down and give His life voluntarily so that you can be reconciled. Now, let s go back to the family. Mom and dad are not getting along. They tried, and somebody tried to reconcile and they just say, No, it s too late. So they go to court and now that ends in a divorce. So it goes from unity, to argument, to separation, and eventually divorce. Where that family ceases to exist. And when the court fills out the papers - that are called the divorce papers - on the divorce papers, do you know what the judge s reason for this divorce was? These are the words used in the divorce papers, it s also the words used in a Philippino court it s used everywhere in the world when a divorce happens here s the reason, Irreconcilable differences. Page 9 of 13

10 Irreconcilable differences is what is written on the final papers. When you get your divorce and the family is over the family is now destroyed then this is the reason the judge prints on the papers, irreconcilable differences. What this means in an eternal state is, after you resurrect, and you are brought back into the presence of the Lord, if you have not allowed Christ to reconcile you to the Father, your relationship with the Father ends as a family and you become an orphan in eternity. The scriptures say you end up separate and single in your saved but not exalted condition. Reconciled. What a beautiful statement that is. Let s look at another scripture let's go to Jacob 4. This word is used throughout the scriptures. If you can get a feel for what this means it will open up the scriptures to you. Jacob 4. Now as you read this you are going to read it with a different eye. This is going to make more sense to you. Let s go to verse 11. Jacob 4:11. And there are so many of these, but these two are enough for us to understand and get a feel for this. Jacob 4:11 Wherefore, beloved brethren, be reconciled unto him (to whom? That him there is the Father) through (Through what? HIS only begotten Son) the atonement of Christ, his Only Begotten Son, and ye may obtain a resurrection, according to the power of the resurrection which is in Christ, and be presented as the first-fruits of Christ unto God, having faith, and obtained a good hope of glory in him before he manifesteth himself in the flesh. We could teach a two or three hour lesson on verse 11. We could do that easily. There is so much in here. I just want to hit on one thing here. Watch. If you become reconciled to God, the Father, through who? Through Christ, then watch what He says here you will obtain, what does that say? You will obtain a resurrection. Isn t that strange wording? You will obtain a resurrection through the resurrection which is in Christ. So watch, this is where you have to learn to study the scriptures and be a scripture detective. I hope that my classes will help you learn how to deeply research and search the scriptures. Why a instead of the? Why doesn t He say if you are reconciled to God through Christ and the atonement you will obtain the resurrection? He doesn t say, the. He says a. Why? The resurrection is for all. Remember that anybody who has been born and died will resurrect. Student: Maybe there are different kinds of resurrections. Mike: Bingo! So what this means is different types of resurrection. Now notice the word a and the you may obtain a resurrection through the resurrection. You just can t read that because one of the blessings of Jacob of being reconciled to the Father through the atonement of Christ is to obtain what he calls a resurrection through the resurrection. So what are we talking about here? There are different kinds of resurrections. Look at these three groups. Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial. All of them will resurrect, is that right? That is pointing to this one ( a ). All of them will resurrect. But now watch, but this one will resurrect with a Celestial body. This one will resurrect with a Terrestrial body and this one will resurrect with a Telestial body. And there is a fourth group. There is another group sons of perdition. And they will resurrect with an S of P body. These are the son of perdition who were born and had a life and who died. This isn t the one-third who were cast out and followed Satan. This is people like Cain. And they will resurrect also. These bodies look different. Do they all have heads and hair and fingernails and toes and feet. Yes, they all have that, but they look different. For example, this kind of body can have children Page 10 of 13

11 after the resurrection these bodies can t. There is no family here. Do they have bodies? Yes. Do they look like bodies? Yes. Do they have hair, eyes, nose, teeth, can they speak? Yes. But there are what? There are limitations. You can t take for example, you can t take this body, a Telestial body, and have it live in a Terrestrial world. They won t do it. It can t do it. Let me give you an example. My friend is an American and his wife is a Philippino and he wants to take her to America to meet his family. She has never been to America and she has never met his family. They have been trying for several months now to get an American passport for her and have it stamped with a visa. If she doesn t have that visa, she can t go to America. So the other day they went to Manilla and sat down with a lady and after they got through, somebody in authority stamped that visa and she can now go to America. Your body is a visa. Your resurrected body is a visa. It allows you to go somewhere where you would otherwise not have been allowed to go without it. So a Telestial body is a visa to go into a Telestial kingdom. Now let s come back up here, watch, which one is the best body? This is the best. You ve heard this good, better, best. This is good, this is better, and this is best. When Jacob is saying. be reconciled unto him through the atonement of Christ, his Only Begotten Son, and ye may obtain a resurrection which one do you think he s talking about? This one, Telestial? This one, Terrestrial? Or this one, Celestial? Even in a Celestial, there are different degrees too. So a person who resurrects here and here (this is just Celestial world, this is just Celestial) a person who has a body that puts you in the highest degree of the Celestial world is a different Celestial body than these two here, than the lower two parts. So everything is graded. So what Jacob is telling us here, he understands this very well, Brothers and Sisters. He says, Don t just be satisfied to resurrect, because everybody is going to resurrect. Everyone is going to get a body, and if you sit back and do nothing, if you're a rebel or if you re casual, you ll get a resurrection, but you won t get a good one. See, there are different levels on this. And remember that each one of these resurrected bodies permits you certain blessings and advantages that you can't have if you have a lower body each resurrection takes you up and increases your power, increases your knowledge, increases your advantages and increases your progression in eternity. This is very important that you understand this. Let me take you to another scripture that points this out. This is an advantage to being reconciled. This is a huge advantage, but if you weren t careful you would read that in Jacob and you would just go, oh, obtain a resurrection, according to the power of the resurrection which is in Christ. Oh, that s nice, and away we go, and we miss it. Now let's go to Hebrews 11 in the Bible and let me show you the last thing as we end up our class. Hebrews 11. Paul the apostle understands this information here. He is teaching you, another witness in the New Testament of what Jacob is teaching. What Paul is talking about are the members of the New Testament church. Page 11 of 13

12 We could make a little change up here and put the Church of Jesus Christ of New Testament Saints. Because these are the people who live at the time of Christ, Peter, James and John. Those are the members of the church. What happened to them? What happened to these members? If the Romans came in and captured them, if you were a Christian at around 100 A.D.. if you were a Christian, you were hunted. And if you were found, you were either killed or made a slave or you were hauled off to Rome to be part of entertainment for Roman citizens. [edited graphic description] If your membership is founded on the church you can t receive this reconciliation. Is there hope and power if your testimony is founded on Joseph Smith. Is it important for you to know Joseph Smith was a true prophet? Yes! Is it important for you to know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, yes! These men and women that we are talking about here went beyond that. And somehow through the atonement of Christ were founded on the Savior, on the rock of our Redeemer who is Christ the Lord. That is where you and I need to be, because can I tell you that between now and the second coming, things are not going to be good. Things are going to be difficult. Our young men and sisters, especially our young men have an opportunity now to go out and give two years of unselfish, full-time service to the Savior, Jesus Christ, to do what? To build up the Kingdom of God on the earth and establish Zion. That two years will do more to reconcile you to your Father through Jesus Christ than any other period of time in your life. And you re going to need that reconciliation because if you, the bride, are not united in a holy symbolic marriage with the bridegroom, you just won t make it through the days that are coming. I am not trying to scare you it s just a fact. You won t make it because the days that are coming are designed to test us and to prove us to see where our hearts are. I have a friend who saw the Savior and talked to Him face-to-face. It s happening quite a bit. You can do this. In fact, He wants to meet with you. Not symbolically. He wants to meet with you. Literally. And this person saw the Savior, and as he stood there and he adored Him and embraced Him, and he loved Him He called him by name and said [name] where s your heart? Not, where s your membership, where s your heart. And the greatest miracle of all is not raising the dead, the greatest miracle of all is not parting the red sea. The greatest miracle of all is the change of the human heart. And it s the only miracle that man cannot perform. All of the miracles of Jesus Christ men have performed, but this one, can only be done by the Savior- change your heart. So my friend was asked by the Savior, Where s your heart? Do you know what my friend said? This is interesting. I looked at the Savior of the world and I could not answer His question. It was not said in judgment. It was said in love. All I felt was overwhelming, crushing love. There was no, what s wrong with you, you know you re not doing the right thing, shame on you, you're not worthy. None of that. Just LOVE. And the question, where s your heart? Does this make sense, what we ve talked about today. Do you understand what it means to be reconciled? Do you understand why you need to be reconciled? Let me put these last words on the board. These will sum up what we are trying to say. Be Loyal to the church. You make a covenant in the temple. The covenant of sacrifice to sustain and defend the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to sustain and defend the church. You make that covenant. Be loyal and defend the church and be founded in Christ. Page 12 of 13

13 As you are loyal to the church and sustain and defend the church, He will further found, make you founded, change you, sanctify you, make you holy, make you a Zion Terrestrial man and woman in Him. This will happen. Be loyal to the church, but be founded in Christ the rock. There s a reason He s called the rock - the Rock of Israel, the Stone of Israel not sand but the stone of Israel. Page 13 of 13