Being saved by grace and living far beneath our privileges part 3

Joseph Smith taught, quite profoundly,

Every man lives for himself. Adam was made to open the way of the world, and for dressing the garden. Noah was born to save seed of everything, when the earth was washed of its wickedness by the flood; and the Son of God came into the world to redeem it from the fall. But except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. This eternal truth settles the question of all men’s religion. A man may be saved, after the judgment, in the terrestrial kingdom, or in the telestial kingdom, but he can never see the celestial kingdom of God, without being born of water and the Spirit. He may receive a glory like unto the moon, [i.e., of which the light of the moon is typical], or a star, [i.e., of which the light of the stars is typical], but he can never come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and church of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, unless he becomes as a little child, and is taught by the Spirit of God. Wherefore, we again say, search the revelations of God; study the prophecies, and rejoice that God grants unto the world Seers and Prophets. They are they who saw the mysteries of godliness; they saw the flood before it came; they saw angels ascending and descending upon a ladder that reached from earth to heaven; they saw the stone cut out of the mountain, which filled the whole earth; they saw the Son of God come from the regions of bliss and dwell with men on earth; they saw the deliverer come out of Zion, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob; they saw the glory of the Lord when he showed the transfiguration of the earth on the mount; they saw every mountain laid low and every valley exalted when the Lord was taking vengeance upon the wicked; they saw truth spring out of the earth, and righteousness look down from heaven in the last days, before the Lord came the second time to gather his elect; they saw the end of wickedness on earth, and the Sabbath of creation crowned with peace; they saw the end of the glorious thousand years, when Satan was loosed for a little season; they saw the day of judgment when all men received according to their works, and they saw the heaven and the earth flee away to make room for the city of God, when the righteous receive an inheritance in eternity. And, fellow sojourners upon earth, it is your privilege to purify yourselves and come up to the same glory, and see for yourselves, and know for yourselves. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.–E&MS August, 1832. DHC 1:282-284. (TPJS page 12)

We need to realize that when we say that we are saved by grace that THESE are the grace we are talking about. They are manifested to men through the gift of the Holy Ghost.

We live far beneath our privileges. We know this. 

But whether or not we are interested in “the abundance of the manifestations of his spirit”, we should at least have our doctrine straight.

When we say we are saved by grace, the spiritual gifts and privileges we live far beneath with neither concern nor remorse are the graces we are talking about.

Consecration and the abundance of manifestations of the Spirit

I just read part an excellent talk by Orson Pratt, it was JD 7:308 “Privileges and Experience of the Saints”. I think I have an answer for the question that pervaded the talk and I want to write it down. He states:

I often reflect upon this subject much, and inquire in my own mind, and try to search out some of the causes of our being so far beneath the privileges which are guaranteed to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not because the promises of God have failed. It is not because we are not worshipping the same Being whom the Saints worshipped in ancient days. It is not because there are insurmountable obstacles in our way; but the cause lies in our own selves. We are the individuals that shut out this light of heaven—this light of truth that would otherwise shine upon our understandings. Do you ever compare yourselves with those people that we read of in ancient times that were called the people of God? I mean some of the best of them. Not but that there were individuals who lived then, professing to be the children of God, who were just as imperfect in their ways and doings and conduct as some of us are. But, then, there were others who lived in ancient times who were far in advance of us. They attained to greater faith and to greater privileges than those we enjoy.

And I want to remember a note that I wanted to post about this matter, because I think the answer may be found in a scripture that I ran across recently.

D&C 70:14 Nevertheless, in your temporal things you shall be equal, and this not grudgingly, otherwise the abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit shall be withheld.

It makes me think of Orson Pratt’s talk because that is exactly what he describes: the abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit being withheld.

We need to get back to the living consecration as something we really think about. The Lord won’t hold it against us if we go ahead and do so. There were various attempts to do so among the Saints in Brigham Young’s day which Brigham Young openly encouraged. The Lord never holds doing good against us.

I wonder how we could bring an interest in such a thing about among our modern day Latter-day saints.

Saved by grace and living far beneath our privileges – part 2

Joseph Smith taught:

All men know that they must die. And it is important that we should understand the reasons and causes of our exposure to the vicissitudes of life and of death, and the designs and purposes of God in our coming into the world, our suffering here, and our departure hence. What is the object of our coming into existence, then dying and falling away, to be here no more? It is but reasonable to suppose that God would reveal something in reference to the matter, and it is a subject we ought to study more than any other. We ought to study it day and night, for the world is ignorant in reference to their true condition and relation. If we have any claim on our Heavenly Father for anything, it is for knowledge on this important subject. Could we read and comprehend all that has been written from the days of Adam, on the relation of man to God and angels in a future state, we should know very little about it. Reading the experience of others, or the revelation given to them, can never give us a comprehensive view of our condition and true relation to God. Knowledge of these things can only be obtained by experience through the ordinances of God set forth for that purpose. Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject.

So according to Joseph Smith, yes, we are saved by grace. We are saved by grace in the sense that the word grace really means. We are saved by the generous and merciful gifts of God, for that is the scriptural meaning of the word grace.

We cannot grant ourselves the ability to gaze into heaven five minutes. That has to come from God. There is no substitute for doing so. It is also simply outside our power. It has to be bestowed, as a merciful gift, as a grace from God.

The grace we hope to be saved by is, in fact, precisely the privileges that we know we live far beneath without any particular care or concern.

We know that we will be resurrected by the grace of God. We think that is not a privilege we will need to live up to. It will simply be done to us at a certain time.

But Brigham Young gave us a great more information about the resurrection. We will be resurrected when we live up to that privilege. Yes, we cannot do it to ourselves. Yes, it is a gift of God.

And yes, just like all the gifts of God, it will be given to us when we live up to it.

Put differently:

D&C 130:20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated –
21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.

And as it is with our physical redemption, so it is with our spiritual redemption. We are saved by grace, MEANING, we are saved through the marvelous gifts god grants to us. But those gifts are offered to us on conditions, and we meet those conditions by our works.

By and large we know that we live far beneath our privileges. It is important to realize that those privileges we are unconcerned about are precisely the grace that God wishes to save us by.

Gospel teaching measured by making people feel congratulated

Teaching the gospel among members these days is mostly measured by one’s ability to make people feel good about themselves. A good gospel teacher these days is someone who mostly makes people feel congratulated.

You can see this in LDS websites. They suffer from Nehor syndrome. They measure their success by how popular they are. Before long, they notice what people like to hear and that becomes, over time, more and more of what they present. They feel sucessful. They bask in their popularity.

Saying what needs to be said, speaking the plain truth plainly, soon becomes a problem for these sites. It causes lots of hurt feelings and disagreeable comments. Church PR itself may step in and discourage it at times if a site is popular enough.

It is interesting that we read of Christ and his plain teaching and yet we worry about being appealing. We need to be valiant in the testimony of Jesus, but we so like the applause that before long we have talked ourselves into thinking that being valiant in the testimony of Jesus means avoiding plain, hard, objectionable, and uncomfortable truth and saying what will be popular instead. One wonders just how often we have read the new testament. Why don’t we know that being valiant in the testimony of Jesus means doing as he did, speaking the truth plainly fearlessly, and without compromise as he did, and, if it becomes necessary one future day, even paying the due price in our blood to those who are angered by the truth as was required of saints of old, knowing that the price to know God is a privilege to pay.

Heber J Grant: Forgiveness dependent on repentance, and devil only has power as we do wrong

I ran into a copy of Gospel Standards by Heber J Grant at Deseret Industries shortly before moving out of Utah. So thrilled to have found it. Heber J Grant was in that period where the conference reports aren’t freely available.

It was compiled by G Homer Durham under the direction of John A Widstoe and Richard L Evans.

Here is a sample, taken from page 32, as I first flip through the book and I am thrilled because without hesitation we incorporate D&C 76 into the meaning of Christ’s words in the new testament, but for some reason, we quote Christ in the new testament on forgiveness as if the fuller message of D&C 98 was just a big stupid joke or something. Here is the quotation from Heber J Grant.

———————–

Repentance. There is nothing in the world that is more spendid than to have in our hearts a desire to forgive the sinner if he only repents. But I want to say, do not forgive the sinner if he does not repent. “By this shall ye know that a man has repented, that he confesses his sin and forsake it, and is guilty no more.” It is up to the Lord, however, and unless they confess their sins we are not obligated to forgive, but when they really and truly repent, it is one of the obligations that rest upon us to forgive those who have sinned. -RSM, 23:341

The devil is ready to blind our eyes with the things of this world, and he would gladly rob us of eternal life, the greatest of all gifts. But it is not given to the devil, and no power will ever be givne to him to overthrow any Latter-day Saint that is keeping the commandments of God. There is no power given to the adversary of men’s souls to destroy us if we are doing our duty. If we are not absolutely honest with God, then we let the bars down, then we have destroyed part of the fortifications by which we are protected, and the devil may come in. But no man has ever lost the testimony of the gospel, no man has ever turned to the right or to the left, who had the knowledge of the truth, who was attending to his duties, who was keeping the Word of Wisdom, who was paying his tithing, who was responding to the calls of duties of his office and the calling of the Church. -CR, October, 1900:60