The gospel of brokenness and the gospel of God

We live in a day when many people are troubled, even in the church. It has become popular, in some circles, to use the word “broken” and to say that everyone, or that many people are broken. They congratulate each other in discussions of their “brokenness”.

If this was the realization that the people of King Benjamin had, who saw their own state that it was less than the of the earth, and so they cried out to God to have this wicked spirit rooted out of their breasts, that would be a very great thing. But no. There is no distress, but rather a sort of camaraderie they have toward one another about all being broken together, and they flatter themselves into believing that all is well.

We must repent. We are not even claiming the natural spiritual blessings that were common among non members in the 1940s and 1950s. We no longer claim the blessings of family stability and unity that come by adhering and requiring strict decency in what we bring into our own homes. Thus the non members of last century, by adhering to a more moral life more strictly have greater claims on the blessings of the home and family than the members of God’s true church are claiming for their own families in this day.

Our media, our friends, and Paul’s writings on the company we keep

We sell our birthright for a song.

Or a video.

Or a book.

Or a website.

It is through our media that the adversary has so thoroughly silenced the Holy Ghost among us.

We don’t believe that he has.

But I invite you to try some things for a few years.

Don’t watch anything, or read anything, or listen to anything which is, in the least bit, provocative, sleazy or immodest. Don’t watch anything, or read anything, or listen to anything which is, in the least bit, portrays immorality or gender apostasy as normal or acceptable.

There is counsel in the scriptures that we have all but forgotten.

1 Corinthians 5:9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

Now Paul is perfectly plain that when he says not to company with fornicators, he is not meaning simply everyone that commits a sort of fornication with the world. He doesn’t mean not to company with people just because the are covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, because then we would need to actually go out of the world. He does explain in the succeeding verses that if a member of the church is involved in any of those things they need to be cut off.

But when it comes to the big moral sins, such as fornication, Paul says not to company with people involved in them.

Now that is saving counsel right there. It is inspired. If we would teach that to our children from their youth up we would lose far, far, far fewer of them.

Of course, it means to literally “not company with fornicators”.

Certainly that includes friends that think nothing of pornography, and would pass it on to our youth.

But we also company with them constantly through our media. We think nothing of watching a show with adultery being portrayed as normal and acceptable, particularly if it doesn’t “show anything”. We don’t think anything of it even involving us in the act, portaying a woman being seductive. We cannot look upon such things and be obeying Paul’s counsel.

Such things are offensive to the Holy Ghost. We may do many things that are pleasing to the Holy Ghost, but we habitually partake of that which offends him and think it makes no difference in our lives.

Temple work and family.

I sometimes run into those who do not see family temple work through eyes of faith. They see cards with names printed on them, but do not think of the actual people those cards represent.

My daughter recently turned eight and was baptized. Imagine if when the time for the baptism arrived the bishop had picked out whoever caught his eye first and asked that person to do the baptism. Most of us would recognize that something was wildly wrong if I was sitting there ready and willing to do the baptism, but some local authority intervened, acting like he had the right (which he doesn’t) and assigned someone else to perform the baptism of my own daughter as I sit there.

But you can go to the temple and some people there do exactly the same thing. People bring the names of their own ancestors and relatives to the temple. They can be sitting there ready and willing to do the ordinance, and some local authority at the temple will think they have the right to ignore family relationships and just give the ordinance out to whomsoever they see fit.

The dead are as real as we are. They have families, just as we do. I sometimes wonder whether they are not shocked at our ignorance of their own reality, and of their own family. There are those who do not have sufficient faith and they ignore that these dead ancestors are perfectly real, and they ignore that these dead ancestors have families, just was you or I do. It is because they don’t have the faith. They say they do, but in reality they just see a card with a name printed on it. They want efficiency or convenience and lack the faith needed to see the truth.

We cannot be made perfect without our fathers, and they cannot be made perfect without us. Work for the dead is a family affair. If we cannot be made perfect without the fathers, then we should not treat these relationships lightly at the temple. If the fathers cannot be made perfect without us, then we should not treat family relationships lightly when doing work for our dead.

When we are doing family history and we find an ancestor name, it not infrequently happens that we feel that ancestor telling us they want us to research and do the temple work for some of their other descendents, who are not our direct ancestors. What does that mean? It means that ancestor either knows that the person desires to receive the gospel, and would like their work done by you, or it means that the ancestor who is prompting you is committing themselves to actually take the gospel to those relatives if you do the work. When we feel prompted to extend the work to other relatives than our direct ancestors, feeling whispers by an ancestor to do work for another relative, or by a relative to do the work for themselves, we can trust those promptings from beyond the viel. If we follow the Holy Ghost we can always have confidence that what is going on beyond the veil matches up with the work we are prompted to do on this side of the veil. The holy ghost will always lead us right.