Gaze Into Heaven Five Minutes - Ralph Wall July 28, 2019

Gaze into Heaven Five Minutes

(by Ralph Wall, Arbon Branch, July 28, 2019)

When I was younger I remember that almost every testimony borne in any given fast and testimony meeting included a statement attesting to the fact that through the prophet Joseph Smith the true gospel of Christ had been restored or from the younger ones simply that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.  This was true so much so that our detractors often accused us of worshiping Joseph Smith.  It took a concentrated public relations effort over a long period of time to adjust this perception that outsiders had of us.  It didn’t help that the commonly known name of the church was the Mormon church, excluding the name of Jesus Christ.  In great measure I think the public relations effort succeeded, but now honestly it seems like I seldom hear anyone testify of Joseph Smith.  For me this is kind of sad.  There was a period in my life when I read everything that I could find that Joseph wrote or that was written about Joseph.  I came to love Joseph and to have a strong testimony of him and his work.  I want to bear my witness that I know that Joseph was a prophet of God.  I know that he translated the Book of Mormon because I have read it and have received that personal revelation in the deepest depths of my heart.  I know that Christ restored his church and priesthood through Joseph Smith.  I feel guilty when I compare my own feeble efforts to the courage and valor with which Joseph carried out his calling in the midst of incredible adversity, and just how very much he accomplished in his short life.  

Now, Joseph Smith once said “Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject.” (Teachings: Joseph Smith, page 419).  This quote brings me to the topic I hope to address today.  It is a question of theory versus practice.  It turns out that I am an engineer.  If I accurately describe my job as an engineer, it is basically to reduce the scientific theory to a useful practice.  The science itself is mostly useless if you don’t put it into practice.  But by the same token, if in our attempt to make something practical, we don’t base it properly on sound theoretical principles, then no matter how hard we try, it isn’t going to work very well.  I know that some of you are farmers.  You probably understand this better than I do, but I love farmer analogies because they are so easy.  You might be tired of hearing them, but again they are just too easy not to indulge in.  For example, your grain and hay won’t grow without water.  I’m sure there are days when you wish it would.  But I’m sure there is theory that you can apply to get the most out of every drop of water, from the fertilizer you apply, to the way you treat the soil before planting, to the seed that you use, the crops that you plant, and to the daily prayers that you offer.  Proper understanding and application of the sound theory can make the difference between a profitable crop or financial loss.  Just knowing the science won’t help; you have to apply the principles.  The same is certainly true of the gospel.

Joseph Smith was a master at understanding the principles and applying them precisely.  It began very early in his life with his study of James 1:5 and the prayer he offered in the grove.  It ended for him in mortality with his eventual martyrdom, sealing his work and testimony with his blood. He never wavered.  What a great example he was.   

Elder Bednar said in his recent conference talk “Each member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an individual responsibility to learn and live the Lord’s teachings and to receive by proper authority the ordinances of salvation and exaltation… Our personal responsibility is to learn what we should learn, to live as we know we should live, and to become who the Master would have us become.” (End quote).  That charge is to each of us individually; ultimately our own individual personal responsibility is to “become who the Master would have us become.”  In other words, you can’t blame anyone else.  I know it says in the scriptures that if your parents did a bad job the “sin be upon the heads of the parents.” (D&C 68:25).  Even sometimes when my now grown children say or do something they shouldn’t my wife will give me that accusing look as if I were to blame.  In the end though, I don’t think this doctrine would be a wise loophole to hang your hat on.  Elder Bednar went on to say “our homes are the ultimate setting for learning, living, and becoming.”  We have all heard much about the new “Come Follow Me” program.  My message today is to make a simple point about the new program that it is definitively not intended to be a study in theory only.  Reading and studying will do us absolutely no good, and might even be to our own detriment if we don’t make every effort to apply the learning to our living and to our becoming.  The science must be reduced to practice.  Again, Elder Bednar gave us the formula, “our homes are the ultimate setting for learning, living, and becoming.”  If our Come Follow Me attention is focused all on the learning, we will at best only be addressing one third of the critical equation.

Here is an example.  When I was growing up my parents went to the temple on a very regular basis.  I know, because my older siblings would be left in charge and it seemed like frequently they would beat me up.  So, I didn’t really like temple night all that much.  I can never remember my parents ever verbally teaching me anything at all about the temple.  Maybe they didn’t really know what should and should not be shared; for sure we didn’t have an internet with church websites full of training and instruction resources about temples.  And although we often had family home evenings, these were seldom if ever a source of joy or instruction to me; I blame the failed family home evenings on the bad attitudes of my siblings.  I wonder if there is a scripture that says the sin be upon the heads of the siblings.  I think there really should be.  Later in life my parents spent more than 10 years as ordinance workers in the Boise Temple, and my dad continued in the Twin Falls temple for another 6 years after my mom had died and up until he died himself.  If they had temple preparation classes back when I first went to the temple, I don’t think anyone ever invited me.  But it didn’t matter because my parents had given me the most important temple preparation lesson.   The temple demands a regular high priority and devotion.  I had learned by their example that you should not deny yourself the blessing of regular temple attendance.  By living the principle, my parents became more like Christ.  It made them better parents.  Every time I go to the temple I remember my parents as I use the temple clothing that they gifted me 38 years ago.  They taught me to cherish time spent in the temple.

Now consider what happens if in your home study you teach your children or your spouse or even yourself about the temple but then seldom if ever go to the temple yourself. This could possibly do more damage than good.  Whenever we say one thing and do another, it is a dangerous example to set, and I think this kind of example is most accurate and evident in the home itself where we spend so much of our time.  Of course the opposite is equally true.  I’ve been married 35 years, and if there is one thing I have learned in those 35 years it is that I cannot fool my wife.  She knows me too well.  A better way to say this is that my wife’s daily good influence and example has significant power to help me to better live the Come Follow Me principles and over time to become more like our Savior.   Conversely for example, my wife is an interesting study.  Because she learned most all of her English from me, if I ever were to hear her use inappropriate words in English, I would be pretty sure that they had come from my poor example.

Returning to Joseph Smith, he said that “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.” (End quote).  I am reasonably confident that when Joseph spoke of “experience through the ordinances of God” he was referring not simply of our receiving the saving ordinances, but more importantly of our life long struggle to keep the covenants associated with those ordinances.  And as important as it is to understand the theory, or better said the truth, behind the ordinances of God, Joseph envisioned for us our own personal “comprehensive view of our condition and true relation to God,” our own view into heaven if you will, which comes only through our sincere efforts to put the doctrines into daily practice.  The personal revelation will come.  Elder Bednar said, “the overarching purpose of Heavenly Father’s plan is for His children to become more like Him. Accordingly, He provides us with essential opportunities to grow and progress.” (End quote).  I believe that in large measure these essential opportunities best consist of studying it out for ourselves, particularly the ordinances of God, and then applying the learning to how we act.  I believe that our behavior is particularly telling in the setting of our homes.  For example are we kind and compassionate with those we live with?  Kindness and compassion are godly characteristics.  When we pray and seek for opportunities to serve God, do we look first for opportunities within the walls of our own homes?  We can learn much of repentance from the scriptures from the likes of Enos, Saul, Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah, Martin Harris, and others, but we will never truly understand repentance and the atonement except from the frequent vantage point of our own sore knees in the back of a closet in our own home.  When Joseph said that by gazing only briefly into heaven we would know more than we could ever learn through theoretical study, I believe he truly wanted us to actually gaze into heaven.  I believe that by sincerely striving to learn and live the gospel doctrines and ordinances in our homes, we will come to recognize that heaven is indeed near, even at our door.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.