Lessons on the Temple
Lesson No. Twenty-Four

Families are Central to the Plan of Salvation

The organizing the eternal family was the final act of creation - When everything else on the earth had been organized the Father Himself organized the first eternal family when he sealed Adam and Eve as husband and wife and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.

In our dispensation the Lord sent Elijah to restore the power to organize eternal families.  Without the sealing power and eternal families there would be no purpose in the plan of salvation. President Joseph Fielding Smith in Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. II gave a remarkable explanation of how the use of the sealing power protects the earth and fulfills the purpose of the plan of salvation.  We should regularly participate in temple proxy sealings and be reminded of these great teachings: 

• “Elijah came to restore to the earth…the fullness of the power of priesthood.  This priesthood holds the keys of binding and sealing on earth and in heaven of all the ordinances and principles pertaining to the salvation of man, that they may thus become valid in the celestial kingdom of God….The power effects and vitalizes every ordinance performed by duly commission officers holding divine power on the earth.” 

• “Through the power of this priesthood which Elijah bestowed, husband and wife may be sealed, or married for eternity; children may be sealed to their parents for eternity; the family is made eternal, and death does not separate the members.  This is the great principle that will save the world from utter destruction.”

• “The sealing power of Elijah makes it possible for this joining of the families, generation to generation, back to the beginning….[Without this] the earth would be smitten with a curse, for all work which had been done, without these binding or sealing ordinances, would fall to the ground unfulfilled.”

• “If Elijah had not come, we are led to believe that all the work of past ages would have been of little avail, for the whole earth, under such conditions, would be utterly wasted at his coming.  Therefore his mission was of vast importance to the world….It is the sealing of parents and children to parents, so that there should be a ‘whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and power, and glories,’ from the beginning down to the end of time.”

•  “If the sealing power were not on the earth, then confusion would reign and disorder would take the place of order in that day when the Lord shall come, and this could not be.”

• “Why would the earth be smitten?  Because there could be no sealing up against the day of destruction, no sealing of parents to each other, no sealing of children to parents…”

• “There is power in the Church for salvation and exaltation, and the Lord, when he comes, will not find it necessary to smite this earth with a curse, because that sealing power is here, and the leaven is at work, so that all men who will, may receive salvation and exaltation.”

• “The abuse of this ordinance has been the primary cause of the downfall of nations.  When the sacredness of the marriage covenant is lost, and the vows are broken, destruction is inevitable.  No nation can survive the abuse of this principle.  Rome, Greece, Babylon, Egypt, and many other nations owe their downfall to the breaking of the sacred covenant of marriage.”

Testimony – The abandonment of traditional marriage has swept the earth within a remarkably short time.  The Brethren have made it clear that while we work for mutual respect that there cannot be any compromise on our doctrine that celestial marriage is central to the plan of salvation.

We testify that the Church will grow throughout the earth, more temples will be built, and more celestial marriages performed.  This is the leaven that will lift the world and protect the righteous.