Chapter 27—"Zion Must Be Redeemed with Judgment"

     Not long after the Restoration, the Lord revealed what is required for Zion to be redeemed and why it had not happened yet.

I say unto you, were it not for the transgressions of my people, speaking concerning the church and not individuals, they might have been redeemed even now. But behold, they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I required at their hands, but are full of all manner of evil, and do not impart of their substance, as becometh saints, to the poor and afflicted among them; and are not united according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom; and Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom; otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself. (D&C 105:2–5)

     God had planned “a great endowment and blessing to be poured out upon them” but they were not willing. “In consequence of the transgressions of my people,” they must “wait for a little season for the redemption of Zion—that they themselves may be prepared, and that my people may be taught more perfectly, and have experience, and know more perfectly concerning their duty and the things which I require at their hands. And this cannot be brought to pass until mine elders are endowed with power from on high” (D&C 105:12, 9–11). But this great endowment does not come easy. God would only “endow those whom I have chosen with power from on high” (D&C 95:8).
     If they would “gather together for the redemption of my people,” God promised to fight their battles and “throw down the towers of mine enemies and scatter their watchmen, but the strength of mine house have not hearkened unto my words” (D&C 105:16–17). “O ye Gentiles, how can ye stand before the power of God except ye shall repent and turn from your evil ways!” (Mormon 5:22). For Zion to come,

first let my army become very great and let it be sanctified before me . . . The kingdom of Zion is in very deed the kingdom of our God and his Christ. Therefore, let us become subject unto her laws. (D&C 105:31–32)

     God’s servants “lift up an ensign of peace and make a proclamation of peace unto the ends of the earth,” having “their endowment from on high in my house . . . There has been a day of calling, but the time has come for a day of choosing’ and let those be chosen that are worthy . . . and they shall be sanctified. And inasmuch as they follow the counsel which they receive, they shall have power after many days to accomplish all things pertaining to Zion” (D&C 105:39, 33, 35–37).

The New and the Everlasting Covenant
     “Keep my commandments continually and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive. And except thou do this, where I am you cannot come” (D&C 25:15). Those ‘who can stand when God appears’ have obtained knowledge and power. If we do not heed the ensign, seek and ‘love his appearing,’ or break His covenant, we cannot obtain it.

And now what remains to be done under circumstances like these? I will proceed to tell you what the Lord requires of all people, high and low, rich and poor, male and female, ministers and people, professors of religion and non-professors, in order that they may enjoy the Holy Spirit of God to a fullness and escape the judgments of God, which are almost ready to burst upon the nations of the earth: (1) Repent of all your sins, and (2) be baptized in water for the remission of them, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost and (3) receive the ordinance of the laying on of the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this power, that ye may (4) receive the Holy Spirit of God; and this is according to the Holy Scriptures and the Book of Mormon, and the only way that man can enter into the celestial kingdom.

These are the requirements of the new covenant, or first principles of the Gospel of Christ. Then add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity; for if these things be in you and abound . . . ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

     The ‘new and everlasting covenant’ includes the new covenant and the everlasting covenant. Today many consider the new covenant to be synonymous with the everlasting covenant, defined as “the sum total of the [LDS] church’s message” but essential teachings like the doctrine of Christ and receiving the Second Comforter have been misunderstood, suppressed, or denied. Believing Christ’s doctrine as revealed is a requirement of the new covenant, and altering or minimizing it breaks the covenant—and church members have cause to repent. Joseph admitted, “Our brethren in Zion indulge in feelings toward us which are not according to the requirements of the new covenant.” Christ’s doctrine prepares a holy people who come to Him to receive their baptism by fire and sanctified standing.

Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day. Verily, verily, I say unto you, this is my gospel; and ye know the things that ye must do in my church. For the works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do; for that which ye have seen me do even that shall ye do. (3 Nephi 27:20–21)

     Many believe that ritual ordinances of baptism and temple marriage satisfy requirements of the new and everlasting covenant but a careful study of scripture shows otherwise. The Restoration brought “a new and an everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning” so “all old covenants have I caused to be done away” (D&C 22:1). The old covenant (testament) prepared the way until Christ’s atoning sacrifice fulfilled the Mosaic law, making it “obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13, NIV). Animal sacrifices that pointed to Christ’s coming were discontinued when the ultimate sacrifice—the life of God’s sinless and perfect Son—was offered and accepted to establish the new covenant (testament).

This therefore was his will and testament, that they, for whom he died, should live through him. And this testament could not be confirmed but by his death. He, therefore, was at once the mediator in whom the new covenant, promising to us remission of sins, was made, and the testator by whose death the testament, that they who believed in him should have eternal life, was ratified.

     “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5) who “died to redeem them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9:15, Berean). He “took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20, NIV). From the beginning God knew that a new and better covenant would be offered in Christ. “The guarantor of a better covenant,” His “sprinkled blood speaks a better word” (Hebrews 7:22, ESV, 12:24, NIV), purchasing eternal life for the willing.

[Christ, the] high priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens . . . obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. (Hebrews 8:1, 6)

     His gospel is given “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14). It is so important to receive because

the Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. (Ephesians 1:14, NLT)

     “In mine own name, by the virtue of the blood which I have spilt, have I pleaded before the Father for them” (D&C 38:4). Through His perfect and selfless act, eternal life for mankind could be realized. The first ordinances of His gospel fulfill the new covenant. Received on a journey of trial and testing, they are a roadmap, not a singular ritual event. The new covenant provides the opportunity for the natural man to be changed or converted by His Spirit into something new. The new covenant is the remedy for hard hearts. The first law was written on tablets of stone, but the new covenant is written in a softened, changed heart.

This shall be the [new] covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:33–34)

     Christ’s new covenant offers “exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world” (2 Peter 1:4). Blessings of the old covenant pale in comparison to the “better promises” He offers. The willing could be transformed into His likeness, sanctified and holy, made perfect and pure, to dwell with Him and inherit His kingdom. Celestial glory is the inheritance of all who are “made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood” (D&C 76:69).
     Simply put, the new covenant makes us new. Only through Christ’s new covenant can we “enjoy the Holy Spirit of God to a fullness and escape the judgments of God” that are now to be poured out.
     Even though Christ offers to make us holy, many do not seek it. Because Zion cannot exist in unholiness (and only a few are willing to live a higher law), Joseph pondered the dilemma. In response, and knowing that apostasy would again hinder the everlasting covenant, God delivered a parable “concerning the redemption of Zion.”

The day cometh that they who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of his servants . . . shall be cut off from among the people, for they have strayed from mine ordinances and have broken mine everlasting covenant. They seek not the Lord to establish His righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way. (D&C 1:14–16)

     In 1938 Joseph Fielding Smith worried that if we continue to “drift as far afield from fundamental things in the next 20 years, what will be left of the foundation laid by the Prophet Joseph Smith? It is easy for one who observes to see how the apostasy came about in the Primitive Church of Jesus Christ. Are we not traveling the same road?” Two years before, he had warned the new and everlasting covenant was being broken.

Are we not too much inclined to blame the generations that are past for the breaking of the new and everlasting covenant, and to think it is because of the great apostasy which followed the ministry of the Apostles in primitive times that these troubles are coming upon the earth?

Perhaps we should wake up to the realization that it is because of the breaking of covenants, especially the new and everlasting covenant, which is the fulness of the Gospel as it has been revealed, that the world is to be consumed by fire and few men left. Since this punishment is to come at the time of the cleansing of the earth when Christ comes again, should not Latter-day Saints take heed unto themselves?

We have been given the new and everlasting covenant, and many among us have broken it, and many are now breaking it. Therefore all who are guilty of this offense will aid in bringing to pass this destruction in which they will find themselves swept from the earth when the great and dreadful day of the Lord shall come.

     God’s covenant must be upheld “as it has been revealed,” not as it has evolved. Abominations like tampering with ordinances, reforming doctrines, encouraging compromise, and transgressing His boundaries break the covenant and do not escape God’s notice. “Ye are gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them” (Malachi 3:7). “My people do not know the ordinance of the Lord” (Jeremiah 8:7, NASB).
     Though offered the new covenant, latter-day Gentiles have not become converted, transformed, and sanctified. Instead, they and the earth are corrupted by their transgressions so curses will come.

The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men left. (Isaiah 24:5–6)

     Christ said He “came into the world to do the will of my Father” (3 Nephi 27:13), to gather believers and fulfill the covenant. “My Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross” to “draw all men unto me . . . to be judged of their works” (3 Nephi 27:14). The “truly humble are seeking diligently to learn wisdom and to find truth” (D&C 97:1).
     Without securing the new covenant, we cannot receive the fulness or everlasting covenant. The fulness of His gospel is “the covenant which I have sent forth to recover My people, which are of the house of Israel” (D&C 39:11). These things were written in the Book of Mormon, to “be kept for the instruction of my people who should possess the land and also for other wise purposes” (1 Nephi 19:3), but today’s church does not teach these essential truths, again having “taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious, and also many covenants of the Lord”—works that define the great and “abominable church” (1 Nephi 13:26).

Because of the abominations that are abroad in the world, it is hard for those who receive the fulness of the gospel to come into the new and everlasting covenant to get clear of the traditions of their forefathers.

     God’s commandments can help us avert “the calamity which should come” to the wicked. Saints must “proclaim these things unto the world” that all “might be fulfilled . . . that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world, that faith might also increase in the earth, that mine everlasting covenant might be established; that the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world” (D&C 1:17–18, 20–23). But understanding of the new covenant has diminished and the everlasting covenant has been refused.

For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned. For no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory. And as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God. (D&C 132:4, 6)

     At the Restoration, the angel Moroni told Joseph Smith that “the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in” the Book of Mormon, “as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants” (JS–History 1:34). It is “a record of a fallen people and the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and to the Jews also” (D&C 20:9) with a charge that it go “from the Gentiles unto the remnant” of Lehi’s and Jacob’s seed (1 Nephi 15:13) to help fulfill the Father’s covenant. Joseph of Egypt, Enos, Lehi, Abraham, and others received a divine promise that their posterity would receive His gospel in the last days, “that they may know how to come unto him and be saved” (1 Nephi 15:14).
     Joseph knew that the “revelations and commandments which thou hast given to us who are identified with the Gentiles” were given so those “who have been scattered” could “come to a knowledge of the truth” and “be redeemed.” God “hast a great love for the children of Jacob” so His gospel fulness must be brought to those lost to truth (D&C 109:60–61, 67). As the Gentiles perpetuate wickedness, the lost remain blind in understanding so God’s wrath must come. “Blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Romans 11:25).
     God will “open the eyes of the house of Israel, who have been blind to the Torah[‘s].” Many “blinded by the subtle craftiness of men . . . are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it” (D&C 123:12). An “awful state of blindness” happens when “plain and most precious parts of the gospel” are taken away, including believing that “all men must come unto him” (1 Nephi 13:32, 40). Christ is the light that lets the blind see. “I am Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, a light which cannot be hid in darkness. Wherefore, I must bring forth the fulness of my gospel from the Gentiles unto the house of Israel” (D&C 14:9–10).
     Joseph prayed that this generation would fulfill their responsibility to receive “mighty power, even to rend the Kingdom of darkness asunder, and triumph over priestcraft and spiritual wickedness in high places, and brake in pieces all Kingdoms that are opposed to the Kingdom of Christ, and spread the light and truth of the everlasting gospel from the rivers to the ends of the earth.” Have we fulfilled this duty? Although they were given adequate time and plentiful warnings, the Gentiles have failed to honor this covenant. Condemnation remains for “the whole church” and “the children of Zion, even all . . . until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon.” Not just “say, but to do” what they covenant to do includes gathering the lost to Him (D&C 84:55–57). Christ said that latter-day Gentiles on this land will lose great blessings because they will sin against His gospel and reject its fulness:

In the latter day shall the truth come unto the Gentiles, that the fulness of these things shall be made known unto them. And thus commandeth the Father that I should say unto you:

At that day when the Gentiles shall sin against my gospel and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations, and above all the people of the whole earth, and shall be filled with all manner of lyings, and of deceits, and of mischiefs, and all manner of hypocrisy, and murders, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, and of secret abominations; and if they shall do all those things, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fulness of my gospel from among them. And then will I remember my covenant which I have made unto my people, O house of Israel, and I will bring my gospel unto them. And I will show unto thee, O house of Israel, that the Gentiles shall not have power over you; but I will remember my covenant unto you, O house of Israel, and ye shall come unto the knowledge of the fulness of my gospel. (3 Nephi 16:7, 10–12)

     The Book of Mormon reveals that the “Western Indians are descendants of that Joseph who was sold into Egypt and that the land of America is a promised land unto them, and unto it all the tribes of Israel will come, with as many of the Gentiles as shall comply with the requisitions of the new covenant.” The new covenant’s sanctifying power lifts condemnation.
     The few faithful Gentiles who become Israel (‘one who sees God’) will take “his covenants and his gospel” to the remnant (1 Nephi 22:11). “The grafting in of the natural branches” comes “through the fulness of the Gentiles . . . in the latter days” (1 Nephi 15:13). This refers to both the fulness of the Gospel they possess and the simultaneous fulness of iniquity that destroys the wicked.
     Bold warning came: “repent and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God” as others on this land had done (Ether 2:11). At the Restoration, Moroni told Joseph “that the fulness of the Gentiles was soon to come in” (JS–History 1:41). Two centuries later, the fulness of the Gentiles is here. By rejecting His glorious gospel and failing to fulfill their covenant duties, God is provoked. Having ripened to a fulness of iniquity, the time of Gentile favor is now ended. The Lord’s anger is “kindled and thine indignation [will] fall upon them, that they may be wasted away both root and branch from under heaven” (D&C 109:52).

And when the times of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my gospel; but they receive it not; for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men. And in that generation shall the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. (D&C 45:28–30)

     It is a privilege, not a given, to receive all the covenants and ordinances until we have the fulness. “If a man gets a fullness of the priesthood of God he has to get it in the same way that Jesus Christ obtained it, and that was by keeping all the commandments and obeying all the ordinances of the house of the Lord.” Christ’s new covenant leads us to the everlasting covenant, even the “last and more impressive ordinances, without which we cannot obtain celestial thrones.” Christ’s work is done

that faith also might increase in the earth, that mine everlasting covenant might be established, that the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed . . . that they might come to understanding. And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known; and inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed; and inasmuch as they sinned they might be chastened, that they might repent; and inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge. (D&C 1:21–28)

     Chastening has a purpose: “I, the Lord, will contend with Zion, and plead with her strong ones, and chasten her until she overcomes and is clean before me” (D&C 90:36).
     The everlasting covenant must be established. Everlasting (H5769) includes both antiquity and futurity, meaning it is forever and eternal, outside of time. A merging of past, present, and future, the everlasting covenant was “instituted from before the foundation of the world . . . for the fulness of my glory” (D&C 132:5–6). “The Lord sent forth the fulness of his gospel, his everlasting covenant . . . for this cause, that men might be made partakers of the glories which were to be revealed . . . in plainness and simplicity” (D&C 133:57) but Gentiles fully refuse it. The few who receive “mine everlasting covenant, even the fulness of my gospel” are greatly blessed (D&C 66:2) but the unwilling “shall be cut off from among my people” (3 Nephi 21:11). God’s light (that Gentiles perceive as darkness) will go to believing remnants who will cherish it. “He sent prophets to bring them again unto the Lord” (2 Chronicles 24:19).

[The remnant] shall not deny that which you have received, but they shall build it up and shall bring to light the true points of my doctrine, yea, and the only doctrine which is in me. (D&C 10:62)

     God gave the Gentiles, as Israel before, the commandment to build a holy house, the way for God’s presence to dwell in their midst—the Tabernacle, in Hebrew ohel moed, ‘the tent of meeting.’ There is an appointed time for meeting Him, but they failed to build the House in time and severed themselves from His promises.

The Lord has not promised to endow his servants from on high, only on the condition that they build him a house; and if the house is not built the Elders will not be endowed with power, and if they are not, they can never go to the nations with the everlasting gospel.

     This tabernacle is a house, a tent that secures heaven and earth by its stakes. It is a pavilion, a cloud (Leviticus 16:2) or canopy over the judgment seat (Jeremiah 43:10), a place where one is hidden or withdrawn from view (Psalm 31:20). Smith’s Bible Dictionary defines it as splendor or glory that covers the throne. This divine pavilion is God’s house, its 1828 definition also includes meaning of an ensign or raised banner.
     Etymology suggests a pavilion tent is so called because of its resemblance to wings, a symbol of power (D&C 77:4). Darkness hides and obscures God’s brilliant light from the unprepared, so we are urged “to rend the Kingdom of darkness asunder . . . and spread the light and truth of the everlasting gospel” to call God forth among us in His glory, not wrath. In Liberty Jail, Joseph asked God to “let thy hiding place no longer be covered” (D&C 121:4).
     The everlasting covenant is given those who have “a desire in their hearts to worship me . . . They will never leave me” (Jeremiah 32:40, NLT) and “I will not turn away from them” (KJV). God will

make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant . . . [I] will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people . . . when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forevermore. (JST Ezekiel 37:26–28)

Elijah
     The new covenant sanctifies and brings a mighty change of heart, and the everlasting covenant brings a mighty promise of eternal life. Without it Christ must “smite the whole earth with a curse” (D&C 128:17).

How shall God come to the rescue of this generation? . . . He will send Elijah the prophet. The law revealed to Moses in Horeb never was revealed to the children of Israel as a nation . . . The world is reserved unto burning in the last days [but before then, the Lord] shall send Elijah the prophet, and he shall reveal the covenants of the fathers in relation to the children, and the covenants of the children in relation to the fathers.

     Knowing that the power and spirit of Elijah will prepare the willing to avert curses is so important that it is the last verse in the Old Testament. “I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:5–6).
     These words were repeated two thousand years later at the Restoration with a slight but significant difference: “[Elijah] shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers” (JS–History 1:39) and to His word, to true prophets, and to the Jews. Intricately tied to judgment, the seed of faith must be planted in our heart to advert this terrible judgment. Hard hearts must be broken and stubborn spirits must be contrite before we can turn hearts to God’s glorious promises and fulness.
     God promised to “reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (D&C 2:1). “In the days of Noah, God destroyed the world by a flood and He has promised to destroy it by fire in the last days,” but the spirit of Elijah will come first, offering to turn hard hearts “of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just” (Luke 1:17). Joseph explained,

The spirit, power, and calling of Elijah is that ye have power to hold the key of the revelation, ordinances, oracles, powers and endowments of the fullness of the Melchizedek Priesthood and of the kingdom of God on the earth; and to receive, obtain, and perform all the ordinances belonging to the kingdom of God, even unto the turning of the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the hearts of the children unto the fathers, even those who are in heaven.

     The spirit and power of Elijah will “restore” (Malachi 4:6, NASB), “encourage” (NET Bible), and “convert” (Jubilee 2000) the willing. His mission is to (1) reveal covenants, (2) restore priesthood and authority, (3) plant promises and turn hearts, (4) seal the righteous, and (5) restore all things. “The dispensation of the fulness of times will bring to light the things that have been not been before revealed. He shall send Elijah the Prophet and restore all things in Christ.”
     Accounts say Elijah appeared to Joseph in 1836, but Joseph knew the restoration of all things was yet to come because much work was still needed. In 1840 Joseph spoke of Elijah’s coming as a future time, saying,

Elijah was the last Prophet that held the keys of the Priesthood, and who will, before the last dispensation, restore the authority and deliver the keys of the Priesthood, in order that all the ordinances may be attended to in righteousness . . . Why send Elijah? Because he holds the keys of authority to administer in all the ordinances of the Priesthood; and without the authority is given, the ordinances could not be administered in righteousness.

     In 1843 Joseph translated Malachi 4:5–6 to read, “I will send Elijah the Prophet and he shall reveal the covenants of the fathers to the children, and of the children to the fathers that they may enter into Covenant with each other, lest I come and smite the whole earth with a curse.” Understand that “our covenants here are of no force one with another except made in view of eternity.” He explained,

What is this office and work of Elijah? It is one of the greatest and most important subjects that God has revealed . . . Elijah shall reveal the covenants to seal the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers. The anointing and sealing is to be called, elected, and made sure.

     Modern Gentiles forfeited this sealing power by denying a necessity of calling and election and refusing keys of knowledge. Elijah’s sealing work is tied to the everlasting covenant. Joseph said, “A measure of this sealing is to confirm upon their head in common with Elijah, the doctrine of election or the covenant with Abraham which, when a father and mother of a family have entered into” the everlasting covenant, “their children who have not transgressed are secured by the seal wherewith the parents have been sealed. And this is the oath of God unto our father Abraham and this doctrine shall stand forever.”
     God proclaims to a true and faithful one that his calling and election is made sure, an everlasting promise “that you yourself will be saved. To have a positive promise of your own salvation is making your calling and election sure [by] the voice of Jesus.” So, “never cease struggling until you get this evidence” and obtain “the more sure word of prophecy.” Those anointed “to the patriarchal power receive the keys of knowledge and power by revelation to himself” of this sure “promise from God for myself that I shall have eternal life.” But it does not come easy. It is a lengthy ‘struggle’ to “triumph over every foe or ascend far above all enemies.”
     God said He would “reveal unto you the priesthood” that turns hearts to Him and averts curses through Elijah (D&C 2:1), but that priesthood is not functioning in today’s church. Patriarchal authority is needed to “put on the authority of the priesthood,” the strength of Zion (D&C 113:8), and to obtain these glorious promises. Modified ordinances for the living and dead cannot bestow the highest power that can break mountains, defy armies, subdue principalities and powers, and let us be “translated and taken up into heaven” (JST Genesis 14:30–32).
     In the end “four destroying angels holding power over the four quarters of the earth” are stayed only “until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads, which signifies sealing the blessing upon their heads, meaning the everlasting covenant, thereby making their calling and election made sure. When a seal is put upon the father and mother, it secures their posterity, so that they cannot be lost, but will be saved by virtue of the covenant of their father and mother.” All must obtain this seal individually, so only if a father and mother both personally qualify for and receive these divine promises will their marriage be sealed for eternity.
     These keys “have come down from the fathers” (D&C 112:32), but have hearts been softened, changed, and turned to the righteous forefathers who walked and talked with God? Elijah’s role is to turn hearts to this sealing ordinance, which is essential to the everlasting covenant.

Now, the word ‘turn’ here should be translated bind or seal. But what is the object of this important mission? or how is it to be fulfilled? The keys are to be delivered, the spirit of Elijah is to come, the Gospel to be established, the Saints of God gathered, Zion built up, and the Saints to come up as saviors on Mount Zion.

     The new covenant prepares us to be sanctified, a function of Elias. The everlasting covenant offers restoration, sealing to eternal life, and great power, a function of Elijah. The new and everlasting covenant offers humankind the power and knowledge necessary to endure God’s presence in heaven and on earth.

In the first ages of the world they tried to establish the same thing; and there were Eliases raised up who tried to restore these very glories, but did not obtain them; but they prophesied of a day when this glory would be revealed.

     “The spirit of Elias is to prepare the way for a greater revelation of God, which [work] is the Priesthood of Elias, or the Priesthood that Aaron was ordained unto. And when God sends a man into the world to prepare for a greater work, holding the keys of the power of Elias, it was called the doctrine of Elias, even from the early ages of the world.”

The spirit of Elias is first, Elijah second, and Messiah last. Elias is a forerunner to prepare the way, and the spirit and power of Elijah is to come after, (1) holding the keys of power, (2) building the Temple to the capstone, (3) placing the seals of the Melchizedek Priesthood upon the house of Israel, (4) and making all things ready; then Messiah comes to His Temple, which is last of all.

Messiah is above the spirit and power of Elijah, for He made the world, and was the spiritual rock unto Moses in the wilderness. Elijah was to come and prepare the way and build up the kingdom before the coming of the great day of the Lord, although the spirit of Elias might begin it.

     Malachi, who wrote of Elijah’s mission, “had his eye fixed on the restoration of the priesthood, the glories to be revealed in the last days, and in an especial manner this most glorious of all subjects belonging to the everlasting gospel, namely, the baptism for the dead” (D&C 128:17). Joseph knew that we must “understand this subject, for it is important. And if you will receive it, this is the spirit of Elijah, that we redeem our dead and connect ourselves with our fathers which are in heaven . . . This is the power of Elijah and the keys of the kingdom of Jehovah.” Power in the priesthood is crucial to this great work.

There is a way to release the spirit of the dead; that is, by the power and authority of the Priesthood—by binding and loosing on earth.

     This is why Elijah must come! What those with true power and authority “seal on earth, by the keys of Elijah, is sealed in heaven; and this is the power of Elijah, and this is the difference between the spirit and power of Elias and Elijah; for while the spirit of Elias is a forerunner, the power of Elijah is sufficient to make our calling and election sure.” No wonder Satan relentlessly tempts us to believe this election ordinance is not required, for it is the center of Zion, the purpose of God’s plan and source of God’s glory. Without it, God cannot dwell among us.
     Instead of gathering the sanctified to make a holy temple, the LDS “are determined” to “take the temples to the people.” “To build unto the Lord a house whereby He could reveal unto His people the ordinances of His house and the glories of His kingdom, and teach the people the way of salvation” is “the object of gathering . . . people of God in any age of the world. It is for the same purpose that God gathers together His people in the last days, to build unto the Lord a house to prepare them for the ordinances and endowments” needed. “God ordained that He would save the dead and would do it by gathering His people together . . . to receive the ordinances, the blessings, and glories that God has in store for His Saints.”
     The faithful will “come from afar” (D&C 124:25) and make all sacrifices necessary to build a holy and undefiled house for the Most High.

Come ye! . . . and build a house to my name for the Most High to dwell therein. For there is not a place found on earth that he may come to and restore again that which was lost unto you, or which he hath taken away, even the fulness of the priesthood. For a baptismal font there is not upon the earth, that they, my saints, may be baptized for those who are dead. (D&C 124:26–29)

     The priesthood fulness requires a baptismal font for the dead where ordinances are not only performed, but ratified for eternity. These must be performed in a true house of God, not just a man-made temple, by those who are spiritually sanctified. Dedicating a building does not ensure we are dedicated to His will. How will we know it is God’s house? “I will come into it, and all the pure in heart shall see God. But if it be defiled, I will not come into it” (D&C 97:16–17).
     God reveals where these baptisms must take place: “It is ordained that in Zion, and in her stakes, and in Jerusalem—those places which I have appointed for refuge—shall be the places for your baptisms for your dead.” He awaits a “holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name” (D&C 124:36, 39). Though given a lengthy time to build God’s house, the LDS’s failure to fulfill this duty is costly:

Behold, at the end of this appointment your baptisms for your dead shall not be acceptable unto me; and if you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God. For verily I say unto you, that after you have had sufficient time to build a house to me, wherein the ordinance of baptizing for the dead belongeth, and for which the same was instituted from before the foundation of the world, your baptisms for your dead cannot be acceptable unto me . . . And after this time, your baptisms for the dead, by those who are scattered abroad, are not acceptable unto me, saith the Lord. (D&C 124:32–33, 35)

     This ordinance was “ordained and prepared before the foundation of the world for the salvation of the dead who should die without a knowledge of the gospel . . . John the Revelator was contemplating this very subject in relation to the dead” when he saw a vision of the dead standing before God, “and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (D&C 128:5–6). Such books must be “worthy of all acceptation” and presented “in his holy temple, when it is finished” to the capstone (D&C 128:24).
     Only with His authority and power will vicarious ordinances for the dead be accepted. Abraham sought “the blessings of the fathers and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same” (Abraham 1:2). We cannot effectively baptize or save the dead until we ourselves are sanctified in the new covenant, possess patriarchal authority, obtain divine promises, pierce the veil, commune with God, and honor the everlasting covenant. Seeking further light and knowledge brings greater opportunities, duties, gifts, and powers. The spirit and power of Elijah is essential because the ordinance of baptisms for the dead

consists in the power of the priesthood, by the revelation of Jesus Christ, wherein it is granted that whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. In all ages of the world, whenever the Lord has given a dispensation of the priesthood to any man by actual revelation, or any set of men, this power has always been given. Hence, whatsoever those men did in authority, in the name of the Lord, and did it truly and faithfully, and kept a proper and faithful record of the same, it became a law on earth and in heaven, and could not be annulled, according to the decrees of the great Jehovah. The great and grand secret of the whole matter . . . consists in obtaining the powers of the Holy Priesthood. (D&C 128:8–9, 11)

     Power in the priesthood comes “by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Records on earth, if written by those having this power and authority directly from God, “are the records in heaven. This, therefore, is the sealing and binding power, and, in one sense of the word, the keys of the kingdom, which consist in the key of knowledge.” Joseph assures us these are “principles in relation to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over, as pertaining to our salvation. For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect” (D&C 128:14–15).

The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead . . . ‘They without us cannot be made perfect’ (Hebrews 11:40), for it is necessary that the sealing power should be in our hands to seal our children and our dead for the fulness of the dispensation of times—a dispensation to meet the promises made by Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world for the salvation of man.

     “Baptism for the dead [is] the only way that men can appear as saviors on Mount Zion.” Though called to become it, Gentiles were “found transgressors . . . They are not the saviors of men” (D&C 101:41, 103:10). Still, the new and everlasting covenant must go to the promised seed.

In the last day, they shall have the Priesthood restored unto them and they shall be the ‘saviors on Mount Zion,’ the ministers of our God.

     People become saviors on Mount Zion “by building their temples, erecting their baptismal fonts, and going forth and receiving all the ordinances, baptisms, confirmations, washings, anointings, ordinations and sealing powers upon their heads, in behalf of all their progenitors who are dead, and redeem them that they may come forth in the first resurrection and be exalted to thrones of glory with them; and herein is the chain that binds the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, which fulfills the mission of Elijah.”
     The keys and power of Elijah will come in the last days, “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord,” to accomplish this very work because the earth will be “smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind.” Ordinances for the dead are the “welding link . . . between the fathers and the children,” a work that will usher in “the dispensation of the fulness of times” to restore and reveal “things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world” until now (D&C 128:17–18). God will “reveal to you obscure things.”
     If we will receive it, the power of Elijah prepares us for a glorious judgment by restoring and revealing that which has been lost, even the fulness of the priesthood. “Elijah came to reveal the priesthood . . . to give knowledge or to divulge. Elijah thus revealed the use or function of the priesthood in a sphere of action theretofore unknown.” Elijah will reveal more about this priesthood when the way is prepared. True worship “shall be restored” and faithful believers will receive “knowledge of their fathers and also the knowledge of Jesus Christ” (2 Nephi 30:5).
     “Heirs of the kingdom of God” (Mosiah 15:11) must be “perfected in the understanding of their ministry . . . in all things pertaining to the kingdom of God on earth” (D&C 97:14). Ancient promises to the fathers foreshadow “the great work to be done in the temples of the Lord in the dispensation of the fulness of times” (D&C 138:48). God’s true temple
     [is] where the Saints will come to worship the God of their fathers, according to the order of His house and the powers of the Holy Priesthood, and will be so constructed as to enable all the functions of the Priesthood to be duly exercised, and where instructions from the Most High will be received, and from this place go forth to distant lands.
     Joseph explained, “Although David was a king, he never did obtain the spirit and power of Elijah and the fulness of the Priesthood; and the Priesthood that he received and the throne and kingdom of David is to be taken from him and given to another by the name of David in the last days, raised up out of his lineage.” “David, my servant, shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my judgments” and ordinances (Ezekiel 37:24).

After their punishment shall have come from the Lord, then will the Lord raise up to the priesthood a new Priest, to whom all the words of the Lord shall be revealed; and He shall execute a judgment of truth upon the earth in the fulness of days. (Testament of Levi 18:1–2)

Truth + Righteousness = Zion
     Jesus’s ministry began as He read Isaiah 61 to the church in Nazareth:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. (Isaiah 61:1–3)

     He then declared, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” His words, those of the Jubilee, evoked fierce anger and opposition from church members instead of the joy they were meant to bring.
     How appropriate that Jesus’s ministry began with the words, “the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,” and His ministry ended with His great sacrifice that allowed us to receive the same “Spirit of the Lord God.” Sinless blood was the only way to overcome sin and death to redeem fallen man. His blood was poured out in the new covenant so His spirit could be poured out on the righteous.
     After Jesus was crucified, “when the day of Pentecost was fully come . . . suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house.” After being purified by fire, His disciples “were all filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:1–4). It will happen again in the last days. Those transformed by ordinances of the new covenant “shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:38–39).
     Once Jesus’s preparations were finished, He would depart this world so we could be comforted. “It is expedient for you that I go away,” He said, “for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him to you” (John 16:7). “The gift of righteousness” (Romans 5:17) comes from heaven as we are sanctified, approved, and filled with the Holy Ghost, the First Comforter. The first ordinances prepare us for “another Comforter . . . even the Spirit of Truth.” So “what is this other Comforter? It is no more nor less than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.” Jesus testified, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me . . . Know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 14:6, 8:32). “Know the truth that you may chase darkness from among you” (D&C 50:25).
     “All they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness” will be “filled with the Holy Ghost” (3 Nephi 12:6). Seeds of faith bring forth ‘trees of righteousness’. Tsedek—that which is righteous, justified, approved, or restored—is the foundation of the name Melchizedek. As the evidence that we are justified and approved, righteousness begins with believing God. “Seek the Lord that he may come and rain righteousness upon you” (Hosea 10:12, ESV). How great will be our joy if “He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10).
     “Having loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness” are vital components of spiritual armor (Ephesians 6:14). “The word of the truth in the power of God” is one of “the weapons of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 6:7, Berean). Righteousness secures the godly armor that lets us be victorious as we battle “against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Only with the “whole armour of God” can we “be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might” (Ephesians 6:12, 11, 10).
     Curses come if we are lost to truth. Only when we “return to that power [Zion] had lost” (D&C 113:8) are the bands broken from our neck. Nephi explains, Satan “leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever” (2 Nephi 26:22). And so, the spirit of Elijah’s power to seal and loose is essential.

Q: What are we to understand by Zion loosing herself from the bands of her neck; 2d verse [of Isaiah 11]?

We are to understand that the scattered remnants are exhorted to return to the Lord from whence they have fallen; which if they do, the promise of the Lord is that he will speak to them, or give them revelation. See the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses. The bands of her neck are the curses of God upon her, or the remnants of Israel in their scattered condition among the Gentiles. (D&C 113:9–10)

     We cannot break the bands to loosen Zion from curses if we neglect our obligation to gather to truth. Curses and severe judgments will afflict the Gentiles should they fail to recover the lost. God “passes over no man’s sins, but visits them with correction, and if His children will not repent of their sins He will discard them,” both people and priest. “Power, glory, and blessings of the Priesthood could not continue with those who received ordination only as their righteousness continued.”
     Joseph warned, “Those portions of the priesthood which you have received are all essential matters . . . It is not for amusement that you are brought to receive these things, but to put you in possession of the means of salvation and be brought into a proper relationship to God.”

Wherefore, let every man beware lest he do that which is not in truth and righteousness before me. (D&C 50:9)

     Joseph urged, “Now dear and well beloved brethren—and when we say brethren, we mean those who have continued faithful in Christ, men, women and children—we feel to exhort you in the name of the Lord Jesus to be strong in the faith in the new and everlasting covenant . . . Let truth and righteousness prevail and abound in you . . . Zion shall yet live, though she seem to be dead.” One “can never come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem . . . unless he becomes as a little child and is taught by the Spirit of God.”

The people of the Lord, those who have complied with the requirements of the new covenant, have already commenced gathering together to Zion . . . Repent ye, repent ye, and embrace the everlasting covenant and flee to Zion before the overflowing scourge overtake you . . . Remember these things; call upon the Lord while He is near, and seek Him while He may be found.

     “Zion have I blessed but the residue of the people have I cursed” (Moses 7:20). The sanctified withstand the calamities that will “open and prepare the way for the return of the lost tribes of Israel.”
     An endowment from on high offers “the power of priesthood to bring again Zion and the redemption of Israel” (D&C 113:8). This endowment comes from doing with exactness what we covenant to do, consecrating our possessions and lives to Him. We must lay aside the world to obtain this power so His people will no longer be lost to truth. For too long they have been “separate from Christ . . . strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).

The election . . . had reference to the seed of Abraham, according to the promise God made to Abraham, saying, ‘In thee, and in thy seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ To them belonged the adoption and the covenants, &c . . . The election of the promised seed still continues, and in the last day, they shall have the Priesthood restored unto them and they shall be the ‘saviors on Mount Zion,’ the ministers of our God.

     Only those sanctified by the new covenant “may be numbered with my people who are of the house of Israel” (3 Nephi 30:2). Israelites suffered much for unbelief and transgression but great blessings await as they return to God. “They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and join themselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten” (Jeremiah 50:5, NIV). His elect will “come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly place, the holiest of all,” numbered as the “church of Enoch and of the Firstborn. These are they whose names are written in heaven, where God and Christ are the judge of all” (D&C 76:66–68 ).

My people will I preserve and righteousness will I send down out of heaven and truth will I send forth out of the earth to bear testimony of mine Only Begotten; his resurrection from the dead. (Moses 7:61–62)

     The doctrine of Christ, given that we “might know the gate,” requires us to know Christ, for He is “the gate” (John 10:7, NIV). The grand prize is “to know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10, Berean). Having knowledge of truth lets us truly worship Him. In this He is glorified and righteousness is established. “The devil, who is the master of sin . . . [is] an enemy to all righteousness” (Mosiah 4:14) so wickedness must be destroyed.

Righteousness must be the aim of the Saints in all things . . . [to] persuade such as are out of the way to repent and turn to God and live.

     All who dwell in righteousness are Zion. “The Lord called his people Zion because they were of one heart and one mind and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them . . . He built a city that was called the City of Holiness, even Zion” (Moses 7:18–19). The righteous will “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (JST Matthew 25:35). “I will give it unto you for the land of your inheritance if you seek it with all your hearts. And this shall be my covenant with you, ye shall have it for the land of your inheritance, and for the inheritance of your children forever, while the earth shall stand and ye shall possess it again in eternity, no more to pass away” (D&C 38:19–20).

[They] shall be named the Priests of the Lord. Men shall call you the Ministers of our God. Ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves. For I the Lord love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them . . . All that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed. (Isaiah 61:6, 8–9)

     The righteous will gather “as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land” (Zechariah 9:16). Crown, nezer (H5145), refers to that which is consecrated, sacred, or exalted. Priesthood initiates wore a mitre, a headpiece with a flat top to receive a crown. Paul tied it to receiving eternal life: “There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).
     Those on the watch tower, who obtain wisdom and holiness, knowledge and power, ones who see God, are “elected to a certain work.”

In that day all who are found upon the watch-tower, or in other words, all mine Israel, shall be saved. And they that have been scattered shall be gathered. And all they who have mourned shall be comforted. And all they who have given their lives for my name shall be crowned. Therefore, let your hearts be comforted concerning Zion . . . Be still and know that I am God. (D&C 101:12–16)

     It is God’s greatest desire to pronounce us kings and queens, priests and priestesses of the Most High. Having a fulness of priesthood, theirs is an everlasting dominion founded on truth and righteousness, the scepter of authority in God’s kingdom. The faithful are promised,

Thy confidence [shall] wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever. (D&C 121:45–46)

     A patriarch with dominion over his own family can become a king to obtain greater dominion and power, but a king must first obtain patriarchal authority. This authority leads to a fulness of priesthood and kingship. The highest and holiest priesthood “is as eternal as God Himself” and it comes “by right from the eternal Gods and not descent from father and mother.” To them, “All that my Father hath shall be given unto him. And this is according to the oath and covenant which belongeth to the priesthood” (D&C 84:38–39) and cannot be broken.
     With an oath, God made the same covenant with Melchizedek as He did with Enoch: “that every one being ordained after this order and calling should have power by faith to break mountains, to divide the seas, to dry up waters, to turn them out of their course; to put at defiance the armies of nations, to divide the earth, to break every band, to stand in the presence of God; to do all things according to his will, according to his command, subdue principalities and powers; and this by the will of the Son of God . . . Men having this faith, coming up unto this order of God, were translated and taken up into heaven” (JST Genesis 14:30–32).

This is mine everlasting covenant, that when thy posterity shall embrace the truth and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shall shake with gladness and the earth shall tremble with joy. (JST Genesis 9:22)

     Righteousness and truth can only reign when heaven and earth come together. “Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven” (Psalm 85:11).
     “The heavenly priesthood will unite with the earthly to bring about those great purposes” if we obtain this godly power on earth. No generation can expect Zion’s peace and promises otherwise.

Wisdom and the Covenant
     “Creation could not truly be understood without the concept of righteousness, the human choices that contribute to holding all things together or to their eventual dissolution.” Righteousness is the “life and the bond that held everything together in good order.” Bonds of iniquity oppose covenant bonds that hold creation in order.
     The righteous receive wisdom and understanding from the Spirit. But what is this wisdom that separates the wise from the foolish, the glorious from the damned? “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10). Real knowledge “will lead to the praise of God. Its opposite, the lack of real wisdom, is the root of all evil.” Wisdom understands God’s will, word, and way—and its consequent obligations. Barker said, “‘In the beginning God created’ can be read ‘by means of the net, God created.’ Wisdom “was a weaver and her [net] held the creation together” but Satan’s nets separate us from God. “The lady’s net was her covenant.”

Creation [was] held in place by a web of bonds, which [biblical prophets] described as the covenant, meaning the ‘binding’ . . . When these were broken, creation began to disintegrate . . . Since human society and the natural order were bound in one system, human behavior could and did contribute to the destruction of creation. Instead of data about emissions and pollutants, the prophets would declare that human sins had caused the creation to collapse . . . Whatever broke those bonds was . . . sin.

     Power in the priesthood secures covenant bonds but sin breaks them. “Our world is ruled by black oil from the earth, not by the Lady’s golden anointing oil from her tree of life . . . It is not the Lady’s wisdom that now rules our world, but the knowledge of good and evil that the snake, the great deceiver, offered to Adam and Eve as something better. They lost everything.” “Incline your ear to wisdom and turn your heart to understanding, and call [wisdom] your mother.” Wisdom is what the world needs, but refuses.

How blind and impenetrable are the understandings of the children of men; for they will not seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she should rule over them! (Mosiah 8:20)

     “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” Instead of binding the covenant, “they weave the spider’s web” (Isaiah 59:2, 5, ESV). “The systems themselves, the institutions and the structures weave society into an intricate fabric of power and relationships.” The web of life became a web of lies, a society of sin that destroys creation.
     Creation disintegrates as the covenant is broken and evil “stretche[s] over all the nations” (Isaiah 25:7, NASB). ‘Stretched out,’ nasak, means to anoint, weave, set, or install. Ancient pictographs depict a woven rug on a tent floor that all who “godlessly forsake wisdom” trample (1 Enoch 93:8). The root of nasak is an offering, a pouring out. Our choices bring a pouring out of God’s wrath or a pouring out of knowledge and blessings. Libations (drink offerings) are poured out in worship as the anointed are blessed “as the vine of the choice grape when her clusters are fully ripe.” Grape clusters symbolize wisdom. We are meant to partake, but the vineyard “has become corrupted every whit” (D&C 33:4).

No man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Every one turned to his course . . . My people know not the judgment of the Lord. How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? . . . They have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them? (Jeremiah 8:6–9)

     “The members of my Covenant have rebelled . . . because of their guilt thou hast concealed the source of understanding and the foundation of truth.” Without truth, wisdom and understanding must depart.

Wisdom crieth . . . How long will . . . fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. I have called and ye refused. (Proverbs 1:20, 22–24)

     The Mother gives life and She can take it. The “‘Holy One’ was a title for the Lady as well as for the Lord.” The ‘breasted one,’ “Shaddai, also meant ‘destroyer’.” As weaver of the covenant net that orders creation, rejecting Her wisdom brings chaos and confusion. “She rules the kingdom and brings peace. She rules the creation and the weather . . . She gave birth to the King.” She clothes us with wisdom to establish priests and kings, priestesses and queens of the Most High. Peace only comes if Wisdom returns, order is restored, and chaos is expelled. This is the purpose of priesthood and mortal probation. “Here then is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God.”
     None can be a father without a mother. A Matriarchal order exists alongside the Patriarchal, together bringing the fulness of priesthood to those who possess power, wisdom, and understanding. To “tread Adam’s dance backwards and return” to Eden and its tree of life requires male and female to be one in power and purpose. Who is Adam? “In the image of his own body, male and female, created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam in the day when they were created and became living souls in the land upon the footstool of God” (Moses 6:9). “On the sixth day I commanded my wisdom to create man out of the seven components” and endowed him with seven faculties (2 Enoch 30:8).

[God] set the ordinances to be the same forever and ever, and set Adam to watch over them, to reveal them from heaven to man.

     Adam is not complete without Eve, “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20). Together as one, they are set to watch over the ordinances that seal children to their fathers and mothers. The endowment encourages initiates to consider themselves as Adam and Eve, who were ‘in the beginning’ and stood in the presence of God. Jesus taught,

Have you discovered the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end. (Gospel of Thomas 18)

     Knowing “the end from the beginning” is a mark of Jehovah. One who did “gaze on the holy of holies and there learn the secrets of the source of life . . . and know the paths,” being “visionaries who ascended in their visions into the holy of holies . . . was an ‘Adam,’ who had returned to the presence of God and so learned the secrets of the creation.” “God has chosen [them] for an everlasting covenant, and all the glory of Adam shall be theirs.”
     The Mother is also the Most High, the Spirit of Life and Wisdom, but mankind has long rid themselves of Her mention, Her Spirit, and Her work. They pollute what She made and destroy what She created. They fail to recognize Her power and role in weaving the covenant. Her creative powers (sephirot) are found “‘in every realm of creation.’ The sephirot were both the powers and, literally, the letters by which the world was made and through which divine revelation was given.”
     Because She holds the highest power of creation and destruction, She is inseparably connected with judgment. It is Her work.

The Mother had been driven out but would return to her kingdom to judge the wicked people.

     Without Her, there is no Zion (which is personified as female). “If Zion do these things she shall prosper, and spread herself and become very glorious, very great, and very terrible. And the nations of the earth shall honor her and shall say: Surely Zion is the city of our God, and surely Zion cannot fall, neither be moved out of her place, for God is there and the hand of the Lord is there” (D&C 97:18–19). Much relies on fulfilling our duty to obtain power needed to bring Zion so “put on thy strength, O Zion!” (Isaiah 52:1). God revealed that this verse

had reference to those whom God should (1) call in the last days, who should (2) hold the power of priesthood to bring again Zion and the redemption of Israel; and to put on her strength is to (3) put on the authority of the priesthood, which she, Zion, has a right to by lineage; also (4) to return to that power which she had lost. (D&C 113:8, numerals added)

     We cannot obtain Zion without Wisdom’s return. Only the wise are sanctified and prepared to meet the Bridegroom.
     It is a process. From the preparatory priesthood we receive the sanctifying Spirit and as we continue to become Israel, we receive the spirit of Wisdom and understanding. “God remembered the Covenant with the forefathers, and he raised from Aaron men of discernment and from Israel men of wisdom.” Through the spirit of Elijah pure hearts turn to the righteous forefathers, binding and sealing them into this lineage to obtain the blessings of Zion and her fulness. We must understand,

Zion must be redeemed with judgment and her converts with righteousness.

     The heavens seek people of truth and “God’s righteousness,” not our own. “Commit thy way unto the Lord . . . He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday” (Psalm 37:5–6). Enlightenment comes from Wisdom but fools refuse, walking in darkness at noonday. “The Sun of righteousness” that darkness tries to obscure will “arise with healing in her wings.”

Darkness prevails at this time as it did at the time Jesus Christ was about to be crucified. The powers of darkness strove to obscure the glorious Sun of righteousness that began to dawn upon the world and was soon to burst in great blessings upon the heads of the faithful . . . Great blessings await us at this time, and will soon be poured out upon us, if we are faithful in all things.

     As the source of life and order, a creator and judge, the Sun is the perfect image of the Most High. Christ, “the light of the world” (3 Nephi 11:11) who received His light by obtaining wisdom and understanding. Jesus urges, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). It is required to become a true minister of God.
     Minister, shemash (H8120–8122), is a sun. These ministers, like a sun’s rays, obtain light and knowledge and offer it to all. “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). Enoch describes these righteous bearers of truth as luminous beings: “How happy are the righteous who will escape the Lord’s great judgment, for their faces will shine forth like the sun” (2 Enoch 66:11). A longer recension adds “they will be made to shine seven times brighter than the sun.”

This tradition about righteous humans emitting light seems to be tied implicitly in the text to the story of its revealer, the seventh antediluvian patriarch [Enoch], who himself underwent several chapters earlier a dramatic luminous transformation. The passage may thus suggest that Enoch—depicted in chapter 22 as undergoing a luminous metamorphosis before the Face of God which turns him into a shining celestial creature—becomes the very first fruit of this future aeon where all righteous persons will eventually regain the condition of luminosity . . . a condition humanity lost after Adam’s fall. Here the righteous of the world are envisioned as the ‘gatherers’ of divine light, namely, those who repair both cosmogonic and anthropogonic vessels of the primordial light by turning themselves into the luminous vessel of the last days.

     Judgment paves the way for the return of Wisdom, the Queen and Mother, to be restored to temple, people, and earth with Her matriarchal power, the fulness. This glorious work meets powerful opposition and tribulation as the fierce battle rages on (Revelation 12:17).
     The world Satan rules is the battlefield. When covenant makers “forgat the Lord their God” and “again did evil in the sight of the Lord,” He gave them over to wicked people, “the captain of whose host was Sisera” (Judges 3:7, 4:1–2). Sisera, who dwelt among the Gentiles, means the battlefield. According to legend, Sisera conquered every country and had a commanding fearful presence that only Deborah could endure.
     Deborah, a prophetess, “judged Israel at that time. She dwelt under the palm tree . . . between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim” (Judges 4:4–5). In this time of great wickedness, Israel “prospered,” “grew fat on plunder” (NRS), and “valiant men ceased” (Douay-Rheims) until Deborah “arose as a mother in Israel” (Judges 5:7). Deborah asked the faithful Barak to gather ten thousand men, promising that Sisera would be delivered to him. She prophesied that Barak’s journey would not be for his own honor: “the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (Judges 4:9). When Barak arrived with his men, the Lord threw Sisera, his chariots, and army into confusion. “All the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword, and there was not a man left” except Sisera, who fled “to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber” and begged to enter. When he asked for water, Jael gave him milk and covered him. When “he was fast asleep,” Jael “took a nail of the tent” then “smote the nail into his temples and fastened it into the ground.” Sisera did not die honorably in battle, but by the hand of a woman in her tent (Judges 4:16–21).
     Jael used a nail or stake, which fastened and secured a tent, to strike a death blow to the evil Sisera. God had prophesied this scenario in Eden:

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. (Genesis 3:15, Douay-Rheims)

     Earth and heaven rejoiced in “the avenging of Israel,” and Deborah declared, “Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent” (Judges 5:2, 24). Israel was restored and evil defeated in the tent, a place of refuge, by she who crushed his head. As it was, so shall it be.

The Watch Tower
     In Hebrew, Deborah is a bee, like a Queen Bee, a Mother, the Lady Wisdom. Deborah/Devorah derives from ‘to speak’ or ‘the word.’ John reminds us, “In the beginning was the word” (John 1:1). The root DVR is to pronounce in word, implying authority or delivering a message exactly as received. It “gives rise to the words for destruction, plague, desert; doing and undoing.” These opposites are seen in davar, a vehicle that creates worlds and dever, a plague or vehicle that destroys worlds. Ancient pictograms of the root DBR indicate “creating order” by way of words, a sanctuary, a bee colony, or wilderness. Debir is the holy of holies, the place where order and the spoken word give life to creation. The ancient Lead Plates of Jordan connect it to the Queen Mother. The root is the same one used to indicate the ten commandments, the order of Melchizedek, and the inner sanctuary of the holy of holies.
     The tie to Deborah and the holy of holies is significant. The gods, or “the ’elohim, who serve the Presence in the debir of glory are the priests [and priestesses] of the highest heights . . . They know the mysteries.” Barker said Pythagoreans believed the holy of holies was the “fiery cube at the center of the Universe . . . the creative force which gives life to the whole earth.” It was called “Zeus’ tower, or Zeus’ watch tower, or Zeus’ throne.”
     “All who are found upon the watchtower, or in other words, all mine Israel, shall be saved” (D&C 101:12). Israel, ‘one who sees God,’ is a privilege of the holy of holies. We cannot reach the observatory high tower without ascending. “Archaeologists have found several small statues of a Lady looking out from her tower . . . watching from her tower-shrine. The name Magdalene . . . was originally a title for the Lady: it means both ‘the Lady of the tower’ and also ‘the exalted Lady,’ and its partner word is ‘sevenfold knowledge.’ The Lady of the Tower was Lady Wisdom at home in the temple.” Ascending through Christ to the Father then the Mother is what true Saints desire. Wisdom and its gifts are the center of Zion. “Her priests went up into her tower. They went into her presence in a mystical ascent and experienced her light and peace” and to Her they must return. “The hidden eternal Lady was the Lady behind the veil of the temple.”
     In a modern parable “concerning the redemption of Zion,” God said that in a “choice piece of land” they were to “plant twelve olive trees, and set watchmen round about them, and build a tower, that one may overlook the land round about . . . that mine olive trees may not be broken down when the enemy shall come” (D&C 101:43–45).

We shall build the Zion of the Lord in peace until the servants of that Lord shall begin to lay the foundation of a great and high watch tower and then shall they begin to say within themselves what need hath my Lord of this tower seeing this is a time of peace?

     As Joseph laid the foundation and revealed a higher law, people and priests got complacent and distracted by business instead of finishing His house to the capstone. “There is no need of these things,” they said, believing their church was sufficient although they “were at variance” from what He revealed. “They hearkened not” with exactness to His commands (D&C 101:49–50). They do not think they need the tower because it is “a time of peace!” God’s servants warn that the prophets “have seduced my people, saying Peace, and there was no peace . . . [They] see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace” (Ezekiel 13:10, 16).
     King Noah also “built a tower near the temple; yea, a very high tower, even so high that he could stand upon the top thereof and overlook the land” (Mosiah 11:12). He was secure in his works because he had a temple, a quorum of high priests, and loyal followers who believed a form of the gospel that differed from God’s word. Noah’s people were destroyed for following the “wickedness of their king and priests” (Mosiah 11:19). Enoch prophesied the same in a time of restoration: “They began again to build as before and they raised up that tower and it was called the high tower. And they began again to place a table before the tower, but all the bread on it was polluted and not pure . . . The eyes of the sheep were blind, and they did not see, and their shepherds likewise” (1 Enoch 89:73–74). Modern-day counterparts are called to beware. They too have built a high tower near their downtown temple, not on it.
     After His servants “planted the olive trees, and built a hedge round about, and set watchmen, and began to build a tower,” soon “the enemy came by night and broke down the hedge, and the servants of the nobleman arose and were affrighted and fled; and the enemy destroyed their works and broke down the olive-trees” (D&C 101:46, 51). The U.S. Constitution was a hedge to protect the nation against encroachments of liberties and ungodliness. Still, the enemy came with such effectiveness and power that Joseph prophesied “this nation will be on the verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground and the Constitution is on the brink of ruin . . . the very verge of destruction.”

The government is fallen and needs redeeming. It is guilty of blood and cannot stand as it is now, but will come so near desolation as to hang as it were by a single hair. And this is the redemption of Zion—when the saints shall have redeemed that government and reinstated it in all its purity and glory! That America may be an asylum for the remnant of all nations.

     The hedge is broken, the tower abandoned. Failure to build and ascend the high tower, the divine observatory, leaves a people of promise without the Promise. Remember, if “you do not do the things that I say, I will not perform the oath which I make unto you, neither fulfill the promises which ye expect at my hands” (D&C 124:47).

The lord of the vineyard called upon his servants and said unto them, Why! what is the cause of this great evil? Ought ye not to have done even as I commanded you, and—after ye had planted the vineyard, and built the hedge round about, and set watchmen upon the walls thereof—built the tower also, and set a watchman upon the tower, and watched for my vineyard, and not have fallen asleep, lest the enemy should come upon you?

And behold, the watchman upon the tower would have seen the enemy while he was yet afar off; and then ye could have made ready and kept the enemy from breaking down the hedge thereof, and saved my vineyard from the hands of the destroyer. (D&C 101:52–54)

     Vengeance must come, “that by and by I may come with the residue of mine house and possess the land” promised them (D&C 101:58).
     Olive trees and a continually lit menorah are essential elements in a vision of building the Holy temple (Zechariah 4). In 1840, Joseph said the olive trees are stakes that secure the tent of heaven, but were still “yet to be built” in a new appointed place.

The olive trees are 12 stakes which are yet to be built—not the Temple in Jackson [County, Missouri] as some suppose—for while the 12 stakes are being built we will be at peace but the nations of the Earth will be at war.

     Mysteries of raz nihyeh, even the mystery of creation, were revealed in the holiest place, an observatory of the heavens. Ancients knew a temple was “a building specially designed for interpreting signs in the heavens—a sort of observatory to gets one’s bearings on the universe.” Paul said that through Christ “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known” (Ephesians 3:10).
     Not only were they to learn divine mysteries, they were to ascend, watch, and warn. In 1840 Joseph envisioned a holy temple with its observatory and tower, built to the capstone. To “behold that temple completed and finished from the foundation to the top stone” was his greatest desire. Joseph continued, “Then come the ancient records” so

now, from this very hour bring everything you can bring and build a Temple unto the Lord, a house unto the mighty God of Jacob. We will build upon the top of this Temple a great observatory, a great and high watch tower and in the top thereof we will suspend a tremendous bell that when it is rung shall . . . wake up the people.

     Nauvoo’s temple was never fully completed. The bell, like a trumpet or shofar, was to sound in the ears of the people to awaken them to the cause of Zion. “Awake . . . call on the Lord in mighty prayer that He will [break] Zion’s bondage and bring to naught the fowler’s snare.”

“Give Heed to the Light and Glory of Zion”
     The foundation was laid but there was more to do. “There shall be a day that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our God” (Jeremiah 31:6) but it was not yet time. The Lord promised that “inasmuch as they follow the counsel which they receive, they shall have power after many days to accomplish all things pertaining to Zion” (D&C 105:37).

The building up of Zion is a cause that has interested the people of God in every age . . . The heavenly Priesthood will unite with the earthly, to bring about those great purposes . . . [It] fired the souls of the ancient patriarchs and prophets, a work that is destined to bring about the destruction of the powers of darkness, the renovation of the earth, the glory of God, and the salvation of the human family.

     At the time of Restoration, the weak and simple were called to proclaim His gospel to “the ends of the world and before kings and rulers” (D&C 1:23). God said the proclamation must be written. He was “about to call upon” the nations, kings, and authorities “to give heed to the light and glory of Zion” (D&C 124:6). Almost 200 years later, the time has come to call all nations, kings, authorities, priests, and people to turn to God, to embrace truth, to hunger after righteousness, and to heed “the light and glory of Zion” so they can withstand the judgments that now will come.
     Through eradicating darkness, light breaks forth again. The mysterious Teacher would no longer be hidden. Priesthood keys are held by “a root of Jesse . . . a descendant of Jesse, as well as of Joseph, unto whom rightly belongs the priesthood and the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days” (D&C 113:5–6). This servant “shall stand for an ensign of the people [and] . . . set up an ensign for the nations and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:10, 12). The Lord

iwill lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth; and behold, they shall come with speed swiftly; none shall be weary nor stumble among them. None shall slumber nor sleep. (Isaiah 5:26–27)

     After a time of ‘the bread of adversity and the waters of affliction,’ the people would abandon their unclean images” and turn to God. This was the moment the righteous hoped and prayed for fervently.The stone cut without hands will “become a great mountain and fill the whole earth” (Daniel 2:34–35). Many will “go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3).
     Creation “will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21, NIV).

The earth hath travailed and brought forth her strength; and truth is established in her bowels; and the heavens have smiled upon her; and she is clothed with the glory of her God; for he stands in the midst of his people. (D&C 84:101)

“Truth abhors the works of injustice, and injustice hates all the ways of truth. And their struggle is fierce.” The inherent conflict between truth and injustice will finally be resolved when humanity chooses to serve and worship Christ with their whole soul.

Now the spirits of truth and injustice struggle in the hearts of men and they walk in both wisdom and folly. He has allotted them to the children of men that they may know good and evil, and that the destiny of all the living may be according to the spirit within them at the time of the visitation . . . But in the mysteries of His understanding and in His glorious wisdom, God has ordained an end for injustice, and at the time of the visitation He will destroy it forever. 

Truth, which has wallowed in the ways of wickedness during the dominion of injustice until the appointed time of judgment, shall arise in the world forever.

     In the end, Zion will prevail and God’s covenant will be fulfilled. Foundational laws of obedience, sacrifice, morality, and consecration will rule the land and hearts of all who have chosen to serve Him and become “partakers of the heavenly gift.”
     “This is Zion—the pure in heart” (D&C 97:21). Christ will finally reign over the earth He purchased with His own perfect life.

Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

Righteousness and truth will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out mine elect from the four quarters of the earth, unto a place which I shall prepare . . . and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem . . . And there shall be mine abode, and it shall be Zion, which shall come forth out of all the creations which I have made; and for the space of a thousand years the earth shall rest. (Isaiah 28:16–17, Moses 7:62, 64)

     Wisdom, knowledge, and power are given “to His chosen ones as an everlasting possession. [God] has caused them to inherit the lot of the Holy Ones . . . a foundation of the building of holiness and eternal plantation through all ages to come.”
     The question is asked, “Who can dwell . . . in Zion where the splendor of the Shekinah is like a devouring fire?” The answer: “The righteous shall dwell therein. Everyone that walketh in righteousness and speaketh uprightly, that is far removed from unrighteous gain, that keepeth his soul aloof from the oppressors, that withholdeth his hands from receiving a bribe, that stoppeth up his ears from hearkening unto them that shed innocent blood, and restrains his eyes from looking on them that do evil. As for him, his dwelling-place shall be in a place high and exalted, even the sanctuary . . . His waters shall be sure as a spring of water whose waters fail not.”

Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy . . . that say unto Zion: Behold, thy God reigneth! As the dews of Carmel, so shall the knowledge of God descend upon them. (D&C 128:19)

     “Come to the land of my vineyard and fight the battle of the Lord . . . for in this thing shall be their safety.” Joseph encouraged the willing “to help build up the city of our God . . . Now let all who can coolly and deliberately dispose of their property come up and give of their substance to the poor, that the hearts of the poor may be comforted, and all may worship God together in holiness of heart.”
     “Come ye unto it”—to the light God gives, to the salvation God offers, to the power God bestows, to the new and everlasting covenant God seals—that “the year of my redeemed” may come (D&C 45:10, 133:52).

For verily I say unto you that I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the light and the life of the world—a light that shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not. I came unto mine own, and mine own received me not; but unto as many as received me gave I power to do many miracles, and to become the sons of God; and even unto them that believed on my name gave I power to obtain eternal life.

And even so I have sent mine everlasting covenant into the world, to be a light to the world, and to be a standard for my people, and for the Gentiles to seek to it, and to be a messenger before my face to prepare the way before me. Wherefore, come ye unto it. (D&C 45:7–10)

———

    
    

And all this shall stand as a testimony against the world at the last day. And if it so be that they repent and come unto the Father in the name of Jesus, they shall be received into the kingdom of God. (Ether 5:4–5)

For footnotes and references, click HERE.