LDS Temple: Symbol of Freedom, Family, and Virtue

 

Many people in this world hope for world peace in for an end to poverty. However we disagree about the best way to go about this.  Tragically, some of our disagreements about bringing peace often bring differing sides into conflict. Some groups think education alone is the answer.  other organizations are dedicated to speading ideas of socialism or environmentalism. The LDS church on the other hand focuses on spreading the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

"The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ would take the slums out of people, and then they would take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature." 

- Pres. Ezra Taft Benson

But what is LDS understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  Some Christians spread the message of grace without repentance.  These preachers spread the popular falsehood that individuals somehow can find happiness in wickedness without repentance.  The true Gospel of Christ teaches that we must first receive the power to repent through Christ and then receive forgiveness after we have repented from and forsaken our sins.

The answer to poverty and suffering in this world and preserving constitutional government is not education alone, or income redistribution or even environmentalism.  Although there are merits in each of these causes.  The only hope we have at preserving freedom and creating a world of peace and prosperity is a return to virtue. 

Freedom, traditional family values, charity, chastity, and sobriety are the ideals that the LDS Church and the LDS Temple represent.  Why can't just anyone enter an Latter-Day Saint Temple after it has been dedicated?  Because, to merit enterance to a temple, an individual must first be living up to the standard of inward purity and sanctification that God has established with regard to His Holy House found in 1 Cor 5:11.  In the Lord's Temple, patrons make covenants to live lives of purity and virtue.  It doesn't make sense to enter the Temple when an individual is not serious about keeping the covenants of self-restraint that are given in the temple.

The secret to world peace and properity is a return to virtue.  Immorality before and outside of marriage results in illegitimacy and broken families which contributes to poverty.  Chemical dependence leads to greater mental and physical illness, decreased productivity and greater poverty.  Just like Rome, Western governments are instituting socialism and ursurping the responsibility of the Church, which is welfare and virtue (James 1:27).  Today, few western churches provide much welfare nor teach much virtue.  And just like Rome we may well see our own nations fractured as a morally and economically bankrupt empire is torn apart from within. 

Nevertheless, I am thankful for being blessed to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The LDS Church and the LDS Temple and the LDS members are standing for he cause of Jesus Christ.  We stand for Constitutional Government.  In fact, Joseph Smith taught again and again that the US Constitution was given by God.  For the LDS, the US Constitution is akin to scripture and part of our religion.  (Shame on Mitt Romney for never communicating this). The LDS stand for traditional family values, and for a return to virtue.  We invite all to stand with us.  Who is on the Lord's side who?  Like Moses, we have drawn our line in the sand and now is the time for us to show where we stand.

The LDS church his little stone cut out of the mountain without hands that is rolling fourth and growing bigger and gaining momentum until it will strike the great image described in Daniel 2.  That stone,  which is the kingdom of God already on the earth will become a great mountain (or temple), and the principles and covenants of the temple will fill the whole Earth.