Celestial Training

Dear brothers and sisters, I pray that you may read and maybe just find one thing that you can take away with you today to strengthen your testimony. 

Although talks are really for the speaker to help them grow and strengthen their own testimony just as much if not more than for the congregation, I pray that the spirit will teach EACH ONE of us.  

This talk has been inspired by a talk from Sister Sheri Dew.  

We are here for a little ‘same boat therapy’ because we are all in the same boat. We are here in mortality or what CS Lewis called “enemy occupied territory.” Moroni warned us to be wise in the days of our probation, and we have been wise. We have identified The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the Lord’s restored church, but this is only the beginning because the purpose of the church is not just to help cope with living in this Telestial world, or even to prepare us for the Terrestrial world: it is to prepare us for the Celestial kingdom, and that is my topic today.

Celestial training in a Telestial world

When we were baptized, and then we made additional covenants in the temple, we essentially signed up for Celestial training. Any kind of training is tough. Training stretches us, giving a talk in Sacrament meeting stretches us, but Celestial training in a Telestial world - this training is the most rigorous training on earth.

The object of Celestial training is to help us become better and better disciples of Christ.

In trying to do just that, I reached out to my neighbors. 

A few years ago I was in charge of the Empty Nester family home evening group which is an excellent activity to invite friends and neighbors to. We had some new neighbors that were kitty corner to us and they had a Border Collie so they were outside playing with him often. We started talking to them more and more and I was comfortable enough to invite them to one of our family home evening activities in our home. I was pleasantly surprised when they came. Well our theme that night was music - you know in the church we really like to sing - so for an opening song, we sang There is Sunshine in my Soul Today because the second verse says there is MUSIC in my soul today. Well, there’s also another line that says, “For Jesus is my light.” At this point, I saw the husband turn to his wife and roll his eyes. We then played a fun little game, Name that Tune, and then I played a video from the singing group Under the Street Lamp, which sings lots of songs from my era like The Four Seasons as well as others. It was great. 

Well these people left at intermission, saying some niceties, but they had already seen it. A couple of months later I was passing out a few neighbor Christmas gifts and these people were not at home so I called them later and the man answered the phone and when I explained what I was doing and asked if I could come over and drop it off, he said he had never heard of such a thing as neighbor Christmas gifts and if this had anything to do with me in my church. They didn’t want anything to do with it. I felt my face burn and literally turn red and we were on the phone not even face-to-face.

Celestial training in a Telestial  world is not for the faint of heart.

Don’t get off the train

Sister Dew tells us that a stake president in a council meeting one time had told the church members that they were close to the celestial kingdom. We are here today at church and are on the covenant path. You and I are exercising faith and repenting and you are closer to the celestial kingdom than you realize. 

You’re either here because you’re on it, or you want to get on the covenant path. 

I loved it when a sister in our congregation told Relief Society sisters in a lesson several years ago that we can liken our journey as all being on a train. If you get off, the train keeps moving and you can be left behind. You can get back on but the best thing is to stay on the train and we will make it to the end. 

So, don’t get off the train. 

But that doesn’t mean we’ve got it made.

Sister Dew states she has at times struggled to feel that there is a place for her in the church and she has been hurt by feeling judged by other church members. Have you ever felt that way? The more important question is: how have you stayed faithful? 

Words are one of the most important things that we have in the gospel. One of the names of Jesus Christ is the WORD. 

Further throughout scripture prophets have admonished us to believe their words to us. Nephi declared, “they are the words of Christ.” 

Because the Lord cares about words, so does the adversary. Satan understands the power of the word meaning the Savior, and he also knows the power of our words when they testify of truth. Every time we use words to teach truth, we dilute the efforts of the adversary. 

Ironically, the slew of information available at our fingertips makes finding and discerning truths more challenging than ever. Never in the history of the world have people been so saturated with the philosophies of men. It is possible to consume an endless diet of content today: podcasts, blogs, movies, YouTube, TikTok, Hulu, Netflix, and cable channels galore. 

Just last week as I was somewhat working on my talk, my husband looked over at me and said, “so how is your talk going?” I was actually looking at Instagram. The videos of the kitties are so cute. 

What happens to our hearts and minds when we consume our days and even years of words with most of them coming from those who know nothing about the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do the words we consume invite the Spirit or drive him away?

Find reliable sources of truth

Then we add in the emergence of artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT? Artificial intelligence has remarkable capabilities, but it can also produce deep fakes. Recently, you may have seen a recent photo online of Pope Francis in a stylish, white, puffy jacket except it wasn’t him. The photo was fake. 

Artificial intelligence will only make it more difficult to discern what is true and what is not. 

In short, we are inundated by words from family, friends, journalist leaders, authors, scholars, and podcasters. Talk about a war of words!

Politicians use flattery to get your vote, companies use it to sell you stuff, influencers use it to get you to support them in their agenda. No doubt flattery helped create the mist of darkness Lehi saw in his vision of the tree of life. Beware of those who tell you what you want to hear.

Our challenge as disciples of Christ is to do again here in mortality what we did in pre-mortality. So, in today’s war of words, will we again discern what is true and again choose to follow Christ? This is why celestial training is so important.

So where do we go for Celestial training? There are a number of places but let’s examine two places where words have unusual power:  the temple and the prophets of God. 

Gain power in the temple

First the temple. I said at the beginning of this talk that it was going to help me as much if not more than you. Because of this talk I set up several appointments for the temple. 

President Russell M. Nelson has said: “if you don’t love attending the temple yet, go more often, not less.” 

President Nelson has explained why there is such power in the temple. The temple lies at the center of strengthening our faith, because the Savior and his doctrine are at the very heart of the temple. As we keep our covenants, He endows us with his healing, strengthening power, and oh how we will all need his power in the days ahead.

Trust the prophets

Now a few words about prophets. I can say without reservation that the most important words being spoken on earth today are those from prophets, seers and revelators. 

And because they hold these special keys—priesthood keys—prophet seers, and revelators are the most dependable source of TRUTH on Earth. Prophets, seers and revelators can see things you and I cannot see. Celebrities, politicians, journalists, scholars, billionaires, presidents of the finest universities, and even your favorite podcaster cannot see what seers can see. None of these influencers hold all priesthood keys. Prophets are just not the same as other people; they are in a category of their own.

President Nelson has explained that in their Quorum meetings “the majority never rules, we listen prayerfully to one another until we are united. Then, when we have reached complete accord the unifying influence of the Holy Ghost is spine tingling. No member of the first presidency or Quorum of the Twelve would ever leave decisions for the Lord‘s church to his own best judgment.”

There’s another reason to trust prophets. It is their motives. They are not in this for money. They aren’t seeking votes, fame, popularity, or anything for themselves. Their only objective is “the everlasting welfare of our souls.“

Most importantly, even the senior apostle, the prophet, is not the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Jesus Christ is, and He is perfect. When we follow the prophet we are actually placing our trust in God the Father and then His son, Jesus Christ. They are our ultimate protectors.

Of the 8 billion people on earth, the Lord has entrusted just 15 men with his restored priesthood keys. Wouldn’t we want to listen to them first and wouldn’t we want to listen to them the most?

Now brothers and sisters, let me end where I began. We are preparing for the celestial kingdom and none of us will be happy with anything less than that. Our celestial training here is rigorous, but we are probably closer to our goal than we think.

I testify that Jesus Christ is our Savior. As President Nelson said to close General Conference last April, “Whatever our dilemmas, Jesus Christ is the answer.” That is why the temple and prophets are so crucial. The words of the prophets lead us to Christ. The words of the temple bind us to him and in his strength, we can do all things.