55. Those That Die in Me

A talk given by Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, on December 6, 1982, at the funeral of Wilford Payne. Henry Haurand was present at the funeral and remembered clearly how the sermon had filled him with great hope. In the summer of 1991 President Haurand, then a member of the Bountiful Utah South Stake presidency, had come into possession of a transcript of the talk, which he shared with me on September 1 and which President Haurand used extensively in his talk at the funeral of Bishop Elvon Bay in the Bountiful Thirty-Sixth Ward on September 9, 1991. The talk deeply affected me, and in the years since then I have used the ideas from it in several funeral sermons I have had occasion to preach. In a letter to my good friend, Doug Holt, dated October 21, 1991, I wrote: “Here is a copy of the funeral talk by Elder McConkie that I was telling you about a couple weeks ago. It has the kind of doctrine I want preached at my funeral some day.”

I am very grateful to have the privilege of expressing a hearty and heart-felt “Amen” to the excellent tributes and expressions that have been made in this service about my dear and well beloved friend, Brother Wilford Payne. I am delighted to have the privilege of having my expressions of appreciation and commendation for the life that he has lived. I think it is particularly gratifying that the general tone and tenor of all the tributes that have been paid, whatever they have said about his Church service as stake president, mission president, a Regional Representative, a sealer in the temple, whatever they have said about all else, the tribute in the final analysis has turned to the high and important part of his life that was centered in the family unit. President Payne served as a stake president for fourteen years, or whatever, and was then released. He served as a mission president, Regional Representative, and so on for a designated and limited period. He accepted the call to serve as an eternal father, and so he married Blanche Ellsworth according to the law and order of the holy priesthood, and with that union was created an eternal family unit that has the potential of becoming like the family of God our Father, and he will not be released from that call and that assignment which he accepted and made by choice as guided by the power of the Spirit.

Whatever we do in the Church, it is all supplemental, it is ancillary, it is preparatory for a more important thing and that is a relationship centered in a prospective eternal family unit. And so I join in the accolades that have been expressed and the appreciation that has been reigned [?] and am pleased with you to know that it centers above all else in the family unit.

I had the privilege of performing a marriage ceremony in the temple once for a descendant of President Harry Payne. Though Harry Payne, long deceased at the time, because of his interest in the family unit, the same interest that has been born witness of relative to Brother Wilford today, Brother Harry Payne was present for the occasion. There isn’t anything in the world as important as the family unit. And that is what counts in the eternal sense of the word where this family is concerned.

I do not know how many there are present today; there would be a number whose husbands and wives have passed on. Elder Mark E. Petersen, of course, is one of them whose beloved Emma Mar has preceded him into another sphere: the realm of spirits, where the work of the Lord continues on the same basis that it operates here except without question an accelerated pace. I met since this assemblage came together today Sister Dannion and Sister Jaussi. Both of them have husbands who have passed on, and both of them were contemporaries in the mission field with Brother Wilford Payne, their husbands as with him presiding over missions in Great Britain.

I think if I can contribute properly to this service that it would be appropriate for me to say to all of you, Brother Payne and his family, to Blanche, who is a great pillar of spiritual strength and wisdom herself, but to all of us in general: “What blessings accrue when a faithful person departs this life.”

We don’t have the anxieties, the fears, and the tremulous feeling that are present in the world when death comes upon us. We have some feelings and understandings that the world does not have.

It is not uncommon among us to have the sick healed and occasionally the dead raised; as part of the gospel plan these things operate by faith. I once gave some years ago Brother Wilford Payne a blessing when his health was not all that it should be and that he desired. Because he was a man of faith and because his time had not come to depart this life, the Lord was prevailed upon to remove the disease that afflicted him and caused the cancer that he had to go away, and he continued to live until his appointed time.

Our revelation says that they who have faith to be healed shall be healed if they are not appointed unto death. But there came a time when he was appointed unto death, and it was right and proper, it was the mind and will and purpose of the Lord that he be transferred from this mortal sphere to a more glorious sphere because he went to the paradise of God. In that sphere he rests from his labors as far as the diseases and sickness and illness and troubles of this life are concerned, but he goes on laboring and struggling and working with a zeal that exceeds anything that he manifest here, working on the Lord’s errand for the salvation of people, and his interest remains primarily and chiefly in the family unit, in the members of his family who predeceased him, with whom already he has commenced reunion. His interest continues in full measure, perhaps accentuated, perhaps greater than ever, in the members of his family who remain.

We have in the Church, in the revelation, something that we have come to call the Law of the Mourner. It is prefaced by the expression that those that the elders of the Church should be called when they are sick and that they should pray over them and that the prayer of faith will heal the sick if it is appointed.

But the law itself says, “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection” (D&C 42:45).

Then it says a marvelous thing. It says, “Those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them” (D&C 42:46).

Then there is a phrase, a sentence that does not concern us. It gives the perspective and eternal view, however. It says, “And they that die not in me, wo unto them, for their death is bitter” (D&C 42:47).

Now there is an expression—that if we could single out and catch a vision of its true and full meaning would give us comfort and an assurance in the household of faith that practically nothing else in this world can give us. They “that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them.”

That gives us the problem of determining what is meant by “those that die in me.” John saw a vision, and John wrote something about this. He summarized it in these words. He said, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,” for “they . . . rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Revelation 14:13).

The same expression: Die in the Lord.

Let me tell you a verse of a hymn that was sung by the Lord Jesus and eleven others, the remaining eleven of the Twelve, Judas having gone out into the night as they concluded their worship and the period of instruction in the upper room. This was the night before the crucifixion. This was the beginning of the night when the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane worked out the infinite and eternal atoning sacrifice. All it says in the New Testament is, “They sang an hymn.” As it happens, we know what hymn they sang, because we know what hymn is sung in every home in Jerusalem that night as part of the keeping of the feast of the Passover. One of the verses in that hymn says this, and it is from the revelations: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalms 116:15).

Now does that do something to death in the eternal perspective of things? Precious unto the Lord is the death of His saints! Not something that brings sorrow and anguish and anxiety into the soul, but something that announces a reward and a triumph and the beginning of a day of glory and peace and reward. Something that indicates that a soul has come from the presence of God and passed through a mortal probation and ended dying in the Lord. Or, in other words, ended life having kept the faith.

Now the people that die in the Lord are the people that keep the faith but are not perfect. They are not perfect many of them by any manner of means. There was only one perfect being and that was the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you had to be perfect in this life to gain salvation there would only be one saved person. Now, yes, they become perfect eventually in eternity, but as pertaining to this life they die in the faith, in the Lord.

Now if you want a passage of scripture that was said by a very wise and good man with great inspiration, but which is a distillation in thought content of what has been said by tens of thousands of Saints through the various dispensations, or what could be said, it is this. And instead of saying it in the first person of its author, let’s think of it in terms of Brother Wilford Payne saying it, because he was in the category to which it applied (and that is what the scriptures are, simply the samples and patterns of certain episodes that are then enlarged upon in principles to apply to all people similarly situated). Well, these are the words:

“I have I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:

“Henceforth 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 4:7–8).

Now that is the benediction spoken or unspoken that in thought content is in the heart and the mind and the soul of every person who departs this life in the faith, who dies in the Lord.

What we do in this life is to chart a course leading to eternal life. That means we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are baptized for the remission of sins. We receive by the laying on of hands the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is the right to the constant companionship of that member of the Godhead based on faithfulness, and then we struggle and labor and strive to endure to the end, to keep the commandments after baptism.

Nephi said we were to “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men” (2 Nephi 31:20). He said we were to feast on the word of Christ. Then he gave a promise that pertaining those so doing, “Thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:20).

Now this is what is expected of us: to chart a course leading to eternal life. And then if we are on the course and in the path and struggling and striving and trying to do what we best can, if we are trying to utilize the talents that the Lord has given us, and we depart this life still on the path, having died in the faith, it is as though at that moment our calling and election is made sure, because no one departs from the path after this life if he died in the Lord.

Now I am not saying that all people are equal in the eternal worlds, neither in the spirit world, nor in the resurrection. The Prophet told us that “whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection” (D&C 130:18), that if a man “gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come” (D&C 130:19).

But what I am saying is that if we believe the gospel and if we enter into the eternal covenants, chiefly and primarily marriage, and if we strive and struggle and keep the faith and are doing the best we can, though we haven’t attained the perfection that ultimately is our potential, if we go forward and die in the Lord, we filled the measure of our creation, and what more can we ask.

We don’t worry any more about people who departed this life who have been true and faithful. We rest secure and have the feeling that they are at peace (and they are). We have the feeling that they will come forth in a glorious resurrection (and they will). We only worry about those of us who are here remaining, and for us the question and problem is one of so living that we also will die in the faith and will be worthy of the blessings of the gospel.

The gospel principles actually operate in the lives of people. There are thousands and tens and scores of thousands and hundreds of thousands in the Church who are now living in such a manner and in such a way that they will have eternal life in our Father’s kingdom. It is very easy and quite gratifying to have the privilege of speaking at the funeral of such a person, and that is what is involved here today, the passing of Brother Wilford Payne. He has gone on, and he will have all the rewards.

When the Prophet Joseph Smith chose to preach a funeral sermon, it was both for an individual and for all people similarly situated, and the sermon that was the greatest sermon of his ministry was given at a general conference of the Church. It is the King Follet sermon. That sermon was a funeral sermon, and he was telling what would happen to King Follet, an elder in the Church who had been killed when a bucket of rocks fell on him in a well that he was digging.

Well now, a funeral sermon: Last Thursday in the temple with all the General Authorities present, President [Gordon B.] Hinckley said that there was something sanctifying about a funeral. He was talking about President [N. Eldon] Tanner’s funeral. Well, there is something sanctifying about the funeral of every faithful person who passes on because it is an occasion for us to be reminded of the eternal things that are involved in life and how thin the veil is and of how gracious and wondrous it is that a noble soul has gone on and, as a consequence, for us to make the determinations that we need to make so that we can be as they were.

Now Wilford Payne had trouble with his hearing as far as this mortal body was concerned, but he had no problem with his hearing where his spirit was concerned, and he heard the truth, and he believed the truth. And he had a little trouble with his eyesight as far as this mortal body was concerned, but he had not trouble with his spirit eyes. He was able to see eternal things. And he had a lot of deficiencies of the flesh, particularly in his later moments as this body began to decay and prepare to go back to the dust, but there is going to be a day when this body will be raised from mortality to immortality and from corruption to incorruption, and it will become a glorified and perfected body, and there won’t be any hearing aids, and there won’t be any glasses, and there won’t be any physical defects or deficiencies of any sort, but he will come forth in glorious immortality, thus to live through all eternity, the Lord Jesus being the pattern of what is involved.

Well, one word more. I’ll read it from the occasion when the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. The Lord had deliberately refrained from coming to the environs of Bethany so that Lazarus would remain four days dead and past the point where according to Jewish tradition, false though it was, that the spirit had departed eternally from the mortal presence.

Well, Martha came out first to meet Him: “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee” (John 11:21–22). I find it a little difficult to believe that there could be any expression more profound and total and complete faith than that simple utterance of Martha.

“Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.

“Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

“Jesus said unto her,” and in order to make this declaration He had permitted and arranged the entire thing. This is the greatest single declaration He ever made of His own divine sonship. So, in this setting, He said: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

“And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

“She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world” (John 11:23–27).

And shortly thereafter, following as we suppose a similar talk with Mary her sister, Jesus called Lazarus forth from the grave. He came forth bound in his grave clothes returning as a mortal at yet some future day to die.

Well, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25). The raising of Lazarus proved that He was the Son of God, the Resurrection and the Life. The resurrection is immortality. The life involved is eternal life. Now the resurrection is to live everlastingly with body and spirit inseparably connected. It will pass upon all men as a free gift of God. But eternal life is the name of the kind of life that God our Father lives, and it consists of two things: one, the continuation of the family unit in eternity; and two, possessing, inheriting, and receiving the fullness of the glory of the Father.

And with that expression we are back to where we began in our consideration of the greatest attribute and characteristic of Wilford Payne. We are back to the family unit, because he created for himself the family unit that can endure everlastingly and, thus by definition and in the very nature of things, can assure him and all the participating members of his family of the greatest reward that is possible to receive—eternal life.

God bless the family. God continue to be gracious and sweet and tender to Blanche and the children and all, that during this moment of separation before in due course they and all of us are called to another sphere of labor and life, they may have the Spirit to be with them and to comfort and assure that all is well and there is no need to worry because of the life that Wilford Payne lived.

This is my prayer, and I think it is the prayer unitedly of all of us, and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.