A talk given by seven-year-old Rachael Cleverly on Sunday, December 26, 1982, in the Primary of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward, Bountiful Utah South Stake. On Christmas night Claudia and I had asked the children, "Why was Jesus born?" They weren’t really sure. Rachael was excited by the answers and decided to talk about them the next afternoon in a talk she had been assigned to give in Primary. The talk was published complete with her original spelling in both the January 1983 issue of the Cleverly Newsletter and the January 1984 issue of Die Lange Zeit. Rachael at the time was a second grader at Bountiful Elementary.
Today I’m going to talk about why Jesus came down to earth.
OK, when we were still up in heven, our hevenly father said, “I know you want to be like me with a body. And I do to, but in order to do that, we’ll have to have a world, but you’ll make mistakes. So I’ll have to get someone to corect them.”
Jesus and Saten were the only ones who volintered. They both wanted to do that. Then Saten spoke up and said, “I’ll make sure no-one is bad.” Our hevenly father did not like his idea. Our hevenly father wants us to choose by our selfs.
Suddenly Jesus said, “I’ll do it your way. I won’t force them. I will let them choose, and give you all the credet.”
Saten was very mad at this point. Our hevenly father kicked Saten right out of heven, and a third of his followers. Saten is still mad. And he tries to make us do bad things.
But the real reasons why Jesus came are to show us an example, to teach us, to pay for our sins, and he died for us so we could live with him agin.
There are two kinds of deth, spirichle deth, and phisicle deth. Phisicle deth is when our spirit departs from our bodies. Spirichle deth is when we do rong, and we depart from God.
And I hope we won’t have spirichle deth, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Showing posts with label 1982. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1982. Show all posts
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
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.
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.
54. Baptism
A talk given by seven-year-old Rebecca Cleverly on Sunday afternoon, April 18, 1982, in the Primary of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward, Bountiful Utah South Stake. She recorded the talk in her journal the next Sunday, April 25. It was published in the April–May 1982 issue of the Family Journal with original spelling and punctuation retained. Five months later Rebecca was baptized on Saturday, September 4, 1982.
Today I’m going to talk about baptism. The fourth article of faith says:
“We believe the first princebales are: first faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, second Repentance, third Baptizem by a merson for the rimison of sins, forth for the laying on of hand for the gift of the holy gost.”
Before a person is Baptized he has to
1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Reptent for his own life.
3. Be inerview by the bishop.
4. Wants to keep all God’s commandments.
5. Wants to be Babtized.
6. And has to be at least 8 years old.
When a person is baptized he is dressed all in white. It shows that we are be coming clean an in a sent.
Then someone who has the right pristhood takes us into the water, says a prayer, and puts us all the way under the water.
Then we comfired a member of the church.
I can hardly wait till I’m baptized.
In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today I’m going to talk about baptism. The fourth article of faith says:
“We believe the first princebales are: first faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, second Repentance, third Baptizem by a merson for the rimison of sins, forth for the laying on of hand for the gift of the holy gost.”
Before a person is Baptized he has to
1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Reptent for his own life.
3. Be inerview by the bishop.
4. Wants to keep all God’s commandments.
5. Wants to be Babtized.
6. And has to be at least 8 years old.
When a person is baptized he is dressed all in white. It shows that we are be coming clean an in a sent.
Then someone who has the right pristhood takes us into the water, says a prayer, and puts us all the way under the water.
Then we comfired a member of the church.
I can hardly wait till I’m baptized.
In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
53. Honesty
A talk given by six-year-old Rachael Cleverly on Sunday, February 14, 1982, in the Primary of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward, Bountiful Utah South Stake. The talk was printed in the March 1982 issue of the Family Journal.
Today I’m going to talk about honesty. First of all, honesty means not telling lies.
There are at least three ways why we should be honest. First, so you won’t get in trouble. Second, so you’ll feel good inside. Third, so Heavenly Father won’t be sad.
I’m going to tell you a story about Daniel. Once there was a man named Daniel, and he lived in the city near a king. The king loved him very much, and he made Daniel sort of like a prince.
There were some people in the city that didn’t even like him, and they tried to get rid of him. Now Daniel had a rule for himself that he would pray three times a day. And the people who didn’t like him forced the king into making a rule that said you couldn’t pray to your own God but only to the king. And once they caught Daniel praying to his own God, so they brought him to the king, and the king said, “Is it true that you have been praying to your own God?”
Daniel could have told a lie just to save himself, but he told the truth, and he said, “Yes, I have been praying to my own God.”
Now the king hated to do it, but he had to obey the laws, so he put Daniel in the lions’ den. And all night the lions kept their mouths shut. In the morning the king was so surprised when he saw Daniel was still alive. After they got Daniel out, they put the other people in, and that night the lions did not keep their mouths shut.
And I hope we can all be honest like Daniel was. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Today I’m going to talk about honesty. First of all, honesty means not telling lies.
There are at least three ways why we should be honest. First, so you won’t get in trouble. Second, so you’ll feel good inside. Third, so Heavenly Father won’t be sad.
I’m going to tell you a story about Daniel. Once there was a man named Daniel, and he lived in the city near a king. The king loved him very much, and he made Daniel sort of like a prince.
There were some people in the city that didn’t even like him, and they tried to get rid of him. Now Daniel had a rule for himself that he would pray three times a day. And the people who didn’t like him forced the king into making a rule that said you couldn’t pray to your own God but only to the king. And once they caught Daniel praying to his own God, so they brought him to the king, and the king said, “Is it true that you have been praying to your own God?”
Daniel could have told a lie just to save himself, but he told the truth, and he said, “Yes, I have been praying to my own God.”
Now the king hated to do it, but he had to obey the laws, so he put Daniel in the lions’ den. And all night the lions kept their mouths shut. In the morning the king was so surprised when he saw Daniel was still alive. After they got Daniel out, they put the other people in, and that night the lions did not keep their mouths shut.
And I hope we can all be honest like Daniel was. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
52. Tithing
A talk given by eight-year-old Michael Cleverly on Sunday, January 17, 1982, in the Primary of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward, Bountiful Utah South Stake. On Tuesday, January 26, he wrote the following account of the talk in his journal. The original spelling and punctuation have been retained. It was also published in the February 1982 issue of the Family Journal. At this time Michael was a third grader at Bountiful Elementary. He had been baptized four months earlier on Saturday, September 5, 1981. He was confirmed a member of the Church the following day.
On January 17, 1982, Sunday, I gave a talk in Primary. This how it went.
Lernzo Snow was the 5th preisdnt of the Church. When Lernzo Snow was presidnt of the Church, the Church had 2 problems. 1st the Church was in det. 2nd ther was a floud [drought] in Saint George. Lernzo Snow had been praying about both of theyes problems.
One day Hevanly Father told Lernzo Snow to go to Saint George. He did not know why he was going to Saint George. But he went Sain George. And when he got there they had a specil confnce. And Lernzo Snow got up and said, "I don't know why I came here." In his talk he read from the bible Malachi chapter 3, verses 8, 9, and 10.
(Note I am to tired to finsh my talk is continued next time.) That's all for today.
On Saturday, 6 February, Michael concluded his account of his talk:
(Finishing part of talk.) Then he stoped. Then he said “Know I know why I came here. It's to tell you two pay your tithing. If you will pay your tithing hevanly Father will open the windoes of hevan and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
So the people started to pay there tithing and hevanly Father opened the windows of heaven and it started to rain. This solved both problems there was no longer a drout and the Church was out of deat. I know these things are true in the name of Jesus Christ amen.
On January 17, 1982, Sunday, I gave a talk in Primary. This how it went.
Lernzo Snow was the 5th preisdnt of the Church. When Lernzo Snow was presidnt of the Church, the Church had 2 problems. 1st the Church was in det. 2nd ther was a floud [drought] in Saint George. Lernzo Snow had been praying about both of theyes problems.
One day Hevanly Father told Lernzo Snow to go to Saint George. He did not know why he was going to Saint George. But he went Sain George. And when he got there they had a specil confnce. And Lernzo Snow got up and said, "I don't know why I came here." In his talk he read from the bible Malachi chapter 3, verses 8, 9, and 10.
(Note I am to tired to finsh my talk is continued next time.) That's all for today.
On Saturday, 6 February, Michael concluded his account of his talk:
(Finishing part of talk.) Then he stoped. Then he said “Know I know why I came here. It's to tell you two pay your tithing. If you will pay your tithing hevanly Father will open the windoes of hevan and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
So the people started to pay there tithing and hevanly Father opened the windows of heaven and it started to rain. This solved both problems there was no longer a drout and the Church was out of deat. I know these things are true in the name of Jesus Christ amen.
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