We live in a day of “wars [and] rumors of wars, and earthquakes in divers places.^” As prophesied, “the whole earth [is] in commotion” and “Satan is abroad in the land.” He seeks to destroy all that is good and righteous. He is Lucifer, who was cast out of the presence of God.

While alone, this quote is enough to get anyone paying attention a little nervous with all that is going on. We can let those sentences get the best of us, and at times I have – but we should be paying more attention to the next sentence of Elder Packer’s statement more so than the first four:

Against all of that, we have very positive feelings about what lies ahead.

Luckily a good friend of mine @LDSGuy has been paying better attention, not to mention we had been discussing if there would ever be missionaries in Egypt. I got a text message the other night from him, telling me to go look up sign #48. It has been awhile since I read 65 Signs of the Times and couldn’t remember what it was, so I was pretty excited to see what it was about. I will let him add the remainder of this post:

The way I figure it, either 1. the fullness of the gospel will be taken into Egypt, missionaries will be welcome, a temple will be built, the Egyptian people will enjoy the blessings of eternal marriage and being sealed to their families for eternity, or 2. the Muslim extremists in that region will take over and align themselves with other extremist groups in the region and attack a common enemy—Israel. Both seem plausible. Of course both could happen, with the latter occurring before the former.

Somewhere deep inside my mind I seem to recall scriptures mentioning something about Egypt’s role in the last days and what their status will be with respect to the gospel, but I was not able to locate any.

That is until I came across my copy of David Ridges’ book 65 Signs of the Times Leading up to the Second Coming and started thumbing through it that night. Lo! and behold there it was on page 127 and continuing over onto page 128. The answers to Egypt’s status in the last days was given to us eight centuries prior to Christ’s birth by the prophet Isaiah (Esaias in the New Testament Greek). I’m going to copy Brother Ridge’s explanatory notes (in italicize brackets) in these verses to help illustrate his views on this topic.

18 In that day [the last days] shall five [several] cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan [Israel; a prophecy of greatly improved relationship between Egypt and Judah in the last days], and swear to the Lord of hosts [make covenants with Jesus Christ, implying that they will have the true gospel]; one shall be called, The city of destruction [not a good translation; could be "city of the sun"].

19 In that day [the last days] shall there be an altar [a temple; in a temple] to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar [symbolic of a temple—see Revelation 3:12] at the border thereof to the Lord.

20 And it [the altar and the pillar] shall be for a sign and for a witness [reminder] unto [of] the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they [Egyptians] shall cry [pray] unto the Lord because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.

21 And the Lord shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day [the last days], and shall do sacrifice [see 3 Nephi 9:20; broken heart and contrite spirit] and oblation [see D&C 59:12]; yea, they shall vow a vow [make covenants] unto the Lord, and perform it [and will be faithful to them].

Here the author points out the fact that often times the Lord has to humble a group of people, and then save them for peril before they will listen to Him.

22 And the Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it [first humble it, then heal it]: and they shall return even to the Lord [the Egyptians will hear and live the gospel], and he shall be intreated [prayed to] of [by] them, and shall heal them [wonderful blessings are in store for Egypt].

Isaiah 19:18-22

After looking at this source further it seems to me that dark days still lie ahead for Egypt; however, the distant future will be a bright new dawn, full of gospel truths and saving ordinances.

Another excellent source I love to turn to when studying Isaiah is David R. Minert’s book Simplified Isaiah for the Latter-day Saints.

In covering Isaiah, Brother Minert does a remarkable job explaining Isaiah in simplified, modern terminology. Brother Minert consulted at least 12 different sources on Isaiah before coming up with his narrative of each verse in Isaiah.

In his book he covers chapter 19 by explaining details that have yet to happen for Egypt. These include, civil war (v. 2), a cruel king/leader (v. 4 – in my opinion this has yet to occur), all the water sources including the Nile river will dry up, plant life and the entire Egyptian economy will suffer as a result (vs. 5-10), the Egyptians will be fearful of even the mention of Israel (v. 17), eventually relations between Egypt and Israel will improve (v. 18), the gospel will be taught to Egyptians, a temple will be built (vs. 19-22), there will be an Arab alliance between Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria (v. 23), and surprisingly Israel will join this alliance (v. 24).

Obviously a lot of the things listed by Isaiah seem unlikely or far-fetched given Egypt’s current status, but then again remember how few people could have imagined that a) the end of the Cold War would occur almost overnight in 1989, or b) the gospel would be preached in eight Russian missions (count as of today), or even that c) an LDS temple would be built in a communist country prior to the end of the Cold War. Clearly, the Lord’s purposes continue to go forth, despite the status of the world’s problems.

I firmly believe that by-and-by all of the concrete prophecies of the prophets will be fulfilled, meaning the ones that do not have conditions attached to them. If a prophet says “in the last days Egypt will have a temple” it will come to pass. However, if a prophet says “in the last days Egypt will have a temple if they do not align themselves with {insert foreign troublemaker here}” and Egypt still aligns themselves with that country then of course they will not receive a temple. In the verses outlined above by Isaiah the prophecies of the future of Egypt all seem pretty concrete to me.

It will be interesting to watch and see how this current Egyptian unrest unfolds, but if I had to guess where we are with regards to the status of Egypt and her future, I’d start at the beginning of the chapter (v. 2)—with a lot of terrible and exciting things ahead for the Egyptians. My personal take on the current murky future of Egypt combined with verse four is that the near future will bring some sort of extreme regime that will NOT be friendly to the United States or Israel, that will possibly attempt to or be successful in instigating Shariah Law throughout Egypt, thus restricting the freedoms of those people who are currently calling for freedoms, and serve as a “cruel lord” over the Egyptian people. It may get dark before it gets bright, but Isaiah has promised the Egyptian people that one day prior to the Lord’s Second Coming the restored gospel will flourish in the Land of the Pharaohs and that the saving ordinances of the gospel will be administered to the Egyptians by the Egyptian saints. It may seem distant, but it could very well all happen within the next 5-10 years.

The Eternal Family Through Christ by Judith Mehr

I know, I know – it’s been awhile. I have no excuses really – though I have been busy, though lately I’ve been the opposite of busy – I’ve actually had nothing to do since the end of May (workforce reduction).

This past Sunday, my wife had the opportunity to speak being part of a newly installed Primary Presidency, and her topic was the Eternal Family. I thought, what better way to get back in the saddle then with that topic. I mean, I have a family and we’re sealed together and I never really thought much past the topical notion of being sealed for all time and eternity. But what does it mean beyond that?

I’m sure some of us have had that thought, so if I’m sealed to my family and to my parents and so on, in theory isn’t everyone sealed to someone? I know it might be a bit juvinile, and I know that a lot of it gets worked out on the other side of the veil, but it’s been one of those nigglers in the back of mind since I was a kid and I really haven’t found much of an answer for it – but I digress, let’s get back on topic.

So looking up Family, Eternal in the topical guide yeilds a list of scriptures to reference. The one that cought my attention (well really because I had read in it another article) is D&C 138:48.

Foreshadowing the great work to be done in the ^atemples of the Lord in the ^bdispensation of the fulness of times, for the redemption of the dead, and the ^csealing of the children to their parents, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse and utterly wasted at his coming.

Which got me wondering about this “earth be smitter with a curse and utterly wasted at his coming”. What exactly is going on here? I don’t remember (and it might be I wasn’t paying attention that day) ever learning about it. But I need to find some answers.

While I don’t have a direct answer, after reading “The Sealing and Binding” [When A Child Wonders by Robert L. Millet] I did start to get an idea of what’s so important here. We’ve all heard the message of Elija concerning “the hearts of the children should turn to their fathers” and vice-a-versa, right – well the curse also comes from Elija. Basically, and please correct me if I’m wrong but I think it’s that these eternal familia bonds are a representation of how a spiritual family works. The plan was laid out, and given to Joseph Smith – explained if you will, and he understood it to mean that if this isn’t done then what was the point and we on earth fail. Did that make sense?

Let me break it down with a little example.

You are stranded on a desert island, all you have with you is the plans to build a house. If you follow the plans and build the house you will have a warm, safe shelter to live in. If you don’t, well you’ll end up dying a horrible death.

So in this example, the plan is the sealing powers. To be an eternal family we have to be sealed, which require those keys and ordinances which enable us to become an eternal family  The house is the eternal family. So if we build a strong home, it will shelter us through thick and thin, keep us warm in our hearts with the love of Christ. And well dying a horrible death is the curse.

Something else to think about,

Every person married in the temple for time and for all eternity has sealed upon him, conditioned upon his faithfulness, all of the blessings of the ancient patriarchs, including the crowning promise and assurance of eternal increase, which means, literally, a posterity as numerous as the dust particles of the earth” (Millennial Messiah, 264).

Granted I haven’t covered all the aspects of the Eternal Family – but I hope I have shed a little light on the subject. I emplore you to study more on the subject by reading some of the pertinant articles found from  searching on LDS.org. There’s always so much to learn, or relearn, or update…

Inside the Temple

Last week, I came across an article in the Salt Lake Tribune about Temple Worship. While the article was fine, the comment section was full of vile, bitter, sacrilegious offenses. I mean it seriously made me ill reading over it. There were things I hold sacred, written across the internet for all to see. Needless to say, it prompted me to my current topic this week, Sacred.

12 And it was because of the ^apride of their hearts, because of their exceeding ^briches, yea, it was because of their oppression to the ^cpoor, withholding their food from the hungry, withholding their clothing from the naked, and smiting their humble brethren upon the cheek, making a ^dmock of that which was sacred, denying the spirit of prophecy and of revelation, murdering, plundering, lying, stealing, committing adultery, rising up in great contentions, and deserting away into the land of Nephi, among the Lamanites- [Hel 4:12]

And what happened after that? One only needs to read verse 13 to see,

13 And because of this their great wickedness, and their ^aboastings in their own strength, they were left in their own strength; therefore they did not prosper, but were afflicted and smitten, and driven before the Lamanites, until they had lost possession of almost all their lands. [Hel 4:13]

The often quoted, “is nothing sacred” seems to be a common mantra these days. TV, Movies, the written word – all seem to try their best at pushing the envelope of what they can get away with. We are bombarded with Satan’s corruption of what was once holy. Everything is fair game it seems, including what goes on in our Temples. It saddens me that people that knew better at one point in their lives, find it necessary to throw pearls before swine. Where is the respect, the courtesy?

My challenge for this week, and really it’s for the month – because I know how busy things can get during the week, is to add one extra temple session to your normal month’s routine. Use the opportunity to remove yourself from the world, and feel the love of Christ. Nothing is as refreshing as a visit to the Temple, for me.