Sealing

By Larry Doyle Crenshaw

MeditationsInLight.Blogspot.com

Endless is the duration of a divine seal

For Godly bonds extend beyond mortality

Unchanged, eternal, and beyond appeal

But unsealed deeds yield to a finite fatality

 “Nothing lasts forever.”  A statement oft repeated as we experience the demise of things once held dear.  Indeed, everything around us bears witness of things temporary, fleeting, and momentary.  Our very lives seemingly have a beginning and an end.  Shakespeare’s Macbeth, upon hearing the news of his wife’s death mourns, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.”  Our material possessions, our work, - all that we have seem to have a beginning and an end.

However, we are reminded that there are dimensions beyond what our natural eyes can see.  There is a world that exists whose laws operate on a plane different from our finite earthly dimensions.  The Apostle Paul revealed, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18) Hence, if we come to understand and abide the laws of that usually unseen world, we can engage things that are eternal.

This gives rise to the question, “Is there a bridge, a way to be connected to this place where things are eternal?”  We affirm that there is.

The spirit within each of us is separated from Our Heavenly Father at birth as we inhabit a very temporal and imperfect body in a temporal and imperfect world. It is His plan that we do so that we might learn, grow by overcoming obstacles, and take mastery of our soul before returning to Him. Because we are fallen from a divine status to an earthly existence for a finite number of years, there must be a bridge that exists that will allow us to return to Father’s presence.  Believers in Christ attest that His Atonement built that bridge wherein we will all come forth from the finite grave to an infinite existence with an immortal body and spirit.

For many, this glorious doctrine, as wonderful as it is, seems a bit empty, rather incomplete, if we are left eternally without the companionship and relationship of our spouse and our children.  There must be a bridge, a way to eternally connect us to these loved ones beyond the earthly contract of “till death do we part.”  After all, we spend a lifetime learning how to be a better husband or wife, a better son or daughter.  Are we to spend nearly a 100 years learning how to be knit together as a family only to have this divine familial tapestry unravel with death?

We testify that there is a bridge, a divinely ordained connector between earth and heaven.  From ancient times such connectors or bridges were called ordinances and were conveyed by divine covenants. The writer of Ecclesiastes writes, “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever:…” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).  Elsewhere we hear affirmed that, “…neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 11:11)  Yet, the marital ceremony done by man with worldly authority is only for the period of this life.  Is there not a person on earth today with priestly power to say to a man and woman, “You are now married and sealed together for time AND all eternity.”?  No government can do this and only one religious body claims such power and authority.

With authority to seal or bind families together forever, marriage and family relationships can continue into the eternities.  However, it must be done by those who have been given the power to do so.   “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.  (Matthew 16:19)  Therefore, we see that the binding together of husband and wife and children to parents is a divine priesthood authorized ordinance given to properly ordained Apostles and Prophets.  Not only are such sealings conducted by proper keys of authority, but must be done in a place designed to connect what happens on earth with what is recognized and certified in heaven. 

The opportunities for such sealings must be done on earth.  Therefore, those who pass on without such ordinances but later accept them with all their hearts, will need to have them done by others by proxy.  If they choose not to do so until “earth is no longer,” then they will remain undone or unclaimed.  Such is the power and the effect of moral agency.

Thus our meditation testifies:

Binding keys were given anciently and now

Divine welds between mortality and life eternal         

Everlasting links that empower and endow

With blessings sanctified, sacred, supernal

And we prayerfully petition:

May we be sealed both body and soul

Called up and anointed by the Lord

Heirs of celestial salvation within His fold

Crowned with life eternal as our reward

Sealing

Behold, I give unto you power, that whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and thus shall ye have power among this people.

Book of Mormon, Helaman 10:7  & New Testament, Matthew 16:19

Endless is the duration of a divine seal

For Godly bonds extend beyond mortality

Unchanged, eternal, and beyond appeal

But unsealed deeds yield to a finite fatality

For mortal deeds that remain unsealed

By the Spirit of Promise will be broken

When our earthly probation is repealed

And our final mortal words are spoken

Binding keys were given anciently and now

Divine welds between mortality and life eternal        

Everlasting links that empower and endow

With blessings sanctified, sacred, supernal

For sealing ordinances bind God and man

With covenant bonds that cannot be broken

Faithfully obeying God’s every command

Striving to be worthy of the sealing token

May we be sealed both body and soul

Called up and anointed by the Lord

Heirs of celestial salvation within His fold

Crowned with life eternal as our reward

Larry Doyle Crenshaw