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Question: Where did 19th-Century Latter-day Saints believe that Freemasonry came from?

2018-09-07T14:05:16Z

AndrewMiller: /* Early Latter-day Saints' views of Freemasonry */

{{FairMormon}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Where did 19th-Century Latter-day Saints believe that Freemasonry came from?==
===It was a common 19th century belief of both Mormons and Masons that Masonry had it origins in the Temple of Solomon===

The Saints of Joseph Smith's era accepted the then-common belief that Masonry ultimately sprang from Solomon's temple. Thus, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball understood Masonry to be a corrupted form of a pristine ancient temple rite. <ref>See Footnote 30, {{FR-10-1-4}}</ref> One author later wrote that masonry as an "institution dates its origins many centuries back, it is only a perverted Priesthood stolen from the Temples of the Most High." <ref>{{Instructor1 | author=H. Belnap | article=A Mysterious Preacher|date=15 March 1886|vol=21|num=?|start=91|}}; cited in {{FR-10-1-4}}</ref>

It was a common 19th century belief of both Latter-day Saints and Masons that Freemasonry had it origins in the Temple of Solomon. Some modern Masons continue to hold to this idea, or believe Masonry is (at least in part) derived from other ancient sources. Although this is a minority view that has been forcefully challenged, it was the view held by the early Latter-day Saints and apparently the prophet Joseph Smith himself.

===Early Latter-day Saints' views of Freemasonry===

Joseph Fielding wrote during the Nauvoo period:

<blockquote>
Many have joined the Masonic institution. This seems to have been a stepping stone or preparation for something else, the true origin of Masonry. This I have also seen and rejoice in it.... I have evidence enough that Joseph is not fallen. I have seen him after giving, as I before said, the origin of Masonry. <ref>{{BYUS1|author=Andrew F. Ehat|article='They Might Have Known That He Was Not a Fallen Prophet'—The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding|vol=19|num=2|date=1979|start=145, 147, spelling and punctuation standardized}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Heber C. Kimball wrote of the endowment:

<blockquote>
We have received some precious things through the Prophet on the Priesthood which would cause your soul to rejoice. I cannot give them to you on paper for they are not to be written so you must come and get them for yourself...There is a similarity of Priesthood in Masonry. Brother Joseph says Masonry was taken from Priesthood but has become degenerated. But many things are perfect. <ref>Heber C. Kimball to Parley P. Pratt, 17 June 1842, Parley P. Pratt Papers, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah, spelling and punctuation standardized.</ref>
</blockquote>

Thus, to Joseph's contemporaries, there was much more to the LDS temple endowment than just warmed-over Freemasonry. None of Joseph's friends complained that he had simply adapted Masonic ritual for his own purposes. Rather, they were aware of the common ritual elements, but understood that Joseph had restored something that was both ancient and divinely inspired.

===Early Church leaders believed that Freemasonry was an "apostate" form of the Endowment===

*'''Willard Richards (16 March 1842)''': “Masonry had its origin in the Priesthood. A hint to the wise is sufficient.” <ref>Letter, 7–25 March 1842, Willard Richards to Levi Richards, published in Joseph Grant Stevenson, ed., ''Richards Family History'' (Provo, UT: Stevenson’s Genealogical Center, 1991), 3:90.</ref>
*'''Heber C. Kimball (17 June 1842)''': “There is a similarity of priesthood in Masonry. Brother Joseph [Smith] says Masonry was taken from priesthood.” <ref>Stanley B. Kimball, ''Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer'' (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 85.</ref>
*'''Benjamin F. Johnson (1843)''': Joseph Smith “told me Freemasonry, as at present, was the apostate endowments, as sectarian religion was the apostate religion.” <ref>Benjamin F. Johnson, ''My Life’s Review'' (Heber City, UT: Archive Publishers, 2001), 113.</ref>
*'''Joseph Fielding (December 1843)''': The LDS temple ordinances are “the true origin of Masonry.” <ref>''Brigham Young University Studies'', vol. 19, no. 2, Winter 1979, 145; hereafter cited as ''BYUS''.</ref>
*'''Saints in Salt Lake City (1849–50)''': “Masonry was originally of the church, and one of its favored institutions, to advance the members in their spiritual functions. It had become perverted from its designs.” <ref>John W. Gunnison, ''The Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake'' (Philadelphia: Lippincott and Company, 1856), 59.</ref>
*'''Heber C. Kimball (9 November 1858)''': “The Masonry of today is received from the apostasy. . . . They have now and then a thing that is correct, but we have the real thing.” <ref>''BYUS'', vol. 15, no. 4, Summer 1975, 458.</ref>
*'''Church Authorities (1842–1873)''': “The Mormon leaders have always asserted that Free-Masonry was a . . . degenerate representation of the order of the true priesthood.” <ref>Thomas B. H. Stenhouse, ''The Rocky Mountain Saints'' (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 698.</ref>
</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}

[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]
[[Category:MormonThink]]
[[Category:The Changing World of Mormonism]]
[[Category:Mormon Stories' "Questions and Answers"]]

[[de:Ursprünge der Freimaurerei]]
[[es:Pregunta: ¿Cuál fue el origen de la masonería según los Santos de los Últimos Días del siglo 19?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: De onde os Santos dos Últimos Dias do século XIX acreditam que a Maçonaria veio?]]

Question: Where did 19th-Century Latter-day Saints believe that Freemasonry came from?

2018-09-07T14:04:21Z

AndrewMiller: /* It was a common 19th century belief of both Mormons and Masons that Masonry had it origins in the Temple of Solomon */

{{FairMormon}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Where did 19th-Century Latter-day Saints believe that Freemasonry came from?==
===It was a common 19th century belief of both Mormons and Masons that Masonry had it origins in the Temple of Solomon===

The Saints of Joseph Smith's era accepted the then-common belief that Masonry ultimately sprang from Solomon's temple. Thus, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball understood Masonry to be a corrupted form of a pristine ancient temple rite. <ref>See Footnote 30, {{FR-10-1-4}}</ref> One author later wrote that masonry as an "institution dates its origins many centuries back, it is only a perverted Priesthood stolen from the Temples of the Most High." <ref>{{Instructor1 | author=H. Belnap | article=A Mysterious Preacher|date=15 March 1886|vol=21|num=?|start=91|}}; cited in {{FR-10-1-4}}</ref>

It was a common 19th century belief of both Latter-day Saints and Masons that Freemasonry had it origins in the Temple of Solomon. Some modern Masons continue to hold to this idea, or believe Masonry is (at least in part) derived from other ancient sources. Although this is a minority view that has been forcefully challenged, it was the view held by the early Latter-day Saints and apparently the prophet Joseph Smith himself.

===Early Latter-day Saints' views of Freemasonry===

Joseph Fielding wrote during the Nauvoo period:

<blockquote>
Many have joined the Masonic institution. This seems to have been a stepping stone or preparation for something else, the true origin of Masonry. This I have also seen and rejoice in it.... I have evidence enough that Joseph is not fallen. I have seen him after giving, as I before said, the origin of Masonry. <ref>{{BYUS1|author=Andrew F. Ehat|article='They Might Have Known That He Was Not a Fallen Prophet'—The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding|vol=19|num=2|date=1979|start=145, 147, spelling and punctuation standardized}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Heber C. Kimball wrote of the endowment:

<blockquote>
We have received some precious things through the Prophet on the Priesthood which would cause your soul to rejoice. I cannot give them to you on paper for they are not to be written so you must come and get them for yourself...There is a similarity of Priesthood in Masonry. Brother Joseph says Masonry was taken from Priesthood but has become degenerated. But many things are perfect. <ref>Heber C. Kimball to Parley P. Pratt, 17 June 1842, Parley P. Pratt Papers, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah, spelling and punctuation standardized.</ref>
</blockquote>

Thus, to Joseph's contemporaries, there was much more to the LDS temple endowment than just warmed-over Freemasonry. None of Joseph's friends complained that he had simply adapted Masonic ritual for his own purposes. Rather, they were aware of the common ritual elements, but understood that Joseph had restored something that was both ritually and theologically ancient and God-given.

===Early Church leaders believed that Freemasonry was an "apostate" form of the Endowment===

*'''Willard Richards (16 March 1842)''': “Masonry had its origin in the Priesthood. A hint to the wise is sufficient.” <ref>Letter, 7–25 March 1842, Willard Richards to Levi Richards, published in Joseph Grant Stevenson, ed., ''Richards Family History'' (Provo, UT: Stevenson’s Genealogical Center, 1991), 3:90.</ref>
*'''Heber C. Kimball (17 June 1842)''': “There is a similarity of priesthood in Masonry. Brother Joseph [Smith] says Masonry was taken from priesthood.” <ref>Stanley B. Kimball, ''Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer'' (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 85.</ref>
*'''Benjamin F. Johnson (1843)''': Joseph Smith “told me Freemasonry, as at present, was the apostate endowments, as sectarian religion was the apostate religion.” <ref>Benjamin F. Johnson, ''My Life’s Review'' (Heber City, UT: Archive Publishers, 2001), 113.</ref>
*'''Joseph Fielding (December 1843)''': The LDS temple ordinances are “the true origin of Masonry.” <ref>''Brigham Young University Studies'', vol. 19, no. 2, Winter 1979, 145; hereafter cited as ''BYUS''.</ref>
*'''Saints in Salt Lake City (1849–50)''': “Masonry was originally of the church, and one of its favored institutions, to advance the members in their spiritual functions. It had become perverted from its designs.” <ref>John W. Gunnison, ''The Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake'' (Philadelphia: Lippincott and Company, 1856), 59.</ref>
*'''Heber C. Kimball (9 November 1858)''': “The Masonry of today is received from the apostasy. . . . They have now and then a thing that is correct, but we have the real thing.” <ref>''BYUS'', vol. 15, no. 4, Summer 1975, 458.</ref>
*'''Church Authorities (1842–1873)''': “The Mormon leaders have always asserted that Free-Masonry was a . . . degenerate representation of the order of the true priesthood.” <ref>Thomas B. H. Stenhouse, ''The Rocky Mountain Saints'' (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 698.</ref>
</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}

[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]
[[Category:MormonThink]]
[[Category:The Changing World of Mormonism]]
[[Category:Mormon Stories' "Questions and Answers"]]

[[de:Ursprünge der Freimaurerei]]
[[es:Pregunta: ¿Cuál fue el origen de la masonería según los Santos de los Últimos Días del siglo 19?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: De onde os Santos dos Últimos Dias do século XIX acreditam que a Maçonaria veio?]]

Question: Where did 19th-Century Latter-day Saints believe that Freemasonry came from?

2018-09-07T14:03:34Z

AndrewMiller: /* It was a common 19th century belief of both Mormons and Masons that Masonry had it origins in the Temple of Solomon */

{{FairMormon}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Where did 19th-Century Latter-day Saints believe that Freemasonry came from?==
===It was a common 19th century belief of both Mormons and Masons that Masonry had it origins in the Temple of Solomon===

The Saints of Joseph Smith's era accepted the then-common belief that Masonry ultimately sprang from Solomon's temple. Thus, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball understood Masonry to be a corrupted form of a pristine ancient temple rite. <ref>See Footnote 30, {{FR-10-1-4}}</ref> One author later wrote that masonry as an "institution dates its origins many centuries back, it is only a perverted Priesthood stolen from the Temples of the Most High." <ref>{{Instructor1 | author=H. Belnap | article=A Mysterious Preacher|date=15 March 1886|vol=21|num=?|start=91|}}; cited in {{FR-10-1-4}}</ref>

It was a common 19th century belief of both Latter-day Saints and Masons that Freemasonry had it origins in the Temple of Solomon. Some modern Masons continue to hold to this idea, or believe Masonry is (at least in part) derived from other ancient sources. Although this is a minority view that has been forcefully challenged, it was the view held by the early Latter-day Saints and apparently the prophet Joseph Smith himself. Below are seven examples of what early Latter-day Saints thought about the origins of Masonry (some of these Latter-day Saints were also Masons).

===Early Latter-day Saints' views of Freemasonry===

Joseph Fielding wrote during the Nauvoo period:

<blockquote>
Many have joined the Masonic institution. This seems to have been a stepping stone or preparation for something else, the true origin of Masonry. This I have also seen and rejoice in it.... I have evidence enough that Joseph is not fallen. I have seen him after giving, as I before said, the origin of Masonry. <ref>{{BYUS1|author=Andrew F. Ehat|article='They Might Have Known That He Was Not a Fallen Prophet'—The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding|vol=19|num=2|date=1979|start=145, 147, spelling and punctuation standardized}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Heber C. Kimball wrote of the endowment:

<blockquote>
We have received some precious things through the Prophet on the Priesthood which would cause your soul to rejoice. I cannot give them to you on paper for they are not to be written so you must come and get them for yourself...There is a similarity of Priesthood in Masonry. Brother Joseph says Masonry was taken from Priesthood but has become degenerated. But many things are perfect. <ref>Heber C. Kimball to Parley P. Pratt, 17 June 1842, Parley P. Pratt Papers, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah, spelling and punctuation standardized.</ref>
</blockquote>

Thus, to Joseph's contemporaries, there was much more to the LDS temple endowment than just warmed-over Freemasonry. None of Joseph's friends complained that he had simply adapted Masonic ritual for his own purposes. Rather, they were aware of the common ritual elements, but understood that Joseph had restored something that was both ritually and theologically ancient and God-given.

===Early Church leaders believed that Freemasonry was an "apostate" form of the Endowment===

*'''Willard Richards (16 March 1842)''': “Masonry had its origin in the Priesthood. A hint to the wise is sufficient.” <ref>Letter, 7–25 March 1842, Willard Richards to Levi Richards, published in Joseph Grant Stevenson, ed., ''Richards Family History'' (Provo, UT: Stevenson’s Genealogical Center, 1991), 3:90.</ref>
*'''Heber C. Kimball (17 June 1842)''': “There is a similarity of priesthood in Masonry. Brother Joseph [Smith] says Masonry was taken from priesthood.” <ref>Stanley B. Kimball, ''Heber C. Kimball: Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer'' (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 85.</ref>
*'''Benjamin F. Johnson (1843)''': Joseph Smith “told me Freemasonry, as at present, was the apostate endowments, as sectarian religion was the apostate religion.” <ref>Benjamin F. Johnson, ''My Life’s Review'' (Heber City, UT: Archive Publishers, 2001), 113.</ref>
*'''Joseph Fielding (December 1843)''': The LDS temple ordinances are “the true origin of Masonry.” <ref>''Brigham Young University Studies'', vol. 19, no. 2, Winter 1979, 145; hereafter cited as ''BYUS''.</ref>
*'''Saints in Salt Lake City (1849–50)''': “Masonry was originally of the church, and one of its favored institutions, to advance the members in their spiritual functions. It had become perverted from its designs.” <ref>John W. Gunnison, ''The Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake'' (Philadelphia: Lippincott and Company, 1856), 59.</ref>
*'''Heber C. Kimball (9 November 1858)''': “The Masonry of today is received from the apostasy. . . . They have now and then a thing that is correct, but we have the real thing.” <ref>''BYUS'', vol. 15, no. 4, Summer 1975, 458.</ref>
*'''Church Authorities (1842–1873)''': “The Mormon leaders have always asserted that Free-Masonry was a . . . degenerate representation of the order of the true priesthood.” <ref>Thomas B. H. Stenhouse, ''The Rocky Mountain Saints'' (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 698.</ref>
</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}

[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]
[[Category:MormonThink]]
[[Category:The Changing World of Mormonism]]
[[Category:Mormon Stories' "Questions and Answers"]]

[[de:Ursprünge der Freimaurerei]]
[[es:Pregunta: ¿Cuál fue el origen de la masonería según los Santos de los Últimos Días del siglo 19?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: De onde os Santos dos Últimos Dias do século XIX acreditam que a Maçonaria veio?]]

Question: What criticisms are associated with the temple ritual and its relationship to Freemasonry?

2018-09-07T13:51:11Z

AndrewMiller: /* Some of the endowment was developed and introduced in the weeks following Joseph Smith's initiation as a Master Mason, but other elements were developed prior to his association with Freemasonry */

{{FairMormon}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: What criticisms are associated with the temple ritual and its relationship to Freemasonry?==
===Critics of the LDS Church often point to similarities between the rituals of Freemasonry and the LDS temple endowment===

Critics of the LDS Church often point to similarities between the rituals of Freemasonry and the LDS temple endowment and claim that since Joseph Smith was initiated as a Freemason in Nauvoo, Illinois shortly before he introduced the full endowment to the Saints (as opposed to the partial endowment given in the Kirtland Temple), he must have incorporated elements of the Masonic rites into his own ceremony. Implicit in this charge is the idea that Joseph Smith's ritual was not revealed to him by God and thus not a legitimate restoration of ancient Israelite and early Christian ordinances.

It is worthwhile to note that these critics are also often critical of Freemasonry, and thus attempt [[Logical_fallacies#Guilt_by_association | guilt by association]].

===Some of the endowment was developed and introduced in the weeks following Joseph Smith's initiation as a Master Mason, but other elements were developed prior to his association with Freemasonry===

While it is true that some of the endowment was developed and introduced in the weeks following Joseph Smith's initiation as a Master Mason. This oversimplifies the issue considerably. The endowment and other parts of LDS temple worship developed slowly over a period of years. It did not happen all at once. Joseph Smith's critics want to label him as an intellectual thief by claiming that he stole some of the ritual elements of Freemasonry in order to create the Nauvoo-era temple endowment ceremony. The greatest obstacles to this theory are the facts that

#Joseph Smith claimed direct revelation from God regarding the Nauvoo-era endowment,
#Joseph Smith knew a great deal about the Nauvoo-era endowment ceremony long before the Nauvoo period—and thus long before his entry into the Masonic fraternity, and
#the Nauvoo-era temple endowment ceremony has numerous exacting parallels to the initiation ceremonies of ancient Israelite and early Christian kings and priests—parallels which cannot be found among the freemasonry available to Joseph Smith.

Furthermore, Joseph's contemporaries saw the parallels to Masonry clearly, and yet they did not charge him with pilfering.

In order to understand this issue, a few facts need to be understood:

#Joseph Smith, Jr. was initiated as a Freemason in Nauvoo, Illinois on the 15th and 16th of March 1842; his brother Hyrum and (possibly) his father Joseph Sr. were Masons before the Church's organization in April 1830.
#A few of the early leaders of the Church were Masons before the Church's organization while many others were initiated into the Masonic institution in the Nauvoo period.
#Masonry was a well-known and highly regarded fraternity in mid-19th century America.
#There are similarities between the rituals of Freemasonry and those of the LDS Temple endowment. These similarities center around
::*the use of a ritual drama—the story of Hiram Abiff is used by the Masons, while the LDS endowment uses the story of Adam and Eve and the creation (the LDS versions have parallels to ancient Israelite temple worship).
::*similar symbolic hand gestures in the course of the rituals (which also have ancient antecedents)
::*small portions of similar verbiage

Symbolist F. L. Brink suggested that Joseph Smith successfully provided an "innovative and intricate symbology" that suited well the psychic needs of his followers. <ref>T. L. Brink, "The Rise of Mormonism: A Case Study in the Symbology of Frontier America," ''International Journal of Symbology'' 6/3 (1975): 4; cited in {{Sunstone1 |author=Allen D. Roberts|article=Where are the All-Seeing Eyes?|vol=4|num=15|date=May 1979|start=26}} {{link|url=http://www.sunstoneonline.com/magazine/searchable/mag-text.asp?MagID=15}}</ref>
</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}

[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]
[[Category:MormonThink]]
[[Category:Mormon Stories' "Questions and Answers"]]
[[Category:One Nation Under Gods]]

[[es:Pregunta: ¿Qué críticas se asocian con el ritual del templo y su relación con la masonería?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: O que as críticas estão associados com o ritual do templo e sua relação com a Maçonaria?]]

Question: What criticisms are associated with the temple ritual and its relationship to Freemasonry?

2018-09-07T13:47:07Z

{{FairMormon}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: What criticisms are associated with the temple ritual and its relationship to Freemasonry?==
===Critics of the LDS Church often point to similarities between the rituals of Freemasonry and the LDS temple endowment===

Critics of the LDS Church often point to similarities between the rituals of Freemasonry and the LDS temple endowment and claim that since Joseph Smith was initiated as a Freemason in Nauvoo, Illinois shortly before he introduced the full endowment to the Saints (as opposed to the partial endowment given in the Kirtland Temple), he must have incorporated elements of the Masonic rites into his own ceremony. Implicit in this charge is the idea that Joseph Smith's ritual was not revealed to him by God and thus not a legitimate restoration of ancient Israelite and early Christian ordinances.

It is worthwhile to note that these critics are also often critical of Freemasonry, and thus attempt [[Logical_fallacies#Guilt_by_association | guilt by association]].

===Some of the endowment was developed and introduced in the weeks following Joseph Smith's initiation as a Master Mason, but other elements were developed prior to his association with Freemasonry===

While it is true that some of the endowment was developed and introduced in the weeks following Joseph Smith's initiation as a Master Mason. This oversimplifies the issue considerably. The endowment and other parts of LDS temple worship developed slowly over a period of years. It did not happen all at once. Joseph Smith's critics want to label him as an intellectual thief by claiming that he stole some of the ritual elements of Freemasonry in order to create the Nauvoo-era temple endowment ceremony. The greatest obstacles to this theory are the facts that

#Joseph Smith claimed direct revelation from God regarding the Nauvoo-era endowment,
#Joseph Smith knew a great deal about the Nauvoo-era endowment ceremony long before the Nauvoo period—and thus long before his entry into the Masonic fraternity, and
#the Nauvoo-era temple endowment ceremony has numerous exacting parallels to the initiation ceremonies of ancient Israelite and early Christian kings and priests—parallels which cannot be found among Freemasons.

Furthermore, Joseph's contemporaries saw the parallels to Masonry clearly, and yet no one charged him with pilfering.

In order to understand this issue, a few facts need to be understood:

#Joseph Smith, Jr. was initiated as a Freemason in Nauvoo, Illinois on the 15th and 16th of March 1842; his brother Hyrum and (possibly) his father Joseph Sr. were Masons before the Church's organization in April 1830.
#A few of the early leaders of the Church were Masons before the Church's organization while many others were initiated into the Masonic institution after the Prophet was in 1842.
#Masonry was a well-known social institution in mid-19th century America.
#There are similarities between the rituals of Freemasonry and those of the LDS Temple endowment. These similarities center around
::*the use of a ritual drama—the story of Hiram Abiff is used by the Masons, while the LDS endowment uses the story of Adam and Eve and the creation (the LDS versions have parallels to ancient Israelite temple worship).
::*similar symbolic hand gestures in the course of the rituals (which also have ancient antecedents)
::*small portions of similar verbiage

Symbolist F. L. Brink suggested that Joseph Smith successfully provided an "innovative and intricate symbology" that suited well the psychic needs of his followers. <ref>T. L. Brink, "The Rise of Mormonism: A Case Study in the Symbology of Frontier America," ''International Journal of Symbology'' 6/3 (1975): 4; cited in {{Sunstone1 |author=Allen D. Roberts|article=Where are the All-Seeing Eyes?|vol=4|num=15|date=May 1979|start=26}} {{link|url=http://www.sunstoneonline.com/magazine/searchable/mag-text.asp?MagID=15}}</ref>
</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}

[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]
[[Category:MormonThink]]
[[Category:Mormon Stories' "Questions and Answers"]]
[[Category:One Nation Under Gods]]

[[es:Pregunta: ¿Qué críticas se asocian con el ritual del templo y su relación con la masonería?]]
[[pt:Pergunta: O que as críticas estão associados com o ritual do templo e sua relação com a Maçonaria?]]

Question: Were Joseph Smith's final words, "O Lord, my God!" a cry for help or mercy from Freemasons in the mob at the Carthage jail?

2018-09-07T13:38:17Z

AndrewMiller: /* Those who knew Joseph Smith believed that this was an attempt to save his life and the life of his friends by calling out to Freemasons in the mob */

{{FairMormon}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Were Joseph Smith's final words, "O Lord, my God!" a cry for help or mercy from Freemasons in the mob at the Carthage jail?==
===Joseph Smith's final words were "O Lord, my God!"===

According to the accounts of both John Taylor and Willard Richards—the two eyewitnesses who survived the mob's attack on Carthage jail—Joseph Smith's final words were "O Lord, my God!"

The account in the official ''History of the Church'' records:

<blockquote>
Joseph, seeing there was no safety in the room, and no doubt thinking that it would save the lives of his brethren in the room if he could get out, turned calmly from the door, dropped his pistol on the floor and sprang into the window when two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from without, and he fell outward into the hands of his murderers, exclaiming. "O Lord, my God!"<ref>{{HoC|vol=6|pages=618}}</ref>
</blockquote>

John Taylor reported:

<blockquote>
Hyrum was shot first and fell calmly, exclaiming: I am a dead man! Joseph leaped from the window, and was shot dead in the attempt, exclaiming: O Lord my God! They were both shot after they were dead, in a brutal manner, and both received four balls. ({{scripture||D&C|135|1}})
</blockquote>

Willard Richards' testimony was that

<blockquote>
two balls pierced [Joseph] from the door, and one entered his right breast from without, and he fell outward, exclaiming, "Oh Lord, my God!" As his feet went out of the window my head went in, the balls whistling all around. He fell on his left side a dead man.<ref>{{HC|vol=6|pages=618}}</ref>
</blockquote>

===Those who knew Joseph Smith believed that this was an attempt to save his life and the life of his friends by calling out to Freemasons in the mob===

Those who knew Joseph Smith believed that his use of the phrase "O Lord, my God!" was an attempt to save his life and the life of his friends by calling out to Freemasons in the mob. (Joseph and the other Mormons in the jail were Masons, Joseph himself having been initiated on 15 March 1842.)

Among the brotherhood of Freemasons, there is the ''Grand Hailing Sign of Distress'': "Oh Lord, my God, is there no help for the widow's son?" According to Masonic code, any Mason who hears another Mason utter the Grand Hailing Sign must come to his aid.

Most adult men in Hancock County, Illinois, were Masons, and there were Masons in the mob that attacked the jail. If Joseph was attempting to give the Grand Hailing Sign, they would have been obligated to stop their attack and defend Joseph, Hyrum, John Taylor, and Willard Richards.<ref>Masons in antebellum America took the Grand Hailing Sign very seriously. Many accounts exist of it being used during the Civil War. See Michael A. Halleran, ''The Better Angels of Our Nature: Freemasonry in the American Civil War'' (University Alabama Press, 2010).</ref>

John Taylor, a Master Mason himself, wrote:

<blockquote>
...[T]hese two innocent men [Joseph and Hyrum] were confined in jail for a supposed crime, deprived of any weapons to defend themselves: had the pledged faith of the State of Illinois, by Gov. Ford, for their protection, and were then shot to death, while, ''with uplifted hands they gave such signs of distress as would have commanded the interposition and benevolence of Savages or Pagans. They were both Masons in good standing. Ye brethren of "the mystic tie"'' [Masonry] ''what think ye! Where is our good Master Joseph and Hyrum?'' Is there a pagan, heathen, or savage nation on the globe that would not be moved on this great occasion, as the trees of the forest are moved by a mighty wind? Joseph's last exclamation was "O Lord my God!"

If one of these murderers, their abettors or accessories before or after the fact, are suffered to cumber the earth, without being dealt with according to law, what is life worth, and what is the benefit of laws? and more than all, what is the use of institutions which savages would honor, where civilized beings murder without cause or provocation?<ref>{{TS|article=The Murder|vol=5|pages=585|date=15 July 1844}} Taylor's original italics have been removed, and italics added for emphasis. The article itself is unsigned, but John Taylor was the editor of the ''Times and Seasons'' and would have either written it or approved its publication.</ref>
</blockquote>

According to Heber C. Kimball:

<blockquote>
Masons, it is said, were even among the mob that murdered Joseph and Hyrum in Carthage jail. Joseph, leaping the fatal window, gave the Masonic signal of distress. The answer was the roar of his murderers' muskets.<ref>{{Book:Whitney:Life_of_Heber_C._Kimball/Full_Title|pages=26}} It should be noted that while Heber C. Kimball personally knew Joseph Smith, he was not an eyewitness to the events at Carthage.</ref>
</blockquote>

Zina D. H. Young wrote in 1878:

<blockquote>
I am the daughter of a Master Mason [Heber C. Kimball]! I am the widow of a Master Mason [Joseph Smith] who, when leaping from the window of Carthage jail pierced with bullets, made the Masonic sign of distress; but...those signs were not heeded.<ref>{{Book:Jenson:LDS Biographical Encyclopedia|vol=1|pages=698}} Zina's statement about "leaping the window" matches very closely with what her father, Heber C. Kimball, said about the incident.</ref>
</blockquote>

From the above it appears the last words of Joseph Smith were believed by at least some people who knew him to be the Masonic cry of distress.
</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}
[[Category:No Man Knows My History]]

[[es:Pregunta: ¿Fueron las palabras finales de José Smith, "¡Oh Señor, Dios mío!" Un grito de ayuda o de misericordia de los masones en la multitud en la cárcel de Cartago?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2017-04-05T16:53:45Z

AndrewMiller: /* Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings? */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

God does heal the sick. There are many miraculous accounts of healing in and outside of the church. However, as {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential and cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===God wants us to be His hands to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification===

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

<blockquote>Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity. … Father Lehi promised his son Jacob that God would ‘consecrate [his] afflictions for [his] gain’ (2 Nephi 2:2). The Prophet Joseph was promised that ‘thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high’ (D&C 121:7–8).

Most of us experience some measure of what the scriptures call ‘the furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10). Some are submerged in service to a disadvantaged family member. Others suffer the death of a loved one or the loss or postponement of a righteous goal like marriage or childbearing. Still others struggle with personal impairments or with feelings of rejection, inadequacy, or depression. Through the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through such experiences can help us achieve what God desires us to become. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "The Challenge to Become," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32</ref> </blockquote>

Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

<blockquote>How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' <ref>Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991, 88</ref> </blockquote>

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?

2016-11-09T14:40:28Z

AndrewMiller: /* Sometimes, when couples who are sealed get divorced, the Church generally keeps that sealing intact, unless the woman decides to get sealed to someone else (and then the first sealing is cancelled) */

{{FME-Source
|title=What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?==
===When we talk about eternity-only sealings, it is a term that we have invented in just the past few years to help us describe what was going on in early Mormonism===

When we talk about eternity-only sealings, it is a term that we have invented in just the past few years to help us describe what was going on in early Mormonism. They didn't discuss eternity only sealings, they only discussed sealings.

===The purpose of sealings more generally was to create connections between people as a way of ordering or organizing the Celestial Kingdom===

The purpose of sealings more generally was to create connections between people as a way of ordering or organizing the Celestial Kingdom. You could seal a husband and wife together to create an eternal bond. You could seal children to parents to create an eternal bond. You could seal complete strangers to each other to create an eternal bond. Those bonds might function in different ways, but, it was effectively the same ordinance.

We use the idea of eternity-only sealings to describe sealings between men and women who weren't married to each other during their lifetimes, but the anticipated relationship was to be married in the eternities. We use the term adoptive sealing to describe sealings between people where the relationship isn't one of marriage.

===In order to be sealed to someone, the men involved in the sealing had to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood===

In order to be sealed to someone, the men involved in the sealing had to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. If you were a woman, and you were married to a man who wasn't a member of the Church (and so didn't have the Melchizedek priesthood), then you could be sealed to another man who did. This helped (in theory) a woman secure her place in the Celestial Kingdom. The same idea was true for sealings of adoption. You needed to be sealed into the family (that was the Celestial Kingdom), but if your parents weren't members of the Church, or your father didn't have the Melchizedek Priesthood, then you would get sealed to someone else (usually a church leader). So, there were lots and lots of sealings that fit this description - both sealings of the eternity-only kind, and sealings of adoption.

===Some proxy priesthood ordinations began in 1877, and became Church policy in 1894: Eventually, many people had their previous sealings (referred to as "adoptions") cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parents===

These kinds of "adoptions," or sealings, stopped because the Church leadership had received a better understanding and new instructions about how to do sealings and how the Celestial Kingdom should be ordered. Instead of being sealed to people unrelated to you, we started sealing people to their earthly families as the rule instead of the exception. And in fact, many people had their previous sealings "adoptions" cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parents.

Proxy priesthood ordinations began in some measure in 1877. Not coincidentally, this is also the year we first did proxy endowments as males must hold the Melchizedek Priesthood to be endowed. However, for some time after this the church really didn't connect proxy endowments to proxy sealings like we do now. Temple policy in 1877 continued as before in that sealings between biological parents and children were generally not done unless the father had been a member of the church while living. This policy did not change with the introduction of proxy ordinations and endowments in 1877. At that time, if your parents hadn't been members, and had died, you couldn't be sealed to them. Further, if your husband wasn't a member and had died, you couldn't be sealed to him until 1894.

In 1894, Wilford Woodruff received a revelation pertaining to sealings. This revelation abolished the practice of sealings of adoption, and changed the policy regarding sealings to parents (using proxy ordinations to the priesthood as a way to understand this in a new context). It also set the stage for what we would consider the core of our current policy on the issue. In between 1877 and 1894, we also saw significant changes in our understanding of the Celestial Kingdom. And with the introduction of this policy, there was a shift in the policies of the Church related to sealings.

Wilford Woodruff announced the revelation in this manner:

<blockquote>
I have not felt satisfied, neither did President Taylor, neither has any man since the Prophet Joseph who has attended to the ordinance of adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt that there was more to be revealed upon this subject than we had received. Revelations were given to us in the St. George Temple, which President Young presented to the Church of God. Changes were made there, and we still have more changes to make, in order to satisfy our Heavenly Father, satisfy our dead and ourselves. I will tell you what some of them are. I have prayed over this matter, and my brethren have. We have felt, as President Taylor said, that we have got to have more revelation concerning sealing under the law of adoption. Well, what are these changes? One of them is the principle of adoption. In the commencement of adopting men and women in the Temple at Nauvoo, a great many persons were adopted to different men who were not of the lineage of their fathers, and there was a spirit manifested by some in that work that was not of God.... President Young was not satisfied in his mind with regard to the extent of this matter; President Taylor was not.

When I went before the Lord to know who I should be adopted to (we were then being adopted to prophets and apostles), the Spirit of God said to me, "Have you not a father, who begot you?" "Yes, I have." "Then why not honor him? Why not be adopted to him?" "Yes," says I, "that is right." I was adopted to my father, and should have had my father sealed to his father, and so on back; and the duty that I want every man who presides over a temple to see performed from this day henceforth and forever, unless the Lord Almighty commands otherwise, is, let every man be adopted to his father. When a man receives the endowments, adopt him to his father; not to Wilford Woodruff, nor to any other man outside the lineage of his fathers. That is the will of God to this people.... Elijah the prophet appeared unto Joseph Smith and told him that the day had come when this principle must be carried out....

In my prayers the Lord revealed to me, that it was my duty to say to all Israel to carry this principle out, and in fulfillment of that revelation I lay it before this people. I say to all men who are laboring in these temples, carry out this principle, and then we will make one step in advance of what we have had before. Myself and counselors conversed upon this and were agreed upon it, and afterwards we laid it before all the Apostles who were here (two were absent--Brothers Thatcher and Lund, the latter being in England), and the Lord revealed to every one of these men--and they would bear testimony to it if they were to speak--that that was the word of the Lord to them. I never met with anything in my life in this Church that there was more unity upon than there was upon that principle. They all feel right about it, and that it is our duty. That is one principle that should be carried out from this time henceforth.
</blockquote>

===Sometimes, when couples who are sealed get divorced, the Church generally keeps that sealing intact, unless the woman decides to get sealed to someone else (and then the first sealing is cancelled)===

Sealings are covenants that we make both with a spouse and with God. But it is also the connections that are mentioned above. The only part that we can guarantee as individuals is that we keep the covenants we make. Sometimes, couples who are sealed get divorced. The Church generally leaves that sealing intact, unless the woman decides to get sealed to someone else or has some very good reason to cancel the sealing. This is probably because although the covenant between the man and the woman may be broken, the covenants between both individuals and God can remain intact. And so we believe that for anyone who makes those covenants, if circumstances don't allow them to spend eternity with their first choice, that an appropriate option will be given to them in the wisdom and timing of the Lord.

At some future point in time, we may receive more revelation that will help us understand the issues of sealings more (just as we did in 1894).

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed in times of Joseph Smith?]]

Question: What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?

2016-11-09T14:36:40Z

AndrewMiller: /* Some proxy priesthood ordinations began in 1877, and became Church policy in 1894: Eventually, many people had their previous sealings (referred to as "adoptions") cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parents */

{{FME-Source
|title=What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?==
===When we talk about eternity-only sealings, it is a term that we have invented in just the past few years to help us describe what was going on in early Mormonism===

When we talk about eternity-only sealings, it is a term that we have invented in just the past few years to help us describe what was going on in early Mormonism. They didn't discuss eternity only sealings, they only discussed sealings.

===The purpose of sealings more generally was to create connections between people as a way of ordering or organizing the Celestial Kingdom===

The purpose of sealings more generally was to create connections between people as a way of ordering or organizing the Celestial Kingdom. You could seal a husband and wife together to create an eternal bond. You could seal children to parents to create an eternal bond. You could seal complete strangers to each other to create an eternal bond. Those bonds might function in different ways, but, it was effectively the same ordinance.

We use the idea of eternity-only sealings to describe sealings between men and women who weren't married to each other during their lifetimes, but the anticipated relationship was to be married in the eternities. We use the term adoptive sealing to describe sealings between people where the relationship isn't one of marriage.

===In order to be sealed to someone, the men involved in the sealing had to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood===

In order to be sealed to someone, the men involved in the sealing had to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. If you were a woman, and you were married to a man who wasn't a member of the Church (and so didn't have the Melchizedek priesthood), then you could be sealed to another man who did. This helped (in theory) a woman secure her place in the Celestial Kingdom. The same idea was true for sealings of adoption. You needed to be sealed into the family (that was the Celestial Kingdom), but if your parents weren't members of the Church, or your father didn't have the Melchizedek Priesthood, then you would get sealed to someone else (usually a church leader). So, there were lots and lots of sealings that fit this description - both sealings of the eternity-only kind, and sealings of adoption.

===Some proxy priesthood ordinations began in 1877, and became Church policy in 1894: Eventually, many people had their previous sealings (referred to as "adoptions") cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parents===

These kinds of "adoptions," or sealings, stopped because the Church leadership had received a better understanding and new instructions about how to do sealings and how the Celestial Kingdom should be ordered. Instead of being sealed to people unrelated to you, we started sealing people to their earthly families as the rule instead of the exception. And in fact, many people had their previous sealings "adoptions" cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parents.

Proxy priesthood ordinations began in some measure in 1877. Not coincidentally, this is also the year we first did proxy endowments as males must hold the Melchizedek Priesthood to be endowed. However, for some time after this the church really didn't connect proxy endowments to proxy sealings like we do now. Temple policy in 1877 continued as before in that sealings between biological parents and children were generally not done unless the father had been a member of the church while living. This policy did not change with the introduction of proxy ordinations and endowments in 1877. At that time, if your parents hadn't been members, and had died, you couldn't be sealed to them. Further, if your husband wasn't a member and had died, you couldn't be sealed to him until 1894.

In 1894, Wilford Woodruff received a revelation pertaining to sealings. This revelation abolished the practice of sealings of adoption, and changed the policy regarding sealings to parents (using proxy ordinations to the priesthood as a way to understand this in a new context). It also set the stage for what we would consider the core of our current policy on the issue. In between 1877 and 1894, we also saw significant changes in our understanding of the Celestial Kingdom. And with the introduction of this policy, there was a shift in the policies of the Church related to sealings.

Wilford Woodruff announced the revelation in this manner:

<blockquote>
I have not felt satisfied, neither did President Taylor, neither has any man since the Prophet Joseph who has attended to the ordinance of adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt that there was more to be revealed upon this subject than we had received. Revelations were given to us in the St. George Temple, which President Young presented to the Church of God. Changes were made there, and we still have more changes to make, in order to satisfy our Heavenly Father, satisfy our dead and ourselves. I will tell you what some of them are. I have prayed over this matter, and my brethren have. We have felt, as President Taylor said, that we have got to have more revelation concerning sealing under the law of adoption. Well, what are these changes? One of them is the principle of adoption. In the commencement of adopting men and women in the Temple at Nauvoo, a great many persons were adopted to different men who were not of the lineage of their fathers, and there was a spirit manifested by some in that work that was not of God.... President Young was not satisfied in his mind with regard to the extent of this matter; President Taylor was not.

When I went before the Lord to know who I should be adopted to (we were then being adopted to prophets and apostles), the Spirit of God said to me, "Have you not a father, who begot you?" "Yes, I have." "Then why not honor him? Why not be adopted to him?" "Yes," says I, "that is right." I was adopted to my father, and should have had my father sealed to his father, and so on back; and the duty that I want every man who presides over a temple to see performed from this day henceforth and forever, unless the Lord Almighty commands otherwise, is, let every man be adopted to his father. When a man receives the endowments, adopt him to his father; not to Wilford Woodruff, nor to any other man outside the lineage of his fathers. That is the will of God to this people.... Elijah the prophet appeared unto Joseph Smith and told him that the day had come when this principle must be carried out....

In my prayers the Lord revealed to me, that it was my duty to say to all Israel to carry this principle out, and in fulfillment of that revelation I lay it before this people. I say to all men who are laboring in these temples, carry out this principle, and then we will make one step in advance of what we have had before. Myself and counselors conversed upon this and were agreed upon it, and afterwards we laid it before all the Apostles who were here (two were absent--Brothers Thatcher and Lund, the latter being in England), and the Lord revealed to every one of these men--and they would bear testimony to it if they were to speak--that that was the word of the Lord to them. I never met with anything in my life in this Church that there was more unity upon than there was upon that principle. They all feel right about it, and that it is our duty. That is one principle that should be carried out from this time henceforth.
</blockquote>

===Sometimes, when couples who are sealed get divorced, the Church generally keeps that sealing intact, unless the woman decides to get sealed to someone else (and then the first sealing is cancelled)===

Sealings are covenants that we make both with a spouse and with God. But it is also the connections that are mentioned above. The only part that we can guarantee as individuals is that we keep the covenants we make. Sometimes, couples who are sealed get divorced. The Church generally keeps that sealing intact, unless the woman decides to get sealed to someone else (and then the first sealing is cancelled). This is because even though the covenant between the man and the woman may be broken, the covenants between both individuals and God are still intact. And so we believe that for anyone who makes those covenants, if circumstances don't allow them to spend eternity with their first choice, that an appropriate option will be given to them. So do this mean that polygamy may exist and be represented by sealings for a man to more than one woman? Perhaps. But, it's worth pointing out that the Church routinely allows women in certain circumstances to be sealed to all of the husbands that they were married to during their lifetime. We create these sealings with the understanding that we don't understand exactly how it will all unfold in the eternities, but that God will make sure that what is right is what happens.

At some future point in time, we may receive more revelation that will help us understand this more (just as we did in 1894).

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed in times of Joseph Smith?]]

Question: What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?

2016-11-09T14:36:08Z

{{FME-Source
|title=What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?==
===When we talk about eternity-only sealings, it is a term that we have invented in just the past few years to help us describe what was going on in early Mormonism===

When we talk about eternity-only sealings, it is a term that we have invented in just the past few years to help us describe what was going on in early Mormonism. They didn't discuss eternity only sealings, they only discussed sealings.

===The purpose of sealings more generally was to create connections between people as a way of ordering or organizing the Celestial Kingdom===

The purpose of sealings more generally was to create connections between people as a way of ordering or organizing the Celestial Kingdom. You could seal a husband and wife together to create an eternal bond. You could seal children to parents to create an eternal bond. You could seal complete strangers to each other to create an eternal bond. Those bonds might function in different ways, but, it was effectively the same ordinance.

We use the idea of eternity-only sealings to describe sealings between men and women who weren't married to each other during their lifetimes, but the anticipated relationship was to be married in the eternities. We use the term adoptive sealing to describe sealings between people where the relationship isn't one of marriage.

===In order to be sealed to someone, the men involved in the sealing had to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood===

In order to be sealed to someone, the men involved in the sealing had to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. If you were a woman, and you were married to a man who wasn't a member of the Church (and so didn't have the Melchizedek priesthood), then you could be sealed to another man who did. This helped (in theory) a woman secure her place in the Celestial Kingdom. The same idea was true for sealings of adoption. You needed to be sealed into the family (that was the Celestial Kingdom), but if your parents weren't members of the Church, or your father didn't have the Melchizedek Priesthood, then you would get sealed to someone else (usually a church leader). So, there were lots and lots of sealings that fit this description - both sealings of the eternity-only kind, and sealings of adoption.

===Some proxy priesthood ordinations began in 1877, and became Church policy in 1894: Eventually, many people had their previous sealings (referred to as "adoptions") cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parents===

These kinds of "adoptions," or sealings, stopped because the Church leadership had received a better understanding and new instructions about how to do sealings and how the Celestial Kingdom should be ordered. Instead of being sealed to people unrelated to you, we started sealing people to their earthly families as the rule instead of the exception. And in fact, many people had their previous sealings "adoptions" cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parents.

Proxy priesthood ordinations began in some measure in 1877. Not coincidentally, this is also the year we first did proxy endowments as males must hold the Melchizedek Priesthood to be endowed. However, for some time after this the church really didn't connect proxy endowments to proxy sealings like we do now. Temple policy in 1877 continued as before in that sealings between biological parents and children were generally not done unless the father had been a member of the church while living. This policy did not change with the introduction of proxy ordinations and endowments in 1877. At that time, if your parents hadn't been members, and had died, you couldn't be sealed to them. Further, if your husband wasn't a member and had died, you couldn't be sealed to him until 1894.

In 1894, Wilford Woodruff received a revelation pertaining to sealings. This revelation abolished the practice of sealings of adoption, and changed the policy regarding sealings to parents (using proxy ordinations to the priesthood as a way to understand this in a new context). It also set the stage for what we would consider the core of our current policy on the issue. In between 1877 and 1894, we also saw significant changes in our understanding of the Celestial Kingdom. And with the introduction of this policy, there was a shift in the policies of the Church related to sealings.

Wilford Woodruff announced the revelation in this manner:

<blockquote>
I have not felt satisfied, neither did President Taylor, neither has any man since the Prophet Joseph who has attended to the ordinance of adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt that there was more to be revealed upon this subject than we had received. Revelations were given to us in the St. George Temple, which President Young presented to the Church of God. Changes were made there, and we still have more changes to make, in order to satisfy our Heavenly Father, satisfy our dead and ourselves. I will tell you what some of them are. I have prayed over this matter, and my brethren have. We have felt, as President Taylor said, that we have got to have more revelation concerning sealing under the law of adoption. Well, what are these changes? One of them is the principle of adoption. In the commencement of adopting men and women in the Temple at Nauvoo, a great many persons were adopted to different men who were not of the lineage of their fathers, and there was a spirit manifested by some in that work that was not of God.... President Young was not satisfied in his mind with regard to the extent of this matter; President Taylor was not. When I went before the Lord to know who I should be adopted to (we were then being adopted to prophets and apostles), the Spirit of God said to me, "Have you not a father, who begot you?" "Yes, I have." "Then why not honor him? Why not be adopted to him?" "Yes," says I, "that is right." I was adopted to my father, and should have had my father sealed to his father, and so on back; and the duty that I want every man who presides over a temple to see performed from this day henceforth and forever, unless the Lord Almighty commands otherwise, is, let every man be adopted to his father. When a man receives the endowments, adopt him to his father; not to Wilford Woodruff, nor to any other man outside the lineage of his fathers. That is the will of God to this people.... Elijah the prophet appeared unto Joseph Smith and told him that the day had come when this principle must be carried out.... In my prayers the Lord revealed to me, that it was my duty to say to all Israel to carry this principle out, and in fulfillment of that revelation I lay it before this people. I say to all men who are laboring in these temples, carry out this principle, and then we will make one step in advance of what we have had before. Myself and counselors conversed upon this and were agreed upon it, and afterwards we laid it before all the Apostles who were here (two were absent--Brothers Thatcher and Lund, the latter being in England), and the Lord revealed to every one of these men--and they would bear testimony to it if they were to speak--that that was the word of the Lord to them. I never met with anything in my life in this Church that there was more unity upon than there was upon that principle. They all feel right about it, and that it is our duty. That is one principle that should be carried out from this time henceforth.
</blockquote>

===Sometimes, when couples who are sealed get divorced, the Church generally keeps that sealing intact, unless the woman decides to get sealed to someone else (and then the first sealing is cancelled)===

Sealings are covenants that we make both with a spouse and with God. But it is also the connections that are mentioned above. The only part that we can guarantee as individuals is that we keep the covenants we make. Sometimes, couples who are sealed get divorced. The Church generally keeps that sealing intact, unless the woman decides to get sealed to someone else (and then the first sealing is cancelled). This is because even though the covenant between the man and the woman may be broken, the covenants between both individuals and God are still intact. And so we believe that for anyone who makes those covenants, if circumstances don't allow them to spend eternity with their first choice, that an appropriate option will be given to them. So do this mean that polygamy may exist and be represented by sealings for a man to more than one woman? Perhaps. But, it's worth pointing out that the Church routinely allows women in certain circumstances to be sealed to all of the husbands that they were married to during their lifetime. We create these sealings with the understanding that we don't understand exactly how it will all unfold in the eternities, but that God will make sure that what is right is what happens.

At some future point in time, we may receive more revelation that will help us understand this more (just as we did in 1894).

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed in times of Joseph Smith?]]

Question: What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?

2016-11-09T14:35:11Z

AndrewMiller: /* Some proxy priesthood ordinations began in 1877, and became Church policy in 1894: Eventually, many people had their previous sealings (of adoption or eternity-only) cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parent...

{{FME-Source
|title=What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed during Joseph Smith's lifetime?==
===When we talk about eternity-only sealings, it is a term that we have invented in just the past few years to help us describe what was going on in early Mormonism===

When we talk about eternity-only sealings, it is a term that we have invented in just the past few years to help us describe what was going on in early Mormonism. They didn't discuss eternity only sealings, they only discussed sealings.

===The purpose of sealings more generally was to create connections between people as a way of ordering or organizing the Celestial Kingdom===

The purpose of sealings more generally was to create connections between people as a way of ordering or organizing the Celestial Kingdom. You could seal a husband and wife together to create an eternal bond. You could seal children to parents to create an eternal bond. You could seal complete strangers to each other to create an eternal bond. Those bonds might function in different ways, but, it was effectively the same ordinance.

We use the idea of eternity-only sealings to describe sealings between men and women who weren't married to each other during their lifetimes, but the anticipated relationship was to be married in the eternities. We use the term adoptive sealing to describe sealings between people where the relationship isn't one of marriage.

===In order to be sealed to someone, the men involved in the sealing had to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood===

In order to be sealed to someone, the men involved in the sealing had to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. If you were a woman, and you were married to a man who wasn't a member of the Church (and so didn't have the Melchizedek priesthood), then you could be sealed to another man who did. This helped (in theory) a woman secure her place in the Celestial Kingdom. The same idea was true for sealings of adoption. You needed to be sealed into the family (that was the Celestial Kingdom), but if your parents weren't members of the Church, or your father didn't have the Melchizedek Priesthood, then you would get sealed to someone else (usually a church leader). So, there were lots and lots of sealings that fit this description - both sealings of the eternity-only kind, and sealings of adoption.

===Some proxy priesthood ordinations began in 1877, and became Church policy in 1894: Eventually, many people had their previous sealings (referred to as "adoptions") cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parents===

These kinds of "adoptions," or sealings, stopped because the Church leadership had received a better understanding and new instructions about how to do sealings and how the Celestial Kingdom should be ordered. Instead of being sealed to people unrelated to you, we started sealing people to their earthly families as the rule instead of the exception. And in fact, many people had their previous sealings "adoptions" cancelled so that they could be sealed to their own spouses, or to their own parents.

Proxy priesthood ordinations began in some measure in 1877. Not coincidentally, this is also the year we first did proxy endowments as males must hold the Melchizedek Priesthood to be endowed. However, for some time after this the church really didn't connect proxy endowments to proxy sealings like we do now. Temple policy in 1877 continued as before in that sealings between biological parents and children were generally not done unless the father had been a member of the church while living. This policy did not change with the introduction of proxy ordinations and endowments in 1877. At that time, if your parents hadn't been members, and had died, you couldn't be sealed to them. Further, if your husband wasn't a member and had died, you couldn't be sealed to him until 1894.

In 1894, Wilford Woodruff received a revelation pertaining to sealings. This revelation abolished the practice of sealings of adoption, and changed the policy regarding sealings to parents (using proxy ordinations to the priesthood as a way to understand this in a new context). It also set the stage for what we would consider the core of our current policy on the issue. In between 1877 and 1894, we also saw significant changes in our understanding of the Celestial Kingdom. And with the introduction of this policy, there was a shift in the policies of the Church related to sealings.

Wilford Woodruff announced the revelation in this manner:

[block]
I have not felt satisfied, neither did President Taylor, neither has any man since the Prophet Joseph who has attended to the ordinance of adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt that there was more to be revealed upon this subject than we had received. Revelations were given to us in the St. George Temple, which President Young presented to the Church of God. Changes were made there, and we still have more changes to make, in order to satisfy our Heavenly Father, satisfy our dead and ourselves. I will tell you what some of them are. I have prayed over this matter, and my brethren have. We have felt, as President Taylor said, that we have got to have more revelation concerning sealing under the law of adoption. Well, what are these changes? One of them is the principle of adoption. In the commencement of adopting men and women in the Temple at Nauvoo, a great many persons were adopted to different men who were not of the lineage of their fathers, and there was a spirit manifested by some in that work that was not of God.... President Young was not satisfied in his mind with regard to the extent of this matter; President Taylor was not. When I went before the Lord to know who I should be adopted to (we were then being adopted to prophets and apostles), the Spirit of God said to me, "Have you not a father, who begot you?" "Yes, I have." "Then why not honor him? Why not be adopted to him?" "Yes," says I, "that is right." I was adopted to my father, and should have had my father sealed to his father, and so on back; and the duty that I want every man who presides over a temple to see performed from this day henceforth and forever, unless the Lord Almighty commands otherwise, is, let every man be adopted to his father. When a man receives the endowments, adopt him to his father; not to Wilford Woodruff, nor to any other man outside the lineage of his fathers. That is the will of God to this people.... Elijah the prophet appeared unto Joseph Smith and told him that the day had come when this principle must be carried out.... In my prayers the Lord revealed to me, that it was my duty to say to all Israel to carry this principle out, and in fulfillment of that revelation I lay it before this people. I say to all men who are laboring in these temples, carry out this principle, and then we will make one step in advance of what we have had before. Myself and counselors conversed upon this and were agreed upon it, and afterwards we laid it before all the Apostles who were here (two were absent--Brothers Thatcher and Lund, the latter being in England), and the Lord revealed to every one of these men--and they would bear testimony to it if they were to speak--that that was the word of the Lord to them. I never met with anything in my life in this Church that there was more unity upon than there was upon that principle. They all feel right about it, and that it is our duty. That is one principle that should be carried out from this time henceforth.
[/block]

===Sometimes, when couples who are sealed get divorced, the Church generally keeps that sealing intact, unless the woman decides to get sealed to someone else (and then the first sealing is cancelled)===

Sealings are covenants that we make both with a spouse and with God. But it is also the connections that are mentioned above. The only part that we can guarantee as individuals is that we keep the covenants we make. Sometimes, couples who are sealed get divorced. The Church generally keeps that sealing intact, unless the woman decides to get sealed to someone else (and then the first sealing is cancelled). This is because even though the covenant between the man and the woman may be broken, the covenants between both individuals and God are still intact. And so we believe that for anyone who makes those covenants, if circumstances don't allow them to spend eternity with their first choice, that an appropriate option will be given to them. So do this mean that polygamy may exist and be represented by sealings for a man to more than one woman? Perhaps. But, it's worth pointing out that the Church routinely allows women in certain circumstances to be sealed to all of the husbands that they were married to during their lifetime. We create these sealings with the understanding that we don't understand exactly how it will all unfold in the eternities, but that God will make sure that what is right is what happens.

At some future point in time, we may receive more revelation that will help us understand this more (just as we did in 1894).

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: What was the purpose of an eternity-only sealing, which was performed in times of Joseph Smith?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-28T18:32:23Z

AndrewMiller: /* One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential and cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===God wants us to be His hands to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification===

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

<blockquote>Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity. … Father Lehi promised his son Jacob that God would ‘consecrate [his] afflictions for [his] gain’ (2 Nephi 2:2). The Prophet Joseph was promised that ‘thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high’ (D&C 121:7–8).

Most of us experience some measure of what the scriptures call ‘the furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10). Some are submerged in service to a disadvantaged family member. Others suffer the death of a loved one or the loss or postponement of a righteous goal like marriage or childbearing. Still others struggle with personal impairments or with feelings of rejection, inadequacy, or depression. Through the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through such experiences can help us achieve what God desires us to become. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "The Challenge to Become," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32</ref> </blockquote>

Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

<blockquote>How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' <ref>Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991, 88</ref> </blockquote>

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:38:40Z

AndrewMiller: /* Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential and cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===God wants us to be His hands to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification===

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

<blockquote>Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity. … Father Lehi promised his son Jacob that God would ‘consecrate [his] afflictions for [his] gain’ (2 Nephi 2:2). The Prophet Joseph was promised that ‘thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high’ (D&C 121:7–8).

Most of us experience some measure of what the scriptures call ‘the furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10). Some are submerged in service to a disadvantaged family member. Others suffer the death of a loved one or the loss or postponement of a righteous goal like marriage or childbearing. Still others struggle with personal impairments or with feelings of rejection, inadequacy, or depression. Through the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through such experiences can help us achieve what God desires us to become. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "The Challenge to Become," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32</ref> </blockquote>

Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

<blockquote>How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' <ref>Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991, 88</ref> </blockquote>

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:38:14Z

AndrewMiller: /* Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential and cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===God wants us to be His hands to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification===

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

<blockquote>Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity. … Father Lehi promised his son Jacob that God would ‘consecrate [his] afflictions for [his] gain’ (2 Nephi 2:2). The Prophet Joseph was promised that ‘thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high’ (D&C 121:7–8).

Most of us experience some measure of what the scriptures call ‘the furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10). Some are submerged in service to a disadvantaged family member. Others suffer the death of a loved one or the loss or postponement of a righteous goal like marriage or childbearing. Still others struggle with personal impairments or with feelings of rejection, inadequacy, or depression. Through the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through such experiences can help us achieve what God desires us to become. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "The Challenge to Become," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32</ref> </blockquote>

Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

<blockquote>How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' <ref>Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991, 88</ref> </blockquote>

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:38:02Z

AndrewMiller: /* Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential and cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===God wants us to be His hands to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification===

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

<blockquote>Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity. … Father Lehi promised his son Jacob that God would ‘consecrate [his] afflictions for [his] gain’ (2 Nephi 2:2). The Prophet Joseph was promised that ‘thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high’ (D&C 121:7–8).

Most of us experience some measure of what the scriptures call ‘the furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10). Some are submerged in service to a disadvantaged family member. Others suffer the death of a loved one or the loss or postponement of a righteous goal like marriage or childbearing. Still others struggle with personal impairments or with feelings of rejection, inadequacy, or depression. Through the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through such experiences can help us achieve what God desires us to become. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "The Challenge to Become," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32</ref> </blockquote>

Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

<blockquote>How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' <ref>Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991, 88</ref> </blockquote>

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:37:37Z

AndrewMiller: /* Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential and cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===God wants us to be His hands to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification===

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

<blockquote>Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity. … Father Lehi promised his son Jacob that God would ‘consecrate [his] afflictions for [his] gain’ (2 Nephi 2:2). The Prophet Joseph was promised that ‘thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high’ (D&C 121:7–8).

Most of us experience some measure of what the scriptures call ‘the furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10). Some are submerged in service to a disadvantaged family member. Others suffer the death of a loved one or the loss or postponement of a righteous goal like marriage or childbearing. Still others struggle with personal impairments or with feelings of rejection, inadequacy, or depression. Through the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through such experiences can help us achieve what God desires us to become. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "The Challenge to Become," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32</ref> </blockquote>

Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

<blockquote>How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' <ref>Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991, 88</ref> </blockquote>

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:37:05Z

AndrewMiller: /* Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings? */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential and cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification===

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

<blockquote>Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity. … Father Lehi promised his son Jacob that God would ‘consecrate [his] afflictions for [his] gain’ (2 Nephi 2:2). The Prophet Joseph was promised that ‘thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high’ (D&C 121:7–8).

Most of us experience some measure of what the scriptures call ‘the furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10). Some are submerged in service to a disadvantaged family member. Others suffer the death of a loved one or the loss or postponement of a righteous goal like marriage or childbearing. Still others struggle with personal impairments or with feelings of rejection, inadequacy, or depression. Through the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through such experiences can help us achieve what God desires us to become. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "The Challenge to Become," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32</ref> </blockquote>

Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

<blockquote>How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' <ref>Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991, 88</ref> </blockquote>

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:36:17Z

AndrewMiller: /* One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential and cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Suffering caused by sickness can help lead us to sanctification===

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:

[blockquote]Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity. … Father Lehi promised his son Jacob that God would ‘consecrate [his] afflictions for [his] gain’ (2 Nephi 2:2). The Prophet Joseph was promised that ‘thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high’ (D&C 121:7–8).

Most of us experience some measure of what the scriptures call ‘the furnace of affliction’ (Isaiah 48:10; 1 Nephi 20:10). Some are submerged in service to a disadvantaged family member. Others suffer the death of a loved one or the loss or postponement of a righteous goal like marriage or childbearing. Still others struggle with personal impairments or with feelings of rejection, inadequacy, or depression. Through the justice and mercy of a loving Father in Heaven, the refinement and sanctification possible through such experiences can help us achieve what God desires us to become. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "The Challenge to Become," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32</ref> [/blockquote]

Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

[blockquote]How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' <ref>Neal A. Maxwell, "Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds," Ensign, May 1991, 88</ref> [/blockquote]

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:30:30Z

AndrewMiller: /* The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential and cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:29:49Z

AndrewMiller: /* Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection*/

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Permanent healing will come to all through the resurrection===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:28:22Z

AndrewMiller: /* The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:28:12Z

AndrewMiller: /* The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:27:43Z

AndrewMiller: /* Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings? */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:27:22Z

AndrewMiller: /* One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In this light, opposition and heartache are not simply an uncomfortable reality, they are actually central to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:26:13Z

AndrewMiller: /* Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings? */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

<blockquote>
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>
</blockquote>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In that light, it could be argued that those on earth with the greatest challenges are being blessed eternally through their mortal schooling more so than those who seem to walk through life without pain or challenges. But even those of us blessed with relative ease and comfort can rise by going to the aid of those who struggle. It is by helping bear the burdens of our friends, family, and neighbors that those of us with lighter loads can be blessed with the uplift of challenges.

In this light, opposition and heartache is not simply an uncomfortable reality, it is actually a central key to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:25:48Z

AndrewMiller: /* One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache, suffering and death that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

As taught by Elder Orson F. Whitney:

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven. <ref>Orson F. Whitney, quoted by Spencer W. Kimball, in Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972), 98</ref>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In that light, it could be argued that those on earth with the greatest challenges are being blessed eternally through their mortal schooling more so than those who seem to walk through life without pain or challenges. But even those of us blessed with relative ease and comfort can rise by going to the aid of those who struggle. It is by helping bear the burdens of our friends, family, and neighbors that those of us with lighter loads can be blessed with the uplift of challenges.

In this light, opposition and heartache is not simply an uncomfortable reality, it is actually a central key to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:22:14Z

AndrewMiller: /* A purpose in being on earth is to learn through our experience */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===One purpose of mortality is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache and suffering that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In that light, it could be argued that those on earth with the greatest challenges are being blessed eternally through their mortal schooling more so than those who seem to walk through life without pain or challenges. But even those of us blessed with relative ease and comfort can rise by going to the aid of those who struggle. It is by helping bear the burdens of our friends, family, and neighbors that those of us with lighter loads can be blessed with the uplift of challenges.

In this light, opposition and heartache is not simply an uncomfortable reality, it is actually a central key to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:21:50Z

AndrewMiller: /* Our purpose in being on earth is to be tested, not to have every burden removed from us */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===A purpose in being on earth is to learn through our experience===
One of the purposes of life is to learn, through our own experience, how to discern between good and evil and to treasure the good. When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache and suffering that it entails. However, when we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref> He often does this instead of removing our burdens outright through healing or other means.

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In that light, it could be argued that those on earth with the greatest challenges are being blessed eternally through their mortal schooling more so than those who seem to walk through life without pain or challenges. But even those of us blessed with relative ease and comfort can rise by going to the aid of those who struggle. It is by helping bear the burdens of our friends, family, and neighbors that those of us with lighter loads can be blessed with the uplift of challenges.

In this light, opposition and heartache is not simply an uncomfortable reality, it is actually a central key to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:17:27Z

AndrewMiller: /* Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings? */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===Our purpose in being on earth is to be tested, not to have every burden removed from us===

We are here on earth to be tested, to see if we would pass the tests of mortality. With that comes all the suffering and heartache that the adversary wanted to avoid by simply forcing us to obey.

When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache and suffering that it entails. When we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|24|15}} </ref>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raise us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In that light, it could be argued that those on earth with the greatest challenges are being blessed eternally through their mortal schooling more so than those who seem to walk through life without pain or challenges. But even those of us blessed with relative ease and comfort can rise by going to the aid of those who struggle. It is by helping bear the burdens of our friends, family, and neighbors that those of us with lighter loads can be blessed with the uplift of challenges.

In this light, opposition and heartache is not simply an uncomfortable reality, it is actually a central key to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the peril of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-20T01:15:49Z

AndrewMiller: /* Our purpose in being on earth is to be tested, not to have every burden removed from us */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===Our purpose in being on earth is to be tested, not to have every burden removed from us===

We are here on earth to be tested, to see if we would pass the tests of mortality. With that comes all the suffering and heartache that the adversary wanted to avoid by simply forcing us to obey.

When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache and suffering that it entails. When we act in faith and call upon God, He may take "the burdens which [are] laid upon" us and make them "light." He may choose to "strengthen [us] that [we can] bear up [our] burdens with ease." <ref>Mosiah 24:15 </ref>

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, our personal grounding, and God's help that raises us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In that light, it could be argued that those on earth with the greatest challenges are being blessed eternally through their mortal schooling more so than those who seem to walk through life without pain or challenges. But even those of us blessed with relative ease and comfort can rise by going to the aid of those who struggle. It is by helping bear the burdens of our friends, family, and neighbors that those of us with lighter loads can be blessed with the uplift of challenges.

In this light, opposition and heartache is not simply an uncomfortable reality, it is actually a central key to the plan. Therefore, if God were to always heal the sick, he would do so at the risk of his own plan for us.

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T22:02:10Z

AndrewMiller: /* Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for every individual to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
[W]e must always remember that faith and the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him whose priesthood it is. This principle is taught in the revelation directing that the elders of the Church shall lay their hands upon the sick. The Lord’s promise is that “he that hath faith in me to be healed, ''and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed''” (D&C 42:48; emphasis added). Similarly, in another modern revelation the Lord declares that when one “asketh according to the will of God … it is done even as he asketh” (D&C 46:30).

From all of this we learn that even the servants of the Lord, exercising His divine power in a circumstance where there is sufficient faith to be healed, cannot give a priesthood blessing that will cause a person to be healed if that healing is not the will of the Lord.

As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith means trust.<ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord===
The words spoken in a priesthood blessing may not be fulfilled if they are not in accordance with the will of the Lord. Likewise, a person may receive blessings not stated by the priesthood holder if they are in accordance with the will of the Lord and the faith of the individual.

Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God desires us to be His hand to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, are we "visiting the sick and administering to their relief?" <ref>{{s||Mosiah|4|26}}</ref> Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene in the lives of others than with intervening directly himself.

Spencer W. Kimball stated it this way: "God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom." <ref>"Small Acts of Service," Spencer W. Kimball https://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/12/small-acts-of-service?lang=eng</ref>

If God chose to heal all the sick through direct intervention, we would have fewer opportunities to be blessed by charitable service. Perhaps God allows many individuals to suffer without healing so that we can bless them and be blessed by our service to them. After all, "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." <ref>{{s||Mosiah|2|17}}</ref>

===Our purpose in being on earth is to be tested, not to have every burden removed from us===

We are here on earth to be tested, to see if we would pass the tests of mortality. With that comes all the suffering and heartache that the adversary wanted to avoid by simply forcing us to obey.

When we accepted the Father's plan, we also accepted the pain, anguish, heartache and suffering that it entails. When we act in faith and call upon God, He seems willing to intervene to the point of building us up, but not to the point of unnecessarily removing our burdens. Rather, he seeks to help us rise to the point that we can bear our burdens ourselves. We probably don't like to think of it this way, but it is through learning to bear burdens (ours, and those of others) that we obtain the mind and heart of God, and become more like him. This is what exalts us.

It is not the absence of opposition that lifts us, but the strength of the opposition, coupled with our personal grounding, that raises us. Consider the kite analogy: The tethered string is our being based in gospel principles, and the opposition is the wind that lifts us. Remove the tether, or the headwind, and we fall.

In that light, it could be argued that those on earth with the greatest challenges are being blessed eternally through their mortal schooling more so than those who seem to walk through life without pain or challenges. But even those of us blessed with relative ease and comfort can rise by going to the aid of those who struggle. It is by helping bear the burdens of our friends, family, and neighbors that those of us with lighter loads can be blessed with the uplift of challenges.

In this light, opposition and heartache is not simply an uncomfortable reality, it is actually a central key to the plan

===Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ===
At the time of the resurrection, "the soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." <ref>{{s||Alma|40|23}}</ref>

Until then, any medical or miracle healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing was already planned before the foundations of the world and will be brought about through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:54:43Z

AndrewMiller: /* The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:52:45Z

AndrewMiller: /* Ultimately, total healing will come to all through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:51:23Z

AndrewMiller: /* The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:50:30Z

AndrewMiller: /* The healing power of faith and the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:47:19Z

AndrewMiller: /* Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings? */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:43:45Z

AndrewMiller: /* Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings? */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:39:23Z

AndrewMiller: /* Sometimes God allows us to be His hand in helping to alleviate suffering */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:37:35Z

AndrewMiller: /* The words of the blessing are not essential, and they cannot override the will of the Lord */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:35:55Z

AndrewMiller: /* The words of the blessing are not essential to the healing effect, and they will ultimately not override the will of the Lord */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:35:11Z

AndrewMiller: /* Sometimes God allows us to be His hand in helping to alleviate suffering */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:33:49Z

AndrewMiller: /* Sometimes God allows us to be His hand in helping to alleviate suffering */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:23:05Z

AndrewMiller: /* Elder Oaks taught that the healing power of the priesthood cannot produce a result contrary to the will of the Lord */

Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?

2016-10-19T16:11:36Z

AndrewMiller: /* Sometimes God allows us to be His hand in helping to alleviate suffering */

{{FME-Source
|title=Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?
|category=
}}
<onlyinclude>
==Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?==
===Elder Oaks taught the scriptural message that healing occurs through faith, not simply because it is the will of the Lord to heal or not to heal that person===

As {{s||D&C|42|48}} states, it is not always the will of the Lord for them to be healed:
<blockquote>
And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
</blockquote>

Elder Oaks explained this very well:
<blockquote>
Faith is essential for healing by the powers of heaven. The Book of Mormon even teaches that “if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them” (Ether 12:12).10 In a notable talk on administering to the sick, President Spencer W. Kimball said: “The need of faith is often underestimated. The ill one and the family often seem to depend wholly on the power of the priesthood and the gift of healing that they hope the administering brethren may have, whereas the greater responsibility is with him who is blessed. … The major element is the faith of the individual when that person is conscious and accountable. ‘Thy faith hath made thee whole’ [Matthew 9:22] was repeated so often by the Master that it almost became a chorus.” <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===The words of the blessing are not essential to the healing effect, and they will ultimately not override the will of the Lord===
Elder Oaks:
<blockquote>
Fortunately, the words spoken in a healing blessing are not essential to its healing effect. If faith is sufficient and if the Lord wills it, the afflicted person will be healed or blessed whether the officiator speaks those words or not. Conversely, if the officiator yields to personal desire or inexperience and gives commands or words of blessing in excess of what the Lord chooses to bestow according to the faith of the individual, those words will not be fulfilled. <ref>Dallin H. Oaks, "Healing the Sick," General Conference Priesthood Session (April 2010).</ref>
</blockquote>

===Sometimes God allows us to be His hand in helping to alleviate suffering===

Many people ask whether God intervenes in our lives. It is true that he does from time to time. But, perhaps a more important question is whether we are intervening in each others' lives. Should we pray that God will heal the sick? Yes. But, more importantly, do we visit the sick and administer to their relief? Should we pray that God will alleviate the suffering of the poor? Yes. But, more importantly, are we doing something to help alleviate their suffering? Perhaps God is more concerned with what we are doing to intervene than with intervening himself.

</onlyinclude>
{{endnotes sources}}


[[en:Question: Why doesn't God always heal the sick when they are given priesthood blessings?]]

Criticism of Mormonism/Mormonism is a cult

2014-06-30T18:33:53Z

AndrewMiller:

Criticism of Mormonism/Video/Search for the Truth DVD/The "Occult"

2014-06-30T18:32:06Z

AndrewMiller:

{{Articles FAIR copyright}} {{Articles Header 1}} {{Articles Header 2}} {{Articles Header 3}} {{Articles Header 4}} {{Articles Header 5}} {{Articles Header 6}} {{Articles Header 7}} {{Articles Header 8}} {{Articles Header 9}} {{Articles Header 10}}
{{Resource Title|<em>Jesus Christ/Joseph Smith</em> or <em>Search for the Truth</em> DVD}}
{{DVDHeadingBox|Joseph Smith's Character: The Occult}}

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{| width="100%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="5" style="vertical-align:top;background-color:#f5faff"
! <h2 style="margin:0;background-color:#cedff2;font-size:120%;font-weight:bold;border:1px solid #a3b0bf;text-align:left;color:#000;padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Symbols and practices with an "occult" connection?</h2>
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This section of the video is a good example of a common error: using modern standards to pass judgment on historical figures. The segment opens with the portrayal of an inverted pentagram, with sinister flames behind the symbol. The DVD obviously hopes that the viewer will conclude this is an "evil" symbol.

[[Image:MedalOfHonor.png|frame|Congressional Medal of Honor]]
The inverted pentagram has a long history, and only took on negative connotations in the last one hundred years, well after Joseph Smith's death. Joseph Smith and others of his day would have known the symbol from its use in many aspects of American life. Many Americans were Masons, and used this symbol to represent light from the heavens to man.

The inverted pentagram is found in many contexts, including the Congressional Medal of Honor, on
the Great Star Flag of the United States (used from 1837 to 1845), as well as in the cathedrals of Chartes and Amiens in France. Do the producers of this DVD expect us to believe that all these groups are, in fact, part of the "occult"?

Some occult groups have even used the symbol of the cross as part of their symbolism. Does this make all Christians "occult" by association? Such an idea is ludicrous.

The meaning of a symbol can only be defined by the person or group using it. If others find different meanings in that particular symbol it does not negate the meaning to the first group. For thousands of years the swastika had been used as a symbol of good fortune and well being by numerous societies. Does that mean we need to believe that the German Nazis, by their use of the swastika, wanted nothing but good fortune and well being for the countries they overran during WWII, or the millions of people they murdered in the Holocaust? The idea is nonsense. In the same way the cross, before it was utilized by Christians all over the world, was the symbol known as the "Staff of Apollo" and was used in the worship of that deity. The cross was also used by the people of pre-Columbian America, and people in other parts of the world, to signify the sun. Does that suggest that we ought to criticize those who use the cross to signify the Savior's atonement and suggest that they take their symbols from pagan worship? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. It is just as nonsensical to apply a later interpretation to symbols used by the Latter-Day Saints, and then attack the Latter-Day Saints for something which they do not believe.

'''To read more:'''
* Matthew B. Brown, [http://www.fairlds.org/pubs/Stars.pdf Inverted Stars on LDS Temples]
* [[Symbols on the Nauvoo Temple]]

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! <h2 style="margin:0;background-color:#cedff2;font-size:120%;font-weight:bold;border:1px solid #a3b0bf;text-align:left;color:#000;padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Claim: Money digging was an example of Joseph Smith being involved in the occult.</h2>
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The video's first attempt to tie Joseph Smith to the "occult" uses the Smith family's involvement in "money digging." The video takes a practice common to the nineteenth century, and turns it into something sinister.

During the nineteenth century, belief in folk magic of this kind was common in the United States. Indeed, in parts of New England it is still a common practice with so-called "water witches" still listed in the phone book. (See, for example, the 2007 phone book published by Verizon, Inc., for Augusta, Maine.)

Dowsing or water witching was—and to some degree still is—used to locate wells, buried objects such as pipes or utility lines, and lost valuables. It was not then, and is not now (where it is still practiced), considered sinister or "occult." For these people, they simply consider it to be "how the world works." By analogy, such people might not understand the principles of magnetism behind a mariner's compass, but still use it because "that's how the world is."

The fact that Joseph Smith and his family were involved in seeking for buried valuables is not unusual. When Joseph was 16 years old, his local newspaper printed such remarks as the following:
* ''"digging for money hid in the earth is a very common thing and in this state it is even considered as honorable and profitable employment"''
* ''"One gentleman...digging...ten to twelve years, found a sufficient quantity of money to build him a commodious house."''
* ''"another...dug up...fifty thousand dollars!"''
::<small>—''Palmyra Herald'' (24 July 1822); cited in Russell Anderson, "The 1826 Trial of Joseph Smith," (2002 FAIR Conference presentation.){{fairlink|url=http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2002_1826_Trial_of_Joseph_Smith.html}}</small>

Given how common and respectable such an activity was, it is hardly surprising that the poverty-stricken Smith family took a legitimate opportunity to improve their station in life. Despite all their toil, they lost their farm because they could not make the final mortgage payment.

'''To read more:'''
* [[Joseph Smith and money digging]]
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! <h2 style="margin:0;background-color:#cedff2;font-size:120%;font-weight:bold;border:1px solid #a3b0bf;text-align:left;color:#000;padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Claim: "On March 15th, 1842, Joseph joined the Masons which is an organization that believes Jesus is not divine and is on the same level as Buddha, Muhammad or any other religious teacher."</h2>
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This is a severe misrepresentation of Masonry. Masonry is not a religion and has never claimed to be a religion. Masonry only requires that its members profess belief in a Supreme Being: Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims are all eligible. In this respect, Masonry is like many other such fraternal organization, or even the Boy Scouts. The policy of open membership does not make Masonry "an organization that believes Jesus is not divine." The millions of Christian Freemasons down through the centuries would find such a statement an insult to themselves and to Freemasonry.

For example, many prominent Baptists over the last two hundred years were also Masons. Robert E. Baylor, founder of Baylor University, was both a Baptist and a Mason. One of the university's presidents, William R. White (served from 1948 to 1961) was a 33rd-degree Mason and served as pastor of First Baptist Church of Austin, First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, First Baptist Church of Lubbock, and Broadway Baptist Church of Fort Worth. He also served as executive secretary, and later as president, of The Baptist General Convention of Texas.

George W. Truett, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, was also a Mason and remained such as he served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1927 to 1929, president of the Baptist World Alliance from 1934 to 1939, and trustee of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Are these men no longer Christians, or somehow involved in the "occult"?

These are just a few of the many prominent individuals who saw no conflict between their Baptist brand of Christianity and Freemasonry. Since their participation in Masonry would presumably not taint the roots of the Baptist faith, why would the several Baptist ministers associated with ''Search for the Truth'' find it necessary to insist that Masonry cast a sinister shadow over the roots of the Church?

'''To read more:'''
* <i>Famous Baptists Who Were Freemasons</i> (Adherents.com) {{link|url=http://www.adherents.com/largecom/fam_bap_freemasons.html}}
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! <h2 style="margin:0;background-color:#cedff2;font-size:120%;font-weight:bold;border:1px solid #a3b0bf;text-align:left;color:#000;padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Claim: "Within one day Smith rose to the highest degree which is the sublime degree."</h2>
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Church critics commonly make this error. The visual accompanying this claim shows an old Masonic chart showing the ''supplemental degrees'' of Scottish and York Rite Freemasonry, thereby implying that Joseph Smith was a member of these bodies. This would have been impossible, since Masonry in Illinois at the time (1842) did not have the Scottish Rite at time and there is no record of Joseph being a member of any of York rite supplemental bodies which existed in Springfield.

The video makes much of the fact that Joseph was raised in a single day, as if this was unusual and a sign of someone of great "occult" status, but fails to point out that Joseph's raising was actually done in two days and in complete accord with the Masonic practice of making a person a Mason "upon sight." The ''Sixth Landmark of Freemasonry'' states:

:''The prerogative of the Grand Master to grant Dispensations for conferring degrees at irregular times, is another and a very important Landmark. The statutory law of Masonry requires a month, or other determinate period, to elapse between the presentation of a petition and the election of a candidate. But '''the Grand Master has the power to set aside or dispense with this probation, and allow a candidate to be initiated at once'''. This prerogative he possessed in common with all Masters, before the enactment of the law requiring a probation, and as no statute can impair his prerogative, he still retains the power, although the Masters of Lodges no longer possess it.''
::<small>—''The Landmarks of Freemasonry''{{link|url=http://www.jabron.net/lmarks.htm}}</small>

This was the process followed in Joseph Smith's case. While rare, it is not an unheard of or unprecedented procedure, and Grand Master Abraham Jonas (the grand lodge of Illinois grand master who raised the Prophet) was well within his rights in making Joseph a Mason "upon sight" without any sinister undertones.

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! <h2 style="margin:0;background-color:#cedff2;font-size:120%;font-weight:bold;border:1px solid #a3b0bf;text-align:left;color:#000;padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Claim: "Joseph's Masonic membership affected the development of the Mormon church in many ways but the most significant area appears to be in the development of the Mormon temple ceremonies."</h2>
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Masonry and the teaching methods it employs may well have had some influence in the development of the temple endowment ritual. The degree of that influence is a debated issue among Mormon scholars and laymen alike. The video does the subject a grave disservice by not acknowledging complexity of this issue. There are many more points of dissimilarity between the endowment and the rites of Freemasonry than there are of apparent parallel.

The video shows re-enactments of some LDS temple rituals (borrowed directly from the notorious anti-Mormon film ''The God Makers II'') and implies that these originated in Masonry. This is simply not the case. The ordinances shown in the video (washing and anointing) actually first appeared in the Kirtland, Ohio, temple, many years before Joseph's involvement with Masonry.

Latter-day Saints consider the temple ceremony to be the most sacred expression of their religious worship. To have it held up for public display and discussion in this manner is in extremely poor taste. It is difficult to feel "loved" by those presenting the video when they do something which they know will be offensive and hurtful to most devout Mormons.

'''To read more:'''
* [[Temple endowment and Freemasonry|The Temple Endowment and Freemasonry]]

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! <h2 style="margin:0;background-color:#cedff2;font-size:120%;font-weight:bold;border:1px solid #a3b0bf;text-align:left;color:#000;padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Statement: "I suggest that enough evidence presently exists to declare the entire institution of the political kingdom of God, including the Council of Fifty, the living constitution, the proposed flag of the kingdom and the anointing and coronation of a king had its genesis in connection with Masonic thoughts and ceremonies." - Dr. Reed Durham</h2>
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It is important to note that many of Dr. Durham's conclusions were subsequently thought by some to be premature and somewhat ill-advised. And Dr. Durham wrote a letter wherein he distanced himself from some of the things that he had said during his presentation. {{link|url=http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=278}}

It seems that the producers of the ''Search for Truth'' video believe that Dr. Durham's statement somehow taints Mormonism. Even if it is true—a supposition open to debate among scholars—that does not mean much within the context of the times. Modern Americans are often unaware of it, but many elements of our society that we take for granted today have their roots in early American practices, and most have Masonic overtones. A quick examination of United States currency, for instance, will find many Masonic elements, such as the all-seeing eye, pyramids, and mottoes. These same elements (and more) are found on many governmental buildings.

There is some evidence that these symbols may have had their roots in Masonry or may have been heavily influenced by Masonry. Thus, it would not be surprising if some aspects of LDS governmental theory—wittingly or unwittingly—invoked some Masonic themes. Does this reality of nineteenth century life and thought mean that, somehow, the roots of American society are based in the occult?

Joseph Smith also spoke English, because it was the language of his time and place, but this does not mean that he had no divine revelations given to him. Prophets—Biblical and otherwise—express themselves in the idiom of their own culture.

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! <h2 style="margin:0;background-color:#cedff2;font-size:120%;font-weight:bold;border:1px solid #a3b0bf;text-align:left;color:#000;padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Statement: "...included in the actual vocabulary of Joseph Smith's counsel and instructions to the sisters were such words...indicating that the society's orientation possessed Masonic overtones." - Dr. Reed Durham</h2>
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Dr. Durham's assertions regarding the formation of the Nauvoo Relief Society are certainly interesting, but they are far from representing a scholarly consensus on the topic.

Dr. Durham, in other places, suggested a connection between the Relief Society and the Masonic "Lodges of Adoption" with women members—which were founded in revolutionary France. The problem with this theory is that there is no indication that Joseph Smith or anyone else in Nauvoo at the time (in the early 1840s) intended this. Lodges of Adoption never found their way to the United States and disappeared from France within a few years of their formation, well before the establishment of the LDS Church in 1830.

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! <h2 style="margin:0;background-color:#cedff2;font-size:120%;font-weight:bold;border:1px solid #a3b0bf;text-align:left;color:#000;padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Claim: The Jupiter Talisman was evidence of Joseph's belief and participation in occultic rituals.</h2>
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The final issue of purported "occult" evidence against Joseph Smith used by the video is perhaps the least significant of all. Strangely, it is the one upon which the most time is spent. The Jupiter Talisman allegedly belonging to Joseph Smith is an item which at one time was on public display in the old Church Museum on Temple Square. The carrying of tokens supposed to bring a person luck (like a rabbit's foot or a four-leaf clover) has been common practice throughout much of American history, and particularly in the nineteenth century.

Commentators in the video draw all sorts of conclusions about the Jupiter Talisman which are not supported by the available facts. Many respected LDS scholars do not believe that Joseph Smith actually owned the Jupiter Talisman, since it is claimed by some that he had it in his possession when he died but ''it was not actually listed among the objects found upon his person after he was murdered''. Even if Joseph did own and carry the Jupiter Talisman, there is no record of what Joseph might have believed or not believed about it.

One video commentator, Sandra Tanner, claims that "The fact that [Joseph] died with the Jupiter Talisman on his body shows that throughout his life he continued to hang on to that hope and that trust in that magic object." Realistically, the only thing that it may show (if substantiated) is that he had it in his possession when the mob attacked. We do not know where the talisman came from, who gave it to Joseph, or what significance, if any, he applied to it.

It is telling that the only person who claimed that the Jupiter Talisman (a) belonged to Joseph, and (b) was on Joseph's person when he died was Emma's second husband's son. ''He made this claim over ninety years after the Prophet's martyrdom when he was trying to sell the item''.

'''To read more:'''
* [[Joseph Smith and Jupiter talisman|Joseph Smith and the Jupiter Talisman]]
* The Jupiter Talisman Myth {{link|url=http://www.angelfire.com/sk2/ldsdefense/talis.html}}

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[[fr:Search for the Truth DVD/The "Occult"]]

Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy?

2014-06-30T18:31:23Z

AndrewMiller:

Moroni's visit/Moroni would have struck his head on the ceiling

2014-06-30T18:30:12Z

AndrewMiller:

Book of Abraham/Astronomy/Kolob-Sun

2014-06-30T18:29:29Z

AndrewMiller:

Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Critics' claimed motivations for Joseph's implementation of plural marriage

2014-06-30T18:28:12Z

AndrewMiller: