I want to share this essay written by a new friend named Jeremy, who felt impressed to send me some of his own thoughts on the temple. I felt his sincerity for this topic was inspired and is worth sharing. He and I both ask you to share this as far and wide as possible as you are directed by the Lord. Following his essay, I have a few thoughts of my own to share.
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Jeremy:
From the announcement that temples are opening up more, surely many are excited to get back to the temple. I would say that I have always enjoyed being in them, they are such beautiful places that no expense was spared to adorn them with all manner of precious things. With that said though I would hope that this past year everyone followed the council of Alma to the Zoramites. Hopefully, since we could not worship in our places of worship, we sought to find holy spaces to commune with God such as a locked bathroom or bedroom, kitchen table when the kids are asleep, man caves, she sheds, or even mountains, so as to not starve ourselves spiritually for an entire year.
For years Anna and I have tried to go to the temple often and for much of the time we were able to go once a week and we enjoyed getting away and having a quiet spot at the temple to ponder on the things of life and God. The temple has meant a lot to me. I know the temple has several layers of meanings, but I want to share some of the things that it has come to represent. I share this to help explain why I and I imagine many others, likely will never return to the temple till the Lord cleanses his house.
Let me explain. Some of this you likely already know but I share it to better explain myself. The entire temple experience is symbolic and it symbolizes how we can ascend to the celestial kingdom/Glory during our lifetime. Going from baptism, to calling and election made sure, to being translated, all of this in this life.
In the initiatory there are four places. This is what each mean to me.
| Pre earth life/garden | Waiting period | |
| Telestial | Holy ghost or his wife on the woman’s side. | Washes us from the sins of the world |
| Terrestrial | Jesus or his wife on the woman’s side | Seals the washing and anointsTo become king or Queen |
| Celestial | Father or Heavenly Mother | Seals the anointing and clothes us with glory and eternal life. This also can have reference to translation. |
In the endowment there are temple workers that represent angels, Jesus or His wife and Heavenly Father. Christ or His Wife, is the one that stands next to you and whispers in your ear while at the veil, advocating for you to the father so that Father may part the veil and accept you into his presence or the Celestial kingdom/ Celestial state.
In the sealing I assume the sealer represents Father because the sealing is intended to be celestial in nature. Father is the overseer of the celestial kingdom.
I do recognize that there are many levels of understanding in the temple but this is what it means to me. If the temple is symbolic in nature and every aspect of it represents something, what does it symbolize when we place a mask on the HG’s face, Christ’s face, and Heavenly Father’s face? Who are we to be placing a mask on the Gods in the Lord’s holy house? If people are really dying in the streets like they say they are, to the point where we have to put masks on the individuals that represent God in his own house, perhaps we should just keep them closed. If all clothing in the temple represents something, what does wearing a mask symbolize when we try to present ourselves before God at the veil or at any other time when we make covenants or promises. Looks like we’re hiding something doesn’t it? If when we approach the veil we find a God that is masked, what does that symbolize? If the Gods are wearing masks how can we be sure they are who we think they are? If even the Gods in the temple are wearing masks how are the temple ceremonies any better than any cultish ceremony that wears masks. So that you can understand how this mask stuff makes my heart ache. Will you please take a moment and take some sticky notes and cut them in the shape of a mask. And place them over the face of any painting of Christ you have in your home. Then sit back and see how the feeling in the room changes. When you do it, see if it makes you angry. Or feel hurt. It makes me want to scream and cry. How have we as a people become so blind that we can’t even see this? Oh how I wish God would unveil his face to me so that I may experience “The Perfect Day”. Wouldn’t’ seeing God face to face be the perfect day? Why would I ever support covering Gods face with a mask. If the symbolic nature of the temple and the clothing we wear in it can have the power to bring upon us blessings perhaps when we symbolically cover his and our own face in the temple it will have the power to bring great curses upon us. To me the entire purpose of the temple has been violated which this in itself is enough to bring down the wrath of God.
So what do the scriptures say about the temple worship of the last days (our days)? Surely the great prophets of days gone by that were called of God to prophesy of our day have said many things concerning the practices of our day. There are two main scriptures that I would like to share that speak of our temple worship. One from Isaiah and the other from Hosea. To preface these scriptures I would like to say that even in the day that these scriptures were written they never were popular. In fact, I would say that most prophets of the old testament were not very well liked. Take for instance Jeremiah, at least as far as I have been able to find he was not part of the church leadership. In essence he was an outsider called by God to prophesy against the people of the church of God. When he began prophesying of the oncoming destructions that we now know happened, very few took it well. The reason for this is that the majority of the church leaders were not in agreeance with him. The church leadership were not calling out the people’s sins, nor were they speaking of the destruction that was coming. They did not want to be considered doomsayers. Instead, they probably had the attitude that we all need to repent to a degree so that is why we go to the temple and follow the holy days. In essence many of the people Jeremiah was calling to repentance were card carrying, church going, scripture reading members. Since their own church leaders were not screaming destruction, they cast Jeremiah off as crazy. They never took the time to stop and ask God of the truthfulness of Jeremiah’s words. They did not ask God to help them see the wickedness Jeremiah was prophesying about. The people did not see themselves as a wicked people which is quite common in all days of wickedness. This can be seen in Laman and Lemuel’s comments to Nephi and their father. (They were contemporaries to Jeremiah)
As I quote these two scriptures, which I do testify speak of us as a church in our days, you will likely experience some of the feelings the members in Jeremiah’s day felt, and want to throw it out. We all have the option to discard/discredit it or take it to the Lord and ask him about it and plead with the Lord to verify its truth. Like in these prophets’ days the “warnings and condemnations” of Isaiah and other prophets of old who were called by God to prophesy of our day, are not coming from our leaders. If you want to know the truth you will have to ask God to show it to you. If this type of (condemning) scripture is new I will let you know now that the confirmation from the HG won’t likely come with happy warm fuzzies because there are no happy warm fuzzies to be had in these types of scriptures that condemn us. I will be quoting them from the NLT or NIV translations because to me they are much clearer than the KJV translation but as you compare them you will see they say the same thing. Keep in mind these scriptures are speaking to both ancient Israel and us (dualism) so they speak of temple rituals as they were in old testament times.
The first scripture that I want to quote that speaks of our modern-day temple worship is found in Isaiah Chapter 1
10 Listen to the Lord, you leaders of “Sodom.” Listen to the law of our God, people of “Gomorrah.” (Isaiah is calling Jerusalem and Juda, Sodom and Gomorrah, in our day Jerusalem is SLC and Juda is at least Utah, and perhaps contains parts of Arizona and Idaho where a large portion of Gods People live)
11 “What makes you think I want all your sacrifices?” says the Lord “I am sick of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle. I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to worship me, who asked you to parade through my courts with all your ceremony?
13 Stop bringing me your meaningless gifts; the incense of your offerings disgusts me! As for your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath and your special days for fasting—they are all sinful and false. I want no more of your pious meetings.
14 I hate your new moon celebrations and your annual festivals. They are a burden to me. I cannot stand them!
15 When you lift up your hands in prayer, I will not look. Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen, for your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims.
16 Wash yourselves and be clean! Get your sins out of my sight. Give up your evil ways.
17 Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows. (NLT)
The second scripture I am quoting that speaks of our modern-day temple worship and speaks about the building up of our many temples/Altars is Hosea Chapter 8
11 “Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning.
12 I wrote for them the many things of my law, but they regarded them as something foreign.
13 Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to me, and though they eat the meat, the Lord is not pleased with them. Now he will remember their wickedness and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.
14 Israel has forgotten their Maker and built palaces; Judah has fortified many towns. But I will send fire on their cities that will consume their fortresses.” (NIV)
I was going to take time to share what I could about these scriptures but I have decided if you really want to know if any of this is true you will take the time to search that out yourself. I don’t share these scriptures with the intent to tear us as a church down but rather to help us see that there is something that we individually need to fix. If we never see that the path we are on is not leading us correctly, how can we ever work on fixing it. Another example of this is that in Isaiah 58, Isaiah comes right out and tells us of our day that the lord hates our fasts. But if we read and study the passage, Isaiah actually tells us how to change so the lord won’t hate our fasts. My intent with this and with any other letter I have sent out is to get things off my mind and help us see that we need to change if we are hoping for Gods protection at least that is what I am finding for my life, I need to change at least. As I am sharing things from Isaiah, I do want to say that we should be cautious of discarding Isaiah’s words concerning us. To discard Isaiah and his words would be akin to discarding the entire Book of Mormon.
Anyways I hope many will take time to at least think and even perhaps have a deep conversation with others of the things mentioned here and to realize that the perspective given us by our active LDS culture doesn’t always match up with God’s perspective
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Eric:
The Temples of the LDS church are special. I feel the spirit of the Lord in many of them, and I know some of the most amazing blessings come about through much of what goes on in them.
About 15 years ago I began noticing my temple experience did not measure up to the temple stories that often went over the pulpits in testimony meetings. Whenever someone said they need to go to the temple to get answers to their prayers, my “something’s off-ometer” alarmed somewhere inside me. When I have questions, I ask the Lord and the answers often come in the moment of my asking, or in my truck on my way to work, or in the shower when I’m in deep thought. I’m not sure I’ve ever had significant revelation come to me in the temples. And while some temples are holy, I think it is an impure cultural practice to believe that’s where you go for revelation.
Several years ago I was with friends in the Salt Lake City temple, and was excited to be there. As I was waiting in the basement to go up I recognized darkness on a spiritual level, and second guessed myself because, as I had always been told, Satan is not allowed in the Lord’s temples.
As I continued through the rooms of the temple and ultimately found myself in the Celestial Room, I recognized the same spiritually dull, even dark feeling. To be a little more frank, that temple was loaded with evil spirits. I couldn’t believe what I was feeling in that place. I know for myself, the Lord’s temples can easily be infiltrated by evil – so long as those attending them bring their attachments with them.
But I came to learn there was more behind the darkness I felt. I asked the Lord for understanding and after awhile a dismal scene came to my mind. I knew it was in the SLC temple, near a stairwell I had never seen, that felt like it was in the basement. It felt humid and dark. I knew some heinous evil deed had taken place there. I knew it involved human torture of some kind, perhaps involved sexual abuse, and had been perpetrated by a General Authority. I knew the temple had been defiled.
Since then, the reality and far spread nature of ritual abuse has been validated over and over. I have even heard several firsthand accounts of those who claim to be victims of such abuse on the very altars of the SLC temple. The spiritual darkness I felt in the temple that day is justified in my mind as I have felt heaven witness to me that the Lord’s house has indeed been defiled, in the most evil ways imaginable. Just like it was in ancient Israel. And like it was in the meridian of time, when the Master drove out the money changers from His Father’s House.
Also check out this post on the defiled consecration covenant.
Thank you Jeremy and Eric for being 2nd and 3rd witnesses of what my heart has been feeling. I am grateful to have associations with others who are waking up to the awful state we are in. I continue to pray that Father & Christ will expose ALL the evil and corruption…we cannot clean it up and repent until we are aware of it. I am also praying that all evil might also be shouted from the rooftops so that perhaps others will waken to our awful state. I want to be part of the holy people watching and preparing for the Savior’s return and am grateful for the knowledge that we can worship, receive revelation, & be taught from on high in our own sacred places. I am grateful for the Nemenhah records which teach us how to commune with Heaven and to confirm all turth by the Holy Ghost.
They are many different levels to the scriptures. We have been told that are bodies are also Temples. I use to think that those scriptures above were also talking about our bodies being defiled either from within or from outside forces. We need to make ourselves clean and purify ourselves inside and out. From this post and from other warnings I now realize there is another level of warnings which relate to our day to be gleaned from the scriptures.
Thank you to the both of you always appreciate it
Thank you both for your commentaries, relevant scriptures and personal thoughts shared.Thank you for your intent to bless others through your sharing!
This essay feels correct to me. The included assertion that the lack of “warm fuzzies” to confirm this specific truth is a perfect description of what I’m feeling after reading it. This is yet one more of several accumulating truths that are on my “What would the Lord have me do about this?”shelf.
I appreciate the spiritual and emotional debridement. For all who are willing to recieve it, may it lead to healing and wholeness through Christ.
My whole life we were never allowed to wear masks at the church buildings on Halloween, because masks were evil. But it’s okay now because now masks are good.
Go figure, huh! Great point.
Thank you both very much! I feel the truthfulness of this message as well as it’s urgency. In a lot of ways the place of the temple, it’s role and influence in the church culture seems to have shifted over the years. Our relationship with Christ has been in a way replaced with our ability to attend the temple. The temple recommend has become a measure of righteousness.
I fear that some in order to maintain that status of temple worthiness will comply with any requirements or infringements on their agency, especially as those become more strict and invasive.
I too feel like the Lord is weary of our sacrifices and oblations… Especially when our hearts are not affected. Thank you!!!
Thank you. This was a timely message for me today.
Several years ago, my sister and I went to the Payson temple. I have always felt a warm loving atmosphere in the temple. This time there was nothing. It felt mute, void of any spirit. This was before covid. I have not been able to bring myself to walk back in that temple. I serve in the Dallas temple now and have had many joyous experiences here, not all his houses have been defiled, at least in my opinion. It does seem I hear his voice of light and knowledge more often outside of the temple walls.