Lesson 31: “Sealed … for Time and for All Eternity”
Reading 1 – Benjamin Johnson wrote in his memoirs: "In the evening he called me and my wife
to come and sit down, for he wished to marry us according to the Law of the
Lord. I thought it was a joke, and said, I should not marry my wife again,
unless she courted me, for I did it all the first time. He chided my levity,
told me he was in earnest, and so it proved, for we stood up and were sealed by
the Holy Spirit of Promise." (Benjamin Johnson, My Life's Review, p96)
Reading 2 – Doctrine and Covenants 131:1-4
Reading 3 - President George Q. Cannon said: "We believe in the eternal nature of the
marriage relation, that man and woman are destined, as husband and wife, to
dwell together eternally. We believe that we are organized as we are, with all
these affections, with all this love for each other, for a definite purpose,
something far more lasting than to be extinguished when death shall overtake
us. We believe that when a man and woman are united as husband and wife, and
they love each other, their hearts and feelings are one, that that love is as
enduring as eternity itself, and that when death overtakes them it will neither
extinguish nor cool that love, but that it will brighten and kindle it to a purer
flame, and that it will endure through eternity; and that if we have offspring
they will be with us and our mutual associations will be one of the chief joys
of the heaven to which we are hastening. . . . God has restored the everlasting
priesthood, by which ties can be formed, consecrated and consummated, which
shall be as enduring as we ourselves are enduring, that is, as our spiritual
nature; and husbands and wives will be united together, and they and their
children will dwell and associate together eternally, and this, as I have said,
will constitute one of the chief joys of heaven; and we look forward to it with
delightful anticipations." (JD, 14:320-21)
Reading 4 – Elder Parley P. Pratt said, “I had loved before,
but I knew not why. But now I loved—with a pureness—an intensity of elevated,
exalted feeling, which would lift my soul. … I felt that God was my heavenly
Father indeed; that Jesus was my brother, and that the wife of my bosom was an
immortal, eternal companion. … In short, I could now love with the spirit and
with the understanding also” (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt [1975], 298).
Reading 5 - Lorenzo Snow wrote: "When two Latter-day Saints are united
together in marriage, promises are made to them concerning their offspring that
reach from eternity to eternity. They are promised that they shall have the
power and the right to govern and control and administer salvation and
exaltation and glory to their offspring worlds without end. And what offspring
they do not have here, undoubtedly there will be opportunities to have them
hereafter.
"What else could man wish? A
man and a woman in the other life, having celestial bodies, free from sickness
and disease, glorified and beautified beyond description, standing in the midst
of their posterity, governing and controlling them, administering life,
exaltation and glory, worlds without end!" (Lorenzo Snow: Deseret News
Weekly, 3 April 1847, p. 481)
Reading 6 - President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:
“Marriage, as understood by Latter-day Saints, is a covenant ordained to be
everlasting. It is the foundation for eternal exaltation, for without it there
could be no eternal progress in the kingdom of God” (Doctrines of Salvation,
comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [1954–56], 2:58).
Doctrine and Covenants 132:1-2
Doctrine and Covenants 132:3-4
Reading 7 – Doctrine and Covenants 132:7
Reading 8 – Doctrine and Covenants 132:19-20
Doctrine and Covenants 42:22
Reading 9 - President Spencer W. Kimball wrote: “When the Lord says all thy heart, it allows
for no sharing nor dividing nor depriving. …
“The words none else eliminate
everyone and everything. The spouse then becomes preeminent in the life of the
husband or wife, and neither social life nor occupational life nor political
life nor any other interest nor person nor thing shall ever take precedence
over the companion spouse. …
“Marriage presupposes total
allegiance and total fidelity. Each spouse takes the partner with the
understanding that he or she gives totally to the spouse all the heart, strength,
loyalty, honor, and affection, with all dignity. Any divergence is sin; any
sharing of the heart is transgression. As we should have ‘an eye single to the
glory of God,’ so should we have an eye, an ear, a heart single to the marriage
and the spouse and family” (Faith Precedes the Miracle [1972], 142–43).
President Gordon B. Hinckley gave this simple counsel to
married couples: “Be fiercely loyal one to another” (Ensign, Feb. 1999, 4).
Doctrine and Covenants 132:30-31
Reading 10 - Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained what is
involved in the Patriarchal order of the Melchizedek Priesthood that Abraham
and Sarah received. "Joseph Smith says that in the temple of God there is
an order of the priesthood that is patriarchal. 'Go to the temple,' he says,
'and find out about this order.' So I went to the temple, and I took my wife
with me, and we kneeled at the altar. There on that occasion we entered, the
two of us, into an 'order of the priesthood.' When we did it, we had sealed
upon us, on a conditional basis, every blessing that God promised Father
Abraham — the blessings of exaltation and eternal increase. The name of that
order of the priesthood, which is patriarchal in nature, because Abraham was a
natural patriarch to his posterity, is the New and Everlasting Covenant of
Marriage" ("Eternal Family Concept," Address given at Priesthood
Genealogical Research Seminar, BYU, 23 June 1967, 7; cited in Joseph Fielding
McConkie and Craig J. Ostler, Revelations of the Restoration, 1053).
Reading 11 - Brother Ted L. Gibbons has explained the
importance of marrying by a covenant:
When the Lord taught his first lesson about eternal marriage, the
[person] to be married, [Isaac] . . . was not even consulted in the matter.
Abraham sent his servant back to the ancestral lands with one simple
instruction. Find a woman who is of the covenant lineage (Genesis 24:3,4).
There are no other recorded requirements! Age was not a factor. Appearance did
not seem to be a consideration. Hair color and complexion and weight were not critical
issues. The message here is simple enough. The most important thing about
marriage is the covenant. Marry in the covenant, this story seems to be
teaching. Nothing else comes close to being this important.
Rebekah was a wonderful woman. She was hard working and
obedient and beautiful. But none of these things entered into the instructions
given by Abraham. The reason was (and is) that without the covenant, none of
those other things would (or will) matter when the portal of the grave slams
shut" (Commentary by Ted L. Gibbons on D&C Lesson 31: Sealed For Time
and For All Eternity, found in LDS Living magazine.)
