THE NEED FOR A PURGE

Reading the Book of Mormon, we see that there clearly is a cycle that people follow from righteous living into a life of debauchery.  This is known as the "Pride Cycle".

I have a friend who is struggling with a question about why the Lord would allow things to happen in Ogden, etc to a new temple that is being built there.  I took out my endowment there years ago.  That temple is also the first temple that no longer exists in its original form and was torn down to install a more elegant, contemporary/timeless, energy efficient form in its place.

Here is my response to my friend:

The temple in Nauvoo was destroyed (or abandoned, then destroyed) literally before it was fully utilized.  The endowment was completed in portions of the building that had been dedicated before the whole could even be completed.  It did not make the effort by the Saints any less.  If you look at things rightly, there were few who truly supported Joseph at the end of his life - therefore, they had to go thru a purging process in order to be refined.  Today, few support our Prophet and the true nature of Consecration, etc completely - and so the same must occur until the Lord has a truly righteous seed.  The same with the Jews of Jesus' day - newly re-built temple, people were not pure in their hearts and the temple and people were purged.  There is a clear pattern.  Those that are pure enough in heart to make it to The New Jerusalem will be living all the higher laws - not the lesser ones like tithing, etc.

Just my take on things.....  This nation clearly will be purged - but the purging will begin in the Lord's house first, per D&C.  I have outlined many reasons why in my blog posts.  We are ripe as a nation and as a people (that includes me/us, I am sure, based on knowledge levels and levels of attentiveness/action on our parts).

 My first thought is that I do not know all things.  I do not understand the ways of the Lord completely.  I do, however, understand that there is a threshold for people with knowledge of the truth and separate ones for people with varying levels of knowledge.  I get the threshold limits by careful examination of the scrips and getting a "feel" for things.  There are two kinds of engineers in my field of engineering.  There are the ones who are expert with numbers and the ones who have a "feel" for what is right.  The ones who have a feel for things have been doing it for quite a long time.  The "numbers" guys are usually newer and less secure.  I am a "feel" it guy - and not the best with hard numbers.  If you ask me to remember specific details of any particular event, I will give you scant details unless the Holy Ghost witnessed it in power.  I will, however, give you amazing detail about my impressions and my gut feel.  It is partly the reason that these posts are so vague - I do not delve into detail but deal mostly in the "feeling" realm.  Many people, who are too detail oriented, cannot see the forest for the trees.  I see the forest in most all things - but can focus on individual trees, if necessary.

It is what makes my relationship with my wife good as long as it does not drive either of us too nuts.  She is remarkably good on the details and I seek out her expertise on that, whereas she will ask me for a "bigger picture" analysis many times.  It works quite well.

Anyway - the law of witnesses is at work and it will happen as described in this blog.  The sequence and timing is what is up for grabs.....