General Statement:
While working on the third floor of the Kirtland Temple during 1957, taking my own time, for two hours each morning for more than three months, that which follows opened up to me in answer to my concern and prayer.
Prayer of Inquiry:
Heavenly Father, here within the courts of Thy Temple, hallowed by so many sacred experiences in the past, as well as by the holy expectations of the future, I come as one of Thy ministers and servants of Thy high purpose, pleading in love, in reverence, and in deep faith for the gift of receiving learning by faith, and for the gift of prophetic insight, and for the gift of inspired writing.
Eternal Father, it is my great desire to understand concerning Thy long promised endowment, in such completeness as may be pleasing to Thee at this time. I therefore come to Thee, as with up reaching hands, praying for light on a number of questions concerning this great promise Wilt thou now break down the barriers that separate me from Thyself. May the doors of Heaven, Thy dwelling place be enough ajar that I may look within a little way, and think Thy thoughts after Thee. I plead that the Holy Spirit may bear to me from that glory of intelligence which is Thine, depth of thought, breadth of insight, loftiness of perception, and adequate words to describe that which I may be permitted to see. Wilt Thou cleanse my heart, my mind, my life, as I thus seek to go into, as it were, a Holy of Holies. May the angels be near, either seen or unseen. Grant to me to greatly cherish and wisely use such light as may thus come to me. Open my eyes that I may see!
In Christ's Holy Name, I pray,
Earl R. Curry
As you both now and in the future ponder considering the Endowment, first of all let there ever be before you these special promises of deeply spiritual, prophetic-minded men, whose eyes your Eternal Father has opened that they might see the deep things of the Spirit, such as these: Obedience to His law shall cause Him to open the windows of Heaven and pour you out such a blessing as you cannot contain; or, eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard that which the Father hath prepared for those who love Him, except those to whom He hath shown it! or, the Melchisedec priesthood have the privilege, if they will seek in great faith, of receiving the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven - to have the heavens opened unto them - to commune with the spiritual giants of the past, the great assembly of the noble-hearted, who are special agents whom God sends to those of mighty faith - even to have communion wit.h Him whose glory is intelligence and with Jesus Christ, the altogether lovely Son of God.
Ye men of God, in the light of these great promises, and of many others equally great written in the record of the Everlasting Father's association with men, how can you do otherwise then reach out and up to that which God would do for you, for He would share marvelous things with you!
When shall these things be? They shall be when and as those who minister for Him cease placing much too great faith in the wisdom of the world; and when they shall learn that the arm of flesh cannot bring to pass the high purposes of the Lord. When this ceasing and this learning comes, then shall be fulfilled the word of the prophet that those who are weak and humble in the sight of this world shall thresh the nations by the power of God's Spirit.
It shall come when the servants of the Lord appreciate the possible glories of His friendship, when there shall come to them a vision of the very extraorinary works and miracles that shall grace the work and life of those whom God has endowed. Are there not almost unumbered testimonies in the scriptures that help to build up and disclose this vision? And who among you have, thru fasting and prayer, or thru inspired meditation and study, or thru the many gifts of' the Spirit, or thru the loving Father's response to your deep concern--who among you have plumbed the depths of the Lord's great wells of living water and have had God show you even part of what He would do thru you? There are pleasing, comforting and even inspiring rewards that come to those who have noble people as their friends. But what tongue can tell or what intellect can even imagine the boundless rewards that are for those whose great friend is God and whose loving friend and elder brother is Jesus Christ? The Everlasting Father invites you and urges you toward this their friendship. He is deeply concerned, He is exceedingly anxious that the time of endowment should soon come, for He knows that increasingly great waves of perplexity, of disturbance and of trouble shall break upon the shores of time. All that the prophets of old have seen concerning the last days are nearing fulfillment. There is commotion everywhere. People of the world are breaking away from even the poor standards they have hitherto had. Great clouds of deception are increasingly befogging the minds of men. Satan rages in his age-old struggle against the Son of God. He would take away and completely submerge all that is good, and hundreds of millions of people are his collaborators. Wars of a most terrible sort are at your doors. Surely men's hearts are failing them for fear of what they plainly see is coming on the earth. The heart of Him whose finest name is Love is deeply distressed that His ministry and people all too generally do not see these things, and that they make so little effort to ascend the mountains of exaltation so that Jesus the Son of God might speak to them face to face, and that He might send forth a strong army, though few in number but mighty in spiritual power, to fight with the everlasting word of God all the wicked forces which seek to engulf the world. If ever the great Father cried to His people to come out of that Babylon which shall perish, it is now. Endowment could come to the church surely within ten years, and even less, if God's people will make themselves aware of the world's great need, if they will become aware of the church's desperate need for mighty spiritual power, if they will go up to the mountain of the Lord's House! Will you stop your ears and let the cry of despair arising from tens of thousands of men and women lost in this wilderness of sin, commotion and of fear - will you let these cries be in vain? When shall these things be? Hear ye, all those to whom this prophetic insight shall come. God will not always strive with man. Neither will He always strive with a stiff-necked, worldly, faltering people! Surely the word of the prophets is utterly plain-- if God's people will not come out of Babylon and her confusion and her evils, they too must perish. Is it not written that the bosom of God's wrath shall sweep through the nations of the earth at the last day? Is it not also written that this day of burning, of desolation, of weeping and of lamentation that shall come upon the earth as a whirlwind, even as testified by Isaiah and by Jeremiah of old and by the Joseph whom you call the martyr, and that it shall begin at the house of the Lord, and from His house shall it go forth? Oh ye who handle the vessel's of the Lord, beware lest you come under strong condemnation in that so many of you neither prepare yourselves nor your people for those things that are coming on the earth. In the face of the marvelous possibilities of God's endowment, will you choose to blunder along as a church insufficiently in touch with God, and that you perish because He cannot use you as His instruments of power, the bearers of His way of life and as the demonstrators of the fact that only His ways can save the world from destruction, and raise all who will truly believe to glorious and even miraculous accomplishments?
Within the limits, therefore, of your Heavenly Father's patience, and before those great tidal waves of judgment shall build up to vast destructive power, there is yet time for those who are caught up by the vision of grand spiritual endowment to prepare themselves, to come out of Babylon and her evil ways, to purify their lives and purposes, to became increasingly spiritual, to become increasingly full of love for their brethren and sisters and for the coming generation of youth, and for the men and women of the world who walk in darkness, and especially that increasingly there shall be a profound love for the Eternal Father and all He stands for. Only such as prepare themselves can abide the day of divine endowment, which your Heavenly Father cannot permit to be very far away, for that day nears when the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple, and to such of His ministry as have made themselves ready and are looking for Him and are anxious that He shall come to purify, to instruct, to organize, to guide, and to be leader and commander, to send His servants forth to bind up the law and to seal up the testimony, and to give understanding and power to gloriously establish sacred communities of Zion.
All who desire to enter into this larger, this profounder and this richer experience must earnestly seek thru inspired study and thru spiritual experiences of revelation both the near and far possibilities of your Heavenly Father's very special blessing. If you have no apprehending vision concerning these things you will not even try and seek for comprehensive understanding.
You ought to be aware of the signs of the times, and of the needs of both yourselves and the world, for much more of the Heavenly light to shine upon you than is ordinarily yours.
You ought to be strongly motivated by the fact that neither divine patience nor the imperative needs of this hour can long permit delay, and that delay involves heavy penalties.
You must have and make use of mighty prayer, remembering that the Lord desires to reason together and bestow communion, rather than that you just have a listening ear.
You must be men of strong faith, not only cherishing such gifts of faith as may be part of your gracious spiritual blessing, but also faith achieved by intelligent, earnest, long continued effort on your part. The promises of the scriptures concerning the power of mighty faith seem to the worldly minded beyond the possibilities of belief, and that they can never be realized. This is not so. In ways you cannot yet understand, even more is possible for those of mighty faith than has yet been disclosed.
How shall you individually prepare? Desire, study, vision, revelation, perception of needs, mighty prayer, great faith - all these will richly reward any who try. There are others, some of the greater and some of lesser moment, that you also need to know. Inasmuch as your personalities vary widely, making each personality strong in some aspects of his life and weak in others, it therefore is wisdom that each striving minister shall build up a list of qualities such as apply to all, but particularly to him. Consequently, there is this imperative, that you shall set out on a journey of understanding. Search the scriptures. Turn to meditation often. Go often in faith and trust unto your own holy of holies, and assuredly you will not go in vain. The Eternal Father is anxious to have you share from His immense reservoir of truth all that you need, to have intelligent perception. Doing thus, you will see characteristics that grieve the Holy Spirit. Also you will thus see what you must do to grow in Spiritual power and to receive, enjoy and use that great light that radiates out from the dwelling place of the Almighty. This journey will not be easy, and neither will it be impossible. Satan will seek to overthrow and thwart you, but those who truly walk with the Lord cannot either be overthrown or thwarted. Try Him and see how greatly He will aid you.
Words can scarcely describe how immensely important it is that a generation of deeply spiritual ministers and saints shall arise, who by earnest and sacrificial effort have come up, as it were, to the Mount of Transfiguration. Men who know of God's special outreach in the past; men who know and treasure all the promises of extraordinary Spiritual outpouring ere the end shall come. Furthermore, this generation of ministry must not only know those things, but they must particularly be men of increasing, demonstrated Spiritual power, men whose Christly nobility and very evident heavenly enrichment mark them as very special instruments of divine outpouring.
As these inspired ministers increasingly arise, no matter whether they be men of high position or humble men who are relatively unknown, no matter whether they come from the shop, the office, or the farm, they shall be the fore-runners of an immense wave of vast spiritual outpouring. In that day when God works mightily with His ministers, and with His sons and daughters, then can be brought to pass speedily all that the scriptures have foretold. No weapon can withstand, no power can overthrow when God thus moves in majisty and in mighty demonstration and in power. When this heavenly light, this bright radiance shall move among you, saith the Lord, marvelous things can be done, such as you have not had and do not now have power to do. Under this light and Spiritual Radiance the hearts of honest men will be opened to truth, even as the eyes of Saul of Tarsus were opened in centuries past. Can you not see, as a heaven-blessed prophetic-minded, deeply spiritual men increasingly stand out, that others' lives will be inspired and lit up, as it were by a great torch, and so shall this power, this light, this radiance roll forth until many shall be prepared for and shall be greatly endowed.
Hear ye, the time is at hand, seen by Joel of old, when God shall pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, when your men servants and your maidservants shall be touched by the Lord's great power, and when your old men and your mature men shall envision as they have not hitherto seen because God is moving in marvelous ways among a people who have come very close to Him.
Can you not see, then, that what is most needed now is such a generation of men and women, boys and girls who see these things, whose hearts are touched by the mighty appeal of what they see an Almighty Father can do through them. All other things will fall into place as this generation of spiritual stalwarts arises.
Oh My People, My covenant people, the larger power, the heavenly splendor, the glowing radiance of your Great Father's spiritual outpouring awaits upon your much fuller realization of these things. The Eternal Father waits for you to embrace the most magnificent opportunities ever offered to the sons and daughters of men! Why, oh why do you so often languish in the deserts of spiritual starvation when by climbing the mountains you might look over into and enter into the promised land? Not withstanding the boundless power of your great Creator, He will not, in the very nature of His personality, ever compel or force you to choose the higher ways of the Spirit. He will, however, wondrously reward all who lovingly and of their deepest selves choose the lofty concerns and ways of the Holy Spirit.
Who then among you will offer your life and your all to the Lord of Hosts, that under His blessing and guidance you may become one of those radiant Spirits whom the Lord can use to make known unto His chosen and choosing people the glories of that time of endowment which is so greatly needed, even now.
Yes, for many there must come such a time, and all must pass thru it.
The finest blessings, the most gracious bestowal of more than penticostal power, cannot come to men whose trust is in worldly wisdom and the arm of flesh; neither can it come to such men as are self-centered, or arrogant, or proud, or overcome with surfeiting, or whose lives are filled with a multitude of interests which are of little lasting value, nor can it come to any whose hearts are hardened and insensitive to spiritual guidance or whose spiritual perceptions are of low order, or are as mere crumbs from the bounteous table of the Lord. It will not come to any number or set of ministers who in their own wisdom and counsel bring the ways and means and methods of the great and abominable church or any of her worldly daughters and seek to substitute these for the simple, the unpretentious, but vet with all deeply spiritual ways of the Lord. It cannot come to those whose hearts are impure and whose lives are stained, sometimes very deeply with the sins of negligence, or extreme preoccupation with the affairs of the world or failure to make the great concerns of the Lord their great concerns, or are light-minded, or are ignorant of the word of God, or know not the word of the prophets, nor see the starkly clear signs of approaching catastrophic crises. It is impossible for it to come to men, who in this day when the long foretold judgments of the Almighty are about to sweep over the earth, are concerned with little more than the churches of the world.
Woe unto all such for they stand in the way of the Lord of Hosts, hindering, terribly hindering His great work. Judgment shall not alone fall on a grossly sinful world but it shall also fall upon those of the church and even ministers who could have known the deeper things of the Lord but do not.
Yes, a time of calamity must come and is near at hand. Men think they have arranged ways that shall guarantee their security, regardless of their worthiness in the sight of the Lord. Those ways will fail. Men think now they are so wise there will be no more panics or depressions or times of mass unemployment or great want. In this they know not the future. The present abundant streams of prosperity shall dry up. Conditions shall change, for like the backward swing of a giant pendulum it shall swing farther back than ever before. Already the world is filled with troubles and problems whose solution defy the wisdom of your great statesman. War and disintegrating forces set in motion by the emissaries of Satan shall increasingly add to the perplexities of men in these latter days. Power now in the hands of man to destroy cities will be used. Cities and strongholds will be thrown down, even as shown to the prophets of ancient America. By all these things shall the heart of the world be humbled and the hearts of the people of the church as well. By these things shall you understand that it is only as you lean very heavily on the arm of the Lord's power that His great work can be done. Always there has been a great trial before a spiritual blessing. And thus must it be now. Men in general must learn obedience by what they suffer.
Yet, all who will, all who see, may now prepare themselves. Blessed are all such as shall draw close to the Lord in lowliness of heart, in great love, sacrificially, and in great faith. Such will be pillars of strength to God's people and they shall be instruments of power in His hands.
Yet, be not dismayed because of this coming day, for out of your trials and sufferings shall come a new nearness to spiritual things. Out of recognized great need shall come a great arising. Out of trial shall come compassion. Out of disaster shall come new willingness for brotherhood. Out of downfall of cherished but mistaken ways and notions shall come a new willingness to consider the high way of God. You must suffer with them to save them, even as Jesus suffered for all mankind. The mighty blessing of great spiritual power that shall come to the church as the Eternal Father meets the church's desperate need shall be so altogether worthwhile and joyous, and far-reaching that when that day comes all trial and suffering of the past will be as a forgotten evil dream.
Oh my people, be not deceived. God does not want any of you to blunder along in these momentous days and times, like a man stumbling thru the darkness of night. It still is true, as spoken by Amos of old, that the Lord will not do any great thing or permit great waves of commotion or destruction to overwhelm without warning those who love Him. If you are filled with a Godly concern, if you become of great faith, if you will call on Him in mighty prayer, if you will prepare yourselves, if you will go apart into the quietness of the woods or hills or desert places, or best of all, into the solemnities of holy sanctuaries -- into places where you can listen for the still small voice - behold, He shall wondrously show you what lies ahead. He will show it to the spiritually awake among you, be they aged or young. God would make you strong for these times. He would have you take such steps in preparation as only He can show you.
Prayer of Inquiry:
What shall be the characteristics of this great endowment experience? Help us
see, in part, how and what shall be done so that the intensity of our longing may become
as a white hot iron, ready for the anvil, that the mighty arm of Thyself, oh Great
Artificer, may work in power among us.
Historical and interpretive note:
The very condensed statements concerning the characteristics of the endowment, standing at
the head of the amplification of each of the ten characteristics, came to me under
inspiration as I sat in one of the back seats of the Temple during a 1936 Reunion prayer
service. Out of this, during the week, developed the most wonderful spiritual
testimony and experience of my life. The amplification referred to came over several
weeks of time, for a short period each day, as I worked in the third floor of the Temple.
I believe it wise to point out that these ten characteristics, thus so briefly stated, also suggest ways and means as procedures which, if sought to be developed, will grandly assist any who find a very great desire to prepare for the endowment welling up within their souls. May our most wonderful and marvelous Heavenly Father add the blessing of His Holy Spirit.
Sincerely,
Earl R. Curry
The ministers of the Lord do well to think about this day of endowment, for even as He has disclosed to one of His servants concerning this House of the Lord -- "You have not even begun to dream of that which I the Lord had in mind in the erection of the Temple, things which have as yet been but slightly realized, but in the years of the future will be realized, and widen 'they' are, their effect and influence shall be felt over the entire world."
There shall be an endowment of spiritually won knowledge. In order that you may understand consider the, to you, amazing results that have come to your so-called scientific world from the many institutions of research. In them keen minded men, inspired by the scientific advancement of this your day, seek to discover some of the secrets of the great Creator, hidden in the works of His creation. They have discovered many of these secrets because they have thus sought. Do you suppose your great Father is not aware of the value of this method of extending the horizon of understanding? Behold, He understands far beyond your willingness to receive or take part, or rise up to, or use. These institutions of research labor very largely under the light of their own intellects and minds, and your civilization could not carry on without them. But, behold, the wisdom of the Lord -- He would gather you together in His School of His Prophets. He would have you develop and use your keen minds, too, but He offers you spiritual and mental illumination, an illumination that shines out and radiates out from His very presence in Highest Heaven. He offers to guide you and open up boundless resources of intelligence and wisdom, such as scientific researchers can never have. He offers you a spirit-graced institution of inspired research. Who among you can delineate all that can thus arise out of this His great institution for the discovery of truth, even His long delayed School of the Prophets. Only out of this great school and the endowment to which it ministers and leads can there come power to fully envision and to establish Zion. Only out of it can come the great works to be done that shall usher in the world's Golden Age, the Millennium. The age of scientific research and advancement shall be climaxed by that which the Lord shall set up and in which His servants shall take part.
In the great work of the Eternal, God is your Father in a deeper sense than you know. Jesus Christ is your elder brother. All ye He would have as sons and brothers and friends. The great Father's highest method of procedure in His communion, His uplifting, His guiding, His leadership of His sons and friends who are the servants of His great purpose is not that there shall be one high and lifted up to whom all shall abjectly give heed. Rather, it is a noble association of deeply consecrated, inspired and gifted minds, humble to know the truth, anxious to glorify His high purpose and name, and deeply concerned as is He with the achievement of this, His high purpose for life. The Lord your God gave to Isaiah one of the finest of prophetic insights - Come, let us reason together, for though your sins be as scarlet, if you will come close to the great Father so that He may reason with you and you talk to Him, then shall your personalities become white as the driven snow; though your sins be like crimson, through this exalted association with Him ye shall become as the finest and whitest wool..
How can such exalted association and experience be possible, you say, who are accustomed so largely to ways of other churches, and who trust so greatly in that which may be attained thru education and your own wisdom? Now, lest any should be tempted to continue thinking that human scholarship and human wisdom can very largely suffice for your needs as ministers of the Most High, I call you to witness that the great spiritual leaders whom God has called to do a great work for Him have all been men of such exalted association and experience. Enoch, Moses, the prophets of Israel, the first apostles, Nephi, the twelve disciples of ancient America, Moroni, Joseph of the latter day -- name one who could do his work until the Lord, with high spiritual experience, qualified and endowed him. How can you in this hour and this day, when the great battle of the Lord needs to be fought, even in this closing day when the powers of darkness shall increasingly rage, how can you do your work and how can you even survive unless you, too, shall stand in the high places of the Lord, unless you, too, shall come up unto the mountain of the Lord's house?
Behold, a goodly part of the endowment experience, that thus is before you, will be in this area of what you can discover, understand, and become able to use, as, under the urgency of a high purpose, and humbly before the Eternal Father, you shall earnestly, under His special gifts of the Spirit, seek to qualify yourselves. Is there not a saying among you that "knowledge is power?" If this be true in ordinary fields of human understanding, how much more will it be true when the powers of heaven work with you in marvelous ways? Is it not written in the scriptures of these last days that you should seek learning by study and also by faith? Is there not also written therein this admonition - "Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of lasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house o! order, a house of God?" Is there not also plainly set forth in this same portion of His word, even in the twenty-first paragraph, many special fields of needed knowledge that are particularly adapted to this method of widening intellectual and spiritual horizons?
There are, as well, many other areas of knowledge besides these that must likewise be entered into as you shall seek to increase your powers of understanding and intellectual perception. Nevertheless, except the Lord be in this house, they labor in vain who build it, for the Lord by His Spirit will give the gifts of discernment, of evaluation, of illumination, and only under His blessing can you come to a unity of understanding and of faith. This is why no ordinary school or movement or institution of research, modeled upon the institutions of men, can ever suffice.
This aspect of the endowment - power thru spiritually - won knowledge - must go on and on and on. Not only must whatever is good among theories, or discoveries, or knowledge of men, or books, or libraries, or sciences - not only ought these to be sought out, but all ye who are sons of the Father of light must as the years shall roll on, merging after a time of great tribulation and judgment into the blessed years of the millennium - you must go on and on and on, even far beyond the limits of the present. Again, has not that John, who tarried, written that the glory and the honor of the nations shall be brought into the Holy City, and be used delightfully by the holy people? It is also written that the glory of God is intelligence. More and more must that not also be your glory? Particularly an intelligence that is deeply spiritual?
Now, you ask, what are ways by which you may push forward into this great movement of spiritualized research? How shall you come into this area of empowering and endowing experience that shall become of immense importance? How shall you enter into this meeting of the mind of the Lord with the mind of His noble-hearted servants and ministers?
Surely, as you individually, or as any who have the opportunities of leadership, think and pray about these things, the loving Father will give you wisdom and open your minds to an increasingly larger vision. Some of the possible ways are these:
a.) A committee of your most spiritual men, men who are deeply aware of your greater need, can, either by personal association or conference, select a topic or group of topics where enlightenment and advanced understanding are needed. This selection can and ought to be added as time goes on. In this, however, you need to be warned - Continual going over information, programs worked out in your own counsel, the discussion or development of ceaseless rounds of activities of not very great value will not do what is needed, unless at times these matters are reviewed in order to make sure they are in harmony with the mind of the Lord. You need so much to go on into those deeper concerns which will lift you above the place where you now are.
These topics can be such as are suggested in D&C 85:21. They can also be an inquiry, such as into the deeper meaning of the spiritual gifts o what are they, how may they be developed and used, how may they be consecrated to higher ends than those which have characterized so much of their use in the past, and the like. You need to know so much more than you do about the high communion you could have with angels, or those who tarry, or resurrected beings who are special messengers of the Great Father, bringing very special and Holy gifts from the Eternal one.
These topics then can arise out of your study and acquaintance with the scriptures. They can arise out of your experiences and needs and, grandest of all blessings, the Eternal Father can show them unto you.
Now having begun to more earnestly do these things, you may -
b.) Call conferences dedicated to this deeply spiritual kind of research, or
c.) You may announce these topics to all and sundry, asking for spiritual dedication in an intellectual inquiry into truth, or
d.) You may make special contact with and assignments to these who have already developed along these lines and who, under God, can be forerunners of a process and procedure that can yield so much, or
e.) You may gather the best efforts of all into a central source of analysis and publication, or
f.) As you come together, you are invited by your Heavenly Father to seek Him for enlightenment in that which is deep and difficult for you to comprehend. Has He not said thru one of His apostles of centuries past, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God?" And if he ask, nothing wavering, that .he shall be answered? or
g.) The problems you face in the much more complete development of Zion could well become topics for your finest consideration, and efforts, and for the All Wise One's special blessing.
Many other ways will open up as you shall move forward. You have marvelous opportunities for divine guidance before you. You have the wonderful opportunity for combining of gifts of prophetic insight with spiritual scholarship. Out of farsighted effort on your part shall come such power as arises from sure knowledge, such power as comes from problems understood, together with a technique of solution and procedure; out of your efforts shall come increased mental powers. Out of your association with many keen minds, blessed of the Lord, will come great stimulation and wisdom. Out of it will come treasures of hidden knowledge that you may use, and in a knowledge and wisdom pleasing to God shall you become strong.
Now, notwithstanding the widening horizons of knowledge, the intellectual stimulation and the keys to power that shall arise from your efforts and experience in the Lord's House of Research, there are yet higher associations and experiences and enlarging comprehensions, born of the Spirit, that will come to those who enter into the great day of endowment.
Always, as the Lord begins a great movement of Himself among the ways and affairs of men, He prepares the way before Himself. He spoke to Enoch, as he journeyed in the land, and rallies to Him many others who joined with Him to create the city of Zion, that city taken to Heaven because of its perfection of beauty. Centuries before Jesus came into the world the way was prepared before Him by the prophets of Israel. In these last days, as the set time of the Restoration neared, good and noble and deeply spiritual men were prepared beforehand.
Even now, as the day of endowment nears, the Lord is opening the minds of many of His servants and guiding them into enlarging understanding of the deep things of the Spirit. He is broadening their areas of comprehension, and is showing them things to come. It is after the manner of the Lord thus to move among men, showing a little here and a little there. To very few has He ever opened His mind in its entirity. He thus moves with a profound purpose in view. Even now a ground-swell is forming. Even now are some of His ministry beginning to have richer and finer experiences with the Lord who called them.
Verily, you who come to this day of endowment will be amazed as these His servants who are called to that day come together and place that which the Lord has shown them before all - you will be truly amazed how your all-wise Father in Heaven will thus have thrown light on difficult problems and situations beforehand and has made clear the pattern of things to come, and how wonderfully His servants shall be lifted up as they thus share.
Can you not see that in this moving the minds of many will be enlarged, their consecration will be increased, their faith made much stronger, and their dedication to the high purposes of the Eternal Father shall be made deep and urgent because He has thus lovingly, intelligently and farsightedly taken them into His confidence, that He might prepare a wide brotherhood of prophetic noble-minded men to labor with Him?
With whom among you shall He thus move? He is most anxious to reach out and guide you in the deep things of the Spirit. If in line with the holiness of the Lord, if enthralled with the grandeur of His purpose, if in ever greater withdrawal from the evil ways of your times, and if in ever deepening love of your most loving Father - if you will become deeply concerned and ask His guidance and help, He will prepare you as chosen instruments in His hands, and you shall be a part of that sharing.
In what ways will you be prepared for this sharing? There are particular gifts and ministries of the Spirit that shall bring to you part of the mind of the Lord. There is the gift of inspiration in the acquiring and perception and imparting of knowledge. There is the gift of heaven-blessed wisdom, the evaluation of knowledge, how and where to use knowledge, and an exalted common sense as a possessor of knowledge. There are the gifts of visions and dreams, of instruction which comes from the Lord. There are t,he gifts of inspired study and inspired preaching in which illumination comes from outside yourself. There are the gifts of prophetic insight and foresight. There is the ministry of angels. There are many gifts and ways, even beyond these, by which a gracious, and anxious, and pleading Heavenly Father can manifest Himself to you. Try Him and see if He will not, bit by bits open the windows of Heaven unto you! Ask for His special enlightenment, and see if He will not pour you out more than you can contain! Hear once again the words of the Son of God - "Seek and you shall find, ask and you shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you."
How shall you seek, and ask, and knock? God can only open up unto you that which you prepare yourselves to receive. How can He open up immense vistas of heavenly enlightment if you concern yourselves only with the low or ordinary or that which only originates in the minds of men? How can He open to you the deep insights that are born of the Spirit if you climb not, as it were, the mountains? How can He disclose broad and sweeping and highly important generalizations and truths which are His, because His glory is intellgence, if you have started step by step to consider such concepts? What your marvelous heavenly Father can show you must inevitably hinge upon your interests, your efforts, your concerns, your ideals, your outreach toward invisionment, your outreach of love toward Him and mankind, your growing faith and experience. Therefore, let the problems of life wherein God may help - let the needs of the church and of Zion be upon your minds; increasingly seek to understand all that concerns God's great coming Kingdom; more and more plead and try to perceive and understand the deep things that are your Great Father's interests, such as have been called the mysteries of the Kingdom -- do these things and the promises of the scriptures will be wonderfully fulfilled to you and in you. Your marvelous Father, whom one of old called the "Father of Light" was not speaking idly when He caused His servant and prophet to write that the Aaronic priesthood holds the keys to the ministering of angels, and that the Melchisedec priesthood "have the privilege of receiving the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: to have the heavens opened unto them; to commune with the general assembly and church of the First born; and to enjoy the communion and presence of God the Father, and Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant."
How can the Lord say more than this? He invites you to share the immense treasures of His intelligence, His wisdom, His truth, His enlightenment.
Some have already enjoyed these things in part. Others have very much need to receive them. You shall yet be lifted up wondrously in these things, and as you do you may be permitted and chosen to have part in that endowment that shall come from shared, profound spiritual experiences.
As the servants of God move forward in the performance of their manifold duties, many, many perplexing problems inevitably arise. Also, the Lord has set before you projects of labor, projects of demonstration which are as yet very far from the measure of achievment. He has hope for His people. Thousands have come together in the center areas of Zionic gathering, yet they are far from being of one heart and one mind. None among you say that this is Zion as it ought to be. God's people work in the industries of the world. They not only rise and fall with the varying fortunes of these industries, but they must also partake of the very worldly environment that exists in these places of labor. Their peace and their spirituality are marred by this Babylonish environment. God's people are intended to be very largely independent of these worldly industries and this Babylonish environment. Basic industries which provide for the essential needs of life ought already to have been established, for the times of economic and other kinds of collapse are not far from your doors. The great Father would provide for you thru farsighted action and accomplishment on your part. Yet the years go by, and so little is done, when compared with what ought to be. You lack wisdom and foresight in these matters, and you scarcely try to find the wisdom that your loving Father would give to you were you to cease trusting so much in your own selves, and were a faithful body of men, deeply concerned about this lack of progress, to come together asking for their eyes to be opened that they might see how to do these things, even under the difficulties of this present hour. Moreover, more than one hundred years ago you were commanded to lift a warning voice to the world, setting forth clearly and understandingly the desolation of abomination of these last days. This has not been and is not being done with the strength, the intelligence, the prophetic insight and foresight, or even as with a loud voice, which these days of increasing commotion demand. Very few see deeply concerning this warning. Very few understood that which the Lord has caused to be written concerning the last days. Very few even ask to be shown what lies ahead. And so, the warning voice that you lift is feeble indeed. You are fearful of wild and extreme interpretations. You seem to have lost confidenee that your Lord and your God knew what He was talking about when He inspired His prophets to place His warning word in the scriptures. All this can rapidly change when you will come together and ask to see truly that which was in the heart of your Lord when He caused His words concerning these last days to shine forth. This you ought to do. This you must do if you would discharge the responsibility that has been placed on you. Many churches who do not have and unde:rstand the light of prophecy and to whom the Lord cannot reveal himself try to hold these things before the world, but they cannot because they do not comprehend and are not commissioned to do it. You can comprehend, you can have prophetic light shine upon you, and you are commissioned!
Surely, as God lives, every effort that anyone may make or that many may make in this direction of seeking an endowment of special light on difficult problems, and responsibilities and projects will be richly rewarded.
The preceding are but two of many problems and situations upon which the marvelous light of the Eternal Father needs to shine. In the school of the prophets and the endowment shall your needs be met.
Behold, now, how divinely humble and graciously considerate is the Lord of light, intelligence and power, in that He does not seek nor even slightly desires to overwhelm you with His glory. Rather, He wants you to go as far as you can under His gracious spiritual illumination. He wants you to wrestle with your problems, your difficulties, your needs, even as Jacob of old wrestled with the angel. Then, when you cannot succeed, because of the vastness and the complexity of that which is before you, if you then will call upon your Heavenly Father for help, seeking in great faith and mighty prayer, verily, He holds himself bound to share with you the glories of His supreme powers of comprehension, analysis, and solution. How full of gratitude should be your hearts, that the Lord of Hosts, notwithstanding His majesty, His exaltation, His power, thus respects your personality and individuality. Who among you will join with Him in demonstrating, step by step, the expanding possibilities of this kind of endowment?
Furthermore, revelation, in general, comes to those who are seeking the added high vision that only the Lord can give. Is it not true that many of the revelations in the D & C came in response to urgent seeking on the part or the elders? The Holy One of Israel delights to reveal truth to His servants, particularly when that truth will be used.
In this there is wisdom. In this lie fine possibilities of greater individual achievement. In this greater resources of personality and individual power shall be opened up. In this lies much of the hope and the possibility of the fuller achievement of Zion. In this, as well, lies much of the working out of the last great movement of prophetic warning ere the end shall come.
Verily, the possibilities of this particular kind of endowment are so deep and profound, and sweeping, that they may only now be expressed and understood with difficulty. This kind of endowment shall be for both ministry and people. By this kind of endowment, increasingly, shall all the life be hallowed. It is only thru this kind of endowment that there shall come an inspired and inspiring organization of brotherly cooperation which will make possible holy and sacred communities of gathering.
Many, many times have you heard the question asked, "How may I help to achieve such a noble goal as Zion?" I call you to witness that almost without exception the answers that you have heard are almost utterly inadequate. Because you do not see the answer to this and like questions, the cause of Zion languishes, and God's people come out of Babylon and her worldly ways with very great difficulty. since there is as yet so little to which they may turn.
Outstanding achievements in the affairs of men are made possible, most of all. only as human personality and resources are organized. The great machines which soar and hurtle thru the skies with such amazing swiftness are produced by the talents of ordinary people. These people have been placed by human wisdom in that work or place where they can best help. Likewise in the production of steel. or fast-moving autos. or the throwing of massive bridges across chasms, or rivers, or bays. Likewise your governmental, or educational or other systems are organized. In all these. with few exceptions. men are motivated by the money that shall result from their labor. Mostly they care little about the social results of that which they do. and even their best aims and hopes and goals are selfish.
Now the great works. the high goals, the supremely worthwhile objectives of the Almighty Father must also be organized if they are to be realized, but in a far finer, nobler, selfless manner They must be organized more intelligently, with a much better discernment and evaluation of personality resources and potential abilities of all who will co-labor with God to do great things. Manifestly all this is not the work of a moment.
How then may this endowment of inspired placement of human personality be worked out?
FIRSTLY, There needs to be a growing realization that the loving Creator of stupendously vast universes has immense reservoirs, as it were, of intelligence, of spiritual illumination, of highest motivation, of keenest analysis, of far sighted perception and abilities to plan. These resources He would gladly make available to those who would love Him. Gladly would he open the flood gates that restrain the flowing forth of these crystal streams from His presence, streams such as bring life to the barren plains of human life. Boundless available resources are His. Have you not prayed for ages concerning the coming of His Kingdom - Thine is the power and glory to bring this kingdom to pass. God would have you know now that this is true to the uttermost. He would have you in great faith to ask and move out accordingly. It is not meet that His servants and His people should dwell so far out on the fringe of prophetic enlightenment. In finer, deeper, more radiant was than you have known, this marvelous being will be your Father!
How may these things be?
SECONDLY. Under the providence of the Almighty men who see the realized possibilities of this kind of endowment. men who are coming increasingly closer to the great source of glowing, radiant, spiritual light, men whose gifts of personality either trained or potential, make it possible for them to serve in these ways - this kind of men must be brought to the fore. There must be pioneers. There must be inspired men who think these things thru. There must be those whom God can lift up to the high places of vision good men, noble men, practical men, men who can translate prophetic insights and foresights into flesh and blood enterprises for the thousands upon thousands who want to see and help. Some of these men already exist among you. Others may be stimulated by the example and influence of pioneers and by leadership. As all such move out, working on simpler problems at first, and learning how to secure the enlightenment that comes from above, they shall be enabled to pilot the way, they shall be able to lift up a standard around which all who will may rally. If any be of little faith in this matter, let them consider what is being done already in this your land by men who labor largely for money and glory and who labor in their own strength.
You who may become pioneers of this sort have not alone your natural gifts and wisdom, but you will notably have powerful spiritual forces to compliment that which you have in your own native abilities. Besides this, you will be laboring for the greatest idea, ideal and project ever presented to the mind of men. Yet, notwithstanding this, the way will be fraught with difficulty, for the placing of men and women in the working out of God's great projects will require great wisdom, not only bringing the right person to the right task, but also thus in the spirit of brotherhood and under the finest concepts of human agency.
How may these things be?
THIRDLY, You may consider these matters individually, or you may study about them in groups, as in a future school of the prophets. You need first to set up as completely as you can see the main projects of effort needed to make the ideals of the kingdom actual. Then divide these again into their main divisions, then subdivide and break down until projects of effort become of such size that the average individual can handle them. Some help as to techniques of possible procedure may-be won by perusal of books that are used to train men of industries in such matters. To your wisdom the Lord will add. As you thus outline what is needed, even difficult problems and projects will be found solvable and possible. Moreover, as you thus outline in detail, the gifts of intelligence, discernment and wisdom will suggest the characteristics of personality, the qualities of mind and spirit, as well as the training and skills which each detailed part of each project will need. These outlines of needs will also enable eager, inquiring minds to consider, weigh, and choose as to ways they may serve in working out God's high purposes for His cause and people.
How may these things be?
FOURTHLY, God can and will work with His servants and His people who shall undertake these things. He will use His gifts of prophecy, of spiritual impressions, or dreams and visions, of special enlightenment, of spirit-guided study, of special gifts of knowledge and wisdom to prepare many individuals to help. Besides this, if you will have faith, angels would-gladly minister in guidance when they can assist in achieving God's great goals!
Ministry, local and otherwise, can be trained as pioneers, as counselors, as guides and as exemplars to push forward toward this endowment of inspired placement of human personality in the many projects which, added together, shall mean eventually the total establishment of the Kingdom.
A general sort of help may increasingly come also as patriarchs and evangelists shall catch the vision of these things, and responding to the spiritual guidance shall point young people in particular toward God's high goals for them.
Oh my people, this is a tremendously serious part of the endowment, a part for which you may increasingly labor, eyed day by day. The great projects of the Kingdom wait upon your thus uniting the abilities, the development of knowledge, the skills, the idealism of men and women, with the guiding and the organizing powers of God's glorious intelIigence.
More than a century ago, in these very rooms in which this word of prophetic insight and foresight is written the priesthood of that day enjoyed, in small part only, that which is possible for a loving Father to bestow. They were new to such experiences and human notions and lusts and selfishness still marred their lives. They had not as yet traveled very far up to the mountain of the Lord's House. Their eyes as yet were holden and blinded to the deeper and finer things of the Spirit. The larger vision the great Father desired to open up to them was as yet too bright, too far above, too noble in concept for them to see. God could only manifest to them on the level of their concern. Nevertheless, it was a great day for them.
This great day, however, does not even begin to compare with that which is before you. You have had experiences. You have tried to move forward with some measure of success, but the more spirit ual among you are beginning to see and are becoming deeply aware of the need of divine endowment. In a few short years or less of time you shall be made terribly aware of your need for endowment, by the increasing pressure of events that shall come to pass in the world. You are all too slowly learning to consecrate spiritual gifts to a higher end, in that the character of your concerns make it impossible for God to lead on to higher experiences and expressions of His guidance. Yet above and beyond all this, the time is growing short as the long promised return of the Lord Jesus Christ nears! Satan increasingly rages among the nations. God must soon make bare His mighty arm, even as He said thru His prophets that He would! The time of God's preparation and the great day of the Lord draws near. Has He not clearly said that Zion shall be an unmistak able sign of His coming? Has He not said that the gospel of His kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness and then shall the end come? Has He not promised mighty spiritual power to redeem His people? Has He not said that He will thresh the nations by the power of His spirit? Lo, He has said all these things and more and He must now arise to maintain His cause. You are therefore on the threshhold of a time of mighty spiritual outpouring. God will use the many marvelous gifts of His spirit to help quality His ministers and His people, thus pulling them upward with His great hands of love and with His marvelously intelligent spiritual gifts toward those higher levels of understanding, of consecration to great tasks, and to levels of very great spiritual insight, whereon they may function in mighty demonstration of His great power to heal and bless and lift up mankind.
Can you not see that these things must be so, or else the word of God will fail - and this cannot be. He would throw every weight of resource into the impending final struggle between good and evil, between the Almighty Father and the wicked father of lies. Deep profoundly intelligent spiritual gifts are part of those resources and He will use there to the uttermost.
Let not any think that all this implies only that in this outpouring there shall only be used the girt of prophecy or speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues. These will be there, and in power, but other gifts will be there in power also. There are many more gifts of the Spirit than you ordinarily consider. These you ought to know about and understand their operation. If you will think and pray and meditate about these hidden gifts, you will find there are many more ways than you have perceived.
Now, in view of all this, the wise minister will earnestly seek to understand, develop, and use with, increasing wisdom and depth such gifts as are given unto him. If you do this, then shall you become one among many in this day of outpouring of profoundly intelligent spiritual gifts that shall come. And this time will come.
Who are angels? They are beings as yourselves, but on a higher level of existence. They are noble beings who have lived in days that are past, and who now, because of that nobility, dwell in that marvelous place where God is. They have a higher comprehension of things divine than do we. They love the Heavenly Father with a deep and abiding love. They also love all that He stands for and profoundly aware of His high purpose for life. They are minister of salvation to those on the earth who are of great faith. As God in His mercy and wisdom wills they may show themselves to the heirs of salvation and share with them part o! the glory and vision of their enlarged experience. Sometimes, in order that the hearts of men may be melted, or that their minds may be opened to the perception of the larger spiritual vistas, or that man may have a very great testimony of things to come, or that there may come the most blessed of assistances - sometimes angelic choirs appear before men, as they did the night Jesus was born. Who can express the total character of their ministration, or the extent of spiritual uplift and illumination that results from communion with angels? Nevertheless, you may broadly understand if you search the scriptures and the records of their visitation. Is it not recorded of Nephi, one of the chosen disciples of Nephite times, that angels ministered to him daily?
Now since God the Father will throw all His boundless resources into the great struggle that is intensifying even now, even so will He cause angelic instruction to come to His servants in the time of endowment. From time to time angels will help in the solution of vexing problems. Angels will also be the means of disclosing the future, just as a mighty angel stood before Daniel, and just as John saw the unfolding future thru the instrumentality of strong and mighty angels. By the ministry of angels shall you know the reality of the, to you, unseen. Part of what is meant by the phrase "God shall open the windows of Heaven" is that you may see, mingle with, and be ministered to by these His marvelous messengers.
All this ministry must increasingly have its part in preparing God's earthbonded ministers to rise above the limitations of their worldliness, to fire their hearts and souls with the vision of what the Eternal Father would do thru them, to share with them a vision of things to come, and to purify, enable and to make strong in mighty faith, and in loving outreach, ere He can safely delegate, to these His servants, vast spiritual powers of endowment.
One hundred years and more ago angels graced this your Temple. How much more will they bring their testimony in these days soon to come!
You are inspired and lifted up as you associate with good men who are your brethren, especially when those men are deeply spiritual men. This being true, think you now how great shall be your blessedness of uplift when you shall be privileged to associate face to face with angels who are sent from the Holy Realm where God dwells. Not only shall they speak out of the breadth and glory of their own experience and understanding, but they, more than any mortal, shall speak as the great Father gives them utterance. Not only shall they minister to you in vision, but in the utmost of reality shall they stand in your presence.
That which they bring, therefore, will have depth of meaning, breadth of inclusiveness, heaven-born intelligence, and other great qualities which are above that of any possible association with yourselves alone. They will therefore be gracious testimonies of Christ's loving yet powerful outreach and of the tremendous fact that He lives, and that He has set His hand for the last time to recover His covenant people, and to fulfill His age-old promises.
Now therefore, remember that which has been held before you as your privilege as ministers and co-laborers and friends of the Most High, even as found in the record of the prophetic utterances of this Restoration age, that which is written in D & C 104. Yet, that you may be made to know where you stand, and that you may be made humble, how many of you have sought the great blessings of the Spirit that are your blessed privilege if you will seek in great faith? How many of you, either of the Aaronic or Melchisedec priesthoods, have sought and received the ministry of angels? How many have gone on to seek for and receive the greater experiences that are indicated as being possible in this scripture?
In view of these facts, your lack of faith to try. and that not many of you have traveled far up toward the mountain of the Lord's House, you are encouraged once more by the daily pleading of the Holy Spirit to rise up in these matters, to so live and seek that you, in this field of the ministry of angels, may have increasing experience, so that you may not come to the day of endowment as mere babes, but rather as those who have, step by step, proceeded from simpler to ever growing, expanding experiences.
There is a vastness you do not yet comprehend to the promise that, in the process of endowment, God shall richly minister to you by His angels.
Such as these four also live on a higher level of nearness to God and of life than do any who live on the earth. Not only are they free from the ills and pains of mortality, but, much more important than this, Satan has not power over them to tempt them. They are so sanctified and holy that the powers of earth car, not hold them. In many ways they are as angels of God.
Mormon has borne record that he saw them and that they ministered to him. Others of this day have seen them, in reality or in vision. When the day of endowment comes, and as the great Father wills, then they shall talk with you too, face to face. They have power to call upon the Father in the name of Christ and to show themselves unto whatsoever man it seemeth them good. They know of the mighty, the faar-reaching purposes of the Eternal One, and therefore to what more appropriate ground of men could they show themselves than to those who are being prepared for the last time to bind up the law and seal up the testimony. Moreover, all these who have tarried are to do a great and marvelous work, even among the Gentiles. Even as the Lord in wisdom sees fit. they shall minister unto all the scattered tribes of Israel, and unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people.
Now, why will the Lord bless the time of endowment with this visitation of those who have tarried? All these have experienced the power of endowed ministry. All have had marvelous association with the Saviour of the world. All have been caught up into heaven. All have a superlative grasp and understanding of the meaning, characteristics and purpose of the Kingdom of the great Father. All have ministered in great power, so much so that the forces and oowers and restraints of men could not bind them. Because of all this, the convincing power of God was and is, and will be with them. With you, oh men of God of this day, will they share some of the vastness and the glory of their experiences. Before you shall they hear testimony, and in you and thru you shall their testimony be amplified and be carried to all nations, even as foretold of old. They will assist you in coming to that place where you too can bear testimony and minister unto all who will hear, with the convincing power of the Eternal Father.
Nor is this all. They shall help you understand many of the deep and precious words and promises, and prophecies, and truths of the scriptures that you do not now understand. To John, on the Isle of Patmos, on the Lord's day, came that deep and far-reaching and highly symbolical vision called the Book of Revelation. Behold, in the gracious providence of the Heavenly Father, he shall stand among you and declare the interpretation of this prophetic word, so marvelous in all it covers, and he shall develop it in the utmost completeness. This will he do because God would not have you ignorant in all the matters this book of Revelation foretells. To John was reserved the right to have this great vision unfolded to him. Behold, how fitting anal how gracious that in the last days, even those days that John foresaw, that he shall be granted the very appropriate privilege of making this word utterly plain and understandable to the ministers of God's power.
Besides this, the three Nephites will bear testimony also. They have known the content of those plates and records which are not as yet brought forth to the world, yet of which the Book of Mormon testifies. Of these records it is written that they contain the word of the Holy Prophets and they foretell the course of events, somewhat as in the Book of Revelation, even down to the end of time. Of these things will they be permitted to bear testimony, and in turn shall they become part of your convincing testimony as you bear theirs to all kindreds, tongues and peoples.
Thus as in other characteristics of the endowment, will the great Father bring unto you marvelous experiences and resources and prophetic light. Thus will He show you, thru these servants of endowed experience, what you too can do when you too have made yourselves completely ready for all of the endowment experience. Thru these, your experiences, shall you know that the record of all that Jesus has done, both in the land of Jerusalem and in the land Bountiful of Ancient America, is true and certain beyond the faintest shadow of doubt.
Surely, as you of today shall prove yourselves increasingly worthy and dedicated and loyal to all that is highest and noblest and Christlike, even so will God withhold nothing that will endow you and make you not only ministers of convincing power, but also ministers whom no powers of men or Satan can withstand, for by and thru you, by the power of His Spirit, will He thresh the nations.
The working out, the achieving of the high purposes for life which are dear to the heart of Him who is the Eternal Father, in the finest and deepest meanings of that name, require extraordinary men and women in the body of the church are also required. Ordinary men could not be trusted with the great powers that shall arise out of the endowment because of their narrow self-centeredness that is so much a part of ordinary life. These great powers can only be delegated or placed upon His servants and His people as they are extraordinarily purified in body, mind, spirit, and purpose.
Therefore, to Malachi centuries ago was shown these things, when the wrote - "Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For He is like a refiner's fire, and like a fuller's soap; and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi (those who are ministers) and purge them as golf and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness."
Now, in this day, when the mighty Lord of Hosts is about to send this His great messenger for that which He has to do, in this His day of preparation, ere the great Father shall make bare His arm in extraordinary power- whosoever will let himself be purified. The dross of whatever is evil, or worldly, or narrow and shortsighted, or selfish, or hateful, or ignoble or base -- all these must be burned out, and in their place be established goodness, high spirituality, mountain-top breadth of vision and understanding of what is possib1e for life, great love and finest motives of brotherhood, Christlike nobility of character, and utter purification of mind and spirit and purpose.
How shall the Lord of Hosts accomplish all this purification, seeing that men's hearts are so often as tho made of stone, and seeing also that so often they trust so greatly in themselves, and are content with things as they are?
This purification must first come thru trial, even a great trial which shall engulf the nations of men. The people of the church and the covenant people shall inevitably be affected by that day of trial. By these trials shall the heart of the world be humbled, and by them also shall even the heart of the chosen people be humbled. Men and women of the world and of the church must be made aware, at long last, that the wisdom of this world will perish, but the wisdom of God will endure forever; they must be made to know that only as they trust in the great Father and His ways are golden days possible and is salvation possible, both here and hereafter. Isaiah saw this long ago when he cried with a loud voice that has been heard down thru the centuries since - "Behold the Lord will come with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh... That they may sanctify themselves and purify themselves... in the greatest garden of the Lord, which is the earth." Also He said, in the days of Melchisedec, concerning the last days, that the sons of God should be tried as by fire. By many such means shall there be a beginning of special purification.
This purification shall proceed as men shall come together in a most hallowed association. Even as like cleaves to like and goodness to goodness, just so will noble qualities, brought to the fore in the experiences of the school of the prophets and the endowment, cleave unto one another. By contagious example shall the dross be set to one side and goodness exalted.
This purification shall come about because of the exalted spiritual experiences that shall be shared. The guidance men have received, the deep things of the Spirit they have been led to understand, the miraculous testimonies related, the widening of horizons they shall experience, the ministry of angelic hosts in marvelous ways, the visitation of those who have tarried - how could anyone partake of or share or experience all these bountiful blessings of the great Father and not be purified from the sins of the world?
Then highest of all, to be in the presence of the radiant Son of God. Surely by all these would the sons of Levi be purified and made worthy to offer a great offering in righteousness, even as much more complete achievement, Zion, and even the preaching of the real and complete and spirit-tested gospel in all the world ere the end comes!
This purification will be from the lusts of the flesh, from the temptation of the devil, from evil ways and thoughts, from selfishness, from personal glorification. from narrow and unholy purposes, and the like. Out of the grand experiences of these days will come liberation from the sins of the flesh. which as men give way to them bind them as with chains. Out of the glory of these days shall arise a brotherhood of extraordinary ministers and people whom God can and shall wondrously use to achieve His purposes, in the noblest of all possible associations -- even God working with man and man with God -- both doing so sacrificially and with glorious ends in view. By all these things, as you shall individually and collectively carry them out, shall the ministry of this day be made ready for the crowning experiences of the Endowment.
There are many reasons why He shall thus appear to His ministers, His co-laborers, and His friends.
He shall come to fulfill His promise made to prophetic-minded men from ancient times even down to this very day in which you live. He promised Enoch, in that day when He talked to him face to face, and caused the vision of much that was to be, down to the end of time, to marvelously unfold before his mind, and said, "As I live even so will I come in the last days." "Righteousness will I send down out of Heaven to bear testimony of Mine Only Begotten, and righteousness and truth will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood." In those promises was it made clear that as the time of the end neared, a work of mighty spiritual power was to be done. Again, the promise was made to 'Malachi - "The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple," 'to purify His servants. The angels at the day of ascension promised the disciples He would likewise come again. To John He showed the day of endowment. To the church of one hundred and twenty years. ago was the promise made that as they would sanctify themselves and so discipline their minds as to' make them single to the great Father, then Jesus would unveil His face unto them and they would see Him. Last of all, this same Holy Spirit of Promise has witnessed to you, who have sought the guidance and enlightment of Him who is altogether lovely, even to you has He witnessed under the almost overwhelming presence of the Holy Ghost that soon Jesus would once again stand on the pulpits in the lower room of the Temple and would speak face to face with His chosen servants, just as He spoke to Joseph and Oliver in 1536. Still further carne the same witness that just as Jesus, your eternal elder brother, came quietly into the room where the disciples were gathered, just as they were beginning to recover from the paralyzing dismay and shock of the crucifixion, though even yet some of them doubted, just so will He quietly come into the upper room of the Temple. Those who have waited and longed for His coming shall see Him and He will minister unto them. Surely, as God has thus testified unto him who writes, even so will He testify to others if they will in concern, in fasting and prayer, seek Him.
In view of these promises and many others as well, in view of the needs of this very hour in that. so many of you do not seek this guidance and insight that God alone can give, in view of the growing desire in the hearts of the saints that they shall be ministered unto by spiritual servants whose minds are on fire with the Holy Ghost and whose countenances are radiantly aglow as they thus minister, and even in view of the facts of sacred history--why should any look on the fulfillment of these promises as an impossible perlenee? How clear is the record of Holy Writ: Search it out for yourself, and be not faithless but believing. Do not the first four books of the New Testament record His many appearances after His resurrection - from Mary who cried from the very depth of her soul, in great gladness and joy - "Master!" to Thomas who when he had beheld for himself cried out, "My Lord and my God!" Does not the book of Acts testify that He was seen of many? Did not Paul write that Jesus was seen of upward of five hundred brethren at once, and last of all by himself as one born out of due time? Oh, turn and read again in the Book of Mormon the terrible judgments that fell on a people who refused to believe that Christ would come and that He would appear unto them. Read of how they were gathered about the Temple in the land Bountiful. Hear again the voice from the Infinite One - "Behold My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified My name, hear ye Him!" Look up with those people and see Jesus, clothed in white, coming down and standing among them, and saying unto them with the utmost of truth, "I am the light and life of the world!" Study once again the record of His coming to bring the church out of the wilderness in these last days, to get under way a marvelous work and a wonder, a work that as yet has not begun to reach the climax of expression in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit that God would manifest thru it. Consider all these records. Let their truth and their testimony be deeply imbedded in your minds, and let them be a powerful prophecy or' what yet shall be! As God lives even as Christ has thus so many, many times come heretofore, even so can and will He come again to His servants, those who are truly looking for Him, to most strongly establish them with the witness of His presence and to personally commission them with His endowment to do extraordinary things for Him!
Again, let the record of the scripture bear testimony to you of what has happened in these times when He has appeared unto His believing people. The endowment of the day of Pentacost was augumented and extended by these appearances in the land of Jerusalem. His servants who had not seen their risen Saviour were blessed as they believed, but surely as witnesses, those who have seen are better witnesses than those who just believe, however blessed that may be. Therefore, Jesus appeared unto many and would have appeared unto many more had there been great enough faith that others could have called on Him in mighty prayer. Again, how marvelous were the results of His appearing in the land Bountiful, for so great was the glory of His presence and the utter convincing power of His personal ministry that not only were His servants endowed for their day, but Jesus' most beneficent spiritualizing influence spread throughout the land and continued over nearly two centuries of time. Thru Jesus' showing himself and ministering as only He can minister came one of the finest eras of civilization in the world's history. Truly, Zion was among them.
Now you live in a day when the signs of Jesus' return to the world are being rapidly fulfilled, even as He has foretold and as the prophets have foreseen. The church has come out of the wilderness not withstanding that many of the Restoration have again sought the ways of the world and the flesh pots of Egypt, yet a nucleus still abides, with many of whom the Great Father shall build gloriously. Great storms lash both land and sea. All nations of men are faced with problems of increasing complexity. Confusion abounds. Men's hearts are failing them for fear. The dread of awful, annihilating war is constantly with you, a war so terrible that no nation on earth can escape it. The ideal and the hope of Zion exists among you, altho far from the highest realization, and in this is a marked sign of Christ's return to the world. Yet, notwithstanding all these signs and many more, the greatest sign of all, the shining forth of the gospel as the brightness of the midday is still in the realm of prophetic predictions. You are not endowed. You trust so much in the .wisdom of men. Not very often do you speak in prophetic depth and power. The voice you raise is so feeble in the face of the world's need. So little do you lift a warning voice concerning what lies ahead. A clear cry of repentance does not resound thru the world nor scarcely in the areas where you live, you are so concerned with worldly things. Small affairs and activities of little permanent importance take so much of 'your time. So little of your time, your means, your resources and your powers are dedicated to Zion. You need the broad, sweeping, mighty powers of the endowment much more than most of you even begin to understand.
This power can only reach its maximum of development and expression as Jesus shall stand among you, and it is only He who can bestow it. How marvelous then the promise of His thus corning. How great should be your faith. How eagerly should you be looking for Him and adorning your spiritual selves and your life with the highest, the noblest, the holiest, the most Christlike qualities of mind and of spirit. How great should be your rejoicing that the day of His visitation is near. And yet, withal, how sobering should be the realization that His coming waits on you, His servants, that you appreciate the promise of His coming to you, that you be looking forth for His appearing, and that you be putting on the wedding garments.
What shall this day be like when He shall suddenly come to His temple? Let inspired imaginations attempt to envision this day, aided by the word of the prophets and the spiritual guidance and experience you can yourself have. Truly, in that day, only those who have sacrificially made themselves holy may abide in His presence. How beautiful in the courts of His temple will be the radiant countenance of Him who has thus come from the very presence of the eternal Father. The words and the truths He shall express will be far beyond and above what any of you can offer, and by them will you be instructed for all that lies before. One by one shall He call you by name and commission you with a special commission. He shall lay His hand on your head and place upon you the seal of His authority and power. Not only shall cloven tongues of fire, as it were, rest upon you, but the brightest glory of spiritual light shall completely envelop you, burning out such dross as may be left in you, eliminating the last .tendencies of selfishness, and, finest of all, filling you instead with an immense appreciation and love and understanding of the Eternal Father and all He stands for. Ah, it is wondrously possible that even as angelic choirs sang at the time of His earthly birth, the great song of glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men, even so, as He shall meet with His servants who have prepared themselves, both individually and collectively, there will be wonderful choirs of angelic beings who shall group themselves round about Him and sing a glorious new song of adoration, of dedication, of intense love for the God of Holiness, of love for men, and of such superlative ideals, such as only angelic choirs could arrange or angelic choirs present.
Ask the great Father to let you see somewhat of the glorious experience that shall be in these climaxing days of endowment, that you may be entreated by that which you see, that you may be inspired and filled with a great desire to be one of those His servants who shall then stand in His presence, that you shall see these things, and that you may be commissioned with a great commission and that you may labor together with Him who endows you in the greatest harvest of the world. From all this shall you go forth in strong testimony that Jesus is, for you have seen Him, that you have been taught of Him, that you have been sent by Him to bind up the law and to seal up the testimony ere the end shall come. Also from all this shall you .go forth to testify that His coming is near, that He is coming in judgment of the wickedness of the world, that He is coming to reward and bless 'those that love Him, and that He is coming to reward and bless those that love Him, and that He is coming to usher in the millennium and to prepare His chosen people - those who have chosen Him - for the return of the Zion, even that Holy City that John saw coming down from God out of heaven. You shall go forth in mighty power, shouting the cry of repentance, and pleading with men to have faith in that wonderful, marvelous, loving creator of heaven and earth, who so greatly desires to bless them beyond measure, and your cry shall be heard among all nations of men for every kindred, tongue and people shall hear.
The Lord of Hosts, who yearns with a great yearning for His ministry and His people to come to this day of bestowal and reception, pleads with you to open the windows and doors, as it were, of of your minds and spirits to a growing perception of how truly vast this bestowal can be. He would also have you perceive that it is only thru this bestowal that the promises of His servants and of Jesus himself can find glorious fulfillment; that it is only thru this Spirit that Satanic evils and forces can be vanquished; and that only thus can peace and brotherhood come to the earth.
The Holy One of Israel has, from the beginning of human life on earth, sought to have His priesthood, in particular, realize what great things they could do if they could arise to the place where He could endow them with great' spiritual power. It is altogether amazing to Him that when thru faith and discipline and love, and humility and spiritual growth, and all such, men may share this great power, this unlimited power of your marvelous Creator, yet men have turned away as if blinded to this glory, and have chosen the low way ,the way of the world. Ye men of the priesthood of this day, what do you choose? What can He do more to help you, to remove the veil that clouds your vision of this His power?
Again and again you are reminded, and will be reminded, that the Eternal Father has not left himself without witness concerning the possibilities of exercise of His mighty spiritual power by His servants. Is it not written of Enrich that wicked people not stand in his presence and they trembled? That the enemies of righteousness were affrighted because the earth trembled and the mountains fled at His word? That even rivers were turned out of their course by the word of the Almighty? Is it not written concerning the Melchisedec priesthood that the Creator of heaven and earth intended and still intends that man after this order shall, thru strong and mighty faith in Him, and turn the power of the Holy Ghost which He in response shall share with them - that these men shall, if it glorify God, if it be necessary, and if it will save His people, shall break mountains, divide the seas, dry up waters or turn them out of their course, put at defiance powerful armies of any nation regardless of the destructiveness or deadliness of their instruments of war? That they may break restraining bonds with which evil men and evil forces would thwart the Almighty and stand in the very presence of God - understanding His will and therefore doing all things according to His will and His command, thus subduing principalities and powers, and doing many mighty things in the name and power of the eternal Father? Remember how the waters rolled back for Israel to cross. Remember how scores of thousands of the army of pagen Assyria were slain in the night and how time after time when Israel was faithful He delivered them from those who would destroy. Or can you forget how Jesus taught His disciples to have great faith, and even said that if they had faith as a grain of mustard seed they could say unto the mountains be thou removed and cast into the sea? Can you forget the great miracles Jesus did and the disciples did in His name and power? Were prison bars able to hold Peter and Paul and Silas? Behold the record of God's great power to de great things thru His servants and people is a vital part of the Book of Mormon. Alas, alas, alas, that years and centuries and millenniums lie between these great demonstrations! Read the history of these things, think about them, have faith in the Lord of this mighty power, and lo again shall He manifest Himself in extraordinary demonstrations among you and before the eyes of all nations. For this reason there must be the bestowal and delegation of the power of the endowment.
Oh, my people, my brethren, my fellow servants, can we not see that this great power is needed to the uttermost in this day? Already the clash of massive contending forces is filling the minds of thinking people with dismay, and this clashing and this dismay will increase. Zion must be upbuilded. The world must be warned and entreated. And we've are so vastly inadequate unless the time soon comes when the great power be bestowed upon us. All these witnessing pronouncements, all the record of special blessing, all these demonstrations of divine power, all these glimpses into the potential power of faith and priesthood, all these are not as so many idle words. Rather they are a profound revelation of ultimate possibilities when the men of the priesthood truly walk with the Heavenly Father. This kind of men must rise again, for the Lord, the church, and the world need them.
Now, therefore, after men have in the deepest of spiritual ways sought knowledge, that they may. consecrate to great ends, after they have shared their experiences, after the Lord has given special light in answer to earnest seeking, after you have found where you may best serve, after you have come to the place where you receive and share deep and profound spiritual gifts, after angelic hosts have ministered unto you out of the glory of their experience and testimony, after you are purified with a purging purification - then, most marvelous and gracious and ennobling of all, after the Prince of Heaven, the Prince of the angels, the Prince of Peace, of light, of brotherhood, even Jesus the Christ shall stand among you, and teach you, instruct you, commissioned you with a great commission, and set the church in order - after all these things what shall you then see?
Behold He will pray for you in words and with testimony of feeling and with depth of meaning such as you have never heard, and God the Father will hear His prayer! Not only shall there be purifying, cleansing, testifying baptism of His spirit, symbolized by the old-time phrase "tongues of fire," but God from His presence in the heart of Eternity shall send in upon you wave upon wave of spiritual power such as you have never known. He will pour out this power until all of you shall cry, "It is enough: withhold lest we be consumed!" Then shall the Son of the great omnipotent Father move from chosen minister to chosen minister, laying His hand on this apostle, touching that seventy, standing with upraised hands before his high priests, speaking in tones of utmost urgency to all the men of that great priesthood which is after the Holy Order of the Son of God. Then to each shall he give commission for that which He particulary would have each one do, and each shall know his part in bringing to pass the kingdom with its high purposes and its matchless goals. even at this time of the end. Not only shall He commission with a very great commission, but He shall give to each the seal of His authority, even a sharing, a delegating, a bestowal of vast spiritual powers upon each, according to that for which each shall be sent forth, He will warn His servants they must never use this great power selfishly, to any short-sighted, humanly conceived ends, but always to the glory of the One Most High and always for the ultimate good of the sons and (laughters of men. He will say to these, His endowed co-laborers, go forth now to that whereunto you are sent. Do not pause nor tarry. If you are to work for Zion, build with all your might. If you are sent to walk among the nations, walk in the utmost faith and assurance, lifting a warning voice to every kindred, tongue and people. and crying with a loud voice, "Repent. fear God and love Him and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come!" Until your work is done, no weapon that is raised to stay you shall prosper. If. when your work is done, you should be slain for the testimony of Jesus, for His testimony of the Eternal Father, even as Jesus was slain, remember that white robes shall be given unto you in that Paradise so wondrously prepared, and you shall rest but a very little while until such of your fellow servants and brethren as are to be !filled for this testimony shall be. Go to every nation of the earth. You shall not be confounded nor shall prisons hold you, nor iron curtains prevent you. After your testimony, after the travail of those days will I appear from above the clouds of the heavens, My voice shall be heard, and I will usher in and set up in its completeness that great kingdom shown to Daniel, that kingdom that shall roll forth until it has filled the whole earth, that kingdom that shall smite the feet and the toes of kingdoms of this world, and all these kingdoms shall collapse and fall to pieces, and become as dust and chaff upon a summer threshing floor; then shall that glorious kingdom be set up that shall last forever.
Then with uplifted hands shall He speak to all whom He has chosen, these who have come up unto the mountain of the Lord's House, those who now share His high vision, His great purpose, His marvelous spiritual spiritual power - Presidents, Apostles, High Priests, Seventies, Evangelists and Patriarchs, Bishops, Elders - Go to the church and go to the world. Share with such as will listen and join with you and, insofar as you may, the marvelous experiences and light and power that have been yours. Your countenances, your lives, all that you shall do will be radiant with that power wherewith you are now endowed, and lo I am with you until that end which is near.
These who have been endowed will be men of extraordinary spiritual sensitivity and perception for, having walked in the high places of heaven-blessed experiences that have brought them endowment, they can never again be content to just drift along out of touch with the Holy Spirit. The~ will therefore be men of great spiritual power because of their perception of what is the will and wisdom of the Eternal Father. Neither these men, therefore, nor those who work with them will wander around aimlessly, or mistakenly, or fruitlessly, as Israel of old wandered in the desert areas of Sinai, and as the church of the Restoration has tended to wander.
This means, in turn, that whatever field of endeavor shall be given to each, each will know what he ought to do, how he ought to try to do it, and how means or personality, or both, may be organized to do it. Therefore neither the work of Zionic achievement nor witnessing evangelism will languish.
This in turn means that the City of God, sacred communities of Zion, will steadily and even rapidly arise, for the processes, and wisdom and unity and resources of personality will all be deeply deeply stimulated, because God shall now be working in great power. Before the eyes of all the world shall there be demonstrated that only with Him can there be wholeness, great goodness, nobility of purpose, and achievement, holiness of life, and resulting peace and highest of Christian brotherhood.
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, the glory of the Eternal One shall shine, not only from the lives of a redeemed people and from the saintly environments they create, but also thru the multitude of spiritual blessings that shall be showered upon that people. Therefore shall the noble-hearted of earth be invited thereunto, as long as the days of opportunity last, and hither shall the angels gather the heirs of salvation, who have tarried in the world, when the time of the Lord's return shall have come.
These endowed men shall be as a new race of ministers, men both deeply spiritual and profoundly intelligent - for their intelligence shall be far above any development of which you now know, yet it will be a humble intelligence because they shall well know that its great heights and sweeping breadth, and profound depth are all due to the Holy One of all noble souls, the Infinite Creator, the Author of Life, the Fashioner of all that is best
These men shall hold before humanity the ways of the Lord. Mankind shall know that this Lord is not the author of confusion and that all the religions that becloud, bemuddle and darken the minds of men o all these are not of Him. These endowed men shall set forth, as it were, on the mountain top, or emblazen on the skies, the highways of the Lord, the great tidings of the gospel, the glory of the fruits of repentance, the blessedness of goodness and godliness, the marvelous enfolding destiny of those who love the Lord, as well as the great rightness and divinity of Jesus the Christ who came into the world centuries ago, and who will come again. All this will they do, speaking convincingly, with the utmost of clearness, and under or with an accompanying and testifying spiritual power.
Nor is this all. As the pages of the unfolding history of these endowment days shall be written one by one, there shall be recorded on them the repetition of all the exceptional and highly miraculous spiritual blessings of the past. Israel shall be warned and the scattered tribes shall come into remembrance before the Lord. At the command of such endowed servants as the Holy One will choose, the annihilating powers of war shall be stayed, lest His chosen ones be destroyed. When the time comes, great armies of wicked men will melt away in the night, as the angels of death shall move among them, that the saints of this Holy One shall be preserved. Power shall be given to these His ministers over the elements, that they may shut up the clouds of the heavens that it rain not. Every manner of disease shall be healed - the eyes of the blind opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, many afflicted with palsy shall cease to tremble, those far gone with the terrible disease of cancer shall be made whole- all diseases of any or whatever character shall be lifted in the outpouring mercies of the all-powerful Father thru the ministration of these His servants.
Yes, all the mighty demonstrations of divine power of all the millenniums past shall again be witnessed. More miraculous still shall there be demonstrations of the Power and the love of the Eternal Father even beyond these, for He shall leave nothing undone, in the eyes of all men, that shall witness to them of His great love, or His wondrous providential care for life, or His marvelous provision for what lies beyond in the eternal years of the future, or the glory of life with Him, or that shall testify to the past, present or future work of Jesus, His greatest gift to the world.
Under this great power shall these endowed men spread over the world warning of ever-increasing judgments that shall destroy the wicked of this world. Finest of all shall they proclaim to all who will hear that the time is near when that great promise made to the ages by Jesus and the prophets that He would come again is now about to be fulfilled.
Assuredly, there ought to be many, for the harvest time of the world is come. There are a multitude of nations to be warned, entreated and taught. Many communities of Zion must be set in order and established. Millions await the endowed ministry of this coming day. The hearts of thousands of tens of thousands of the sons and daughters are yearning for the bread of heaven, the bread that satisfies their longing. This bread they cannot find amidst the conflicts and confusion that now overwhelms them Yes, thousands of noble, endowed servants are needed to do this great work.
Yet, the Eternal Father will neither compel anyone nor ,take away their agency. He can only endow those who behold a vision of what He can and would gladly do for the world, and who will discipline themselves, and prepare themselves for the coming day of endowment. How many there shall be must depend on how many hearts shall be inspired with a very great desire and faith, and on how many will become instruments in the Lord's hands in the inspring of this desire and faith. The answer is in your hands, My servants and My people. Yet be reminded that the adversary of all that is good is pushing the conflict. The day of opportunity is passing! Time will not wait! Oh, how can anyone turn away from this so great salvation the day of endowment shall bring?
The force and influence of this day of endowment must inevitably spread out. Just as no one can come under the influence of a great personality without being somewhat made over by that influence, even much more shall all who come within the circle of association of these spiritually radiant men of the endowment be transformed by the spiritual power, the glorious experiences, the Heavenly wisdom, the keen vision, the marvelous testimonies, the Christ-inspired grasp of issues, and all else that has come to these highly blessed servants of the Lord.
These men will move out into the body of the church They will share that which has lifted them up with other ministry, both Melchisedec and Aaronic, the good people, and boys and girls. The hearts of God's people will be touched, as they have not yet been touched, by the power that shall go with these men. Then shall come to pass and be fulfilled the word of the prophet Joel who saw these days centuries ago. "Then shall ye know that the Lord your God has dwelt wondrously with you. You shall know that He is in the midst of His Israel, that truly He is the Lord, your God, and none else, and you shall never be ashamed. And it shall come to pass after these days that He will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will the Lord pour out His Spirit."
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath that He has caused His servant Joel to see and write these things centuries ago. Behold, how great is His love that He seeks not to bring to pass His high ways thru the dominating and domineering leadership of captains and majors and colonels and generals of the army, as do the nations of the Gentiles. Rather, m ever widening circles of love, of brotherhood, of increasing understanding and intelligence and wisdom, in widest sharing of the best that anyone has, in enlightened and willing and joyous cooperation together, in each one trying to be the servant of all and of a great cause - by such ways as these shall the glorious kingdom of God arise among men. In this spirit shall these endowed men move out and the Eternal Father shall be with them in the glory of His Spirit, for this is how He works with and for those who love Him.
Just as it is written that Jesus will come to those who are watching for Him, even so, in the day of God's power shall the richest of experiences and blessings and opportunities of usefulness as instruments in His hands come to those who are not looking for Him but are preparing themselves in body, mind, and spirit.
God would reach out and pour His Spirit upon every man of the Melchisedec priesthood and the Aaronic priesthood if they will reach up toward Him, if they will envision these things, if they will truly consecrate their lives. Gladly will He reach out to the old, the middle-aged. the youth, and even little children. if all these too shall be looking for Him and making their lives increasingly Christlike. Surely will He richly bless all who will come to Him in repentance, in humility of spirit, in high and holy desire to work with Him, for He seeketh all such, for thru them the glory of His kingdom waits to break out upon the world.
Indeed, there are many ways. Let the intensity of your interest lead you to search out these ways. He who is the wisest of the wise, the most intelligent of the intelligent, has a multitude of ways and resources which he can respond to your ever increasing outreach toward Him. The counsel that it is not meet that He command in all things implies, as well, that wonderful experiences of uplift and of insight will come to all who will utilize the gifts and power that are theirs, particularly if they do this with faith in Him. Search out these ways, under the guidance of the Spirit, and practice them one by one. Do this and as you shall climb from the valleys to the hills, from the low ridges to upper ranges, from the low mountains to the lofty peaks, verily, verily, verily you shall be made aware of the practicality, the reachableness, the high wisdom and the unfolding, glory of this concept and promise and principle of endowment.
Yes, there are other ways. There is the way of the mighty prayer. Who among you knows what it is to call on the Lord in mighty prayer? Few among the children of men, in all the ages, have known it. Is it not true that the phrase "mighty prayer" is seldom found in all the record of the scriptures? In part, mighty prayer is prayer with the utmost of your personality in it. It is prayer about the issues of the moment, about high purpose and achievement of great ideals. It is prayer for high vision, for keen insight, for expanding Godly understanding and intelligence. It is prayer of deepest thanksgiving for bounteous blessings of the past as well as an abiding trust for all that lies in the boundless future. It is prayer of deepest rejoicing for all that you know of the altogether lovable Eternal Father, for what you know about His exalted purpose, and for all that may yet come to you about both Him and His purposes. It is prayer, either in thought or written form or uttered under the hallowed influence of the Holy Spirit, remembering that He who prays in the Spirit prays according to and in harmony with the Holy One, and all that He stands for. Mighty prayer is all this and more. Such prayer will move both the individual and collective soul in the direction of that endowment which is to be, for the Great Father gladly hears and answers such. How fitting than is this hymn:
Awake, oh Israel, awake,
Call on the Lord in mighty prayer
That He your chains of bondage break,
That His glory may declare.
Awake, ye saints, the time is here
When God would work in wondrous power;
The Saviour's comings now draw near.
Now is the foretold judgment hour.
Call on the Lord in mighty prayer,
That He lift up His servants now,
That all His people shall prepare
That He His church may soon endow.
Call on the Lord in high desire
For light and power you so much need,
For purifying holy fire
To cleanse you both in thought and deed.
Then, lo, from out His dwelling place
The Lord shall to His Temple come
To let His Spirit's boundless grace
Endow you, that His work be done.
Further, there is the way of fasting. Fasting not alone from food, from time to time, but fasting from worldly enticement which promises a fleeting and unstable enjoyment. Fasting also from mere sensual pleasures that bar you from the Spirit's presence, and that are of the moment only. Fasting as well from earthly conversation and association. Fasting besides from the preoccupations and low concerns of the world. Fasting of this or like nature can be entered into always. Too much and unwise fasting from food weakens the body. This higher sort of fasting strengthens the body, enlivens the spirit, makes room for the holy concerns, and causes all who so fast to enter into the larger life that leads toward the great endowment.
are completely aware of the record of God's marvelous doings? How many of you know what is written by Jesus and His prophets about preparing for this rich experience? How many know the promises and the covenants concerning the future? How many know how to so draw near to the merciful Father that the angels will gladly minister to you? How many know how to so approach the great white throne that they may have communion with both the Father and the Son, as is their high promise? 0 my people, you study so much about the past that you largely neglect to study the future. You could bring together-those people who are deeply concerned, in classes dedicated to spirit-guided research in these things -- the deeper life of the Spirit you so much need.
Besides these, there is a way, somewhat akin to what you call the scientific method. Based upon your advancing spiritualized insights and perceptions and knowledge, set projects of effort in application of what you see. Just as your scientific world has made great progress in the achievement of power in its field, even more shall be your achievements in the field of deeply spiritual things.
If you will prayerfully seek to discover other ways, one by one, as your wisdom and understanding and experience grow, they will open up for you.
You, My servant, to whom this gift of writing by inspiration has come, have had granted unto you a very special blessing. To very few has there come such details concerning these deeply spiritual aspects of the endowment as has been opened up unto you. These prophetic insights have come to you because you are deeply concerned about this great day of endowment, because in part you see its need, because you have had faith to inquire of the Lord, and because you have withdrawn yourself from the world and have come into the Lord's sanctuary, even the Lord's house. Here in His house, with its hallowed memories of the past, and with its high expectations and glowing prophecy of great things yet to be - even here has the Lord by His Spirit met you. Here has come to you the unseen ministry of angels. Here has He inspired you and given you vision. Here your mind and intelligence have been opened up far beyond and experience you have had hitherto. Yea, also in the quietness of the early hours of morning when the birds in the surrounding trees were raising their many songs of gratitude and rejoicing to Him who created them, and when you were caring for the gentle animals which the kindly foresight of the great Father has so lovingly provided for men, even there in the beautiful temple of the outdoors the Lord spoke to you by His still small voice, bringing testimony concerning that which had come to you in this His House. And, My servant, when you lifted your voice at Reunion time to tell My people, to share with My people that which had come to you, I, the Lord, stood by you, and caused My Apostle, Arthur 0akman, to confirm that which you said, and even more, I witnessed by My gracious Spirit unto many others that you spoke as a servant of the Lord of Hosts.
Now, what can you do? Try to become much more spiritual than you are! Try with all your heart to become an Elder in whom dwells great faith! As opportunity comes to you, or, as you can make opportunity, speak of these things, and just as I the Lord opened up the way for you at the Reunion thru the keen gift of discernment of My Apostle, even so will the way be opened up on many other occasions, and just as at Reunion your testimony touched the hearts of hundreds, even so shall it be in the future. Fear not to speak of these deep, spiritual matters for they are most dear to the heart of your Heavenly Father. He delights in them and yearns and longs with a great longing that all His servants and ministers shall also find in them their delight, Fear not to speak of them, for the need of this, God's richest blessing and the mighty demonstration of His power, is far beyond all that you even begin to comprehend.
Lo, Satan, with all his angels., with 'all his multitudinous followers, with all those of the earth he has so terribly deceived - even he, the father of lies, is moving with the utmost of zeal and cunning and ruthlessness to make his evil way prevail, and to take away the agency of man. He knows that his time is short. Yea, with all the intensity of his intelligence and his evil character he lifts his face toward the heavens, where God dwells, and with beating fists cries t, "I will win, I will win!"
Hear ye, hear ye, he must not prevail, neither will 'he prevail, yet it is only as God's servants come up to 'the 'mountain of the Lord's House and learn of his ways, and come to the place where they too can have power and wisely exercise it - it is only thus that the Lord's army can become strong, far-sweeping, and altogether irresistable. In thus stirring the needs and spirits of His servants and His people you can help. All that the Lord will thus do for you likewise will He do for any and all who see this vision of what He desires shall be and who work for it.
Nevertheless, the way will not be easy. Some will see and respond, and some will see and not respond. Some will be openly antagonistic, trusting in the arm of flesh. The way of the prophet and the prophetic-minded is still the way of sorrow. Yet all who suffer with Jesus Christ shall also rejoice with Him.
The answer, then, is plain. By preaching, by teaching classes, of research, by testimony, by prophetic experiences from time to time, by exercise of the many gracious gifts of the Spirit, by personal conversation, by letters, by writing, by stimulation of the souls of all who will listen, by pleading, by deeper insight into the scriptures, by a growing. and glowing spiritual life - by these and such ways may all My servants help in bringing very near the great day of endowment.
Now, my son, you have answers to your questions, such as are sufficient for you. You have not seen all, for this greater seeing waits upon your growth. It waits upon the growth of others as well -- from those of high position and opportunity to those of humble position, like yourself.
Of this he assured - all that you have seen or that you or others yet may see - all that is possible of rapid. fulfillment as you partake of that light anti Spirit and power that come alone from your Father which is in Heaven, for His is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen.
| 1. There should be a growing comprehension of the "mysterys" of the Kingdom of God, and the deep undergriding basics of Christ's way of life. |
| 2. We should all be striving for a deep understanding of our scriptures. The 3 Books. |
| 3. Every one ought to have a testimony of the truth of the gospel, and of the Restoration. |
| 4. How wonderful to have.guidance into lives of expanding beauty usefulness and extraordinary saintliness, in every worthwhile activity of life. |
| 5. Surely we need to see the hidden possibilities of our individual and collective lives, and the step by step way toward exalted accomplishment. |
| 6. There is a tremendous need for a growing enlightement concerning God's many spiritual gifts and ways of sharing His "light and truth" with His people. |
| 7. We very greatly need prophetic exercises as to what lies ahead ahead for the church and for this anxious and troubled world. The church of the living God must always be a prophetic one, in the finest sense of the term. |
| 8. Of all the people we ought to perceive the grand possibilities of human destiny. |
| 9. There is an expowering endowment yet to be experienced! What is it, and how to prepare? |
| 10. What are the characteristics of sacred communities of Zion as God wants us to see. |
| 1. Cultivate an intense desire and sense of urgency. |
| 2. Seek the Lord in mighty prayer and fasting of an exalted kind and nature. |
| 3. Each should try to discover his or her potential spiritual gifts and develop them. |
| 4. Try to see, appreciate and use God's gifts and ways of guidance as empowerment. |
| 5. Try to perceive and understand the farsighted purposes and hopes of OUR FATHER. |
| 6. Pray for a prophetic view of what lies ahead, both negatively and positively. |
| 7. What are the exalted characteristics of Zion, as God would have us see them? |
| 8. Strongly plead to understand more and more about divine endowment and doing our part. |
| 9. Become brightly illumined as to the ways and power and nature of exalting love. |
| 10. It is exceedingly worthwhile to understand more and more about the grand possibilities of an expanding, delightful engrossing life Beyond. |
1. To know that Jesus is Christ. 48. Guidance in matters of deep concern 2. Wisdom 49. Sealing up unto eternal life 3. Knowledge 50. Experiences outside our bodies 4. Faith 51. Gift of semi-immortality 5. Faith to heal 52. Gift to tell gospel story 6. Faith to be healed 53. Gift of insensibility to pain 7. Faith to work miracles 54. Gift of health-Word of Wisdom 8. Prophecy 55. Discern signs of Christ's second coming 9. Speaking in tongues 56. Bosom burning witnessing correct decisions 10. Interpreting tongues 57. Gift of Aaron-use of Urim and Thummim 11. Inspired hymns, as Admonition 58. Understand mysteries of the Kingdom gift 12. Gift to believe 59. Gift to have heavens opened and to see within 13. Ministry of angels 60. Communion with God's servants of the past 14. Ministry of those who have tarried 61. There is the gift of spiritual quickening 15. Special gifts of prayer 62. There is the gift of spiritual energizing 16. Gift to administer affairs 63. God can extend and magnify our sense of vision 17. Diversity of ways to do same 64. Paul blessed a handkerchief for healing 18. Gift of discernment 65. Laws of space and time may be set aside 19. Inspired dreams 66. Past historical events may be seen in vision 20. Interpreting dreams 67. When needed, God can send manna 21. Gift to see vision 68. There can be grand apocalyptic vision 22. Gift of inspired study 69. Some have special gift to inspire people 23. Gift of inspired writing 70. Others to discern unique potentials in people 24. Gift of inspired preaching 71. Forces of nature have been commanded by faith 25. Gift of spiritual impressions 72. Armies of nations have been defied 26. Prophetic insight and foresight 73. There can be gift of new heart and mind 27. Discernment of true values 74. There is the gift of transfiguration 28. Peace beyond understanding 75. Rare personalities can be discovered and nurtured 29. Gift of extraordinary love 76. Rare spiritual capacities can also be discovered and nurtured 30. Gift of spiritual radiancy 77. Likewise for statesmanlike qualities 31. Interpreting scriptural prophecy 78. There is the spiritual gift to describe the otherwise undescribable 32. Writing inspired music 79. A more than apocalyptic experience is possible and desirable 33. Blessing in developing talents 80. There is the gift of inspired imagination 34. Special gift of Mighty prayer 81. There is the gift of God covenanting with those who will covenant 35. Convincing power in preaching 82. There can be power given over the elements 36. Lofty perceptions of truth 83. There can be spiritual enrichment of voices 37. Lofty generalizations in study 84. Likewise with dedicated instrumental music 38. Gifts of remembrance when needed 85. The Spirit will help solve daily problems 39. Patriarchal Blessings 86. God has special ways of opening doors for us 40. Gift of exaltation 87. There is the gift of Spirit-Blessed homes 41. Gift of Counseling 88. At special times God witnesses to his being and His WORK
in extraordinary ways42. Gift to guide prayer meetings 89. Special gifts prepare us for life beyond 43. Perceptions during sleep 90. There is gift of getting translated without tasting death. 44. Hearing voice from heaven 91. There is the marvelous gift of resurrection 45. Blessings in surgery 92. There is the gift of spirit-blessed marriage 46. Guidance in scriptural study 93. There is the gift of Super-charged transferable Spiritual Energy 47. Seeing and talking with Jesus 94. Some of God's servants have been seen in rich spiritual blessing
though hundreds of miles away
NOTE: For fuller statement of all the above, see A STUDY OF SPIRITUALLY.