Sunday Report

Peter, James, & John restoring the Melchizedek
Priesthood

The lesson for the day was Chapter 5 of the manual the Holy Priesthood--for the Blessing of God's Children, given by JoAnn Bohlin, substituting for Julee Schneider.  President Smith began by discussing the seriousness of the obligation assumed by twelve year old boys when they receive the priesthood and are ordained deacons.  He felt that they should know immediately that they have been given something that is eternally important, including the opportunity to bless the lives of others.  He then discussed how the Savior came to a world filled with evil at the meridian of time where the divine authority to act for God had been lost.  Christ needed to restore that authority in order ot organize His Church on the earth again. Choosing humble, teachable men who would believe Him, He taught them and conferred upon them the divine authority to act in the name of God.  When He left them they retained the authority to govern that Church and take its message to all the world.

After a time the wickedness of the world resulted in another apostasy, and the authority of the Apostles was lost from the earth for many centuries. Once more a restorer and a process of restoration was provided in another humble individual, Joseph Smith, who brought to the world not only the Lord's Church but additional scripture that testified in plainness of the Father's plan for the redemption of all of His children. Joseph and his scribe Oliver Cowdrey, received again the divine authority of the Holy Priesthood, first the Aaronic Priesthood under the hands of John the Baptist, a glorious resurrected being sent to teach them and ordain them, and second under the hands of Peter, James and John, the First Presidency of the Church after the Lord was crucified.  These men had held and magnified the priesthood in ancient times and were charged with bringing it back to earth at the time of the final restoration.

Those worthy men who function in the Church today, hold the same Priesthood that was restored to Joseph Smith by these men of former times.  They are required to minister in the ordinances of the gospel.  Because this authority was given by God, it is found on the earth today only in His Church.  It is through them that all the ordinances required to bring us back to Heavenly Father and allow us to be exalted in the Celestial Kingdom, must be administered.  Just as there is no other name under heaven by which mankind may be saved except that of Jesus Christ, so to there is no other organization on the earth that can administer the ordinances required for exaltation.  It is not out of arrogance or pride that this claim is made, but to let all men and women know where they must look for this the greatest of all the blessings of God.  

Good people of the earth, performing good works still need the authority of the Priesthood and its ordinances to receive exaltation.  They will be blessed for their goodness, but it is necessary for them to come unto Christ, in His true Church, and receive Priesthood ordinances through divine authority to receive all that the Father desires to give them.  Within the Church, those who hold the Priesthood and those who labor under their direction hold a sacred trust and have a sacred opportunity  to use that divine authority to bring all good people to Christ.