Doctrine and Covenants 109-110

<p>&ldquo;Our God is a God of covenant. By His nature, He &lsquo;keepest covenant and showest mercy.&rsquo; His covenants endure &lsquo;so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved.&rsquo; We are not meant to wander in existential uncertainty and doubt but to rejoice in cherished covenant relationships &lsquo;stronger than the cords of death.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>

<p>"Joseph Smith&rsquo;s dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple is a tutorial about how the temple spiritually empowers you and me to meet the challenges of life in these last days. I encourage you to study that prayer, recorded in Doctrine and Covenants section 109. That dedicatory prayer, which was received by revelation, teaches that the temple is 'a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.'"</p>

<p>&ldquo;Brethren, Satan seeks &lsquo;to destroy the souls of men.&rsquo; If your soul is drifting to the edge of a spiritual cliff, stop now before you fall and steer back on course. If you feel your soul lies wrecked at the bottom of a canyon rather than high on the priesthood path because you neglected &lsquo;Beware&rsquo; signs and sinned, I testify that through sincere repentance and the power of Jesus Christ&rsquo;s atoning sacrifice, you can be lifted up and restored to God&rsquo;s heavenly highway.&rdquo;</p>

<p>&ldquo;By making and keeping temple covenants, we learn more about the Lord&rsquo;s purposes and receive a fulness of the Holy Ghost. ... We are protected from evil, and we gain greater power to resist temptation and to repent when we stumble. When we falter, the memory of our covenants with God helps us return to the path. By connecting to God&rsquo;s power, we [are] able to go against the flow of the world, throughout our lives and into the eternities. Ultimately, our destinies are changed because the covenant path leads to exaltation and eternal life.&rdquo;</p>

<p>The dedicatory prayer for the Kirtland Temple is one of only two temple dedicatory prayers in the current scriptural canon. The other is the dedicatory prayer for the temple of Solomon (1 Kings 8:23–61). The dedicatory prayer for the Kirtland temple mirrors the opening of the dedicatory prayer for Solomon’s temple, which reads, “Lord God of Israel, there is no God like thee, in heaven above, or on earth beneath, who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk before thee with all their heart” (1 Kings 8:23). </p> <p>After this opening, the prayer for the Kirtland temple acknowledges the poverty and tribulation of the Saints in Kirtland, who had sacrificed to build the temple. When the Lord commanded the Saints to build the Kirtland temple in 1832 (D&C 88:119), there were only around 150 Saints living in the area, and of those Saints, only ten Church members owned enough property to be taxed by the city.<a href="#_ftn1" id="_ftnref1" title="" class="see-footnote">[1]</a> Only a few members of the community had any experience in construction, and none possessed the knowledge necessary to construct a temple according to the specifications given by revelation. Brigham Young later remembered that the Saints were “too few in numbers, too weak in faith, and too poor in purse, to attempt such a mighty enterprise.” But he also recalled “the great Prophet Joseph, in the stone quarry, quarrying rock with his own hands; and the few then in the Church, following his example of obedience and diligence wherever most needed; with laborers on the walls, holding the sword in one hand to protect themselves from the mob, while they placed the stone and moved the trowel with the other.”<a href="#_ftn2" id="_ftnref2" title="" class="see-footnote">[2]</a></p> <p>When the temple was finally completed, the cost of its construction was estimated to be between $40,000 to $60,000, a tremendous sum at the time.<a href="#_ftn3" id="_ftnref3" title="" class="see-footnote">[3]</a> One historian observed that given the meager resources of the time, it was probably the most expensive temple ever built by the Church.<a href="#_ftn4" id="_ftnref4" title="" class="see-footnote">[4]</a></p> <div class="footnotes"> <p class="footnote"><a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1" title="" class="footnote-label">[1]</a> Milton V. Backman,<em> The Heavens Resound, </em>1983, 140–42. </p> <p class="footnote"><a href="#_ftnref2" id="_ftn2" title="" class="footnote-label">[2]</a> Brigham Young, in <em>Journal of Discourses, </em>2:31. </p> <p class="footnote"><a href="#_ftnref3" id="_ftn3" title="" class="footnote-label">[3]</a> Backman, 160. </p> <p class="footnote"><a href="#_ftnref4" id="_ftn4" title="" class="footnote-label">[4]</a> Karl Ricks Anderson, <em>Joseph Smith’s Kirtland, </em>1996, 155.</p> </div>

<p>If Church members toured the Kirtland temple today, they might be surprised to find that it did not have any baptismal fonts, endowment rooms, or sealing rooms, as are found in Latter-day Saint temples today. The Kirtland Temple was used for a number of different purposes, as explained in verses 6–21 of the dedicatory prayer. In many ways it was a chapel, school, temple, and Church office building, all rolled into one. The temple was used as a multipurpose facility and, in contrast to modern temples, it was open to all people. The first floor of the temple was commonly called the House of Worship, though worship services, including the sacrament ordinance, were held in all spaces of the temple. The second floor of the temple, called the House of Learning, was used primarily for educational purposes. Both the first and second floors had raised stands with four levels of elevated pews dedicated to the offices of the Melchizedek and Aaronic Priesthood. </p> <p>An early form of the endowment was practiced in the Kirtland Temple. The ordinances that make up the endowment were performed by invitation and took place on the third floor of the temple, which consisted of a series of offices used by Church leaders. The Kirtland endowment was only given to priesthood holders. However, later the ordinances of the endowment were expanded and given to both men and women in Nauvoo. Many elders left records of receiving this early endowment in the Kirtland temple. Artemus Millet wrote, “I was then ordained an Elder, and got my Endowments in the Kirtland Temple and in 1836 went on a mission.”<a href="#_ftn1" id="_ftnref1" title="" class="see-footnote">[1]</a> George A. Smith, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, wrote, “I passed through the ordinances of endowments and received much instruction and many manifestations of the spirit.”<a href="#_ftn2" id="_ftnref2" title="" class="see-footnote">[2]</a></p> <p>The year before the temple was completed, Joseph Smith counseled the elders of the Church to “tarry at Kirtland until you are endowed with power from on high. You need a fountain of wisdom, knowledge, and intelligence such as you never had. Relative to the endowment, I make a remark or two, that there be no mistake. The world cannot receive the things of God. He can endow you without worldly pomp or great parade. He can give you that wisdom, that intelligence and that power which characterized the ancient Saints.”<a href="#_ftn3" id="_ftnref3" title="" class="see-footnote">[3]</a> </p> <div class="footnotes"> <p class="footnote"><a href="#_ftnref1" id="_ftn1" title="" class="footnote-label">[1]</a> Quoted in Karl Ricks Anderson, <em>Joseph Smith’s Kirtland, </em>1996, 187.</p> <p class="footnote"><a href="#_ftnref2" id="_ftn2" title="" class="footnote-label">[2]</a> Quoted in Karl Ricks Anderson, <em>Joseph Smith’s Kirtland, </em>1996, 187. </p> <p class="footnote"><a href="#_ftnref3" id="_ftn3" title="" class="footnote-label">[3]</a> Minutes and Blessings, 21 February 1835, p. 162, JSP. </p> </div>