Chapter 15 Eternal Marriage

Opening Song: Hymn 300
Lesson: Chapter 15 Eternal Marriage

If you have not had a chance, please check out our facebook page to see all the pictures of the beautiful women and their husbands in their wedding pictures.

 ((I added this in..I just love it!!!) A person who was  married received this jar and a note attached from a S. Michael Wilcox. Here is what it said:

“My wife often cans peaches and pears in the fall. A great deal of work is necessary just to prepare the fruit. Then, once it is prepared, she puts it into jars, places the seals on, twists the lids tightly into place, and sets the jars in boiling water. Then she waits for the seals to set. She has performed this operation dozens of times with hundreds of jars. In all that time I have never seen her seal an empty jar. Unless the jar is loaded with fruit, a seal is not placed. I doubt if anyone, among the thousands who can fruit every year, has ever sealed an empty jar. There must be something to preserve or the seal has no significance.

 The sealing of temple covenants is similar. When we are married at the altars of the temple, the Lord, from one point of view, gives us an empty jar. Then he instructs us to fill it with the wonderful fruits of righteous marriage. We fill it with love and compromise and forgiveness and joy and peace and shared trails; we fill it with all the things of life, all the good fruit. As we keep our covenants, returning often to renew them as we work for the dead, the jar begins to fill. As we grow older and our love deepens, we desire to preserve forever all the good we have stored.

Our abiding in the covenant allows the Lord to place the seal on our covenant relationship and preserve the fruits of our righteousness for all eternity. This is the same for all temple covenants. Nobody seals an empty jar; neither does the Lord seal empty covenants. First there must be fruit to preserve.”

It is important to take care and cherish your eternal marriage.

In the lesson, it discusses the wives of President Fielding Smith as he was married three times. He was married over 72 years of his life. After his final wife passed away, his testimony was calmed knowing that he could trust in the Lord and eternal life.

He said, "I feel to say with Job of old, whose knowledge came from the same source from which mine has come: ‘For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,’ and that ‘in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold. …’ (Job 19:25–27.)

“And as I join my testimony with that of Job, may I also unite with him in thanksgiving, for the cry, uttered out of the anguish and sorrow of his soul: ‘… the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ (Job 1:21.) I pray that we may all be guided by the power of the Holy Spirit, that we may walk uprightly before the Lord, and that we may inherit eternal life in the mansions and kingdoms that are prepared for the obedient.”

President Smith taught that celestial marriage is the crowning ordinance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He said, " There is no ordinance connected with the Gospel of Jesus Christ of greater importance, of more solemn and sacred nature, and more necessary to [our] eternal joy … than marriage. The fullness and blessings of the Priesthood and Gospel grow out of Celestial marriage. This is the crowning ordinance of the Gospel and crowning ordinance of the temple. I want to plead to my good brethren and sisters, good members of the Church, to go to the temple to be married for time and all eternity."

That is why temple work is so important. We can help seal families forever. 

He also said, "Marriage was never intended by the Lord to end at death of the mortal body; but to add honor, dominion, power to the covenanting parties, and the continued and eternal unity of the family in the kingdom of God. Such blessings are held in reserve for those who are willing to abide in this covenant as the Lord revealed it. It is not merely a partnership between a man and a woman, for as the Lord has said, in marriage they become one flesh and enter into a partnership with God."

President Smith said, "The Lord has given us his everlasting gospel to be a light and a standard to us, and this gospel includes his holy order of matrimony, which is eternal in nature. We should not and must not follow the marriage practices of the world. We have greater light than the world has, and the Lord expects more of us than he does of them."

How can we keep the world out of our marriage?

One sister said that we can spend time outside in the yard together. Another said that they work on family history and it has strengthened their relationship. Last one sister said that it is important to develop interests together early on so when kids leave the nest, you will be able to do something together. 

Time was very short and the lesson was not covered in full. . 

Closing Song: Hymn 292