The Prisoners Shall Go Free

Khinckley1@yahoo.com

The Terrible Dilemma

EssentialSteps For

Salvation

GodLoves

Everyone

What about the African bushman?

What did the early church do?

397 A.D. Chrysostum, a patriarch at Constantinople, says..:

After a catechumen [churchman] was dead they had a living man under the bed of the deceased; then coming to the dead man they asked him if he would receive baptism; he being unable to answer, the live man (under the bed) would answer for him, in the affirmative, and was baptized for the dead man.

Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus, … wrote:

As time passed abuses crept into the churches regarding the ceremony of baptism for the dead; some insisted that a dead person be anointed with oil and then immersed in water; others that oil be used instead of water; and some sprinkled; until the ordinance was totally done away with. (Improvement Era 1940)

1841: The City of our God

Psalm 48:

1 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.

2 Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.

Joseph Smith

The name of our city (Nauvoo) is of Hebrew origin, and signifies a beautiful situation, or place,

Jerusalem/Nauvoo

3 God is known in her palaces for a refuge

4 For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together

5 They saw it, and so they marveled; they were troubled, and hastened away

11…let the daughters of Judah be glad…

D&C 124:10 and where shall be the safety of my people, and refuge for those who shall be left of them?

11 Awake, O kings of the earth! Come ye, O, come ye, with your gold and your silver, to the help of my people,

…to the house of the daughters of Zion.

Jerusalem/Nauvoo

Psalm 48: 8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever...

9 We have thought of thy loving kindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple.

12 Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof.

13 Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following.

Question?

What are we to tell “the towers” and “the generations” about Nauvoo?

Nauvoo is the place that the Lord revealed, to a living prophet, the answer to the Terrible Dilemma.

Minutes, Oct Conference, 1841

For illustration the speaker [Joseph Smith] presented, by supposition, the case of too men, brothers equally intelligent, learned, virtuous and lovely, walking in uprightness and in all good conscience, so far as they had been able to discern duty from the muddy stream of tradition or from the blotted page of the bock of nature.

One dies, and is buried, having never heard the gospel of reconciliation to the other the message of salvation is sent, he hears and embraces it, and is made the heir of eternal life. Shall the one become a partaker of glory, and the other be consigned to hopeless perdition? Is there no chance for his escape? Sectarianism answers. "none! none!! none!!!" Such an idea is worse than atheism

Seymour Brunson

Member High CouncilFar West, Nauvoo

Funeral, August 15th, 1840Jane Neyman

Lost a son, CyrusHarvey Olmstead

Joseph Smith, Sr. requestFont dedicated, Nov. 8th, 1841

Joseph Smith

I first mentioned the doctrine [baptism for the dead] in public when preaching the funeral sermon of Brother Seymour Brunson; and have since then given general instructions in the Church on the subject. The Saints have the privilege of being baptized for those of their relatives who are dead, whom they believe would have embraced the Gospel, if they had been privileged with hearing it, and who have received the Gospel in the spirit, through the instrumentality of those who have been commissioned to preach to them while in prison.

"Without enlarging on the subject, you will undoubtedly see its consistency and reasonableness; and it presents the Gospel of Christ in probably a more enlarged scale than some have imagined it." HC 4:231

Section 128

1 As I stated to you in my letter before I left my place, that I would write to you from time to time and give you information in relation to many subjects, I now resume the subject of the baptism for the dead, as that subject seems to occupy my mind, and press itself upon my feelings the strongest, since I have been pursued by my enemies.

Section 128

9 It may seem to some to be a very bold doctrine that we talk of—a power which records or binds on earth and binds in heaven. Nevertheless, in all ages of the world, whenever the Lord has given a dispensation of the priesthood to any man by actual revelation, or any set of men, this power has always been given.

Dispensation?

The Lord

Dispenses

Keys

Prophet

Dispenses

Endowm

ent

God’s PeopleGift

The Prophet’s Plea

Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing.

Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free. (D&C 128)