Thank you, Sister Eubank.
I love that lady—an awful lot. When I went to college, I went to college twice, as she indicated. The first time was to get her; the second time was to get an education.
Each day that the Polynesian Cultural Center is open, there are guests that are invited to come on the tram, and tour past BYU, through the community, and over to the Temple Visitors' Center. Our young sister missionaries greet each of the people on the tram in the greeting of their native language. As President Wheelwright has indicated, "Aloha," to you, and since I'm from western United States, from Utah, I would like to give my greeting to you with your echo back: "Howdy." Thank you.
As I was talking with Sister Eubank the other day, we look back at our lives and we cannot believe the things that have happened. The things that have actually wound up taking place in our lives are beyond what we could have dreamed for, hoped for, or expected. And I think it's because we've always sought Heavenly Father's guidance and direction in our lives.
Looking ahead into the future, in a weather term, it's kind of foggy; you can see, but not too far. But looking behind, it's very clear; it's easy to see the things behind. And as I look back at my life, I see a path that went through a large field that was filled with land mines. Once in a while, I got injured, but most of the time, those forks in the road—those paths—took me to places better than I could have imagined.
Our discussion today is about how to find God. Someone said, "I didn't know He was lost." No, He isn't, but maybe we are. Maybe we need to know how to find Him. I'm thinking of that in the big sense of the word. I'm thinking of it in the emotional sense of the word, in the spiritual sense of finding God, and even in the physical sense of finding where God is. The whole path of this is to help us investigate truth throughout our lives by keeping the commandments of God and by being willing to really listen to what the prophets have to say.
Now at the visitors' center, we have people from all over the world that come, and they frequently have questions. These are the same questions that you have had, that perhaps you do have: Where do we come from? Why are we here? And where are we going? These are questions that do have answers.
I want you to know that we do have a kind, wise, loving Father in Heaven, who seeks to guides us and help us and bless us. He is the father of our spirits. We all have a spirit. Our spirits are made in the image of God. We look like Him: we have two ears, eyes, arms, hands, but our bodies are different than his. We literally are the children of God, and oftentimes we refer to each other as brothers and sisters—and that's literal: we are the literal offspring of God, and you and I are brothers and sisters. We lived with Him in heaven, but we needed to progress to become more like Him. That was His plan. We accepted it, and we wanted it. So a lot has to take place. There has to be a plan, we have to know what it is, and we have to do our part in order to make it work.
My work in the world and vocation was a meteorologist. But God has a work. God's work, so stated by Him, "This is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). Those two things—immortality and eternal life—are similar yet different. To be immortal is to live forever, and all of us are promised that. Because of Jesus Christ, all of us will live again. Eternal life is to live forever with God. To do that, we need to be clean, pure, and holy.
Mankind has a work so stated by the scriptures. What is that work? "Behold, this is your work, to keep my commandments" (Doctrine & Covenants 11:20). There are two things that God wants for us: to keep the commandments and to be happy. I testify to you that when we keep the commandments, we are happy. Life goes better—life is infinitely better—when we are in obedience to what God has asked because God knows the plan. He knows us, and He guides us and points us, and puts us in the right places.
"Adam fell that man might be: and men are, that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25). So keeping the commandments and finding joy are two things we need to do that make us happy. But in our journey of life there are forks in the road—many forks. Some forks don't make a whole lot of difference, but other forks are eternally important. Some of the forks will take us where we don't want to go. I can't imagine winding up having a job, having a vocation that you hate. And every day you had to go to work to earn a living, but you hated what you did. I can't imagine having a marriage in which you were unhappy. Can you imagine being trapped in pornography? Can you imagine being trapped in a life of lying or a life of crime? It happens; those forks in the road can get us in trouble.
So how do we make the right choices? As I said, we need to know the plan, consider what we have been shown, and then we need to ask God, "Is this the right path? Have I chosen the right fork?" Then we need to proceed as though everything depended on it.
We know our bodies are patterned after God. In the beginning, we were spirit children, and He was not. He was a tangible Being, a body of flesh and bone, and we were different. And in order to be like Him, in order to get this plan of happiness, there had to be a creation of an Earth. It was Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was given the task of creating the Earth for us. Heavenly Father gave him the assignment. There were others that went with him. I don't know how long it took or the exact way it was done, but Jesus Christ made this Earth for us.
Leaving Heavenly Father's presence and going to the Earth is somewhat similar to leaving our homes and going away to college. We can do what we want; no one has to boss us around. That's part of the plan; this life is a test. Will we, at college, where no parental control is dictating what we do, do the right things? Will we choose the right things?
The first to come were Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were placed on the Earth. They were told, "This is your Earth. Dress it. Take care of it. It's beautiful. There are fruit trees galore; you can eat the fruit of any of the trees you choose. Except there is one tree in the middle of the garden you shall not eat. In fact, don't even touch it. Nevertheless, you can choose for yourself."
In that Garden of Eden setting, Adam and Eve walked and talked with God. It was probably fairly easy to do all of the things. If they had questions they could talk to God; He was there. Do you know what happened to them? They ate the fruit. And God had said "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). Did they eat the fruit? They did. Did they die that day? Yes and no—it depends on what death you're talking about.
There are two kinds of death: there is spiritual death and there is physical death. Spiritual death is when we are separated from God. If we are away from God, we are spiritually dead. Physical death is a separation of our body and our spirit. The punishment for Adam and Eve partaking of the fruit of the tree was having to leave the Garden. They had to leave the Garden and they also had to leave the presence of our Father in Heaven.
The Earth was created near the throne of God. Brigham Young, in the Journal of Discourses, told us that: "And when man fell…the Earth fell into space, and took up its abode in this planetary system, and the sun became our light" (17:144). So now this Earth is bathed in the light of a sun that was created. When you think about it in that context, it's almost as though this solar system is a seedbed for mortality and the Earth was placed at just the right distance from the Sun. It has the right amount of temperature, the right amount of oxygen—we have all the things that we need to live and be mortals and grow.
But "The fall had brought upon mankind a spiritual death... that is, they were cut off from the presence of the Lord" (Alma 42:9). Are we spiritually dead today? Do we have the presence of God today? We certainly have His influence. He can certainly send prophets. We can certainly pray and get answers. Angels can come. But in general, we do not have the presence of God, and so today we are spiritually dead.
Let's go back to Adam and Eve. Where was the Earth created? Near God. The nearest star to God is Kolob. It was created somewhere near the throne of God. So when they ate the fruit, they fell; the Earth also changed places in space.
How do we measure time on the Earth? We have hours, minutes, days, and years. What's a day? It's one rotation of the planet around its axis. What's a year? It's one time around the sun. We have a frame of reference for measuring time. When the Earth turns once, we call it a day. When Kolob turns once, God calls it a day. The problem is they're not the same. One day where God lives is not the same as the Earth.
The Lord showed a prophet named Abraham how it all played out. "The Lord showed unto me that Kolob was not after the manner of the Earth. One revolution was a day unto the lord; it being one-thousand years according to the time appointed upon therein where thou standest" (Abraham 3:4). So in the original position, Adam and Eve, in the day you eat the fruit, before Kolob turns once, you're going to die. In the new position, flipped out into the solar system, it's a thousand years. How long did Adam live? In the new planetary system on planet Earth, the Bible says he lived 930 years. Kolob had turned 93%, and in the day that Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they died. If you look at it spiritually, they were cast away from God and they died spiritually. Physically, they also died in the day they ate the fruit.
Here we are on the Earth and what does God do? He sends prophets: prophets to teach us, to help us, and to bless our lives. I identify with [Noah], because actually he stood up without television and said, "Repent, repent, or else it's going to rain really hard." This man was the world's first weatherman and the people didn't listen. God told this prophet to build an ark. What's an ark? It's a box. Remember the ark of the covenant? Well the ark that Noah built was a really big box. 450 feet long—that's a football field and a half. 137 meters was the length of that ark. 75 feet wide, 23 meters wide, 45 feet tall—as tall as a four story building—14 meters tall was the height of that ship. Noah was told to take the people inside and the animals.
There's an interesting book written by Louis Ginzberg. In the early 1900s, he compiled the legends of the Jewish rabbis. In The Legends of the Jews is a story about how the animals came to Noah. Noah was told, "The ones you want are the ones that crouch. If they stand, you don't want to take them in the ark. If they crouch, they're the ones."
The story is told of two cubs and the mother lion who came up to the ark, and they all knelt down. The cubs rose up and hissed, making the mother stand up, and Noah knew it was the cubs that were supposed to go in the ark. Does that make sense to you? If you're going to put all these animals in a fairly limited space, large as it is, do you want big, snarling, mean lions? Or do you want little cubs? They eat less, they're more docile, they make less mess; there are a lot of reasons why it's a good idea to take small ones.
There's the ark. Noah has this prophecy. Fork in the road. You have to decide, is this guy really telling us the truth? Is he really a prophet? Look at the expressions of the people in the painting,
"No, he's crazy."
"Yeah, he's touched in the head."
"Hey Noah, where's the rain?"
It took a hundred years, the scripture says, from the time Noah started to build the ark until it was actually used. Let's say that you and I were there—fork in the road. Is Noah telling the truth? I tell you some forks in the road are eternally important. Let's say we didn't believe, and the sky got dark and it started to rain. What are you going to do? Run to the ark? You might scoff and say it rains all the time. How much rain would there have to be before you headed to the ark? To your ankles? To your knees? At some point, wouldn't the people have gone out to the ark? Noah's inside—why couldn't they break in? It doesn't make any sense until you read that the legends of the Jewish rabbis say they did. Thousands went out to break into the ark, and guess what they found? A whole bunch of mean, snarling animals that hadn't been chosen, and the animals kept them away from the ark.
Flash forward; this man comes along. He's about eighty years old, living in the Sinai; his name is Moses. And one day, on the side of the mountain, God calls him: "Moses, take off your shoes, you are standing on holy ground." He calls him to go to the Children of Israel: Go to Egypt and get those people out of bondage that they were in to the pharaoh.
Picture yourself: you're in Egypt, you're an Israelite, and here comes this man, eighty-plus, and he says, "God has called me and I'm here to get us out." Fork in the road. Would we listen? Would we believe? Would we pay attention? How do you know this man is a prophet or not? He said he was. One of the ways is we pray and we ask God. As it turns out, he had been called by God. But to the people, it almost sounded preposterous. They had to decide what to do with their lives.
Many years later, a man walks along the shore and says, "Peter, James, John, I will make you fishers of men—come with me. My name is Jesus Christ." He taught the people. He loved the people. He healed the people. He said that he would be resurrected. He said that he would lay down his body and raise it up in three days. He wasn't just a general that told us how to do it, he was the one that led the way. He is our example, and if we find Christ, if we follow him, he will take us to where God is. In the end, it is Christ that judges us on whether we are clean, pure, and holy enough to go back and return where Heavenly Father is. But at the time when Jesus Christ was in Jerusalem, many had a decision to make, and many made the wrong one.
1800s: a young man says that God and Christ appeared to him, called him, told him to be a prophet, said that they would send other messengers, and other angels would come and minister to him. He tells the story of a man named Mormon, who had a room of records, who was a general, who was a historian, and wrote down the things of God. He then gave it to his son Moroni. Moroni added to it and finally buried it in the ground, covered it with a boulder, and died. 1400 years later, as an angel, he came to this young man and said, "I personally have buried this record not far from your farm. Your job is to get it, translate it, and to do all of the things God has asked.
Here is the question: is this man a prophet? He claims he is. Is it worth finding out? I submit to you it is—it is eternally important to find it out. One of the things this man revealed was truth. He said that the person that repents, exercises faith, brings forth good works, and prays continually will be given to know the mysteries of God (Alma 26:22), even how to find God. Fork in the road. We have to decide, do we read what he wrote? Do we read what he translated? Do we read his revelations? Do we believe and live his revelations?
One of the things that Joseph Smith put down and said he translated from God was a Hypocephalus. "Hypo-" means "under"; a hypodermic needle is under the skin. "Cephalus" is a Greek word meaning head. It was a disc they put under the head of a deceased person. The purpose of that disc was to help a person get into the afterlife. The purpose of that disc was to help them become god-like. Some of the descriptions say flames of fire should come out from under their heads. That is an interesting description. I wonder what it would've been like to have been in the tomb when Jesus was resurrected. Would he have had flames of glory coming out? There are people today that scoff, saying it's just a disc. It's just a disc they put under dead people—it's a funeral thing; it has nothing to do with religion. This prophet has translated things completely wrong. This is because scientists are judging on a surface level. If you were to find, a thousand years in the future, somebody that had been buried in their temple clothing, and examine it, saying, "Fabric made in Hong Kong, 60% polyester, 40% cotton," you would get the whole wrong meaning. Is your examination true? Yes, but the meaning of the temple clothing was to help that person get to the afterlife because of all the things that it stood for. By living those teachings, it helped them to have glory and to be resurrected.
Next time you are by your scriptures, look at that hypocephalus. There is a figure there called figure five with an explanation. Part of the figure is called in Egyptian Enish-go-on-dosh. It is one of the governing planets also, and is said by the Egyptians to be the sun, which borrows its light from Kolob. I have studied that little figure over and over, and let me share with you my interpretation. I'm not saying it's correct, I'm just saying that this is what that speaks to me.
Where does the moon get its light? It borrows it from the Sun. Where does the Earth get its light? It gets it from the Sun? What does the moon go around? It goes around the Earth. What does the Earth go around? It goes around the Sun. Where does the Sun get its light? The scientists say it's self-illuminating. It's a thermonuclear reaction converting helium to hydrogen. Well, that may be, but figure five says that the Sun borrows its light from Kolob. If we didn't know a lot about electricity, and we looked up at a light and we didn't know about the wires back in the wall, where does that light get its energy? Well, it's self-illuminating. Once we know about electricity, we're in a better position to make a judgment. But when we only have part of the truth, we can only say what we see with our eyes.
The scriptures say that the Sun borrows its light from Kolob through Kae-e-vanrash, and Kae-e-vanrash governs the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and fifteen other fixed stars or planets. And where does Kae-e-vanrash get its power? From either Hah-ko-kau-beam or Kli-flos-is-es. Interesting that it doesn't make any difference which one; it's almost as if they were a binary system: two stars in orbit around each other. And where do Hah-ko-kau-beam and Kli-flos-is-es get their energy? From Kolob. Kolob, the Book of Abraham says, is the star nearest to the throne of God.
Look at what God has just taught us. We don't know the distances; we don't know the exact location, but we know that from Kolob to the Earth is a connection of power and energy. When we pray, I can see a pipeline that goes directly to where God lives. When God sends angels and messengers, I can see a pipeline that they can travel with. I don't know if that's how it works, but I'm just saying these are the things that God teaches us by listening to and following prophets. Here we are, this little Earth tucked out on one of the arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. Somewhere out there is our Father, and you and I can return to Him. "For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles…and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith" (2 Nephi 27:23).
This is how we find God: we exercise faith. We don't know for sure but we believe. We have faith and we move forward. We keep the commandments; if there is ever a doubt, we choose the fork in the road that keeps the commandments. We believe the prophets; we follow the prophets and we follow Christ. He is our leader and our exemplar. Without Him, we will never get back to where God is. So I propose to you, that if we want eternal life, if we want to find God, we need to do those things. I know these things are true. I bear my testimony and witness to you that they are eternally true and our lives will be blessed as we follow these things. I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.