Alright guys in the next few minutes
we're gonna talk about one of the most
sacred temple ceremonies in the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
called, the endowment ceremony. If you're
unfamiliar with our faith or just
clicked on this video to learn a bit
more, please be courteous and try to
respect the religious culture of faiths
that may be different from your own.
Now because we latter-day saints
consider temple ceremonies to be sacred,
we don't talk about them very much. And
there are a few ceremonial details we
consider so sacred, that we promise in
the temple not to talk about them
outside the temple at all. Now to a lot
of people that sounds pretty suspicious
some people think we've got something to
hide. Unfortunately, there are some people
who have tried to take advantage of that
curiosity and have sought to expose our
temple ceremonies to the public. Which is
a pretty messed-up thing to do to the
sacred traditions of any religion. (that's
messed up) So in this video, we're gonna
set the record straight and talk about
two things.
What latter-day saints are doing in the
endowment, and how they are doing it.
Let's dive in.
First what our latter-day saints doing
in the endowment ceremony? The short
answer is that we're making covenants or
promises with God. Specifically we
promise to obey God's commandments,
live the gospel of Jesus Christ, be
chaste and faithful to our spouse, and to
dedicate everything we have and
everything we are to the service of God.
Each of these promises are associated
with various signs and symbols used
throughout the ceremony, there's also
times set apart in the ceremony for what
we call a prayer circle where we pray
for friends and family who are sick or
need help. That is all latter-day saints
are actually doing in the endowment
ceremonies. And this leads us to the next
question, how do latter-day saints make
these covenants in the endowment
ceremony, well what does this ceremony
look like? Now I'll be the very first to
admit if you're not familiar with why we
do things the way we do things in this
ceremony we look weird. We wear sacred
ceremonial clothing in the endowment. If
you're not familiar with it religious
clothing from any faith looks a little
weird. Our ceremonial clothing is not
meant to be particularly stylish or
modern, each item of clothing we wear has
meaning and history behind it. If we went
back in time 3,000 years these clothes
would be less weird because our temple
clothing is meant to follow the pattern
set by ancient Israelites in their
temples as outlined in the Bible. The
presentation of the endowment ceremony
is largely theatrical. In the early days
of the church, it was essentially a play
with some audience participation, it's
still a play in a couple temples
nowadays but in most temples, the
endowment presentation is a movie. (gosh I
love movies) Throughout the endowment as
we make the promises I talked about
earlier, we learn about what Bruce our
McConkey called the three pillars of
eternity. The creation, the fall of Adam
and Eve, and the atonement of Jesus
Christ. As we learn more and progress
through the presentation in most temples
we progress through different rooms
symbolically representing our
progression towards the presence of God.
In the temples of ancient Israel the
high priest would pass through a veil
when entering the Holy of Holies the
most sacred room in the temple where God
symbolically dwells. The same thing
happens for men and
women who participate in the endowment
as they pass into what we call the
celestial room of the temple, which
you're looking at right now. Latter-day
saints believe that you must participate
in certain ordinances or religious
rights like baptism in order to be
exalted. The endowment ceremony is
another one of those exalting ordinances
being exalted is different than being
saved, if that's confusing to you watch
this video. If you thought that temples
were no longer needed after Christ's
ministry, and are wondering why
latter-day saints have them at all watch
this video. In a nutshell, this is what
latter-day saints do in this temple
ceremony it's absolutely nothing to be
afraid of. As someone who has been there
many times there's nothing sinister
going on in Latter-day Saint temples.
We're not sacrificing animals it's not
some creepy sex cult we're just making
really great promises with God. And if
someone thinks I'm part of a cult for
promising to follow Jesus Christ and to
be faithful to my spouse then that's an
awesome cult to be a part of. The
promises I make in the temple help
make me a better person. Now there are
also a few other ordinances we perform
in temples that I didn't talk about like
marriage ceremonies, and baptisms for the
dead. Check out the links in the
description for more information about
those. There's also more info on our
website. If you have questions drop them
in the comments, or if you're trying to
be respectful and our concern that a
question on this topic may not be
appropriate feel free to message me on
Facebook directly and we can chat.
Thanks for watching have a great day.
