Last week I asked
you to stop and think of the comparison being made. The stars seem so much brighter to us then
the earth does. We have a beautiful
earth. Yet the beauty of the Telestial
world, or its glory, is much more beautiful than the earth’s beauty, just as
the brightness of the stars exceeds the brightness of the earth in our eyes.
Now think of the
brightness of the moon in relation to both the earth and the stars, especially
during the full moon. The moon carries a
brightness that definitely exceeds the brightness of the earth and the stars to
our eyes. The glory and beauty of the
Terrestial Kingdom exceeds that of the earth and the stars in the same manner. This must be an incredibly beautiful place.
The Terrestial
Kingdom is able to exceed the glory of the Telestial Kingdom and our mortal
earth because of the presence of God that exists there. Our earth has been primarily removed from the
presence of God for the purpose of testing the children of men. It is farther from God than the Telestial
Kingdom is, so it has less glory. The
Telestial Kingdom is farther from the presence of God than the Terrestial
Kingdom, so the Terrestial Kingdom has more glory than the Telestial.
When you study
who resides in these two kingdoms, it makes sense to you why the degrees of
glory are so different. Last week I
spent some time describing those who exist in the Telestial Kingdom. I’ll now turn to those in the Terrestial
Kingdom. Turning to The Doctrine and
Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we find modern
day revelation on the matter. We read, “Behold,
these are they who died without law…who received not the testimony of Jesus in
the flesh, but afterwards received it.
These are they who are honorable men of the earth, who were blinded by
the craftiness of men…These are they who are not valiant in the testimony of
Jesus; wherefore, they obtain not the crown over the kingdom of our God.”
(Doctrine and Covenants 76: 72, 74-75, 79)
These verses can easily be misunderstood,
so let me clarify a little bit. There
are many good people in this earth who reject paths of wickedness in order to
follow higher laws of God. Many of these
people choose to do so because they believe in a just God who has commanded
them to do good. They love God and want
to honor Him by being obedient to His laws.
Through this they grow to be better people, more Godlike people, who
grow to love those around them as God would.
It doesn’t matter what name they call this God, or if they are a little
mistaken as to some of His characteristics.
They are following the One True God and will receive the opportunity to
partake of the fullness of His laws when they learn them, whether in this part
of our existence or the next.
There are also many good and honorable
people who would follow God if they knew Him and His laws. Yet many don’t receive the opportunity to
know Him in this life. These people will
also get the opportunity to do so in the next part of their existence because
they are righteous people with pure and Godlike souls.
There are,
however, good and honorable people who want will not receive God in this
life. These people have many
opportunities to receive the testimony of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, many
times in their lives. Yet for whatever
reason they continually choose not to accept it and forsake the opportunity to
grow more Godlike.
These people are not
wicked people seeking after the riches, power, and glory of the world instead
of good and honorable things. But they
are not righteous people seeking after the will of God. They are “lukewarm” people who are content to
remain in the middle between righteousness and wickedness, and because they are
“neither cold nor hot,” God “will spue” them “out of” His “mouth”. (Revelation
3:16, in the New Testament portion of The King James Version of the Holy Bible) In other words they will receive the
Terrestial Kingdom, not the Celestial.
This kingdom of
glory is a beautiful place, far exceeding the glory of the Telestial
Kingdom. There are, however, some
downsides to this degree of glory. We
learn in The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints that “these are they who receive of his (Christ’s) glory, but not of his
fullness. These are they who receive of
the presence of the Son, but not of the fullness of the Father.”
In other words,
these people will not receive all that Christ has to offer to those that follow
His teachings and laws. They will not live
in the presence of God the Eternal Father.
They will not have the glory of God, nor will they have a life like
His. They will not inherit all that the
Father has, as Christ has promised to the faithful disciple who follows Him.
The Terrestial
Kingdom is a beautiful place, as we know from the scriptures. But it is not the best Christ has offered to
those who follow Him. And only those who
are righteous people, who actively forsake sin and seek after righteousness,
will receive the best. That best is
found in the Celestial Kingdom. Next
week I will focus on this, the best of all.
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