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Gramps,
I have two questions. The first deals with repentance. I have been reading
in the Miracle of Forgiveness and haven’t been able to find any list or
documentation as to what sins should be reported to the Bishop in order
for complete repentance. It does mention sexual sins but I am wondering if
there is a more complete list of sins that need to be taken to priesthood
leaders. My next question deals
with death. Do we believe that there is a time for people to die? For
instance are we allotted a certain amount of time on earth? The
missionaries in Iowa, was it their time to go? Children who die at an
early age, is it just their time? I’m looking for some doctrine on this.
I know that in D&C 59:21 that it says that God’s hand is in
everything and that there is a scripture that says if you are not
appointed unto death then you can be healed through faith. What is your
opinion? Anonymous, from Utah |
Dear
Anon.,
To
the best of my knowledge there is no laundry list of the category of sins that
need to be confessed to the bishop. We do understand that all sins must be
confessed to the Lord. If we have injured another, we must confess to the
person whom we have wronged. If we have sinned against a group, such as a Ward
congregation, then we should confess in public to those whom we have offended.
We learn from President Harold B. Lee, in Stand Ye In Holy Places,
p.220-221, that “acts that may affect your standing in the Church, or your
right to privileges or advancement in the Church, are to be promptly confessed
to the bishop, whom the Lord has appointed as a shepherd over every flock and
whom the Lord has commissioned to be a common judge in Israel.”
Concerning
your second question, we must recognize that man has been given his free
agency, and that with that agency nations fight against nations and many
perish. Disease and poverty result in the untimely deaths each year of
millions of innocent children. What we do not know is, as you have asked, if
our time on the earth is predetermined. I would suggest that many come to
earth with preordained commissions, so it would be assumed that if they lived
righteously in fulfillment of the their covenants with the Lord, that they
would be protected, at least until their work on earth has been accomplished.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie has stated,
“Since
men are foreordained to gain exaltation, and since no man can be exalted
without the priesthood, it is almost self-evident that worthy brethren were
foreordained to receive the priesthood. And so we find Alma teaching that
those who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood in this life were ‘called and
prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of
God.’ (Alma 13:1-12.) And Joseph Smith said, ‘Every man who has a calling
to minister to the inhabitants of the world,’ and this includes all who hold
the Melchizedek Priesthood, ‘was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand
Council of heaven before this world was. I suppose that I was ordained to this
very office in that Grand Council’” (Doctrinal New Testament Commentary,
Vol.3, p.329 - p.330).
What
we don’t know is when a person’s work on the earth has been accomplished. It
could be in infancy; it could be during active missionary service; it could be
after the body has spent itself in the service of the Lord.
Gramps