New Jerusalem: Timing

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• ⋮Actions for “Over my adults life I have learned some disadvantages and some”

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  Over my adults life I have learned some disadvantages and some advantages of trying to look into the future. A scriptural caution in the Book of Mormon illustrates a disadvantage of trying to look into the future. The prophet Jacob described a people who "despised the words of plainess . . . and sought for things . . . they could not understand" (Jacob 4:14). He said this caused them to fall because when persons are "looking beyond the mark" God takes away plainness and gives them what they sought—things they cannot understand. I think of this scriptural caution against "looking beyond the mark" when I receive letters asking about such things as how we should plan to build up the New Jerusalem or seeking to know the exact position in the celestial kingdom of a person who has lived a good life but never married or of a married couple in which the husband is (or is not) sealed to more than one woman. I don't know the answers to these and many other such questions. What I do know is that when we are uncertain about some gospel principle or future event, it is usually best to act on what we do know and trust in a loving Heavenly Father to give us further knowledge when we really need it. If we seek a firmer understanding and a better practice of the basic principles of the gospel while trusting in God for the outcome—not seeking to know details we have not been given and probably could not understand if we had—we will be given the peace to live with any uncertainties.

  Elder Dallin H. Oaks

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  • New Jerusalem: Timing

  21 Oct 2026