Arks and Temples

I started a little project this week where I wanted to read through all the conference talks given by President Nelson during the last four years as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was looking for the things that he has asked (pled and urged) us to do and I started highlighting the council he repeated. Even though I’m only halfway through his 32 talks, I have already noticed that one of the most prevalent themes in his discourses is the importance of getting to the temple. As I studied the Come, Follow Me chapters this week (Genesis 6-9 and Moses 8), I started noticing right away the connections we can make between the temple and the ark. I'm sure there are a lot more, but here are the parallels I came away with...

• Architecturally, both the ark and temples are massive structures built to hold a lot of people. Both are/were built to save people. Both are/were built to protect the righteous from a flood of wickedness. 
• Both take lots of hard work to prepare to be ready to enter. It took Noah years of physical labor to build the ark and it takes us years of spiritual preparation to be prepared to enter the temple. 
• Being in the ark was the safest place for Noah and his family, President Nelson has said that living within our temple covenants is the safest place we can be. (The Temple and your Spiritual Foundation)
• The ark saved Noah’s family so that the earth could have a second chance of bringing forth a righteous posterity. Through temple work we are able to save people by giving them a second chance to be with their ancestors and posterity forever.
• Noah was continually inviting people to repent so they could join him on the ark. Our prophet continually asks us to repent, come to the temple and invite others to join us there.
• Both the ark and the temple offer safety and refuge to all who are willing to obey God's commandments.
• Both the ark and the temple are associated with covenants. God covenanted with Noah that if he entered the ark that his posterity would continue. When we go to the temple we make covenants with God that allow us to be with our posterity for all eternity. 
• As the flood waters rose, the ark continually rose to stay above the water. As wickedness increases in the world,  the temple is a place of higher ground that helps us rise above the wickedness in the world.

President Nelson is the Noah of our day, pleading with us to get into the ark (temple) so that we can be safe from destruction. As the earth becomes more and more wicked, the Lord is providing more and more places of refuge for His righteous people. The Lord has commanded the prophets of our day, including President Nelson, to dot the earth with more and more temples in order to help His people rise above the wickedness that is flooding the earth. May we learn a lesson from this ancient scriptural account: heed the words of the prophet and we will be saved.