Twenty (1825)
any money? You can buy anything in this world for money!”^56 The messenger then asks
Adam, “Do you sell your tokens and signs for money?”^57
Money Causes Inequality
Joseph Smith knew that almost every person upon the earth “sells their tokens and
signs for money.”^58 In other words, the way we should treat each other—humanely and with
equality—is “sold out” because of money (the abstract value we place on the things of the
world and on each other). When we value the things of the world and what money can buy
more than the hope and effort for total equality among mankind—when, in our hearts, our
personal success and survival is more important than the hope for all mankind to have
access to adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education—then we have sold
out. Joseph taught his followers throughout his life, “there are many called, but few are
chosen...because their hearts are set so much upon the things of the world, and [they] aspire
to the honors of men.”^59 Anyone who has a desire for the things of the world or who aspires
to the honors of men has sold his or her humanity for these things.
Joseph learned through his advanced tutelage that inequality exists because of
money. He knew that “the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their
riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and
others did receive great learning because of their riches.”^60
The Truth Found in the LDS Temple Endowment
In 2007, the resurrected Joseph fully disclosed everything that he taught through
symbolism in the LDS Temple Endowment that he had prepared for the “blind” and “deaf”
people who called themselves his followers. A summary of some of the first things Joseph
learned while attending IMG (Institute for the Mysteries of God) is provided below (with
footnotes added), as published in Sacred, not Secret—The [Authorized and] Official Guide In
Understanding the LDS Temple Endowment:^61
Another wonderful and liberating truth is revealed when one understands why
Elohim commands Peter, James, and John to “visit the man Adam in the Telestial
world, without disclosing your identity.” Here is the simple, yet incredible,
explanation:So long as humans exist in mortality, (while “Satan is there”—meaning that
we have “fallen” and partaken of the “forbidden fruit”), a complete
understanding of real truth is not intended to be a part of the plan set forth for
us. This is so that we can have an existence where we can experience
opposition to the perfect world from whence we came. As explained
previously, “cherubim and the flaming sword (turn all away from) the Tree of
Life.” If the fullness of the truth was known, mortality would lose its
probative value, in that we would not be able to weigh the difference
between a perfect world controlled by the eternal laws of our Creators and
one in which nature is left to itself to unravel into a controlled chaos. Without
the “laws of God,” free-willed beings are in control of everything, having
“dominion over...the whole earth”—making man the “god of this world.” Though