The Savior used the pearl analogy again when he stated that we should not cast our pearls before swine – meaning that holy things are to remain sacred and pure. The same goes for our lives, if we are to be holy. Once we receive temple blessings we need to remain worthy of them and not drag them through the mud. When we become physically dirty or muddy we can wash ourselves and be clean. In a like manner, when we become spiritually dirty or muddy, when we sin and are become as lost sheep as Isaiah stated (see Isaiah 53: 6), then there is a way prepared for us to become clean again. “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isa. 53: 6) but the Good Shepherd, who is also the Lamb of God, prepared the way for us to return to the fold; indeed, He leaves the ninety-nine to search for the one who has wandered and who seeks forgiveness. The light of repentance disperses the darkness of sin.
The Lord promises great blessings to those who return unto him. During the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple, Joseph Smith pleaded: “And when thy people transgress, any of them, they may speedily repent and return unto thee, and find favor in thy sight, and be restored to the blessings which thou hast ordained to be poured out upon those who shall reverence thee in thy house. And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them; And from this place they may bear exceedingly great and glorious tidings, in truth, unto the ends of the earth, that they may know that this is thy work, and that thou hast put forth thy hand, to fulfill that which thou hast spoken by the mouths of the prophets, concerning the last days.” (D&C; 109: 21-23; emphasis added).