House of Israel Quotes

“Once we know who we are, and the royal lineage of which we are a part, our actions and directions in life will be more appropriate to our inheritance.” (Russell M. Nelson, “Thanks for the Covenant,” 1988-89Brigham Young University Devotional and Fireside Speeches, p. 59) 

“Who are you? You are all the sons and daughters of God. Your spirits were created and lived as organized intelligences before the world was. You have been blessed to have a physical body because of your obedience to certain commandments in that premortal state. You are now born into a family to which you have come, into the nations through which you have come, as a reward for the kind of lives you lived before you came here and at a time in the world’s history, as the Apostle Paul taught the men of Athens and as the Lord revealed to Moses, determined by the faithfulness of each of those who lived before this world was created.” (Harold B. Lee, in Conference Report, Oct. 1973,7; or Ensign, January 1974, 5)

“Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. I suppose I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council.” (Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 365)

“The spirits of men had their free agency, some were greater than others, and from among them the Father called and foreordained his prophets and rulers. . . . The spirits of men were not equal. They may have had an equal start, and we know they were all innocent in the beginning; but the right of free agency which was given to them enabled some to outstrip others, and thus, through the eons of immortal existence, to become more intelligent, more faithful, for they were free to act for themselves, to think for themselves, to receive the truth or rebel against it.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:59) 

President Spencer W. Kimball, referring to our pre-earth life, said, “Here you and I made . . . an oath that we would do all things whatsoever the Lord our God shall command us. While we do not remember the details, we made these covenants. We committed ourselves to our Heavenly Father that . . . we would keep our lives clean and would marry in the holy temple and rear a family and teach them righteousness. This was a solemn oath, a solemn promise, an eternal commitment.” (Spencer W. Kimball, “Be Ye Therefore Perfect,” address given at the Institute of Religion at the University of Utah, Jan. 10, 1975. Quote printed in Our Destiny by Robert L. Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie, p. 23) 

Bruce R. McConkie stated that the royal lineage were entitled to three things. “I have a right to them…” he declared, “a right that I earned in the pre-existence when the Lord decided that I should be born in the lineage that is royal. The royal lineage! It is their right to have the priesthood, the gospel, and eternal life.” (Bruce R. McConkie, “The Promises Made to the Fathers,” in Studies in Scripture 3:54 )

Will those in the other kingdoms besides the celestial, have the gospel taught to them?

Yes, all truth is gospel truth; and every soul eventually must become acquainted with the plan of salvation, at least as far as it is possible for him to do. We read that every knee must bow and every tongue confess Jesus Christ as the Son of God. This being true, then every soul must know something about him.

But matters which have been held in reserve for the faithful and which have been kept hid from the world by divine decree since before the foundation of the earth, need not be known after the resurrection any more than before, to those who are not entitled to receive them. For instance, there will be covenants and obligations required of these who enter into the exaltation which in no way will apply to those who do not enter into the exaltation, for they do not receive the fulness. In every kingdom the inhabitants must know that they have been redeemed from death, and have received such blessings as are granted them, through the mercy of Jesus Christ.  (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2:23)

Between the extremes of the “noble and the great” spirits, whom God would make His rulers (see Abraham 3:22-23), and the disobedient and the rebellious, who were cast out with Satan, there were obviously many spirits with varying degrees of faithfulness. May we not assume from these teachings that the progress and development we made as spirits have brought privileges and blessings here according to our faithfulness in the spirit world? Now don’t be too hasty in your conclusions as to what conditions in mortality constitute the greater privileges. That condition in life which gives the greatest experience and opportunity for development is the one to be most desired and any one so privileged is most favored of God. . . . 

Now, don’t misunderstand as to just what may be a great privilege or opportunity. Sometimes to be born through the channels of adversity is to have had the greatest opportunity. Just because we haven’t been born rich, for instance, may be the greatest blessing we could possibly have. Perhaps some physical infirmities might be a blessing. (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, p. 23 )

“It would seem very clear, then that those born to the lineage of Jacob, who was later to be called Israel, and his posterity, who were known as the children of Israel, were born into the most illustrious lineage of any of those who came upon the earth as mortal beings. 

“All these rewards were seemingly promised, or foreordained, before the world was. Surely these matters must have been determined by the kind of lives we had lived in that premortal spirit world. Some may question these assumptions, but at the same time they will accept without any question the belief that each one of us will be judged when we leave this earth according to his or her deeds during our lives here in mortality. Isn’t it just as reasonable to believe that what we have received here in this earth [life] was given to each of us according to the merits of our conduct before we came here?” (Harold B. Lee, CR, Oct. 1973,7-8; or Ensign, January 1974, 5) 

(in response to Abraham 2:9-11) “How glorious is the promise! The seed of Abraham shall take the gospel and the priesthood to all nations, and those who accept the divine word shall become as though they too were the chosen seed. And also: The literal seed of Abraham’s body, his natural descendants, those born with his blood flowing in their veins — though they be scattered and scourged and lost in all nations — yet they have a right to certain blessings. They have a right to hear the gospel, and if they accept it, to receive the priesthood, to have their own family units continue everlastingly so that they with Abraham shall have eternal life. If they believe, they have the right to the gospel, the priesthood, and eternal life because they are the seed of Abraham. The Lord operates through families; in general he sends his choice spirits to earth in the lineage of Abraham.”  (Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 37) 

“‘Ye are the children of the prophets: and ye are of the house of Israel: and ye are of the covenant which the Father made with your fathers, saying unto Abraham: And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.’ So spoke the Risen Lord to the Nephite remnant of Israel: so might the Mortal Lord have spoken to those Jews who stood in his presence on this 18th day of October, A.D. 29, on the octave of the Feast of Tabernacles in that year; and so might he speak to that remnant of his ancient people who have been gathered into the true fold and kingdom in our day. 

“Children of the prophets! The literal seed of Abraham, the seed of his body, his posterity who are natural heirs of the blessings of their father! And those blessings are the blessings of celestial marriage, of an enduring family unit, of posterity both in the world and out of the world, as numerous as the sands upon the seashore or as the stars in the heavens. They are the blessings of eternal increase, of eternal life in the Everlasting Presence.”  (Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah, p. 160) 

President James E. Faust has said: “As President Joseph Fielding Smith stated, ‘The great majority of those who become members of the Church are literal descendants of Abraham through Ephraim, son of Joseph’ (Doctrines of Salvation, 3:246). However, Manasseh, the other son of Joseph, as well as the other sons of Jacob, has many descendants in the Church. 

“. . . We believe that the house of Israel today constitutes a large measure of the human family. Because the tribes have intermixed one with another, one child may be declared to be from the tribe of Ephraim and another of the same family from Manasseh or one of the other tribes.” (CR, Oct. 1995, p. 83; or Ensign, Nov. 1995, p. 64) 

“We are called of God. We have been gathered from the distant nations, and our lives have been hid with Christ in God, but we have not known it. The Lord has been watching over us from the hour of our birth. We are of the seed of Ephraim, and of Abraham, and of Joseph, who was sold into Egypt, and these are the instruments that God has kept in the spirit world to come forth in these latter days to take hold of this kingdom and build it up.” (Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, 22:223.) 

“I have heard people say , and members of the Church too, ‘ I have a right to do as I please.’ My answer is: No, you do not. You haven’t any right at all to do just as you please. There is only one right that you have, and that is to do just what I read to you: keep the commandments of Jesus Christ. He has a perfect right to tell us so. We have no right to refuse. I do not care where he lives, or what he is — when the gospel of Jesus Christ is presented to him, he has no right to refuse to receive it. He has the privilege. He is not compelled to receive it, because our Father in heaven has given to everyone of us in the Church and out, the gift of free agency. That free agency gives us the privilege to accept and be loyal to our Lord’s commandments. But it has never given us the right to reject them. Every man who rejects the commandments of our Father in heaven is rebellious.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, CR, April 1967, pp. 120-121) 

“So we need, in this Church and Kingdom, for our own and the world’s welfare a group of men and women in their individual lives who shall be as a light to the nations, and really standards for the world to follow. Such a people must be different from the world as it now is. There is no opportunity for Latter-day Saints to say we shall be as the world is, unless the world has the same aim that we have. We are here to build Zion to Almighty God, for the blessing of all the world. In that aim we are unique and different from all other people. We must respect that obligation, and not be afraid of it. We cannot walk as other men, or talk as other men, or do as other men, for we have a different destiny, obligation, and responsibility placed upon us, and we must fit ourselves for that great destiny and obligation.” (Widtsoe, CR, April, 1940, p.36) 

More information regarding the scattering and gathering of Israel