The Lord’s People Always Build Temples for the Performance of Holy Ordinances
Doctrine and Covenants 124:37–44
37 And again, verily I say unto you, how shall your washings be acceptable unto me, except ye perform them in a house which you have built to my name?
38 For, for this cause I commanded Moses that he should build a tabernacle, that they should bear it with them in the wilderness, and to build a house in the land of promise, that those ordinances might be revealed which had been hid from before the world was.
39 Therefore, verily I say unto you, that your anointings, and your washings, and your baptisms for the dead, and your solemn assemblies, and your memorials for your sacrifices by the sons of Levi, and for your oracles in your most holy places wherein you receive conversations, and your statutes and judgments, for the beginning of the revelations and foundation of Zion, and for the glory, honor, and endowment of all her municipals, are ordained by the ordinance of my holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name.
40 And verily I say unto you, let this house be built unto my name, that I may reveal mine ordinances therein unto my people;
41 For I deign to reveal unto my church things which have been kept hid from before the foundation of the world, things that pertain to the dispensation of the fulness of times.
42 And I will show unto my servant Joseph all things pertaining to this house, and the priesthood thereof, and the place whereon it shall be built.
43 And ye shall build it on the place where you have contemplated building it, for that is the spot which I have chosen for you to build it.
44 If ye labor with all your might, I will consecrate that spot that it shall be made holy.
President Henry B. Eyring said:
“Dedicated temples are sacred places where the risen Savior may come. In them we can feel the peace of our associations with Him in the life before. In them we can make the covenants which help us to come unto Him in this life and which will permit Him, if we keep our promises to Him, to take us home to the Father, with our families, in the world to come. Every part of these buildings and all that goes on inside them reflect the love of the Savior for us and our love for Him. . . . He . . . asked His people to gather and to be worthy to build Him a house, that He might direct them and bless them and their families. I know that He lives. I know that Joseph Smith was His prophet and saw in vision . . . the spread of temples across the earth. The Lord has in His loving-kindness entrusted the keys of the priesthood exercised in these temples to His servants, to bless us and our kindred dead and to finish the work for His glorious return. I know that is true, and it brings peace to my heart. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
(“Special Witnesses of Christ,” Ensign, Apr. 2001, 11–12.)
