Why the Latter-day Saints Build Temples

My heart was moved today, as I am sure all of your hearts were, as we heard President McKay tell of the achievements and results of the Tabernacle Choir trip and then bear witness of his feelings and sentiments relative to the dedication of the new temple in Switzerland. ¶

It appears from what is going on relative to this temple and others that are in course of construction and are contemplated, that you and I are living in an age when the brethren feel that the great blessings of the temple should be made readily available to people in all nations and in all places where congregations of the Saints are of sufficient numbers to warrant such. ¶

I think if I might have the Spirit for a few moments, that I would like to say something to you as to why the Latter-day Saints build temples. Temples are not just houses of worship; they are not meetinghouses or tabernacles; they are not something designed where we can assemble together and be fed the bread of life and taught our obligations and responsibilities. But temples, as we understand, build, and dedicate them, are sacred sanctuaries, set apart from the world, houses prepared and given to the Lord in which can be performed the ordinances, and in which can be taught the principles, whereby you and I can have opportunity to enter into an eternal fulness in the kingdom of our Father. ¶

When we come out of the world and join the Church, when we become members of this kingdom, we get on a path which is named the "strait and narrow path." Membership in the Church starts us out toward a goal which is called eternal life. Baptism is not an end in itself; it is the beginning of the process of working out our salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord. After we have joined the Church and have come into the kingdom, and have been given the right to the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, then if we press forward and keep the commandments of God, at long last and eventually, we are entitled to an inheritance in his eternal world where the fulness of his glory is found. ¶

As we understand the revelations, when we accept Christ and join the Church, we have power given us to become the sons of God. We are not his sons and daughters by Church membership alone, but we have the ability and the capacity and the power to attain unto that status after we accept the Lord with all our hearts. (See D&C 39:1-6.) ¶

Now the ordinances that are performed in the temples are the ordinances of exaltation; they open the door to us to an inheritance of sonship; they open the door to us so that we may become sons and daughters, members of the household of God in eternity. If we go to the temples with an honest heart and a contrite spirit, having prepared ourselves by personal righteousness and worthiness and proper living, then in those houses we receive the ordinances and the instructions which enable us, if we thereafter continue faithful, to receive eventually the fulness of the Father. ¶

The temple ordinances open the door to gaining all power and all wisdom and all knowledge. Temple ordinances open up the way to membership in the Church of the Firstborn. They open the door to becoming kings and priests and inheriting all things. Now the mere fact that we receive the ordinances in no sense guarantees that we will receive these rewards. The fact that we are sealed in the temple for time and eternity to our wives and our children does not guarantee that in the end we shall obtain those blessings. ¶

In my judgment there is no more important single act that any Latter-day Saint ever does in this world than to marry the right person in the right place by the right authority. The right person is someone for whom the natural and wholesome and normal affection that should exist does exist. It is the person who is living so that he or she can go to the temple of God and make the covenants that we there make. The right place is the temple, and the right authority is the sealing power which Elijah restored. ¶

All of these things, these exaltations and honors and glories, are offered to us and all the world in and through the ordinances that are performed in these sacred sanctuaries which are set apart from the world. After we have partaken of these ordinances, then it is incumbent upon us that we live in harmony with the principles of eternal truth and walk uprightly before the Lord. If we keep the covenants that we have made in these holy places, then we will have reward and honor in eternity, to say nothing of that peace and happiness in this life which is beyond any comprehension or understanding that anyone of the world could have. ¶

It appeals to me that we ought to think, all of us as individuals, since the brethren are doing all the things they are relative to temple building, that this is an age and a time and an hour when all of us ought to set our houses in order and do the things that I am sure we already know we should, in order to become inheritors of these eternal blessings. The blessings come on conditions of personal righteousness, on conditions of overcoming, as the Lord said, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." (Rev. 3:21.) In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶