LDS Quotes on Ordinances
“Baptism is a once-in-a-lifetime ordinance. We are baptized on one occasion only—for the remission of our sins, for entrance into the earthly church, and for future admission into the kingdom of heaven.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith
“The Latter-day Saints are a covenant people. From the day of baptism through the spiritual milestones of our lives, we make promises with God and He makes promises with us. He always keeps His promises offered through His authorized servants, but it is the crucial test of our lives to see if we will make and keep our covenants with Him.”
| “Witnesses for God,” Ensign, November 1996, p. 30
“We go to the temple to make covenants, but we go home to keep the covenants that we have made. The home is the testing ground. The home is the place where we learn to be more Christlike. The home is the place where we learn to overcome selfishness and give ourselves in service to others.”
| Ensign, May 1995, p. 12
“As to the question of authority, nearly everything depends upon it. No ordinance can be performed to the acceptance of God without divine authority. No matter how fervently men may believe or pray, unless they are endowed with divine authority they can only act in their own name, and not legally nor acceptably in the name of Jesus Christ, in whose name all these things must be done.”
| Gospel Doctrine, 102.
“All the sacrifice that the Lord asks of his people is strict obedience to our own covenants that we have made with our God, and that is to serve him with an undivided heart.”
| Journal of Discourses, 18:246
“He [Joseph Smith] conducted us through with all the ordinances he rejoiced very much, and [said], now if they kill me you have got all the keys, and all the ordinances and you can confer them upon others, and the hosts of Satan will not be able to tear down the kingdom.”
| Times and Seasons, September 15, 1844, 651
| Always Retain a Remission of Your Sins - April 2016
“No more sacred ordinance has been given to us by the Lord than the administration of the Sacrament.”
| Conference Report, October 1956, 88.
[A sacrament is] “a pledge and promise on man’s part to forsake personal sins, knowing that if he does so he will be blessed by the Lord. When the saints partake of the ordinance of the sacrament, they promise not simply to keep the commandments in general, but also to serve and conform and obey where they as individuals have fallen short in the past. Every man’s sacraments are thus his own; he alone knows his failures and sins, and he alone must overcome the world and the flesh so that he can have fellowship with the saints.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith
“the sacrament of the Lord’s supper is an ordinance of salvation in which all the faithful must participate if they are to live and reign with him.”
| The Promised Messiah
“An eternal perspective helps us maintain complete fidelity to the covenants we make. President Packer emphasized that “ordinances and covenants become our credentials for admission into [God’s] presence. To worthily receive them is the quest of a lifetime; to keep them thereafter is the challenge of mortality.”
| “Prepare for Blessings of the Temple,” Ensign, March 2002, p. 22
“Being born again, comes by the Spirit of God through ordinances.”
| Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith
“A covenant made with God should be regarded not as restrictive but as protective.”
| “Prepare for Blessings of the Temple,” Ensign, March 2002, pp. 21-22
“Divine covenants make strong Christians. I urge each one to qualify for and receive all the priesthood ordinances you can and then faithfully keep the promises you have made by covenant. In times of distress, let your covenants be paramount and let your obedience be exact. Then you can ask in faith, nothing wavering, according to your need, and God will answer. He will sustain you as you work and watch. In His own time and way He will stretch forth his hand to you, saying, “Here am I.”
| “The Power of Covenants,” Ensign, May 2009, p. 22
“In our day, the steadying arm of the Lord reaches us through the ordinances of His holy temples. Said the Prophet Joseph to the early Saints in Nauvoo, ‘You need an endowment, brethren, in order that you may be prepared and able to overcome all things.’ How right he was! Being blessed with the temple covenants and endowed with power made it possible for the Latter-day Saints to endure tribulation with faith. At the end of her own pioneer journey, Sarah Rich recorded, ‘If it had not been for the faith and knowledge that was bestowed upon us in that temple… our journey would have been like… taking a leap in the dark.'”
| "Faith through Tribulation Brings Peace and Joy," Ensign (CR), May 2003, p.15
“From the day of baptism through the spiritual milestones of our lives we make promises with God and He makes promises with us. He always keeps His promises offered through His authorized servants, but it is the crucial test of our lives to see if we will make and keep our covenants with Him.”
| Ensign, November 1996
“If we will keep our covenants, our covenants will keep us spiritually safe.”
| Ensign, May 1987, p. 71
Without the sealings that create eternal families and link generations here and hereafter, we would be left in eternity with neither roots nor branches—that is, neither ancestry nor posterity.
[After giving the first endowments, Joseph Smith said to Brigham Young:] “Brother Brigham, this is not arranged perfectly; however we have done the best we could under the circumstances in which we are placed. I wish you to take this matter in hand: organize and systematize all these ceremonies.
| L. John Nuttall diary, February 7, 1877, quotes in BYU Studies 19
We are in possession of all the ordinances that can be administered in the flesh; but there are other ordinances and administrations that must be administered beyond this world. I know you would ask what they are. I will mention one. We have not, neither can we receive here, the ordinance and the keys of the resurrection. They will be given to those who have passed off this stage of action and have received their bodies again, as many have already done and many more will. They will be ordained, by those who hold the keys of the resurrection, to go forth and resurrect the Saints. . . .This is one of the ordinances we cannot receive here, and there are many more.
| The Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 397
“Holiness is the strength of the soul. It comes by faith and through obedience to God’s laws and ordinances. God then purifies the heart by faith, and the heart becomes purged from that which is profane and unworthy. When holiness is achieved by conforming to God’s will, one knows intuitively that which is wrong and that which is right before the Lord. Holiness speaks when there is silence, encouraging that which is good or reproving that which is wrong.”
The constant exercise of our faith by lofty thinking, prayer, devotion, and acts of righteousness is just as essential to spiritual health as physical exercise is to the health of the body. Like all priceless things, faith, if lost, is hard to regain. Eternal vigilance is the price of our faith. In order to retain our faith we must keep ourselves in tune with our Heavenly Father by living in accordance with the principles and ordinances of the gospel.
| Ensign, July 1973, p. 59
“Each ordinance and requirement given to man for the purpose of bringing to pass his salvation and exaltation is a covenant.”
| Doctrines of Salvation