LDS Quotes About the Restoration
“If at this moment each one of you were asked to state in one sentence the most distinguishing feature of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what would be your answer? My answer would be divine authority by direct revelation.”
| Conference Report, April 1937
“The history of the Relief Society is filled with accounts of such remarkable selfless service. In the terrible days of persecution and deprivation as the faithful moved from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois and then across the deserts going west, the sisters in their poverty and sorrows cared for others. You would weep as I did if I now read to you some of the accounts in your history. You would be touched by their generosity but even more by your recognition of the faith which lifted and sustained them…They came from a great diversity of circumstances. All faced the universal trials and heartaches of life. Their determination born of faith to serve the Lord and others seemed to take them not around the storms of life but directly into them. Some were young and some old. They were from many lands and peoples, as you are today. But they were of one heart, one mind, and with one intention.”
| The Enduring Legacy of Relief Society
The war in heaven never ended, we simply switched battlefields. In pre-earth life Satan sought us by gift and was rejected with his plan by our Father in Heaven. Now, here upon the earth, he seeks us by the commission of sin. During the Missouri persecutions there were many who apostatized from the Church and even became enemies. The Prophet Joseph Smith spoke of their sad state and warned against apostasy.
At the conclusion of the Prophet’s remarks, Isaac Behunnin, a member of the Church, stated: “If I should leave this Church, I would not do as those men have done – I would go to some remote place where Mormonism had never been heard of, settle down, and no one would ever learn that I knew anything about it.” To which Joseph Smith replied: “Brother Behunnin, you don’t know what you would do. No doubt these men once thought as you do. Before you joined this church you stood on neutral ground. When the gospel was preached good and evil were set before you. You could choose either or neither. There were two opposite masters inviting you to serve them. When you joined this church you enlisted to serve God. When you did that you left the neutral ground, and you never can get back on to it. Should you forsake the Master you enlisted to serve, it will be by the instigation of the evil one, and you will follow his dictation and be his servant.” He [further] emphasized the fact that a man or woman who had not taken sides either with Christ or Belial could maintain a neutral position, but when they enlisted under either the one or the other, they left the neutral ground forever. (Juvenile Instructor, Aug. 15, 1892, p. 492). . . Why is it, then, that the apostates will not leave the Church alone? Because they are the servants of sin and have another master whose bidding they now do.
| Church News, January 4, 1997, p. 13
“At a time when the origins of Christianity were under assault by the forces of Enlightenment rationality, Joseph Smith [unequivocally and singlehandedly] returned modern Christianity to its origins in revelation.”
“I cannot believe in any of the creeds of the different denominations, because they all have some things in them I cannot subscribe to, though all of them have some truth. I want to come up into the presence of God, and learn all things; but the creeds set up stakes, and say, ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further’; which I cannot subscribe to.”
| History of the Church, 4:536
“Section 10 of the Doctrine and Covenants contains a rather remarkable reassurance. The date is April 1829, a year before the Church was restored. In this revelation, the Lord refers consistently to his Church as something that already exists. The Restoration, he says, will not ‘destroy that which my people have already received.’ ‘Therefore,’ he continues, ‘whosoever belongeth to my church [in 1829] need not fear, for such shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.’ Those who belong to his church, he tells us, will receive more light. In his words, ‘a part of my gospel’ will be theirs. But this will not, he repeats reassuringly, ‘destroy my church, but I say this to build up my church.'”
“The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the apostles and prophets, concerning Jesus Christ. That he died, was buried, and rose again at the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”
“Because Heavenly Father loves His children, He has not left them to walk through this mortal life without direction and guidance.”
“It is clearly apparent that there have been and now are many choice, honorable, and devoted men and women going in the direction of their eternal salvation who give righteous and conscientious leadership to their congregations in other churches. Joseph Smith evidently had many warm and friendly contacts with ministers of other religions. Quite a few of them joined the Church: Sidney Rigdon, John Taylor, Parley P. Pratt, and others in America and England. Some of them who carried the Christian attitude of tolerance did not join the Church. There are many others like them today.”
| “It’s a Two-Way Street”
“I bear my witness to you that if a record had been made of all those who have been afflicted, those who have been given up to die, and who have been healed by the power of God, since the establishment of the Church of Christ in our day, it would make a book much larger than the New Testament. More miracles have been performed in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than we have any account of in the days of the Savior and His Apostles. Today, sickness is cured by spiritual power. . . . The dead have been raised. My own brother was announced to be dead, but by the prayer of faith he lives and presides over one of the stakes of Zion. I know, as I know I live, that the healing power of Almighty God . . . is in the Church of Christ of which you and I are members.”
| Conference Report, October 6, 1910, p. 119