Difference between revisions of "Question: Did Harold B. Lee state that a person’s economic status or disability were the result of less valiance in the premortal existence?"

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Question: Did Harold B. Lee state that a person’s economic status or disability were the result of less valiance in the premortal existence?

This is a doctrinal or theological topic about which there is no official Church doctrine of which FAIR is aware and/or about which we may learn more "line upon line; precept upon precept" (2 Nephi 28:30; Isaiah 28:10). Leaders and members may have expressed a variety of opinions or positions. Like all material in FAIR Answers, it reflects the best efforts of FAIR volunteers, not an official Church position.

Introduction to Question

In a series of radio lectures given from January 1 to June 24, 1945 and republished in 1973 under the title of Decisions for Succssful Living Elder Harold B. Lee stated the following about

Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: . . . When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." (Deut. 32:7-9.)

164Here several truths are clearly suggested. In the first place, the extent of God's temporal creations was determined by the number of spirits to come into mortality; the earth was to be divided into nations according to the number of the children of Jacob, or Israel, before she became a nation and a chosen lineage was to come through Jacob's posterity. Logically then we also must conclude that the end of this earth will not come until all these spirits who were designated as worthy of mortal bodies shall have been born into this world. In the Apostle Paul's sermon to the Athenians, he declared also that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." (Acts 17:26.) It was no doubt the prospect of coming into mortal bodies and thus being "added upon" that caused the stars of morning, or the spirit children of God, as we are told in the scriptures, to sing together and all the sons of God to shout for joy. (Job 38:4-7.) 164 - 165There is no truth more plainly taught in the Gospel than that our condition in the next world will depend upon the kind of lives we live here. "All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." (John 5:28-29.) Is it not just as reasonable to suppose that the conditions in which we now live have been determined by the kind of lives we lived in the pre-existent world of spirits? That the apostles understood this principle is indicated by their question to the Master when the man who was blind from his birth was healed of his blindness, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" (John 9:2.) Now perhaps you will have a partial answer to some of your questions as to why, if God is a just Father, that some of his children are born of an enlightened race and in a time when the Gospel is upon the earth, while others are born of a heathen parentage in a benighted, backward country; and still others are born to parents who have the mark of a black skin with which the seed of Cain were cursed and whose descendants were to be denied the rights of the priesthood of God. 165A Priceless Privilege 165 - 166The privilege of obtaining a mortal body on this earth is seemingly so priceless that those in the spirit world, even though unfaithful or not valiant, were undoubtedly permitted to take mortal bodies although under penalty of racial or physical or nationalistic limitations. Between the extremes of the "noble and the great" spirits, whom God would make his rulers, 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. It has been said that "a smooth sea never made a skillful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude of the voyager. The mariners of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamaties, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security." 166All Are Equal

166 - 167All are equal in that they are the spirit children of God, and also equal in their right to free agency, as well as in the fact that all are made innocent of previous wrongs committed as they enter this world through the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has told us that "Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God." (Doc. and Cov. 93:38.) Who knows but that many of those with seeming inequalities in this life, if they do everything possible with their limited opportunities, may not receive greater blessings than some of those rewarded by having been born to a noble lineage and to superior social and spiritual opportunities who fail to live up to their great privileges! The history of the Lord's dealings with his children is filled with incidents that indicate that many of those who are the "elect according to the covenant," or that are of the "chosen" of God to be born through the chosen lineage of the House of Israel or the Lord's "portion" in the pre-existent world, will fail of their callings because of their sins. The descendants of Jacob or Israel, through his twelve sons, have been scattered far and wide among the nations as a punishment because of their transgressions, but in this instance the punishment of Israel has been a blessing to the nations who have thereby received the rights belonging to Israel. It was through the lineage of Judah, one of the sons of Jacob, that the Savior was born. Most of the prophets of every dispensation since the days of Israel have been of the chosen lineage of Jacob through his twelve sons, and we are led to believe by the prophets of our own day that the vast majority of those who have received the Gospel are of the tribe of Ephraim. The Indians on the American continent are descendants of the tribes of Ephraim, Judah, and Manasseh, we are told by the Book of Mormon. (Omni 15-19; I Nephi 5:14-16.) Their dark skin was a curse put upon them because of their transgression, which in a day to come in their descendants will be lifted and they will become white and delightsome as they accept the Gospel and turn to the Lord.^[1]

The highlighted portion is most often cited by critics.

Notes

1. ↑ Harold B. Lee, Decisions for Successful Living (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1972), 164–167.