Rewards from the Premortal Life

In his last general conference before his death, and as the president of the Church, President Harold B. Lee spoke about developing proper self-respect.  As part of that he spoke about the premortal existence and its effect on us in this life, saying, “All these rewards were seemingly promised, or foreordained, before the world was. Surely these matters must have been determined by the kind of lives we had lived in that premortal spirit world. Some may question these assumptions, but at the same time they will accept without any question the belief that each one of us will be judged when we leave this earth according to his or her deeds during our lives here in mortality. Isn’t it just as reasonable to believe that what we have received here in this earth life was given to each of us according to the merits of our conduct before we came here?”  This is an idea not commonly taught or discussed in the church that the life we have here is affected by what we merited in the premortal realms. 

               President Lee’s assertion that we had the opportunity to choose and progress and use our agency in the premortal world is certainly supported by the scriptures.  This is perhaps best taught in Alma’s great sermon to the people of Ammonihah.  Alma spoke of those who received the Priesthood as having “exceeding faith and good works” and “having chosen good” before coming to earth.  They were not favored unfairly by the Lord but rather “in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren.”  All had the same opportunity to progress, but those who did not harden their hearts were favored.  And yet, what did being favored mean?  It meant having the blessings of the Priesthood, not to glut or gloat, but to serve and teach.  Those ordained to the Priesthood even before the world began were to “teach his commandments unto the children of men, that they might also enter into his rest” (Alma 13:3-6).  If I understand this correctly, then this suggests that those who were faithful in the premortal life were given the opportunity to preach and teach the gospel in this life in order to bring souls back to God.  So the suggestion that being born into the House of Israel with the blessings of the gospel at our fingertips should not make us proud that we may have done good things in the premortal realm, but it should humble us that we now have the responsibility to share the gospel with those who have not been so fortunate.  The great blessing associated with being counted among the “most illustrious lineage of any of those who came upon the earth as mortal beings,” as President Lee put it in the same talk (referring to the House of Israel), is that we can take the gospel to all the world.  As the Lord promised Abraham, “I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel” (Abraham 2:11).  As we consider the great privilege we may have to be born into the circumstances we are in (both physically and spiritually), it should motivate us all the more to share the blessings of the gospel with both the living and the dead.