There's a little bit of tension in the scriptures between the
idea that we should keep ourselves separate from the world and the idea that we invite all
to come unto Christ. Now these two impulses don't automatically cancel each other out
but they sometimes do come into conflict because we don't want to spend our time in bad places,
but we also want to recruit people from those bad places to come into good places
and make sacred covenants with the Savior. We could boil a lot of these questions down
to just one simple one. Is the church inclusive? Or is the church exclusive? There are some people
that accuse us of being a little snobbish, a little clannish and kind of keeping to
our own and yet at the same time on every single church building that we meet in it says visitors
welcome and we invite all to come unto Christ and we send missionaries to literally try and
drag people to the church so that they can come and partake of the blessings that we enjoy too.
In Nauvoo these tensions are in play, and they're built into the very foundations of the city as
Joseph Smith and the saints first arrived there. But first maybe a little bit of background about
Nauvoo. Nauvoo is maybe the place where Joseph Smith is able to most fully carry out the vision
that God reveals to him about what a heavenly city should be like. Near the end of his life
Joseph Smith is going to gaze on Nauvoo and say “This is the loveliest place and the best people
under the heavens.” He loves Nauvoo and section 124 of the Doctrine and Covenants which is the
first section received in Nauvoo is sort of a blueprint for how he's supposed to build the city.
They were worried that part of the reason why they were persecuted in Missouri
was because maybe they were a little bit too clannish, a little bit
too on their own. But they were also worried about leaving the world behind and keeping themselves
sanctified. So in section 124 the Savior gives them instructions on how to set up the city.
He tells them to write a proclamation to the world to explain why Latter-day Saints do what they do,
that's inclusive. He tells them to build the temple, not surprisingly temples
are exclusive in some ways. Not everybody can come to a temple; they have to qualify and receive the
ordinances. But in the Nauvoo temple for the first time they're going to practice ordinances like
baptism for the dead and endowments and sealings and all those wonderful things that we enjoy.
What sometimes gets overlooked in section 124 is that there is a second house besides the temple
that they're supposed to build as well, and this is an inclusive structure.
Down by the river in Nauvoo there is a place that they're supposed to build called the Nauvoo House.
And the Savior gives the following instructions in verse 23. “It shall be a house for boarding,
a house that strangers may come from afar to lodge therein; therefore let it be a good house,
worthy of all acceptation, that the weary traveler may find health and safety while he
shall contemplate the word of the Lord; and the cornerstone I have appointed for Zion.”
So up on the bluff you're going to have this beautiful majestic temple that only those that
are qualified for can enter into. That's an exclusive structure, a place where you can go
to flee the world. But down by the river you're going to build a house worthy of acceptation
where all people can come and see and behold the goodness of the saints. As Nauvoo develops these
two places will become kind of the poles that Nauvoo is built upon. Just as much effort goes
into building the Nauvoo house, this inclusive structure on the banks of the river as there does
that goes into building the Nauvoo temple itself. And the two together represent the saint's vision
where they're escaping the world but they're inviting everybody that's willing to come
along with them even if they only stay for a little while to see who we are and what we can do.
Over the course of their time in Nauvoo these two buildings continue to be constructed
and just so you know a little bit about how important the Nauvoo house was,
Joseph Smith takes the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon and places it in the cornerstone
of the Nauvoo house. The church sells stock certificates to try and help people raise funds
to build the Nauvoo house and when the church finally has to leave Nauvoo and ends up in Salt
Lake City as its new headquarters, they do the same thing. They build the temple
and then they build a house of inclusion which becomes the Hotel Utah, later the Joseph Smith
memorial building, later visitors centers and all kinds of facilities where people can come
and learn about the Saints and know a little bit about who and what they are and what they teach.
Each one of these houses is important and teaches an important principle. You'll find on the outside
of the Nauvoo temple a beautiful array of symbols that represent the growing complexity of the
Saint's beliefs. There's moonstones and sunstones and starstones on the temple to show how it
mirrors the church as it's described in the Book of Revelation but also to invite people to come
into the temple and learn the mysteries of the universe. In Nauvoo for a really,
really long time if you had gone there say prior to the year 2000 or so you would have
just seen an empty field with the outlines of where a temple once stood. Today once again in
Nauvoo a beautiful and majestic temple rises up on the bluff and it's not just a pretty monument to
what the Saints built in Nauvoo, it's a living functioning temple that anyone can enter into
and if they've qualified and become worthy receive the ordinances of the gospel.
You see we sometimes talk about the temple like it is an exclusionary house but it's really not.
It's inclusionary in the sense that any person can choose to qualify for those ordinances
and then enter into the house of the Lord and enter into this great relationship
with the Savior. In this sense the House of Israel is the royal family
of the earth but it's a royal family that just about anybody can join. As long as they're
willing to qualify for the blessings and enter into these sacred covenants.
In Nauvoo today the temple stands but the Nauvoo house is still unfinished. Partially finished
a little bit later on by Emma Smith's second husband Lewis Bidamon, the riverside mansion
stands in Nauvoo as a testament to what the Saints are trying to accomplish. And maybe in some ways
by not rebuilding the Nauvoo house we've invited the Saints to everywhere, in every place invite
people to come unto him. o come and learn that the Saints are good and then find out if they want to
be a Saint as well. And if they want to be a Saint to ascend the hill up to where the temple is, to
enter into the temple to enter into covenants and finally to enter into the presence of the Lord.