“The Lord Had Preserved Unto Himself That the Trees Had Become Again the Natural Fruit”

Joseph F. McConkie, Robert L. Millet

Eventually, however, the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters do the sea. But there will be need for the preaching of the gospel, after the millennium is brought in, until all men are either converted or pass away. In the course of the thousand years all men will either come into the Church, or kingdom of God, or they will die and pass away. In that day there will be no death until men are old. Children will not die but will live to the age of a tree.

Isaiah says this is 100 years [Isaiah 65:17-25]. When the time comes for men to die, they will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and there will be no graves.“ (Doctrines of Salvation 1:86-87.) ”It follows, “ wrote Elder Bruce R. McConkie,”that missionary work will continue into the Millennium until all who remain are converted.... Then every living soul on earth will belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.“ (Millennial Messiah, p. 652.)”

“Natural Fruit… Most Precious Unto Him from the Beginning”

Israel has been dear to the heart of Jehovah, not only since her mortal inception in the days of the great patriarchs but also from those premortal times when they distinguished themselves by faithfulness and qualified thereby to tabernacle the flesh through a royal lineage. In speaking of the doctrine of election in the flesh, the doctrine of the foreordination of Israel, President Harold B. Lee, speaking to the members of the Church, said: “You are all the sons and daughters of God. Your spirits were created and lived as organized intelligences before the world was. You have been blessed to have a physical body because of your obedience to certain commandments in that premortal state. You are now born into a family to which you have come, into the nations through which you have come, as a reward for the kind of lives you lived before you came here and at a time in the world’s history, as the Apostle Paul taught the men of Athens [Acts 17:24-27] and as the Lord revealed to Moses [Deuteronomy 32:8-9], determined by the faithfulness of each of those who lived before this world was created....”

Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2

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