Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley Archives - Gordon B. Hinckley

List of All President Hinckley’s General Conference Talks

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:56:23 +0000

April 1995

October 1995

April 1996

October 1996

April 1997

October 1997

April 1998

October 1998

April 1999

October 1999

April 2000

October 2000

April 2001

October 2001

April 2002

October 2002

April 2003

October 2003

April 2004

October 2004

April 2005

October 2005

April 2006

October 2006

April 2007

177th Semiannual General Conference, October 2007

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Excellence

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:56:23 +0000

“My plea to each of you is that we constantly take the position that every one of us can do better than we are doing. We are in a constant search for excellence. That search must be continuous and never ending. It must be consuming and unrelenting….

In this highly competitive world no one can stand still. There must be constant improvement. There must be wrenching thought, there must be frank and at times brutal discussion, there must be unusual effort in the search for excellence.”

(Search for Excellence,” Bonneville International Corporation Executives, February 6, 1989.)

Baptism

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:45:22 +0000

“Some people wonder why we don’t accept the baptisms of other churches. We don’t for two reasons: It isn’t done in the proper way and it isn’t done by the proper authority. And so, when a convert comes into this Church he must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, by immersion, by one holding the proper priesthood…. What a wonderful thing that is, to know that in similitude of the death and burial and resurrection of the Son of God we have gone down into the water and been immersed in the water and brought forth out of the water. Baptism is a great and sacred and marvelous ordinance that brings with it the remission of sins, but in a larger measure, it is symbolic of the death, burial, and resurrection of our Divine Redeemer.”

(Copenhagen Denmark Fireside, June 14, 1996.)

Purpose of the Church

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:10:16 +0000

“The Church is the great teacher and builder of values. Its precepts are designed to lead men and women along the way of immortality and eternal life, to make their lives more complete, more rich and happy whle moving through this vale of tears, and in preparing them for the beauties and wonders of that which lies ahead. Keep faith with the Church. It is true. It is divine. He who stands at its head is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world. It is the church of the Almighty that carries the name of His divine Son. Its earthly leaders are those who are called of God under a plan that He has put in place.”

(”To a Man Who Has Done What This Church Expects of Each of Us,” BYU 1995-96 Speeches, October 17, 1995, p. 52.)

Plan of Salvation

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:02:40 +0000

“We do not succeed, I believe, until the Spirit of the Lord reaches down into the heart of the people and touches them with that conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Firstborn of the Father, the Only Begotten in the flesh, He who gave His life for each of us. I can’t comprehend, in terms of eternities and the blessings of eternities, the magnitude of the Atonement, but I can sense it and appreciate it in a measure atleast, and the older I grow–and I am getting pretty ancient–the more certain I feel that when all is said and done, that is the key to everything else. That is the heart of the eternal plan of salvation. We lived before we came here. We are here for a purpose. We shall live after we die, and all of it is a part of eternity, and the key to everlasting life is the atonement wrought by the Savior.”

(England Birmingham Missionary Meeting, August 29, 1995.)

Missionary Work

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:57:21 +0000

“We can never hold within ourselves the great blessings of light and truth which have come to us from the Almighty. Ours is an obligation, a serious responsibility to carry to the world not only the secular truth we acquire . . . but also the great good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ours is truly a message of hope and reconciliation. It is a word of hope for all mankind, a beacon of eternal truth to which men may look as they lift their eyes and souls to their Creator and in the process come to recognize their common brotherhood.”

(”A Unique and Wonderful University,” BYU 1988-89 Devotional and Fireside Speeches, October 11, 1988, p. 51.)

The Relevance of Jesus Christ

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:54:27 +0000

“While seated in front of my television screen watching the funeral of General Eisenhower, I reflected on the wonder of the quite man of Galilee, whose life and teachings have ever-increasing relevance in our time–as great a relevance, I would like to say, as in the day that he walked the earth. In response to such a statement as this on another occasion, a straggly haired young intellectual asked, “What relevance? Just what relevance has Jesus for us? Why, he’s as out-of date as the Roman legions who occupied Jerusalem when he was there.”

“Relevance?” I replied. “Ask my friends who tearfully watched the body of a beloved child lowered into the grave. Ask my neighbor who lost her husband in an accident. Ask the fathers and mothers of the thousands of good young men who have died in the steaming jungles of Vietnam. He–the risen Lord Jesus Christ–is their only comfort. There is nothing more relevant to the cold, stark fact of death thanthe assurance of eternal life.” . . .This is the promise of the risen Lord. This is the relevance of Jesus to a world in which all must die. But there is further and ore immediate relevance. As he is the conqueror of death, so also is he the master of life. His way is the answer to the troubles of the world in which we live.”

(”The Wonder of Jesus,” Improvement Era, June 1969, p. 74.)

Enmity & Reconciliation

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:49:18 +0000

If there be any who nurture in their hearts the poisonous brew of enmity toward another, I plead with you to ask the Lord for strength to forgive. This expression of desire will be of the very substance of your repentance. It may not be easy, and it may not come quickly. But if you will seek it with sincerity and cultivate it, it will come. And even though he whom you have forgiven continues to pursue and threaten you, you will know you have done what you could to effect a reconciliation. There will come into your heart a peace otherwise unattainable. That peace will be in the peace of Him who said: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will our Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15.) (Be Thou an Example [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981], pp. 50-51.)

Charity

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:48:59 +0000

If there be any within the sound of my voice who have harbored grudges, who have let hatred develop in their hearts one toward another, I ask you to make the effort to turn around. Hatred always fails and bitterness always destroys, but “charity never faileth.” (1 Cor 13:8) (“‘Charity Never Faileth,'” Ensign, November 1981, p. 98.)

Forgiveness

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:46:42 +0000

“How difficult it is for any of us to forgive those who have injured us. We are all prone ot brood on the evil done us. That brooding becomes as a gnawing and destructive canker. Is there a virtue more in need of application in our time than the virtue of forgiving and forgetting? There are those who would look upon this as a sign of weakness. Is it? I submit that it takes neither strength nor intelligence to brood in anger over wrongs suffered, one’s abilities in planning retribution. There is no peace in the nursing of a grudge. There is no happiness in living for the day when you can “get even.”

(”‘Of You It is Required to Forgive,’” Ensign, November 1980, p. 62.)