Promised Land

Every time the full covenant is given, it includes a promised land. The Americas are the land God covenanted to give His people. The gentiles must repent and accept His gospel, not adulterate or change it, to be part of His covenant people.¹Notwithstanding our afflictions, we have obtained a land of promise, a land which is choice above all other lands, a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath consecrated this land unto me and to my children for ever, and also all they who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord (2 Nephi 1:1). This was a covenant made by God to Lehi, as a dispensational head. The beneficiaries of the covenant included Lehi’s family and those who came with them, as well as generations of Lehi’s family who came thereafter. The covenant is made with the dispensation head to allow others to likewise be saved.² “We are all equal. We all accept the Book of Mormon as a covenant for us to be numbered among the Lord’s covenant people. This land in particular, is a land of promise to those who serve the God of this land, who is Jesus Christ (see Ether 1:7). The time is coming when those who are not the Lord’s people will be swept off this land.”³ There is a land inheritance given as part of the covenant, and therefore, if the covenant is kept, there is a right to remain on the land when others will be swept away.⁴ The Lord said in the renewed covenant ordinance: I will raise you up and protect you, abide with you, and gather you in due time, and this shall be a land of promise to you as your inheritance from me (T&C 158:13).