Covenants are never mentioned in other churches.  The covenants have been forgotten.  They’re not understood, they’re ignored, and are unimportant in their eyes.

Covenants are the primary focus of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Everything that we do in the Church is done for the purpose of preparing people to make and keep sacred covenants.  Covenants are understood to be crucial to our salvation and exaltation.

We enter into covenants by priesthood ordinances.  The priesthood is not possessed by anyone other than the Latter-day Saints, so no one else is even authorized to administer the ordinances that convey the covenants.  The entire purpose of the Restoration was to bring back the Priesthood so that covenants could be made which would qualify individuals for salvation in the lower kingdoms, and qualify individuals and families for exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom.

Covenants are agreements made between God and man.  They are always made individually, by name, one name at a time.  Each covenant carries a weight of responsibility, and prepares a person for the making of higher covenants.  Some covenants are so sacred that they can only be made in sacred buildings erected for the sole purpose of making covenants.  We build temples for no other reason.

The first covenant that we make is at baptism.  The ordinance of baptism is performed by an authorized holder of the priesthood immersing a person in water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  The baptismal candidate, by submitting to the ordinance, covenants to always remember the Savior and to keep His commandments.

This ordinance has been changed by other churches.  Unauthorized persons dip or sprinkle unworthy candidates—even tiny infants—and preach that baptism is not a necessary, but just an elective, ordinance.  Such a baptism is an abomination in the sight of God.  Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord said, “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.”  (Isa. 24:5).

The second ordinance and covenant that a person accepts is that of confirmation.  This entails the bestowal of the gift of the Holy Ghost by one who has authority to give it, and is done by the laying on of hands.  The covenant that the person makes is that he will receive the Holy Ghost by learning how to hear and heed it.  No other church has the authority to give the gift of the Holy Ghost, and this ordinance has been largely forgotten by all but the Latter-day Saints.

The next covenant that is made by individuals is receiving the priesthood.  This covenant is made by the ordinance of the laying on of hands by one who holds that priesthood.  The covenant that the recipient makes is that he will magnify his calling in the priesthood.

This ordinance has been changed by other churches as well.  Unworthy persons—in some cases even women—are ordained by those who don’t hold the priesthood themselves.  This condition worried Charles Wesley, the brother and partner of John Wesley, who together started the Methodist movement in England in the 1700s.  Charles broke with John over the question of priesthood authority.  Poetically, and insightfully, he said when John ordained Methodism’s first bishop:

“How easily are bishops made

By man’s or woman’s whim;

Wesley his hands on Coke hath laid,

But who laid hands on him?”

The rest of the covenants—the endowment, including initiatory ordinances, and sealings of wives to husbands, and of children to parents—are done solely in the temple.  These covenants and the ordinances that convey them are so necessary, and so sacred, that they aren’t spoken of outside the temple except in general terms.  The endowment is the conferral of sacred knowledge which will enable individuals to walk past the angels, having the key words, and to gain admittance to the everlasting presence of the Father and the Son.

A difficult-to-count number of covenants are made in the initiatory part of the endowment.  Nine separate covenants are made in the endowment session.  Other covenants with eternal, binding implications on the family are made during sealings.

All of these covenants are made individually, between God and a named person, except the sealing covenants.  The sealing covenants are made between a man and his wife and God; or between a couple, their child and God.  They must be made with a man and a woman, or they cannot be made at all.

All of these covenants are absolutely crucial to the exaltation of every man and woman.  Through Moses the Lord admonished:  “Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you…”  (Deut. 4:23).

The world’s great problem is that they’ve not taken heed to that admonition.  They’ve forgotten the covenants.  They don’t even know that they exist.  Every world problem would be solved if all people would make and keep these sacred covenants.

Those that do make and keep sacred covenants can have it all.  The oath and covenant of the priesthood, which in its fullness is held jointly by a man and his wife, promises that “all that (the) Father hath shall be given unto (them).”  (D&C 84:38).