Share The Light

The section on plural marriage is very plain indeed and is a fundamental doctrine of our great faith. The responsibility of entering into this eternal principle is shared between a husband and wife as paragraph 61 through 65 explain. The problem that the present LDS membership have to deal with is not so much the Manifesto, which I can kind of understand, well sort of, considering the tumultuous times and the age of the old brethren back then, but it is the attitude of the present leadership. When I was visiting with Larry King once, he told me that President Hinckley had told him that Plural Marriage was never a fundamental principle of our faith. I can’t imagine that Brother Hinckley had forgotten to read the D&C but maybe he had. I don’t know why the present leadership are so ashamed of something that meant so much to the early brethren that it must be discounted as never a fundamental principle. Oh well, that doesn’t matter to me because I am a Mormon fundamentalist and that is not what you asked.

I don’t really know how to convey my answer in a short space but I can give you some advice on what is not acceptable. Don’t try and convert someone else’s wife into joining you in a plural marriage relationship. Adultery won’t make your home more celestial. Teach your wife that plural marriage is a fundamental principle of our faith and help her understand that she also has a responsibility to live the fulness of the gospel. No matter how ready, willing and available some woman may be to join up with you, use the same caution and wisdom that you used in the first place. A woman that will leave someone else will also leave you. An unfaithful wife of someone elses will also be unfaithful to you. A person that does not have faith in God won’t automatically have faith because you do. The ultimate goal of any plural family is to have a friendly happy relationship of sharing caring staying people who will joy in each others joys, sorrow in each others sorrows, and love the faith that will glue them together forever. When you get that far you will know what I mean.

Plural Marriage has also lots of problems. For over 150 years the brethren have been battling with every nasty old battle axe that had an ugly life and cannot see anything decent about two or more woman and one man joined as a family unit. They will raise holy hell, make books, expose every ugly feeling that they had along the way and try and make those feelings credible of every plural situation. They cannot see virtue if they haven’t any, co-operation if they are selfish, beauty when they feel so ugly, and they refuse to believe that anyone could be bound by their faith, because they have no faith, and if they pretend to they have forgotten the basic teachings of Christ. If they had remembered Christ they would not carry on so. Then there is the LDS Church. Is it fair to say that if you started talking about Plural Marriage at your church you would soon not be a member? They used to all say that it was not practiced because it was against the law. It is not against the law for the lawmakers to intimately associate with who and how many, male or female. Dozens of Presidents and Prime Ministers have openly exercised the skeletons in their own closets, skeletons that were more than mere bones, all the while they planned on making more laws against someones basic fundamental religious principles, which by the way is against the law. I wonder what the church will then say to their members when polygamy is no longer illegal?  But, I don’t really care because the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is as old as eternity and the Prophet Joseph said that it was never changing, for he reasoned, if God was always changing, then who could ever really know if they were pleasing him? Faith in him then would no longer exist! The church should study our fundamental principles instead of putting their trust in the arm of flesh. That’s just my opinion.

The best way to get started is get busy. Dozens of lazy men want to be polygamists and generally for all the wrong reasons. Go to work and fall in love with your wife and then go help someone in need. Do what Christ said and help those who you can help whether they like you or not. Keep yourself virtuous, don’t have wicked imaginations, be selective about what you read and watch and take great care to not touch something either mentally or physically that you should not. Let virtue garnish your thoughts unceasingly, then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God and the doctrine of the Priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.  Plural Marriage is a Doctrine of the Priesthood so it stands to reason that a Priesthood that does not honor that Doctrine needs to re-look at their authority. Clean up your yard, your shop, your house, your life. Go to your meetings, socials and functions. Actually, you should go to somewhere where people have the same faith hopes and dreams as you do, then go to meetings, socials and functions. Keep yourself clean physically and mentally. Pay your tithing and help on the projects. It has been my experience that a man who helps and participates, brushes his teeth and is clean is far more attractive than a filthy lazy man and far more desirable. You don’t have to be tall dark and handsome either. Be a man of God and let your light shine before men and woman and they will see your goodworks and some will want to be a part of all that.

It has been my experience that the happiest plural marriage associations are not had in wealth or mansions. They are had by people who make no compromise for their faith, no compromise in their virtue, no compromise in their living habits, and take no chances with their salvation. If you have bad habits then get over them. If you have a tarnished past then repent and don’t look backward anymore. Dispose of your sins and don’t dig them up anymore. Be all that our faith expects you to be and you will be well on the way. What’s more! God will notice you first.

Please forgive me if I have given anyone the idea that I think I am so smart. I am not, but the spirit of the Lord is, and he has said that the gospel is so simple that even a child can understand it. I read the scriptures without trying to introduce a hidden meaning. That is what the Prophet Joseph did and that is what you should do.

The question is about Temples. The first temple ever was built in Kirtland, Ohio. It is beautiful and I have had the privilege of standing by it. It was used as a meeting house, endowment house, school, was a barn for a while and now finally is resurrected back into a temple that you can tour. Several revelations were received in it and several visions. I believe that Elijah appeared there, the one who broght the keys that would turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the children to their old fathers, and I mention it because it is the reason for temple work in the firstplace, to do work for our old fathers who had never heard the gospel.

The temples prepared to do ordinance work for those who had died before they had the opportunity of hearing and believing the gospel. The charge was given the faithful saints to seek out their dead and go and perform their baptisms, sealings, and other sacred work done for those dead relatives, making them saviours of their ancestors.  I went to a funeral a couple years ago for a man that was married to an LDS woman. He was anything but religious and was bad as they get when it came to the carousing category.  Well, the Stake President talked and he said, “boy do we have a surprise for him. We are going to do all his temple work for him and when he comes forth in the resurrection his salvation will be secure”.  Since I am so simple I just laughed to myself. He should have read the fourteenth Chapter of Ezekiel, which was often quoted by the Prophet Joseph.

The Book of Mormon teaches that all will be resurrected exactly as they have died. The filthy will be filthy still.  I don’t care how often you baptize a cutthroat in a sacred temple, nor how many times you marry them for eternity, if they were able to repent, had heard the gospel and refused to do something about their salvation while they were able, they will have to suffer the consequence.

I think over the last hundreds of years every relative known to have existed in our family whether good or bad has been temple worked to death. One of my sisters phoned me once and asked if she could do temple work our dad. It was after he was dead. I told her that I am sure that if it made her feel better then she may just as well.  I did not think it would make any difference to him.

Don’t forget that all the work that must be done in a sacred temple must be done by someone who enjoys the confidence of God so that what they do is respected and honored by him. That is what the Priesthood is. The authority from God to do sacred work for the living and the dead in a manner and fashion that he will approve of. Since he is the judge he won’t honor someone he has not sent. It also must be performed for someone who has forsaken their sins or has never heard the gospel plan in real time enough to accept it while they lived. Since all mankind will continue to be beyond this life what they were in this life, no amount of temple work can make something out of nothing for the living or the dead. That is a fundamental truth of Mormonism.

God will be the final judge of all. He alone knows the thoughts and intent of peoples hearts. He alone can make that call for those who have gone beyond this life. He alone knows whose work he will honor and who has not been given authority from him. Our biggest concern should be, have I done everything that I need to do to be accepted by God?

No, I don’t. I do have feelings about it though. I feel sad for the girl that was married to his brother and then taken from the brother and  put with Raymond in time for her to have such a hard time having a baby. I feel sad that Warren took time to write about the event in his dictations and did not take the time to get her some medical help. I feel sad that Allen  was dismissed from Texas but this time I was happy to read that his dictated crime was for questioning the age of a daughter wanted as a comfort wife.  Allen deserved better than that for defending his family. I feel sad that Merrill participated in all of this, and I am sad for Mike, Guy, Eddie, Tom and the other Allen, who were just as fine a people that you have ever come across. I am sad for LeRoy, Ron, Dan, Ben and my daughter Susie for not doing the simple thing of comparing what was being said by what the prophets have already said. It only takes a minute. I am sad for Jimmy, Ken, Ray, Brandon and my old brother Mac. I am sad for Kathy, Orval, and Kendal. Ken, your kids are beautiful. I am sad for Brian, Merrill, Mem and Mary.

But most of all I am sad for Willie. My good old friend Willie. I was so proud of Willie when he stood up and started talking. Now Willie please take some advice from an old friend and do some listening. Be Coriantumr instead of Shiz, who at least tried to make peace before all the Jaredites were killed. I don’t think it was any fun being the only person left.

I can just hear the scholars groan.  I will give you my simple answer.  Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost is always associated with baptism, and baptism as an ordinance is defined in the Book of Mormon to be administered to those who have forsaken their sins and shown that they have by their works. They must show sorrow for their faults, correct their lives by disposing of their faults, and then wish to be baptized, seeking to take upon themselves the name of Jesus Christ, walking in his teachings and keeping his commandments.  In this repentant condition and after the ordinance of baptism they are in the proper mind frame for the “gift of the Holy Ghost” which will give them new vision, or the ability to see themselves as God sees them. If they keep the commandments of God then they will continue to have good judgement, justice, mercy, and they will love the truth, seek it out, not judge anyone on untruths, and in essence they will become a new person fashioned after the great example and giver of the gift.  The spirit of God(Holy Ghost) will be their companion and guide and lead them back into the presence of God from whence we all came.

The important part of it all is that if a person has not changed(repented) then baptism will do them no good really. You may just as well baptize a bag of sand for all the good that it will do them. It is just like an ordination to a responsible positon in the church.  You could gather in mass and ordain a nasty, sulking, aspiring man to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and what would you have? A nasty, sulking, aspiring man who did not have the Holy Ghost to verify his works, because, you can confer the Gift of the Holy Ghost upon anyone but they are the one person that must do the work to make it stay with them! Would they have authority through ordination? All the influence that you are willing to let them have in your life is what they have. If they have not had that change required by God in order to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, then they have no authority with God and every work that they do for you will be counted as dead works.