A sermon by Rulon C. Allred (Feb. 3, 1975)

Rulon C. Allred

By Rulon C. Allred (1906-1977)

This is a posting of a sermon by Rulon C. Allred, given on February 3, 1975 at the Relief Society meeting in Pinesdale, Montana.

Recently, a man who is a troubleshooter for the Church, especially as it relates to those who are teaching plural marriage, made a speech in Riverton, out near Bluffdale, because a week ago Sunday, Church representatives were in our Bluffdale meeting. I saw them there and felt impressed to speak boldly and directly upon the subject of plural marriage, the reasons we sustained it and upheld it and the reasons we were willing to sacrifice the love of the world, our freedom from prosecution and even go to prison or death in order to sustain it if necessary. Some of the leaders of the Church were so upset about that address and the report that was made by the three brethren who visited us that they decided that this man, the chosen troubleshooter, should go out to the ward there and make ample announcements everywhere that the meeting was being held and refute the things that I said. I have a copy of his address. If I had that copy with me tonight I would like to take a little time refuting some of the positions that he has assumed. 

However, I would like to talk to you ladies about some of the conclusions that he makes. He said that most all of those who were becoming apostates from the Church, used as a basis for their apostasy the discontinuation of the practice of plural marriage. They seemed to assume that any changes that were made in the mechanics of the preaching of the gospel and the organization of the Church and the administration of its ordinances were contrary to the will of God. He cited at least a half dozen instances where God had voided, according to his statement, His own word, that God was not an unchanging God, that He did change to meet the requirements of the people in whichever day or age His gospel was preached. In the days of ancient Israel when Moses was taken from their midst, He changed the administration of the law and He tried to give them the fulness of the gospel. They were not qualified and He therefore gave them a lesser law. And they were justified in abiding that lower law, and those who didn't abide by the restrictions were apostates.  

He stated that in the days when Lehi and his people left Jerusalem, when Jacob became the head Nephite prophet of the nation after Lehi and Nephi were dead, that Jacob received a revelation from God putting a stop, absolute stop, to the practice of plural marriage, that that was the will of God to the people and that they were commanded that none of them should have save it be one wife, and concubines they shall have none. And he commanded all men that they should not kill. But in the case of Nephi, Nephi was commanded to kill and did kill Laban. John Taylor revoked the principle of teaching the gospel without purse or scrip in 1875 and sent missionaries into the field. And since that time that order of things has been followed, and that was the will of God. Plural marriage was given as an essential to salvation, but God had revoked that in 1890 with the Manifesto, and all those who were living it contrary to the leadership of the accepted prophet, seer and revelator of the Church, were apostates.

I have summed up his remarks only partly. I would like to have read them; they were very well presented. The statement of the Prophet Joseph was true when he said that all of the prophets were ordained of God, and that must have included such prophets who lived in that day when the law of Moses was in force, such as Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, and many others of those individuals, Isaiah, Jeremiah and many others of those individuals who came up into the presence of God. Now, the Nephites when they were upon this land lived strictly according to the laws of Moses. The Nephites when they were upon this land as a people were under a restriction that they could have one wife only, unless God commanded otherwise. And after all, that's why we are living the law of plural marriage today, because God commanded otherwise, and God said He would not revoke that law. And all those who would enter into the fulness of His glory must abide by its conditions. The Book of Mormon plainly brings out that there was certain to be some of the prophets of God referred to in the Book of Mormon, who did live plural marriage, notwithstanding the restriction upon the people as a body.  

So we can come to Jacob, the 2nd Chapter, in which he said the Lord took from them the right to live that law, that the Lord Himself in His own words said, "If I will raise up a choice seed unto me, I will command my people. Otherwise they shall hearken unto these things." And God certainly did command certain of His prophets in every dispensation of the world who were worthy to live that holy law, to receive the ordinances and the blessings predicated upon obedience to it. 

Then we come to John Taylor's statement that he had done away with the law of teaching the gospel without purse and scrip. I do not think this is a deliberate misrepresentation by the speaker, but it is an untruth nevertheless. John Taylor did not revoke nor change that principle in the least. In the early days of the Church, people were so poor that when the elders were sent out they left their homes without any monetary means from their families. They went into the mission field, and they traveled around the world without purse or scrip, without means or without assistance from any source, from the Church or their families. But he said, "We are now much better off than we were then. Many of our families are perfectly qualified and equipped to give our missionaries leaving for their fields of labor enough money to get them into the field. Therefore, it will shorten the long, laborious time and effort and work that otherwise would have to be endured by the missionaries to get there." And when they got out in the missionary field, they preached without purse or scrip. The speaker has used this as an example of how it was revoked or changed.  

Now, God can revoke. Whatever God does is right, for this simple reason: That we are His children and He is our Supreme Governor, and He is perfect. Whatever He does is for our glory and the advancement of His work. In His supremacy and omnipotence, if in some instance He says, "Under this particular instance thou shalt not do this," then you shall not do it. Or, "In this particular instance thou shalt do this." Then you should do it. Nephi could have said, "Well, I'm not going to kill this man because You said thou shalt not kill, and I will not kill him." But it was Almighty God who told him to kill this man in order that a whole nation might not perish. But that didn't let the bars down because God said to Nephi, "You shall kill Laban, and from now on everybody can kill anybody they want to," did it? And He didn't let the bars down perpetually upon the Nephites when God said, "You shall have one wife and cleave unto her only. Concubines you shall have none unless I command otherwise." It didn't tie the Lord's hands so that He couldn't command otherwise.

One of the things that the speaker said is that Brother Rulon is a sincere man. He is a good speaker; he believes in right. But he has been deceived. He is going around deceiving others. He said, "I want to warn you people against this man because if you get interested, he will deceive you." If I am deceived, then Joseph Smith was deceived. This law had to be lived. We could not be redeemed without it, and if he didn't live it, the keys would be turned against him. He was indefensible. If I am deceived, Brigham Young was deceived when he said that no man could become a God or a son of God unless he entered into polygamy. If I am deceived, Heber C. Kimball was deceived when he said, "There are some of you here in this audience," in a conference address, "who are putting a knife to Brother Brigham's and into my heart in trying to sink celestial plural marriage out of existence. You cannot do this without suffering the damnation of hell." We have a lot of people in the entire echelon of the Church who have been deceived. And if that's so, what kind of Church have we got, if its founders and its leaders were deceived?

In 1882 the Lord told President Wilford Woodruff when he received a revelation on that subject, "Woe unto that nation or that house or that people which seeks to hinder my people from living the patriarchal law of Abraham which leadeth unto celestial glory. They shall not escape the judgments which I have decreed through the mouth of my servant Joseph, which should be poured out upon the wicked of this generation." Evidently the Lord had been deceived. The leaders of the Church are opposing it now, and it's perfectly all right; it's the will of God. God had to change His mind. Evidently Lorenzo Snow was deceived when he was brought up and sentenced to jail. Attorney Bierbower said that he would prophesy that if they would send this "principal light of the Quorum of the Twelve, the most intelligent member among them," to jail, that the president of the Church would receive a revelation changing the law of plural marriage. President Lorenzo Snow said, "He is mistaken in making this prediction because God never ever took a law from His Saints because of persecution or imprisonment or even death. Though I go to prison, God will not change the law of celestial marriage."  

Now, are we going to admit to the speaker that Attorney Bierbower was a greater prophet than Lorenzo Snow was? That Lorenzo Snow was mistaken, that God did change the law of plural marriage and we can't live it now? And if you do what the leaders of the Church tell you and you don't live it, you can get into just as high a degree of glory as you could if you did live it?  

In 1889 the Lord told Wilford Woodruff to not make any further concessions to the government regarding this law, that "If you will remain faithful and keep my commandments, I will fight your battles." We have the journal of L. John Nuttall in his own handwriting, supporting that revelation, saying these things. It is very embarrassing to the Church as a body to know that they did just that. But to top the whole thing off, when there were more than 3,000 of the leading brethren in jail, Lorenzo Snow said, "I wish to petition on behalf of my brethren that they may be released. The terrible suffering that has been endured by them and by their families and by this Church during the last many years is almost unbearable beyond understanding. I want to state plainly that we of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have, in order to be at peace with our government and our neighbors who are not of our faith, voluntarily set aside a principle which all of our lives we have been taught is essential to our salvation in the highest degree of glory. And this has put us into a position where it put ancient Israel when they rejected the higher commandments of God, and they were given a lesser law."

Now, I didn't say that. President Lorenzo Snow did. "But," the leaders of the Church say, "what Lorenzo Snow and Joseph F. Smith and Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff and John Taylor and Joseph Smith said, you mustn't worry yourself about, Brother Allred. You mustn't try to interpret that. We've got a prophet, seer and revelator at the head of the Church who tells us how to interpret these things. If you just do what he tells you to do, and even if it is wrong, God will bless you." Now this is a doctrine that stands up in every ward and every stake in the Church. It breaks my heart that it is SO.  

Since I couldn't speak upon the 4th volume of the Most Holy Principle, I did want to speak upon this discourse. I am going to try to get the discourse of the very able speaker and I want to get it into as many hands of the people as I can. It is just so good that I want our people to read it!  

We are fighting against the devil. We are fighting against every power and wile that he can exert against us all of the time. He gets into our families, in the Priesthood and in the Council. He gets into our families between husbands and wives, between children and parents. He gets into our communities because we do not see alike and we are not one. I wish with all of my heart that this were not so. God has given us mortal bodies to overcome. The Spirit of God within us through the laying on of hands is for the gift of the Holy Ghost so that we may choose the right, and because in so many instances we have not accepted this work because we were converted to its absolute necessity, but because there was some ridiculous facet in our lives in which we could be blessed if we did enter into it regardless of what God's will was. This being true, there are many of us who are not really converted.

A speaker recently said, "I bore testimony many times that I knew it was true, but I did not really know it was true." What position does that put a man in? Are we, some of us, in that same position? A sister recently said, "I thought it was beautiful and it was wonderful, and I wanted to live it because you told me it was true, but I never really knew it was true. I was really never converted, and I don't want anything more to do with it." It was brought to her attention that she had borne testimony on numerous occasions that she knew it was true by the Holy Ghost. "Well I didn't really know it was true." Are we, any one of us, in that position? If our husbands give us a hard time, are we going to give up the principle? If the brethren in the Council show that they have human weaknesses, are we going to give up the principle? Is our testimony truly a gift of God by the Holy Ghost that lets us know that this is true? Or have we entered into the principle because in some way we could personally be benefited by it? That maybe the united order could help take care of our wants from now on? That maybe plural marriage would get somebody to help take care of our children? That maybe this was the only way we could save our husband because he was converted to it and we weren't? May God grant that such is not the case. I hope and pray that we have the knowledge from the Holy Ghost that the course we are pursuing is acceptable in the sight of God, that we will stand by this principle with our lives to the day that we leave this existence, because if you cannot do it, you will not be saved in the Kingdom of God.  

The Savior said, "He that saves his life because he is ashamed of me and my gospel shall lose it, and he that giveth his life, laying it down for my sake, shall save it." I have known men in my time who had an opportunity to say when they were brought up to the firing line, "I have been deceived; I have been misled; I have thought that Mormonism was true and that plural marriage was necessary, but now I know different." Later on they have said to me, "I knew I was lying, they knew I was lying and God knew I was lying. But I lied in order to save my skin, to save my life. I'm better alive than dead." I wish that were true, but it isn't. A man who takes that position has been ashamed of the gospel of Christ and the principles He advocates, and he has lost eternal life.  

I have known men who didn't know anything about plural marriage, who had been converted to the gospel, who had been baptized, who had received the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, who are simple, weak, mortal, Mexican peons, who were brought before a firing squad. "If you will deny Mormonism, we will let you go back to your families and to your farms. But if you don't give it up now and deny it, we are going to shoot you down." Those men stood before the firing squad and were shot down rather than deny Mormonism. I want to tell you, they saved their lives eternally. Everything they lost by being so prematurely taken from the earth, God will give them filled up and running over. The Prophet Joseph said that many of the ancient Saints, following the crucifixion of Christ, went to the most horrible of deaths in order that they might have hope for a more glorious resurrection. This is the kind of attitude that you and I should have in relation to this gospel, that no matter what happens we know by the Holy Ghost that the course we are pursuing is acceptable in the sight of God, and we will not deny it in the face of the devil, the tribunes of the courts of the land, the judges, our friends. Oh how easy it is to deny it when a few paltry thousands or a hundred thousand dollars are concerned. "I might have to lose that money if I don't deny my testimony and leave the united order and this work, and I love the money lots more than I love the Lord and these principles. I am going to give up this position that I have occupied so that I can be comfortable for the rest of my life." So many have followed this course, so many. I have seen it happen within the week. A man I know who has been faithful all the day long-a quarter of a million dollars was worth more to him than the principles of the gospel. And he wasn't going to share it with anybody. We've got to do better than this.

God is going to try us. He said, "I have suffered these things to come upon you that I might prove you herewith to see if you will keep my commandments even to the laying down of your lives, because I have chosen you to be the salt of the earth, the savor of men. That salt which loses its savor is henceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men."  

We are going to have a lot of changes in regard to the way we operate up here. We have to change, not because we want to change, not because it would have been better if we didn't have to change, but because in our weaknesses we are not doing as well as we should. We will modify some of our courses up here and make it so it will be a little easier for the people if we possibly can. But God's law does not change.

God expects us to be faithful. Our time is very short. We are going to have to live celestial plural marriage acceptably to God. We are going to have to live the united order acceptably to God. We are going to have to make our own heaven on earth or Christ will never come to you and to me. That's the word of the Lord. And it is our opportunity. It is the day of our salvation. It is our last chance. It is the world's last chance to prepare all out of the world who will come to the bridal feast of the Lamb, whose coming is at hand, who have oil in their lamps and the wicks trimmed and their righteousness such that they can go into the bridal chambers and to the bridal feast and have the garments of the Lord upon them, and not be cast out.  

If God cannot use us, if we cannot prepare ourselves properly, God will have to raise up another people somewhere. But He hasn't time. And what's far more important, you and I haven't time. As far as we are concerned, we must succeed. Our salvation depends upon it. It is our glorious opportunity. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and David and Solomon and nearly every one of the ancient prophets who had an opportunity to look down through the ages and see our time, wished to God that they might live in this dispensation and have the opportunities that you and I have. What are we going to do with it? The choice is ours. I pray God you sisters will uphold and sustain your husbands in righteousness. But help them to be righteous men. If you think they are unrighteous, don't be afraid to tell them so! That may sound like it is contrary to some of the things you've been hearing. But I've got a couple of wives, and I invite them to be my counselors and to help me. I make the final decisions, whether they be for good or for bad. I try to make them always for good. But if I make those decisions after I have listened to their counsel, I'll be a very wise man. Because that's why God gave them to me, to counsel and to help me. The prophets have stated that any man who has three dedicated, loving wives sealed to him for time and for all eternity, who will pray for him day and night and who will counsel him and help him, any such man will never go astray. I am foolish enough to believe that if you've got a half dozen or a dozen of them, his chances are a little better, providing he will listen to their counsel, providing he will walk in righteousness before the Lord and remember his prayers and seek the face of the Lord always.  Sisters, it is your duty, it is your solemn responsibility to help your brothers in their calling. I hope God will help you to do that. I hope God will help me to be an example to you in all things. I am trying to. But I am like the old, faithful fable where we wear our faults on our backs, and I don't see my faults as clearly as you do. But bear with me. Cover my faults with a cloak of charity. I will cover yours with that same cloak of charity, and I will cover the faults of your husbands with that same cloak of charity. In this love and in this sharing of our responsibilities, we will, with God's help, come into His presence. The Lord be with you.

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