Dear Friends,
Doris Hanson, Director,
A Shield and Refuge Ministry |
At the following link, you can view the story of a young man who recently left the Kingston polygamy group:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwoO7Nekmpw
Like the “Lost Boys” from the FLDS polygamy group, this young man was dispensable, he was told by his father he needed to leave. The young man tells his story of loneliness but also of his dreams.
Later his father invites him to come back into the polygamy group. But because he had left he had lost his membership. The way to get his membership back is to buy it back for few thousand dollars!!! Imagine that, they teach the only way to Heaven is through the
Kingston polygamy group, but they boot out the young boys who are natural competitors for the young women as wives, then they offer to sell them the opportunity to come back so they can serve the group. This is essentially ‘selling’ a ticket to heaven. But we read in God’s Word:
Romans 6:233 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. ESV
Polygamy group members buy their salvation in a number of ways:
They MUST live polygamy.
They MUST give all their money, time, talents, energy and everything they have and are to the group.
They MUST sustain the Kingston leadership.
They must submit to terrors, abuse, and patriarchal despotism.
These things and more are laws and requirements in order for them to be able to enter into the gates of glory. May God soften hardened hearts and open blind eyes that they may become FREE in Jesus.
Polygamy as a doctrine for salvation is real. We hear of unbelievable horrors that many females and males have experienced in polygamy. Some live with these “holy terrors” every single day of their lives. And to make it so much worse, they teach that God is the one who requires the pain, the frugality, the abuse and the polygamy.
We would be honored to be invited to your church, women’s or missions group to explain what our ministry is all about. We would also be honored to be mentioned in your prayers.
I want to thank you for all you do to help educate all those who are lost. I have definitely have been lost in the Mormon church. I have suffered from depression and anxiety most of my life. Once I started to watch your program and research the LDS church history I realized all my concerns and questions were justified. I have always felt guilty for believing Polygamy was a serious sin. I felt guilty for not having a testimony of Joseph Smith. I would go to church every Sunday and would have to walk out during the meetings because of their teachings. I have always believed that God is simple, loving and kind. I wanted to believe God would be deeply offended by Polygamy.
Polygamy is ..."wife swapping." It's a cruel, perverted, abusive, degrading and simply wrong! Now, that I have left the Mormon church I no longer have depression and anxiety. I am no longer taking antidepressants. It's been a slow gradual process to finally be free from all the lies and deceit and bullying of the Mormon church. They may tell me I've thrown away my salvation and my children will be orphan's in the eternity's to come. They may say my temple marriage is obsolete and I will be damned. Family members may say it's so sad that I have fallen away and thrown away any chance of being a family forever but I say this. The true God not the Mormon God would never, ever, ever do that to me or my family. I am now finally a true Christian. I believe in my Savior Jesus Christ. I believe in His Grace. I no longer expect myself to be just like God but to be close to him and learn from him and to follow him. My faith in Him alone is all I need and for this I am content and happy! Thank you. W.G.
In early June, a federal judge said a Utah contractor used nearly 200 children from a polygamous sect as unpaid workers during a 2012 pecan harvest. Children as young as six years old worked long hours with few breaks during the harvest in Hurricane, Utah. Paragon Contractors was held in contempt of court.
Prosecutors said the company has close ties to the FLDS led by Warren Jeffs. They said they used 1,400 unpaid workers, including 175 children to harvest the pecans. Lawyers are asking for back pay. But Paragon contractors maintained that workers volunteered to pick up fallen nuts for the needy. They said the 175 children looked forward to the break from home-schooling.
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At least half of Americans consider seven issues ... "morally wrong." In the "largely unacceptable" category, sex between teenagers, pornography and cloning animals are deemed wrong by at least 56%, with roughly a third calling these acceptable. In the "highly unacceptable" category are suicide (18% morally acceptable vs. 73% morally unacceptable), polygamy (14% vs. 82%) and cloning humans (13% vs. 81%). Extramarital affairs rank as the least morally acceptable activity on this list, with 10% saying they are acceptable versus 88% saying they are not.
http://www.finchannel.com/index.php/society/57907-birth-control-divorce-top-list-of-morally-acceptable-issues
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Canadian FLDS polygamist Winston Blackmore tried & failed again to get the charges of polygamy against him dropped. A panel of three judges rejected Blackmore’s arguments. Blackmore can continue appealing against these charges, but sooner or later, we pray, justice may yet prevail.
In studying the life of Jacob, we learn that:
1. He cheated - God didn't tell him to.
2. He lied - God didn't command him to.
He manipulated people and circumstances - He took four wives - God didn't tell him to, nor did He approve of it.
In Genesis 44 there is a genealogical record of Jacob's family. In 44:27 Jacob says: "...my wife bore me two sons..." This is Rachel, his precious sweetheart, the only one he truly loved, the only one he ever wanted. He did not refer to her as "one of my wives" or even as his favorite wife. He himself said my wife. One.
In Genesis 46, verses 15, 18, 19, and 25 the Bible lists Jacob's children and the mother of each. None is referred to as Jacob's wife except Rachel. God Himself is telling us that He considered Rachel alone as Jacob's wife—his first and only love; the woman for whom he had worked seven years, so that she could be his wife. The other three women were unfortunate victims thrust upon him as a result of another's personal agenda.
Just because Jacob had four women, and children from all four, is no indication that polygamy was a good idea or God's idea.
But why did God allow this behavior? Why didn't He come right out and condemn the practice loud and clear? Why might it seem that He gave tacit approval by His apparent silence on the subject before the men who practiced it?
When God gave the nation of Israel His laws, He was very
particular about how His chosen people should conduct their lives. In Leviticus 18:24-30, God warns Israel not to be involved with the sexual sins that the other nations practiced. To do so would result in their being vomited out of the land (verses 25 and 28).
Eventually, this became their fate, because they disobeyed God in every way, including polygamy.
In Deuteronomy 17:17, God specifically gave a command for the future kings of the nation of Israel: that he not multiply wives to himself. This is an explicit command from God against polygamy. The king is the representative, the model and the example for the people.
(continued next month)
The student of the history of the Mormon church to this date, who seeks an answer to the question, Who originated the idea of plural marriages among the Mormons? will naturally credit that idea to Joseph Smith, Jr. ... the secular investigator ...in studying the question .. discovers an incontrovertible mass of testimony ...that the "revelation" concerning polygamy was a production of Smith, was familiar to the church leaders in Nauvoo, and was lived up to by them before their expulsion from Illinois.
"Elder W. W. Phelps said in Salt Lake Tabernacle in 1862 that while Joseph [Smith] was translating the Book of Abraham in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1835, ...the Prophet became impressed with the idea that polygamy would yet become an institution of the Mormon Church... The declarations on the subject in the Mormon Bible are so worded that they distinctly forbid any following of the example of Old Testament leaders like David and Solomon. In the Book of Jacob 2:24-28, we find these commands: "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me saith the Lord;..”
The same view is expressed in the Book of Mosiah, where, among the sins of King Noah, it is mentioned that "he spent his time in riotous living with his wives and concubines," and in the Book of Ether 10:5, where it is said that "Riplakish did not do that which was right in the sight of the Lord, for he did have many wives and concubines."
...That there was a loosening of the views regarding the marriage tie almost as soon as Smith began his reign at Kirtland can be shown on abundant proof...
Catherine Lewis, who, after passing two years with the Mormons, escaped from Nauvoo, after taking the preliminary degrees of the endowment, says: "The Twelve took Joseph's wives after his death. Kimball and Young took most of them; the daughter of Kimball was one of Joseph's wives. I heard her say to her mother: 'I will never be sealed to my father [meaning as a wife], and I would never have been sealed [married] to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.' The
Apostles said they only took Joseph's wives to raise up children, carry them through to the next world, and there deliver them up to him; by so doing they would gain his approbation." Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons.
THE STORY OF THE MORMONS: FROM THE DATE OF THEIR ORIGIN TO THE YEAR 1901 - by WILLIAM ALEXANDER LINN
Our desire is to inform people the untold truth about Mormon polygamy outside the Utah culture. Polygamy attracts and incubates abusers. Women and children are at the mercy of their abuse and exploitation and its all done in the name of God.
We are available to speak at your conference or meeting or Church congregation. For more information contact Doris:
801-649-3103.
He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. ~Titus 1:9 |
Please pray this month for a young man who has contacted me from within a polygamy group. He has a lot of questions and is terrified of hurting or leaving his family. He says he trusts the answers I give him regarding Christian beliefs and what the Bible teaches.
Males and females who are marred by polygamy groups and their destructive practices and doctrine.
Please pray for the victims who have been and will be helped—they don’t just leave and everything is okay. Leaving is the easy part. The stress and struggles of entering a brand new world, culture, making friends, and learning to trust, especially to trust God, can be a torturous, and long-term ordeal for many refugees.
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Tidbits from MORMON POLYGAMY HISTORY
