Although it is apparent that hatred and persecution are not solely the prerogative of the true followers of Christ; nevertheless, it would seem sensible to believe that true followers of God in this dispensation would not merit any more popularity with the world than true Saints of any other period.
From the very beginning of time it is noteworthy that Abel in his desires to do what was acceptable before God incurred the wrath of his less-than-righteous brother, Cain. In similitude of the coming of Christ and the atonement, it was necessary to institute a plan by which people could show faith in God and prepare for the coming Saviour. As noted in “Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”:
“By faith in this atonement or plan of redemption, Abel offered to God a sacrifice that was accepted, which was the firstlings of the flock. Cain offered of the fruit of the ground, and was not accepted, because he could not do it in faith, he could have no faith, or could not exercise faith contrary to the plan of heaven.” p.58
In Moses, Chapter 5, we get a much clearer picture of the situation than that which remains in the Bible. Heavenly Father, having already revealed to Adam and Eve the law of sacrifice, Adam happily, unquestioning, offered up the firstlings of his flock. Many days after, an angel appeared to Adam and asked him why he was offering sacrifices to God; when Adam admitted that he did not know why, the angel went on to explain that it was an allegory to the sacrifice of Christ. Afterwards, Adam and Eve rejoiced and “made all things known unto their sons and daughters” – then, Satan appeared on the scene and told them not to believe, many made the choice to follow him: “and men began from that time forth to be carnal, sensual, and devilish.” (Moses 5:13) In verse 18 we see that Cain, at Satans’ command, proffered the unacceptable fruit, rather than the firstlings of his flocks as he had been instructed to do. When Heavenly Father refused to accept this, Cain was angry. Heavenly Father was quite direct and gave instruction:
“If thou doest well, thou shalt be accepted. And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at thy door, and Satan desireth to have thee, and except thou shalt hearken unto my commandments, I will deliver thee up and it shall be unto thee according to his desire. And thou shalt rule over him”. Moses 5:23
After these strong words, Heavenly Father went on to explain that should this be his choice, then he would be accursed, but still offered him the opportunity to repent. At this point, Cain refused to listen to God, or to his brother Abel, who walked uprightly before Him, and Satan proceeded to manipulate him and encourage him to kill Abel. As stated by Nephi “Because he had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable for ever, he sought also the misery of all mankind.” (2 Nephi 2:18) Satan was aware that Cain would suffer the consequences of misdoing and would have been delighted to have such a good collaborator.
Cain was called Master Mahan and “gloried in his wickedness”, after he committed the foul deed he revelled in the fact believing himself to be free, even anticipating being willed his brothers flocks. He obviously had no faith in Heavenly Father, and believed that he could do whatsoever he wished, without reprisal. As He had indicated, Heavenly Father was then compelled to curse Cain and to make him pay for the effects of his sin. As a direct result of his loyalty and obedience to the laws of God, Abel became the first person to suffer the outcome of hatred and rebellion, it could be said that he was in fact the first Christian martyr.
In the meridian of time, Jesus Christ himself often referred to the persecution of those who adhere to true principles, warning that many will even be killed in the name of truth. In Luke 21:16-17 he informs his disciples thus:
“And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends, and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of men for my name’s sake,”
Also, in Luke 6:22-23 He explains:
“Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day , and leap for joy; for, behold your joy is great in heaven for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.”
This is expanded upon in John 15:18-24 where sound counsel is given to Saints of all dispensations:
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
If ye were of the world, the world would love his own, but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
But all these things will they do unto you for my names sake, because they know not him that sent me.If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin.
He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
As Parley P. Pratt so aptly described it in verse:
The hirelings priests against the truth engage,
While hell beneath stands trembling, filled with rage;
False are their hopes, and all their struggles vain;
Their craft must fall, and with it all their gain;The deaf must hear, the meek their joy increase;
The poor be glad and their oppression cease.
And so we move on to this the last dispensation – The Dispensation of the Fulness of Times … From the onset, from the critical interval when Joseph knelt in the grove of trees to entreat Heavenly Father to give him answers concerning which church to join, the power of Satan was made manifest to him:
“After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak.”
Can we just take a moment to imagine what Joseph, a young man of merely fourteen, may have felt at this point. Terror? Horror? Petrification? He carries on:
“Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.”
We tremble with him, engrossed in this fearful vista. At this hopeless period he drew upon his innermost strength, crying for support from God:
“But exerting all my powers to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction, not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvellous power as I had never before felt in any being….”
The powers of evil were formidable and were loosened to test the boy to the n’th degree: he would not give in to them, but used this as a platform to draw upon his innermost strength and faith to communicate with Heavenly Father. God did not forsake him, but came at this pivotal climax, in person with Christ, to instruct and direct the future prophet. What WONDER, what relief, must have flowed through the lads’ being at such an extraordinary development! That such a fundamental and simple question should bring about such a revelation. Also, little did he know the persecution that would eventually be heaped upon him. Yet another example of the persecution of the faithful.
Thus it should be clear that persecution will always follow those who follow the Lord; it may vary in intensity and may take many forms, yet it will always be present, for Satan will always attempt to stop Saints partaking of the waters of truth and eternal life.
The acceptance of any religious institution with the world is a sure sign that it has left the true principles that it was founded upon. The world is bound to hate the Gospel, for it is in opposition to it. Saints living the fulness would be socially, politically and economically independent of Babylon, which would hardly be attractive to it. Hence, as Brigham Young stated:
When we see the time that we can willingly strike hands and have full fellowship with those who despise the Kingdom of God, know ye then that the Priesthood of the Son of God is out of your possession. JD 10:273
Another interesting aspect to consider is whether people who are secure in their faith have any need to persecute others who differ in their opinions. Surely it is one of the fruits of the Gospel to be tolerant of others. George Q. Cannon expressed the same view:
You will never find a people of God who have the truth persecuting another people. If they were to do so they would cease to be the people of God. It is the characteristic of the Church of God always that it never condescends to persecution. It does not fear the announcement of any doctrine, or any principle, or any form of belief, or any so called revelation. Strong in the knowledge that they have the truth and that God is with them, such a people can afford to let false doctrine when it manifests itself have the freedom of action, the right of agency which God has given unto every human being and which every human being has a right to exercise undisturbed by his fellow man so long as he does not interfere with the happiness and lives and the liberties of his fellow men.
Deseret Evening News article of July 11th 1885
The final word will be left to Brigham Young, who discoursed at some length on persecution in 1853:
But how do the people feel? Perhaps you will refer the answer of this question to myself. Were I to answer it, I should say, they feel every way. Permit me to refer particularly to the brethren and sisters who have lately come to this place they have all the variety of feelings that is common to the human heart. They know how they feel; they are my witnesses. The most frivolous and trifling circumstance that can transpire, will produce in them the most keen and cutting trial. What can we say about it? For one I will say, let them come, the small trials and the large ones; let them be many or few, it is the same; let them come as the Lord pleases. Brother Heber C. Kimball was speaking this morning about this people being driven from pillar to post, and he told the cause of their many trials. I will ask a question concerning this matter. If you had not been driven from York State, the persecution become so hot as to send you up to Kirtland, Ohio, would you have known as much as you now know? Persecution did not commence in Kirtland, nor in Jackson County, but it commenced at the time Joseph the Prophet sought the plates in the hill Cumorah. It did not commence after I came into the Church, but I found it at work when I entered the Church.
Suppose Joseph had not been obliged to flee from Pennsylvania back to York State, would he have known as much as he afterwards knew? Suppose he could have stayed in old Ontario County in peace, without being persecuted, could he have learned as much as he did by being persecuted? He fled from there to Kirtland, accompanied by many others, to save their lives. There are men now in this Church, whom I see before me, and in full fellowship, who haunted my house for days, weeks, and months to kill me, and I knew it all the time; and Joseph had to flee to Missouri.
Would he have known as much if this persecution had not come upon him, as he afterwards did by its coming upon him? When the people left Kirtland they went to Jackson County, Missouri, and Joseph commenced to lay out a city to be called Zion; and not now, but after a time, when the Lord has accomplished His preparatory work, it will be built, even the New Jerusalem. The brethren were persecuted also in Jackson County, and driven out; they had trial upon trial, persecution on the right hand and on the left. Suppose, when they went to Jackson County, all the people of Missouri had hailed them as brethren, fellow citizens, and as neighbors, and had treated them accordingly, and they had been protected in their religious liberty, would the people that were driven from Jackson County have known as much as they now know? Could they have gained the knowledge and wisdom they have obtained by means of their persecutions? You can answer these questions to suit your own minds. When they had to flee from Ohio to Missouri, it certainly gave the people an experience they could not have obtained in any other way. When they were driven from Jackson County, and went to Clay, Ray, Caldwell, and Davies counties, persecution still followed them, and every man and woman who acknowledged Joseph Smith to be a Prophet, had to leave the State forthwith.
I feel inclined now to give some of you a gentle touch on the left side. Brethren, how glad I am to see you; how pleased I am to see you; where have you been these few years back? Where have you been living? Where did you go after you left Missouri? “Why I stayed there.” I say, there was not a man who would say that Joseph Smith was a Prophet, could stay there; they had all to leave the State; and you will now show yourselves at this late day, and try to have us believe you are first-rate Latter-day Saints. My thoughts are, “YOU POOR DEVILS!”
I hope I do not hurt any of your feelings. If you will do right from this time henceforth, and help with your mights to build up the Kingdom of God, I will hold you in fellowship after you have thus proved yourselves. But you may regard it as an established fact, that I have no fellowship for you yet; and I have as much as the Lord has. Still, if I have anything to fear, it is that I fellowship people too much, when they are not worthy; that is, I reflect “Can I be more merciful than the Lord?” But I have not got light enough nor wisdom enough to fellowship men who lived in peace with those who sought to kill us.
Ask yourselves whether you think this people would have received as much as they have received, if they never had been persecuted. Could they have advanced in the school of intelligence as far without being persecuted, as they have by being persecuted? Look for instance at Adam. Listen, ye Latter-day Saints! Supposing that Adam was formed actually out of clay, out of the same kind of material from which bricks are formed; that with this matter God made the pattern of a man, and breathed into it the breath of life, and left it there, in that state of supposed perfection, he would have been an adobie to this day. He would not have known anything.
Some of you may doubt the truth of what I now say, and argue that the Lord could teach him. This is a mistake. The Lord could not have taught him in any other way than in the way in which He did teach him. You believe Adam was made of the dust of this earth. This I do not believe, though it is supposed that it is so written in the Bible; but it is not, to my understanding. You can write that information to the States, if you please ÄÄ that I have publicly declared that I do not believe that portion of the Bible as the Christian world do. I never did, and I never want to. What is the reason I do not? Because I have come to understanding, and banished from my mind all the baby stories my mother taught me when I was a child.
But suppose Adam was made and fashioned the same as we make adobies; if he had never drunk of the bitter cup; the Lord might have talked to him to this day, and he would have continued as he was to all eternity, never advancing one particle in the school of intelligence. This idea opens up a field of light to the intelligent mind. How can you know truth but by its opposite, or light but by its opposite? The absence of light is darkness. How can sweetness be known but by its opposite, bitter? It is by this means that we obtain all intelligence. This is,”Mormonism,” and it is founded upon all truth, upon every principle of true philosophy; in fact the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only true philosophy in existence. There is not one particle of it that is not strictly philosophical, though you and I may not understand all the fulness of it, but we will if we continue faithful.
Let the brethren who have been persecuted and driven from city to city, inquire of themselves if they like it. Some of you may give a negative to this inquiry. You recollect brother Taylor telling about a woman in Far West who had her house burnt down some four or five times; she finally said, “she would be damned if she would stand it any longer.” If her eyes had been opened to see, she would have thanked the Lord for that, more than for anything else; that persecution was more precious to her than riches, because it was designed to teach her to understand the knowledge of God. Do I acknowledge the hand of the Lord in persecution? Yes, I do. It is one of the greatest blessings that could be conferred upon the people of God. I acknowledge the hand of the Lord in levelling His people to the dust of the earth, and reducing them to a state of abject poverty.
Time and time again have I left handsome property to be inherited by our enemies.
Suppose we were called to leave what we have now, should we call it a sacrifice? Shame on the man who would so call it; for it is the very means of adding to him knowledge, understanding, power, and glory, and prepares him to receive crowns, kingdoms, thrones, and principalities, and to be crowned in glory with the Gods of eternity. Short of this, we can never receive that which we are looking for.
For example, I will refer to your crossing the plains. How could you in any other way have known the hardships incident to such a journey? And do you not feel ashamed for getting angry at your cattle, or for letting passion arise in your bosoms? Suppose you were rolling in wealth, and perfectly at your ease, with an abundance around you; you might have remained in that condition until Doomsday, and never could have advanced in the school of intelligence any more than Adam could have known about the works of God, in the great design of the creation, without first being made acquainted with the opposite? “Is there evil in the city and I have not done it, saith the Lord.” There is no evil that is not known to the Lord. He has been perfectly acquainted with all the persecutions the Saints have passed through. His hand was there, as much so as it is in building up and tearing down kingdoms and thrones on earth; and even the moth we trample upon is not overlooked by Him. Everything is under His watchful eye; he understands all the works of His hands, and knows how to use them to His own glory. He has given the children of men the privilege of becoming equal with His Son Jesus Christ, and has placed all things that pertain to this world in their hands, to see what use they will make of them.
Joseph could not have been perfected, though he had lived a thousand years, if he had received no persecution. If he had lived a thousand years, and led this people, and preached the Gospel without persecution, he would not have been perfected as well as he was at the age of thirty-nine years. You may calculate when this people are called to go through scenes of affliction and suffering, are driven from their homes and cast down, and scattered, and smitten and peeled, the Almighty is rolling on His work with greater rapidity. But let you and me live and die in peace, and in our lives we send the Gospel to the nations, from kingdom to kingdom, and from people to people, will it advance with the same speed if it receive no persecution? If we had received no persecution in Nauvoo, would the Gospel have spread as it now has? Would the Elders have been scattered so widely as they now are, preaching the Gospel? No, they would have been wedded to their farms, and the precious seed of the word would have been choked. “Brother Joseph, or brother Brigham, do not call upon me to go on a mission, for I have so much to do I cannot go,” would have been the general cry. “I want to build a row of stores across this or that block, and place myself in a situation to make $100,000 a year, and then I can devote so much for the building up of the kingdom of God.” The Elders would have been so devoted to riches, they would not have gone to preach when the Lord wanted them. But when they have not a frock to put upon the backs of their children, or a shoe for their feet, then they can go out and preach the Gospel to the world.
Well, do you think that persecution has done us good? Yes. I sit and laugh, and rejoice exceedingly when I see persecution. I care no more about it than I do about the whistling of the north wind, the croaking of the crane that flies over my head, or the crackling of the thorns under the pot. The Lord has all things in His hand; therefore let it come, for it will give me experience. Do you suppose I should have known what I now know, had I not been persecuted? I can now see the hearts of the children of men with the same clearness as I can your persons in the light of day. I know we have been sunk in the depths of poverty and wretchedness, by the hands of our enemies, but in this we have seen the works of the Lord, and the works of darkness intermingled; this has taught us to discriminate between the two, that we may learn to choose the good, and refuse the evil; or in other words, to separate the chaff from the wheat. Journal of Discourses 2:5-8
