Deseret Independence Day - The TRUTH About Pioneer Day

TRANSCRIPT

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So today's pioneer day. So if you're in Utah or if you're a Latter-day Saint of pretty much any variety, this is a day that is special. But if you're like me growing up, I didn't understand why it was special. I just knew that it was a thing and it was something we celebrated. It was when we came to Utah from Illinois and that was about it. It was kind of boring. I didn't understand the why. You're just like, okay, we're moving. We're moving. I have a situation. And so I felt that it would be good to bring out some things that you haven't heard before or likely not to have heard before. I don't know you, but things that are not really well known about the why and why this is so important. It should be on par, I believe, with Independence Day. This should be considered and should be celebrated as Deseret Independence. And so I just wanted to share with you and in a relaxed way, some of the things that stick out to me and why today's important. And hopefully it helps you and your family and your celebrations honoring this really important holiday that I think is misunderstood and not well understood. And so this will, if this is something that you care about, this is something that will help you. I hope. So I wanted to give some background of what led to Pioneer Day. We have a lot of things going on where you have a lot of persecutions going against the Saints in Illinois. And, you know, being driven from place to place and they end up in Illinois and in the city of Nauvoo and Joseph and Hiram, his brother, are martyred.

They are killed by an angry mob mixed with people that have turned against Joseph, like William Law, that wants to kill him and stop him. And so they didn't like what he was doing with this concept with the Kingdom of God and it being a literal government that is the fulfillment of prophecy of Daniel and how this kingdom would crush all the other kingdoms of the world. And so that and among other controversial topics that made people angry, they wanted to kill him. And so along those lines, though, that he had created, Joseph had created what was called the Council of Fifty. It was an organization that was unknown to the members of the church at large. It was a small inner circle of individuals that were meeting together to work on building this new government that would protect everyone in their rights, no matter who they were. And so you have, just kind of to give you some background of what Joseph said, he said, "There is a distinction between the kingdom, the church of God, and the kingdom of God. It is entire, distinct, and separate government." So a lot of times in our culture, we believe that they are one and the same, that the church is the kingdom. Joseph was very clear that it was not the kingdom and that the church is a spiritual matter and a spiritual kingdom. But the kingdom which Daniel saw was not a spiritual kingdom, but was designed to be got up for the safety and salvation of the saints by protecting them in their religious rights and worship. So that is the purpose of the kingdom of God. And the fact that it is a distinction, it is not the same organization as the church, it has a specific role.

And so that's really what they're trying to do when Joseph is killed. And in fact, so when he dies, the Latter-day Saints are forced to flee the United States. The United States had fully apostatized by that point from the United States Constitution, and so to be able to live according to the principles of the Constitution, they had to flee that nation. And they went off to now build a new independent nation that would be free for everyone. And so in fact, the kingdom of God was an organization that brought the saints across the plains. It was not the authority of the church. It was the priesthood authority and operation, and it was the political body of the kingdom of God that organized 10s and 50s and brought the saints across the plains. And we know this now because of the public records of the Council of the 50 Minutes, both those that were published by the Joseph Smith Papers Project, as well as the one published by Signature Books that went into later years. And so that is the operation of the kingdom of God. And they had a very specific attitude moving out west. George Q. Cannon said that the kingdom of God is to become a political power known and recognized by the powers of the earth, and you, my brethren, may have to be sent forth to represent that power as its accredited agents. So this is a literal body. This is a political organization, and it will have ambassadors that will represent it when it is fully established to the nations of the earth that will still exist when the kingdom of God is beginning to roll forth. And that is the mindset that they were building on.

And so as they left the United States, it was based on a principle. They wanted protection because of all of the different persecutions that they were coming across. And so they petitioned for a peaceful ability to leave the United States without any, you know, just leave us alone while we, you know, leave you guys alone. You don't have to worry about us. Please don't let us worry about you. And so Orson Spencer, one of the members of the Twelve, and council of 50, was asked to pen up a letter that laid out these principles and urged that support for them to be able to leave. And this is a key principle that I think is for God. And this is something the Founding Fathers understood and is something that we need to understand again if we want peace. He said men of congenial interest, so friendly interest, common interest, should separate themselves from adverse, from those of adverse interest and pair off each to each. You got Mormons over here. You got, you know, people that are religious, people that are moral. You know, they should gather together. People that don't like morality, people that want to be able to use drugs, people that won't want to be able to not worry about, you know, God. They should go off over here. People that believe in big government should not intermingle with people that like limited government. And he continues on, "The promiscuous intermixture of heterogeneous bodies for the purpose of unity and strength is like distant both from pure religion and sound philosophy."

Okay, so it's promiscuous, it's immoral to put together two different cultures that are, have opposing viewpoints. It's just unsound philosophy and it is immoral, okay. And so they wanted to leave the United States and they wanted to be left alone so that they could then have people together of congenial means and congenial interests. And this idea of wanting to separate and saying that the government was completely corrupt was not a secret. They did not hide their contempt for the government that apostatized from the Constitution. And you have the governor of Illinois actually talking about what the saints said. They said, "The Mormons openly denounced the government of the United States as utterly corrupt, as being about to pass away, and to be replaced by the government of God." So this is right back in the 1840s. This is in the history that was published in the 1850s, but he was of course the governor when Joseph was martyred. And does this not sound like the United States today? It's utterly corrupt and of course it's on its way to, I mean I would say it's passed its way to destruction.

We just don't realize it yet. And so, but of course the Latter-day Saints did believe in the Constitution and that it was going to be something that they were, and so they were in the process of building this new thing that would protect people that was not corrupt. And so we look at, you know, it was something that was very much well known. And in fact when they were working on leaving the United States, Brigham Young laid out a key principle here about that. And it was very clear what they were doing. He said that when we go from here, we don't calculate to go under any government but the government of God. They were done with the corrupt United States. They weren't going to go under and say that we were going to submit ourselves to a people that were just going to do nothing but persecute us. And so we moved out west and there was this, it was undisputed territory.

They built up these stars right here, are check, are not checkpoints, but outposts of entryways into the territory to be able to protect it. And so what they did was they did the classic claim, use and defend. So they went to a territory that was not being used. It was nomads were there. It was, you know, technically on the maps it was claimed by Mexico. But when we arrived and claimed it as our own, we set up borders, we set up these outposts and we defended it. And Mexico did not dispute that claim. So it was ours. We claimed it as our nation and it was the undisputed nation of Deseret. In 1847, these were those undisputed boundaries. But of course, Satan does not like any disturbers of his kingdom.

And so immediately the United States moves to steal this from the Latter-day Saints. And so under the illegal treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, they stole the land that was claimed as Deseret. And so that's an important thing is because it'd be like you buy a house or you want to maybe not buy a house. So like back in the olden days where they had homesteading, where you claimed, you know, you claimed some property and then you had two friends or two individuals claim property on either side of you. And this neighbor talks to this neighbor and says, "Hey, this property in between us, I'll sell it to you." And they're like, "Okay, let's sell this property that's in between us and I'll take it and it'll be my property." And the guy in the middle is like, "Hey, you know, I'm right here. This is my land." And so they sell it. Now the United States claims this land as American territory. And when they get out and so they set up some things where they, again, it's now a colony of the United States as opposed to the colonies of England. This is now a colony of England.

And so Brigham Young says, "The U.S. should abolish that odious, tyrannical, and absurd system of colonial government which emanated from the British Empire." So the idea of this being a colony, right, because it wasn't, they weren't claiming it as a sovereign state within the Union. It was a territory, meaning that people, it actually went in under the Johnston's army, under the Bohemian, attendee Bohemian Grove. You had President Buchanan invade the sovereign nation of Deseret and claim it as their own. And when they got here, they deposed Brigham Young as the duly elected governor of the people, chosen by the people, and said, "No, you people of Utah are no longer allowed to govern yourselves." And until we became a state in 1896, we were not allowed to choose our own governor. And so this was, you know, we were basically having a repeat of everything that had happened before. We tried to leave the United States and be at peace on our own, and that is what Pioneer Day is all about. And why it's lost is because we were invaded and taken over again. You know, we celebrate it as some birthday of moving somewhere, as opposed to a declaration of independence that it was.

And so, but we continued to work for that independence. I want to show you those examples of that moving forward. But you have President James Buchanan, that Bohemian, he says, "This is the first rebellion which has existed in our territories, and humanity itself requires that we should put it down in such a manner that it shall be our last. We ought to go there with such an imposing force as to convince these deluded people that resistance would be in vain." So these people separated from you, said, "Hey, we want to leave you alone." You then take their land from them, and we resist. We stand up for ourselves. And now you're calling us names and saying, "No, you can't have that." And we're going to crush it so hard as to make sure that you never try and resist again. And so, but we're still fighting for independence.

But we have one of these governors, Eli Murray, the city of Murray is named after. And he says, "No, you're going to submit to Satan's government, no matter what." And this is when these governors imposed on us by the federal government. And he says, "If the Mormons continue to promote liberty in the kingdom of God, the sword will be invoked to subdue them. You promote actual liberty and standing up for your rights, we are going to use violence against you." Sounds like the government today. "Either the church will surrender or the government will." They understood the lines in the sand, and they were not going to go down without a fight. They wanted to crush the kingdom of God. So Brigham Young says, "The time must come when there will be a separation between this kingdom and the kingdoms of this world in every point of view."

He is still trying to instill in the saints this principle of independence and building this kingdom of God that was prophesied by Daniel. He says, "There is going to come a point. Are you going to help with that?" "The time must come when this kingdom must be free and independent from all other kingdoms. Are you prepared to have that thread cut today?" So that thread being cut, what would lead to the thread between the kingdoms of the devil and the kingdom of God? He said, "I shall take a hostile move by our enemies as an evidence that it is time for the thread to be cut." He is very adamant with this. "If you guys are going to move against us, we are not about going against you. We are not an offensive war. You guys have come here, and we are here to defend ourselves. Any adverse action will be seen as the time for us to separate from you."

That is exactly what they started to do. We go to the 1850s when this is going on. We declare independence. We leave the United States in 1847. We arrive here in 1847 and set up a new nation that is invaded. But we are still trying to work towards that principle. They have declared war on us. They sent groups of people here to destroy the people from within. Not just politically, but also socially and culturally. There was an organization that was set up called the Utah Loyal League. According to history, it says, "The objects of the Utah Loyal League are to combine the loyal people of Utah, male and female, irrespective of politics, in opposition to the political rule and law-defying practices of the so-called Mormon Church, to oppose the admission of Utah into the Union until he has the substance as well as the form of Republican government to raise money to maintain agents in Washington or elsewhere to labor for these ends."

So to destroy the political kingdom of God. At this time, the Utah Loyal League was formed and a branch was organized in Park City. The purpose was to eradicate, not only eradicate by peaceable means, but lawful force. So if you defend yourself, they're going to kill you. The doctrine of the Mormons. And under cover of arming and organizing for protection, another secret society called the Gentile League of Utah was formed within its program, if statements from its own side may be relied upon, was deliberate massacre of municipal officers and citizens. Such a purpose, it is said, was really conceived and only awaited an opportunity for its execution.

At a meeting on East Temple Street in front of the Salt Lake House, Judge William Hayden declared that if the populace interrupted the liberal program, the streets of Salt Lake would be seen running down with blood. They were just waiting for an opportunity to murder anyone that opposed the destruction of the Mormon people and their move to be independent and free and have their rights protected, so that they could have their religion destroyed. That is what led us here, and that continued, that battle continued as we were here and trying to build this independent nation. And so it gets to a point where it's obviously they've gone against us, and that thread has to be cut. And so Brigham Young lays it out.

It says here, "Brigham Young had declared in the temple that henceforth Utah was a separate and independent territory and owed no obedience or allegiance to any form or laws but those of their own enactment and called upon the people to stand together and support him in maintaining the cause of God." He says, "This people came out and declared their independency of the United States from this very..." And he explained how serious this was and that nobody's going to do this for us. He says, "The man who does not labor from day to day and from hour to hour for building up this kingdom and bringing forth the fullness of the kingdom of God on the earth and the establishment of Zion will sooner or later fall." If that's not our goal, if that's not our understanding, if that's not our efforts that are on our mind from every hour of the day, sooner or later, and we saw what happened later on, is because the saints did not live up to this, that the kingdom of God had to go dormant.

And so until a future time. And so this, just real briefly, some things that you might not have known about, this Pioneer Day is not Pioneer Day. We're not celebrating people just exploring. It's a misnomer to call it Pioneer Day. Pioneer Day is Deseret Independence. The day we came to build a new nation that would preserve the rights of everyone, Mormon and non-Mormon. And I hope understanding this helps us to really reevaluate and to treat more seriously and more reverence this holiday and to be able to start to remember those ideals and to start to understand those ideals and then start to want to implement those ideals. Because it is my firm testimony that these things will be established when a people have been prepared and live in a way that will allow their protection from those that seek to destroy them.

So I hope that was helpful. I hope you enjoyed it. And let me know in the comments what you thought, any questions you might have, any additional insights or thoughts that came to you while you were watching this and the points that were brought out. I will see you soon.