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I was minding my own business this morning and, uh, I was told to share some things. So I'm gonna make a video. Haven't made many videos lately. I've been working on some things that are more important and, uh, oh, they're books. It's no mystery. That's what I've been working on anyway. Um, someone said something to me on Facebook and I was pondering and praying about it and, um, I was supposed to share this stuff and I apologize because I, I just don't have time to really make a full case for the things that I'm going to tell you. But, um, I hope that this is enough to give you some bread crumbs so that you can go on and, and parse these things out. And I'm gonna make this as short as I can. We'll see how long it takes. So, uh, if you go to Mosiah 29 this is, I've got this on the left hand side here. Hopefully this video turns out, ok, and you can see this. Um, there's this interesting side note here. Uh, I guess we should just start reading it. It says now it, it is better that a man should be judged of God than of man. For the judgments of God are always just, but the judgments of man are not always just. So uh this begs the question, what is justice? And again, this is one of many topics , I'll try not to repeat this over and over again throughout the video, but we could zoom in on any of these things and talk about that for hours and uh there's just no time. So what does it mean? Uh Justice, what does, what does just mean? What does justice mean? What do judgments mean? It all comes down to cause and effect there. Uh There are relationships in reality that are immutable, you can't change them. There's nothing you can do about it. It's just the way it is and uh God is God because He knows those relationships more than anyone else. And he gives us commandments to help us advance in our understanding of those things. The commandments themselves may or may not reflect that actual uh full level of reality that he has, but they are at least steps in that direction because the whole end of that is to help us progress towards what he knows so that we can enjoy everything he derives from his ability to navigate those immutable relationships of cause and effect in reality. So, um if we had uh God to rule over us directly here on earth, then we could rest assured that everything that he said and did and asked us to do was uh the optimal path through that nonnegotiable reality. But that's not the case. And uh the judgments of man or the understanding of cause and effect that men have is not always correct. And in fact, it's, it's hardly ever correct. But um what we think of as justice is almost never justice. So in order to actually have any idea about justice, you have to understand cause and effect to some degree like God does otherwise. Uh it's vanity, it's illusion and it's not real. So uh continue in verse 13. Therefore, if it were possible that you could have just men to be your kings who would establish the laws of God and judges people according to His commandments. Yeah , if you could have men for your kings who would do even as my father Benjamin did for this people, I say unto you, if this could always be the case, then it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you. So I'll reveal a few things to you here. So Benjamin was a great example of what righteous people do for everyone else. So Benjamin uh dedicated his life to his people and what he did was he went and he obtained a greater understanding of God's law of God's understanding of reality, of cause and effect. And then he created a set of laws by which the people could come up to some share of his understanding of cause and effect or reality. This is the same exact thing that God does. So there's this, um, interesting quote by Joseph Smith. It goes something like God finding himself in the midst of spirits, instituted laws whereby everyone else could come up to his level of intelligence . That's paraphrasing. But uh it's good enough. And so his servants do the same thing in their scope and this creates um a ladder where normal people can come up to a greater share of God's understanding. And what we're told here is if we could always have kings like that, then it would be a good thing . But most people are not like that. People like King Benjamin are extremely rare. I mean, even the scriptures and we're talking about thousands of years of history. It's not like we have this chain of 500 of these people. And that should tell you something about how rare they are. So continuing on 14 and even I myself have labored with all the power and faculties which I have possessed to teach you the commandments of God and to establish peace throughout the land that there should be no wars nor contentions, no stealing, nor plundering, nor murdering, nor any manner of iniquity. And so Benjamin's son, Mosiah is saying I've been this type of king too. So I've tried to teach you everything I know about the commandments of God and help you um absorb and accept those things. And, um, we've tried to keep the peace in our land. So transitioning to another point I wanna make verse 14 makes it really clear. The ideas of peace and contention, stealing, plundering, murdering and iniquity are mutually exclusive. And that should be pretty common sense. But, uh, with the news today, it's worth reading this and thinking about what that means. So you have people out there who are warring, who are contending , who are stealing, who are plundering, who are murdering and who are practicing iniquity. And I'll get to that last one in a second and they're doing it in the name of peace in the name of justice. Well, wars, contention stealing, plundering, murdering and iniquity do not bring about justice. They're mutually exclusive. So if you see someone who's pushing contention stealing, plundering, murdering, et cetera, then no matter what they say about what their intent is, you should realize that they will never achieve that intent and that they're actually fighting against it. So what does iniquity mean ? We have, we went a little bit through the words, justice and judgment. Um We have an awful lot of words these days that people throw around and they don't actually mean what the people who use them imply. So iniquity and equality, let's dive into those for a minute. So equity and equity, equity doesn't mean that people have equal outcomes. Equity does not mean that people have the outcomes, we wish they would have equity does not mean fairness in the way we use the word fairness, which we also misuse that word all of these kinds of words, equality, equity. Um What they actually mean are that you get what you deserve. That's the real definition behind the words, justice, equity, equality and everything else means equality of uh outcome based on what you put into it. In other words, what it means is there are these relationships of cause and effect and we're going to subject everyone to the same rules . So um inequity includes anything that deviates from that idea. So any time you say, yeah, yeah, these are the relationships of cause and effect. But we're just gonna suspend that for this group of people or for everyone. And we want to create a society where you don't actually have to work to earn your, your daily bread. And we want to create a society where when people end up in a situation where we wish it were different, we're just gonna go ahead and, and make that happen without touching the cause side of the cause effect law and that causes all kinds of problems and we don't have time to get into that. But let's continue here and we'll talk a little bit more about the relationship of these people who established the laws and what their responsibility is to make sure that iniquity doesn't happen. Uh Using the definition I've given verse 15 and whosoever has committed iniquity him, I have punished according to the crime which he has committed according to the law which has been given us uh to us by our fathers. We'll pause here for a little reflection. Very interesting. I have punished according to the crime which he has committed. So here's a King Mosiah and he sang, I have enacted justice now in this phrase and also in common understanding when you hear the word justice or equity, well, not equity so much that is a positive connotation, but justice has a negative connotation. We only think about justice in terms of punishment. And I've written a lot on this topic. Um The idea that the key idea here uh to recall is that justice swings both ways. You, it's not just punishment, it's only punishment if you deserve punishment. This says according to the crime which he has committed another way of phrasing. This would be if someone uh deviates from the causes, sorry, if someone uh temporarily obtains effects that are different than what the causes imply. The job of a king or the job of a righteous society is to impose the correct consequences on the person. And you might be saying, well, wait a second, I thought you said that the whole cause effect thing is about reality and reality's immutable laws. Well, that's true. But remember, truth happens in layers and the layer that we're after is the layer that God is on. But the layer we're at is much lower than that and the job of a righteous leader or servant, those are the same thing is to um to guide people uh to that ideal level of cause and effect through. Um a somewhat, I don't want to use the word arbitrary but a more distant uh degree of accuracy of cause and effect that was worded really poorly. Uh You could probably notice that I don't make scripts for these things. I mean, I have scriptures here. But anyway, um, when I want to take the time to, to really word things. Exactly, I write books and it takes massively more time than doing a video. So he helped me get some rougher ideas out faster. But, um, anyway, let's, let's try that one again. So, um when a person like, like Moses um issues a law that law is not the fullness of cause and defect, it's kind of like taking a really pixelated picture with an old digital camera versus what you see, see with your eyes. So, um, the, the rough inversion of cause and effect, the low resolution version is really helpful because people aren't ready for the fullness of cause and effect. Boy , that's a big topic. I won't get into it. I've, I've written a lot about it but, um, it's meant to be like rungs on a ladder. And so part of this is that the laws that are instituted for here and now they um they don't immediately, the, the consequences don't immediately follow the causes. So this is like a parent telling a child if you do this thing, I'm going to smack you. Well, if you have to smack them, then it's not a natural consequence, right? But it still might be a very good one because you don't want them to get the natural consequence because maybe it's irrevocable. So you say, look, if you play around with the stove, I'm going to smack you. Well, getting smacked isn't a natural consequence, but it's not uh it's much better than getting your face burned off because there's no going back from that, right? And even if it's um not an irrevocable consequence, maybe it's a much lesser consequence and this is the whole point. It's, it's to help us, right? Anyway. So if you have a king or a society that does not impose these penalties and they try to relax things, then it can only go one way and that's worse. So um the pattern here is that God uh God sends righteous people to the earth with a greater understanding of light and truth or capacity to develop that so that he can reveal to them a higher understanding of cause and effect. And then whether they're just repeating something they were told or whether they're developing something that's, that is a, a step in the path to what they were told , it's irrelevant. But they can issue to the people who choose to believe through them, these laws by which they can come up to a higher degree of understanding than they had before. And again, this is a huge topic. It's an absolutely huge topic, but I just wanna touch on it because it's relevant to today and who knows how long it'll take me to write all this out. Ok. So verse 16, now I said to you that because all men are not just, it is not expedient that you should have a king or kings to rule over you. So coming back to Josiah's point here, he's saying, look, if you could have people like me and my dad, then um it'd be great to have kings all the time. Which side note is pretty funny because he was 100% correct. And yet if someone said something like that today, people would lose their minds. Um But he's saying, look, if it's luck of the draw, that's not a good bet to make because not everyone is like this. And that was probably a humble way of putting it because it turns out that that very few people are like that at all. Verse 17, for behold, how much iniquity doth one wicked king cause to be committed. Yeah. And what great destruction and everywhere we see king here, it's just as good to replace it with society because in a democracy, uh obviously the same things can happen tends to take a little bit more time, but we're there. So it's relevant. 18. Yeah. Remember King Noah, his wickedness and his abominations and also the wickedness and abominations of his people behold, what great destruction to come upon them. And also because of their iniquities, they were brought into bondage and were it not for the interposition of their all wise creator and this because of their sincere repentance, they must unavoidably remain in bondage until now. So we're going to segue here to talk a little bit more about Gideon. So um the way Mosiah puts it is that the people of Lim High. So Noah's son, Lim High were um were freed through the interposition of their all wives creators. So it turns out that there's way more to that story. So let's hop over to here. So there was this guy named Gideon and he killed King Noah. So he freed the people of King Noah from their oppressive King by killing him. He also, oh I didn't put a verse there. I'm sorry. He suggested to Lim High how they could escape the Lamanites? I forgot to look that up, but he's the one that had the idea. So he says to Lim Ha, hey , here's an idea. There's this back pass and we can get out of here if we make the Lamanites drunk. So um later on, he's, this is a quote here. Um Gideon is, is described as the instrument in the hands of God in delivering the people of Lim high out of bondage. So he gets credit for that. I'm not just making that up. And then how did he die? He was killed by this guy named Ni Hor. And we'll talk more about this guy um for defending the laws of Kings Mosiah and Benjamin. And so he was, he was publicly defending the laws of, of kings Mosiah and Benjamin against this guy, Nahor and Nahor killed him for it. So let's talk more about this. But this summary is important because this is exactly the sort of thing that servants of God do. So. So when God wants to intervene uh in situations where society goes amok, these, these are the sorts of things, the kinds of people that we see. And um one side of me bringing this up is that I want to explicitly encourage anyone listening to this, to respond to the iniquity in society in these same ways. Uh Be careful with this one. I'm not advocating that you go and, and kill someone. But um the spirit of all of this is what we're after, which is that you don't let things slide, you, you call it like it is. OK? So man, I didn't put a reference here either. What are we doing? OK. This is all from Alma one. I'll just add that here. So we're, we're talking more about Gideon King Mosiah having gone the way of all the earth having war, a good warfare walking uprightly before God leaving none to reign in his stead. Nevertheless, he had established laws and they were acknowledged by the people. Therefore, they were obliged to abide by the laws which he had made. I already talked about this. But see how this works. The righteous man establishes laws. They're acknowledged by the people and then they choose to live by them. So this is the way that they sort of uh inherit a better way of living than they otherwise would have had access to um transitioning here. But this is from the same chapter. So it's telling the story of this guy, NIH NIH had gone about among the people preaching to them that which he termed to be the word of God bearing down against the church, declaring unto the people that every priest and teacher ought to become popular and they ought not to labor with their hands, but that they ought to be supported by the people. And he also testified unto the people that all mankind should be saved at the last day and that they need not fear nor tremble, but that they might lift up their heads and rejoice for the Lord had created all men and had also redeemed all men. And in the end, all men should have eternal life. And it came to pass that he did teach these things so much that many did believe on his words, even so many that they began to support him and give him money. So this is kind of a summary of what he was teaching. He said, priests and teachers should be ordained because they're popular, not because they're more righteous. He said priests and teachers should be supported by the people, not by their own work. And he said all people uh will be saved without the need to actually stop sinning, which is what repentance means even though no one seems to get that. So these are all opposite things to what Mosiah and Benjamin had taught. If you read King Benjamin's address, it's very clear that he understood and openly taught that repentance means you have to stop sinning. It is very clear through what they taught that they believe the kings should support themselves and they shouldn't be supported by the people. And the same goes for the priests and the teachers. They also believed that uh everyone was not the same and that some people were more righteous than others and that those people were the ones that ought to be priests and teachers. And of course, all of these doctrines are laid out very clearly throughout scripture. But this guy Nihar comes along and he tells everyone what they want to hear and of course they begin to support him and give him money. So verse seven, and it came to pass as he was going to preach to those who believed on his word, he met a man who belonged to the church of God. Yeah, even one of their teachers and he began to contend with him sharply that he might lead away the people of the church. But the man withstood him admonishing him with the words of God. So when these two people uh end up meeting face to face and, and this other person was Gideon. Gideon, let's this guy have it and he just using the word of God. He says, no, you're wrong. And let me, let me give you evidence for that. And um he made such uh a solid argument that nahor killed him. So verse nine, because Gideon withstood him with the words of God, he was w Roth with Gideon and drew his sword and began to smite him. And Gideon was an old man. And so he died. Well, this is what happens. So this is a pattern and it happens again and again and again, if you uh seek God and you really try to learn how to persuade people and you learn about pure knowledge and patience and all these tools that God uses. And then you're able to reason with people as God reasons with people. And you use that capability to try to help folks and you, when you come face to face with them, you try to show them some things that maybe they're not seeing always open minded to the, the very real possibility that you're the one who's wrong. If your arguments are really good, what you'll find is that these people, uh, will respond to you with extreme anger and in some cases they'll try to kill you. And this is not some alien thing that never happens. It's if, if you're the better your arguments are the, the closer to that you'll get. And third Nephi, 7, 18 different time, different place, same exact pattern. It says that that Nephi uh that people were angry with him because he had greater power than they for. It were not possible that they could disbelieve his words for so great was his faith on the Lord Jesus Christ that angels did minister unto him daily. And so Nephi was learning so much about uh the way things really are that he just demolished these people's false traditions and there was nothing they could do except get angry. There was no way that they could rationalize their choice to remain in, in darkness compared to the light that he was sharing with them. And this happens all the time. It's not a rare thing. And like I said, so if you get to the point where you have the same order of knowledge as Nephi, then you will have the same extremity of reaction from people as well because there won't be any way they can disbelieve what you're saying and they will be forced to admit to themselves that they aren't righteous people like they think they are, they're not even decent people and because they have zero interest in changing, the only place that can go is for them to get extremely angry with you. So, um what happened to Gideon? It's the same thing that is going to happen to an awful lot of people in our day. It says uh that he was killed by NIH. Now, the interesting thing about this is that everyone knew who Gideon was and everyone knew the caliber of his character. So all these folks who maybe didn't have as strong of character or maybe weren't as intelligent or maybe just weren't as honest as Gideon as Mosiah as Benjamin, they were being swayed by Nahor to think that these things that were opposite to the law that Benjamin and Mosiah had given them were good ideas. So then Gideon gets killed by Nahor. And what happens is it causes some people to wake up and uh ni whore is punished. And a lot of people repented from thinking that maybe that was a good way to be. Um This isn't in my notes here, but it's worth bringing up this example of the, the Lamanites that had converted and they chose to kneel uh in battle rather than kill the Lamanites that were attacking them. And a lot of them get cut down. But um the number of Lamanites who converted through that were greater than the number of already converted Lamanites who died. And uh this is another huge topic, but I'll just leave it at this. That this is a powerful mechanism that God uses to convert people to a greater degree of love than they had before. When they see people who are good, who suffer because of them, sometimes they wake up and sometimes that's enough to get them to stop sinning. And this is probably the most significant meaning of what it means in. Believe it's Se Nephi. It could be first Nephi. Anyway, one of the first books, first two books in the book of Mormon where it talks about uh how God's love sheds abroad. So this is during the vision of the tree of life that Nephi is having and he's being asked by the angel about the condescension of God and how um how the love of God sheds abroad into the hearts of men. This is how it happens through righteous men, giving their lives to stand up for what's right and those who are actively hurting them or maybe even killing them, get a reality check. That's powerful enough to have them question what they thought before. Anyway, that's a side note. OK, let's go back to here. So uh coming back to the people of Lim High. So the series of steps that happened here were step one. Uh The people of Lim High are afflicted by the Lamanites. Step two, they tried to go out to battle several times to fight the Lamanites and free themselves from this affliction. They, they um got their butts kicked, many people died. And then finally, they cried mightily to God that he would deliver them out of bondage. And it says thus, Doth, the Lord work with his power in all cases, among the Children of men extending the arm of mercy towards them that put their trust in him. And in this context, what does that mean? It means you realize that he's your only ticket out of this mess. And that the number one factor impeding him from helping you is you. So it's interesting to note that until they did this, Gideon didn't come to Lim High and say, hey, I know about this thing this past so we could get out of here. Now. Isn't this interesting? It's interesting because one God did not come to Lim High and tell Lim High, hey, here's your deliverance. Use this pass, get the Lamanites drunk and you can get out of here. He went through Gideon question is why? Second question is why didn't Gideon tell Limi about this pass before then? It's not like he, he didn't know about it before, right? So this is something to think about because these righteous men can be among you. And you'd have no idea because they haven't been quote activated yet , right? And the reason now how much of this Gideon knew about, I have no idea. It could have been that Gideon was just sitting there one day minding his own business and God said, go to Lim High and you know, that past you've known about for 10 years, why don't you bring that up as a way that you guys could get out of here? That could have happened? That I don't know that, that we have any information about it in scripture, but uh just speculating here. Another thing that could have happened is that maybe Lim High was a really stubborn guy and maybe that was well known, maybe he was kind of full of himself and maybe Gideon was sitting there watching him knowing, hey, if I bring this up, he is gonna be really mad and maybe he'll try to kill me. And maybe that sounds ridiculous. But if you look at the way Gideon speaks, I don't have that pulled up here. But if you go back and reread his suggestion to Lim High, he is so careful with the way he's saying things that it, it's not a big stretch of the imagination to think that that was, that second scenario. Might have been closer to the truth. And I can't tell you how frequently we are our own worse enemy. I, I can't tell you how often uh I interact with someone and I see clear as day, all these wonderful things that the Lord has prepared for them and they're just sitting there like fruit dangling over their heads. But you can't even suggest the possibility to these people. That that's the case because they will lose their minds because it would offend them so greatly to imagine for a split second that they don't know everything there is to know and they don't already have everything there is to have and it's just insane to see it. And the reason for that I don't want to rant on and on about this, it's a huge honesty problem. It's a huge honesty problem because they know deep down inside that the, the they don't have the, the full concept yet, but they know very well that uh the beginnings of what is causing their problems in life and they're doing nothing about it. In fact, they're running the other way just like Jonah did. Um And so from time to time, their lies to themselves were thin and they get really anxious and, and depressed and everything else about the way their lives are going. But most of the time they have such a, an Impenetrable bubble of falsehood around all the darkness inside of them that, um it's just impossible to reach these people. And so step number one is crying mightily to the Lord. And here's a little, here's a little secret. It's not like that changes God's desires. He desires more than you can ever understand, to help you. He's waiting to do it because you're stopping him. The praying to him doesn't change his mind about these things, what it does is it opens your heart to finally listen to what he's been willing to do all along. And nine times out of 10, the way he's gonna tell you about those things is through someone else, a human, maybe an angel. But odds are, you don't qualify for that. And, uh, that sounds harsh but it's just the way it is, they're, they're qualifying, uh, requirements for that. Odds are that he's gonna send a human. And odds are that, uh, he already has tried to do that and you shut that person down. But, uh, he'll send someone. If you humble yourself, you'll notice it and you'll receive it and that's nine times out of 10 the way it works. Well, I touched on about 20 things there that are all chapters in upcoming books. Um, and maybe chapters have already been written in books that are published, but I, we just gotta get through this. So let's keep rolling. Ok. So then he goes into this bit about, ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous king. Save it be through much contention in the shedding of much blood. But you'll notice this interesting point that God delivered the people of Lim high without bloodshed. And he only did this after they had failed to do it through bloodshed. And so, um, the interesting takeaway here is that God can dethrone an iniquitous king without contention or shedding of blood, but you can't, it's not gonna happen and this is important because one of the main reasons I'm going through any of this in the first place is because it's valid today in the situation we find ourselves in politically and socially, you are not going to fix this situation because the only way you could is through a great deal of contention and violence and it's not going to actually fix the problem. The only way the problem can get fixed is through God and he will do it. So I'll just throw that out there and we'll come back to it because I'm going to tell you exactly how he's going to, uh, because he has OK, verse 2223 it, it says what, how this happens, right? Why? It's hard to dethrone an iniquitous king because he keeps his guards about him. He tears up the laws of those who've reigned in righteousness before him and he trample them, trample under his feet, his feet, the commandments of God. Are we seeing this today? We absolutely are. There's a wholesale abandonment of principles far beyond what people today could create because they're not worthy to create it. They are, they don't have enough light and truth to create these things. They would never do it. And we're traveling them under our feet and we're turning away from God's commandments. We're turning away from the laws that people who are wiser than us have created in the past. And uh we're replacing them with lesser laws just like Noah. Did you remember he dismissed all the priests and ordained wicked priests in their place and then, uh, it's worth reading this. So, verse 23 he enacted laws and sendeth them forth among his people, laws after the manner of his own wickedness. Do we see this today? Yes, we do. So wickedness. Ok. We haven't talked about that one. Let's stop there. Uh What is the relationship between justice and wickedness? They're opposites. So people think that in order to be wicked, like you have to go about slicing people's throats and openly doing whatever. No wickedness just means an opposition of justice. That's all it means. So um cause and effect, what do people deserve? The opposite of that is wickedness. Um I guess I should just to be totally correct here. Um The opposite of justice is either wickedness or mercy, but mercy doesn't mean what people think it means. And I guess suffice it to say I'm just trying to keep this simple mercy means that someone else is paying the price due from justice. So justice requires that you get what you deserve under mercy. You get what someone else deserves. If you're the person paying the price, you're getting what they deserve. That's the price you pay. If you're the person receiving the mercy, then you're getting what the righteous person who paid the price for you deserves. That's in a nutshell. That's what that is the other fork of this is wickedness. And whereas under mercy, someone is still paying the price demanded by justice. Under wickedness , we're pretending like there is no price so you can just have whatever your, your little vain imaginations desire and no one has to pay the price. So laws after the manner of wickedness mean that uh we're suspending the relationship of cause and effect, which is dictated by reality, not our wishes. And we're replacing those with these ridiculous laws that have no bearing whatsoever on reality. And we're just gonna try to spin it from whole cloth. So under that definition, a whole lot of people are wicked who have no idea that they're wicked and probably you didn't have any idea that they're wicked until five minutes ago. Ok. Whosoever doth not obey his laws, he causes to be destroyed. Are we seeing that today? We sure are and whosoever doth rebel against him, he will send his armies against in the war and if he can, he will destroy them. So people usually look at me cross eyed when I say the more light and truth, you share, the more people are gonna want to kill you. And yet we have this again and again in the scriptures. So are the scriptures wrong or are people who look at me cross eyed wrong? If you haven't seen this yet? Maybe you're just not saying the things that have sufficient light and truth yet. But as the world turns darker. You will see this in more common scenarios. Uh You will see people trying to destroy ideas and people who espouse those ideas more and more and you're already seeing it now more than you did a year ago. And that will continue to accelerate because remember it's what, so this business about destroying them, it comes back to this verse over here that we shared from 35 7 18. It's because they can't disbelieve what you're saying and it causes them so much pain because they have to acknowledge who they really are and they will run and they will fight, they will do anything. They can, they will lie, cheat, steal and kill to avoid facing the darkness inside of them because their motivation in life is to feel good and, but they're not actually good people. And so anything that brings to light, this contradiction causes them pain and they will fight to the death to stop it. Most times they'll just run away from you, which you know that happens. But in certain situations, they can't put enough distance between you and them. And that's when they try to kill you. It's like cornering a junkyard dog. So maybe the dog will run away from you. But if they're cornered , they'll turn on you and try to try to kill you anyway. That's another side note. Ok? So then he gets to this business about choosing by the voice of the people. And he says, if you remember, he says, look, it's great for you to have kings like me and my dad. But we're hard to come by. So let's put away this whole idea of kings and let's replace ourselves with judges because it's more likely the judges elected by the people will be more righteous than the people themselves because people tend to have the sense um sense enough to discern people who are wiser than themselves and then to willingly submit to that wisdom. Now, that's a funny topic. And I, I don't wanna open up that can of worms, but I, I can't totally hold back from it. We live in a world today where under the auspices of uh modern advancement, we pretend that everyone is equal, everyone is not equal. There's, there is no shred of evidence anywhere that supports that idea and there's a mountain of evidence everywhere that refutes it. And so even though we like to pretend that everyone is equal and we wish that that was the case. It'd be, it'd be great if everyone were equally wonderful, right? Equally smart, equally beautiful across the board. The problem is when you insist on holding that notion contrary to reality, what happens is you can't get the benefits of some people being better than others. What however you define better, it doesn't matter. So if everyone thought that King Benjamin was just some Schmo like everybody else, no one would have said, yeah, these ideas you have are great and they'll put us in a much better position than we'd be otherwise. Do you see the problem? And it doesn't matter how you look at this, if you live in a world where everyone is beautiful. Well, what does that mean for the people that actually are beautiful? And what does that mean for the people that could become more beautiful if they took care of themselves? And that's a stupid, superficial uh context. But it gets the point across you cannot make everyone equal without losing the value of things that are better than average. Does that make sense? So we can all pretend that making $5 an hour is the same as making $500 an hour. But it's not, there are massive differences between those two things and there are all sorts of secondary and tertiary consequences of pretending that those things are the same when they're not anyway. Um So if we get back to this passage here, for most of history, people had the sense to know that not everyone was the same and that if they chose out people that were wiser and had stronger character, uh they were more righteous than common people and made those people leaders, then it would be better . They'd all be better off. Right. There's some issues with this because those kinds of people don't seek out power. They're not the kinds of people that run for office. They're just sort of doing their own thing. Right. So they invented this brilliant system where people would choose these local judges and the local judges would, would, uh, choose from themselves, the judges over them. And so what, what you did was you leveraged everyone's vote so that the most important decisions were made by the wisest people, hopefully. Right. So that the chief judge was chosen by the judges below him and so on and so on and so on. And so the amount of damage that could be done by people who lacked wisdom was very muted. So the Nephites didn't have a system of democracy. They had a system, a Republican system where um the, they, they chose their representatives in a way that um the, the, the votes were waited in a way that the most important decisions were made by the people who had the most credibility to make them. And so it was a meritocracy in a sense as close as you could get anyway. Um So that we get this warning that when uh the voice of the people chooses iniquity. So when the majority of people choose to violate the way things are, that's when the judgments of God come upon you. And again, we're, we've now come full circle to this definition of iniquity and, and back to what we're talking about with wickedness. It's not like running around slitting people's throats. People think that this verse um that what it's describing is when the, when the, when the majority of people choose iniquity would be something that's, that's disgusting, overtly, uh awful, just outrageous display of vulgarity and, and violence and, and graft and whatever else. It, it's not any of those things. I mean, it, it is all of those things but that it happens way before then all it takes is for us to snip the connection between cause and effect When we try to suspend justice, not just in his, its negative connotation, but in the positive one too, when we try to withhold from people who deserve good things because of the decisions they've made and the sacrifices they've made when we try to withhold from them, the fruits of their labor, the fruits of their righteousness. And when we try to give those fruits to people who do not deserve them and we do that by force, that is enough that is enough to fulfill everything this says when the majority of people vote for things and support things that, that violate cause and effect. That's the time that the judgments of God will come upon you. And that's the time He will visit you with great destruction, even as he has hitherto visited this land. And we're gonna get into what that means in a second. But I wanna drive this point home because it's super important. The reason this is such a big deal. It is the biggest possible deal because uh, some random person can go and do some random crime and it's awful. Ok, some innocent person has been hurt and it's really bad and it makes us all sad. Excuse me with reason. Uh, but that is a very localized thing. It affects that person, it affects that family, it affects their friends, it affects people who are overly sentimental when they read the news. Um, but it's a very limited effect. So that person that did the crime, it was , it was a muted effect when society as a whole blows the bridge to prosperity. That is a really big deal when society as a whole creates a, a rut where it's guaranteed to march into destruction. That's a really big deal. And remember the whole point of creation is to bring people closer to God. The reason disconnecting justice is a huge deal is because cause and effect is the way that we learn more about God. I could say a lot more about this. And I'm, I apologize, I just don't have time. It is going to be in the next book that I put out. But reason is the way that people approach God. Reason is all about discovering cause and effect, critical thought is the way we approach God. That's probably all I can say without saying way more about it. But when we sever the connection between cause and effect, and we create a system that artificially distorts those things, maybe grotesquely So, which is the case today, then you're ripe for destruction because you're preventing people from approaching God. You've created a system where it's almost impossible to do that. And that's when he has to come down against us because it would not be merciful, not to do it. It, it, it, um, it's almost as if it forces people who would otherwise be righteous to be wicked because there, it's, it's like a, a tree that's staked at an angle, it's gonna grow crooked, right? Ok. Uh So hopefully that's enough to get you thinking about that. Um I'll, I'll give a much more expanded uh treatment of all those ideas later . OK. Uh So then is the time he will visit you with great destruction, even as he has Hitherto visited this land? Ok. So this land is America. And how is it that America has Hitherto been visited in the same way? What does it mean for the judgments of God to come upon you? So we talked about what will trigger that and it's probably blatantly obvious that we're doing all those things today. Um That'd be a long and depressing video to make, well, let's go over it. So this is Ether two. So that's this land and that's hitherto because the jareds came before. So verse seven, the Lord would not suffer that the Jered should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness, but he would, that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands which the Lord God had preserved for righteous people. And he had sworn in his wrath unto the Brother Jared. That whoso should possess this land of promise from that time henceforth, and forever should serve Him the only true and o sorry, the true and only God or they should be swept off when the fullness of His wrath should come upon them. And now we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise and who whatsoever nation shall possess. It shall serve God, or they shall be swept off from the fullness of His wrath. When the fullness of His wrath shall come upon them in the fullness of His wrath cometh upon them when they're ripened in iniquity. This is kind of the strongest kind of promise that that can happen. This is God giving an unconditional condition of uh the people who live here. So the question is, what does it mean to be ripe in iniquity? Um This is interesting. So I've seen this in many individuals lives where they get to the point where they've cut themselves off completely to everything that God could do to help them. And what what basically this means is that they're locked into a downward spiral where the absolute only thing that can save them is that them waking up. So their choice to turn away from everything they've been going through and they've chosen in the past because they've cut themselves off from the channels that God could use to help them do that externally. Um So the sequence is like this, God sends ministers, servants to help you. And, and the first step is always through his spirit, but this is almost universally turned away from. And the funny thing about the holy ghost is it doesn't mess around. And if you, if you um if you offend the Holy Ghost, it, you lose your ability to discern it very quickly. So angels are the next step and the angels are, are funny. They, they really don't mess around and so you can, it's, this is an interesting exercise. If you go through and reread interactions with, between angels and men in the scriptures, you'll find that um they're easily offended, right? So when Gabriel of all people comes to Zacharias, um and Zacharias says, yeah, ok, we'll have a son but jeez, we're really old. Um Gabriel takes away his ability to speak for a long time, right? Um So they, they don't, they don't have a lot of uh tolerance for unbelief or sin. And so what you could think of this as is that they're much more bound to justice than humans are. Um this isn't speculation, right? So God says that all people have to forgive everyone and the judgment is his. So um with the Holy Ghost and Angels, that's, that's not in play and they have to operate by justice. So there's some mercy that can happen. But the point is that it tends to happen less often with angels than it does with humans. So a human because they have this counterbalancing commandment from God to forgive everyone, they can just keep on hammering away at whatever completely hopeless situation. Uh They may face with someone and they can just try and try and try and try and try and try and try to help that person until that person removes themselves from that channel. And so what we see is that profits can get to the point where there is nothing else they can do for the people because so let's just run through an example or two. But you could look at this in greater detail if you wanted. So the first Nephi in the book of Mormon, uh he endured an awful lot with his brothers and his parents and that, that went on until his brothers tried to kill him. And that was the point where God said, ok, you need to leave because they're gonna kill you. And he, he endured everything before that. And he just tried and tried and tried and he tried even though he knew for a fact that they would not listen because he had been shown that in a vision, he still tried because if I was a merciful person and he was filled with the love of God and so things can happen where you get shut down. So, what would that look like in a modern situation? Well, it could look exactly the same, but other things could happen too. You could have people tell you, I never want to hear from you again. Please don't ever contact me and maybe that's never happened to you. It's happened to me an awful lot. I've had that happen many times and if someone tells you that in writing, it's not just that legally, they could then file a lawsuit or something and have you arrested or get a restraining order because they've told you to leave them alone and you're not, uh the more important implication there is that something has been triggered in heaven when that happens. And um, I guess I won't get too much into it. But, um , they are now beyond you and it's on their heads and that's not a thing to rejoice about. Right. It's a super sad thing. But when that happens, they have cut themselves off from you and there's nothing you can do about it. So, uh there comes a time where profits can't help people anymore. And at that point, God switches over to this pattern and it's like clockwork and it, it consists of pestilence, famine, war and natural disaster. It doesn't always happen in that order, but that is the typical order for, for uh reasons. I'll explain in a second. So, going back to Ether two Um I'll just read this . It says for behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands wherefore He that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off for it is the everlasting decree of God and is not until the fullness of iniquity among the Children of the land that they are swept off and this cometh unto you o ye gentiles that ye may know the decrees of God that ye may repent and not continue in your iniquities until the fullness come that ye may not bring down the fullness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done. Behold, this is a choice land and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage and from captivity and from all other nations under heaven if they will but serve the God of the land. Who is Jesus Christ who hath been manifested by the things which we have been, which we have written. Uh There's a lot there. I'm not gonna go into it all . But um the point is this that the fate of the United States is sealed, there is nothing that can be done about it. Now, the only thing that can be done is at the individual level. Um and we'll talk about that in a minute. OK, let's get back to the sword, famine, pestilence business. So I said this is usually the order it happens in the reason for this is because uh when I say there's nothing else God can do to help you. I mean through people. And so he has to expose you to the consequences of your choices. And as a society that means pestilence, famine wore a natural disaster. Um So he typically does that in a certain order because it's typically the case that that order is the one that causes the least suffering and the greatest benefit and everything God does is oriented to cause the greatest benefit. It's a law that he ha he he uh functions by. And so when you have a pestilence or a fam or um excuse me, a plague, it's, it's disease when you have diseases. Typically. Um not all cases are fatal. Typically, it takes time to spread through population. Typically, you have time where you're sick before you die, even if you're gonna die. And so it's a great way to help people repent because it takes time with a famine. Uh you will, you will die sometimes you will die. Um Well, well, uh uh society wide, you will die faster through a famine than you will a disease because a famine doesn't take time to spread. If the food source gets compromised, it's compromised and that's all there is to it . Um So everyone goes hungry at the same time. But with the disease, people don't all get sick on the same day, it takes time to move through the population. So with a famine, more people die faster. And so there's less time to repent, but there is time because most people are carrying around a couple extra pounds and uh £1 of fat is one day of life without food. So, um, uh pretty much everyone would have at least a month before they died of starvation and a month is a long time to think about your life and some choices that you should have made differently. And so then if the famine's lifted, hopefully you can stick to the decisions you've made about how to be better. Next comes war. So war um, tends to be instantaneous for, for many people with modern warfare. If a nuke dropped, then everyone in its path would dive. Uh, well, sorry, there would be uh people, a lot of people who would die immediately and a lot of people who would die shortly thereafter from the radiation poisoning. Um, and then there's the, the traditional warfare with, with bullets and bayonets and things and, um, it's, it's just a, a much faster, more widespread uh cause of death and famine. And also so those who are starving have nothing but time on their hands to think about the decisions they've made in life. But those who are warring are pretty um occupied by the day to day demands of battle. And so it's not like they're sitting contemplating for weeks on end in massive pain about the things that they should have done differently in their lives. They're concerned with how they can kill the other side as fast as they can and they're marching around and, and doing operations and things. So finally you have natural disaster and this one's a big deal because it tends to kill a lot of people really quickly. And there are, uh, follow on effects that might be stretched through time because supply chains are disrupted or uh water supplies are corrupted or food supplies go away. But um those are, those are pestilence and famine, they're not the natural disaster. But if a tsunami comes through and kills 3 million people or a massive earthquake happens, um then those people die, right? And there's no chance for them to repent. So hopefully, that makes sense. So now let's talk more about this. And if you've never seen this pattern before, maybe it'll blow your mind. We'll see. So after the flood, God promised Noah that he'd never again uh wipe the earth clean through a flood uh uh global flood. And um so we get this pattern of sword famine and pestilence. And the merciful thing about that is it's localized and um so fewer people die, but this pattern happens again and again and again. So if you look at Ether 11 7, it happened to the jareds. It says that uh there are wars and contentions in all the land and also many famines and pestilences, insomuch that there is a great destruction, such an one as never had been known upon the face of the earth. It happened to the people in the land of Amman. Iha. Um Alma warned them and he said that uh actually this might have been Amy like speaking. But regardless, um he said that if it weren't for the prayers of the righteous in the land that uh they would be taken by famine and by pestilence in the sword. And uh but it is by the prayers of the righteous that ye are spared. Now, therefore , if you will cast out the righteous from among you, then will not the Lord stay his hand, but in his fierce anger, he will come out against you. Then y ye shall be smitten by famine and by pestilence and by the sword and the time is soon at hand except ye repent. Now, I'll keep going with these patterns here. But it's important to note that people have been invited to move out from cities and the righteous are doing so. And uh now the more people who, who didn't listen to that call will be pushed out by the antifa types and by the riots and by things that will still come and haven't happened yet. And there will be a time when there are no more righteous people among them. And at that time is when these sorts of things tend to happen, it happened to the people of King Noah. Um If I remember correctly, this is a benois prophecy to them. He, he was quoting the Lord and said that it shall come to pass . I will smite this my people with sore afflictions. Yeah, with famine and with pestilence and I will cause that they shall howl all the day long. It's a really interesting prophecy because this part of the story is not told in the book of Mormon, the fulfillment of this. But uh we know that King Lim High's people were afflicted and that uh they were attacked by the Lamanites. And so uh it's likely that they did suffer this famine and pestilence too. But it's the same pattern. It happened to the Jews after the crucifixion of Christ Seite 10 says, but because of priest crafts and iniquities, they at Jerusalem will stiffen their necks against him that he be crucified wherefore because of their iniquities, destructions, famines, pestilences and bloodshed shall come upon them and they who shall not be destroyed shall be scattered among all nations. Same pattern. Uh I'm not quoting it here, but you probably already know the story about how this same thing happened to the knee fights after uh Christ's crucifixion. They had these things happen, happened to the Nephites at the end of the book of Mormon in 400 years shall not pass away before I will cause that they shall be smitten. Yeah, I will visit them with the sword and with famine and with pestilence, sword, famine, pestilence. All right. So now we get into some interesting stuff about our day. So the same pattern is and will happen is happening and will happen in our time. Second Nephi six says in blessed are the gentiles, they of whom the prophet is written for. Behold. If it so be that they shall repent and fight not against Zion and do not unite themselves to that great and abominable church, they shall be saved for the Lord. God will fulfill his covenants which he has made unto his Children. And for this cause, the prophet has written these things wherefore they that fight against Zion and the covenant people of the Lord shall lick up the dust of their feet and the people of the Lord shall not be ashamed for the people of the Lord. Are they who wait for him for, they still wait for the coming of the messiah. So there's a distinction made here. And I think I just wrote a post recently about this uh two churches, business. But um there are, this is not saying if the gentiles repent as a society and don't fight against iron, they'll be spared of all these things. What it's saying is individuals in society can choose to be those who fight against Zion or who don't and the consequences are already appointed and they're going to happen and they are happening and they'll happen more. The question is which group. Are you going to be in? Very briefly, I'll talk about these two churches and what it means to fight against Zion. And I'll say more about this in the books. But in the next book, in fact, it just means those who fight against what's right. It's not the best way to think about this to confine it to spiritual things, especially religious things. Fighting against Zion just means that you act as if there's no such thing as cause and effect. You support things that are not fruitful, that are not beneficial, that are not effectual. And you pretend that reality can be created through you wishing it was so and uh society as a whole today fights against science. That is the way the majority act and what they desire. And so the question is, do you want to be part of the group of people or the church who believes in reality and reason and critical thought and cause and effect in right and wrong? Or do you wanna be in the group of people who wish things were different than they are and who fight against what is right and who fight against reason and who live by emotion and through sentimentality. And that is the church of the devil. And that's a very, very brief overview and I apologize for that, but that's the way it is. And um they that believe not in him shall be destroyed both by fire and by tempest and by earthquakes and by bloodshed and by pestilence and by famine. And they shall know that the Lord is God, the holy one of Israel. So um there you have it so fire, tempest, earthquakes, bloodshed, pestilence and famine will happen in the last days. And we are here because people fight against Zion, the majority of society fights against what is right? So I really hesitate to bring this up because I don't want to talk about the Book of Revelation without talking about the Book of Revelation because there's just so much misunderstanding about that. It's insane. But uh I have to bring this up. So Revelation six, this is the King James version, but I have inserted a little of Tyndall's translation into verse eight uh which is more correct. But verse seven, this is the seals. Um when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say come and see and I looked and behold a pale horse and his name that sat on him was death and hell followed with him and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill a sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth. Tyndall renders this uh not with death and and with the base of the earth, but with death that cometh a vermin of the earth and that's pestilence, that's disease. So a common English translation of this would, would be and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with violence with starvation and with the pla with plagues from animals or as we've seen again and again in the book of Mormon, this pattern of sword famine pestilence. That's the pattern verse nine. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar, the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held and they cried with a loud voice saying how long o Lord, holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth and white robes were given unto every one of them. And it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled. And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal and lo there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth. Even as a fig tree caste her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. So I don't have time and it's not the right time to make a case for seals and timing and everything else. But if you're willing to believe for a second or suppose, I guess for a second that, uh, we are in the fourth seal and I contend that we are, but I don't expect anybody to believe me because I don't have, um, it's not the right time to make a case for that, but this is the pattern. Ok. And what I want to put as a takeaway here is that you have um you've got war and disease and hunger and you've got natural disasters . So whether this is now or later, you can see that it will happen or maybe it is happening and that the scope of this is immense because it's the fourth part of the earth. So whether that's geographical or numerical is irrelevant right now, but um there you have it significance of this with the martyrs . Um So pulling this all together. Um You have a lot of people like Gideon who will not. Uh well, I guess who will stand up for what is right? Even when the majority of people have lost their minds and verged out of reason. Um and into irrationality. So this is very important. This is the kind of people we should be where we should stand up for what's right, even if it costs us our, our lives. So, excuse me, in conclusion, uh injustice is taking over, I hope that's really obvious. And there is no escape from this. This will end with God sweeping the United States clean through disease, famine, war and natural disasters. And I'd say at least the United States. So if you uh would like to do the right thing as a result of all of this, what it means is to stand up for what's right? Even if, if it costs you your life, what's right is defined by what is effectual. It, it means the law of cause and effect . It means recognizing the the wisdom of those who have given you uh laws greater than you could have come up with yourself. It means pleading with God for deliverance. And then it means expecting God to send a servant to deliver you and that last bit is going to ruffle some feathers. So I apologize that I'm sort of dangling that out there, but it is the truth and therefore I'll say it. And I think I've already made the case with Gideon for how and Mosiah and Benjamin for how this sort of thing works. But if you want some homework, you can read through the examples of Alma and of Abedi and of Noah and of Nephi, any of the Nephi in fact and on and on and on to see how this works. And that is what we should expect to see. Uh Noah is probably the most significant of those given the situation. So uh we live in a uh tidal wave of filth and injustice and the way that God will save people from that is by sending people who have a better sense of cause and effect through having obtained greater light. And they will uh offer an umbrella to help people navigate through this to a greater extent than they would have otherwise. So I hope all that was helpful. Um And uh yeah, until next time.