Member Training – Actively Anti Evil

Member training from April 7th, 2025.

In this presentation, I emphasize the imperative for believers to not merely avoid evil but to actively oppose it. Drawing from scriptural teachings, I highlight that passivity in the face of evil equates to complicity.

I delve into the subtle ways evil manifests in modern society, often under the guise of cultural norms or political correctness.It’s crucial for us to discern these deceptions and stand firm in truth.

Furthermore, I discuss the role of the Church and individual believers in confronting societal injustices and moral decay.Our faith should compel us to action, challenging us to be beacons of light in a world overshadowed by darkness.

In conclusion, I urge every believer to adopt an “actively anti-evil” stance, recognizing that our silence or inaction can perpetuate the very evils we are called to resist.Let us commit to being vigilant, courageous, and unwavering in our pursuit of righteousness.

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TRANSCRIPT

Father in heaven, we're thankful for the many blessings that thou hast given us in this country. We pray that we'll be worthy of the blessings that thou give us, and we pray that thou bless us with the many more that we don't see that we need yet. We ask thy blessings to people in Ben tonight as he teaches us about freedom, about the Constitution, and what we can do to Make sure that we keep these freedoms for ourselves and our families. We ask for the blessing of the Holy Ghost to be with us to help in retaining those things in our mind and being able to recall them as needed. We ask for these blessings in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

It's kind of funny that I bring this up because I've talked about the idea of what the conspiracy has come out with. good enough to be not racist you have to be anti-racist and so i think they're using a correct principle uh for a lie and that might be a topic specifically to get into uh sometime but um it's important for us not to be not just to not be evil but it is important for us to be actively anti -evil and so it's uh that's what i'm going to cover tonight and what that means and how do we accomplish that And give us examples that we can follow and give us some examples and give us some things that we can choose from to do ourselves. It's really important for us really to, you know, if we're not, and I'm going to get into this, if we're not applying these things, then I'm wondering why we're here. It's really important for us to do that. So again, the purpose, right? But what are we doing in the Tree of Liberty Society? We are building understanding of the principles that have built free nations. We are exposing the satanic conspiracy, and we are building an effective resistance to that conspiracy.

So again, as we go through trainings, this is what we need to be thinking about. How is this doing that? How do I apply this to my membership in the Tree of Liberty Society so that I can be as effective as I can be? So again, and I've talked about this, and I don't think... I hope you don't get tired of me saying this because I don't think that this can be overemphasized. That first and foremost, we must build our own understanding. We don't know what we don't know. And so when we build understanding, then we can figure out what we didn't know. And now we know it and we can apply it and we can do better. And so it's important that we're always on that learning process. Not ever learning and ever coming to a knowledge, but always learning and then applying that. that knowledge. As we read from the prophet Hosea, who said, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. And because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God. I will also forget thy children. And so that curse that is on us, it expands out. And I think that's, I mean, a lot of it's natural to because if we are ignorant, we can't pass knowledge to our children. So in that way, but I think also the Lord adds his own cursings to that. Yeah, Rod, go ahead.

Sorry, I forgot you didn't want any interruptions. I was just going to mention that we're all familiar with that. You're really quiet too, Rod. I don't know if you can... Can you hear me better now? I sure can. Sorry, I forgot you didn't want any interruptions, but I was just going to point out we're all familiar with the line, I think it's in Isaiah where he talks about um line upon line here a little there right yeah and we all like to discuss that as though you know god telling us that it's great you know just learn a little bit here and there but what's interesting is that that's not that uh that's actually said in two different places and in one of those two places the lord is actually saying that he's not happy with us for being content with here a little and barely us to want more because he's willing to give us more as quickly as we are willing and able to receive it and so it's very interesting but if people will look those two instances up in the scripture you'll see in one case he's actually chastising us because we're content with just little bits and pieces and it ends up with this right here that we're destroyed for lack of knowledge spend all of our time on nonsense and we don't spend enough time on the things that matter exactly yeah thank you appreciate that so if you make sure you are our uh co our co-hosts are taking care of any of the raised hands you can take care of that and if it needs to be brought up we can we can do that but i wanted to just send those co-hosts after that um so yeah absolutely rod i appreciate you bringing that up um it's important for us to that We cannot overemphasize the importance of gaining more knowledge and what it means for our destruction if we are content, as Rod said. And what that means, the Lord is warning us constantly about this. And so I don't want to stop warning us about that because it's too often I hear people will say, I'm done learning. I need to just go do something. And there's a point where we need to act on what we have.

But most of the time, I would say the people saying, I'm done learning, I need to go act, are people doing stupid stuff and people that don't know correct principles and they're falling for the conspiracy. And so I really believe that it's those that are more humble and realizing our ignorance are the ones that are more likely to be doing the right thing leading up to us gaining more knowledge. And even if it's not completely in line with correct principle, at least it's moving in that direction. And so it's always important that we are always learning. And learning something isn't, you know, we go back here that it leads to destruction, the lack of knowledge because of our actions, which means good knowledge should be life-changing in a positive way, right? Understanding and being converted to truth or correct principles. leads to a change in behavior better than understanding behavior changes behavior. Some of you have heard a variation of that in the past. I want to give a couple of examples. We think of smoking. If you understand what the behavior of smoking does to you, just understand just that it's bad for you.

There are lots of people that smoke that know that it's bad for them, that the behavior is bad. If you're converted to a correct principle of your obligation to God because God gave you your body, and so just as an example of a principle that would help you to quicker to stop doing something bad, you recognize you've become converted to the idea that your body is not yours, that it was given as a gift to you from God and that you are a steward over it to take as good care of it as you can. and to not be ungrateful, to show your ingratitude. God by doing things that are damaging to it. Because if you don't have a testimony of that principle, you don't care about the effects of it. You're like, I like the effect. I like the way it makes me feel. Now I'm addicted to it because of whatever reason I started doing it in the first place.

And so if you don't have a testimony of the principle of your body being a gift from God, then you're not going to change your behavior of smoking if you're already addicted to it and so it's important for us to do that and then we think of the the principle of baptism right if people that believe in baptism if you just learn about baptism and the mechanics of it this is how you do it xyz but you don't have a testimony of it if you don't understand the principle behind it then you're not going to care right that information does you no good and so it's important for us to understand the principle because that's what's going to lead us to change our behavior for the better life-changing and so i want to give some examples of learning that i you know tools of learning that have been life-changing for for me and you know kind of maybe being um obvious here but the scriptures As I read them and then I gained a testimony of the truthfulness of the principles in them, my life changed. I stopped doing things that were not good that I was doing before. And there, of course, are always more things that we can do to become in line with that. But when we gain that understanding of a principle, it's going to be much more than just if we're just reading the scriptures for history. You're not going to change your behavior, no matter how much you read them. But if you change them to say, okay, this is the principle I need to learn to fulfill the measure of my creation, the whole reason why I was sent here, then that's going to be life-changing. Another set of books, Journal of Discourses, talks given by early leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has been life -changing as I seek and read them in that same way.

The book Killing No Murder, the same thing, has helped me better understand the principles that I espouse and love from the Founding Fathers in a way that changes what my plans are, what my behavior is. And it's life-changing. Another life-changing book is Mean Cattell or the Downfall of Tyranny. It was written in the 1600s as well. And this book really lays out some wonderful principles. We're going to be printing it very soon. It'll be a future book club. It really redefines a lot of different concepts of government and our duty to it. That is very much enlightening. And if we apply those principles, life changing. And so learning for the sake of learning is simply not enough. We need to do something with that information. right there has to be a reason behind it otherwise it's a waste of time so the bottom line is that our actions should change as we increase our understanding so if if when we learn something new and we don't have a desire to change our life in some way readjust the way we do things readjust our thought process which leads us to change the way we do things then it was it was ineffectual we need to go back and say okay what did i miss Because I don't know how this leads me to change my life. Was I reading it in the wrong way?

Was I reading it in the wrong spirit? Did I not grasp a principle that was coming across? Because when we're reading something of value, when we're learning something of value, it should change our life so that we are actively engaged in something more effectively than we were before we learned that thing. So Madison himself, he understood this principle and what it takes to be actively anti-evil. Those other steps that I was talking about, that's what leads us to be actively anti-evil because we understand evil, we understand good, and so we're going to change our behavior. So the first steps is learning. And we've covered this. If you were in the book club, you're going to know that some of the stuff I'm going to cover right now is going to sound familiar because I'm quoting from Federalist 46.

He says the means of opposition to an oppressive government are powerful and at hand. He gives us the rules. You know, I've talked a lot about what doesn't work and why we're driven to focus on fake solutions. And these are solutions that the founding fathers never suggested, right? Voting harder, suing the government, those types of things. These are the things that they said we engage in as a, actively being actively against evil right oppressive government is evil so he says that the first one is the disquietude of the people the people's repugnance and refusal to cooperate with the officers of the union i'm going to go into depth on those things because some of these words either have changed meaning or they're not used like disquietude not a word we use a lot in in common vernacular i at least me i maybe i'm running around the wrong crowd And maybe all of you guys use disquietude all the time, but it's not something that I use on a regular basis. So I want to get into those definitions. So what is disquietude? What does that mean? What is James Madison telling us to do? He's giving us an action item. When we see an out-of-control government, when we see evil, how do we become actively anti-evil? Okay, so disquietude.

This is the dictionary, the Johnson's Dictionary. uh what was commonly used the definitions commonly understood um at the time that the federalist papers were published okay so disquietude means uneasiness anxiety disturbance for a want of tranquility okay so when he says that the people need to be full of disquietude he's saying that there's no peace we are not going to be at peace until tyrants retreat We are going to be constantly harassing them. We are going to be constantly going after them. There's going to be an action that we're doing nonstop over and over again until they back off. We're not going to just be like, oh, I wrote my letter. I made my phone call. I posted something on Facebook. I'm done. I've done my job on that topic. No, we're not going to stop talking about it. We're obsessed with it.

Somebody asks us about what our favorite... thing to eat is and we're going to act like they ask the question of you know what is the government doing and how am i going to oppose it it's just something we're going to always talk about and it's always going to be our response so and again if you raise your hand put a comment down in the thread and then a moderator or a co-host will um see if we need to talk about it right now or we can go on but um so disquietude i mean you know that's we are not going to be at peace until the tyrant backs off So the next, right, is so our duty is to be full of disquietude. And we look at scriptures that talk about that same thing. Proverbs 31, 8 and 9 says, Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously. and plead the cause of the poor and needy. So talk about it. Open your mouth. Bring it up. Go over it again and again and again because these things are always going on and need to be addressed. If we don't talk about it, nobody's going to know about it. Nobody's going to do something about it.

The next scripture we have is in Doctrine and Covenants section 123. Also, it is an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation and to all the pure in heart. So future generation. those that are alive currently that are pure in heart, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness wherein we know them. That is disquietude. We are wearing out our lives. We are wasting and wearing out our lives, exposing the things that are going on. That's what James Madison's talking about over and over again, wasting our life, making sure that there's nothing going on and that we're not engaged in. Bringing these things up to make sure that other people are joining the cause, that the people that are causing these problems are sick and tired of hearing you. This is one of the solutions that James Madison says that we need to do to be actively anti -evil. Repugnance. Today, in the most common vernacular, something is repugnant. Maybe it's got a repugnant smell. It stinks. We don't like it. It's gross. I think that's mostly the common usage today. But going back to, of course, the usage of it when the Federalist Papers were written, we read that it was disobedient, not obsequious. Thank you, Moses.

Obsequious, which is obedient. So not obedient, not compliant. It's not resisting. So it means that you are not resisting. The double negative, right? It means you are resisting. You are not obedient. You are not compliant. you are resisting everything that they are being not only are you not doing it you're not compliant right you're not obedient so that just means if they tell you do something bad you're just like that's the basic of nullification you're like no not doing it um but resisting it that's that's an open action active thing that you're doing you're resisting what's being said what's being commanded of you and so but john i keep on saying james madison was saying that we had to not comply we had to resist the that's that's how you are actively anti-evil you see something wrong and you resist it so don't do it right so disquietude and repugnant that is our job we got some new words so one way that we are disquieted and repugnant We have the downloads for this in the member portal. This is the front and back of one of our Slim Jims. Things that we can all do and then explain what a tyrant is and what that means and then promoting who we are, the Tree of Liberty Society and our book. So getting these out to people.

We're disquieted and repugnant by helping people to see these things and getting these things distributed. Another way that we are disquieted and repugnant is by putting together cottage meetings, having people in your home, having myself or another representative of the Tree of Liberty Society come and talk to people that you know that you've invited over to your home or to another venue to talk about a targeted issue, whether it's nullification, whether it's the conspiracy, whether it's the principles of natural law and the Constitution. That's the way we do it, by bringing it up and having more people learn about these things. Another way is by the distribution of the book Invasion. This week, I've been able to get it into some private libraries, into waiting rooms, doctor's offices, and working on, and then I've also given it out to some individuals in different positions of influence that I know, putting it into their hands so that that way they can... their influence and because they understand these things again another thing we can do is we can that's a good old arlen specter if you don't remember him he's i think he's dead now but he was a senator from pennsylvania for a long time big globalist and so you know just going to either a city council meeting another government meeting where you have a a government officer going there and speaking and exposing him you have an opportunity in in the public where he's there to say Look at what he's done. Look what the Constitution says. Look what he, you know, what is he advocating?

So this is not one of those opportunities where you're going there and you're saying, oh, please, you know, Satanists, please do the right thing. No, you're there to expose him, as I've talked about in previous trainings, for the evil that he's doing to those that are around you. You're being repugnant. You're being full of disquietude. That's a way that we can do that. Another way is just talking one-on-one with people that we know, our friends. sharing them the book or talking to them about the flyer, going over maybe another book that talks about a principle that's very important about what we need to do. So these are examples that we can say, okay, as an individual, I'm in this training. These are things that I can, okay, I can put my mind, wrap my mind around and say, okay, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z.

And, or, you know, this gives me an idea. Maybe I won't do these ones, but I've got another couple of ideas that I can do. And so we can start to apply these things, right? It doesn't do us any good to know about it if we're not going to apply it. We've got to change. The next thing that James Madison said was to refuse to cooperate with the officers. So I want to give some examples of that. Of course, federal, right? We have the IRS. Don't cooperate with them. They ask you a question, remain silent. Don't cooperate. They're looking for your neighbor. Someone, you know, bobbed down the street, hasn't filed his taxes. It's not my problem. I'm not helping you out, IRS. I don't know anything about it. OSHA. Some OSHA guy comes to your place of employment. Make it hard for him to get in the building. Don't cooperate with him. Don't open the door for him. Don't answer any questions that he might have. Just don't talk to him. Don't help him out. Don't cooperate. The ATF, right?

Taking away people's guns. Illegal. They come around asking about something. None of their business. I'm not cooperating with you. I'm not helping you out. Another surprise maybe to some folks is because of federal funding and their agreement to work with the feds are so-called local police departments. They are agents of the same government and they should not be cooperated with. They should not be helped. They are a part of the, they are tyrant enforcers. And if we understand that, then we can start to build back liberty. It's refusing to cooperate with the officers. I'll give you some specific examples. I've given you examples of officers that you don't cooperate with. I'll give you some examples of things specifically, right, that we would not cooperate with. We have this example back in the early 2000s.

Parents explain why they fled with six sons. A Utah couple who fled the state with their 12-year -old son. so he would could avoid court-ordered chemotherapy treatments say they're willing to work with state authorities to find a mutually acceptable medical treatment for the boy so he didn't they didn't want to do chemotherapy and the state of utah was threatening to kidnap uh their their child and And so they left the state. They did not cooperate. But I would say with my response to this, I say, oh, look at this family. They're going after the state. If the state comes out with an alert, I'm not going to cooperate. If I know where this family is, guess who I'm not telling? I am not cooperating with them to put this family in jail. Not going to happen. Another example, we have this Amber Alert, so-called child abduction that went out and in this case the what had happened was the mother of the child and her mom so the grandma got in an argument and so the mom took the child and left and so the grandma was concerned and called the police and said that the mom of the child was had kidnapped her daughter And the mom went all the way to California. And when she was finally questioned, they let the full story out.

And it was just a mom taking care of her child. Nothing happened. And so, you know, when I see these nine and a half times out of ten, these amber alerts, I'm like, oh, if I ever see that Honda Civic, you know, I'm not letting anybody know, that's for sure. Because it's most of the time is a parent protecting their children from the government or somebody else. Go ahead. Even if they actually are abducting, I don't know why you'd still go to the government. Take care of yourself if it's a real problem. So another example we have here, Utah County Sheriff's Office. We have over the past year and again the past few nights, several pride and transgender flags. have been stolen from the porch of a home in Eagle Mountain. The suspects appear to be juveniles in their early teens, and we have information they fled the area on a yellow electric bike and mountain bikes. If you have information regarding these thefts, please call blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Guess who I'm not calling if I know who that is? Not the Sheriff's Department, that's for sure. We have here just last two years ago, FBI offering $25,000 rewards for information. in series of attacks against reproductive health care facilities the fbi is seeking the public's help in identifying the individuals responsible for a series of attacks and threats targeting reproductive health service facilities across the country what what is that code for they're talking about abortion clinics and so there are people out there that are doing everything they can to protect innocent babies from being brutally tortured and murdered And now the FBI is going to offer a reward for you turning in these people protecting babies. Guess who I'm not cooperating with? If I know somebody working, you know, doing something to help protect babies, I don't think that there is a line to be crossed to protect the life of a baby from being killed. You kill murderers. Just saying.

So I'll give you some examples in the scriptures of being actively anti-evil. Maybe you didn't like some of those examples. I want to show you that that principle follows through in the scriptures. We have in the book of Judges, chapter 6, verses 25 through 27. That night the Lord told him, take your father's bull, the second bull, seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal. that belongs to your father and cut down the sacred pole that is beside it and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here in proper order. Then take the second bowl and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the sacred pole that you cut down. So Gideon took 10 of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. So, you know, you'd have a lot of people today like they did during the fake pandemic, right?

We were going maskless shopping. and people were like oh you're violating their private property you could say that this is Gideon's dad's private property and Gideon tore it down got a bunch of his buddies together and said yeah that's evil we're not allowing that to exist we're taking it down it's a commandment from God we can't say that God is violating his laws this is a law of God to be actively anti-evil and if something is evil it is our job to take it down we look at Mosiah this is another way that we are actively anti-evil wasn't exactly how gideon did it but it's another way messiah we have and it came to pass that there was a man among them whose name was abinadi and he went forth among them and began to prophesy saying behold thus saith the lord and thus hath he commanded me saying go forth and say unto this people thus saith the lord will be unto this people for i have seen their abominations and their wickedness and their whoredoms and except they repent I will visit them in mine anger. It shall come to pass that except this people repent and turn unto the Lord their God, they shall be brought into bondage.

That is a natural consequence of going against God's laws. You will become a, you will come under bondage under a tyrant. But there was one among them whose name was Alma. He also being a descendant of Nephi. And he was a young man and he believed the words of Abinadi. which Abinadi had spoken for he knew concerning the iniquity, which Abinadi had testified against them. Therefore, he began to plead with the king that he would not be angry with Abinadi, but suffer that he might depart in peace. So you had both of them engaged in being actively anti-evil where Abinadi went up to them and said, this is what you're doing. And this is going to be the consequence if you don't do it. Okay. That's another way that we can be anti-evil. And then you had somebody else that because Abinadi was willing to stand up and say something, he wasn't going to be scared off from telling the truth. You had somebody that heard his words repent and say, hey, you know, we need to make sure and protect this guy.

And so he was, because of his words of being, you know, being actively engaged and being anti-evil, somebody else was able to change their ways and come to righteousness. So also we have the example of the Savior in John chapter 2, verses 13 through 15. The Passover of the Jews was near and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Nowadays, we wouldn't think too much of that. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. Oops, let me go back here. So you've got these individuals, right? They own a business. They own the table. This is their animals. And they've got permission from the owner of the temple to be there. And Jesus goes and makes a whip and starts driving them out, which means he wasn't afraid of hitting them. scattered there you know you got got rid of their so-called private property that was there and drove it out of the temple because they were doing evil.

And so it was his job as somebody that was anti-evil, actively anti-evil, to do what he did. So another example of things that we can look at to see what we want to follow. Another example we have in 1 Kings 18, you have the story of Elijah. And after the priests of Baal were exposed, Elijah said to them, meaning the elders, seize the prophets of Baal. Do not let one of them escape. Then they seized them and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon and killed them there. Killed them there for being the priests of Baal. Here's another example of individuals being actively anti-evil. another example that we can say okay how do i apply this or can i apply this is this an example i want to follow you have john trenchard and thomas gordon wrote 138 newspaper articles under the pen name of cato condemning tyranny and advancing principles of liberty i like this story and it's it the founding fathers did the same thing they you know you had benjamin franklin he wrote under the pseudonym of silence do good and so you know you you'll you'll hear sometimes people say well You know, if they believe in their cause so much, why did they, you know, why did they hide their identity? Why did they, like you had the case of Abinadi for a little while, he disguised himself.

You have them, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon using a fake name. You know, if you believe in your cause, why don't you use a fake name? Well, there are wise reasons for doing so. And these are examples of such. And so we shouldn't use that against people for what they're doing. We have here the founding fathers where the, you know, the colonists, they actively intimidated and did things like tar and feather tax collectors. They destroyed the homes of judges and governors, and they drove other government officials out of town. Today, this would be seen by your average so-called conservative liberty lover as extreme. And, you know, being like you'll see in a lot of movies now, they promote this idea of if, you know, if you kill the bad guy, you're being just like the bad guy. You've become them. And it's nonsense that what they're brainwashing us is to not oppose evil. Anybody that calls themselves a lover of liberty, they praise the colonists and the founding fathers. And their cause would not have finished the way it was. It was a holy cause. And the things that they did were not wrong. They were actively anti-evil.

I'll give you another example we have here. One of the founding fathers, we have Robert Morris. Robert Morris was known as the financier of the revolution. Morris was a wealthy merchant and politician who played a critical role in managing the finances of the Continental Congress. He used his personal wealth and credit to secure loans, procure supplies, and fund the Continental Army. Without people like Robert Morris giving them the money that they needed, to accomplish the things that they needed to accomplish the founding fathers would have never been able to have the end result that they had of independence from england and so supporting using your finances to support people that are actively fighting evil is also fighting evil we need more robert morrises in this battle to be able to win so remember again from james chapter 1 verse 22 but be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. So if you're just going to read something, like I started in the beginning, if we're just going to learn something and not apply it, then we're wasting our time. We are deceiving ourselves.

We will be destroyed. We need to be appliers of the word and starting to do something that changes our life, which is something that is actively anti-evil. And so following these examples, we must find ways to actively oppose evil. I gave many different examples from across the spectrum, right? They weren't all one extreme or the other. I wasn't pussyfooting around on one end, and on the other end, I wasn't just saying that only the most violent means are valid, right? So I want to kind of recap some of the ways, kind of apply them in modern times. modern terms, ways that you, as a member of the Tree of Liberty Society, somebody attending or watching training, ways that you can be actively anti-evil. So one is read and apply what you've learned, right? We talked about several weeks ago about the importance of studying to be able to be somebody that's effective in liberty that will be free. So applying what we learn. Hold cottage meetings where you Or a representative from the Tree of Liberty Society presents on a targeted message. Distribute our Slim Jim cards or books like Invasion. Attend meetings to expose publicly the crimes committed by government officials. Or bring yourself and others to meetings others are organizing to pass out materials or to call out bad guys that are there. Go to meetings of other organizations to distribute educational material like our cards and books.

Write articles or make videos or help produce videos on topics of liberty or exposing evil. Follow examples we found in the scriptures today. Help finance the efforts of the Tree of Liberty Society with increased donations. So these are all examples of ways that you can be actively anti-evil. And I hope that we will all look through those and say, what are the things that I can do? or following the principles, say, hmm, here's another thing that I think I can do really well to help be actively anti-evil. But I wanted to provide some principles and some examples for us to be able to see how we can apply them ourselves under our personal circumstances so that we can be the people that we need to be to actually turn the tide towards liberty again. So let's go ahead and... open up i'll be going over the uh the chat and uh looking at your comments and questions but uh go ahead and raise hands and we'll go through those as well um to be able to uh answer your questions or to cover your what your thoughts and comments were uh carmen i see your hand still up go ahead as i go through the the chat oh let me uh let's see here okay go ahead carmen you can unmute yourself if you'd like okay thank you yeah um I have always felt that, you know, that our Savior didn't just show up at the temple and say, hey, I don't like this. This is wrong. And start getting these people, you know, to leave the temple with all their goods and their money and all that stuff. Yeah. My opinion is, is that he gave them plenty of warning previously, explaining to them the principles.

And exactly what... are doing with us and what we need to in turn do with our family and friends. And that is to give them the opportunity to use their agency to change and make the change because they internalize that principle. Whereas these people at the temple who were money changers and selling all sorts of stuff, they previously just ignored the Savior and his teachings as to why they need to make the changes. And so in the end, he didn't just, it wasn't a surprise to them. They knew who he was. So when he started driving out the money changers and all of these merchants, I know that there was probably quite a few of them. They were not surprised and they took off. Grabbed their stuff and left. They probably came back in another day, maybe, to try again. But I've always felt that this was not a surprise visit. This was more of the same that he had told them previously. Look. This is wrong and this is why. But, and who knows how many of them did actually leave? How many of them were converted and said, you know, this man is right. We better clean up and we're out of here. So I'm sure that there were some that left. But those that stayed, well, they reaped the consequences. Yeah. I would probably, I wouldn't doubt you that he warned them.

But I think also that you have the idea that it shouldn't have been a surprise to them, even if he didn't warn them, because Jesus wasn't just going up and making up new rules for the temple that he didn't even have control over, you know, on the books type of, you know, in a property ownership sense of the word, as opposed to, you know, of course, being the son of God. Of course, he had ownership, but in their eyes, not recognizing him as the son of God. He wasn't going there and surprising them because everything that he was upset about was already written. As Jews, they understood the law in the scriptures. You probably had some people saying, oh, the high priest said I could do this, so you're not following the high priest if you don't allow me to do this. Wow, you need to be more Christ-like, Jesus, for acting so mean.

And so I think you probably have both of those types of scenarios where the people that didn't recognize him and his authority as son of God, they still knew what they were doing was wrong because they were taught the law all throughout their life. Rod, you got your hand raised, Rod? I want to add something. Your voice is hard to hear again. Not better, worse. I'm not sure where you're at. Can you hear me now? Barely. Sorry. That's the best I can do. I just want to mention one of the things that I had read. You were mentioning, yeah, they knew that what they were doing was wrong. And part of the reason that they would obviously have known that was that in the verse that you read, one of the verses there, it mentions that this was in the temple where this was taking place, right? So they were actively defiling the temple. But that's only part of what was going on here. Another part was that the high priests had a scheme going where since it was in the temple, this market was in the temple, the people were forced to purchase temple coins that they then could take inside to purchase the goods in the temple. So it was a whole scheme going on between the high priests and the merchants. All of those people were doing things that they knew were incorrect.

Yep. Brittany, you had your hand raised? At least for a second? I don't know. I didn't want to... Yeah, no. I took it down because I had a feeling that Rod was going to say that. Oh, okay. I was going to piggyback on that. I was like, you know what? I'm maybe not going to say anything because he already covered what I was going to say too. Cool. Okay. Yeah, Mark, you had your hand raised. But you're muted. You need to unmute yourself. Yeah, a couple things here. You were pointing out that anti... evil it's necessary to know what good is if you know to oppose evil so you have to know the law you have to know what the sin is uh and one example you gave was uh opposing tyranny well opposed tyranny you have to know what liberty is most adult americans have a very poor ideal uh how what liberty is as applies to politics the ideology of a free society the principles of the building blocks of that ideology so uh to oppose evil you know you have to first know what what it is uh on a political uh can i give it let me give you an example of this that really applies to what's going on right now in america and the world and that's these uh unauthorizing illegal tariffs by the president there is no authority under the constitution for the president to impose a penny a terrace on anybody just read article one section eight first clause the all power powers of taxation including terrorism there's a called a post posted and uh are a delegated power to congress now here's the point i want to make though what what are we hearing from the president constantly what are we hearing from the republican establishment talk radio and fox news and so forth the countries are ripping americans off that you know this imbalance of trade so the point here is just the opposite if you understand what liberty is and when understand what uh uh tyranny is it's just the opposite it's the americans are being ripped off so what when a person wants to trade something let's say they're trading individually instead of a country it's the same same principle if they want to buy somebody's shoes and the government uh uh says well you can only buy it if we put this 10 uh surplus or xx excise tax or what they're calling care so we put in 25 so in other words they're stealing from you you can't buy them for the price that the other person wants to give them to you you have to buy them a higher price it's a tax we're going to take the money and keep it so that is injustice that is a form of tyranny it's technically literally death and and yet we're saying not giving the tariffs are stopping ripping off when they actually are the agent are ripping off does that make any sense no yeah i get you and i think you know both whether people like tariffs or don't like them i think going back to what you started with of is he is he authorized it's irrelevant if it's good or not he's a tyrant because he's taking authority that wasn't given to him by the people.

It was only given to Congress. Anybody but Congress that imposes tariffs is violating their oath, and they are a thief. They are taking a power that is not theirs, and that is wrong and needs to be opposed. Just for a second, Ben. I've monitored these establishment pundits on Sundays, their top shows, Meet the Press and Face the Nation and so forth, and they would not... one would say it's illegal until yesterday. They spent a couple minutes, only about two minutes, or less than that, maybe a minute. And this is a Republican congressman they had on face a nation from Nebraska. His name is Don Bacon. He's from Omaha. and he said well the authorization because it came up he said no there's no authorization that's as a power of congress and i was like shaking my head are you actually admitting to it and then he said the president has been given that power though of course the constitution is the only person that can give the president power yeah and he said it was a 1977 emergency act here's another emergency there is no authority any branch of government has because they call it emergency it has to be in there but anyway so the emergency act transferred the power that congress has to the president well no one the constitution does the congress have a power that they can trans give to the president so i'm just i wanted to just add that since you brought up uh illegality they're saying it's legal because congress can so one last important really important point here we're totalitarianism according to that principle that said that Congress can tell the president he can do anything.

He can order that you have to slay your firstborn child, and if you don't, the U.S. Army is going to pass the law. Pardon me? Congress passed the law. Got to do it. Well, the Congress has given a power to the president. Right, exactly, yeah. Infinite power in principle. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, there's no clause that says you can amend the Constitution by passing a statute. That's ridiculous. Yeah. All righty. Well, we are out of time. So we can, after we have a closing prayer, we can talk more about this or we can bring up other issues if you'd like to just have open forum. Nothing's off limits, at least within common decency. And let's go ahead and have a closing prayer. And who would I? I'll ask Linda Stoll. Would you say the closing prayer for us again? Okay. Just appreciate you. Thank you. Okay.

Our dear Heavenly Father, we come before thee at the close of this meeting tonight. We're grateful for the effort and the time and the thought that has gone into it and the sharing with each one of us. We ask that you bless us that we might receive these things, that we might understand them, and that we might act upon them. We ask that you bless us that we might reach out and Touch the lives and the hearts of those who we know and have influence with. That we might be able to strengthen as a community and as followers of Thee. And that we might have the courage to follow through with the things that we have learned. These things we pray for in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.