Member Training – Doing What’s Right, Even When It’s Unpopular

Member training from February 17th, 2025. In our recent training, we focused on the principles of liberty and the importance of standing firm against influences that threaten our freedoms.  I shared exciting news about an upcoming talk at the Constitution Party’s state convention in Utah, encouraging everyone to attend and invite others. We also discussed the creation of new resources, including monthly newsletters and booklets that will outline our agenda and action items, making it easier for everyone to engage in our mission. Throughout our training, we reflected on historical examples of faith and courage, emphasizing the need to understand what is right and to act on it, even in the face of adversity. We concluded with a reminder that true integrity lies in doing the right thing, regardless of the risks involved, drawing inspiration from the sacrifices made by those who came before us.

Another interesting book on the subject is “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization” By Brad Wilcox. You can get your copy by clicking on the title of the book.

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TRANSCRIPT

Dear Father in heaven, we thy servants come before thee at this hour of the evening to be instructed from one of thy servants on the principles of liberty and the processes that are working against us and to learn new ways to overcome those influences and to stand up for the truth and to be witnesses worthy of thy holy name. We pray for thy blessings upon Ben and his crew tonight, that they will present a good message that will sink into our hearts and minds and inspire ourselves to do more research and to be more vigilant in the defense and the call of liberty. Father, we ask thy blessings of peace to be upon our hearts and souls tonight and that we can be strengthened in the hour of our need. According to thy will, we pray in the sacred and holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Bobby. Carmen. I hope you're ready to give us our minutes from last week, the 10th of February.

So we've got some folks that couldn't make it tonight, so hopefully they'll be able to watch the recording of this. But just make some announcements. We have coming up in April, I've been invited to give a talk at the Constitution Party State for the state of Utah, their state convention coming up in April. They were going to send me the date, the finalized date, but it's either going to be the 19th or the 26th. And so if you're able to come up, it'd be great to have you come and check that out. Invite some folks to come hear what we're all about. Yes, Mark, you got your hand raised, Mark? Where do we need to come up to? Oh, it'll be in Orem. It'll be at the... Sarah, S-C-E-R-A Theater in Orem, Utah. Thank you for, that's a good clarification. Just start heading north, wherever you're at, just come on up. In Provo, Orem? Orem, in Orem.

So if you came to my elections talk in September, it's that same building. If you didn't, not going to matter, but that'll hopefully be helpful. I am really excited about a couple of things we've got working on right now. There's some new data that's come out on part of the conspiracy that I'm just going to tease you on that I'm pretty excited about to let you know some things coming down the pike on that. I'm also putting together a couple of different PDF booklets for you to have that'll be available. I'll email it to you as well as it'll be on the member portal. that will a lot of the stuff that's in the um what's it called the uh in the boot camps um it'll be in there but it'll one of the booklets is going to be our agenda basically every month i'm going to start coming out with a a news an email newsletter um where we'll recap the uh month's trainings and we'll get into agenda items of things that we should all be working on And it'll just, it'll be nice to, there'll be an overall, one of the booklets is on the agenda. It'll show these are the things, these are the principles we're working on every single month.

And then each month's newsletter will get into more specifics on each of, you know, what can be done on that topic for that month. And so I hope that that encouragement and that delineation will be, make it easier for everyone to be able to. uh, be engaged. And I really appreciated everybody's, um, that has done. And if you haven't done so, I hope you'll do so. Um, every week is to fill out that Google form of the different action items that you've been able to engage in every week. And, uh, I I've, I've seen, it's been great. I've seen, uh, individuals increase their activity in, and it's been, it's been wonderful. So I appreciate everybody doing that. And, but then, and so this will be something to help you out with that. Another thing that another book, PDF ebook that we'll have on the member portal that we'll be sending out to everybody is on distractions. And it's principles that I've, you know, different things that we've covered in class number six and seven of the boot camp. But it'll be in book form. So you can kind of access it easier. You can do word searches and you can just kind of just look.

You're like, OK, why is the sovereign citizen movement? Why is that a distraction? going through and it'll give examples and principles on why and and so that'll be something that will be helpful for us all to make sure hey am i doing something that's been proven throughout time to be ineffective or worse actually helpful for the conspiracy so um anybody have any questions on any of that okay wonderful i appreciate it yep i do rod i'll be i didn't i wasn't sure if you were on yet so okay There we go. All righty, let's go ahead and get started if nobody has any questions or anything on all of that that I've just shared. But for the last several weeks for training, covering topics right in the past, well, just in general, we cover a lot of principles, things that are true, getting into in depth on aspects of the conspiracy, the things that they do. how they get us off track, principles of natural law. But the past several weeks I've been getting into what are the way, what are the character traits that we need to have as members of Tree of Liberty Society? What are the character traits that we as, you know, just what that society needs and its people to have to be free? And so I'm going to continue that tonight. that theme of what is it that we need to become to be free, right?

Not just, not what are the founding fathers saying, oh, government's got to be limited. Oh, things along those lines, right? Oh, what is the conspiracy doing? No, what is it that I need to be doing? How can I improve myself so I can be a benefit to liberty as opposed to a detraction to it? And so one of those, The thing I'm going to be covering tonight is making sure that we have integrity, that we're doing what's right, even if it's unpopular. So I'm going to get into some examples of that. But it starts off with this. This is from a song, I think from the 60s, late 60s, early 70s, maybe, from Janis Joplin. She says that freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. And I say that's a morally bankrupt statement. And what it's saying is that you only have freedom, you know, if you've got nothing else to lose. You've got no friends. You've got no home.

Basically, if everything's been taken away from you, then you can have freedom. Then you can do what's right because you're not risking anything to be able to get it. But that mindset is dangerous. to to liberty because every one of us will always have something left to lose and so if we're waiting for that before we do anything it's that classic you know line of you know i'll use my guns when when crap really hits the fan like if you don't realize that crap hits the fan already then you're never going to use your gun so it's it's it's baloney And so this is a morally bankrupt mentality to have. And so I want to go through and explain why it is a morally bankrupt attitude to have that we must avoid if we are going to actually, you know, go on the offense and actually start to regain lost ground and maintain what we already have.

So we go out in the scriptures, right? We have the story of Moses and he goes up into the mountain. And he is talking to God. And while he's up there talking to God, the Israelites are down at the base of the mountain. And they say, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, come, make gods for us who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt. We do not know what has become of him. So, you know, this guy that freed us, he's up in the mountain. We don't know what is he dead. And since he's gone, let's just start doing our own thing and make our own gods. And so Aaron said to them, take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me. So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took these from them, formed them in a mold, and cast an image of a calf. And they said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. So they've rejected the God that protected them through all of the plagues. They rejected the God that led them across the Red Sea. And of course, they're rejecting the God that is speaking to Moses at this point. And they're saying, here is your God that you can see. Here's this golden calf in front of you for you to, for you to worship.

And, and, and it's replacing it. This is the real God that saved you in these things. And so Moses is up in the mountain and God is like, Hey, you know, is, is essentially, I'm going to go destroy these people because they're, they're wicked. And I'm going to. And so Moses says, hold on, let me go down there. And Moses goes down there and is like, holy crap, you are wicked. He didn't really understand what God was saying. Yes, Alan, go ahead, unmute. Since we're talking about that bunch, Edward G. Robinson was the bad guy in that movie, Ten Commandments. And the thing that I've learned in these training things is it's usually only one or two people. One or two people that's on the evil side that's willing to come out and holler. But on the righteous side, nobody hollered back. Nobody said, no, don't do it. I don't even think Joshua said no.

That tells you that there was a weakness, even though Joshua repented later on. At that point, he was weak, just like Aaron was weak and gave in to them. And so we can learn from these lessons. And so when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord. So the calf is their Lord now. And so Moses comes back down. They said to him and Aaron's like, he's explaining himself to Moses because Moses now was like, yeah, we got to kill these guys. Just like God said. And he's like, make gods for us who shall go before us. This is what they said to me. So Israelites said to me, make gods for us who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So like all of a sudden we don't know where our prophet is. And so now we got to, because we don't know where our prophet is, we got to worship these golden calves. So I said to them, whoever has gold, take of it, take it off. So they gave it to me and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf.

So he's basically like, hey, they started it. They told me to, is this mindset that we have presented here. to us that, you know, I'm not responsible for it because they're the ones that asked for it. And so Moses, you know, he tells them that they have to melt down all the gold and he mixes it with water and then he has them drink that. And so he's like, it's not even like you can have your gold back. He's like, no, we're done with it. And so now we go to another story of Saul and Samuel. And Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people, Israel. Now, therefore, listen to the words of the Lord. So it's, you know, it's interesting just right before Samuel was like, hey, you don't want a king. The Israelites, all the people go to Samuel and say, we want a king like everybody else.

And Samuel says, no, it's not a good idea. God says, no. They still want it and they beg for it. So God says they've rejected me, not you, Samuel. Give him a king. So Saul is anointed king. And thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep. camel and donkey so god commands israel to kill all of the people at amalek women children infants all the animals everything so saul said to samuel oh go ahead yes mark yes okay yeah there you go uh it appears uh that god said democracy rejected me the mob rejected me yeah so Those who advocate democracy should take God more serious and that it was a rejection of him. Exactly. Absolutely. Thank you. So God, you know, and I admit this would be a very hard thing. God tells me to do this. I'm not getting excited about it. I'm going to tell you that right now. Right. But we can learn lessons from the past of what happens when you don't listen to God. He says, so Saul said to Samuel. I have sinned for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. So that democracy thing that Mark just talked about, right? Everybody was, you know, he was afraid of the people.

The people didn't want them to, they wanted to save certain things. They didn't want to do everything that God had said to the letter. And so Samuel, instead of doing what, I mean, Saul, I'm sorry, Saul, instead of doing what God said, he says he feared the people and obeyed them. Instead of God. And so what happens to Saul? Because he feared the people more than God. Now, therefore, I pray, pardon my sin and return with me so that I may worship the Lord. And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you for you have rejected the. word of the lord and the lord has rejected you from being king over israel and so this you know this great calling that he that saul had was very simple you know and wasn't easy but it was simple for him to keep he simply had to obey god and so but because he feared what man would do instead of what god would do he lost his position he was he lost his position as king and he was rejected by god And so that should help us to be able to say, Oh, what, what am I losing? What blessing am I losing from God when I choose to reject his commandments and don't follow through with what, with what God says for me to do, even when it's difficult, even when it's something a, you know, we've got, you know, this commandment wouldn't, it would be very difficult mentally to be able to accomplish, to be able to execute. And then plus on top of that, you have everybody saying, Hey, let us, you know, save the animals.

Let us, you know, save this and that. And so he decided to go against God. And that was the result of listening to the crowd resulted in that loss for Samuel. And then we have here the Lehi's vision that he had of the tree of life. And in all these cases, they feared of losing something and they lost something greater. So Lehi says, as I partook of the fruit. of it, the tree of the tree, it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy. Wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also, for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit. And I beheld a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river and led to the tree by which I stood. And I also beheld a straight and narrow path which came along by the rod of iron, even to the tree by which I stood. And it also led by the head of the fountain unto a large and spacious field as if it had been a world. And I saw numberless concourses of people, many of whom were pressing forward that they might obtain the path which led under the tree by which I stood. And it came to pass that I beheld others pressing forward and they came forth and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron.

And they did press forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of iron, even until they did come forth. and partake of the fruit of the tree. So these people, they held on to the word of God and they were able to make it to the tree, which, you know, the fruits of the tree was exaltation and being saved. And they, but then after they had partaken the fruit of the tree, they did cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed. So they were able to witness the, you know, accept the gospel. But then after they accepted the gospel, they were ashamed. And I also cast my eyes round about and behold on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building. And it stood as it were in the air high above the earth. And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female. And their manner of dress was exceedingly fine. And they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit.

And after they had tasted of the fruit, they were ashamed because. of those that were scoffing at them and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost so they feared to lose right they were afraid uh being embarrassed everybody was making fun of them saying that they were stupid and they they they didn't want to lose the you know the friendship or they didn't want to lose their influence and and so they were ashamed because everybody that they looked up to or maybe they looked up to them but they didn't want to be made fun of they didn't like uh being name called and so they were ashamed of the gospel and they turned away from it because of the mocking. They feared to lose the respect of those around them that would not accept the gospel. And then I want to kind of give you some examples of some other applications, maybe in modern times of people being afraid to do or say the right thing because they were... afraid of losing different things that we'll talk about later on. There's lots of reasons that we don't, that we're scared to do the right thing. I'm going to play this short video.

Everybody, I'll do this. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but, and then we launch into our newest conspiracy. Well, as humans, we are also very prone to believing and listening to conspiracies. Well, we're trying to figure stuff out. We're trying to figure out the world. It's totally natural. But I just like how everybody has to preface their new theory with this disclaimer first. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't normally dabble in conspiracy. Okay, so we see here, right? Nobody wants to be accused of being a conspiracy theorist. And so we want to say, oh, I'm not usually this way. When what we should be saying is, yeah, the conspiracy is real. We should not be ashamed to call it a conspiracy. You have some people that are afraid to do the right thing, right? They just don't want to be controversial. There's like no politics, no religion, right? We're only going to be talking about the fluff, the weather, the latest TV show, the latest Hollywood gossip. We don't want to talk about things that are actually going to affect us, right? Because somebody might disagree with me. I might not be thought of as... you know, as acceptable in my community. Mark, go ahead. Yes. Yeah. So they're saying a conspiracy, anybody believes in a conspiracy, a realist that's implied here is crazy. Right.

So that's saying that we can't identify a huge major crime. The conspiracy is crime in the world right now in terms of its power and its goals and so forth. And we're crazy and only ill if we identify it. That's the level of intellectual discussion, the level of intellectual integrity that we are facing today. Exactly. Thank you. Okay, hopefully we can solve that. It's muted. Hopefully that solved that problem right there. So I was just saying that, you know, people are afraid to do the right thing because they feel like that they have to just vote for one of these two people. Otherwise, something bad that they're afraid of, something bad will happen that they're scared will happen. And then we have here during... the fake pandemic, right? I just wear the mask because I want to go shopping. I wear it just because I want to be left alone because I want to go visit family. I want to go to church. But really what you're saying is you're a coward. You're doing the wrong thing because you're a coward and you're not willing to stand up for what's right. And that's really what all of these things break down to. You're a coward to admit that we face a conspiracy. You're a coward to stand up because you're afraid to go to jail. You're a coward to do the right thing because you're afraid of something.

You're a coward of something else happening. You're a coward because you don't want to be looked down upon by others. And so really what this whole thing comes down to, being afraid of doing the right thing is out of fear. And that idea that I started off from the beginning of. Freedom is just another word for nothing else to lose, is meaning that you're afraid to do the right thing until you've lost everything, which will never happen. Yes, go ahead, Mark. Yeah, I think even more important than the fear, if fear contributes to it, is you're enabling injustice. You're a part of the evil agenda by not standing up to it. And so I think that's extremely important to realize that you're allowing evil to occur. You're not resisting it. And what you described there is a lot of Jews in Germany were saying the same thing. I just want to go off the grocery store. I want to go to my church and so forth, or my synagogue or whatever. And they ended up being executed. The smart, the ones that realized what was coming over the hill, they escaped to England, to America and so forth. But so many of them... said the same thing. This will pass, and it didn't pass. Yep. Yes, Alan. Okay, there I am. I feel like you've almost done this class since I watched Mark Levin, because I was real concerned about the notification. I'm just talking to you, Alan. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to correct a couple of things.

Well, Janice Joplin didn't, she's saying that, but Chris Kerstopperson wrote that in the lines from me and Bobby McGee. Yeah. Yeah. But now I heard that I hope you can link them together. Woodrow, Wilford Woodruff didn't want the manifesto signed, but the church acted like the children of Israel with the calf. Why wasn't there, why didn't Wilfred Woodruff say something? Why wasn't there any general authorities saying something about it? Or are they as cowardly as we are today? And I'll get off. Well, yeah, that's good. Rod, did you have a comment for that? Or do you want me to answer it and then go to you? Oh, no, I was going to address that. I'll let you address it first. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say that one of the things that a lot of people don't understand is that leading up to the manifesto, there had been that law presented to the people for decades. And John Taylor actually had estimated at one point when he was prophet, that only 2% of the church was actually obeying. And so you had 98% of the membership that were fighting him. And he actually had been, he was receiving letters from members who were telling them, hey man, we'll all live all the laws of the gospel if you'll just take that one out. We don't want to follow it. So there were a lot of other things going on that led up to the manifesto. But that's a big one right there was that the people were very, very resistant and they had been for decades.

Yeah. Well, Alan, you said you read, you know, Invasion several times. So that's probably why some of it's brought up and you knew, you know, that letter is referenced in the book and there were four or five different revelations on the matter. uh there were dozens if not more talks on the matter warning the saints if you know this is what will happen if you guys don't get into shape you guys don't get in the line this is what's going to happen um and and so the members just like with samuel uh you know and the lord gave the people what they wanted and so that's you know did did they warn yes they warned did in many different ways and talks and revelations and different things that were dispersed amongst the people that are now not very well known amongst the people, but were available at the time. And they were warned and they rejected the warning and they received the consequences for it. Yeah, Alan, go ahead. I'm not used to seeing a hand up with more than one finger waving. How I got it is it didn't make sense, but the DNC, when it was introduced, plural marriage was introduced to Joseph, you inquired about it, this is it, now you've got to live it. I just couldn't see how all of a sudden it could be kicked out for political purposes.

And I just have a real hard time seeing it. Going within the church without the church belly aching about can't live, can't live according to our religion. Instead, it's, oh boy, now we're like the world. Yeah, they were excited about it. Just like kind of like those other examples that we just shared is Israel was wanted not to pay the price to do what God said. And so the, and so God. releases them from it, but then lets them suffer the consequences for it. Go ahead, Mark. Yes, of course, God was being very direct, but a major precursor to doing the right thing, no matter what, is knowing what the right thing is. And, you know, most Americans have a very poor understanding of the Constitution. They have a very poor understanding of the... a political philosophy of of a free society that our founding country was founded upon so you've got to first know what's right you know before you could do uh have the courage to do the right thing yep yep so yeah we get we get the warning and then we get to suffer the consequences so but so we don't wait first because you know we you have to do the right thing even when there's something to lose right shadrach meshach and abednego they had their lives to lose uh daniel he had his life to lose they they were sacrificing everything to do the right thing they weren't like oh you know just i've got a family or i've you know i've got this or i've got that i can't do the right thing because then i'll lose x y and z and that's not fair to put my family in that position they they um and because they were the only examples that we see they they were brought forward as the example because the rest of israel was capitulating And they were worshiping the false idol.

They were not praying to God. And so we have these four individuals as examples to follow because they were going against the mold. And they were willing to sacrifice even their lives to do what God had told them to do. And what's that? Go ahead, Mo. Yeah, go ahead. In the second book of the Maccabees, in the Apocrypha, there's a story of these seven brothers that wouldn't eat pork. And so they were tortured by the king and they had their limbs cut off and they were cooked in giant frying pans one by one. So that's an example of them, someone not being saved for living the law. But even after they saw their brother being tortured, they still said, we're not going to do that. Thank you. Yeah. So you don't have the guarantee of doing the right thing and being saved, right? We have to do the right thing anyways.

And so we know that they feared God more than man. And so their eternal reward is massive. And so it's important for us to learn those examples as well. Thank you, Moses. So Samuel Pufendorf gets into some, you know, not modern, but, you know, not extra biblical examples of the natural law of integrity and doing the right thing, even under immense pressure. He says, for those who consult only the practices of men do commonly learn more vices than virtues. And it is often a great mistake to think a thing is therefore just and lawful because many are observed to practice it. So just because everyone else is doing it, right? It's that common thing that you hear a kid say will be like, well, you know, Bobby down the street's doing it. So why can't I? And as adults, you know, people do that same thing of, you know, everybody else is doing it. So there's, you know, I'm not doing something and they'll pick something that's, you know, worse. or more extreme than what they are making an excuse to do. But what he says here is that when we are putting what people, others think of us or what others are doing or what others see of us above doing the right thing, it becomes like that boiling frog where one step at a time, we accept more and more evil behavior where all of a sudden now, because we didn't have integrity the first time, We have none because we always found an excuse of why we couldn't do the right thing.

And so we are opening ourselves up for more and more vices to enter into our daily activities. And then another occasion later on in the book, he says, he who does not keep his conscience pure, but rather accommodates himself to the wicked customs of the world, loses the principal rule of human actions and subjects himself to perpetual inconsistency. So just another way to put the same idea that when we do not stick to our conscience, when we make an excuse of why we don't have to do the right thing, we are going to subject ourselves to perpetual. We're just inconsistency. We're going to violate it. And I think that that's what we see right now where there was a couple of different studies that were done in the state of Utah because of an increasing rate of suicides, especially amongst. teenagers. And one of the studies said that the suicides were increasing because of the altitude. And that just seemed ridiculous on its face because the altitude of Utah didn't change. There weren't some massive earthquakes that raised the elevation of Utah, you know, a thousand feet. And all of a sudden everybody started killing themselves because they had, you know, less oxygen in their brains. But the other study that came out claimed something else that was ridiculous was that it's because of Utah being so religious that, you know, if you if you just weren't religious, then you wouldn't commit suicide and you wouldn't have so many suicides. And it's just what's really going on here is people were they grew up knowing what was right. And they made excuses for themselves. They saw what other people were doing. All of their friends that maybe they went to church with weren't living up to those standards. And so they made excuses of why they didn't have to live up to them. And because they were inconsistent in what they knew was right, that's what leads to, you know, wickedness never was happiness. And so when you know you're violating the laws of God, that's what really leads to those types of feelings. And so, of course, you know.

The conspiracy wants to come out with these fake studies that want to take us away from God and blame God for the ills of the world. It's the opposite, right? It's actually suicides have increased as Utah became less religious, not when it was more religious. And so we need to understand that principle rule that we have to be consistent in our integrity so that we can maintain that feeling of ourselves. Mark, go ahead. Yes. Yes, I want to give a definition here of integrity that goes right along the lines of what he's saying and what you're saying. Excuse me, I need to drop down here. There we go. There's two definitions, actually. One is from Ayn Rand's lexicon, her definition, and then the other one is from Noah Webster, considered the last founding father to live. And this first one... think is right along the lines of what you're saying. The definition of integrity is loyalty to one's convictions and values. So if you say you're loyal to God and then you suddenly change it because Moses isn't around for a few days or something like that, that shows a lack of integrity. The rest of the definition is it is the policy of acting in accordance with one's values, of expressing and upholding and translating them. But now, as for the Noel Webster definition, he broadens it to include righteousness. He says, the entire, this is again a definition of integrity, the entire unimpaired state of anything, particularly of the mind, moral soundness or purity, incorruptness, unrighteousness, honesty. So it goes on and on. So for him, it's honesty. But the first one as well with Lorraine, it's honest to your stated convictions. It's not being inconsistent. It's loyal to what you claim are your values. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Okay.

So now we look at the Apostle Paul and his example of... he didn't wait till he had nothing else to lose, to do the right thing. So when the Jews brought them, the apostles, that they had them stand before the council, the high priest questioned them saying, we gave you strict orders not to teach in this name. Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man's blood on us. So they were like, you are not allowed to talk about Jesus. Not just because we don't like him. And we don't want you talking about him, but because they were afraid if they were, if the apostles were allowed to talk about Jesus, that that would bring the wrath of Rome on them. And so they were afraid to let other people do the right thing because they were afraid of what would happen to them if others did it. And so, you know, he was giving them a hard time saying, hey, you're giving us, you're putting us in danger. How dare you?

But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God. rather than any human authority. So this idea of Romans 13, 12th article of faith, we have to do whatever the government says no matter what, that false interpretation of those two things. I mean, Paul debunks that. I mean, yeah, Paul debunks that. No, Peter, sorry, debunks that right here. God is above any human authority. We don't care if doing what God says puts you in danger. We don't care if doing what God says puts me in danger. I'm doing what God says no matter what happens to me, my family, my neighbor. I'm doing what God says. End of the story. And he was willing to put his money where his mouth is. And Puffendorf, we'll go back to him. He says that no man is born for himself alone, but the public good must be his chief aim, and he must account himself born to promote the welfare. of human society. So this might seem as a contradiction to what Paul was saying, but it is not in any stretch of the imagination because as we see in civilization, as we turn against God, that that society leads to destruction. And so it's important that we remain, we keep our integrity, that we do what God says more than any earthly authority, because that is what is the best interest of human welfare and society in the long run. And so we have to think of that. We have to think of the long. term effects of what we do, not the short term effects, not just, you know, it's that, you know, the idea of, you know, we don't want to clean our room because it's, you know, it's much easier to make a mess.

The idea that, you know, we're just focused on what's, you know, what's advantageous short term, as opposed to what the long term effect on leaving a mess is. And so when, when we maybe our family in danger because we are standing up for what's right we are actually doing public the public good and so we can't be fooled into thinking that um we are not putting you know we're not doing good because we are in the long term and so we again look at the scriptures for what this integrity is and proverbs says that the fear of man lays a snare but whoever trusts in the lord is safe So if we are fearful of man more than God, that is an ever moving target. The whole argument or the logical fallacy of the moving the goalpost, being afraid of what others will think of you is an ever moving goalpost because everybody is going to think something different. And so if you're afraid of what everybody thinks, then you're going to be changing your position. every single person you're in front of.

But when you're consistent to trusting in God, you are safe because A, you're going to make sure and have his blessings, whether here or in eternity, but you're not going to just fall for every different thing that comes along. And then in James, he says that, so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him, it is sin. So it is a sin for you to know what is right and then to not do it. Now, are we all sinners? I will say I failed to do things I know are right. And so I need to do better. But it is a sin. And so we need to call out sin. And as the scriptures say, we need to preach nothing but repentance. And so we need to do better. We need to improve ourselves and to make sure that we are full of integrity and doing the right thing, no matter the cost. In Cato's letters. In Cato's letters number six, it says, a public spirit is so necessary to the being and continuance of society that by the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, every man is obliged to prefer the public good before his own. So again, putting the long-term public good above your own comfort of being popular for the moment is long -term going to be better for the public good. And we have to... Keep that mindset in mind when we have these choices before us, if we are going to do the right thing or not.

We have to say, what is the long-term effects of doing this popular thing as opposed to the right thing? And then, of course, the Savior himself is a great example for us and what we put forward as our biggest priority. The Lord says, if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters or husband, yea, in his own life also, or in other words, is afraid to lay down his life for my sake, he cannot be my disciple. So if we're not willing to put him above everyone else, there is nobody that we can put in front of him. And if we put anybody in front of him, we are not his disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. If you're not willing to sacrifice and follow his example, then you can't be his disciple. Wherefore, settle this in your hearts, that ye will do the things which I shall teach and command you. So we are charged to keep his commandments and do what he says, no matter what anybody else does, whether your children, whether your spouse, whether your parents. Brothers and sisters, your job, your boss, it doesn't matter. Our job is to do everything that we can to do what God has commanded us to do, no matter the consequence.

And we can see the consequences that when we don't long-term. So if we want to be free, we have to act. Even if we might lose our job, we might lose our clients, we might have to pay a fine, we might have to go to jail, we might lose friends. We might lose family members even. We might lose influence. We might lose access to those of power and influence that we think we should get access to. We might even lose our lives by doing the right thing. But we have to act even if we do those things because there really is no virtue. You're not virtuous if you only take action and you only do the right thing when you're not risking anything. You're like, oh. I'm not gonna lose my job. I'm not gonna lose my clients. I'm not gonna pay a fine. I'm not gonna go to jail. I'm not gonna lose my friends. I'm not gonna lose family members. I'm not gonna lose influence. I'm not gonna lose my life. Okay, I'll do the right thing now. There's no blessing in that. There's no virtue in that. There's no morality in that. That is what a wicked person does.

And so we need to look at all these and make sure that we are questioning where we are in these things and so that we can do better and improve ourselves so that we are gonna do the right thing no matter what. Because we are ultimately accountable to God and no one else. And so we need to make sure that we are in a position where we can stand in front of our maker and not be afraid of him. And because we did the wrong thing, because we were afraid of man first. And the founding fathers showed this true integrity, right? They signed the Declaration of Independence with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence. We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. The founding fathers didn't wait until they had nothing to spare. Most, if not all of the founding fathers had spouses and children that they risked. They had money, they had jobs, they had positions of power and influence that if they lost, they would have sacrificed. And even if they hadn't lost, these people gave up family members and their own lives.

During the war for independence, they gave up their fortunes, their riches, their lands. They were willing to sacrifice all of these things. They weren't waiting for, you know, there to be nothing to sacrifice before they move forward. They had all of those things and they were up for grabs. They were risked to be killed, kidnapped, tortured. All of those things did happen and were at risk of happening. And they did it anyways. And that's where virtue and integrity lies. is doing the right thing in front of risk and even as horrible things do happen to you know because we did the right thing and and and so we need to have that instilled in us and be willing and then show our willingness by doing the right thing even when we risk all of those things So with that, that is training. We just closed just a couple of minutes early, but we'll go ahead and close with a prayer and then we can open it up to discussion during open forum. I'll ask Brittany, would you say the closing prayer for us? And then we'll get into the questions or the comments on the side.

Okay. Our dear Heavenly Father, we are grateful for this evening to all of us have been able to take the time to be able to come together. to discuss more about ways that we can truly invite freedom into our lives and for us to be able to stand up for it we ask that that may be with each of us that we may be able to know the right time and place to be able to act so that we may be able to show our love for thee and our love for freedom. And we ask that thou may be with us during these times that we may be able to have the bravery to stand up and the courage to do what is right in all times and in all places. And we ask that thou may be with us and we're grateful for the opportunity to be able to meet together. And we say these things humbly in the name of thy son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you.