The Kingdom of God Protects The Agency of Man

What happens when the people reject God’s word, or the words of his prophets? This is an excerpt from the Extremists Liberty Bootcamp. Take the whole course – for FREE – here: https://treeoflibertysociety.com/playlists/extremists-liberty-boot-camp.

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TRANSCRIPT

Generated using A.I.; please forgive any mistakes.

So this governing body, John Taylor, had a revelation to the Council of 50 in 1882. And the Lord told John Taylor, "And because according to my eternal decrees, the free agency of man should be guaranteed to all men, I moved upon him to introduce into my kingdom certain parties not of my church, for the purpose of exhibiting into my kingdom, that I would still maintain the free agency of man, and that I would hold in violet the principle, and will still maintain it to the end." God does not force you to be a part of his church, does not force you to follow anything that he says, you have your agency.

And the consequences, of course, will be attached to it. But he will maintain that to the end. So he brought people that were not even a part of the church into the governing council of the kingdom of God. And so God recognized their agency, even when we choose evil, he will put the consequences back on us. I want to tell you an example of what happened to the prophet Joseph Smith, regarding these things. And some things that were going on where he was actually working on being released as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and having his brother Hiram replace him as the president of the church.

And so some men came to him, the account goes, "Last Monday morning certain men came to me, 'Brother Joseph, Hiram is no prophet, he can't lead the church.' I felt curious and said, 'Here we learn in a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, prophet, priest, and king, and I will advance from prophet to priest and then to king.'" He was moving on to the kingdom of God, and wanted that. But when it came time, and the church said, "No, we are not going to release you Joseph, we're going to keep you and not have Hiram, as you've called, to be in that position." Under common consent, the church had its agency to choose to obey God or to not.

Another occasion he wanted to release Sidney Rigdon as a member of the first presidency. "Conference assembled and proceeded to business, and the first case and standing of Elder Sidney Rigdon, counselor in the first presidency. Joseph addressed the conference, stated his dissatisfaction with Elder Sidney Rigdon, and Joseph stated that he did not wish to retain in that station in the first presidency. And then after a defense from Rigdon, a conference voted that Elder Sidney Rigdon be permitted to retain his station." So, Joseph said, "I want to release him." Sidney Rigdon said, "Here's my defense."

And the church voted to keep Sidney against what Joseph said. And Joseph's response to the church deciding to keep Sidney said, "President Joseph Smith arose and said, 'I have thrown him off my shoulders, and you have again put him on me. You may carry him, but I will not.' Gave them their agency, said, 'But I am, I've rid my garments, I've said my piece, and you guys chose to keep him. You suffer the consequences. The Lord will allow us to do these things.'" We need to recognize this.