Sons of Liberty No More

We've established that honor is an important catalyst for courage. Honor, courage, and liberty are godly traits. Okay, honor and courage, but libery? How important, really, is liberty?

To walk with Christ is to walk with Liberty. Our Lord verifies that principle with our agency. Christ's success is your redemption, and that success is your choice. And your choice always requires sacrifice. Liberty requires sacrifice and responsibility. Underlying those requirements is the foundation of maturity born of wisdom. Knowledge without wisdom just spins its wheels and goes nowhere.

Wisdom, both societal and personal, has been relegated to the dustbin of inconvenience to agendas of evil. It isn't even much of a myth anymore. Humble seekers can find both knowledge and wisdom with effort. At the end of his speech, Patrick Henry defied the odds with the question: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!" 

We could continue this historical escapade for volumes. No people have had the scope of history that stands before us today. The nobility of man is clear, as is his wickedness and iniquity. We see this expanse with an historically unique perspective. This is extremely valuable to our very culture. Enemies of liberty would erase the honor and nobility of those who sacrificed for liberty. Our perspective, and the wisdom it provides, is being erased. On purpose. Evil abhores competition.

Who cries for liberty today? Many hope for liberty but fail to see the ubiquitous grasp of the Adversary's chains in every nook and cranny of our society. Patrick Henry's observation was a timely warning about those who "...indulge in the illusions of hope..." and "...are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth..." Our only hope is in Christ, and the true light and wisdom He provides. Liberty exists because of agency. 

Sadly, liberty has slowly been inverted to mean safety. Liberty is dangerous and risky and requires all the attributes of Zion to be successful. Zion cannot be legislated, hence man's continued failures at the effort. Consider this about our current governmental authority:

"The way things are supposed to work is that we're supposed to know virtually everything about what they do: that's why they're called public servants. They're supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that's why we're called private individuals.

"This dynamic - the hallmark of a healthy and free society - has been radically reversed. Now, they know everything about what we do, and are constantly building systems to know more. Meanwhile, we know less and less about what they do, as they build walls of secrecy behind which they function. That's the imbalance that needs to come to an end. No democracy can be healthy and functional if the most consequential acts of those who wield political power are completely unknown to those to whom they are supposed to be accountable." (Glenn Greenwald, On whistleblowers and government threats of investigation, The Gardian, 2013)

Caitlin Johnstone reduces the problem to its essence with this:

"The American people have no control over what their government does under the current political system. They vote for one oligarchic puppet, then they vote for the oligarchic puppet in the other party when that doesn’t work out, going back and forth without realizing that at no point are they changing the actual power structure under which they live.

"That power structure is called plutocracy. That’s only real political system the United States has." (Caitlin Johnstone, Zionist Billionaires Openly Acknowledge Manipulating the US Government, January 20, 2026)

The concept of "We the People," as the source of governmental authority, has gone missing. Society has become political theater. Moral corruption has become the rule, not the exception. In some circles it is a requirement. Immense wealth rules over all else in this mortal world. "You can buy anything in this world, for money," including blood, horror, and politicians.

Only the globalist miscreants of evil, have mis-identified a lighthouse, they thought was a mythical rowboat. The degree to which virtually every aspect of modern society, and its leadership, underestimates God is, by orders of magnitude, astounding.

"...God hath set his hand and seal to change the times and seasons, and to blind their minds, that they may not understand his marvelous workings; that he may prove them also and take them in their own craftiness;" (D&C 121:12).

Identifying current examples of immoral, power-seeking individuals, and liberty-robbing concepts, being proven and taken "in their own craftiness" is not difficult. From the earth's climate, to the common flu, mountains are made of molehills for liberty-destroying control over we, the people. And the slaughter of the unborn continues. What about their liberty?

Choices have consequences. If you have discarded that notion and proceed, anyway, your craftiness will not support you in the end.

"I, the Lord, am angry with the wicked; I am holding my Spirit from the inhabitants of the earth. I have sworn in my wrath, and decreed wars upon the face of the earth, and the wicked shall slay the wicked, and fear shall come upon every man;

"And the saints also shall hardly escape; nevertheless, I, the Lord, am with them, and will come down in heaven from the presence of my Father and consume the wicked with unquenchable fire." (D&C 63:32-34)

Walk With Christ

On the opposite side of the unbeliever's tired, old argument, God does not desire a bunch of mindless zombies around Him. Rather, I think, He would like life-experienced beings, whose history is of successes, repentance, and increasing meekness. All have been through a refiner's fire, at their level. All recognize our Savior’s advanced level of existence as being far purer and more intelligent, but nonetheless achievable. He is the opposite of coercion. He is eternal liberty. He can save, but only with your permission. The rain falls on us all, but your walk with Christ, might just lead to a dry towel. After all, His success is us, redeemed, and that requires us to be like Him.

To walk with Christ requires a foundational and internal resistance to evil, which leads to more success in defeating evil. To that end, an understanding of evil is essential. We do not dwell on evil. We ought to shun it as entertainment, but we understand it enough to recognize when it is being proffered as good. If I expect to defeat evil, I must recognize it. Even though the majority embraces evil, those who walk with Christ reject it with empirical certainty, and never look back. Experience clearly demonstrates that "wickedness never was happiness." The wisdom of that concept is deep, and clarifying.

I am obedient to the will of our Lord not for fear of punishment. My obedience is grounded in the faithful surety that His path for me provides exactly the challenges and puzzles I need to grow and progress toward His example. It is an eternal reward of joy and rejoicing. I am obedient because I want Him to be proud of me.

I enjoy others who also seek Christ's approval. Sincere fellowship produces resilient and lasting friendships. Those in need of help, are helped, and are blessed. Those with the resources to help are also blessed for their recognition that helping is better than having. All are blessed with knowledge that God is the source of all that is good.

"...for there is nothing which is good save it comes from the Lord..." (Omni 1:25)

Our Lord provided a lesson in organizational management unheard of in Babylon as He instructed the highest leadership quorums of the Restoration. This is a recipe for a walk with Christ.

"The decisions of these quorums, or either of them, are to be made in all righteousness, in holiness, and lowliness of heart, meekness and long-suffering, and in faith, and virtue, and knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity;

"Because the promise is, if these things abound in them they shall not be unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord." (D&C 107:30-31 and for more in-depth study see Mosiah 4&5. Highly recommended.)

How sad most of the early leadership had other things on their minds. In a true Zion community, all are fruitful in the knowledge of the Lord and gather in an environment filled with virtue, justice, and wisdom. Mercy is seldom needed, but when it is, it is freely given. Such people, together, attract the Heavenly Gift as the veil thins between the spiritual and mortal worlds.

We have limited detail about Adam's gathering of his righteous posterity where Christ visited, the City of Enoch, or the Salem of Melchizedek. Such historically momentary examples of Zion are inspiring but not entirely satisfying. I read those accounts without really knowing how to recreate what they had.

After His Nephite visit, Christ left a remnant of people who had been given the incredible gift of His presence. His presence! Can you imagine anything more delightful and refreshing? They had experienced something purer and more satisfying than mortality, and they did not want to lose it. They knew exactly what to do next. And because we have the Book of Mormon, we do too.

Read 4th Nephi for, arguably, the most detailed textbook on Zion we have. I could list the bullet points but such is a profitable exercise. Highly recommended. To have that list in your head identifies positive behavior, where the last verse of 3rd Nephi is about the negative. They are very much the bookends of behavior.

We cannot think for one moment, however, that it is our behavior alone that brings Zion. Our Lord is a necessary component. His Spirit provides the catalyst which combines with our behavior and desire, resulting in Zion. Christ can dwell in such an environment, and He lives to bring us safely there—to liberty, honor, peace, love, and wisdom. With such people, our Lord can make the gifts of heaven available to all. I don't think anyone has better expressed the concept of Zion and the Heavenly Gift, than this:

"...there were no rich and there were no poor, and there were no bond, and there were no free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift. This is NOT a description of a social-economic order alone.

"The foundation of Zion shows up here yet again - it's the heavenly gift. It’s the presence and the abundance of the things of the Spirit. It’s not that we have now solved the social-welfare state, because the social-welfare state is the arm of flesh effort to try and imitate something that we all, in our gut, think is probably a fair thing to do, to have everyone be on an equal plane and have everyone deal with one another so that there are no rich and poor, or bond or free, but it doesn’t work and it doesn’t work, because to get where you need to get in order for the things to work, it has to be the heavenly gift.

"It has to be people in harmony with each other, because they are in harmony with the Lord. By getting in harmony with the Lord you find that, well, YOU are a lot more tolerable to others and others are suddenly more tolerable to you.

"Even defective others are more tolerable to you, if you’re in harmony with the Lord. Because if you can see them as the Lord sees them—they are beautiful, they are wonderful! Every one you have ever met is a child of your Heavenly Father and if you can get the heavenly gift then you stop seeing things through the lens of this world and you start seeing things as they really are.

"...look at verse 5 at what happens once you have the presence of the heavenly gift. In verse 5 you find that they healed the sick, they raise the dead, they cause the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, the deaf to hear; and all manner of miracles did they work among the children of men; and in nothing did they work miracles save it were in the name of Jesus. It is about Him and it is about His work and is about bringing about His will.

"And why was it then, His will that the sick among them be healed and the dead rise again? Why is it that during this period of time it was in conformity with His will that the lame walk and the blind receive their sight and the deaf hear and all manner of miracles occur?

"Why during this time period, when they’ve got the heavenly gift, and when you would say, you know, that’s sort of unfair, I mean, they got all things in common, they’ve solved the problems of the social-welfare state, they’ve got this great societal thing going on, you know, don’t they need cripples? Don’t they need the blind? Don’t they need people to whom they ought to be ministering? Shouldn’t there be a group of them, who, unlike the verse mentioned earlier, are in bondage to the ailments of the body?

"And the answer is — well, apparently not. Apparently, we need it. Apparently it serves an extraordinarily useful purpose for us, but in their setting they’ve got bigger things to do, they’ve got more important things to do and it will tell us what that is, tell us about it repeatedly." Denver Snuffer, Zion Symposium, Feb. 23, 2008, Provo, UT Marriott.

What could possibly be more important than healing the sick and caring for those who are infirm? The better question might be, if you could heal those who are infirm, what would be the next order of business?  What has God been attempting, with us, since the days of Adam?

To quote Denver again, the simple answer is, "family life." That, of course is a theme for another day, but suffice it to say that all that we've been discussing regarding the Gospel of Jesus Christ, always returns full circle, to family, and family-building. So that's where we start. We do our best to create Zion, in our own family. If we can do it there, Heaven takes notice and evil diminishes its influence.

And you thought this would be easy. It seems my walk with Christ led right into my own living room.