Agency is not “the right to disobey”

If you have a right to something, it is yours, and there is no consequence for what you do with it. We have rights in our country that we believe in, but none of those is the right to break the law, the right to murder, to steal, … The God given rights we have are rights to obtain things by our own merits and effort. We have a right to the pursuit of happiness. We do not have a right to happiness.

Government is not to infringe upon our God given rights. What we do that is within the realm of our rights has no governmental consequence. That is precisely what we mean by saying that they are rights.

But we do not have a right to disobey God. We have the ability, no doubt. But the fact that we have agency does not give us a RIGHT to disobey. If it was a right, then it would not matter how we used it, because it belonged to us and we could do with it as we pleased.

So first off, agency is not a right to disobey God. If it was, then there could be no consequence for disobeying, because we acted within our rights by disobeying. Rights are things that we can do as we please with because they inherently belong to us. That is not the case with disobeying God.

Allowing us to choose is different than giving us a right to disobey, because the conditions of that choice are stated plainly from the beginning, and the consequences of choosing the path of disobedience is to suffer unspeakable agony like a lake of fire and brimstone. It is therefore not our “right” to disobey. It is within our abilities. But abilities are different that rights.

Agency

Agency is simple.

It was illustrated very clearly in God’s statement to Cain: “If thou doest well thou shalt be accepted.”

Satan’s plan was to replace the principle “if thou doest well, thou  shalt be accepted”. He proposed replacing it with a different principle: “thou shalt be accepted independent of what thou doest”. That is the opposite of agency.

Agency is to choose our end by our actions.

Satan wanted to destroy the plan of choosing our end by our actions. He wanted to reward good for evil.

Agency is not “the Right to Disobey”. When we live within our rights there are no consequences for doing so. By contrast, there are awful punishments that await those who exercise their agency to reject the truth. Agency is different than a right.

The declaration of independence states that man all men are created with certain rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There are implicit bounds on those rights. We do not have the right to pursue happiness by becoming a serial murderer. That is outside of our rights. But as long as we live within those rights, the pursuit of those rights are without consequence.

Good choices enhance agency. But we don’t have more rights or fewer rights by living within our rights. When we read of the war in Heaven, we immediately think of rights because of the heritage of our government. But Agency is different than a right. Agency increases as we exercise it properly, rights do not.

God both has requirements he makes of all mankind. While all mankind is expected to live by at least basic principles of conscience, accepting the greater light of the gospel is not forced. In fact, it is offensive to God to impel, by force of law, men to believe in and worship him.

We see examples in the law of Moses where those who are not members of his church, not even Israelites in fact, are required to abide by some of God’s laws when they are among God’s people. Those who are visiting Israelites are required to keep the Sabbath day holy. Not only them, but even their servants are required to keep the Sabbath day holy.

The whole point of rights is that they are yours and the government can have no hold on you for living within your rights. That is what makes them rights.

But agency is different. We can choose, but sooner or later we will be held accountable. Consider whether the follow scriptures are teaching that we have a RIGHT to do whatever we want, or whether our agency to choose is different that a RIGHT because we will be held accountable for every exercise of it.

Matthew 12: 36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

Alma 12: 13 Then if our hearts have been hardened, yea, if we have hardened our hearts against the word, insomuch that it has not been found in us, then will our state be awful, for then we shall be condemned.
 14 For our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence.

Those who are found to have hardened their hearts against the truth will find themselves condemned even by their thoughts. Does being guilty for one’s thoughts sound like one is exercising a right? No, rights are things that belong to us to do with as we please. Agency is not a right to disobey.

Joseph Fielding Smith said: “I have heard people say, and members of the church too, ‘I have a right to do just as I please.’ My answer is ‘No, you do not.’ You haven’t any right at all to do just as you please. There is only one right that you have and that is to do just what I read to you: keep the commandments of Jesus Christ.
He has a perfect right to tell us so.
We have no right to refuse.
I do not care who the man is, I do not care where he lives or what he is, when the gospel of Jesus Christ is presented to him he has no right to refuse to receive it.
He has the privilege. He is not compelled to receive it
because our father in Heaven has given to every one of us in the church and out the gift of agency.
That free agency gives us the privilege to accept and be loyal to our Lord’s commandments,
but it has never given us the right to reject them.
Every man who rejects the commandments of our father in heaven is rebellious.”

Our upside down culture.

2 Nephi 13:12 And my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they who lead thee cause thee to err and destroy the way of thy paths.

This scripture has become a virtual theme for our day. Tragically, we have lived so long in this setting that we have grown accustomed to it, and can hardly figure out what it would be referring to.

There is a scripture elsewhere that describes a people who were so wicked that they could not keep their hands on their own goods. If they laid a sword down the next day it would not be there. They began to sleep with their swords just to ensure the safety of their own goods.

While this sounds extraordinary, one might imagine that if it had continued for 50 years then there would come a point at which it would be what most people remembered as the norm for most of their lives. It would just be part of what life was like, part of the normal backdrop in which life takes place. It would become just part of the reality of a dog eat dog world.

We do live in a setting that is extremely destructive, but which has become perfectly normalized. It is the one described in 2 Nephi 13:12.

Children are their oppressors

The horrible effects of modern ideas about home and family can hardly be overestimated.

One example of these is the normalization of rebellion in our youth. From older teachings it appears that while some youth were rebellious, e.g. the story of the prodigal son, it was also quite normal for youth to not be rebellious, and to be very respectful and diligent. One reads about this distinction a number of times in the book of Proverbs. Respectful and diligent youth seem to have been as much a normal thing in their culture as rebellious youth are in ours.

Our youth grow up being taught that rebellion and disrespect are not only a normal, but even the natural and expected way to live as teenagers.

If you teach every convert to the church that he or she will go inactive for some period of time (and yes, I have heard members tell new converts that), then it will be very easy for that to happen. They will think to themselves “if others who have trod this path before me said that going inactive for a time is normal, then it’s not going to hurt if I slip a bit”. When we use our position as one who appears wise, or a leader, or a teacher to give a nod of approval to rebellion or apathy then we won’t be surprised when more of our members and new converts give way to rebellion or apathy.

Many of us don’t even really believe in respectful and diligent youth.

We read the story of the stripling warriors, but we do not really believe that is possible for our own youth. If we lack faith that our own youth can be raised to be that faithful, then how can is possibly become true?

And by faith I don’t just mean belief. Weak belief comes from weak obedience. Strong faith comes from righteous living. If we lack faith, just believing more is not the whole issue, we must improve and live better, and then rather than just more belief we will find that we have greater faith.

Women rule over them

The scriptures span the entirety of man’s fallen history. They do cover some times in much more detail than others, but they still cover a remarkable range of cultures and times. For example, the Nephite history spans 1000 years along with some history of the Jaredites which spanned from the tower of Babel almost to the arrival of the Nephites. By contrast, the United States has been around for about 240 years. Modern ideas about the family clearly came about primarily in the last century, with the most dramatic changes taking place starting in the 1960s.

It is rather interesting that in the entire history of the scriptures there is nothing that suggests that the at any time in that, the structure of the family that God endorsed changed from the one given to Adam and Eve.

But interestingly, there is a strong tendency to believe that all the new “truths” we have discovered about the family since 1960, are the real gospel truth. We have this remarkable idea that the notions about the family that came from an age when decency was replaced with unabashed sexual immorality are somehow a broad step forward toward the truth.

Lest a preachment against it cannot be remembered

Spencer W Kimball, speaking of Christian churches in general, stated the following.

“One prominent voice booms out that there are many steepled edifices in which the word sin has not been mentioned for a long time, and a preachment against it cannot be remembered.”

What struck me most when I heard that recently was whether that same culture actually has many proponents now in our own wards and churches. 

I think that it has. There are those that want “a more loving message” among us. Even among those who are not actually apostate, I think this is quietly sneaking into our wards. 

Good men and women still speak plainly, no doubt. 

But let us be careful to heed the warning implicit in President Kimballs mournful complaint about the other churches of his day.

My wife’s excellent remarks on the constitution

My wife wrote some excellent stuff. As context, she gave a quote from James Madison, who wrote most of the constitution.

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasure; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor. . . .
Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.”

With that as context, Diane made an excellent point, which I do not believe I understood previously. The following excellent notes were written by her.
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The Constitution was written to keep the regulation of day to day in the hands of the states. That gave each individual more say and more representation in the government. With a large federal government regulating the day to day lives of the American citizens, the people have less and less representation and say in those laws.

Think about it. Your state representative represents a few thousand people. They usually listen to the voters and care about what they want. Your federal representative represents a few million people giving you much less voice and much less say. The Constitution was written to give the people a lot of say in the laws and regulations that affected their day to day lives. The Constitution did not intend for a few people in the federal government dictating education, healthcare, marriage, business practices, property rights and use, religion, and speech. Those were left to the states, so that each person can have the most amount of say in the laws that regulate them.

Do your children know this? Do your children know that the Founding Fathers meant for them to have a lot of say in laws and regulations that affect their day to day lives? They are not being taught this in school. You can teach it to them by reading the Founding Documents and discussing them with your children. Read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers.
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And I think that is profound. Big government wants sweeping decisions made that force everyone to capitulate. Big government has an unquencheable thirst for power and continually finds reason for it’s whims to becomes laws. It becomes, more and more, a spoiled child that believes it Deserves anything that it wants. And, like a spoiled child, it’s wants grow without bound. It becomes increasingly unreasonable, selfish, unfair, and even irrational. It doesn’t just want a pony, it wants a purple magical pony. In fact. It wants a real unicorn and a real live fairy and a pot of gold.

Just look at the bizarre denial of physical reality that has been descending to the people from above recently: denial of the physical realities of marriage, and even of something so blindingly obvious as gender. They want to cast into law what can never be real. They think they can MAKE it real. They are spoiled children sitting on thrones of state, wielding its full power to their own personal ends.

Very limited federal government, as our constitution was intended to be, allows people to have a real say in precisely the laws by which they will be governed. It is truly self government. It is government by the people, because each person has a reasonable influence in the laws which most affect them.

The differing punishments of men and women in 2 Nephi 13

It is interesting that there are punishments for the men, and punishments for the women both listed in 2 Nephi 13.

Of the men we read:

2 Nephi 13:25 Thy men shall fall by the sword and thy mighty in the war.

And of the women we read:

2 Nephi 13:16 Moreover, the Lord saith: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet—

17 Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts.

18 In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, and cauls, and round tires like the moon;

19 The chains and the bracelets, and the mufflers;

20 The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings;

21 The rings, and nose jewels;

22 The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins;

23 The glasses, and the fine linen, and hoods, and the veils.

24 And it shall come to pass, instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; and instead of well set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth; burning instead of beauty.

It is rarely noted that these two punishments are adapted to the misbehavior we see by the men and  the women in the church. 

In general, the men are more likely to get into moral trouble. These days, there are already many men in the church who have fallen into the web of pornography. Immorality, including pornography, is like setting off a bomb in a person’s life. It destroys a person spiritually, leaving little left in its wake. It is a spiritual kaboom that can turn a righteous king David into a man that is worthy of hell. 

By contrast, our women are involved to a degree in immorality, but to a much lesser degree. However, they are almost universally afflicted with feminism. They have stretch-forth necks and are haughty. They don’t think they are. But they look down at their demure ancestors with scoffing, and even a sense of indignation and disdain toward their meekness, gentleness, and quiet humility. This is very different than immorality. It is not a bomb that blows up and destroys a person. It is more like a sickness that afflicts the general population of women in the church. They have pride and animosity over it. They are even proud and self righteous about their feminist pride and feminist animosity. 

And it is interesting that the punishments offered to the men and women in 2 Nephi 13 match up with the type of misbehavior we are seeing.

In 2 Nephi 13 the men are punished with death.  That is pretty serious punishment. It matches the seriousness of the misbehavior. When ancient Israel was immoral, the Lord frequently used exactly this sort of punishment, such as when he sent a plague that was stayed by Phinehas’ righteous zeal. Immorality, like death, usually doesn’t destroy a person half way. Immorality is like a bomb that leaves spiritual death in its wake. The punishment given to the men of the church in 2 Nephi 13 matches the type of misbehavior we are seeing in the men of the church.

In 2 Nephi 13 the women are punished with scabs on the crowns of their head, stink instead of sweet smell, baldness instead of well set hair, torn clothing of sackcloth in place of fashionable clothing with accessories, burning instead of beauty. They aren’t punished with death, but with intense physical ailments and with clothing like that of refugees that is a mockery of the beauty that women desire for themselves. They become, visually, the antithesis of a picture of beauty and feminity.

And that punishment matches the misbehavior we are seeing in the women of the church. 

The punishments of the men and of the women match the misbehaviors we are seeing in the men and the women of the church.

History that fails to show socialism and communism for what they are is a lie

What is the impetus behind socialism? It is laziness and greed on behalf of the poor, as well as a desire for power on behalf of the few who want control of the government.

It is the opposite of Zion. Zion requires the rich to love their God so much they will become poor themselves if necessary to serve him. They must, as a class, accept Christ’s challenge to the rich young man. Zion also requires the poor to not look at the things of the rich with greedy eyes and idleness. They must prize God far above their desire for things. The changes in both the rich and the poor are essential to Zion.

Socialism makes a few men powerful. By having power over the property and commerce of the people socialism offers society nothing better than an oppressive return to the dark ages. Socialism seems less oppressive to us than the dark ages were, but it is only so on the surface. It seems more bearable than the dark ages were because we have a hard time recognizing how oppressive it is when our measuring stick is primarily whether people are enjoying modern technological advances and conveniences that we have come to value more than we care about the fundamentals of liberty, happiness, and the unrestricted right to worship our God.

Zion gives power to God instead of giving power to despots. No man can serve both God and mammon. Zion requires both the rich and the poor to completely choose God over mammon.

A history that portrays socialism and communism without portraying it’s true nature of corruption, greed, laziness, and government oppression is a lie. A history that portrays socialism and communism as just a “different form of government”, a different flag, a different color on the map, is a lie.