Corruption — Denver Snuffer

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In this podcast, Denver discusses the corruption of church and state, how it happens, why it happens, and what we can do to avoid it and counteract it.

There are a lot of prophecies that are requiring fulfillment right now that must precede the return of the Lord in His glory.

In addition to everything else that you learn from the Book of Mormon, there are prophecies about a kingdom, an incipient planting, a return of a religious body (small though it may be) that will build what’s called a New Jerusalem—an antecedent to the establishment of Zion—and that the Old Testament prophecies about Zion and Jerusalem at the time of the Lord’s return is not talking about one location. It is talking about two separate locations—because when the Lord returns, the sun will never set on His kingdom: One of them will be on one side of the world, and the other will be on the other side of the world. And He will establish in Jerusalem (that is, at old Jerusalem) a kingdom. And He will establish in the New Jerusalem (that is, in Zion) a second part of His kingdom. And out of Zion and out of Jerusalem will go the law and the teachings that will constitute the effort and the government and the society and the culture that’s gonna finally free itself from the toxic influences and the corrupt traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation, being influenced all the way back to Babylon.

That’s why the prophecies of John talk about the fall of Babylon the Great. Because the head of gold is still with us. The Babylonian influence remains with us still in our banking, in our profit motive, in our culture, in our education, in our false ideas about what’s important and what’s not, in our desire for power and wealth and influence. All of those things remain with us still today. And they corrupt everything. They corrupt business. They corrupt governments. They corrupt churches. They corrupt society. Everyone is vying with one another to gain influence, power, and in turn, wealth and the acclamation of this world. And it all goes back to Babylon, which is why John prophecies the fall—not of every one of these components of the great image that Nebuchadnezzar saw, but he goes right to the head, because as soon as you destroy the head, everything else is gonna unravel. And he prophecies about the destruction of Babylon, the head of gold that holds sway over all else.

Creating unified people who qualify to worship God in truth (that is, knowing accurately the past, present, and future) is an extraordinary challenge. Only God can do it, and He must have willing people. It will require a new civilization. Prophecy likens that civilization to a stone carved out of a mountain that will roll out to destroy all the corruptions of Babylon, Medes and Persians, Greeks, Romans, and modern societies.

The Lord is equal to the challenge. He will establish a new civilization. It will be founded on the fullness of His gospel. Lost truths will be restored; the path of righteousness will be returned.

Society is broken. Everywhere we see corrupt cultures based on corrupt laws, corrupt religions, corrupt values, and ultimately, corrupt thought. Beginning again requires re- civilizing people. To be free from corruption requires a change in thinking. If the Lord is to accomplish this, there will need to be a new temple at the center of that new civilization.

The Lord talked with Enoch regarding His return and started with a description of His temple: For there shall be my tabernacle, and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem (Genesis 4:22 RE, emphasis added). It can only become Zion and a New Jerusalem if the Lord’s tabernacle is there. His temple will be where He teaches all that must be understood to please God. Then, when people rise up to become what the Lord expects, His risen Tabernacle of glory, and the Lord Himself, will come to dwell there.

The temple was founded before and will be needed to be the foundation again. When there has been an apostasy, temple building has been part of restoring. A new civilization will only become possible through teachings learned in the future House of God. The necessary ordinances can only be restored in that setting. There you will receive an uncorrupted restoration of the original faith taught to Adam and the patriarchs.

Well, there was a different order of things long ago and far away, in which the veil that exists predominantly now was easily traversed. It is for the protection of mankind that a veil was installed, so that apparently powerful, spiritual, great beings who are malevolent and evil and corrupting and who urge you to carnality and sensuality, and devilishness don’t get access to you—because there has to be an equal opposition in all things. If your mind ascends to the highest heights (as Joseph put it in his letter from Liberty Jail), your mind also must descend into the darkest abyss—because you cannot ascend without exposing yourself to a larger spectrum of opposition, so that you are left in the balance to choose. It is for mankind’s protection and potential salvation that limits are placed upon the adversary and his access to you. And yet there are so many people who are willingly captured by carnality/sensuality/power-over-their-fellow-man that mankind is easily corrupted into seeking for things that titillate the mind, gratify the senses, and suggest overindulgence in any of the bodily weaknesses that we all possess because we’re here in a body of dust [and] are vulnerable to.

In addition to varying forms of ignorance and study, diligence and sloth, interest and indifference that separates each of us in our religious beliefs, there are also false spirits that mislead and confuse.

The term “false spirit” is not limited to the idea of a devil, imp, or mischievous personage but includes the much broader attitude, outlook, or cultural assumptions that people superimpose atop religion. False spirits in the form of ignorant, incomplete, or incorrect ideas are easily conveyed from one person to another. People convey false spirits every time they teach a false idea, and the student accepts the idea.

False spirits infect every religious tradition on earth. This is not limited to eastern religions that deny Christ but also include Christianity and Mormonism. So long as there is anything false or any error, a false spirit prevails.

Different religious structures lend themselves to be overtaken by false spirits through different means. If you have a hierarchy, only the top needs to be taken captive by a false spirit. If it is a diffused religion, then all you have to do is take captive the theological seminaries in order to spread the false spirit. But if the religion is individual and each person is standing on their own—accountable for their relation to God, accountable to learn, to pray, to reach upward, and to have God connect with them individually—then the only way to corrupt a ~~diffused~~ [individual] religion is to corrupt every single believer, every single practitioner.

In the new scriptures there is a section in which Joseph Smith discusses at length the topic of false spirits. It’s an editorial he published in the Times and Seasons on April the 1st of 1842. This new section 147 in the Teachings and Commandments is worth careful study.

We don’t believe in an organization, because organizations can be compromised simply by capturing the control center. You are witnessing a concerted effort being made everywhere you look—churches, the military, the government, businesses, Disney… Everywhere you look, there is a concerted effort to acquire control over the control center of the organizations in order, then, to corrupt the entirety of the organization by gaining control of the center/of the top. If you never consolidate power into a single place but every person must stand on their own—and every person has their own volume of Scriptures, and everyone has the ability to get access to the heavens through prayer—then it doesn’t matter who you corrupt, you cannot corrupt the whole. And when she [Kathy Alexander] said (just before the last song and me getting up here) that she takes no one’s word for anything but she has to pray for and have her own assurance of the truth, what that means is no person’s corruption, no matter who they may be, stands in the way of her ability to discern and be faithful to the truth. There’s a resilience to a lack of hierarchy, a lack of position, a lack of control. There’s a vulnerability to any organization that, right now, is being exploited relentlessly no matter where you turn. The Disney organization is going to be getting into the adult-film business, probably using a different label—but they are clearly moving away from the “family-friendly” fare that Walt Disney founded it to become.

When Joseph Smith organized an institutional form for the restoration, that institutional form gives the opportunity for utterly compromising the restoration itself merely by corrupting the head. If you have all of the authority within the institution concentrated into the hands of a single individual then all that is required is that that single individual become evil, become corrupt, become self-serving, become ambitious, become someone who fails to retain the connection to heaven necessary in order to move things forward – hence the limitation that was put by Joseph in the letter from Liberty Jail on priesthood authority. When people desire to exercise control or compulsion, or exercise and obtain their ambitions, then they are odds with what heaven is trying to do.

God can fulfil the way in which he prophesied that the restoration will unfold in any manner but as soon as you think you’ve got some place to go that can be corrupted, the ambitions in this world are such that corruption most surely follows.

We have an opportunity, if we will avail ourselves of it, at a time of peace and prosperity, to do something to prepare in order to have that day come upon us with adequate preparation having been made in advance.

Because the institution could be corrupted and because the institution began to inflate its role. You see, at the beginning the institution was the creature of the authority of the prophet. It did not own and control the prophet but it was subordinate to that man who could declare what the mind of God was to them. Over time the institution arrogated, that is, in its arrogance assumed that it could control even the right to declare the mind of God. And so the institution puts people in a role to sit in the temple of God as if they were God, to declare to the people what things ought or needed to be done, and has amassed at this point billions of dollars in wealth with no Zion, hundreds of billions of dollars in property, with no ability to reconnect anyone through Covenants to the Fathers to anyone other than the dead who reside in hell looking for redemption from the grave. That was not the plan at the beginning. That was not the objective of the restoration.

In my view, from my careful observation of everything that went on during Joseph Smith’s day and careful scrutiny of the course of events that followed his demise, a truer version of an organized hierarchical structure has no hope of bringing Zion. I know there are those who in this room have expressed a hope that it can be achieved otherwise. My personal view is that you cannot improve any chance of bringing Zion by a truer version of an organized hierarchical structure, it just will not will not work because implicit within the hierarchy is the disadvantage of stratification. If the hierarchies look like a pyramid with someone at the top and all you have to do, all you have to do to corrupt that is to corrupt the top, if you break that you’ve broken the whole thing. That’s essentially what has happened. And over and over again people wishing that they would like to escape the corruption that they’ve found in the integrated structure, can be improved upon if they just get a better guy in that position, it’ll all work out somehow. I believe that the correct structure is completely flat, and that that completely flat structure with no one greater than anyone else. If there be someone who would choose to help the group they need to descend below. They need to kneel to wash the feet of others. They need to elevate. They need to put others above themselves. And they need to find the weakest spots and raise it as much as they can throughout and let them all move forward together with no one atop.

Today—and I say these words advisedly, and I want you to take them seriously—today ([ringing phone] hold my calls, will ya?), today all Christian churches have become corrupt. They love money more and acquiring financial security and church buildings more than caring for the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted. The institutions claiming to be the church of God are all polluted by the cares of the world.

I want you to understand what I mean by that. During the apostolic era, there was no such thing as a Christian church building. Christians met in homes. They did not collect and compensate ministers. They gathered money, and they used it to help the poor and the needy among them.

As soon as you get a church building, I regret to inform you, you’ll have to hire a lawyer. In what name are you going to take title to your building? How are you going to hide title or hold title and deal with succession? What form will the organization take? Do you intend to qualify for tax deductibility? If so, do you intend to file as a charitable institution, as an eleemosynary institution, as an educational institution? (Those are all words that you find in 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code.) And what do you do if you want to hire and fire a minister, and you want to dispossess the one you fired and put into possession the successor in the building—what rights, and who’s on the board, and who possesses the right to deal with that? As soon as you own property, the cares of this world invade. It’s unavoidable.

If you meet in homes (as the early Christians did) and if you gather your tithing (one tenth of your surplus after you’ave taken care of all your responsibilities/all your needs—whatever’s left over, one tenth of that is your tithe)—after you gather your tithe, then you ought to look at your brothers and your sisters who are there in your meeting, and you ought to help those who have needs: who have health needs, who have education needs, who have transportation needs, who have food needs, who have children that need care. Christians should take care of the poor among them, and no one should be looking at the flock and saying, “I need your money to support myself.” Christian charities should be used to take care of the poor among you and not to engage in acquiring the cares of this world. This is why all Christian churches have become corrupt. They love money and acquiring financial security and church buildings more than caring for the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

When the church at Rome began to aggregate wealth, they used wealth to gain influence and preeminence over other congregations in the Mediterranean world. The influence of wealth led to political influence, and over time, they obtained universal, hierarchical command of a vertically-integrated church structure. Then all that was needed to corrupt the whole institution was to corrupt the top.

In fellowships, if they are all independent and all equipped with the same body of instruction and they all function independent of one another, it does not matter how corrupt any single fellowship may become. It will be necessary to corrupt every single one of them to kill the whole. You can’t kill the whole by corruption of a single influential entity.

The things of God are razor thin. It may lie in a straight course, but the way in which the Lord walks that straight line—He doesn’t even cast a shadow to the left or the right. When you walk that line and begin to see the shadow, you’ve already departed from the path even though you think you’re still on it. You have to question every step of the way, every step you take, and measure every word you speak because you are going to be judged on the basis of that.

We are expected to sacrifice for God. A religion that does not require sacrifice is a religion that will not produce faith. If there is one thing that is going to be necessary for the establishment of Zion, it is going to necessarily be faith. You obtain it through sacrifice. You do not obtain it through adoration, you do not obtain it through the praise of men, you do not obtain it by sitting in chief seats, you don’t obtain it by faring sumptuously and administering the wealth that is surrendered to you as if you were God. It belongs to God. It is His. You should go get a job to support yourself if you’re going to administer the tithes and leave the tithes alone.

I know there are verses that suggest that the laborer is worthy of his hire, I know that. I’m telling you it’s toxic. I’m telling you that there are, in the history of mankind, I can think of maybe five men who have lived that would be worthy and beyond corruption in occupying that role. And one of those five was the Lord Himself. Don’t look upon a passing verse as a basis upon which to revoke and to cast aside all of the other many verses, and warnings, and cautions, and prophecies about the abuse of the last days gentiles which largely emanate from the corruption of our religion because of priestcraft.

Priestcraft is toxic, not just to the listeners, but to the practitioners. If what you are saying, if what you are preaching is greeted with wild enthusiasm and it doesn’t get you shunned, then you are probably not saying anything that God would agree with.

God’s purpose is to bring us to repentance. The Lord is exceptionally positive, but He is positive in stating affirmatively the standard that is acceptable to Him. “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my name’s sake.” He expected us to be misunderstood, misapprehended, assessed very narrowly just as He was, cast out, not to be handed money and to be given a chief seat, to be adored, and to be respected.

Our challenge among ourselves, however diminutive we may seem to be; priestcraft can invade our little fellowships every bit as much as it can invade multi-billion-dollar institutions. There’s no limit on where you can run amiss.

Rest assured that God intends to establish in the last days a Zion in which we will see the return of exactly what was here at the beginning. There will be a return. The reason why they are coming to the children of Ephraim in the everlasting mountains is because there will be a new Jerusalem. They will bring rich treasures when they come because they have records that they themselves are going to need to have translated. They are going to be crowned because the Family of God consists of people who are, in fact, kings and priests. All of that infrastructure has to be put in place by the Lord before His return. Therefore He intends to accomplish this work. When He accomplishes this work, you are not going to find at the top of it a king like the gentiles expect. You’re going to find something or someone or some group who are meek and lowly, who are rather more like our Savior than the kings who ruled during our Savior’s day. You won’t find a Caesar and you won’t find a local potentate; you will find a servant.

No church organization or man claiming authority should hijack your obedience to God. You’re accountable to Him. You’re accountable to only Him, not to me and not to any man. When Joseph wanted to know what his state and standing was before God, he asked God. It is to God alone that you must answer, and it is to God that you must be grateful. And before Him you must be humble.

That having been said, religion—when it exists—always exists in its true form as a community of believers. Community is required. If we don’t have a community then we cannot be willing to mourn [for] those that mourn. We cannot comfort those that stand in need of comfort. We cannot stand as [a] witness [to one another] of God at all times and in all places. We cannot bear one another’s burdens that they may be light (Mosiah 18:8-9; see also Mosiah 9:7 RE), as is required by the Gospel and by the covenant of baptism. None of this can be done without fellowship.

However, we do not need a new church. The only thing we need is a community of fellowship. Legal entities, when they are formed, become prey to the law; legal entities can become controlled by men who have ambition—sycophants, brown-nosers, people who are willing to do whatever is required of them in order to show that they are desperately submissive to the one above them so that they might join them in having control over others. This is the way that organizations go.

In the “Sunstone Conference,” I wrote a paper; I presented part of it there called Cutting Down the Tree of Life to Build a Wooden Bridge (it’s available on my blog with all of the footnotes—I think the footnote version is much better than what I was able to do verbally). But that process is the inevitable result. Aspiring men will always corrupt whatever there is that is organized on the earth.

It is in the minds and the hearts of men where darkness grows. A great fog of lies spreads over the earth again today. There’s decreasing light because of false, evil, and destructive ideas. Life expectancy in the United States has declined for the first time largely due to two causes: suicide and drug abuse. There is a crisis of depression, loneliness, and mental illness underway. Pollution of our minds is a far greater threat than anything we see in the physical environment.

The Book of Mormon warns about our time. It describes pollutions of both the environment and the spirits of mankind that we now see:

Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be heard of fires, and tempests, and vapors of smoke in foreign lands; and there shall also be heard of wars, and rumors of wars, and earthquakes in divers places. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth—

So, now he’s talking about pollutions which he will illustrate in the words that are coming up, pollutions that you’re going to see in the last days. And these are the pollutions about which he was concerned:

There shall be murders, and robbings, and lyings, and deceivings, and whoredoms, and all manner of abominations — when there shall be many who will say, Do this or do that, it mattereth not, for the Lord will uphold such at the last day. But woe unto such, for they are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say, Come unto me, and for your money you shall receive forgiveness of your sins. (Mormon 4:4 RE, emphasis added)

Today’s greatest pollutions are lies, deceits, and advocating all manner of abominations as if they were good. Abusive and wicked practices are now advocated boldly and incorporated into our entertainment media and culture—fearlessly. Their advocates have no shame, no fear of judgment, and no concern for godliness.

The needs of the poor are often forgotten—and their direful circumstances used by political leaders only to advance their power and control. The sick and infirm have become a political opportunity. Governments face increasing perplexities and fail to address them with common sense. The world’s leaders welcome perplexities to increase public distress because they hope to ride that increasing public distress to increased political power.

Christ described our socially bleak times but told us not to be discouraged because of it. He told us to look up, for the time of redemption is promised when a generation sees these signs:

In the generation in which the times of the gentiles shall be fulfilled, there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, like the sea and the waves roaring. The earth also shall be troubled, and the waters of the great deep, men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of Heaven shall be shaken; …when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, lift up your heads, for the day of your redemption draws near. (Luke 12:17 RE, emphasis added)

We have a sideshow going on in this nation’s capital and even worse foolishness in the governments of other nations. The people of some nations starve because their leaders believe military power matters more than their citizens’ hunger. Taxes are squandered, speech is suppressed, citizens are killed, and leaders pursue foolishness and vanity rather than benevolence and kindness.

Despite the present distresses, we are expected to uphold the government for the present. As our Scriptures explain: We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law (T&C 146:32).

And in another place the Lord stated:

I, the Lord, justify you and your brethren of my church in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land. And as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than this comes of evil. I, the Lord make you free; therefore, you are free indeed, and the law also makes you free. Nevertheless, when the wicked rule, the people mourn. [And then He adds what I read before.] Honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, …good men and wise men you should observe to uphold; otherwise, whatsoever is less than these comes of evil. (T&C 98:2)

Governments and churches are both subject to corruption. We have learned by sad experience…it’s the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Hence many are called, but few are chosen (T&C 139:5).

The genius of the U.S. Constitution is that it presumes ambitious and corrupt men will rise to power. It both limits and then fragments government authority. The Constitution sets restrictions on what the government is permitted to do. Then, as a further precaution, it divides power between three branches and makes a system of checks and balances so that ambitious and corrupt men who rise to offices will have only limited means to act.

Rhetoric stirs emotions that erupt like storm waves crashing against the cliffs. Isaiah described how mankind now behaves: Woe to the multitude of many people, who make a noise like the noise of the seas, and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters. The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters, but God shall rebuke them (Isaiah 6:13 RE). This was the image that Christ used: Upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, like the sea and the waves roaring (Luke 12:17 RE).

Much of the toxic pollution spreading despair and anger is through social media. Our computers and smartphones are filled with the fog of lies. People who are lonely and isolated post pictures with false captions to inspire envy and respect. Others believe these false images and become unhappy with their own circumstances.

Lies are now political capital for all parties. Democracies vote liars into office, and once elected, leaders keep their supporters committed by lying to them yet more. Dictators lie to their citizens to manipulate and control them. Churches and businesses are being swept into the polarizing political fights that demand you either accept their political viewpoint or suffer boycotts, condemnation, or false accusations.

Loud-but-small minorities use social media to exert a wholly disproportionate influence over society and over government. Churches foolishly fear offending in this partisan climate and surrender to the intolerant demands of destructive agents.

Churches do not preach repentance for fear of offending. A person is more likely to receive praise for denouncing the Bible than for denouncing sin. The Bible was once the primary text used in public education in the United States. It was once common sense to do unto others as you would have them do unto you (see 3 Nephi 6:8 RE).

The fog of lies and the foolishness of society should not make you despair. Instead, now is the time for us to hope for a better world. It should make us want to help establish a better society.

Guard your children. Let them know that the primary content of social media, news (and even in education) are falsehoods. You are responsible to teach your children.

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EVERY INSTITUTION GETS CORRUPTED – POLITICS

One of the problems with institutional churches or organizations is that once you have established a mechanism for determining control, then it doesn’t matter if the person who obtains the position of control is a good man or a bad man, a wise man or a fool. Once they occupy the position, it is the position that commands the respect. It is the position itself that has the ability to say yes or no and to move things forward in a wise or in a foolish way (which is one of the reasons why institutions that can be corrupted are always corrupted— period). The adversary has learned long ago that there’s a limited number of tricks that you pull in order to bring about the corruption of institutions. And so when you ordain a new institution… And it doesn’t matter what it is! It can be founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, and it will turn, over time, into Catholicism, in which wealthy and perverse and corrupt men cover their sins and gratify their pride and satisfy their vain ambition because they have the position in which to do it, and they can point back to the founder who is Jesus Christ who gave authority to Peter, and they hold the keys of Peter, and therefore, what they do ought to sway you, ought to control you. Wars get fought; people get executed. And so the adversary rules with blood and horror, all the while the dialogue focuses upon the position of authority and the legitimacy at the beginning of both Jesus Christ and Peter, his apostle. And so, whenever you stray from your obedience and adherence to the rule, you are reminded, “Wait a minute! There is authority, and that authority ought to command respect.”

Look, we have a restoration that commenced with Joseph Smith, and I doubt anyone would be here today if they didn’t think that there was an authentic event that occurred in the life of Joseph Smith, in which the Heavens were opened and a new message was delivered, and through him—by the gift and power of God—came forth a new volume of Scripture, the Book of Mormon. And we all accept that. But so do millions of other people who are not among us. There are those who have determined that the institution ordained by the Lord through Joseph Smith ought to command your fidelity and your loyalty—no matter what course it takes or how it may stray from or pervert the original teachings that were established—because of the legitimacy of Joseph Smith and the institution that he founded. And so today, the “most successful” of the groups controls over a trillion dollars in resources because people accept the narrative that “once an institution is legitimately founded, it doesn’t get corrupted.”

Every institution gets corrupted. We lack an institution. And insofar as I hold any influence, I will oppose the establishment of an institution which legitimizes any person to occupy a role of authority and to exert (by their demand or command or insistence) the obedience of others. It is true that there have been revelations given by the Lord and that I’ve received some of them, and they’ve been published. I don’t consider myself above any of them. Nor do I consider myself to have a greater understanding than any of you who can read the same document as I can. Once it’s been received, I have to study it to understand its contents. I don’t come with a ready-made ability to dictate anything to anyone. I am just as subordinate to and dictated to by God as any of you. I hold no position of authority. And among us, any voice that can speak up and testify to truth is welcomed. And anyone that has a truth that they can defend and explain—particularly in expounding the Scriptures and bringing new truth to light—is on an equal footing with every other one of us. It has to be so. You have to be individually responsible for understanding and preserving the truth. It has to be part of you—because if it is part of you (and only you), then you stand independent, and the apostasy or the corruption of another man or woman has no effect upon the persistence and the preservation of the truth—because it is in you. In order to create an apostasy, it requires that every single person must individually become corrupted when we all stand on equal footing before God, accountable for our faith, accountable for the truths that we welcome.

If we establish institutional controls, the adversary knows exactly how to compromise that—because it always happens. The Constitution of the United States was established by enlightened men whom God raised up for the very purpose. There was a system of checks and balances because evil, corrupt, and aspiring men always gravitate to positions of control and authority. It’s like that light that draws the mosquitoes at night and then electrocutes them. It draws them in; they can’t help themselves. And once there, the corruption that attaches destroys the men and the women.

One of the important checks and balances that got established (and I’ve given a talk about this down in Utah County years ago called “Constitutional Apostasy”) was a system in which the senators of the various states were not elected directly by the people; they were chosen by the legislatures of the respective states. You didn’t get to vote for a senator; you got to vote for the state legislature, and then the state legislature selected and sent someone to the Senate. Can you imagine how differently the migration of power, taxes, and authority would have happened in the United States if the United States Senate was subordinate to the legislators of the various states? None of what you see going on in the aggregation of federal authority would have been approved in a United States Senate that was subordinate to the various legislatures. And so as soon as you changed (by an amendment to the Constitution) one of the checks and balances that had been set up by the founding fathers, you immediately launched the United States into a different direction, and you have subtracted a terribly meaningful check and balance on federal power and authority.

Small thing, grave consequences, and we’re suffering under that even today. These are the kinds of small means that get employed by the adversary to corrupt institutions, to detract from our freedoms, from giving us the opportunity to preserve faith intact, and for being able to preserve truth—small things.

At the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his co-president, Hyrum Smith (whom Joseph had identified as THE possessor of Priesthood and Patriarch, upon whom the keys of the ability to ask and get answers had been conferred) upon their death, immediately a change was made. Whereas before there was never any occasion in which a member of the Quorum of the Twelve got asked to be a member of the First Presidency, upon the death of those two, the only ones that ever thereafter occupied a position in the First Presidency had to also occupy a position in the Quorum of the Twelve. And so the check and the balance of having quorums “equal in authority” got corrupted immediately, and we see the legacy of what happens thereafter.

It’s very easy to corrupt men. Vain and ambitious desires, lustful and covetous attitudes, they’re resident in every person in embryo, and the adversary knows how to excite that into corruption. When Joseph Smith was confined to Liberty Jail and he had nearly half a year, finally, to be out of the frenzy of the daily life, Joseph Smith wrote from Liberty Jail about destroying the ability of priesthood to claim it occupied positions of authority when he wrote, …no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood (T&C 139:6).

We’re not supposed to talk about politics, according to my wife, but I’m gonna talk about politics. Right now there’s a group/there’s a political party in possession of the Presidency, the Senate, the House (everything, probably, except the Supreme Court at the moment). And constantly, there’s the drumbeat that says their politically-weak, out-of-office, minority political opponents are fascists! “They’re fascists! They’re trying to destroy democracy! They’re fascists!” And yet, under the umbrella of that particular political view, someone with a gun went to the congressional softball game and shot Congressman Scalise precisely because he opposed his political views. Billions of dollars of damage were done in the name of that political party’s desire to see certain political changes take place all across the country. And recently, someone was run over in North Dakota by someone who says that he feared an 18-year-old potential fascist.

Now, I’m not saying that Republicans are good and that Democrats are evil. They’re all evil. They’re all corrupt. There was a time when the other political party that’s currently out of office had the Presidency, had the Senate, had the House of Representatives, and I think they, at that time, even had the Supreme Court. And they didn’t solve any of the political problems that existed then because they still exist now—because we’re all so stupid that, as long as the political issue gets preserved, they can say, “We stand for this,” and you’ll donate money to them and say, “Oh, good. I agree with that. They don’t want ‘this,’” whatever “this” is! I don’t care if it’s illegal immigration. I don’t care if it’s women’s rights. I don’t care if it’s abortion. I don’t care if it’s strong military. I don’t care if it’s intervening in foreign wars. It doesn’t matter what the political issue is. They feed on exciting you into upset and anger so that you’ll part with your pocketbook and give them money. Do you really think that what the Republicans have to offer or what the Democrats have to offer are going to make your life better? Do you really think that electing an egomaniacal strongman will fix electing a doubting, doddering old fool? Do you think we fix problems that way?

We fix our own problems by giving heed and diligence to God and by gaining in light and truth and in comprehending the mysteries of God. Like the horse can shrug off the fly, the Earth herself can shrug off the unrighteous in order to protect even a small group of those who are God’s (God’s=possessive, apostrophe “s,” belonging to Him). We need to live our lives individually so that the Earth recognizes us as someone whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains and who are welcomed upon the Earth because we delight her by serving that same God who organized her, who—in response to His voice—organized herself into the planet, and when He spoke, it caused the dry land to appear. She responded to Him. She was created and organized by Him. She was populated with vegetation and animal life…largely by His consort. But this Earth knows the difference between righteousness and wickedness—and it doesn’t matter how many or how few. It only matters how much light and truth we have among us.

The United States Senate was designed to be chosen by the legislature in order to prevent the incessant changing of the law and to provide a stability by which the government could become predictable; its laws known. Change would not be rapid. There could not be an agenda: “I’m running on a platform; here’s my platform: I got me this here agenda. We are going to transform America; we are going to make us a new one. We’re gonna implement, and if we can’t get implementation in any other way, then we’re going to ‘executive order’ our way through!”

No, wait a minute, wait a minute; now hold on. I thought it said that the legislative power—ALL legislative power—“herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United Sta…” Okay, so that’s Article 1. We don’t get to the “executive” until we get to Article 3 or 2— Article 2! So, lemme see…. Hmm. Yeah… Oh, well. If we had a Senate doing its job, you wouldn’t be faced with those issues.

In the next circular of The Federalist Papers, the Federalist 63, still talking about the United States, says:

The people can never wilfully betray their own interests; but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, [rather] than [when] the concurrence of SEPARATE AND DISSIMILAR bodies is required in every public act.

The purpose was not merely to make them separately elected and to divide them into two terms—one for two and one for six years. It was to make them dissimilar. The creature that is called the United States Senate and the creature that is called the House of Representatives was designed on purpose to be dissimilar. And so, anything you do to break down the dissimilarity and anything you do to create the similarity between the two bodies is designed to undermine the very purpose that the system that was established was designed to guard against.

Well, they talk about how you can transform and corrupt our country. But in accomplishing that,

Before such a revolution can be effected, the Senate, it is to be observed, must in the first place corrupt itself; must next corrupt the State legislatures; must then corrupt the House of Representatives; and must finally corrupt the people at large. It is evident that the Senate must be first corrupted before it can attempt an establishment of tyranny. Without corrupting the State legislatures, it cannot prosecute the attempt, because the [periodic] change of members would otherwise regenerate the whole body. Without exerting the means of corruption with equal success in the House of Representatives, the opposition of that coequal branch of the government would inevitably defeat the attempt; and without corrupting the people themselves, a succession of [a few] representatives would speedily restore all things to their pristine order. Is there any man who can seriously persuade himself that the proposed Senate can, by any possible means within the compass of human address, arrive at the object of a lawless ambition, through all these obstructions?

Yes, if you remove one of them: if you get rid of the legislative control over them—because then you aggregate power at the federal level, and the legislatures of the various states become servants—not sovereigns; they become servants—to a homogenized, single, federal unity.

Now I need to address the subject of “What is appropriate to be explained and what is appropriate not to be explained?” Why does the Book of Mormon draw lines and say, “at this point in the record it’s not permitted for me to cover this? I was about to write this but I’m forbidden from doing so.” (Ether 13:13 LE; see also Ether 6:4 RE.) Or Nephi saying, “I was about to give you the rest of this story, but the Lord said you can’t do that.” (1 Ne. 14:24-25 LE; see also 1 Nephi 3:30 RE.) There is a very good reason why information gets withheld. There’s actually more than one, but there’s one that ought to be front and center: The more information that becomes available that ought to be held in sacred solitude, the more you equip the pretenders and the deceivers to improve their false act, the more equipment you hand to them with which to develop an illusion and a mirage that will deceive and take people from the Lord. But more importantly, when you get to the end of the actual process of what the Lord was teaching to the Nephites, there is power in the government of God that when it got hijacked in the beginning, by the time you get down to the time of Noah, the Earth was so corrupted…, Lucifer or Satan has this great chain on the earth (see Moses 7:26 LE; see also Genesis 4:15 RE.) He has chained the earth and he’s looking up at heaven (this is in the book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price) he’s got the whole earth wrapped in a chain, and he’s looking up at Heaven, and he’s laughing. How did he manage to get the whole earth bound down into a great chain? He did so by imitating the government of Adam. He did so by binding together, in a false way, things that God would put together in a Godly way.

Right now the struggle — the struggle on this Earth– is over the agency of man. I don’t care if you’re looking at economic difficulties, governmental difficulties, business, religion, society, entertainment, it’s all about destroying the agency of man. In order to prevent Zion, the adversary knows he has now but a little time. The only way to make sure that it doesn’t spill out and accomplish the objective that God wants it to accomplish is by curtailing the ability of people to choose. Take away the right to say, the right to speak, the right to preach. Take away and categorize, or if you can, criminalize, and If you can’t do that, then simply murder in order to prevent the agency of man. Because few…, men must, women must, come willingly to the Lord, have to voluntarily accept the invitation from Him. Can’t…, compulsory means cannot be used. Everywhere you look right now, the struggle is over the agency of men. And some things are absolutely essential and needful, more than the mysteries of God. Right now what is most important is to preach the Doctrine of Christ and baptize people so that we at least have someone living at the Lord’s return.

The records of my apostles containing my New Covenants were to contain the fullness of my gospel, but during the formation of the great and abominable church many parts were discarded, and other parts were altered. False brethren who did not fear me intended to corrupt and to pervert the right way, to blind the eyes and harden the hearts of others, in order to obtain power and authority over them.

Conspiracies have corrupted the records beginning among the Jews, and again following the time of my apostles, and yet again following the time of Joseph and Hyrum.

I desire to heal you from an awful state of blindness so that you may see clearly my will, to do it. I promised to bring unto you much of my gospel through the Book of Mormon and to provide you with the means to obtain a fullness of my gospel, and I have done this; yet you refuse to receive the truth even when it is given unto you in plainness. How can you who pursue the truth yet remain unable to behold your own weakness before me?

For the sake of the promises to the Fathers will I labor with you as a people, and not because of you, for you have not yet become what you must be to live together in peace. If you will hearken to my words I will make you my people and my words will give you peace. Even a single soul who stirs up the hearts of others to anger can destroy the peace of all my people. Each of you must equally walk truly in my path, not only to profess, but also to do as you profess.

The Book of Mormon was given as my covenant for this day and contains my gospel, which came forth to allow people to understand my work and then obtain my salvation. Yet many of you are like those who reject the Book of Mormon, because you say, but you do not do. As a people you honor with your lips, but your hearts are corrupt, filled with envy and malice, returning evil for good, sparing none, even those with pure hearts among you, from your unjustified accusations and unkind backbiting. You have not obtained the fullness of my salvation because you do not draw near to me.

The Book of Mormon is to convince the gentiles, and a remnant of Lehi, and the Jews, of the truth of the words of my ancient prophets and apostles, with all the records agreeing that I am the Lamb of God, the Son of the Father, and I was sent into the world to do the will of the Father, and I am the Savior of the world. All must come unto me or they cannot be saved. And how do men come unto me? It is by faith, repentance, and baptism, which bring the Holy Ghost to then show you all things you must know.

If the gentiles unto whom the Book of Mormon was given had hearkened unto the Holy Ghost they would have come unto me in Hyrum and Joseph’s day. But they did not hearken, and would not allow me to abide with them in word, and in power and in very deed. Hear therefore my words: Repent and bring forth fruit showing repentance, and I will establish my covenant with you and claim you as mine.

TRANSCRIPT

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The foregoing excerpts were taken from:

Denver’s Christian Reformation Lecture Series, Talk #5 given in Sandy, Utah on September 7, 2018
Denver’s conference talk titled “Civilization”, given in Grand Junction, CO on April 21, 2019
Denver’s comments on “righteousness” delivered at a fireside in Salem, Utah on November 20, 2022
Denver’s lecture titled “Signs Follow Faith” given in Centerville, UT on March 3, 2019
Denver’s address at the Hear and Trust the Lord Conference held in Lexington, Kentucky on March 26, 2022
Denver’s remarks given at a Regional Conference in Centerville, Utah on August 4, 2018
Denver’s remarks given at the First Annual Joseph Smith Restoration Conference in Boise, ID on June 24, 2018
Denver’s Christian Reformation Lecture Series, Talk #1 given in Cerritos, CA on September 21st, 2017
Denver’s remarks during the Conference Q&A session in St. George, UT on March 19th, 2017
Denver’s talk titled “Zion Will Come” given near Moab, UT on April 10th, 2016
Denver’s 40 Years in Mormonism Series, Talk #10 titled “Preserving the Restoration” given in Mesa, AZ on September 9th, 2014
Denver’s conference talk titled “The Heavens are Open”, given in Hurricane, UT on March 22, 2020
Denver’s general conference talk titled “What to Worry About,” given at the Preparedness Conference held in Layton, Utah on September 25th, 2022.
Denver’s fireside talk titled “Constitutional Apostasy”, given in Highland, UT on June 7th, 2013
Denver’s conference talk titled “The Doctrine of Christ”, given in Boise, ID on September 11th, 2016; and
The presentation of “Answer and Covenant”, given at the Covenant of Christ Conference in Boise, ID on September 3rd, 2017

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