Episode #89: Tim Ballard, The LDS Church, & Modern Day Mormon Idolatry W/Justin Francom

0:04 I know it's only Wednesday, but because of the timeliness of the issue, I felt like I needed to get this one out ASAP. Now, don't worry, I'll still be releasing another episode on Saturday as well. It's just one of those weeks. You're going to get 2 episodes now if you're a Mormon, and unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard the noise about Tim Ballard and the dust up he's having with the LDS church. What this seems to be doing is dividing people into camps and factions inside all of Mormonism. Well, today I have Justin Frank come on to help. Not just break down the story, but also get down to the root of the problem here and it all comes down to one thing and that's idolatry. Stick around for some analysis on this situation.

0:45 I don't think you're going to get anywhere else. That's next on this episode of the Mormon Renegade podcast. Look, it's no secret that our society has become much more crude and coarse to become and raise men and women of virtue and characters, a Herculean task. To help with this, I've recently wrote and published a book. Now, back in the 1700s, Washington had a book called Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior and Company and Conversation. It was a book with 110 rules that talked about how to conduct yourself like a civilized person in society, something that today's society is sorely lacking. What I did is I went back through the book and I reinterpreted his original sayings for the 21st century. So the book is laid out in a way in which you see Washington's original rule.

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2:26 You're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast. Justin Back Again. What is this now? Like five or six times, right? Yeah, it's been quite a bit. You're well. I think we could just always have such good conversations that we can't help. And have you noticed that with the exception? Well, I can't even say with the exception of, but we seem to jump on like the really kindly topics. I was thinking about that too, right? Because it was, you know, defending Joseph Smith. And then it was, we rolled like literally our next one was that big shooting in Yovaldi and then we did that one on Elder Haney and and now we're we're on to this one, right?

3:16 So we, we, I, I think we've discovered a pattern. I don't think we set out for it to be that way. But somehow it's just always the current stuff that you and I seem to talk about. Yeah, I guess I like to keep my ear down on what's kind of going on in the world, I guess. And and I I like to think about it a lot, right. Right. So yeah, this is going to be on current events again, folks. And I wouldn't feel like I wasn't doing a service here or or or honest if I didn't approach what's going on with Tim Ballard the LDS church blend back a little bit and everything that's involved there.

4:00 Now we're not going to go into indepth on Ballard much tonight. I will say this and and I don't take any Glee in this. I don't take any joy in this because I I was just telling Justin before we started recording that I'm, I'm kind of bummed because I thought Ballard was the one of the good ones. I really did. I thought, well, that's an honest dealer, but there seems to be some fire here as well as smoke. And we'll we'll dive more into that in another episode. But there's something bigger at play here and Justin and I wanted to talk about that because I feel like there's there's bigger things at work here than just Tim Ballard and maybe a pissing match with the LDS Church. So that's, yeah, that's what we're going to talk about. Absolutely.

4:52 Well, it lines up with some other, you know, some of the other news is over the last, over the weekend was Donald Trump kind of coming out on on the abortion issue in a way that is kind of upsetting. And so I think all of this, these, these, these concerns and disappointments, all kind of are centered around the same kind of principle, right? And that's really what's been on my mind and heart a lot actually, that for the last probably few months. I've been telling you that I'm actually kind of concerned about our country and the people in this country and and I'm concerned about idolatry. Like there's a very idolatrous spirit and it's it's making, taking good people and and twisting their efforts and their hopes and the desires and their ideals and it's leading to, in a sense.

5:50 The destruction of our nation. You know Justin, I I really feel like and and I'm not trying to pin you know play the game pin the tail on the apocalypse because that's a losing game right. People people have been saying you know all the end is near for a long time. However, I'm going to say this, I don't think I can remember, certainly in my lifetime a more. I can't even say tumultuous, right? Because I think in some ways 911 was more tumultuous in the in the immediate. But what I will say is, I don't think I can ever remember a time, and I'm 45 now, so I've had a little bit of time, but I certainly can't remember a time when I have felt things this unstable for folks. Everything that I feel like people thought they could rely on is now turning liquid, right?

6:42 Everything that was solid is now becoming liquid and unstable. And it it, it does have a feel. And again, not trying to play pin the Tail on the apocalypse, but it does have kind of that third Nephi feel to it, right? A lot of intrigue, a lot of instability both politically and spiritually. And we are living in a time now where where I think, I I think these are some of the times that some of those ancient prophets foresaw. Right. And and as we talk about this I think it's important that we that maybe we frame it in that mindset of everything that people thought they could rely on.

7:29 That's manmade I should say is is about to turn to liquid it it. You know, the the Lord's going to expose it for what it's it, what it is, both, you know, whether that's church or state. The other thing. And I like the way you put this when you and I were having our phone conversation today. Idolatry. Because sometimes, you know, look, I think when people think about idolatry, they're like they worship their cars now, right? Because let's face it, for the most part, I should say the most part because I have heard of a few crazy things, but for the most part, people aren't worshipping statues of Bail any longer, right?

8:10 But yeah. For the most part. For the most part, I have heard some crazy crap. But for the most part, right? So today I think, you know, when we think of idolatry, we think of just people who put worldly things in front of God, right? But that's too simple of an answer, right? And and the reason I said that's too simple of an answer is because the adversary is crafty, right? He's not stupid, you know, We all wish he was stupid, but he's not. He's crafty, he's cunning. And so the kind of aisles that we're going to talk about today, I think are going to rock some people a little bit. And that's good because it's going to rock them away, right? It's going to be that jolt, that cold water that, that sometimes you need just to get you out of whatever funk or whatever scenario you're in.

9:06 So with with that why don't why don't you, why don't you kind of break down this idolatry thing that we were talking about. Yeah, well, so I think when we like, like you said, you know, when I was raised in the church, you think idolatry, you think of people, you know, putting worldly things first. Justin, hold on. Before we go there, should we break down for anyone who hasn't heard about the whole Ballard and Church thing? Yeah, I think that would be good. I'd like to clarify you know my position on that. So this so it's not misunderstood. I I wouldn't want people putting words in my mouth on perfect. Yeah. So let's, let's talk about the idea about what actually is happening right now that's causing this.

9:48 And then from there, let's roll into the idolatry stuff. OK, sounds good. So here's my take on this. And this is just my take. You know, you can take it or leave it. But I've actually been looking into Tim Ballard for quite a while, long before the movie came out, long before I got that, You know, the current attention that it that it's got. And I've I had a lot of concerns about Tim Ballard. I I love the cause. I love the excitement that that his organization generates. I think it's a very worthwhile thing to do and I think that there's not enough awareness about these kinds of problems. So I appreciate the light that that he shines on it.

10:31 But for myself, I I have a lot of concerns with the way he's going about that. Mostly I've been concerned about just the honesty. I don't I I here's the first thing I don't think Tim Ballard is in this for. I don't think he's in this to I I think he believes in the cause. I think he really does care. I think he's trying to make a difference. He's trying to do good works. So first of all I think he is very sincere in what he's trying to accomplish. The challenges. You know we're told that we need to have an eye single to the glory of God.

11:12 And when we don't it opens up doors for the adversary to kind of get in and take this what could have been a a very good work and manipulate it into something else, distort it and that plays upon. The the work that you're doing but it also plays upon the individuals and there are a lot of stories especially in Utah of the rise and fall of of fill in the blank where you had somebody with a lot of potential to lot do a lot of good. They gain a lot of influence. I mean heck I this is even a little bit before my time and now it's really old so even people and I know what to talk about. But Orrin Hatch, I'd.

11:53 I'd seen some early stuff. From Senator Orrin Hatch when he was first a senator, that looks actually, I mean inspiring, very constitutional, very inspiring. And you know towards the end of his senatorship, I mean he was I think one of the most infamous rhinos in the in the Senate. And how does that happen? How do you go from you know, a Dewey eyed I'm going to go and and and save this country and do some good work to. Absolute, cynical sellout. I mean, that's a process that that happens. And I think it happens when our eyes are not single to the glory of God, when we have these other desires and intents and motivations behind what we're doing. And that's where I run into some concerns with with Tim Ballard real, real quick.

12:38 I I want to explore that just a little bit because I've thought a lot about this. I've seen politician after politician do this right. I pin my hopes to a guy right? Like okay. I think this is the guy. He's got a background in farming, right? This, this is the guy Jefferson would have loved to have had in in in Congress or in the Senate or even president. An ag guy, right. But the problem is, and I thought about this and and I lived inside the Beltway for a little while, right, for a couple years. So you can't live back there, especially in that inside the Beltway, without running into guys who do lobbying and that sort of thing. And I asked a guy who I felt like was an honest dealer once, and I won't name names.

13:27 It's not anybody. Anyone would know, but I'm not sure how excited he'd be to have his. Name in your podcast? Thrown out in a Mormon fundamentalist podcast. So I'm, I'm going to be be vague on his name but he was a guy that was in the know, right? He would tell me things that were happening and then a couple days or maybe a week later you hear something about it on the news, right? So he he knew what was going on. He was in the know. And I remember I asked him this. I said cuz at the time it was a guy named Jason Chaffetz who was from Utah, that I felt like, OK, this this could be the you know, one of the guys right, that help us get back on.

14:08 You talked to a good game and I'm just like, what what happens to these guys? And he says what happens is I was like, let me guess, they just get bought off by special interest. He's like not upfront, not upfront. He says what happens is you go in wanting to make a difference, right? And so you go in and you do these things, but then you start to compromise a little bit because you say okay, If I vote no on this, then it doesn't look like I'm doing anything. Then I get voted out. And then I can't guarantee who's going to replace me, right? So maybe if I compromise a little bit here, right. And I'm not talking about like political compromise in terms of, you know, healthy debate.

14:49 Like, like you were saying optics sometimes. Sometimes there's a bad bill and it's not going to pass. Maybe. And but you know, your constituents might not understand and you know, you're going to get railed by the press if you look like you're opposing this. I mean, yeah, let's be honest, I think we all see this, right? But what happens is, is that somehow their, their pride starts to play into that, right? And I think this is the adversary that creeps and says they can't do this without you, You need to be here. So if you just sacrifice a little bit of your integrity here, look at all the good you can do down the road, you can get reelected, you can come back and do these other things.

15:30 And I think that's how they get coopted, right. And and I think the same could go for someone who's involved in, in this kind of work, right? I'm sure it's a little things, right? Like, well, if I just compromise myself a little bit here, I can get a little more cash through the door and maybe a little more publicity, which is good for the cause, right? I could totally see how it could happen to the best of us if we're not super careful. If we don't have that, I single to the glory of God. Yeah, we, a lot of us have this misunderstanding. We are we are all broken. All broken. It doesn't matter who we elect, who we elect. That guy, that guy's broken. He's human.

16:11 He's human. Yeah, that's just the the state of things. And the only remedy to that is, is when you have to constantly, constantly consecrate your efforts to God. And even then, you're still going to screw up sometimes. But when you don't if that, if that motivation, if there's a chink in that armor, the adversary will exploit it. And even good people with great intentions and important calling submissions can end up disaster. I mean, look at the history of the church. But whatever happened to Sidney Rigdon, Oliver, Where's Oliver Calgary these days? I mean, how did, how did that happen? How did these amazing individuals that were so vital in the early days of the restoration, how did how did they fall?

16:53 It's trap. It's heartbreaking, but it does happen. And I it's not. Well, I'm better than that. I wouldn't have done. No, I would have too. We all would have, you know this unless unless we constantly keep our motivations in check. And that's why I think that really is the I single to the glory of God. That's it. That's a question of motivation and intent. And it is so easy for that to start slipping a little bit, and you might even still be doing the right thing, but doing the right thing with a corrupted intent. Well, that just opens the door and it's little by little by little things can get in there. And so I love the mission of Operation under Grand Railroad and and what Tim Bauer presented and I I think that there's a very good chance that he really was very inspired to pursue this this mission.

17:43 And I I cannot deny that there are some very good things that have happened because of because of the work that that organization has done. However. What What put me a little bit on edge and the initial concerns that I've that I've that I've harbored for quite a long while has been more on on some of the overhyping. It's been more of an issue of of honesty and it might you know might not be. Is it really that big of a deal to kind of exaggerate one of the stories And I mean and it sounds better it's more inspiring. I mean, there's there's nothing wrong that doesn't hurt anybody because. You know, I'm still going to do this good work.

18:24 And then, and if they're more inspired, they'll be more inclined to want to help and get involved. I mean, who loses? If I exaggerate something, if I misrepresent something a little bit and start telling because it's maybe it's a better story. What? What's wrong with that? That doesn't hurt anybody. Well, it it does. It hurts you. It hurts you, right? Absolutely. So Ballard, who? Who? It looks like there could be some fire there as well as smoke. Yeah, so I've I've had concerns. Now obviously Vice is not our friend and a lot of people talking about this are are very rabid, anti Mormon, anti conservative, anti fundamentalist type people are our worst enemies and you see them attack somebody like Tim Ballard and you know the initial reaction is Oh my gosh, he's under fire. He must these must be the bad guys. I know these are the bad guys.

19:23 So he must be a good guy and I need to and I need to go and and help him and and I need to stand with him and that's what we're seeing right now. That's what at least what I'm seeing right now in Mormon in Mormondum is there is a a really big what's the word a bit. There's a bit of a split and I'm seeing people that are actually questioning the church and the churches, you know, statement on this. Even even, like Glenn Beck put out a tweet and he pulled it back afterwards. But Glenn Beck, you know, you got those. What is it? The midnight. Midnight. Mormons, yeah, midnight Mormons. And you know, I think questioning the church in the, in the, in the context is is is very healthy. Actually.

20:07 I think there's nothing wrong with, I think question everything, but there's a tendency to think well. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And that's not always. That's not always the case either. You know, look back to the like the 2012 election. What it what a disastrous situation that was. That was so depressing to me. Am I going to vote for McCain or am I going to vote for Obama? You know, it's bad choice one or bad choice two that they were at each other's throats. But just because Obama was was attacking McCain on on conservative issues doesn't mean that McCain is a conservative, right. And that's the important thing to remember.

20:48 So there's a tendency to say, well, Vice is attacking him. That's one of our enemies. These other progressive organizations, they're the ones that are doing this and therefore he's got to be the good guy. Well, you know, two things can be wrong at the same time. Yep. I was going to say another parallel that I find interesting that I thought of after you and I talked on the phone, was this could almost be like a Ukraine, Russia thing. Right where where we felt we had to take a side, right. I mean, poor Ukraine got beat up and blah blah, blah. Well then you find out Ukraine's all sorts of corrupt right. Now I I would say that that probably doesn't give Putin the right to just March in there, but let's and I want to preface this by.

21:32 Stop looking for the good guy right there. There's not going to be one really in the story. There is, but he's the ultimate good guy. Let's just put it like that, right? So stop, Stop trying to look at this in, in that, in that very black and white binary kind of of thing. Right. This, this takes some critical thought. But the stakes are super high and that's why we felt like we had to jump on here. Yeah. So just to be clear, so VICE has put out an article with some with some pretty serious allegations. And in that article was a statement by the church. And that's got a lot of people really kind of confused. But it's.

22:14 I don't think it's really, it's not, it's not necessarily that complicated if there's some legitimacy between these. And here's the thing I actually think that we have, We've just seen the tip of the iceberg right now. We don't actually have any idea what the real where this is going and the and the stuff that's going to come out with with Tim Ballard. But I think the church does know and I think VICE knows. I think they've been preparing this for a long time and they are so that they're publishing an article, they're a news organization, right? And they're publishing an article which has some implications aimed at the church. And it's standard practice among journalists.

22:58 Actually. I think it's the legal requirement among journalists is to offer the people involved in the story an opportunity to comment. I mean and we know that the media is not really, you know, unbiased anymore. But it kind of it's to the idea is to preserve a certain amount of unbiased, unbiased in journalism is here, here's what we're reporting on the story, but here's the parties involved and if they have an opinion on it, they need to be able to be heard as well. So VICE reached out to the church and said, hey, do you have any, do you want to comment? We're going to be publishing this information. Do you want, do you want to include, do you want us to have a comment? That's why I didn't go out through the church newsroom because they're not breaking the story. VICE is breaking the story and the church for whatever reason said actually, I mean cause normally it's it's yeah no comment no.

23:45 You know when you see these kinds of things generally speaking, you know they, you know you'll see a little thing at the bottom. You know, we reached out to so and so and no comment Okay. This time though the church said, yeah, we have something to say about this. They they wanted to get in front of this. And in reality I would say that they're trying to retcon this. And that's a pretty extreme take on the I mean, the church is usually. Explain Retcon, what that is for people who don't know. Oh yeah, yeah, basically kind of rewrite the history. Try to rewrite the public narrative on what happened in a, in a, in a historical type of a context to to paint a different narrative.

24:27 And we see a lot of that. You know, we also call it gas lighting and stuff like that. But. And the right con here is the nature of the church's relationship with Tim Ballard because it is, it is a very legitimate, real, serious relationship that they've had for a for a long time. And then there's even financial connections to that. I mean, we've got some of the people defending Tim Ballard coming out saying, hey, yeah, you know, it was Elder Ballard that actually pointed me in Tim's direction, suggested I ought to go help, you know, help, help out in his cause. And so certainly this can't be true because it was an inspired decision to to go there. And that's that's the kind of thing. And The thing is the church does not apologize.

25:09 We know that church doesn't apologize. That's that's their official stance. But if they are involved something wrong what They might not apologize, but they certainly want to. If they can, they'll try to rewrite the story, rewrite the narrative. And so that's what we're seeing here and that's it means it's a pretty drastic measure. That's a pretty drastic measure for the church to take. If there was, if this was all smoke and no fire, the church probably would have just said nothing. No comment at at, at at best, possibly even defending him and say, I don't know, there's nothing inappropriate in this and this and this is wrong and we don't agree with what you're saying here. The fact that, in a sense the Church is throwing Tim under the bus indicates that the church sees a very, very serious threat to its reputation.

25:58 And its association with Tim Ballard, and I don't, I don't believe the church would do that. And I mean, there's some stuff I don't want to get into details, but maybe maybe some other time. But there are some very legitimate concerns here and so it's not that wild to believe that the church would would it would issue a statement on this and it. The narrative though you know on Tim Ballard side is he's trying to spend this as well. There's a he he's kind of implying that there's kind of secret combinations in the church and that they there's something really fishy going on. There's a liberal movement in church. They're trying to stop me because I'm a hero. And and you know that's that's kind of just because the church is throwing them under the bus doesn't mean that there's not a real legitimate issue in in what what's going on here. And I think that eventually it we're going to see this come out and when it comes out I think it's not going to be very pretty.

26:59 And yeah, so that's kind of what's going on right now. And again, Mormonism is in a bit of a a tizzy over this because, you know, Tim Ballard's a Golden Boy. Well, and to be fair, Kim might not be wrong with there are secret combinations in the church, right? Well, exactly. And that's the hard part because he can be spinning this in a way that's absolutely correct. There is maybe a liberal movement in the church that's pushing progressive ideas and it's trying to stymie the kind of positive impact that that him wanted to, at least initially was was was championing. But that doesn't mean that he might not also be guilty of something here and then there might not be a serious problem and that's that's what you got to watch out for. It's so easy to to pick a side and get caught up in in this kind of tribalism.

27:49 Yeah. Are you Team LDS Church or are you Team Ballot? Right. Our our, our thrust here will be don't be any of those teams because you're going to be sorely disappointed. So let me see if I got my mind wrapped around this just right here. So you have Tim Ballard who who again I believe started out with the best of intentions. I think that his his organization or or his, the organization he used to head. Oh, you are. It's done some great work. There was a relationship between him and M Russell Ballard. They were close. In fact, M Russell Ballard. Went out of his way to be the person to set apart Tim's son before he went on a mission.

28:37 So there is a It gave that blessing, healing blessing to his daughter when she was in the hospital. I mean, yeah, they were. They were tight. This wasn't just a passing meeting. Maybe this, this was something that had some personal implications and that's the retconning that I was talking about, right. And The funny thing is even Tim Ballard, he know he's coming out to say no, we had no relationship, we had no relationship that, well, they seem to both agree on that. And that's the one thing that is kind of verifiably faults, one of the one things that is verifiably faults in the story. Right. And and so VICE publishes this article and and again I I would agree with you that there's probably more to come.

29:19 The Church sees danger and the Church just. Throws Ballard under the bus, right. And so you essentially have these two two things that may not be on the up and up. But the problem is, at least from my perspective, is that you've now thrown a whole segment of the church in complete and utter disarray, right? Who who do they go with? And I think the problem lies deeper and and this is what we'll cover too here later on when we get into it. Is that you kind of pinned, you kind of hitch your wagon to the wrong horse, so to speak, and we'll dive into that more.

30:01 Yeah. Well, well, that's exactly right. Because, I mean one thing to be clear is some of the critics of the church right now are saying, well this has been done improperly. This this is supposed to go through the through the Bishop and the state president and and that would be absolutely correct if they had excommunicated him. But that's not what's going on here. This is a a a retconning. And you know doctor incumbents doesn't tell us the correct procedure to retcon for the church, to retcon a relationship with somebody who turns out to be in a troublesome situation. I don't think you. I I could never see Jesus retconning anybody, right. I think. I think the appropriate thing, you know, if if you really think there's fire there to say, you know what?

30:46 Yeah, we've been had. And let's be fair, it's not the first time. You have to. You're right. But you know that's officially not the church policy. They've come out. They do not. The church does not apologize, even if it is wrong and makes mistakes. So that's not an option. That's off the table. Right. And this isn't the first time that the LDS Church maybe got taken for a ride by one of its members. I can think back to certainly it was before my time as a Mormon, but I've done my history. Paul H Dunn. Right. The guy who said he was in a war, he also said he played for, I think the Cincinnati Reds or Atlanta Braves. One of those teams had great stories. Come to find out through some digging, not not what he said he was right. And the church just quietly said, you know, he's now on emeritus status, sort of a thing if I'm not mistaken. And so it's it's not the first time that we've seen this exercise done.

31:42 Maybe the first time in our adult lives. But this is kind of standard operating procedure. Absolutely. And you gotta ask that, well, what's the harm and lying for the Lord? Well, yeah, we talked about, we talked about it, right. There's the individual Breaking that integrity affects the individual and it opens them up to other things. It creates weaknesses. The second, the second real issue here though is that I mean there there is a problem in in lying for the Lord in this kind of the context because Tim Bell, Operation Underground Railroad is not the only charity out there that's trying to combat human trafficking, right? But how how many can you think about the top of your head? How many other child trafficking, anti child trafficking charities are you familiar with?

32:24 I can think of four. Now. I'd be hard pressed to name all four, but I remember I just kind of looked at, and you know what? And some of them might also be Tim Ballards, too, because he didn't just, it wasn't just Operation Underground Railroad, you know, he had the slave Steelers. He had. Well, actually, that's not that. I don't think that one's a charity. I believe that's a for profit. What was that other one he did with Glenn Beck? The Nazarene fund, yeah, Nazarene fund. But there's other people out there as well that are that are fighting this and we don't even know who they are. They're just quiet, unassumed. Nobody knows that they're but they they're against this. They're opposed to this as well and they're they're combating it in their own way.

33:08 But when you start misrepresenting things to get attention, you're taking, you're you're potentially taking from somebody else you know in in the free market of of charities trying to fight something like this. If you're misrepresenting your organization and and what you've accomplished and how you've accomplished it, how effective you are, you know, I mean that's kind of about that. I mean that's kind of like a, you know phone company. You know, misrepresenting their phone and saying hey buy our phone. It does all this and this and you buy it and then maybe it doesn't. Well, maybe you would have bought a different phone if you'd have known that, right. And in in a charity sense maybe all the money that operation underground railroads making if people were actually look into it maybe there's actually better places to put that money that might be more effective at accomplishing the solution and in a free market that's that's kind of how it's supposed to work.

34:03 Unfortunately though in a free market also went into democracy as we see it's very easy to you know the the best marketer usually wins the the the slickest salesman usually ends up with the with the biggest cut regardless of the quality of of of a product or an item or a service. And so there are victims as well. There really are victims when you're it's not just on Tim Ballard by misrepresenting things. There's there's there are there are other potential ramifications that can be very damaging. And and you want a third ramification is what I would call black Pilling because and this is the big one like you know you mentioned with with, with done when when you're lying for the Lord and you're building all this faith on on on stories that aren't true and then those stories come out to not be true that can be shattering to face. In fact this is, this is, this is what precipitated my from the church.

35:04 It was a black Pilling. It was bad. It was not. It was not ideal. And it was, it was these kind of realizing that, oh, you know, some of these things, maybe they were well intended at the time, but some of these falsehoods, some of these misrepresentations start coming out. I mean, the most, I think I've mentioned before. And one of the most heartbreaking things to me was was the Bruce Armanki. And I I I loved him. I I don't know. Here we go. Right. I kind of idolized him. I mean, or not. Bruce down. Dominate jokes.

35:47 Yeah, dominate jokes. The one who was a Supreme Court Justice for Utah? I think so. Shoot, I'm suddenly confused. Been a long day. No, no, it's good. You're talking about oaks. He's the one that's kind of who did Mormon doctrine. Bruce R Mcconkey. Bruce R Mcconkey. Yeah, it is. OK. It was Mcconkey. Yeah, it was Bruce R Mccon Mormon doctrine. I love that book. I absolutely loved it and that was very impactful to me in in the early days of my of my face and and I'd I'd heard of Adam God doctrine and which is now one of the most beautiful doctrines and and and glorious tenets of my faith. But I heard him talk about this in a in a in a letter or not is it is it a talk of BYU and and he only he said it was not true that Brittman never taught it. These people are just taking these things out of context and I just assumed that was true and I I believed that. And when I actually started reading the Journal of Discourses and I say wow, it was beautiful. I loved it that the doctrine was was beautiful. To think that God himself would condescend to this earth in order to bring about his eternal, his his eternal family that's just I I love that idea and it it speaks truth to my soul.

37:02 But then it was like, oh, that was lied to. I was lied to about this. And the tendency at the time was well, maybe it's all lies. Right. Maybe. Maybe none of this is true. That kind of nihilistic black billing. When you when we when we've got an idol or somebody that we're idolizing, it might not even be a legitimate thing. It might not be somebody saying themselves up as an idol. When we start thinking that like that guy, that guy, he's got it together. He knows his stuff. Every word he says is true. And you know, and the Lord blesses every, every, you know, every step that he takes. And and then we we find out that that's not the case. It can be. It can be faith shattering.

37:43 But why? Well, because where was my faith? Right, right. Wasn't in in in Jesus Christ. It wasn't in God the the Eternal Father. I mean and and let me say this, I think. I think you can still have a testimony of Jesus Christ and God the Eternal Father, but yet put too much stock or too much faith into a man. Yeah, and I think that's really what we're seeing here is kind of a battle of two idols, to be honest. On the one hand, a lot of people have made an idol out of Tim Ballard. On the other hand, a lot of people have also made an idol out of the church.

38:29 That might seem like a weird idea. How do you make an idol out of the Church of Jesus Christ? Well, the same way you make an idol out of anything. You don't see it for what it is, and you put your faith where you have not been asked to place it. Well and and let's be clear, right there's there's historical president from Jesus time where he's talking about this and it was very similar. It was. The temple in Jerusalem, right? It was Solomon's temple where he says this building's going to come down and people went into an uproar, into a tizzy. How can you say that this temple will come down?

39:11 And he's basically calling out that idol amongst, let's face it, God's people at the time, right? This wouldn't be the first time that God's people have decided to. Put their faith into something other than just the Lord, you know. And that's really fascinating that you bring that up because you know in Christ's time you actually, there were two factions within the within the Jewish church, so to speak. At that time you have the Pharisees and the Sadgeses. They didn't knock it along. This was this was oil and water. And there's them actually some pretty fascinating parallels because when you look at, you look at the sadgesses, they they denied the resurrection a. They were very equivalent of the kind of liberal elements within the church that want to just kind of say, hey, you know, we just, we can just kind of this is a buffet and we just take what we like and what we want off this table and we can just reject the stuff that we don't like. It was.

40:11 Cultural right, It was all. Cultural. Yeah. And some of the stuff was culturally not popular. And I think we see that today. We see that with all kinds of issues, especially the L, GB, TQ issues. Where there's a lot of modern Mormons that are that they they they want that. They want to be able to. They want that to be an option. And you know, sure, they're still members of the church and they they don't have any intention necessarily leaving, but they've got an agenda with that and they're pushing for hey, you know let's let's let's just throw out the commandments we don't like because I think this is more inclusive.

40:51 That's very much like what the Sadducees were doing. Now the Pharisees, though it's not like when Christ was there, he did. He didn't go to the He didn't say, you know, he didn't really call out the sad, just he's nearly as much as he did the Pharisees. Who are the Pharisees? They would have been like the conservatives, right? They're the ones preserving. I say preserving because there was a lot of things they added to the law, right? Yeah, but. But they were the ones kind of trying to keep everybody on. Yeah, they were pretty much the conservatives, right? For us, it was Mom. For us, it's Mom app. You know America and baseball, right?

41:32 For them, they're rallying cry would have been Moses, the Torah and. And that's what they were big on salvation through the commandments and make everybody, we got to get everybody to obey. It's so important we get people to obey that let's invent extra commandments to. Keep them from even getting close to to to violating the real commandments. They they're very, very extreme and unfortunately, you know, cult liking. And that's ironically. Interestingly or interestingly enough, those are the people that Christ called out the hardest. Because actually, the interesting thing was those those are the ones who had the biggest issue with Christ. I think the sad just these to certain degree, it's like, you know what we're just kind of cultural Jews and you know we we've got our stuff.

42:22 But the Pharisees were the ones that were really, really threatened by the truth because they they they're the ones who I guess maybe saw themselves as as saviors. They're the saviors of the people, yeah. They saw themselves as preserving the right way. And they were going to they were going to intercede for everybody and and be that that guard to protect everybody and and and Christ was threatening their monopoly on that and and that I I think we see I can see at least a lot of parallels today in politics even but especially within the church and I know and I'm not just talking about the Mormon LDS church either I mean I'm talking fundamentalism and everything it's all.

43:09 Maybe there's just nothing under the sun. I don't know. No, no, I I think you're right. I think you're right. And anytime you set your what, let's not forget, Joseph Smith had said one of the reasons Israel's minds were darkened is because they refused to go up and meet the Lord. They said, you know what, Moses? You just go do it right. And sometimes it's awfully easy to abrogate our responsibilities to someone more qualified, right? Someone to go up and do it. And the problem with that is, is that soon you start making idols of those people. Just like I believe and and I love Moses, right? I I can.

43:55 I can identify with his story about, you know, leaving behind what you were, taking some lumps, and then the Lord working with you and making you into something different. I find that story inspiring. There's certain parallels that I have. I'd never compare myself to Moses, but I could certainly identify with some of those things. But you could argue with as many times as the Pharisees talked about Moses in the Law of Moses. They had idle. They They turned Moses into an idol. They turned the Law into an idol. They were. They're building their golden calf while Moses is up in the mountain. But then you know in Christ time that, yeah, they they turn Moses and the and the 10 commandments into an idol and that's and that is who Christ called out more than anything else. And it's interesting too, you know if you were in Israel in that day, which which camp would you fall on? Are you sad to see?

44:51 Are you fair to see? Honestly, I mean, look, honestly, if you were, if, if I'm being completely honest, I would love to say, oh, I would have recognized Jesus for sure. I, I, I would have been there. But there's a part of me I could absolutely see going kind of the Pharisees way, right? And I I think sometimes, especially us as fundamentalists, we can fall into that trap, right? We can certainly turn certain things into idols and make that the end all be all of our belief system. And so. When you look at that who who are the ones that were following Christ, though?

45:35 It's interesting Who? Who are the ones that Christ called that that, that that fall into the end? Was it That was it The great Priest? Was it the I? Was the weak? It was the weak everyday guys everyday. Guys. And I think what they had going for him that the Pharisees and the sad disease didn't have going for them, was they were weak and they knew it, yeah. They knew they were weak. I'm just, I'm just some broken fisherman. I don't have wealth. I don't have status. You know, and some of the people following Christ, they were the sinners that, I mean, the Pharisees criticized Christ over that. You're you're having dinner with tax collectors. What is wrong with you? But I, I, I guess the tax collector said, hey, you know what?

46:16 I'm I've got a really crappy job here and I'm kind of the broken individual. And so, you know, come help. Come help me. The people that were looking for that help, that guidance. And that's who Christ called. He didn't call the Pharisees. He didn't call the Sadducees, right? Right. And I think there's definitely a lesson there for us to, you know, as we deal with these challenges that the world keeps presenting in these stories and the things that are happening in the news and politics with the church and everything. Everything is saying pick a side, pick a side, pick a side. And if we think that, hey, you know, I know the answer. I know, I know I know what side here is, is in the right.

46:57 I know who. Who we need to follow. I think that we're kind of setting ourselves up. We are in. And I want to say this too, It's not fair whether this guy is a prophet of your church, a guy who or a guy who you perceive doing a good work. It's not fair to those individuals to make them idols, either. No, it's not. Because because they put their pants on the same way you and I do, one leg at a time, right? And so as you put on unrealistic expectations, that's not fair to them, right? They're still humans. They're still capable of screwing up, and we should extend grace and charity where we can for those things. And likewise, you're not, you're being unfair to yourself as well when you put somebody in that position, because now you're requiring their perfection to sustain your faith. And so far, I don't know about you, Justin, but I haven't met Jesus yet, right?

48:04 I don't think he's out there in the world, floating around anywhere. So if you're expecting perfection out of your leaders or out of people in general, whether you perceive them to be a good guy or not, you're you're kind of setting yourself up for failure. And and it's okay to, I think to look at some people and go man, this guy on this one topic, man, I think he's really got it figured out and then maybe try to emulate some of the good stuff. I'm not saying it's not a good thing to to take examples away when someone does right. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a healthy thing. But when you set them on a pedestal, you're just begging to be hurt when that falls. Absolutely.

48:51 And here's the thing. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, but I think, I think people were trying to make an idol out of him too. In fact, I I just remembered that here's a is a quote from the Journal discourses. Mind if I share it real quick? Sure, please do. Yeah. So some members of the Church say I depend upon you, Brother Joseph, upon you, Brother Brigham, upon you Brother Heber, or upon you, Brother James. I believe your judgment is superior to mine, and consequently I let you judge for me. Those men or those women suspending their own understanding and pinning their faith upon another sleeve, will never be capable of entering into the celestial glory, to be crowned as they anticipate they will never be capable of becoming gods. And you know, that was that was from Brigham Young. Joseph Smith pretty much said something very, very similar, though these men were concerned about even if they weren't going to be.

49:50 Idolatris themselves, they were worried about becoming an idol. They didn't want the people to follow them because they idolized that. They wanted them to follow them because they're doing the Lord's work, and the Lord would have them do that. But again, it goes back to motivation. You wouldn't think it'd be that big of a deal, right? If you're going to, if, if you're following Joseph Smith, if Joseph Smith's inspired of God, it probably doesn't matter why you're following Joseph Smith, does it? Well, I think it does. I mean Cory and Brigham Young. Celestial glory is on the line. That's the difference, That's the difference, that motivation and it. And it's like you said, it's not fair. It's not fair.

50:33 It's not fair to those men to to put that responsibility on them when it when the Lord hasn't, hasn't placed it there. Lord has not told us to to follow after men. He's told us to to to not to rely upon the arm of flesh. Which means we need, we need to be turning to the Lord and not getting overly caught up to us. I mean, for me, I I want the truth more than anything else. And I believe that's a, I mean, I hopefully I'm not making an idol of the truth, but I believe that Christ is the the personification of truth and so it doesn't matter to me who's. Who's right or who's wrong it it this is my guy. I I he's got to be right.

51:17 I really want him to be right. If it's if it's true I want I want to know that truth. And you know and as far as who we're going to follow. I think we need to be focused and centered on the Lord and because otherwise we are going to be disappointed because like I said earlier, we are all broken. The plan of salvation. As presented was we're going to come down here and we're going to fail and screw up and stumble and face plant and again and again and again and again that was that was the plan we we came down here to fail so to speak and that's why a savior was provided that was that was going to be able to pull us back out afterwards but that's that's how we grow is we we learn we make mistakes and. We don't want to make an idol out of anybody. Right.

52:16 Right. You, you know, And and that was, I'll be honest with you, that was a concern for me when I first fired up this microphone. Right. I know how flat I am. My very first episode that I called the Primer, I went out of my way to say I'm not your priest. I'm not your Bishop, I'm not your state president, your Pope, your prophet, any of those things. You take what I have to say with a grain of salt. Do your own research. If you agree, great. If I got it wrong, let me know and I will lead with that. But don't set me up for that because you're going to be disappointed. I am kind of a meathead. I love me some football, I love to lift weights, and I love a good steak.

52:56 So if you're looking to me for the end all, be all of your spiritual nourishment, go to church. The best thing you could do is go to church because you pin it to me, you're going to be disappointed. Well, yeah, go to church so you can get it from the Lord, right? Yeah. No, that's an important connotation too, right? Is. I mean, it's kind of the topic is like who's here's this battle and everybody's talking about it. Who's in the right Was the church wrong, was was or was Tim Ballard wrong and and who's the good guy here? Who's the savior? You know, I think it's very interesting parallel. In our modern society as a whole, I think it's fascinating how prominent superhero movies have become. Now, sure, I they're, they're fun movies and I've always enjoyed superhero comics and stuff like that. It's it's fun stuff.

53:52 But I think that there's a a fascination, a modern fascination with the idea of the of the superhero, of the Superman. Because people have lost as a as a, as a country. I, I, I fear that we have rejected Christ. We, I don't believe we're necessarily a Christian country anymore. But something's got to fill that void and the at least from a from a mythological perspective for a lot of Americans, what's replaced that? What's filled that void from a mythological sense is superhero movies. Yeah, no, I I agree. Actual endowed men and women and that have beyond human powers that rise up and not make mistakes and will protect us and save us from the destructions and the and the things that are out there that would get us right. And there there's only one individual you should be putting that kind of faith into, and that's Jesus Christ. Period.

55:00 Right. And then the next thing I would say is, is you, you have to get comfortable being able to go to him and get your answers. Don't rely on anybody else to give you the answer. Don't rely on me. Don't rely on Justin. Don't rely on M Russell Ballard. Don't rely on Tim Ballard. Go get it yourself. The Lord will talk to you if if you're honestly seeking. So let let me ask you this Justin. How is it then that that we can prevent ourselves? Because I don't think anyone ever sets out and says oh you know what, M Russell Ballard or or Kim Ballard. Those guys have it all figured out.

55:43 I can just rely on them. I don't think anyone starts there. I think it's a a process, right? You you just continue to look with admiration and pretty soon you're kind of in in this new form of idolatry. So how do we prevent ourselves from getting there? You know, that's a great question. And also, how do we prevent ourselves from becoming an idol? Possibly as well, because we're all involved in things. We're all doing things no matter what it is, even if it's just even if you're flipping burgers, you might be the best burger flipper you know at McDonald's and and you could suddenly become somebody that other people start looking up to.

56:25 And so we're at whatever Our Calling, whatever our station in life, wherever we're at right now we should we we need not only be wary of falling into idolatry, we also I think we need to make sure that we want to make sure that we don't become idols ourselves and and it's not just it's not just podcasters and and people in media that need to watch out for that and I I think I know my thoughts are I think the solution to that is. Is a regular careful analysis of of our motivations. And I see this. There's two ways this can happen. One of the one of the best and ritualistic ways is is when we're taking in the sacrament. It's the perfect opportunity to really stop and think about what you're doing in your life and more than asking what you're doing because you will always have something to repent of that comes there was always going to be something you think 00 K yeah, I want to repent of that.

57:20 I want to repent of that. I want to repent of that. And that's that that I'm not, I'm not knocking that. That's a there's a good practice. But you can dig a little bit deeper possibly and say what did I do good? What did I do right and what is my motivation what what is inspire me to do? Am I doing the right thing for the right reasons or is there something else going on here? I remember I sitting in a in a singles ward sacrament meeting. And and a bunch of younger guys in front, in the bench in front of me, we're talking. It's fast and testimony meeting. And one of them goes up there and he reads a beautiful quote and says a cool testimony and you know, it was really nice. And he comes and sits back down and he turns to his friend who's sitting next to him, and he's like, I bet that'll give me a few dates, yeah.

58:17 And I'm just like. Wow. But then I started thinking, Oh my gosh, you know, seriously, though, you know, you're single. You're looking around. You're in a single war. There's girls here. Hey, you know, maybe I want to go bear my testimony or maybe I just kind of want to get seen. And so it's not. We're all going to do wrong things. And identifying that and repenting it, that's an important thing to do. The pride and the and the danger here. Though I think creeps in, in the the right things we do, the good things we do. And asking ourselves again is is my eye single? The glory of God? Do I want to get there and bear my testimony? Because I feel it burning within me and I want to share that with everybody else.

59:03 Or do I want to be seen? Do I want people to think that, hey, wow, that guy's got a good testimony, the little things like that, that I think can. Really get us in the subject of idolatry, and that's a very hard thing to watch. It's such a hard thing to watch. But here's the thing, we've all seen it in others, right? And that's that's also the dangerous part, right? Like, I I don't care what ward you're in. I don't care what stake and what state. Doesn't matter. We all know the guy who gets up and bears his testimony because he's angling to be the next Bishop, right? Gonna share some amazing scriptural insight he's got. Not for the sake of just sharing it, but for for the the sake of, you know, I could be the next man, so to speak.

59:53 Yeah, but I don't think it's necessarily black. It's not a black and white issue, I don't believe. I don't think it's either your motives are right or your motives are wrong. I think there's a spectrum there. There is and. That's something you can always work on. Then if we're 99% doing it for the right reason, that's okay, because that means that we still got a 1% to work on. And that is that last 1% too that you that's, that's that that that eternally dividing number that never quite reaches 0. So yeah, yeah. And here's the other thing you got to watch when things when you start getting emotional, when you start getting emotional. You need to really, really stop and ask yourself why and really look at that, right.

1:00:45 I mean, and here's the thing, I mean, yeah, we're good friends here, but we don't always agree on things, right? No. And sometimes we disagree and that's okay, you know. And when we were having our conversation earlier today as we were talking, I noticed that how sensing a little bit of emotion here. And I don't, I don't like that. Where is this coming from? And, you know, I stopped and I was like, you know, I asked you a couple questions, like, let's, let's calm down here. But, you know, because, I mean, we didn't get an argument, but it seemed like it could could have been heading that way. Right? Because our, you know, we're getting emotional, all right. At least I was getting emotional. And I'm thinking, well, why? And you know, when you stop and interrupt that, look at it, it was very clear, like, oh, we're just, we're saying the same thing here. We're just, we're just using a different work. No big deal.

1:01:35 And so, I mean, that's a valuable thing and interpersonally, but it's when you see stuff going on, it's when you see stuff going on. And so I guess like in a sense with Tim Ballard, when when you're, when you're listening to this, if you're saying you're just like, Oh my gosh, I'm so upset about this, How how dare this person say this? How dare somebody say that we get caught up in this emotional moment? That's kind of the sign, because idolatry does not exist without that strong allegiance. And as human beings, when our allegiances are threatened, you know, we want to bare our teeth. And so you maybe it's a good reason to be wearing your teeth, but if you're feeling that emotional, whoa, it's a good time to stop and double check?

1:02:21 Absolutely. Is this really something I want to bare my teeth over? Because, you know, Tim Ballard can have done a lot of good work. And and he might have made some mistakes. That doesn't discount the good work he does. It doesn't make you a bad person. If, if, if, if, if, he if, if we were swindled by him and it turns out he's not what he represented himself. We don't have to have a stake in that. In fact, the only stake we should have in that is, well, what is the truth here? That's the only thing we could really care about. Can't get enough of the Mormon Renegade Podcast? Well, good news, we're on Patreon and there's three packages that you can choose from. The first one, the Slightly Rowdy package, allows you to hear the podcast without all those pesky commercials getting in the way.

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1:04:36 Go to deseretflag.com or check out the link in this episode's page. Show notes and get yours today. And and none of us have those answers right now. Not enough information has come out and. And so on either side, whether it's you're, you know where you're swinging on the on the church on this issue or Tim Ballard on the issue, we really ought to be in a kind of a neutral place and just be like well let's find out let's find out what it is and you know and if and if I made mistakes, if we've made something okay, well, we'll learn from that and we'll do that and it's okay. I think nothing bothers me more than this false idea in Christianity is even it's it's probably it's everywhere that you know, as Christians or as Mormons, we don't sin. We don't want to be seen sinning. We don't want to be seen making mistakes. We want to always make the right decision. We want to always have the right opinion. And because we don't want that shame, we're afraid of the shame of people seeing us as as weak.

1:05:40 And so we know within ourselves that, hey, I'm not a perfect person, but we look around us and. And even in the way we present ourselves to the world, we tend to want to put up, put a mask and present ourselves as I'm not somebody who whoever screws up, I'm. I'm never wrong. And it's it's missing the entire point of Christianity, missing the entire point we should, we should see all of us as brothers and sisters, fellow kneaders of the Savior, right. I I would say this as well.

1:06:22 So I I want to touch on on all all three of these things. First off, on on the emotional thing. I think part of the reason that people might have a hard time accepting that, hey, maybe both parties involved here are wrong is because they've hitched their wagon there, right? They've they've made that the engine at which it drives their faith and their motivation. That's scary when you find out. Maybe you're wrong there. But I'll say this Welcome to Mormonism K the founder Joseph Smith, the Wellspring. The dispensation head called Oliver Cowdery, who turned out to be not so good at times, did great other times, but wasn't so good. He also called John C Bennett, right. There's no harm in saying, you know what? I thought this guy was this, but it turns out he was that. Or he did some good things and he did some bad things, right? Winston Churchill's a great example of that. If you talk to most people in in western, in the western world, America, England, France, Great Britain, obviously even Germany. Churchill was a great guy.

1:07:44 You know, he, he really rallied everybody when he had to. But if you talk to people in India, well, that guy was was a complete, pardon the expression, he was a complete ass to those, to the to the people in India. And so the question becomes, well, which one is he? Well, he's both. Yeah, he's both. He's. We don't want to see it that way. We don't want to see it that way. We want to believe some people are perfect and our enemies are absolutely evil and you know. Truth is black and white, but we stand in in this great space in between and we can do good things and we can do bad things. And we're going to do both.

1:08:27 We're going to be a mix. Everybody's going to be a mix. You know, people, people want to make idols out of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and none of those. I mean, I, I, I, I guarantee you that they would not accept those titles. We don't want them on them. No. And and so, you know, and it's not Even so much a Gray area, Justin, as it is both black and white, right? We do some really good things and we do some really crappy things. All of us do, right. I've always said I can never run for public office because prior to 1995, someone's going to say, hey, I think I got a picture of you. What year 94, Good chance. I'm just going to take your word for it, right? But post 95, I've led and not say I haven't made mistakes because I certainly have all along the way, but nothing quite as drastic as as my pre Mormon life, right? And so I'm sure my kids will read my journal someday and go, the old man was kind of a dirtbag for a while, right? And then they're going to look and say, OK, he did some good stuff along the way and there'll be a mix all the way through. I just I I just try to do better every day. It brings up a really interesting question when you say that.

1:09:44 So is anybody qualified to run for president by that standard? I I don't. I think there's guys who have led better lives than I had. I had LED certainly wouldn't have, wouldn't wouldn't have that degree of screwing up right? But I think what's really important is, is where we're at now, right? Right, exactly. And. Right now where we're trying to go, it at least be able to show a pivot point, right? Say up to this point I was kind of this way, but once I hit here, I pivoted, right? I I understood I had to make changes and and and made those changes as far as not allowing ourselves to become idols to other people. This is why it's so important to have people around that'll call you on your BSI don't know how else to put it right. If for no other reason.

1:10:39 I am so thankful for my wife, not just because of the love and care they give me, but also they don't have a problem in saying you're kind of being an ass, right? And then keeping me grounded. The conversation you and I had today again. Well, Dave, I don't think you completely got it right on this. I I welcome that, right. You need that kind of support system to keep you in check to people to call you out and say no, your crap really does stink, right? As far as not making idols of other people, I would say this. You keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ. You keep your eyes fixed on that example. That's where your eyes should be fixed. That should be the one and only individual that you seek out to emulate wholeheartedly.

1:11:33 The other thing is, is that when these kind of scenarios are coming up like we're seeing now and and and you and I are similar in the sense we both kind of keep our thumb on the pulse of Mormonism across the spectrum. And I've seen so much emotion here, right? Fix yourself in principle. Fix yourself in principle. Don't fix yourself on an individual. That was the beauty of the US Constitution, right? Was this idea of we're going to write this down so we're never subject to the whims of a king, right? Which can change on a dime, which, you know, is full of passion and emotion and those sorts of things.

1:12:16 We're going to fix it on, on something that that will maybe check that. Fix yourself on good principles within your eyes, firmly set on the Savior. I think that's the best way that you can avoid making idols out of people and institutions that you shouldn't be making idols out of. Yeah, absolutely. The other thing is, is that when these times come along, you can make a healthy distinction between you can make a healthy distinction back to yeah, they're people, and as people, we all suck sometimes. I think this is a really pertinent topic and it's only going to become more and more important as time passes. I think that what we're seeing right now is is just the beginning of of what we have in store as a nation, as as a church.

1:13:15 And yeah, a lot of this actually has some very significant parallels to to. To the knee fight civilization right before Christ visited them. Would you like me to? Yeah, yeah, let's. Dive Yeah, let's dive into it. All right, so the fascinating thing is here, right before this happened, right before this happened, the knee fights had had beat the giddy Anton robbers. They buried their secret plans. They they cleaned up the knee fights. The Lamanites, you know, living together in harmony. Things were things were good. Really, really good. But they fell apart so fast, and in 3rd Nephi chapter six started here just in verse 414, and this is a fascinating parallel.

1:14:06 And thus there became a great inequality in all the land, in so much that the church began to be broken up. Yay, so much that in the 30th year the church was broken up in all the land save it were among a few of the Lamanites. Who were converted into the true faith, for they would not depart from it, for they were firm and steadfast and immovable, willing with all diligence to keep the commandments of the Lord. That just when I first saw that I mean I I hadn't comprehended this historically, since since I became converted to fundamentalism. The first thing was, and it starts with pride. And people lifting themselves up and and and classism and all that.

1:14:54 And the first thing is the church becomes broken up, right? And I'm like looking around thinking wow, I can see some parallels. I can see some parallels. And now this cause of this iniquity was of the people was this. Satan had great power under the string up of the people to do all manner of iniquity and the puffing them up with pride. Attempting them to seek for power and authority and riches and the vain things of the world. In other words, get your eyes off. Don't not even I single. No, no, no. Get your eyes off the Lord entirely. It's motivation.

1:15:36 It's what the people are are living for. They're not, they're not living for the Lord anymore. They're not living to to live the gospel and for their families and to just enjoy the fruits of the gospel. There, well, no power, authority, riches and these motivations start creeping in among the knee fights and the churches. Now it's interesting, the churches has broken up. It's not functioning the way that it needs. And you know you can look at that within Mormonism and see the church being broken up. You can also look at this at a macro level in the country. Christianity, the church has broken up where we once had strong allies. At least maybe, maybe if we weren't even maybe we weren't friendly.

1:16:21 But we still had strong political allies with with the rest of the Christians in this nation. We might not see eye to eye on Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon, but certainly we see eye to eye on on how we how we treat, how we treat other people, how what is morally acceptable, what things should be taught to our children. Whether or not it's okay to to kill inconvenient babies, I mean, we we, we shared a lot of common ground. And with this country. Now, the church being broken up within the country, that foundation's not there anymore. That moral foundation's not there anymore.

1:17:05 So things became bad among the knee fights, and you've got Nephi there. Who's out testifying? To the people that, hey, you know, this isn't right. And we we need to repent and we need to get back to the Lord. We need to fix, fix our hearts and stuff, right. And now 21, it says now there were many of the people who were exceedingly angry because of those who testified of these things and those who were angry and we we talked about emotion and getting angry about stuff. Why were they getting angry? Well, maybe idols were being smashed, right? But those who are angry were chiefly the chief judges, and they who had been high priests and lawyers.

1:17:49 All those who were lawyers were angry with those who testified of these things. Now there was no lawyer, nor judge, nor high priest that had, that could have power to condemn anyone to death. Say their condemnation was signed by the governor of the land. Now there were many of those who testified of things pertaining to Christ, who testified boldly, who were taken and put to death secretly by the judges. That the knowledge of their death came not unto the governor of the land until after their death. I think what we're seeing here is we've got their secret combinations going on, right? They're back these. Authority really are threatened by the message of Christianity. That's going to smash idols.

1:18:32 That's going to and it's going to expose them and they don't want to be exposed. They like their position. And so they've got these really inconvenient prophets and people coming among them. They're kind of shining light and kind of ruining their game. And at this point in time, they're not, you know, this isn't King Noah who's just going to, you know, take them, and we're just going to publicly execute this dude they got. They've got to do it quietly, kind of in secret, illegally, right? But they feel a need to do it nonetheless, and. I see parallels with this in our day and age too, especially with the weaponization of of our justice system in America right now and the politicization of it.

1:19:17 And and there's some stuff that just really doesn't quite add up and it's becoming exposed. It's it's kind of coming into the open, but there there's being the works being done in secret. And undeniably I've got a lot of questions about all kinds of really fishy things going on. You know Ray Epps just recently was. Like got charged, you know, with like like a misdemeanor. Meanwhile, you've got other people who, and he was the one who was calling for violence and saying we're going to sponsor capital. And at the front of the line doing that. Then you got some grandmother who who just was there and followed the crowd in, never hurt anybody, didn't touch anything, just wandered in and wandered down. And it's like, you know, five years in prison, you're an insurrectionist, but.

1:20:04 But this guy's not. It seems to me I could be wrong, but it seems to me that there's maybe something kind of secret going on here. Just a little bit. Maybe something's a little, you know on on the on the down low and shrouded in in in the cover of darkness about what's really going on. So now that that didn't really last among the knee fights because what they were doing was wrong. They were violating their their government, their governmental mandates and abusing that authority and you know they couldn't keep it secret forever and it and it came to the they came up to the chief judge to their to their president. It's hey, you know we we caught some people doing some really shady things here.

1:20:48 What are you going to do about it. So on on verse 26 it says Now it came to pass that they were taken and brought up before the judge to be judged of the crime which they had done according to the law which had been given by the people. Now it came to pass that those judges had many friends and kindreds in the and the remainder, yeah, even almost all the lawyers and the high priest did gather themselves together and unite with the kindreds of those judges who were to be tried according to the law. And they did enter into a covenant, one with one with another. Yeah, even unto that into that covenant which was given by them of old which covenant was given and administered by the devil, to combine against all righteousness. Therefore they did combine against the people of the Lord, and enter into a covenant to destroy them, and to deliver those who are guilty of murder from the grasp of justice, which was about to be administered according to the law. And they set at defiance the law and the rights of their country. And they did covenant one with another to destroy the governor and to establish a king over the land. That the land should no more be at liberty, but should be subject on the kings.

1:21:50 I think we are right here. Yep, Erica today. And and I want to liken this a little bit and and we alluded to it earlier, Trump, right where he comes out and says, well, you know, I don't know really how I feel about abortion, how many people to be fair, he said he thinks a six week abortion ban is awful. Right. That's ooh ooh, that's not, in my opinion, that's not quite saying. I don't know how I feel. That's kind of saying, hey, you know what, under six weeks and old, you're not a human yet. And murder's Okay. Personal right. And that's, and that's what I was going to say is people hitched their political wagons to him like he was the savior of the Republic.

1:22:39 And I remember I got beat up over this. I continue to get beat up over this because I'm like, look. Is he better than other options? Probably. But let's not for a minute pretend that he is the savior of the Republic, right? Yeah. And and again just another example of this. Well yeah. And you know in in just in in exactly in in relation to that I here's the thing. I've got that. I've got a real issue with Trump now person. I mean, for me personally, I'm the one issue voter on certain things. Abortion is one of those issues where it's like, okay. I cannot vote for him now unless he recants his stance on that.

1:23:20 I I can't. And it's so stupid because he didn't even have to go there, because it's not like it's likely that such a bill would ever land on his desk. Where we're at right now, politically, the likelihood that even happening is almost nonexistent. But, but I I you know, it's either you're pro abortion or you're not. I don't care if it's one week, two weeks through it you you can play with those numbers all you like. Abortion is abortion, though. Right. And so that's a that's a no for me. But before that, you know, I I I've been open, right. And I absolutely believe that he's being politically persecuted right now, though.

1:24:01 He is again. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Yeah, it's not mutually. And I believe that they absolutely stole the election from him that was manipulated. And and now here we are in a in a place where it's like, you know, I want to root for him because the bad guys are after him and I want to root for him. But am I going to, am I making an idol out of them? If I do so, can I at this point or can I have to say, hey, you know what, I'd. I'd love to. But these are, this is, this is my standard. And if you're if you're not going to live up to that standard, then then I don't want you, I don't want you to be my president. Right, right.

1:24:43 And that's healthy. That's 100%. That's 100% healthy and and I'm like you when it comes to the abortion thing that'll make you or break you with me, right? It it just is. I mean, if it's human life. And, and I know this is a strong statement, but it's something I truly believe at my core, so I'll take the heat for it. But if if that is a human life, which I believe it is, it would be a lot like saying, well, Hitler did a lot of good things except for the Holocaust, right? No, no, no. The Holocaust is enough to cancel out the VW Bug and the Autobahn, right. So let's let's just get that out of the way that not not all things are equal.

1:25:29 Yeah. But we're seeing the kind of political intrigue. And the truth of the matter is Trump exposed a lot of this. He exposed the media for their hypocrisy and then he, you know, he exposed the left. The left lost their minds over Trump. We found out that we found people like Elon Musk, who always consider himself a liberal, suddenly saying, well, I guess I'm a conservative now because I'm not, you know, he's he's shown some light there on the left and what we saw was pretty scary. That happened because of Trump. But let's go back to what you were talking about, about intent, right? Yeah. I don't think Trump was ever about I'm going to save America.

1:26:10 I think he was about I'm going to save America and I'm going to look so good doing it, right? And I think that was kind of the his, his arch there exactly. And now it it puts us in a situation if we have made an idol out of him, it puts us in the situation of saying hey, is he going to shine a light on us? Are we are we going to find out what us as conservatives really believe? Are we are we going to stand for for our principles on this. And because here's the thing. I mean Trump ran. I I don't believe Trump ever was honestly pro-life. His past. He was pro abortion. He was he he was honest though in a degree that he made a deal and said hey I'll be your conservative champion and hear the ground rules and I'll be, I'll be anti abortion and I will be you know we're going to build a wall. We're going to deal with the immigration crisis. We're going to deal with all of these issues and we said okay we accept we accept those terms And he for the most part I think he, he did his best to live up to every single one of those things.

1:27:18 He kept his he kept his side of that deal but what's going on now is he's he's looking to make a new deal. He thinks now that hey I'm I'm I'm the guy I'm the guy y'all love but and now we but but he's trying to renegotiate the terms and I'm sorry for me that that's a no I can I can respect you you know if if that's not your thing and you still you know support that. But I I, I would just hope that we're not making an idol out of him, because I'm afraid that we are singing that too, because that's the other thing, this thing just broken. And I'm not seeing a lot of prominent conservative talking heads condemning this. I'll be guarantee you if it was, if it was like if it was Mitt Romney who's saying something like that, it would be everybody would be talking about it. Everybody.

1:28:09 But these same people who would be talking about it if it was pretty much anybody else are suddenly like, let's not, we don't want to talk about that. Why? Why? What's going on here? Yeah, I remember, I remember I had real concerns at the RNC, the the, the convention when he was running the first time and and he said I will be your voice. And at that point I got a little nervous. I was like well. We have other ways of getting our voice out there, and if you're going to be my voice, we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, right?

1:28:53 How are you going to be a voice for everybody? That doesn't work. Yeah. No, I hear you. I was very, very skeptical the the the first term, you know, second time I was. I felt very comfortable voting for him, though. I did. I did too. I did too. He proved me wrong his first term. I'll be fair. He did a lot of stuff that didn't make sense politically. That seemed to be almost a principled stand, right? And I can think back to moving the embassy to Jerusalem. That was that was he repented and I'd say he repented of his mistakes too. You know at one point he was kind of going on a on a on a on an anti gun angle over and then he sat down with some people and they kind of explained the Second Amendment to him and and what conservatives think of the Second Amendment and he and he came back and said okay, never mind. Yeah, yeah.

1:29:40 No, he he he did it. And that's very, very honorable, very honorable in that regards. But we for the fact that within his personal life, there's issues and I don't think that disqualifies in premium press, just like you were saying you could never run. Well, here's the thing. It matters is where you're at now, not where you used to be. And that holds true if you've got a checkered past. I believe, I believe that we are required to forgive all men. But that also holds true. If you've got a fabulous past, if you've got a shining reputation, doesn't matter how great you were then. What matters is where are you at today? And that's what you judge. Not, not hold on to this idolatry of of the good done before because that that that does become an idol.

1:30:28 So here among the knee fights, there's this huge cumulative event happening as the people are recognizing that their institutions are kind of cheating. They're not being honest. They're not being upfront. First, first the church falls apart and now this crap's going on in their government and it's been exposed. And I mean, I I would say in a way that is very similar to maybe the election fraud where it was just done out in the open, it's so in your face. It doesn't take a lot of effort to look into that, to see all kinds of undeniable red flags, things that cannot be explained, that have no reasonable explanation other than rampant fraud.

1:31:10 Right. It was done right in front of our faces. And and whether you believe that Biden had enough votes to win or not is inconsequential. The fact that there was fraud taking place is enough. Is enough to say maybe we need to take a second look at how we're doing this right. Yeah, when you break the rules, that's the thing. Just even breaking the rules. And we're going to, we're going to stop counting votes, kick out the the watchdogs and then start again in the middle of the night. That's what what other reason would you have to do that that's that's suspicious and that's that destroys our faith in our institutions and that is what happened in the knee fights. I think their faith was tested.

1:31:56 And with the church gone, you got to realize their governmental institution is a lot too large to be all that they've got left. They're putting their faith in that government. That's what's holding things together, That's what's keeping things sane. And all of a sudden they just said, Oh my gosh, our government is against us. We just saw horrible crimes committed and basically they get away with it now in seven. It clarifies, you know, and behold, I will show unto you that they did not establish a king over the land, but in the same year, yay, the 30th year, they did destroy upon the judgments. He did murder the chief judge of the land. And the people were divided one against another. And they did separate one from another into tribes, every man according to his family and his kindred and friends. And thus they did destroy the government of the land, and every tribe did appoint a chief or a leader over them. And thus they became tribes and leaders of tribes. Now behold, there was no man among them, save he had much family and many kindreds and friends. Therefore their tribes became exceedingly great. We're seeing society fracture.

1:33:04 It's it. It's coming apart at the seams. The church isn't where it needs to be for them. Their government is just completely falling apart. And then the people turn against each other and they find, they find basically these little tribes. You know, you can also say cults. And you know, you might ask yourself, so which of these, which of these cults was the the true cult? Right. Which of these, which of these tribes was the right tribe? Well, it says that, you know, these and the regulation of the governments were destroyed because of the secret combination and the friends of those who murdered the prophets. And they did cause a great contention in the land and so much that the more righteous part of the people had nearly all become wicked.

1:33:52 Yay, they were but few righteous men among them. And it's interesting, it talks about a dog returning to his vomit, which reminds me of Isaiah saying, you know, there's vomit upon all the tables. It's it's a situation where when you're in that place who do you trust? Who do you trust? Well what these people did is they trusted themselves. They found strong men to be their lead. They found idols. They found idols. Set those idols up and said we'll follow you. You're our guy and you know I, I look at that today and I can, I can see this. You know we've got the ETQ tribe.

1:34:32 We've got the Ultra Maga tribe. We've got to a certain degree with there's the there's the Tim Ballard the Operation Underground Railroad tribe. And just because some of these tribes, I mean I imagine some of these tribes probably tried to do a decent job of of being just and equitable and all that, right. I mean I mean there was a secret combination tribe too actually interestingly enough. But what the people, what the people didn't do is they didn't repent and turn to Christ. They fragmented into tribes and split apart. And that's why I'm concerned that, you know, I think that what we're seeing right now is only going to get worse and the more the like it shined on these things. As more as more of this gets exposed, we're going to see more and more fragmentation and a greater desperation for people to find something, to hold on, to find some somewhere, somehow. I don't care if it's a it might not be a golden cap. It might be a it might be a what are those? Those circus cookies?

1:35:41 It might be an animal cracker. But heck, at least it's it's kind of golden color. And in my pocket. I mean, you know the extent. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, I was going to say I. I remember probably 3-4 months ago in in my in my prayers. I remember asking the Lord I I should say it was a little longer than that. It's been about a year ago. It's when I lost my job because of the podcast and I had to ask the question, where do I go? What do I do? Lead me to a good spot Father.

1:36:23 And I got an answer back I wasn't expecting, which is. Everything man has built without me will surely crumble. It will surely come apart at the seams. And I think we're just entering that time now, Justin, Where? And we're starting to see it. Everything we thought was solid is now coming undone. And those structures of men are going to start coming down and all the perceived. Security we thought we had in those structures of men will continue to come apart and I think the only solution is fix your bearings on Christ and be rooted in truth and principle and not just any truth. His truth.

1:37:16 Yeah I'm very I'm, I'm very concerned about this because I the the tendency and what pretty much happened among the knee fights is they were black build. When all this went down in the end they were Blackville. They they they became nihilistic and I don't want to see that happen. I don't want to see that happen here but there are there are people that well in to a certain degree this is is a great opportunity to to repent for and to be clear too. I'm an idolater. I'm not. I'm saying that it's all you guys out there, whoever you are. I don't know who you are. I I know you're an idolater because I'm an idolater. We all are.

1:37:59 But but there's a couple really big idols here, and I think that one of the biggest one I'm most concerned about is the church. I think that this stuff going on with Tim Ballard is shining some light there and it's going to it. It's it's burning. I remember being there. It's burdensome to hold on to that and have to just okay. Well, I don't understand what's going in here. Maybe this doesn't seem right, but and you're holding on because that's because that's where you where you put your face and you don't know if there's anything else. It's it's kind of scary to to be in that situation, but I'm concerned that it's the, you know, the the trees being shaken, the fruits going to fall.

1:38:49 Where is it going to end up? Where are people going to go? Are people going to end up black pilled? Are they going to go nihilistic? Are they going to lose faith and everything? Because, I mean, I I was close to to doing that at one point in in my journey when I was reading Denver Smart for Stuff. It was very dark, and it was very it would have been very easy for me to have gotten sucked in into that darkness and giving up hope. Right and so. Let me ask you this question because I think this is a question worth exploring too. If you happen to be that person, whether you're in the LDS church or not, and you discover that that you know what, Okay, maybe I've set some people or some institutions up as idols.

1:39:36 Once you recognize that, what do you do next? Yeah. Well I I think actually this is the answered in 3rd Nephi in this story as this continues here. So you know you got the tribes, they've got their rules. None of them are good. They're all, they're all stoning the profits. One of the few things, the only couple things they've got in common is they're not going to open warfare with each other and they're not stoning the profits. But they don't get along. They hate each other. Everybody's polarized, everybody's separate. And it is at this time that says a Nephi did minister with power and with great authority. And it came to pass that they were angry with him even because he had greater power than they, for it were not possible that they could disbelieve his words. That's also like, imagine the level of idolatry where you even absolutely know that that Nephi is right here, and that you're in the wrong, but nonetheless nonetheless, you're going to resist.

1:40:36 You're going to, you're going to kick against the pricks. For so great was his faith in in the Lord Jesus Christ that angels administer unto him daily. And So what we're seeing here is we're seeing Nephi rising up with power and in the midst of this turmoil and this is, this is, I'll be honest, this is kind of what I experienced when I, when I was in that place. What one of the things that saved me were were Ogden Kraut's books, because I was in that place and I'm just like, OKI can't trust this anymore. Who do I believe? What do I believe?

1:41:16 And one of the things that really jumped out to me was I I came across the Ogden Krauts books and I was reading this and I was, and I was reading about the past and how things used to be in the church. And one of the things that really struck hard was this idea of of that people used to receive their endowments and go home and set up altars in their homes and do prayer circles with their wives. They would do prayer circles with their friends and family, those who had received. Their endowments. They left the temple empowered, endowed with power from, endowed with power from on high. And so that's exactly what I felt happened to me in, in a way, it was, it was terrifying and it was scary, But also it became liberating because I realized, wait a minute, you know what?

1:42:13 I I believe the Book of Mormon. I have a testimony of it, and I believe in the Restoration. I believe in the priesthood that was restored. And that priesthood, that priesthood that I have received, entitles me to I can. I can hold sacrament. I can hold sacrament for my family whenever I want. It doesn't even have to be Sunday. If I feel that spiritual yearning, I I can do that by the virtue of the priesthood that I've received. I don't have to live in in in some kind of fear and trembling place of offending God for using the priesthood that he gave me for its intended purpose and and the idea of of having an altar in my home.

1:42:57 It was liberating. It was freeing. It was full of light. And you know, there was a certain amount of darkness in in recognizing that I'd made an idol of the church. There's an even greater darkness in the deception and manipulations that I saw in what Denver Snuffer had written. But that left me with, you know, darkness or darkness, lesser. You know, the evil or lesser of evil. It wasn't a We find ourselves to that way all the time, politically find ourselves that way all the time, right. Well, I'm going to vote for this guy not because I think he's right, but he's the lesser of two evils. That's not.

1:43:38 That's not the gospel. The gospel is liberating and gives us opportunities to choose the right and to do the things. So finding that freedom to kind of rise up and here's that. Here's the thing with idolatry that also we don't always realize. You got to ask why? Why do we have such a tendency to to make Isles out of things? What's our motivation for creating an idol? Well, I think I think we might have briefly touched upon it earlier, but I think one of those reasons is delegation of authority. You know, if I'm if if Trump's my guy and I'm voting for Trump, then hey, that's like 5.

1:44:19 That's like a, you know, maybe about 5 minutes. It's many 5 minutes cast a vote. But you know driving there, that's about an hour out of my out of my day every every four years. I mean, hey that's not, that's not that's not much of a price to pay to save the country, you know. You know 15 minutes an hour every once every four years and and hey, I've done my duty. When we create idols, we give our power, that idol, and we give our responsibility to that idol. But there's power there as well, right?

1:45:01 And when we take that back, well, now we've got that responsibility again. Well, it was always there, right? As far as the Lord's concerned, we we were never really off the hook. It was never really okay to just, you know, wash our hands of of that, of our responsibilities. But when we take back that responsibility, we get the power back too. Yeah, and that's the amazing thing. Yeah, I would say this. If if you find yourself like, oh crap, maybe I did make some idols out of some people or institutions I shouldn't have, well, you've done the hard part. You've recognized that yourself and that that really is the hardest part, right?

1:45:42 So if you're there, if you're at that point and you're like, okay, I I've done this. Fix your eyes on the Savior, right? I keep going back to that. I keep feeling drawn back to that. Fix your eyes on the Savior. He is your exemplar. Next, you open those scriptures, get rooted in it, especially the Book of Mormon, because I think the Book of Mormon was written for, like, this week. So you're going to want to. You're going to want to get into that and then root yourself also. Get, I shouldn't say root. Familiarize yourself with the Doctrine and Covenants, because that'll tell you how the Church is supposed to operate.

1:46:27 The Doctrine and Covenants is one of the most unique books of scripture, certainly within Christen them and probably within all of of religious texts anywhere, because in that book it's almost exclusively Joseph asking a question and then God talking to you. So if you want to know what's right or wrong within church, government and church affairs, read the Doctrine and Covenants. It's got everything in there. It's it's the original handbook for church administration. Read that. That will get you grounded there. Ground yourself in in those things. Keep your eyes fixed on the Savior and that's the other thing.

1:47:10 And then I also want to touch on what you said about. You can do this yourself. You don't have to rely on the idols, right? You don't have to rely on the Church. You don't have to rely on men. If you have the priesthood, you have the opportunity to go out and teach your family to to bless the sacrament in your own home. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, drop me a line. I will be more than happy to have you worship with me and you can see how it's done in a home setting if you need to. And then you can go on your way.

1:47:59 But you are capable and for heaven's sakes, just do something. Do not abrogate your godgiven responsibilities and your godgiven. Abilities to to anyone else take charge of that. You're responsible for your family. I I don't think there's going to be much of A leg for us to stand on if we pass this life and we're on the other side and we're found wanting and we said well we just we just followed that guy we just did what he did.

1:48:41 I I don't think that's enough. I think the Lord's going to say, well, I gave you these scriptures, I gave you these examples. Did you not think to crack the book once in a while? I mean, check the owner's manual. Yeah, along with that, you know, it's we're we're facing troubled times. I think everybody knows it. And it's the ideal. Gives a false sense of security, right? It gets a fault, but it is a fault security. And if you've hitched your if you end up pitching your wagon to it, to it, to an idol, you will be disappointed eventually.

1:49:21 It will disappoint you. So it's not even a real security, but it it's scary and it can be overwhelming to think, wait, I've got to do all of this myself. What about what there's food shortages? What if COVID mandates come back? What if, What if? What if? Well, yeah, and those things probably are going to happen. And that's scary. That can be very, very terrifying And that's I think that's one of the reasons why it's it's so it's a lot easier to just say hey somebody else will take care of it for me. I'm not going to worry about it because it's overwhelming and you might be afraid. I don't. I don't want to do this because what if I make a mistake? Well, yes, you will make mistakes and and you and you're not going to be ready for the challenges that come. You're just not.

1:50:08 That's that's not how. But that's not how God's plan works. God does have a plan. It's like having a kid. No one's ever really ready. Yeah, it's like being a parent. You're never going to be ready no matter how long you wait. It's not going to. You're not going to be more ready. But what you find out is you might not be ready, but hey, you've got this. You can do this. The Lord qualifies those who he calls. It's really easy to look at Moses and think, man, now what an amazing prophet Moses was. Moses was a man just like you. He wasn't extra special. What made him special was his willingness to listen to the Lord and just follow that.

1:50:55 That's what made him special. He was special because he was weak. Not because he was powerful. Not because he had it all figured out. Not because he had seven years, food storage, 10 million guns and and A and a Fallout Shelter in his backyard. That's not how he did it. He was unprepared. He was weak. He was wandering the desert. He was exiled. He was cast out. He had a stutter. And that's exactly why the Lord called him. And I'm willing to bet everybody who's listening to this, if you really listen, the Lord's calling you. The Lord is calling you. He's asking you stand up. There's something you can do.

1:51:37 Like Dave said, something, anything. And maybe you're not so sure That's okay. You don't have to be. Maybe. Maybe you'll maybe you're here wrong and it's not and it and it's not right doesn't work out. That's okay too. That's okay. You're not going to offend God by trying to do what you believe he wants him to do. If you keep your heart sincere, you keep your eye single to his glory. I'm not saying you're not going to screw up. I'm not going to say you're not going to make mistakes. I'm not going to say it's not scary, but it's okay, and the Lord makes it right. He makes up for our differences. And and just the very act of trying, just the very act of doing something, usually the Lord starts opening doors for you, right?

1:52:22 You and I were talking about that on the phone today. When? When I decided I was going to do something, when I was done pissing and moaning to God about, I didn't want to do XY&Z and I just did it. All of a sudden there were people that came out of the woodwork to help me out. There were opportunities that presented themselves, but that didn't happen until I did some. Let's go back to Moses, because I think that's a great example. Again, he's cast out of Egypt. He wanders around. When does things get start to get better for him? When he acts on behalf of Jethro's daughters at the well, he acts that one time. And then what happens all the sudden he, you know, becomes married to Zapora.

1:53:08 Then he receives A priesthood from his brother, from his Fatherinlaw and Jethro. Then he becomes a herdsman, and then God's talking to him. And then he goes, and he delivers, he he with the Lord. Through the Lord's power, he delivers Egypt K But that's all centered on Moses taking that one opportunity to do something after he's lost it all. So just do something, even if even if you don't feel like you're ready to, or or that you should leave the church, start getting comfortable with doing those home sacraments again.

1:53:52 Start getting comfortable with teaching your kids. Again, Do not abrogate that responsibility and quite frankly, that blessing to anybody else. I was in the church during COVID for a small time early on. Well, no, I can't say that I was out before then, but. It was during that same time in COVID where I was watching certain people really dwindling in in disbelief and activity in the gospel. Mine stayed pretty consistent. In fact, it ramped up because now my kids, well, they could ask me anything because I'm, I'm just their dad, right?

1:54:35 And so we had some very profound gospel conversations, because it was just him, you know, me and the kids and and and their mom. So, so get used to that. There's blessings to be found there. Not only is there responsibility, there's blessings, but do something and there's power. There really is. The Lord qualifies those He calls. And if you're willing it, if you're willing to put in the effort, I I am 100% confident. Lord's got your back. He's always had mine and I've screwed up and I've made mistakes. I even like, completely misunderstood what God wanted me to do at times and he didn't condemn me. He wasn't offended and said, hey, I don't want anything to do with you anymore because you screwed up on this issue. Should have left it.

1:55:24 You should have followed some other guy and let let him, let him bear that burden. No, the Lord took me back into his arms. So you got we've got nothing to lose. There's there's nothing to lose and there's so much to gain and and the world, the Lord needs us. So that's the world. And if if you look, if you're looking around in the world today and it breaks your heart seeing the suffering and and and the tragedies that are happening. You know we've got people sick and losing family members to COVID or vaccines. We've got these children being taken from parents and and the horrible things being done to children. If you're looking around in the world and that and that bothers you, you know with an I single to God's glory you can, you can make a difference.

1:56:17 I think the Lord, I think the Lord's calling you. If those things are important to you, and they and they touch your heart, I think the Lord's calling you. Absolutely. Just don't make an idol out of it. That's that leads to. That's the only way you screw that up. And even if you do, though, you can still repent. Yeah, so. It's what we're here to do. We're here to figure stuff out. Figure out who we are and figure out if you know, well, ultimately, are we Are we going to do the things the Lord tells us to do? And again, another perfect example. Nephi, right. Go and get those plates. Right. He wasn't qualified to do that. He wasn't prepared to do that. No, you're talking about a military operation. Yeah.

1:57:03 I can't imagine anything more terrifying. Personally, I don't think I would have handled it as well as Nephi did. But hey, you know what? Even that's okay. And if I didn't have it all figured out, he didn't have a plan. Well, he did have a plan. And what What happened? Oh, it it he fell on his, he fell flat on his face. You know, let's buy the plates from him. That's a good idea. Didn't work, but it was a good idea. That's Okay. He did something. It didn't work. Something. And then the Lord didn't work. Yeah. And then the Lord was like, okay, you're willing to try? Now let me give you this. Yeah. Let me show you how I'm glad you're willing to try. Yeah, show you how now.

1:57:46 Exactly, exactly. And and and and we have covered some dark stuff, right? But I think the big take away should be here is that. It's vital that you don't abrogate your responsibilities to anybody else. Do not make an idol of people or institutions. They're going to fail you. But it's at the end. It's a message of hope because you you are enough. And especially if you're here listening to Justin and I talk, you didn't get here by accident. You might think it was an accident, but you're listening to this for a reason and I'm guessing it's because you got some work that you got to do.

1:58:28 Just know the Lord has your back in that and do something. And from there, I promise I can bear testimony that the doors will start opening and the plans will start coming and you're going to make some mistakes along the way. Keep some humor about it, be humble, and the Lord will see you through on it. Absolutely Amen. All right, Justin, as always, dude. It's a good one. All right, awesome. I enjoy having you. All right, Justin, we'll talk to you later. I love you, big guy. All right. Take care. Bye, everybody. You're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast.