In Ezra Taft Benson’s message “The Price of Liberty: Eternal Vigilance“, he spoke of a political cycle very much similar to the pride cycle Latter-day Saints are familiar with, from reading the Book of Mormon:

“…Great nations do not usually fall by external aggression; they first erode and decay inwardly, so that, like rotten fruit, they fall of themselves. The history of nations shows that the cycle of the body politic slowly but surely undergoes change. It progresses—

“—From bondage to spiritual faith—From spiritual faith to courage—From courage to freedom—From freedom to abundance—From abundance to selfishness—From selfishness to complacency—From complacency to apathy—From apathy to fear—From fear to dependency—From dependency to bondage.”

Ezra Taft Benson’s message certainly remains true today. 30 and 40 years ago Benson was warning us of the dangers of complacency and apathy. Unfortunately today it seems America, and many other countries, now find themselves in the stages of dependency and bondage. While there is still an illusion of freedom that exists, the hard truth is that the entire system is corrupt, Secret Combinations are prevalent, and Satan has control now to a great extent.

Fortunately for those of us who have chosen to stand up for freedom, the next stage is out of bondage to spiritual faith, and so on into freedom, but we may have many more years of bondage until that point. As W. Cleon Skousen liked to point out, so optimistically, “I read the book, and in the end, we win”. I think it’s up to each of us to do our part in standing up for Liberty, and spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so that we can be counted among his sheep. Let us not be complacent and apathetic which only leads to further bondage. We know that there are troubling times ahead, individually we can still experience much liberty and joy as we follow Christ. We know that eventually Christ will return, and that the Kingdom of God will be established on this earth. It’s better to be found on Christ’s side now rather than later when circumstances humble us to do so.

I enjoy listening to the spoken words of great statesmen such as Ezra Taft Benson and W. Cleon Skousen. Today I was listening to a few talks by W. Cleon Skousen, one is titled “The Majesty of God’s Law”. In this speech Brother Skousen spoke about some of the topics covered in his book of the same title. He spoke of the Founding Father’s and how in some of their correspondence they spoke of living God’s law in America, establishing a system similar to that established by Moses, and that one day this would come to America, but not during the time of the Founder’s.

Brother Skousen also mentioned a meeting he attended in which President David O. McKay stated that “our country isn’t getting prepared for this great opportunity and it will come in a time of crisis.” He told Brother Skousen that the Founder’s knew that America would collapse and they also knew how to solve the problem. Brother Skousen finally found these writings from the Founding Fathers and his research eventually became the book “The Majesty of God’s Law”.

Another speech I listened to addressed Secret Combinations. You’ll probably want to listen to these talks for yourself since Brother Skousen has a way of teaching and presenting the message of Liberty that I just can’t match. My hope is simply to lead others to these wonderful messages of latter-day prophets and statesmen.
(You can find some MP3 downloads at LatterdayConservative.com, also many talks from W. Cleon Skousen are available at his official website, I highly recommend those talks.)