Choosing Righteous Judges - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Choosing Righteous Judges

www.kevinhinckley.comSlide2

Top 10 Controversial Topics

10- Abortion (128 Footnotes)9- Global Warming (136 Footnotes)8- Glenn Beck (200 Footnotes)7- Bill Clinton (201 Footnotes)

6- Jesus (246 Footnotes)

5- Constantine (275 Footnotes)

4- Michael Jackson (325 Footnotes)3- George W. Bush (362 Footnotes)2- The Iraq War (366 Footnotes)1- Joseph Smith Jr. (448 Footnotes)Slide3

King Mosiah

Old Testament

JUDGES

KINGS

Book of Mormon

RIGHTEOUS

JUDGES

500 YEARS

Of KINGSSlide4

Choose ye this day

Mosiah 29:25Slide5

Mosiah 29

Land of

Liberty

Verse 32

Verse 32

Every man may

enjoy his rightsSlide6

Important POIntSlide7

Mosiah 29

Land of

Liberty

Verse 32

Verse 32

Every man may

enjoy his rights

…a willingness to answer for his own sins

Verse 38Slide8

B.H. Roberts

To my mind Joseph Smith, in bringing forth that principle through the Book of Mormon--the principle of personal, moral, responsibility to God for the government that obtains in free republics—has contributed one of the mightiest thoughts to the political life of the age in which he lived, that any man has brought forth in all the contributions that have been made to political thought in America.

…Jefferson's great doctrine of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed with the inalienable rights of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is not greater than this Book of Mormon doctrine.

…The great doctrine of direct, moral responsibility to God of a free people is indeed a soul-inspiring utterance, but it is also an awe-inspiring condition, and on its face bears evidence of the divine source whence it comes.

(

Conference Report

, Oct. 1912, pp. 33-4)Slide9

Primary threat to that Freedom

Alma 1:3Slide10

St. Hugh Nibley

Sophists and RhetoricLucian tells us that the public simply laughed at the hard courses of the philosophers and went across the street to the rhetorical schools that advertised the

same

knowledge available in quick and effortless courses with positive assurance of a good job and big pay.

…As their courses became ever simpler, shorter, and spicier … the rhetoricians supplanted content with glamor, which they cultivated with great skill. … they saw that if the lost, witless

world…

hungered for intellectual and spiritual guidance, it was simply mad for entertainment.

So with their wonderful art the Sophists, the great traveling orators, supplied everything at once. Performing foxes, a tightrope artist, a fifteen-minute domestic skit, a couple of clowns telling dirty jokes, and a famous traveling

rhetor

would make up an afternoon in the theater.

In

the schools they were sensational… Topnotch

rhetors amassed immense fortunes by fabulous gifts and fees… and the whole world zealously followed every detail of their private lives. 9 … Every town in the empire kept its own staff of high salaried

Sophists, and boasted of being a little Athens in its own right. And it was all just show: the deliberate cultivation of appearances as the surest road to money and success. "It is astounding," writes Professor Schanz, "with what silly stuff the public was fed." But the public asked for no better, and the rule of

rhetoric was: Give people what they want, and you have them where you want them. Hugh

Nibley

,

World and the Prophets

, 108. Slide11

FinallyTimeline and a warning

4th year, Reign of the Judges (Alma 1:29-31) Prosperous but Humble

7

th

Year, Reign of the Judges (Alma 4:4) 3500 New Converts8th Year, Reign of the Judges (Alma 4:6)

Prosperous and Prideful