In the last chapter of Mosiah, chapter 29, there is a big change in the Nephite form of government. King Mosiah knows his reign is coming to an end and all of his sons have left to preach the gospel to the Lamanites so he has no heir to pass on the kingship. Via inspiration, he realizes it is a time for a change and that unless you can guarantee to always have a righteous king (Mosiah 29:13), a wicked king will cause \u201cmuch iniquity to be committed\u201d (Mosiah 29:17).<\/p>\n
So the days of the Nephite Kings come to an end and the reign of the judges will begin. This is such a fundamental change that even the time and date tracking in the Book of Mormon will change to the number of years since the start of the reign of the judges. King Mosiah teaches that for this type of system to work it needs to be a balance between two key principles:<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The importance of each person having \u201crights and privileges\u201d (Mosiah 29:32) and an \u201cequal chance\u201d (Mosiah 29:38).<\/p>\n
2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The importance of each person to \u201cbear his part\u201d (Mosiah 29:34) and \u201cwillingness to answer for his own sins\u201d (Mosiah 29:38).<\/p>\n
These two principles must be kept in balance and can\u2019t override the other or you will have very bad consequences. The government needs to protect and honor the \u201crights and privileges\u201d of its citizens. All should have an \u201cequal chance\u201d at justice, employment, protection, etc. \u00a0Just as important, every citizen needs to be accountable for his or her actions, to \u201cbear his part\u201d or work for his\/her sustenance. If governments don\u2019t hold their leaders and citizens responsible or accountable for their actions then equally bad consequences will follow.<\/p>\n
If you take away the \u201crights and privileges\u201d then we fall into slavery, if you take away the principle of accountability then we fall into anarchy. Both are bad and both destroy societies, history has proven this over and over again.<\/p>\n
Hence, we need to keep a balance of \u201crights and privileges\u201d vs. accountability. We need to feel free to express ourselves, free to choose what kind of education and career, free to travel, free to protect ourselves, free to worship as we please. On the other hand, we need to be willing to accept the consequence of every choice we make so that we can keep others and ourselves free. If we break the law, we need to bear our part, if we say something that offends, apologize. With every right and privilege comes attached accountability of the choice selected from the right and privilege. If we side step this process the scale becomes unbalanced and we begin to deteriorate into less freedom or more chaos in our neighborhoods, cities, states and country.<\/p>\n
We need to elect leaders who understand and support the balance between these two principles. We need to practice in our own lives the balance between these two principles. We can\u2019t have complete freedom without consequence or accountability; it is not possible and can only lead to our government and society falling apart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the last chapter of Mosiah, chapter 29, there is a big change in the Nephite form of government. King Mosiah knows his reign is coming to an end and all of his sons have left to preach the gospel to the Lamanites so he has no heir to pass on the kingship. Via inspiration, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":2812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[473,425,6],"tags":[388,135,629,618,77],"class_list":["post-2811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith-2","category-feature","category-scriptures","tag-attitude","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-history","tag-scriptures","tag-unity"],"yoast_head":"\n