3ABN On the Road

Saturday Morning Members In Action

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

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Series Code: OTR

Program Code: OTR000958


01:01 Hello, friends and welcome to Thompsonville,
01:03 Illinois and also the 3ABN Worship Center
01:06 where the Lord has a meal prepared for you,
01:08 a spiritual meal and we like to welcome you.
01:11 As the Lord is going to give you a sharper vision
01:14 of what's happening in our world today,
01:16 not only in the United States, but movements
01:18 taking place around our world as it pertains to
01:21 Religious Liberty. Our guest speaker for today
01:24 is Lincoln Steed, one who has spend many,
01:26 many years not only in Washington,
01:28 in the house of congress understanding and the
01:30 movements, a politics and religion,
01:33 but one who knows the Lord and he is a
01:35 Christian and today God has given him
01:37 a message entitled Back to Egypt.
01:42 Religion Freedom, there's really nothing more
01:46 basic to a Christian. And in fact,
01:49 there's nothing more basic to anybody who has
01:51 a faith in Religious Freedom, but I was
01:55 disturbed only a few days ago to hear a
01:58 report from the Pew Forum for religion based
02:01 in Washington D.C. an internationally recognized
02:04 study organization. And the Pew Forum says
02:07 that 70% of the world's population live under
02:12 severe civil and religious restrictions.
02:16 So, Religious Freedom is not something as
02:19 Americans often tell themselves and others
02:21 and privileged maybe western countries that
02:24 you know we have it, one day we may lose it.
02:27 Many people in the world do not have it now.
02:32 It's my privilege to edit Liberty Magazine.
02:36 A magazine produced by the Seventh-day
02:38 Adventist Church, but distributed widely
02:41 starting from the President of United States,
02:43 the Prime Minister of Canada and in particular
02:46 these countries in North America are targeted,
02:48 politicians, lawyers, judges, mayors and so on
02:52 we want these thought leaders to read about
02:56 our principles of Religious Freedom.
02:58 And the reason that I'm on 3ABN right now
03:00 apart from our regular Liberty Insider programs.
03:04 I want to bring before not just my fellow
03:06 Seventh-day Adventist Church, but all people
03:08 around the world who would watch a program
03:10 like this, who value their Religious Freedom.
03:16 They may not be, you may not be religious,
03:18 but you have to know that when there's
03:20 restrictions on such a basic human activity,
03:24 no human activity is safe. And as a Christian
03:28 as the Seventh-day Adventist I know how
03:30 important it is to exercise our God given
03:33 Religious Freedom. I do want to encourage those
03:36 here in, in our audience and of course those
03:39 who are listening, and watching on television,
03:42 if you can support what we do with the Religious
03:44 Liberty, now is the time to do it.
03:48 There is no budget; there is no allocation that
03:51 we get that enables us to do what, what we do.
03:54 It's only as people are moved at this time of the
03:57 year to facilitate the distribution of daily two
04:00 hundred thousand copies of Liberty Magazine.
04:03 Every issue that this does indeed happen.
04:08 I've been traveling a lot the last few weeks
04:10 and my family is starting to wonder if I maybe
04:13 coming home. And in fact, I'll be flying home
04:16 late tonight and it'll be about the third day and
04:19 the third evening in the year that I'll be home.
04:21 I've been to Australia back where I came from;
04:24 I've been to Guatemala, where my wife's family
04:27 come from. And my wife grew up.
04:30 I've been all over the United States already,
04:32 backwards and forwards on the plane,
04:34 speaking about Religious Liberty and every time
04:38 I've spoken this year I've started off with an
04:42 example that has moved me as nothing has moved
04:44 me in the last few years because just as the
04:47 year ended, the closing days of 2009,
04:52 I remember sitting in a Church in the Washington
04:55 D.C. area, the Metropolitan Church and
04:58 with several hundred other people listening
05:02 to the life of a great Religious Liberty worker
05:05 portrayed in testimony and, and some of it was
05:08 by video, some of it was written.
05:10 And there in front of us in a, in a coffin,
05:14 an open coffin which doesn't suite my
05:16 Australian sensibilities, but it's very common in
05:18 the United States, I saw a, a great colleague of
05:21 mine Dr. Adrian Westney. A Religious Liberty
05:24 leader from the Columbia Union of the
05:28 Seventh-day Adventist on the East coast.
05:31 For ten years, since I've been editing Liberty
05:32 Magazine, I've been become used to appearing
05:35 with, with Adrian on his weekly Religious Liberty
05:39 television, Religious Liberty Radio Broadcast.
05:43 I become used to hearing his voice on the
05:45 phone saying, where can you go?
05:47 Are you, you free on such a day to talk about
05:49 Religious Liberty and other times he'd call up
05:51 and say, have you heard such and such,
05:54 either a law that might restrict Religious Liberty
05:57 in this country in the United States,
05:59 or something that was happening elsewhere.
06:02 He was a man that lived and breathed the
06:05 principles of Religious Liberty, he was also a
06:07 man that showed I believed in his life that
06:10 God honored such a commitment because
06:12 when I began editing Liberty Magazine just a
06:15 little over ten years ago, within a few weeks
06:19 we were startled to discover that Dr. Westney
06:22 had terminal cancer and was given just a few
06:24 weeks to live. And I remember we all prayed,
06:27 we all prayed that the Lord would spare him to
06:29 work more vigorously and, and for a little while
06:31 longer for Religious Liberty and God's prayers
06:34 were surely answered, because just toward
06:36 the end of last year I think it was late October
06:39 as he and I recorded some messages.
06:41 I remember asking him, how his health was?
06:44 And I said you know, God, God has spared you
06:47 for nearly ten years, it's a great miracle.
06:51 And we agreed on that. And then in the next
06:53 few weeks unknown to me he kept very quiet
06:55 about it, his health suddenly tumbled and there
06:59 about 4 or 5 days before Christmas we were
07:01 gathered to celebrate his life and to commit his,
07:05 his life record for the Lord's keeping.
07:08 As I looked there and saw him in that open
07:11 coffin and heard, heard all the testimonials,
07:14 I thought how different is it from some other
07:17 belief systems? You know, I had the thing as
07:19 the Seventh-day Adventist where we have
07:21 such remembrance and a proclamation of
07:25 Revelation chapter 14, I had to think there in
07:28 verse 13, close to the messages of those
07:31 Three Angels it says: Blessed are the dead
07:33 who die in the Lord from now on that they may
07:36 rest from their labors, and their works follow
07:40 them. You know I thought of older belief systems.
07:43 You know, what about Ancient Egypt that figures
07:45 so prominently in Old Testament history.
07:48 In Egypt, you would be taken to the after life
07:55 by a whole system of embalmment and of
07:57 worship and of, and of making little motifs
08:03 and boats and preparing for the voyage,
08:05 it was almost as if their entire life was to
08:08 prepare them for the projection into an after
08:11 life that they hoped for, but they knew nothing
08:13 about. And we're inclined as Christians and
08:18 people of faith and now we're to think that
08:20 Egypt was not a religious culture,
08:22 it was most religious, too religious.
08:27 They believed in as many as two hundred
08:29 deities, but they really didn't believe in the God
08:34 that created heaven and earth.
08:37 Sometime ago, when I was casting about in,
08:39 in my study of literature I came across a poem
08:42 by D.H. Lawrence and when I was growing up
08:44 in Australia I just remember D.H. Lawrence is
08:46 the author of a book called Lady Chatterley's
08:50 Lover that was banned there and I've never
08:51 read it. And I don't really care to read that sort
08:54 of thing, but when I came across a poem
08:56 written by D.H. Lawrence in his last year
08:59 of life as he was dying from cancer.
09:02 I read it with interest and I saw there that
09:04 this man like many people in the world around
09:07 us without a real comprehension of God was
09:10 reaching out to these, these false philosophies
09:13 that Egypt exemplified, and he spoke there
09:15 metaphorically about preparing the soul for it's
09:18 journey to another life and he, and he said with
09:22 some truth that the only thing that could be
09:24 taken on their journey to the great beyond
09:27 through this little bark that he likened to the
09:29 Egyptian boats was the character,
09:32 the character that had been prepared in his
09:34 life and, and as I read his poem,
09:36 I know that he had no comprehension of God
09:38 and even though he figured out the value of
09:40 character was really in absolute desperation
09:43 about this voyage to nothing this as he pointed
09:46 it out, pointed it out, but of course we're not
09:49 on a voyage to nothingness. And of
09:51 course he was right about character.
09:54 As the Bible says, their works follow them,
09:58 there's a reason that we're here.
09:59 And it's not for a, a dark voyage across that
10:02 that river and, and you know, in a dismal
10:05 progression through the cavalcade of the Gods.
10:08 No, we are prepared to proclaim in the light
10:12 that Jesus said, something important about
10:14 the freedom that He has given to us,
10:16 and to be witnessing in this life and preparing
10:19 for a, a great bright beautiful life to come.
10:25 I was watching television recently and not
10:29 3ABN which I often watch, but I was watching
10:31 television and there was a, a, a wonderful
10:34 sequence where a musical group played a
10:37 song and we had a fantastic song before I
10:40 got up to speak and I appreciated that,
10:42 but the song that I saw was a, a negro
10:44 spiritual that I've heard many times over the
10:46 years, but it was well presented by this group
10:49 and it's a song that resonates with me,
10:51 it says: Go down Moses, way down in Egypt
10:56 land Tell old Pharaoh, let My people go.
11:02 And you don't have to be very perceptive.
11:06 Amazingly the, the slave owners didn't seem to
11:07 be perceptive enough to grasp, but you don't
11:09 have to be so perceptive to realize that
11:11 there was a double meaning in the, but the
11:14 ultimate meaning in that hymn and that's negro
11:16 spiritual was that yes, we live in a land of
11:20 bondage and we need to tell Moses.
11:24 Or we need to be a Moses to go down to Egypt
11:27 and say, let my people go, we must have liberty,
11:31 we must have freedom. Even in Egypt,
11:34 even in a Religious Center. I shocked a
11:39 number of our Religious Liberty attendees
11:41 at a, at a regional conference in, in the
11:45 Dominican Republic, not too many months ago.
11:48 And the Dominica is right across the mountain
11:50 on the same island as, as Haiti where we,
11:52 we're transfixed to watch that incredible
11:54 tragedy unfold. But in the Dominican Republic
11:57 we spoke about Religious Liberty and I got up
11:59 and I said there is way too much religion in
12:02 this country, in this world, way too much
12:06 religion, but not enough spirituality.
12:10 And that's really the case with Religious Liberty.
12:13 Those who don't understand what religion
12:16 is about, but just think that it's a, an activity
12:18 of humanity and even those that are convinced
12:20 that it's a necessary activity of humanity,
12:23 or often those who are most incline to restrict
12:26 someone else's practice of that thing because
12:29 they become convinced that they know how
12:30 to do it better. But those who understand
12:34 that it's our spiritual obligation to God and that
12:38 God determines how we respond.
12:41 Not another fellow human being,
12:42 those people will defend it vigorously.
12:46 Our Bible reading as we began this, this
12:48 worship period today was from Exodus
12:52 chapter 3 and it's a story everybody knows well.
12:56 I grew up hearing that story,
12:57 I grew up reading about it in Uncle Arthur's
13:00 Bible stories, but it never ceases to impress
13:05 me as a model of how we should behave.
13:10 You know Moses, think about Moses,
13:12 like many of us. He had been exposed to the,
13:16 the greatest education, the greatest privileges
13:19 that the world of his day could give to him.
13:21 We haven't grown up in a palace,
13:23 but many of us compared to others in the
13:25 world literally have been spoiled and pampered
13:28 and, and given advantages that others
13:30 don't have. We think we know a lot about the
13:34 world, not just electronics and scientific
13:36 advances and so on, but we think we understand
13:39 the philosophy of what makes the world tick.
13:42 We've been educated. And yet in many different
13:47 ways God has to be bring us as He did with
13:50 Moses to an understanding of that our
13:53 way of looking at stuff is not usually right.
13:57 Moses knew as we do, as I remind myself all
14:00 the time that God had a purpose for his life.
14:04 We have to believe that or else life is, is just
14:06 nihilistic and aimless. Of course, God has a
14:09 purpose for our life, but you know,
14:13 as you look back through the history of
14:14 religious dealings in the Middle Ages,
14:16 for example you know, priests and Pilates and
14:20 fanatics of various types were convinced of
14:23 that and they persecuted, they harmed other
14:25 people, they restricted the knowledge of faith,
14:27 that's not enough to believe that God has a
14:30 purpose in your life, it's most important that
14:33 you meet God and understand viscerally what
14:36 He is and what He wants for you.
14:39 And when God didn't, when Moses didn't
14:41 understand that you know, He was self-centered
14:43 enough to even strike against those who were
14:46 harming God's people, he killed a man.
14:50 And I don't think the, the Bible record says
14:52 he did it selfishly, he didn't do it self
14:55 centeredly, he did it with an honest application
14:58 of religious fervor, but it was wrong,
15:02 as most religious persecution is.
15:05 And he fled for his life and spent almost an
15:08 equal amount in the desert as he would spend
15:11 in training in Egypt. And here at the end of
15:13 that long period of surging as the shepherd
15:16 in the desert you know, in the shadow of God's
15:19 Holy Mountain, if you like it, I'm not really sure
15:21 he knew much about that mountain till this
15:23 moment. He comes face-to-face with God, the
15:27 burning fire. It troubles me a little bit in
15:35 many Churches and sometimes even in my own
15:37 Adventist Churches to go there and hear
15:39 people express a relationship to God that's
15:43 overly familiar like he is a Hail-fellow-well-met.
15:47 God wants our good; God is our Father as
15:50 Jesus said, Abba. God is a benevolent Father
15:55 and a protector of all those that seek Him,
15:58 but He is not to be try for worth.
16:00 And Moses had to learn that lesson,
16:03 there as He saw that burning bush and He
16:05 drew close at a curiosity. I go again to those
16:11 verses, in verse 2 it says: And the Angel of
16:14 the Lord. And we know that's capitalized A,
16:18 that was God. We believe as Christian
16:22 Seventh-day Adventist that was Jesus appearing
16:25 there to Him: Appeared to him in a flame of
16:27 fire from the midst of a bush. He looked,
16:30 and behold, the bush would burning with fire,
16:32 but the bush was not consumed.
16:33 Then Moses said, 'I will now turn aside and
16:36 see this great sight, why the bush does not
16:39 burn? He still just wanted to figure out the
16:42 wise and way-fores of religion.
16:44 Basically a little experiment on the divine
16:48 of the supernatural and it says: When the
16:50 Lord saw that he turned aside to look,
16:53 God called to him from the midst of the bush
16:54 and said, "Moses, And he said, "Here I am."
16:59 And then God said: Counter intuitive,
17:02 do not draw near to this place. Take your
17:04 sandals off your feet, for the place where
17:07 you stand is holy ground. And that was
17:12 the beginning of Moses rehabilitation that was
17:14 the beginning of His empowerment to go back
17:18 to Egypt. The place that He had served God
17:21 to the, to the point of murder, to the place
17:24 where He realized that He had, He had a,
17:26 a destiny, but He never realized that it was
17:29 only fulfilled in God, through the place where
17:32 He was convicted that His people were in
17:34 slavery wrongly, but He didn't know how God
17:37 would release them. And it's amazing there to
17:40 hear the dialogue there in between Moses and
17:43 the angel of the Lord therein the desert,
17:46 this broken man, I believe he was about
17:49 80 years old and I don't know when they're
17:52 80 and I can feel my strength ebbing away,
17:54 what that this man you know, hobbling
17:57 behind the, the sheep. It does say,
18:00 later on when he died at a 120 that his eye
18:02 wasn't dim and you know his strength hadn't
18:04 abated, I'm not so sure that was true at this
18:06 point. Moses was basically a lost man.
18:13 And God said to him, I have surely heard the
18:17 cry of my people. In verse 7, I have surely
18:20 seen the oppression of my people who are in
18:22 Egypt and have heard their cry.
18:26 And when I deal with Religious Liberty issues
18:28 I pray that those that support Liberty
18:30 Magazine and those that haven't taken the
18:32 chance will remind themselves of that,
18:34 it's not just an abstraction when people
18:37 are denied their Religious Freedoms.
18:40 It is as real as those slaves who are
18:43 burdened day and night by the lash, by the,
18:48 you know the persecution, by the
18:50 you know the killing as we know when, when
18:52 Moses was born of their first born of their male
18:56 children. These are real things.
19:00 And God hears it, and if God hears it,
19:03 if it's something that moves God,
19:05 why shouldn't we be moved by it?
19:07 I know within the Seventh-day Adventist
19:09 Church we have lots of different departments
19:11 and it's easy for someone to think,
19:13 well today is the day that when our Religious
19:15 Liberty gets up. Tomorrow it's maybe
19:17 ministerial or something or you know,
19:19 the day after maybe it's ADRA. So you know,
19:23 they're all sort of just divisions of
19:25 functionality. I can't speak about the other
19:29 departments, but I know Religious Liberty
19:32 is not just something convenient that was
19:34 settled down, it's the very heart and soul
19:37 of what we are called to do in releasing the
19:39 captive and in Egypt is where the captives are.
19:43 And to take the figurative analogy it's
19:47 all the way, we are in Egypt. Whether it's in
19:52 the United States, which is you know,
19:54 constantly reminding itself it is,
19:57 as President Bush said, you know God's
19:58 favorite country. Well, we don't know if God
20:00 favors it, but it is nominally religious,
20:04 but other countries believe that God is looking
20:07 their way, but there is just too much religion
20:11 and not enough understanding of the God
20:13 of the universe. And God said to him,
20:18 I've heard the oppression, I've heard the
20:20 cries. And he said, I want you to go down
20:24 to Egypt. I want you to proclaim liberty,
20:28 I want you to make a difference there and
20:30 like most of us Moses said, I can't do it,
20:32 I can't talk, which is very interesting.
20:34 I'm sure he had the debating skills in Egypt,
20:37 but in the desert he probably heard the wind
20:39 whistling and heard his unconscious beating
20:42 on him day and night, that He was not good
20:44 enough and, and He become convinced after
20:46 these years in, in the desert that that
20:48 you know, He was hardly more than just a
20:51 sheep herder. And God said,
20:54 I can use you, I can use you. And He says,
20:57 you go down to Egypt and of course this is
20:59 where the hymn came from, or the Negro
21:03 spiritual, go down to Egypt and this is
21:04 verse 18 of chapter 3. Say to the King of
21:08 Egypt, the Lord God of the Hebrews has met
21:12 with us; and now please let us go three
21:16 days' journey into the wilderness,
21:18 that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.
21:21 God's met with me. I think last time I spoke
21:26 on 3ABN and in this Church I was connecting
21:31 Religious Liberty to evangelism and I'm
21:33 more-and-more convinced that evangelism
21:36 is not complicated, it's exactly what God said
21:40 to Moses to say, tell this person,
21:45 tell the Pharaoh that I have met with God.
21:48 And if I had met with God I am changed,
21:50 you'll see that. And on no ones authority but
21:54 God, it doesn't matter what I say,
21:56 but I am now speaking for God. And I say,
21:59 let my people go. And God says, you'll,
22:03 you'll tell him this and He says, but I'm sure
22:05 He will not let you go. Very interesting
22:09 description from God, He says, I'm sure he
22:11 will not let you go. No, not even by a mighty
22:14 hand. Remember, later in the, in the
22:18 New Testament, in the Old Testament in
22:20 the Exodus. Moses had to hold his hand up,
22:24 but he needed other people to hold it firm,
22:26 he was not a mighty man in that sense.
22:28 No, Pharaoh will not let them go, not even
22:32 by a mighty hand, which you don't have,
22:34 but God says, so I will stretch out my hand.
22:39 Amen. My hand and strike Egypt with all my
22:44 wonders which I will do in its midst and after
22:46 that He will let you go. And there was another
22:49 thing that impressed me. You know, Paul
22:53 said that the Greeks are seeking signs I think
22:57 that's the sum of the text there, there's a
22:59 lot of people that were in, in Paul's age in
23:02 the New Testament and many more in our day
23:05 that want a sign, they want some sort of
23:09 miracle healing. They want some sort of burning
23:13 bush for them, they want some alternation of
23:18 wet and dry fleeces to prove to them that God
23:21 is in this thing. And they forget that when
23:24 there is a Thus saith the Lord in a God's,
23:27 in God's Holy word, that should be enough
23:28 for them. And God said to Moses, he says,
23:31 I'm with you, I'll do this, I will make you the
23:34 liberator, you can bring Religious Freedom
23:37 to the suppressed people and he says and
23:39 the proof of it is this. And it's found in verse 12
23:45 of chapter 3, it's interesting he says:
23:47 "I will certainly be with you, and this shall be
23:51 a sign to you that I've sent you: when you
23:54 have brought the people out of Egypt,
23:57 you shall serve God on this mountain.
24:00 That that's an interesting sign, because it's a
24:04 sign that's only valid after the fact.
24:08 And we have-to- have that faith as,
24:10 as Adrian Westney I know did in talking to
24:13 him, that this was not a futile endeavor,
24:16 that beating against the, the barricades of,
24:19 of, of, of those who would deny Religious
24:23 Freedom was not futile because God was
24:26 in this thing. And no matter how many millions
24:29 of magazines we might send out, no matter
24:32 how many times we meet with, with stony-faced
24:34 officials, which is not always the case I must
24:37 say, no matter how many times our message
24:39 of liberation seems to fall on deaf ears.
24:41 The message has been given and God's mighty
24:45 hand will substitute for what we think we can
24:48 or cannot do, can or cannot do. Amen.
24:51 And one day in God's Holy Mountain as that
24:54 chapter you know in, in Revelation I read to
24:56 about the deeds of the dead following them.
24:59 Well, they will be there raised again and in
25:01 God's side we will see the fruit of this labor,
25:04 we will see that a great multitude has come
25:08 out of Egypt, has seen a Religious Liberty issue,
25:10 has seen the fact that it's not just the right
25:13 to you know, to work or what not,
25:16 work on certain days of the week.
25:18 We've seen that is an obligation to honor God,
25:21 the God of the burning bush, the God of the
25:25 liberation from all that this world represents.
25:31 I've been told now and then that I should
25:33 be careful what I say about the United States
25:35 because I grew up in Australia, but it's
25:36 nothing against the United States, but I must
25:39 say it troubles me. Those that live in the
25:42 United States say always you know we, we
25:44 have freedom you know, like it's a given.
25:47 We've got to be careful that we're not proud
25:50 in our apparent freedom, there is only one
25:54 freedom and that is absolute with God is,
25:56 we understand Him and as we obey Him.
26:00 And I really believe that the ultimate test is
26:03 coming to many of us who live under what we
26:05 think are benign systems that in actuality
26:08 maybe the most pernicious deniers of faith
26:11 the world has seen. As I said Egypt, religious,
26:16 200 Gods, they had space for another God.
26:21 There's no real evidence that Pharaoh rejected
26:23 God out of hand he said, who is He that I need
26:26 to obey Him, but he wasn't at all condemnatory
26:30 of their recognizing their God, he says you can
26:34 worship Him. Where the conflict came and as you
26:38 study that that, that great battle there in,
26:41 in Exodus. The conflict came between the
26:44 array of Egyptians Gods and the one God.
26:47 And the plates were not by chance,
26:49 they were striking at every principle of
26:52 Egyptian belief. And in our world today in
26:57 Western democracies, but more particularly
27:00 Western capitalistic systems, the very system
27:03 of self is apposed to everything that God holds
27:06 high and holy. Amen. Where greed is sanctified,
27:11 where you know, your care for your fellowman
27:13 is swept away and it's made public policy.
27:18 We need to recognize these things,
27:20 not to be apposed to this system as in Egypt
27:23 where they made those bricks till the last
27:25 minute, we are to do whatever necessary as
27:30 citizens of whatever land, but we should never
27:33 think that whether it's capitalist, communist
27:36 or whatever, that any of these are
27:38 inherently holy, there's no burning bush in,
27:41 in Washington, there's no burning bush in any
27:44 other place. Amen. The burning bush is in
27:47 your heart, as you answer to the great I Am
27:50 who says the proof of you following me is
27:52 that we will meet again on my Holy Mountain.
27:56 Amen. And we really need to recognize as
28:01 Moses was a little slow to come at that if
28:03 God is in this thing, nothing can stop it and
28:06 that while I think and I'm speaking as Moses,
28:09 I think that I've escape that pernicious system.
28:12 I must go back to it and proclaim liberty,
28:17 proclaim liberty. In Isaiah chapter 60 verse
28:23 2 it says: For behold, and I like this text
28:26 because when I reexamine my life and I
28:31 was gonna say late teens, but it might even
28:33 have been a bit later than that,
28:35 as I reexamine my life and, and was tilting
28:39 on the edge, tilting at the edge of whether
28:41 I should just leave religion alone or come
28:44 into it all the way. I listened to the Messiah,
28:47 handles Messiah which of course is good music,
28:50 if you like baroque music as, as I do.
28:53 The power of that that, that piece is in the,
28:56 the recitation of biblical text brought together
28:58 in a way to speak of the coming Messiah and
29:01 he quotes from Isaiah chapter 60 verse 2
29:05 that says: For, behold the darkness shall cover
29:07 the earth, and gross darkness the people,
29:12 but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his
29:14 glory shall be seen upon thee. Amen.
29:19 We've got to recognize that God's ready to
29:21 move powerfully and you know as, as we said
29:24 in the introduction, I can give you lots of
29:26 illustrations through the world of Religious
29:29 Liberty denied, it's gonna get worse,
29:33 but something you need to understand
29:36 about Religious Liberty it seldom as blatant
29:40 as I saw in Ambon, Indonesia. And by the way
29:44 in a, in a few weeks I'm planning a trip with
29:47 Dr. John Graphs for going down to East Timor
29:50 to see what's happening there,
29:52 there's direct religious conflict between
29:55 Christians and Moslems down in that place.
29:57 But as we went to Ambon that was incredible
30:00 to see the devastation not quite as bad as,
30:03 as the earthquake produced in Haiti,
30:05 but pretty close 25-30% of everything that
30:09 we ever came upon was burned and
30:11 abandoned in religious warfare between
30:14 Christians and Moslems. An amazing scene,
30:18 but violent as that was that's really not the
30:23 way Religious Liberty is mostly fought up and
30:27 it's negative. Religious Liberty is the far most
30:30 subtle thing where the social pressures mean
30:33 that you feel that you dare not dare move
30:36 out and take a spiritual stand.
30:38 Religious Liberty is restricted where there are
30:40 an array of little nit picky laws that may make
30:44 it impossible or hard for you to buy a Church
30:47 or to meet in a Church, may make it very
30:49 hard for you to organize, that's the most
30:54 efficient level that the Pharaohs of the world
30:57 have found to strike against another belief
31:00 system. Take away the, the straw.
31:06 And Religious Liberty is not always as clear
31:09 cut as people imagine, but it's importance is
31:13 always singular. It's subtle many times in
31:18 countries they'll say, oh! We have Religious
31:20 Freedom, but the majority of our people
31:22 are of such-and-such belief, so it's not
31:24 important. What that means is if you come into
31:27 that country or if you were someone that
31:29 moved to think differently, every
31:31 structure of society will be against you.
31:36 And we need to pray that God's mighty arm
31:39 can intervene there, because there is little
31:41 that we can do to stop that. We certainly
31:45 don't have the means and even if, if, if all of
31:48 our viewers send us all of their means,
31:50 we will hardly likely have enough to by force
31:54 of money turn back such a tide of, of
31:56 prejudice and, and tradition. But as we said
32:02 at the beginning of the printing revolution
32:04 you know the pen is mighty than the sword,
32:05 but we might be moving into the computer era
32:09 where it's bits and bites that we're dealing
32:13 with. The reality is that ideas are far more
32:17 powerful than ads or mechanical things that
32:21 we can do and ideas are what God deals with,
32:26 because who could have such an idea as God
32:29 to take a guy in the desert, to take someone
32:33 in the desert who to all intends and purposes
32:36 you know, well he may have appeared to, to his
32:39 wife as a pretty great leader when he,
32:42 when he first appeared, she wanted to marry him,
32:45 but you know after 40 years I know my wife
32:47 doesn't think as much as me, I'm, I'm a little bit
32:49 more decrepit and so. And he didn't have
32:51 great prospects, but it was only because God
32:55 was willing to work with him. There's an aspect
32:58 to the story that I really want to bring out and
33:02 it may not get strong support for Religious
33:04 Liberty, but if you understand it I'll be
33:07 satisfied. When I was a young person,
33:12 there was a great figure in the Seventh-day
33:14 Adventist Church H.M.S. Richards, Sr. and I
33:18 many times listened to his program and at the
33:20 end he always finished it by saying,
33:22 have faith in God dear friend, have faith in God.
33:26 And that's seen me through some, some bad
33:29 moments remembering not his idea, but his
33:32 words that were thoroughly biblical,
33:34 but he preached a sermon once that impressed
33:37 me and I've actually got a Book of Sermons
33:40 where it's printed and it was titled with a
33:42 curious title, The Man God Tried To Kill.
33:49 Who did God try to kill? That is found in the
33:53 same sequence in verse 19 of chapter 4.
33:57 As after Moses had listen to God at the
33:59 burning bush and for the first time in 40 years
34:01 had his harps stirred that something might
34:04 happen through him that God was going to enable,
34:08 that he was indeed called to go back,
34:10 proclaim liberty, first call of Jesus remember
34:12 as He began His ministry, it's not a little
34:15 secondary part of what God's on about,
34:16 it's central. And Moses told his father-in-law
34:22 I must go back, I'm sure his father-in-law
34:24 thought he's crazy because he knew he
34:25 fled for his life. Even though the angel of the
34:29 Lord said, those who seek your death are dead,
34:31 but he had to go back to the center of you know,
34:36 the belly of the beast, no. But He did it,
34:40 he took his wife and his son and he headed off
34:43 and as it says in verse 19, I'm sorry verse 24
34:48 it says: And it came to pass on the way,
34:51 on the way back to Egypt, at the encampment,
34:55 that the Lord met him and sought to kill him.
34:59 Very interesting, what did he do?
35:04 He immediately rose up and circumcised his
35:07 son, started a little bit of a family feud
35:10 you know, his wife Zipporah said,
35:13 you've become a man of blood to me.
35:16 And the Lord spared him and he continued
35:18 on his way. I'm not really sure that the
35:21 mechanics of that could be worked out or
35:23 should be worked out in our day,
35:24 but the principle is the same.
35:27 We are called to a high and holy business,
35:30 we are called to proclaim liberty and God
35:33 holds us the messengers of such a
35:36 message to a very high standard and God
35:41 sough to kill Moses not because he was
35:44 against Moses, but Moses Himself
35:46 understood it, he was out of harmony with God
35:51 because his first inclination was to bring
35:53 himself in line with God's requirement and
35:56 there's nothing magical about it as Paul
35:58 pointed out, but it was a sign that was
36:00 given there and he was not willing to mark
36:03 himself and his family with dedication to God,
36:06 not till that moment. And then he realized that
36:09 it was important to God had changed him and
36:11 there's a text very few people seem to have
36:14 noticed as Moses and Aaron then appeared
36:17 before Pharaoh and, and repeated the Lord's
36:20 word and they said, you know, let us go
36:21 into the wilderness, we want these, these,
36:24 little disingenuous I guess, but three days
36:27 journey, I've studied on that and three days
36:29 was as long as you could last in the desert.
36:32 And so, Pharaoh I think understood it from
36:34 the upset, they go three days they're
36:36 beyond recall. They're gone into the desolation,
36:42 but they said to Pharaoh we want to go.
36:46 This is in verse 3 of chapter 5 of Exodus,
36:49 Exodus chapter 5 verse 3 and they said to
36:52 Pharaoh. Well, of course after that Pharaoh said:
36:55 Who is the Lord that I should obey him.
36:57 And they said to Pharaoh: The God of the
36:59 Hebrews has met with us. This is what God
37:01 told him to say. And then they continue.
37:04 Please, let us go three days journey into the
37:07 desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God,
37:10 lest He fall upon us with pestilence over the
37:14 sword. God is not to be trifled with, and
37:20 when God says I have heard their cry,
37:23 I have heard what the pew forum is saying
37:26 that 70% of the world is suffering under
37:29 the restriction of civil and religious liberties.
37:31 Something has to be done about it.
37:34 And it's time now to get your act together
37:37 to be serious about it, not just you know,
37:40 something that's listed on departments,
37:42 or publications, or good works that you do.
37:44 This is not you know, like how many items of
37:47 literature given out this week and so on,
37:49 that's not gonna cut it with God.
37:52 We have to show that we are serious that
37:55 our life is in accordance with this and that
37:58 we will go even to a Pharaoh, he says I
38:00 don't know your God. And say, we must go
38:04 because our own life is on the line and by
38:07 extension, if you deny God you're at risk.
38:10 That that's a message that is not told enough
38:13 today, it doesn't cast God as some vindictive
38:17 evil destructive being, not at all,
38:19 it shows God as we would expect him to be.
38:22 Someone intimately concerned with human
38:24 events, determined to make it happen,
38:27 determined to free the captives,
38:29 determined for us to proclaim Religious Liberty,
38:33 has to be, has to be serious business.
38:37 I don't know if I've shared it before on 3ABN,
38:40 but every time I, I see it and I read it again
38:42 last night, it impresses me that the Apostle
38:45 Paul who admittedly he was always a hard
38:48 case you know, he's a perfect persecutor
38:52 and then became a perfect promoter of the
38:56 truth. But there in his ministry as he was
38:59 traveling around the world attempting to
39:02 spread the wonderful news that God was not
39:06 just set to save the promised people,
39:09 but he would save anybody, the Gentiles
39:12 there he came to Caesarea and they met
39:15 in the home as it says of Philip the evangelist
39:18 and he had four daughters who prophesied,
39:23 which is interesting. You know, we should
39:24 expect more not so much prophesies,
39:27 but we should expect this we're dedicated
39:29 to God that God will communicate to us more
39:32 directly then we think he does.
39:35 And a prophet named Agabus came down
39:37 from Judah, he had been told something from
39:39 God, given a more than intimation and he
39:42 took Paul's belt, bound his own hands and
39:46 feet and he says: Thus says the Holy Spirit,
39:50 So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man
39:52 who owns this belt, and deliver him into the
39:55 hands of the Gentiles. What would you do?
40:00 I don't know what I would do I mean I know
40:02 what I, I should do and that's what I'm
40:03 preaching about, but that's the moment of
40:05 truth. You've dedicated your life,
40:08 you've decided that you will proclaim God,
40:12 you'll go out and say, you know,
40:13 God has freed us all, God has freed us from sin,
40:16 He had freed from the more abundant life.
40:20 That all sounds good, but when the crunch
40:22 comes and you know for sure in this case
40:25 God was prophesying that Paul,
40:27 if he went back to Jerusalem would be bound
40:29 and imprisoned? What do you do?
40:34 As Moses, determined to go back after he
40:38 had been impressed at the burning bush.
40:39 Paul said you know, they started to weep and
40:43 whale, but he says, what do you mean by
40:45 weeping and breaking my heart?
40:48 For I'm ready not only to be bound,
40:51 but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of
40:54 the Lord Jesus. Amen. We often say in our
40:58 Religious Liberty work that we believe in
41:03 Religious Freedom and we will defend,
41:05 we'll defend to the death you're right to be
41:08 wrong. You're right to believe something that
41:11 I might find obnoxious and it's very hard for
41:15 people of faith to understand that,
41:17 it's extremely hard in the United States at
41:19 the moment and we just passed a period with
41:22 the religious right for want of a better term
41:24 have been empowered and you know,
41:27 they were on their way to structuring
41:29 United States as a happy haven for such a
41:31 belief system, that's not Religious Freedom
41:34 that's religious exclusivity. Amen.
41:38 We have-to-have the idea which God
41:40 exemplified from Eden and right up to that
41:43 moment where he says let him who is holy
41:45 be holy still and he who has not forever not.
41:50 We have to allow people, the writers as
41:53 sovereign beings created by God to choose Him
41:56 or reject Him, if they reject Him there are
41:59 very bad consequences, but they are not
42:02 consequences that we visit upon anybody,
42:05 not consequences that we visit.
42:08 I made a resolution shortly after 9/11 that
42:11 I would always share something from a
42:12 wonderful collection of quotes that the
42:15 Seventh-day Adventist Church prepared.
42:17 Last day events and on page 127 of this
42:24 collection and it was put together at the
42:25 time of the gulf, from first gulf war.
42:27 So I know that the custodians of the writings
42:30 of Ellen G. White who I believe was, was used
42:33 mightily of God. I know that those custodians
42:36 were impressed that we were in dangerous end
42:38 times. And writing in 1889, at a time when
42:44 the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the
42:45 liberty precursor, the sentinel were battling
42:49 against a National Sunday Law in the United
42:52 States. I don't know how many of you know
42:55 about what's predicted. Revelation 13 is
42:58 fairly specific about appall that is easily
43:01 identify where the United States is
43:02 compelling a certain religious observance.
43:05 And I don't know how many of you know
43:07 that in the 1880s there was a more than
43:10 passing push for a national Sunday Law,
43:13 not a Blue Law, but a law that mandated
43:16 worship on Sunday, a wrong day,
43:19 but even if it was the right day we would have
43:21 opposed it. You don't mandate by Civil Law
43:24 a day of worship. Amen. And Ellen White at
43:28 that time wrote this, she says:
43:30 We are not doing the will of God if we sit in
43:34 quietude, doing nothing to preserve liberty
43:37 of conscience. Fervent, effectual prayer
43:42 should be ascending to heaven that this
43:44 calamity may be deferred, until we can
43:47 accomplish the work which has so long
43:49 been neglected. Let there be most earnest
43:52 prayer and then let us work in harmony with
43:56 our prayers. Now, it's easy to pray I mean
43:59 that's hard to pray properly, but it's easy
44:01 to pray, but it's very hard to pray correctly
44:04 and then to act on our prayers.
44:06 Then, then one other quote in 1889 also was
44:09 printed in the Review & Herald Extra in
44:12 December 24 that year. And Ellen White said:
44:15 There are many who are at ease as it were,
44:18 who are as it were asleep. I mean I don't
44:21 really know how you could sleep in these days,
44:24 but you could be asleep to the truth,
44:27 these are shocking times, but many people are
44:30 oblivious to the real situation. As she says:
44:32 There are many who are at ease,
44:34 who are as it were asleep. They say prophecy
44:39 has foretold, if prophecy has foretold the
44:41 enforcement of Sunday observance the law
44:44 will surely be enacted, and having come to this
44:47 conclusion they sit down in a calm expectation
44:50 of the event, comforting themselves with the
44:54 thought that God will protect his people in
44:57 the day of trouble. But God will not save us if
45:02 we make no effort to do the work he has
45:05 committed to our church. That's really
45:07 serious business. She says as faithful watchmen
45:11 you should see the sword coming and give
45:13 the warning, that men and women may not
45:15 pursue a course through ignorance that they
45:18 would avoid if they knew the truth.
45:21 I didn't mean to connect to them,
45:22 but that just puts me to mind you know
45:23 the sword coming, right now you know,
45:28 in the United States as a nation you know,
45:30 we've projected the sword to other countries
45:33 and you can argue as people do whether that's
45:35 correct public policy or not, but the sword is
45:38 not to be trifled with and you know,
45:40 there is a curious symbol that's just
45:42 emerged in the last few days, did you know
45:44 of 300,000 gun sights that are sitting atop
45:47 the weapons of the soldiers in the United
45:50 States, 300,000 of them have Bible texts
45:53 printed into the metal. If that isn't the most
45:58 profane application of faith for our day,
46:01 I don't know what could qualify.
46:04 And guns with Bible texts on them pointed
46:07 against secular or other religious enemies of
46:11 the state can just as easily be turned against
46:14 those of us who have a different view of what
46:17 those texts say. Amen. Religious Freedom
46:22 needs to be proclaimed not as a, in a
46:25 political context, but to any political context.
46:28 Amen. Egypt will always be with us,
46:33 Egypt will always be polytheistic,
46:36 even if it calls itself Christian,
46:39 Moslem or whatever, because Egypt is the
46:42 potential on the willingness of man to just
46:45 basically reach out willy-nilly and embrace
46:48 all views of religion including self-worship.
46:53 And it takes a Moses, it takes a Paul,
46:57 and it takes you and I as we're committed
47:00 to God and emptied itself, it takes often a
47:03 vision metaphorical for most realistic and actual
47:08 for some of a burning bush. And to know that
47:11 a lot is at stake here, that we might be free
47:18 and that's a hard thing to do. You know,
47:20 back to that that, that image of the
47:24 D.H. Lawrence ship of death, and die the
47:26 death he says the Long and Painful Death
47:29 that was between old self and the new,
47:31 he got it right there. You know that battle
47:34 we have to win between the old self and
47:36 the new, but the new man as C.S. Lewis,
47:39 who was nearly always wrong, but had a
47:41 right in being Christianity. The new man
47:44 needs to get with the old God and proclaim
47:48 liberty, liberty for all. Amen. This is a
47:52 wonderful challenge I believe that we should
47:55 accept as thoroughly biblical, the analogy is
47:58 not just for a nice sermon illustration,
48:00 it's before us and you know I grew up hearing
48:04 and reading any numbers of sermons telling
48:06 it's not to go back to Egypt, you know not to
48:08 go back to Babylon. Well, on that level, no.
48:11 We're not to become Egypt, we're not to
48:13 become Babylon, but if we don't have a
48:15 burden to go back to Egypt, if we don't see
48:19 that in Egypt there is a principle and a
48:22 message of liberty to break proclaims,
48:25 then we are indeed someone who has never
48:27 left because you can take Egypt into the
48:31 deserts just as easily as you can,
48:33 you can tell it's greenery by the
48:35 waterside, there on the Nile.
48:37 Egypt is the state of mind, and we need to
48:41 have the state of mind of God to be proclaiming
48:44 liberty throughout the land. And obviously
48:48 I stand before you as someone who edits
48:50 Liberty Magazine, it's not the only way to
48:52 proclaim liberty, I'd be foolish to say that.
48:56 But we have been given many mechanisms
48:59 in the modern world that will facilitate the
49:01 proclamation. You know, it started with
49:03 someone with a capital L I guess, someone
49:08 standing on the Mount of Blessing,
49:10 I don't know how those thousands of people
49:12 heard Jesus voice. No more than I know
49:16 you know, that they heard Abraham Lincoln
49:17 at the Gettysburg address. People spoke
49:19 powerfully before PA, but then came the PA
49:22 and you could have a megaphone,
49:25 you can go to a, you know a game,
49:27 a football game now and then think we're
49:29 vibrates admittedly not very clearly,
49:31 but people can hear greatly. The Radio
49:34 Broadcasted across. I remember reading years
49:37 ago about a philosopher, the Pharaoh
49:43 wrote in his book Walden Pond against the
49:46 radio giving news of England, he says,
49:48 what is the great flapping ear of the United
49:50 States needs to hear what happens in Europe?
49:52 The reality is, communication is a gift
49:54 that God has given to our modern world and
49:58 we can broadcast on the radio,
50:00 we can broadcast through television and
50:02 simultaneously contact millions of people,
50:06 we're not just standing before Pharaoh and
50:09 his few minions and his magicians,
50:12 we're standing in some ways not figuratively,
50:15 but literally before the world and we can
50:18 proclaim liberty. The liberty that God would
50:22 have us proclaim. Let's bow our heads in
50:25 a word of prayer. Dear, Lord we thank you
50:27 that we're your agents to proclaim freedom,
50:30 we thank you that that while Egypt can be
50:33 pretty all pervasive and at delusional reality
50:38 that with your word and your instruction and
50:40 a vision of your holy burning fire that we can
50:43 be empowered to take on anything,
50:46 proclaim liberty because we have liberty.
50:49 Thank you for this privilege, for Jesus sake,
50:51 amen. Amen. In the few minutes that are left,
50:53 I just want to remind you that today is
50:56 Religious Liberty Sabbath, but by no means
50:59 is it a one short thing even within our
51:01 Seventh-day Adventist Church, a period of
51:03 time to promote liberty and, and to fund
51:06 what we're doing for another year goes
51:08 at least in the Churches till the end of April
51:11 and not every Church can do it on the one day,
51:15 but we hope that every Church does it beyond
51:18 the Seventh-day Adventist Church which is
51:19 an enabler of Liberty Magazine because
51:21 it's not just your magazine, only about
51:24 10 to 15,000 Seventh -day Adventist get
51:27 copies of liberty, but those that are watching
51:30 we hope that you are moved to send some
51:32 means to facilitate a cry of Religious
51:36 Freedom. Because it doesn't matter whether
51:38 you're a Seventh-day Adventist or a Roman
51:41 Catholic or a Buddhist or whatever,
51:43 I don't necessarily believe that all those
51:45 belief systems are correct, but I believe
51:47 that my God would have you seek him in however
51:52 means you want and if you are moved
51:54 toward God I believe you will respond.
51:57 But in the mean time you have-to-have
51:59 the ability and the freedom to seek God.
52:02 And I'm not gonna deny that and Liberty
52:04 Magazine is holding out a broad swath of
52:08 freedom for all who will answer. And please
52:10 give your means toward that.
52:12 Beyond that I'd be regress, if regressive
52:17 if I didn't remind those that watch this channel
52:21 regularly that we have the Liberty Insider
52:23 that appears on, on 3ABN regularly.
52:26 We will bring examples of restricted Religious
52:30 Liberty and of course good examples of freedom
52:32 allowed around the world, because liberty
52:35 is on the march. It's not just in around that
52:38 they march and demonstrate for a new
52:40 government. I believe there is a spiritual
52:42 steering in the world and that people are,
52:47 it says there is a God shaped void that
52:49 people are more-and -more recognizing and
52:51 as the stresses, politics of disasters and
52:57 whatever you name it, of the modern world
52:58 as they hinge upon people's very souls,
53:02 they recognize that they must have God.
53:06 And not just God, but they, they must
53:09 exercise that belief in God. And at Liberty
53:12 Magazine we call that Religious Liberty,
53:16 it's something vital, it's something eternal,
53:19 something God given and that is something
53:20 that we will fight and die for.


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Revised 2014-12-17