Participants: Lincoln Steed
Series Code: OTR
Program Code: OTR000974
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01:01 Hello friends and welcome to Thompsonville,
01:03 Illinois, also the 3ABN worship center where 01:06 the Lord has a meal prepared for you, 01:09 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, 01:15 not only in the United States but movements 01:18 taking place around all 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 halls of Congress understanding the movements 01:31 of politics and religion but one who knows 01:34 the Lord and is a Christian and today God 01:37 has given him a message entitled back to Egypt. 01:43 Religious Freedom, there's really nothing more 01:46 basic to a Christian and in fact there is nothing 01:50 more basic to anybody who has a faith in Religious 01:53 Freedom but I was disturbed only a few days ago 01:57 to hear a report from the Pew forum for religion 02:01 based in Washington DC, an internationally 02:03 recognized study organization and the Pew 02:06 forum says that 70 percent of the world's population 02:11 live under severe civil and religious restrictions. 02:16 So religious freedom is not something as Americans 02:20 often tell themselves and others in privileged 02:23 may be Western Countries that you know we 02:25 have it, one day we may loose it many people 02:28 in the world do not have it now. 02:33 It's my privilege to edit Liberty Magazine. 02:36 A Magazine produced by the Seventh-day 02:38 Adventist Church but distributed widely starting 02:42 from the President of the United States, 02:43 the Prime Minister of Canada in particular, 02:46 these countries of North America are targeted, 02:49 politicians, lawyers, Judges, mayors and so on. 02:52 We want these thought leaders to read about our 02:56 principles of religious freedom and the reason 02:59 that I am on the 3ABN right now, 03:00 apart from our regular Liberty Insider program 03:03 is I want to bring before not just my fellow 03:06 Seventh-day Adventists but all people around the 03:09 world who would watch a program like this. 03:11 Who value their religious freedom, they may not be, 03:17 you may not be religious but you have to know 03:20 that when there's restrictions on such a basic 03:23 human activity, no human activity is safe. 03:28 And as a Christian, as a Seventh-day Adventist 03:29 I know how important it is to exercise our God 03:32 given religious freedom. I do want to encourage 03:36 those here in our audience and of course those 03:39 who are listening and watching on television, 03:41 if you can support what we do with religious 03:44 liberty now is the time to do it. There is no budget, 03:49 there is no allocation that we get, that enables us 03:52 to do what our, what we do, it's only as people 03:55 are moved at this time of the year to facilitate 03:58 the distribution of the nearly 200,000 copies of 04:02 Liberty Magazine, every issue that this does 04:06 indeed happen. I have been traveling a lot the last 04:09 few weeks and my family is starting to wonder 04:12 if I'm ever coming home and in fact I will be flying 04:16 home late tonight and it'll be about the third day 04:19 and the third evening in the year that I'll be home. 04:22 I've been to Australia back where I came from, 04:25 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, 04:33 backwards and forwards on the planes, 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 04:45 me in the last few years because just as the year 04:48 ended the closing days of 2009, 04:52 I remember sitting in a Church in the Washington 04:56 DC area. The Metropolitan Church and with several 04:59 hundred other people listening to the life 05:03 of a great religious liberty worker portrayed 05:06 in testimony and some of it was by video, 05:09 some of it was written and there in front of us 05:12 in a coffin, an open coffin which doesn't suite 05:15 my Australian sensibilities but it's very common 05:18 in the United States. I saw a great colleague of 05:21 mine Dr. Adrian Westney, a religious liberty 05:25 leader from the Columbia Union of the 05:28 Seventh-day Adventist on the East Coast for 10 years. 05:31 Since I'd been at in Liberty Magazine I've been, 05:34 become used to appearing with, 05:36 with Adrian on his weekly religious liberty 05:39 radio broadcast. I become used to hearing 05:44 his voice on the phone saying where can you go, 05:46 are you free on such a day to talk about religious 05:50 liberty and other times he would call up and 05:51 he says you heard such and such. Either a law that 05:55 might restrict religious liberty in this country, 05:58 in the United States or something that was 06:00 happening elsewhere, he was a man that lived 06:03 and breathed the principles of religious liberty. 06:07 He was also a man that showed I believed 06:09 in his life that God honored such a commitment 06:11 because when I began editing Liberty Magazine 06:15 just a little over 10 years ago within a few weeks, 06:18 we were startled to discover that Dr. Westney 06:22 had terminal cancer and was given just a few weeks 06:25 to live and I remember we all prayed. 06:27 We all prayed that the Lord would spare him 06:29 to work more vigorously and for a little while 06:31 longer for religious liberty and God's prays 06:34 was 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 I remember 06:43 asking him how his health was and I said you know, 06:45 the God has spared you for nearly 10 years, 06:48 it's a great miracle. And we agreed on that and 06:52 then in the next few weeks unknown to me 06:54 he kept very quiet about it, his health suddenly 06:56 tumbled and there about four or five days before 07:01 Christmas, we were gathered to celebrate 07:03 his life and to commit his life record for the 07:07 Lord's keeping. As I looked there and saw 07:10 him in that open coffin and heard all the testimonials 07:13 I thought how different is it from some other 07:18 belief systems. You know, I had to think as a 07:20 Seventh-day Adventist where we have such 07:22 remembrance and proclamation of Revelation 07:25 chapter 14, I had to think there in verse 13, 07:29 close to the messages of those Three Angles that 07:32 says Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord 07:34 from now on, that they may rest from their labors, 07:37 and their works follow them. 07:41 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 embodiment and of worship 07:58 and of making little motifs and boats and preparing 08:05 for the voyage, it was almost as if their entire 08:07 life was to prepare them for the projection 08:10 into an after life that they hoped for but they 08:12 knew nothing about. And we're inclined as Christians 08:18 and people of faith scenario to think that Egypt 08:20 was not a religious culture. It was most religious, 08:24 too religious. They believed in as many as 200 deities 08:32 but they really didn't believe in the God that 08:34 created Heaven and earth. Some time ago when 08:38 I was casting about in my study of literature, 08:41 I came across a poem by D.H. 08:43 Lawrence and when I was growing up in Australia 08:45 I just remember D.H. Lawrence as the author 08:47 of a book called Lady Chatterley's Lover that was 08:50 banned there, and I have never read it. 08:52 And I don't really care to read that sort of thing 08:54 but when I came across a poem written by 08:57 D.H. Lawrence in his last year of life as he was 09:00 dying from cancer, I read it with interest and I saw 09:04 there that this man like many people in the world 09:07 around us without a real comprehension of God 09:09 he was reaching out to these, 09:12 theses false philosophies that Egypt exemplified 09:14 and he spoke there metaphorically about 09:17 preparing the soul for its journey to another life. 09:21 And he said was some truth that the only thing 09:24 that could be taken on that journey to the great 09:26 beyond through this little bark that he like unto 09:29 the Egyptian birds was the character. 09:33 The character that has been prepared in his life 09:35 and as I read his poem, I know that he had no 09:37 comprehension of God and even though he figured 09:39 out the value of character it was really into 09:42 absolute desperation about this voyage to nothing 09:45 that's his equal and he pointed out. 09:48 But of course we're not on voyage to nothingness 09:51 and of 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 and it's not 10:00 for a dark voyage across that river and you know 10:04 at a dismal progression through the cavalcade 10:07 of the Gods no. We are prepared to proclaim 10:11 in the light as Jesus said something important 10:14 about the freedom that he is given to us and to be 10:17 witnessing in this life and preparing for a great, 10:21 bright, beautiful life to come. I was watching 10:26 television recently not 3 ABN which I often watch 10:31 but I was watching television and there was a 10:33 wonderful sequence where a musical group played 10:37 a song and we had a fantastic song before 10:40 I got up to speak and I appreciated that. 10:42 But the song that I saw was a negro spirituals 10:45 that I have heard many times over the years 10:47 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's Land. 10:57 Tell old Pharaoh, Let my people go. 11:02 And you don't have to be very perceptive, 11:06 amazingly the slave owners didn't seem to be 11:08 perceptive enough to grasp it but you don't have 11:09 to be perceptive to realize that there was a double 11:12 meaning in that, but the ultimate meaning 11:15 in that hymn, in that's negro spiritual was that, 11:18 yes we live in a land of bondage and we need 11:21 to tell Moses, or we need to be a Moses to go down 11:26 to Egypt and say let my people go. 11:30 We must have liberty, we must have freedom. 11:34 Even in Egypt even in a religious center. 11:39 I shocked a number of our religious liberty attendees 11:41 at a, at a Regional Conference in the 11:45 Dominican Republic not too many months ago 11:48 and Dominica is right across the Mountain on 11:50 the same Island as Haiti where we're transfixed 11:53 to watch that incredible tragedy unfold. 11:56 But in the Dominican Republic we spoke about 11:58 religious liberty and I got up and I said there 12:00 is way too much religion in this country, in this world, 12:05 way too much 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 is about 12:16 but just think that it's an activity of humanity 12:19 and even those that are convinced that it's a 12:21 necessary activity of humanity are often those 12:24 who are most inclined to restrict someone else's 12:27 practice of that thing. Because they become 12:29 convinced that they know how to do it better. 12:33 But those who understand that 12:34 it has spiritual obligation to God and that God 12:38 determines how we respond not another fellow 12:42 human being those people will defend it vigorously. 12:46 Our Bible reading as we began this worship 12:49 period today was from Exodus chapter 3 and 12:54 it's a story everybody knows well, 12:55 I grew up hearing that story, I grow up reading 12:58 about it in Uncle Arthur's Bible stories but 13:04 it never ceases to impress me as a model of how 13:07 we should behave. You know Moses, 13:11 think about Moses, like many of us he had 13:14 been exposed to the greatest education, 13:17 the greatest privileges that the world of his day 13:20 could give to him. We haven't grown up in a palace 13:23 but many of us compared to others in the world 13:25 literally have been spoiled and pampered and given 13:29 advantages that others don't have. 13:32 We think we know a lot about the world, 13:34 not just electronics and scientific advances 13:37 and so on, but we think we understand the 13:39 philosophy of what makes the world tick. 13:42 We've been educated and yet in many different 13:47 ways, God has to bring ourselves he did with Moses 13:51 to an understanding of our way of looking at stuff 13:54 it's not usually right. Moses knew as we do as I, 13:59 I remind myself all the time that God had a purpose 14:02 for his life. We have to believe that or else life 14:05 is just nihilistic and aimless. 14:08 Of course God has a purpose for our life, 14:13 but you know as you look back through 14:14 the history of religious dealings in the middle 14:16 ages for example, you know priest and prelates 14:19 and fanatics of various tribes were convinced 14:23 to that and they persecuted, they harmed other 14:25 people. They restricted the knowledge of faith, 14:28 that's not enough to believe that God has a purpose 14:31 in your life, it's most important that you 14:33 meet God and understand viscerally what he 14:37 is and what he wants for you. And when Moses 14:40 didn't understand that you know, 14:42 he was self-centered enough to even strike against 14:45 those who are harming God's people. 14:48 He killed a man and I don't think that the Bible 14:52 record says he did it selfishly. 14:54 He didn't do it self-centeredly, 14:57 he did it with an honest application of religious 14:59 fervor, but it was wrong as most religious 15:02 persecution is and he fled for his life and spent 15:07 almost an equal amount in the desert as he had 15:10 spent in training in Egypt and here at the end 15:13 of 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 and I am not really sure 15:22 he knew much about that amount till this moment. 15:25 He comes face to face with God the burning fire, 15:33 it troubles me a little bit in many Churches 15:36 and some times even in my own Adventist Churches 15:38 to go there and here people express a relationship 15:42 to God that's overly familiar like he's a hailed 15:45 fellow well met. God wants our good, 15:49 God is our father as Jesus said Abba. 15:52 God is the benevolent father and a protector of 15:57 all those that seek him but he's not to be try 15:59 for worth and Moses had to learn that lesson, 16:03 there as he saw that burning bush and he 16:05 drew close out of curiosity. 16:07 I go again to those verses, in verse 2, it says 16:13 and the Angel of the Lord and we know that's 16:17 capitalized day, that was God, we believed as 16:22 Christians, Seventh-day Adventists that was 16:25 Jesus appearing there to him and appeared to him 16:26 in a flame of fire from the midst to bush. 16:29 He looked and behold the bush with burning 16:31 with fire but the bush was not consumed and 16:33 Moses said I will now turn aside and see this great 16:37 sight why the bush does not burn, 16:39 he still just wanted to figure out the wise 16:42 and way forth of religion. Basically little experiment 16:47 on the Divine or the supernatural and it says 16:50 when the Lord saw the decent, he turned aside 16:52 to look. God called to him from the midst of the 16:54 bush and said to him Moses and he said here 16:58 am I and then God said counter intuitive, 17:02 do not go near to this place, take your sandals off 17:05 your feet for the place where you stand is 17:08 Holy Ground and that was the beginning of Moses 17:13 rehabilitation, that was the beginning of his 17:16 empowerment to go back to Egypt. 17:19 The place that he had served God to the point 17:22 of murder to the place where he realized that he had 17:25 a destiny but he never realized that it was only 17:30 fulfilled in God to place where he was convicted 17:33 that his people were in slavery wrongly but 17:36 he didn't know how God would release them and 17:39 it's amazing there to hear the dialogue then between 17:43 Moses and the Angel of the Lord there in the desert 17:46 this broken man, I believe he was about 80 years 17:49 old and I know when they were 80 I can feel my 17:53 strength ebbing away what did this man you know 17:56 hobbling behind the sheep, it does say later on when 18:00 he died at a 120 that his eyes wasn't dim and you 18:03 know his strength hadn't ebbed, I am not so sure that 18:06 was true at this point. Moses was basically a lost 18:11 man and God said to him I have surely heard 18:17 the cry of my people. In verse 7, I have surely 18:20 seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt 18:22 and I've heard their cry. And when I deal with 18:26 religious liberty issues I pray that those that 18:29 support Liberty Magazine and those that haven't 18:31 taken the chance will remind themselves of that. 18:34 It's not just an abstraction when people had 18:37 denied their religious freedoms, 18:40 it is as real as those slaves who are burdened 18:44 day and night by the lash, by the persecution 18:49 by the you know the killing as we know when 18:52 Moses was born of their first born of their male 18:56 children, these are real things and God hears it 19:01 and if God hears it if it's something that moves 19:04 God why shouldn't we be moved by it. 19:08 I know within the Seventh-day 19:09 Adventist Church we have lots of different department 19:11 and it's easy for someone to think well today 19:13 is the day that you know our religious liberty 19:16 gets up, tomorrow it's may be ministerial 19:18 or something or you know the day after may 19:20 be it's ADRA. So, you know they're all sort 19:24 of just divisions of functionality. 19:28 I can't speak about the other departments but 19:30 I know religious liberty is not just something 19:33 convenient that was settled on, it's 19:35 the very heart and soul of what we are called 19:38 to do in releasing the captive and in Egypt 19:41 is where the captives are and to take the 19:44 figurative analogy, it's all way we are in Egypt 19:52 whether it's in the United States which is you know 19:54 constantly reminding itself that as President Bush 19:58 said you know God's favored country. 19:59 Well, we don't know if God favors but it is nominally 20:03 religious. But other countries believe that God 20:07 is looking their way but there is just too much 20:10 religion and not enough understanding of the God 20:13 of the universe. Amen. 20:17 And God said to him I've heard the oppression, 20:19 I've the heard the cries and He said I want you 20:22 to go down to Egypt. I want you to proclaim 20:27 liberty. I want you to make a difference there 20:29 and like most of us Moses said, 20:32 I can't do it, I can't talk, which is very interesting, 20:34 I am sure he had the debating skills in Egypt. 20:37 But in the desert he probably just heard the wind 20:40 whistling and heard his conscious beating on him 20:42 day and night that he was not good enough 20:44 and he's become convinced after these years 20:47 in the desert that you know he's hardly more than 20:51 a sheep herder, and God said I can use you, 20:55 I can use you, and he says you go down to Egypt 20:58 and of course this is where the hymn came from, 21:02 the Negro Spiritual, go down to Egypt and this is 21:04 verse 18 of chapter 3 say to the King of Egypt, 21:10 The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us: 21:12 and now please, let us go three days' journey 21:17 into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the 21:19 LORD our God. God's met with me, I think last time 21:25 I spoke on 3ABN and in this Church I was connecting 21:30 religious liberty to evangelism and 21:33 I am more and more convinced that evangelism 21:36 is not complicated, it's exactly what God said to 21:40 Moses to say. Tell this person tell the Pharaoh 21:46 that I have met with God and if I've met with God 21:50 I am changed you see that and on no one's 21:53 authority but God, it doesn't matter what I say 21:56 but I am now speaking for God and I say let 21:59 my people go. And God says you're telling this and he 22:05 says but I am sure he will not let you know, 22:07 very interesting description from God he says 22:11 I am sure he will not let you go. No not even by 22:14 a mighty hand remember later in the, 22:17 in the New Testament Exodus and in the Old Testament, 22:20 in Exodus, Moses had to hold this hand up, 22:24 but he needed other people to hold it for him, 22:27 he was not a mighty man in that sense, no, Pharaoh 22:30 will not let them go, not even by a mighty hand 22:33 which you don't have. But God says so I will 22:37 stretch out my hand, my hand and strike Egypt 22:43 with all my wonders which I will do in its midst 22:45 and after that he will let you go and there was 22:49 another thing that impressed me. 22:53 You know Paul said that the Greeks seeking signs 22:56 I think that's was some of the text there, 22:59 there's a lot of people that were in Paul's age 23:02 in the New Testament and many more in our day. 23:06 They want a sign, they want some sort of miracle 23:10 healing, they want some sort of burning bush for them. 23:16 They want some alternation of wet and dry fleeces 23:19 to prove to them that God is in this thing. 23:23 When I forget that when there is a thus saith 23:25 the Lord in God's Holy word that should be enough 23:28 for them and God said to Moses, he says, 23:31 I am with you, I will do this I will make you 23:34 the liberator you can bring religious freedom 23:37 to these oppressed people. And he says then 23:39 the proof of it is this. And it's found in verse 12, of 23:45 chapter 3, it's interesting, he says I will certainly 23:48 be with you and this shall be a sign to you that 23:52 I have sent you when you have brought the 23:55 people out of Egypt. You shall serve God on this 23:59 mountain, now that's an interesting sign, 24:04 because it's a sign that's only valid after the fact 24:07 and we have to have that faith, as Adrian Westney 24:11 I know did in talking to him. But this was not a 24:14 futile endeavor, that beating against the barricades 24:18 of those who would denied religious freedom 24:24 was not futile, because God was in this thing 24:27 and no matter how many millions of magazines 24:30 we might send out no matter how many times we meet 24:33 with stony-faced officials, which is not always the 24:36 case I must say, no matter how many times our 24:39 message of liberation seems to be fall on deaf ears. 24:42 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. 24:51 And one day in God's Holy mountain as that 24:54 chapter in Revelation I read to about the deeds 24:57 of the dead following them. Well, they will be there 25:00 raised again and then God's said we will see 25:03 the fruit of this labor. We will see that a 25:05 great multitude has come out of Egypt, has seen 25:09 a religious liberty issue, has seen the fact 25:11 that it's not just the right to you know to work 25:15 or what not, work on certain days of the week. 25:18 We have seen that it's an obligation to honor God. 25:21 The God of the Burning Bush, the God of the 25:24 liberalization from all that this world represents. 25:32 I have been told now and then that I should be 25:33 careful what I say about the United States 25:35 because I grew up in Australia but it's nothing 25:37 against the United States, but I must say it 25:40 troubles me. Those that live in the United States 25:43 say always you know we have freedom, 25:45 you know like it's a given. We've got to be careful 25:49 that we're proud in our apparent freedom, 25:51 there is only one freedom and that is absolute 25:55 with God as we understand him and as we obey him. 26:00 And I really believe that the ultimate test is coming 26:04 to many of us who live under what we think are 26:06 benign systems that in actuality maybe the most 26:09 tenacious deniers the faith the world has seen 26:13 as I've said Egypt, religious, 200 Gods, 26:17 they have space for another God. 26:21 There's no real evidence that Pharaoh rejected God 26:24 out of hand, he says you know who is he that 26:25 I need to obey him but he wasn't at all condemn 26:30 the tree of their, recognizing their God. 26:33 He says you can worship him, where the conflict 26:37 came and as you study that great battle there 26:41 in Exodus, the conflict came between the array 26:44 of Egyptian Gods and the one God and the pledge 26:48 were not by chance, they were striking at every 26:51 principle of Egyptian belief and in our world today, 26:57 in Western Democracies but more particularly 27:00 Western capitalistic systems. 27:02 The very system itself is opposed to everything 27:05 that God holds high and Holy. Where greed is sanctified, 27:11 where if, your care for your fellow man is swept 27:14 away and is made public policy, we need to recognize 27:19 these things not to be opposed to this system, 27:22 as in Egypt were they made those bricks to the 27:25 last minute. We have to do whatever necessary 27:30 as citizens of whatever land but we should 27:33 never think that whether its capitalist, 27:36 communist or whatever that any of these are 27:38 inherently Holy, there's no burning bush in 27:41 Washington, there's no burning bush in any 27:44 other place. The burning bush is in your heart 27:47 as you answer to the great I am who says the 27:51 proof of you following me is that we will meet 27:53 again on my Holy mountain and we really need 28:00 to recognize as Moses was a little slow to come 28:03 out that if God is in this thing nothing can stop 28:06 it and that while I think and I'm speaking as Moses, 28:09 I think that I have escaped that pernicious system, 28:12 I must go back to it and proclaim liberty, 28:16 proclaim liberty. In Isaiah chapter 60, 28:23 verse 2 it says well behold and I like this text 28:26 because when I reexamine my life and I was gonna 28:31 say late teens but it might even been 28:33 a bit later than that as I reexamine my life 28:37 and was tilting at the edge, whether I should just 28:42 leave religion alone or come into it all the way, 28:45 I listened to the Messiah, Handel's Messiah, 28:48 which of course is good music. If you like baroque 28:51 music as I do. But the power of that, 28:54 that piece is in that recitation of Biblical text 28:58 brought together in a way to speak of the coming 29:00 Messiah and he quotes from Isaiah chapter 29:03 60 verse 2 it says, For, behold, the darkness shall 29:07 cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: 29:12 but the Lord shall arise upon thee, 29:14 and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 29:19 We've got to recognized that God's ready to move 29:21 powerfully and you know as was said in the introduction 29:25 I can give you lots of illustration through world 29:28 of religious liberty denied, it's gonna get worse. 29:34 But something you need to understand about religious 29:36 liberty it's seldom as blatant as I saw 29:40 in Ambon, Indonesia and by the way in a few weeks 29:46 I am planning a trip with Dr. John Graz we're going 29:48 down to East Timor to see what's happening there, 29:52 there's a direct religious conflict between 29:56 Christian and Muslims down in that place but 29:58 as we went to Ambon it was incredible to see 30:01 the devastation, not quite as bad as is the 30:03 earthquake produced in Haiti but pretty close, 30:07 25-30 percent of everything that we ever came 30:11 upon was burned and abundant in religious 30:13 warfare between Christian and Muslims. 30:17 An amazing scene, but violent as that was, 30:21 that's really not the way religious liberty is mostly 30:25 fought out in its negative. Religious liberty 30:29 is the far more subtle thing, where the social 30:32 pressures mean that you feel that you dare not dare 30:35 move out and take the spiritual sand. Religious 30:38 liberty is restricted where there are an 30:41 array of little nip petty laws that may make it 30:44 impossible or hard for you to buy a Church 30:47 or to meet in a Church, may make it very hard 30:50 for you to organize, that's the most efficient 30:55 level that the Pharaohs of the world have 30:58 found to strike against another belief system, 31:00 take away the strong and religious liberty is not 31:07 always as clear cut as people imagine, 31:11 but it's importance is always singular. 31:16 It's subtle, many times in countries they'll say oh 31:19 we have religious freedom, but the majority of 31:21 our people are of such and such believes so it's 31:24 not important, what that means is that if you 31:26 come into that country or if you are someone 31:29 they moved to think differently, 31:30 every structure of society will be against 31:33 you and we need to pray that God's mighty 31:39 arm can intervene there because there's little 31:41 that we can do to stop that. 31:45 We certainly don't have the means and even 31:47 if all of 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 prejudice 31:57 and tradition but as was said at the beginning 32:02 of the printing Revelation, 32:04 you know the pen is mightier than the sword, 32:06 but we mighty be moving into the computer 32:08 area where it's bits and bytes that we're 32:12 dealing with. The reality is that ideas are far 32:16 more powerful than ads or mechanical things 32:21 that we can do and ideas of what God deals 32:24 with because who could have such an idea as God, 32:28 to take a guy in the desert, to take someone 32:33 in the desert who to all intents and proposes who 32:37 know well he may have appeared to his wife 32:39 as a pretty great leader when he first appeared, 32:44 and she wanted to marry him but you know after 32:46 40 years I know my wife doesn't think as much as me. 32:49 I'm a little bit more decrypt and so and he 32:50 didn't have great prospects, but it was only 32:55 because God was willingly to work with him. 32:58 There's an aspect to the story that I really 33:00 want to bring out and it may not get strong 33:04 support for religious liberty but if you understand 33:06 it I'll be satisfied. When I was a young person 33:12 there was a great figure in the Seventh Adventist 33:14 Church H.M.S. Richards senior and I many times 33:19 listened to his program and at the end he always 33:22 finished it by saying have faith in God dear friend, 33:24 have faith in God. And that's seen me through 33:27 some bad moments remembering not his idea but 33:32 his words that was thoroughly Biblical, 33:34 but he preached a sermon once that impressed 33:38 me and I've actually got a book of sermons where 33:40 it's printed and it was titled with the curious 33:43 title, The Man God Tried to Kill. 33:49 Who did God try to kill? But it's found in the same 33:53 sequence in verse 19 of chapter 4 is after Moses 33:58 had listen to God at the burning bush and for 34:00 the first time in 40 years had his heard stirred 34:03 that something might happen through him that 34:06 God was going to enable, that he was indeed 34:09 called to go back proclaim liberty. 34:11 First call of Jesus remembers He began His 34:13 ministry, it's not a little secondary part of what 34:16 God's on about, it's central and Moses told 34:21 his father-in-law, I must go back, 34:23 I am sure his father-in-law thought he was crazy 34:25 because he knew he fled for his life, 34:27 even though the Angel of the Lord said those 34:30 who seek your death are dead but here to go 34:32 back to the center of you know belly of the beast, 34:37 no but he did it, he took his wife and his son 34:42 and he headed off and it says in verse 19, 34:47 I'm sorry verse 24, it's says as it and it came 34:50 to pass on the way, on the way back to Egypt 34:53 at the encampment, that the Lord met him 34:56 and sought to kill him, very interesting, 35:03 what did he do? He immediately rose up and 35:06 circumcised his son, started a little bit of family feud, 35:10 his wife Zipporah said you've become a man 35:14 of blood to me and the Lord spared him and he 35:17 continued on his way, I am not really sure 35:21 that the mechanics of that could be worked out 35:24 or should be worked out in our day but the principle 35:25 is the same. We are called to a high and Holy 35:29 business, we are called to proclaim liberty and 35:33 God holds us the messenger of such a message 35:36 to a very high standard and God sought to kill 35:42 Moses not because he was against Moses but Moses 35:46 himself understood it, he was out of harmony 35:48 with God, because his first inclination was to bring 35:53 himself in line with God's requirement and there's 35:56 nothing magical about it as Paul pointed out, 35:59 but it was a sign that was given then 36:01 and he was not willing to mark himself and his family 36:04 with dedication to God, not till that moment 36:08 and then he realized that it was important to God 36:10 had changed him and there's text very few 36:13 people seem to have noticed 36:15 as Moses and Aaron then appeared before 36:18 Pharaoh and repeated the Lord words and they 36:20 said you know let us go into the wilderness 36:22 we want these, these little disingenuous I guess, 36:26 but three days journey I've studied on that 36:29 and 3 days was as long as you could last in the 36:31 desert and so Pharaoh I think understood it 36:34 from the outset, they go three days they're 36:36 beyond recall. They are gone into the desolation, 36:42 but they said to Pharaoh, we want to go this 36:46 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 says 36:55 who is the Lord that I should obey him and 36:57 they said to Pharaoh, the God of the Hebrews 36:59 has met with us. This is what God told him 37:02 to say and then they continued, 37:04 please let us go three days journey into 37:07 the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God. 37:10 Lest He fall upon us with pestilence, 37:13 or with the sword. God is not to be trifled with 37:19 and when God says I have heard their cry, 37:23 I have heard what the Pew forum is saying 37:26 that 70 percent of the world is suffering under 37:29 a restriction of civil and religious liberties, 37:31 something has to be done about it and it's time 37:35 now to get your act together to be serious 37:38 about it not just you know something that's listed 37:41 on department or publications or good works 37:44 that you do, this is not, you know like how many 37:46 items of literature given out this weeks 37:48 and so on, that's not gonna cut it with God. Amen. 37:52 We have to show that we are serious, that 37:54 our life is in accordance with this and that 37:58 we will go even to a Pharaoh who he says 38:00 I don't know your God and say we must go because 38:05 our own life is on the line and by extension if you 38:08 deny God you're at risk, but that's a message 38:11 that is not told enough today, 38:14 it doesn't cast God as some vindictive evil 38:17 destructive being, not at all. It shows God 38:20 as we would expect him to be, someone intimately 38:23 concerned with human events, determined 38:26 to make it happen, determined to free the 38:28 captives, determined for us to proclaim religious 38:31 liberty, has to be, has to be serious business. 38:36 I don't know if I've shared it before on 3ABN 38:40 but every time I see it and I read it again last 38:43 night it impresses me that the Apostle Paul, 38:47 who admittedly he was always a hard case, 38:49 you know he's a perfect persecutor and then became 38:53 a perfect promoter of the truth, but 38:57 there in his ministry as he was traveling around 39:00 the world attempting to spread the wonderful 39:04 news that God was not just set to save the 39:08 promised people, but would save anybody, 39:10 the gentiles. There he came to Caesarea and he 39:15 met in the home as it says of Phillip the Evangelist 39:19 and he had four daughters who prophesied, 39:23 which is interesting, you know we should expect 39:25 more so much prophecies but we should expect 39:28 as we're dedicated to God, that God will 39:30 communicate to us more directly then we 39:32 think he does. And a Prophet named Agabus 39:37 came down from Judah, he'd been told something 39:39 from God, given a more than intimation and he took 39:44 Paul's belt bound his own hands and feet and 39:47 he says thus says the Holy Spirit so shall the 39:51 Jews of Jerusalem bound the man who owns 39:53 this belt and deliver him into the hands of the 39:55 Gentiles. What would you do? I don't know what 40:00 I would do, I mean I know what I should do 40:03 and that's what I am preaching about, 40:04 but that's the moment of truth who've dedicated 40:07 your life. You've decided that you will proclaim God. 40:11 You will go out and say you know God has free us all. 40:14 God has freed us from sin, he's freed us 40:16 for the more abundant life. That's all sounds good 40:21 but when the crunch comes and you know for sure 40:24 in this case God was prophesying to Paul 40:27 if he went back to Jerusalem would be bound 40:29 and imprisoned. What do you do? As Moses, 40:37 determined to go back after he'd been impressed 40:39 at the burning bush. Paul said, 40:42 you know they started the weeping and why everyday, 40:44 he says, what do you mean by weeping 40:46 and breaking my heart for I'm ready not only 40:49 to be bound but also to die at Jerusalem 40:54 for the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. 40:57 We often say in our religious liberty 40:59 work that we believe in religious freedom 41:03 and we will defend, we'll defend to the death 41:06 you're right to be wrong. You're right to believe 41:10 something that I might found of obnoxious, 41:14 that's very hard for people of faith to understand 41:17 that, it's extremely hard in the United States 41:19 at the moment and we just passed a period 41:22 where the religious right for want of a better 41:24 term have been empowered and you know they 41:26 were on their way to structuring the 41:29 United States as the happy haven for such 41:31 a belief system. That's not religious freedom, 41:35 that religious exclusivity. We have to have the idea 41:39 which God exemplified from Eden and right up 41:43 to that moment where he says let him who is 41:45 Holy be Holy still and he who is not forever not. 41:50 We have to allow people the right as sovereign 41:54 beings created by God to choose him or reject him. 41:58 If they reject him, there are very bad consequences, 42:02 but they are not consequences that 42:04 we visit upon anybody, not consequences that 42:07 we visit. I made a resolution shortly after 42:10 9/11 that I would always share something 42:12 from a wonderful collection of quotes that 42:15 the Seventh-day Adventist Church prepared, 42:17 last day events and on page 127 of this collection 42:24 and it was put together at that time of the Gulf, 42:26 the first Gulf war. So I know that the custodians 42:29 or the writings of Ellen G. White who I believe 42:32 was used mightily of God. I know that those 42:35 custodians were impressed that we were in 42:37 dangerous end times and writing in 1889 at a time 42:44 when the Seventh-day Adventist Church 42:45 and the Liberty precursor the Sentinel were 42:48 battling against a National Sunday Law in the 42:51 United States. I don't know how many of you 42:55 know about what's predicted, Revelation 42:57 13's fairly specific about a power that is easily 43:01 identified with the United States as compelling a 43:04 certain religious observances and I don't know how 43:06 many of you know that in the 1880's there was a 43:09 more than passing push for a National Sunday Law, 43:13 not a blue law but a law that mandated worship 43:16 on Sunday, a wrong day, but even if it was 43:20 the right day we would have opposed it, 43:22 you don't mandate by civil law a day 43:25 of worship. Amen. 43:27 And Ellen White at that time wrote this, 43:29 she says we're not doing the will of God if we sit 43:33 in quietude, doing nothing to preserve the liberty 43:38 of conscience. Fervent, effectual prayer should 43:42 be ascending to heaven that this calamity may be 43:45 deferred until we can accomplish the work 43:48 which has so long been neglected. 43:51 Let there be most earnest prayer, 43:54 and then let us work in harmony with our prayers. 43:57 Now, its easy to pray I mean it's hard to pray properly 44:01 but it is easy to pray, but it's very hard to pray 44:03 correctly and than to act on our prayers. 44:06 Then the what are the quotes in 1889 also, 44:09 it was printing in the Review and Herald extra 44:11 in December 24 that year, and Ellen White said 44:15 there are many who are at ease as it were, 44:19 who are is it were asleep. I mean I don't really 44:22 know how you could sleep in these days but 44:24 you could be asleep to the truth. 44:27 These are shocking times, but many people are 44:30 oblivious to the real situation and she says 44:33 there are many who are at ease, 44:34 who are as it were asleep, they say if prophecy has 44:39 foretold the enforcement of Sunday observance, 44:43 the law will surely be enacted; and having come 44:47 to this conclusion they sit down in calm expectation 44:50 of the event, comforting themselves with the thought 44:54 that God will protect his people in the day 44:57 of trouble. But God will not save us if we make 45:02 no effort to do the work he has committed 45:05 to our charge. That's really serious business, 45:08 she says as faithful watchmen you should see 45:12 the sword coming and give the warning that men 45:15 and women may not pursue a course through 45:16 ignorance that they avoid if they knew the truth. 45:21 I didn't mean to connect to them but that 45:23 just puts me to mind you know the sword coming. 45:26 Right now you know we, the United States 45:29 as a nation you know we projected the sword 45:34 to other countries and you can argue as people 45:35 do whether that's correct public policy or not. 45:38 But the sword is not to be trifled with and you know 45:41 there's a curious symbol that's just emerged 45:42 in the last few days, did you know of 300,000 45:45 gun sights that are sitting atop the weapons 45:48 of the soldiers in the United States, 45:51 300,000 of them have Bible text printed into 45:54 the metal. If that isn't the most profane application 46:00 of faith for our day I don't know what could qualify 46:04 and guns with Bible texts on them pointed against 46:08 secular or other religious enemies of the state can 46:12 just as easily be turned against those of us 46:15 who have a differing view of what those texts say. 46:21 Religious freedom needs to be proclaimed not 46:24 as a in a political context but any political context. 46:29 Amen. Egypt will always be with us. 46:33 Egypt will always be polytheistic even if it 46:37 calls itself Christian, Muslim or whatever, 46:40 because Egypt is the potential and the willingness 46:43 of man to just basically reach out willy-nilly and 46:48 embrace all views of religion including self worship 46:53 and it takes a Moses, it takes a Paul and it takes 46:58 you and I as we're committed to God and emptied 47:01 of self. It takes often a vision metaphorical for most 47:06 realistic and actual for some of a burning bush 47:11 and to know that a lot is at stake here that we might 47:16 be freed and that's a hard thing to do. 47:20 You know back to that, that image of D.H. Lawrence ship 47:25 of death and die the death, he says the long and 47:28 painful death that was between the old self 47:31 and the new. He got it right there you know 47:33 that battle we have to win between the old 47:36 self and the new. But the new man as CS Lewis 47:39 it was nearly always wrong but had a right in 47:41 mere Christianity, the new man needs to get with 47:45 the old God and proclaim liberty, liberty for all. 47:50 Amen. This is a wonderful challenge 47:54 I believe that we should accept, it's thoroughly 47:56 Biblical, the analogy is not just for a nice sermon 48:00 illustration it's before us and you know I grew 48:02 up hearing, reading any number of sermons 48:05 telling us not to go back to Egypt, you know not 48:08 to go back to Babylon. Well, on that level no 48:11 we're not to become Egypt, we're not to become 48:12 Babylon. But if we don't have a burden 48:16 to go back to Egypt. If we don't see that in Egypt 48:20 there is a principle in the message of liberty 48:23 to be to proclaimed then we are indeed someone 48:27 who has never lifted because you can take Egypt 48:30 into the desert just as easily as you can, 48:33 you can tell it's, it's greenery by the water side 48:36 there are on Nile. Egypt is a state of mind and we 48:41 need to have the state of mind of God to be 48:44 proclaiming liberty throughout the land. 48:47 And obviously I stand before you as someone 48:50 who edits Liberty Magazine, it's not the only 48:52 way to proclaim liberty, I'd be foolish to say that, 48:57 but we have been given many mechanisms in 48:59 the modern world that will facilitate the proclamation. 49:03 You know it started with someone with a capital 49:06 O I guess, someone standing on the mountain 49:10 of blessing, I don't know how those thousands 49:12 of people heard Jesus voice, no more than 49:15 I know, 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 can have a megaphone you can go 49:25 to a you know a game, a football game now 49:28 and that thing reverberates admittedly not very 49:31 clearly but people can hear greatly. 49:33 The radio broadcasted across, 49:35 I remember reading years ago about a philosopher, 49:42 Thoreau, wrote in his book Walden Pond against 49:46 the radio giving use of England, he says what 49:48 is the great flapping area of the United States 49:50 need to hear what happens in Europe. 49:52 The reality is communication is a 49:54 gift that God has given to our modern world 49:58 and we can broadcast on the radio, 50:00 we can broadcast through television and 50:02 simultaneously contact millions of people we're 50:06 not just standing before Pharaoh and his few minions 50:10 and his magicians we are standing in some ways 50:14 not just figuratively but literally before the world 50:17 and we can proclaim liberty. The liberty that 50:21 God would have us proclaim, let's bow our heads 50:25 in a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we thank you that 50:27 we are your agents to proclaim freedom, 50:29 we thank you that, that while Egypt can be 50:33 pretty well pervasive and a delusional reality that 50:38 with your word and your instruction and a vision 50:41 of your Holy Burning Fire that we can be 50:44 empowered to take on anything, 50:45 proclaim liberty because we have liberty. 50:48 Thank you for this privilege, 50:50 for Jesus sake. Amen. In the few minutes that 50:53 are left I just want to remind you that today 50:56 is Religious Liberty Sabbath, but by no means 50:59 is it a one short thing even within the 51:01 Seventh-day Adventist Church, 51:02 our period of time to promote liberty 51:05 and to fund what we're doing for another year 51:08 goes at least in the Churches till the end 51:10 of April and not every Church can do it on the 51:14 one day, but we hope that every Church 51:16 does it beyond the Seventh-day Adventist 51:19 Church which is an enabler of Liberty Magazine 51:21 because it's not just your magazine, 51:22 only about 10 to 15 thousands Seventh-day 51:25 Adventists get copies of liberty but those that 51:29 are watching we hoped that you are moved to send 51:32 some means to facilitate a cry of religious 51:36 freedom because it doesn't matter whether 51:39 you're a Seventh-day Adventist or a Roman 51:41 Catholic or a Buddhist whatever, 51:42 I don't necessarily believe that all those belief 51:45 systems are correct but I believe that my God 51:48 would have you seek him and however means 51:53 you want and if you are moved toward God 51:55 I believe you will respond but in the mean time 51:58 you have to have the ability and the freedom 52:01 to seek God and I'm not gonna deny that 52:03 and Liberty Magazine is holding out a broad sway 52:07 for freedom for all who will answer and please 52:10 give your means toward that, beyond that I will 52:13 be regresses, regressive if I didn't remind 52:18 those that watch this channel regularly that 52:22 we have the Liberty Insider that appears on 3ABN 52:25 regular. We will bring examples of restricted 52:29 religious liberty and of course good examples 52:32 of freedom allowed around the world, 52:34 because Liberty is on the march, 52:36 it's not just in around that they march and 52:39 demonstrate for a new government, I believe 52:40 there is a spiritual stirring in the world 52:44 and that people are as it says there is a God 52:48 shaped void that people are more and more recognizing 52:50 and as the stresses, politics of disasters 52:56 and whatever you name it of the modern world 52:59 as they impinge upon people's very souls, 53:03 they recognize that they must have God. 53:06 And not just God but that they must exercise 53:10 that belief in God and at Liberty Magazine we 53:13 call that religious liberty, it's something vital, 53:17 it's something eternal, something God given 53:20 and it's something that we will fight and die for. |
Revised 2014-12-17