Welcome to Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
designed to bring you
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news, views, discussion
and up-to-date information
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on religious liberty
issues around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
Editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest on the
program is Grace Mackintosh,
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Director of Public
Affairs and Religious Liberty
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for the Seventh-day
Adventist Church in Canada.
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That's pretty
long title. Thank you.
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An implicit in
that title as we--
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Seventh Day Adventist--
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I'm one too, we've been told
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it's the name of that
church Seventh-day Adventist.
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We expect the
soon return of Christ
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for biblical and
prophetic reasons
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one and the same.
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And the other part is we
worship God on the seventh day
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as the Bible in the
Ten Commandments says.
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But that's an
item of some contention
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in the modern world, isn't it,
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in the modern Christian world?
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As to which day in Sabbath
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or if it's
important to have a day--
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The word Sabbath
people are comfortable with,
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not everyone very familiar
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but all-- all churches,
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all theologians
understand that Sabbath
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but it means so
many different things.
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Sabbath has been
turned into Sunday.
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When many Protestants speak
of Sabbath they mean Sunday,
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but they use the same
word, don't they? Yes.
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So seventh day Sabbath
needs to be spelled out.
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I agree.
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I remember in law school I
had a friend who said to me
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it doesn't matter
what day you keep,
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it could be Wednesday.
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As long as you're
keeping it to Lord,
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He knows and He
accepts the worship
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that you're giving Him.
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I wonder if his wife certainly
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or even his children
would be so impressed,
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if he kept or
remember their birthday
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a month later rather in the day.
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So that's sort of the key, I
don't think it matter at all,
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unless if God
Himself had said another day
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He could've said Wednesday,
it's somewhat arbitrary,
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God rested on that Sabbath day,
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the seventh day and hallowed it.
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It was God doing
it. He made it memorial.
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Yes, He did it on that day.
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If He rested and
made the memorial
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on the next day, fine.
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And it's been said that.
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The point is
that God hallowed it
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not that it's any
particular day of the week.
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And it's been said that
to designate another days
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to make yourself a dummy God,
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you know, you're
taking that authority
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to designate another day.
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That's been said by some people,
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what I remember and I shared it
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on this program before
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and I think it's
the 1996 document
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from Pope John Paul II,
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Dominos Day
about the Lord's day.
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He gives a long exposition
there on the day of worship
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and the early
part of it, he's quite,
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I was gonna use the word honest
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which is wrong because
to imply dishonesty there
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but he is very
articulate in acknowledging
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the seventh day was
the Sabbath in the Bible
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in old times as its presented
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and he quotes those text,
accepts it and discusses it.
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But then there
is a pivotal moment
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where he says and this
is a very slight paraphrase
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because I don't
have in front of me
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but he said while
the early Christians
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had no direct
command from their Lord,
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they felt they had the
authority to change the day.
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He is very correct on that. Yes.
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But it was done
on a human authority
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with certain assumptions
that I think were wrong
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and the one
assumption is the risen Christ,
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the new
dispensation, they wanted,
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they want of the rising
instead of the creation.
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But it was their assumption
it was no command from God,
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no logic from God,
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no hint from the Old Testament,
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nor that the
risen Christ Himself
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that the day
should be changed. No.
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So it was a human idea.
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It was and I spend
some time just mediating
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or thinking on this in
contrasting of the two days
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and this Sabbath was set
up as a memorial of creation
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and creation is and indicia
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or one of the things
you would expect a God,
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you know, from God
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and so you have in
this memorial of creation
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the recognition of
that God is a creator
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and He's our creator.
That's the intention, yes.
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And you can't get away
from His divinity, right.
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And in the New Testament,
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in the New Testament Paul says,
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you know, God the Father
and Jesus created the universe,
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everything was
created through Him,
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the Father created everything
through Jesus, so you can't--
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Sabbath is a memorial of
creation not just a holy day.
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Exactly and you can't get away
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from the divinity of Christ.
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When you keep the seventh day
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but if you contrast
that with the Sunday
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which is a memorial
of the resurrection,
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well, as we were talking
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before there were
many resurrections,
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that Moses was resurrected,
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there were people resurrected
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when Jesus was resurrected.
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If you're just
looking at Sunday,
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you do not necessarily
remember Christ as being divine.
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Plus there is an
interesting parallel
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in another program
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that you and I were discussing
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secular leadings
toward Sunday law,
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logic of rest
through social justice
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and so on public good. Yes.
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And the judges in
Canada are ended in the U.S.
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acknowledge that a
parallels for religious concern
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but it's not done for
religious reason. Yes.
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And we sort of see
through it immediately.
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The same thing has
happened on the shift
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from Saturday to Sunday
from the very beginning,
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the venerable day of
the sun. What was that?
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That was the,
Pagan Day of Mithraism
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and all the rest,
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where, where
pre Christian pagans
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were literally
worshiping the sun,
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the resurrection,
the sun coming up,
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the great life giving power,
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they're worshiping as Paul says
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the elemental
powers of the universe,
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not a God, not a entity
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but this, there were in
over of this golden globe
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that they
believe itself was a God
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and for Christians to say,
well, it doesn't really matter.
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They've just as the secularist
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and we see through it
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are picking on the
baggage of a Christian day.
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It doesn't matter
because for this a secular--
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Not all Christians
but the Christian church
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that we've been
through the middle ages
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had latched on to
a purely pagan day
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calling it the sacred Sabbath.
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So it's a doubly problematic.
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It doesn't
fulfill the real reason
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of the day God designated
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but it's all so
extenuating a pagan concept,
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the predated
Christianity, why do that?
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And in no way does it
point to Jesus' divinity. No.
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So you can remember the day,
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you can think of
the historical routes
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or you can think of
Christ's resurrection
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but He couldn't
just been a prophet
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having been
resurrected it doesn't--
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doesn't point to His divinity
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and Adventist have a
special understanding
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of the conflict of the ages.
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You know the war
between Christ and Satan.
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I do think in the
modern Christian world.
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I think
Seventh-day Adventist yes,
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have inherited one of
the clearest visions of it.
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I like to think that existed
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even a few hundred years
ago in protestant thinking
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and you know, I even told you
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and others on other occasions
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that Milton's Paradise Lost,
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really brings out
the most war in heaven
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on the great controversy.
The great controversy.
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It's not unique to Adventist
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but we uniquely are
carrying on that concept
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and it's in the Bible, starts,
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you know, with
the creation of man
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and the temptation
from the serpent Lucifer,
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there is a conflict
and it needs to be resolved
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correctly for the
peace of the universe
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and for the
integrity of the Godhead.
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And as we move into
what we see our end times
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in the
fulfillment of revolution.
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I look for themes
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things that
undermine the authority of God
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and undermine the
divinity of Christ
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and as I see them converging
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and coming together,
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I more than ever appreciate
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the understanding of
the great controversy
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and this war between
Satan and Christ. Absolutely.
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And we need to be watching
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and speaking
against these things
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and call people's
attention and lift up Christ.
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All right, when
you were talking about
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that something occurred to me,
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I connect
disparate things in my mind,
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that's the way my mind works,
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but I like classical musical
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what passes forward nowadays
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and there's
contemporary American composer
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name Philip Glass,
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and he's done some
leading edge soundtracks
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for films that have no dialogue
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that just images of the
modern world flipping by.
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The first one was
called Koyaanisqatsi.
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And that was
from Hopi Indian word
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about life out of balance
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and it showed
modernity just rushing toward
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the precipice
basically, very powerful.
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But one of the
latest ones that he did.
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And I wish I could
remember the Indian word,
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but it was a word
not but quite this,
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but something like
that and its meaning was
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state of perpetual war.
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And that used modern images
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lot of them from television
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to underline it
so visually obvious
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that 21st century life
all the technological progress
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and the debates in society,
the wars, the riots in there.
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We've become like Satan himself
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restless, restless and unsettled
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and divisive and contentious
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and this is literally
what humanity has inherited
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by departing from God,
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there is no question
and in the middle of that,
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Sabbath rest a time
not just to stop activity
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which the
secular world wants to do
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with the family day of rest
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but stop and spiritually rest
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to get out of
your mind all of the--
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the patterns of human behavior,
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which is at odds
with free spirituality.
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That's a very profound thought.
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And the idea that you
can legislate morality,
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that's religious morality,
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we obviously legislate morality
00:11:01.67\00:11:03.47
in how we treat each
other, it is civil morality.
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This is profound
but again you know,
00:11:06.00\00:11:08.13
that's that classic
moment in the New Testament
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where Jesus walks toward
His followers in the storm
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you know, the Bible
also says the rest--
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the wicked are like restless sea
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and the storms
makes the disciple
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so afraid that he stand--
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Jesus stands up and
He says peace be still.
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On the word He could count it,
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but legislators
can't do that. No.
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They can't mandate
peace. They can't mandate rest.
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Rest is not
cessation of activity,
00:11:37.72\00:11:39.85
rest we all know that.
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You know, when I'm
over worked in that,
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I can I lie down and
my mind is going like this
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and my body is
pumping and I can wake up
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more tired than I went to sleep.
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True rest, it comes
from spiritual state of mind,
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the change. Absolutely.
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And the Sabbath again is
designed to accomplish that.
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And legislating
doesn't create new citizens.
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It creates a
class of hypocrites.
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If you're dealing
with morality. Yes.
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Yeah, because I don't believe
00:12:07.93\00:12:11.09
civil governance
is designed for that
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or at least just not good for it
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and it doesn't need that. No.
00:12:15.21\00:12:17.66
Civil legislation,
00:12:17.69\00:12:19.68
the compliances
all that it needs
00:12:19.71\00:12:21.67
because it's dealing
with moving the pieces around
00:12:21.70\00:12:25.62
to enable the
structure of human interaction
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in daily dynamic, right?
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Am I right, you're the lawyer?
00:12:32.61\00:12:34.71
I don't know what,
00:12:34.74\00:12:36.00
what philosophy they take always
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but it has to be
some of that they surely,
00:12:37.31\00:12:39.37
lawyers are not told
00:12:39.40\00:12:40.43
what you can morally
change society through laws.
00:12:40.46\00:12:44.31
That's not the
goal, I mean it might be
00:12:44.34\00:12:45.85
the byproduct on odd occasions
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but it's not
what its concern with.
00:12:47.42\00:12:48.74
Linc, they think
do ask the question
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which comes first
the chicken or the egg.
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I think they do
ask that question
00:12:52.10\00:12:54.14
but the authority of governor
00:12:54.17\00:12:55.67
with respect to
legislating morality
00:12:55.70\00:12:57.92
is civil morality.
00:12:57.95\00:13:00.10
If you lend me money
00:13:00.13\00:13:02.40
the state makes me pay it back.
00:13:02.43\00:13:04.27
How I treat you
00:13:04.30\00:13:05.91
but it doesn't
have anything to do
00:13:05.94\00:13:07.39
with my obligations to God.
00:13:07.42\00:13:09.70
And normally at
least till post 9/11
00:13:09.73\00:13:12.12
government is not
much concerned about
00:13:12.15\00:13:14.46
what you're thinking
when you do that act.
00:13:14.49\00:13:16.89
If you obey the law
that's what they want,
00:13:16.92\00:13:20.30
whether in your
mind you're thinking,
00:13:20.33\00:13:21.70
you know, it's
crazy law or whatever,
00:13:21.73\00:13:23.10
I wish I didn't have to do it,
00:13:23.13\00:13:25.10
no, if it doesn't get.
00:13:25.13\00:13:26.80
The closest I
can think of it is--
00:13:26.83\00:13:28.50
is in court maybe you
get for contempt of court
00:13:28.53\00:13:31.57
if you speak
badly to the judge. Yes.
00:13:31.60\00:13:34.68
But normally law as it
concern with wrote compliance.
00:13:34.71\00:13:41.37
Well, this is probably a
good time to take a break
00:13:41.40\00:13:46.27
interesting discussion that
we'll get more particular on
00:13:46.30\00:13:48.57
when we talk about the Sabbath,
00:13:48.60\00:13:50.36
a day of divine rest.
00:13:50.39\00:13:51.58
Stay with us, we
will be back shortly.
00:13:51.61\00:13:53.51