Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break
with guest Orlan Johnson,
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we were riffing on about
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some of the problems
initially with Islam,
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but it's really a greater
problem with Christianity,
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not so much that the
Christians are radical
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or extreme or
revolutionary, the reverse.
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Too many
Christians are milk toast,
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quiet or even worse than
that, perhaps going to church
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and then living totally
different during the week.
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Yeah, I think to me
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one of the most important things
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that we can do is
really just understand,
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you can't hide
your Christianity.
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I think you have
to be upfront about it
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because if people know that
you are supposedly a Christian
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and you don't act that way
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or you are supposedly
Seventh-day Adventist,
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you don't act that way.
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Then what it does in my opinion,
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it ends up
confusing them to understand
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what your real principles are,
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I mean there's nothing worse
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than living an
unprincipled life,
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whether you go in
one direction or another.
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You know, and I think that's
why the Bible talks about,
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you know, lukewarm is
about as bad as it gets.
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The important things that we do
in the North American Division,
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mostly at the union level
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but it often comes up
to the General Conference
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or NAD level is
defending Seventh-day Adventists
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in the workplace.
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And I'm sure you've noticed it,
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well before you came
into this present job,
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that the people that
are living their life
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and making a clear
witness through everything
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they do in the workplace.
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When a conflict arises,
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where they're asked
to work on a Saturday
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or something like that.
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Then there's no
question, it's well known.
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'Cause these
persons, they've got integrity
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and they're more
likely to get it.
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It's when they
are hidden Adventist
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or, I remember one case,
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the employer discovered
that person on Saturday,
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I think it was a
local race track,
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well, he says why should
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I give him
Sabbath off, you know.
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That's tough part.
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You want your prisoners
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and your members to
live the consistent life,
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and I think one of
the strongest things
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we do in the Adventist church
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is to protect the
Sabbath accommodation,
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I think we've done that
extremely well over the years
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and I think that's probably
given us more of a recognition
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as a church than
anything else and--
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And it's really interesting
because specially nowadays
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you have Adventists that
are in church every week,
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but they seem to come from
all different walks of life
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and the ability to tell
them, that we would like
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for you to continue
to live a consistent life
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and then but also understand
that when you fall off,
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that Christ still loves
you and you can come back.
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Trying to find
their appropriate balance
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is always been a
tough part of the job there.
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Well, it's a balance of witness
that you give me an opening,
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that will link nicely with
what we opened the program,
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was talking about fanatical
extremist of another religion
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and of course religious liberty
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we defend the right of
anyone to believe anything.
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Absolutely.
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There is truth and error
but for religious freedom,
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it's the right to
follow your conscience,
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but how do we as Christians
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and particularly a
Seventh-day Adventist,
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how do we
rejuvenate not just ourselves
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but the whole-- a group thing,
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it's like we
become active and vibrant
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and, you know, not people
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that will grab school girls
out of a environment like that,
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but people that make
a difference in society
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that we are catalyst for change.
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I mean, the word that
comes to mind is revival.
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How do we get there?
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I think part of what we
have to-- in my opinion do
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is go back to the
basics of understanding that,
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trying to make an impact
in your own concentric circle
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wherever it is it's key.
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I think sometimes we
as Adventist think that
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unless you're making an impact
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at the highest level as possible
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that it's really not
worth your time and energy,
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but I think it goes
back to the grassroots
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of touching
your community first,
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touching your neighbors first,
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you know making an impact
there and when you do that,
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I think that's
where the revival begins.
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I don't think it
begins with a huge
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ten and thousands of people.
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I think it
begins by your neighbor
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seeing you every
Sabbath go to church
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and one day wondering,
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you know, what are you doing?
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And then you being able to tell.
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I'll tell you a perfect example.
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When I was out of
the country one time,
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I had a flood in my house
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and I was not able to get there.
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And I called some
friends of mine from church,
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and they were able to
come by and they kind of,
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you know, got out
the carpet called groups
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that would come in and help out
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and I had this big bin outside,
we were throwing away things.
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And one day somebody drove up
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while I was
throwing something out
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and said hey, I saw some people
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at your house a
couple of days ago.
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Who were those
guys? People watched them.
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Yeah, and I
said, well, they were
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just guys in my
church, and he said
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and they were here
on Super Bowl Sunday
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to help to clean
out your basement
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because of
this, and I said yeah,
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and he said what
church do you go to?
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And it caused us to have a
little bit of a conversation
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and I wasn't
looking for this individual,
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I didn't get up that
morning with the idea,
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I'm gonna throw out
some trash and witness.
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But sometimes just living a life
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where you are able to be able
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to just give somebody something,
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and it caused me to
think about it little bit,
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definitely to me is
where revival really begins.
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Absolutely, so it's-- I
wish I could remember a hymn
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but a musical song
comes-- Cinderella comes to mind
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in my own little
corner of the world.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Joe Lowes Dean
actually has a nice phrase.
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We say just bloom
where you plant it.
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Stop worrying about being able
to make a difference in places
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where you don't exist,
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but if you can make an impact
in whatever circle you're in,
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to me that's
when revival begins.
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Well, I'll turn it on its head.
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Sometimes with the religious
liberty or public affairs,
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and religious liberty
week meet and contact movers
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and shakers in the
government or in society.
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And we think that's good
and it's better than not.
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But it seems to me that,
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that moment will
be more significant
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if they have an
image from word of mouth
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and perhaps their own life
come in contact with Adventist.
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So just for some
functionary to shake their hand,
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you know, I'm this and that
and the other in the church.
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They're doing that all day long.
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But for to really resonate
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there has to be
something back of it.
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Something positive. Yeah.
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I mean, you know in the
name of Adventism in my opinion
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it starts out
with being Christian.
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You have to be
Christ like first.
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Because once you
can impact somebody
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with the love of Jesus Christ,
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then I think they want to
ask you more about the life
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that you live and want to
know about your doctrines,
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want to know about
your health message,
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want to know about
things of that nature.
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And that's why to
me it's still important
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to give someone Jesus
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and not because you
think you're gonna save them,
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but because maybe one day
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you may need that person
to give Jesus back to you.
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And I think what's the plus
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with their
religious liberty messages
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that I laid it to you before,
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we are not or
shouldn't be just pushing
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for religious
liberty to help ourselves.
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Absolutely not.
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To make life
easier for our operation,
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or our institutions,
that is a byproduct
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but we should be
promoting all people.
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And I'm really happy to see that
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we're doing more
of that in our church.
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We're doing it at the
NAD where we're actually
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sending in briefs
and support for example,
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you know, a young lady who...
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'Amicus Brief'
friend of the court is here.
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Yeah, that she could not,
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you know, where you
have job, on the job
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because of certain, you know,
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style issues and
things of that nature
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and although
that has nothing to do
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with Seventh-day Adventism,
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we as a church have
come and said that's wrong.
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Well, it has a lot to
do with their principles.
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Absolutely. Yeah.
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And that to me
is really the key.
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Coming in and being
consistent with who you are,
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it's not about
simply being self serving,
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but it's a lot more just
doing what Christ would do.
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When you think about
when He was on this earth,
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He'd mingled with everyone.
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He put Himself in a position
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where people would question Him,
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but that's what
life is really all about.
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Didn't it says that He went
about seeking people's good?
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That's true.
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And I think that
was the power of Jesus
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that someone could
inherently recognize
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this person's here to help me.
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And we've got to be careful,
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we don't condemn
people by our godliness.
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Which we don't
usually have. Right.
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But I think we can help
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and religious
liberty has been a great help
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and I think more and more
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with some of their contacts
in Washington and so on.
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We're seen as people
that have an interest way
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outside our
sectarian organizational
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and it's-- that's good.
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And I know you're making a
strong lead on that already.
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Oh, I think we're
moving in the right direction.
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I think we have a strong team
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that really is looking
forward to making a difference.
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But I believe that if
we can just simply go out
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and be
consistent and be Christian
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in everything that we do,
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I think everything else
starts to take care of itself.
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I mean, I'd love
that anybody would say,
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oh, Seventh-day Adventist,
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I mean, we know
about our health message,
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we know about the Sabbath
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but it'd be
great if someone says,
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you know, those
are the kindest people
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I've ever met.
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And in case with that
love that you impact people
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that they really want to
know more about who you are
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and the God that you serve
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because when
they first meet you,
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it doesn't hit you.
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It reminds me of when Paul,
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you know, when he
came out of his blindness,
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he saw Ananias.
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First person that he sees-
He didn't want to be there.
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Yeah. He didn't
want to be there.
00:09:04.27\00:09:05.87
But suppose Ananias
went about the wrong way
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and the first interaction
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Paul had with
Christianity was a bad one.
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Who knows where
things would have gone?
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Yeah, it's true.
00:09:13.19\00:09:14.22
So it's interesting
to think about your life
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as treating somebody supposedly
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you may be the only
Christian they ever see.
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And what impact have
you made in their life
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to want to draw
them close to the God.
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Yeah.
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It's a heavy responsibility
we all have that sometimes
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we might be the only face
of truth that they will see.
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And the truth exists
a little beyond this.
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But how we
present that is vital.
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And unfortunately
back to the beginning
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I think Islam is being poorly
represented at the moment.
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And we need to
somehow help it if anything,
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the word comes to
mind, give it a reformation.
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Well, I think in
terms of reformation
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that any extremist
views are always gonna be
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considered to be something
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that's taking people
in the wrong direction.
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It's so important as we
as Christians understand
00:10:02.11\00:10:04.53
that it's never
gonna be about us,
00:10:04.56\00:10:06.27
that it's always
gonna be about God.
00:10:06.30\00:10:08.13
And if we can get to
the point in our lives
00:10:08.16\00:10:09.93
where we realize
it's about elevating Him
00:10:09.96\00:10:12.02
and drawing more men
and women close to Him.
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That to me is the powerful
aspect of religious liberty
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we can engage in and
hopefully as Christians
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we'll continue to do so.
00:10:19.64\00:10:23.19
There can be no
greater loss for a parent
00:10:23.22\00:10:26.71
than to lose their child.
00:10:26.74\00:10:28.37
So it's no mystery
that much of the world
00:10:28.40\00:10:30.99
is stirred over the very
public abduction in Nigeria
00:10:31.02\00:10:37.37
of 2 or 300 young
women from their school
00:10:37.40\00:10:40.88
to parts unknown
00:10:40.91\00:10:42.33
but it's indicated by
the leader of Boko Haram,
00:10:42.36\00:10:45.44
the Islamist
revolutionary organization there
00:10:45.47\00:10:49.30
that has taken them,
00:10:49.33\00:10:50.50
they may well be
sold into slavery
00:10:50.53\00:10:53.26
or sold into forced
marriages and along with that
00:10:53.29\00:10:57.99
as many of those
girls were Christian
00:10:58.02\00:11:00.72
forced into a new
religion, in this case, Islam.
00:11:00.75\00:11:03.93
We live in a strange
world where in this case Islam
00:11:03.96\00:11:07.64
but different times and places,
other religions have decided
00:11:07.67\00:11:11.74
that they can force
someone in their community
00:11:11.77\00:11:15.38
or another community
nearby, forced them to believing
00:11:15.41\00:11:19.94
as they believe at
the edge of the sword,
00:11:19.97\00:11:22.17
it used to be that Islam symbol
was conversion by the sword,
00:11:22.20\00:11:26.86
not by sword's loud clashing,
00:11:26.89\00:11:28.91
but by deeds of love
and mercy says the hymn.
00:11:28.94\00:11:32.17
We too should be working
toward deeds of love and mercy.
00:11:32.20\00:11:37.36
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:37.39\00:11:40.79