Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000378A
|
00:25 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:27 This is a program bringing you discussion, 00:29 news, updates, and insights 00:31 into religious liberty in the US 00:32 and around the world. 00:34 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:37 And my special guest on this program 00:39 is someone near and dear to me, 00:41 my own teenage son Christopher Steed, 00:44 an up and coming young man with opinions. 00:46 And I want to hear some of them. 00:48 But let me just launch off and set the scene, son. 00:51 Couple of years ago, I took you and your sister and my wife, 00:56 and your mother, on the 3ABN tour to Israel. 01:00 Remember that? I was baptized. 01:02 Absolutely. 01:03 You baptized me in the Jordan River. 01:05 I baptized you on that trip, yeah. 01:08 But I think it gave you sort of an insight 01:10 into the whole background of Christianity 01:12 and the religious reality today to this conflict, 01:17 much of it centers in the Middle East. 01:19 And of course, not long before this program, 01:22 President Trump basically threw a grenade 01:25 into the world religious situation 01:27 by declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. 01:32 Now religious liberty is a big and complicated topic, 01:35 but tell me, is there any way that that visit and that trip 01:40 sort of gave you a new view 01:43 of what it is to stand up for your faith. 01:45 Remember, we stood on the mountain 01:47 and looked over into Syria, right? 01:48 I do remember. 01:50 It was not a clear enough day, but they say, on a clear day, 01:53 you can actually see Damascus 01:54 from the Golan Heights which are Israel now. 01:57 And then we looked across the Sea of Galilee, 02:00 and that was Jordan, 02:01 remember the cars going back and forth? 02:03 And those nations are not friendly 02:05 toward Israel now. 02:08 Well, when we were there, 02:10 I forgot where we were when we were up. 02:11 And I think it was when we went to the Golan Heights, 02:14 I remember looking out, seeing the Sea of Galilee, 02:17 being in the Red Sea, you know, 02:19 being almost everywhere Jesus went 02:22 and seeing how close everything was 02:25 and realizing, "Well," I mean, "Jesus was here, 02:28 I'm here now, what does this mean to me?" 02:32 Made you think more carefully 02:33 then what it is to be a Christian, didn't it? 02:35 Especially when we walked to the River Jordan 02:38 and I was baptized, I was like, you know, 02:40 Jesus may have been baptized 02:41 at the exact same spot as I have been. 02:44 And it touched me deeply. 02:46 It made me think on the bus 02:49 on the ride home after I got baptized, 02:52 I was thinking, you know, 02:53 "Wow, Jesus was baptized in that river, 02:57 in that same river." 02:59 I don't think anybody knows exactly where he was baptized. 03:01 But we know it was in the River Jordan, isn't it? 03:03 Yeah, we know it was in the River Jordan. 03:04 And it very likely was... 03:05 The Jordan flows out of the Sea of Galilee 03:08 and down towards Jerusalem. 03:10 So there's only a few miles. Yeah. 03:12 And it likely was where it was a bit deeper, 03:13 so it couldn't have been more than a mile 03:15 or two from where we were. 03:16 I mean, it might have been exactly the same spot. 03:18 That's the tradition that it was that spot. 03:19 Yeah, and I just... 03:21 But you were following in the pattern that he's set. 03:23 And I just remember thinking, you know, 03:26 "A few miles away from here up on a hill 03:29 is where as well he was murdered for standing... 03:32 For saying what he believed." 03:35 And I was thinking, you know, 03:36 even nowadays in certain countries 03:39 how people are being murdered in the Middle East. 03:42 I mean, I've heard stories from people 03:44 or missionaries out there how... 03:47 I remember a friend of mine, 03:48 his father and mother are missionaries in China. 03:52 And then I remember another friend of mine, 03:54 his parents are out in Vietnam right now. 03:57 A lot of my friends' parents are out being missionaries 04:00 and I hear the stories of them, 04:02 you know, having to hide their Bibles, 04:05 having to walk around 04:08 and be the people where they are. 04:12 And even if they're asked if they're a Christian, 04:15 they have to say no 04:17 because they're scared for their lives. 04:20 Well, that's a personal decision 04:22 someone has to make, sometimes you keep quiet. 04:24 Yes. 04:26 It's another thing to deny your faith, you know? 04:29 Remember this story in the New Testament of Peter, 04:34 the Catholic Church makes an awful lot of Peter, 04:36 you know, he's the first Pope they say. 04:38 Yes. 04:39 There's no real textual evidence 04:41 that he was given the full authority, 04:43 but there's no question from the Bible account, 04:45 Peter was the leader in Jerusalem, 04:47 and in many ways, he was sort of... 04:50 I don't know of the favorite... 04:51 John was the favorite of Jesus. Absolutely. 04:53 The disciple who Jesus loved. Yeah. 04:55 But Peter was sort of the go-to man. 04:57 You know, the leader among the... 04:59 Rough and tough, ready to set his foot out 05:02 and say, "I believe this and this is why!" 05:05 Yeah. 05:06 You know, but it's also interesting, 05:07 Peter, Jesus told him off 05:09 once for saying the wrong thing. 05:10 Yes. He did. 05:12 You know, Peter says, "This won't happen to You. 05:14 You're not going to die." 05:15 Then Jesus says, "Get behind me, Satan." 05:17 Satan, yes. 05:19 He didn't mean Peter was satanic 05:21 but Satan was speaking through him. 05:22 Yeah. These were Satan's ideas. 05:24 But on another occasion, this is what I'm building to, 05:26 Peter says, "I would never betray You, Lord. 05:28 Never! I'd die for You." 05:30 And the rooster crows three times. 05:32 But we say ourselves, you know, "I want to be a strong witness. 05:34 I'll suffer persecution if need be." 05:37 And I hope that we mean it, 05:39 but we're all pretty weak and there are times 05:41 and even missionaries perhaps in India or China 05:44 or somewhere, there's been times, 05:46 to save their own life, they'll say, 05:47 "Oh, no, I'm not a Christian." That's sad. 05:50 And I think they need to repent from that. 05:52 But in theory, a good Christian, 05:54 a good person of any faith 05:56 will own up to their faith and witness for it 05:59 no matter what the cost. 06:00 And remember, Peter denied Jesus 06:03 three times in one night after he said never, you know. 06:06 But Jesus forgave him for it. He did. 06:09 And in my personal view, I think He'll forgive 06:12 those of us who... 06:13 I mean, even under pressure... 06:15 I mean, sometimes I'll give in 06:16 and say whatever, but it's not... 06:19 Like, "I would never deny my faith." 06:22 I mean, I've heard people say that 06:23 and then as soon as they get under pressure, 06:25 they're like, "No, no. I'm not really a Christian." 06:28 But I believe in my own heart, you know, 06:31 I believe someone can have a gun pointed at my head 06:33 and say, "Are you a Christian?" 06:35 And I would look at them straight in the eyes 06:36 and say, "Yes, I am a Christian." 06:38 I mean, even if, then, a bullet 06:40 does go through my head, I will... 06:41 Well, that's a good determination. 06:43 I will die saying that I'm a Christian 06:44 and that I believe that God is the one. 06:46 You know, the Bible says, 06:48 "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." 06:51 And it's been proven over the years 06:53 how weak the flesh is. 06:54 And I've got an example, not just from Christianity, 06:58 in World War... 07:00 Well, all the World Wars and all wars 07:03 where prisoners are taken 07:04 and some of those tortures applied. 07:06 And we've done it in Guantanamo. 07:08 It's sad, the US hasn't yet repudiated that, 07:11 but it's pure and simple torture. 07:14 Like one of the... 07:16 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a bad guy I'm quite sure, 07:19 we waterboarded him like 80 times. 07:21 That's 80 near-death experiences 07:24 apart from various other things, 07:25 with doctors standing by like the Mengeles of... 07:28 You ever heard of Mengele? 07:30 The Mengeles of our time to make sure he doesn't die. 07:32 Yeah. They're not doctors to help. 07:34 They're to keep him alive for more torture. 07:38 You know, those sort of tortures 07:39 are part of our modern world. 07:41 And the US of course has entered into it, 07:43 but it's hardly only with the US. 07:46 And most times, 07:47 it's been shown that human beings 07:49 can be broken down by excessive physical force 07:53 and psychological manipulation. 07:55 And I don't really think that, in the simplest sense, 08:01 to cave under that is to deny your faith, 08:04 that's to weaken. 08:06 And going back to the reformation. 08:08 You remember we were in Oxford? 08:10 I do remember going to Oxford, yes. 08:12 And do you remember there was a statue there 08:13 for where a couple of the heroes 08:16 had been burned at the stake? 08:17 I pointed it out to you. 08:19 I don't remember exactly where it was, 08:20 but I do remember you pointing out that statue. 08:22 Yeah, Latimer and Ridley, 08:23 I think, were the ones, they were burned. 08:26 And one of them had denied his faith 08:28 under torture a few weeks earlier. 08:32 And then of course 08:35 when he was over the pain was sorry for it 08:38 and reasserted his determination to die. 08:41 And he wanted to die. 08:44 I mean, he was so committed at that point, 08:46 he pretty much wanted to die to atone for his betrayal. 08:49 And I always thought that's very sad 08:51 because he was feeling culpable for his weakness... 08:54 Yeah. A weakness we all have. 08:58 But to be willing to be faithful to the end, 09:02 that's what God wants. 09:04 And then we have to pray for the strength, 09:06 and He'll give a lot of strength, 09:07 but all flesh, at the end of the day, 09:11 is able to be intimidated 09:14 and manipulated by pain by trial. 09:17 Even Job, and I love the Book of Job. 09:20 God said he's a righteous man and upright. 09:22 But Job cursed the day he was born He did. 09:25 When he was under pain. 09:26 And he accused God of harassing him. 09:29 But God didn't do it. 09:30 But it says he kept his integrity. 09:33 And we can do that. 09:35 We can, absolutely. Yeah. 09:37 You know, I was a young man. 09:39 You know, I was young once too, a lot of temptations 09:42 and ups and downs in your faith. 09:44 And you can't let these personal defeats 09:49 play into the devil's idea that you're not good enough, 09:50 you're not gonna make it. 09:52 Of course you're gonna make it, 09:53 of course you can rise above them. 09:55 You can be a strong witness for faith, 09:57 there's no question. 09:58 I heard a story from a friend of mine 10:01 who lived in Nepal for a few years. 10:05 And he lived as a very meager, poor person there, 10:09 working like a laborer. 10:12 And he told me stories 10:14 of how just getting up in the morning 10:18 and not being able to feel his legs 10:20 from how cold it was. 10:22 I mean, he told me, 10:23 "At times, I didn't even believe that 10:27 that there was anything that I could do 10:29 because the people there were stubborn, 10:31 wouldn't bend," but finally, after a while, 10:36 he literally would just wake up, 10:37 and the first thing in the morning, 10:38 the first thing he would do, he didn't care 10:40 if there was snow next to his bed, 10:42 he would kneel down and pray every morning. 10:45 And at the end of... 10:46 I think he was there for two months or something. 10:48 I don't remember exactly all the details. 10:50 But he told me at the end of his mission there, 10:55 there was... 10:56 I believe he said 15 or 20 of the men 10:58 in the village came to him 11:00 and thanked him for being there, 11:02 and thanked him for witnessing to them, 11:04 thanked him for giving them his point of view. 11:08 And they asked him would he stay longer 11:11 and baptize them. 11:12 And so he stayed on, 11:14 I think I believe it was another month 11:15 or month and a half or half a month, 11:16 I can't remember exactly. 11:18 And I remember, he tells me he and his family baptized, 11:21 I believe it was 34 people total, 11:24 men and women. That's wonderful. 11:26 It's very hard to influence people 11:28 in that part of the world. 11:29 And now he gets a letter every month from... 11:33 They call him the village chief, 11:35 the leader of the village. 11:37 And now they've built a full church. 11:41 And now over half the village goes to church every Sabbath. 11:46 Wonderful. Wonderful. 11:50 I don't think I've told you about Sabbath in Nepal. 11:53 And I don't think, on this television program, 11:55 I've even shared, but in 1988, 11:59 with your mother, I went to Nepal to interview 12:02 an Adventist doctor and to get his life story 12:05 which I read up in book called The Last Mountain. 12:07 Which I have in my room on my book shelf. 12:09 Yeah. And I've read it. 12:11 And that really impressed me to go to Nepal. 12:14 Even to this day, 12:15 Nepal is sort of a closed country in many ways. 12:19 It was a combination Hindu and Buddhist culture, 12:24 on the upper north of India near Tibet. 12:28 You know, you can see from where we stayed, 12:31 just on the outskirts of Kathmandu, 12:32 you can see the Mount Everest. 12:34 In fact, flying into Nepal, we saw Mount Everest 12:37 way before we arrived there. 12:39 We're at a cruising altitude 12:41 and suddenly here's this mountain sticking up 12:43 through the cloud, higher than we fly. 12:44 Yeah. Amazing place. 12:47 And most people don't realize that 12:50 Nepal has always been a difficult culture 12:53 to reach with Christianity certainly. 12:57 But they've had horrible political events recently. 13:01 I think it's called the Shining Way, 13:02 Buddhist Marxist 13:07 revolution reached a peak. 13:10 There was a crazy murder where the royal family... 13:13 One of the royal family killed... 13:15 I think it was 60 members of the royal family. 13:17 It was just a massacre of the ruling class. 13:20 And then the guerillas finally took over. 13:22 It's basically a Marxist regime at the moment. 13:26 And yet among it all, 13:28 people between all those cultural 13:30 and political events, 13:32 there are missionaries that are working there. 13:35 And I will never forget, 13:38 never forget coming in from Kathmandu 13:41 on a little bus 13:42 where there were chickens on the floor. 13:44 You've told me... Chickens on the floor... 13:46 And people squatting there naked... 13:48 Not naked but barely clothed, looking at us. 13:51 I was like, "Where are we going?" 13:52 And we drove up into the hills to this little village. 13:55 They dumped us in the middle of town. 13:59 And I didn't know where we were going. 14:00 I was looking for this hospital, 14:01 Scheer Memorial Hospital and trying to ask around 14:06 'cause most of them don't speak English. 14:07 And I can remember walking up this little hill 14:10 toward this dispensary. 14:12 It was like something out of a dream. 14:14 But to see that hospital, this doctor I interviewed, 14:17 other Christian doctors caring for their needs 14:20 and there's misshapen legs and arms and limbs and diseases 14:25 that will curl your hair and yet they're showing 14:28 Christ to those people. 14:29 That's really what takes the guts. 14:31 It does, yes. 14:33 In many ways more than, you know, gritting your teeth 14:36 while they pull your fingernails out. 14:38 That sort of momentary pain can overwhelm anyone. 14:41 But to consistently stick with the witness 14:44 against opposition, cultural and legal... 14:46 And in Nepal, still, they don't want missionaries. 14:50 They often get ejected 14:51 or if they go home for a holiday, 14:53 not allowed back in. 14:54 So it's very hard to stay there. 14:56 We'll be back after a short break, 14:58 stay with us. 14:59 Good discussions, interesting analogies 15:01 and illustrations of religious freedom and practice. |
Revised 2018-03-07