Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider,
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before the break with
guest Christopher Steed.
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And I'm the host Lincoln Steed.
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The names are familiar
to both of us, son and...
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dad and son.
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Let's get back to
where I started the segment
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talking about
our visit to Israel.
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I think it was the
second last day of our visit,
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we went down to the Dead Sea,
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not the Red Sea,
it was the Dead Sea.
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And overlooking the Dead
Sea, remember, there was...
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we took a cable car
up, what was plateau,
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do you remember
what it was called?
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Off the top of my head,
I'm going to have to say,
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"No, I do not remember."
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Masada. Remember
Masada? I do remember.
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It was very
high, very windy. Yeah.
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But it was a
very beautiful place.
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I mean, I actually
still have in my room.
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I have a little
rock about this big,
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and on it there's some...
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I think it's
either scratch marks
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or it looks to me
like it's some writing.
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And I remember
just being up there
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and just looking at
the city and saying,
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"Wow, this was a major, major
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city back in Bible times."
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And it was a fortress originally
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that Herod had built.
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But they said he
never really was there.
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But in the last
Jewish rebellion at AD 70,
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which collapsed and the
Romans destroyed them all.
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It's worth remembering in
light of President Obama's
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designation of the capital city.
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The last time
that the Jewish people
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controlled the
destiny of that city
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that was a true Jewish
city was nearly 2,000 years ago.
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The Romans destroyed it as
a defective political entity.
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They leveled the
city, killed about,
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I think, a million people,
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and then nearly as
many were sold into slavery
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and just dispersed the rest.
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It was the end of them.
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But a few holdouts after
the original destruction,
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went to Masada, I
think 900 of them.
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And you know that if
you're sitting at the top,
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there were the
rocks or whatever,
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you could pretty
much roll it down
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on anyone coming up at you
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and an army
couldn't easily get up.
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In fact, I'm
surprised that they got
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the cable car up there.
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Yeah, it was the
view looking down,
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I mean, it was...
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I wouldn't say it
was completely vertical
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but it was...
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Pretty close. It
was pretty close.
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In the US you call them mesa.
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A flat top thing
that has cliff-like sides.
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And you remember them telling,
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our guide was
very good explaining it
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how did the Romans
conquered in the end.
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They one by one built...
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but it looked
like it was a ramp.
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Yeah, basically they
built made the mountain,
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added to the mountain
to give it a curved...
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To give it a slope so
they could walk up it.
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And even then
they couldn't have done
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that except they
used Jewish slaves.
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And the defenders wouldn't harm,
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throw anything down
on their fellow Jews.
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So it was
inevitable that eventually,
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that to built this, took
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I think a year or
two years to do it.
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And remember the
rest of the story?
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What happened is they came up
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to where they could
push the siege engines up
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and destroy that.
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I remember him saying...
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When they opened the
gates, the city was deserted.
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Everybody had killed themselves.
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Everybody had killed themselves.
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And they have the speech
recorded from the leader.
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He says, you know,
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"We've taken our lives rather
than let the Romans kill us.
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It was inevitable."
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But they left food there
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so that they won't
think we did in desperation,
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we had plenty of food.
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And he gave a wonderful
outline of the value of freedom
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and standing up
against this despotic power.
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Well, that was a political thing
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between what once God's
people and a persecuting power.
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But it's
certainly an encouragement
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to anyone to keep their faith
no matter what the opposition.
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Remember, our God said, Israel
just decided, "Never again."
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They're not going
to kill themselves,
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they're not going to give up,
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they're going to
fight till the last man.
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They will.
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And remember he told us
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how the Israeli officers take
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their oath of loyalty in Masada,
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very inspiring to see
how another little country
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thinks about
itself and the high ideals
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that they've gotten because
of this example of history.
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But I do think in
standing for our faith
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in exercising
our religious liberty
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which we have
regardless, we agreed on that.
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Yes. Not coming from the US.
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Remember what did
Thomas Jefferson say
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in the
Declaration of Independence?
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Let's test it. You
had it in high school.
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I remember we had to memorize
it in high school, but...
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It says, "We hold..."
"We hold these truths..."
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Yes, what's the next?
It's slipping my memory.
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"To be self-evident." Yeah.
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That's what he said,
which is very interesting.
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They were recognizing
what was already established,
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and religiously,
but he was one of them,
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the men are created free by God.
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And religious liberty in
the truest spiritual sense,
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we're freed from
the power of sin.
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You have it.
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So, you know, living
forward in this country
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is easier than most.
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But it ultimately
derives from a spiritual thing,
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you know, spiritual charter.
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And in a real world
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where there's
genocides on occasion,
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even in the United
States, I love this country.
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But against the moments,
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the governor of Illinois
wanted them killed on sight,
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extermination order.
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And don't even get into
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some of the
Indian tribes and so on.
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Not a good story,
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men dealing with
other men and other faiths.
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But it's our
privilege, I think, isn't it,
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to decide that
we will be faithful
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no matter what the cost.
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Remember the song?
I know you sung too.
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But when I was a kid, I
always sing it, Dare to be...
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Dare to be a Christian.
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No, Dare to be a
Daniel. Dare to be a Daniel.
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Standing by our purpose
true, heading God's command.
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Isn't it something, do you think
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that a young person could answer
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that challenge today?
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Actually, Daniel is my...
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When I was asked in many summer
school classes from going,
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from primary
school in Sabbath school
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to even now people ask
me, "Who is your Bible hero?"
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And I say, "Daniel." Yeah.
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Because he stood
by what he believes.
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And I mean, who else
would you look up to?
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Would you look up to someone
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who at the slightest
bit of confrontation,
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"I don't, I'm
not a Christian, no."
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Or as someone
who, "I'm a Christian,
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I don't care what you do
to me but I'm a Christian"?
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Yeah.
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I mean, that's
what we're called to.
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And Daniel is a great story.
He wasn't just a stubborn guy.
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He was an educated
person, a godly man,
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and he was at
the center of power.
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And yet on a number
of occasions his life
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was on the line, and even...
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Remember the story begins,
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and I'm sure
many of you have read
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and remember the Bible story.
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But as a young man taken captive
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from a previous
destruction of Israel,
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you know, we were been
talking about an AD 70,
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but King
Nebuchadnezzar wiped it out.
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And I don't think most people,
at least when I was a kid,
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they didn't
explain it correctly.
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There were some
people left around Jerusalem,
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and Nebuchadnezzar wanted it
to be neutral and controlled.
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And the way to do
it was to take hostages
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from the ruling class.
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The way it was told to us is
they were taking skilled guys
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to help in the palace
and a little element of that.
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They were essentially hostages.
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And another element in the past
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that was done
right up to World War I
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was you would marry
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the daughters of the
ruling class to control
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'cause again they were hostages.
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So Daniel was a hostage
perhaps from a wealthy class.
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But that didn't mean
that they were safe forever.
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They could be destroyed or
neutralized pretty readily.
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And so he didn't
do what the king said.
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There was a good chance
that he would be disciplined
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in a very severe physical way.
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But he had faith, and he says
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to the supervisor of the eunuchs
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which is interesting,
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Daniel was a
eunuch almost certainly,
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which is
another way to take away
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the power of the people there.
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They were to be held to ransom
but not allowed to flourish,
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not allowed to multiply.
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And he says,
you know, "Prove us.
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Put us on this diet and see."
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And they were allowed
to continue with that diet.
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Then later when the King's dream
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was beyond any
understanding of his wise men,
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the word went out,
"Kill all the wise men."
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And Daniel was a wise man.
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In other words, he was
one of the intellectuals.
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And so at threat of his life,
he sends a word to the king,
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"I can give you the
meaning of the dream."
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We need to know as Christians
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that we have the answer
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to a lot of the religious
conflicts in the world.
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It's crossed, and witnessing,
and religious freedom.
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Don't you think?
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I think in
dealing with my own life
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and dealing with
other people in life
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how each person has to
believe what they want,
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but at the same time,
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we should tell
them what we believe.
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That's our right,
that's our privilege,
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and we should stick to it.
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In the Bible,
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waters can mean
quite deep things.
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You know, we're told
that waters mean peoples,
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and nations,
groups of human beings.
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When we look at Israel,
ironically, we think of waters,
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we think of the Sea of Galilee,
we think of the Dead Sea
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even though that's a land
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that is not
characterized by water.
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It's an incredibly dry place.
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I think prophetically
that the Bible says
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that at the very end of time,
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the River Euphrates will dry up.
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That tells me that
human existence itself
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is going to be threatened
at a very dangerous end time.
00:10:40.10\00:10:44.24
But to proclaim, liberty
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depends upon
proclaiming it to people.
00:10:46.84\00:10:50.41
And so I believe no matter
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what happens in the Middle East,
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no matter how destitute
our human condition may see,
00:10:53.52\00:10:56.58
no matter how
suicidal our leaders might be,
00:10:56.62\00:10:59.62
we still need to proclaim
liberty throughout the land,
00:10:59.65\00:11:02.92
religious freedom
for all who will hear it,
00:11:02.96\00:11:05.39
and a coming Lord is a Savior
from this desperate situation,
00:11:05.43\00:11:10.87
the Liberator,
the Freedom Giver,
00:11:10.90\00:11:14.14
the Giver of all
true and perfect gifts.
00:11:14.17\00:11:17.51
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:17.54\00:11:20.51