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Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI190439A
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00:25 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:26 This is your program 00:28 that brings news, views 00:29 and up-to-date information on religious liberty 00:32 in the US and around the world. 00:34 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty magazine. 00:38 Recently, I had an opportunity to interview Elder Ted Wilson, 00:43 world president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 00:47 We discussed the Reformation 00:49 and then took the conversation further 00:52 to what religious liberty 00:54 and the impact of the Reformation means 00:56 to Christians today. 00:59 Watch this interview, 01:00 I think you find it interesting. 01:03 Hello, Elder Wilson. 01:04 Last time, we spoke about religious liberty. 01:07 It was a very good discussion on the Reformation. 01:10 And time flies by, now it's a couple of years 01:13 since the world remembered the Reformation, 01:15 at least as defined by Martin Luther. 01:18 But I'd like to talk a little bit 01:20 further with you on the Reformation 01:22 and how Seventh-day Adventists linked to that 01:24 and then in particular, 01:26 why we see that this present time 01:29 as perhaps bringing a crisis 01:30 that some of the reformers expected 01:32 and some of those 01:35 early Protestants in the United States 01:37 during the First Great Awakenings. 01:40 We know why we sort of living 01:42 in the fulfillment of their dreams 01:44 and some of their fears too? 01:45 Well, it'll be a privilege, Lincoln, 01:47 to kind of get into that. 01:49 Who was your greatest reformer, 01:51 the figure that you sort of look to in the Reformation? 01:55 I certainly, greatly admire Martin Luther, 01:59 of course, as we all do, John Knox, 02:04 and actually Jan Hus, John Hus. 02:10 Lot of Johns in the Reformation. 02:11 Yeah. 02:13 He was, of course, kind of the foundation 02:17 of the Reformation. 02:18 God used him in an incredible way, 02:20 even at his death, 02:22 perhaps even more at his death than any other time. 02:24 Right. 02:25 There's a reason I want to talk about this 02:27 because I think there was a misapprehension 02:29 for many people 02:31 who don't know the history well, 02:32 and he and Martin Luther was brought forward, 02:34 there was a lot more to the Reformation 02:36 than Martin Luther. 02:37 Yes. 02:38 And another John, John Wycliffe... 02:40 Absolutely. 02:41 In England that was 150 years before. 02:43 Preparing the way. 02:44 And he had some of the same issues. 02:47 Remember, he didn't like the control of the church, 02:49 he didn't like its idolatry, 02:52 the indulgences, the same thing. 02:55 And the need for the word 02:56 that was so central in every reformer. 02:59 With the Wycliffe translation and his followers, 03:02 the Lollards, pretty much changed the face of England 03:05 and I think, prepared the way very clearly 03:07 for the English Reformation. 03:09 And your hero John Hus was a follower of Wycliffe. 03:13 Yeah. 03:14 It's amazing how they were intertwined. 03:15 They were influenced by the Holy Spirit 03:18 and by hearing information that was happening. 03:21 Right. 03:23 And I remember 03:24 when Hus so aggravated the authorities, 03:26 that they brought him up on charges 03:28 and then burnt him. 03:30 At that point they were so aggravated 03:31 that the connection to Wycliffe, 03:33 that's when they went and dug up Wycliffe's bones, 03:35 burned them and threw them in the river. 03:38 So the connection was undoubted and very clear. 03:41 And something I discovered recently, 03:43 you probably remember too from your studies, 03:45 they were the Hussite wars 03:46 that followed Jan Hus's martyrdom. 03:50 So it was not a singular, just a church related thing. 03:53 The whole European Society was in furor over this, 03:58 the issue of the Bible and the church, 04:00 and political control and so on. 04:02 So it was a little more than Martin Luther, wasn't it? 04:04 Tremendous, tremendous involvement 04:07 because God chooses people to project His word and truth 04:13 and that's why He can do the same thing with us today. 04:15 Now, something that you might have not noticed 04:18 and I only slowly picked it up in the discussions 04:22 of a couple of years ago, 04:23 about the Reformation prayer time. 04:25 I heard many of these think tanks and, 04:28 and different groups that met in Washington, 04:30 you know, there's a lot of religiopolitical groups 04:33 that meet and discuss. 04:35 And a lot of them said something that bothered me, 04:37 they said, we're now in the third wave of thinking 04:40 about the Reformation. 04:42 I think you and I are first wavers. 04:44 What's the first battle we see the Reformation? 04:46 Well, that, 04:48 actually the reformation should never end. 04:50 Right. That the Reformation... 04:52 'Cause that's the wave 04:53 that it's to peak at the second coming. 04:55 The Reformation is a continual effort 04:58 to bring to the forefront, 05:00 the precious righteousness of Christ, 05:04 and the explanation of the plan of salvation 05:08 and God's wishes for each of us 05:11 to be part of this proclamation found in His Word. 05:14 I mean, that's the reason for the Word of God. 05:16 So yes, we're just part of this Reformation that began 05:21 and should never end until the second coming. 05:23 So it was a rediscovery of the Word of God 05:25 and removing the church or the Christian experience 05:29 from all the impediments of paganism, of legalism, 05:33 of political, 05:36 you know, having your cake and eating it too, 05:37 like really, in some ways, 05:39 the Roman Catholic Church still as a state, 05:41 Vatican state, and as a church, 05:43 the Catholic Church, sort of plays between the two, 05:46 and that was the downfall of Christianity in those days. 05:49 So that's the first way that you and I agree with it. 05:51 And there's still a powerful role 05:53 in that church. 05:54 We're part of it. We're part of it. 05:55 Absolutely, the Adventist Church 05:57 as I grew up in it, 05:58 you and I are both children of the church. 06:00 We've always told ourselves that we're continuing 06:03 this emphasis from the days of the Reformation, 06:06 of course, harking back to primitive Christianity, 06:09 and then God's dealings in the Old Testament. 06:11 But the second wave of the Reformation, 06:14 I'd heard about it for many years, 06:16 it's the sort of the higher critical view, 06:18 the Reformation was less a religious awakening 06:22 than an application of the enlightenment 06:25 to religious thinking. 06:26 So it's sort of a secularist, self determination 06:30 that took on a religious goal. 06:31 And there's a small element of truth in that. 06:34 But I'd rather even put it the other way around, 06:36 that the enlightenment or the second enlightenment 06:39 took off because there was a change 06:41 in religious viewpoints. 06:42 I think it freed people from mental change. 06:45 But what's troubling to me is the third wave 06:48 that I've heard it in four or five instances 06:51 at the Jesuit discussion in Fordham. 06:55 I've heard it in two or three think tanks downtown. 06:57 And they say the third way of thinking about 07:00 what the Reformation was, 07:01 it was the Roman Catholic Medieval Church, 07:04 reforming itself. 07:08 Now, goodness knows, 07:10 we want any church to reform itself, 07:12 get back to basics. 07:14 And you and I have lived through a period 07:16 where the Roman Catholic Church, 07:18 I think has made great strides, it can't change itself. 07:21 But, you know, there's a refreshing 07:24 with individual Catholics, they read the Bible now 07:26 where they were not encouraged to so much in previous eras. 07:30 But to me that just flies in the face of history. 07:33 And that's why I started that discussion 07:36 with Wycliffe and Hus and, 07:39 you know, you can get on to John Knox, 07:41 that firebrand in Scotland 07:42 that started the Church of Scotland, 07:46 Presbyterian Church. 07:48 There's no way you can link those 07:50 to anything like orthodox 07:53 medieval Roman Catholicism. 07:56 They were free thinkers, they were harking back 07:58 to the basics of Bible truth. 08:00 Yeah, they came back to Bible truth, exactly. 08:02 And that's what Reformation always has to come back to, 08:06 to return us to the simple, beautiful truths 08:11 that are found in the Word of God, 08:13 and empowered by the Holy Spirit 08:16 in our understanding of what those truths are. 08:18 And I know you have a clear understanding 08:22 of the dangers of sort of divorcing 08:25 a Christian experience for the Word of God 08:27 and just sort of free floating on nice feelings 08:30 and even waiting for a divine illumination 08:33 separate from looking for God's lead. 08:34 Existentialism 08:36 and just a feel good kind of religion 08:38 is not based on the reading of the Word, 08:42 that doesn't mean you're not going to feel 08:44 empowered and happy. 08:46 But it means you really are understanding 08:49 the content of what God is saying to you. 08:52 And then you're using that in sharing it with others. 08:55 Absolutely. 08:57 In other words that it has to be the path 09:00 of the Bible truth and along the way, 09:02 you know, there's gonna be some great illumination 09:05 and even ecstasy, the medieval theologians 09:09 were great on religious ecstasy 09:11 that they had such an influence, 09:14 and I think people have forgotten that now. 09:15 And even our Adventist Church 09:16 as I read the story of Adventist pioneers 09:19 and even Ellen White, 09:21 we clearly believe she was a visionary. 09:24 They were often extremely ecstatic about their faith 09:26 but not divorced from biblical absolutes. 09:30 Absolutely. 09:33 But, you know, this does trouble me 09:35 and I can see the same to have the Reformation 09:39 sort of pulled from its moorings 09:41 and reapplied for a modern world 09:42 that doesn't generally at least not as much as 09:45 before know, 09:46 the theological issues that were at play, 09:49 doesn't know the Bible as well as it should 09:52 and that's sort of an alluring concept. 09:55 You know, I'm okay, you're okay, God loves us all. 09:58 The Reformation was bringing the whole church 10:01 whether we're Calithumpians as my father used to say 10:04 or Catholics, or Adventists, or Mormons, 10:08 Masons, doesn't matter, 10:09 we're all looking for that divine being. 10:12 I'm sure God leads us individually. 10:13 But the Reformation tells me too 10:16 that the distinctions mean something, right? 10:20 They do. 10:21 Well, I don't, can't really think of one single reformer 10:24 that had everything right. 10:26 In their own way each one sort of branched out 10:28 with a great illumination to clarify the issue 10:32 and remove from the darkness of the Middle Ages. 10:36 Again, back to Martin Luther, he's a towering figure. 10:40 And, of course, the... 10:41 If you go reading with some of the more recent material, 10:44 they make a lot of his personal demons 10:48 for one of a better word and his personality foibles 10:51 and his political missteps, 10:53 backing the President's rebellion. 10:56 And even at the end of his life, 10:58 he went through a very great period of depression, 11:01 and supposedly almost thought that 11:03 it was all a waste of time. 11:05 But for you and me, that can't mean that 11:08 what he did was of no value, right? 11:10 No, absolutely not and there's something 11:13 we have to remember, we are human beings, 11:18 and we are subject to the temptations 11:22 of the devil, of Satan. 11:25 And through God's power, we can resist that 11:27 but people can become discouraged, 11:29 people can become disheartened by things. 11:33 It doesn't mean that God has not worked through them. 11:36 It simply means we have to learn 11:38 in an even greater way to lean on the Lord, 11:41 even in those very, very difficult circumstances. 11:44 And probably Martin Luther was just seeing 11:47 so many things happening around him 11:49 and some of it was not what he intended. 11:52 And it took on its own life, so to speak. 11:55 So some of those things... 11:57 It's overwhelming for him. Yeah, exactly. 11:58 As his life tells us, 11:59 he was pretty much a peasant son, 12:02 I mean, he was from very basic stock. 12:05 He was educated in Bible study, 12:07 but he wasn't really an urbane city man. 12:10 So yes, I think things ran away from him. 12:12 But I'm bringing this for a reason. 12:14 I think it's dangerous 12:15 just to see the Reformation as only Luther, 12:17 because he was just one personality. 12:19 So many others were involved in this 12:22 and everyone in their own way was trying to come back 12:25 to pure biblical truth, 12:27 to what the standard of God really was. 12:31 In fact, that's what the three angels' 12:32 messages are all about in Revelation 14, 12:35 turning people back to the true worship of God, 12:39 and to focus upon the righteousness 12:41 of Jesus Christ, 12:43 not our own efforts to try and earn salvation. 12:47 But to find in that precious passage in Revelation 14:6-12, 12:53 those three angels' messages, a reinforced... 12:55 We'll talk about that later. 12:57 A reinforced emphasis 13:01 on God's Word on who God is, 13:05 and how we are totally dependent upon Him 13:08 for our very life and for salvation. 13:10 Yeah. 13:11 We're going to take a break now, 13:13 and I'll pick up after the break... 13:15 Good. 13:16 With another aspect of the Reformation. 13:18 Stay with us. |
Revised 2019-07-22