Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is your program for
discussion and information
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on religious liberty in
the US and around the world
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from the past right
up till the present.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
Editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And I don't have a
guest on the program
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for this episode,
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but I want to talk
to you about this world,
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this age that we live in.
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And by way of introducing that,
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I want to get back a little
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in my own history
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for when I used
to live in Idaho.
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I'm editing Liberty Magazine
now obviously, as I introduced
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based in the Washington DC area,
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but for a number of years
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I worked at a
Seventh-day Adventist Church
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publishing house
in near Boise, Idaho
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was actually in Nampa,
just out of the capital city.
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Oh, not the capital city,
the largest city in Idaho.
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And I used to fly
hither and yon like I still do.
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And I remember
on one of my trips
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coming back from the East Coast,
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I flew back to
Boise via Salt Lake City.
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And I still don't
really like to fly.
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I've gotten used to it.
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It's admittedly
they're like getting on a bus
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in many ways.
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And while I still read
all the accident reports
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and have an
underlying apprehension
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about it,
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I know that statistically
it's very safe plus,
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as you get a bit older,
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you realize that just one risk
among many not so important,
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but I was
relatively relaxed that day
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20-some years ago
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because it was
such a beautiful day,
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crystal clearer,
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you can see almost
forever is one of the song says,
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"On A Clear Day
You Can See Forever."
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There were clouds in the sky,
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but they were
those little cotton ball,
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intermediate clouds
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that just give you
a point of reference.
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And when you're flying
through them, it's wonderful.
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And so I remember that flight.
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And it stuck in
my mind immediately
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because I got to talk
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into the
middle-aged or elderly man
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that was sitting next to
me and he was quite friendly
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and I struck up a conversation
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and I found that
he was the director
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of the Brigham
Young University Singers.
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And he said that the whole group
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were on the plane and
that they were coming back
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from about three weeks
touring in the Middle East,
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I think mostly in Israel,
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but in the Middle
East in the Holy Land
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for use another term.
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And he said how
wonderful it had been
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that given many, many
concerts, but he said,
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the young people
are anxious to get home,
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it's long enough.
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So we had that
conversation and meanwhile,
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I'm looking out the
window and it was beautiful.
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And we were stair-stepping down
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as they do for
about half an hour
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before you actually land
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and we were coming in
from the east into Salt Lake
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and I think it's
the Wasatch Mountains
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are a range
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that sort of
block you from the east
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as you come down then Salt Lake.
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And so as we came down
towards the Wasatch Mountains,
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I heard some of the young people
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buzzing among themselves about,
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"Oh, there's
the mountain range."
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And they did
mention skiing and so on,
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but then as we came lower
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and actually went
between the mountain passes,
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I heard them calling out,
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there's where the settlers came
with Brigham Young and so on.
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And they started calling out
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all of the
moments of their history,
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and then as we swept
through the mountain,
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suddenly the city opened
up before us a wide expanse,
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and they're in the
middle of this temple square,
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you know, the very
important for Mormons
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and, you know, I'm not
pushing their theology at all,
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I find it incomprehensible
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as the Seventh-day
Adventist Christian
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is a someone that believes
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in the
Protestant biblical norms.
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But, you know,
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they have every
right to believe it,
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and I respect them for it,
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but my point is
how those young people
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related to this
incredible sudden visitor
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of their city of promise.
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And I could hear the
excitement on the plane,
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just buzzing,
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and then without any signal
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'cause I'm sitting
next to the choir leader.
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The young women in the
choir leaped to their feet
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and they started
singing vigorously,
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I'm gonna be a
witness for my Lord,
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I'm gonna be a witness.
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And as soon as they
finished their section,
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the men leaped to their feet,
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then the women
again and they finished
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that spiritual
with vigour and power,
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and the stewardess was standing
in the aisle next to me.
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And she said, "The hair
on the back of my head,"
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she says, "are standing up."
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It's so exciting.
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And I've thought
about that many times
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and even shared
that story a few times.
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Like I say, I have no
brief to expand or underscore
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their particular belief system,
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but I do know in
the American history,
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while this is a
strange, from my point of view,
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home-grown religion,
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that it's a blend
between American nativism
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and Old Testament authority
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and mysticism and so on.
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You know, that is it may be
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when you talk
about religious liberty
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in this country,
in the United States.
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The Mormons
have come a long way.
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The Governor of Illinois
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actually had an
extermination order on them.
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And to be fair,
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they've been quite
the vigilantes themselves,
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but they were expelled
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under threat of
death from Illinois.
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A federal government army
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at one point was
sent to Salt Lake
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to deal with
these potential rebels
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when it was sort
of the fire frontier,
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but it was heard in Washington
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that they had
formed their own militia.
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So a federal army was
sent to deal with them
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to rape and rapine,
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as then
President's instructions were.
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Amazing!
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And at this late point,
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they're not under
direct persecution,
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but they've had a story.
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And for these people,
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the promise and the symbolism
of that city is amazing.
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But I've thought about it
a lot of times for all of us,
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particularly Seventh-day
Adventist Christians,
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inheritors of the Reformation,
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inheritors of our
own pioneering moment
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when we were expelled.
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Forebears were expelled
from the different churches
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for having studied
Daniel and Revelation
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and believing that
the Lord was soon to come
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and sent off with prejudice.
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And then even
within the Millerites'
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great discrepancies and views
and the great disappointment
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when the date
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set by William
Miller wasn't met,
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and then beyond
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that Seventh-day
Adventist persecuted
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by different blue
laws in the United States.
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Laws that exist in still
about 20 states by the way,
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just not enforced.
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But at one point
when they were only
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about 25,000
Seventh-day Adventists,
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as many as 900 of them
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had been severely fined
and many of them imprisoned
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and put on the chain
gangs usually down South
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for breaking those blue laws.
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It was not easy
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to be a Seventh-day
Adventist Christian.
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And for Seventh-day Adventist,
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the hope of the
coming Kingdom of God,
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the soon return of the Lord
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was and should be
a powerful dynamic.
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I remember my
father now dead some years,
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when I would call him up
and tell him of evidences
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that we were
getting close, you know,
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something
extraordinary had happened.
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He only had one answer.
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He says, "Isn't it exciting
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that the Lord is about to come?"
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Well, we can say that.
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But, you know, this illustration
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that I gave with
these young people
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coming home on
the landing approach,
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here is their city.
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You know that
that is what it is,
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but not just
figuratively, but literally.
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We Bible believing Christians
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with the blessed hope
as Adventist called it.
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We're on the glide path,
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and we should be able
to see beyond the mess
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that's on this
immediate glide path,
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the mess that's
this world of decay
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and even violence.
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As Ellen White
writing to early Adventists,
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speaking about the
end time, she says,
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"At the end of time scene
throughout the whole world
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will be like those of
the French Revolution."
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Chaos! Political disruption.
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But beyond that, that
little moment, and again,
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I remember once coming
into Manila in the Philippines,
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beautiful city,
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but on the approach
here's the slum city,
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people just with cardboard boxes
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and everything
living near a dump.
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You had to get past that,
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and then touch down and
you're in a wonderful city.
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We're in that same dynamic.
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I remember Ellen White once said
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to the early
Adventists believers.
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She says,
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"Too many of you think far
too well of the present time."
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Far too well of
the present time.
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I want to share
something in a sermon
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that that really impressed
me years ago when I read it.
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It's a sermon written in 1855,
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it's for
Adventists says right in that,
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that sweet spot of enthusiasm.
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Remember 1844 was the
Millerite expectation.
00:10:08.24\00:10:11.71
And already the out of
the great disappointment
00:10:11.74\00:10:14.88
were coming a group that
formalized a little later
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actually as the
Seventh-day Adventist Church.
00:10:18.41\00:10:20.68
But at that same
time, Charles Spurgeon,
00:10:20.72\00:10:23.92
Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
00:10:23.95\00:10:25.29
a great Baptist
preacher in England
00:10:25.32\00:10:29.09
was preaching powerfully
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and online you can get
00:10:31.66\00:10:34.03
literally
thousands of his sermons,
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very prolific,
00:10:36.40\00:10:37.73
but this one was entitled
00:10:37.77\00:10:39.10
The Character
of Christ's People.
00:10:39.13\00:10:42.60
And he said this.
00:10:42.64\00:10:45.04
He says, "A Christian
is as essentially different
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from a worldling as
a dove is from a raven,
00:10:49.31\00:10:53.55
or as a lamb from a lion.
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He is not of this
world even in his nature.
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You could not
make him a worldling.
00:11:00.36\00:11:02.26
You might do what you like.
00:11:02.29\00:11:03.69
You might cause him to
fall into some temporary sin,
00:11:03.73\00:11:06.36
but you could not
make him a worldling.
00:11:06.39\00:11:08.50
You might cause
him to backslide,
00:11:08.53\00:11:10.07
but you could not
make him a sinner,
00:11:10.10\00:11:12.23
as he used to be.
00:11:12.27\00:11:13.67
He is not of the
world by his nature.
00:11:13.70\00:11:17.01
He is a twice-born man!
00:11:17.04\00:11:18.37
In his veins runs the
blood of the royal family
00:11:18.41\00:11:21.48
of the universe."
00:11:21.51\00:11:22.94
You know, that's a
wonderful assumption
00:11:22.98\00:11:25.35
that we can make.
00:11:25.38\00:11:26.78
"He is a nobleman. He
is a heaven-born child.
00:11:26.82\00:11:29.58
His freedom is not
merely a bought one,
00:11:29.62\00:11:32.05
but he has his
liberty his newborn nature.
00:11:32.09\00:11:34.49
He is essentially
00:11:34.52\00:11:35.86
an entirely
different from the world!"
00:11:35.89\00:11:39.19
And then I'm sure Spurgeon
was a powerful preacher.
00:11:39.23\00:11:42.93
We know that just like
the mega churches of today,
00:11:42.96\00:11:45.97
not that
they're always powerful,
00:11:46.00\00:11:47.47
but they have an appeal.
00:11:47.50\00:11:49.17
Spurgeon brought
thousands of people
00:11:49.20\00:11:51.07
to hear these sermons.
00:11:51.11\00:11:52.77
And to his audience, he says,
00:11:52.81\00:11:54.74
"O that a thundering voice
might speak this to your ears,
00:11:54.78\00:11:59.58
'Those whom Christ loves
00:11:59.61\00:12:02.18
are not of the world,'
00:12:02.22\00:12:06.19
but you are of the world
therefore you cannot be His,
00:12:06.22\00:12:08.79
even though you professed to be!
00:12:08.82\00:12:10.79
For those that love
him and not such as you.'"
00:12:10.83\00:12:13.19
So he's really
telling off his audience.
00:12:13.23\00:12:15.56
But he says, "Look
at Jesus' character
00:12:15.60\00:12:18.33
how different
from every other man's
00:12:18.37\00:12:20.84
pure, perfect, spotless!
00:12:20.87\00:12:23.14
Even such should be
the life of the believer."
00:12:23.17\00:12:26.27
And he says, "The Christian
will always be different
00:12:26.31\00:12:28.74
from the world.
00:12:28.78\00:12:30.31
This is a great doctrine
00:12:30.35\00:12:32.98
and it will be
found as true in ages
00:12:33.01\00:12:34.72
to come as in the
centuries which are past,
00:12:34.75\00:12:37.45
looking back into history."
00:12:37.49\00:12:39.42
And I love to look at history
00:12:39.45\00:12:40.79
because it informs
what the future might be.
00:12:40.82\00:12:43.49
"We read this lesson," he said,
00:12:43.53\00:12:44.86
"they are not of this world,
even as I am not of the world.
00:12:44.89\00:12:47.56
We see them driven to
the catacombs of Rome.
00:12:47.60\00:12:50.37
We see them hunted
around like partridges.
00:12:50.40\00:12:54.37
And wherever in history
you find God's servants,
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you can recognize them
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by their distinct
unvarying character
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they are not of the world,
00:13:02.41\00:13:04.35
but were a people
scarred and peeled.
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A people entirely
distinct from the nations!
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And if in this age
there are no different people,
00:13:10.12\00:13:14.56
there are no Christians.
00:13:14.59\00:13:15.92
For Christians
will always be different
00:13:15.96\00:13:19.29
from the world.
00:13:19.33\00:13:20.66
They are not of the world
00:13:20.70\00:13:22.03
even as Christ
was not of the world.
00:13:22.06\00:13:23.73
This is the doctrine."
00:13:23.77\00:13:26.74
Interesting assertion,
00:13:26.77\00:13:29.80
a truism if you like,
00:13:29.84\00:13:31.94
I really redundant truism,
but we don't hear it enough.
00:13:31.97\00:13:36.54
We don't think on it enough.
00:13:36.58\00:13:38.85
Let's take a short break
00:13:38.88\00:13:40.22
and I'll be back to
continue this discussion.
00:13:40.25\00:13:42.18