Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200460B
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00:01 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:03 Before the break, I was starting to read 00:06 and then explicating a very interesting dream 00:09 that Ellen White, Seventh-day Adventist pioneer 00:13 and visionary had 100 00:17 and some years ago. 00:19 And I'll start it again because I interjected with comments, 00:23 but really, it needs to be read as a whole, 00:24 it's only one paragraph. 00:26 And she said this, "In the night I was, I thought, 00:28 in a room but not in my own house. 00:30 I was in a city where I knew not 00:33 and I heard expression after..." 00:35 I'm sorry, that was how it was first written. 00:37 "I heard explosion after explosion," 00:40 she actually wrote. 00:43 It's the dream. 00:44 But I believe God was impressing something 00:47 on this woman's mind. 00:48 And think about it as she explains the protocol, 00:52 which I saw on 9/11, 00:54 in front of my TV, on my TV screen. 00:57 She says, "I woke up in this dream, 01:00 in that room, I didn't know where I was." 01:02 She says, "I heard explosion after explosion." 01:05 Two planes hit that night or that day. 01:09 "I rose up quickly in bed and saw from my window, 01:12 large balls of fire, 01:15 jetting out with sparks in the form of arrows." 01:19 That's what I most noticed on 9/11these phew... 01:24 And buildings were being consumed," 01:26 she said, "and in a very few minutes, 01:28 the entire block of buildings was falling. 01:32 And the screeching 01:33 and mournful groans came distinctly to my ears." 01:37 That's what I remember on 9/11. 01:39 The howl of desperation, 01:42 as the buildings fell, and she said, 01:45 "I cried out in my raised position 01:47 to learn what was happening. 01:49 Where am I? 01:51 And where are our family circle, 01:53 where is our family circle? 01:55 Then I awoke, 01:56 but I could not tell where I was, 01:59 for I was in another place than home. 02:01 I said, "Oh Lord, where am I? 02:04 And what shall I do?" 02:06 It was a voice that spoke. 02:09 "Be not afraid, nothing shall harm you." 02:15 To me, that's the message 02:17 that God's people need to have today. 02:19 That was the message that Daniel 02:21 and his fellows took very directly 02:24 to their experience. 02:26 You know, I don't think for a minute 02:27 they thought they were, they were like 02:29 the God's warriors for in Africa, 02:32 the little boy soldiers, they gave them alcohol 02:35 and other stuff and drugs to drink. 02:36 And they told them that 02:38 the bullets wouldn't go through them. 02:40 Silly, but you know, they had that belief. 02:43 I don't think that the Shadrach, Meshach 02:45 and Abednego and Daniel thought they were exempt 02:48 from normal processes of reality, 02:53 but they had enough faith in God to know 02:56 He would protect them as they were faithful. 02:59 And if He intended them to witness, 03:03 then they would witness 03:04 no matter what the king or anyone else said. 03:07 It's a dynamic we have to keep in mind today. 03:10 And I do believe in our age, 03:13 there are any number of forces all around the world 03:17 and even in the United States 03:19 that would restrict people speaking truth to power, 03:24 truth to their neighbors and so on. 03:27 Even just today, I was talking 03:30 to one of our religious liberty leaders, 03:32 who was telling me of a situation 03:35 where for internal church reasons 03:39 and disruptions 03:40 in the normal worship and so on, 03:43 some Seventh-day Adventists have been meeting in their home 03:46 with fellow church members every Sabbath, 03:49 hundreds of them. 03:50 So it was a major get together like block party equivalent. 03:54 And the authorities have come after them, 03:56 threatening them with major fines 03:59 and saying if they don't pay, 04:00 they'll take away their property. 04:03 You know, there are consequences today, 04:06 if you proceed often. 04:09 But you have to have the firm belief that 04:14 if you're doing God's will, a way will be made for you. 04:20 Yes, sometimes people have burned in the fire. 04:24 But we have to believe that 04:26 God has delivered from the fire. 04:29 God has delivered from the lions' mouth 04:32 and God has delivered people 04:34 from the pestilence as the Bible says that 04:38 goes by day and by night. 04:40 The error by, what is it? 04:41 The error by day and the pestilence by night. 04:44 These things are surrounding us, 04:46 but we have to have faith in God. 04:52 Going further with Daniel, the very end of his life, 04:56 he was probably 80 some years old. 05:00 Still serving the powers that be, 05:03 but still loyal to his God. 05:04 I think that was the secret to why Daniel could go 05:08 from one regime to the other, 05:10 as the Medes and the Persians overrun 05:13 the Babylonians 05:14 and a new kingdom was established. 05:15 He was still there in a point of influence. 05:18 And at the last 05:21 when Belshazzar, 05:26 we're not sure his relation to 05:31 Nebuchadnezzar, 05:32 but he probably was the grandson. 05:35 He was wining and dining 05:37 and celebrating even as the Medes 05:39 and the Persians were coming up attacking the city 05:42 and they eventually overran it. 05:43 And Daniel was called for the last, why? 05:46 Because God showed His signal power 05:49 on the wall there, a moving finger wrote. 05:52 And I've always thought 05:54 that the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 05:56 is borrowed from that biblical figure, 05:58 because the Rubáiyát says the moving finger writes 06:01 and having written moves on are all your party know 06:03 what can lure it back to cancel half alone, 06:06 but in reality, 06:08 it's the Bible account this heavenly finger, 06:12 the angelic finger was writing 06:14 in an in comprehensible script on the wall. 06:17 It was God signaling to that corrupt regime 06:21 as Daniel interpret and says, 06:22 your kingdom has been found wanting. 06:27 And I do believe that's the message again 06:32 that people have faith 06:33 and integrity even our age 06:38 need to say whenever it's appropriate. 06:43 Even in the US and extensively moral society, 06:48 a society guided extensively by a fixed constitution. 06:52 If it's corrupting justice, 06:57 if it's inappropriately moving to support some religion 07:02 and not others, the Constitution says that 07:05 you should support none as far as state aid and so on. 07:09 But if it's doing things appropriate, 07:11 we have to speak out, we have to say, you're, 07:15 you know, you're found wanting. 07:17 We need God not in our government, 07:20 but in our lives. 07:22 And there might be a consequence for that. 07:24 But we have to realize that, that's, you know, that's it. 07:30 The sample, the examples 07:32 of people standing for their faith, 07:34 even with great persecution are many and varied. 07:38 And one that, that impressed me 07:41 years and years ago when I was back working 07:43 in my homeland of Australia, 07:45 I was editing a church paper for all of our members 07:48 in that whole region, about 50,000 of them 07:53 at that time in Australia proper, 07:55 and someone sent me a manuscript 07:59 of the story of missionaries in the Solomon Islands, 08:03 back when it was worth your life to go back then. 08:06 A number of missionaries were killed. 08:08 Even in my lifetime, I remember a young man 08:12 that visited their homes, at home when I was growing up. 08:16 He and his wife, a nurse, newly married, 08:19 went to the Solomon Islands. 08:21 And he was working in the hospital there 08:24 and a guy came in and speared him with a rebar, 08:29 sharpened rebar straight through 08:31 and he had to take a canoe overnight, 08:35 sitting up with the blood coming out, 08:37 this thing straight through his body 08:39 trying to get to the hospital and he died on the way. 08:41 That was in my living memory. 08:44 But as I read this manuscript, 08:46 it told the story of the missionary 08:48 pioneers there 08:49 and how they converted some of the locals 08:52 and one local named Jugah was left behind on an island. 08:57 Not his own, to witness to them for Christianity with his wife. 09:03 And eventually, the antagonisms 09:06 against this new religion was so great 09:09 that he and his wife had to flee for their life 09:11 along a village track, a jungle track. 09:13 They ran for their lives. 09:16 She trailed behind, and she was cut down, 09:19 killed and eaten. 09:21 And he made it to the coast swam out 09:23 to a gunboat back in the days of colonialism, 09:26 which fired a few cannon shots. 09:28 And they said to him, 09:29 because he swam out to the gunboat, 09:30 and they said, "Well, 09:32 we'll take you back to Australia." 09:33 Now he says, "No." He says, "I'm going back." 09:37 So they took him back to the scene of the attack. 09:40 They found just a few fingers 09:41 of his wife's hand that was all, 09:43 rest had been eaten. 09:44 They put that under a rock kiln 09:46 and on the rock kiln 09:48 he wrote on a wood marker he says, 09:53 direct quote from the Bible, 09:55 "The Word of God is not bound." 10:00 And he continue there 10:01 and in that part of the world today, 10:03 there are whole islands 10:05 that are Seventh-day Adventists, 10:07 whole islands that are Christian, 10:09 and many of those people became missionaries 10:11 to other parts of the world. 10:13 His wife died, he did not die. 10:16 The fires and the teeth of the crocodiles, 10:19 the crocodiles, in that part of the world, 10:23 teeth of the lion come and go. 10:24 But God's promise is as sure now as before, 10:28 do not worry, it will not come near you. 10:33 But as with Daniel, as with his fellows, 10:35 I believe the call is given to us. 10:38 Stand fast, stand firm. 10:41 You know, we don't need to be careful 10:43 answering your king. 10:44 We don't need to be careful 10:46 because we serve the God of heaven. 10:49 I'll be back after a short break. |
Revised 2020-05-07