Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200462B
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00:01 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:02 Before the break, 00:04 I was going over 00:07 some of the details of the English Civil War 00:09 that I feel so influenced, 00:13 not just the American War of Independence 00:15 but events right up to our day. 00:17 And one of the most significant aspects 00:19 was their sense of prophetic timeliness. 00:25 On another program, 00:27 I've railed a bit against the dispensationalists 00:33 in the evangelical community 00:35 who are allowing their views of prophecy 00:39 to bleed over into their political views, 00:41 and indeed a rush to war in the Middle East 00:44 because they think it's inevitable, 00:45 might as well bring it about. 00:47 There's no question 00:49 that during the English Civil War, 00:51 many factions of the Puritans 00:52 believed they were at the end of time, 00:55 they were at the moment of God's judgment, 00:57 the millennium was to follow, 00:58 and so there were factions that represented that, 01:00 there were the Levelers, 01:02 a major faction that believe they would stand shortly 01:05 before the judgment bear of God at the last trump as equals. 01:09 So in advance so that you leveled society, 01:11 leveled the hedges, we were all... 01:13 They were proto communists 01:14 if you wanted to twist it that way, 01:16 but it was from a religious point of view. 01:18 Then they were the ranters, who were ranting and railing, 01:22 they were the sort of the ones with the end of the world, 01:24 you know, "The end of the world is upon us," type stuff. 01:27 Most significantly for me as a Seventh-day Adventist 01:30 and my views of prophecy, 01:32 they were the Fifth Monarchy Men. 01:34 Oliver Cromwell was most sympathetic 01:36 to this group. 01:37 They believe they were at the end of history, 01:40 as represented by the image of Daniel 2 01:42 and they were in the fifth and final kingdom, 01:48 soon to be replaced by the kingdom of God. 01:50 And, of course, 01:51 that has an incredibly self fulfilling aspect to it. 01:57 But let me go back to this figure of John Milton 02:01 and his involvement in this apocalyptic mindset. 02:06 He outlived Oliver Cromwell. 02:09 He nearly lost his life 02:12 as a signatory to the death penalty 02:13 for the king when the king's son came back. 02:16 He hunted down those regicides as they were called, 02:20 but John Milton was so famous 02:22 and so well protected by well placed people 02:25 that he escaped with his life. 02:27 And went into some obscurity but kept writing. 02:31 And amazingly, 02:32 even though he lost his sight in 1652, 02:36 he was only, I think in his 40s at that time, 02:39 lost his sight completely. 02:42 In his blind condition dictating to his daughter, 02:48 he wrote, 02:49 arguably the greatest poem in the English language, 02:52 a book length poem called great... 02:55 Sorry, called Paradise Lost. 02:59 Just to give in other word, Paradise Lost, 12 books. 03:03 And Samuel Johnson, 03:05 the literary figure of the time said, "None wished it longer," 03:09 I believe as a Seventh-day Adventist 03:11 that it was influential even in the thinking 03:14 that characterizes my church, 03:15 the so called Great Controversy thing. 03:18 And I want to read you in the little time left 03:22 an excerpt from book 12 toward the end. 03:24 And it just tells the story of the rebellion in heaven, 03:27 the creation of man, the temptation and fall of man, 03:31 and his expulsion from Eden. 03:32 That's the whole book of how paradise was lost. 03:38 And at the end of this, 03:39 he has the angel explaining God's purposes. 03:42 And I think this is the succinct summary 03:45 of the Great Controversy 03:46 because the angel speaks and then Adam says this, 03:49 "But say, if our deliverer up to heaven must re-ascend, 03:53 what will betide the few, His faithful, 03:56 left among the unfaithful herd, the enemies of truth? 04:00 Who then shall guide His people? 04:02 Who defend? 04:03 Will they not deal worse with His followers 04:06 than with Him they dealt? 04:08 "Be sure they will," said the angel, 04:10 "But from heaven he to His own comfortable ascend 04:14 the promise of the Father, 04:16 who shall dwell His spirit within them. 04:18 And the law of faith 04:20 working through love upon their hearts, 04:22 shall right to guide them in all truth, 04:25 and also armed with spiritual armor, 04:28 able to resist Satan's assaults and quenches fiery darts. 04:32 What man can do against them, not afraid, 04:35 go to the death against such cruelties 04:39 within what consolations recompensed 04:41 and often supported, 04:42 so as shall amaze their proudest persecutors, 04:47 for the spirit powered first on His apostles, 04:51 whom He sends to evangelize the nations. 04:54 Then on all baptized, 04:55 shell them with wondrous gifts and you to speak old tongues 04:59 and do old miracles as did the Lord before them. 05:02 Thus they win great numbers of each nation 05:05 to receive with joy, 05:07 the tidings brought from heaven. 05:10 At length their ministry performed 05:12 and race well run, 05:13 their doctrine 05:14 and their story written left they die, 05:17 but in their room as they fall worn, 05:20 wolves shall succeed for teachers. 05:23 Grievers wolves, 05:25 who hold the sacred mysteries of heaven 05:28 to their own vile advantage shall turn 05:31 of lucre, and ambition, 05:34 and the truth with superstitions 05:36 and traditions taint. 05:38 Left only in those written records pure, 05:42 though not but by the spirit understood. 05:46 Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names, 05:50 places and titles, 05:52 and with these to join secular power, 05:55 the feigning still to act by spiritual 05:58 to themselves appropriating the Spirit of God 06:01 promised alike and given to all believers, 06:04 and from that pretense spiritual laws by carnal power 06:10 shall force on every conscience. 06:13 Laws which none shall find left in them and ruled, 06:16 or what the spirit within shall on the heart engrave. 06:20 What will they then, 06:21 but force the spirit of grace itself 06:24 and bind his consort liberty, 06:27 what got and build his living temples 06:32 built by faith to stand, 06:33 their own faith not another's, 06:35 for on earth who against faith and conscience 06:38 can be heard infallible. 06:40 Yet many will presume, 06:43 whence heavy persecution shall arise 06:45 on all who in the worship persevere 06:48 of spirit and truth, the rest, 06:51 far greater part will deem in outward rites 06:54 and specious forms religion satisfied, 06:59 truth shall retire, 07:00 bestruck with slanderous darts 07:03 and works of faith rarely be found. 07:06 So shall the world go on to good, 07:09 malignant to bad man benign, 07:13 under her own weight groaning till the day appear 07:16 of respiration to the just and vengeance to the wicked, 07:19 at return of him, 07:21 so lately promised to thy aid the woman's seed, 07:26 obscurely then foretold. 07:28 Now amplier known thy Savior and thy Lord. 07:32 Last in the clouds from heaven 07:34 to be revealed in glory of the Father, 07:37 to dissolve Satan with his perverted world. 07:42 Then raise from the conflagrant mass, 07:45 purged and refined, new earth, new heavens, 07:50 ages of endless date, 07:52 founded in righteousness and peace and love 07:56 to bring forth fruits, joy and eternal bliss." 08:01 That's a fantastic summation 08:04 of what the Bible tells us in Revelation is to follow 08:07 after this veil of tears if you like. 08:10 It's a fantastic vision for a blind man 08:14 dictating it in the real world. 08:16 And as I read it, I believe it's a verbal poem. 08:19 It's not... 08:20 Even though it's a language of the King James Bible 08:23 closer to that era than today, 08:25 it's really got that dynamic of someone reading it out 08:27 and turning it rather than, 08:29 you know, 08:30 intellectually putting words on paper. 08:32 But he was speaking there 08:34 of the religious theological overlay 08:40 that the Puritans had brought to their conflict in England, 08:43 and I believe in a certain way, 08:47 but a slightly twisted way brought to the new world 08:50 because Milton stayed behind, 08:52 escaped execution and kept writing. 08:56 When the king came back 08:58 and started hunting down the regicides 09:01 and the revolutionaries from the civil war 09:04 that now were on the losing side, 09:06 many of them, 09:07 thousands fled to the United States 09:10 to the new world, 09:12 mostly down south, 09:13 but they fled 09:15 and seeded the United States with views that in my view, 09:19 characterized 09:20 or brought to bear American exceptionalism, 09:23 the idea of religious entitlement, 09:26 the idea that this was a promised land, 09:30 and they brought with them 09:32 what they still sing in England, 09:35 from the poet William Blake, 09:36 you know, that those feet in ancient time 09:39 walk upon England's green and pleasant land. 09:41 And he says, "I will not rest till I have built Jerusalem 09:44 here in England." 09:46 Well, that's shifted, and in many ways, 09:49 American exceptionalism 09:51 and the idea that no American president 09:53 can ever apologies for what we do 09:55 is all derived 09:56 from this Puritan ethic revolution were here 10:01 we're going to establish the kingdom of God on earth. 10:03 And yet Milton himself said, "It's in the heart. 10:07 It's not through power and prestige and money." 10:10 It's... 10:12 As Jesus said, "The kingdom is within you." 10:15 And it really escaped the Puritan revolutionaries. 10:18 While much was good about era 10:20 and I would defend Oliver Cromwell 10:22 on a certain level, 10:23 he's not quite the desperate 10:24 that revisionist historians have put forth. 10:28 In fact, he's carved into the stone Reformation wall 10:32 in Geneva, Switzerland, 10:33 one of the great heroes of the Reformation, 10:35 but they revolutionary, 10:37 politically revolutionary fervor, 10:40 I think translates badly in the new world, 10:43 particularly into a secular dynamic 10:46 that has strengthened religion 10:48 purely by its insistence 10:50 on a separation of church and state 10:52 because it is not a separationist's viewpoint. 10:55 It's a triumphalist view that rolls the secular state 10:59 and the coming promised kingdom of God, 11:01 all into one hole. 11:04 John Milton, Paradise Lost, The Great Controversy, 11:08 it's all part of the exciting theme 11:10 that we carry forward. 11:12 And we need to be very careful, 11:14 we keep the parts discrete and separate 11:16 and understand fully the dynamic of then and now. 11:21 I'll be back shortly. |
Revised 2020-05-21