Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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This is Lincoln Steed
with guest Amireh Al Haddad
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and the hot topic,
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where probably,
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the switchboards
are gonna light up
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like crazy when this goes lo.
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No, I hope so, but
not with antagonism.
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I hope there's agreement,
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at least with
our general position,
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there's serious issues
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and we need to have
some more than tolerance.
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We need to have
understanding, clarification.
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And with Christians a
little priority setting
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that this is the here and now,
but we set for another kingdom,
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but we have to be
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responsible
citizens of this one.
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And talking
about another kingdom,
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you know, when our church
was being formed in the 1860s,
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we were in the
middle of a civil war.
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And whose side
are you gonna support?
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How do you receive
tithes and offerings
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in Confederate money?
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You know, we're
trying to organize
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the church in the
middle of a civil war.
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I've often spoken
about this dynamic,
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but I'd never thought
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what happened to
the Confederate money
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that the church must have gotten
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at some point with antagonist.
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How do you manage it
when you're one country,
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but you've got two
monetary systems going on?
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And they
clearly had views on it.
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I mean, Ellen White
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wrote very plainly that God's...
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She says, "God's
punishment rested on the south
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for its embrace of slavery."
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That's a pretty
damning statement.
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It is.
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And yet at the same time,
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to me, it's
always very significant.
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That's precisely the
moment the church developed
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its non-combatancy stance.
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It is.
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So they clearly made
the super clear decision
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to stay out of
the political fray.
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Well, they believe
that the United States
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was Babylon or would be.
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Had become. It
had become Babylon.
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Isn't that strike you. Yes.
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And, you know, it
does shape the way
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you interact
with your government.
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You know, we were
coming from a position
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where Liberty Insider is
just really dealing with US
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a little bit of
Canada sometimes, but...
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Well, then I get
onto other topics...
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Into other topics so...
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I didn't wanna take
you to the Middle East.
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Remember... I know, I know.
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I didn't wanna go to
different places today,
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but we have had a history
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where there have been members
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who felt like
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they were gonna
abstain from voting
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because of the conflict
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that they felt
brought upon them by voting,
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you know, and then
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there was another
time when Ellen G. White
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wrote about the fact
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that it was
incumbent upon us to vote
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as she was particularly
talking about temperance.
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You grew up with
temperance in your household.
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Yeah.
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My father was the
temperance directive,
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and he lived and breathed that.
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And I've read the book
Temperance a few times,
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which is a
compilation bit of statements
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that Ellen White made
on the temperance topic.
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Now she said it was
such an important topic,
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if need be vote on the Sabbath.
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Yes.
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Which you're gonna
really think that one through
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with Seventh-day Adventists.
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And we keep the
Sabbath very holy.
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And you spend a lot of your time
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seeking
exemptions in the workplace
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for Adventists who can't work,
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can't do secular activities,
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but she saw
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this is a very high moral cause.
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And as Jesus pointed out,
you do good on the Sabbath,
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that's a calling.
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It's not the time
to go into hibernation,
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although some
people do this risk.
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What does it, lay activities?
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Yeah. Yeah.
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There was one
very particular time
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when there was a meritorial vote
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in Battle Creek.
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And the Battle Creek mayor
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was seen to have been
this very disreputable,
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womanizer, drunk,
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you know, and he was
sure he was gonna get back in
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because Election
Day was on Sabbath.
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And Ellen White said,
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"You need to go
and vote this man out,
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even on the Sabbath day."
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He was sure he
was gonna get back in
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because he knew
Adventist would not go
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vote on Sabbath.
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You know, of course, I say...
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It happens, but it
gets into a gray area
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because the Moral
Majority as they came to power,
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I think one of the worst aspects
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of their growing
political involvement
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was these voter lists picking,
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having targets to defeat
politically or electorally
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because of their
views on abortion usually.
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And, you know, I don't think
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it's a problem with
Adventists and most Christians,
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we see abortion
and other modern...
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How could I characterize them,
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other modern
light-hearted looks at life
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and the
seriousness of God's creation?
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You know, is not good,
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but to be one notice
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and to be so
militant politically
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that you'll tear
them down at any cost
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even voting on Sabbath
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makes me a little uncomfortable.
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Well, and luckily we also say,
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just because someone
else tells you to do it,
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doesn't mean that
you have to violate
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your conscience.
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Right.
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And as you know,
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our religious liberty department
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and our church
has never directed
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voters generally.
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I know there was a
comment of Ellen White,
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but she was not church dictator.
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No! Not at all.
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She was a
spiritual voice advisor,
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and one of the pioneers.
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No, I think it's a safe course.
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It's a moral course,
it's a list of New Testament,
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biblically defensible course,
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that the church is
not in politics directly
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and not pushing the members
to any particular viewpoint.
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And we've had
this back and forth
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where we say not to vote,
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then go vote on
Sabbath back and forth.
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And so what happened was,
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finally we kind of
got together and we said,
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"Look, we need to understand
that we can't prove or disprove
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whether a Christian
should vote or not vote
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on the Bible."
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And because you can't prove it
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in the Bible or
disprove it in the Bible,
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we're gonna tell people
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we leave this to
each individual to do.
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And, you know, in
some things like this
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are clearly not moral
or immoral in themselves.
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It's how you go
about that activity.
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And that's a
matter of conscience
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and we'll stand before God
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and I know it seems
crazy to some, but you could,
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two people could
almost do the same thing
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and one could
be condemned by God
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and their conscience
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and the other
person God could say there,
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like indicative of David,
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a man after my heart or
a woman after my own heart,
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so at the end of the
day, it's a heart response,
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but we enter
into enchanted ground,
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I think by becoming
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politically
motivated as Christians
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at the expense of
our Christian identity
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and our Christian aspirations.
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True.
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And when we look at it overall,
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what we really
need to understand is
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that from our perspective,
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we need to remember
that it doesn't matter
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if you're a
republican or a democrat.
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What you should tell people
when they say, "What are you?"
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You should say,
"I'm a Christian."
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If we identified
more as being a Christian,
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rather than a political party,
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I think that we would
be so much further along.
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And...
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I agree with you.
Contentment and understanding.
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You know, he's become a
bit of a leper at the moment,
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but Mitt Romney's speech,
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and you could argue
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whether or not
he should have voted
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the way he did,
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but as a human being
and a person of faith,
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I appreciated the way
that he laid out the fact
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that he was acting
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on his
conscience as a Christian.
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Yeah.
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Not be wrong, but I
mean, about how he acted,
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but I saw
conscience of work there,
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he was thinking deeply
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and so each
Christian should do that,
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don't you think?
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Definitely.
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If each and every
one of us were to act
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on our own conscience
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and our own
understanding of the Bible,
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then we would probably
all be a lot better off,
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but the problem comes
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when we decide that
we're gonna form ourselves
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or connect ourselves with people
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that are based on a
political party system
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rather than the system of God
and Jesus' kingdom in heaven.
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So always keep in mind.
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Voting in the Old Testament
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was a little
bit different affair
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than in the modern voting booth
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and the numbers and the parties
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and the precincts and so on.
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I can remember
reading with interest
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when Saul was
voted king of Israel
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against God's wishes
and the prophets' wishes.
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And yet curiously,
he was the one chosen.
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It is a mistake, I think,
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in our modern system
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to imagine that
any elected leader
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is automatically
one chosen by God,
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but it's also a mistake to think
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that to stand back
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and to allow a
democratic society
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to choose its leaders
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without any input
from Christian sensibility
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is an ideal thing.
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The Christians are
to be light and salt,
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and any number
of figures that show
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that they influence
the society they live in.
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And to be the best of citizens,
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even as in
everything about their life
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and comportment they show
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that they are
citizens of a far kingdom,
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a coming kingdom,
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God's eternal kingdom of grace
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that is promised to each of us.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
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