Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200472A
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00:30 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:32 This is a program designed to give you information 00:37 on religious liberty, an understanding of what it is, 00:41 how it's administered, 00:43 and probably often 00:45 some of the threats in the US and around the world. 00:48 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:51 And my guest on the program, welcome Pastor Alden Ho. 00:57 I found a man of many skills and many views 01:00 and I want to pick your brains on another program. 01:04 Are you a fisherman? 01:06 No, actually I... No. 01:08 I'm not either. No. 01:09 I have a son who is generally impatient. 01:14 But for some reason, 01:15 fishing just draws him in the idea of going fishing 01:20 and I guess he likes catching the unknown. 01:23 So fishing at least is in my family a bit. 01:28 But, you know, I'm reminded of that Bible story 01:30 where Jesus and His followers who really, 01:32 as the Bible says, "The foxes have holes 01:34 but the Son of Man nowhere to lay His head." 01:36 They were itinerant guys that I'm sure slipped out 01:40 under the saddle up, 01:42 under the open air a lot after a hot sunny day. 01:46 But we know that there were women 01:48 that supplied them with food and means, but Herod... 01:52 Jew, I was one of them, 01:53 so they were highly connected women, 01:55 but Jesus and His followers 01:56 really didn't have much of anything. 01:59 And then as always, even if you're impoverished, 02:02 the government wants to cut off what little you have. 02:05 Right. Texas came to you. 02:07 Where do they get it? 02:08 Jesus says, Well, you know, go fishing. 02:10 And they pulled out just enough 02:13 out of the mouth of a fish to pay the tax. 02:15 Exact amount. 02:17 Right, yeah. It was the exact amount. 02:18 So, you know, money can be found 02:21 when it's necessary. 02:23 But it amazes me 02:24 when we talk about religious liberty very often, 02:28 an element of it as weird as the means come from 02:32 and will taking means from the wrong source 02:35 compromise your practice of religion 02:38 and your faith witness. 02:40 And I think very often 02:42 there's a forgetfulness of you can fish for it. 02:44 True. 02:45 Yeah, I mean providentially, not the other way. 02:49 And let's talk a little bit about 02:52 something that goes back to the beginnings 02:54 of the religious liberty work 02:56 for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, 02:57 a discussion of whether or not 02:59 to take money usually from authorities, 03:04 from a king, 03:06 from a president, from a governor, 03:08 from whoever is willing to give you a lot of money 03:12 to enable your work, but perhaps, 03:14 then when the going gets tough or details change, 03:19 maybe then say, 03:20 "Well, you shouldn't be teaching this. 03:22 You maybe should keep quiet on this or say this, 03:25 support the government," 03:27 the strings with most money. 03:30 Very interesting topic 03:31 because, you know, the Bible does talk about 03:35 not only getting that out of the fish 03:38 but that's interesting that came out of natural means. 03:41 But then we're also told here in 03:45 I believe it's Isaiah, 03:47 that... 03:48 Isaiah 60:5, 03:50 "The abundance of the sea will be turned to you, 03:52 the wealth of the Gentiles shall come to you." 03:55 How do we draw the line between the money 03:59 that comes from the Gentiles 04:01 versus the money that comes from, say, 04:04 the government in stimulus form? 04:07 Well, it's an interesting twist on it. 04:11 I'm old enough to remember in more experience, I guess, 04:15 our church used to have annual in-gathering appeals. 04:20 I think we have something there, 04:22 but it's surely not what it used to be. 04:23 Definitely not. 04:26 And we would quote church pioneers who said, 04:30 you know, it's really a privilege 04:33 for granting neighbors and community leaders 04:37 to cooperate financially what we're doing. 04:41 So we didn't see it even as imposing upon them. 04:44 We're giving them the opportunity 04:45 to help with a great work and that was so. 04:50 But there's no strings that I know 04:52 are from those sorts of gifts of, are they? 04:55 Well, yes, actually there is. 04:58 I mean, if you accept money 04:59 from certain entities sometimes, 05:03 they want to have control, they want to have access... 05:05 Oh, no, but I mean going door to door 05:06 just asking the neighborhood. 05:08 That's totally different. No, so I don't... 05:10 I never saw a problem with that 05:12 other than as a young guy, a certain embarrassment. 05:16 I looked forward to in-gathering 05:18 'cause that was a time period you saw your friends, 05:20 you went out, it was cold. 05:21 Yes, yes. 05:22 But that was the fellowship, the aspect back then. 05:25 But it's not... 05:27 It's extinct today. 05:28 But you certainly jumped ahead in my thinking. 05:31 Absolutely, when you get into more formal applications 05:35 for grants and government assistance, 05:37 and so on, 05:39 there's usually detailed criteria 05:41 you have to satisfy to get it in the first place, 05:45 which in the case of religious schools and so on 05:47 means that you set up curriculum, 05:50 even facilities to agree with government requirements, 05:52 which is sort of a catch 22... 05:54 It's almost... 05:55 Because it'll cost you more to come to the standards 05:59 and therefore you need even more of the money 06:01 that you're asking for in the first place. 06:02 Right, but it seems as though you're selling yourself out. 06:06 It's like Jacob and Esau, 06:08 selling your birthright for a bowl of porridge. 06:12 And that's what usually happens. 06:14 But I don't know, if there's certain criteria that, 06:17 you know, after X amount, then we tell you what to do. 06:21 Well, I don't think there's a criteria 06:22 because it varies from country to country, 06:24 from administration to administration, 06:26 and maybe even the personnel, 06:29 different person in the same government 06:31 or official job 06:33 might look differently on the public, 06:36 how they relate to the public trust, 06:38 money that's given. 06:40 I know that just several months ago, 06:41 I was in Belize for a mission trip 06:42 and even in the Seventh-day Adventist school system there, 06:46 all the teachers were paid actually by the government. 06:50 So you really couldn't let them go per se fire them 06:53 because they were government employees 06:55 working in your school. 06:57 I didn't know that about Belize, 06:58 but yeah, that's almost totally 07:00 the worst situation you could get. 07:02 Yeah. So how do you correct somebody? 07:04 You can't do much. 07:06 And so I think the same thing falls upon us. 07:09 At what point do we have to accept a certain amount 07:12 or should we not accept anything at all? 07:14 Now I'm sure in Belize, 07:17 government can work through that situation. 07:19 It's not the end of all good works. 07:23 And in any situation to take money 07:27 from another source, 07:30 even money that might ultimately compromise you 07:33 is not in itself a culpable act 07:37 or evil in itself. 07:40 But to me 07:42 it's in the same category as Hezekiah. 07:45 Recently healed by God, 07:48 when he was told that he might not last, 07:49 so he was already in a sort of an independent mode. 07:53 And he gets to bragging with the Babylonians 07:56 and showing them the treasures and all the rest. 07:58 Well, that wasn't really wrong. 08:00 But he'd lost his sense of perspective, 08:03 not understanding that his wealth was from the Lord 08:06 and it wasn't even, 08:08 you know, the treasure per se that made Israel strong, 08:11 he should have been telling them more about, 08:13 you know, God's way for mankind rather than what he had. 08:17 But he basically sold them down the river, 08:19 and it led directly to invasion 08:22 and the loss of liberty for many of God's people. 08:25 And I see taking state aid in that same line, 08:29 you can't say church leaders who sign on the dotted line 08:35 and lose their autonomy and done evil thing, 08:38 but they've delivered themselves 08:39 into the hands of evildoers and evil times. 08:44 They've created vulnerability. 08:46 So do you think as a result of accepting that, 08:48 then the government's going to come back and say, 08:51 "Hey, do you remember in the year 2020, 08:53 during the COVID thing, 08:54 we gave you some stimulus money? 08:57 And so now you got to do this, 08:59 you got to do this and you can't do that." 09:01 Well, of course, that always happens. 09:03 Always happens. 09:05 And, you know, you're getting into the present. 09:08 That's exactly what's happening now. 09:10 The United States, I think, with good intention, 09:13 at least the majority of government officials, 09:17 I think with good intention, others with some cynicism 09:20 because some of them must know it's a bankrupt country. 09:25 And I've even had some family members 09:30 that were not running their finances the way I would 09:34 and then they were very free to give something away 09:37 or to give away big gifts. 09:39 That's not a sign of generosity. 09:41 It's a sign of further irresponsibility 09:44 if you're not managing and you're wasting something 09:48 that you should have been paying your debts on. 09:50 So the US debt 09:53 is mathematically almost impossible 09:56 to ever pay back, right? 09:58 So what do you think, if it's that bad, 10:01 where are they getting all this money from to... 10:03 It's made up money. 10:05 Made up money, in the sense of, they're printing it? 10:10 No, they didn't even print it. 10:13 We will likely at the edge and, you know, we're entering, 10:16 it's not conspiracy theory or anything, 10:19 but, you know, it doesn't narrowly 10:21 relate to religious liberty, 10:22 but to describe the times we're in 10:23 and I think this is a good chance 10:25 to explain to people where we are. 10:28 You know, the whole monetary system 10:31 in the West is largely, 10:34 it's an old-fashioned word that people understand, 10:36 it's very close to a Ponzi scheme, 10:38 or as the Bible puts it, 10:40 it's a system that when people lose confidence, 10:42 the merchants will wail 10:44 over what's lost in half an hour. 10:47 Money is a complex thing, people get doctorates 10:50 and schools established on finance and so on, 10:55 but you need to understand that money is an exchange system, 10:59 and all you're exchanging the value 11:01 either put into something by labor 11:04 or of goods, right? 11:08 And you can monetize that through different things. 11:12 In the island of Yap, 11:13 they used to have carved stone circles. 11:17 In New Guinea, pigs. 11:20 You need an item, a reference item. 11:22 And most countries for most of recorded history 11:25 have used valuable metals like gold. 11:29 Gold is pretty indestructible, 11:33 compact, heavy, and so on. 11:34 That's reasonable. 11:36 It doesn't have to be gold, it could be silver. 11:37 It could be diamonds but an agreed upon thing. 11:42 Then you've got a pure reference point 11:44 that continues and is a solid base. 11:48 US used to have it, 11:50 although if you know US history, 11:52 right after the War of Independence, 11:55 this country spent money they didn't have, 11:57 there was massive inflation. 11:59 The wages of the revolutionary soldiers 12:01 given to them in a chip became worthless. 12:05 They were exchanging them 12:06 for equivalent of a cup of coffee 12:08 at one point, 12:09 and General Washington said, 12:10 "Hang on to it, it may become valuable." 12:12 Well, it never did very much. 12:14 But that said, until the '70s, 12:16 the US extensively on the dollar said 12:18 it could be exchanged for gold. 12:21 We went off that. 12:22 So now the money's only money because they say it's money 12:26 and you accept it as money. 12:28 That's fine. 12:30 But when you produce money out of proportion 12:33 to the solid substance of real wealth, 12:35 which is labor and goods, 12:38 something starts to give. 12:40 It's true. I remember... 12:41 And we are in a stage now 12:43 where there's a term that is used on television 12:45 and no one much knows what it means, 12:47 quantitative easing. 12:48 It's not even printing money. 12:50 It's typing numbers in different places. 12:53 Fudging your bank account 12:54 And... Basically. 12:56 The law of finances is irrevocable 12:58 and unchangeable. 13:00 At some point that catches up with you 13:03 in the form of massive inflation. 13:06 That's true. Or another way of putting it. 13:09 You pay a tax in value, it becomes 13:11 depending on how much you borrow it 13:13 through throwing numbers around, 13:16 the money's worth that much less. 13:17 Now I know you're not a prophet. 13:20 And since I know that, 13:21 but you're watching what's going on. 13:26 Hyper... 13:27 Is it hyper or super hyperinflation? 13:29 Hyperinflation. 13:30 Hyperinflation I know is going to be coming here. 13:34 What's your guess? When? 13:36 Well, you know, my $10 is in the bank 13:39 and I'd be very happy personally 13:41 if it didn't come, I'll have to... 13:42 You and I are gone. 13:44 But the chances are very high. We'll live to see it. 13:47 And no one knows how high it can be. 13:51 I remember going to Brazil a few decades ago 13:54 when they had 600% inflation, which is quite startling. 13:59 And, you know, $60 gave me a stack of bills that high. 14:04 Very hard for country to survive. 14:06 Germany, in between the wars, 14:09 had inflation of massive proportions 14:11 where it took literally a barrel load of money 14:13 to get an apple. 14:14 Exactly. 14:16 Zimbabwe, very recently had inflation 14:19 where I saw on television recently one financial lecturer 14:23 waving around the Zimbabwe $20 trillion note. 14:28 I mean, that's just a fantastical... 14:29 And they were worthless, so close to worthless. 14:32 So there's no rules on that. 14:33 But once you unleash it, it's very hard to stop. 14:37 And speaking to our church, 14:42 Ellen White, the visionary co-founder, 14:45 she warned of a stage 14:46 that will come before the end of time 14:47 when funds that could have been given earlier to the church, 14:53 given a little belatedly they'll be worthless. 14:55 People basically throw the money. 14:56 Yeah. 14:58 So that's likely. 14:59 And, you know, you and I can do little about it, except, 15:03 I think realize that this might be a consequence. 15:05 So where it comes to, we'll pick it up after a break, 15:09 is in this sort of a situation 15:11 where a government wanting to help 15:13 as much as it can 15:15 when tens of millions of people are out of work, 15:16 hopefully temporarily, 15:18 is literally throwing this sort of money 15:21 at the church. 15:22 Is this the time to take a complicating gift, 15:26 which is always complicating, but especially at a moment 15:29 when it's essentially worthless? 15:31 Yeah. We'll be back. 15:33 Let's take a break 15:34 and stay with us for this discussion. |
Revised 2020-08-07