Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider
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where we're donning
the economist mantel
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here but no, what we're doing
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really is connecting
to religious liberty.
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What always is
money is very important
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in this secular
world that we live in.
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Money is the means that carries
on a lot of religious activity,
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of course, the heart
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and commitment
is unquantifiable.
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But yet these budgets,
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all churches or organizations
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and governments give money,
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they take money
and they give it,
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and that's always a
reasonable discussion
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when you're talking
about religious liberty.
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Are you giving...
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Are you taking
money that entangles
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and even restricts
your religious practice?
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And I believe and
it's worth discussing here,
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that we may have just
sort of put that process
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on steroids during
the COVID emergency
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when a
financially troubled empire,
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the United
States wanting to help
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its citizenry in
this incredible emergency
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is sort of opened the floodgates
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of monopoly money.
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How much did everybody
get, 1200 or something?
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That's phenomenal.
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It was a total of $3 trillion
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which I think
included aid to businesses.
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But the receipts for the US
are 3.3 trillion in one year.
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So the entire expected income
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for the year was given
away in one single give out.
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And most people say
thank you government,
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they don't realize
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you can't give
what you don't have.
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Well, that's true.
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Can we talk a
little bit about...
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So the debate and this is where
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I want to involve you
which you know ahead of time,
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we talk behind the scenes.
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It's created quite
a lively discussion
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within I think a
number of church groups
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including our own.
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Is it appropriate in
this situation to take money
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and the way money was
offered among several,
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but one way was offered
was like the businesses,
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if you didn't
lay any workers off
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during the emergency,
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then you could keep the
assistance that was given.
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I think once we
accept that money,
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we're at a
dangerous point right now
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where there's
invasion of privacy,
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they're coming in
through your iPhones,
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they're coming in
through social media.
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They're
basically, it's kind of like
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a helicopter
parent hanging over you.
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And the government knows
everything that you're doing.
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So all they need is,
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I think that this stimulus money
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is a foot in the door
for them to be able to say,
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but you accepted it.
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So now it's time
for a little payback.
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Well, I didn't live
through World War II.
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And I didn't either. No, no.
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We didn't live, I
should have included you.
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What I mean is
that's ancient history
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World War II.
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I mean, when I was born,
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it was not far in
the Review and Herald,
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I don't know
anything about them.
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I didn't live through that,
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but before World
War II this country,
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the United States
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and most of the world
had a huge depression.
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And one way the US got
through it was people became,
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many people unemployed people
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became wards of
the state basically.
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They were sent to work camps.
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Wonderful things were
done by that administration.
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But they lost a lot
of practical freedoms.
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Then in World
War II particularly,
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I know even in
Australia, certainly in England,
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and I believe in the US,
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there was a lot of rationing.
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Was of no matter
how much money you had,
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there's some
things you couldn't buy,
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no matter how much money.
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You were given a certain amount,
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the government was in control.
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And I think that
the COVID gift money
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is a form of rationing.
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It's the same model,
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because they have given nothing.
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So how do you turn that
back in and say I don't want it?
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Well, the check
that we got individually,
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I think it came
without even applying.
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But the church has
to apply for money.
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It's not given automatically.
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And I think both out of respect
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for the continued
viability of the state,
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the church shouldn't hamper
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he state's
already failing effort
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and out of concern
for its ongoing integrity,
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it shouldn't take it
either because it complicates.
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I don't think there's
any logic to taking it
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that's overwhelming
other than a momentary fix.
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So just so we don't
send everybody into a panic
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here with this, the
personal stimulus check.
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Is there a
problem with that or not?
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Well, it's a problem,
but it's not a problem
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of religious liberty or freedom.
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Okay, so you accepted
yours? I haven't cashed it.
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You haven't cashed it
yet? But I probably will.
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You probably? Okay, so you will.
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But you're talking
about your application...
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You know, the
people, the taxpayers
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should recognize the government
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cannot give you
what it doesn't have
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and what it has,
it only gets from you.
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Yeah, so it's like,
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I'll take it out of your
bank and I'll give it to you.
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How much do you want?
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So this is smoothing
out the process, fine,
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but they're not
giving you something new,
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especially when they don't have
either money nor real credit.
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So this isn't religious liberty,
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but it's a
commentary on our times.
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We're living in a time of
great financial bankruptcy.
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And why I think it's
worth mentioning every collapse,
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and there's been many,
many of them in the modern era.
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Every collapse
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has a negative
civil liberty component,
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it will create
social dislocation.
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Right now we have
rioting from police actions
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that is impounding on
the civil rights movement
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which is fine,
because there's something
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that people can
address by group action,
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but we likely
before the civil war
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was seafood riots.
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We'll see riots
from the inequalities
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that are highlighted
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by great unemployment and so on.
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And in the crackdowns on
that, almost inadvertently,
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even a well
intentioned civil government
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is going to have to restrict
certain actions and practices,
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probably some form
of religious activity.
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So in your thinking,
considering that we are moving
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into this hyperinflation
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could be by the end of the year,
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could be in a
few months from now.
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How do you think that compares
to what happened in 2009
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with the economy?
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This is Act 2. This is Act 2.
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Yeah. More
trouble, less trouble?
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No, it'll be more of the same
and you and I are not prophets,
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but hopefully you and I
are like most of our viewers,
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we read and we see information.
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It's an inevitability,
it's already begun,
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and the real
estate agents know it.
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There's a
housing collapse coming,
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which will have shockwaves
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through the
economy of banks failing,
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people unemployed, less
workman building houses.
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I mean it just
filters up. Yeah, it's coming.
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But right now actually
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that the real estate
market is very hot right now.
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It seems to be, well
there's pent up demand.
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You know what I'm talking about.
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Yeah, it's hot
now because people
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who are in the cities,
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this is what I was told
by a financial attorney.
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People in the cities
after this COVID thing
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let up a little bit,
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they're wanting out
of the cities right now.
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And so the market is
hot for country homes.
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And this is interesting
as Seventh-day Adventists,
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we had advice that
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we believe was given divinely
to co-founder Ellen White
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who there's plenty of
evidence that she was under...
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Inspiration.
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Got to watch
the words, you know,
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people don't understand it.
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But you know, the
Spirit of the Lord
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had moved on her,
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it's not that
she was all knowing
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or some Delphic Oracle.
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But on key things, she
was given communications,
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and she was told
many of the things
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that were happening now,
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and she gave a
warning to Adventists back
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before we have the
urbanization we have today,
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but that we should
move out of the built up
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central city areas just
as a matter of precaution,
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because that's where troubles,
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troublous times impact
people the most negatively.
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Right.
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And what you're saying I
think just confirms that.
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There might come
a time for all of us
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wherever we are, it's
best to stay in place.
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I had a woman call me up
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about six or eight months
ago before the COVID thing.
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And she said that some
evangelist had told her
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that she should sell her
home and move to the country.
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She was a retired lady.
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And I said, "Have you ever
lived in the country before?"
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"No." You know,
retired by herself.
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I said, "If you sell
now and move to the country,
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that will be
your time of trouble."
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That's right.
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So you know
things have to be done
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in the right context.
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But we have to be moving
our frame of mind currently now
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out of those city areas,
out of the worldly concepts
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into a country
mindset right now.
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It is the time period
that God is giving us.
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And I think that it's
not a uniquely Adventist,
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uniquely Christian, it's
just a practical concern.
00:09:04.61\00:09:09.18
In India or large
population countries
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where there's a lot of
people that are very close,
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you know, their income
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is a little more
than subsistence.
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It's already
happened a couple of times
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in the last couple of decades,
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when say the
price of rice doubles.
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A person living in a city
with no access to a garden
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or anything, they
dropped to starvation level,
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just like that.
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And yet, if they could
even leave the city, though,
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they would have some security.
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So this is very practical.
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It's not relating
just to Adventist,
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not relating
just to North America.
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It's the cities
usually where revolutions come,
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where disease comes
that we're in COVID now,
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but the plague and so on.
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These are
practical considerations
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and I believe religious liberty
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will be strengthened
by people that make life
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a little easier for themselves
when the hard time comes.
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That's true.
00:10:02.10\00:10:03.43
Do you know there was a belief
00:10:03.47\00:10:05.53
it was a
congressman from West Virginia.
00:10:05.57\00:10:08.34
I remember him
stating one time, he said,
00:10:08.37\00:10:11.54
"You need to get out
of the cities right now."
00:10:11.57\00:10:14.71
And the reason is
that as you move out,
00:10:14.74\00:10:17.75
you become less
dependent on the government,
00:10:17.78\00:10:20.55
because you don't want to
be dependent on the government.
00:10:20.58\00:10:22.55
And so his whole
point that he's saying is,
00:10:22.58\00:10:24.95
for each of us today living,
00:10:24.99\00:10:26.76
we want to be less
dependent on the government
00:10:26.79\00:10:29.22
and more self-reliant,
but for a Christian,
00:10:29.26\00:10:31.56
we want to be
more reliant upon God.
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And this is the time period
00:10:34.36\00:10:35.70
that we have to put our
faith more and more in God,
00:10:35.73\00:10:38.97
and less and less on
the government itself.
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It's a scene I
can well visualize.
00:10:43.84\00:10:46.11
Jesus holds up a Roman coin
with the emperor's head on it.
00:10:46.14\00:10:50.18
And He says,
"Whose face is there?
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Who do you see on
that coin?" Oh, Caesar.
00:10:52.78\00:10:55.15
He says, "Well,
render unto Caesar
00:10:55.18\00:10:56.79
what is Caesar's
and unto God the things
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that are God's.
00:10:58.82\00:11:00.36
We deal with money
in our Western society
00:11:00.39\00:11:03.43
and in a capitalist
society, it's indispensable.
00:11:03.46\00:11:05.99
The system
cannot exist without it.
00:11:06.03\00:11:08.23
But we need to
make a distinction
00:11:08.26\00:11:10.20
between the things of God,
00:11:10.23\00:11:12.20
the charter the God has given us
00:11:12.23\00:11:13.74
in proclaiming
00:11:13.77\00:11:15.14
His liberation to
all sinful human beings
00:11:15.17\00:11:18.04
in protecting our
ability to do that
00:11:18.07\00:11:20.71
which is called
protecting religious liberty.
00:11:20.74\00:11:23.88
We need to draw
that distinction,
00:11:23.91\00:11:25.75
and do not think that
00:11:25.78\00:11:27.98
with unlimited or
gratuitous golden coins,
00:11:28.02\00:11:32.79
figurative, that we can make
up for a spiritual deficiency.
00:11:32.82\00:11:37.46
God does not
need the visaged coins
00:11:37.49\00:11:41.90
of whatever
system we live under.
00:11:41.93\00:11:43.77
God needs a
dedicated pure people
00:11:43.80\00:11:47.30
who are advancing
the kingdom of God
00:11:47.34\00:11:49.70
and spreading
liberty throughout the land.
00:11:49.74\00:11:54.71
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:54.74\00:11:57.75