Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200478B
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00:01 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:02 And before the break, I was sharing 00:04 the experiences of Stanley Jones, 00:07 a missionary to India and his epiphany 00:10 where he discovered the secret 00:12 to communicating Christ to an alien religion 00:15 and a different people, another place, 00:17 but he particularized Jesus to the context of the Indians 00:22 without compromising his message in the slightest, 00:25 in fact, hardly he went to the root of it. 00:28 But I thought today, 00:29 how do we do such a thing 00:31 and particularly from the point of religious liberty? 00:34 How do we practice our faith 00:36 in a way that makes a difference? 00:38 And we determined to resist any effort 00:42 to restrict our allegiance to God. 00:46 I'm very partial to great preacher 00:49 of 100 plus years ago, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. 00:53 He was a Baptist preacher in England, 00:56 called the Prince of Preachers. 00:58 And, you know, I watch a few television preachers 01:01 and I don't think any of them are threatening his dominance, 01:04 but, you know, he's sort of a classic 01:06 like Shakespeare in his own sphere 01:08 and many, many sermons published 01:11 and still available online or in bookstores. 01:16 I thought I've got a print out here 01:18 I thought would give the number of the sermon, 01:19 but I've seen numbers, you know, in the thousands. 01:23 And I don't wanna share from one of them, 01:25 it was titled Daniel facing the lion's den. 01:28 And, of course, in religious liberty, 01:30 you know, Daniel's faithfulness is legendary, 01:33 great illustration, 01:34 whether it's Daniel before Arioch 01:37 the head of the eunuchs, 01:41 where Daniel and his fellows wouldn't eat the king's food, 01:44 that was pretty heavy. 01:45 They likely were risking their lives even then. 01:48 Then his companions on the Plains of Dura, 01:53 resisting the king's command under pain of death to worship, 01:57 he and his gods or his God that he directed there 02:00 the perverted image given to him in a dream, 02:03 and then Daniel in the lion's den, 02:06 which followed from his faithfulness 02:08 under an edict again of death, 02:10 and that you had to worship the king, nothing else. 02:12 So he goes and praise publicly. 02:15 To me, that's an amazing act of defiance, 02:18 not in a defined sense, 02:20 but not being willing to change his normal habit, 02:24 his worship and habits of worship to God 02:28 because of an outside edict. 02:30 He could have prayed silently. 02:32 I don't think 02:33 he would have been compromising his faith, 02:35 but Daniel saw 02:36 that he would have been compromising his integrity 02:39 if he had not done that. 02:40 So Spurgeon preached eloquently, 02:44 very long sermon 02:46 because that's changed over the years. 02:47 We like 15, 20 minutes sermons now 02:50 or for the sake of this program, 02:51 30 minutes is good, 02:54 but I'll just share with you a few paragraphs 02:57 and he said something about this 02:59 in the context of Daniel's being faithful, 03:02 and he says, "Men have declined to carry a light burden, 03:07 and been constrained to bear a far heavier one. 03:11 They have fled from the bear, and the lion has met them, 03:16 they have sought to escape from the serpent, 03:19 but the dragon has devoured them. 03:21 To shrink from duty is always perilous." 03:26 It's I think, sobering 03:28 when you think about that and he says further, 03:30 "To demoralize yourselves in a demoralized time 03:34 is a desperate alternative. 03:37 Better to go forward, better to go forward. 03:39 Better, I say, 03:40 even though you may have no armor. 03:43 The safest thing is to go on. 03:45 Even if there are lions in front, 03:48 it is better to go ahead for if you turn your back 03:52 the stars in their courses will fight against you." 03:57 And then he says something that I've often quoted 03:59 because I think of it directly 04:01 on our religious liberty challenge 04:02 and even some of the soft challenges 04:05 of the COVID-19 era. 04:07 He says, "Now it is a great privilege 04:10 that we enjoy civil and religious liberty 04:12 in our favored land." 04:14 He's talking about England, 04:15 but you can say that about the US 04:17 and I often tell people tell us with I'm using on this, 04:21 that on civil liberties in general 04:23 and religious liberty in particular, 04:25 nobody's against such things. 04:27 I mean, people live 04:28 under a whole gamut of restrictions 04:31 to great freedoms, 04:32 but nobody's against those restrictions. 04:35 Everyone's for those principles. 04:37 Even the Soviet Union had religious liberty, 04:41 ensconced in its constitution, but we know very well, 04:44 that was hardly granted in a practical sense. 04:48 And every country I've been to 04:50 even some quite restrictive ones 04:52 within the country, 04:53 whenever the people are talking among themselves 04:55 in public rallies or whatever 04:56 they always say 04:57 this is the greatest freest country 04:59 in the world, 05:00 of course, saying it doesn't make it so, 05:02 but they think it so. 05:03 When you get in a cultural echo chamber, 05:06 that's what people say, it's a rare country when I say, 05:09 "Oh, this is the worst country in the world." 05:10 You know, maybe the, you know, 05:12 there's a dark comedy that did around LaBore 05:16 at making fun of Kazakhstan, 05:18 you know, maybe such a mythical 05:21 or perverted take on a little country 05:23 that, you know, they were horrible 05:25 and all of that. 05:26 Nobody says that. 05:28 The smallest of the largest country, 05:29 they're the greatest, the most favored, 05:32 but it isn't so in reality. 05:35 So he was talking about England. 05:37 And he says, "Now we're in, 05:38 it's a great privilege that we enjoy 05:40 civil and religious liberty in our favored land, 05:43 that we are not under such cruel laws, 05:45 as in other times or in other countries 05:48 laid restrictions upon conscience, 05:51 and that we may pray, 05:53 according to the conviction of our judgment 05:55 and the desire of our heart." 05:57 Certainly that's true in the US. 06:00 You know some rather miss... 06:03 Some people would rather misunderstand 06:05 religious liberty decry that you can't pray 06:08 as you wish at public gatherings 06:10 in a public school setting under the government auspices, 06:13 but they missed the whole point. 06:14 You don't want the government to tell you how to pray, 06:19 but by no means in the United States 06:21 is an individual forbidden to pray among friends, 06:26 or in any place other than 06:27 a government controlled environment. 06:31 And he says, you know, we're not forbidden to pray. 06:34 But he says, I want you... 06:36 "But as I want you to value the privilege very much, 06:40 I will put a supposition to you." 06:43 And this is what I want you viewer to think about. 06:46 "Suppose there was only one place in the world 06:49 where a man might pray 06:51 and offer his supplication unto God. 06:53 Well, I think there is not a man among us 06:56 that would not like to get there 06:58 at some time or other, at least to die there. 07:01 What pains we would take to reach the locality, 07:04 and what pressure we would endure 07:07 to enter the edifice! 07:08 If there were only one house of prayer 07:10 in all the world, 07:12 and prayer could be heard nowhere else, 07:14 oh, what tugging and squeezing and toiling, 07:18 there would be to get into that place! 07:20 But now that people may pray anywhere, 07:23 how they slight the exercise and neglect the privilege!" 07:28 We're thinking, 07:30 if in a tie or put it another way, 07:32 colloquially, 07:33 if now, when it's allowed everywhere, 07:35 there's no overt restriction, 07:37 and we're neglecting 07:39 what lies behind religious liberty, 07:41 religious practice. 07:42 If we're neglecting that, 07:45 how will we ever know when restriction comes? 07:50 And I'll put it even more directly. 07:52 I thought it long and hard about this 07:55 in the great stream of history 07:57 and the devolution of any system 08:00 in the United States, 08:01 some hundreds of years down 08:02 from setting up a great constitution idealists, 08:06 some of them religious, some not, 08:07 but and put within the Constitution, 08:10 a great respect 08:11 and an exaltation of the value of conscience 08:14 and religious liberty. 08:16 Now so far down in history, 08:19 where we have radical changes are taking place, 08:23 where as I said, in another program, 08:25 even the United States is roaring like a dragon, 08:29 controlling people's destinies, 08:31 reaching out 08:33 telling other countries what to do, 08:36 meddling in this than the other sometimes with cause, 08:38 but it's hardly 08:40 a quiet introspective country anymore 08:43 where we're around this prophecy is fulfilling 08:45 religious persecutions abroad are palpably obvious, 08:49 and the dead bodies lying in the... 08:52 Whether it's the Kurdish villages 08:54 or the Yazidis, 08:55 or the Christians killed in the Middle East. 08:59 It's been easily characterized of late 09:02 that this is the second great killing persecution 09:06 in the Christian era. 09:09 We're living through it. 09:10 And if what's happened now hasn't stirred someone. 09:16 I hardly think, in the next and final phase, 09:21 when someone 09:23 practicing the true religion as Daniel did, 09:26 if such a person is to present themselves, 09:32 I hardly think that the nominalist 09:34 who are not troubled by these times would know 09:37 or even be in a position 09:39 to see that as a final restriction. 09:43 I'll put it another way in a figure 09:45 that I've read somewhere once, 09:47 but I've used under the Lord, 09:49 you know, in pre World War II Germany, 09:53 the Jews, 09:55 who were always a little bit marginalized, 09:58 admittedly, not the story of Germany, 10:00 but Dreyfus in France was victimized 10:05 because he was a Frenchman. 10:06 And that's a horrible tragedy, but here in Germany, 10:09 they were marginalized. 10:11 The Nazis came in restriction after restriction, 10:15 and each time they accommodated figuring this will, 10:17 it'll get better, it'll get better. 10:20 And finally they were sent off to the camps. 10:23 If at any midpoint 10:24 when they were smashing the windows, 10:25 when their citizenship was taken away, 10:27 they had realized what the end would be. 10:29 They would run for their lives, but they adjusted, 10:33 they recognized or thought they recognize. 10:36 Well, this will be bearable, we'll hang tough. 10:40 Same thing now when we see the developments 10:43 toward a very liberal approach to anyone's practice of faith. 10:49 We've got to stand up, 10:52 first of all, in our own practice, 10:54 do what's right, show our faith to stand forth, 10:58 and as Ellen White speaking to Seventh-day Adventist 11:01 in the early day, she says, 11:02 show your colors 11:04 the world has a right to know what you believe. 11:07 Don't hide it. 11:08 You know that not a survey 11:10 that talks about what your health practices 11:11 when we really want to share spiritual faith. 11:14 This is important. 11:15 This is the time and I'm absolutely convinced 11:19 that we need clear perception, clear energy, 11:22 and a response fitting the times. |
Revised 2020-10-06