Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
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I was sharing the foreword
from a book by an author
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named Whitwell Wilson,
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written at the
end of World War I
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from a European
British perspective,
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as civilization
seemed to have closed down.
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And he wondered aloud,
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would, not only
would they survive,
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but what could fill the
gap, he says we need Christ.
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He was obviously
aware of a moral meltdown,
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which of course, we know now
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continued through
the between war period
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and really prepared
the way for World War II,
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a most immoral,
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godless conflict that
is echoing with us still.
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I looked at
Liberty magazine recently,
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and you might be able
to see the cover closer.
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This is a 1914 Liberty magazine.
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Not as colorful as
today, here's a more recent one,
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with picture of them
disinfecting a Muslim mosque
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in the Middle East
with the COVID emergency.
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But this one in 1914
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was very full of the
foreboding of the times.
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The lead
article, for example says,
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"Is this Armageddon, "
at the beginning of the war.
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By the end of the war,
most people thought it was.
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It was certainly
the end of the world
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as they knew it.
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For years, I've
been lecturing people
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on religious
liberty developments
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and prophetic developments
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which for Seventh-day Adventists
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are almost one and the same.
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Because we know that as civil
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and religious liberties decline,
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the culmination in many ways
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will be religious
legislation in particular,
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requiring by law
that people worship
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in a certain way
and on a certain day.
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And I've been telling
people in these lectures,
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I said, "I don't know
when this will happen."
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We know the progression,
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but we don't know
the day and the hour.
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Jesus said, "No one
knows the day and the hour
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of His appearing."
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But I said one thing,
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I can stake my life
on from studying history,
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as well as prophecy.
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The world that you and I
know is about to pass away.
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In many ways that
passing, of course,
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began with the Great War,
continued with World War II.
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But for the United States,
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I think 9/11 was
an incredible shift
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to a new model.
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And I have a horrible foreboding
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that's what already
began in the build up
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to the election of 2020.
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That will continue no
doubt till the inauguration
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in January 2021.
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I think this is
another shift point
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in modern history.
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We're going to
come out the other side,
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looking at a
very different world
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and worldview in
the United States.
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But I want to
share with you an article
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in this 1914 edition.
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It got my attention,
because of the title,
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it says Lincoln on liberty.
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Well, I'm Lincoln,
but I'm not the Lincoln.
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Abraham Lincoln, of course,
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was a US President
almost without equal,
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which was guaranteed
regardless of what he did
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because of his place,
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leading the northern
states during the Civil War.
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A time when the Republic
seemed destined for failure,
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a time of bloodshed and division
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that we're sort
of recovering now.
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In many ways, the
political debates in the US
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can be separated
into North and South,
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if you tend to
look at it that way.
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But it says on this article
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some utterances of
the great emancipator
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regarding human freedom.
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This is what he
said, what the author said,
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"The United
States is now erecting
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in the city of Washington,
a $2 million memorial,"
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sound sort of cheap,
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but the money
was worth more then,
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"to the memory
of Abraham Lincoln."
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And it's inspiring to
go to the Lincoln Memorial
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and see that,
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that reminder of the
great history of the US.
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His
straightforward course as a man
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and as a president indeed
him not only to Americans,
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but to all the world.
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George Bancroft,
the American historian
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speak thus of
the great commoner,
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"Lincoln's early
teachers were the silent forest,
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the prairie, the
river, and the stars.
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Lincoln always
thought of mankind
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as well as his own country,
and served humanity itself.
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Lincoln took to heart the
eternal truths of liberty.
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Obeyed them as the
commands of providence
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and accepted the human race
as the judge of his fidelity."
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That's a good
quote from the historian.
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Speaking of Lincoln's integrity,
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Stephen Douglas,
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his political
enemy and rival said,
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"Lincoln is the
honestest man I ever knew."
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Can we say that
about our leaders today?
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Not easily.
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His private secretary John Hay,
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who afterward became
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Lincoln's famous
secretary of state
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thus expressed his estimate
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of the depth of
Lincoln's character.
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"As, in spite of some rudeness,
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republicanism is the
sole hope of a sick world."
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Remember, republicanism,
power deriving from the people.
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"So Lincoln, within his foibles,
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is the greatest
character since Christ."
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You can allow a little hyperbole
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but there's the
reference to the need
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for a Christian character,
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Christ like attributes
in a time of great stress.
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It says, "The
secret of Lincoln's love
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for human rights and
equal liberty for all
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is found in his desire
to follow the golden rule.
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Witness the Christ like spirit,"
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and these
wonderful words by Lincoln,
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"Die when I may,
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I want it said of me
by those who knew me best
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that I always
plucked the thistle
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and planted a flower
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where I thought a
flower would grow.
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The man who will not investigate
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both sides of a
question says this other quote,
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is dishonest,
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when the conduct of men
is designed to be influence,
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persuasion, kind,
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assuming persuasion
should ever be adopted.
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Lincoln's
textbook the article says
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was the immortal
declaration not immoral,
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of independence
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which declares that
all men are created equal.
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Well, read the Constitution
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and you know they
did not act that way.
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But the high aim
and assumption that went
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into the
Declaration of Independence,
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tended to
permeate if not overwhelm
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other thoughts of the time,
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and is the heritage
that we have taken now.
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And we need to pick up on
the best part of this view.
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Says the authors
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of the
Declaration of Independence,
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"Meant it to be
a stumbling block
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to those who and after times,
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might seek to turn a free people
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back into the
powers of despotism."
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You don't have much time left,
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but I'll go to
the section, it says,
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"For civil and
religious liberties,
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says Lincoln firmly believed
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that the
government be represented
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as was he represented
was standing in defense
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of both civil and
religious liberty."
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Note his
response to a delegation
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of Evangelical Lutherans
who visited him in 1862.
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He says, "I welcome
here the representatives
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of the Evangelical
Lutherans of the United States.
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I accept with gratitude,
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their assurance of the sympathy
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and support of that enlightened,
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influential and loyal
class of my fellow citizens
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in an important crisis,
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which involves, in my judgment,
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not only the civil
and religious liberties
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of our own dear land,
but in a larger degree,
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the civil and
religious liberties
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of mankind in many countries,
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and through many ages."
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That's an
interesting, global viewpoint
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that Abraham Lincoln
and those in his time had.
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And the quote here is,
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"In taking up the sword
thus forced into our hands,
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this government
appealed to the prayers
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of the pious and the good
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and declared that it
placed its whole dependence
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upon the favor of God.
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I now humbly and
reverentially in your presence
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reiterate the acknowledgement
of that dependence,
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not doubting that,
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if it's your pleas,
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the divine being
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who determines the
destiny of nations,
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there shall
remain a united people,
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and that they
will humbly seeking
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the divine guidance
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make their
prolonged national existence
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a source of new
benefits to themselves
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and their successors,
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and to all classes of
conditions of mankind."
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And on another
occasion, Lincoln said,
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"I feel that I cannot succeed
without the divine blessing.
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And on the almighty being,
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I placed my
reliance for support."
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You know, that's not
mixing of church and state.
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That is mixing of
society and its views
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and moral
government that we want.
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This is where the
so-called religious right,
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I think I'm missing
the point very often,
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I hope not always.
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But, of course, if we accept
and honor the divine being,
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God, the Ancient of Days
as our Creator and Ruler.
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We would want and
expect that a constituency,
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a citizenry would
be made up of people
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living under the fear of God,
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and when moving
into civil governance,
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which has no right to
impose religious views
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and models on other people,
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but that they would exemplify
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the very characteristics
of Christ in that workplace.
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I think then we would have
a stable and honorable system.
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I think then we would show
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that we have reassembled
ourselves after the traumas
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in Abraham Lincoln's
case of the Civil War,
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the trauma of World War I
when the old order passed away,
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and global
dissension became the norm.
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We could even say
that after World War II
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and the incredible bloodletting,
00:10:31.89\00:10:34.23
when tens of
millions of people died
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in the most
desperate circumstances,
00:10:37.73\00:10:40.77
but on the other side of
that with a regenerated view
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of what God means for the heart
and for the lives of society,
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then we could again
reassemble ourselves.
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If now in this crisis,
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which is really phase
two of the 9/11 dislocation
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for modern America.
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If in this present crisis,
00:11:00.62\00:11:02.96
we can again look
personally to Jesus
00:11:02.99\00:11:07.86
as the regenerator of
morality, and of security,
00:11:07.90\00:11:11.60
and of spirituality.
00:11:11.63\00:11:13.23
If we can rediscover
that individually as a people,
00:11:13.27\00:11:17.64
then as a nation,
as a structural entity,
00:11:17.67\00:11:21.81
freedom and liberty,
00:11:21.84\00:11:23.65
and confidence and
surety will be a norm.
00:11:23.68\00:11:28.08
But without that,
00:11:28.12\00:11:30.09
it is certain,
as one prophet said
00:11:30.12\00:11:34.26
to the Seventh-day Adventist,
00:11:34.29\00:11:35.69
"America will likely repudiate
00:11:35.72\00:11:38.13
every principle
of the Constitution."
00:11:38.16\00:11:41.63
God forbid
00:11:41.66\00:11:43.00
that that should
happen anytime soon.
00:11:43.03\00:11:44.93