Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200480B
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00:01 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:03 Before the break, 00:04 I was sharing the foreword from a book by an author 00:09 named Whitwell Wilson, 00:11 written at the end of World War I 00:13 from a European British perspective, 00:16 as civilization seemed to have closed down. 00:19 And he wondered aloud, 00:21 would, not only would they survive, 00:23 but what could fill the gap, he says we need Christ. 00:27 He was obviously aware of a moral meltdown, 00:32 which of course, we know now 00:34 continued through the between war period 00:38 and really prepared the way for World War II, 00:41 a most immoral, 00:42 godless conflict that is echoing with us still. 00:48 I looked at Liberty magazine recently, 00:50 and you might be able to see the cover closer. 00:53 This is a 1914 Liberty magazine. 00:56 Not as colorful as today, here's a more recent one, 01:00 with picture of them disinfecting a Muslim mosque 01:05 in the Middle East with the COVID emergency. 01:08 But this one in 1914 01:11 was very full of the foreboding of the times. 01:16 The lead article, for example says, 01:18 "Is this Armageddon, " at the beginning of the war. 01:22 By the end of the war, most people thought it was. 01:25 It was certainly the end of the world 01:27 as they knew it. 01:29 For years, I've been lecturing people 01:31 on religious liberty developments 01:33 and prophetic developments 01:35 which for Seventh-day Adventists 01:36 are almost one and the same. 01:39 Because we know that as civil 01:41 and religious liberties decline, 01:43 the culmination in many ways 01:45 will be religious legislation in particular, 01:49 requiring by law that people worship 01:52 in a certain way and on a certain day. 01:56 And I've been telling people in these lectures, 01:58 I said, "I don't know when this will happen." 02:01 We know the progression, 02:03 but we don't know the day and the hour. 02:04 Jesus said, "No one knows the day and the hour 02:06 of His appearing." 02:08 But I said one thing, 02:10 I can stake my life on from studying history, 02:13 as well as prophecy. 02:16 The world that you and I know is about to pass away. 02:21 In many ways that passing, of course, 02:24 began with the Great War, continued with World War II. 02:27 But for the United States, 02:28 I think 9/11 was an incredible shift 02:32 to a new model. 02:34 And I have a horrible foreboding 02:37 that's what already began in the build up 02:40 to the election of 2020. 02:45 That will continue no doubt till the inauguration 02:48 in January 2021. 02:50 I think this is another shift point 02:53 in modern history. 02:56 We're going to come out the other side, 02:58 looking at a very different world 03:01 and worldview in the United States. 03:04 But I want to share with you an article 03:06 in this 1914 edition. 03:10 It got my attention, because of the title, 03:12 it says Lincoln on liberty. 03:14 Well, I'm Lincoln, but I'm not the Lincoln. 03:17 Abraham Lincoln, of course, 03:18 was a US President almost without equal, 03:23 which was guaranteed regardless of what he did 03:25 because of his place, 03:27 leading the northern states during the Civil War. 03:31 A time when the Republic seemed destined for failure, 03:36 a time of bloodshed and division 03:40 that we're sort of recovering now. 03:43 In many ways, the political debates in the US 03:45 can be separated into North and South, 03:47 if you tend to look at it that way. 03:50 But it says on this article 03:51 some utterances of the great emancipator 03:55 regarding human freedom. 03:57 This is what he said, what the author said, 04:00 "The United States is now erecting 04:02 in the city of Washington, a $2 million memorial," 04:05 sound sort of cheap, 04:07 but the money was worth more then, 04:09 "to the memory of Abraham Lincoln." 04:11 And it's inspiring to go to the Lincoln Memorial 04:14 and see that, 04:15 that reminder of the great history of the US. 04:20 His straightforward course as a man 04:22 and as a president indeed him not only to Americans, 04:26 but to all the world. 04:28 George Bancroft, the American historian 04:31 speak thus of the great commoner, 04:35 "Lincoln's early teachers were the silent forest, 04:38 the prairie, the river, and the stars. 04:42 Lincoln always thought of mankind 04:44 as well as his own country, and served humanity itself. 04:49 Lincoln took to heart the eternal truths of liberty. 04:53 Obeyed them as the commands of providence 04:55 and accepted the human race as the judge of his fidelity." 05:00 That's a good quote from the historian. 05:02 Speaking of Lincoln's integrity, 05:05 Stephen Douglas, 05:07 his political enemy and rival said, 05:09 "Lincoln is the honestest man I ever knew." 05:14 Can we say that about our leaders today? 05:17 Not easily. 05:18 His private secretary John Hay, 05:20 who afterward became 05:21 Lincoln's famous secretary of state 05:23 thus expressed his estimate 05:25 of the depth of Lincoln's character. 05:28 "As, in spite of some rudeness, 05:30 republicanism is the sole hope of a sick world." 05:33 Remember, republicanism, power deriving from the people. 05:36 "So Lincoln, within his foibles, 05:39 is the greatest character since Christ." 05:43 You can allow a little hyperbole 05:44 but there's the reference to the need 05:46 for a Christian character, 05:48 Christ like attributes in a time of great stress. 05:52 It says, "The secret of Lincoln's love 05:53 for human rights and equal liberty for all 05:56 is found in his desire to follow the golden rule. 06:00 Witness the Christ like spirit," 06:02 and these wonderful words by Lincoln, 06:05 "Die when I may, 06:06 I want it said of me by those who knew me best 06:09 that I always plucked the thistle 06:12 and planted a flower 06:13 where I thought a flower would grow. 06:15 The man who will not investigate 06:17 both sides of a question says this other quote, 06:19 is dishonest, 06:21 when the conduct of men is designed to be influence, 06:23 persuasion, kind, 06:26 assuming persuasion should ever be adopted. 06:30 Lincoln's textbook the article says 06:32 was the immortal declaration not immoral, 06:36 of independence 06:38 which declares that all men are created equal. 06:41 Well, read the Constitution 06:43 and you know they did not act that way. 06:47 But the high aim and assumption that went 06:50 into the Declaration of Independence, 06:53 tended to permeate if not overwhelm 06:56 other thoughts of the time, 06:58 and is the heritage that we have taken now. 07:00 And we need to pick up on the best part of this view. 07:05 Says the authors 07:06 of the Declaration of Independence, 07:07 "Meant it to be a stumbling block 07:10 to those who and after times, 07:12 might seek to turn a free people 07:14 back into the powers of despotism." 07:17 You don't have much time left, 07:19 but I'll go to the section, it says, 07:22 "For civil and religious liberties, 07:24 says Lincoln firmly believed 07:26 that the government be represented 07:28 as was he represented was standing in defense 07:32 of both civil and religious liberty." 07:34 Note his response to a delegation 07:36 of Evangelical Lutherans who visited him in 1862. 07:41 He says, "I welcome here the representatives 07:43 of the Evangelical Lutherans of the United States. 07:46 I accept with gratitude, 07:47 their assurance of the sympathy 07:49 and support of that enlightened, 07:51 influential and loyal class of my fellow citizens 07:54 in an important crisis, 07:55 which involves, in my judgment, 07:58 not only the civil and religious liberties 08:00 of our own dear land, but in a larger degree, 08:03 the civil and religious liberties 08:05 of mankind in many countries, 08:08 and through many ages." 08:10 That's an interesting, global viewpoint 08:13 that Abraham Lincoln and those in his time had. 08:16 And the quote here is, 08:18 "In taking up the sword thus forced into our hands, 08:22 this government appealed to the prayers 08:24 of the pious and the good 08:25 and declared that it placed its whole dependence 08:28 upon the favor of God. 08:31 I now humbly and reverentially in your presence 08:35 reiterate the acknowledgement of that dependence, 08:38 not doubting that, 08:39 if it's your pleas, 08:41 the divine being 08:42 who determines the destiny of nations, 08:45 there shall remain a united people, 08:48 and that they will humbly seeking 08:51 the divine guidance 08:52 make their prolonged national existence 08:55 a source of new benefits to themselves 08:59 and their successors, 09:00 and to all classes of conditions of mankind." 09:03 And on another occasion, Lincoln said, 09:06 "I feel that I cannot succeed without the divine blessing. 09:10 And on the almighty being, 09:12 I placed my reliance for support." 09:15 You know, that's not mixing of church and state. 09:17 That is mixing of society and its views 09:21 and moral government that we want. 09:26 This is where the so-called religious right, 09:30 I think I'm missing the point very often, 09:32 I hope not always. 09:34 But, of course, if we accept and honor the divine being, 09:39 God, the Ancient of Days as our Creator and Ruler. 09:43 We would want and expect that a constituency, 09:47 a citizenry would be made up of people 09:49 living under the fear of God, 09:51 and when moving into civil governance, 09:54 which has no right to impose religious views 09:58 and models on other people, 09:59 but that they would exemplify 10:01 the very characteristics of Christ in that workplace. 10:06 I think then we would have a stable and honorable system. 10:10 I think then we would show 10:12 that we have reassembled ourselves after the traumas 10:16 in Abraham Lincoln's case of the Civil War, 10:19 the trauma of World War I when the old order passed away, 10:24 and global dissension became the norm. 10:29 We could even say that after World War II 10:31 and the incredible bloodletting, 10:34 when tens of millions of people died 10:37 in the most desperate circumstances, 10:40 but on the other side of that with a regenerated view 10:45 of what God means for the heart and for the lives of society, 10:49 then we could again reassemble ourselves. 10:52 If now in this crisis, 10:56 which is really phase two of the 9/11 dislocation 10:59 for modern America. 11:00 If in this present crisis, 11:02 we can again look personally to Jesus 11:07 as the regenerator of morality, and of security, 11:11 and of spirituality. 11:13 If we can rediscover that individually as a people, 11:17 then as a nation, as a structural entity, 11:21 freedom and liberty, 11:23 and confidence and surety will be a norm. 11:28 But without that, 11:30 it is certain, as one prophet said 11:34 to the Seventh-day Adventist, 11:35 "America will likely repudiate 11:38 every principle of the Constitution." 11:41 God forbid 11:43 that that should happen anytime soon. |
Revised 2020-11-15