Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200496B
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00:01 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider
00:02 with my guest Clifford Goldstein, 00:04 we'd been ranging over the whole world 00:06 and maybe going on a few different tangents, 00:09 but all from a point of religious liberty. 00:14 Ellen White, the Seventh-day Adventist visionary 00:18 enlarging on some of the prophetic understandings 00:22 of Adventists about the role 00:24 that the United States would play in prophecy 00:26 and picking up from Revelation 00:29 where it speaks of coercing people 00:33 to worship a certain way 00:34 under ultimately punishment of death. 00:37 Ellen White used the term 00:39 that this would go out throughout Christendom. 00:42 In some places, and in some you get 00:44 the impression it's talking about the world. 00:47 Yes, but mostly I've gone and counted up, 00:49 mostly Christendom. 00:50 But I don't so much want to discuss 00:52 whether how much of it, 00:54 but that's an interesting term. 00:56 You don't hear that any to remember. 00:58 No, no. 00:59 In fact, you mostly get it in history books 01:02 talk about the crusades. 01:04 But she wrote it probably 100 years ago. 01:05 Yes. 01:07 But even then, I don't think it was that common. 01:09 Yeah. 01:10 But, you know, what's Christendom? 01:14 I don't know it's a hard question 01:15 when you got Christianity everywhere to some degree. 01:18 That's true. 01:19 Maybe the cultures 01:20 where it's most in a Western America, 01:23 Western Europe, parts of Latin America, 01:25 Australia. 01:27 But I have, I hear people that 01:28 I think should know better, but it's their view. 01:31 They maintain resolutely 01:33 that Europe is not Christian anymore. 01:35 Yeah, well, in a certain sense, but they're still the vestiges. 01:39 I used to work in Switzerland illegally. 01:42 I was an illegal. 01:44 Statute of limitations I hope. 01:45 Yeah, I used to work over there illegally. 01:47 And the people that I work with 01:50 would never let me go with them. 01:52 They used to work on Sundays. 01:55 And they had strict Sunday closing laws 01:59 in a very secular society, so even Holland. 02:03 You're confirming what I'm about to say. 02:05 Oh, my goodness, Holland, oh, and they're so liberal. 02:08 Oh, my goodness, that anything goes. 02:12 But they have 02:13 a lot of closing laws in Holland, 02:16 and these are vestiges, vestiges of the Christian past. 02:22 I think they're more than vestiges. 02:24 The people may not be practicing their faith, 02:28 but I put it to you, 02:29 see if you differ 02:31 because you've traveled around on years ago, 02:34 but still in experiential level 02:35 where I literally had to been a tourist 02:37 when I went through Europe, 02:39 you know, just flitting through. 02:41 But I believe most, 02:43 every people group in Europe know exactly 02:45 what their religious affiliation is. 02:47 Not their membership, 02:49 but what they are like in Northern Ireland, 02:52 Roman Catholic 02:53 other than the Protestant immigrates that... 02:56 If you go to Scandinavia, they're all Lutherans. 02:59 They're all in, I mean, Sweden. 03:02 It was funny, I lived in Sweden when I was about 20 years old, 03:06 long before I was, became a believer. 03:10 And I'll never forget one day. 03:13 I'm just walking somewhere. 03:15 And I said to myself, 03:17 "Man, this is the most godless place 03:21 I had ever been." 03:23 Where was this again? 03:24 Sweden, and I was like, 03:26 the Swedish were just 03:30 and yet it's Lutheran from top to bottom, 03:34 beginning to end and Christmas Yule time. 03:38 Man, everything shuts down and there's Christian. 03:44 And yet, these people 03:46 really were just about as secular, 03:50 I'll use the kinder term secular 03:52 as you're gonna meet. 03:54 But their identification? 03:56 Now they'll say they are Lutherans. 03:58 Those who have been never to church in their life. 04:00 Christendom 04:01 is not a perfect 04:07 but somewhat of an analogue to the Islamic world 04:11 where people are born into something, 04:14 they may not practice it. 04:15 Islam is a little more rigorous. 04:17 The culture is shaped by religion, 04:19 but they're not all observant. 04:20 But you are Muslim in many countries, 04:23 just by virtue of being born there. 04:25 You're coming from a Jewish perspective, 04:27 before you know more. 04:29 If you're not Jewish, and you're not a Muslim, 04:31 and you're not a Buddhist, then you're a Christian period, 04:35 whether you ever go to church, that's how we always viewed it. 04:38 And I think the US Census which is just over, 04:41 a lot of that follows there. 04:42 There are many people that put themselves down 04:44 as one belief or another. 04:47 They have no affiliation, 04:49 but that's what they come to with, 04:50 sort of they something inherited. 04:52 And the type of legislation that's imagined, 04:58 but maybe that's the wrong word 04:59 because it says imaginary. 05:00 Yeah. You know, that's foreseen. 05:02 Yeah. 05:04 I think could carry very easily 05:06 on this residual identification, 05:10 it doesn't require a population 05:13 that that's jumping up and down 05:15 and yelling jihad or crusade or whatever. 05:18 And you mix that together with the COVID thing, 05:23 and just how... 05:25 A little panic, things sharpened greatly. 05:29 I mean, imagine if it was, 05:30 I think we said in another program, 05:32 imagine if this had a 5 or 10 or 20% death rate 05:38 with COVID, 05:39 can you imagine what would be and... 05:43 Well, you don't have to imagine how, 05:44 I think I mentioned it earlier in another program. 05:47 But right now, 05:49 it doesn't seem to spread but in the Middle East, 05:51 they have MERS another COVID, 05:57 another Coronavirus. 05:59 It's called camel flu, 40% mortality rate. 06:03 So we could be in the middle of something like that 06:06 if it gets on a plane and comes here. 06:08 Well, that they have a 40, 06:09 they got a disease that's got a 40% mortal, 06:12 a flu like disease? 06:14 It's not flu like, 06:15 it's the same family as the Corona. 06:18 It's another Coronavirus. 06:19 Well, what makes you think that won't spread? 06:22 I don't think it won't spread. 06:23 I hope not. But I'm just saying right now. 06:26 It only appeared in the last, about last year. 06:28 Simplization as we know it would end if we had a 40%. 06:34 That's what it has. You know, yeah. 06:36 I know you've heard of it. How come I never heard of this? 06:39 Some more of your conspiracy stuff? 06:41 No, no, go read on it. 06:43 It's a phenomenon right now. Yeah. 06:45 Camel flu? MERS it's called. 06:47 I've heard of MERS before. 06:49 I know people have had MERS. Okay. 06:53 Forty percent. 06:54 But we hope and pray 06:56 that such a thing doesn't happen. 06:57 Although Revelation speaks of a cycle of plagues 07:01 that have that sort of death rate. 07:03 And in past history, remember, Europe endured several phases, 07:08 and in one phase, about a third of Europe died. 07:12 That was then and this is now and... 07:15 Why is it different now? 07:16 Well, I think we've got, 07:17 I think we're a little more medically advanced 07:19 than they were in the 13th century. 07:20 It's nearly a year since this began, 07:22 and there hasn't been any antidote yet. 07:25 And this isn't much worse than the flu. 07:27 Yeah. 07:29 Flu kills up to 60,000 people a year in the US. 07:32 Yeah, I know. I know. 07:34 So it's an interesting world. 07:37 But the takeaway, 07:38 I think on this is that 07:40 some of the same dynamics 07:41 that existed in the past is still there. 07:43 The threats as always sort of sharpen 07:46 these rivalries or these intolerances. 07:50 And religious liberty is an issue. 07:53 It's heightened under the COVID thing. 07:56 And we need to be vigilant. 07:57 There's a phrase from the book of Solomon, 07:59 Ecclesiastes Ein kol chadash tachat hashemesh 08:05 which is basically, 08:07 "There's nothing new under the sun, 08:11 and let there be enough trouble." 08:16 What is history shown us over and over and over again? 08:21 People want stability, people want safety, 08:27 and they will give up a lot to get it. 08:30 And again, I don't know 08:31 what this COVID thing is gonna do. 08:34 They could, you know, six months from now, 08:37 it could be all better, 08:38 and we all got our shots or whatever. 08:40 And we all go on our merry way. 08:43 But I'm not so sure 08:46 anything is ever gonna be the same again. 08:49 And I think it's opened the door. 08:55 It's opened the door to something 08:56 and we step through a door 08:59 that I'm not so sure we're gonna step back through, 09:04 walk through that door close, 09:06 you know, turn around, walk back, close the door, 09:08 and things go on the way they used to. 09:11 So, again, I don't know I've learned a long time ago, 09:14 someone once said, 09:15 it's very difficult to make an accurate prediction, 09:20 especially about the future. 09:23 And I wouldn't want to guess on it. 09:25 All I know is if you don't know God, 09:28 this is a better time than ever 09:31 to know the Lord and to know His love 09:33 because you're going to need to hold on to something. 09:39 If you never stirred to differ from something 09:43 that said on this program or read in Liberty magazine, 09:46 then I apologize, 09:48 because we should be somewhat troublers in Israel 09:52 to get people to re-examine aspects 09:54 of this very important issue of religious liberty. 09:58 But it does trouble me in the era 10:01 that the United States has just come through 10:03 that so many people repeat narrow sectarian viewpoints 10:08 that they heard from someone else 10:10 and haven't thought through, 10:11 and then find a difference 10:13 with what we put in our magazine. 10:15 I don't like that, I'm thinking the leader sort of an approach. 10:20 We should be thinkers, 10:23 not reflectors of other men's opinions. 10:26 And we should also exemplify 10:28 what Jesus said to the woman taken in sin, 10:30 substitute editor taken to correct. 10:34 He says, "Who's condemning you?" 10:36 He says, "No, I don't condemn you. 10:38 Go and sin no more." 10:40 Liberty will dedicate itself 10:41 to presenting the truth on religious freedom. 10:46 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2021-03-22