Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break, I was sharing
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an editorial from 2013
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that was taking a little
longer than I thought to read.
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Although none of them are
long, they're only 1200 words
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which words come and go
pretty quick for most of us,
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but it was inspired
by the Second Coming,
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which we had a
picture on the cover,
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those of you that missed it,
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trying to signal at
the time of disappointed
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apocalyptic
predictions and apocalyptic like
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storm on the
east coast of the US.
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People were thinking
about, what's going on?
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So I'll pick it
up at the beginning
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of the paragraph
that I was last reading.
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An author that
everyone knows, Lewis Carroll,
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Alice in Wonderland,
not everyone's read it,
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but we know of that.
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It's a good kid story,
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but a little bit more than that.
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He was deeply symbolic
because he was a mathematician.
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And I wrote here
that Lewis Carroll
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of the Alice in
Wonderland fantasy,
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but actually an
accomplished mathematician,
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wrote that, "If you
don't know where you're going,
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any road will take you there.
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Too many of the roads up
ahead signal trouble for us.
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We need to know
where we are going,
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not necessarily whether
the world will end one day.
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I often tell seminar
attendees that I can my,
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stake my life on one prediction.
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The world as we know
it is about to pass away.
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That I'm setting off,
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whether it's
the end of the world
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or the beginning of
Christ's eternal kingdom
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that's not given to us to know.
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Beyond this present
world construct is likely
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a time of runaway
technological control
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and dislocation.
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Beyond is shore to be a
time of declining resources
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and more wars for access.
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It will be a time of
more natural disasters
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caused by such things as
unnatural global warming.
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And I can already sense
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a paradoxical swing towards
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mass faith expression,
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even as many will come to
regard minority faith views
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as a luxury that
species survival cannot afford.
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More than 100 years ago
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the people who eventually began
to publish Liberty Magazine
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got into quite a debate about
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how religious
liberty should be projected
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to the nation's thought leaders.
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Some wanted to keep the argument
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to historical and legal points.
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Another group
insisted on the necessity
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of giving these
arguments together
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with a biblical framework.
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They insisted
that religious freedom
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in the United
States must be linked
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to biblical
faith and eschatology.
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And in particular
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they mentioned
the Bible Sabbath,
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a matter of much debate
within Christendom, even today,
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and the Second
Coming of Jesus Christ,
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a central teaching of Jesus,
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without which one
would have little more
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than the wise sayings
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that Jefferson
redacted from the Gospels.
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This magazine that I
edited, Liberty Magazine,
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continued that second approach.
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We know that the
Second Coming of Jesus Christ
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is the only perfect solution
to all that ails the world
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and nation of the United States.
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And we sense
that it may be soon.
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But as the Apostle Paul
wrote, "That day will not come,
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unless the
rebellion comes first,
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and the man of
lawlessness is revealed."
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That's from 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
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There might come a day, I write,
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when the basic
tenets of the Constitution
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are practically put aside:
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that certainly
will be a time of crisis
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for religious freedom,
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but we defend the Constitution
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because that day
can be pushed back.
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There may be
uncertain times ahead
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for social cohesion.
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There may be
stormy days more blustery
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than any mega-storm
yet seen on the East Coast.
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But keep an eye on the horizon.
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Poet Gerald Manley Hopkins
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wrote how at such a time
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"Morning, at the brown
brink eastwards, springs."
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We must be
watchers for that event.
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We must not be easily daunted
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by ill-informed end of
the world prognosticators
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and, worse, their solutions.
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Keep freedom
alive in your hearts
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and in your actions,
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and the break in
the clouds will come.
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Was exciting stuff
living through those days
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and privilege for me
to be able to write to it.
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But you know, seven years,
eight years down from that,
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I can say it with a vengeance.
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All of the signs of
social, economic, financial,
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and military storms are with us.
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In fact, as I study
history, in the long haul,
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you can say the same thing.
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But in the short haul,
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we're only here
by the mercy of God.
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There is no logic
that in the nuclear age,
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with thousands of
nuclear bombs stored up
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by several major powers
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and no end of
aggravations between them.
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There's no logic that
we have lived this long.
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Man is
self-destructive, self-willed,
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short imagined
in all of his plans,
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and they're going
wrong at the speed of light.
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But I think it's a privilege.
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When we talk
about religious liberty,
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we're talking
about a civil element,
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you know, freedom of
speech, freedom of thought,
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these are civil rights.
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But applying it to religion,
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this is the most
cherished aspect of our life,
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the right to
think beyond the storm,
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beyond the troubles,
beyond the immediate threat,
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and to fix our gaze
on a coming redemption.
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You know, how could it
be any better in our state?
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For a year or
two, sometime back,
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I remember spending an
inordinate amount of time
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watching the debates on YouTube,
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but they were given
in different locations,
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usually on college campuses,
between Christopher Hitchens,
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an avowed atheist, an
enemy of all religions,
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not just Christianity, and
a great student of history.
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I watched him
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because he was a
brilliant writer and historian,
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and wordsmith.
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And it was fascinating
to watch his arguments
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and to see him
literally destroy many people
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that thought
their faith was intact.
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And, you know, in
the New Testament,
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it tells a story
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of the disciples
trying to perform miracles
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without the true
faith in God and magician,
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set the devil's
upon them and says,
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"You know, Paul, I
know and so and so I know,
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but who are you?"
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You know, don't
speak for God unless
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you're really honestly
wanting to be on God's side.
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You know, just an
assumed quackery religion
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isn't going to cut it.
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But I noticed that
toward the end of his life
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as Hitchens died
painfully of cancer, unrepentant
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of his anti-God stance.
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He one occasion shortly
before he died, he said,
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"I've come to believe
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that this world is
basically a prison house
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for the universe."
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And how right he
was, but how forgetful
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or unknowing he was also,
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that in this prison
house, redemption is promised,
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release is coming
very, very shortly.
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And that's the
privilege in talking about
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religious liberty.
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It's not just a civil
construct that helps people
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that have this faith
that's important to them,
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not necessary to the
whole, can carry forward.
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No, it's how, as the Bible says,
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this blessed hope can
be protected in advance
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toward that
blessed eternal moment,
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the moment of the
ages when the skies part,
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the storm fades away,
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and the brilliant
light of an eternal smile
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from the deity is fixed on us.
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That's the hope of the ages.
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That's what this
cover was hinting at.
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The sky is not
to be dark always,
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it's to be bright
with the glory of God.
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When I was much
younger and probably
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more impressionable
on the wrong things,
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I had a dream of
the Second Coming.
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And my dream was
incredibly mechanical.
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There was a
little kazoo type trumpet
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that was elevated and
then beeped out its message
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and then I could see
rollers on the side of the sky
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and the sky was rolled back.
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And there the
heavenly group came
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and they were
like cardboard cutouts.
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That is not how it's
going to be, I'm quite sure.
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CS Lewis writing on
the event said it's like
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a sudden end where a
brick is thrown at the curtain
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or the lamp and smashes it out.
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It's a violent or at
least a radical shifting
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of the present reality.
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That moment is
something grand and imminent.
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And I think it's a
privilege for all of us
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living in these declining days,
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not of the Roman Empire,
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not even of the American Empire,
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but these declining
days of the empire of man,
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soon to be
replaced by the eternal
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empire and kingdom
of God for the redeemed.
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We can all be there.
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We can all be expectant.
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We can all know
as we read God's Word
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and read the seasons,
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as the Pharisees
will want not to do.
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Christ is coming.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
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