Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
I'd promised to read
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a few passages
from Great Controversy.
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And I'll start with one
that's sharply in agreement
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with what I just said
about the rise of Rome.
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This is on page 578, big book.
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People don't read War and Peace
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or this length
book much anymore,
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but they should.
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Otherwise you
just get superficial.
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But this is what it says,
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"The prophecy of
Revelation 13 declares
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that the power
represented by the beast
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with lamblike horns
shall cause 'the earth and them
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which dwell therein'
to worship the papacy,
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there represented or
symbolized by the beast
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'like unto a leopard.'
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The beast with two
horns is also to say
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'to them that
dwell on the earth,
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that they should make
an image to the beast, '
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or a copy, and, furthermore,
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it is to command all,
'both small and great,
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rich and poor, free and bond, '
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to receive the
mark of the beast.'"
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A lot of people think
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that the COVID
injection or inoculation
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is the mark of
the beast, it's not.
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But there will be a
mark or a sign of adherence
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to this power to come.
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And it says, "It has been shown
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that the United
States is the power
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represented by the
beast with lamblike horns,
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and that this
prophecy will be fulfilled
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when the United
States shall enforce
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Sunday observance,
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which Rome claims as
the special acknowledgment
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of her supremacy."
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And I can just quote
one document from Rome
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that I think claims that.
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In the Dies Domini
document on the Lord's Day,
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the day to worship the Lord.
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It says this specifically,
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"While the early believers
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had no direct
command from the Lord,
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they felt that
they had the authority
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to change the day."
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Well, let's talk
about the believers.
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That was what the
Catholic Church claims
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as their prerogative,
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that continuum of
the Church Fathers
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through to the papacy itself.
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And it says here...
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"The power represented
by with the lamblike horns,
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and that this
prophecy will be fulfilled
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when the United
States shall enforce
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Sunday
observance, which Rome claims.
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But in this homage to the papacy
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the United States
will not be alone.
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The influence of
Rome in the countries
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that once
acknowledged her dominion is far
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from being destroyed."
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And it's amazing to me,
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how papal Rome
has been reestablished
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in a dominant position,
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mostly as a religious leader,
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but also as a political leader.
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And, you know, they
have every right to exist,
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as I said, but just
as a fact of history.
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How has pagan Rome,
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the Roman Empire that
existed for hundreds of years,
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that fully collapsed,
moved to Constantinople,
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established by
Constantine as the new capital,
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but then it fell,
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but before it fell old
Rome fell into disrepair,
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was pillaged by
the Germanic tribes.
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And so it's long gone.
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It tried to reestablish itself
through the Holy Roman Empire,
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which is one way extremist,
nor the holy nor Roman.
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But how come
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after all these
hundreds of years,
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we have the Church
of Rome in the Vatican,
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which, if you
look at it closely,
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is really like a
ghost of the Roman Empire,
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a ghost of the
paganism that existed there,
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and all the symbols
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and the monstrance
of the sun worship,
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and it just on and on.
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And even the Latin
that they've clung to,
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it is basically
yesteryear story.
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And so the
mystery of the ages to me
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is how this leftover
element of an imperial past
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has rejuvenated
itself before our very eyes,
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and is the dominant
religious political,
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religio-political
force in the world today.
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It's quite amazing.
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But the world we
live in imagined itself
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as a little more than religious.
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You know, it's not
spiritual in its outlook.
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This is a secular
world with real problems,
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and what are those problems?
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Ellen White
wrote this, she says,
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"In accidents and
in calamities by sea,
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by land, in
great conflagrations,
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in fierce tornadoes
and terrific hailstorms,
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in tempests, floods, cyclones,
tidal waves, and earthquakes,
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in every place and
in a thousand forms,
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Satan is exercising his power."
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I think it's
quite abundant by now
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even though it was
written ahead of time,
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that the world we live in
is being brought to attention
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by just an absolute
continuum of disasters.
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Of course, the
evacuation from Afghanistan
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catches everyone's attention
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and as a stark
reminder of the fall of empire.
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But beyond that, very troubling
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are these continuing
fires on the West Coast,
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storms on the East
Coast, tornadoes in the Middle,
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you know, you
could go on and on.
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And they're not just alarms.
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These are debilitating costs
from the National Treasury.
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Life can barely be sustained
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when the pace
picks up on these things.
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And as Ellen White
says, Satan is causing them,
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at least evil influences
and Satan works through people
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and corrupt mechanisms.
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Even the weather is
corrupted by bad actions
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of a fallen race
pillaging the earth.
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And she says, "He sweeps
away the ripening harvest,
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and famine and distress follow.
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He imparts to the
air a deadly taint."
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I don't know
what she had in mind
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when she wrote that.
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Jesus had said,
"Pestilence and famine
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will follow at the end of time."
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But a deadly
taint sounds dangerously
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close to what we're
discovering with COVID
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that it's literally in the air.
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He imparts to the
air a deadly taint
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and thousands
perish by the pestilence.
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These visitations
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are to become more and
more frequent and disastrous."
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Destruction will be
upon both man and beast,
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"The earth
mourneth and fadeth away,
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the haughty people do languish,
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the earth also is defiled
under the inhabitants thereof,
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because they have
transgressed the laws,
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changed the ordinance,
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broken the
everlasting covenant."
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That's from Isaiah, Chapter 24.
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And she says, "And then,
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the great
deceiver will persuade men,
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that those who serve God
are causing these evils."
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And I don't know that
it's a direct parallel.
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But it comes to mind
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that in the Black
Death that swept Europe,
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and very often
the Jewish communities
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were not quite as badly affected
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because of some
of the Old Testament
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cleanliness laws and so on
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that they were following,
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even though many
of them died from,
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from the plague
like anyone else.
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But during that
period, crowds turned on these
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that were
keeping a different faith
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and blame them for it.
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And there were massacres
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of thousands at
a time on occasion.
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And so that's human nature.
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And here Ellen White is
saying this will happen.
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"The class that have provoked
the displeasure of heaven
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will charge all
their troubles upon those
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whose obedience
to God's commandments
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is a perpetual
reproof to transgressors.
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It will be declared
that men are defending God
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by the violation of
the Sunday Sabbath."
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I am sure this is
about to break on us.
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Even after
9/11, a few, now this,
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one now deceased televangelist
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went very publicly saying
this had come upon America,
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because of its
advancement of homosexuality.
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Well, he was half correct.
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But the idea
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that this is a
direct punishment of God
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is not quite right.
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These are natural consequences,
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often very
diffused in their effect
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of just breaking the laws
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and the behavior
protocols that God has set.
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There's always a consequence,
just like you eat junk food,
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you get sick, you act badly
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and are bad
custodians of the earth pillages
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instead of caretakers
and bad things will happen.
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And she says,
"It will be declared
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that men are offending God,
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that this sin has
brought calamities
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which will not cease
until Sunday observance
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shall be strictly enforced,
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and that those
who present the claims
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of the fourth commandment,
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thus destroying
reverence for Sunday,
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are troublers of the people.
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Thus deserving,
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thus destroying
reverence for Sunday,
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and thus
preventing their restoration
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to divine favor and
temporal prosperity."
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There's
historical precedent to this,
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but Ellen White is
picking up on biblical prophecy
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in making these claims.
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And looking ahead
as I need to do now,
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always with this
program, looking ahead,
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I just should warn people,
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that the human behavioral norms
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that preceded
persecutions in the past
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are probably just ahead of us.
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COVID is an opening
salvo in the disturbances
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to all the natural
order by global climate change
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and political disturbance.
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And the end result, I think,
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if not quite the purge of
the movie out of Hollywood,
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it will be a
turning against those
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that are indeed
troubling Israel.
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Nobody knows what
tomorrow will bring directly,
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but we do know what the
future will bring in due course.
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And all of us, I think,
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during these COVID
times are well aware
00:10:26.45\00:10:28.96
that we're heading
toward a great testing
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of Western civilization,
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and perhaps for each of
us a testing of our faith.
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These are difficult times,
but if we remain faithful,
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if we keep our
eyes fixed on the prize,
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we can avoid deceptions.
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The Middle Ages, for example,
a time of great despair,
00:10:48.14\00:10:51.78
the Dark Ages, it
was called figuratively.
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As far as civilization,
it was not always that dark,
00:10:54.28\00:10:57.05
but the darkness
of faith was palpable.
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We too are living
in a New Dark Age.
00:11:00.69\00:11:04.06
Misinformation is on every hand.
00:11:04.09\00:11:06.39
We need to be true
00:11:06.43\00:11:07.93
to what we've
been given and told
00:11:07.96\00:11:10.27
and we've
inherited in God's Word,
00:11:10.30\00:11:12.30
through the record of history,
00:11:12.33\00:11:13.67
the faithful of the ages,
00:11:13.70\00:11:15.27
and determined to be
faithful no matter what.
00:11:15.30\00:11:19.47
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:19.51\00:11:22.24