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Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI210513B
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00:06 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:07 Before the break, 00:09 I was explaining at some length for our program 00:12 but really much shorter than could be taken 00:14 with a complicated case 00:16 about the Lindy Chamberlain case 00:20 of a dingo taking her child and then the ramifications 00:24 both for the church and for the general 00:27 society's civil liberties culminating in this proposal 00:31 as a counter to direct political force 00:34 being used by some of her followers to gain office 00:37 and then deal with those that had railroaded 00:41 Lindy Chamberlain and to free her. 00:44 As a direct result of that, there was an anti-terrorism law 00:47 that would have really short circuited all 00:50 Western civil liberties for anybody on the wrong side 00:54 of those in authority, 00:56 particularly with a secret proscribed was the way 00:59 there is the secret proscribed list of terrorist organizations 01:03 and as a member, you could be rounded up. 01:05 And as we've seen since 9/11, in the US, 01:08 some religious activist groups, 01:11 ones that I'm not comfortable with obviously, 01:13 but from their religious perspective, 01:16 they just religious programs and they put on the list 01:19 and then anyone belonging to them is in trouble. 01:22 And right now, with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, 01:25 we sort of left with an ambiguity on this, 01:27 the Haqqani Network for example. 01:30 We've sort of toyed with them from time to time 01:32 and they might be opposed to the Taliban, 01:37 but we see them as trouble. 01:40 Thankfully, this legal initiative frittered away, 01:44 and thankfully and praise be the Lord, 01:46 after many years unfortunately though, 01:49 Lindy Chamberlain was released, 01:51 and all it took was an English tourists 01:54 was climbing that same Ayer's Rock, 01:56 slipped off the precipitous sides, 01:59 fell into the bushes and was killed. 02:03 And when they found his body nearby 02:05 was a little inner jacket that Lindy had 02:10 always maintained the baby had been wearing with signs 02:14 of being chewed and torn by the animals. 02:17 And it didn't really prove anything 02:18 other than cast her as more truthful. 02:21 But on that alone, she was summarily released, 02:24 and the government made apologies. 02:27 And as I said, 02:29 I saw all along the government 02:31 was an embarrassment of the government, 02:32 they would have gladly released her, 02:35 but a function of the law is if you say you're innocent, 02:38 you're declared guilty without remorse, 02:42 government's not very sympathetic. 02:44 So they couldn't easily dismiss it 02:47 when she had had this stance, 02:48 but they clearly wanted to remove this embarrassment. 02:53 It just tells me though that the... 02:56 In these latter days, 02:57 speaking as the Seventh-day Adventist student of prophecy, 03:00 in these latter days, these end times, 03:03 a times of distress and stress 03:06 of social panic, 03:09 and disaster on every hand, it's very easy, 03:12 very easily developed, 03:16 where the prejudices that always exist, 03:19 and the misinformation can be spun 03:21 and spin out of control, 03:23 and different groups suddenly appear 03:25 as the enemy within 03:27 and gross injustice be brought upon them. 03:30 And the Jewish people have experienced this 03:32 over and over again, 03:34 they're the perpetual fall guys for many, many things. 03:38 But with Australia, 03:40 very much like the United States 03:42 or Western democracy with a... 03:45 If not a clean record then a pretty upstanding 03:49 intention to be a land of justice 03:51 to see there how easily in this particular case, 03:55 it could sort of warp into a classic 03:57 religious persecution, 04:00 and then the extra rebound against the people for daring 04:05 to challenge authority. 04:07 You know, we're living in very interesting times, 04:10 very interesting times. 04:13 And the stresses that we see in different countries 04:16 come from many different reasons, 04:18 but over and over again, 04:21 I have seen that 04:23 when you feed religion into the mix, 04:25 and it nearly always is in the mix, 04:28 the more traditionalist society 04:29 is the more certain 04:31 that you're dealing with religion sometimes 04:34 and/or but religion 04:36 and tribal or ethnic distinctions. 04:41 But once you mix religion in, 04:42 it can get very nasty very quickly. 04:47 But the advice that Jesus gave 04:50 or the prediction that Jesus gave 04:52 when His disciples came to Him, and they said, 04:54 "You know, can you tell us 04:56 when are the signs of Your coming 04:58 and at the end of the age?" 05:00 And I've read and reread that statement 05:05 and it's not really clear 05:06 whether they meant it to be synonymous. 05:08 You know, Jewish writings, particularly the Old Testament, 05:11 and this is the new, had parallelism. 05:14 And on that level, you could say, well, 05:16 you're coming and the end of the age 05:17 is synonymous. 05:19 But I'm inclined to think 05:22 they were seeing them as separate. 05:25 The Romans, and they were in the rough times 05:28 of the Roman Empire, had a concept of time, 05:33 divided up into 100 years, a saeculum, 05:37 was a little more than 100, but roughly 100 years. 05:40 The time that four generations would pass, 05:43 and more importantly, the time period, 05:46 that was enough to mean that nobody alive 05:49 at the beginning of that period would be alive at the end. 05:52 So the timespan of human memory. 05:56 And then, since no one alive could remember how it began, 05:59 they would repeat the same problems. 06:02 And I really believe that the disciples 06:04 were thinking in the model of their times, 06:06 you know, "When are we going to get to the end of things 06:09 as we know them, 06:10 when it'll be the shift into another way 06:13 of dealing with stuff but 06:14 and of the sign of Your coming?" 06:16 Because Jesus said, "No man knows. 06:18 I can't tell you when that is." 06:20 And Jesus outlined 06:22 all of the things that we are experiencing, 06:25 the natural disasters, the pestilences, 06:28 the earthquakes, the fires, and so on. 06:31 But He says, "Don't worry," He says, 06:32 "These are but the birth pangs, the end is not yet." 06:37 And elsewhere in the Bible, 06:38 it says that there are people that will come scoffers 06:41 at the end of time and say, 06:43 "Where is the promise of His coming?" 06:44 All things continuous they have from the beginning, 06:47 nothing's changed. 06:48 And so even those climate change 06:51 deniers are right to a point, 06:53 storms and tornadoes, they've always been with us, 06:56 just like the poor. 06:58 I think there's a quantitative difference. 07:02 We're seeing a rapid increase, 07:05 scientists are tracking it. 07:06 You know, the number of earthquakes in the last 07:08 few years is massively more than all the known earthquakes 07:11 in recorded history. 07:13 Even not to mention something like fracking, 07:16 basically breaking the back of the earth, 07:18 there are thousands of earthquakes on a given day, 07:21 little ones. 07:22 But, you know, the earth is quivering. 07:24 But Jesus said, "These are not the signs 07:26 of the end in themselves." 07:28 They're markers, and certainly frequency 07:31 would lend you to think we're coming to the end 07:33 of the human age, not just the 100 years, 07:37 the time of man and the time of Christ 07:40 and His eternal kingdom is about to begin. 07:44 But he said that, "Then they will give you up 07:47 to be persecuted. 07:49 And brother will hate brother, family against family." 07:51 And I thought of that, with the Chamberlain thing. 07:54 It wasn't as simple as societal prejudice 07:58 suddenly erupting against Adventist, 08:00 there was Adventist against Adventist, 08:02 disbelieving what a brother had done, 08:05 even some passing judgment on the theology 08:07 of this pastor. 08:08 Did that have anything to do with him being involved 08:11 in this sort of a theological guilt? 08:14 Crazy sort of a way of looking at stuff, 08:16 but very much fulfilling of what Jesus had said 08:19 would be the type of times that would predate His coming 08:22 when every man's hand is against his brother, 08:25 and people believing a lie, great deceptions, 08:29 uncertainty about what is truth and what is error. 08:33 And in the US, we've just gone through a period, 08:36 I lived through it, 08:37 but I hardly believe it after seeing it, 08:39 where everything was told to be lies, lies, 08:42 don't believe the media, they lie to you. 08:45 Meanwhile, the president who lied 08:47 more freely than most politicians 08:49 who are prone to it at the best of times, 08:51 so who was telling the truth? 08:53 It got to the point 08:54 where nothing was quite certain. 08:57 News medias became political propaganda units. 09:02 The internet at the best of times, 09:03 unreliable and just private interpretation, 09:06 just full of the most fantastical stuff, 09:08 including a news and video made from whole clips. 09:13 Jesus' words are very much coming true. 09:18 What really matters at the end of the day as Jesus says, 09:24 "Let your light so shine before men, 09:29 that they will see your behavior 09:31 and know that you represent your Father." 09:34 That's really the challenge. 09:36 That was missing, I believe in lies degree in Australia 09:39 during the Chamberlain saga. 09:42 It's often missing today, but it's imperative 09:46 that we who stand for religious liberty proclaim, 09:48 as the Bible says, liberty from the housetops 09:51 throughout the land, because liberty 09:53 is the liberation from God, 09:58 as a matter of theology given to us now 10:00 and as a matter of expectation soon to come forever. 10:03 We need to proclaim liberty. 10:05 We need to speak to our neighbors, 10:07 witness and prepare the way of the Lord, 10:09 as was done in the New Testament. 10:15 Starting with John Milton's Paradise Regained, 10:18 it has long since struck me that the great conflicts 10:22 of the ages happened in the desert. 10:25 It was in the desert wilderness 10:27 temptation that Christ overcame on our behalf. 10:30 Children of Israel wandered 40 years in the desert 10:32 denying God most of the time, 10:35 and therefore they were not allowed to cross the Jordan. 10:38 For the United States and its westward journey, 10:42 it was really in the desert 10:43 that some of the great conflicts took place. 10:45 And, of course, 10:47 the Mormons in their westward trek saw it 10:50 as an escape from persecution. 10:52 And for Australia with the Chamberlains, 10:55 it was a case of misapprehension 10:57 of belief in the desert. 10:59 We figuratively are facing a desert time in the world 11:04 and how we will come out of it remains to be seen. 11:07 But we need to remember that despite 11:09 of the swirling dust, 11:10 in spite of the parching moments, 11:12 if we're faithful, God will be faithful with us. 11:17 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2021-12-09