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[Music] we live in exciting times i think that is a a truism if ever there was one today as i was getting ready for this broadcast i went past three uh pictures on the wall at the three abn studios pictures of angels and texts from revelation chapter 14 beneath them these are the three angels messages that have long propelled the adventist imperative but i have to tell you with liberty magazine a magazine that the seventh adventist church began well over a century ago and it's a continuation of an earlier publication also on religious liberty with liberty magazine it is front and center in proclaiming those three angels the call to honor the creator is what lies at the root of liberty magazine because we're talking about the freedom that god gave each of us to choose or reject him and the consequences that follow which brings you to the second angel a warning about many people that perhaps the seeking for god but looking for him in the wrong places a warning on religion gone awry and the third angel the consequence of a false effort to force obedience and i can tell you with liberty magazine there's a principle that we're constantly following as we look at legislation and the situation of freedom or lack of in the world if there is coercion involved you can guarantee it is not religious liberty i am used to criticisms they come to me as they came to my predecessors clifford goldstein before me and roland heggs did for 30 some years in his tenure before that and criticism is to be expected for any editor but something has changed in recent days and in particular since the election that we've come through and a transition to a new presidency in the united states a common enough thing every four years but this time people of faith or at least a faith imperative seem to have closed their minds on certain aspects of the civil sphere versus the spiritual sphere and as i read the emails that come to me i have to say what's happened to god's people because many of those people that are criticizing what they see in liberty magazine and goodness knows it can be criticized nothing of human production is perfect in every nuance but the message that we're proclaiming is the same the message that we proclaim in liberty sent far and wide not particularly to seventh-day adventists not even particularly uh for those that say they're christians we send it out to the thought leaders the legislators the mayors the the the local officials we want all of these people in public trust to understand the principles that lie behind religious liberty we talk to them about the constitution of course the civil document but it's but it's put together uh calculatedly by those that were wanting to preserve the freedoms that the english-speaking peoples had had established even though united states separated with a war from from you know jolly old england many of those same principles of protestantism had come through the idea that we were autonomous individuals endowed by the creator with those inalienable rights the right to choose your spiritual destiny we remind them of that we also remind them of the heritage that we have in what was once a christian community not a christian government very significant difference but the faith once delivered from the reformation down through and we also calculatedly insert a discussion as i did began this talk a discussion of the uh three angels and of the imperative to prepare a people to meet their lord it has to be calculatedly put in a way that will not offend the secular mind it has to be put in a way that is not narrowly just an adventist message but they will see this is something that applies to them it's a privilege for me to be uh charged with putting this together and i believe you as the supporters of what we're doing it's your privilege your responsibility your destiny to play a role in communicating these values at the very end of time ellen white was a pioneer of the seventh adventist church and of course a woman that was clear god was speaking through her and she speaking about the precursor to liberty magazine said that the message that it proclaimed in speaking about religious liberty it was the three angels messages in truth in verity so this is not something off to the side that we could do when we feel i could ignore it other times this is present truth something for the moment i have a message i'd like to share with you in particular for religious liberty sabbath but for the period of time that uh we place the challenge before you and and gather the names and the money to send this out to this wide group of people at times our mailing list is close to 200 000 individuals that's a massive distribution could be more but any more today with a lot of magazines that people regularly see they're not distributing a fraction of that and we want you to be part of this great endeavor before i begin let's just have a word of prayer and then i want to share this message with you i believe a message for this time for liberty sabbath dear lord we thank you that we can live in a time that as the bible says the prophets long to see we can live in a time when great and wonderful things are happening we live in a time when what you proclaimed in your word that the gospel itself is a gospel of liberty it's so relevant for us we live in a moment when the call that you've given throughout eternity that we must reason together and choose life not choose death that these are the calls for us today and that in uniting behind the religious liberty work we're not just guaranteeing an insurance or trying to insure ourselves against difficulties or troubles or even persecution but that we are advancing your word the knowledge of you throughout the world and into a culture this is increasingly either indifferent to you or advancing its own form of a false religion god bless what we're doing is what i ask in your holy name thank you for this privilege and be with us in these days ahead these challenging exciting days amen i've entitled the message a testing time and maybe i need to make it clear i love puns i love multiple meanings with covert we know about testing it's become a daily routine all over the world as millions of people fall victim to a disease that perplexes the nations and many even die from it a testing time but clearly from god's word we know that to each age is given a test and this must be a definitive testing time for us to do what was the state of my vegetable garden i wondered as i spent a little bit of time earlier in 2020 looking over the beginnings of what i hope was a good harvest several of the pumpkin vines look promising there were a number of swellings i recognized as the beginnings of a plentiful crop and the tomato bushes were yellow with the profusion of flowers the fig trees were already shaking off their dormancy with budding fruit along each branch my garden would do well in spite of or maybe because of the burning heat and with diligent watering i might turn an exceptionally dry summer into an exceptional harvest kneeling over the vegetables i thought i was alone until our neighbor spoke to me across our common fence close by my shoulder do you think this covert 19 is one of the biblical plagues she asked i paused the moment thinking of the days yet to come before my garden produced its full potential no i said it does not have the specific characteristics of the plagues described in revelation but it certainly is the type of thing jesus told us would characterize the time shortly before his return i was thinking of course of luke chapter 21 and jesus reply to a similar question from those troubled more at the ending of their nation than excited at the prospect of him returning to usher in an eternal kingdom jesus spoke of pestilence and other disasters as a prelude to the real action of faithful witness amid trial the neighbor seemed calm by my answer but how would she react it if i had said yes this is one of those plagues would she have changed in some way would it change then at such a late point be particularly meaningful if it were indeed the last 10 last plagues or or you know moments before the return and what does it take to impress someone oneself even that now is the time for decision now is the testing time as a fourth generation seventh adventist and someone trained in our system and always close to centers of the church my father was a leader in the south pacific at the headquarters there and then when i was quite young moved to our general conference world headquarters in takoma park now silver spring or in the in the silver spring area i know how we've perceived our own movement and its place in end time events over the course of my lifetime i have experienced the ebb and flow of our comprehension of as the bible puts it the faith once delivered to the saints sometimes we think ourselves on the brink of final events other times we seem happier talking of conversion as almost something by osmosis with the the close of general probation far away and our individual death the event to reference in short we cycle between the energetic adventist pioneer response in 1888 to an incipient national sunday bill and the lethargy and self-confidence of late that has followed a u.s civil administration speaking loudly and proudly of religious freedom as though the roman emperor constantine himself were the best thing that ever happened to christianity long-standing theme but not so frequently repeated of light by seventh day adventists is what we once called the elijah message for the jews of jesus time and earlier elijah was the greatest prophet which is why so many tried to identify jesus as the elijah promised in malachi chapter 4 and verse 5 where it says behold i will send you elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the lord jesus himself identified john the baptist the reformer as someone who had come in the spirit and the power of elijah you can find that in luke chapter 1 verse 17. yes we adventist always thought of our mission that way we are to prepare the way for the soon return of christ the elijah message if there is any parallel to be found between our times and elijah's it has to be that of knowing the apparent crisis from the real crisis then as now elijah's time was a testing time i look back to elijah's day as the bible explains it and as the story begins it was a time of complacency it was a time of vineyards and great holdings of wealth it was a time of fraternity between israel and the sidonians in particular a time of rather diverse spirituality maybe like ours many people say they're spiritual today at time i hazard to say congenial to most of israel certainly few seemed troubled by the state of affairs apparently elijah was the apostle james identifies him as a man of like nature with ourselves and i think he meant that elijah was like one of the early christians who as the bible says prayed fervently that it might not rain and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth its fruit that's in verses 17 and 18. for this elijah was accused of being a troubler in israel as king ahab later put it enlarging on the dynamic of that moment ellen g white writing in testimonies volume 3 page 263 testament he's directed primarily at seventh-day adventists of her day but she says this elijah's faithful soul was grieved i read elsewhere in the bible that it says it speaks about those who sigh and cry for the abominations done in the land elijah's faithful soul was grieved when he called to mind the great things that god had wrought for them he was overwhelmed with grief and amazement he went before the lord and with his soul rung with anguish pleaded for him to save his people if it must be by judgments and so the drought but the real crisis was a famine of a totally different kind as amos wrote a few decades later behold the days are coming says the lord god when i will send a famine on the land not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water but of hearing the words of the lord our covert 19 social reorganization has changed many things life is very likely never to go back the way it was some of the adaptations we've experienced are rational responses to societal threat others have some perhaps unintended consequences around the middle of last year russell moore president of the ethics and religious liberty commission for the southern baptist convention gave a long interview on pbs i was struck by two points he made first he acknowledged a rapid and continuing drop-off in church attendance in recent years second he agreed that with covert 19 a critical mass of christian believers just seemed to melt away in the crisis he had no explanation for this when elijah showed himself to ahab after three years of drought faith in israel was at a low ebb the prophets of baal and asterisk were numerous and well accepted at court worship of the one true god was not acceptable unless combined with the worship of elemental spirits and harvest fertility rights there had of course been persecution many had been killed most had compromised but as obadiah head of the king's household told elijah at their first meeting he had sheltered 100 prophets of god in caves to save their lives all was not lost even though most had fallen away from the worship the true worship of god and that truly must be the same today but on mount carmel it was hard to see signs of faithfulness elijah throws out a challenge to the people how long he says will you go limping between two different opinions america as a whole quite apart from religious issues might well take that that charge to to heart you can't be double-minded about things such as the future of democracy or or how to protect a nation you can't be double-minded about whether to serve god or not by serving serving bale and ashteroth how long will you go limping with two different opinions elijah asks and not a word of answer is given according to the bible record not a word in reading ellen white's comments on this scene i am taken by her description where she says a dark cloud of unbelief had settled over the people what a figure to use a little later after god's fiery sign and elijah's prayers a little dark cloud foreshadows a great reign and much later nearer our time the elijah call is to precede another little dark cloud which rapidly lightens into earth filling glory my take on the spiritual darkness then is now is that it makes it near impossible to even comprehend the possibility of coming glory and regarding their silence again ellen white speaks to our time when she writes that to do nothing quote quote to do nothing in a time of crisis god regards as rebellion heavy thought many times i've listened to the stirring music of felix mendelssohn's elijah oratorio what particularly stands out to me musically and and textually is the scene on mount carmel where that scene that i've already described where elijah faces off the hostile crowd of false prophets the frown of the ruling elite and the sullen silence of the people false prophets have paraded and converted in vain the rulers are still under their influence however when elijah steps forward to pray for fire later for rain oh lord god of abraham he prayed isaac and israel let it be known this day that thou art god in israel and that i am thy servant and that i have done all these things that thy word answer me o lord answer me that this people may know that thou o lord out god and that thou hast turn their hearts back that's in first kings chapter 18 verses 36 and 37 the result was fire then more prayer and rain power was given to elijah to run in the rain in front of abraham of ahab's chariot all the way from the brook kishon to the palace at jezreel a distance of at least 17 miles when i checked but as much perhaps as 30 miles a marathon then a massive threat revealed itself to elijah he was evidently told that queen jezebel was determined to have his life in exchange for those of her lost prophets and so the runner sets off again as as first kings chapter 19 verse 1 puts it he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree and he requested for himself that he might die there were enough real threats to justify this fear there were clear physical and emotional reasons why he might have reacted that way he had forgotten god's leading in the past he thought himself alone the great preacher charles spurgeon who i often quote in sermons put it in perspective this way writing about elijah he says when we read the scriptures in our youth we are often astonished at the peculiar conditions in which we find even good men it is difficult for us to understand why such a man is elijah could be so dreadfully downcast as we get older and become more experienced as trials multiply around us and our inner life enters upon a sterner conflict as the babe grows to manhood and therefore is entrusted with heavier tasks we can better understand why god allowed his ancient servants to be put into such peculiar positions for we find ourselves in similar places and we are relieved by discovering that we are walking along a path which others have traveled before us i wonder if these days of covert have not brought us to a similar point to us god might also ask what are you doing here our days of covert 19 might well be the beginning of crowding alarms and threats that will merge into what we still think of as the end times or the time of trouble are we content to shelter in place masks securely on social distance carefully kept dabbling in social media as the world swirls and moves around us are we content or will we move out from our point of refuge this new normal as they're calling it inaugurated by a global pandemic has some very pertinent aspects to it for adventists we were long ago warned that funds we might have given to the work will in a day of financial crisis prove worthless a kind government has opened its storehouses to give covert relief to all even offered monies to churches but these are virtual funds at best in an economy way beyond the debasing of currency that brought down the coin clipping roman empire massive unemployment and dislocation always lead to social unrest and war a difficult context for evangelization to be sure there is of course a healthcare imperative behind stern measures but whole populations under lockdown or under severe social distancing mandate is the stuff of depersonalization and creates the isolation and sense of powerlessness necessary for less than democratic ideals while the infection mechanism is still not clearly known even as i speak an unfortunate attitude has emerged as a result of church assembly infections it is the idea that religion is dangerous to public health and by meeting together even in a parking lot sometimes people of faith are actually ready to harm their neighbors strangely that guilt has not so easily transferred to block parties or political rallies or grocery shopping or mass public demonstrations meanwhile we have witnessed an unprecedented political expression of a politico religious agenda in the united states we adventists particularly should have been immune to its strange fire appeal but many of us are as gladdened by it as the people of the largest time by the state-sponsored displays of baal this is clearly a harbinger of religious legislation and a compulsion to such things as sunday worship years ago i remember a seasoned and retired religious liberty leader came to me in my office and with a straight face and forgetfulness of the great controversy told me that we were now in a new paradigm the scenario and outlined in the great controversy he said was surely how god intended it to be but but with the delay he said there is a change dynamic we are now to be allied with rome in the battle against secularism but of course he was mistaken and in the space of a few years the great controversy scenario is manifestly revealing itself to all particularly to seventh advertise before our eyes rome is resurgent as prophesied and is the dominant world religious power the current pope has visited the united states this once protestant stronghold and lectured our legislators to widespread acclaim the once firmly protestant leadership here are enamored with rome and are more concerned with fighting that secularism my good friend had told me about and gaining political power in order to bring this nation the united states to bring this nation to its back to its presumed christian nation structure among other issues rome has settled on saving the planet from environmental destruction and we adventists might find that something we can agree on of course after all the first angel that first angel of revelation chapter 14 gives a call to honor the god of creation the document the people documents spelling out that agenda is above all premised on the model of the seventh day sabbath as god's original plan for his creation again we adventists people of biblical understanding might well be warmed by that sabbath imperative given in a document which states that it is a matter of planetary survival but the great controversy had it right adventists were told correctly what the dynamic is to be the papal document after so plainly asserting a seventh-day sabbath dynamic then applies it to as it says the eucharistic sunday previous papal documents lie behind the ecological initiative and give it a clear doctrinal and political perspective the 1998 document ds dominate says plainly that while the early christians had no direct word on changing the day from the saturday sabbath to sunday in quotes they felt that they had the authority to do so not so of course and the 2008 document caritas in veritate or charity and truth in dealing with the plethora of world problems remember 2008 was a massive global financial collapse among other things in dealing with that most particularly that crisis that financial crisis lays out very clearly in calling for a world authority quote with the power to act and to enforce the third angel comes to mind receiving the mark of the beast and all who will not ultimately perhaps the ultimate punishment one secular magazine i remember reading at the time gave a good review to that document treated it as is it really this is a political document because uh rome uh not through any fault of the present day administrators but by its setup is is ultimately a church or a state and it can uh move between one or the other which is the the ultimate threat as i say in liberty magazine to church state separation is a dynamic that enables uh safe worship and true religious liberty and this segura magazine in reviewing the document worried that the problem was in accepting it the pope came with it they might as well have read revelation and the great controversy for the backstory on that meanwhile a critical mass of politically active american protestants are clamoring for laws that will take us back to this imagined american religious dream time you and i have been told that taking a leaf from the methods of the medieval church this group will eventually raise a clamor to the legislators for them to pass a national sunday bill to avert god's displeasure meanwhile covert 19 emergencies diminish religion to a non-essential service even as fires were raging in the west storms in the east and to the south and national financial ruin a gathering cloud behind millions of unemployed supply the latest in a growing list of national calamities natural calamities if you wish going by the book indeed you are no doubt used to religious liberty updates that cite this court case and that piece of legislation and these can surely be markers of freedom progress or regression at present there is much talk of religious liberty but it's usually religious entitlement for one particular religious viewpoint but little real positive action at best there is a legislative and judicial holding pattern even as the civil liberties and the constitutional rights for citizens and rulers alike are in serious flux years ago at an afternoon religious liberty question and answer rally an older gentleman i say that looking in in the monitor and seeing myself and he may not have been older than me i don't know but i saw him as older he put up his hand tell us he said when we should be afraid it's a question the watching crowd on mount carmel might well have asked of elijah before the fire came down from heaven but not a good question for an adventist to ask this is not a time for fear but for excitement and increased action for the lord i used to give regular religious liberty updates to my father my deceased father perhaps hoping to get some startled reaction from him his answer was always the same isn't it exciting he would say isn't it exciting the lord is about to come so in this testing time this covered quiet before the real contagion we must reaffirm our blessed hope religious liberty is not a dry theory but the dynamic of pushing back against the darkness to spread more gospel light while we can a bare century before the american revolutionary war england experienced a full-blown civil war i studied history in the us and they don't tell you much about that sort of stuff but it has a great bearing on the united states before that war that civil war in england was over it became a religious war a religious struggle and a puritan minority seized power in a brief republican experiment the man still held second only to shakespeare in the english language john milton was in the midst of that struggle he was a signatory to the death decree of their king king charles the first and milton barely escaped execution when the monarchy was returned to power in his old age totally blind he dictated a massive and magisterial work called paradise lost its purpose he stated in the preface was quote to justify the ways of god to man in book 10 of that long poem he has the angel in eden outlining to the fallen couple god's plan to defeat evil and reinstate mankind to their former state and indeed almost to their former innocence what he was talking about was the great controversy theme seventh-day adventists have been blessed to have been given a sweep of history sacred and profane in the great controversy right through till the end of time but we were not the first to think that way it came through the reformation it was in full bloom in milton's paradise lost i'd like you to listen as i read you an excerpt from this uh long work and i wish everyone listening to me could take the time and go read it if you're familiar with the king james bible the language won't alienate you but it has a grand feel to it it begins with the angel explaining god's plan to that guilty pair in eden and this is what milton wrote and allow me some leeway and i tried to read it correctly because it's it's it's it's it's free verse remember dictated to his daughter not written down totally blind by that stage and he uh it flowed out from him in a statement that i think speaks to what we already are experiencing and will experience in pursuit of the gospel commission but say asks adam if our deliverer up to heaven must reassend what will be tied the few his faithful left among the unfaithful herd the enemies of truth who then shall guide his people who defend will they not deal worse with his followers than with him they dealt be sure they will said the angel but from heaven he to his own a comforter will send the promise of the father who shall dwell his spirit within them and the law of faith working through love upon their heart shall write to guide them in all truth and also arm with spiritual armor able to resist satan's assaults and quench his fiery darts what man can do against them not afraid though to the death against such cruelties with inward consolations recompensed and often supported so as shall amaze their proudest persecutors for the spirit powered first on his apostles then on all baptized shall them with wondrous gifts endue as did their lord before them thus they win great numbers of each nation to receive with joy the tidings brought from heaven at length their ministry performed and race well-run their doctrine and their story written left they died but in their room as they forewarn wolves shall succeed for teachers grievous wolves who all the sacred mysteries of heaven to their own vile advantage shall turn of luca and ambition and the truth with superstitions and traditions taint left only in those written records pure though not but by the spirit understood then they shall seek to avail themselves of names places and titles and with these to join secular power though feigning still to act by spiritual to themselves appropriating the spirit of god promised a like and given to all believers and from that pretense spiritual laws by carnal power shall force on every conscience laws which none shall find left in them and ruled or what the spirit within shall on the heart engrave what will they then but force the spirit of grace itself and bind his consort liberty what but unbilled his living temples built by faith to stand their own faith not in others for on earth who against faith and conscience can be heard infallible yet many will presume whence heavy persecution shall arise on all who in the worship persevere of spirit and truth the rest far greater part will deem in outward rights and specious forms religion satisfied truth shall retire be struck with slanderous doubts and works of faith rarely be found so shall the world go on to good malignant to bad men benign under her own weight groaning till the day appear of respiration to the just and vengeance to the wicked at return of him so lately promised to thy aid the woman's seed obscurely then foretold now amply unknown thy savior and thy lord last in the clouds from heaven to be revealed in glory of the father to dissolve satan with his perverted world then raised from the conflagrant mass purged and refined new heavens new earth ages of endless date founded in righteousness and peace and love to bring forth fruits of joy and eternal bliss and to that i can add time up test over know we have a great privilege that we are the inheritors today not just of an american civil governance tradition and uh for those lucky enough in other countries enlightened systems that even if they're of a harsher style than what exists in the democratic west there's no question that by and large the world is a lighter place for the average person to determine their own spiritual destiny than it was even uh as as recently ago as as the post-world war immediate period where communism was on the ascendancy despots were even supported inadvertently by the west and persecution was commonplace we live in a time of blessed confusion all of the powers of heaven and earth are being shaken information is being disseminated unfortunately for many who haven't given themselves a groundwork in either the bible or in logic or in in common sense things they're confused by all of it too much information overload but somehow between it all there is the opportunity is never before for those defined god god says if you seek me with all of your heart you will surely find me and as part of that not the only force obviously liberty magazine is striking right at the heart of some of this misguided religiosity this merging of church and state that is the trend now so many hundreds of years after the reformation we are going backwards as fast as we can to a time when the state in a paternalistic mood might feel that it can now order your moral and religious life and way too many christians diverting a little back to liberty itself way too many christians of good intent but poor judgment think that they're doing the lord's work to push for some uh super laws against the wishes perhaps even of the majority sneak in a law sneak in a provision that will force people to be good force them to behave well force them to cease activities that they find offensive and goodness knows from abortion to the mistreatment of the poor and the minorities there are ills and acts of violence are plenty this is not god's kingdom god never promised to bring his final eternal kingdom to pass in a natural segue from what we have now it's a violent change where the stone cut out without man's hand will descend and smash the iron and the clay and in the midst of this in this time of dangerous opportunity it's been given to us through avenues like liberty magazine through door-to-door witnessing with your mask on if need be but touching people's lives tell them warn them while it's not too late and as it says in the bible thereby saving your own souls you cannot witness from under the juniper tree we must go forth out of the desert back to where people are of late i've been in a retrospective mindset not because i'm getting older but because of the events and goodness knows 2020 has been a severe year particularly in the united states and mind you i have to remind you that religious liberty and some very overt persecution is is an issue all around the world particularly in the middle east we're still witnessing the final expulsion of christians from the middle east not to be taken lightly but as i've been thinking back on what in my lifetime i've seen i remember as a young man coming from australia a different scenario certainly a western democracy but much about society different and i came and within uh very few months the year 1968 rolled around and the events of that year as i think back on them is how do we absorb all of that australia was a top ally in vietnam and so i was subject to the draft there as well as here when i came so like most people my age i thought much about the vietnam war and in 1968 my number had not come up and i was doing well at school so it wasn't an immediate threat but i watched transfixed with other people where we were almost thrown out of vietnam by the tet offensive where the unstoppable forces of we know now mostly nationalism but communism seemed destined to sweep away the efforts to bring freedom to that country there were protests all over the country on the civil rights movement i remember robert kennedy a shining political light for many obviously there were partisans then as now but he was certainly a charismatic figure that promised a lot for many people remember him being gunned down as his brother had been not too many years earlier i remember the us pueblo pushing the envelope with north korea much doesn't change you know some things go around and come around and we're still troubled by them but back then north korea took this ship captive uh and uh held the crew for ransom for an inordinate period of time when we were troubled about their fate i remember the uh fists at the olympic you know take taking a knee has come up recently but the uh uh the civil rights movement had worked its way even into the sports arena and they're in front of the world the up race fists instead of the standing at attention for the national anthem was very divisive there were student protests all over the country that year there were homegrown terrorist acts acts and martin luther king emitted or was pushing hard for the equality dimly promised in the constitution but never delivered on and i remember at the time listening to some of his final sermons before he too was gunned down and in particular only a very few days before he was killed he gave a sermon at the national cathedral in washington dc i'm not going to repeat that whole sermon but one aspect of it in fact it's the title of it that i want to bring before you his title was remaining awake through a great revolution and he told the story that even when i was growing up in australia we all loved uh we thought it was an american story but it had been borrowed from an old dutch tale story of rick van winkle in early americana washington irving told this tale of rip van winkle goes up into the hills on a little outing meets a few of the uh uh the dwellers up there it turned out they were sort of elves or something like that the uh people that had different powers and he drank some of their wine which my father was a temperance leader that's always a bad move to deal with spirits but he drank some of what they were offering and felt a bit drowsy went to sleep and he slept through the revolution on his way up into the hills he stopped in at the inn and there was george washington's pitch picture on the wall after he awoke and came back down to that same inn sorry there was king george's picture when he came back down george washington's picture he'd slept through the whole revolution martin luther king narrowed his view to what was going on in civil rights but let's widen it we are living through cataclysmic prophetic days are we going to sleep through them as as many in the same meetings in the afternoons they said to me it's going to happen why should we bother the bible says a little folding of the hands a little sleep a little slumber when you're asleep you're vulnerable to all dangers we have to be awake wise as the bible says unless uh you're careful the very elect will be deceived and remember deception by its very nature must be very close to truth nobody is deceived by you know unveiled evil and something that is clearly threatening you but children are easily deceived by a kind gentleman offering them candy or something or an open door for a ride sinister we need to stay awake through this revolution you would have to be asleep at the switch not to know that the norms are changing you would have to be spiritually indifferent not to see that the way we practice our faith is under a cloud as never before you would have to be indifferent to the plight of fellow human beings to see that unemployment starvation you know spiritual decline is the thing of most of the population souls are crying out ellen white writing to early adventists spoke about many looking wistfully to heaven well i'll tell you one way they're looking wistfully to heaven online you can buy a couple of acres on mars the price was pretty good and and my scotch blood even urged me on why buy on mars no one knows nobody thinks they're going to be there but it's a way to escape the coming destruction elon musk says that he plans on going to another planet but i don't know about you i plan on going to another kingdom to god's eternal kingdom and whenever you go on a troop it's great to take the family along it's great to have friends with you we need to make that commitment today that we will do all in our power to stay awake through the revolution we will do all in our power to advance god's eternal message this great controversy theme that explains what evil is about you know people see the innocent dying and how could that god do such thing if you understand the great controversy all is plain and if you understand god's purpose back in eden an innocent couple exposed to the tree and they fell it had to be because god respects our choice he he respects the right that we have to choose him and life and otherwise and miss out why would we let those uh naive if not quite innocents around us miss out because we haven't explained to them these grand and powerful principles the gospel of liberty as paul puts it it's our privilege and your privilege support what we're doing with liberty magazine it's been done for a long time and the letters that i could share with you of commendation from judges from mayors from uh generals i remember one general i met with a few years ago and as i left after twice the time it allotted he called out to me he says we believe in what you're doing we believe in what you're doing but the question i put to you today do you believe in what you're doing you can't go through the motions you have to believe and with belief and trust in god as the bible says plainly all things are possible no situation is so difficult that with god we can't succeed and proclaim again liberty throughout the land god bless you [Music] you