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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Religious Liberty 2023

Andy Im

The Lamblike Beast & the Dragon’s Breath

So, moving forward, I just want to say 2 things that, and challenge us in these 2 ways, and first and foremost, in terms of jumping to conclusions.

You know, 1 of the things that we want to refrain from doing is jumping to conclusions when others' opinions and ideas and thoughts differ from our own right how many of you agree that we need to not be so quick to judge others so in this way not jumping to conclusions by placing value judgment on others that have different ideas, but also not jumping to conclusions when it comes to an idea or opinion on a given topic.

How many of you believe we need to be more like the Bereans?

Now it didn't matter if it was Paul or Silas.

The Bereans were gonna check it out and validate Paul's message against the Word of God.

And that is certainly something that we need to do at Seventh-day Adventists, is go to the Word of God and the Spirit of prophecy to validate anything that is said.

And I would expect you to do the exact same thing with me here this morning, is don't just take it at face value or accept it, but to go back and study for yourself.

And by the way, when I mean study for yourself, does that mean listening to a podcast or a sermon on YouTube that validates our assumptions and ideas?

Is that what it means to study and to delve deep?

It means to go back to the original sources, and that is ultimately the Word of God.

I was tasked at this last GYC, It's a conference held for young people, and it was in Arizona this year.

And so I kind of oversaw a seminar series on religious liberty.

Certainly you know his brother, Pastor Jim Howard, who was a pastor here at Metro Church.

And also Another panelist there at GYC was Pastor Joe Reeves.

How many of you were here when Joe Reeves was here as well?

He was also there, at least for the panel portion.

The sermons are up on AudioVerse if you want to have a chance to look at that, and we discussed 2 subjects or 2 topics that created some discussion, and I'm going to share what those 2 topics are this morning in light of what the Bible and some of our pioneers and the spirit of prophecy have to say about these 2 topics and we're going to be delving into Revelation chapter 13 amen And so we're going to look at the lamb-like beast, we're going to take a historical look at what the Spirit of Prophecy has said, the pioneers, some scripture, and I'm going to say right off the bat that 1 of my assumptions is that I do assume the prophetic role of the spirit of prophecy, and I also have a qualified respect for the writings of our pioneers, okay?

And I say qualified because they're not inspired like the Bible and, of course, the spirit of prophecy would be.

So I do have a qualified respect for the works of our pioneers.

But we're going to be looking at the spirit of prophecy and the pioneers.

And certainly, this is by no means exhaustive.

I'm going to throw the 2 out there for you.

The first 1 has to do with this notion that the lamb-like beast, speaking as a dragon, refers directly to slavery, at least historically speaking, and more broadly racism and the broader injustices that we're witnessing in the United States today.

By the way, this discussion, there was an article published recently, I think a couple months ago in the Review, where the author shared a certain perspective.

If you go on social media, this topic is being discussed widely.

How many of you have heard some of this discussion before yourselves?

When it speaks as a dragon, is it referring to slavery and some of the injustices that we're witnessing today in society.

So 1 of the things I want to point out, and that is this, the imagery of the lamb itself, the irony of how the lamb is presented, right?

Do Lambs normally speak or sound like dragons.

And so this is the imagery that's coming forward.

There's this uncharacteristic attribute of this lamb that sounds like a dragon, right?

And there's a dissonance there, a discrepancy, a dissonance, a disconnect in the imagery that we see in Revelation 13.

And so the argument is proposed, well, what greater dissonance in the history of the United States, when we're looking through our history, especially during the time of our pioneers, what greater dissonance that we see than what was professed by this country, right?

All men are created equal, and yet we had the institution of slavery.

So this is the discussions, these are some of the arguments that are proposed.

And by the way, there are some, you could say, some legitimate reasons why Adventists are discussing this today and kind of adopting some of these ideas because our pioneers also associated the lamb-like beast with slavery.

So if you have some sort of respect or value what the pioneers wrote and take it at faith value, you might say, well, they shared it, So that must have been part of our message back in the day.

So there are at least some historical precedents for why this discussion is taking place today.

And I might add, We added slavery historically, but racism and some of the broader injustices that we're witnessing today.

We might also include in this word here or this phrase, broader injustices, to include when the Lamb-like Beast is speaking as a dragon, that it includes some of the COVID-related mandates that we saw, right?

Many were making that association, especially during the heat of the pandemic, that the mandates that were coming forth locally and federally constituted the Lamb-like Beast speaking as a dragon.

Let's go to scripture, let's go to the spare prophecy and see what is specifically stated there.

Now, the second, that was just the first topic, that's pretty Logan loaded, we could spend this entire Sabbath school just talking about that, but I'm going to add another 1.

The lamb-like beast speaking as a dragon suggests a secular or authoritarian or totalitarian takeover in the United States, or some global initiative, such as an international government, these alliances, these global alliances that we see and entities, and that these things are the indication, the catalyst, or the impetus for end-time prophetic fulfillment.

And again, during the heat of the pandemic you certainly saw this association being made in social media, right?

Whenever, you know, with the church closures, with the Biden mandates, and some that happened under former President Trump, when these things were coming out, it's, hey, the beast is beginning to speak.

We are nearing, we are approaching the end of all things, right?

That was the rhetoric that we saw amongst many Seventh-day Adventists during that time.

So the question that we want to address is, is it biblically legit to equate government mandates that we saw recently with the dragon's breath?

And by the way, the dragon's breath stinks, doesn't it?

Do we associate those things with the dragon's breath?

We're going to look at Revelation chapter 13, And I'm going to just assume, because you are deep in the Word of God, you've studied Revelation 13 before, you've been to unlock Revelation, so you have a basic understanding, and this is stuff we've grown up with, right?

And I'm gonna assume that you know that the lamb-like beast in some way shape or form represents the United States of America.

It's gonna speak like a dragon, that ultimately there's going to be some type of persecution that takes place over the issue of worship.

And Seventh-day Adventists have always understood that to mean that the issue will be over Sunday legislation, amen?

So we know that much, but I just want to kind of in a very quick way go through some of the things that are highlighted over here, just as a quick review.

So this other beast that comes out of the earth, that speaks like a dragon, we understand this to be the United States of America, or the government we live in.

The 2 horns, we have understood those 2 horns to mean something specific.

The pioneers also reiterated that, the 2 horns representing Protestantism and republicanism, not the Republican Party, but the representative form of government that we find within the United States.

It's going to appear like a lamb, docile, Christian-like, harmless, right?

There's going to be some level of profession.

This uncharacteristic attribute of this lamb.

Now, by the way, in the book Great Controversy, and I would invite all of you to read the chapter entitled God's Law Immutable in the Great Controversy.

That is the chapter where you find the summary of Revelation chapter 13 in the book Great Controversy.

She says there that the speaking as a dragon represents, and she makes it very specific, the actions of the United States legislative and judicial branches of government." Okay?

So she equates the speaking as a lamb or the speaking as a dragon as the actions of the legislative and judicial branches of the United States government.

It's going to exercise all the authority of the first beast.

By the way, that first beast is identified in verses 1 through 10, the leopard-like beast that we have concluded, through Bible study, our pioneers did it, to be the papacy or the medieval church.

And by the way, the attributes we find in verses 1 through 10 of chapter 13 are nearly identical to the little horn power of Daniel chapter 7.

And that's why we see this as the same power as representing the papacy.

So it's going to exercise all the authority this government and what we mean by that is that it will exercise persecuting authority that we saw during the 1260 year prophecy.

Now if you skip down a little bit, this power, this lamb-like beast is also going to cause the earth to worship the first beast.

So the United States is going to take a leading role in causing the earth, the world, to worship the first beast.

So the role of the United States is paramount and explicitly stated in Scripture.

So there's going to be the role of the U.S.

In enforcing some observance as an act of homage to the papacy.

Jennifer Woods

Truly Free

I was going to say good morning, but I'll say good afternoon and happy Sabbath to each of you.

It is truly my pleasure to be with you this afternoon, and I want to thank Andy for the invitation and your pastor for allowing me to be with you today.

And I want to say what a pleasure it is to be amongst some familiar faces and also with family.

My boys and my mother were able to join me this afternoon, so I'm very thankful for that.

I also want to thank Sister Kika for the wonderful testimony that she gave.

And it's very hard to follow that because I feel like she already gave a full sermon in what she shared this morning.

I also want to thank Heather for the beautiful music, Amazing Grace.

What a beautiful song to think about God's amazing grace to each 1 of us.

I want to go through our scripture again this morning, this afternoon, I'm sorry.

So we'll just read it 1 more time and again it's found in John 8 verses 31 through 36 and it says, To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, we are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.

How can you say that we shall be set free?

Jesus replied, very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I just ask that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart are acceptable to you this morning, Lord, this afternoon, Lord.

And as much as I love the song Amazing Grace, there's another song that I also love, and we tend to sing it during Black History Month.

This song is called Lift Every Voice and Sing.

The first line of the song sums up the call to lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmony of liberty.

Now I love the words of this song that we pursue liberty, and some would also say that we pursue freedom.

According to some definitions, it means not being subject to the control or dominion of another.

Not being coerced or constrained in the choices or the actions that we choose to take.

Long ago in heaven, an angel made the claim that freedom and liberty were not compatible with serving God.

And today, too many of us have believed the lie of Satan that choosing to live for God means that we are giving up our freedom and that God is a God who forces our love for him.

But Ellen White states in Patriarchs and Prophets, so I'm just gonna raise my hand when it's time to go to the next slide.

She states that God desires from all his creatures the service of love, service that springs from an appreciation of his character.

He takes no pleasure in a forced obedience, And to all he grants freedom of will, that they may render him voluntary service.

In another writing, she goes on to say that God has granted freedom of will to all and endowed men with capacity to appreciate his character and therefore with the ability to love him and to choose his service.

So long as created beings worshipped God, they were in harmony throughout the universe.

While love to God was supreme, love to others abounded.

As there was no transgression of the law, which is a transcript of God's character, no note of discord jarred the celestial harmonies.

However, this happy state of affairs was shattered when Lucifer began to doubt God's character and love.

Lucifer accused gods of infringing on the freedom of his creation, forcing allegiance from the heavenly host.

Lucifer tried to convince the angels that they should be given full freedom to do what they wanted to do and not have to follow the perfect rules that God, in his love, because God is love, established to govern his creation.

As told in the story of redemption, which is 1 of my favorite books, Satan insinuated that true freedom and peace were found in independence.

He claimed that angels needed no law, but should be left free to follow their own will, which would ever guide them right.

That law was a restriction of their liberty, and that to abolish law was 1 great object of his standing as he did.

The conditions of the angels, he thought, needed improvement.

Unfortunately, one-third of the angels believed the lie.

They disregarded the fact that their happiness, peace, and joy stemmed from their obedience to God's laws, which were based on the foundation of love.

After the fall, Satan used the same line of argument on Eve, planting doubt when he asked the question, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?

And then he went on to tell her that God knows that when you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

He was questioning the boundaries that God placed on the perfect innocent pair.

He was telling Eve that she should have the ability or freedom as a perfect being to know all the things that God knew and to live life on her own terms.

He put the thought in her head that God was withholding something good from her and that by living by his rules and restrictions, she was missing out.

You see, Eve didn't believe what we're told in James 1, 17, that every good and perfect gift is from above and that God does not withhold any good thing from his children.

You see the truth of the matter is despite Satan's lies to the contrary, serving God frees us.

God does not coerce his creation to love and serve him.

Instead his love is 1 that is built on relationship.

He showers us with his love and then asks us to love him in response.

In heaven and in the Garden of Eden, God withheld no good thing from his loved creation.

And 1 of the most wonderful, amazing gifts that God has given us is the freedom of choice, including the freedom to decide whether or not we're going to serve him.

We see this gift demonstrated at creation where he made us in his image.

We can see this in the story of the Israelites when they finally arrived in the Promised Land after years of bondage and wandering.

After God freed the children of Israel from bondage, He still gave them the choice and the free will to decide whether or not they would serve him moving forward.

Joshua set out the choice that was before his fellow Israelites and his response when he said, But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living.

But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

We even see this gift of free will in the plan of redemption, where even salvation is dependent on us choosing him.

He's demonstrated his love for us and that while we were still sinners he died for us and then it's up to us to accept the gift because his love is never forced.

It's up to us in our free will to choose to believe, accept, and trust him in all that he has promised us.

Fundamentally, our love for God is built on the freedom he gives us to choose whether or not we will reciprocate that love.

He never forces love as a response to all of the goodness that he demonstrates to us because God never forces relationship.

Instead, he tells us in Revelation 3.20, Here I am, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person and they with me.

Now I want you to close your eyes for a moment and imagine God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, of all created beings, standing at the door of your heart and of mine, asking us to invite him into a relationship with us.

You see, God has given us this overwhelming evidence that he is love, and yet too often, God's knocks on our hearts go unanswered by his creation.

Throughout human history we see God looking for a relationship with us and us choosing to reject him.

God is wanting to offer us freedom in him and yet we choose to live life in bondage.

We believe the lie that submission is antithetical to freedom But I want to spend the next couple minutes with you this afternoon and talk about 3 ways that we experience true freedom when we submit to God.

We experience freedom from the bondage of sin.

We experience freedom from the burden of sin.

And we experience freedom from the penalty of sin.

So it should be the heading that just says, freedom from the bondage of sin.

So when we submit to Jesus, thank you, he frees us from the bondage and power of sin.

God offers us true freedom in that he frees us from the bondage and power of sin.

God offers us true freedom in that he frees us from the bondage and power of sin that try to hold us captive.

While the devil comes as a thief to kill and to steal and to destroy, Jesus came, that we can have an abundant life.

Ever since the fall, humanity has been in bondage.

It's interesting that when we look at our scripture for today, it says that the Jews who had believed in Jesus seemed to take offense when Jesus offered them freedom by following him and his truth.

Let's read verse 33 of our text again, where it says, they answered him, we are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone.

Even though Jesus in this passage was talking about freeing them from spiritual bondage, they missed the point and responded by talking about physical bondage, telling Jesus that as Abraham's seed, they were never slaves.

However, just looking at the second book of the Bible alone contradicts the story, right?

Did they forget that they had spent years as slaves in Egypt and then as wanderers in the desert?

Throughout much of the Old Testament, there's a record of how God's chosen people were captive to the Babylonians, the Medes, and Persians, and then under the subjugation of the Roman Empire.

Throughout the Old Testament, the loss of physical freedom was often tied to and the result of spiritual disobedience, like worshiping false gods.

But time and time again, the 1 true God forgave his people and rescued them, offering them both physical and spiritual freedom.

What is the spiritual bondage that many are experiencing today?

Well, for some, it's bondage to money, success, pride, gluttony, greed, fear, jealousy, prejudice, anger, the list could go on.

But whatever you are a slave to, the result is the same, a failure to experience the abundant life promised by following Christ.

Cody Francis

Challenges: Defining Religious Liberty

And so there's some issues that I've been wrestling with and trying to figure out in my own mind.

I don't know that I've figured it all out yet, but I'm going to share with you some of the things and some of the conclusions that I've been coming to as I wrestle with some of these issues.

Because when we look at religious liberty, it's not a cut and dried thing.

There's a lot of factors that go into when you look at liberty, especially when liberty is conflict.

1 person's liberty can conflict with somebody else's presumed liberty as well.

And so when you deal with these things, it's very complicated.

We're not going to get into a lot of legal issue because I am not an attorney, I'm a pastor.

And so we're going to use the Bible and spirit of prophecy primarily.

And so that's what we're going to look at.

And let's go ahead and we'll begin with a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, we're just grateful for your goodness.

We thank you that we can come and study and think about these issues.

And we thank you for the warnings that you give us, that how these issues are going to surface more in the future.

And so we pray you'll be with us this afternoon, and you'll give us wisdom and understanding.

You know, when you think of liberty, Liberty is 1 of our most cherished rights in the Western world, isn't it?

You know, we talk about we think about it's ingrained.

It's put in our in our foundational documents It's a fundamental right We hold these truths to be self-evident, right?

That all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

Among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right?

And so liberty is highly cherished today.

But religious liberty in particular, and other liberties as well, but religious liberty is very challenged today as well.

Every year there's a report that is put out, this is the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, and there's various changes that take place from year to year in these reports, but about 64 nations are categorized as having high or very high restrictions on liberty.

Now 64, that's about a third of the countries of the world, not quite, but somewhere in that vicinity.

80 countries have an official or a favored religion.

I want to put religious liberty in a global perspective here, because for most of the people in the world, religious liberty is something that is a dream and not a reality.

In fact, of those countries, actually I have, this is a map from the same report, and the red countries that are highlighted are those of the most concern, and the orange are of concern, but not quite as intensive concern.

70% of the world population, when you look at this map, live in high or very high restrictions on liberty.

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Series

Religious Liberty 2023

Truly Free

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Parent Series

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