The Catholic States of America

[Music][Music]spe[Music][Music]goodafternoon can you hear mehello good afternoonwelcome good afternoon and welcome couldyou please come in and take your seatsif you're out in thefoer who's enjoying themeetings aren't we soblessed praise the Lord please join withus stand as we sing i' brother befaithful[Music]All to[Music]Jesus we and wait so[Music]long soon we shalllet our glorJo in thelonger[Music]is oh brother be faithful for one shouldbeproed faithful to him who has sh[Music][Applause]die toredeem[Music]my oh[Applause]Godthe for the good and thethroughandthe ourPRbrother shall beSt we we is here and[Music]is PR to the glor[Music]hisgloryoh Shi[Applause][Music][Applause][Music]myto[Music]TheEternity is hisshallmy down[Music]on myground oh brother be fa the pro isshow and forthe and[Music]amen beautiful singing thank you you maybe seated Brent's going to come now andgive our opening prayerafternoon everybodyafternoon one of the sad things of orabout coming here is we have no excusewe are being sowellfed um we need to go homeand really look at our walk withGod and get serious let uspray gracious and merciful fatherLord we just want to thank you Lord forthe blessing of these camps and theblessing ofsuch uh challengingspeakers Lord I pray that Lord you'dhelp us to Humbleourselves and get on our knees and prayfor your mercy and that Lord you wouldchange us and transform us I pray for mydear brother as he comes and sheareswith you sheares you with us that fatheryou would challenge us and draw uscloser to you Lord may we fall in lovewith you AR fresh and have a conversionexperience again today in Jesus nameamen yeah thank youall right good afternooneverybody good afternoon can you allhear me back there yes yeah okay so uhit's a privilege to come and share withyou this afternoon I just want to makesure are we getting up on the screenhere there we areallright so um I'm going to call our talkthis afternoon the Catholic States ofAmerica it kind of follows on from thismorning um when we were speaking on uhquestions of prophetic interpretation uhthis morning we focused on um777 the first seven was Nebuchadnezzar'sseven year of Madness and nowNebuchadnezzar kind of parallels theexperience of Satan and then we lookedat the seven Millennia of Earth'shistory that we find in in the writingsof sister white and then we looked atthe the third seven which was theseventh day Sabbath as a seal of God inthe final crisis and so parallel to thatuh I want to talk this afternoon aboutthe Catholic States of America umbecause we've just gone through anelection in the United States and theseelections have consequences for all ofus and after president Trump elect waselected uh all around the world therehave been changes in foreign policy allover the world as a result of thatelection even before he's entered officeand uh we see these things today so youknow Israel and Hamas agreed to aceasefire yesterday and the return ofall the hostages and we say praise theLord for that and last week presidentTrump elect said on national TV said ifHamas doesn't release those hostages allhell will break loose and so we seethese things happening around the worldand so I want to talk today about um theCatholic States of America because umwhat happens in America affects all ofus around the world and American foreignpolicy has a profound impact oneverybody and the um the America isgoing through a profound cultural shiftright now uh so if back in October um ifyou were playing in the NationalFootball League the NFL that's theAmerican version of R football I guessum if you were if you scored a touchdownnobody dared show any allegiance topresident Trump the moment presidentTrump gets elected and all the all thethe Stars doing this in the touchdownZone when they get their goals and soforth and they're all doing these likePresident Trump answers when they scoretheir goals or get their touchdowns andthen um we we saw um president Trumpelect announc that on day one in inoffice he is going to medicallydischarge all 15,000 individuals whoidentify as trans transgender within theUS military just gone like that and hadthat happened in October of last yearthere would have been social uproarabout this because the transgender Lobbywas the most powerful Lobby in thecountry and after the election PresidentTrump says we're done in the military nomore and nobody nobody bats n about itand so we see this profound culturalchange happening in America as peopleare kind of Fed Up of one version of howwe should be and they're embracinganother Narrative of how we should beand we're actually watching this thispendulum swing take place right in frontof our very eyes so I want to talk todayabout um uh America in Prophecy and inparticular um how um Catholics areviewing the the rise of America inProphecy because what we're going tofind is what what Catholic writers aresaying and what Adventists have beensaying for 150 years are remarkablysimilar remarkably similar so we'regoing to talk today about the CatholicStates of America and bow your headswith me and we'll invite the presence ofthe Holy Spirit Heavenly Father we thankyou for the blessing we have here in NewZealand to worship you according to ourconscience father we thank you for thefreedom we have to gather here todaywith no um government agencies or policemonitoring or recording what is beingsaid and done here father I thank youfor the freedom we have to gather andworship you according to our consciencenow Lord as we discuss again um mattersof prophetic interpretation and what thescriptures reveal will happen before theend of time when Jesus comes againfather we're humbly asking you thisafternoon that your spirit who inspiredthe prophet John to write the Book ofRevelation that your same spirit will behere with us this afternoon father I askthat you speak through me and for methat the words I speak will be from yourthrone of grace that Souls will be onefor eternity because of thispresentation this afternoon afternoon inthe name of Jesus we humbly ask amen amall right so this is our journey todaywe're going to look at the end timepowers from a Biblical perspective thenwe're going to look at the end timepowers from a Catholic perspective thenwe're going to come to our conclusion sothere's only kind of two portions totoday's uh uh to our afternoon talk thisafternoon normally as a preacher you'reexpected to do three points in a sermonyou know instruction then ABC thenconclusion and people feel like shortchange if you only give them a and b andif you tell them there's going to be a bc and d they kind of groan in turn youthink oh no this is going to be a longsermon So today we're just going to havetwo pieces um but we're still going tofill up our time I think we have tofinish by 7:00 tonight because that'swhen the the next presentation has tobegin so um we will do our best to getthrough so I think supper is due at 5:30is that right yes or whatever theevening meal is called what is it calledin Americatea dinner okay it's very confusing umsometimes it's better just to say themorning meal the midday meal and theevening meal because wherever you go inthe world everybody calls it somethingdifferent and is at 5:30 sir the eveningmeal evening meal is at 5:30 oh it isallright so we're going to first of alltalk um about the end time powers from aBiblical perspective and we're going togo back to um this passage here we we wereferred to it this morning but wedidn't go into it in any great detail umbut this is the first Beast ofRevelation chapter 13 and uh Revelationchapters 1- 11 they kind of discuss umEarth's history up until the finalcrisis Revelation 1213 and 14 discussthe final crisis and Revelation um 50nanses describe the final seven plaguesand the collapse of spiritual Babylonand the second coming of Christ soRevelation 12 through 14 is like the theheart of the Book of Revelation and itdescribes the final crisis between thesepowers on Earth that are seeking toimpose their will on the world and God'sfinal Remnant people who will give God'slast call of Mercy to this Dying Worldand the first of the powers that we seethat um really is the papacy is actuallyRevelation 13 and verse1 and this iswhat the text says and for those of youwho are Adventists I know this may bekind of old news to you um but I knowthere are many non-adventist actuallyhere today and it's good for us to goover these things together before we gointo a bit more detail so Revelation13:1 says this and I stood upon the sandof the sea this is John the Apostlespeaking and I saw a beast rise up outof the sea having seven heads and 10horns and upon his horns 10 crowns andupon his heads the name of blasphemy andso John sees a new Beast arising out ofthe sea and it has um a beast it hasseven heads and 10 horns and immediatelyour minds go back to the Prophecies ofDaniel chapter 7 because in Danielchapter 7 you have four beasts arisingfrom the sea and in Daniel's visions ofDaniel 7 you have in Daniel chapter 7you have a Babylonian Empire uh that hasit's a lion with one head the MEOPersian Empire is likened to a leopardwith four heads the Mido Persian Empirethat follows is is a Le is a bear withone head those are in the wrong orderthere actually and then Imperial Romewhich is a single-headed terrifyingBeast with 10 horns and so what we findin in uh Revelation 13 and verse oneyou've got a beast coming out of the seawith 10 horns and seven heads and 10crowns and in Daniel you've got sevenheads 1 2 five and one here that's sevenand you've got 10 horns so this Beastthat comes out of the sea in Revelation13 is kind of like an amalgamation ofthe heads and crowns of the the fourbeasts that appear in Daniel um chapter7 so uh we see there's a parallelbetween Daniel and Revelation right awaywhen we see this Beast coming out of thesea and so go back to Revelation 13:2 itsays and the Beast which I saw was likeunto a leopard and its feet were as thefeet of a bear and its mouth as themouth of a lion and the dragon gave himhis authority and his seat his power andhis seat and great Authority so you havea leopard a bear and a lion and inDaniel's prophecy you have a lion a bearand a Lepard and um somebody was editingthese PowerPoints to me on Sunday thisweek and this is mistake here that lineshould not be there so it's a lion abear and a leopard and here you have alion a bear and a leopard so once againwe have these similarities between thisBeast of Revelation 13 and the and thevisions of Daniel in chapter 7 andProtestants have identified this Beastthat comes out of the sea in Revelation13 in the first 12 verses there they'veidentified that as being thepapacy and there are many reasons whywould do that and I've preachedelsewhere on why the papacy meets thedefinitions of antichrist in 2Thessalonians chapter 2 when you gothrough it verse by verse it's veryclear that the papacy representsAntichrist in the New Testament uh butthe first thing we say is this Beastarises out of the sea and if you want tointerpret scripture with scripture whatdo the what do um the the word Waters orSeas represents well in Revelation 17:15it describes for us what the word Watersor Seas represent and the angel saithunto me the waters which thou Sourcewhere the itth are peoples andmultitudes and Nations and tongues sothis tells us that this Beast thatarises in Revelation 13: 1-10 when itarises out of the the sea as it say Istood upon the sand of the sea and i s abeast arise out of the sea the firstclue we have is that this Beast isrising out of the populated po portionsof the world it's not rising out of thesouth island of New Zealand okay you maythink so at times but that is not thecase so this is a beast that arises outof the the the populated portions of theworld Revelation 133 goes on to say andI saw one of its heads as it werewounded to death and his deadly woundwas healed and all the world wanderedafter theBeast well this Sea Beast was indeedwounded on its head and it had a mortalwound but this Mortal wound was healedwhen did that happen well historicallyum the papacy was brought to an end bythe armies of revolutionary France andin 1798 General Bertier he arrived inParis in in Rome he took the popeprisoner and he was forced to Paris andthen he died in a French prison and sothe pesy received what the world thoughtwas a deadlywound and people thought with the riseof Napoleon we talked about Napoleonyesterday that the papacy was nowfinished but that was not the case to beand in the 19th century the pesy onceagain Rose to be a global force and thepapes is one of the most powerful forcesin the world today it's a union ofchurch and state Revelation 13:4 saysthis the uh and I they W they worshipedthe dragon who gave power unto the Beastand they worshiped the Beast saying whois like unto the Beast and who is ableto make war with him and so behind thisBeast there is thedragon that dragon in Revelation13:3 is who is the dragon Satan fromRevelation chap 12 and so um thesePowerPoint slides have being mixed uphere never mind and so this this Beastthat has a deadly wound um it was it wasthe pesy was shut down in 1798 and theworld wanders after this Beast becausebehind this Beast is is a hidden powerand that is Satan himself when it sayshe gave gives him his seat the Latinword for seat is sedes we get the wordsedentary from that the the P SE iscalled the holy sea it's the seat theholy seat and so the the papacy receivesits seat or it its its Throne from Satanhimself and so this power is worshipedby the world and if you followed forinstance the travels of John Paul IIaround the world wherever he went he wastreated like a Conquering Hero and whathappened with the collapse of Communismin in Poland in the late 1980s thepapacy was a key key player in thecollapse of the former Soviet Union andthe papacy and Ronald Reagan PresidentRonald Reagan combined to bring down theSoviet Union in the late 1980s and sothis passage here says the people of theworld worship the dragon who gave powerunto the Beast and they worshiped theBeast saying who is like unto the Beastand who is able to make war with him nowum this is kind of a tangential thingbut in Revelation 12 and 13 you have acounterfeit godhead you have Satan youhave the Sea Beast and you have the landbeast and Satan is a counterfeit for Godthe father the Sea Beast is acounterfeit for for Jesus Christ and thethird Beast the land Beast is acounterfeit for the Holy Spirit andthere are many many parallels we canlook at dealing with that but uh forinstance um the he is he is um hisdeadly wound was healed and you looklater on it talks about the lamb thatreceived a deadly wound and the lamb waswas struck and so there there are manyparallels between this this this Beasthere the the first Beast of Revelation13 and the life and Ministry of JesusChrist himself so this Sea Beast claimsthe worship of the world now as theDivine Son of God Jesus Christ was ableto receive worship and so John in JohnThomas in John Thomas in John 20: 28said my Lord and my God and Jesusreceived worship from the from Thomasthe disciple likewise the papacy claimsthe right to receive the worship ofhumanity and in canon law the pope iscalled God the canon law is is the lawof the Roman Catholic church and so inthe decre some of Gregory the 13th Canon7 the pope is literally called God um inhe is called lord and God in thedecretal of Gregory VI 9th um the sacrumsacrimoni has the phrase the APO theapostolic chair that is the Throne ofthe pope is the seat of God and thedecree of Gregory reads the Romanpontiff not as mere man but as true GodReigns on Earth and so so these this isfrom Catholic canon law this isn't madeup you can check these things out foryourself but Roman Catholic Cannon lawclaims essentially that the papacy orthe pope is God on Earth and it's anastonishing claim that they have and soclaiming to be God on Earth they claimthe right to receive the worship ofpeople here on Earth the Pope the popeclaims the prerogatives of God so forinstance will every knee now bow willevery knee bow and confess that JesusChrist is Lord yes or no yes we findthat in Philippians 2:10-11 the poperequires supplicants to come before himwith bowing and kissing even to this dayJesus Christ was confess confessed bydemon as being the Holy One of God inMark 1:24 by Gabriel as being holy inLuke 135 135 and he was called by Peterthe Holy One of God in Acts 227 and thepope papacy Styles himself his Holinessdespite being called in scripture theman of sin according to scripture Daniel2:29 all wisdom belongs to God and yetthe papes he claims the doctrine ofinfallibility and actually the doctrineof infallibility is an interestingDoctrine because even though it's arelatively recent invention in inCatholic dogma no more than 200 yearsold what it serves to do is it binds thepopes to all the statements of the lastthousandyears so even though the Pope the popeclaims infallibility when they'respeaking in their official um teachingfunction of the magisterium of thechurch um and you think well that's agreat thing to have it to speak whenyou're infallible that's a wonderfulthing but in reality whatever the Popesays today must logically be consistentwith all the previous Declarations ofthe popes going back over a thousandyears because if you're infallible todaythey must have been infallible back thenand so what they said in 11:25 or 1333must also be true today so the the paythe claim that you are infallible meansthat you are bound by all theencyclicals and Papal bulls and messagesto the world for the last thousand yearsand that greatly restricts the papac'sfreedom ofmaneuver so the doctrine of papalinfallibility isn't such a blessing someclaim it to be God issued the moral lawfrom Mount siai to Moses and the papacyissues authoritative Dogma from theSeven Hills of Rome according to mark 2vers 10 only God can forgive sin but thepapes he claims the same Authority forthe living and for the dead through theconfessional or purchased and proclaimsplary remission of sins God Alonedetermines Eternity for human beings butthe Apes he claims the right to hold thekeys that open and shut Purgatory theypromise eternal life to those within theRoman system itself and they damn foreternity all those outside the Church ofRome extra eesan non salus is thedoctrine it means outside the churchthere is nosalvation and that is why the papal coatof arms has the keys on it the keys ofPeter they claim the right to determinewho gets eternal life and who does notget to claim does not get the right toeternal life 2 Thessalonians 2 andverse4 says of the man of sin that hedeclares himself to beGod and that's exactly what we find withthe papacy over the last ThousandYears the papacy as is as God on Earthso in in Revelation 13:5 the text goeson there was given unto him a mouthspeaking great things and blasphemiesand power was given unto him to continue40 and2 months again one of theparallels with the ministry of Christhow long was Christ's Ministry forLally 3 and a half years which is howmany months 42 months so uh this thisthis uh SE Beast here which actually isa counterfeit for the ministry of JesusChrist um his ministry there isliterally for 42 months now we're goingto break that's Al that's alsounderstood in a prophetic sense we'regoing to come to that in a second but umthis this Beast parallels the ministryof Christ because it has a Ministry of42 months which parallels the 3 and 1/2years that Jesus was on planet Earth inhis ministryso um if we look at those days thesepassages here if we look at this as umeschatological prophecy which it is andwe say well how do we interpret time inthe Book of Daniel and Revelation wellthe scriptures have what we call theYear Day principle where a day inProphecy represents a year in real timeand so numbers 34 and Ezekiel 4:5 and 6those are the two passages which explainhow um how end time prophecy has beinterpreted in terms of time so innumbers 14:34 refers to the years ofwandering in the wilderness and God saysthrough Moses to the people of Israel hesays after the number of days in whichyou search the land even 40 days eachday for a year shall you bear youriniquities even 40 years and you shallknow my breach of Promise So In thispassage here God establishes the factthat because you are 40 days searchingthe um the promised land with your spiesand then you ended up in in lack offaith and you refused to go the promisedland therefore you are now going tospend 40 years wandering in thewilderness one day per every year andthen in Ezekiel we have anotherprinciple where you have a day for ayear and God is speaking to the peoplehere and he says for I have laid uponthe the years of their iniquityaccording to the number of the days 390days so shalt thou bear the iniquity ofthe House of Israel and when thou Hastaccomplish them lie again on thy rightside and thou shalt bear the iniquity ofthe house of Judah 40 days I haveappointed thee each day for a what for ayear and so you have this year dayprinciple in Prophecy so we're lookingat these end time prophecies we're goingto interpret um the the the number ofdays in the prophecy uh we're going toturn that into years in real time and soum there there's one consistentlyprophesied time period throughout thebooks of Daniel and Revelation and theseare it's a 1260 days um and those arethe referen you to see on the screenthere so in Daniel 7:25 five it'sreferring to the fourth Beast of Daniel7 which is the papacy and it talks abouta time two times and half a time andwe're going to that's actually 1260 daysor 1260 literal Years and we're going towe're going to break down that in a fewseconds as to why we come to that Daniel12:7 refers to a time two times and halfa time that's exactly the same as uphere then Daniel 11:2 talks about 42months which we've just seen inRevelation chapter 12 as well uhRevelation 13 42 months and 42 months *30 days is 1260 days or 1260 literalyears Daniel 113 and Daniel 126 refer tothis power having Authority for1,260 days Daniel12:14 um a time times and half a timeand Daniel135 42 months once again representing1260 days or 1260 literal years now thisthis if you're getting this time framerepeatedly given you in the Book ofDaniel what does that tell you about howimportant this is like this is a bigdeal yes this is a this is a really bigdeal and so ifyes reation yeah that's Revelation thereyeah yeah someone was editing this forme the other day and so there's a fewthings gone wrong on this okay so you'reright on that so when it comes tointerpreting prophetic time a timeequals a year which equals 12 months and12 months is 12 * 30 in the Hebrew wayof thinking so a Time represents 360prophetic days two times thereforeequals 2 years 24 months representing 24* 30 days that's 720 prophetic days halfa Time represents 6 months which is 6 *30 that's 180 prophetic days so a timetwo times and half a time equals 42months 42 * 30 equal 1260 prophetic daysand as a day equals a year that is 1260literal years that that gives us becauseall this refers to one entity um thefourth Beast of Daniel 7 or the SE Beastof Revelation 133 we have this era ofpapal Supremacy from the establishmentof the Pope by the decree of the emperorJustinian in 538 ad after the emperorbellarius won the final battles againstthe Aryan kingdoms of Italy through to1798 when the pope was deposed by thearmies of of revolutionary France it's 7it's 1260 literal years and soAdventists aren't the first people tosay this this has been well establishedby many many prophetic um Protestantinterpreters going back five or 600years on this point here and if you everwant to read more about this I'dencourage you to read something calledthe prophetic Faith of Our Fathers it'sa four volume series and when you readthat book you see how there were therewere catholic priests in the 12 and1300s who were making this same argumentthey understood the implications of thistime prophecy of Revelation chapter 13and actually it was Catholic priests whowere first saying that the papacy is theAntichrist and is the C Beast ofRevelation long before the Protestantscame along and said it's in the 1500sonwards so Revelation 136-10 says this and he opened his mouthin blasphemy the Sea Beast or the papacyhe opened his mouth in blasphemy againstGod to blaspheme his name and hisTabernacle and them that dwell in heavenso it's a Blasphemous power and wasgiven unto him to make war with theSaints it's a persecuting power and toovercome them and power was given himover all kindreds and tongues andNations that means it's a universalchurch and the word Catholic means it'sworldwide so so it's it's the worldwideChurch based in Rome that's what RomanCatholic means so this is a universalchurch it is a Blasphemous Church and itis a persecuting Church the text goes onto say and all that dwell upon the Earthshall worship Him whose name is notwritten in the Book of Life of the lambslain from the foundation of the worldif any man have an ear let him hear hethat leadth into captivity shall go intocaptivity he that kth with a sword mustbe killed with the sword here is thepatience and faith of the Saints and sothis this passage here gives us a lotmore detail into the Blasphemouspersecuting nature of this particular umpapal power that we find in Revelation13 and again if you parallel the CB ofRevelation 13 with the little Horn ofDaniel 7 and8 you see that they're veryvery similar so the little Horn ofDaniel 7 and8 speaks great words againstGod the CB Revelation 13 uttersblasphemies against God the little Hornof Daniel 7:8 thinks to change time andlaw and the CB Revelation 13 blasphemesGod's name and his dwelling and thosewho dwell in heaven and this little Hornof Daniel 7:8 tramples on the Heavenlysanctuary and the host and wears out theSaints for a time two times and half atime and the Sea Beast Revelation 13makes war on the Saints whose names arein the Book of Life for 42 months or1260 literal years and so there are manyparallels between the the the beasts ofDaniel 78 the little horn power and thethe the Sea Beast of Revelation chapter13 and as Adventist most of us are kindof very very familiar with this andwe're not really going into much detailhere because I want to get on to the theheart of what we're talking about thisafternoon but um so we established asAdventists and and Protestants for overfor 500 years that the first past ofRevelation 13 is the papacy andinterestingly I once went to anEvangelistic Series in a city in Americaand I wanted to hire um um a public halland the only Hall available was in aLutheran college and I went to speak tothe president of the Lutheran collegeand said I want to do a series ofstudies on the Book of Revelationum in your public call and he was finewith that and then he called me backshortly afterwards and said could youjust come and talk about this a bit moreso I said sure we went in to speak andhe said now what exactly you going tosay about the Book of Revelation and Isaid I'm going to say what Martin Luthersaid about the Book of Revelation uhbecause you're Lutheran and he said wellcould just just explain a bit more so Iexplained I explained about uh thepapacy in r in Revelation at which pointmy uh my approval to hold meetings therewas withdrawn and I mentioned to thisthis President of this Lutheran collegethat I'm only preaching what you guyshave been preaching for 500 years butthe world has moved on since then andpeople don't want to know about this andthere are people today saying theReformation is over and that the woundhas been healed in that we no longerneed to divide between Catholics andProtestants because you know the themisunderstanding of the Reformation hasnow been resolved because we have acommon understanding of righteousness byfaith allegedly between Lutheran andCatholics so anyway um this this this uhC Beast Revelation 13 is uh interpretedas being the papacy uh by Protestantsand by Catholics going back manyhundreds of years and so then we come towhat we read this morning and I'm notgoing to go I'm not going to read thisall again now but this morning we talkabout the second beast coming out of thesea rev of the land of Revelation 13 andhow that Beast is the United States ofAmerica and so I'm going to just movevery quickly on here to uh the the uhthe role of America in Prophecy and howthe Catholics view it because we sawthis morning in Revelation 13:4Revelation 13:15 Revelation 14:7 thatthe key issue was worship coercion ofworship and the issue is not just who doyou worship but who's your supremeauthority in your life who do you trustand the last four years we all had toask ourselves who do youtrust know I think you had a primeminister here who said we the governmentare your sole source of Truth or wordsto that effectyes and from your response I can seethat you clearly believe yourpoliticians here um you can tell whatwhen a politician is lying because theirlips are moving it's a very goodindicator that they're not telling youthetruth so I want to talk now about the umthe the United States in Prophecy not somuch understood from an Adventistperspective but understood from aCatholic perspective a modern Catholicperspective and the Catholic churchtoday is just as polarized as many otherdenominations you have Progressive CCatholics and you have very ConservativeCatholics and if you want to know whatConservative Catholics are thinkingthere's a YouTube channel called churchmilitant I'd encourage you to take alook at it um it's coming comes out ofDetroit Michigan and it's led by a guywho was formerly a member of the lgbtqcommunity he converted to Catholicismand now he is a very vocal supporter ofa very uh conservative version ofCatholicism and when you listen to thoseYouTube broadcasts and they come outalmost every day you understand whatConservative Catholics are thinkingabout and what Conservative Catholicsare thinking about matches whatAdventists have been saying aboutCatholicism and the SE Beast ofRevelation 13 for the last 150 years soum the Catholic perspective on Americaum according to the Adventistunderstanding America the sea be theland Beast will join forces with thepapacy the Sea Beast of Revelation 13 inthe end of time to impose false worshipthrough the mark of the beast and upholdFC coerced worship that is Sundayworship so what do the Catholics sayabout this well let's look at a Catholicperspective about this so first of alllet's start with the um the Reformationitself the Reformation emphasizedreligious liberty above all otherLiberties Liberty of conscience and inthe times of Martin Luther the idea ofreligious liberty me in effect theLiberty to belong or not to belong tothe Roman Catholic Church it meant theLiberty not to financially contribute tothe administrative costs of the theRoman Catholic Church it meant theLiberty not to automatically have tobelieve in Roman Catholic dogma it meantthe Liberty to live in harmony with thescriptures and under the guidance of theHoly Spirit and what happened was in theReformation um the Christianity wentthrough like a pendulum swing because umfrom the fifth century onwards after amonk called sirel who said that theChurch determines the interpretation ofscripture um that cleared up thechristological debates of the 2 thirdand fourth Century where there wasconfusion in Christianity after monkserial said that that the churchdetermines what scripture means ratherthan the scripture determining whatscripture means um from that moment onthe popes had an authoritative voicefrom the magisterium that was theteaching Office of the church and sowhen by the time of Martin Luther whenthe pope said this is Dogma everybodyhad to accept it and with theReformation the pendulum swung all theway across to here and Martin Luthersaid actually everybody has the right tohave the Bible in their own language itwas called the vernacular that meansyour own language everybody has theBible the right to have the Bible theword of God in their own language andthey can read it for themselves and theHoly Spirit will grant them sufficientunderstanding forsalvation that's an important PointMartin Luther didn't say that the holyspirit will grant you all understandingof everything that's inscripture but you gain sufficientunderstanding under the leading of theHoly Spirit spirit that is sufficientfor your salvation because the purposeof the Bible is to lead you toSalvation And so that LEDs to theradical Reformation the idea thateverybody has the Bible in their ownlanguage and we have the blue Bible hereyes it's this is an expression of theradical reformation and as Adventists wehave our Sabbath School um quarterliesand we study the Bible and the idea ofthe Sabbath School quarterly is that weas Adventists are to be studying theword of God at home every day forourselves that's the whole purpose ofthe Sabbath School quarterly and thenwhat happened was about 20 years intoMartin Luther's Reformation The Peasantsof Germany they read the Bible forthemselves and they said well we don'tsee Divine the Divine rights of Kings orAristocrats or princes to rule us and sothey rose up in Rebellion it becameknown as The Peasantsrevolt and the violence was quiteextreme in Germany and the violence gotso out of hand that Martin Luther sidedwith the aristocrats who are puttingdown the peasants with great violence heMartin Luther stood on the side of thearistocrats and not on the side of thepeasants and The Peasants Revolt wascrushed and so what happened was theywent from the teaching Office of theCatholic Church to the radicalReformation from where we get theanabaptists and the menites today andthen Martin Luther Kind of swung back tothis middle position which says thateverybody has the right to understandscripture for themselves and to read itin their own language but your privateunderstanding must be subject to theagreement of the body of Christ whereyou happen to worship which is kind ofwhere we are today as an AdventistChurch you may have new life you claimto have new light but then we say youhave to bring that to the body ofBelievers to carefully pray over it andsee whether this is true or not and sothat's where we are as Adventists todayand that's where Martin Luther he wentfrom the teaching Office of the churchto the radical Reformation to like thehalfway house where we where we expectedto read the scriptures for ourselves butno man or woman has the exclusive rightto truth and you must submit yourunderstanding to the consensus of thebody of Believers and that's where weare today as an Adventist Church andthat's where Martin Luther went in hisReformation so in the Reformation firstof all religious liberty meant freedomfrom the Roman Catholic Church uh butall of those Liberties evolved over timeand they are now enshrined in the USBill of Rights and they flow from thebasic religious liberty proclaimed fromthe Reformation writers such as Lutherand meanon and zwingley now religiousliberty is the source of all otherLiberties because it involves freedom ofthought religious liberty and Liberty ofcon ience is the foundation of all otherLiberties because your actions and yourwords are the expression of yourthoughts and so religious liberty saysthat before you have any other rightsyou must have the Liberty to think foryourself and to act under your ownconvictions and so that is why in the USBill of Rights uh this came out justafter the Constitution the the the uhthe the founders of the US Republic theycame out with the US Bill of Rights andthe First Amendmentum include this is the first amendmentthis is what it says says Congress shallmake no law regarding an establishmentof religion that's know as TheEstablishment Clause or prohibiting thefree exercise thereof or abridging thefreedom of speech of the press or theright of the people peaceably toassemble and to petition the governmentfor a redress of grievance that's thefirst amendment in the US Bill of Rightsand what's interesting that out of allthe rights in the US Bill of Rights theSecond Amendment is um the right to beararms then You' got the right not to havehave the government bill at troops withyou and so forth and so forth there's awhole series of Rights and the Bill ofRights but the number one right thefirst right written by the founders theAmerican Republic was freedom ofreligion because they understood thatall other rights arise from thatfundamental Liberty of conscienceeverything you do after that so forinstance all your speech and everythingin the press and the right to gathertogether and to petition for address ofgrievances all of this comes if you havea mind up here all of those areexpressions of what happens here so inthe American Constitution and the Billof Rights particularly the Bill ofRights the First Amendment um freedom ofspeech freedom of assembly the freedomof petition for address of grievancesall of those are based upon religiousliberty and religious liberty is viewedas the source and the foundation of allother Liberties within the USConstitution now it can be argued thatum you know for instance as as apreacher if I were to preach some of mysermons in Canada I could be arrested onthe spot if I preached my sermons inEngland I could be arrested on the spotfor alleged um hate crimes if IID havepreached him in Ireland which is passingextreme hate crime um legislation i'could be arrested on the spot but as apreacher in America you can say almostanything you want in the pulpit andnobody can prosecute you because youhave freedom of religion and so thefreedom that this first amendment bringsus is immense it's the gold Mark the BenThe Benchmark the gold standard forfreedoms all around the world and so ifAmerica Falls freedom of Liberty Fallsaround the world as well no other nationhas such an absolute Clause such as thisnow the US Supreme Court has modifiedthis somewhat so for instanceprohibiting the free exercise thereofthe US Supreme Court in a number ofcases has actually said that there aresome things you cannot do in the freeexercise of religion so for instanceyou're not allowed to practice childsacrifice in America as part of yourreligionuh praise the Lord yes yeahso um and there was some there was someum there was some um Supreme Courtdecisions relating to restricted drugsin religious ceremonies for NativeAmericans but as a general rule this Conthis Clause here establishes a wallbetween church and state in the US umConstitution and our legal system so forinstance um as a pastor in Americayou're employed by the church and itbasically means that um if the churchwants it to be that way you have noemployment rights all US federalemployment law protections such as theAmericans with Disabilities Act and soforth none of those apply to you if youare a pastor or a church employeebecause the federal courts don't want tointervene in a church relatedmatter so the separation of church andstate has quite profound implicationsboth positive and both negativedepending on your perspective so thisthis First Amendment to the US Bill ofRights is the foundation for all theother rights in the USConstitution and so it can be arguedthat America is built on those coreProtestant principles and that is thestandard narrative that America wasbuilt as a Protestant nation and thosecore Protestant PR principles fromMartin Luther onwards led to the Bill ofRights and to the civil liberties inAmerica today such as the freedom ofspeech and of the press the freeexercise of religion the privilegeagainst self-incrimination you can takethe fifth take the Fifth Amendment youcannot be compelled to testify againstyourself in a court of law that meanstaking the Fifth Amendment you haveIndependence of the jury from judicialdictation the right not to be imprisonedwithout cause or habus Corpus that goesback to um 12 the um Magna cataa and youalso have our social contract built uponthe Bill of Rights and US Constitutionthus Protestants were freed from thecruel bloodthirsty vindictivetotalitarian oversight of the papacyduring the Dark Ages in Europe andReformation principles serve to erasethe entire social ecclesiasticaleconomic and political hierarchy of theDark Ages however that's the Protestantnarrative the Catholic understanding ofthis is somewhat different and uh theone one Catholic writer writes thisAmerica is wired Catholic labeledProtestant and is currently functioningas secular why America will perishwithout Rome and so this is a commontheme you find if you listen toConservative Catholics the idea is thatAmerica is was officially Protestantthat's The Narrative of the pilgrimfathers coming from England on theMayflower to Massachusetts and so forthbut when the founders established theDeclaration of IND Independence and theframers wrote the the the Constitutionthey actually hardwired into theAmerican um legal system Catholicprinciples not Protestantprinciples thus for America to return toits roots is not to return to aProtestant version of America it's toreturn to a Catholic version of Americathat's the core idea here and so whywould they say thiswell um America is wired Catholicallegedly according to Catholics todaybut is functioning as a secular Republicaccording to these writers seculardegeneracy and the progressive failureof our Civic institutions the csing ofour political discourse and the collapsein public morality will destroy theAmerican Republic unless America returnsto something from the past that's not aProtestant worldview but a Catholicworldview in order to save the Republicthis is why people like Donald Trump areso popular make America great again is acompelling narrative because so manypeople see the moral collapse in Americathat is happening particularly over thelast 20 and 30 years it is clear to manytoday that America has been in Socialdecline Liberty has turned to Lous andto moral degeneracy we celebrate themurder of infants in the womb and themutilation of our children once they'reout of the womb all in the name ofdifferent secular ideologies and that iswhy Concepts such as Maga make Americagreat again or the fourth turning arebecoming very popular in Americanpopular political discourse today so inthe fourth turning you have this concepthere that peace makes plenty plentymakes pride pride breeds quarrel andquarrel brings war war brings spoil andspoil poverty poverty patience andpatience Peace So peace brings war andWar brings peace that's coined from 1280from Jean deun um but that idea is kindof a popular idea a more popularexpression of that idea is found fromshik Rashid but uh these are the idea ofthe fourth turning that tough timescreate strong men strong men create easytimes easy times create weak men weakmen create tough times you have to raiseWarriors notparasitesand there is some truth to thisstatement here that tough times createstrong men and strong men create easytimes they build a great society andwhen you have a great society strong menturn into weak men or the sociologistcall them baa males and weak men lead totough times because they cannot defendor uphold what we have and so then thereis need a new generation of tough timescalling for strong men to step forthonce again and so this is the idea uh ifyou read the book The Fourth turningit's a very popular book in Americaright now is talking about every 20years we go through one of these theseChang ders and America is now right hereweak men creating tough times and weneed to go back to this era here so wenow in the fourth turning from here tohere and the Maga movement is anexpression of that underlying ideologythat America needs to turn back to whatit was in the past in order to be greatagain so this is uh this is very popularin America American popular thoughtright now you see it in social media yousee it in popular writers and speakersum but let's come back again to theCatholic view of the this and theCatholic writings are based mostly onthis guy here Austine of Hippo they callhim St Augustine hippo is modern dayTunisia he was from North Africa andThomas aquinus who died in about 1274 adand actually when you read through umCatholic writings what strikes you umalmost immediately is almost a completelack of reference toscripture if you ever read through umyou know some if you read like the booksof the Pope Benedict wrote A Few booksand you read the writings of John PaulII and you read some other famousCatholic writers if you read forinstance um Hans Kung the CatholicTheologian who was a reformer in 1960s1970s what strikes you almostimmediately as a Protestant is almostthe complete lack of reference to theword of God what you find are constantreferences to Augustine and aquinus theyare the dominant think thought thinkersin the Catholic worldview and everythinghas to be filtered through Augustine ofHippo and St Thomas aquinus as they callhim and so Thomas aquinus in particularum it has a dominant role in modernCatholic thinking ever since he lived inin the Middle Ages there and so Thomasaquinus wrote that there are four kindsof Law and I've put them up on thescreen there there is eternal law thereis natural law there is positive law andthere is Divine Law so what exactly arethese four kinds of law that Thomasaquinus argued for and this is acceptedin Catholic theology today as kind ofstandard Dogma the first thing is theEternal law that is God's plan for theuniverse and all of its inhabitants thatincludes gravity and the otherscientific or mathematical principlesthat govern our universe and now thesecond natural law that is theparticipation of rational creatures inthe Eternal law and because we are byNature a social animal we walk togetherwe live together we talk together webuild Societies in so doing we want todo what is natural for Humanitytherefore we need to follow theprinciples of Eternal law then positivelaw the third in the hierarchy is umthose are the customs and laws andregulations made by governments at anational level in attempting to applythe natural law to individuals andsocieties and fourth on the list isDivine Law known to us as the moral lawor the decalog or the Ten Commandmentsand you notice in this hierarchy of lawthat the Ten Commandments is downhere as Adventist we place the TenCommandments up here we don't we don'tkind of recognize these at all but thishere in Catholic and St Thomas aquin'swritings Divine Law The Ten Commandmentsis down here this is the leastsignificant of all the laws this comesfrom the writing this is deduced byCatholic theologians this is deduced byCatholic theologians this is implementedby governments around the world but thelaw of God itself is subject to allthese other things which is why itthinks it possible to change times andlaw in Daniel chapter 7 because thismust be subject to what we've determinedup here and so positive law includes forinstance um laws onproperty and in Catholic thinkingthomasus is thinking um all Goods shouldbe held in common that's how theunderstood Eternal law all materialproperty is to be held in common for thecommongood and therefore um when thegovernment brings out a law uh such as aMarxist government confiscating all themeans of production in the country soit's owned by the people the Catholicchurch can quite happily support thatdespite the fact that's a breach of theCommandment Thou shalt not steal becauseit it is natural for all all Goods insociety to be used for the common goodfascism says that um so communism saysthat all goods are held by thegovernment for the common good fascismsays that all private property is heldin private hands but it must be used forthe commongood and capitalism says that all goodsare held in private property forpersonal financial gain and theinvisible handle the market make surethat there's a common good out of it souh Catholics can work with both fascistsand with Communistssimultaneously it's why um the Catholicchurch can be an ally of we're going tosee this tomorrow morning the Catholicchurch can be an active Ally of of AdolfHitler while at the same time being anactive Ally of all the leftwingdictatorships in Latin America in the1960s '70s and 80s and what they callLiberation theology it can play bothsides of the coin because of thishierarchy of laws that they haveso heads you win Tails I lose you mightsay in in in Catholic theology when itcomes to property laws and so but theseare the four kinds of laws that Thomasaquinus laid out and this is this iskind of like become Catholic dogma todaythere's a hierarchy of laws and theselaws um apply to the how America isestablished as as a nation and sonatural law which is how they apply thisto the United States has three keyprinciples the first principle of isnature is is moral or nature iscomprised of free moral beings so whydoes this affect America well they arguethat within the natural world we arecreated as both free and morallyaccountable human beings and we aregiven intelligence by God so we can bemorally accountable but even after thefall Humanity as intelligent beings canonly recognize and seek should onlyrecognize and seek moral good while wehave the capacity for moral goodness weonly become moral by choicenow Calvinists at the time they theywere a dominant force in America at thetime of its founding they rejected thisCatholic teaching they argued for thetotal depravity of man lutherans on theother hand in 1600s and 1700s arguedthat we are capable of moral goodnessonly after a conversion experience andwhile we're experiencing sanctificationthe Enlightenment thinkers who alsocontribute to the founding of Americasuch as Lo they taught that everythingis a system everything is a mechanismthe universe is random hence it is notpossible for Humanity to be moral beingsbecause there is no such thing asobjective Morality In a random universeand so this idea that nature is moraland nature is free we're going to seehow this is applied um to the Catholicworldview on America the second uhprinciple of Catholic natural law isthat nature is intelligible or thatnature is Meaningful So within ournatural world we can learn from oursurroundings that's what Catholics teachthat's what we say as Adventists as wellwe say that this is the the firstrevelation of God and nature is god'ssecond book of Revelation yes that youcan learn about God just throughstudying nature around us and that isnot an idea that the Catholics woulddisagree with they argue that the orderin the natural world speaks of a Creatorbya the laws of the universe and it isonly the laws of the universe makescientific inquiry possible which isabsolutely true Thomas aquinus arguedthat scientific truth is a lower truthand it can cannot contradict highertruth which is the theological truth andso for over 500 600 years in Oxford andCambridge theology was known as thequeen of theSciences not the queen of the Artstheology was the queen of the Sciencesin Oxford and Cambridge for hundreds ofyears because even the Protestantsunderstood that that science and the thescientific process and Discovery isalways subject to higher truth which istheologicaltruth so within this idea that nature isMeaningful or is intelligible um thisdoesn't res at well with lutherans orCalvinists who were the dominantProtestant groups in America around thetime of its founding along withanglicans why because lutherans andCalvinists they prefer the idea of solarscript Torah as the only means of God'srevelation and we as Adventists talkabout solar scrip Tor that scripturealone when you focus on scripture alonethat means you tend to ignore whatnature teaches you about God and theCatholic writers were open to Natureteachings about God as well as thescriptures themselves and so becauseProtestants focused on solar scriptorthey have in the eyes of Catholics cutthemselves off from God's revelationabout himself in nature as Adventistswe're actually closer to Catholics inthat sense than many Protestants arebecause we believe that God does revealhimself to us through through nature inthe natural world then we have nature astelogical that means it has a purpose ora goal the argument here is thathumanity is wired to see the moralpurposes of our surroundings thatcreation and and nature has a moral goalin mind the life is not just about theaccumulation of wealth the life has amoral purpose to it and our purpose isto expin the moral purpose that God hasfor us in our own lives Catholics viewthe goal of nature as being to getHumanity back to God therefore God mustbe present in nature and in thesacraments such as the mass lutheransand Calvinists and anglicans argued forthe Ascension of Christ to heaven inActs chapter 1 they argued that heessentially left this physical worldbehind without any tangiblepresence and there and Enlightenmentthinkers deny the possibility of purposeas they say that we've evolved randomlyso all this means that Adventists arecloser to Catholic here than almost anyotherProtestants and we would agree with mostof what is said here based on thewritings of Thomas aquinus I'm notarguing for Thomas aquinus I'm justsaying that there is a parallelism ofthinking between Adventists andCatholics in this area so Catholicnatural law leads to a republic the onlyviable means of government and why isthis because in a democracy themathematical majority of rulers ofVoters will rule with zero regard fortruth what matters is how many votes arecounted not what istrue in in that is why democracy is therelativism of the many in a monarchywhere you have a single ruler aMonarch's rule based on personal womenpreference again without regard to truthhence Monarch monarchy is the Relrelativism of one and true republicsaccording to Catholic natural thoughtpresuppose absolute truth as acounterbalance to the vagaries ofmisinformedvoters and so um Catholic naturalthought argues that truth is importantfor us for society to survive and thebest form of society is a society madeup of an informed moral electoratethat's remarkably similar to whatWashington and Benjamin Franklin arguedfor in the founding of America and so inCatholic natural thought a true Republichas six core components I've listed themup for you there it has a natural rightsregime we're going to come to naturalrights in a moment it's headed by alimited government it is peopled bymoral citizenry who able to properlyconceive of personhood and humanism andfifthly of the family and the economyand sixthly of scientific andtechnological progress and if you're astudent of American History you willknow that the idea of limited governmentis a huge ugeidea and the idea of America will onlysurvive if it's peopled by moralcitizenry the American Foundersrecognizes that the AmericanConstitution is written in such a waythat America will only survive if thepeople in it act act with moralrestraint and this is a core componentsof Catholic natural law and so it's notjust um the the founders of America theRepublic argued for this this is arguedfor in Catholic natural law theoryso these are the core components of atrue Republican Catholic natural law Nowin America the Declaration ofIndependence was created by the framersand they listed three natural rightsthese are the inalienable rights in theUS declaration of independence says wehold these truths to be self-evidentthat all men are created equal that theyare endowed by their creator withcertain unalienable rights that amongthem are life liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness and those are the three mostfamous rights in the US declaration ofindependence life liberty and thepursuit of happiness um after theDeclaration of Independence you have theConstitution and after the Constitutionyou have the Bill of Rights thatguarantees freedom of religion sothere's a flow Declaration ofIndependence Constitution and then theBill of Rights those three documentsmake up the governing documents of theAmerican Republic but this theseinalienable rights are life liberty andthe pursuit ofhappiness so do we still have thoseinalienablerights well it is argued that the rightto life has become the right tokill that the right to life has beendestroyed by the abortion movement andthe right to life has been pervertedinto the right to kill in the womb andin our last election um one of thecandidates one of her one of her numberone issues was we want to expandabortion rights Nationwide we need toprotect the rights of people to killtheir childrenthe second right in the the Declarationof Independence is the right to Libertywhich has devolved over the years it'sbeen perverted from Freedom directed forby moral purpose to freedom for its ownsake undirected by morality so Libertyhas been perverted intolicense and then the third right theright to the pursuit of happiness is nowthe right to the pursuit of pleasurethat's what it's evolved to over thelast 200 years and so um the right toHapp happiness is pursued within a moralframework as driven by scripture but isnow the pursuit of pleasure with moralabandonment with no moral frameworkwhatsoever so the right to life hasbecome the right to death the right toLiberty has become the right to licensethe right to the pursuit of happinesshas become the right to pursuit ofpleasure and entertainment without moralrestraint and all of these three rightsthe rights of Life the right Libertyright F of Happiness um are allegedlyfrom a Catholic perspective coming fromcath Catholic natural law not from aProtestant worldview and why do they saythat because in the 17th century inEngland there were two main politicalparties the wigs and the Tories and thethe Tories were the conservatives theywere the more conservative and theysupported the king and the Divine Rightto Kings and so forth but the wigs werethe radicals of their time from OliverCromwell onwards and they argued thatthat Parliament should be Sovereign inthe nation not the king they argued thatthis Parliament should have the right tooverthrow Kings and they were the oneswho led the Glorious Revolution of 1688when Parliament objected to the proCatholic Tendencies of James II and theyforced him out of his out of the throneand they invited um a Dutch Princecalled William of Orange to take theThrone of England he became known asWilliam the first and he he defeated thearmies of James II at the Battle of theBo in Northern Ireland and from thatmoment on the Protestants of NorthernIreland were known as orange men andthey're so called orange men say youhave the Royal order of orange men thosewere Protestants who are loyal toWilliam of Orange when he beat theCatholic King James II in the GloriousRevolution of 1688 so the wigs were theywere you might say the almost the theRepublicans of their era they wanted umthe people to rule rather than themonarchy they wanted the people to havethe right to remove the executive andbeyond that they didn't want Catholicdomination in in British Society one oftheir most famous writers was this guyhere Hugo grous who lived from 1583 to1645 Hugo GES was one of the most quotedwriters by the American Founders thepeople who wrote the Declaration ofIndependence and by the framers thosewho wrote the Constitution and the Billof Rights now hugar Rous grous is foundall the way through the writings of ofthe people in America the leaders in the1760s and' 70s but the question is wherewas he getting his ideas from and if youtrace his ideas you come back to one ofthe most famous Jesuit priests in the uh16th century guy called Francisco Suareznow Francisco Suarez he wrote a tractcalled on the law in1612 and he was down in Northern Spainand he wrote on natural law Catholicnatural law and his writings to this dayhave a big influence um in the Americanlegal system so here you have from anAmerican law school natural law naturalrights and American constitutionalismearly modern liberal roots of naturallaw what do you find Francisco Suarez1612 on the laws excerpt so this is froman American law school database so thisJesuit writer is hailed as being whatpart of the modern liberal roots ofnatural law I'm not sure most peoplewould say the Jesuits are liberals inany sense of the word but anyway there'sa picture of him there so um Americanconstitutionalism and natural law andnatural rights when you're learning theUS Constitution as a lawyer you're goingto cover the writings of FranciscoSuarez a Jesuit priest from the uh 1500sinSpain and he wrote um he was a studentof Thomas aquinus and he wroteextensively on threerights he wrote um there is USdeclaration of independence and thoseare the rights that Francisco Suareztalked about he wrote not about lightthe right to life but about the right toself-preservation he wrote about theright to the Natural Perfection of humannature that is the right to Liberty inthe US declaration of independence andhe wrote about the right to happinesswhich is the same name as the USdeclaration of independence andFrancisco Suarez his writings have aninfluence on this wig writer Hugogrus who was one of the most quotedwriters by the US Founders in the early17 mid1770s and so you can trace this thisthinking of Catholic natural law whicheven now is taught in American legalschools this this idea of the rights inour Declaration of Independence arereally coming from Catholic thoughtrather than from Protestant thought nowthere's a very famous enlightened WREnlightenment writer called John Loch healso influenced the founders of the USRepublic he also argued for naturalinalienable god-given rights even thoughhis writings pointed to a random Godlessuniverse that's a paradox of John Loachhe argued at a big picture that there isno God and the universe is random andmeaningless but then he argued that wehave god-given inalienable rights andhow we squared that together I don'tknow so the point about this is bothProtestant and Enlightenment writers inthe time of the founding of the AmericanRepublic pushed ideas that the foundersof America accepted as being naturalrights that is the right to life libertyand happiness without recognizing thatthose rights are based in Catholicnatural law and the writings ofAristotle Thomas aquinus and the Jesuitpriest Francis Suarez hence Americastays allegedly Protestant but is reallyhardwired as a CatholicRepublic the Constitution is alsoallegedly hard wired to be Catholic andwhy do we say that well first of all youhave to ask yourself what is aconstitution and a constitution is adocument where in the natural rights ofthe citizens which were previouslytrampled upon by a tyrannical regime aretransformed into political rights by thenew regime in the Constitution so aconstitution includes um politicalrights um the the Constitution isnatural lights rights that are codifiedinto political rights within the legalsystem and a Constitution specifies thenatural rights have been won by thepeople in their Revolution and it alsospecifies the procedure for guaranteeingthose rights going forward so forinstance the British kept quarteringtheir troops with American families inthe American Revolution and they did alot of damage to the houses where theywere staying so in the Bill of Rightsthere is the right for for thegovernment not to build quart troopswith US citizens anymore so that'scodified the abuse of power by theBritish is directly addressed in the USBill of Rights and when the Britishconfiscated weapons so the Bill ofRights enshrines the right to bear armsby the people and so what you find inthe US Constitution is a reaction towhat the British were doing to thesettlers and those settlers made surethat the abuses they experience werecodified or written into theConstitutional Bill of Rights and youfind that through revolutions throughouthistory that when people have beenabused in a certain way the the area ofabuse they've experienced when there isa revolution or a Reformation that areaof abuse is specifically addressed inthe new constitution you find that timeand again throughout human history so uma core principle in the US Constitutionis federalism now the idea behindFederalism is that most decisions arebest taken locally preferably at thestate level rather than at the federallevel and it's best to keep politicalpower at the communitylevel and that's the idea of federalismand uh there's a lot of writings theycall the Federalist Papers when betweenthe writing of the Bill of Right of theDeclaration of Independence and thewriting the con stitution there's aseries of papers called The FederalistPapers where the the the the the writersof the Constitution were arguing inpublic in the newspapers and Publishingpamphlets on the relationship betweenFederal power and state power and what'sthe best balance the way of achieving ofa healthy balance of power checks andbalances between federal and stateAuthority wellum this is uh this idea of federalismcame up in the American Civil War whenpeople were talking about state rightsthe the if a state says it's okay tokeep slaves why does the federalgovernment have the right to overridethat and so the idea of states rightsbecame synonymous with the right to haveslaves in the 1860s and the1850s um but even today the idea ofstates rights is very important thestates have the right to determineeducation and policing in their owncommunities not the federal governmentwe don't have a federal police force wehave State Police and County police andCity police and Township Police there'smultiple kinds of police in AmericaAmerica an example of federalism and I Idiscovered this when I first moved toAmerica in 2007 is that um as you drivearound the election season you see youdon't just have elections for like mayorof the city but you have elections forwho's going to be thesheriff and coming from England nobodyever elects yourpolice nobody ever elects your policechief and the police chief whoever ishead of police for your city or countyis a very powerful role and so inAmerica you elect your sheriffsand the sheriffs they are the final wordin Law and Order in their County ofevery county has a sheriff and thosesheriffs are the law and they hiredeputies and sheriff's deputies and theyare accountable to the local electorateI don't know other not only are thesheriff's accountable but another thingthat astonished me when I first startedvoting in 2016 in America was in thestate of Michigan in all the states youvote for who you want on your SupremeCourt for your ownState you can actually vote I want thisthis and this person on the SupremeCourt for Michigan I never heard of thatbefore cuz in Britain the governmentdetermines who the judges are the peoplehave no say in that I don't know how itis here in in NewZealand it's the same way here okay soin our elections America we vote for ourjudges at at a state level we vote forour sheriffs at a county level and weeven vote for things like drainsCommissioners I was astonished like whyam I expected to know about drains isthis a political issue in Americaapparently it is and uh Board ofEducation that's a a big issue becausewhoever you vote on your board ofeducation determines educational policyfor your kids whether they're going tolearn about homosexuality they four ornot so the F the principle of federalismsays that political power is bestevolved as low a level in society aspossible because then government isaccountable to the people and that'swhat happened in the American experimentFederalism is designed to keep politicalpower at the community level rather thanat the federal level the purpose ofFederalism is small governmenthowever what we now have is a vast outofcontrol federal government costingtrillions of dollars a year and anadministrative state where tens ofthousands of rules and regulations touchevery aspect of citizens lives withoutany votes inCongress and this is known as the DeepState or the administrative State nowactually um in the last two years umthere's been a massive change in theAmerican legal legal system and itaffects this area directly because therewas a principle known as the Chevronprincipleum there was a lawsuit um in the stateof West Virginia the EPA the environmentEnvironmental Protection Agency againstum Chevron the oil company I think itwas and it was about some issue aboutpollu pollution and the the SupremeCourt held at the time there essentiallythat if Congress voted ab and C but thethe the federal agency charged withimplementing that law is facing not a band c but C but CD and a those set ofcircumstances then the federal agencycan make rules applying to that so ifCongress voted for a b and c the federalagency can vote for de and F becauseit's in harmony with what Congressoriginally wanted and Congress isn'tgoing to vote a new law for every newcircumstance that became known as theChevron Doctrine or Chevron Defence andfrom the mid 1980s up until two yearsago actually last year it was federalagencies were running out thousands andthousands and thousands of regulationsunder the principle known as ChevronDefence that they had the right to dothis and then last year some BraveLobster fishermen from msued all the way to the Supreme Courtand the uh the National OceanicAuthority decided that based on somerules propagated by part by Congressmany years before they were going to umput an observer on every lobster boat tomake sure all the lobsters were theright size and those observers are goingto be they're going to charge thelobster fisherman $700 a day perObserver and that was going to bankruptthe lobster fisherman so the lobsterfisherman said this was never envisionedby Congress this is the theadministrative State out of control andwe want this this right removed fromthem and he went to the Supreme Courtand last year the Supreme Court struckdown the entire Chevron Doctrine andthey basically said if Congress didn'tvote for it you can't make this into alaw and 40 Years of administrative statebureaucracy was just struck down at thestroke of a pen it was an amazing shiftand that was a a case last yearinvolving Lobster fisherman from Maineand CH challenging the National OceanicAuthority so um the reason that wasstruck down was because there was a newconservative majority on the SupremeCourt there was only Supremeconservative Authority on the SupremeCourt because Donald Trump got threepicks in his first time in officeelections have consequences profoundconsequences uh president's greatestinfluence on American society is notwhat they do while they're in office butit's how many picks they get on SupremeCourt and that shapes decisions fordecades to come and so the principle ofsubsidiarity um is a is designed to keepadministrative power at the local levelas much as possible however we have seenthe growth of a federal government thatseeks to touch the touch every aspect ofcitizens lives how do this happenbecause federalism a Protestant idea wasbased on the idea of moral Freedom whichdegenerated into moral license whereasthe Catholic alternative known assubsidiarity is based on Catholicnatural law which argues everything musthave a moral purpose subsidiarity inCatholic things which is the parallelismto federalism and Protestant thinkingSubs subsidiarity means that individualsare also able to under their own powerwhat Society should not do for them andwhat small groups or individuals canaccomplish larger groups in societyshould not takeover and uh when I was growing up in theEuropean Union in the 1980s there was aman called Jac La the head of theEuropean commission and he kept talkingaboutsubsidiarity subsidiarity I keptthinking what on Earth is subsidiarity Iwas a boy about the age of 10 or 11thought I never heard of subsidiaritybefore and this was before Google youcouldn't figure out what subsidiarityactually meant eventually I figured outthat what he was talking about was aprinciple of devolved power that wasbased on Catholic natural law for Europethat's where he was going with theEuropeancommission so what we see in Americatoday is that the vast powers of thefederal government suggest thatfederalism has failed Thomas aquinuswrote that the child belongs to thefather and not to the statewe'd agree with him on that if you go tothe Soviet Union if you had gone to theSoviet Union you discover thatessentially a mother and a father weremerely a breeding couple but the stateowned their children and the state couldtake those children from them and putthem in whatever part of the countrythey wanted they could force them intothe military they could execute them orthey could put them in a factorysomewhere at the government's pleasureso in the Soviet Union children wereessentially owned by the government youwere simply a breedingcouple and in the Soviet Union if youhad 10 children you became known as aMattgy Matt gy a hero mother Matt gy means ahero mother and when I was working inthe former Soviet Union I I'd visitladies in aaban who they had little tinum medal here and it had USSR ssspthat's the USSR in Russian and it hadMatt gy written I am a hero mother I had10 or more children and if you had 10 ormore children you received a prize suchas a l car which was probably worthlessbut and you you can't fit 10 childreninto a l car allright you know you need about fourchildren to put four CL cars to put yourchildren into that but anyway you becamea a mother hero mother but the pointabout this is that um the growth of thethe state has displaced the role of thefamily insociety so in Catholic thinking it isthe duty of parents to look after toprovide for to educate and to nurturetheir children to be moral citizens itis not the responsibility of the statein Catholic thinking it is a parentresponsibility to teach moralityself-control personal restraint andcritical thinking thing criticalthinking skills we would agree with thatasAdventists the Catholics argue that thesecular State cannot do this because thesecular state is secular and it does notbelieve in Morality perse it can only enforce rote learning viacoercion or indoctrination in the publicschool system and in Britain where I wasraised we had indoctrination in thepublic school system that was a secularsystem I don't know how it is here inNew Zealand but you probably have apublic school system that is secularthat pushes secular ideologies and doesnot presume to teach morality to theNextGeneration and so the growth of thenanny state has actually served todisplace the family within our Westernsocieties Public Welfare programs andthe criminal justice system haveactually destroyed the roles of fathersin their families or they've removedfathers completely from their familiesand children the federal government hasthe goal to run a website calledfatherhood.govwhere they this is a federal attempt toteach fatherhood to men but in reality afather guides his children where is thestate can only compel those childrentrue moral virtue the goal of Libertycan only can only be accomplishedthrough morally Healthy Families notthrough Nanny state or public welfareprograms this is Catholic thinking thatis why The Advocates of big governmentdo not want a society of self-controlledmoralindividuals families are to be destroyedby welfare programs criminal justicemass incarceration and public schoolindoctrination and thus the statebecomes the supreme authority in theeducation and rearing of the NextGeneration not theparents this is what's happened in theProtestant State that's gone crazy as inAmerica today the Catholic version ofsubsidiarity promotes stronger familiesas the core unit of society andfederalism the Protestant light versionof subsidiarity does not promote Libertyor morality at all but instead has givenus the welfare state moral Decay and thecollapse of the nuclearfamily so this is how Catholics areviewing um what's happened in Americaand they're essentially arguing thatAmerica is wired hardwired as Catholicthat the the rights to life liberty andthe pursuit of happiness are coming fromCatholic natural law not from Protestantthinking and that if America is tobecome great again like America makeAmerica great again Maga it needs toreturn not to its Protestant Roots butit needs to return to a Catholic versionthat never was there in the first placeand as Adventists we say that America isgoing to have a partnership with theCatholic Church the second beast ofrevelation will be a partner with thefirst Beast of Revelation 13 we'vepreached that for 150 plus years andCatholics are now saying the same thingthat America has to return to become aCatholic nation in order to restore itto its original um envisioned greatnessfrom the founders and the framers sowhat do we say in conclusion here todaythe prophetic role of America in Earth'slast days is clearly laid out inscripture and in the spirit of Prophecywe understand that America in the endtimes will form an alliance with apapacy it will form a persecuting Unionof church and state to form its own uhUnion of church and state between thepapacy and America the Beast and theimage to the Beast will enforce enforcefalse enforce false worship that isSunday worship globally using economicmandates no buy no sell pressure andeventually the death penalty of all whowill not receive the mark of the beastthat is the message of Revelation 13 wetouched on it this morning we'retouching on it again this afternoon andin response The Three Angels messages ofRevelation 14 call upon all Humanity toreject this coerced for false worshipand to worship the true creator in truthand in obedience which means keeping theSabbath day holy as per the fourthCommandment America today after the lastelection is going through a profoundculturalchange the moment president Trump waselected it's like the I'm telling youthe the the censorship stopped almostovernight on socialmedia it's just like there's a newbreath of Freedom come to the nation andyou can now say things without fear ofbeing cancelled whereas in October yousay the self-same things you be canceledby polite Society people are reising thependis is starting to swing from a hardversion of secularism where anythinggoes and people are disgusted by thatbecause of the extremes it brings nowthe pendul is starting to swing back andwhere is that pendulum going to swing isit going to swing to a Protestantversion of America probably not it'sgoing to go back to where America ishardwired to be in the Catholic viewwhich is as a Catholic Republic therecent elections represent a rejectionof the woke ideologies do dominating thehard left there is now a swing to a moreNationalist and a Judo Christian Outlookmore and more public figs in America inthe social media sphere are openlyembracing the Catholic faith andpresident's Trump's own spiritualrenewal may also lead him to Rome it'sinteresting that the first trip he madeafter he was reelected as president wasto the opening of Notre Dame cathedralin Paris there was significance in thathe went to Notre Dame for the opening ofof that Cathedral after it burnt down 3years ago make America great again Mayultimately turn out to be make theAntichrist great again we don't knowjust yet only God knows that so theCatholic view of America is that she iswired Catholic labeled Protestant andoperating in a secular Manner and thecurrent cultural swing in America maylead her not back to scripture but maylead her to Rome and ultimately to herend time role as the persecutor of God'speople so what do we do well I listed upfor you here we're familiar with theThree Angels messages of Revelation 4Revelation 13 talks about the theseforces the papey in America uniting tooppress truth and to coers false Worshipin the world and God's response is tosend out three messages of Mercy to thisDying World and the first message ofMercy is here says I saw another Angelflying in the midst of Heaven having theEverlasting gospel to preach unto themthat dwell on the earth unto EveryNation Kindred and tongue and peoplesaying with a loud voice fear God andgive glory to him for the hour of hisjudgment has come and worship Him whomade the heavens and the earth and theSea and The Fountains of waters and howwould you summarize that in onephrase is that it's time to show yourloyalty to God through trueworship it's time to choose for God andhow he wants to beworshiped you know if when we have awedding anniversary I I know my wifelikes let's say a certainrestaurant and if I drive past thatcertain restaurant on the weddinganniversary and I go to Taco Bellmuch as I like Taco Bell you will haveTaco Bell here yes yeah um my wife isnot going to be happy with me okaybecause I know that she likes somewhereelse and she doesn't really like TacoBell and to me food is food but for mywife it's important we go to herfavorite restaurant on our weddinganniversary God has defined how we areto worshiphim so God God has defined how we are toworship him we are to worship Him inspirit and in truth and there are waysthat we can worship God that arepleasing to God and there are ways toworship God that are not pleasing to Godif you don't believe me read Isaiah 58God is displeased with the worship ofhis people when they engage in certainbehaviors so the summary of Revelation14 the first Angel's message is thisit's time to publicly show your loyaltyto God through true worship the secondAngel's message is listed on the screennow there F another Angel saying Babylonis fall is Fallen that great Citybecause she made all nations drink ofthe wine of the Wrath or the wrath ofher fornication if you summarize that inone phrase you'd say this it's time toknow for yourself the truths ofscripture if you don't know the truthyou're going to be deceived by thelies so it's time from this day forwardto know the truths of scripture to knowfor yourself what you believe and whyyou believe it and to be able to show itin the word of Godand maybe one good thing for you to doin this coming year is to memorize the28 fundamental beliefs with a scripturereferences it's three pages long youcould probably do it by next year's campmeeting to memorize it it's not thatlong but to memorize the 28 fundamentalbeliefs so you know what you believe andyou've got all the scripture referencesthere that back it up amen because youneed to know what you believe when theangel says that Fallen Fallen is Babylonthe great and she made the Nations drinkof the wine of the wrath of a for iationuh Babylon has has has injected falseDoctrine into this world yesterday wetalked about the one do false doctrinethat is the immortality of the Soul itaffects all the major religions of theworld today and it comes from Satan andif you do not know the truth ofscripture about what happens when youdie you're going to be open to thedeceptions at the end of time there's abook chapter in great controversy calledthe ministry of evilangels Satan and the Occult are abroadin our lands today seeking to deceiveour children and ourselves and and so ifthe summary of the first Angel's messageis is time to publicly show your loyaltyto God through true worship the summaryof the second Angel's message is thisit's time to study and know for yourselfthe truths of scripture so you're notdeceived by the false doctrines comingfrom Babylon and the third Angelsmessage is this and the third Angelfollowed them saying with a loud voiceif any man worship the beast in Hisimage and receive his Mark in hisforehead or on his hand the same shalldrink of the wine of the wrath of Godwhich is poured out without mixture intothe the cup of his indignation and heshall be tormented with fire andbrimstone in the presence of the HolyAngels and in the presence of the lamband the smoke of their torment ascendethup forever and ever and they have norest day nor night who worship the beastin His image and whosoever receiveth themark of hisname what we see here is that there isthere is coming a time of coercion at aglobal level the pandemic was just awarm-up for what lies ahead there willbe a time of coercion when the wholeworld will have to choose for True workworship or false worship and the levelof coercion will be like nothing we'veseenbefore and if you to summarize thismessage here I would say it this it'stime to prepare spiritually emotionallyand financially for the finalbattle it's the time to go back fromthis camp meeting and say what do I needto do to set my house in order for thecoming battle so in the Old Navy whenthey cited an enemy ship on the horizonthe drummer would beat to quarterswhen they beat to quarters everything inthe gun decks was put down in the holdof the ship or thrown overboard so theonly thing left on those gunex was thecannon ready to fire with the men theship was ready for battle and when youbeat to quarters everything that was notneeded for battle just disappeared offthatship and we know there is a battlecoming it's time to beat toquarters it's time to rid Our Lives ofthe false gods and the dross and thenonsense that so dominates our thinkingand our spare time that we have no timeto know what truth really isanymore it's time brothers and sistersto publicly show your loyalty to Godthrough decision on true worship it'stime to study know for yourself thetruths of scripture to know for yourselfwhat you believe and it's time toprepare yourself spiritually financiallyand emotionally for battle when I sayemotionally it means everything you holdde today like the country you may lovethe family you may love the job you maylove will one day be taken away fromyou it's time to recognize that theseare just temporary gifts from God andourmajor prize is in heaven above we tostore up for ourselves Treasures inHeaven above as Jesus says not Treasureson earth below it's time to recognizeeverything we love and hold de in thisworld and there is much to love and holdin this world will one day turn againstus so let's not be too emotionallyinvolved with anything in this worldit's time to recognize that financiallythere's going to cover a Timeparticularly when the cbdcs come outwhen you won't be able to spend yourfunds on gospelProclamation so it's time to buyliterature and get it distributed it'stime to support evangelists in your owncommunities it's time to put your wealthto Kingdom Kingdom use because there iscoming a time when you can no longer dothat and that day is coming it's time toprepare spiritually for what lies aheadwe know we're going to face persecutionif we're loyal to God are we ready forit emotionally and have we prepared ourfamilies for the day when we may nolonger be around I know intellectuallythere'll be persecution but emotionallyam I ready to take it and as a pastorhave I prepared my flock as a parenthave I prepared my family for the daywhen I may long no longer be there andare they trains to carry on gospelliving and gospel proclamation in myabsence it's time to prepare we come tocamp meeting yes to meet our friends andyes we come to camp meeting to have agood time but I'm preaching this todaybecause it's time to go home from campmeeting and to prepare for what liesahead and if you fail to prepare you'repreparing to failso these Three Angels messages are veryimportant for todayum I forgot the first two three I'mbattling jet lag right now you heardwhat I said you heard what I said it'stime to worship God in spirit and intruth and to choose for his true worshipit's time to G up our loins becausethere is a battle coming aheadspiritually emotionally and financiallyand it's time to spend our spare timenot watching football or soccer or thecrickets or the rugby or woring aboutour garden it's time to learn what webelieve and to know what we believe andnot to have to ask somebody else what doI actually believe on this topic asAdventists for too long we've relied onwhat's printed in our books and thestatements from our general conferenceto tell us what we believe it's timethat we know for ourselves what webelieve and why we believe it and to beable to give an intelligent reason forthe faith that we hold sodear so maybe next camp meeting some youwill stand up here and recite the 28fundamental beliefs would that bewonderfulmaybe somebody will do that for us notmay not be here next year yes yeah thankyou sister well even then you shouldknow what they are yes yeah so as we uhgo through this camp meeting we're notjust making friends reestablishingacquaintances I want to encourage you toput down a deeper root in your faith inthe Lord Jesus Christ and to understandthe momentous nature of the times inwhich we live that we are seeingprophecy being fulfilled in front of oureyes and that prophecy and theimplications will come knocking on ourdoor whether we like it or not and weneed to be ready to shine in Earth'sDarkest Hours as we said yesterday Godin his mysterious ways made sure in hisProvidence that it wasn't Abraham andIsaac living in 2025 but it wasus his vote of confidence is in us toshine for him in Earth's Darkest Hourlet's not let him down let's bow ourheads for a word of prayer heavenlyfather as we uh reflect on the changesin the Nations aroundus father I thank you for the sure wordofProphecy and Lord as the darknessgathers and the Gloom gathers around usso those little candles of light in theword of Lord the word of God shinebrighter and brighter I pray Lord thatour lives will shine brighter andbrighter for you in the uh Gloom ofdeception and lies and falsehood thatcovers our world today I pray fatherthat we will know the truthwe will stand up for the truth and wewill share the truth no matter whathappens until Jesus comes again sofather implant truths into our heartsand Minds Lord give us the gift ofmemory retention give us the gift oftime I pray Lord that we will befaithful stewards of the time you'vegiven us that we may need be able to bebe able to give a reason for the faiththat we hold so dear and I pray fatherwhen Jesus comes again in the Clouds OfGlory that each of our names will befound in the Lamb's Book of Life sountil that Glorious Day father May eachone of us be found faithful in whateverportion of the vineyard you've called usto live and serve in jesus' holy name wepray amen[Music]for