“Entropy” | Dr. Conrad Vine

Uh good morning everybody. Can you hear me out there?
0:099 secondsYes. [clears throat] All right. Well, it’s a privilege to come and share with you again. Um [clears throat] and uh
0:1616 secondsit’s uh I arrived yesterday in in Spokane. You know, God really blessed. I was uh I got on the plane and you kind of say, “Lord, who am I going to sit
0:2424 secondsnext to today?” And um I this young lady sat sat down next to me and uh she said, “Are you Dr. Vine?” I said, “Well, yes,
0:3232 secondsI am.” And she said, “Well, I wanted to talk to you.” I thought, “Oh, no.” And
0:3737 seconds[clears throat]
0:3838 secondsand uh it turns out this lady is a very devout Bible faithful Adventist. Um and
0:4545 secondsuh she works as a senior adviser to RFK Jr. in the federal government.
0:5151 secondsAnd uh I asked her, we we chatted for four and a half hours all the way from Chicago to Sparkan on the plane. The time just went flew by. And um I I was I
1:was saying to her, you know, God has placed you like Esther in the midst of a pagan court. And uh uh she said, “Yes, yeah. They all know about the Sabbath.
1:They all know that I stop work at every Friday and I pick up pick up again on Sunday.” And um you know, you never know who you’re going to meet in life.
1:Um but if you go through life and say, “Lord, give me somebody today. Bring somebody into my life who I can talk with and share some something with.” Um God’s going to answer that prayer. And
1:so it was a blessed journey coming across yesterday. I was kind of reluctant when we came into land because it was a really good conversation. It’s not often you get to speak with someone
1:um you know who who knows the president and the vice president and all the senior officers of government and so forth. And um but it was wonderful to
1:see a god-fearing young Adventist lady in the highest levels of government and her job is to encourage governments around the world to adopt pro- family
1:government policies. And so it was just a privilege to meet her on the plane yesterday and so I thought this trip’s off to a good start if you have a flight
1:like that. So I bring greetings from my wife. Um she’s back in Bering Springs today. Um we’ve been on the road for
2:about the last 3 months non-stop and so um she’s spending this weekend at home uh because you know some things have to
2:have to be taken care of at home as you know and uh we’ve just been uh had in Michigan our camp meeting this week and
2:the um the the text for the camp meeting the theme text was Isaiah 58:1 which is
2:cry aloud and spare not and lift up your voice like a trumpet and tell my people their transgression. and the house of
2:Jacob, their sins. Uh, so I thought that was very appropriate text for the Michigan camp meeting. Um, because of
2:course you’re not allowed to do that in Michigan. So [clears throat] anyway, whether was a Freudian slip, I don’t know how that text got put in as a theme for the camp meeting. So it’s a
2:privilege to come and share with you today. You know, uh, preparing uh, speaking the word of God is a joy. Uh, two weeks ago I was in Slovenia with my wife. We did a an evangelistic series.
3:003 minutesThere’s no greater joy than leading people to the foot of the cross and into the kingdom of God. And uh we saw the whole gamut of like spiritual warfare
3:and people wrestling with Buddhism and the occult and Catholicism and secularism and despair. And you know by
3:by the end of that series, God gave the victory and we had the first baptism there and for many members were crying because they said we can’t we don’t remember the last time we saw a baptism.
3:and and it’s just uh just struck me that sometimes we share information for the sake of sharing information. No, we we’re to share we’re to preach in order
3:to gain decisions for Christ and so that people can choose to be in his kingdom and ready for Jesus when he comes again.
3:So, um it’s my privilege to come and share with you today our sermon today is entitled Entropy. If we can move to the
3:other slides, please. Uh this is what we’re going to do after lunch. And uh there was it’s going to be called entropy. Um and uh so I’ll show you our
3:journey in a few seconds when it comes up on the screen. Uh we’re going to go on a little journey here today. Um [clears throat] you know I some some
4:sermons you enjoy preparing and preaching. Other sermons you feel compelled to put together and to deliver and other sermons um it feels like
4:you’re going to start um you know you’re going to go in for like um colonoscopy or some unpleasant medical treatment.
4:And this sermon feels like that. All right. Um, [clears throat] and uh, you know, when when when when when God puts
4:a burden on your heart to preach something, sometimes you say, “Thank you, Lord.” And sometimes you think, “Oh, why me, oh Lord?” And I’m saying, “Why me, oh Lord,” this morning? And
4:you’ll understand why as we go through this. But I’m going to speak to the times in which we live. I’m speaking to the times that are happening within our
4:own church actually, and what we can do about it as Bible faithful Adventists.
4:So, this is our journey here today. uh we’re going to look at entropy in the first dimension among members and pastors, members and conferences,
4:members in the general conference, administrators and ideology, the impact of this institutional entropy and what can we do as members. So that’s the
5:journey we’re going to go along today and um I I ask you pray for me as I share this because you know I’ve I’ve learned that preaching can change lives.
5:It’s changed my life um not always in a good way and this has the potential to do the same thing today. So, I’m asking
5:that you pray for this preacher uh because when you stand up and you you talk about these realities, um you understand there’s a consequence to be paid for preaching sermons like this.
5:But I pro I spoke with Pastor Al Fletcher. He said, “Brother Vine, we want people who speak the truth in this pulpit.” And so I said, “Well, I’ll
5:preach the truth.” And uh the consequences we then leave in the hands of God. So let’s bow your heads with me and we ask for the pleas presence of the
5:Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we thank you today for the gift of Jesus who came filled with grace and with truth.
5:Lord, he spoke words that won the hard of heart.
6:He spoke words that attracted little children. He spoke words that rebuked Satan.
6:He spoke words of comfort to the grieving moms. He spoke words of hope to the dying thief.
6:And Lord, whatever I words I share this morning, may they be words from your throne of grace.
6:Lord, we are to contend for the faith that has been passed on to us. It’s not easy to do that, Father.
6:It’s not easy to be the man or woman in the arena.
6:But I’m asking that you be in the arena today and you fight your cause and that your name be glorified in this congregation and around our conference and our division and our world church.
6:Lord, we pray for our leaders. We pray for our administrators. We pray for our pastors. We pray for our educators.
6:Lord, it’s hard to swim against the cultural zeitgeist.
7:007 minutesLord, to be healthy in America and to be fit and healthy, you’ve got to be countercultural.
7:And Lord, to be fit and healthy spiritually, we also have to be willing to go against the popular culture.
7:So Lord, as I share now, I ask that you speak through me and for me. Will we speak these words as was Christ full of
7:grace and truth in the hope and the assurance that your word will yield a harvest of righteousness for your
7:kingdom. So Lord we give these moments into your hands in the name of Jesus we humbly ask. Amen.
7:So you may be asking yourself what exactly is entropy?
7:And um when I was at school I got out of the sciences as quickly as I could. I hated the sciences. Um, I know if you’re
7:a scientist say or a medical professional or something, praise the Lord. I’m grateful for you. But I hated the sciences. Um, um, I’m not sure why I
7:hated them. Um, I didn’t like biology cuz I didn’t like, you know, dissecting frogs on the on the the classroom table.
8:And, um, physics was just a mystery to me. Um, but I do remember one thing about physics other than apples dropped from trees. Uh, what I do remember from
8:physics was the second law of thermodynamics. And that was impressed upon us, the second law of thermodynamics. I don’t know what the first law is. I don’t know what the
8:third law is. I don’t know how many laws of thermodynamics there are. But I do know that there is the second law of thermodynamics which presumes the first.
8:And that the second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy.
8:And the law of entropy states that um that uh in the in a in a universe such as ours, the state of entropy will
8:always increase over time. And you go, uh what’s he talking about? Well, this is what it means in practice. Entropy means this. If you boil a kettle of
8:water and just leave it on on the on in the kitchen, will that water stay warm throughout the day or will it go become cold?
8:It become cold. Yes. So the the the hot form will degenerate to the cold form.
9:Uh another practical example, if you light a bonfire um tonight and you put all the wood there and you set it on fire and it burns and burns and burns,
9:will the fire continue burning if you don’t keep adding fresh wood? No. So the fire will will will eventually burn out.
9:And so this is really what we call entropy. If you wind up a clock, you know, in the old days before you had, you know, quartz clocks, if you wind up a watch and then just let it run
9:indefinitely, will it run indefinitely or will it wind down and and come to a halt? It will come to a halt. Okay. So entropy is the principle that every
9:every closed system whether it’s the universe whether it’s your kitchen whether it’s your watch whatever it may be entropy is the principle that
9:everything eventually winds down and unless you have fresh infusions of energy such as you put the kettle back on the on the hob or you rewind your
9:watch again or you have the daily baptism of the Holy Spirit in your spiritual life. Unless you have the fresh infusion of the original power and
9:force, what you have is going to dissipate over time. Are you with me on the law of entropy? Yes. The second law of thermodynamics. I talk about it with
10:somebody this week and they’ll say, “What’s the first?” You’ll have no idea.
10:But we all know now what the second law of thermodynamics is all about. Well, uh, in from a sociological perspective,
10:all human movements throughout history, they experience what we call entropy.
10:And they that entropy is experienced in different ways. There are two ways in particular. Most mo movements start with
10:a positive idea, a positive vision, a lot of energy, a lot of passion, and a lot of warmth. There’s a lot of warmth because you want to attract people to
10:that movement. But as you go through time, whatever that human organization is, that human organization degrades. So
10:it becomes a cold, institutionalized and controlling system that has lost sight of the original vision. That’s institutional entropy.
10:And when that entropy takes place in the human institution, human organizations tend to there there are two movements of people. What
11:happens over time is that the leaders tend to become more authoritarian and absolute and the followers become more and more submissive and passive. A great example of that is the papacy.
11:When the pe when the pope speaks sex cathedral, he’s infallible. You can’t argue with it. He’s speaking for God.
11:and your job is just to accept dogma as a member of the Catholic Church. So over time, sociologically, organizations tend
11:towards authoritarianism and unquestioning submission and obedience.
11:That’s where organizations go when they experience entropy.
11:And I’ve been sitting and watching what’s happening within our beloved church here in North America. And we’re experiencing entropy.
11:It’s evident in front of our eyes.
11:So what’s the first kind of entropy that we’ve experienced in the last few years years? The first is the change in the relationship between members and pastors.
12:0012 minutesNow that change is not good. It’s negative. And why do I say that?
12:Well, there was a very famous pastor in 1939. He was German. His name was Dietri Bonhofer. And um he was at a seminary in
12:upstate New York. and he realized in the spring of 1939 that war was coming to to Europe and he realized that Adolf Hitler
12:um having having taken the Sudatan land and pushed into modern day Czechlovakia and he had taken the Anelus he taken Austria for himself he realized that war
12:was coming to to um Germany and to Europe and rather than staying in safety in upstate New York Dietrich Bonhaofer
12:got on a boat and he sailed back across the Atlantic to be a pastor for the German Confessing Church. Now the when when Adolf Hitler came to power, the
12:church in Germany split into two. I’m talking about Christianity in general.
12:Most denominations accepted the Fura as Kirk the um they joined what was known as a Furka. That is the Furus church
13:that you all aligned with the aims of the Nazi party. And there was a group an ecumenical movement that started and they said we do not accept Hitler as
13:furer. We say that Christ is Lord. And they became known as the confessing church. And Dietrich Bonhofer was one of the leaders of the confessing church. He
13:wrote a brilliant book about the cost of disciplehip. You want to read it because he wrote this in the shadow of Adolf Hitler and what it means to follow Hitler. He wrote, you can get it on
13:Amazon. It’s an incredible book. It’s a study on the sermon on the mount um that obedience and obedience and faithfulness are two sides of the same coin. I’d
13:encourage you to read that book. But as he was going to go back to Germany, um he wrote a letter and this is what he wrote. He said, “I’ve come to the
13:conclusion that I’ve made a mistake in coming to Ger America at this time. I must live through this difficult period
13:in our national history along with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of
13:Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”
14:So he sailed back to Germany in 1939 knowing he was sailing into World War II knowing he was going to Germany as a
14:very visible and public opponent of Adolf Hitler. He ran an underground seminary um for pastors, many of whom were Lutheran, brave men at the time.
14:And he was eventually imprisoned after the July 1944 plot. And uh he was executed two weeks before um that before
14:war ended in 1945 May on the personal orders of the head of the SS Hinrich Himmler.
14:He sailed back to Germany because he wanted to be with his flock. What a pastor.
14:He could have stayed in exile. He could have stayed in New York and written sermons. The federal government would have broadcast them on, you know, Radio Free Europe or something or from the
14:BBC. But he sailed back because he understood that sheep need a shepherd.
15:And shepherds stick with their flock in hard times, not just in good times.
15:In animal husbandry, the flock will follow the shepherd because they know the shepherds not just live with the flock, they know the shepherds will lay
15:down their life for the flock. A shepherd will intervene when a when a wolf, a bear, or a lion comes after the flock. The flock knows that the shepherd
15:will defend the flock. And that is why they trust the the shepherd. They will endure heat, hunger, and drought wherever their shepherd leads because
15:they know that the shepherd exists to defend the flock. But something happened during our pandemic here in North America.
15:Something happened.
15:The Catholic Church said that priests could not write letters of support for members who wanted a waiver. And we
15:adopted the same policy in the North American division.
15:And many of our pastors, I think the majority of our pastors, uh, refused to write letters of support for their members when they wanted help with their religious waiverss.
16:There was one egregious example. It was in the states of Minnesota where the Adventist pastor would not write the letter of support. The member wrote to
16:the the conference and they said no. She asked um a colleague at a hospital in central Minneapolis who said, “There’s a
16:retired Catholic priest just down the road. go and ask him. So she went and she asked him and he wrote her a letter of support for her religious waiver
16:request. And then she wrote to me and she says, “So who exactly is the beast of Revelation 13?”
16:It was a good question. When an old Catholic priest supported this Adventist lady in her religious waiver request,
16:some pastors did write letters such as Pastor Isaac Oluni from Stateline Church as just one example. There were some very brave pastors who stood up and stood out and stood by their flock.
16:But many of our pastors obeyed the conference rules and refused to support their members.
16:We came to realize that our pastors were not actually shepherds who we can trust in times of crisis but conference employees who prime whose primary
17:loyalty was to the conference not to the flock and to their paychecks.
17:Brothers and sisters, when the mark of the beast comes, every congregation will be led by volunteer elders
17:because the system cannot function when you can neither know the neither buy nor sell when the mark of the beast comes.
17:There will be no paid pastor in the final crisis of conscience. So every pastor must decide today if he answers
17:to God or to the conference. Does he seek the approval of men or does he seek the approval of God? Is he loyal to the
17:flock that has been entrusted to him? Or does is he loyal to his paycheck and conference mandates? He will discover that if he’s loyal to God, he may be
17:fired, but he will also discover that while the conference may have been his employer, God is actually his provider.
17:What does Sister White says about this say about this? Prophecy Kings page 141.
18:So men who should be standing as faithful of guardians of God’s law have argued till policy is taken the place of faithfulness and sin is allowed to go
18:unreproved when will the voice of faithful rebuke be heard once more in the church.
18:So there we’ve gone through one kind of entropy the relationship between members and pastors and many pastors are now conference
18:employees rather than local congregation pastors and we’ve seen in the pandemic that their primary loyalty is to the system rather than to the members. The
18:second kind of entropy that we’ve seen in the last five years is the entropy between members and their local conference.
18:We’re seeing negative changes in this relationship and we we it grieves our hearts that these changes are taking place but they are taking place. I come
18:from the state of Michigan where we we live under ecclesiastical absolutism.
18:What is quoted to us in every single meeting is from second selected messages. It’s a selective quote. It says Christ is the head of the church.
19:If there is a problem in the head of the church, Christ will fix it. Therefore, no member, no pastor, no preacher, no elder can stand up and rebuke, reprove,
19:exhort to reformation. You must basically sit down, shut up, and pay up.
19:Nobody can question the leadership in Michigan.
19:Now, let’s ask why did we establish conferences in the first place? Let’s go back to foundations here. When we established conferences in 1863 and
19:1864, we established them because for 20 years from 1844 to 1863, Adventists were
19:meeting in barns in the homes of of people with large homes in their fields.
19:And that worked well. But what happens if you wanted to maybe expand the barn and so the members would expand the barn, then the owner of the barn would
19:decide to leave the Advent movement and he take that barn with him. And so people saying,”Well, if we want to um own buildings that we land that we can
19:put our own churches up, we need to hold have a legal entity that can legally own that land.” And so one of the reasons for incorporation was that we’d have
20:conferences that are neutral holders of title that do not blackmail local congregations. That was one of the rationale for having conferences in the
20:first place. Another rationale for having conferences was that um when when circuit riders went around let’s say Michigan or Indiana or Wisconsin people
20:needed to know is this a genuine Adventist preacher and so you needed a central location that could give letters of credentials letters of authority or
20:we call them credentials today so that if a preacher rolled up into town you say show me your credentials they would show you their credentials and then we’d
20:know that this was a person authorized and approved by a certain conference and so there were some practical reasons why we had conferences back in the early 1860s.
20:But now we find that whereas where whereas we originally started conferences to us to to stop wealthy members essentially blackmailing and
20:coercing local congregations, now we find at least where I come from that the conference is quite happy to coers and blackmail the congregation to do what
21:they want or we won’t get the insurance for your property and it can never open.
21:And this entropy in the member the relationship between members and conferences is forcing us to ask hard questions such as what actually is the church.
21:Is the church the structure?
21:Is the church the conference, the union, the division, the general conference? Or is the church those disciples of Jesus who love God and keep his commandments as we define in our fundamental beliefs?
21:Let me put it this way. If I let’s say I use Michigan as an example. If the government of Michigan were to withdraw the legal registration of the SDA
21:conference in Michigan, would the SDA church cease to exist in Michigan in that moment? No. Because the body of Christ would still exist.
21:The members would still be there, the elders, the Sabbath school teachers, the deacons, the deaconesses, it would the people would still be there. And so what
22:0022 minutesyou realize is that the legal infrastructure is a tool in the hands of the body of Christ. But we should never confuse the tool for the body of Christ itself.
22:What is the result of this entropy and the relationship between members and conferences?
22:We’re seeing discouragement, disillusionment, and disengagement as members disengaged from tyrannical conference leaders. There is a silent
22:exodus taking place in our division as members move financially and emotionally away from conference leaders. members
22:are sitting in conferenceowned buildings from Sabbath to Sabbath, but the loyalty to the system has gone and they’re investing their time, their
22:talents, their energy in independent ministries that uphold liberty of conscience. And our response today to
22:this ecclesiastical absolutism that’s rising in our division. Fourth manuscript release puts it this way.
22:Read the spirit of prophecy says, “No man’s intelligence is to become a controlling power. such a controlling power that one man will have kingly
23:authority in Battle Creek or any other place. In no line of work is any one man to have power to turn the wheel. God forbids.
23:We are not to have kingly authority in the Adventist work. Why? Because all gifts are equal in the eyes of God.
23:And when you read in in in um Romans chapter 12, you [snorts] read how the spiritual gifts are given um the the the
23:behavior that is that is asked of those with the gift of leadership is conscientiousness.
23:And I used to read that passage as a kid like what is it talking about here? Like leadership is nice. You get to be on committees and you make decisions. And then I realized as I grew up that if God
23:has given you the lift gift of leadership, it means you’re ready 24/7 to respond to problems as and when they arrive. You can’t just clock off in a leadership position. You’re always on
23:call when somebody has a crisis. And so leadership is an invitation to faithfulness in daily service rather than to accumulate power to yourself.
24:The third kind of entropy that we’re experiencing is between members and the general conference.
24:You see up there, we’ve just we’re just uh registered up in Canada as needed to the poll. That’s why I’m I’m sticking the Canada stuff up here because this
24:will be seen by members in Canada. I want them to know these contact details up there as well.
24:So what is happening with the general conference and some of you have heard about this some of you are very familiar with this but back in 1985 the general conference leadership signed
24:up um to be to have consultative uh NGO status with the United Nations known as ECOS economic uh and social coordination
24:body of the United Nations and in in order to have consultative NGO status you have to legally agree to support the
24:spirit the goals and the objectives of the United Nations.
24:And most people have no idea what the objectives of the United Nations are.
24:But in so doing, our leaders traded away our spiritual birthright, which is liberty of conscience.
25:Twice in the last 50 years, we have issued official statements from our general conference affirming that we support the universal
25:declaration of human rights. And people say, well, that’s a good thing, is it not? we support universal human rights.
25:Well, yes and no. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights um says that everybody has the right to choose their religion, to change their
25:religion, to have a religion or not to have a religion, and to practice their religion. So, it sounds like a great article, Article 18 of the Universal
25:Declaration of Human Rights. The problem is is that article 29 says these are not human rights at all. This is what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
25:is. This is the some of the last two articles. It says there in the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone
25:shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights
26:and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order, and the general welfare in a democratic society.
26:Now, that’s a long sentence.
26:And it goes on to say paragraph 3, these rights and freedoms may no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. That
26:phrase these rights that’s includes your liberty of conscience and right to have practice or
26:change your religion. And you can practice your religion as long as it’s not contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations
26:and the United Nations. is you have these rights in the exercise of your rights you are subject to what your
26:government considers the general welfare of a democratic society. So the government doesn’t think that your religion is in the general welfare of a
26:democratic society then they have the right to take it away and when we officially support this
27:document in two official statements what we’re saying is you can have liberty of conscience as an Adventist and Adventist church only in so far as Dr. Fouchy
27:thinks it’s in the interests of a general general interest of society or only in so far as uh the federal government believes it’s in the
27:interests of society. What they’re saying is you don’t actually have liberty of conscience. What you have is temporary permission from government to
27:do what what they think is good for society today.
27:So when you become a 7th day Adventist, you’re actually because of this statement here, you’re saying my freedom, liberty of conscience, my
27:religious liberty, this is all basically um it’s a temporary provision. It’s a temporary allowance that the that I’m allowing the G the the United Nations to
27:remove at any moment in time. Our liberty of conscience was sold down the river. Our birthright was sold as Esau
27:sold his birthright to Jacob when we signed up for the United Nations and the UN Declaration on Human Rights.
28:In plain English, the General Conference has publicly declared that we are only allowed to exercise our God-given liberty of conscience subject to the
28:dictates of the morally corrupt UN and the papacy which sits on the Security Council, which is Antichrist.
28:With the October 2021 reaffirmation statement that came in in the pandemic, the GC leaders told all Adventists worldwide that their deeply held
28:prayerful convictions of the Holy Spirit upon their consciences did not provide a legitimate p basis to object to becoming a genetically modified Adventist.
28:The GC leaders were asserting the authority to override the convictions of the Holy Spirit upon the convictions and consciences of members. And such a claim
28:of one man to override the convictions of the Holy Spirit on another man has no basis in scripture or the spirit of prophecy. It is antithetically opposed
28:to being created in the image of God and God speaks to us each one of us through our consciences. Great controversy puts it this way. The doctrine that God has
29:committed to the church and she’s talking about to the Catholic Church here. The doctrine that God has committed to the church, the right to control the conscience and to define and
29:punish heresy is one of the most deeply rooted of Adventist errors. Sorry, papal errors.
29:It is what it is, brothers and sisters.
29:So when I said we enter the pandemic as Protestants and left it with a papal spirit, it’s absolutely true.
29:I may be condemned for saying it, but if you don’t like what I’m saying, then change the facts and take the statements away. There was an appeal to Yavin’s
29:nobility preached in January 22. Um, that sermon changed my life. And after that sermon, I went home and went down with Omicron, the omocrron variants of
29:COVID. My wife said to me, she says, “Carin,” she says, “After preaching someone like that, you better not die of COVID.” So, I didn’t die of COVID. I I
29:took um a lot of doses of ivormectin that night and the next day I was about 24 hours I was back on my feet again and writers reign as we say in England.
30:But after preaching that sermon and appeal to nobility which demonstrated that the general conference had exceeded its authority in issuing the reformation
30:statement. The GC issued a statement on the internet affirming that adcom has the legal right to issue those
30:statements and most Adventists never saw that statement.
30:This was the statement. It’s a very catchy title, isn’t it?
30:Um, concerns regarding COVID 19, church governments, and liberty of conscience.
30:It barely made a ripple in the Adventist world because it was on Advent News Network. Most people never saw this statement, but you can look at the website. It’s still there to this day.
30:This came from the uh you as you read it for yourself, it’s clearly written by attorneys. So the the office of general legal counsel at the general conference
30:they issued this statement and argued that the the um the the adcom under section 4.1 power to act um this is this
31:is the clause that gives the adcom the right to override the conscience of members worldwide. It says administrative issues as they arise. So
31:ADCOM can respond to administrative issues as they arise and give general counsel to world church entities as requested.
31:Now, you may look at that and you say, “Does that give them the right to override my conscience?” And according to the GC, yes, it does.
31:And that’s clearly that must be a lawyer that put that together. Yes.
31:But that’s the clause they claim. It’s in black and white. You can look it out for yourself. They ask, “Did the GC adcom exceed it authority?” They say, “No, we have this section 4.1 general
31:administrative actions power to act. The the general conference act adcom has a can respond to administrative issues as
31:they arise and give general counsel to world church entities as requested.
31:And you say, well, that wasn’t in the 28 fundamental beliefs. No, it wasn’t. And it wasn’t in your baptismal vows either.
32:So why does this phrase here, despite what the GC lawyers say, why does this
32:phrase not give the general conference the right to override your liberty of conscience? There are at least four
32:reasons. The first is this. Vaccination mandates imposed by private employers in
32:countries worldwide are not an internal administrative issue for the general conference.
32:The general conference can respond to administrative issues. That’s that’s within the boundaries of their jurisdiction.
32:So when you establish the Upper Columbia Conference here and it’s a legal entity, what jurisdiction? What’s the area of jurisdiction of the upper Columbia
32:conference? So if this is the legal boundary of the upper Columbia conference, we return tithes and offerings here and the executive committee has jurisdiction over the the
32:tithes, the offerings, the employees and the institutions and buildings. That’s where it has jurisdiction. But the Upper
33:Columbia Conference Executive Committee cannot vote on where you live, who you marry, what you eat, or what job you have. Has no jurisdiction over that.
33:Would you agree with me? So there are boundaries to jurisdiction and the general conference has adcom has jurisdiction over administrative issues
33:that is within the church. They don’t have administration jurisdiction over administrative issues within federal government or within Ford Motors Corporation or within your home. So when
33:they use this clause to say that they can they can issue the reaffirmation statement the first response is vaccination mandates from private
33:employers worldwide are not internal administrative issues for the general conference. Therefore, you cannot use this clause here to as the basis, legal
33:basis for you to issue the reaffirmation statement. The second reason is is that GC administrators have no jurisdiction over private sector employment relations
33:between employers and SDA employees worldwide. If you’re employed by Ford Motor Corporation or FedEx or whoever it may be, um the GC administrators, they
34:have no jurisdiction over what happens in that relationship. And so therefore you cannot claim that they can use this
34:clause as they have and they do this this cl this statement is still in the public. This is the still the rationale they use. Uh they cannot use this
34:because GC administrators have no jurisdiction over private sector employers and their relations with their employees. The third reason why they’ve
34:exceeded their authority is that the reaffirmation statement was not issued internally via internal denominational channels as council to world church
34:entities. Now the phrase world church entities this is this is administrative jargon and an entity in in Adventist
34:administrative speak um every year the general conference produces what’s known as the yearbook and the yearbook lists
34:all the divisions and then all the conferences unions and all the conferences and all the churches and all all the properties and all the
34:publishing houses and all the schools and all the clinics and whatever whatever institution the church owns is in the yearbook. book. So, Upper
35:Columbia Conference is in the yearbook, but FedEx is not because it’s not controlled by the church. You following me? And a world church entity and in our
35:administrative speak in the Adventist church, if you are a world church entity, that means you must be within the yearbook. You following this? But
35:private sector employers are not within the yearbook. They’re not world church entities. So, the the adcom is allowed
35:to respond, give counsel to world church entities. So they can give council to upper Columbia conference but they can’t give council to this high school.
35:Okay? Because that’s not within the yearbook. The problem is that if they wanted to give counsel just to world church entities, they would have used
35:internal communications channels, email mostly these days. What they did was they posted it on the website of the
35:general conference so that every government worldwide and every health authority and every employer worldwide could see it.
36:And you say, well, did employers act upon it? I have a close friend who’s uh just retired from the military. He was 20 years a flight surgeon in the Navy.
36:He was in the Pentagon in uh October, November 21. and he was in the room when the Pentagon downloaded all of the
36:official vaccination statements from all the Protestant denominations and they said there is a general conference from the Adventists they thought it was a general like a military rank there is a
36:general conference who’s issued a statement from behalf of Adventists and based on that statement the um the every religious waiver request from every
36:Adventist service member was presumptively denied in the Pentagon in October 21.
36:That’s how that statement was used. So the question is, did the adcom have the rights to issue a statement that went to every government health authority
36:employee worldwide? Yes or no? No. They could only res give council to world church entities within the yearbook, but
37:the federal government is not within the yearbook as far as we’re aware. So such a distribution online to every employer
37:worldwide goes far beyond the scope of advent of adcom’s role to give council just to world church entities. You
37:following the logic on this? What I’m demonstrating is they’ve exceeded their authority. That’s known as corporate negligence. If they admit to this, they’d be subject to litigation. That’s
37:why nobody wants to talk about this in our church. And the fourth reason why they’ve gone beyond their scope of authority is ADCOM has never been given
37:general author any authority to give general counsel to non-Sta employers or governments worldwide. So, ADCOM cannot
37:issue count uh counsel to private sector employees. They can only give it to world church entities and they can only deal with internal administrative
37:issues. So along those four dimensions, it is clear that the adcom has exceeded its authority under that particular
37:clause and that is the clause that the general conference claims gives them the right to issue the reaffirmation statement.
38:This was an act of corporate negligence that caused immense harm to members worldwide. And this is the problem.
38:If they issued the reaffirmation statement and then realized, “Oh, we’ve messed up here,” that’s one thing. What the
38:general conference has done and said, “We issued the reaffirmation statement and then we issue this other press release at the end of January 22 saying
38:we have the right to do this.” So, we have the we issue a statement that says we can override your conscience. And then when they’re
38:challenged in public by a sermon that I gave, the GC issues another statement on Advent News Network saying, “Oh, we have the right to do this.” So not only have
38:we created a precedent, we’ve created a legal justification in the eyes of the GC. What does that mean? Means this is now baked into the system and the next
38:time similar mandates come along, we can expect the same response from the GC, which is to throw the members under the bus. The reaffirmation statement was no
38:accident. It was deliberate. It was a power play for the general conference to assert control over the bodies and consciences of all Adventists worldwide.
39:And what does the spirit of prophecy have to say about this? We read this in great controversy 596. It says, “Christ
39:foresaw that the undue assumption of authority indulged by the scribes and Pharisees would not cease with the dispersion of the Jews.
39:He had a prophetic view of the work of exalting human authority to rule the conscience which has been so terribly a cursed to the church in all the ages.
39:And his fearful denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees and his warnings to the people not to follow these blind leaders that is those who presume to
39:exalt human authority over human conscience. Those are blind leaders according to this definition here. His warnings not to follow those blind
39:leaders were placed on record as an admonition to future generations. Let me put it in plain English. What sister White is saying here is that any leaders
39:who presume to exalt human authority to rule over the conscience are blind leaders and we are not to follow those leaders today in the church.
40:That’s the implication of what she’s saying. We are not to follow the GC or conferences today that support the mandate statements.
40:And this is when she says this is a denunciation his fearful denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees because they presume to
40:exalt human authority to rule over the conscience. Then if you were to apply that today is it is that Christ gives a fearful denunciation to the GC officers
40:today who presume to exalt human authority over individual conscience.
40:These are profound words.
40:We are dealing with an existential problem in our worldwide body.
40:The fourth kind of entropy is between administrators and ideology.
40:What are you talking about here, Dr. Vine? Well, in the North American division, we are witnessing the rapid advance of a progressive worldview that
41:is antithetically opposed to the word of God as a summary statement. And you may say, “Oh, Dr. Vine, you’re exaggerating
41:this.” this. No, I’m not exaggerating this. We are seeing the rise of a post-biblical ideology that is rooted in
41:cultural Marxism that has taken root among our educators and our administrators.
41:And that cultural Marxism is rooted in the writings of KL March KL Marx who was a Satanist which means we are seeing the spirit of
41:Satan take over our administrators and our educators. And if that sounds harsh then consider the evidence.
41:September 2025, the Central States Conference, which is a regional conference, issued a statement in response to Charlie Kirk’s death. There
41:it is for you on the screen there. And um I understand that Charlie Kirk was a divisive figure to many people,
41:but I don’t want anybody to be killed for espousing their views in public.
42:We should not celebrate the murder of anybody because God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life.
42:So this statement from the central states conference included the following phrase. It says the statement is also
42:spiritual because Paul emphatically says do not be deceived. God is not mocked for what whatsoever a man shall shall show that shall he reap.
42:Now, in quoting Galatians 6 and:e 7, the Central States Conference was strongly implying that the murder of Charlie Kirk was an act of divine judgment.
42:Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.
42:If you’re using that phrase in relation to the murder of a public figure, you’re saying that he deserved it and it was God’s will that he be murdered.
42:This is one of our conferences that says this.
42:We go on. Let’s just move through the month, shall we? Just so far this year, January 10 and January the 17th, you
43:have two Sabbaths at Lom Minda School of Religion, which is a institution owned by the General Conference. They hosted
43:um the LGBTQ week. They held a movie on January the 17th, 2026 in Centennial Complex called Mama Bears. It’s a
43:documentary that provides advocacy for parents for LGBTQ children. And following the p the film, there was a panel discussion encouraging LGBTQ
43:advocacy and the normalization of the LGBTQ lifestyle in the Adventist church. This was happening at Lominda.
43:And in case you are unaware of it, on the board of Linda is the general conference president, secretary, treasurer, and vice president Tom Lemon.
43:All of whom are paid from the tithes that we return here in Washington state.
43:January this year, the NE has a message magazine. I didn’t know this, but it exists. It’s called the message magazine. There’s the website there.
44:It’s actually um an encyclopedia of how to be a so a Marxist social justice warrior. It is filled with progressive
44:language. And uh this article encouraged our young people to become cultural Marxist social activists. And so this is
44:an article about the moray mandate, conscience over compliance. It’s basically saying you have to rise up and rebel against ICE and deportation of illegal aliens.
44:This is uh what the what the the paragraph says. Um so I don’t have it down here, but uh anyway, you can see it for yourself.
44:There’s the author there, Message Magazine, January 26. That article is paid by somebody is written by somebody
44:who’s repaid from the tithe and is paid by the North American Division basically encouraging our young people to become
44:um social justice warriors with a cultural Marxist worldview.
44:February this year, the Pacific Union Recorder published an article entitled Honoring God through Science and Scripture. The thesis of which was that
45:um Darwinism actually honors God and should never be opposed.
45:Now admittedly, the Pacific Union did retract that article a few weeks later emphasizing that the article did not reflect their views, but the fact is
45:they published the article in favor of theistic evolution. And once you accept theistic evolution, you have denied the entire plan of salvation. And why is
45:that? Because if you believe there are cycles of life and death and life and death and life and death for millions of years before Adam and Eve evolve and come into existence, that means that
45:there was life and death and life and death and life and death before the fall in the Garden of Eden.
45:And the Bible says that the wages of sin is death. But if you accept that there was death long before the fall and the wages of sin is not death and if the
45:wages of sin is not death, then you don’t need a savior to save you from sin. That means you nullify the need for Jesus Christ, the Messiah of God. So at
45:a stroke, you’ve done away with the need for the plan of salvation. So this was what happened in April this year. Um over there in the Pacific Human Report
46:in Recorder, April 2026, Spectrum published an article entitled The Quiet Witness and Prodigious Career of
46:Pioneering Gay Adventist Pastor Lee Flynn.
46:When he came out as gay 20 years ago, he was fired as a pastor. But for the last 20 years in a same-sex marriage, as they
46:call it, uh since July 2000, he’s been a local church pastor at the um uh one of the church p churches in Southern
46:California. I think it was Glendale Adventist Church. He’s portrayed in this article as a pioneer for gay rights within the Adventist church. And what is
46:particularly noteworthy is he was never banned from any Adventist pulpits. He was allowed to serve for 20 years in a same-sex marriage in an Adventist pulpit.
46:Maybe some of this I don’t know whether you’re aware of all these things but this is what’s been happening June this year last year university hosts their
47:0047 minuteslavender graduation of the LGBT class of 2026 the graduates will celebrate quote resilience and resistance end quote
47:presumably that means resistance to the word of God.
47:Uh here you have um a discussion at Lassier. This is a discussion of whiteness. Is the religion of whiteness
47:a barrier to authentic Christian community? What they’re talking about is critical race theory. If you’re not familiar with critical race theory, it was uh developed by the first
47:African-American tenure law professor at Harvard called Derek Bell. And there are various aspects of critical race theory.
47:One of which divides the world into oppressors and oppressed, which is the cultural Marxist worldview. You have the concept of intersectionality.
47:Um so that you’re oppressed along multiple panes of existence. So um if you are for instance black, female and gay and handicapped you’re you’re you’re
47:discriminated against in four bases in society that’s what intersectionality is. But professor Derek Bell his unique contribution to critical race theory was
48:omething called the interest convergence hypothesis. And the interest convergence hypothesis says this. I’m summarizing it here. He basically said,
48:”White people are so intrinsically evil that even if a white person, such as a white liberal, does something to ostensibly help the plight of black people in America, that white person is
48:never actually acting to benefit black people in America, they’re acting to to perpetuate white supremacy and the subjugation of the black people. So by
48:by interest convergence hypothesis that means the interests of a black community and interests of a white supremacist even if they’re a liberal the white
48:supremacist is never acting in front in on behalf of the African-American brothers and sisters they are acting to perpetuate white supremacy as as as you
48:saw it what this means is that white people are intrinsically and for forever will be evil and this is why you see the
48:logic of segregation in college campuses these days because white people are intrinsically evil and can only do harm to black to black people. And to protect
49:0049 minutesblack students, you have to segregate them and protect them from the evil influence of white authors, white students, white professors. If this makes you feel uncomfortable, I’m just telling you the truth here. All right?
49:The logical conclusion of of this of this kind of ideology is not just segregation.
49:It’s the elimination of the problem race, which is genocide. That’s the logical conclusion. Lassiiera University
49:is talking about the religion of whiteness. They are discussing the application of critical race theory in the Adventist church.
49:Again, this is this is a demonic ideology that only leads to social breakdown and hatred.
49:Here you have Lassier June 6, the um Lavender graduation. They posted the pictures on Fulcrum.
49:This is the Adventist Chapel, the Adventist University of Lassier just two weeks ago. And uh here you have the
49:president uh Crystal Arthur celebrating with the graduates with the rainbow flag um there in the chapel there at Lassiier
50:University. A chapel paid for by the the offerings of faithful members over the years.
50:Um then you have the celebration by the graduates. This lady is a female pastor
50:at Lassier, part of the women’s ordination push. For those of those people who say that women’s ordination does not lead to
50:same-sex ordination, samesex marriage, the evidence is right in front of us.
50:Just a few weeks ago, Adventist um health the White Memorial Hospital, I’m sure Ellen White was delighted to know
50:about this, um celebrated Pride, Pride Month in June. The post says, “Adventist health. We believe that whole person
50:care starts with honoring what makes you uniquely you. This Pride Month, we continue to care for our beautifully diverse community, inspiring health,
50:wholeness, and hope for all because we are made to love, grow, and experience life to the fullest.
51:0051 minutesAnd I’m not sure if Sister White were alive today, she would be making posts such as that.” Um, this is uh August uh October 2024.
51:uh our previous GC president, Pastor Wilson. We don’t agree on everything, but I agree with him on this. He spoke at the annual council and he he
51:basically he he made a sermon and all the union presidents from around the world were there including North America and all the division presence and all
51:the officers and what he said is if you do if do if you do not uphold what the Bible teaches and he was referring to human sexuality
51:and biblical marriage. That’s what he was referring to. But if you look at this on YouTube, it’s been deleted out so it doesn’t get banned by YouTube. But that’s what he was talking about. He
51:said, “If you cannot believe what the Bible teaches on these things, I’m asking you to resign.” And he did that in the annual council two years ago,
51:which tells you that even the GC president knows we have a problem because he’s calling the union presidents who don’t agree with what we teach from scripture. He’s calling them
52:0052 minutesto resign. Maybe you can play the clip there from the from the audio visual desk. you as a leader
52:cannot accept the word of God as it reads, I urge you to resign your position.
52:And I would agree with him.
52:What he’s saying is tithe should not go to unsanctified workers.
52:The tithe is holy and it should not support men and women who support that which God has declared to be an abomination. What does the spirit of prophecy say about these things? She
52:wrote this in 1893 in the review and herald. And I read this, it really struck me. She says, “Of those who boast of their light,” she’s speaking about
52:Adventists, “and yet failed to walk in it. Christ says, “But I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for Ty and Siden
52:on the day of judgment than for you, and thou,” then she adds herself, seventh Adventists, who have had great light,
52:which are exalted into heaven in point of privilege, shall be brought down to where? Hell. For if the mighty works
53:which have been done in thee have been done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day.
53:As I read the spirit of prophecy, it’s very clear that God will bring judgment upon those parts of the Adventist movement that are celebrating the works of Sodom and Gomorrah.
53:Let’s be clear about this. Let’s call a spade a spade. It’s not pleasant to speak about this.
53:This will be on the internet. I’m sure this sermon will not be have many positive likes among some church leaders here in North America. But this is the
53:council of the warning of the spirit of prophecy. This is the word of Christ to the Adventist church today. You’ve had great light.
53:But if you continue in the works of Sodom, you’ll go down to hell. It’s a sobering message, is it not?
53:It’s a sobering message. We are a house divided in North American division. We have two worldviews in our division. We have the Bible faithful Adventists.
54:We have the progressive Adventists. And they are mutually incompatible. We have nothing in common other than the name.
54:And what has happened is that we have two worldviews on different planets, but we’re held together by a common financial system. And the progressives now control the financial mechanisms.
54:And not only do they control it, but now they are now overtly weaponizing it against the Bible faithful Adventists.
54:This may be hard to hear, but I’m supposed to speak the truth from the pulpit.
54:We speak the truth because unless you speak the truth, you cannot have healing. Truth is a prerequisite for healing.
54:And we want there to be healing for all parts of our church.
54:Not just for our leaders, but we want our young people to know that we serve a God who can make you a new creation.
54:We are a house divider. When I became an Adventist, I naively assumed that our leaders actually believe our fun fundamental beliefs. Now I discover that
55:many in the North American division, our institutions and our unions, those who sit on these college boards, they give lip service to the fundamental beliefs
55:when claiming tithe while pushing progressive ideologies that are leading our young people to the pits of hell.
55:So what is the impact of this institutional entropy?
55:What I see in our church today is that an authoritarian spirit that has no place in God’s kingdom has taken over our administrative elites.
55:Members worldwide, not just in North America, are suffering under a culture of increasing pastoral and administrative absolutism.
55:Our administrators will accept no challenge to their absolute power over the members, their bodies, or their consciences.
55:What I’ve seen is that the church manual is applied only selectively. always in favor of the conference when needed, but never to defend the members.
55:It is only through the seeking of the Holy Spirit can we reverse this corporate entropy and breathe life back into our corporate carcass.
56:We desperately need today to [clears throat] listen to the witness of the the fa the council of the faithful and true witness of Revelation 3:14
56:or we will perish under God’s judgment in our Leodysianism. Leodysians are lost unless they repent.
56:For the last five or six years, there have been many requests for the red address of these grievances.
56:Petitions are signed. They are sent to the general conference and just ignored.
56:They’re not even acknowledged. Preachers are banned. Bible faithful pastors in parts of our nation are being fired or
56:have been fired or banned from preaching. There’s one in this room here, not me, who’s gone through that as well. GC delegates have been
56:deplatformed for fear they would raise awkward questions at GC sessions.
56:Congregations who promote truth rather than the false narratives of the GC of co and wokeism are being crushed such as
57:village. Faithful members are being demonized in denominational media. Those who were not vaccinated were compare work were compared unfavorably to
57:jihadis who killed polio aid workers in Afghanistan in the review in 2022.
57:Present truth preachers are banned. They are smeared and they are vilified.
57:Sometimes they’re publicly banned. But generally there’s a can culture of there’s a culture of soft council culture where pastors are told if you
57:have this preacher in your church then you will be banned or fired. So what do we need as a church? We need the baptism
57:of the Holy Spirit. We need to heed the true counsel of the true and faithful witness of Revelation 3:14.
57:The church in the Leodysian era is lost unless she hears the voice of Jesus Christ and repents of the wickedness
57:that has led her to accumulate great material wealth but has left her spiritually impoverished.
58:What does reformation look like? I believe that what we need our general conference today and our leaders to do is these seven things. One is to heed
58:the council of the true and faithful witness of Revelation 3 and and dwell on what it means for us today. means for the GC to withdraw from its partnership
58:with the UN which is the source of much of our present ill ill will ill ills fruit. We are in a union with the United
58:Nations and the antichrist. We cannot we cannot speak prophetically when we are subjugated to the antichrist for the
58:reaffirmation statement that should be revoked and they should give the assurance to the members that such a statement will never be issued again in the Adventist
58:world. Our institutions need to publicly pledge that they will honor and uphold scriptural truths as encapsulated in our
58:fundamental beliefs and reject woke ideologies in the classroom and in public events.
58:We need to cease the council culture against Bible faithful preachers. And our leaders need to repent of of their authoritarianism and learn what servant leadership looks like again.
59:So what do you do as members? We’ve petitioned, we’ve prayed, we’ve fasted, we’ve written letters, nobody ever responds, nobody listens, nobody cares.
59:Why is that? Because the leaders know that the members have no mechanism to drive change.
59:We make them complain, but if your conference doesn’t want to listen, there’s not a lot any not a lot anybody can do about it. And as I travel around
59:the world, I see that many Adventists are kind of steaming in frustration. And steam if it rises let’s say from your kitchen kettle it just dissipates into
59:the air. So steam on itself doesn’t do any good. But if you can channel that steam that that steam can turn a turbine that will generate electricity. So you
59:have to find a mechanism that will channel that steam to turn the turbine to generate electricity and the electricity represents the force that
59:can bring these attention matters to the attention of our leaders in a way that they understand in a way that they are likely to respond to. Which brings me to
1:00:this question here. what can we do as members? And I’m going to speak about tithe.
1:00:I spoke about tithe for 15 seconds in 2024 and my life fell apart.
1:00:So, we’re going to get it 15 minutes now and see what happens.
1:00:Firstly, [clears throat] some biblical principles. Tithe belongs to the Lord.
1:00:It does not belong to administrators or to any conference. No conference has a divine right to tithe. Abraham returned tithe to MelkiseDC, a type of Christ.
1:00:And we returned tithe to Jesus Christ.
1:00:He is the head of the church. We have a we have a moral obligation to return tithe to Jesus Christ as a recognition
1:00:that we are created beings that all good blessings in our life are a gift from our heavenly father. So I believe and
1:01:I’ve practiced all my life the the the practice of tithing. My wife and I have t tithed our entire life. We tithe on
1:01:gross. For many years as married, maybe the first uh I don’t know 15 years of marriage raising our kids, we had one income. And you know, one income means
1:01:that um you know you when you you don’t you have one car, it’s an old car. You don’t eat out. Your kids dress in dress
1:01:me downs. My wife has has shopped most of our married life in Goodwill. And uh whenever we go to somewhere that’s
1:01:really nice, we go to Goodwill because you get nice clothes in nice areas with Goodwill. All right? So, we’ve learned these things. The shoes I wear, the jackets I wear, mostly from Goodwill.
1:01:That’s how we get by. All right? But I’ll tell you this, in 26 years of marriage, we have never gone into debt.
1:01:Do you know how what a blessing it is to never go into debt and not have medical bills and have healthy bodies and healthy children? This is a blessing
1:01:from the Lord. I can say today that when you are faithful in returning your tithe to the Lord, the storehouse of heaven is poured out upon you. And it’s an
1:02:absolute blessing to live with the assurance of God’s blessing. But each one of us has three choices to make. The first is this.
1:02:You can return your your tithe in the form of dollars to the regular lines as we read in the spirit of prophecy as your local conference.
1:02:That’s what Michigan would say. They say you can only return to your local conference. But I believe you can return your tithe to any conference that is faithful to scripture.
1:02:That’s one option we have.
1:02:The second option is to recognize in the Bible, nobody ever returned tithe as money. There’s not a single instance of tither as money. It was always food.
1:02:There is not a single case in the Bible of tithe being paid as money. There is only one verse in the Bible in Deuteronomy that talks about tithe and money. And it says, “If you live far
1:02:away from the Lord, from the place that Lord shall designate, and you cannot bring your agricultural produce to the tabernacle, then you’re to sell the produce and turn it into money, and
1:03:you’re to bring the money to the place that the Lord shall designate, which is the tabernacle.” And it doesn’t say give the money. It says buy food and feast on that food.
1:03:There is not a single instance in the Bible of tithes being linked to money.
1:03:If you’re going to return a bi a faithful tide that is biblical, then we should be ordering rice and beans on Walmart and drop shipping it to the Upper Colombia conference.
1:03:Now, I ran this idea by two conference presidents. I won’t mention which conference presents, but one’s in America and one’s in Europe. These are
1:03:solid, faithful Bible conference presidents. and they both burst into rockus laughter and said, “Don’t you dare talk about that.”
1:03:But if you are going to return a biblical tithe, ordering, you know, £200 of beans and shipping it to the conference is a faithful tithe.
1:03:And in America, if you give an inkind contribution, it’s still taxdeductible.
1:04:All you need is a letter from the conference or your local church that says he gave 200 pound of beans and then you attach that letter from the church a
1:04:receipt of an inkind contribution to the bill and that’s taxdeductible same as your tax deductible receipt is for money. You’re all aware of that. I hope I’m serious. This is deadly serious.
1:04:We’re not This is no laughing matter.
1:04:It’s still taxdeductible to give rice, beans, canned vegetable, and olive oil to the conference.
1:04:Now, I’m getting ahead of myself here.
1:04:Does God hold me responsible for the apostasies of those who use the financial tithe that I return? The answer is yes.
1:04:This phrase appears twice in the spirit of prophecy. There are fearful woes for those who preach the truth but are not
1:04:sanctified by it. And also for those who consent to receive and maintain the unsanctified to minister to them in word
1:04:and doctrine. So if you consent to receive or to maintain unsanctified gospel workers, God has reserved for you fearful woes.
1:05:It’s not a case of hand it over and just trust. It’s not a case of you just hand it over and that that’s your part done.
1:05:Clearly in the spirit of prophecy, we don’t have time to do this today, but pastor Al Fletcher has got a superb collection of of three or four pages in spirit of prophecy on this. We are to
1:05:prayerfully consider to whom we return our tithe, where we send our tithe, and we are not to return tithe to institutions or conferences that uphold or maintain unsanctified workers.
1:05:There are fearful woes for you today if you return tithes to a conference system in the NAD that’s promoting all this moral garbage.
1:05:Friendship with this world is enmity with God. James 4:4.
1:05:If you support and maintain that which God has expressly called an abomination, that makes you an enemy of God.
1:06:So do not blindly return tithe to a system that is upholding abominations in front of our faces on a monthly basis
1:06:and is essentially spitting in the faces of Bible faithful Adventists.
1:06:I should calm down, shouldn’t I?
1:06:All right. So the second option is return tithe to your local conference or any conference that’s faithful to
1:06:scripture as in Bible times in the form of food.
1:06:Go to Amazon, you know, Walmart, go to some Whole Foods and drop ship your beans to the conference office.
1:06:Now the advantage of this is has price has the price of food gone up in the last 5 years.
1:06:All right. So if you give the conf conference dollars, it’s losing 5% of value a year in the bank. If you give them the price of beans, they’re getting
1:06:an asset that’s appreciating in value 5% every year. You’re doing them a favor. You’re inflationproofing the tithe.
1:07:So in the United States, if you give an inkind donation of food to your local church, you can ask your treasurer to
1:07:give you a letter confirming you paid over 100 pounds of beans or whatever it is. and you attach that letter to the receipt you paid for the food. You can
1:07:include that as a taxdeductible receipt in your annual tax return. It’s a great idea.
1:07:It’s called civil disobedience in a sanctified way. But I can guarantee you
1:07:with inflation running at 4% right now, if 5% of the members of this conference switch to this, the conference has a 10%
1:07:effective shortfall by year end in purchasing power. They’re going to take real careful note of what’s happening.
1:07:And you may say, well, my local conference isn’t involved. I’d say, oh yes, it is. Every conference is complicit because every conference president sits on the ND executive
1:08:committee and every conference president can speak up and they’re not speaking up and they can change the conf the union division administrators and they they
1:08:can change the union administrators who are allowing this moral garbage to flow through our institutions and our conference leaders are not stepping up
1:08:to the plate. Why? Because it takes courage to go against the cultural flow and they’re not doing it. They’d rather
1:08:sit in silence and complain inside, but nobody wants to stand up and reject the wokeism because then you get isolated
1:08:and and and you become a moral or social leper within the structure and your career is finished in the church if you stand up against these godless
1:08:ideologies. So our conference officers are not doing their jobs. Third option for you is this.
1:08:Return tithe to a storehouse in the irregular lines to support a Bible faithful gospel worker.
1:08:That is somebody who’s not a conference employee, but who is a faithful minister of the gospel. By minister, it could be a Bible worker. It could be a foreign
1:09:evangelist. It could be a church planter. It could actually be your local church elders who labor in word and doctrine on a regular basis for your
1:09:church. You could actually return tithes to your local church elders.
1:09:This would be an independent Adventist ministry that’s faithful to scripture and contends for the faith that was given us. As we read in our scripture
1:09:reading Jude verse three, there’s an example of this in scripture. 1 2 Kings
1:09:4:42 says, “A man came from Ba Shales bringing food from the what?
1:09:First fruits to the man of God. This is Elisha. Did they bring the tithe? This is the first fruits. Do they bring it to the tabernacle?” No. They brought it to Elisha who was a prophet. He brought 20
1:09:loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.
1:09:Part of the use of the tithe is to bless the poor.” But we never use the tithe to bless the poor ever. It’s only used to pay for
1:10:denominational employees and their benefits. It’s never used to bless the poor. But here you have an example from
1:10:scripture of an independent ministry, Elisha, who wasn’t paid from the tabernacle. And this man brings him the
1:10:the food from the first fruits, that’s his tithes, and Elisha accepted it. Have you ever realized that other than the book of Ezekiel, every book in the
1:10:Bible’s written by an independent ministry?
1:10:You should think about that. Nobody was a conference employee wrote any book of the Bible. They were all independent ministries.
1:10:every single one of them. So you ask some questions about this.
1:10:Shouldn’t all tithes be channeled through a single structure? The answer is not necessarily.
1:10:The Spalding Megan collection page 441 says this. Do not worry less some mean shall go direct to those who are trying to do missionary work in the quiet and
1:10:effective way. And this is the key sentence. All the means is not to be handled by one agency or organization.
1:11:Now, Sister White uses the phrase the means multiple hundreds of times to refer to tithes and offerings. That’s her shorthand for TNO, tithes and
1:11:offerings. And when she says it is not to be handled by one agency or organization, she was referring here to the general conference in Battle Creek.
1:11:So, what she’s saying is that um not all the tithes and offerings is to flow to through the denominational structure.
1:11:Then you ask the question, is my local conference the storehouse of scripture?
1:11:Well, your local conference, it is a storehouse, but it is not the storehouse. There are multiple
1:11:storehouses. In North America, we have 60 plus conferences. That’s 60 plus storehouses. And what six unions, that’s
1:11:another six storehouses. And we have the division. And so there are multiple storehouses just within the North American division. And this this
1:11:statement by in 2023, and you can see it online. Do any of you get the Adventist Journey magazine? Some of you do.
1:12:Yes.
1:12:Yeah. This is like the journal for the North American Division. Well, Randy Robinson had just retired as the Ned Treasurer who’s retired and he retired a couple of months before he wrote this.
1:12:And in December 23, you can see it online, page four, this is what he wrote. He said, “The Adventist Church defines the storehouse within its own
1:12:structure as the local conference.” Then listen to the next sentence. That definition is not a theological requirement.
1:12:What a stunning admission from the NE treasurer.
1:12:It is not a theological requirements nor is the subsequent flow of tithe throughout the organization.
1:12:It is a policy decision. Yes, he uses the word polity, not policy. It is a polity decision we have simply agreed upon collectively.
1:12:This means that we looked for a way to finance our structure. We looked at tithing in the Old Testament and said that looks nice. We’ll adopt it for ourselves.
1:12:and we said the local conference will be the storehouse. But there is no theological basis for that determination. It’s simply a policy decision.
1:13:There is no theological basis for Michigan Conference being the storehouse for all Michigan Adventists.
1:13:Now, this is something that probably they wish they hadn’t published, but it’s out there and it’s on the internet and you should download it while it’s still up there.
1:13:Does our fundamental belief on stewardship teach that we must return tithes to our local conference? The answer actually is no. What the
1:13:fundamental belief? It has one sentence on tithe. In the the fundamental belief on stewardship, there’s only one sentence relating to tithe. And this is what it says. It says, “We acknowledge
1:13:God’s ownership by faithful service to him and our faithful human beings and by returning tithe and giving offerings for
1:13:the proclamation of his gospel and the support and growth of his church.” Now, does this say you are we believe from scripture that tithe must go to the
1:13:local conference? Yes or no? No. We return tithes to whom according to this?
1:14:We return tithes to to him in order to support the growth of what? His church.
1:14:And then you say that must mean the conference. No, because in our fundamental belief on the church, we have one sentence that defines the church. How do our fundamental beliefs
1:14:define the church? The church is the community of believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. There is no
1:14:legal institutional corporate definition of church anywhere in our fundamental beliefs. You look night and day, you won’t find them from 1 through 28. So
1:14:when we support the growth of the of the church in the fundamental belief on stewardship, we’re supporting the growth of the community of believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
1:14:So there is no mention of our of any legal administrative structure or any conference office in our fundamental beliefs. So you can’t be disciplined for
1:14:saying tithe doesn’t necessarily have to go to the conference because our fundamental beliefs don’t actually teach that
1:14:don’t they don’t teach that can I be dis disciplined for not returning a financial tie to my local conference the
1:15:answer is no the church manual which is voted by the world church uh gives the reasons why you can be disciplined
1:15:but you are not allowed to be disciplined for not returning a tithe to your ical conference. It’s just not there.
1:15:Now, I wouldn’t I would encourage you all to return a faithful tithe to Jesus Christ, but you cannot be
1:15:dysfellowshipped or censured for not returning a tithe to your local conference.
1:15:Did Ellen White give us an example of appropriating tithe directly to gospel workers who are not denominational employees?
1:15:Yes. That was laid out in what is known as the Watson letter. And if you’ve never read the Watson letter, you should read it. She says there, “I have myself
1:15:I have myself appropriated tithes the most needy cases brought to my notice.
1:16:I’ve been instructed to do this and as the money is not withheld from the Lord’s treasury, it is not a matter that should be commented upon.” There’s an interesting statement this.
1:16:We could dwell all day on this one sentence, but um tithe withholding is where you do not return any tithe to the
1:16:Lord. And we should not do that. We should return a faithful tithe to the Lord. Number one, tithe um tithe diversion is using tithe for the purpose
1:16:for which God has not ordained tithe for which is for instance buying a laptop for your relatine class. That’s tithe diversion. That’s not allowed in
1:16:scripture. Tithe appropriation is what Sister White practiced is where you say there are there are gospel workers who are not in the denominational structure
1:16:but they are faithful gospel workers and I can channel the tithe from myself to those faithful gospel workers without going through the the conference treasury and that’s acceptable to God.
1:16:And she says by going straight from me to the gospel worker without going through the conference treasury. She says you’re not robbering the Lord’s treasury in the process.
1:17:So you can give directly to a gospel worker or a faithful gospel ministry and sister white is your example in doing
1:17:this. So the question is who should receive the tithe? Two answers we find in spirit of prophecy. The tithe should go to those who labor in word and doctrine be they men or women.
1:17:Evangelism 492 or welfare ministry page 277. The tithe is to be especially devoted to the support of those who are
1:17:bearing God’s message to the world. So that’s where tithe is to go. Those who proclaim the gospel should make their living from the gospel as the New
1:17:Testament says. Do you have permission to from God to appropriate your tithe directly to gospel workers? The answer
1:17:to that is yes. Sister White says in special instructions here, these are all online. You can read them for yourself.
1:17:She says, “The Lord has made us individually his stewards. And God does not lay upon you the burden of asking the conference or any council of men,
1:17:whether you shall use your means, that is your tithes and offerings, as you see fits to advance the work of God.” And when you value when you add that to the
1:18:fact that fearful woes await those who consent to receive or maintain, those who are unsanctified, that means you need to choose and think
1:18:and pray and ask for leading of the Holy Spirit as to where I am to return my tithe. Because if Upper Columbia conference president does not publicly
1:18:object to all this garbage from Lom Minda and Lassier and all the rest of it, he’s complicit in it. And if you support that conference structure, then
1:18:fearful wos from God are coming down your path.
1:18:Now, um, final question.
1:18:Does God hold me responsible for the apostasies of those use my tithe? Yes, we do. We already covered that. There’s
1:18:a fantastic book on this, Tithes and Offlings, Trampling the Conscience by Standish and Standish.
1:18:This library went online this Wednesday. You can now get it at standishlib.org.
1:19:You can get the book. You can get the PDF. I would encourage you to read it.
1:19:It’s one of the finest studies of what the Spirit of Prophecy says about tithing that you’re going to find in the Adventist church.
1:19:So, what do we say then in conclusion?
1:19:I’ve got a burning tower of Babel up there as you can see. I want to say this.
1:19:My loyalty to Christ must override my loyalty to any failing institution.
1:19:Friendship with the world is emity with God.
1:19:To directly support with my money though the tithes I return that which God condemns as an abomination brings me under God’s condemnation.
1:19:I’ve spoken about true and free Adventists before. I mean, I literally have contact with them in Russia. We talk on Zoom. They do exist.
1:19:But I’m I want to use true and free Adventists in this sense that I’m a true true and free Adventist in the sense that I’m true to the beliefs of
1:20:scripture as taught by our church. And I’m free from any denominational, institutional, UN or papal control over my conscience or over my body.
1:20:Um, I need to speak carefully here if I haven’t already needed to speak
1:20:carefully, but I need to speak carefully now.
1:20:Um, a prominent a prominent preacher with African heritage contacted me a while ago and
1:20:wanted to chastise me for my position on liberty of conscience. And I said, “Brother,” I said, “Would you agree with me that the transatlantic slave trade, which
1:20:took millions from West and South Africa, across the Atlantic to South America, North America, would you agree with me that was one of the greatest
1:20:crimes in human history, spanning centuries and millions of souls?” Yes.
1:20:And how many years did those Africans fight for to have agency over their own bodies for centuries?
1:21:They rose up in Haiti with a rebellion and gained their freedom.
1:21:And how is it that just a few years after gaining civil rights in America with the Civil Rights Act in what 1964
1:21:was it? How is it that within one lifetime we have Adventists with an African heritage just yielding control of their bodies once more to another person?
1:21:If if you fought against slavery, then you should be fighting for your ability to have agency over your own body and your own conscience.
1:21:And it just strikes me as strange that so many African-American Adventists and particularly our regional conferences were gung-ho on the mandates
1:21:and said to their members, “Yes, we’ve escaped slavery, but now we must submit to a new form of slavery.”
1:22:I said, “Why is it that you have yielded agency over your own body so quickly?
1:22:If you preach about the evils of slavery, why do you submit to slavery all over again? And there was no answer.
1:22:But we have to have critical thinking.
1:22:We have to think about the implications of what we’re doing.
1:22:When the mark of the beast is imposed, I believe that most parts of our structure will simply be swept away
1:22:because if you neither buy nor sell, you can’t bank, you can’t rece, you can’t process payroll, you can’t receive tithe, the conference is essentially
1:22:null and void if it’s not legally um de uh if it does not lose its legal registration.
1:22:But we don’t from the spirit of prophecy that the final crisis that large parts of the structure will be swept away.
1:22:Today some of us find ourselves outside the denominational walls like literally today.
1:23:But one day there aren’t going to be any denominational walls and we’re not we’re all going to be outside those walls because there won’t be any walls anymore.
1:23:It’s only a question of how you get outside the walls.
1:23:And when it happens once again, we will be a movement of
1:23:house churches focused on local ministry. Sister White says, going doortodoor in that final crisis.
1:23:We’ll be a ministry of house churches with local elders and deacons and deacons without an administrative structure that
1:23:can betray us once again into the hands of the esqueological foes of God and his people.
1:23:You may be outside the walls today, but you’re still within the faith.
1:23:And one day, we’re all going to be outside the walls, but by God’s grace, we’ll still be within the faith.
1:23:So, it really doesn’t matter whether you’re in the walls today or outside the walls because one day those walls will be gone. What matters is are you within the faith?
1:24:So, what what am I asking you for today?
1:24:What am I challenging today? And for those of you going to watch this online, what I want to challenge you is this.
1:24:If we want to channel all this energy, if we want to capture all that steam that’s rising around the avenous world of frustration and disappointment and
1:24:disillusionment and disengagement, if we want to funnel that, then I want to challenge you today. If you’re watching this and the Holy Spirit has convicted
1:24:you that nobody today from this day forward should return any tithe in the form of many to any Adventist conference, mission or field until the
1:24:following conditions are met. for the general conference to dissolve our union with the United Nations and to revoke
1:24:all the official statements so that we can be the pure bride of Christ and avoid the characteristics of a harlot daughter of Babylon.
1:24:Sister White says that the harlot daughters of Babylon have two characteristics. They enter into alliances with the kings of this world
1:25:and they adopt the doctrines of the papacy. We are in alliance with the nations of this world and by subjugating conscience we’ve adopted papal thinking.
1:25:We’re coming awfully close to meeting Sister White’s definition of a harlot daughter of Babylon. I’m not saying we’re there yet, but we have the characteristics.
1:25:So, what do we want is for our general conference to immediately dissolve the union with the United Nations and all of the statements. Why the statements?
1:25:Because we have the 28 fundamental beliefs. And the administrators know that it takes 10, 15, 20 years to get a
1:25:new administrative belief, but they can issue a new statement in in one day at the general conference that bypasses 20 years of Bible study for the world
1:25:church. And those official statements have teeth. That’s what the world thinks we believe.
1:25:That’s what employers use to harm Adventists in the mandate in the uh co.
1:25:So those official statements are like a quick and easy way for the church leaders to impose new beliefs on us without any input from the members
1:26:worldwide. So we want all the fun all the official statements set aside. It’s the only thing that the church the world should hear from us is the gospel that
1:26:is taught by Jesus Christ. The second thing is no tithe should be paid in the form of money to any conference mission
1:26:field section worldwide until the general conferences apologizes to those who were hurt by the reaffirmation statement and gives the assurance that
1:26:the GC will never again presume to override the conscience the convictions of the Holy Spirit upon the consciences of members worldwide. If the federal
1:26:government, which is a godless entity, can apologize to the service members who were thrown out and call them warriors
1:26:of conscience, if the godless federal government can make an apology, why can’t the Adventist church?
1:26:And what I think about that is that 99.999% of Adventists just want the assurance that we made a mistake and we ain’t
1:26:going to do it again. And the vast vast majority are not going to sue. But we are the body of Christ and we’re supposed to talk about forgiveness and
1:27:reconciliation. It would be nice if we were to practice it. Thirdly, no tithe should be paid, particularly men
1:27:until all of our institutions actually agree to uphold what we believe.
1:27:In the 1930s, Satan attacked the church through evolution.
1:27:My grandfather was a preacher in London in the 1930s and 40s and he preached about evolution all the time because evolution was where Satan was attacking
1:27:the church. In the 1960s and ‘7s, Satan was attacking the church through feminism and that led in our church to the women’s ordination movement. And
1:27:from the years 2010 onwards, Satan has attacked the church through third-wave feminism and the sexual revolution, which in particular is transgenderism.
1:27:And if this is the b the the boundaries of the church here, if Satan is attacking the church here, then preachers have to be defending the church here. If Satan is attacking the
1:27:church here, you can’t be preaching nice soft sermons that are over here. You’ve got to be where the battle is to protect the flock. You’ve got to defend the
1:28:flock as a preacher or a Sabbath school teacher or as a local elder.
1:28:But what we need today is the assurance that all of our colleges, all of our institutions and our
1:28:conferences will actually uphold what we claim to believe.
1:28:That means in terms of marriage, we believe in lifelong monogous heterosexual marriage between one biological adult male and one biological adult female.
1:28:It means that that we will pledge to uphold biblical human sexuality and to reject the sexual revolution in all of
1:28:its manifestations and any attempts to um normalize that which God has condemned among Adventists today.
1:28:And for administrators across the NAD, we want them to stop banning and cancelling Bible faithful present- truth
1:28:preachers, pastors, elders, and Sabbath school teachers. I’m only one of a large number of people that have been this has been done against them. I’m looking at
1:29:some of you now and I know that you’ve gone through this yourselves.
1:29:So no tithe should be made paid unless those four conditions are met. Dissolve our relationship with the UN, set aside all our statements, apologize for the
1:29:affirmation statement and agree to uphold what we believe in all of our institutions. And if our leaders at every level up to and including the GC
1:29:officers themselves and if the leaders of our institutions like Lom Melinda and Lassiiera and our other colleges if they cannot and will not uphold what we
1:29:believe then as Ted Wilson says you need to resign and make way for Bible faithful leaders.
1:29:Such leaders are corrupting our witness to the world.
1:29:A message to SDA leaders today as I finish this.
1:29:I once said in a sermon, “If you go woke, you go broke.” Now I go a step further. If you remain woke, you deserve to go broke and the irregular lines will flourish.
1:30:So make your choice to those SDA leaders who’ve gone woke. If you want to remain woke, go broke.
1:30:You deserve to go broke. and let the irregular lines of faithful ley flourish.
1:30:And for faithful Adventists worldwide who are dismayed and discouraged, disillusioned and disengaged at the moral corruption of our leaders, I want
1:30:to say today, be of good courage. You may think you’re on your own, but God has his 7,000 who’ve not yet bowed the knee to Baal. We are not fighting
1:30:against our church because we are the church. We are contending for the pure faith that’s been passed on to us from
1:30:the apostles onward. And we are striving that we, the body of Christ, will become the pure bride of Christ. We are not
1:30:fighting the church because we are the church. We’re fighting apostasy among our leaders.
1:30:My final slide here is what matters is not our numbers, but what matters is whether our cause is just and of God.
1:31:The time has come for you and I to stand together, to stand up, and to stand tall for God.
1:31:And if our cause is just, who can be against us?
1:31:Everything I have said today is publicly available on the internet. You can see it for yourself. I haven’t made anything
1:31:up. Is factual and true. You may say this won’t affect me, but if you have kids that go to our colleges, it will affect you.
1:31:It’s affecting many people today.
1:31:If there is to be healing in our worldwide church, we have to have truth speakers. There has to be a recognition
1:31:of where we are so that we can have the right diagnosis and identify the right treatment plan. So I say these words
1:31:today not in any anger. I hope you haven’t heard anger in my words. I speak in sorrow for what has come upon our church.
1:32:and my prayer, my yearning, my desires that we can have reconciliation not around the writings of Marks but at the foot of the cross and that we will
1:32:once again uphold and share with the world the pure and the pure love of the everlasting gospel.
1:32:And it’s my prayer tonight today that every conference president, every union officer, the GC officers, the the um the
1:32:uh educators in our institutions, conference and college presidents, that they will look in the mirror and ask themselves whether they are
1:32:faithfully representing Jesus Christ or not.
1:32:I hope and pray that this sermon will not be the cause of division in our church, but will be the cause for coming
1:32:together in repentance, starting with me.
1:32:and that we can as as we come closer to Jesus as individuals, we will automatically come closer one to another. The goal of such preaching is
1:32:not to tear the church down, but it’s that the church can be pure. We can be unified on scripture and that the witness we give to the world is not
1:33:filled with competing and contradictory messages.
1:33:So be of good courage. If the cause is just and God before us, then who can be against us?
1:33:It’s not it’s not just up to preachers to stand and talk about these things.
1:33:But now the matter is in your hands as the leoty. Pray about it and move and act as the Holy Spirit moves upon your
1:33:conscience. May it be between you and God and let no man or institution condemn you for the decisions you make.
1:33:May God bless us as we stand tall in an era of universal apostasy.