Vine — Entropy — Transcript

Uh good morning everybody. Can you hear me out there? Yes. >> [clears throat] >> All right, well it's a privilege to come and share with you again. Um and [clears throat] uh it'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 next to today?" And um I uh this uh young lady sat sat down next to me. And uh she said, "Are you Dr. Vines?" I said, "Well, yes I am." And she said, "Well, I wanted to talk to you." I thought, "Oh, no." And >> [clears throat] >> and uh it turns out uh this lady is a very devout Bible-faithful Adventist um and uh she works as a senior advisor to RFK Jr. in the federal government. And uh I asked her we we chatted for 4 and 1/2 hours all the way from Chicago to Spokane on the plane. The the time just went flew by. And um I I was I was saying to you, you know, "God has placed you like Esther in the midst of a pagan court." And uh she said, "Yes, yeah, they all know about the Sabbath. They all know that I stop work at 4:00 every Friday. And I pick it up pick up again on Sunday. And um you know, you never know who you're going to meet in life. 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 so it was a blessed journey coming across yesterday. I was kind of reluctant when we came in to land cuz it was a really good conversation. It's not often you get to speak with someone 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 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 government policies. And so I 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 like that. So, I bring greetings from my wife. Um, she's back in Berrien Springs today. Um, we've been on the road for about the last 3 months non-stop, and so, um, she's spending this weekend at home, uh, cuz, you know, some things have to have to be taken care of at home, as you know. And, uh, we've just been, uh, had it in Michigan, our camp meeting this week, and the, um, the the text for the camp meeting, the theme text was Isaiah 58:1, which is, "Cry aloud, and spare not, and lift up your voice like a trumpet, and tell my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." Uh, so, I thought that was very appropriate text for the Michigan camp meeting, um, uh, because, of course, you're not allowed to do that in Michigan. So, anyway, [clears throat] what what 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 privilege to come and share with you today. You know, uh, preparing, uh, speaking the word of God is a joy. 2 weeks ago, I was in Slovenia with my wife, we did a an evangelistic series. There'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, and people wrestling with Buddhism, and the occult, and Catholicism, and secularism, and despair. And, you know, by 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." And, and uh, it's just, uh, it just sort of struck me that sometimes we share information for the sake of sharing information. You know, we we're to share it we're to preach in order to gain decisions for Christ, uh, so that people can choose to decide to be in his kingdom, and ready for Jesus when he comes again. 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 other slides, please. Uh, Now is what we're going to do after lunch, and uh, there was it's going to be called entropy uh, and so I'll show you our journey in a few seconds when it comes up on the screen. We're going to go on a little journey here today. >> [clears throat] >> You know, I some some sermons you enjoy preparing and preaching other sermons you feel compelled to put together and to deliver and other sermons it feels like you're going to start you know, you're going to go in for like colonoscopy or some unpleasant medical treatment. And this sermon feels like that. All right. Um >> [clears throat] >> and you know, when when when when when God puts 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 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 own church actually. And what we can do about it as Bible faithful Adventist. So this is our journey here today. We're going to look at entropy in the first dimension among members and pastors, members and conferences, 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 journey we're going to go along today and I I ask you pray for me as I share this because you know, I've I've learned that preaching can change lives. It's changed my life not always in a good way and this has a potential to do the same thing today. So I'm asking you pray for this preacher because when you stand up and you you talk about these realities you understand there's a consequence to be paid for preaching sermons like this. But I pray 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 preach the truth and the consequences of then leaving the hands of God. So let's bow your heads with me and we ask for the presence presence of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we thank you today for the gift of Jesus who came filled with grace and with truth. Lord, he spoke words that won the heart of heart. He spoke words that attracted little children. He spoke words that rebuked Satan. He spoke words of comfort to the grieving moms. He spoke words of hope to the dying thief. And Lord, whatever our words I share this morning, may they be words from your throne of grace. Lord, we are to contend for the faith that has been passed on to us. It's not easy to do that, Father. It's not easy to be the man or woman in the arena. 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, in our division, and our world church. Lord, we pray for our leaders. We pray for our administrators. We pray for our pastors. We pray for our educators. Lord, it's hard to swim against the cultural zeitgeist. Lord, to be healthy in America and to be fit and healthy, you've got to be countercultural. And Lord, to be fit and healthy spiritually, we also have to be willing to go against the popular culture. So Lord, as I share now, I ask that you speak through me and for me. Lord, may we speak these words as was Christ, full of grace and truth, in the hope and the assurance that your word will yield a harvest of righteousness for your kingdom. So Lord, we give these moments into your hands in the name of Jesus we humbly ask. Amen. So you may be asking yourself, what exactly is entropy? And when I was at school, I got out of the sciences as quickly as I could. I hated the sciences. I know if you're a scientist or a medical professional something praise the Lord. I'm grateful for you, but I hated the sciences. I'm not sure why I hated them. I didn't like biology cuz I didn't like you know dissecting frogs on the classroom table and physics was just a mystery to me. But I do remember one thing about physics other than apples drop from trees. What I do remember from 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 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 and that the second law of thermodynamics is the law of entropy. And the law of entropy states that that in the in a in a universe such as ours, the state of entropy will 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 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? It'll become cold, yes. So the hot form will degenerate to the cold form. Another practical example, if you light a bonfire tonight and you put all the wood there and you set it on fire and it burns and burns and burns, will the fire continue burning if you don't keep adding fresh wood? No. So the fire will will eventually burn out. And so this is really what you 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 then just let it run indefinitely, will it run indefinitely or will it wind down and come to a halt? It'll come to a halt, okay? So entropy is the principle that every 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 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 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 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 somebody this week and they'll say, "What's the first?" You have no idea, but we all know now what the second law of thermodynamics is all about. Well, in a from a sociological perspective, all human movements throughout history, they experience what we call entropy. And they that entropy is experienced in different ways. There two ways in particular. Most movements start with 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 that movement. But as you go through time, whatever that human organization is, that human organization degrades to becomes a cold, institutionalized, and controlling system that has lost sight of the original vision. That's institutional entropy. And when that entropy takes place in the human institution, human organizations tend to there there two movements of people. What 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. When the people when the Pope speaks ex cathedra, he's infallible. You can't argue with it. He's speaking for God. And your job is just to accept dogma as a member of the Catholic Church. So, over time, sociologically, organizations tend towards authoritarianism and unquestioning submission and obedience. That's where organizations go when they experience entropy. And I've been sitting and watching what's happening within our beloved church here in North America. And we're experiencing entropy. It's evidence in front of our eyes. So, what's the first kind of entropy that we've experienced in the last few year years? The first is the change in the relationship between members and pastors. Now, that change is not good. It's negative. And why do I say that? Well, there was a very famous pastor in 1939. He was German, his name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And he was at a seminary in Upstate New York, and he realized in the spring of 1939 that war was coming to to Europe. And he realized that Adolf Hitler, having having taken the Sudetenland and pushed into modern-day Czechoslovakia, and he had taken the Anschluss, he'd taken Austria for himself, he realized that war was coming to to Germany and to Europe. And rather than staying in safety in Upstate New York, Dietrich Bonhoeffer got on a boat and he sailed back across the Atlantic to be a pastor for the German Confessing Church. Now, when when Adolf Hitler came to power, the church in Germany split into two, and so my Christianity in general, most denominations accepted the Führer as Kirche that they they joined what was known as the Führer-Kirche. That is the Führer's church, 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 Führer. We say that Christ is Lord." And they became known as the Confessing Church. And Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the leaders of the Confessing Church. He wrote a brilliant book about the cost of discipleship. You want to read it because he wrote this in the shadow of Adolf Hitler, and what what means to follow Hitler. He wrote you can get get it on Amazon. It's an incredible book. It's a study on the Sermon on the Mount that obedience and obedience and faithfulness are two sides of the same coin. I'd encourage you to read that book, but as he was going to go back to Germany, he wrote a letter and this is what he wrote. He said, "I've come to the conclusion that I've made a mistake in coming to Germany America at this time. I must live through this difficult period in our national history along with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people." So, he sailed back to Germany in 1939 knowing he was sailing into World War II knowing he was going to Germany as a very visible and public opponent of Adolf Hitler. He ran an underground seminary for pastors, many of them were Lutherans, brave men at the time and he was eventually imprisoned after the July 1944 plot and he was executed two weeks before that before war ended in 1945 May on the personal orders of the head of the SS Heinrich Himmler. He sailed back to Germany because he wanted to be with his flock. What a pastor. 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 BBC, but he sailed back because he understood that sheep need a shepherd and shepherds stick with their flock in hard times, not just in good times. 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 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 will defend the flock. And that is why they trust of the shepherd. They will endure heat, hunger, and drought wherever their shepherd leads because they know that the shepherd exists to defend the flock. But something happened during our pandemic here in North America. Something happened. The Catholic Church said that priests could not write letters of support for members who wanted a waiver. And we adopted the same policy in the North American division. 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 waivers. There was one egregious example. It was in the state of Minnesota where the Adventist pastor would not write the letter of support. The member wrote to the the conference, and they said, "No." She asked um a colleague at a hospital in Central Minneapolis who said, "There's a 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 request. And then she wrote to me, and she says, "So, who exactly is the beast of Revelation 13?" It's a good question. When an old Catholic priest supported this Adventist lady in her religious waiver request. Some pastors did write letters such as Pastor Isaac Olatunji from Stateline Church as just one example. There were some very brave pastors who stood up and stood stood by their flock. But many of our pastors obeyed the conference rules and refused to support their members. We came to realize that our pastors were not actually shepherds who we can trust in times of crisis, but conference employees who pri- whose primary loyalty was to the conference, not to the flock, and to their paychecks. Brothers and sisters, when the mark of the beast comes, every congregation will be led by volunteer elders. Because the system cannot function when you can either know that might neither buy nor sell when the mark of the beast comes. There'll be no paid pastorate in the final crisis of conscience. So, every pastor must decide today if he answers 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 flock that has been entrusted to him or does it is he loyal to his paycheck and conference mandates? He will discover that if he's loyal to God, he may be fired, but he will also discover that while the the conference may have been his employer, God is actually his provider. What does Sister White says about this? Say about this. Prophets and Kings, page 141. So, men who should be standing as faithful of guardians of God's law have argued till policy has taken the place of faithfulness and sin is allowed to go unreproved. When will the voice of faithful rebuke be heard once more in the church? So, there we've gone through one kind of entropy, the relationship between members and pastors. And many pastors are now conference 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 second kind of entropy that we've seen in the last 5 years is the entropy between members and their local conference. 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 from the states of Michigan where we we live under ecclesiastical absolutism. What is quoted to us in every single meeting is from Second Selected Messages. It's a selective quote. It says, "A Christ is the head of the church. 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, exhort to reformation. You must basically sit down, shut up, and pay up. Nobody can question the leadership in Michigan. 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 1864, we established them because for 20 years from 1844 to 1863, Adventists were meeting in barns, in the homes of of people with large homes, in their fields. And that worked well, but what happens if you wanted to to maybe expand the barn? And so, the members would expand the barn, then the owner of the barn would decide to leave the Advent movement, and he'd take that barn with him. And so, people saying, "Well, if we want to um own buildings that we land that we can 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 conferences that are mutual holders of title that do not blackmail local congregations. That was whole one of the rationale of having conferences in the first place. Another rationale of having conferences was that um when when circuit riders went around, let's say Michigan or Indiana or Wisconsin, people 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 what we call them credentials today, so that if a preacher rolled up into town, you'd say, "Show me your credentials." And they would show you their credentials, and then we'd 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. But now we find that whereas whereas we originally started conferences to us to stop wealthy members essentially blackmailing and coercing local congregations, now we find, at least where I come from, that the conference is quite happy to coerce and blackmail the congregation to do what they want, or we won't get the insurance for your property, and it can never open. 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? Is the church the structure? 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? Let me put it this way. If I can let say I use Michigan as an example, if the governments of Michigan were to withdraw the legal registration of the SDA conference in Michigan, would the SDA church cease to exist in Michigan in that moment? No, because the body of Christ would still exist. 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 you 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. What is the result of this entropy in the relationship between members and conferences? We're seeing discouragement, disillusionment, and disengagement as members disengage from tyrannical conference leaders. There's a silent exodus taking place in our division as members move financially and emotionally away from conference leaders. Members are sitting in conference in buildings from Sabbath to Sabbath, but the loyalty to the system has gone. And they're investing their time, their talents, their energy in independent ministries that uphold liberty of conscience. And our response today to this ecclesiastical absolutism that's rising in our division, Fourth Manuscript Release puts it this way. We in 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 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. We are not to have kingly authority in the Adventist work. Why? Because all gifts are equal in the eyes of God. And when you read in in in Romans chapter 12, you read [snorts] that how the spiritual gifts are given, um the the the behavior that is that is asked of those with the gift of leadership is conscientiousness. 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 has given you the 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 call when somebody has a crisis. And so leadership is an invitation to faithfulness and daily service rather than to accumulate power to yourself. The third kind of entropy that we're experiencing is between members and the General Conference. You see up there, we've just we're just registered up in Canada as Needle to the Pole. That's why I'm I'm sticking the Canada stuff up here cuz this will be seen by members in Canada. I want them to know these contact details up there as well. 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 up um to be to have consultative NGO status with the United Nations known as ECOSOC, the economic and social coordination body of the United Nations. And in in order to have consultative NGO status, you have to legally agree to support the spirit, the goals, and the objectives of the United Nations. And most people have no idea what the objectives of the United Nations are. But in so doing, our leaders traded away our spiritual birthright, which is liberty of conscience. Twice in last 50 years, we have issued official statements from our general conference affirming that we support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And people say, "Well, that's a good thing, is it not? We support universal human rights." 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 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 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 says. This is the So, the last two articles, it says there, "In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone 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 and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order, and the general welfare in a democratic society." Now, that's a long sentence. And it goes on to say, paragraph three, "These rights and freedoms may no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." That phrase, "these rights," that includes your liberty of conscience and right to have, practice, or 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. And the United Nations, you have these rights in the exercise of your rights, you are subject to what your 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 democratic society, then they have the right to take it away. And when we officially support this 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. Fauci thinks it's in the interests of a general of general interests of society. Or only in so far as uh the federal government believes it's in the 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 do what what they think is good for society today. So, when you become a Seventh-day Adventist, you're actually because of this statement here, you're saying my freedom liberty of conscience, my religious liberty, this is all basically um it's a temporary provision. It's a temporary allowance that the that I'm allowing the the the uh United Nations to remove at any moment in time. Our liberty of conscience was sold down the river. Our birthright was sold as Esau sold his birthright to Jacob when we signed up for the United Nations and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. 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 dictates of the morally corrupt UN and the papacy which sits on the uh Security Council which is Antichrist. With the October 2021 reaffirmation statement that came out in the pandemic, the GC leaders told all Adventists worldwide that their deeply held prayerful convictions of the Holy Spirit upon their consciences did not provide a legitimate basis to object to becoming a genetically modified Adventist. The GC leaders were asserting the authority to override the convictions of the Holy Spirit on the convictions and consciences of members. And such a claim 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 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 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 punish heresy is one of the most deeply rooted of Adventist errors, sorry, papal errors. It is what it is, brothers and sisters. So, when I said we entered the pandemic as Protestants and left it with a papal spirit, it's absolutely true. 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 Adventist Nobility preached in January '22. Um that sermon changed my life and after that sermon I went home and went down with Omicron, the Omicron variant of COVID. My wife said to me, she says, "Koran, she says, after preaching a sermon like that, you better not die of COVID." So, I didn't die of COVID. I I took um a lot of doses of Ivermectin that night and the next day I was by 24 hours I was back on my feet again and right as rain as we say in England. But after preaching that sermon, an appeal to Adventist Nobility, which uh demonstrated the General Conference had exceeded its authority in issuing statement, the GC issued a statement on the internet affirming that AdCom has the legal right to issue those statements. And most Adventists never saw that statement. This was the statement. It's a very catchy title, isn't it? Um concerns regarding COVID-19 church governments and liberty of conscience. It barely made a ripple in the Adventist world because it was on Adventist news network. Most people never saw this statement, but you can look at the website. It's still there to this day. This came from the as you read it for yourself, it's clearly written by attorneys. So, the the office of general legal counsel of the general conference, they issued this statement and argued that the the the the ADCOM under section 4.1 power to act, um this is this is the clause that gives the ADCOM the right to override the conscience of members worldwide. It says, "Administrative issues as they arise." So, ADCOM can respond to administrative issues as they arise and give general counsel to world church entities as requested. 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. And that's clearly that must be a lawyer that put that together, yes? But that's the clause they claim, it's in black and white, you can look it up for yourself. They asked, "Did the GC ADCOM exceed its authority?" They say, "No, we have this section 4.1 general administrative actions power to act." The and general conference ADCOM has can respond to administrative issues as they arise and give general counsel to world church entities as requested. 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. So, why does this phrase here, despite what the GC lawyers say, why does this phrase not give the general conference the right to override your liberty of conscience? There are at least four reasons. The first is this. Vaccination mandates imposed by private employers in countries worldwide are not an internal administrative issue for the general conference. The general conference can respond to administrative issues. This that's within the boundaries of their jurisdiction. 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 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 tithes, the offerings, the employees, and the institutions and buildings. That's where it has jurisdiction. But, the Upper Columbia Conference executive committee cannot vote on where you live, who you marry, what you eat, or what job you have. It has no jurisdiction over that. Would you agree with me? So, there are boundaries to jurisdiction. And the General Conference uh has ADCOM has jurisdiction over administrative issues that is within the church. They don't have administration jurisdiction over administrative issues within federal government or within Ford Motor Corporation or within your home. So, when they use this clause to say that they can they can issue the reaffirmation statement, the first response is a vaccination mandates from private employers worldwide are not internal administrative issues for the General Conference. Therefore, you cannot use this clause here to uh as the basis legal basis for you to issue the reaffirmation statement. The second reason is is that GC administrators have no jurisdiction over private sector employment relations 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 have no jurisdiction over what happens in that relationship. And so, therefore, you cannot claim that they can use this clause as they have and they do. This this clause this statement is still in the public. This is the still the the rationale they use. Uh they cannot use this because GC administrators have no jurisdiction over private sector employers and their relations with their employees. The third reason why they've exceeded their authority is that the reaffirmation statement was not issued internally via internal denominational channels as counsel to world church entities. Now, the phrase world church entities, this is this is administrative jargon and an entity in in Adventist administrative speak, um every year the General Conference produces what's known as the yearbook. And the yearbook lists all the divisions and then all the conference unions and all the conferences and all the churches and all all the properties and all the publishing houses and all the schools and all the clinics and whatever whatever institution the church owns is in the yearbook. So, Upper Columbia Conference is in the yearbook but FedEx is not cuz it's not controlled by the church. You following me? And a world church entity in in our 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 private sector employers are not within the yearbook. They're not world church entities. So, the the ADCOM is allowed to respond counsel to world church entities. So, they can give counsel to Upper Columbia Conference but they can't give counsel to this high school. 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 internal communications channels. Email mostly these days. What they did was they posted it on the website of the General Conference. So, that every government worldwide and every health authority and every employer worldwide could see it. 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. He was in the Pentagon in uh October November '21 and he was in the room when the Pentagon downloaded all of the official vaccination statements from all the Protestant denominations and they said, "There's a General Conference from the Adventists." They thought it was a general like a military rank. "There is a 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 Adventist service member was presumptively denied in the Pentagon in October '21. That's how that statement was used. So, the question is did the ADCOM have the right to issue a statement that went to every government health authority employee worldwide? Yes or no? No. They could only give counsel to world church entities within the yearbook, but the federal government is not within the yearbook as far as we're aware. So, such a distribution online to every employer worldwide goes far beyond the scope of Advent or ADCOM's role to give counsel just to world church entities. You following the logic on this? What I'm demonstrating is they've exceeded their authority. That's known as corporate negligence. If they would admit to this, they'd be subject to litigation. That's 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 general any authority to give general counsel to non-SDA employers or governments worldwide. So, ADCOM cannot issue counsel to private sector employees. They can only give it to world church entities and they can only deal with internal administrative issues. So, along those four dimensions, it is clear that the ADCOM has exceeded its authority under that particular clause. And that is the clause that the General Conference claims gives them the right to issue the reaffirmation statement. This was an act of corporate negligence that caused immense harm to members worldwide. And this is the problem. If they issued the reaffirmation statement and then realized, "Oh, we've messed up here." That's one thing. What the General Conference has done and "We issued a reaffirmation statement and then we issued this other press release at the end of January '22 saying 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 challenged in public by a sermon that I gave, the GC issues another statement on Adventist News Network saying, "Oh, we have the right to do this." So, not only have 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 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 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. And what does the Spirit of Prophecy have to say about this? We read this in Great Controversy 596. It says, "Christ foresaw that the undue assumption of authority indulged by the scribes and Pharisees would not cease with the dispersion of the Jews." He had a prophetic view of the work of exalting human authority to rule the conscience, which has been so terrible a curse to the church in all the ages. 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 exalt human authority over human conscience, those are blind leaders according to this definition here. His warnings not to follow those blind 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 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. That's the implication of what she's saying. We are not to follow the GC or conferences today that support the mandate statements. And this is when she says, "This is a denunciation, his fearful denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees, because they presumed to exalt human authority to rule over the conscience." Then if you were to apply that today, it says that Christ gives a fearful denunciation to the GC offices today who presumed to exalt human authority over individual conscience. These are profound words. We are dealing with an existential problem in our worldwide body. The fourth kind of entropy is between administrators and ideology. What are you talking about here, Pastor Vine? Well, in the North American division, we are witnessing the rapid advance of a progressive worldview that is antithetically opposed to the word of God. As a summary statement. And you may say, "Oh, Pastor Vine, you're exaggerating this." No, I'm not exaggerating this. We are seeing the rise of a post-biblical ideology that is rooted in cultural Marxism that has taken root among our educators and our administrators. And that cultural Marxism is rooted in the writings of Karl Marx Karl Karl Marx who was a Satanist. Which means we are seeing the spirit of Satan take over our administrators and our educators. And if that sounds harsh, then consider the evidence. September 2025, the Central States Conference, which is a regional conference, issued a statement in response to Charlie Kirk's death. There it is for you on the screen there. And um I understand that Charlie Kirk was a divisive figure to many people. But I don't want anybody to be killed for espousing their views in public. We should not celebrate the murder of anybody cuz God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life. So this a statement from the Central States Conference included the following phrase. It says, "The statement is also spiritual because Paul emphatically says, 'Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For what whatsoever a man sows shall show, that shall he reap.'" Now, in quoting Galatians 6 and verse 7, the Central States Conference was strongly implying that the murder of Charlie Kirk was an act of divine judgment. "Do not be deceived. God is not mocked." 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. This is one of our conferences that says this. We go on. Let's just move through the months, shall we? Just so far this year, January 10 and January the 17th, you have two Sabbaths at Loma Linda School of Religion, which is a institution owned by the General Conference. They hosted um the LGBTQ week. They had a movie on January the 17th, 2026 in the Centennial Complex called Mama Bears. It's a documentary that provides advocacy for parents for LGBTQ children. And following the path the film, there was a panel discussion encouraging LGBTQ advocacy and the normalization of the LGBTQ lifestyle in the Adventist Church. This was happening at Loma Linda. And in case you're unaware of it, on the board of Loma Linda is the General Conference president, secretary, treasurer, and vice president, Tom Lemon, all of whom are paid from the tithes that we return here in Washington state. January this year, the NED has a Message magazine. I didn't know this, but it exists. It's called the Message magazine. There's the website there. It's actually um an encyclopedia of how to be a a Marxist social justice warrior. It is filled with progressive language and this article encouraged our young people to become cultural Marxist social activists. And so this is an article about the Modesto mandate conscience over compliance. It's basically saying you have to rise up and rebel against ICE and deportation of illegal aliens. This is what the what the the paragraph says. Um So, I don't have it down here. But anyway, you can see it for yourself. There's the author there Message magazine January 26. That article is paid by somebody is written by somebody who's paid from the tithe and is paid by the North American division basically encouraging our young people to become social justice warriors with a cultural Marxist worldview. February this year the Pacific Union Recorder published an article entitled Honoring God Through Science and Scripture, the thesis of which was that Darwinism actually honors God and should never be opposed. 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 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 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 evolved and come into existence, that means that there was life and death and life and death and life and death before the fall in the Garden of Eden. 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 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 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 Union Report and Recorder. April 2026, Spectrum published an article entitled The Quiet Witness and Prodigious Career of uh pioneering gay Adventist pastor Lee Lynd. 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 call it, uh since July 2000, he's been a local church pastor at the um one of the church past- churches in Southern 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 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. 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, La Sierra University hosts their Lavender Graduation of the LGBT class of 2026. The graduates will celebrate {quote} "resilience and resistance." {end quote} Presumably, that means resistance to the word of God. Uh here you have um a discussion at La Sierra. This is a discussion of whiteness. Is the religion of whiteness 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 African-American tenured law professor at Harvard called Derrick Bell. And there are various aspects of critical race theory, one of which divides the world into oppressors and oppressed, which is the cultural Marxist worldview. You have the concept of intersectionality, um so that you're oppressed along multiple planes of existence. So, um if you are, for instance, black, female, and gay, and handicapped, you're you're you're discriminated against on four bases in society. That's what intersectionality is. But to Professor Derrick Bell, his unique contribution to critical race theory was something called the interest convergence hypothesis. And the interest convergence hypothesis says this, I'm going to summarize it here. He basically said white people are so intrinsically evil that even if a white person, such as a white liberal, does something to a stance to be help the plight of black people in America, that white person is never actually acting to benefit black people in America. They're acting to perpetuate white supremacy and the subjugation of the black people. So by by interest convergence hypothesis, that means the interest of a black community and the interest of a white supremacist, even if they're liberal, the white 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 he saw it. What this means is that white people are intrinsically and forever forever will be evil. And this is why you see the 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 black 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? The logical conclusion of of this of this kind of ideology is not just segregation. It's the elimination of the problem race, which is genocide. That's the logical conclusion. La Sierra University is talking about the religion of whiteness. They are discussing the application of critical race theory in the Adventist Church. Again, this is a this is a demonic ideology that only leads to social breakdown and hatred. Here you have La Sierra, June 6th, the um lavender graduation. They posted the pictures on Fulcrum. This is the Adventist Chapel the Adventist University of La Sierra just a two weeks ago. And here you have the president, Kristen Arthur, celebrating with the graduates with the rainbow flag there in the chapel there at La Sierra University. A chapel paid for by the the offerings of faithful members over the years. Um then you have the celebration by the graduates. This lady is a female pastor at La Sierra. Part of the women's ordination push. For those of those people who say that women's ordination does not lead to same-sex ordination and same-sex marriage, the evidence is right in front of us. Uh just a few weeks ago, Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital, I'm sure Ellen White was delighted to know about this. Um celebrated Pride Month Pride Month in June. The post says, "Adventist Health, we believe that whole-person care starts with honoring what makes you uniquely you. This Pride Month, we continue to care for our beautifully diverse community, inspiring health, wholeness, and hope for all because we are made to love, grow, and experience life to the fullest." And I'm not sure if Sister White were alive today, she would be making posts such as that. Um this is a August October 2024. 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 basically he he made a sermon, and all the union presidents from around the world were there, including North America, and all the division presidents and all the officers. And what he said is, "If you do not If you do not If you do not uphold what the Bible teaches," and he was referring to human sexuality 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 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 2 years ago, 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 to resign. Maybe you can play the clip there from the from the audio-visual desk, if you can. >> You as a leader cannot accept the word of God as it reads. I urge you to resign your position. >> And I would agree with him. What he's saying is tithe should not go to unsanctified workers. 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 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 Adventists, "and yet fail to walk in it, Christ says, 'But I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.'" And thou, then she adds herself, "Seventh-day Adventists who have had great light, which are exalted into heaven in point of privilege, shall be brought down to where? Hell. For if the mighty works which have been done in thee have been done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day." 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. Let's be clear about this. Let's call a spade a spade. It's not pleasant to speak about this. 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 counsel of the warning of the Spirit of Prophecy. This is the word of Christ to the the Church today. You've have great light. But if you continue in the works of Sodom, you'll go down to hell. It's a sobering message, is it not? 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 Adventist, and we have the progressive Adventists. And they are mutually incompatible. We have nothing in common other than the name. 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. And not only do they control it, but now they are now overtly weaponizing it against the Bible faithful Adventists. This may be hard to hear, but I'm supposed to speak the truth from the pulpit. We speak the truth because unless you speak the truth, you cannot have healing. Truth is a prerequisite for healing. And we want there to be healing for all parts of our church. 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. We are a house divided. When I became an Adventist, I naively assumed that our leaders actually believe our fundamental fundamental beliefs. Now I discover that many in the North American division are institutions and our unions, those who sit on these college boards, they give lip service to the fundamental beliefs when claiming tithe, while pushing progressive ideologies that are leading our young people to the pits of hell. So, what is the impact of this institutional entropy? 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. Members worldwide, not just in North America, are suffering under a culture of increasing pastoral and administrative absolutism. Um, administrators will accept no challenge to their absolute power over the members, their bodies, or their consciences. 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. It is only through the seeking of the Holy Spirit can we reverse this corporate entropy and breathe life back into our corporate carcass. We desperately need today to listen [clears throat] to the witness of that the faith the counsel of the faithful and true witness of Revelation 3:14, or we will perish under God's judgment in our Laodiceanism. Laodiceans are lost unless they repent. For the last five or six years, there have been many requests for the redress of these grievances. Petitions are signed, they're sent to the General Conference, and just ignored. They're not even acknowledged. Preachers are banned. Bible-faithful pastors in parts of our nation are being fired or 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 deplatformed for fear they would raise awkward questions at GC sessions. Congregations who promote truth, rather than the false narratives of the GC of COVID and wokeism, are being crushed, such as Village. Faithful members are being demonized in the denominational media. Those who are not vaccinated were compared were compared unfavorably to jihadis who killed polio aid workers in Afghanistan in the Review in 2022. Present truth preachers are banned, they are smeared, and they are vilified. Sometimes they're publicly banned, but generally there's a culture of There's a culture of soft cancel culture, where pastors are told if you 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 of the Holy Spirit. We need to heed the true counsel of the true and faithful witness of Revelation 3:14. The church in the Laodicean era is lost unless she hears the voice of Jesus Christ and repents of the wickedness that has led her to accumulate great material wealth but has left her spiritually impoverished. 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 the counsel of the true and faithful witness of Revelation 3 and dwell on what it means for us today. It means for the GC to withdraw from its partnership with the UN which is the source of much of our present ill ill will ill ill fruit. We are in a union with the United Nations and the Antichrist. We cannot we cannot speak prophetically when we are subjugated to the Antichrist. For the reaffirmation statement that should be revoked and they should give the assurance to the members that the such a statement will never be issued again in the Adventist world. Our institutions need to publicly pledge they will honor and uphold scriptural truths as encapsulated in our fundamental beliefs and reject woke ideologies in the classroom and in public events. We need to seize the cancel culture against Bible faithful preachers and our leaders need to repent of of their authoritarianism and learn what servant leadership looks like again. 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. Why is that? Because the leaders know that the members have no mechanism to drive change. We We a complaint but if your conference doesn't want to listen, there's not a lot any not a lot anybody can do about it. As I travel around 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 dissipates into the air. So, steam on itself doesn't do any good. But if you can channel that steam, that that steam can turn the turbine and that will generate electricity. So, you have to find a mechanism that will channel that steam to turn the turbine to generate electricity. And the electricity represents the force that can bring these attention matters the attention of our leaders in a way that they understand and a way that they are likely to respond to. Which brings me to this question here, what can we do as members? And I'm going to speak about tithe. I spoke about tithe for 15 seconds in 2024 and my life fell apart. So, we're giving it a bit 15 minutes now and see what happens. Firstly, [clears throat] some biblical principles, tithe belongs to the Lord. It does not belong to administrators or to any conference. No conference has a divine right to tithe. Abraham returned tithe to Melchizedek, a type of Christ. And we return tithe to Jesus Christ. He is the head of the church. We have a we have a moral obligation to return tithe to Jesus Christ as a recognition that we are created beings that all good blessings in our life are a gift from our heavenly Father. So, I believe and I've practiced all my life the the the practice of tithing. My wife and I have tithed our entire life. We tithe on gross. For many years as a married, maybe the first I don't know, 15 years of marriage raising our kids, we had one income. And you know, one income means that um you know, you when you you you have one car, it's an old car, you don't eat out, you your kids dress in dress me downs. My wife has has shopped most of our married life in Goodwill. And whenever we go to somewhere that's really nice, we go to Goodwill cuz 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. 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. 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 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 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. 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. 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. That's one option we have. The second option is to recognize in the Bible nobody ever returned tithe as money. There's not a single instance of tithe as money. It was always food. There's 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 away from the Lord's from the place that Lord shall designate and you cannot bring your agricultural produce to the tabernacle, then you are to sell the produce and turn it into money and 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." There is not a single instance in the Bible of tithe being linked to money. If you're going to return a a faithful tithe that is biblical, then we should be ordering rice and beans on Walmart and drop shipping it to the upper Columbia conference. Now, I ran this idea by two conference presidents. I won't mention which conference presidents, but one's in America and one's in Europe. These are solid, faithful Bible conference presidents, and they both burst into raucous laughter and said, "Don't you dare talk about that." But if you are going to return a biblical tithe, ordering, you know, 200 lb of beans and shipping it to the conference is a faithful tithe. And in America, if you give an in-kind contribution, it's still tax deductible. All you need is letter from the conference or your local church that says, "He gave 200 lb of beans." And then you attach that letter from the church to the receipt of an in-kind contribution to the bill, and that's tax deductible, same as your tax except for receipts as for money. You all aware of that, I hope. I'm serious. This is deadly serious. We're not This is no laughing matter. It's still tax deductible to give rice, beans, canned vegetable, and olive oil to the conference. Now, I'm getting ahead of myself here. Does God hold me responsible for the apostasies of those who use the financial tithe that I return? The answer is yes. This phrase appears twice in Spirit of Prophecy. There are fearful woes for those who preach the truth but are not sanctified by it, and also for those who consent to receive and maintain the unsanctified to minister to them in word and doctrine. So, if you consent to receive or to maintain unsanctified gospel workers, God has reserved for you fearful woes. It's not a case of handed over and just trust. It's not a case of you just hand it over and that that's your part done. 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 of spirit of prophecy on this. We are to 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. 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. Friendship with this world is enmity with God, James 4:4. If you support and maintain that which God has expressly called an abomination, that makes you an enemy of God. So, do not blindly return tithe to a system that is upholding abominations in front of our faces on a monthly basis, and is essentially spitting in the faces of Bible-faithful Adventists. I should calm down, shouldn't I? All right. So, the second option is return tithes to your local conference or any conference that's faithful to scripture as in Bible times in the form of food. Go to Amazon, you know, Walmart, go to some Whole Foods, and drop ship your beans to the conference office. Now, the advantage of this is has price has the price of food gone up in the last 5 years? All right. So, if you give the conference dollars, it's losing 5% of value a year in the bank. If you give them the price of beans, they're getting an asset that's appreciating in value 5% every year. You're doing them a favor. You're inflation-proofing the tithe. So, in the United States, if you give an in-kind con- donation of food to your local church, you can ask your treasurer to give you a letter confirming that you paid over 100 lbs of beans or whatever it is, and you attach that letter to the receipt you paid for the food, you can include that as a tax-deductible receipt in your annual tax return. It's a great idea. It's called civil disobedience in a sanctified way. But, I can guarantee you, with inflation running at 4% right now, if 5% of the members of this conference switch to this, the conference has a 10% effective shortfall by year end in purchasing power, they're going to take real careful note of what's happening. And you may say, "Well, my local conference isn't involved." I'd say, "Oh, yes, it is. Every conference is complicit cuz every conference president sits on the NED executive committee, and every conference president can speak up, and they're not speaking up, and they can change the con- the union the division administrators, and they they can change the union administrators who are allowing this moral garbage to flow through our institutions, and our conference leaders are not stepping up to the plate." Why? Because it takes courage to go against the cultural flow, and they're not doing it. They'd rather sit in silence and complain inside, but nobody wants to stand up and reject the wokeism because then you get isolated and 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 ideologies. So, our conference officers are not doing their jobs. Third option for you is this. Return tithe to a storehouse in the irregular lines to support a Bible-faithful gospel worker. 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 evangelist, 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 church. You could actually return tithes to your local church elders. This would be an independent Adventist ministry that's faithful to scripture and contends for the faith that was given us as read in our scripture reading, Jude verse 3. There's an example of this in scripture, 1 2 Kings 4:42. It says a man came from Baal-shalisha bringing food from the what? First fruits to the man of God. This is Elisha. Did they bring the tithe? This is the first fruits. Did they bring it to the tabernacle? No, they brought it to Elisha who was a prophet. He brought 20 loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, "Give it to the people and let them eat." 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 denominational employees and their benefits. It's never used to bless the poor. But here you have an example from scripture of an independent ministry, Elisha who wasn't paid from the tabernacle. And this man brings him the 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 Bible is written by an independent ministry? You should think about that. Nobody was a conference employee wrote any book of the Bible. They were all independent ministries, every single one of them. So you ask some questions about this. Shouldn't all tithes be channeled through a single structure? The answer is not necessarily. The Spalding Megan collection page 441 says this, "Do not worry less some means shall go direct to those who are trying to do missionary work in the quiet and effective way. And this is the key sentence. All the means is not to be handled by one agency or organization. Now, Sister White uses the phrase the means multiple hundreds of times to refer to tithes and offerings. That's a shorthand for T and O, tithes and 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. So, what she's saying is that um not all the tithes and offerings is to flow to through the denominational structure. Then you ask the question, is my local conference the storehouse of scripture? Well, your local conference, it is a storehouse, but it is not the storehouse. There are multiple storehouses. In North America, we have 60 plus conferences, that's 60 plus storehouses, and uh what, six unions? That's another six storehouses. And we have the division. And so, there are multiple storehouses just within the North American Division. And this this statement by in 2023, and you can see it online. Do any of you get the Adventist Journey magazine? Some of you do? Yeah. This is like the journal for the North American Division. Well, Randy Robinson had just retired as the NAD treasurer. So, he's retired. And uh he retired a couple months before he wrote this. 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 structure as the local conference. Then listen to the next sentence. That definition is not a theological requirement." What a stunning admission from the NAD treasurer. It is not a theological requirement, nor is the subsequent flow of tithe throughout the organization. It is a polity decision. Yes, he uses the word polity, not policy. It is a polity decision we have simply agreed upon collectively. 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." 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. There is no theological basis for the Michigan conference being the storehouse for all Michigan Adventists. 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. Does our fundamental belief on stewardship teach that we must return tithes to our local conference? The answer actually is no. What the fundamental belief it has one sentence on tithe when in the fundamental belief on stewardship there's only one sentence relating to tithe and this is what it says. It says, "We acknowledge God's ownership by faithful service to him and our faithful human beings and by returning tithes and giving offerings for the proclamation of his gospel and the support and growth of his church." Now, does this say you are to we we believe from scripture that tithe must go to the local conference? Yes or no? No. We return tithes to whom according to this? We return tithes to to him in order to support the growth of what? His church. And then you say, "Well, 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 define the church? The church is the community of believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. There is no legal, institutional, corporate definition of church anywhere in our fundamental beliefs. You can look night and day, you won't find them from 1 through 28. So, 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. 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 saying tithe doesn't necessarily have to go to the conference because our fundamental beliefs don't actually teach that. Don't they don't teach that. Can I be dis- uh disciplined for not returning a financial tithe to my local conference? The answer is no. The church manual, which is voted by the world church, uh gives the reasons why you can be disciplined, but you are not allowed to be disciplined for not returning a tithe to your local conference. It's just not there. Now, I wouldn't I would encourage you all to return a faithful tithe to Jesus Christ, but you cannot be disfellowshipped or censured for not returning a tithe to your local conference. Did Ellen White give us an example of appropriating tithe directly to gospel workers who are not denominational employees? Yes, that was laid out in what is known as the Watson letter. If you've never read the Watson letter, you should read it. She says there, "I have myself I have myself appropriated tithe to the most needy cases brought to my notice. 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." It's an interesting statement. This week I could dwell all day on this one sentence, but um tithe withholding is where you do not return any tithe to the 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 for which God has not ordained tithe for, which is, for instance, buying a laptop for your early teen class. That's tithe diversion, and that's not allowed in 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, 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. And she says, by going straight from me to the gospel worker without going through the conference treasury, she says, you are not robbing the Lord's treasure in the process. So, you can give directly to a gospel worker or a faithful gospel ministry, and Sister White is your example in doing 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. Evangelism 492. Or, Welfare Ministry page 277, the tithe is to be especially devoted to the support of those who are 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 Testament says. Do you have permission to from God to appropriate your tithe directly to gospel workers? The answer to that is yes. Sister White says in Special Instructions here, these are all online, you can read them for yourselves. 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 counsel of men where you shall use your means, that is your tithes and offerings, as you see fit to advance the work of God. And when you value when you add that to the fact that fearful woes await those who consent to receive or maintain those who are unsanctified, that means you need to choose and think and pray and ask for the leading of the Holy Spirit to do where I am to return my tithe, because if Upper Columbia Conference president does not publicly object to all this garbage from Loma Linda and La Sierra and all the rest of it, he's complicit in it. And if you support that conference structure, then fearful woes from God are coming down your path. Now, um final question. Does God hold me responsible for the apostasies of those who use my tithe? Yes, we do. We already covered that. There's a fantastic book on this. Tithe and Offerings Trampling the Conscience by Standish and Standish. This library went online this Wednesday. You can now get it at standishlibrary.org. You can get the book, you can get the PDF. I would encourage you to read it. 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. So, what do we say then in conclusion? I've got a burning tower of Babel up there as you can see. I want to say this. My loyalty to Christ must override my loyalty to any failing institution. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. To directly support with my money though the tithes I return that which God condemns as an abomination brings me under God's condemnation. I've spoken about true and free Adventist before. I mean, I literally have contact with them in Russia. We talk on Zoom. They do exist. But I mean, I want to use true and free Adventists in this sense that I'm a true and true true and free Adventist in the sense that I'm true to the beliefs of 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. Um I need to speak carefully here. If I haven't already needed to speak carefully, but I need to speak carefully now. Um a prominent a prominent preacher with African heritage contacts me a while ago and 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 took millions from western South Africa across the Atlantic to South America and North America, would you agree with me that was one of the greatest crimes in human history spanning centuries and millions of souls?" Yes. And how many years did those Africans fight for to have agency over their own bodies? For centuries. They rose up in Haiti with a rebellion and gained their freedom. And how is it that just a few years after gaining civil rights in America with the Civil Rights Act in what, 1964 was it? How is it that within one lifetime we have Adventists with African heritage just yielding control of their bodies once more to another person? 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. And it just strikes me as strange that so many African-American Adventists and particularly our regional conferences were gung-ho on the mandates. And said to their members, "Yes, we've escaped slavery, but now we must submit to a new form of slavery." I said, "Why is it that you have yielded agency over your own body so quickly? If you preach about the evils of slavery, why do you submit to slavery all over again?" And there was no answer. But we have to have critical thinking. We have to think about the implications of what we're doing. When the The of the beast is imposed, I believe that most parts of our structure will simply be swept away. Because if you can neither buy nor sell, you can't bank, you can't you can't process payroll, you can't receive tithes, the conference is essentially null and void if it's not legally the if it does not lose its legal registration. But we know from the spirit of prophecy that in the final crisis that large parts of the structure will be swept away. Today, some of us find ourselves outside the denominational walls. Like literally today. 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. It's only a question of how you get outside the walls. And when it happens, once again, we will be a movement of house churches, focused on local ministries. Sister White says going door to door in that final crisis. We'll be a ministry of house churches with local elders and deacons and deaconesses without an administrative structure that can betray us once again into the hands of the eschatological foes of God and His people. You may be outside the walls today, but you're still within the faith. And one day we're all going to be outside the walls, but by God's grace, we'll still be within the faith. So it really doesn't matter whether you're in the walls today or outside the walls cuz one day those walls will be gone. What matters is are you within the faith? So what am what am I asking you for today? What am I challenging today? And for those of you going to watch this online, what I want to challenge you is this. If we want to channel all this energy, if you want to capture all that steam that's rising around the Adventist world of frustration and disappointment and disillusionment and disengagement, Well, if you want to funnel that, then I want to challenge you today. If you're watching this and the Holy Spirit has convicted you that nobody today, from this day forward, should return any tithe in the form of money to any Adventist conference, mission, or field until the following conditions are met. For the General Conference to dissolve our union with the United Nations and to revoke all the official statements so that we can be the pure bride of Christ and avoid the characteristics of a harlot daughter of Babylon. Sister White says that the harlot daughters of Babylon have two characteristics. They enter into alliances with the kings of this world 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. 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. 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? Cuz we have the 28 fundamental beliefs and the administrators know that it takes 10, 15, 20 years to get a 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 church. And those official statements have teeth. That's what the world thinks we believe. That's what employers use harm Adventists in in Monday in the COVID. 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 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 is taught by Jesus Christ. The second thing is no tithe should be paid in the form of money to any conference, mission, field, section worldwide until the General Conference apologizes to those who were hurt by the reaffirmation statement and gives the assurance that the GC will never again presume to override the conscience the convictions of the Holy Spirit on the consciences of members worldwide. If the federal government, which is a godless entity, can apologize to the service members who were thrown out and call them warriors of conscience, if the godless federal government can make an apology, why can't the Adventist Church? 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 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 reconciliation. It'd be nice if we would have practiced it. Thirdly, no tithes should be paid, particularly in NAD, until all of our institutions actually agree to uphold what we believe. In the 1930s, Satan attacked the church through evolution. And my grandfather was a preacher in London in the 1930s and 40s and he preached about evolution all the time because uh evolution was where Satan was attacking the church. In the 1960s and 70s, Satan was attacking the church through feminism. And that led in our church to the women's ordination movement. And from the years 2010 onwards, Satan has attacked the church through third-wave feminism and the sexual revolution, which in particular is transgenderism. And if this is the 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 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 flock as a preacher or Sabbath School teacher or as a local elder. But what we need today is the assurance that all of our colleges, all of our institutions, and our conferences will actually uphold what we claim to believe. That means in terms of marriage, we believe in lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual marriage between one biological adult male and one biological adult female. It means that that we will pledge to uphold biblical human sexuality and to reject the sexual revolution in all of its manifestations and any attempts to normalize that which God has condemned among Adventists today. And for administrators across the NAD, we want them to stop banning and canceling Bible-faithful present truth 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 some of you now and I know that you've gone through this yourselves. 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 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 officers themselves, and if the leaders of our institutions like Loma Linda and La Sierra and our other colleges, if they cannot and will not uphold what we believe, then as Ted Wilson says, you need to resign and make way for Bible-faithful leaders. Such leaders are corrupting our witness to the world. A message to SDA leaders today, as I finish this, 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. So, make your choice. To those that are SDA leaders who've gone woke, if you want to remain woke, go broke. You deserve to go broke. And let the irregular lines of faithful laity flourish. And for faithful Adventists worldwide who are dismayed and discouraged, disillusioned, and disengaged at the moral corruption of our leaders, I want to say to say be 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 bail. We are not fighting against our church because we are the church. We are contending for the pure faith that's been passed on to us from the apostles onward, and we are striving that we, the body of Christ, will become the pure bride of Christ. We are not fighting the church because we are the church. We're fighting apostasy among our leaders. On my final slide here is what matters is not our numbers, but what matters is whether our cause is just and of God. The time has come for you and I to stand together, to stand up, and to stand tall for God. And if our cause is just, who can be against us? Everything I've said today is publicly available on the internet. You can see it for yourself. I haven't made anything up. It's 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. It's affecting many people today. If there is to be healing in our worldwide church, we have to have truth speakers. There has to be a recognition of where we are so that we can have the right diagnosis, identify the right treatment plan. So, I say these words 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. And my prayer, my yearning, my desire is that can have reconciliation not to run the writings of Mark's but at the foot of the cross. Now we will once again uphold and share with the world the pure and the pure love of the everlasting gospel. That's my prayer tonight today that every conference president, every union officer the GC officers, the the educators in our institutions, conference and college presidents that they will look in the mirror and ask themselves whether they are faithfully representing Jesus Christ or not. I hope and pray that this sermon will not be the cause of division in our church. But it will be the cause for coming together in repentance starting with me. 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 not to tear the church down but it's that the church can be pure we can be unified in scripture and that the witness we give to the world is not filled with competing and contradictory messages. So, be of good courage. If the cause is just and God before us, then who can be against us? It's not It's not just up to preachers to stand and talk about these things but now the matter is in your hands as the laity. Pray about it and move and act as the Holy Spirit moves upon your conscience. May it be between between you and God and let no man or institution condemn you for the decisions you make. May God bless us as we stand tall in an era of universal apostasy. Amen. >> Mhm.