Saturday, January 26, 2008

Sermon: Murder Weapon

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today is Religious Liberty Sabbath. That means that over the next few weeks we are collecting names and sponsors for complimentary Liberty magazine subscriptions. It also means that as the kick-off Sabbath, there is a Liberty video and the sermon is usually related to the topic of religious liberty in one way or another.

I couldn't identify with the supplied sermon (the General Conference Religious Liberty Dept. sends out a suggested sermon each year), so I just went ahead and continued on to the next section of John, 11:45-57, which turns out to be a strong illustration of what happens when religious and civil powers unite, when the right and left unite. The result is ultimately destructive for all involved, even for those who think they are doing the right and expedient thing. My sermon speaks out against this kind of union and the importance of all Christians, not just Seventh-day Adventists, to support religious liberty and the freedom of conscience.

1 comment:

~ V ~ said...

I hunted down our Liberty packet during Sabbath School so we could pass out the envelopes. From the postmark on the envelope, it probably didn't even arrive at the post office until this past week, which means it didn't make it to the church until Friday. Obviously we didn't use the supplied sermon either. We didn't even show the video. I found this story last night which we shared:
http://news.adventist.org/data/2008/1200493877/index.html.en
Some of our church members are dealing with similar issues now, so that was more appropriate for our group. We'll probably show the video sometime over the next few weeks.