The Village Seventh-day Adventist Church hosted a live-stream Religious Liberty Sabbath in Berrien Springs, Michigan January 14-15, 2022. This significant event was led by a pastoral team consisting of Pastor Ron Kelly and Dr. Conrad Vine. The Sabbath program was prayerfully and cooperatively designed and organized by the Village Seventh-day Adventist Religious Liberty Committee. Cooperation extended beyond their committee to include the hospitality of dedicated and hardworking deacons and deaconess and other church members who greeted, directed, and fed visitors.
Why have I presented so much detail in this introduction? I purposely included all detail that to illustrate a united effort to accomplish a quality, godly presentation.
Unity and hospitality, were very important aspects of the early church. In the upper room was an expression of prayerful submission to God and His sacred work resulting in the early rain experience! In like fashion, we now pray for an abundant measure of the Holy Spirit to be poured out on God’s servants to receive power to do His work; for His glory, in acts of benevolence in thrilling work of the salvation of others - preaching, teaching, and healing! Essentially, medical missionary work!
This same upper-room ambiance, attitude and purpose is essential to our end-time work and people. During this Religious Liberty Sabbath occasion, I was able to see, although from a distance (I live in Canada), a semblance of these qualities in the early church. For example, Pastor Kelly tactfully requested that local members return to their homes so that their church could focus on feeding their visitors.
Village Seventh-day Adventist Church later fed everyone with a spiritual potluck of presentations as some speakers presented in person, while others connected solo or duo via Zoom to a local congregation which extended to online congregations via Facebook and YouTube live-streaming.
The program began at 6:30 pm with Pastor Ron Kelly who set the context, succeeded by Dr. John Kelly who spoke of “The Fall of the Lamblike Beast: repudiating republicanism.” He led us on a journey in series: prophetic and historical context, rise of lamblike beast, distinction between republic and democracy, America’s humble but glorious beginning, drift from republicanism to pure democracy, electoral College, and the End time Prophecy - the Loud Cry!
Dr. Peter McCullough was scheduled next to speak of the Omicron Variant and its treatment but unfortunately, he was unable to join remotely, due to technical obstacles.
Sabbath morning began at 8:30 a.m. with a spiritual, powerful, and insightful message from Pastor Bryce Bowman entitled “Let No-one Need be Deceived.”
Bryce Bowman
• This is the final struggle of the great controversy
• Lucifer coveted God’s position and set up a new order, convincing angels they were all victims and that a new government was needed
• Satan’s new order was based on these principles: fear, force…deception. Fear is the motivating factor in the kingdom of Satan.
• Law and love are the motivating factor in God’s kingdom.
The Sun Coast Singers reverently sang a variety of thematic songs, in-between presentations, which fortified liberty such as Faith of Our Fathers, and crescendoing with “Let Freedom Ring.”
Sabbath School
Lawyers Matthew Staver, Bruce Cameron and Jonathan Zirkle responded to Pastor Vine’s questions pertaining to the implications of SCOTUS OSHA ETS Decisions. It was enlightening to learn from Matthew Staver, that immunization mandates were in order before this pandemic. He indicated that students and armed services were suffering under these current decisions. Conclusive statements were:
Bruce Cameron:
• “Remember God controls kings and kingdoms
• Pray for protection of our jobs and religious liberty
• Stand up in the USA.
• Seek the Holy Spirt for wisdom and a backbone”
Jonathan Zirkle
• “Engage with people individually and what is going on in the world
• spread the gospel”
Ron Kelly
Before introducing Dr. Conrad Vine, Pastor Ron Kelly went through a list of people you should beware of.
• “Beware of those who say only the experts can understand, and they want you to let them do your thinking
• Beware of those who compel conscience in the name of the common good
• Beware of those who do not recognize that we are living in unprecedented times
• Beware of those who do not see a crisis of conscience in our discussion of compulsion, not the vaccine
• Beware of those who do not recognize the civic, ethical, and eschatological implications of our current situation
• Beware of those who do not understand that governments are not benign by nature and that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and that this is a democratic republic
• Beware of those who do not understand the price tag of protecting a free society
• Beware of those who seek to stifle dialogue and debate along scientific, societal, or religious lines
• Beware of those whose position cost them nothing, in the midst of this social turbulence
• Beware of those who do not understand that the human being does not belong to Caesar but that we refer to this amazing mechanism as the body temple.
• Beware of those who cannot see how the church is hurting around the world and that decisions made in North America have disproportionate impact
• Beware of those who out of fear of complacently do nothing to prompt us as Seventh-day Adventists to utilize our special understanding of how to enhance the immune system and fulfil our role in these end times, exercising the right arm of the gospel
• Beware of those who are not willing even in the midst of the intervention of the highest courts of the land to say, “We might have got this wrong, we were on the wrong side of the issue.”
• Beware of those who use Facebook instead of coming face-to-face to resolve their contentions especially when they are living in close proximity
• Beware of those who have a financial conflict of interest
• Beware of those who are afraid”
CONRAD VINE
Pastor Vine then followed with his presentation entitled, “An Appeal to the Adventist Nobility” At the commencement of his talk, Pastor Vine compassionately mentioned who this sermon was for:
• “For Village congregation
• The physical therapist who lost her job because her employer found a statement on the Adventist website
• All of our members worldwide who have lost their jobs because of the General Conference’s position on vaccinations
• Our church leaders, I respectfully say this in love, this sermon is for you as well”
Respectfully and meticulously Pastor Vine went through the structures and processes necessary for legitimate decision-making in the church which must involve a combination of laypeople and church employees. He continued to illustrate how the statement on vaccines issued on the General Conference website is “invalid, void” and in fact “blasphemous.” Pastor Vine made a strong point of how it is the Holy Spirit who is to guide our consciences and no one else. He concluded with an appeal to Adventist nobility — our church leaders, to “stand for conscience and unite our worldwide church.”
Dr. Margaret Song
Dr. Margaret Song spoke on “An epidemic of Groupthink.” Dr. Song shared media statements, under-reported documents and taught how to obtain clues from reports, nonetheless. She also included, in her presentation, updated Omicron Variant information. Her take-way message was: “A liberal democracy where science flourishes must protect for all medical procedures:
• Informed consent regarding reported adverse reactions including death, associate with procedure
• Freedom to choose for yourself and your children whether these risks, plus the unknown long-term risks, are ones which you choose to assume
Following Dr. Song was Mercy Ballard, a doctor, nurse and global online instructor of Medical Missionaries. Mercy Ballard explained effective ways of optimizing immunity and recovering from chronic illness by using diet, lifestyles changes and natural remedies. She also shared firsthand experiences in dealing with recent COVID-19 cases during the pandemic and protocols used in lingering cases, citing her husband’s recent health-crisis as an example. Mercy Ballard spoke about other existing health factors that can negatively impact the body’s response to this global disease.
Next the duo zoom session from Australia featured both former Captain Graham Hood from Qantas Airlines and Brendon Valiant. Mr. Hood shared how from his experience of losing his job as a pilot, due to his personal belief on vaccines, opened new doors for him because his case went viral and was thus able to speak at rallies and distribute the book the Great Controversy.
Brendon Valiant shared how his exercise of conscience led him to minister in a park because he was unable to attend church. He has been able to witness to numerous people this way through Bible study and is excited about an upcoming baptism!
In this weekend presentation, I was able to see both ministerial work working with the right arm of the gospel, medical missionary work, promote Religious Liberty in order to be able to worship God and uphold our health message according to the dictates of our conscience as prompted by the Holy Spirit. We need freedom to receive the latter rain to give out the loud cry, calling others out of Babylon!
From my observations, I see a movement percolating. A movement to finish the work! A movement that is finally combining ministry and health, the very thing that our pioneers struggled to fuse. The time is now, and the Holy Spirit is working. I just saw evidence of that during the Religious Liberty weekend. Will you be part of it?
Conclusion
In conclusion, I will end with a quote from Dave Fielder’s book, D’Sozo,
“Let’s work together, Ministers, Doctors, and Laymen. Let’s reunite the medical and the ministerial…” p. 286.
And so now, we each need to be medical missionaries to help heal our members and leaders through the power of Jesus Christ. Let us work at finding ways to support our brothers and sisters who have lost jobs, homes etc. Let us also lovingly and prayerfully find ways to fix our current dilemma, so that we can reach outwards to others, for their health and salvation!
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40 KJV).
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Davina Peters, B.Ed., M.Ed.
Davina has worked as a Seventh-day Adventist teacher and principal in both the North American Division and South Pacific Division. She currently works on the Med Missionary Team as an Educational Consultant. Davina resides in Perth, Ontario with her husband, Randal. She enjoys learning about agriculture and the spiritual lessons drawn about Jesus our Creator!