Imagine my shock when sitting in a large SDA Church when a video came on telling about religious liberty.

The video was projected up on the screen so everyone could see it. It was Hilliary Clinton speaking about the SDA Church!! She affirmed our church and said all the "political right things."

I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing!! It happened at least a year ago, maybe longer!

Did anyone else see it? If so, can you remember exactly what she said?

I have the DVD containing this year's Religious Liberty video presentation.

This DVD also includes the presentations for the previous four years, therefore, I have both her's and President Bush's messages. Both of them highly praised the SDA Church.

It would take some time, but I could do a transcript of exactly what she said.

Thanks for offering to copy the transcript but I don't think we need it unless someone wants it.

It wasn't just what she said--it was the fact that our church made a videotape of highly political figures affirming our church.

I don't remember ever seeing this in the past. I suppose there probably isn't anything wrong with it, I just felt uneasy when I watched her speak. I just don't trust political people that much. I'm sure there must be a trust-worthy one out there somewhere.

There may well be -- but I don't put Ms. Clinton in that number!

Here's another article talking about her early days, when she apparently kept her 'prayer life' well hidden from those who knew her then --

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/1/21/112646.shtml

Debbie,
When we received that video at our church, we chose not to use it because of the segment with Hillary. Maybe in another place that might have been appropriate, but I, too, was surprised that we would use not just a political figure, but such a controversial one at that! It seemed to say, "hey, if she endorses us, she can't be all bad, can she?" I have a problem with using politicians in the church service. This year's presentation was/is pretty good, and we are using it. First time in 6 years as RL secretary I have felt comfortable with the presentation. Maybe I'm loosening up???

Hillary is no dummy. She can read tea leaves. She is positioning herself for the future.

We have already been warned that politicians will do and say things in order to secure the favor of the public.

"Political corruption is destroying love of justice and regard for truth, and even in free America rulers and legislators, in order to secure public favor, will yield to the popular demand for a law enforcing Sunday observance."--GC 578, 579, 592 (1911).


And public opinion can change with the wind. A few good disasters can change the outlook that people have...

"But the Christian world have shown contempt for the law of Jehovah; and the Lord will do just what He has declared that He would--He will withdraw His blessings from the earth and remove His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law and teaching and forcing others to do the same. Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some in order to further his own designs, and he will bring trouble upon others and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them.

While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast. "The earth mourneth and fadeth away," "the haughty people . . . do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant." Isaiah 24:4, 5.
And then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to God's commandments is a perpetual reproof to transgressors. It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday sabbath; that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced; and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity. Thus the accusation urged of old against the servant of God will be repeated and upon grounds equally well established: "And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim." 1 Kings 18:17, 18. As the wrath of the people shall be excited by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God's ambassadors very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued toward Elijah.

The miracle-working power manifested through spiritualism will exert its influence against those who choose to obey God rather than men. Communications from the spirits will declare that God has sent them to convince the rejecters of Sunday of their error, affirming that the laws of the land should be obeyed as the law of God. They will lament the great wickedness in the world and second the testimony of religious teachers that the degraded state of morals is caused by the desecration of Sunday. Great will be the indignation excited against all who refuse to accept their testimony.
Satan's policy in this final conflict with God's people is the same that he employed in the opening of the great controversy in heaven. He professed to be seeking to promote the stability of the divine government, while secretly bending every effort to secure its overthrow. And the very work which he was thus endeavoring to accomplish he charged upon the loyal angels. The same policy of deception has marked the history of the Roman Church. It has professed to act as the vicegerent of Heaven, while seeking to exalt itself above God and to change His law. Under the rule of Rome, those who suffered death for their fidelity to the gospel were denounced as evildoers; they were declared to be in league with Satan; and every possible means was employed to cover them with reproach, to cause them to appear in the eyes of the people and even to themselves as the vilest of criminals. So it will be now. While Satan seeks to destroy those who honor God's law, he will cause them to be accused as lawbreakers, as men who are dishonoring God and bringing judgments upon the world.

God never forces the will or the conscience; but Satan's constant resort--to gain control of those whom he cannot otherwise seduce--is compulsion by cruelty. Through fear or force he endeavors to rule the conscience and to secure homage to himself. To accomplish this, he works through both religious and secular authorities, moving them to the enforcement of human laws in defiance of the law of God.

Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They will be accused of disaffection toward the government." Great Controversy, The Impending Conflict

So we really should not be too quick to jump on the bandwagon when politicians seem, for a time, to be "for" us. This can change in the blink of an eye.

In times of disaster, by the organization that really matters, we are viewed as an anti-government doomsday group and they have power to cut us off and plan to. So I hope nobody here is taken in by some politician's claimed "current attitude of the day" towards us.


also people need to realize that all this "goodwill" shown to us at this time is largely due to the fact that the leadership is not truly giving the message they are supposed to be giving and is quite friendly to the catholic church. Therefore, we are now viewed in a "friendly" way by many. When things are shaken up however, and the persecution starts, and all they see are Seventh Day Adventists giving the clear true Three Angels Messages, things are going to change rapidly where people's attitudes towards us is concerned. So dont let this "friendly" attitude towards us fool you. It can and will get ugly real quick.

The Great Controversy, page 48
Chapter Title: Persecution in the First Centuries
"There is another and more important question that should engage the attention of the churches of today. The apostle Paul declares that "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." 2 Timothy 3:12. Why is it, then, that persecution seems in a great degree to slumber? The only reason is that the church has conformed to the world's standard and therefore awakens no opposition. The religion which is current in our day is not of the pure and holy character that marked the Christian faith in the days of Christ and His apostles. It is only because of the spirit of compromise with sin, because the great truths of the word of God are so indifferently regarded, because there is so little vital godliness in the church, that Christianity is apparently so popular with the world. Let there be a revival of the faith and power of the early church, and the spirit of persecution will be revived, and the fires of persecution will be rekindled ."


claudia

[ January 27, 2005, 02:01 AM: Message edited by: Claudia Thompson ]

Yeah.. I like hillary a lot from what I've heard, she sure sounds better than our prime minister, helen clark but I wouldn't trust any of them. Afterall... we're oing to be hated by the government at one time, right? So we shouldn't really be glad to hear this. Instead, shouldn't we be happy to hear the day that religious freedom is gone? Then we'll know, Jesus will be here soon!