Free Indeed!

Religious Liberty Sermon 2024 (Free Indeed!)

It was Patrick Henry that once passionately exclaimed, “Give me liberty, or give me death! The obvious sentiment being that liberty, or freedom is well worth dying for. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that he and the rest of our founding fathers felt so strongly about freedom. The United States of America is a nation that was envisioned by, established by and has ever since been defended by brave men and women who shared that same sentiment. Freedom is indeed invaluable.

The last words of our national anthem describe this country as “the land of the free, and the home of the brave.” And that makes a lot of sense; because freedom simply cannot exist in a land without people who recognize its great value and are brave enough and committed enough to the cause of freedom to fight for it. This is true because in this sin sick world in which we live, whether we realize it or not, freedom is always under attack; our commitment to retain our political freedom, our social freedom, our economic freedom and our spiritual or moral freedom—our commitment to retain all of these freedoms is constantly being tested and challenged. And not only by foreign enemies, but sometimes by the very people we appoint to uphold and protect those freedoms.

Case in point; over the last four years, the pandemic has afforded those who would like to take our freedoms away a golden opportunity to test the waters and see just how much we actually valued our freedom. This was done first by mandatory masking and lockdowns, but then by mandating an experimental, potentially dangerous vaccine. And because of a well-orchestrated, global flood of propaganda and the immediate censorship of any information that was critical of that propaganda, enough fear and social pressure was generated to convince the vast majority of us to willingly concede some very important liberties.

We did this because we were assured that conceding these liberties would be the only way to “keep us safe.” And you may remember that anyone who dared to ask questions or challenge the narrative was quickly censored, demonized and labeled a conspiracy theorist.

Well, today there is overwhelming evidence contained in thousands of high quality, peer-reviewed, scientific studies that conclude that many of those things we were told by the “experts”—supposedly indisputable facts; facts that convinced us to surrender some of our basic freedoms, were simply not true. I’m not asking anyone to take the results of these studies for absolute truth, but I do ask that you understand and believe these studies exist and have been conducted by well-respected scientists and physicians. For instance:

1. Masks provide little to no benefit against contracting or spreading the COVID-19 virus. Some studies suggest that trying to stop the covid virus with a mask is like trying to stop a mosquito with a chain link fence.

2. The lockdowns did nothing to save lives, but rather did irreparable harm to our economy, our children’s education and emotional well-being.

3. And most egregious of all, many studies performed by top independent, highly accredited doctors and scientists all around the world conclude that the COVID vaccines—these vaccines that were constantly promoted as being “extremely safe and effective” have, in fact, critically injured and killed millions of people…..Not only that, but many other studies strongly suggest that these same vaccines are very likely now the driving force behind the unprecedented rise in aggressive cancers, cardiac arrests, extreme blood clotting, autoimmune disease along with a host of other very serious illnesses.

But even though these studies and conclusions are now very well documented, it’s still very unlikely that we will hear a word about it on television or most online platforms. Why is that? Because our freedom of the press and freedom of speech are also under attack. And that should greatly concern us all.

I briefly mention all of this, not to be controversial or critical and certainly not to be political, but I mention it because it is incredibly important that we, as members of God’s last day church, recognize through real-life observation and experience just how easily we can be convinced to relinquish our freedom in exchange for the promise of safety and for the approval of the rest of society.

Please believe me when I tell you that I appreciate just how difficult this is for many of you to hear—it was extremely difficult for me as well. But here’s my situation: you, as a church, have entrusted me with the position of elder and Religious Liberty leader, and along with those positions comes great responsibility. I realize that I am accountable to God and to you to meet that responsibility in season and out of season; when it’s a message we want to hear and when it's a message we don’t want to hear... Brothers and sisters, regardless of how it makes us feel, there’s no way I can neglect to call our attention to the most widespread attack on our Religious Liberty that has occurred in any of our lifetimes.