GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Religious Liberty Teetering on the Edge

Joe Reeves

01 What Will Cause the Next Civil War?

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for safe travels to Orlando and that we can assemble here.

We want to seek Jesus and that our hearts would be open for you to speak into our minds, to reflect your character, to have your perspectives on the things that are troubling the world and perhaps even troubling the church and that you would anoint our minds and that we would be united together and moving forward together with the challenges that we face today.

The title for my first presentation is, What Will Cause the Next Civil War?

Now in America things are getting a little challenging Christians in America are Panicking a little bit because they feel like we're losing control in America and we've become a minority Perhaps later.

I'll show you on the screen that Recent surveys have shown that Christians in America are now, only 47% of Americans are church members.

And so we're feeling a little bit panicky because we're adjusting to becoming more of a minority and that is creating a wounded Christianity in America and As you hear the tone of American preachers They're becoming more and more angry and more and more desperate to reclaim something that we feel that we've lost and to regain our footing.

And so things are shaky in America and perhaps we feel like this snowboarder.

I have to throw this in you know because even though I live in Maryland I'm from Washington State and so this is from Mountain Baker.

All right yes I was born in Washington raised north of Spokane And are you a snowboarder or a skier?

And watch very closely what he sees as he's snowboarding through the trees.

So he tries to climb back up, but if you've ever been on a steep mountain with 6 or 8 feet of snow, you know how hard it is to climb.

And so he tries the sidestep, he eventually takes his skis off, and he tries desperately.

He's worn out by the time he gets back up to this snowboard.

I can hear some of you are stressed out already.

We're both going to catch our breath for a sec, and I'll dig you out, okay?

The guy with the yellow gloves is a snow skier.

By the way, he was a snow skier who saved a snowboarder's life.

And Ian was boarding along, and a bunch of snow collapsed behind him.

And just as the snow collapsed behind him, he fell back.

And just like that, his face was under 6 feet of snow, instantly.

And the more he tried to dig out, the deeper he went.

And he said he just resigned himself, that was it.

And you can last, you can breathe a little bit down there not very much you can last about 15 minutes and so he he knew that there was hope he felt Ian or Francis grabbed his board and so this is them right here on the left the snow skier and Ian on the right that was saved.

Well I think that represents a little bit Christians in America right now or maybe all Americans we're feeling snowed in and like we're in a hole, but perhaps the more we try to dig out, the deeper we get.

And that's the concern with the way Christians in America are framing themselves right now.

So we are looking at this topic of what will cause the next civil war.

Why would we ask this kind of a question?

We're asking this kind of a question because people in the world are asking this kind of a question.

Because Adventists need to know how to have a perspective on it.

And Adventists that have been in places of civil war have often been divided and fighting against each other.

That's happened in multiple places around the world.

In the last American Civil War, Adventists were solidly, we were just, Our church was established in 1863.

Our greatest criticisms of the North was that they compromised with the South too much.

We really didn't have any Adventists in the South at that time, or hardly any.

But things could look very different for Adventists if there's never civil war and Adventists falling on both sides.

The Bible speaks to wars in the last days and to some of the ways that we should relate it.

Prophecy points to certain parts of history and identifies ways that we should, or gives us lessons that we can learn from those chapters of history where there has been a civil war before.

So Jesus spoke about this in Matthew 24 and the disciples came to Jesus and they saw the reflections of the sunlight on the white marble of the temple and their heart just Surged with pride as they looked at the temple just like my heart does when I go down to Washington DC I live near Washington DC.

I'm in Maryland and so I take people friends or family down there to see the Capitol sometimes and I have a sense of awe when I when I see the white marble of Capitol building and others there and And maybe that's not even as much as what the disciples sensed with that temple it represented their national pride their history their culture and their religion and their faith the hope for Jerusalem and You know Jesus would have loved to I mean would that be nice if all Jesus ever talked about was beautiful marble?

By the way, do you think that's true for the marble in Washington, D.C.?

Do you think the time is coming when not 1 stone will be left upon another.

Do you think the time's coming when not 1 stone will be left upon another?

And so there's rough water ahead and the disciples asked Jesus, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming?

Jesus answered and said, you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

See that you are not troubled for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet.

So it's 1 of the characteristics of the last days that there will be war, rumors of wars, the spirit of war will be spreading throughout the world.

Was there a lot of spirit of war in the world in 2025?

Just all you have to do is read the news 1 evening.

For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places.

So there's going to be fierce conflict between the nations.

We see it today, but perhaps we haven't seen nothing yet compared to what we will see in the future.

And when there are famines, it's worse when it's during war.

02 Are Adventists Wrong about Revelation 13?

Heavenly Father, thank you that we can assemble this morning.

And we are getting ready to ask tough questions from Revelation 13, which are so important for us today.

Please give us open minds, open hearts, understanding, and willingness to follow where you lead.

So, are Adventists wrong about Revelation 13?

I submitted my titles a few months ago, But I think a friend of mine just sent me this text message.

There's a lot of antagonism sometimes, in some places, against our prophetic messages.

Now, Adventists have been saying The same thing, which I will show you in this presentation, about America for 170 years.

Since 1851, we've been saying the same thing about America.

Some Adventists, or ex-Adventists, or Adventists on the edge, I don't know what to call them.

He said, I was an Adventist minister for 43 years.

I have come to the conclusion that most of our prophetic interpretations are false.

We keep saying all these things will happen.

Ellen White said this would take place but it has been more than 100 years since her death.

Will it take another hundred years for this to take place?

What matters is what happens today, not tomorrow.

So I fiercely disagree with this comment and I'll show you why in this presentation.

I believe that our prophetic interpretations are more relevant today than when they were written and that we need to understand them more now than the previous generation and that they speak profoundly to what is happening now.

I believe that many prophecies have not been fulfilled because God is merciful and He's been kind to us.

And as I study these prophecies and I just, you know, read a comment like this on social media, it makes me really want to be open to what the Lord has to say and to follow and not be stubborn because I think that we are circling in this world for quite a few years because we're not ready.

So I hope 2026 is a year where you fatten up your devotional life, your commitment to God is more robust than ever before, that you have calm nerves, clear head, and responding to all kinds of craziness that will happen this year.

There's gonna be some surprises this year, too So you don't know when you wake up in the morning what's gonna happen that day in your own life or in the country what's gonna be said or anything And I think that Adventists have been caught sideways a lot of times in getting caught up with the rhetoric of the day, the responses, the passions of the day and responding to different events.

Are Adventists wrong about Revelation 13?

Well, I have some verses on the screen, but not all perhaps.

So you might want to be opening your Bibles to Revelation 13.

Now, Adventists are not the only ones that are going to the book of Revelation to get answers about what's happening in America today.

More and more as you tune into the podcast, the radios, whatever it be, you hear preachers quoting from Revelation, particularly Revelation 13.

Actually John Rich was on his show a few weeks ago again talking about prophecy.

I haven't listened to his most recent episode.

I haven't had time but I did listen to the 1 last year John Rich is a country singer from Tennessee and he he wrote a song a country song called revelation had a lot of amazing graphics and he put it on YouTube and views just went up to the millions and so Tucker had him on the show to get some country singer prophetic interpretations and John Rich told Tucker Carlson well, you know the in the Bible says you're not going to be able to buy or sell.

It actually says in the Bible, you're not going to be able to buy or sell.

And his mind was blown Because in a day, in an age of digital currency and digital everything, digital life, it's not easy to imagine how easy it'll be for governments or people in power to control the markets and control buying or selling.

Doesn't take hardly any imagination at all.

And so when you see the development of technology, and people say, whoa, this is it.

And, but something I've noticed is that not only with John Rich but other podcasts I've listened to, they quote the end of Revelation 13, no buying or selling, and they don't quote the verses before.

I'm like, okay, are they gonna quote the verses before?

Nope, they don't do it Because if you interpret the verses before it it it gives the on-ramp to the mark of the beast scenario So all the Christians are talking about the mark of the beast, but they're ignoring what it says about the image to the beast and how the mark of the beast is implemented or how it leads up to the mark of the beast.

And so we have to interpret the whole passage because that's the only way that we're going to understand the important issues at play.

There's 2 beasts in Revelation 13 and the first beast comes in verse 1 comes up out of the sea, caused the whole world to worship to follow that beast which was in power for 1260 years before it received a deadly wound.

And for over 1000 years in Europe the state church controlled everything almost and there was not religious freedom.

And so when we came to America, we said, well, we need a new form of government.

We need to do something different over here.

And so we agree with other Protestants in identifying the first beast that came up out of the sea as the papacy and The Union of Church and State that happened at the Vatican with a crown is the leader the Pope and the second beast comes up with 2 horns, no crowns, and it comes up out of the earth.

Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth and he had 2 horns like a lamb and he spoke like a dragon.

And a beast in Bible prophecy represents what?

It represents a kingdom or a nation and we don't make this up.

We get this from the Bible Daniel 7 23 4th beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth And we also know what water represents in Bible prophecy.

The waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.

So this beast that comes up out of the earth is in a relatively less populated area of the world than the old world and that's what happened when America was born and it has 2 horns.

Deuteronomy 33 17 says, His glory is like a firstborn bull and his horns like the horns of the wild ox together with them he shall push the people." So horns is power, it's pushing, it's force, it's drive.

Ezekiel 34 21 says, because you have pushed with side and shoulder butted all the weak ones with your horns and scattered them abroad.

Now in previous beasts in Revelation they they had crowns on them.

This 1 has 2 horns without crowns because America no king no Pope we had a nation without a king and a church without a Pope and so that resulted in civil liberties and religious liberties which we are very thankful for but it continues because it says that it was like a lamb but it also spoke like a dragon.

So it means that this beast had some hypocrisy.

In other parts of Revelation, this beast is called a false prophet.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount to beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

So this beast looks lamb-like, but ultimately it belongs to the same family of beasts as the previous 2 beasts.

And so that's important for us to understand.

Then it says, he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed.

So, what happened before is going to happen again.

What happened in Europe during the 1260 will happen again.

He's going to exercise that same kind of power and he performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men." So great signs.

In the Gospel of John, when he uses signs, he's describing the miracles of Jesus.

It was a sign when he healed the eyes of the blind and it was a sign when he raised the dead.

Now this group works great mighty miracles so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth and the side of men.

Can you think of any stories in the Bible where fire came down from heaven?

It was a contest over the second commandment, particularly idolatry.

He was calling the nation to account at the top of Mount Carmel.

03 How Not to Debate a Christian Nationalist?

In 1997, Rosaria Butterfield was a tenured professor at Syracuse University.

A committed lesbian and a vocal activist for LGBTQ rights.

She was researching the religious right for a book she intended to write, viewing Christians as anti-intellectual and hateful.

After publishing a critique of the Christian men's group Promise Keepers in the local newspaper, Her inbox flooded with hate mail and angry diatribes from Christians confirming her bias that they were her enemies But 1 letter stood out It came from Ken Smith a local Reformed Presbyterian pastor.

He simply asked Genuine questions about how she had arrived at her conclusions and how she defined her worldview The letter ended with an invitation to dinner Rosaria initially discarded it but later retrieved it compelled by its challenge to her presuppositions.

She published a book, which you can see on the screen, with her story, and she has a website which you can explore with her story as well.

Her book is called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, an English professor's journey into Christian faith.

She accepted the invitation to dinner by Pastor Ken Smith.

She arrived with her researcher's eye ready to dissect his bigotry, But at the Smith home there was no trap, there was no sermon, there was just a warm meal and a couple who seemed genuinely interested in her life.

They asked her questions and they actually listened to her answers.

He didn't share the gospel with me, she writes, that night.

Rosaria, or he didn't invite me to church.

Over time, Ken and his wife, Floyd, became true friends.

They entered her world, met her friends, exchanged books, discussed sexuality and politics openly without judgment.

Ken's prayers during meals were intimate and vulnerable, revealing a God who was holy yet merciful.

For those 2 years, Ken and Floyd practiced the art of inquiry.

They created a safe space where Rosaria could belong before she believed.

By taking the time to diagnose her heart, understanding her deep desire for community and truth, they earned the right to speak into her life.

Eventually, Rosaria began reading the Bible to critique it.

"'I read the way a glutton devours, ' she wrote, but the text began to dismantle her defenses The crisis point came in her own kitchen when a transgender friend Jay warned her this Bible reading is changing you with tremors Rosaria whispered back Jay what if it is true?

What if Jesus is real and the risen Lord?

The result was a total collapse of her previous worldview leading to her conversion in 1999.

The voice of God she continued saying, a sanguine love song in the rubble of my world.

The radical activist who once marched in pride parades eventually became a pastor's wife, a homeschooling mother, and a conservative author.

Years later, she noted that It wasn't a debate that changed her mind.

It was a pastor who was willing to listen long enough for her to hear the voice of God.

So whether it's a MAGA Republican or whether it's a transgender activist, How to debate?

And that's why Ellen White would write things such as this.

And I have been seeing people comment on these quotes by Ellen White lately.

There's more debate coming into the American culture lately, right?

And so time and place, whatever, people are really dismissing this counsel.

But this is what Ellen White wrote in a number of places, Evangelism 163, the spirit of debate, of controversy, is a device of Satan to stir up combativeness and thus eclipse the truth as it is in Jesus.

Many have thus been repulsed instead of being 1 to Christ." So where debate will never win, listening, inquiring, sharing, friendship, belonging, those things can set the stage first.

So Ellen White writes 3 chapters on religious liberty that are found in Testimonies for the Church Volume 9.

And if you go to Section 7, there's 3 chapters on religious liberty.

And there's there's just amazing, amazing counsel in there about religious liberty.

She talks about things you might be surprised.

She mentions in connection with religious liberty, but check them out for sure.

And in there, she says on page 239, Let everyone bear in mind that in no case we are in no case to invite what?

Persecution so we can debate and we can engage in a way that invites persecution.

But don't worry, Adventists would never do that.

We are not to use harsh and cutting words.

Let the Word of God do the cutting, the rebuking.

Let finite men hide and abide in Jesus Christ.

And that's counsel given in connection to religious liberty.

If you're going to be involved in religious liberty you have to check yourself and your attitude constantly because there's a lot of things in religious liberty that get you stirred up real fast.

Testimonies for the Church, volume 6, page 396 says, the Lord's agent should have a sanctified zeal a zeal that is wholly under his control stormy times will come rapidly enough upon us and we should take no course of our own that will hasten them." So this was a theme or a concern that was on her mind a lot.

She writes about it repeatedly that Adventists would check ourselves and not bring persecution upon ourselves by the way that we engage those that we disagree with.

In the chapter on the time of trouble from the great controversy she writes about, Ellen G.

White writes about Jacob's time of trouble.

This story is from the book of Genesis and Jacob is returning to his homeland but he's greatly endangered because of his brother Esau.

He fears that he's going to die that night, that Esau is going to confront him And he's not going to be able to withstand his strong brother because he had wronged him 27 years before.

In the middle of the night he's wrestling with a stranger, which turns out to be God.

And Jacob is in turmoil because he realizes that it is, to a large degree, his own sin that has brought this time of trouble upon him.

White applies that to the time of trouble that God's people go through at the end.

Do you think that there's any chance that when Adventists experience some time of trouble in the future that we realized that to some degree we brought it upon ourselves.

That's why what we do now, how we speak now, what we publish now, what we record now, put on YouTube, everything else needs to be greatly filtered because we don't we don't always filter ourselves very well check out what she says about Jacob's time trouble and to the burden of anxiety and fear was added the crushing weight of self-reproach it was his own fault For it was his own sin that had brought this danger.

So should the followers of Christ, as they approach the time of trouble, make every exertion to place themselves in a proper light before the people, to disarm prejudice and to avert the danger which threatens liberty of conscience.

Now this is talking about right now if you believe we're in the time when we're approaching the time of trouble.

In that time when there's still liberty we are to do everything possible to disarm prejudice and put ourselves in the right light before the people.

So it's not just what we say, it's how we say it and it's how we represent ourselves.

PR is a big deal, public relations, because if you don't have credibility you don't have much and perceptions is everything.

So how does the world perceive Seventh-day Adventists?

Of course there were a lot of false accusations against Jesus and there will be against us too, but let's not enhance those by giving them good reasons.

Selected Messages, Volume 2, page 379 says, Let us as a people, as far as possible, and here she's talking about Jacob's time of trouble, as far as possible, cleanse the camp of moral defilement and aggravating sins.

So when she's talking about Jacob's time of trouble, why would she use this word aggravating sins?

Because during this time, just like Jacob experienced, God's people are going to realize that they have committed aggravating sins.

They have aggravated the people of the world.

They have stirred them up and triggered, in some cases, persecution.

So as our nation, our world becomes more polarized as we examine this morning, Adventists really need to know how to restrain ourselves and to have discernment and be filled with the Spirit of Christ so that we don't bring persecution on ourselves as Jacob did.

So how to debate a Christian nationalist?

But for the rest of my presentation I'm going to go through the top 8 arguments that I've heard from Christian nationalists that believe that Christians now, you heard them this morning from the clips if you were here, Christians that believe America or Christians need to rise up in America and take political power and control and they believe that the Bible has commissioned us to take political power and control and that we make America a Christian nation.

And there's a lot of very sincere people that believe this.

By the way, Paul, before he was Paul, he was Saul.

Series

Religious Liberty Teetering on the Edge

05 Should There be Free Speech in the Church?

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Morning Devotionals

Into the Wilderness

1h

Ellen White? Why Should I Care?

04 Was Ellen White a Plagiarist?

54m

Angelo Grasso and Justin Kim - One Step at a Time: Pathways to Spiritual Growth

Spiritual Competence: the Elements of Growth

1h

GYC 2007 Plenary Sessions

A Divine Key

1h 28m

Ellen White? Why Should I Care?

01 Is Ellen White Even Biblical?

1h

God of the Philosophers or God of the Bible?

The Trinity of Love: How Scripture Teaches the Trinity and It Matters More than You Ever Dreamed

52m

GYC 2010 Plenary Sessions

Know Your Enemy

53m

How to Study the Bible

02 Contemplating the Glory of God

1h 8m

Jay Gallimore and Paul Ratsara - The Heart of a Servant: Models of Biblical Leadership

The Heart of a Servant, Part 4

57m

The Great Controversies: Relativism's Beauty and Fundamentalism's Beast

On What Basis: The Beginning of Controversy

1h

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Gay Puzzle: Loving Gays to Christ

01-Knowing the Difference

58m

Ron Clouzet ~ A Voice Behind You: How To Know God's Will For Your Life

Suspended Judgment and Other Great Habits

1h

Sound Doctrine