This message is a reflection on the division over COVID vaccines, and some Biblical principles that can guide believers in how to navigate their relationships with one another.

<p>This message is a reflection on the division over COVID vaccines, and some Biblical principles that can guide believers in how to navigate their relationships with one another.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

AudioVerse

Eugene Prewitt

Liberty, Opportunity, and Responsibility

Our Father in heaven, I ask you to bless this talk, that you'd teach me what to say and what not to say.

So I'm speaking to you today from my last few hours in the great United States.

My wife and I are headed today to Bangladesh where we're gonna be living.

And we're moving from a land with more freedom to a land of less freedom.

And if you live in the United States today and you think you don't have much freedom, well maybe you don't have as much as you had yesterday, but try moving and see how that goes for you.

I want to talk today about liberty, opportunity, and responsibility.

And of course, that means about the virus and the vaccine.

By all accounts, COVID-19 has generated unprecedented interest in the tension between personal liberty and mutual responsibility.

You've heard both of these kind of expressions.

You've heard people say, My body is God's temple.

I am obliged to honor him above all human authority and consequently I have a right to liberty regarding what goes into my body.

And you've also heard people saying with passion, no man is an island.

When my choices endanger others, those choices are selfish and evil.

If I put the needs of my body, temple, higher than the needs of others around me, In what sense am I imitating Christ?

And, well, at least for me it's hard to argue with either of those conscientious statements, though it does seem at times that they're arguing with each other.

Let me offer a few ideas that might serve to dial down the rhetoric.

First, I wanna say some words to my anti-COVID vaccine friends, my anti-vaxxer friends.

It is certainly not likely to help my personal health, nor is it likely to make me safer to those around me.

I already have natural immunity to several strains of COVID.

And I have significant thoughts about the shortness of the period over which we have been gathering data on the long-term effects of these mRNA vaccines.

But just a few weeks ago, my wife and I got the second dose of that jab, and this is why.

The opportunities it opens for us to minister in various places in the 1040 window are worth more to me than my life.

My opportunities outweigh the value of a human life because they open the door for many humans to have eternal life.

Your opportunities also might outweigh your rights.

How valuable is your opportunity to minister in places that are closed to you if you refuse the vaccine?

My anti-vaxxer friends, I want you to consider this.

But now let me say some words to my pro-vax friends, my pro-COVID vaccine friends.

Listen, let's drop this business of condemning people for unintended consequences.

I mean, Jesus is not responsible for the evil on this planet even if he does send rain and sunshine on the evil and on the good.

And you are not responsible for the drinking habits of the manager of the gas station where you fill up your motorcycle.

Our responsibility ends where our choices end.

So while the unvaccinated may be exposing themselves to significant risk, they are neither suicidal nor murderous.

Instead, they are taking a calculated risk to themselves because of the values that they hold.

And for all you know, friend, They may be more careful than you are to not spread or shed the virus.

That's called merciful thinking, and we need more of that today.

But now let me say a few words to both camps.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

And that liberty has always been a boon, especially to minority opinions.

An atheistic professor, a lesbian counselor, a Jesuit doing polemic work for the Catholic faith, a young man advancing a communist agenda, a Jehovah's Witness missionary, and a successful mullah helping Westerners revert to Islam.

But these 6 individuals are really doing much worse things than even super spreaders of the virus.

These persons are causing false Gospels to proliferate to their own everlasting shame.

They are causing young and unsuspecting persons to become hardened and lost.

Still, we advocate extending liberty to them.

God requires us to do this, and if I wasn't a conscientious objector, I would fight to defend their rights to promote their sincerely held opinions, however dangerous those opinions might be.

That respect for them, however, would not prevent me from vigorously opposing them by teaching and writing.

You might ask, why should we extend liberty to them when they are destroying the eternal lives of our neighbors?

I answer, no 1 is qualified to tell a man how he must worship God.

Every person answers directly to God for his choices regarding worship and obedience.

It is not the work of any, this is quoting Ellen White, it is not the work of any man to prescribe the work of any other man contrary to his own convictions of duty.

It is right to give counsel and to suggest plans, but every man must be left free to seek direction from God, whose he is and whom he serves.

When it comes to vaccines, the governments of the world find themselves in a bind.

On 1 hand, they are obliged to make policies to promote public health, such as that corpses must not be buried near water sources, persons with Ebola must strictly quarantine, medicinal drugs must receive federal approval, homes in some areas must be checked for radon periodically to avoid dangerous radiation accumulation in the basements.

I mean, there are many such laws that are designed to protect public health.

But on the other hand, the best of world governments feel obliged to interfere with life and liberty of their citizens as little as possible.

And as the laws of Moses show that God authorizes significant policies for defending public health, I mean it does show that Israel had many rules related to sanitation, parallel to those of our health department today, and infectious persons were required to strictly quarantine, living ever outside the cities until health returned.

Miriam's prestige and power did not win her an exception to these rules.

As nations weigh these conflicting ideals of protection and liberty, let us be charitable in judging our government.

Not all restrictions ought to be viewed as overreach.

Honor to whom honor is due is part of our moral duty to governments, and policies without teeth are not rules.

So let's not accuse our government of coercion when she threatens nonconformists to her health policies.

The topic of vaccines and mask mandates is just very complicated.

I know good solid doctors on both sides of the debates.

And as I like science generally, and health science in particular, I have personally taken a careful look at the data, and as I said, it is complicated.

Cases for masks can be made sensibly, and a case can be made for the health benefits of unmasked respiration.

Cases can be made for and against ivermectin and cases can be made for vaccine mandates and better cases can be made I think for vaccine freedom but you don't need me to think for you And that is where Romans 14 comes in.

There God bids us be gracious to each other when we differ regarding doubtful questions.

We are to be sweet and understanding despite our deep feelings and differing yet passionate views.

In the case of Romans 14 there was a question about whether they would keep Passover and some thought conscientiously we must keep it and every Christian should because Jesus had kept the Last Supper and indicated that we would keep it all the way to His Second Coming.

Others thought no, the ceremonial laws were nailed to the cross.

Jesus instituted a new ritual in the Lord's Supper.

These 2 opinions were both held by studious persons and they couldn't agree with each other and they both felt so important about it and that's why we get this beautiful counsel of Romans 14.

Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind.

Since we each answer to God personally, and for that reason I should give you room to serve him how you think best, and you should give me the same.

And the government may not give any such grace at all.

You see Romans 13 and 14 relate to each other just this way.

First in 13 we respect God and do what he says.

Then we respect Caesar and do as he requires.

Then in 14, we respect each other and receive each other as friends and brothers, despite our differences on doubtful subjects.

These 3 steps outlined in these 2 chapters would free the church today from much difficulty.

So if you don't get vaccinated and do end up in ICU, I'm going to care for you no less than if you ended up there as a vaccinated person.

And if you do get vaccinated and publish the fact, I will suppose that you are a faithful servant of Christ and not a dupe of the best prepared preparing, not a dupe of the beast, preparing for the ominous mark.

On that last point, what about the global elites?

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Liberty, Opportunity, and Responsibility

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