As I mentioned last week, I'm going to digress from our study through the book of Matthew, and I'm going to address some issues related to COVID. My message is some thoughts on thinking Christianly about COVID. The lines of opinions on COVID are drawn, and sometimes they are doggedly drawn. I've seen Bible-believing conservative Christians divided over the issue of COVID more than any non-theological issue that I can recall. Early on, it was whether you met together as a church. If you did not, then you were compromising and you were walking in faith. If you did meet together as a church, you were not loving your neighbor because you were exposing them to the disease. There was very little room, if any, for anyone who disagreed with some, and still that they could remain in biblical fidelity. Then it became the mask, and the mask was the issue, and the mask to some degree still is. If you wear a mask, then you're cowing to the government, and you're a part of bringing in a totalitarian government. If you do not wear a mask, then you are not loving your neighbor and participating in killing people. And again, very little if any room was left from some in those opinions of disagreement and allowing for that person to still be walking with Christ. Now it is whether you receive the vaccine or not. If you receive the vaccine, then you have cowed to the government and you're walking in fear. I mean, Chinese are worshiping every day, risking their life. Why are you taking a vaccine? If you do not take the vaccine, then you are not loving your neighbor and you are actually killing people. Very little room for many is left for any room of disagreement with the opinion and still remain faithful to the Bible. Now we have the mandates of governments and businesses being vaccinated, or people face they cannot travel or they cannot go in certain places, or they may face losing their job. One person, whom I know is a conservative, a godly person, said, and I quote, vaccine mandates are a precursor to the mark of the beast, end quote. Something I do not agree with, but I'm just telling you, this is where many are. Others have said, if you send your unvaccinated child to school, your child is killing people, and you are authorizing it. Many are being given ultimatums to be vaccinated or lose their job. Some are choosing to be vaccinated to keep their job and their livelihood, while others are choosing to not be vaccinated and they are losing their job. Consequently, many are seeking religious exemptions. so that they don't have to take the vaccination with the understanding that we are Baptist and Baptist are different than others. We are not a denomination. We are convention. There's no hierarchy like there is in Methodism, Episcopalianism, Catholicism, and you can go through the list. You can't speak accurately and say the Baptist church unless you're speaking of one Baptist church. Whereas you can when you speak of the Methodist church, Catholic church, Presbyterian church and so forth, all of those that came out of the Reformation and the Catholic church. You can say Catholic church and include all kinds of local assemblies. But in Baptist life you can't because each church is an autonomous church. body of believers, and we have a convention that we freely associate with one another, but they have no authority over us. With that in mind, I want to suggest two approaches to the question of a religious exemption. The first approach that you can take for a religious exemption would be based on what is known as the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer. And I would quote from 1 Peter 2, verse 5, and then verse 9. Peter said, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. That's 1 Peter 2, 5. He further states, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. people for God's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous marvelous life chapter 2 verse 9 so the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer which is a biblical doctrine and is a doctrine a distinctive of Baptist churches today and historically it tells us several things number one we do not need a human mediator for us to go to God, Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25 through 28. It also tells us that we are to live our lives being faithful to God as recorded in the scripture. And so Baptists are less dependent or related to the creeds of the church throughout the centuries. We are less connected to them than our brothers and sisters in more liturgical traditions and more reformed traditions. The Texas Baptist Convention summarized the priesthood of the believer and I thought it did a good job and it gave it this way. The doctrine of the priesthood of each and all believers influences Baptist convictions regarding believers' baptism, local church autonomy, congregational government, religious liberty, and the separation of church and state. So you can see it's related to the last two. We, as believers, are to seek to follow God and everything the Bible explicitly commands. When there is no explicit command, then we look to the clear principles of Scripture, or what becomes after that normative. If there's no explicit scripture, if there are not clear principles, if there's not something that's normative, then we look to the ways that they normally did things for guidance, but it's not incumbent on us to do the same thing in the same way. For example, fasting is never commanded in the New Testament. There's not even a normative established, but it was normal that they did fast, and so that's another level. When the scripture does not explicitly and prescriptively address our question, we simply apply the principles or the normal or normative practices. When we are seeking to follow Christ and we are in this level of revelation, we are to allow for differences of opinions among believers without judging one another as more spiritual or less spiritual. In the early church, a dominant question was the eating of meat, whether you should do it or not. This isn't a question about vegetarianism versus non-vegetarianism. What had happened when the law ended and the new covenant was brought into being, we were exempted from, we were no longer obligated to keep the dietary laws of the Old Testament once you're under the New Covenant. Jesus said it this way in Mark 7, 18, and 19. Jesus said, and he said to them, are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him? because it does not go into the heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated. Thus, he declared all foods clean. There was a revelation, as you well know, an experience with Peter in Acts chapter 10, 9 through 17, where God was declaring all animals clean, so he was no longer under the dietary laws. When you go to Romans chapter 4, verse 1 through 23, it deals extensively with this problem of eating meat, but it does not tell us in the passage why this was an issue. But we can deduce from other passages, I believe, like 1 Corinthians chapter 8 and 1 Corinthians chapter 10, that it was probably associated with demons. And here's the way it would work. that a priest or something, he would have the local shop or he would either bring meat that had been sacrificed to an idol earlier in the day, maybe a piece off of that or maybe the whole thing, but it wasn't all gone and so they would bring it, bring it to the shop, they would put it on the shelf and you would come in and buy that meat that had been sacrificed to an idol. Some believers thought it was okay to eat that meat. Other believers thought it was not okay because it had been contaminated by idolatry. And the Bible left that to the conscience of the person. There's no mandate whether to eat that meat or not eat that meat, nor is it condemning either side. It left it to the place of conscience. This is different than a doctrine. Doctrines are explicitly laid out in the scripture. Marriage is between a man and a woman. It's heterosexual. It's monogamous. Stealing is wrong. Adultery is wrong. Following God is right. All of these are doctrines and they're different. They're not a matter of conscience. They're a matter of explicit revelation. So in this 1st Corinthians 14 passage, this is a key verse. And it says, the one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat. And the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats for God has accepted him. Romans 14 verse three. Now I'm applying this to our issue of COVID, which like meat is not explicitly addressed in the scripture. So let me read it again in an applicatory way. The one who is vaccinated is not to regard with contempt the one who does not get vaccinated. And the one who does not get vaccinated is not to judge the one who is vaccinated. For God has accepted him. As applied to COVID, I would say this issue is the way it plays out. And you can go to verse one, if you read the passage, I don't have time to go through every verse, but it talks about the weaker brother and the stronger brother. You may have some explicit revelation regarding meat. You don't have it versus COVID. Hence, which one is the weaker or the stronger? We don't know. And like Andrew Griffith said, I think it'll be debated until doomsday. But we're not going to know. As applied to COVID, I would say the issue is not who is weak or strong, but rather it is the clear application of the scripture since the scripture does not say be vaccinated or do not be vaccinated. The person who takes the vaccine is no more nor less spiritual than the one who does not take the vaccine and vice versa. Verse 6, Paul said, He who observes the day observes it for the Lord, and he who eats does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God. And he who eats not for the Lord, he does not eat, and he gives thanks. And you can put vaccination in there and non-vaccination. The main thing is they're giving thanks. The people that I know have gotten the vaccination, they're thankful. The people who don't get it are thankful, but they don't have to. Verse 8, And for if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. Scripture, my understanding, this is basically how we handle COVID on these scriptures that are dealing with the meat. The decision to be vaccinated or not vaccinated is left to the conscience of the individual follower of Jesus Christ. And it is a personal decision before God that makes one neither more spiritual or less spiritual. If a person chooses to be vaccinated, that is their choice before God. If a person chooses not to be vaccinated, that is their personal choice before God. If having the vaccination becomes a law, then we have to apply those that speak to this, like Matthew 22, verse 21, and Romans 13. But even when it's a law that tells us that God has told us to do one thing, whether that is in your conscience or the scripture, and you don't want to violate that before God, you can disobey the law, but you have to be willing to peacefully suffer the consequence of that conviction. Acts chapter 5 verse 17 through 29 is a good passage on that. So all of the commands, if God has commanded believers and the government tells us to do the opposite, we are to follow God. When it is a matter of conscience, that is up to that individual to follow God in that or believe that he is disobeying God, but it doesn't apply to anyone else like it does when it's a scripture. Another distinction I would draw is we believe in the objective will of God and the subjective will of God. The objective will of God is the scripture, and all believers are to obey everything the scripture calls us to obey. The subjective will of God we recognize, and that is God working in our individual lives and leading us, what home to buy, what person to date, what job to go to, in a myriad of subjects. That is personal. It's time-bound. What God is telling you to do today, He may not be telling you to do in five days. But anything in the subjective will will never contradict the objective will that we are all under. Today, the mandate to be vaccinated is a challenged mandate, not a law. As of today, The SBC has not taken a doctrinal position on the question of whether it is biblical for all to get vaccinated or not get vaccinated. Nor do I expect them to take a position. Nor do I believe they should take a position for the reasons that I've laid out and will lay out more. More importantly for us, being Baptists at Trinity Baptist Church, we are an autonomous group of believers living under the authority of Scripture, following the leadership of God's elders that He has put in charge. We have not taken a position on the moral and biblical question of COVID vaccination. Some of the reasons we have not done so, I have already mentioned. Therefore, neither TBC nor the elders can authenticate a sincerely held religious belief in the matter of the church's doctrine or our stated position. In other words, you can say you have it and you may. We just can't authenticate it to anyone else if you're basing it on our doctrinal position or stated position that we have explicitly laid out there. We can state. that one can have, with Baptist beliefs in the Bible, the preacher of the believers can have a sincere religious belief to either have or not have the vaccination. And to violate this for that individual could be a violation of their conscience which causes them to believe they are disobeying God and walking by sight and not by faith, 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7. But we cannot say either choice violates the objective will of God, the scripture. We cannot do that. Paul said this, I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. If you think eating the meat is unclean, to you it's unclean, don't eat it. If you think it's clean, eat it. It's not unclean. If you think the vaccination is in the will of God, because it doesn't explicitly say, get it. If you think it's not, don't get it. That's the application of this. At least I believe so. For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love, do not destroy with your food for him for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." Verse 14 through 17 of Romans 14. The endangerment that he speaks of is not physical endangerment. To make it apply to that is to degrade the scripture. It is speaking about spiritual, which is far more important. In other words, it is far more important that we follow God in His Word and our conscience than if we die. So you can't degrade this to being some kind of physical protection, but it is spiritual protection. Both the objective scripture and subjective, personal, will of God should be held and followed sincerely by every believer, although we know that we fail at both. Thus, neither you nor I personally need a religious body or a government to tell us that whether our belief is sincerely held or not. In other words, I don't need anyone else telling me whether this belief that I have about God is sincerely held or not. However, that does not mean that that sincerely held belief will be recognized as a legal sincerely held belief. That is another issue. Also, practically, It does seem to me that a business can make requirements of its employees so long as those requirements do not violate the law, which always includes now whatever has been passed in the Civil Rights Act. It does not violate this legally held sincere belief, religious belief. You have to understand, if you don't look at this thing historically, you just get, you think this is a new day, that nobody's ever gone through this. This has been going on since the beginning of government. I remember back in the 1970s, working in the 1970s, that's more than a few weeks ago. I remember working at a grocery store, and you know what the first thing you had to do? Go get a TB test. If you said, I'm not going to take the test, they said, that's OK. You don't have to take it. You just can't work here. Used to when we were more sanitary, if you worked around food, you wore a hairnet. No matter how it made you feel as a man, you had a hairnet on your head or you didn't work there with food. Requirements are everywhere to be an employee somewhere. Some places, like railroads, they have books of rules. We get books there. This is nothing new. This job you wear goggles, this one you don't. This one you have this kind of test, this one you don't. Additionally, it seems to me that private businesses should be able to require customers to abide by their rules or not come in. I think that a restaurant could say, we only serve unvaccinated people. You're not welcome if you're vaccinated or they can reverse it. Remember the signs, no shoes, no shirts, no service. They've been around a long time. I think they can do that as long as they don't violate the law. We can always go down the street and eat somewhere where we don't have to wear shoes. The same with employment. I believe the company can make rules within the law that we can either abide by or we can leave and go get another job. Freedom is the freedom of choice, it is the freedom of speech, it is the freedom of religion, but it is not the freedom from all such things as rules and laws, obligations and penalties. None of these employment or service questions demand that the sincerely held belief exercised has to necessarily be tied to the doctrine of a church or a religious body, in my understanding. Although, that does, if it's not so tied, does not mean that it will be recognized by the legal community or by the business where you work. Now, this is what I can say to you about what I've said thus far about the exemptions. I can say that the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer, which Baptist churches, this is a distinctive of Baptist, it is a Bible doctrine, it is believed unquestionably in this church as well, is a doctrine And it is and can from that doctrine be drawn, I believe, that following God according to our conscience in areas that are unclear, meaning there's no explicit scripture, it may be indeed able to show it tied to our faith. Not directly, but indirectly. We believe in the priesthood of the believer, which means that we can in these areas follow God according to conscience. This is a matter of conscience. So there is this connection. So to state that again, meaning while there is no command to be vaccinated or not vaccinated, The biblical and Baptist belief of the priesthood of the believer does seem to include or at least permit a Christian to tie their sincerely held belief of conscience to that doctrine. But that does not mean that the legal community or the place where we're employed will recognize that sincerely held belief that we have in conscience indirectly tied to that. If we do make the claim, we have to be willing to suffer the consequence of our claim. The apostles were preaching and the authorities said, you can no longer preach. And in Acts chapter 5 verse 29, they answered, we must obey God rather than men. And they did that both in the Old Testament and New Testament, but they were always willing to suffer the consequences. So you wouldn't burn the building down where you worked or start a riot. You would simply go off peacefully. And if they had to put you in jail, you go to jail like John Bunyan. We can exercise civil disobedience to follow God, but that is done peacefully by us. There are many legal thoughts on this. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going into that, but I have researched quite a bit of that, and I can give you some sites that you can just at least become familiar with the issue legally. The second approach to the religious exemption is an approach that focuses on the link between the vaccination and embryonic stem cell research, which thereby connects it to abortion. In this case, the Southern Baptist Convention and our church has spoken explicitly, doctrinally, and repeatedly We have resolutions in the Southern Baptist Convention dating back to 1979 that are pro-life. We have resolutions that condemn embryonic stem cell research, which requires the destruction of the embryo. And we also have the Baptist Faith and Message, which Baptists gather around as our core basic beliefs, and it speaks to this as well. For example, The Baptist faith and message says, children from the moment of conception are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Article 18 on the family. Here's a resolution on stem cell research. Whereas, some forms of human stem cell research require the destruction of human embryos in order to obtain the cells for such research. And Southern Baptists are on record for their decades-long opposition to abortion, except to save the physical life of the mother, and their opposition to destructive human embryo research. and be it resolved that we, the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, June 15, 16, 1999, reaffirm our vigorous opposition to the destruction of innocent human life, including the destruction of human embryos. These and others give you primary documents to support your claim to a sincerely held religious belief, both at the convention level and the church level. However, there are potential problems with seeking it this way as there were with the other. They're just different problems. For an example of that, The Conway Regional Hospital chose to grant religious exemptions to those who didn't want the vaccines because of the connection to embryonic stem cell research and thereby abortion. And so what the Conway Regional Hospital said, we will give you that exemption. But they called for them to be consistent, which meant that they would not take any other medicines. that were so related to embryonic stem cell research and therefore abortion. In their list, they gave, they provided 30 commonly used medicines that, quote, fall into the same category as the COVID-19 vaccine in their use of fetal cell lines, end quote. Matt Troop, who is the president and CEO of Conway Regional, said, and they just gave a partial list, the list includes Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, Aspirin, Tums, Lipitor, Sinocot, Motrin, Ibuprofen, Maalox, Exlax, Benadryl, Sunafed, Albuterol, Preparation H, MMR vaccine. The MMR vaccine is the one that they give to children. They give two doses. one when they're about 12 to 15 months old, and then the other when they're about 4 to 6 years old. And these protect children against measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox. The list goes on to Claritin, Zoloft, Prilosec OTC, and Azithromycin. You medical people, you need something to do. which treats many infections that we get, such as respiratory pneumonia, skin, eye, and ear infections. There are more, but I trust we get the point. Consistency would say that if you're not going to take the vaccine because of that link, then you should not use any medications that have that link. I think there's an argument against that, but I don't have time to go into it. We were told that there would be a vaccine that had zero connection to embryonic stem cell research and thereby abortion. However, to my knowledge, that has not happened. There were six, and now there may be seven, there may be more. You may have heard of something in the last few days because people are inventing them around the world and different things like that. But the six that I'm going to refer to include the big ones we know about, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and then the Oxford one as well. According to Jeffrey Barrows and Jonathan Embody, both Christian ethicists and a part of the Christian Medical Association, in an article that you can find in the Journal of the Witherspoon Institute, and it was entitled, Is Receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Ethical? And they concluded when all of the considerations were there that it is ethical. In other words, you could be against abortion and still take the vaccine. There were six of the vaccines at the time of the article, and that's why they consider six, but the big ones are there. The reason they ultimately conclude this after going through the arguments and so forth is because of three things that I'll mention that fall under the remoteness of the vaccine to the stem cell research. So it's a remoteness of that vaccine and compared to others. It is remote in the sense, number one, it uses a stem line from 1972. so about 50 years old, compared to other vaccines that are using more recent stem cell lines, and they may even be using current ones that are becoming available now. The second is that Pfizer, unlike the others, limited it to one thing, and that was to confirm coding. meaning that they used that stem cell line to confirm that when the vaccine got into you, it would code properly. Once that was done, they didn't need it anymore. That leads to the third thing, that Pfizer, unlike the others, did it one time. And once they confirmed coding, they do not need stem cell lines anymore. However, in the others, as far as I know, all of them utilize the stem cells or the tissue as a part of the vaccine. So if it's a part of the vaccine, then as long as you're producing the vaccine, you need the stem cell line, so you're constantly going back. So Pfizer used an old one, it used it to find coding, it used a tool that's connected with that stem cell line to find out if it would code, and it used it one time in contrast to the others that are continuously dependent on the stem cell line. Now I don't, again, I don't have time, I'm just doing everything I can to get through, but I've given it many times and we've talked about it a number of times, I don't mind doing it again, but we live in a fallen world. and therefore we are at times brought to a place that we make decisions that are not necessarily the lesser of two evils, that could be there, but that's not always the case. Sometimes it's the best of the choices available, sometimes it's the better of the two, but there's still many objections. So if you don't believe you need a vaccine, this isn't an issue for you. But if you believe you need it or the doctor told you get it or you could possibly die, then you believe you need it. Now you need to make the decision that's best. And let me just say that some of you have had various companies, different vaccines. This is not in any way to criticize you. This is just probably for many new information. and this information's coming out, so you could have had another one, but you didn't know or you don't know, but I think once we know, we're making the decisions within the realm of choices we have, we're making the best choice or the better of two. Barrows and Embody say, quote, this is their summary, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was not developed or produced using any tissue from an aborted child. Let me just stop right there. So many times people are throwing things out. They're all connected. But see, they're not telling you the distinctions. So you think they're all using it in their medicine. They're not. Now whether that makes a difference to you or not doesn't matter. It matters whether we are telling it like it is. That's what matters, so people can make informed choices. So it was not developed or produced, so they didn't use it in the development stage, and it's not produced in making the vaccine, any tissue from an aborted child, though it did make use of a biological assessment tool that would assess coding that relies on cell line HEK, H-E-K, 293 derived from an aborted baby in 1972. So that's the options of the, as I would understand it, of the ways that you can go about a religious exemption. So in summary of that, I'm not in summary finished, so don't leave, but in summary of that part, don't change the channel. Here's what I would say. Neither the SBC nor Trinity has a definitive official position on whether to vaccine or not. Therefore, it is a personal decision of conscience. making one neither less spiritual or more spiritual, depending on what they choose. Second, you may wonder, yes, I am familiar with the credible and conflicting studies on both sides of the issue, which is much of the problem. If whatever side you're on, you think there are no studies or stats or any information on the other side, I would say that is naive. That's the problem. It's conflicting. I mean, people on one side or the other, they aren't just doing it because they don't have any information or knowledge. They do. How you process all of that, that's another issue. And which one's the best at the final analysis? But my goodness, there is a plethora of information and studies and on and on and on. So we are in the realm, when we're dealing with this, we are in the realm of varying degrees of probabilities. And we have no explicit scripture. Therefore, it seems to me, and I would suggest to you, that we treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ who are seeking to follow Christ and we respond with grace. Third, I believe it is well within the Christian faith to seek an exemption in any area that may not be explicitly taught in the scripture. I do believe that. I believe it's okay to do that. And you can base it on the things that I've mentioned. Number one, the place of Christian conscience in limited areas. Number two, the subjective will of God, which is personal and maybe even time-bound. Meaning, God could tell somebody to do this today and five days later he doesn't want them doing that. It's time-bound. Third, the priesthood of the believer. So the exemption in my mind does not require this church, religious body, or anybody to tell me whether or tell you that that belief we have as a matter of conscience is sincere or not. We decide that before God. However, the business we work for and the legal community can decide whether that passes mustard at that company or the law. If I were pursuing a religious exemption based on a sincerely held belief, I would take the second one I gave you on the pro-life issue. and then I would supplement it with the priesthood of the believer and subjective will of God and conscience. So I would mix the two because I think there is a response to the problems that I pointed out in the second. Whether it would carry weight with them, I don't know, but I would mix the two. I would be willing to sign an exemption that was properly worded Because if it was properly worded, it would be doing this. This is what it would be relying on. It would be relying on, we believe in the sanctity of life from conception. No doubt about that. We stand against abortion. No doubt about that. We believe in the priesthood of all believers. No doubt about that. So I can sign one properly written. that says, does the place you attend believe in these things? And we can say yes. Nevertheless, you need to be willing to suffer the consequence of your belief in this area as well as all areas of life. There are so many variables and you're probably, some of you are thinking about them. I just can't address them all. I don't even have the knowledge to address them all. And I think I'd go mad if I thought I had to. But you might be thinking, so do you agree or recognize that people who have had COVID actually have maybe a better vaccination than the vaccination? I think the information seems to indicate that. How long it's gonna last is kind of debated and so forth and so on, but it seems like, so I agree with that. The thing I hear the most, well, don't you agree that the government is going to use this, and they're doing these things, and they want more control of our lives, and they want to be more telling us what to do, and they want to be in every area of our life. My answer to that is, of course. This is what governments do, not just in America, all governments throughout history. It's just the difference in America. We can vote them in and out if we will do it. We have that. But this is what governments do. Governments don't shrink unless they're forced. They always get bigger because they genuinely believe people in the government, not everybody, but some, genuinely believe that they can make our lives safer, healthier, better, and make us more happy. If they are in charge, and they manage the economy, and they manage medicine, and they manage the money, and all of this, this is ultimately fleshed out in socialism, ultimately Marxism, and they do genuinely believe this. So of course I recognize it. This has been going on a long time. It's just sometimes when you're young, you just, you don't really know. So I mean, I could give a million examples, but I'm gonna give one. It's seatbelts. Look, you may not know this, but back in the 70s and stuff, we didn't have seatbelts. And we didn't feel afraid. And we drove all the time. And you'd put your kids back in the back window traveling, and they'd be up there asleep. Think about you slam on the brakes and we didn't even care. We were just driving, man, having vacation. If you had a pickup truck, the adults got in the front, where'd the kids go? In the back. And they rolled around hitting the sides and the tailgate laughing. They were free as birds back there. And then they told us, You gotta start putting this belt on when you're in your own car that you paid for. And now we're in there like we're heading off to the moon. And you know what people think? Well it all makes sense. It didn't make sense then. It was an incredible intrusion into our lives, our freedom, and our sense of being. I can replicate this 20 trillion times probably. This is the way it is. So this isn't an isolated thing. Don't think we've just entered into this tribulation period where this is going on and it never went on before. They've been doing it all along. I mean we can go into sewer systems, everything falls under this category. But I shall not go there. So there are many vaccines, and I just list mine because I don't want to list yours, but the vaccines I've had that are smallpox, mumps, tetanus, typhus, hepatitis A and B, polio, measles, shingles. I had the shingles vaccination because I've had shingles. I know the pain. I don't want it again. When I got 60, I took it. And then a few years later, they said, you need to get Vaccine and I said, no, I've already gotten it. Well, you need the second one. I said you mean you mean I got to take another shot They said no you got to take two shots. I said well, I had the first one They said no you didn't have the first one. You had the first one that one that didn't work So now you got to take two, you know what I did I took two I Does anybody else need to take that? No, I don't care if you take it or not. I just don't want that, and I'm willing to take the cost-benefit factor and say, I've had shingles, therefore I have a greater propensity, but I've had the pain and I don't want it again if I can avoid it, so shoot me twice. I get the flu shot every year. Nobody in my family gets the flu shot. But before I started getting the flu shot, I got the flu every year. Nobody in my family gets the flu. But I get it, so I get the flu shot. I got the COVID vaccination. In the Army, I got vaccinations. You say, what'd they vaccinate you for? I don't know. I don't know. Here's the way it works there. At 0600 hours beyond the company street, orders of the captain. That pretty much ended that discussion. You didn't do any studies or anything like that. And here was the incident, real life. You're out there and be in your t-shirts. So you get up there, you're on the company street, and there's these doctors standing up there, and they have guns. They don't just, okay, hold your arms still. They got guns, and they say, when you get up there, pause. They shoot you and take off. So there's one on each side with these guns, and I'm seeing my buddies come back, and their arms are just bleeding everywhere. And so you turn around, you kind of say, so again, what are these vaccines for? I don't know. They just said to be out here. That was the end of it. I still don't know what they're for, but I must be protected from something. Some would point to the limited testing of COVID vaccine in comparison to other vaccines as a significant problem. Whether that's a valid concern or not would take historical research. You can't just get that off of talking to somebody or hearing how long this test went or even looking at a couple of others, which I'll do in a moment. No, I am not for mandates. If anybody's unclear, I'm for free choice. But sometimes we have to live under laws or mandates that we don't like, and this one is not a law thus far. Now I want to speak for a moment about the use of statistics. And I'm speaking not to people who are knowledgeable in the area, but people like me, who don't know our way around. I'm also speaking to the people who think they know their way around, but may not be as knowledgeable as they think. According to COVID-19 tracker, this tracks all over the world, as of November the 11th, more than 7.36 billion shots had been administered worldwide. 434 million in the US had been administered by November the 11th. According to VAERS, and I'm using VAERS as an example of how statistics are being misused, So we could go into other areas but this one I think will be clear. VAERS was established in 1990 and it is an acronym for the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. It is a national early warning system to detect possible safety problems in U.S. licensed vaccines. So it began in 1990, so it's not connected or the result of COVID, and it was to detect problems. They license a vaccine, people take the vaccine, and this is to help detect problems. It is managed by the CDC and the FDA. VAERS accepts and analyzes reports of adverse events, side effects, after a person has had a vaccination. VAERS is a passive reporting system, meaning it relies on individuals to send in reports of their experience. So here's the way VAERS, anybody can send in a report. If you have had a reaction to a vaccination, you can send in a report and it'll be logged in there. If your uncle had a vaccination and died one year later, you can send that in there. If you had the vaccination, something happened after, you can send that information in there. Anybody in America can do that. This is not just limited to medical people or doctors or nurses or anybody like that, or professionals. Anybody can contact it. It's a passive reporting system. It gets its data from people giving that information. However, and you can read this on VAERS site, it's not an interpretation, you can go read it. VAERS is not designed to determine if a vaccine caused a health problem. But it is especially useful for detecting unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse event reporting that might indicate a possible safety problem with a vaccine. So everybody can call in. And you can say, you know, I had a stomachache two days later or six months later. And that system takes all of that data. But you cannot go on there and it says 10,000 people had a stomachache after taking this vaccine. You cannot draw a conclusion that the vaccine caused the stomachache. You cannot deduce causation from this site. It is incapable of telling you that. What it does is gives what scientists and researchers and statisticians call raw data to look at. So those that are trained and involved in this, they then look at that raw data if they need to. They may not need to, but if they do. So to make any kind of evaluation, you need the researchers. So if you were to go to this site and you were to see a number I'm getting ready to give you, and you concluded that it meant something, then you have misused the statistic and the site, its capability, and this is happening all the time. All the time. MU Health, University of Missouri. Quote, so this is one of the studies of this site that was done. Since December 2020, more than 350 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in the US and VAERS, this open reporting system, has received 6,968 reports of death. So somebody took the vaccine and they died. So they've had almost 7,000 reports of that. If that were true, if all that 7,000 died out of the 350 million shots, that would be 0.0019% died. But that's just the reports. You can't tell how many died, or if anybody died, by the way. And this went until August 26th of 2021. That's the timeframe of those numbers. So 7,000 people were reported to have died out of 350 million vaccinations to that date, which means that practically speaking, your chance in dying from taking the vaccine is zero, practically speaking. It's what's called statistically insignificant. It means nothing. Particularly, that's if they all died. But this is people saying somebody died after they got the shot. And you cannot use the data there to demonstrate causality. It gives no insight into that whatsoever. So VAERS, by its very nature, I hope you can see, can have inaccurate information. But it does always have incomplete information. It reminds me of the quote by the former Prime Minister of England, Benjamin Disraeli. Mark Twain popularized it later. Quote, there are three kinds of lies. There are lies, darn lies, he used a different adjective which I'll forgo, and statistics. Meaning that statistics have a greater capability of perpetuating a falsehood when they're misused than a direct lie would, even if it comes from a darn liar. So this has been politicized. The primary research, they haven't looked at it. So very quickly, if I read, if you and I read 100 people got sick from the vaccine, that doesn't tell you a thing, not one thing worth anything, except 100 people got sick. If it said 100 out of 100 got sick, well now we've got something to go on. I might not take it, especially if they died. But if it says 100 out of 300 million, it's meaningless. It may alarm you emotionally, but it's meaningless as far as whether or not the shot is safe or so forth. So using VAERS to demonstrate causality, even rarity or commonality, is a misuse of the system. Researchers look at the data when there's need, they form a hypothesis, they go investigate it, and they come back with a conclusion. Nevertheless, on Instagram, one was touted their credentials, and this was viewed 36,000 times using VAERS to show that that many people had died. One replication that I read of showed that 970,000 people saw it. Science.org says on May 5th, Fox News, one of the hosts of their news, announced that almost 4,000 people had died after getting COVID-19 vaccines and added that those data, quote, come from VAERS, end quote. Millions heard it and they passed it to millions. And you cannot know that from the VAERS site. Science.org This is what VAERS does, though. VAERS is able to detect rare vaccine effects, such as a very rare clotting disorder that was linked to Johnson & Johnson. That's how we found out about it, it was VAERS. And the researchers got involved and they connected it. But let me just say this, once they connected it with Johnson & Johnson, they simultaneously are showing there's no evidence of connection to the other vaccines. So they're not only telling you a problem with a vaccine, that type of research that they're doing tells you others that don't have that problem. Eric Formeister, he's an ear surgeon at John Hopkins University, and he had his patients telling him they got the vaccine and they had a hearing loss. And so it was anecdotal, so he wanted to get more data, he went to VAERS, he and the researchers went to VAERS. And they researched all of the claims of that, and they concluded that the hearing loss was no more frequent, and possibly less frequent, among vaccine recipients than the population as a whole. This was published in the Journal of American Medical Association. After that, the CDC got involved because there was information that there was a vaccine causing heart inflammation of children, so they used VAERS to investigate that. I don't know what the conclusion was, but that's where VAERS comes in. Previous vaccines better vetted. Well, let me just touch on a few things. They say, well, they're better vetted. The testing was longer than today. That is true of some, but it's when you just can't make a blank statement like that. For example, according to the Office of Science and Society, there was a time in American history when vaccines and other biological products used for medical reasons were not regulated. And what happened was, that brought on more regulation, was 13 children took a vaccine for diphtheria antitoxin, and it was contaminated with tetanus, and they died. And because of that, legal steps were taken to start regulating this stuff. And the adoption by Congress in 1902 was the Virus Toxin Act. Subsequent tragedies brought on more regulations as well. In the 1970s, so there are a number of vaccines. We've had many of them used for many, many things. We've benefited from them. But in the 70s, there were some vaccines, and so people were saying that they kill you and doing all kinds of things. Whether you prove it or not, and some people do die, by the way, and whether you prove it or not wasn't what the companies were worried about. They were worried about the bad PR. So what the companies that make vaccines and do all the research, what they decided was, they said, You know what? There's a whole bunch of other medicines. We can make aspirins and Tylenol and we don't have to worry about being smeared and maybe the reputation of our company ruined. So we'll just go do that and we won't make vaccines. According to the Office of Science and Society, Indeed, the number of vaccine companies willing to distribute vaccines in the litigious United States started to tumble, and in 1986, Americans were left with a single supplier of the vaccine against diphtheria, pertussis, which is whooping cough, and tetanus. We got down to one. Because they were afraid of them pulling out, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and in that, there were all of these regulations put in, all of the precautions put in, there was even money put in there that if a vaccine did hurt you, then there was money that you could get to compensate you. It streamlined everything. The article goes on and says, and to be even more thorough and transparent in monitoring vaccine safety, the new law also established VAERS, a central database that continues to be in use to this day. We're using it because it gives researchers information they would not have. They wouldn't have it. These rare things that happen so minuscule, they would never know about them if there wasn't some kind of system. And most of them, some of them, they may discover. So prior to all these regulations, prior to the 1902 Act, the vaccine, we find in the United States, there were things that had been invented and being used, vaccines against cholera, plague, typhoid, diphtheria, toxins, and rabies. Before these other safeguards that I've mentioned, we had vaccines being given for polio, diphtheria, tetanus, yellow fever. TB vaccine was used in 1927 on babies. Very little regulation, very little time. Typhoid vaccine was licensed in 1914. My point in showing you that, it's not exactly accurate to say this one has been tested less than those that have preceded. We've lived with these. VAERS, the Office of Science, says it has the ability to detect previously unrecognized reactions to a vaccine and to spot unusual increases in a particular region. This is the way that they detected the rare blood clots that were associated with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which is the Oxford, the one that was developed at Oxford. The way they figured that out was through VAERS. Now, a lot of times you'll hear, see, they've got this happening, but it was because of this test that we found it out. And then what happened was many countries that were using the Oxford one, they just switched to another one. Because remember, when they show the Oxford one does that, they're also showing that the others don't have that. So countries were free to choose between options. And again, if we were back to having one, there would be no choice. VAERS is the one that detected the dangerous intestinal obstruction that was linked with rotashield. and it was withdrawn from the market by the company and by the CDC. The Office of Science and Society says, quote, scrolling through VAERS, a VAERS data, does not allow us to conclude anything. VAERS can be used to generate hypotheses, but not to test them directly. VAERS plays a vital role in detecting important but rare reactions caused by vaccines. My caution, this is an example to be careful about statistics. And we're drawn to ones that seem to support us. I don't need a statistic to tell me about my conscience before God. I just want you to know that. I don't need it to prove that I'm right on these areas that the Bible doesn't explicitly speak. I like it. I like looking at it. I like reading it. But if you'll notice, when I preach, I rarely quote statistics. It's because I know how I can be misled, and all of us, unless we are really privy to the research, the original documents, and I have gone and read some of the original research, and it is no fun. No fun. It's not enjoyable at all, except for certain kinds of people. So what I've tried to lay out to you is how Christians can formulate a religious exemption claim from the COVID mandate. There are two approaches, I believe. Second, how Christians should relate to others regarding various opinions regarding COVID. And I believe that's with grace. Third, Christians need to handle statistics for the sake of truth-telling with caution. I close with the words of Paul in Romans chapter 14 verse 3 through 6. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat. And the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls, and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person regards one day above another. Another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord. And he who eats, does so for the Lord. And for he gives thanks to God. And he who eats not for the Lord, he does not eat and gives thanks to God. And he who gets vaccinated does so for the Lord and gives thanks to God. And he who does not get vaccinated does so for the Lord and gives thanks to God. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that you guide us as your people to reflect you and our relations with one another and Christians around the globe that are affected with this. And I pray that when we are before the world, while it does seem that the government and others have politicized some statistics and misused them to gain advantage or to promote a certain idea, May we abhor that so much that we don't repeat it. And we would rather lose the argument than to use something that we don't understand enough to know whether it's speaking truth. We can all make mistakes and we shouldn't let that corral us, Lord, from speaking up and learning. But Lord, may it keep us humble before you. and make us not be so naive to think that people we disagree with don't have information as well. But whatever is going on and whatever eventuates, may we have lived giving thanks to you and loving those with whom we disagree. We love you in Christ's name, amen.