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University SDA Church- East Lansing

The Great Controversy

David Shin

1. The Origin of Evil

2. Behind the Curtain

3. The Lamb and the Law

It was the early 1950s during the Korean War.

My grandparents were north of the 38th parallel and my mom was born during that time.

I have a map here on the screen of the famous MacArthur push up toward the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.

Some of you in this room may remember the Korean War.

And you'll remember that the Chinese were concerned that MacArthur was going to push north further into China, and it was during this time that my mother And my grandparents were in the northern part, north of the 38th parallel, which at the time was occupied by the allies, and my mother got sick.

She had a symptom that was not able to be treated in the place that they were at and so Call it a miracle or I believe that it was God's divine providence that through a series of connections my grandparents were able to connect with the U.S.

Army and go to the south, southern part of the Korean Peninsula.

The Chinese came by the thousands and pushed the allies all the way back down toward the south and eventually the 38th parallel was locked no 1 is able to go north or south and my grandparents never went back to their home again.

I think back, I would not exist because my parents met in America.

My mom would be in North Korea right now, who knows if she would be alive.

And this is part of the casualties or the collateral damage, I guess you could say, of being born in a war zone.

To this day, the 30th parallel is the most militarized area on planet Earth.

You and I have all been born into a war zone.

And if you want to understand why we experience so much suffering, so much heartache, so much sin on planet earth.

It is because we are all, not by choice, but all of us have been born into the midst of a great controversy between Christ and Satan.

And we study this in our first presentation, Revelation 12, verse 7.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought.

And you remember from our first study we studied that Michael Mikhail means 1 who is like God and we came to the conclusion by a Bible study that Michael is none other than Jesus Christ and this war was not a Physical war that's not the way it started now.

I believe that there were dynamics of a physical war But if you look at the war word war there in the Greek it comes from the Greek word Palaimos where we get the word polemic.

It was a war of ideology Satan Lucifer claimed that he had a better way and he attacked the government of God, he attacked the character of God, And the point of controversy came to be, remember from our first presentation, the law of God.

The law of God became the central issue in the controversy between Christ and Satan.

Great Controversy 583, from the very beginning of the great controversy in heaven.

It has been Satan's purpose to overthrow the law of God.

It was to accomplish this that he entered upon his rebellion against the creator.

And though he was cast out of heaven, he continued the same warfare on earth.

The controversy centered on the law of God.

I have another quotation here, Signs of the Times, August 27, 1902.

In this controversy, much was to be involved.

Vast interests were at stake before the inhabitants of the heavenly universe were to be answered the questions and noticed the nuances of these questions is God's law imperfect in need of amendment or abrogation or as or is it immutable is God's government in need of change or is it stable Satan sought to make it appear that he was working for the liberty of the universe, he was determined to make his argument so varied, so deceptive, so insidious, that everyone would be convinced that God's law was tyrannical.

This was the central issue in the great controversy between Christ and Satan.

And you'll have to remember that never before had anyone known of sin.

Never before had there been an argument like this before presented in regards to God's government.

And God allowed Satan to work out his principles.

This was a very difficult decision, and you and I have been caught in the midst of this.

And we want to pause for a moment and discuss why the law of God was so central to the great controversy between Christ and Satan.

You remember back in the Old Testament, the law of God was written on stone, not on paper, not written by man, but by God's own finger onto tablets of stone and the location of this tablets or these tablets was to be in the Ark of the Covenant.

We'll come back to that in a moment, but the very foundation of God's government was the law of God.

In our first presentation we said that God is love, amen?

We're also told in the Bible that God's law is love.

Jesus summarized the 10 Commandments into 2 cogent ways of saying it.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

And these 2 summarize God's 10 commandments.

If you love God, you're not going to have anything else in place of God.

If you love your neighbor, you're not going to steal, you're not going to kill, you're not going to lie.

And so this is the central aspect of God's law.

So Satan knew that in attacking the law of God, he was really attacking God's character.

He was attacking God's foundation of government.

Moving quickly on, we know that the infections spread to planet Earth.

When Adam and Eve sinned, it cast the entire human race into a trajectory of sin and of death.

None of us chose to be born, but all of us, because of Adam's sin, are predisposed to make the same decision in rebellion against God.

This has been something that has been debated down through the ages.

The Bible gives us 1 definition of sin, 1 John 3 verse 4, sin is the transgression of the law.

And we know this from salvation classes, all have sinned.

Every 1 of us in this room are guilty of sinning against God's law and the wages of sin is death.

He could have written off planet Earth as collateral damage and just said, you know what?

And he would not have owed us a single thing.

It is in this moment that the universe was able to witness the character of God as never before.

And it's in this time that character was revealed.

In a few weeks I'm going to be at Michigan camp meeting, but many people don't know that prior to Michigan camp meeting, there's a time that is required, it's not optional, that all of the pastors and administrators are given the pleasure of camp pitch.

To put it simply, we have to do manual labor, something that we are not accustomed to be doing.

And for whatever reason, since I have been in the Michigan Conference, which is going on 11 years now, don't let this baby face fool you, all right?

And for the past 11 years, for whatever reason, every single cab pitch I am put on the stake crew, which involves driving 6 foot stakes, I'm 5 foot 6, So 6 foot stakes into the ground with a stake pounder.

And this is grueling work for hours upon hours, hundreds of stakes.

And if you do not put them in straight, they will be all uprooted and you will have to do them again.

Blistering, and they are so loud that you have to put earplugs in your ears, hour after hour, stake after stake, And it's every single year that I go to bed, and I cannot wake up the next morning.

It seems that on a regular basis that Jay Gallimore, our conference president, who doesn't have to do this, comes down from his golf cart.

And I was floored when I saw this 60 year old man grab a stake driver and with us peon pastors drive those stakes shoulder to shoulder.

It was at that point where I said, prior to ordination, where you go, I will go.

Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.

It communicated character, that this conference president, the most grueling task during campus, She was willing to come down and drive stakes with us, and it was a huge revelation of character to this poor unordained minister that was just starting out in ministry.

And in an exponentially greater sense, Jesus came down, amen?

The infection spread from heaven down to earth, and he could have just said, you know what?

But this is the beauty of the character of God in the midst of the great controversy heaven came down and as desire of ages says all of heaven was poured out in that 1 gift of Jesus Christ.

Philippians chapter 2 verse 7 and 8, But made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." This is what I want us to recognize here today, and this is the thesis of my entire presentation, that the very fact that Jesus had to die shows how much the law is still binding.

Because if the law was not binding, Jesus could have changed the rules, right?

The very fact that Jesus had to die in order to meet the claims of the law proves that the law is unchangeable.

It cannot be changed, so much so that the penalty of death has to be paid by none other than the law giver in order for pardon and forgiveness to be possible.

Jesus could have said, you know what, I'm gonna change the rules.

The only way to meet the claims of the law was for him to die.

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Series

The Great Controversy

3. The Lamb and the Law

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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