Poulsbo SDA Church

Peter Chung

Globalism, Nationalism, and the Remnant

But as I've been discouraged about what I've been seeing with the amount of political polarization penetrating the church, I could always find solace in 1 thing, the Bible and the spirit of prophecy.

For everything that we are confronted with, everything that we're faced with, every challenge that we have, the Bible has foresawn and the Bible has given us solutions and how to deal with this.

You know in Jesus's time, In a time of Jesus when he began his earthly ministry, there was fierce division between conservatives and liberals.

You had the Sadducees who were liberals that were aligned with the Roman globalists.

And you had the conservatives, the Pharisees, who were aligned with the Israeli or Jewish nationalists that want to make Israel great again.

You had massive corruption in government and religion.

Remember that during that time when the poor would enter the temple, they were being exploited by the sacrifices of the selling of sacrifices.

There was massive corruption in both religious and political leadership.

In fact, in Luke 13, 1, it describes the Galileans that rebelled against Pilate and the historian Josephus often mentioned the Galileans as the most turbulent and seditious people being upon all occasions ready to disturb the Roman authority who opposed paying taxes to Caesar and submitting to the Roman government.

And so you had massive social unrest and you had Pilate putting down social unrest and causing much bloodshed just like we have in the United States.

And I find it very interesting that the majority of Jesus' disciples came from Galilee.

In John chapter 4 verse 9, we see the racial tension between the Jews and the Samaritans and the Jews with the Gentiles.

You also had religious persecution and cancel culture.

In John chapter 9 we had Jesus healing that blind teenage boy from blindness and he professed Jesus and he was canceled and turned out of the synagogue.

And so everything that we see here today in the United States is everything that has already happened because Solomon says there's no new thing under the sun.

In fact, there is a book by 1 of my Adventist heroes, the name is A.T.

Jones, a famous religious liberty advocate within the Seventh-day Adventist church that wrote the book, The 2 Republics, comparing pagan Rome with the United States and we see this happening right before our eyes.

But in the midst of this polarization, what did Jesus do?

Who did Jesus bring together to minister to this broken, divisive nation?

Notice what the Bible says in Mark chapter 3 verse 13.

The Bible says this, And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would.

And they came unto him, and he ordained 12, that they should be with him, that he might send them forth to preach." So Jesus gathered together 12 people to help him preach the gospel in this earthly ministry.

Now, examining some of these various personalities, as a classroom teacher, we have various personalities, various temperaments.

Jesus brought together 12 very, very interesting people.

1 of the 12 in Matthew chapter 10, verse 3 was Matthew.

He was a collaborator with the Roman Empire.

He would be considered today a globalist, part of the New World Order, part of a global Roman hegemony.

He was a collaborator with the oppressive Roman Empire.

This is how task collectors were viewed as.

Notice what the Bible says in Matthew chapter 9, verse 11.

The Bible says this, and when the Pharisees saw it, said unto the disciples, why eateth your master with publicans and sinners?

The religious leaders, the Pharisees, saw that Jesus eating with globalists and collaborators.

But in contrast, who else made up the disciples?

Notice what the Bible says in Matthew 6, verse 15.

The Bible says this, and Simon call the zealots.

He was a partisan that sought Jewish political independence.

So in the midst of Jesus' disciples, you had a collaborator with the Roman Empire, and then you had someone that wanted to overthrow the collaborators government.

You had a nationalist that want to make Israel great again.

Then you had a globalist within the disciples.

Can you imagine the conversations that these people would have within their own realm?

Yet Jesus called them to be part of the 12.

And that's what inspiration says in Desire of Ages, page 296, paragraph 2.

Inspiration says this, the apostles differed widely in habits and disposition.

There were the publican Levi Matthew and the fiery zealot Simon, the uncompromising hater of the authority of Rome, The generous impulse of Peter and the mean-spirited Judas.

Thomas, true-hearted, yet timid and fearful.

Philip, slow of heart and inclined to doubt.

And the ambitious outspoken sons of Zebedee with their brethren.

These were brought together with their different faults, all with inherited and cultivated tendencies to evil, but in and through Christ, they were to dwell in the family of God, learning to become 1 faith in doctrine and spirit.

So as the United States is splintering apart in political polarization, what is Jesus seeking to do for his church as he did with the disciples?

As separation and divisiveness happens in the outside, he's seeking to bring unity within.

What were some of the motives of the disciples?

Notice what the Bible says in Mark chapter 9 verse 33.

Notice what the Bible says, And he came to Capernaum and being in the house, he asked them, what was it that you disputed among yourselves by the way?

But they held their peace for by the way, they had disputed among themselves who should be the greatest.

Not only were they politically polarized, the disciples, They were seeking to advocate their position to be the dominant person within Jesus's disciples.

They were self-ambitious and they were selfish in their motives.

Now, notice what Jesus said for those that were competing for power.

Notice what the Bible says in Mark 9, verse 35.

The Bible says this, this is the words of Jesus.

He sat down and called the 12 and said unto them, if any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all and servant of all.

So Jesus brought these ambitious people together to be united in mission and to serve.

You see, when you're part of God's kingdom, God's kingdom is not a kingdom that asserts authority and power.

God's kingdom asserts service and self-sacrificing love.

And Jesus was seeking to bring these ambitious people together to teach them from their cultivated tendencies, from the outside looking in, from the human standpoint, why is Jesus bring in so many diverse, ambitious, selfish, uneducated and educated people into a dynamite of a situation because he wants to prove to us that he has the power of God to bring something out of nothing.

God's creative power is to bring darkness into light and what God is seeking to do even within our church with the amount of vitriol and divisiveness is to bring our nothingness to recognize that we are all broken in the eyes of God.

We are all sinners and once we realize that we're sinners and lay our pride to the dust, God can make something out of nothing.

But when we think we're something, we are nothing.

But when we are nothing, God can make us into something.

And what was some of the attitudes of the disciples?

And also the Bible says in Luke chapter 9, verse 52, this is the attitude of James and John.

The Bible says this, and sent messengers before his face, and they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him.

And they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.

And when his disciples, James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them even as Elias did.

In other words, the disciples were not that tolerant.

Anyone that did not believe the way that they did, they said that they should be punished.

And so like today, We have evangelical Christians that look at people that believe different than them.

They look at Antifa, they look at LGBT, they look at all these different groups like Black Lives Matter, and they say that God's judgment should be reigned upon them.

It's the same attitude with the disciples.

And how did Jesus respond to this attitude of intolerance?

The Bible says this, but he turned and rebuked them and said, you know not what manner of Spirit you are of for the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives but to save them and they went to another village Jesus's mission is to save those and save and attempt to save those that are differing from our worldview the whole purpose of Jesus ministry to save those that are lost and many are lost.

If we just condemn them without seeking to save them, we are trying to act as God.

You see, the papacy says that I have the authority to punish and excommunicate but God is seeking for us to be the hands and feet of Jesus to give the news of redemption and forgiveness that Jesus is seeking to forgive and forget our sins.

And notice what Inspiration says in Desire of Ages, page 295, paragraph 5.

All the disciples had serious faults when Jesus called them to his service.

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Globalism, Nationalism, and the Remnant

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