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Lansing SDA Church

David Shin

How God Changes the World

I want to invite you to turn with me to John chapter 18, verse 33-36.

This is a scene of Jesus in Pilate's judgment hall.

And it's quite ironic because God is on trial before an earthly ruler.

1 day this scene is going to be reversed, amen?

And God is going to come as King of kings and Lord of lords.

This is not an enviable position for any man to be in.

Here we pick up in a discussion between Pilate and Jesus, and the Jews had said that Jesus was a threat to Rome because he claimed to be king of the Jews.

Pilate hears this, and in John 18, verse 33, then Pilate entered the praetorium again, called Jesus and said to Him, are You the king of the Jews?' Jesus answered him, "'Are you speaking this for yourself?

"'Or did others tell you concerning me?' Verse 35, Pilate answered, " he's a little bit flustered at this point, "'Am I a Jew?

"'Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me.

"'What have you done?' Verse 36, this is very important, Pay attention to what Jesus is saying here.

Jesus answered and said, "'My kingdom is not of this world.

"'If my kingdom were of this world, "'my servants would fight "'so that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now my kingdom is not from here." I have these important words on the screen for us to recognize as Christians living in the 21st century.

And just for the sake of emphasis, I want to invite you to say these words together with me as the congregation.

Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world.

This was 1 of the hardest things for them to learn.

You remember at the feeding of the 5, 000, Jesus had just fed the multitude, men, women, and children, with 5 loaves and 2 fish, And the people tried to make Jesus king.

And the disciples, after Jesus refused and sent them away, they were disappointed because they thought to themselves, perhaps now is the time that Jesus will finally become king of the Jews.

Everyone was familiar with what a king did.

They lay down palms at His feet, and everyone thinks, as He's going into Jerusalem, this is it, this is the moment.

Jesus just goes into the temple, looks around at some things, and the crowd disperses disappointed.

The people of Israel thought that Jesus would be a political solution to a spiritual problem.

The people believed that Jesus was a political solution to a spiritual problem.

And when you look at history, every time the church has forgotten these words of Jesus, my kingdom is not of this world, and tried to use politics to influence and change society, persecution always happens.

I was in Switzerland a few months ago, and we had a few days where we could look around.

I went to the church, the cathedral, where Zwingli made his stand for Protestantism.

And we went down by the river and by the riverside there was a plaque.

I could not read it because it was in another language, but someone translated it and told me that the plaque said that it was in this river that the Anabaptists were drowned by the Protestant state because they dared to believe that an adult should make a consenting choice to be baptized.

So the Protestant state said, you want to be baptized, we'll baptize you.

Every time the church has tried to legislate and change society through politics, persecution has always been.

I want to read A few things about a man that not too far in recent history did some remarkable things.

If We had just looked at this list and historians tell us that if this individual had died early in his political career, we would look at him with different eyes.

He revived a collapsed economy in 5 years.

He erased the defeat of a war by acquiring new territory.

He established training schools for those who were unskilled and brought the nation to employment.

He built freeways and promised the production of a car that ordinary people could afford.

He gave His people a reason to believe in themselves, to believe they could become great again.

Many Christians saw him as the answer to their prayers.

When you look in history, in this Christian nation, they saw this individual as a political answer to a spiritual problem.

Historians say that if he would have died early in his career, he would be known as Hitler the Great.

When Hitler ascended in power, Germany was comprised of Protestants and Catholics, 95% Christian.

Christians took the picture of Christ from their walls and replaced it with Hitler's.

Churches would have swastika banners with the cross of Christ in the center.

I was reading a book this week, Hitler's Cross, and in it you can see pictures of pastors preaching from the congregation, and behind him would be a cross, and next to the cross would be the swastika.

Thousands of pastors joined the SS in swearing allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

It's amazing when you think that not many years ago that a church lost its soul.

And the church stayed silent as 6 million Jews were killed in cold-blooded genocide.

How could it happen that a nation comprised of 95% Christian would not only stay silent, but empower a dictator such as Hitler?

How could it be that pastors would swear allegiance with the SS to Adolf Hitler, how could it be that a church would have a swastika next to the cross?

In his book, Hitler's Cross, he says that 1 of the reasons was nationalism.

It should come as no surprise that Protestant leaders called for censuses of Volksschirm, a German word meaning German national identity and Christianity, the censuses of the 2, a German identity and Christianity, these became known as, quote, German Christians, with the emphasis on the word German.

In other words, what happened to the church was they became so involved in nationalism that they forgot their Christian identity.

They saw Hitler as a political solution to a spiritual problem.

They forgot the words of Christ when he said, my kingdom is not of this world.

And the book went on to say that we as Christians are in danger of the same thing happening today.

I want to invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 13.

Revelation chapter 13 and verse 11, 14 14, 17 in your pew Bibles.

There is so much in these verses, I'm going to only highlight a few points, but I'm going to read verse 11 to the end of the chapter.

Revelation chapter 13 verse 11, Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had 2 horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon.

And 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.

He performed great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.

And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by these signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.

He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the beast, worship the image of the beast, to be killed." The Bible tells us that in Bible prophecy, a beast represents a nation.

And without going too much in detail, the Bible is telling us that there is going to come a day in the future that the states of the world are going to enforce in matters of conscience regarding worship.

And that 1 day, there is going to be a death penalty enforced by the state unless you worship a certain way.

It says that those who do not worship the image of the beast will be killed.

The Bible is telling us 1 day that the state is going to enforce a certain type of worship, and it says that those that do not worship it will be killed.

And I dare say that perhaps 1 day in the future, following Jesus and following His Word will seem un-American.

It says all the world is going to worship the beast.

There's going to come a distinction, a fine line, a distinct line between following Jesus and patriotism in the end of time.

And the problem with Germany was they let their patriotism color their theology.

And friends we need to be very very careful and there's 1 thing that I as a pastor made a pledge never to talk about in the pulpit.

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How God Changes the World

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