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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Peter Chung

God’s Cancel Culture

Holy Father, our Father in God in heaven, Father we thank you for an opportunity to worship in person in spirit and truth.

And Father even though we've been through a devastating pandemic, Father we thank you for the valuable lessons that you taught us even through these trying times.

And so Father with these lessons of your love and your grace be revealed in the appreciation of the basic freedoms that we have.

May we take advantage of it in the small space of time that we have.

And so Father today I ask for your Holy Spirit to fill my mind and fill my heart.

You know me as a person, the ugliness and the filthiness of my flesh.

As a father, in spite of myself, may I be a blessing not to curse your people.

I ask that you fill me with your Holy Spirit, that the people of God here be blessed.

It is defined, according to dictionary.com, I believe, as ostracizing an individual or a company for doing something offensive or objectionable from the past.

Now 1 thing about cancel culture is this, oftentimes nowadays it's pointed to 1 political side of the spectrum, but as a historian I would argue that cancel culture is part of the DNA of the United States of America for a very long time.

You see, in the 1950s, we had the Red Scare.

And During that time of McCarthyism, there was a fear of communism, so anyone that was associated or believed to be a communist lost their jobs, and if you were a Hollywood star, you would have been deplatformed.

So today, cancel culture's not immune to 1 political side, It's pervasive to every aspect of America, and sadly, it's even inside the church.

And full disclosure, I'm guilty of it as well.

It's set up for a great prophetic event here in the last days.

Notice what the Bible says in Revelation 13.

This is the description of the United States of America.

So this whole point of intolerance and cancellation.

And he had power to give life into the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed or canceled.

So this whole intolerance between the left and the right, this whole fighting between different political parties, that is why the spirit of prosody tells us not to be aligned with the political party, not to support distinct political parties because we do not know who we're voting for, gospel workers.

And so this cancel culture is pervading, and 1 day soon, Satan's gonna use it to attempt to cancel God's people.

In fact, notice what Inspiration says in Great Conference page 442, paragraph 1.

The land-like horns and dragon voice of the symbol point to a striking contradiction between the professions and the practice of the nation that's represented it.

The prediction that it will speak as a dragon and exercise all the power of the first beast plainly foretells the development of the spirit of Intolerance, cancel culture's intolerance, and persecution.

People are being persecuted for thinking differently from mainstream society.

That was manifested by the nations represented by the dragon and the leper-like beast.

And so This whole set up, this whole polarization is a set up from the left to the right, the king of the north and the king of the south, gathering together and who's in the middle?

That's why we should not align with either side.

And today we're going to explore in sacred history a fugitive murderer, an adulterer murderer, a racist, and a person that committed genocide against God's people and how they reacted or they corresponded to God's cancel culture.

You see, as a historian, modern history, we don't glorify, we seek to find flaws in people.

And in sacred history, 1 of my concerns is that we just focus on deifying these people, that we forget the journey of flaws and mistakes that these people went through in sacred history.

And God bare all the ugly episodes of these people to give us hope.

Moses, part of the Red Sea, and we think of it that way.

But Moses made a lot of mistakes, and because Moses made a lot of mistakes, yet repented and God accepted him and God sanctified him so too we have hope for the future in this present time that God can work with us.

And so notice a fugitive murderer that God dealt with in this cancel culture.

Notice what the Bible says in Exodus chapter 2, verse 11 and 12, the Bible says this, and it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens.

And he spied an Egyptian smiting in Hebrew, 1 of his brethren.

And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and he hid him in the sand.

So here's Moses, the man that parted the Red Sea.

He killed a person and he hid the evidence.

The Bible says this, and when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses, but Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

So not only was Moses a murderer who hid the evidence, he was a fugitive of the state.

Now, there's an important principle that we need to learn.

Notice what the Bible says in 1 John 2 verse 1.

My little children, these things write unto you that you sin not.

It is God's ideal that we do not commit sin.

God wants to protect us from the consequences of sin.

You see, the consequences of Moses committing that sin was that what happened?

He lost a political position that could possibly help his people.

He lost the resources that he grew up with.

He lost the riches and he went to the wilderness losing everything he had and so civilly, he paid for the consequences of his sin from a civil aspect.

That you sin not, and if any man sin, we have an advocate with a father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

So if we fall into sin, even though if we know the Bible and the spirit of prophecy, I'm not trying to excuse sin, but if we fall into sin, come to Jesus.

You see, I worked with various Bible workers in the past, traveled from place to place when I was younger, and There are people that came out of rough situations from gangs and drugs and preached the word of God with righteousness, and then they fall.

And because they felt like they let God down so much, they feel like it's over for them, and they give up completely.

You see, we picture God by the authority figures around us.

Perhaps it's a director of some sort of ministry, and we think of that in those terms, but God doesn't operate the way we operate.

God doesn't deal with sin how we deal with sin.

But God's ideal is that we do not sin, not because he wants to take away pleasure or fun, because he recognizes that the choices that we make will lead up to pain and suffering.

In fact, notice what Inspiration says in Steps to Cross, page 46, paragraph 3.

It is a mistake to entertain the thought that God is pleased to see his children suffer.

All heaven is interested in the happiness of man.

Our heavenly Father does not close the avenues of joy to any of his creatures.

The divine requirements call upon us to shun those indulgences that would bring suffering and disappointment that would close to us the door of happiness in heaven.

The world's Redeemer accepts men as they are with all their wants, imperfections, and weaknesses, and he will not only cleanse from sin and grant redemption through his blood, but will satisfy the heart longing of all who consent to wear his yoke, to bear his burden.

It is his purpose to impart peace and rest to all who come to him for the bread of life.

He requires us to perform only those duties that will lead our steps to heights of bliss to which the disobedient can never attain.

The true joyous life of the soul is to have Christ formed within the hope of glory.

So when we think about the standards of the church, we have health principles, we have recreational principles.

You know, we think some young people, I teach high school students, they think Adventist rules are so tough, or quote unquote rules.

These are not meant to cause us angst, these are meant for our happiness and good.

It is sort of like a insurance policy to protect us from the consequences of sin.

God has given us health principles because he recognized, he foresaw that COVID-19 was gonna happen so that our immune systems could be strong.

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God’s Cancel Culture

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