By John Thiel, Audio: mp3

We need to be daily strengthened by the deep love of God, {UL 159.6}

For this reason it is in my heart to frequently display that deep love of God before the congregation. If it’s needed daily then we need it on Sabbath very much. We are here keeping the Sabbath to admire our God. To admire Him we must see something to admire; it is His love. It was the Apostle Paul’s earnest prayer that the people whom he ministered to could appreciate that love. Together with Apostle Paul this is my prayer.

Ephesians 3:14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

For what cause?

Ephesians 3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

3:18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

3:19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

Can you see the urgent prayer that is upon the heart of the Apostle? What should we know? We must know the love of Christ so that by understanding that love we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

1 John 4:16 God is love;

If I want to know God, I must know that love. That is what apostle Paul is praying for, that is what the Lord laid upon my heart. I must give it distinctly so that we might know that love.

We behold the earth bereft of that love of that true love that God is. We behold religions that portray God in two ends of the swinging pendulum. They portray God in the Pentecostal realms of today as a God of sentimental love. They come back from their meetings completely drained because they are so exuberant about this love that instead of doing something to them, it makes them weary. They have music that pounds the emotions in a love sentimentalism which is wearying, not enabling. It is a mere profession that is not satisfying the people. It leaves people empty.

If Christ be in us the hope of glory, we shall discover such matchless charms in Him that the soul will be enamoured. It will cleave to Him, choose to love Him, and in admiration of Him, self will be forgotten. Jesus will be magnified and adored, and self abased and humbled. But a profession, without this deep love, is mere talk, dry formality, and heavy drudgery. Many of you may retain a notion of religion in the head, an outside religion, when the heart is not cleansed. {1T 162.4}

Here is a profession, an exuberance of weariness which leaves the people in need of being stirred up again and again with music and all kinds of excitement that, after the excitement there is a terrible lull. In their home and in their situations there is dearth.

The other end of the pendulum is an appreciation that often fits to Reformers such as us. We have an expectation upon us that puts us under stress; a stressful worship of God.

Yet these but imperfectly represent His love. Though all these evidences have been given, the enemy of good blinded the minds of men, so that they looked upon God with fear; they thought of Him as severe and unforgiving. Satan led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice. {SC 10.3}

Let us meditate here. Do you have underlying in the back of your mind and senses that God is so holy, so just, so perfect in expecting obedience, that it puts you under stress to serve Him? We think of Him as one who is a severe judge, a harsh, exacting creditor.

He pictured the Creator as a being who is watching with jealous eye to discern the errors and mistakes of men, that He may visit judgments upon them. It was to remove this dark shadow, by revealing to the world the infinite love of God, that Jesus came to live among men. {SC 10.3}

This mentality which to a greater or lesser degree people under the Advent message fall into. It was my own brother that said to me many years ago that the Seventh Day Adventist message is the most damning message of all messages because we are living in the time of the investigative judgment and we are scared stiff that we might not make it, that we might not meet up with the scrutinising examination of the judge upon His throne. He said to me, I cannot find a God of love in that. I shook my head in anguish that this is what was being uttered to me. Over the years I have noticed that this is still somewhat the undercurrent in many people’s lives in Adventism. If it’s not the other end of the pendulum, it’s this one. It’s either liberality or fearful justice. We are all striving to reach this high ideal and we are under stress. We are dying under stress. Do you have stress with God’s truth?

This faulty outlook of a stressful fear that I may not be achieving what God wants me to achieve, I’m even stressed to find time to study God’s word. Many have said to me that they are not studying enough so how can they be saved. This is stress. But do you know that God can use this kind of outlook to our benefit?

John the Baptist:

He saw his people deceived, self-satisfied, and asleep in their sins. He longed to rouse them to a holier life. The message that God had given him to bear was designed to startle them from their lethargy, and cause them to tremble because of their great wickedness. Before the seed of the gospel could find lodgement, the soil of the heart must be broken up. Before they would seek healing from Jesus, they must be awakened to their danger from the wounds of sin. {DA 103.5}

Remember the condition of Laodicea? We are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. Are they conscious of their sinfulness? Do they need to be made conscious of their sinfulness? Yes indeed, so that they would come to the point that they may take more seriously God’s commandments and God’s laws that they are so carelessly breaking.

God does not send messengers to flatter the sinner. He delivers no message of peace to lull the unsanctified into fatal security. He lays heavy burdens upon the conscience of the wrongdoer, and pierces the soul with arrows of conviction.

That creates stress doesn’t it?

The ministering angels present to him the fearful judgments of God to deepen the sense of need, and prompt the cry, “What must I do to be saved?” Then the hand that has humbled in the dust, lifts up the penitent. The voice that has rebuked sin, and put to shame pride and ambition, inquires with tenderest sympathy, “What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?” {DA 104.1}

That is the reason why the Laodicean people are running away from the pure gospel. The precursor to the pure gospel is the condemnation of the law and they don’t like that, so they shield themselves with a protective wall like the Pharisees. The sharp arrows that the angels aimed will ricochet off their consciences. But those who permit the arrows to strike are under stress, they are under agony of soul because in their mind they are not meeting the standards God is requiring.

We read that God reveals to us the sins that mar our life and that is uncomfortable, it creates stress. In my stress and discomfort that is created by this, Satan is permitted by God to put people through that stress. Your case is hopeless, you are impossible, you won’t make it. Why does God permit this to happen? Why does this happen to me? Even now, those waves of anxiety and stress that come upon the soul so that I would see the full depravity of my condition and be filled with consternation regarding my sinful, weak self.

When we are reminded of our failure like Peter was when Jesus said to him, Peter, lovest thou me? When Jesus looked at him after Peter denied him, what did Peter do? He was absolutely crushed; he could have done what Judas did, but he remembered the words of Jesus and in his deplorable sense of unworthiness of having completely messed up, he ran to Gethsemane and wept.

Is this what you will do? To go to Gethsemane rather than to the tree that Judas hung himself on? There at Gethsemane, take in the scene when we feel so absolutely depraved of any good within us. Together with Psalms 22 and 69 take in the actual scene of the person who is overwhelmed with the full description of his total sinful weakness; his incapacity to reach a standard that he claimed and wanted to reach.

Lamentations 1:12 [Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass by?

Remember Jesus when He went to Gethsemane and said to the apostles, could you not watch with me?

Lamentations 1;12 behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted [me] in the day of his fierce anger.

1:13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate [and] faint all the day.

1:14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, [and] come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into [their] hands, [from whom] I am not able to rise up.

Notice what He describes about His internal experience in verse 15 now

Lamentations 1:15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty [men] in the midst of me:

All those mighty men inside of me that make me so proud and confident.

Lamentations 1:15 he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, [as] in a winepress.

1:16 For these [things] I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

This is Gethsemane. It is the Gethsemane that Jesus met, not for Himself, but to help us when we are in that Gethsemane discovery, so that when we feel so bereft that all that makes my life joyful is crushed, those mighty men in the midst of me are underfoot. As Peter went there with that discovery in himself because of his sin, he was able to experience together with Jesus and so may you and I.

We want to remember that Jesus in His experience in Gethsemane is our advocate that we meditated on last week. He still feels it in His present position before the throne. We need to take this in, and as we do so consider what EG White is doing in the following quote, something that Paul did. I am praying, I wish.

I wish I could present this matter before our people just as I view it–the great offering made in behalf of man. Justice asked for the sufferings of a man.

Does justice make you suffer?

Christ, equal with God, gave the sufferings of a God. He needed no atonement Himself. It was for man–all for man. . . . His depth of agony was proportionate to the dignity and grandeur of His character.

Take it in. He so pure, so holy, so perfect met an experience that was absolutely depravation. He was crushed. The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his (the Father’s) hand: they are wreathed, [and] come up upon my neck: All that was mighty and comfortable in Me was now totally crushed because sin and whose sin? It was not His it was given Him from me and you.

Never shall we see and comprehend the intense anguish of the sufferings of the spotless Lamb of God until we feel how deep is the pit from which we have been delivered, how grievous the sin of which humanity is guilty, and by faith grasp the full and entire pardon. {UL 219.4}

I personally wish that this would come into our conscious awareness just as I view it; I view this and it breaks my heart. I wish that we could all see it, this great offering of Gethsemane and the cross, which Jesus as our advocate still feels at this present time. We can never see it in a Laodicean condition.

Never shall we see and comprehend the intense anguish of the sufferings of the spotless Lamb of God until we feel how deep is the pit from which we have been delivered, ibid.

As you and I feel this judgment under this Advent message, as we feel this terrible load and burden upon our shoulders and it gets heavier and heavier, there comes a point in time where God draws near and says, what can I do to help you? We say Lord, help. He says, I’m right here beside you, I am with you in Gethsemane. I know your tears, your stress, and now you can understand what I suffered, how much I love you.

Then, by faith, we can grasp the full and entire pardon. Our big problem is that until we see Jesus in the same predicament that I am in, I cannot believe that I can be pardoned. I cannot believe that the pardon is so full and free because I’m still not seeing Jesus.

We can short-circuit that suffering and anguish every time it wants to come to me by keeping Jesus ever before us. As when the Israelites were bitten by the serpents they were in anguish. Are we bitten by the serpents? Amen, we are. They keep biting and it keeps filling me with anguish. The moment I am bitten, look, bitten, look, bitten, look. Continually look at this detail that I am laying out before our mind’s eye, to view it as those who are sharing it with you. That is what we must all do, then we will find wonderful release.

Even in the darkest hours we can trust the love of God. . {SW, April 28, 1908 par. 8}

To trust the love, how can you trust the deep love of God that you don’t see until you see your true condition and Christ there?

The work of creation was a work of love; . {SW, April 28, 1908 par. 8}

We can see the work of love in creation, in nature. That is not enough.

but the Gift of God to save the guilty and ruined race, alone reveals the infinite depth of divine love and compassion. . {SW, April 28, 1908 par. 8}

This is our need, is it not? To view the infinite depth. What does that mean? It goes on and on and on, it gets deeper and deeper, there is no bottom to it. In other words, no matter what you can discover about yourself, no matter how deep the pit you are in, that love can still go deeper. God has made enough provision so if you think you are in a bottomless pit Jesus can reach you to pull you out.

Only as we contemplate the great plan of redemption, . {SW, April 28, 1908 par. 8}

We must contemplate. This is what it means to study. It doesn’t mean to go through reams and reams of study, it means to contemplate what I have gained as I read, as I have heard the Divine Service, as I go back and think over it (contemplate).

and the blessings that come to us through Christ, can we realize what that love means to us. {SW, April 28, 1908 par. 8}

For you to realise (I like that word in English, realise; to make that love a reality not just a lovely word). Only as we contemplate that story as I have sought to lay it out before you here, the blessings that come to us through Christ, can we real-ise what that love means to us. What does that love mean to us?

Sometimes the words go over your head and you don’t know how to relate to the practicality applicable to your actual living experience. Sr White says, I wish I could present this matter before you. There are other statements where she says, I can’t even put it into words, I lay down my pen. How can I tell the people what I can see? Let’s see if we can let the Holy Spirit help us here. What does that love mean to us?

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

Be assured that the stresses of sin will kill you. Are you under stress? Do you suffer stress related symptoms? It will cut your life short, it will take away your health, it will take away the spring in your heels, it will drain you.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin [is] death

As this reality strikes in all its dimensions of stress-related conditions that the human race is suffering under and we are suffering under it, we try to avoid it by health reform. We puzzle, why isn’t health reform working for me? Why am I still suffering like this? Because you are under stress. I got a shock when my heart was playing up. I went to a Seventh-day Adventist naturopath. He looked me in the eyes and said, your heart is suffering under stress. I said, I love the Lord, I’m not stressed. One of the things he said was your bowels are creating terrible toxins that come up through the night and effect your heart. He said my body was full of acid. I said, I live a strict health reform diet. I eat lots of fruit, I eat lots of alkaline foods, why am I acid? The food you eat can be as alkaline as it likes but under stress it turns into acid, besides that the fruit you are eating has been picked from the trees when they were green and were not tree-ripened and so they are full of acid. All my health reform was down the drain.

I had to admit I was under stress and the Lord had to teach me what I am sharing with you here. I pray that inwardly we will receive this contemplation. The wages of sin is death. Here we all are. What is the love of God?

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

What condemns me? The law. Jesus came not to condemn. While the law and the true teaching of the law and the expectations of the laws and statutes create stress in me, it is the love of God that sent His only begotten Son not to lay a burden of condemnation upon me,but to remove the condemnation.

Isaiah 44:22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.

Don’t you love those words? The wages of sin is death, the day you eat thereof you shall surely die. In Adam we are all dead and we are all condemned because we have all sinned. Whatever those sins are, they are conditions of being which I can’t get rid of, they are part of my fabric. Jesus took part of that fabric. While His heart was pure and holy, the fabric of the body was mine. It caused Him stress. The stress was so severe. Have you come out in a hot sweat under stress? He came out in worse than a hot sweat. He was under such pressure of the horror of His experience under sin that He perspired the serum of the blood; it pushed the blood serum right through the skin. The Father says to you and me, I love you so much that I have laid the stress of whatever you may suffer under upon My Son. When you have an awareness of absolute failure and bottomless pit experience in your own life, you have, if you will, a total release from stress every day.

We need to be daily strengthened by the deep love of God. If I don’t have that deep love of God fresh in my mind, I will be stressing out. I need that love so that I will release my stress instantly. The moment something overwhelms me, thank you Lord. It’s a constant de-stress program.

When I was massaging for a while the company we brought out was de-stress massage. We don’t need de-stress massages when we have the beauty of the Lord. I have a very bad back. I haven’t required a massage for years now, because the de-stress that the Lord gives me takes away the stress out of my back. It’s an incredible experience. I have the niggles and the pains but the application of the beautiful release of Jesus in my life releases the stress, relaxes the muscles. All of a sudden my back goes clunk, that was lovely and freeing. It goes like this every week. Stress wants to grab me, the muscles tighten and they relax every day. It’s not just the back, it is the entire emotional life. No more stress.

You need the beautiful story of God so loving the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He came not to condemn but to release from the stress of the justice of the law. Did you notice the words of John 3:16-17? whosoever believeth in him How important is that word. whosoever?

Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

The water of life flowed from the Rock that was smitten. Whosoever will, your sins will be covered by a thick cloud.

When I was at school I had a particular appreciation and the school teacher said whosoever (and he touched on the appreciation that I had) please come forward. I thought was that me? Nobody came forward. It was repeated, whosoever will. I could feel it so it meant me. I went forward and I was the only one that went forward.

When you hear God’s word speaking to you as a whole and it says whosoever and you can feel that you love Him and want to contemplate that, that means the one who is responding in the heart. It doesn’t mean everybody else. It means me. Your sins are pardoned. You don’t have to worry anymore about the guilt, it’s gone.

Here is where thousands are failing. {UL 219.5}

Are you one of the thousands?

They do not really believe that Jesus pardons them individually. {UL 219.5}

They don’t really believe that, it means the other person over there. I’m worse than them. The Lord will help them but not me. Their condition is not yet in a position where they can actually believe that God so loved them that Jesus was given to them.

They fail to take God at His word. He has assured us that He is faithful that hath promised to forgive us and be just to His own law. {UL 219.5}

Do you understand what that meant? He has assured us that He is faithful, that He is faithful that hath promised to forgive us and be just to His own law. Justice demands a perfect person. If we are not perfect we must die. So He can be just to that law and at the same time forgive us He presented the perfect man, Jesus, to take sinful humanity and die.

His mercy is not wanting in anything. Were there one defective link in the chain, then we are hopelessly ruined in our sins. {UL 219.5}

He said to the Pharisees, if you do not believe that I Am (God in human flesh) suffering with you, you will die in your sins. That is what they did.

There is not one flaw in it, not one missing link. Oh, precious redemption! Why do we not bring this great truth more fully into our lives? {UL 219.5}

If I’m still stressed out I need a more fully applicable dimension. Why don’t we do it?

How broad it is, that God for Christ’s sake forgives us–me, even me–the moment we ask Him to, in living faith, believing that He is fully able to do this.–Letter 85, July 24, 1886, to Uriah Smith, editor of the Review and Herald. {UL 219.5}

Lord forgive me, I believe it. How few do this. Why do we not bring this great truth more fully into our lives? If we will but do this we will have eternal life because we will release ourselves constantly by believing this. It will affect us. I will be spending much more time on this and how it affects me.

One effect I want to really lay at the heart of each one of us now, to those who believe, who have broken the law and are convicted personally about that, they accept Jesus as did the disciples. What is a new commandment to them? The commandments of God are love, but those who believe in Jesus there is a new commandment. When you see yourself as you really are and you are not in a Laodicean idea that the other person is wicked to me therefore I react. When I see that I am wicked, that I am disgusting and sinful and God loves me like that, what does Jesus say?

John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

How did He love us? That me, a despicable sinner, coming to Him in confession and deep horror at my condition, He pardons and completely cleans. This is the love of Jesus to me.

How much do we need this commandment? Do you need the love of God for your own undone condition? Basking in total relief now to love as Jesus loves the sinner that has done me big damage. To love as Jesus loved.

Matthew 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Our debtors. Is somebody a debtor to you and are you having trouble in releasing him or her from your judgemental condemnation?

In the prayer that Christ taught His disciples was the request: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. We cannot repeat this prayer from the heart and dare to be unforgiving, for we ask the Lord to forgive our trespasses against Him in the same manner that we forgive those who trespass against us. But few realize the true import of this prayer. {3T 95.1}

This is another problem why so many people are not being saved, they don’t realise what God’s pardon is and they don’t realise the impact of that prayer.

If those who are unforgiving did comprehend the depth of its meaning they would not dare to repeat it and ask God to deal with them as they deal with their fellow mortals. {3T 95.1}

If I’m not forgiving, will I be forgiven? That is what I am asking. Forgive them as I forgive others. Jesus said, I love you, I am ready to pardon you as you see yourself in your deplorable condition. Now as you see your brother in his deplorable condition are you prepared to forgive him as I forgave you? I give you a new commandment to love each other as I love you.

And yet this spirit of hardness and lack of forgiveness exists even among brethren to a fearful extent. Brother is exacting with brother. {3T 95.1}

I am going to exact an entire retribution to the nth degree, I am going to be on the case of my debtor until he has paid for every detail of his wrong. Does God do that to you? We will not dare to pray that prayer if we don’t do that., because I will not be forgiven. That is the hard reality. I thank God that He has laid a beautiful love in front of our eyes by His wonderful love that He is. A daily deep appreciation of that love will cause me to make a change in my life.

Before the denial, they have the assurance of forgiveness. After His death and resurrection, they knew that they were forgiven, and were dear to the heart of Christ. {DA 674.1}

How forgiving are you? You know a person is going to do something again, are you prepared to forgive him if he has done it again? This is the forgiveness of God.

Galatians 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, [even] in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

That means as Jesus loved you.

5:15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

How is the world going to be destroyed? It is nation consuming the other nation; the other nation consuming back. Tit for tat. Look at the Middle East, isn’t that what is going on? One throws a blow and the other returns it, throws a blow and the other returns it. What are they doing? They will be consumed. He is writing to the church and says, if you do the same thing, you will devour one another. You will consume each other and we will all be in the same destructive moose pot in Armageddon.

We have a wonderful gauge here. As we look at this deep love of God, when we are under pressure, when there is something that is heaping itself upon my conscience, my mind, personally or about someone else, I have been given an opportunity to take up my own responsibility about what I do in life. My own, nobody else’s. You don’t have to reach out for anybody else’s responsibility. Here God is giving me a psychological tool that when I am under pressure, either of my own sinfulness, my own frailty, or the pressure of somebody else putting pressure on me; with this great love of God laid out before my mind’s eye and I view it as the apostle said and Sr White said I wish you could view it, as I am personally saying to you now, can you view what I have shared with you? If I will have that view before me, the moment I am under stress I make a decision, I am empowered to make a decision. That decision is that I am going to love as God loves. I am going to accept the great love that I don’t have to be under stress any more. The moment the stress sentiments come into my mind I make a decision. The decision I am making is activated by the knowledge of God’s deep love.

Can you see our need of God’s deep love? Can you see what is written here? We need to be daily strengthened by the deep love of God. As a person who has studied psychology through my nursing, I know that this psychology is not existent in the psychological world. They talk about taking responsibility for your own mind activity but it only drives people into greater dilemma. The way Satan grabs people is to take them down the path of greater and deeper pit experiences and ultimately it will catch up with every one of them unless they see the deep love of God. When I see the deep love of God I will handle every pressure, whether my own ,or others that are levelled upon me, I will release the pressure because I am making a decision that this feeling that I have, this doubt that I have, this confused muddle mindedness that I see, is all dealt with by this love of God. I will love as Jesus loved; I will love myself as Jesus loved me, I will love my neighbour as myself. This is a wonderful mentality.

The love that was in the heart of Christ is to be in our hearts, that we may reveal it to those around us. We need to be daily strengthened by the deep love of God, and to let this love shine forth to those around us.–Manuscript 66, May 25, 1905, “The Need of Home Religion,” a talk. {UL 159.6}

What was that love? It was a love that pardons, that pardons every sin. When somebody says to me, I’m sorry. Of course. I saw it coming anyway. I forgave you before it happened. Can you do that? We can only do that if the love of God is in our heart.

I had such experiences with my children. I knew what they were doing. One of them was lying straight to my face and I said I believe you. That burned in the heart of that child because the lie that was being uttered to me was being believed. Can you believe a person who is lying to you? Are you prepared to do that because God loves that person like He loves you? You will not devour that person; that person will devour himself. You don’t have to devour him, you don’t have to punish him, you don’t have to do anything against that person, because that person who is lying that person who is doing all these things and saying to you, I am sorry, but doesn’t mean it, that is his problem not mine.

When I can discover that principle I will love every human being. When they come with all their ugliness to me I will diffuse that ugliness by my kindness. May God help us to put into practice the love of God. It will change our entire life. It will make us ready for heaven.

Amen.