By John Thiel, mp3

I would like to refresh our minds with an incomprehendible reality.  It’s not comprehendible.  The reality is not ours and yet we are called upon to meditate on it. Our relationship with God, his ways with us are beyond us. As we try to comprehend the real impact of God in our life, his relationship with us, he says to us;

Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

55:9 For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Very simply put.  If you want to comprehend his ways and his thoughts, it’s beyond us.  Can we rise to where he dwells and really understand up there?  Not until we get there. Right here and now, to try and get our minds around Gods thoughts towards us and what he is doing to really benefit us, it’s something incomprehensible.  The depth of this reality is fathomed in his very gift of Jesus Christ and that is the most in comprehensible part.  I would like to spend time considering this incomprehensible mystery.

1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Here the apostle is focusing on this amazing mystery that God became a man as Jesus was.  Not simply a man meeting Abraham as he did when Abraham was walking there and two were angels and one was God himself.  Not simply that but this deep engagement of God with us.  Consider the mystery of it.

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

People look for signs, there was a sign given.  Here is a mystery in itself.  There is the mystery.  Try and comprehend that Immanuel God with us as he spoke to Joseph in Matthew.   God with us.  Born of a virgin so that Joseph thought she has had a relationship with someone else, she’s pregnant, terrible.  There is God himself being born of a woman.

Luke 1:30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

1:31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

1:32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:

1:33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Here is something to try and get your head around and you will never succeed to fully comprehend it.  It’s for a purpose.  Let us get an appreciation of this mysterious thing of God becoming a little baby in a mother’s womb.  We often hear the story and brush it of but it’s meant to do something for us.

In contemplating the incarnation of Christ in humanity, we stand baffled before an unfathomable mystery, that the human mind cannot comprehend.  {ST, July 30, 1896 par. 3}

Meditate about the incomprehendible.  What else so incomprehendible beside this fact?  In this fact lies the source of our recovery from sin which is an incomprehendible concept.

The more we reflect upon it, the more amazing does it appear. How wide is the contrast between the divinity of Christ and the helpless infant in Bethlehem’s manger!  {ST, July 30, 1896 par. 3}

We are called upon to meditate, to contemplate.  Think about this.  The divinity of Christ in the helpless infant in Bethlehem’s manger.

How can we span the distance between the mighty God and a helpless child? And yet the Creator of worlds, he in whom was the fulness of the Godhead bodily, was manifest in the helpless babe in the manger. Far higher than any of the angels, equal with the Father in dignity and glory, and yet wearing the garb of humanity! Divinity and humanity were mysteriously combined, and man and God became one.  {ST, July 30, 1896 par. 3}

Can we comprehend it?  We are meant to contemplate it.  We are meant to seek to meditate about it.

It is in this union that we find the hope of our fallen race. Looking upon Christ in humanity, we look upon God, and see in him the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person.  {ST, July 30, 1896 par. 3}

You are looking for hope?  Especially when you look at the circumstances of your life and you can see when things close in slowly, slowly.  I never forget where Satan closed in slowly upon me.  I could see it coming and I saw no hope.  It was a horrendous mind experience.  It is in this union of God in the little babe, born of a woman that we will find our hope for our case.  If you look back at the scripture in Isaiah, what was the context of this statement my ways are not your ways?  What was the subject he was talking about when he used that statement?

Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

55:8 For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Have you come to the situation in your life where you have discovered that your wickedness, your natural state of mind is of such a nature that you can’t stop it? There comes a point in time where each one of us will meet this discovery.  When these overwhelms you where you see an impossibility to see you can have a change of mind. Have you been in bed at night and you are thinking about certain situations and your mind goes on and on.  You need to find hope to come out of those thought patterns and the thought patterns won’t go away? How many times we try to stifle that thought pattern and want to get rid of it instead of finding our way out of it.

When we go through the time of Jacobs’s trouble it won’t stop, Satan will keep pounding us.  We have to find hope in that kind of mental exercise. The incarnation of Christ is the great central truth around which these other questions of Gods word cluster.  Gods work with us with our sin riddled circumstances are all centred in the incarnation of this incomprehendible reality. When you see your child born with your faults and all those things and there was God in a human development partaking of the atonement.  In what form?  In that lies our hope in trying to see our way in those mental impasses in those incomprehendible exercises. Every circumstance we stop to meditate about is connected with our sin.  The consequences from disobedient children from our grandparents passing them on to us.

We have had a faulty life. The mistakes we have made come and play back at us.  The consequential trials that meet us.  The trials that get us by the throat. This is incomprehendible thing that your mind can’t work it out anymore.  There gets a point where you are about to choke under those circumstances. Can God really erase those thoughts? Can God really get rid of that?  For the wicked to forsake his way and be pardoned so these horrible things don’t play in the mind anymore.

Micah 7:18 Who [is] a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth [in] mercy.

7:19 He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

This is incomprehendible isn’t it?  Can you actually envisage that the actions, the mistakes, that have repercussions on others, that smudge our conscious, that this can be totally pardoned in a real practical sense?  It can only take place via the incarnation.  The incarnation you and I must meditate on so we can be set free from those thoughts, senses and failures.  It is an incomprehendible tings but it must be understood and received.  There is something in Jesus Christ that is going to succeed in getting rid of this incomprehendible dilemma that we will if we haven’t already met.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

You know what death is like, it is relentless, it is going to take its course, and you can’t stop it.  Sin has wages.  What is it?  When you look at Jesus you see what the wages are.  It is cause to affect exercise you cannot stifle it.  It will do its job and it broke the heart of Jesus.  The thoughts of sins that kill you and me overwhelmed him.  Have you been in a circumstance as your thoughts take the energy from you? Jesus had to be held up as he was falling over to the point he dropped great drops of blood and to the point of the cross where his heart ruptured from the high blood pressure.

Romans 6:9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

6:10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Meditate on Jesus

This incomprehendible incarnation that he went through the bitterness of sin.  He didn’t just die because he was knocked over by something.  He died because the sins killed him.

The incomprehendible mind exercise as your mind becomes overwhelmed form all that has been done, and it corners you, and you can’t get rid of the thoughts, then looking at Jesus and watching what he has done in that same circumstance is your hope.  That is the only place and I say very clearly, there is no other place where you can get rid of those thoughts successfully.  That was my experience.  I couldn’t get rid of them anywhere else.  It had to be through Jesus Christ.  Through the incarnation, this incomprehendible thing that people argue you about when you try to show them what it really is. If you reject that, then you find it easy to reject that your sins can be really removed.  It is hard to comprehend anyway. Someone has committed a terrible sin like murder or adultery and that very thing can be forgiven.  God has ways beyond our comprehension and we see it in Jesus Christ, we see him and through him, we can plunge as he did.  Father in your hand I commend my spirit and as I see that, he died and rose again.

It is a mental, a faith exercise with your thoughts, its incomprehendible.  Here lies our need to comprehend the in comprehendible.  We need to comprehend it. God in sinful flesh of humanity so our contemplation of this, releases us from the unbearable.  It is unbearable.  You can’t bear it as it is too much for you.  Those unbearable trials that we can’t come out of. Losing ourselves in thoughts and mazes of human depravity.

Isaiah 43:1 But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called [thee] by thy name; thou [art] mine.

You are filled with fear you will never make it.  I can’t change my ways.

Often our trials are such that they seem almost unbearable, and without help from God they are indeed unbearable. Unless we rely upon Him we shall sink under the burden of responsibilities that bring only sadness and grief.  {ML 184.2}

We have responsibilities to take care of our life and the more we try to bear those responsibilities we can see we are never going to get rid of, we can’t see our way clear.  Its unbearable.  But if we make Christ our dependence, we shall not sink under trial.  Those are easy said words, making Christ your dependence but it was in the incomprehendible in carnation that this is meant with and we take hold of Christ in sinful flesh with us.  As I contemplate, as I mediate, if I don’t meditate, it’s just theology.  If I contemplate then I am given material for my mind to be able to conquer and not sink under the trial which is unbearable.

When all seems dark and unexplainable we are to trust in His love; we must repeat the words that Christ has spoken to our souls, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.” . . .  {ML 184.2}

I can’t see my way through.  I’m going to sink but I will know hereafter and that was the light through the tomb that Jesus put for us.  He couldn’t see the light through the tomb.

When All Seems Dark and Unexplainable

We have to come to much deeper experiences of that than we have had.  It will seem, why am I going through this?  Your rationale will not be able to see its way through, at all.  When that comes in, you need to find hope in the incomprehendible reality of Christ because what you are going through is incomprehendible.

Do not go about as if Jesus were in Joseph’s tomb, and a great stone were rolled before the door. . . . In the trial of your faith show that you know you have a risen Saviour, One who is making intercession for you and your loved ones. . . .  {ML 184.3}

It is usually our loved ones with memories of problems.

The Bible places the responsibility of our happiness upon ourselves. We are to look to the light of life. Our usefulness depends on our own course of action.  {ML 184.4}

What do I do with Jesus that is my responsibility?  You now useless you become when you are overwhelmed.  You can’t do anything right.

We are so anxious, all of us, for happiness, but many rarely find it because of their faulty methods of seeking, in the place of striving. We must strive most earnestly and mingle all our desires with faith. Then happiness steals in upon us almost unsought. . {ML 184.5}

Have you ever met that?  You can’t see happiness anymore. But the minute you concentrate on Jesus and strive to hold onto him, and then happiness comes from a direction that you never even expected it.  That happens to me so frequently.  I cannot find happiness when I try to sort out my problems.  It comes from a different direction.  People have sometimes said to me, why are you so happy?  It comes through the incomprehendible, from the incarnation. You can be happy.  I never forget the day when Evelin was in a distress that she only had a week to get out of the house in Sydney and it really looked black and no way out.  I just smiled and said sister this is a wonderful experience for you.  I was saying it in faith as I was also saying Lord please help her.  As we finished our conversation, I was so happy and I didn’t know why. I rejoiced in the Lord and just knew the Lord had something to help her.  At the time it looked hopeless because if you look at the circumstances, you see no hope.  But if you look to Jesus and his gift to us, you can go forward.  He will lift us up as he lifted Jesus sup.  It is a reality but an incomprehendible reality.  We must strive most earnestly.

When we can, notwithstanding disagreeable circumstances, rest confidingly in His love and shut ourselves in with Him, resting peacefully in His love, the sense of His presence will inspire a deep, tranquil joy. This experience gains for us a faith that enables us not to fret, not to worry, but to depend upon a power that is infinite.  {ML 184.5}

Oh how valuable that is to me.  If I wouldn’t have the incomprehendible contemplation of the incarnation of the atonement I would not have any hope but now because of this we need not fret or worry.  At the end we shall see the lord.

We shall have the power of the Highest with us. . . . Jesus stands by our side. . . . As the trials come, the power of God will come with them.  {ML 184.6}

Let us embrace the incomprehendible mystery, the incarnation of Jesus.  The reality of God inside of a human being as it was in Jesus Christ.  The sinful flesh with all its havoc being stirred up and God was there with it all inside of Jesus.

Colossians 1:26 [Even] the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:

1:27 To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

2:2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

As we stand at impasses, as we stand at the mental torment of everything that comes our way, the united comfort that we find as we embrace Jesus unitedly, thus mystery, our applying it to our experiences as we need it unitedly, it’s a bewildering thing.  It’s an incomprehensible circumstance.  The Lord has a way in which he will continue to bless us.  He will carry us through and we are comforted.  We have something to praise the Lord for.

Amen.