The Power of the Past

Ecclesiastes 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man. 14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.

Little children like to ask why. But they are often told to stop asking questions. They never know why and they never know why not. As they grow, why has but one place in their life. Everybody else is doing it so why can’t we? What are you doing? Why are you doing it? This is a good question. We live in a world of over 6 billion people. Over 6 billion brains yet how many use them. How many really stop to think why? To reason from cause to effect. Nobodies taught it anymore. The homes don’t teach it. The schools don’t teach it. You don’t learn it in the work place. The government won’t teach it, parents don’t teach it and neither do the churches teach to reason from cause to effect. To use this machine which sits inside our cranium.

A famous slogan says ‘just do it.’ Indeed that is the mentality of the world today. The statistics are that you will probably end up dead. Sr white had a vision and she saw the whole world on a train to perdition. There was but a little remnant travelling a straight and narrow and self denying way. What are you doing? Where are you going? And why? We do not stop and think as often as we ought to. To reason from cause to effect. To actually think what am I doing? And why am I doing it and what will be the consequences if I do it. We don’t stop to consider how serious the matter really is.

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

If what you are doing is sin, the wages are death. Death is death. There is no life in death. It’s gone. Finished. That’s it. But before that a fiery indignation which will consume you body soul and spirit. A flame will burn and not be quenched until every last iota of you is consumed and you will feel the pain and guilt and remorse right to the atoms end. What are you doing and what will be the consequences of what you are doing? The feet of the natural man turn imperceptibly towards evil. If we do not learn to exercise our intelligence we will do the things we don’t want to be doing.

That God will give us an alertness in this hour of judgement that the solemn thought will cause us trembling that we will think about what we are doing and why. The power of the past. It will hunt you down like a beast of prey. It will grab you in its claws and hold you tight. It will ensnare you in its teeth and seek to crush you. To devour and destroy you. You cannot run from it. You cannot hide from it. You cannot escape it.

Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

You can’t get away from it. It’s serious, God is not mocked.

Every act, every word, is a seed that will bear fruit. {FLB 155.7}

The harvest is sure. No frost shall blight it, no palmer worm destroy it. {OHC 294.5}

Dear young friends, that which you sow, you will also reap. Now is the sowing time for you. What will the harvest be? {FLB 155.8}

Remember, dear young friends, that each day, each hour, each moment, you are weaving the web of your own destiny.–The Youth’s Instructor, December 5, 1901. {MYP 212.1}

Every word, action and thought has its consequences. Each is like a little seed planted in the ground and it will yield and unfailing harvest. The locusts won’t eat it. Doesn’t matter if the locust won’t eat it because it will grow and you’ll have to harvest it. What will it be? A fragrant flower or a noxious weed choking out your life. The little things, the big things. Everything. There is no escape. Everything has an unfailing harvest. If we stopped to consider there was a wise man. His name was Solomon. He’ll tell you that you cannot escape the harvest. That which you have sewn you will reap. There is no escape from the past. Solomon was endowed with great intellectual powers. Great ability to reason from cause to effect yet he didn’t use them.

So gradual was Solomon’s apostasy that before he was aware of it; he had wandered far from God. Almost imperceptibly he began to trust less and less in divine guidance and blessing, and to put confidence in his own strength. Little by little he withheld from God that unswerving obedience which was to make Israel a peculiar people, and he conformed more and more closely to the customs of the surrounding nations. Yielding to the temptations incident to his success and his honored position, he forgot the Source of his prosperity. {PK 55.1}

This great wise man little by little wandered away.

Gloomy and soul-harassing thoughts troubled him night and day. For him there was no longer any joy of life or peace of mind, and the future was dark with despair. {PK 76.5}

Yet the Lord forsook him not. By messages of reproof and by severe judgments, He sought to arouse the king to a realization of the sinfulness of his course. “The Lord stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite. . . . And God stirred him up another adversary, Rezon, . . . captain over a band,” who “abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria. And Jeroboam, . . . Solomon’s servant,” “a mighty man of valor,” “even he lifted up his hand against the king.” 1 Kings 11:14-28. {PK 77.1}

The consequences of Solomon’s apostasy caused him to be in a slumber. He didn’t know what he had done as he hadn’t reasoned things through. He was afraid and terrified yet he couldn’t see the cause so God permitted him to suffer the consequences, his protecting care was removed and adversaries came to wake him out of his slumber. To arouse him to a sensitivity of the dangerous position he was in.

At last the Lord, through a prophet, delivered to Solomon the startling message: “Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David thy father’s sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son.” Verses 11, 12. {PK 77.2}

Awakened as from a dream by this sentence of judgment pronounced against him and his house, Solomon with quickened conscience began to see his folly in its true light. Chastened in spirit, with mind and body enfeebled, he turned wearied and thirsting from earth’s broken cisterns, to drink once more at the fountain of life.. {PK 77.3}

This terrible judgement from God, I would rend the kingdom and give it to your servant. God did everything he could to wake him up. To make him think and he awoke as out of a dream. Are you sleeping? What will it take to wake you up?

For him at last the discipline of suffering had accomplished its work. Long had he been harassed by the fear of utter ruin because of inability to turn from folly; but now he discerned in the message given him a ray of hope. God had not utterly cut him off, but stood ready to deliver him from a bondage more cruel than the grave, and from which he had had no power to free himself. {PK 77.3}

In gratitude Solomon acknowledged the power and the loving-kindness of the One who is “higher than the highest” (Ecclesiastes 5:8); in penitence he began to retrace his steps toward the exalted plane of purity and holiness from whence he had fallen so far. He could never hope to escape the blasting results of sin, he could never free his mind from all remembrance of the self-indulgent course he had been pursuing, but he would endeavor earnestly to dissuade others from following after folly. He would humbly confess the error of his ways and lift his voice in warning lest others be lost irretrievably because of the influences for evil he had been setting in operation. {PK 78.1}

What are you doing? Solomon could not escape the consequences and though he was forgiven, yet the memory of his sins will always be there. Do you want to remember your sins? Think and don’t do them because they will harass you. You will hate what you did. You will hate it. Satan will be there to discourage you, to afflict you, to drag you under.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man. 14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.

Every work will be brought into judgement.

God sees the sinner. The eye which never slumbers knows everything that is done. It is written in his book. One may conceal his sin from father, mother, wife, and friends, and yet all lies open before God, and is placed in his book of record. Darkness, secrecy, deception, and crime added to crime have not obliterated the record. David was a repentant man, and although he confessed and hated his sin, he could not forget it. He exclaimed, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me. . . . Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day.” {RH, May 24, 1887 par. 5}

God is everywhere. He sees, he knows all things, and understands the intents and purposes of the heart. It is in vain that an attempt should be made to conceal sin from his notice. He saw our first parents in Eden. He saw Cain when he raised his hand to kill Abel. He saw the sins of the inhabitants of the old world, and numbered their days and punished them with a flood. He saw the sins of his own covenant people, the Jews, when they plotted against the life of the Son of God. As surely does he mark every transgression, and every secret thing will be brought into Judgment. They may be hid from mortal man, they may be hid from the good, the pure, and the holy, from friends and from foes, yet God sees them. All sins will be revealed in the day of Judgment, and unless they have been repented of beforehand, they will receive punishment according to their magnitude: for a record of all the deeds of men is kept in the book of God’s remembrance. All the good actions, all the evil actions of life are recorded. The fact that the accumulated sins are treasured up and at last exposed, is a terrible fact. And why those professing to be sons and daughters of God venture in the face of light, in the face of knowledge, to sin against their own conscience and by their sin involve others in the same ruin, is a mystery. Have they ever tasted of the powers of the world to come? Have they ever enjoyed sweet communion with God? Then how can they turn to sensual, condemning, soul-degrading practices? {RH, May 24, 1887 par. 6}

The last great day is right upon us. Let all consider that Satan is now striving for the mastery over souls. He is playing the game of life for your souls. Will there be sins committed by you on the very borders of the heavenly Canaan? Oh what revealings! The husband will know for the first time the deception and falsehood that have been practiced by the wife whom he thought innocent and pure. The wife for the first time will know the case of her husband, and the relatives and friends will see how error and falsehood and corruption have been clustering about them; for the secrets of all hearts will stand revealed. The hour of Judgment is almost here,–long delayed by the goodness and mercy of God. But the trump of God will sound to the consternation of the unprepared who are living, and awaken the pale nations of the dead. The great white throne will appear, and all the righteous dead will come forth to immortality. Whatever have been the little sins indulged will ruin the soul, unless they are overcome. The small sins will swell into the greater sins. Impure thoughts, private, impure actions, unrefined, low, and sensual thoughts and actions in the marriage life, the giving loose reins to the baser passions under the marriage vow will lead to every other sin, the transgression of all the commandments of God. {RH, May 24, 1887 par. 7}

The judgement will declare every secret thing.

Luke 12:2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. 3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

Those who obey not the gospel of God it is described that their sins like a panoramic movie will be played out before the vast multitude to behold. Every little thing that was done in secret that they thought nobody knew about, it will be there in public display. Everyone to see. Yes they might think they have gotten away with it, that they have covered their tracks. God is not mocked, that which a man soweth, that shall he also reap. What are you doing? Do you profess the name of Christ? Then for you there is another judgement.

Revelation 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

To those who name the name of Christ they have a special opportunity.

1 Timothy 5:24 Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some [men] they follow after.

At the great white throne judgment at the end of the 1000 years, the books will be opened and they will be judged, those who have not professed the name of Christ. For those who claim to be Christians, will in the time of Laodicea have their sins go before to judgement.

Revelation 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, 14:7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

Your sins will be opened now in this present time. They will go beforehand to judgement with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil. Now. The judgment of God. What is the judgement of God? How does God judge? What will be the experience of those who are judged by God?

Psalm 9:16 The LORD is known [by] the judgment [which] he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.

This is the judgement of God. He executes judgement by stepping back and let the wicked reap that which they have sown. Not just the wicked, even those of the house of God will come under this judgement. God is not mocked. That which a man sows that shall he reap. In the time of judgement we will reap that which we have sewed. How many think God is a arbitrator?

God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. Every ray of light rejected, every warning despised or unheeded, every passion indulged, every transgression of the law of God, is a seed sown which yields its unfailing harvest. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan. {GC 36.1}

This is the judgement of God, at the end of the 1000 years, they will receive the wages of sin.

Pharaoh sowed obstinacy, and he reaped obstinacy. He himself put this seed into the soil. There was no more need for God by some new power to interfere with its growth, than there is for Him to interfere with the growth of a grain of corn. All that is required is that a seed shall be left to germinate and spring up to bring forth fruit after its kind. The harvest reveals the kind of seed that has been sown. {CC 88.2}

The wages of sin is death. If you sow sin, you reap death. God destroys no man. Everyone who is destroyed will have destroyed himself. When God executes judgement, it is simply letting nature take its course. The seed was sown, it is reaped. That which you sow you shall reap. Even the 144,000 will reap that which they have sown. God is not mocked. Don’t be deceived into the thinking the 144,000 will have a flowery experience. That all their trials will be taken away. Solomon repented. If our sins are open before going into judgment then now we will meet the consequences. The judgement is now. Yes now those who don’t want him, he will give them the desires of their heart and at the end of the 1000 years they will reap them. Those who profess to be his children, the time is now.

Oh, that a right impression might be made upon the minds of young and old in regard to the exceeding sinfulness of sin! Oh, that all might have a just realization of its offensiveness to God, and its injury to mankind! The word of truth declares, “Be sure your sin will find you out.” The real character of every act of your life will be made known. It may be even in this life that through the providence of God, some unexpected circumstance will uncover your secret deeds of evil; but should you succeed in hiding your real character from the eyes of men, there is an inevitable day of exposure reserved for every soul who does not repent of his sins and forsake all evil through the strength of Christ, who has died that we might live. The Scriptures declare. “God shall bring every work into Judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” There is not a shadow of doubt about this matter. All sin that has not been repented of and forsaken, will not be pardoned and blotted out of the books of record, but will stand to witness against the sinner in the day of God. {RH, March 27, 1888 par. 9}

I always knew my sins would find me out. When I was a young child, I was afraid to be naughty but then I grew up and I got older and I saw those whom I had to deal with violating Gods law with no apparent consequences so I did the same thinking I can get away with this. No. We will not get away with it. There is no escape. The word of truth declares be sure your sin will find you out. The real character of your life will be made known. It may be even in this life that through the providence of God some unexpected circumstance will uncover our sins. How scary is that? To awaken us out of our slumber? To realise the exceeding sinfulness of sin, our sin will be opened before us. How will he do it? In ways which will shock you, in ways which you least expect. It may even be, through the providence of God, unexpected circumstances will uncover your deeds. God as with Solomon will discipline you with suffering. With a suffering of the consequences of your past. It will hit you like a freight train. When those who love Jesus are permitted to see the consequences of their sins, it will shatter them. They will see footsteps of blood that cannot be retraced, remorse, guilt, shame, with untold clarity, they will see blood everywhere and the blood of Jesus. The power of the past. Don’t underestimate it. You will feel as though your life has been choked. Like you are drowning in the horrors in the blackest of nights, your face will turn pale. If you don’t listen to what I’m sharing with you now, your past will kill you. It will hunt you down and choke you. Listen carefully. The judgements of God cannot be escaped. It will be beyond your imagination in this present time.

Psalms 36:6 Thy righteousness [is] like the great mountains; thy judgments [are] a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.

The great ocean of the sea, the great heaving, billowing ocean, the deep, is the judgments of god. When you come under the judgement of god, you will feel just as David felt;

Psalm 42:7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.

Too much. Too much. Too hard. Its downing you, its oppressing you, taking from you your life. This great ocean of judgement;

Jonah 2:3 For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

Like a drowning man. Reaching here, there, nothing but water and judgements. Darkness. The deep. But, did not Jesus liken jonahs experience to his own? Did he? Amen he did.

Psalm 88:14 LORD, why castest thou off my soul? [why] hidest thou thy face from me? 15 I [am] afflicted and ready to die from [my] youth up: [while] I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. 16 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.

He was numbered with the transgressors.

Psalms 88:4 I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man [that hath] no strength: 5 Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. 6 Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. 7 Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted [me] with all thy waves. Selah.

Judgement after judgement swept into the bosom of Jesus Christ. If it possible he cried, let this cup pass from me. My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? It was the blackest of the blackest. He could not discern his father’s love. The evil works, the evil words, the evil thoughts. Every seed which has ever been sewn he reaped. It pressed upon his divine soul. He felt that he had sowed them, that he had spoken that word, that he had done that wrong act and that they were his thoughts that were so blasphemous. He who knew no sin it is declared was made to be sin. Sin itself conceived within him.

The guilt of every descendant of Adam was pressing upon His heart. The wrath of God against sin, the terrible manifestation of His displeasure because of iniquity, filled the soul of His Son with consternation. All His life Christ had been publishing to a fallen world the good news of the Father’s mercy and pardoning love. Salvation for the chief of sinners was His theme. But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father’s reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt. {DA 753.1}

Satan with his fierce temptations wrung the heart of Jesus. The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father’s wrath upon Him as man’s substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God. {DA 753.2}

How they will feel at the end of the 1000 years when there is no mercy to plead? Jesus felt it. You will taste of it in the judgements of God now. When you taste of it now when mercy does plead, let it just be a taste. Look at Jesus now passing through the experience now of the judgements.

Psalm 69:1 To the chief Musician upon Shoshannim, [A Psalm] of David. Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto [my] soul. 2 I sink in deep mire, where [there is] no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

He felt that he too was drowning. That he couldn’t bear the consequences of transgression either and it was with strong crying and tears that he was able to save him from death. Lord save me I perish. Did the one who was executing judgement abandon his son?

Psalm 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, [and] established my goings. 3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, [even] praise unto our God: many shall see [it], and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.

Even in the judgements he inclined his ear. Brothers and sisters Jesus Christ was suffering the judgement of your sins, the consequences of your sins. In that the father did not forsake him. He was right there with his son. Jesus said, into thy hands I commend my spirit, right there. When God has a controversy with you, cling to Jesus. In the raging billows of the judgments of God when you meet horrors of your past life, cling to him, don’t let him go. It was the consequences of your sins that he suffered, it was your judgement he had to bear and if you will believe it, he did it with you.

Yes, Jesus died, so will you. Your self will shrivel. No self glorification when you see the mess that you’ve made. God says I will cast all your sins into the depths of the sea. They will pass into the judgement of the deep. He bound his son with your sins and he threw him into the depths of the sea. Will we not follow him there? Must he suffer alone and you suffer alone as well? He died and if we will die with him, he rose, and we will rise too and sit with him in heavenly places. God cannot take away our sins in this judgement time unless we let him. He cannot cleanse us from secret faults unless we let him. Like Jesus we must say, into thy hands I commend my spirit and confess all thy judgements are righteousness. If you do that, if you permit God to let your sins be open before hand, to reap them now, Gods word will be fulfilled and he says I will remember them no more. The harvest is sure but God will not remember your sins anymore because they have already been harvested and you have harvested them with Jesus. If we do not learn to open our hearts to the Lord like this, we will faint in that day.

We must grasp the realities of Jesus drowning with us in the great deep. Drowning with you in the great mess of your past life. That which you have not overcome will overcome you. Let your sins go beforehand to judgment. Let God open them beforehand. Don’t seek to hide them. Let him visit you with his judgements now while they are yet mingled with mercy and the blood of Jesus. Yes if you do this, strange things will happen in your life. Things that you least expect. You will come to hate sin, the sins that you already hate you will hate even more. Praise the Lord because Satan will be rooted from your affections. The time will come when the whole world will be arraigned against you and all your loved ones you have failed in your past life will shake their fists and blame you for all their problems but don’t let the past over power you. Take your hands which are so stained with blood and wash them in the blood of the lamb and drink them with Jesus. May God grant us a mind that will reason from cause to effect now. That we will be cautious now. We have no power over the past but we have power over the present. As we have power over the present, may God grant us the intelligence to know how we may redeem the time.

Amen.

About The Typist

Sabbath Sermons is a small resource information ministry in Australia standing upon the original platform of the Adventist truth. We are dedicated to spreading the special 'testing truths' for our time and are not affiliated with the various denominations. This website is administered by lay members only

Posted on 11/11/2009, in Divine Service Sermons and tagged . Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.

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