By John Thiel, mp3

We are aware of the amazing effect that transgression had on the Lord himself our Father in heaven. The deep grief that has affected him because of transgression. Much more grief than any of us will ever have to suffer which was accumulated upon the very soul of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the son of God. As we reflect upon that, doesn’t that pull our heart string? Does that not do something to us that calls upon us to yield? However to yield under such kind psychological pressure that is affected upon our minds, has an effect on my surface thinking where really we are to have freedom of choice but as we see the mental activity that the word of God creates in our mind, there comes a point where we think we haven’t really got freedom have we. It’s either you obey and yield to God or you’re damned. That is the effect sometimes that comes upon us.  

Do we really have freedom of choice? Every single one of us feels the tug of war that take place inside of us when God’s word comes before us and we are convinced it is right but then we have certain inhibitions of within ourselves that prevent us from moving ahead to respond to what has been illuminated. This happens differently in each person’s individual life because what is my test is not your test. When it comes to the test whether I’m going to yield everything, even my pet feelings, I have to yield them up. It becomes a tug of war within us.

Can you, in full view of the cross, beholding by the eye of faith the sufferings of Christ, tell your tale of woe, your trials? Can you nurse revenge of your enemies in your heart while the prayer of Christ comes from His pale and quivering lips for His revilers, His murderers–“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34)? . . . {TMK 65.3}

Jesus has reached down to our decrepit condition and places our conscious upon a challenge of giving over to him. Will I yield myself, will I yield my will? Will I yield my earthly comfort zone to totally let go? Especially when to yield feels like you have to lose your rational. Everything you ever depended upon to keep your mind comfortable in your own thoughts, to let go of that? It feels like losing your sanity and rational to totally surrender to another mind which is continually tugging at us, come my way. Consider what the reality really is. As we are being called upon by God to surrender, what are we really surrendering? Anything really? It’s a force and constraint because I’m being urged.

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15 And [that] he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

Here are a whole field of thoughts. As you look at the love of God as he was grieved at our sins and gave himself for us in Jesus Christ, it constrains me, it propels me, and it causes me to want to respond. What does it cause me to judge? If he died for me, then I need to sacrifice myself for him. I’m not to live unto myself anymore but with the thought that is a bit too much because it’s taking away my personal comfort zone. It’s taking away my will in regards to what I really want to do. When we think maybe I’m going to lose my sanity, I feel like I can’t give over totally because I’m going to lose something.

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

If it’s true that Jesus died for every single individual on this earth, what do we judge then? What did he have to die for? Because we are dead, we are doomed. There is no future for us without his death. Is there anything I can lose by yielding to him? The reality is that whichever way I’m going to reason in my life, I’m going to go insane. The whole world is heading for it. We are all doomed. If you look into the future and if you don’t yield to Jesus Christ and his strong appeals, I’m finished. If I want a choice I can yield and I can have an opportunity of life because I’m already dead. I’m already dead in trespasses and sins. Why did Jesus die? Because he was grieved by everything that humanity suffers. All of us are grieved in one matter or another and it is taking us to death. We are all dead. We are dead men walking. This is perfectly described in Isaiah which has the description of the human race. Especially as we live in these last days. As you look around you this is how people are;

Isaiah 59:8 The way of peace they know not; and [there is] no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. 9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, [but] we walk in darkness. 10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if [we had] no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; [we are] in desolate places as dead [men]. 11 We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but [there is] none; for salvation, [but] it is far off from us.

To really become free from the terrible dilemmas we have created for ourselves is extremely impossible. Wee moan and we suffer inside. There is grief.

Isaiah 59:12 For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions [are] with us; and [as for] our iniquities, we know them;

Think back at your life, we know them. We know the terrible consequences of our iniquities. Now notice our redeemer speaking, he is part of this parcel.

Isaiah 59:16 And he saw that [there was] no man, and wondered that [there was] no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.

Jesus was in Gethsemane and the description of Isaiah 59 was his own and he could see no help. Can you? When you look objectively at cause to effect, we know exactly where we are heading, all of us. It just gets blacker and blacker in terms of looking at our circumstances as we are dead men. God is actually speaking to dead men. Here is the description of the valley of dry bones.

The Valley of Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37:1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which [was] full of bones, 2 And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, [there were] very many in the open valley; and, lo, [they were] very dry. 3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. 4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy [PREACH] upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: 6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I [am] the LORD. 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. 8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but [there was] no breath in them. 9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. 11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.

Being preached to, is the same as being prophesied to. The word of God comes and tugs on our heart strings and it appeals to us to respond, it simply means, that I’m going to come to life. I’m not going to lose sanity or my rational. If I will respond as preaching comes to me it will create life not death. It is going to bring results and all I need to do is to continue to yield.

The moment I resist, I’m only going to stay dry bones, a dead man. What have I to lose? These are the things as I was mediating as I was preaching to others. This came so big to me. If I am dead, what is there to yield to if by yielding to every Word that proceeds out of Gods mouth? Even if it cuts across my particular state of being it creates life, what am I worried about? My state of being is death.

This planet is on death row and the Lord is prophesying to dead bones so that by hearing the Word we would yield to him. The tug from the death experience has become normal to us and we think it’s quite alright for me to feel and rationalise the way I do. The Word of God comes to me and says no that is not correct rationalisation, its death, yield. It is so simple.

I still find myself as I reach out for souls around me that here is a reluctance to give over entirely on certain points as they come up before the soul. The dry bones come together and they become bodies but it still needs more. We may have been benefited by the preaching but we still need more. Those bodies need breath and energy needs to come into them. If at any point in time I hear and feel the tug of God upon my being, if I resist I will stay where I am. No future.

Think back where you were before you heard God’s word. Where were you? Dry bones, absolute hopelessness. As God has spoken to us, he has brought us along the path so far and we have made such progress but there is more to come and we are called upon to yield more and yield entirely until restoration has taken place. If I cling to what I term as my sanity, how can I gain the sanity of heaven? It’s impossible. The sanity that comes from heaven is a totally different to the sanity that I regard as my sanity.

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

This is for the prudent on death row, they think what God is communicating is going to lead them to trouble.

Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so [is] he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart [is] not with thee.

We all seem to think that what we are looking at is correct but if it is not a total yielding to Gods idea it is the way of death. We are all confronted at one point or another where we stand looking blankly at the face of something I don’t want to do, every one of us.

There are certain subjects I don’t dare to touch on sometimes because people have complained about what I preach because what God says and what we are latched onto is going to disturb us to the utmost. We who think we have got it wrapped our in our little mind that what we think is right, even in religious terms, God is going to bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

1 Corinthians 1:20 Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

By the foolishness of prophesying, God wants to bring the dead bones and bodies to a full life of sanity of true wisdom which to man’s thinking is foolishness. How many times I hear the rationalisation arouse the expectations that God lays upon us. People speak about what they are doing wrong and say, what is wrong with that? I can’t see anything wrong with that. It becomes a debate in the church. I’m coming to the point where as I see the word of God for myself, I have to stop debating with people. Here is the Word of God. Follow it, full stop.

1 Corinthians 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; 24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Here is a process of coming to see the knowledge of God that while he is so bruised and grieved by our sins he says I am going to come and take away your bruising by coming close to you and as I do, I give you eternal life. As you open your mind to that, it is common sense to yield. Every tug of the conscious, every call to pursue a path that is contrary to my will and feeling, it is not an encroachment of my freedom but a call to awake from the dead. This is the case.

When I hear people say I’m not free to do as I choose because a preacher is telling me things, it is not to do with choice, it’s to do with awaking from the dead. For those who will lock in to their own self and ways and not Gods ways and who choose to say I will not yield, God is very kind to those people. He will shield them from the reality of their condition for so long because the reality of their condition if they could see it as a death row experience would cause them to go insane. If they don’t want to yield to Gods ways, he says fine, I will keep you in your thoughts of your own sanity.

2 Thessalonians 2:9 [Even him], whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Notice it’s a deceivableness of unrighteousness. There are a people which are the great majority in this world who will not yield. Why? Because they don’t love what they are meant to be yielding to. If they don’t love the truth that they might be saved, for this cause God sends strong delusions.

People who don’t want to yield, God says ok, I will leave you to your own thoughts. If he leaves us to our own thoughts remember there is a way which seems right to a man. He sends them their own delusions and lets them enjoy themselves until they come to the end of the road and then they have to meet the consequences but along the way they think they are doing alright.

I never forget a debate I heard between a creationist and evolutionist scientist. As the creationist was putting his strong argument, you could hear the evolutionist squealing and trying to conquer and shoot down the rational that was coming from the creationist because he didn’t want to accept that rational. He said no, it can’t be like that. Isn’t it amazing when you look at the evolutionist scientist today, people really believe their delusions. The Lord gives them strong delusions so in all their studies of science, they conclude according to their interpretations and believe they are right. This is a perfect example of how God sends them strong delusions.

Do you want God to do that for you? It is a horrible thing to say right now. Especially when a person is in a state of flux, it drives them even worse but it doesn’t have to when we already know and can understand that we are on death row and the Lord is trying to wake us up. I thank God so much for the sane influences that come when my mind plays games with me. Satan comes with his thoughts and feelings to me, the things I’ve just shared which are the way the Lord helps me around. The Bible texts I’ve just shared come to relieve me of the thoughts and feelings that Satan throws at me. Am I the only one who has those thoughts and feelings? I have learnt that people share with me whether in admission or whether in willing recognition, I’m not the only one who thinks this way. When it comes to the real test, we are brought face to face with the choice of whether I want to stay dead or awake out of sleep.

May God grant us that everything we hear from the prophesying that Ezekiel was talking about that we will let it penetrate and surrender to it. As I surrender and yield I’m coming to greater life. It might be a bit painful because the more awake to the fact of where you have come from, it will feel odd, don’t worry, keep on going. The Lord will keep on restoring us and he will show us the path of peace which we read is evading people unless they yield.

Amen.