By John Thiel, mp3

I wish to seek to provoke to love by two approaches. First by a fresh display of God’s great love and second by the condition of one upon whom He pours such love. It is breathtaking to consider the love of God. It is beyond human comprehension.

Romans 5:7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

In the hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, God commends to us His love in that Jesus died while we were yet sinners, while we were enemies. We want to comprehend what these words are trying to communicate to us. We were cruel, nasty, wicked people and God sent His Son saying, I love you all, my enemies. Doesn’t that sound like what Jesus said, love your enemies. Can you do that? That is God’s love; that He would love us so much that He gave His only begotten Son. People have sometimes asked me, what does it mean that God so loved the world? Aren’t we told not to love the world? God loved the world in terms of human beings, the whole lot of them, the cruellest up to the nicest. He loved them all and He commends His love to the whole human race with all their corruption, with all their distasteful behaviour. He says, I love you, I have given my Son to help you out of the consequences of your corruptions; and then says while we were enemies He reconciled us to God by the death of His Son.

You and I who are present in God’s proximity, have been reconciled. We have responded and much more, every single one of us here; have a good look at each other and think, this person isn’t so nice to me, it doesn’t matter does it? Everyone in this church is being saved by His life, because we have responded and appreciate His reconciliation.

It came to my ears by certain believers and teachers that Mary, after she was caught in adultery, went and sinned again after Jesus had said, go and sin no more. Some people teach this when there is nothing written that she did so. If she did, when Jesus said go and sin no more, if she did fall again, would that have been the end of her opportunity? Think about this. We have made experiences with one another, we have heard each other say I’m sorry and then we have seen each other do the same thing again. How do you feel about each other? God loves still; and that is written. If we have been told go and sin no more; because of what Jesus has done for me I don’t want to sin again, but I fall flat on my face. What is the love of God now?

John 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.

Are they similar words to what Jesus said to Mary? Go and sin no more.

John 2:1 And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

After we have been redeemed, after we have received such wonderful comfort of love in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I sin again, what is stated here? Is the death of Jesus Christ just a once off process of salvation? It says we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

“If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.” How careful is the Lord Jesus to give no occasion for a soul to despair. How He fences about the soul from Satan’s fierce attacks. If through manifold temptations we are surprised or deceived into sin, He does not turn from us and leave us to perish. No, no, that is not our Saviour. Christ prayed for us. He was tempted in all points like as we are; and having been tempted, He knows how to succour those who are tempted. {7BC 948.2}

I want you to consider this, both for yourself if you feel overwhelmed with the deep appreciation that I am so weak, I keep on failing. What hope do I have? We have an advocate. As you look at each other, pay close attention husbands and wives because this is very important for marital unity, it is important for brother and sister in the church, that if we see each other doing things that hurt each other because we are sinning against each other, remember that the veriest sinner has an advocate.

If we come to the Lord in total confession of our sorrow and sinfulness again and again, that advocate pleads for us and we are to forgive one another as He does that. Are you prepared to do that? I am coming straight home, sharp to the point brethren and sisters, wives, husbands, God’s love does not include shutting out of each other. Not even God shuts us out. What shall we do if we are claiming to be His children? God’s plan is to save disgusting, cruel, hurtful sinners, murderers.

If there were any among us here who had a relative who was murdered by somebody, could you forgive the murderer as God does? Adulterer. Can you forgive when husband or wife has committed adultery? God does. When a thief has done what he has done, can he be forgiven? A thief isn’t just somebody who has robbed you. It’s a condition of being. An adulterer is a condition of being, a murderer is a condition of being, a liar is a condition of being, a foul-mouthed scorner, etc whatever you want to describe as sinners Jesus has died for such. If they fall again into some cruel sin, we have an advocate. This is the love of God. I want to display before you God’s great love. All those cruel sinners, those enemies, Jesus died for to justify. Stop to think what that means.

How can a murderer, how can my husband or wife who has committed adultery be justified? Impossible. With man it is impossible, with God all things are possible because His Son has come to die. This is God’s love. He died to justify. What is written? He was not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Those words are beautiful in themselves but look at His love to such people He is not wanting them to perish; the wicked. How many times we feel this wicked person! What is God’s expression to the wicked? Hear His plaintive cry.

Ezekiel 18:23 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: [and] not that he should return from his ways, and live?

What is God saying? You people who see the wicked that die, what is the human reaction? Great, they deserve it. Do we take delight in the wicked dying? Be honest. If the one who has hurt you so badly in your life, if he or she were to die, would you say good riddance? Is that what God would think?

He doesn’t want any to perish, He wants to bring them out, He wants to lead them along back to Him.

Ezekiel 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn [yourselves], and live ye.

Not just a new heart, but a new spirit, have a change. The thief is now no longer a thief in condition. Let me take this away from you.

You know that we are living right now on the last cusp of God’s closing probation. What is God earnestly doing? What is Jesus our advocate earnestly doing? He is saying please every one of you who have received my reconciling grace, please change. I am here to help you, I am your advocate.

I want to study into His beautiful love for those who are still not totally getting out of their mess one way or another. He is holding back the winds of strife. He has no pleasure in the multitude that will be dying. Can you come out from among them and join those who will listen to me, saith the Lord God? This is the cry.

Let Us Remember

That is what the Sabbath is about. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, remember that I have created you and that I have redeemed you.

…our great High Priest is pleading before the mercy seat in behalf of His ransomed people. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” {7BC 948.4}

The blood of Jesus is pleading with power and efficacy for those who are back-slidden, for those who are rebellious, for those who sin against great light and love. Satan stands at our right hand to accuse us, and our Advocate stands at God’s right hand to plead for us. He has never lost a case that has been committed to Him. We may trust in our Advocate; for He pleads His own merits in our behalf. Hear His prayer before His betrayal and trial. Listen to His prayer for us; for He had us in remembrance. {7BC 948.5}

What a love. The whole world has been potentially reconciled by the death of His Son, the whole world including you and me. Who are we? Sinners. Look at our past, look at the cruelness of our sinfulness and we are justified; what love. Now His Spirit and His Son intercede, they apply the scenes of the cross to every one of our consciousness. Not only did Jesus die but now He is our advocate and the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts, taking of Jesus and showing it to us, pleading with our hearts and Jesus is pleading to the Father. Father my blood. If anyone opens his heart to this amazing love they can look upon Jesus as their advocate no matter how sinful they have been.

I want to ask you each one individually here do you open your heart to this? This is what the Lord is trying to do. He is trying to knock at your heart’s door, us Laodiceans, who think we are so rich and increased with goods, we are so much holier than the other person. Do we know ourselves? Do we hold opinions that are totally different to the opinion of God? Rich and increased with goods, having need of nothing and there is that poor sinner over there. We sit in the seat of the scornful. How many times that happens? If I open my heart to this love and I stop to look at it and let it permeate my mind, what is taking place at the throne of heaven?

God has a perfect photograph of every man’s character, and this photograph He compares with His law. {5BC 1085.4}

What does He say? Those characters are so dirty they have broken every one of my commandments. Is that what He says? No, He loves us, whatever sin it is, however terrible it is.

He reveals to man the defects that mar his life, and calls upon him to repent and turn from sin (ST July 31, 1901). {5BC 1085.4}

This is God the Father. He sees our character just as it is, nothing missing, a perfect representation. He sees how far short we all are, not one of us escapes that scrutiny. He sees where we are marring our lives and says, I don’t want you to perish. Hear His plaintive cry in Ezekiel? Please, here is the problem that is marring your life, turn from that. Isn’t this wonderful? Isn’t this amazing love? We can’t even raise this in our own hearts.

If we respond to this Fatherly love, look at His Son now. What does His Son do?

He will not forget His church in the world of temptation. He looks upon His tried and suffering people, and prays for them. . . . Yes, He beholds His people in this world, which is a persecuting world, and all seared and marred with the curse, and [He] knows that they need all the divine resources of His sympathy and His love. Our Forerunner hath for us entered within the veil, and yet by the golden chain of love and truth, He is linked with His people in closest sympathy. {7BC 948.6}

He is in closest sympathy with us who have been redeemed, we who He has paid a ransom for, we who have opened our heart to Him and back-slidden, failed and sinned somewhere. Jesus is there, He does not forget His sinful people, His church. He knows that they are living in a world that is overpowering in their influences upon us and there is Jesus pleading to the Father in heaven with a golden chain of love and truth. He is linked with His people in closest sympathy. When He is in closest sympathy with the veriest sinner in the church, He says if you do any harm to any one of my brethren you are doing it to me. The reason, I am in closest sympathy with these sinning, failing members of the church is that they are struggling, battling through their past hereditary tendencies, battling with their internal struggles of temptation, trying to do what is right and failing, being thrown into dismay.

If you were Job riddled with all those boils and with the loss of his family, and Satan with his friends coming there giving him a hard time, what does his wife say to him? Curse God and die. What was she doing to the one who was close to the heart of Jesus?

These are the sharp realities that we need to see, that our hearts will become subdued by a love that is incomprehensible to our senses. This is God’s love that He does not forget His people who have fallen and maybe have fallen again and maybe are prone to fall again. His sympathy is there to bring them to repentance again and again. Sister White’s writings are so profound in my ears when she says how cruel we can be to one another in the church when God so loves us.

Our advocate pleads for us, not just dying for us, but pleading now that the redemption that He has paid for will become fruitful, will become productive in our lives. Gaze upon this love and let your heart fall in love with it.

Christ offered up His broken body to purchase back God’s heritage, to give man another trial. “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). By His spotless life, His obedience, His death on the cross of Calvary, Christ interceded for the lost race. And now, not as a mere petitioner does the Captain of our salvation intercede for us, {TMK 74.4}

Not as someone who is a little further from us. He is my lawyer in the court; that is not enough.

…but as a conqueror claiming His victory. His offering is complete, and as our intercessor He executes His self-appointed work, holding before God the censer containing His own spotless merits and the prayers, confessions, and thanksgiving of His people. {TMK 74.4}

It’s so easy just to read those words, but stop to penetrate these words. He is already one who has gained the victory and as He pleads our case in heaven, He brings before the Father the things that the Father has revealed to us. He says, Father look, this is what they have done, this is what they are, but they are crying to me for help, they are crying to you for help, I am here, listen to me, look at my perfection, look at my sinless life. I have exchanged their sin with me. Receive them; I have given the victory. He holds before God the censer containing His own spotless merits and the prayers, confessions and thanksgiving of His people.

Perfumed with the fragrance of His righteousness, these ascend to God as a sweet savor. The offering is wholly acceptable, and pardon covers all transgression. {TMK 74.4}

As we meditate on this advocacy, this amazing thing that He replaces my cruel, horrible sinfulness with His perfection.

The religious services, the prayers, the praise, the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers as incense to the heavenly sanctuary; {TMK 75.4}

As you look at each other do you think that those prayers are perfect and pure? You can say, I know what he or she said the other day and he’s praying? We say these sort of things in our minds, I know we do, I’ve heard you.

…but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled that unless purified by blood, they can never be of value with God. {TMK 75.4}

They can’t be of any value in our eyes about each other either, unless we know the blood of Jesus Christ shed for each other. That is what God looks at as Jesus pleads.

They ascend not in spotless purity, and unless the Intercessor who is at God’s right hand presents and purifies all by His righteousness, it is not acceptable to God. {TMK 75.4}

Your prayers can’t be, none of our prayers. They must be made acceptable by the purification of Christ’s offering, of His merits.

All incense from earthly tabernacles must be moist with the cleansing drops of the blood of Christ. He holds before the Father the censer of His own merits, in which there is no taint of earthly corruption. He gathers into this censer the prayers, the praise, and the confessions of His people, and with these He puts His own spotless righteousness. {TMK 75.4}

Those impure prayers go up before the Lord and Jesus combines His perfect merits and says, now Father this is what they are praying through me.

Then, perfumed with the merits of Christ’s propitiation, the incense comes up before God wholly and entirely acceptable. . . . {TMK 75.4}

As I have been sharing this with you, doesn’t it touch your heart, doesn’t it do something? This is for you and me, individually. Look at your own case. As you do this, as we acknowledge before God our appreciation of Christ’s merits, fragrance is given to our intercession.

As we acknowledge before God our appreciation of Christ’s merits, fragrance is given to our intercessions. As we approach God through the virtue of the Redeemer’s merits, Christ places us close by His side, encircling us with His human arm, while with His divine arm He grasps the throne of the Infinite. He puts His merits, as sweet incense, in the censer in our hands, in order to encourage our petitions. . . . {TMK 76.4}

Sometimes we can hardly pray because we are overwhelmed with the discovery of your own rotten case, and you hear the others talking about you. We do not need to justify ourselves. We have someone who justifies us. We have someone who even encourages us to pray because He grasps the throne of the Infinite, He puts His merits as sweet incense in the censer in our hands in order to encourage our petitions. I feel like sobbing as I see this. Doesn’t this love burn in your hearts? When it burns in me I can’t stop crying. I have had times when I have become giddy looking at this love. As I was preparing this sermon my head was going round and round and I thought how can I tell the people of this amazing thing that I could see?

I have just displayed to you the first point of my sermon; to see this love. How vulnerable are we after all this love has been poured upon us? What sort of a person are we even though we see God’s amazing love in all reality still on this earth? We have this treasure in earthen vessels. We have just looked at the beautiful face of Jesus as our sacrifice and as our advocate. We have this light, this power burning in our hearts, and we have this treasure where? In earthen vessels. What is that? What is the condition of the objects of such a love?

Our life is the Lord’s, and is invested with a responsibility that we do not fully comprehend. {TMK 88.2}

I have shared this amazing love with you and now there is a responsibility on me. I don’t quite comprehend it. Why?

The threads of self-have become woven into the fabric, and this has dishonored God. {TMK 88.2}

That is why I entitled this message The Threads of Self in our Love. We love Him because He first loved us correct? But as we love and as we are God’s (we have been purchased), our life is the Lord’s and we therefore have a responsibility that as we realise we have been purchased by the redemption price, the threads of self have become woven into the fabric. It has become so woven together that you can’t differentiate between self and its reactions to life and the love of God that is pulsating at the same time, like Apostle Peter.

The Saviour saw in him a self-love and assurance that would overbear even his love for Christ. Much of infirmity, of unmortified sin, carelessness of spirit, unsanctified temper, heedlessness in entering into temptation, had been revealed in his experience. {DA 673.3}

Can you admit to that? That is the threads of self, that although I am now so touched by God’s love; I fall in love with Him, I love Him dearly but what is the condition in the earthen vessel, in the fabric that has been woven through my life? Those threads of self, what are they? Infirmity, unmortified sin, carelessness of spirit, unsanctified temper and heedlessness in entering into temptation. This was Peter’s experience even though he loved the Lord. This is our experience even though we love the Lord. How many who love the Lord will, when their path is crossed show unsanctified temper? How many still hold a careless spirit – it doesn’t really matter does it? You know what God has said, you know God wants you to dress in a certain way, you know what God wants you to eat in a certain way that He has directed, but just a little bit today doesn’t matter. Do you do that? When you walk down the street do you perfectly reveal God’s dress reform? I am just using that as an example.

Heedlessness of entering into temptation, I know what the word of God says but this doesn’t really matter here, just something small, it’s alright. What is that? It is the thread of self that weaves through. When this comes up and the word of God, like it came to Peter, comes up before us we do what Peter did. It has happened in my experience with us.

Jesus looks with compassion on His disciples. {DA 674.1}

Think about that, the disciple had much infirmity, unmortified sin, carelessness of spirit, unsanctified temper, heedlessness in entering into temptation. When you see this in church members, what do you feel? They should know better, shouldn’t they?

He cannot save them from the trial, but He does not leave them comfortless. {DA 674.1}

With that self-woven through so that the love for Jesus is overpowered by the love of self, does Jesus say, I may as well give up on them? No.

He assures them that He is to break the fetters of the tomb, and that His love for them will not fail. “After I am risen again,” He says, “I will go before you into Galilee.” Matthew 26:32. 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}

Before they denied Him they vehemently said, we love you. Jesus says, Peter, after you have done your dirty deed upon me I give you the assurance that I forgive you. This is our advocate who is pleading with me. As He is pleading with me as He did with Peter, He is pleading with us, He is telling us everything that we are liable to be and we like Peter deny it because self is still woven into the fabric. He gives the assurance of forgiveness before you crash, so that when you have crashed you can be assured that you are forgiven. How can you get your head around such love?

In handling our case, Jesus reveals the things that we cannot see in ourselves, like He did to Peter. When it is pointed out we like Peter will deny. We do. I know this to be true. I have pointed certain things out and the people have denied the very things they have done, claiming they didn’t mean it that way. You may not have meant it that way but you did it. Remember what God says? He reveals the things that mar our life, it’s part of my character. I might not have meant it like that, but it’s me. How many people have said to me, I’m sorry that’s me, I can’t help it, but I don’t mean to do anybody any harm. But you are. We are; we are sinners. God says to us, you are being marred by this and that and we say, no, no, no, I’m not like that. I love everybody, my heart is as big and open to everybody like the ocean. When a soul spoke like that I thought, you poor benighted soul. That’s the opinion of our self. Self is woven into the fabric. When Jesus points out what is actually happening inside of me I will not recognise it, but when the experience throws it into my face I have the forgiveness ahead of time. I want you to please pay attention to that because I don’t want any of us to be lost. This is essential for our salvation. By a previous identification, when the fall takes place, hallelujah, the assurance of forgiveness is there. This is the love of God.

Brethren and sisters, we are in that process, right now. This is the experience of the servant of God:

2 Timothy 2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all [men], apt to teach, patient, 25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; 26 And [that] they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

This has been my lot. I could have many times have pulled my hair out over certain things that I see among our church, but the Lord said, you be meek, you look at me. As people contradict themselves in front of me, I am not to argue. I would have liked to have argued with a few of you many times, but that’s not God, that’s self. Here the servant of God is to in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves because the self is still laced with even our glory of the Lord, with our love to Him. We are at this present time in the process of the Lord trying to reveal to us those things that we in ourselves are not aware of. When our selfism is exposed as was Peter’s don’t despair, forgiveness has already been expressed before the sin, just quietly admit the things that I know I have done wrong and the things that I don’t know. Just say, yes that’s right, I know what I have done there and if I don’t know that this is the case then I admit that too.

Few realize that it is a duty to exercise control over the thoughts and imaginations. It is difficult to keep the undisciplined mind fixed upon profitable subjects. But if the thoughts are not properly employed, religion cannot flourish in the soul. The mind must be preoccupied with sacred and eternal things, or it will cherish trifling and superficial thoughts. {HP 163.2}

In order to understand this matter aright, we must remember that our hearts are naturally depraved,

This is the physical condition of sinful flesh.

and we are unable of ourselves to pursue a right course. It is only by the grace of God, combined with the most earnest effort on our part, that we can gain the victory. {HP 163.3}

Few believe that humanity has sunk so low as it has or that it is so thoroughly bad, so desperately opposed to God, as it is. . . . When the mind is not under the direct influence of the Spirit of God, Satan can mold it as he chooses. {HP 163.4}

My natural heart is desperately wicked. Does that mean yours too? If you know this then as the Lord shows His great love for you, you will say, yes Lord you are right. You love me and I love you like I cannot tell because I now see your love even more now than I ever saw it before. Don’t you now, as you think of what I just read here? When I regard the other person as an adulterer or a murderer or a thief but I see myself just as bad, how can I condemn another person?

When Satan comes to you and oppresses you, taunting you, at this time standing at the throne of God in the judgment time and we are being examined, You know the story of Zechariah where we have Joshua and the angel?

Zechariah’s vision of Joshua and the Angel applies with peculiar force to the experience of God’s people in the closing up of the great day of atonement. {5T 472.2}

This is where we are.

The remnant church will be brought into great trial and distress. Those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus will feel the ire of the dragon and his hosts. {5T 472.2}

Their only hope is in the mercy of God; their only defense will be prayer. As Joshua was pleading before the Angel, so the remnant church, with brokenness of heart and earnest faith, will plead for pardon and deliverance through Jesus their Advocate.

Can you see now how real this

They are fully conscious of the sinfulness of their lives, they see their weakness and unworthiness, and as they look upon themselves they are ready to despair. {5T 472.2}

When you feel ready to despair there are two ways to act. You either just become a recluse and hide yourself away or you become a slashing, attacking, hateful person.

The tempter stands by to accuse them, as he stood by to resist Joshua. He points to their filthy garments, their defective characters. He presents their weakness and folly, their sins of ingratitude, their unlikeness to Christ, which has dishonored their Redeemer. He endeavors to affright the soul with the thought that their case is hopeless, that the stain of their defilement will never be washed away. He hopes to so destroy their faith that they will yield to his temptations, turn from their allegiance to God, and receive the mark of the beast. {5T 473.1}

The people of God have been in many respects very faulty. Satan has an accurate knowledge of the sins which he has tempted them to commit, and he presents these in the most exaggerated light, declaring: “Will God banish me and my angels from His presence, and yet reward those who have been guilty of the same sins? {5T 474.1}

But while the followers of Christ have sinned, they have not given themselves to the control of evil. They have put away their sins, and have sought the Lord in humility and contrition, and the divine Advocate pleads in their behalf. He who has been most abused by their ingratitude, who knows their sin, and also their repentance, declares: “‘The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan.’ I gave My life for these souls. They are graven upon the palms of My hands.” {5T 474.2}

Do you think you are abused by others sinning against you? Yet you discover your denial of similar sins in your own life and they are fully exposed to you. When that has all taken its course, what will such a believer be able to say to the enemy?

Micah 7:8 Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD [shall be] a light unto me. 9 I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, [and] I shall behold his righteousness.

These are the words to the enemy, and the enemy is repulsed. Don’t’ despair; he will come along and tell you the detail. You have done this and that, you are like that because you have done it, your character is like that, you can’t be saved, what hope have you got? Don’t you think he had a go at Peter for that?

Satan will come to you saying, You are a sinner. But do not let him fill your mind with the thought that because you are sinful, God has cast you off. Say to him, Yes, I am a sinner, and for that reason I need a Saviour. {1MCP 33.1}

These are not just words that are said because you want to become free. Are they not the words of somebody upon whom the love of God has burned such as realisation? Those words are not just off pat words learned from the statement, but the heart is not totally aware, no. The Lord has brought us through the discovery of things that we had denied. This is one of the words that psychology uses, denial. Now through Jesus there is no more denial. Satan comes along and says, your case is hopeless. Yes. It is hopeless that is why I need a Saviour. I need forgiveness and pardon and Christ says that if I come to Him I shall not perish. In His letter to me I read if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I will believe the word He has left for me; I will obey His commands. When Satan tells you that you are lost, answer, Yes, yes, but Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. The greater my sin, the greater my need of a Saviour.

Now is the time. Now is our experience with what I have shared with you here. Brethren and sisters let us press together, let us acknowledge that I probably don’t know myself as I really should. When Jesus points it out to me and I am tempted to say, that’s just John Thiel’s idea – brethren I don’t throw anything against anybody; I know what a sinner I am – if I share something, make something clear, it is what the Lord has made clear to me.

When I see it in others I know the redemption story for my soul and I will impart the redemption story for their soul. If they say, no, no, that is not me then you are just like Peter and you will experience it. We are going through it, this is nearly finished; our probation is nearly closed. We must admit, we must confess , we must put away our denial. If we don’t, the Lord will bring circumstances about that will throw us right into the reality of it and we will say, the Lord was right after all. Satan will say, you are gone, you’re lost. We will say, Satan, I know I am lost that is what Jesus came to save. Praise the Lord; hang on to it. Brethren and sisters, let us open our heart to let the Lord clean us right out. This is my prayer, that we can gain that in Jesus’ name.

Amen.