By John Thiel, mp3

Those who worship God in spirit and in truth know and understand what the scripture says, God is love. We need to continue to worship God in the deep sense of that love. The God that created man and all that surrounded man at creation, this beautiful planet that He created, when you look at it closely, it was all created by a motive of love; and it was simply addressed in this beautiful account of God having finished His creation and looking upon it:

The Love of God in Creation

Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Behold, everything was very good. As this statement is uttered in the word of God, it takes my mind out to the beautiful sceneries and the beautiful things that I have looked at and loved in nature, and indeed there are so many things, the vast scenery of a landscape that today only very minimally represents what God had done in the beginning. It was the worshipful admiration of this wonderful creation of God that displays God’s love in the very fact that He created in the first place. To reflect in our own meditation even though we don’t have the visual scenery before us, we can image it as it is described here:

Look at the wonderful and beautiful things of nature. Think of their marvelous adaptation to the needs and happiness, not only of man, but of all living creatures. {SC 9.1}

There is God’s love. The adaptation to the needs and happiness of everything that was created; you study it in science, it’s all there.

The sunshine and the rain, that gladden and refresh the earth, the hills and seas and plains, all speak to us of the Creator’s love. {SC 9.1}

[When He created man] God made man perfectly holy and happy; and the fair earth, as it came from the Creator’s hand, bore no blight of decay or shadow of the curse. {SC 9.2}

Just to be able to appreciate this pristine beauty is for us to contemplate, for the Holy Spirit to bring to our appreciation.

“God is love” is written upon every opening bud, upon every spire of springing grass. The lovely birds making the air vocal with their happy songs, the delicately tinted flowers in their perfection perfuming the air, the lofty trees of the forest with their rich foliage of living green — all testify to the tender, fatherly care of our God and to His desire to make His children happy. {SC 10.1}

When we stop to consider as to why God created in the first place, we discover in His creation, it’s because He loves. God on His own the three, could have remained eternally alone and shared none of their skill and love with anything else but this is not the character of God. He wants to share with other living creatures the joy and the love that is imbedded in His heart and so He created. Man’s relationship with God, the man that He created and all the other living intelligences that He created were able to enjoy the kind of relationship that was embodied in the three persons of the Godhead. We see there at creation when Adam and Eve were created:

Man was to bear God’s image, both in outward resemblance and in character. {PP 45.2}

He created a being that could love and that could enjoy being loved.

His nature was in harmony with the will of God. His mind was capable of comprehending divine things. His affections were pure; his appetites and passions were under the control of reason. He was holy and happy in bearing the image of God and in perfect obedience to His will. {PP 45.2}

He was holy and he was happy in perfect obedience to God’s will.

The sinless pair wore no artificial garments; they were clothed with a covering of light and glory, such as the angels wear. So long as they lived in obedience to God, this robe of light continued to enshroud them. {PP 45.3}

There we have this glorious vision before our minds’ eye and if it would have just continued that way, I love dreaming and I read in the word of God, that it is right to let your imagination flow in the things that are the realities of God’s love. I spend much time basking in these things and as I think about this, I wonder why there has to be a factor that wants to destroy that beautiful thing. I just find it so unreasonable but there was someone who could not tolerate such a perfect concord and he had to go and spoil it; even today is still around and anything that is beautiful, anything that is wonderful to behold has to be spoiled.

It makes me feel absolutely frustrated that there has to be something that spoils beauty. After Satan has managed to drive a wedge between God and man, we contemplate and we see what has happened to man after this cruel being spoiled such a beautiful experience of total joy, total happiness, total appreciation of having a relationship with someone and being happy to obey, happy to go along with everything so that everything runs smoothly and beautifully. What has happened to man under this evil influence of a wedge that was driven between man and God? This is the condition that prevails every human experience today:

The Condition of Man

Proverbs 21:2 Every way of a man [is] right in his own eyes:

Do you like that idea? Do you like somebody that you’re talking to and his way is always right and your way is always wrong? You like that experience? That’s the condition of man, isn’t it? Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, and there lies the big problem.

Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man,

Because every man is right in his own eyes so his way is right and that’s the way it’s going to go, yes indeed, where does it all end? It puts it singularly first: There is way singular, which seemeth right unto a man.

Proverbs 14:12 … but the end thereof [are] the [plural] ways of death.

Because every man’s way is right in his own eyes so it ends up a total mess because everybody doesn’t agree with one another, do they? This is the consequence of this wedge being thrown in between this beautiful experience of God in His love having created the beautiful world with other intelligent beings that were perfectly in harmony and happy with obedience to this One great mind.

But after his sin, [man] could no longer find joy in holiness, {SC 17.2}

Man could no longer find joy in holiness. Whether you want to admit to it or not, you and I do not find joy in holiness. Be honest with yourself naturally, humanly, we do not find joy in holiness. That is the effect that has taken hold upon us through this evil insinuation that Satan has put there. There is none righteous no, not one: I used to reason with God, “But, but I love you! I seek for you.” He very lovingly had to put His hand on my head and say, “Son, have a good look at yourself. Have a look at me and then have a look at yourself. Are you in total harmony with me?” I had to hang my head and shake. I was way off the mark when I had a good look. We see it every time we compare ourselves with His perfection. How many times in my experience as I have learnt this and then I have tried to communicate it to others what God’s real ways are, I get into trouble every time none failing, no matter how much people like me.

When I uphold what God’s real ways are, I get into trouble every time non failing no matter how much people like me. When I uphold what Gods real ways are, they begin to get miffed with me because there is something that I highlight that they can’t agree with. I often feel myself in a position where I think ‘Well I didn’t originate that idea, why are you not friendly with me anymore? When all I have done is quoted scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy, which was God’s idea not mine. Indeed we all have to discover at one point or another that we are not happy in holiness. Yet we may long to be where God wants us to be, we may long to be part – as I just describe this beautiful heavenly scene that God had created in the beginning, how we yearn to be there, how we yearn to be in a place where everything is peace and joy and happiness. How we yearn for that!

In our desire to be there, in our desire to be in a place of pure utopia and bliss, we find a mountain of impossibility between us and that, and the mountain of impossibility lies right here, inside of me. Apostle Paul expressed it so well in his plight, when he discovered that. Mark it he was a man who was a preacher among the Jewish church and he was very, very proud of himself; he thought he was pretty good until he came face to face with what I am talking about. Then he discovered that he himself was no better than the most horrible criminal. If he did want to get out of his condition there was a mountain of impossibility before him, as it is written. Because for you to be there, in that beautiful, blissful situation there are laws that keep that beautiful situation going.

Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual:

But what’s wrong with me?

Romans 7:14 … but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

There is the mountain. Can you get around it? Can you get over it? Impossible. If you wanted to do what is right, have you tried? And have you succeeded perfectly? How many people come to me in total despair; sometimes they come to me trying to justify their cause but they’re in despair. Sinful humanity never says, “I need help, please!” They usually say, “Well, aren’t you going to help me!” or, “I’m not as bad as what you think I am, you know, but I’m coming for help nonetheless.” When the demoniacs came racing down the hill to Jesus and the disciples went for their life, Jesus stood there, He knew, these two men were coming there for help, and they were fuming at the mouth and they looked very dangerous. Then Jesus was able to cast these evil things that were inside of them out, they worshipped at His feet because that’s exactly what they came for. Every time you come for help, never forget the danger that you’re in, that human flesh always comes in a wrong way, but the fact is God knows what is in the heart. This mountain that lies between us and what we’re yearning for is so big that we can’t get over it.

Romans 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

This realization dawns upon us especially when we become fascinated with God. I know that all of us here are here because we’ve become fascinated with God, there is something intelligent, there is beautiful there, there is something that lends itself to your intelligence and you think, “Yes! I want that.” After a period of time of being fascinated with God as He really is, you suddenly come around and you say, “Oh I wish I had never known.” People have said that to me. “I wish I would have never started studying with you John, because now I know something that before I didn’t know, and now that I know it, it only makes me feel worse.” I had a Bible study with a man not so long ago to whom I showed the beautiful story of Jesus’ journey from heaven, the painful experience of becoming a little baby, right through to the cross. This man shook; he gave His life, he expressed a total discovery of God and he was just trembling, and he just wept. The next thing he told me, not so very long ago, he said, “For a whole three weeks I was in total depression after that.” Why? Because when he saw God like that, he thought, “I can never be like that.” He saw how he needed to be like that to his children and he thought, “Pfoa, I’m never going to get there.” The mountain was too big. We discover that as we have a fascination for God and as we get to know something about Him, you are launched into a state of total discouragement, total depression, and this is the subject of our study, The love of God and man’s discouragement. We will here seek an appreciation of the way of God’s love to deal with your discouragement, as we have described it here.

There is this mountain of impossibility in front of you, that after all you have learnt of God you realize within yourself that, “Ah, I’m not going to reach it.” The subjects I am going to continue to share [The love of God series] from here onwards are going to be subjects that have severe ramifications to your emotional life. I tremble even as it just starts, I’ve given two or three in the past few weeks, I have already got feedback that some didn’t really appreciate, it hit them right where they didn’t want to be hit. I’m afraid of proceeding any further. But I must be, I must show what God’s word says, and I’m going to hurt you I’m afraid. I want to pause here for a moment, the overwhelming sense of unworthiness that is unleashed when we study God’s love and His ways, has been my experience. The message that I proclaim is uncomfortable to myself, but I have come to love my Saviour. I love Him very much and in my presentations of the messages that I have been sharing, I have indeed become somewhat confused as to the dismay and the opposition that those messages have unleashed. I want to open my heart before you here, before we go into any further details: everything that I have articulated in the past and that which I wish to continue to bring before your minds’ eye in this series of God’s love and His ways, is that which God has dealt with me in showing. It was painful, it was wrenching to my soul. It’s taken place over quite a long period of time but as I submitted to the pain and the wrenching of my own soul, the deep fulfillment and lasting joy and happiness that came in consequence is something that prevails in my life; and I have a purpose and a joy in life that is, I have observed, rare in so many people’s lives. Sometimes I feel, “Is there something wrong with me?” I seem to be walking a very lonely road because I hear people whinging and complaining around me, and I don’t even feel those kind of feelings, but by arousing them they bring them up in my experience and I begin to feel them as well, and then the Lord reminds me very quickly, “Remember the past that I have led you, I am right here with you.”

Jeremiah 30:11 … I [am] with thee

Experiencing the Love of Christ

The Lord has filled my life; when your heart is full of love for Him your heart is full of love to everything or person around you. This is what has animated me to continue to share God’s word, otherwise I’d be in a lone cabin in a forest somewhere. I’ve been tempted to do that many times. I just felt that there is no need for me to go along and spread this anymore because I hurt too many people, so I just want to hide. But the Lord hasn’t let me hide because there’s something burning inside of me. As I read God’s word and the challenge He places before me, I must share what I have found otherwise I will not be happy. It’s an interesting reality. I cannot be happy because the Lord is missing in my life when I don’t share this. This is what I have found to be true:

Supreme love for God and unselfish love for one another–this is the best gift that our heavenly Father can bestow. This love is not an impulse, but a divine principle, a permanent power. The unconsecrated heart cannot originate or produce it. Only in the heart where Jesus reigns is it found. “We love Him, because He first loved us.” In the heart renewed by divine grace, love is the ruling principle of action. It modifies the character, governs the impulses, controls the passions, and ennobles the affections. This love, cherished in the soul, sweetens the life and sheds a refining influence on all around. {AA 551.2}

John strove to lead the believers to understand the exalted privileges that would come to them through the exercise of the spirit of love. This redeeming power, filling the heart, would control every other motive and raise its possessors above the corrupting influences of the world. And as this love was allowed full sway and became the motive power in the life, their trust and confidence in God and His dealing with them would be complete. They could then come to Him in full confidence of faith, knowing that they would receive from Him everything needful for their present and eternal good. {AA 551.3}

The beautiful reality of God’s love when it pervades a person’s discovery in his heart, he cannot keep this to himself.

Those who have never experienced the tender, winning love of Christ cannot lead others to the fountain of life. His love in the heart is a constraining power, which leads men to reveal Him in the conversation, in the tender, pitiful spirit, in the uplifting of the lives of those with whom they associate. Christian workers who succeed in their efforts must know Christ; and in order to know Him, they must know His love. {AA 550.3}

As I said before, when you discover that which the Lord has touched my heart with, I can’t live to myself anymore, I have to communicate that love in the talents in which the Lord has given me. I feel the discouragements that are played back to me by those who listen to me, I feel them, I know them. As I see people struggling in consequence of the proclamation of the word that I have been responsible for, my discouragement is in danger of getting me even more so because I see the impact it has upon others.

It is my desire through this study to place the foundation underneath every other study that we will be going through in reference to the love of God and His ways and His standards. I pray you will take as the buffer zone when some of the things I am going to share with you strike right at the root of some of your own areas that you are not yet in tune with the Lord on.

I am not going to share God’s word in the general way in which I have been sharing it. Sometimes I have placed standards before your minds’ eye and left it to you to draw your conclusions, but I am going to read the Spirit of Prophecy right out to the clearest details. I am going to show you the purity of God’s holiness in every respect and I want you to know that if you feel as though it’s getting too much for you, it nearly gets too much for me too. But I thank God for the answers that I find and I just want to lay these answers before you right now.

Threshing the Mountain

When you feel this discouragement that overwhelms me as well as you at the high standard of God’s ways, that His love unveils to us – it’s the strangest thing. It’s a love and yet it feels like it hurts, strange. Recall as we emphasized before, there is a mountain before you which you find so hard and that’s what discourages you. “If this is the case, what has been shown me, if that’s what I’ve got to go for, I can see so many reasons around me that I am not going to be able to achieve it.” That’s the thing that gets you; and you’re not the only one that feels like that as I said before. The things that have happened to me in the past ten odd years, I knew they were coming, but the detail of how they were going to come I wasn’t sure. But I knew it was going to come because as I continued to follow the Lord I could see the ramifications. My eyes could clearly see as the Lord revealed it to me that, “You’re going to go through this and that, and that experience.” and it happened exactly as He foretold. I was in a quandary of whether I would go ahead with what I have learned to do in my Lord but I have to.

The scripture I am going to share with you right now are the ones that were such a comfort to me; when you are in a realm of discouragement because you can’t see past the circumstances crowding in around you because you become aware of the ramifications of following the Lord all the way, then take these beautiful statements and live them out. I understand why God spoke to Joshua that way because if you look at him, he had to live a company of people into the promised land who had already revealed how much trouble they had in following God’s way perfectly; so Moses had to speak to Joshua by the word of God, in this way:

Joshua 1:9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God [is] with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Isn’t that a comfort? As you go through every circumstance of your life and you meet the mountains and the discouraging circumstances, don’t be dismayed, don’t be overcome; be of good courage! Be strong! Why? Because “I am with thee.” Notice now the mountain. When that mountain looms up in your consciousness, you know that mountain is there whether you see it or not. Many times as you’re traveling through mountainous terrain you don’t see the mountains because there are bushes all around you; so you quite joyfully drive along but then you come to the mountain. Oops and you can see it. In our life, we will often be unconscious of the mountain until it becomes revealed to me. Then comes the discouragement.

When I was in New Zealand my heart was trembling when I was traveling through the Homer Tunnel Gorge area. As we were driving along there came this great wall of a mountain! and I thought, Where are we going now? It’s so tall, so powerful, it overwhelms you and your heart throbs, if anything comes down here, and sure enough as we stopped there we could hear rocks spouting down the side of the cliffs, where is that coming from and you really become afraid – and this is no different in regards to your walk with God: You come up against this mountain and there was this tunnel, oh, there was a time when there was no tunnel and they had a big job to get through it. We have a mountain of hopeless impasse before us when it comes to following God’s ways. Remember, “Don’t be afraid, I am with thee”

Isaiah 41:13 For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

Take it serious. When the mountain is in front of you, “Don’t be afraid, I will help you.”

Isaiah 41:14 Fear not, thou worm Jacob, [and] ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. 15 Behold,

Every word counts.

Isaiah 41:14 I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat [them] small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. 16 Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the LORD, [and] shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.

What an experience that is when the mountain is threshed and you can see, Oh, got it away! and you rejoice in the Lord! and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah 41:17 [When] the poor and needy seek water, and [there is] none, [and] their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. 18 I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. 19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, [and] the pine, and the box tree together: 20 That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.

These statements sound beautiful, don’t they? But when you have to apply them to real life, that’s when you wander, and that’s when you have to do it, in reference to everything that God reveals to you in your life. It hurts, it makes you afraid, it makes you fall back in dismay but we must reach the very condition that Satan has destroyed in our life; we must climb that mountain or do something to the mountain or the desert that is dry and there’s nothing there to attract you. What will God do with a desert? He’s going to refresh you, and He’s going to do it, He’s going to help you. So many people have said, “If I’m going to follow this particular standard I’m not going to be happy anymore, I’m going to be a dry old stick.” What does God just say? “I am going to bring beautiful splendor in the dryness.” But the mountains, the mountains of discouragement, what will you do with them? God will give you a sharp threshing instrument and you’re going to pulverize those mountains.

They’re going to be nothing and the wind is going to blow the powder away. We want to really take that to heart, I’ve had to and it works. What is the reality of the sharp threshing instrument? What is that? What is this thing that can really make those mountains as nothing, and then that wind? The sharp threshing instrument is none other but the display of the love of God to you in His Son. Make no mistake! When God gave Jesus Christ, and Jesus died for us on the cross, it wasn’t there just to make you feel good, the gift of Jesus Christ was given to remove the obstacle of disobedience, that’s what it what given for. God knew the effect of sin upon us, He knew it.

The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan’s deceptive power was to be broken. {DA 22.1}

Broken? The mountain of impossibility had to be broken and crushed.

The Awakening Love

This could not be done by force. {DA 22.1}

How true that is isn’t it? I could forcefully lay the principles of God before you and say, if you will not do it you will burn in hell! That’s what the fire and brimstones preachers used to do, and that is use force, fear. This could not be done by force.

The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God’s government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; {DA 22.1}

Are you picking this up? Please, as I share God’s word with you, never think for one moment that I am commanding you. I have sought already to show the beautiful love of God and then show you the impact on a particular subject, like as we did last time about the pleasures of the world (God’s Love Antidote for Worldly Pleasures and Amusements). If those pleasures of the world are yours in some item or other, don’t think that I have commanded you that you mustn’t have those pleasures, I simply shared with you that if you are with God and you love Him with all your heart your pleasure will be with Him and not in the world, that’s all. It’s for you to pick up if you choose. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.

… it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. {DA 22.1}

Here is the threshing instrument.

Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the world’s dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, “with healing in His wings.” Malachi 4:2. {DA 22.1}

Here is the only Being who could actually achieve in us the right kind of success in living by the standards of God.

From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency. So great was His love for the world, that He covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, “that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. {DA 22.2}

As I displayed it in the beginning, somebody really spoiled that beautiful relationship and what happened to man? He began to have no more joy in holiness, and he would no longer be happy to obey. That is what our situation was; and God knew that that would come about, He knew it, and what did He do? He placed the threshing instrument right in the proximity of man, before man even came into existence. There it was, Jesus Christ Himself, by the contemplation of Him, the difficulty of your hopeless case is threshed, made of no power. Here is the love of God, and He commends this love to our conscience as we face the terrible plight of the mountain in front of us:

Romans 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

While the mountain was there we didn’t even know it. God had already given us Jesus to die for us. By the contemplation of that love He commend this love to us. Observe Jesus’ experience now, dream, imagine this picture of Jesus. Let it really sink in deep. Here you and I are, at every point we are confronted with another step and another mountain to climb or to thresh. As I see this mountain before man, I’ve got my threshing instrument to make it of none effect in my life. Let us come and have a look at that threshing instrument. There is the gift of Jesus Christ that we are to contemplate:

Isaiah 53:5 But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Ponder what these Bible texts are saying. God had laid upon Him the iniquity of us all, all those things that we are doing that are directly contrary to God’s wonderful personality and way and standard, everything, Jesus died while we were yet doing that. As He died, He was wounded for those transgressions, He was bruised for those iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. What is Jesus called in terms of brotherhood with us? Who is He? He is our Elder brother. I remember the time when my brother got a hiding for a sin that I myself had done, you know what that did to me? I didn’t want to do that thing anymore. Although I didn’t get the hiding, he got it, and his chastisement was my peace. That’s what happened with Jesus.

For everything that you are going to be identified as God’s way that you’re not doing, Jesus suffered the punishment of that. It was the very sin that you did and you may still be doing that He is being chastised for. As you gaze upon Him being chastised for your sin, what is that meant to do for you? Isn’t that meant for you to say, “Oh, oh oh, well I better change my ways.” There is this intent that as you look at Jesus you are filled with a determination that you are not going to love this thing anymore because look at what Jesus, my Older Brother, went through in the place of me. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, the peace that I should get, after you get a good hiding. When a child gets a good hiding, what does it feel afterwards? “The battle’s over, okay I give in” and all is at peace, I’ve experienced that, I’ve got a good hiding and I know what it’s like, afterwards it’s all good, “No worries, I’m healed.” The chastisement of my peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

Where did He suffer? Where did Jesus suffer with all these things that are so different in my life to God’s character? Where did He suffer all these?

1 Peter 2:24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body

In his own body, that’s where He felt them.

1 Peter 2:24 … on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness:

Did you see that? We, who are dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. In other words, that is what He gave His Son for, that I should now live unto righteousness, not unto the old life that I have discovered as wrong.

1 Peter 2:24 … by whose stripes ye were healed.

There it is, the experience was in Him. He knew what it felt like, He knows the discouragements, the hopeless, the enormity of the mountain in front of Him; He knew that, He experienced it, He couldn’t see through the death of the tomb, it was a mountain. Indeed He was buried under it. Then the mountain went. Sister White writes a beautiful statement, “No mountain could keep Him underneath here.” It became a threshing instrument. It brought that mountain to nothing. As we consider this, we take another view all the way through the life of Jesus, not only at the cross but all the way through His life. What did He have to go through so that I might change my ways?

Hebrews 5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; 8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; 9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

What did Jesus have to go through? He had to be trained, like a little boy that had to be punished at times, He has gone through suffering so that He could lay out before your and my eyes, “Yes my son, this is where you’ are going wrong, and that is what Jesus suffered under to live an obedient life. It might be ever so hard, it might be a mountain in front of you but look, Jesus went through it.” As you keep on looking, at every suffering that you suffer in seeking to obey, you will see Jesus going through the same experience. What a love! The love of God that deals with discouragement, can you see the impact of this? It calls upon my heart strings, it calls upon my affections. If that is what Jesus went through, when I discover my mountains of difficulty and my loves and dislikes that are not in harmony with the loves and dislikes of God, then I listen to this plaintive cry of what Jesus was suffering. How can I walk by and say, “This is too hard”? He has given Himself to help us to thresh the mountain, to overcome the difficulty.

The Threshing Instrument of His Love

Lamentations 1:12 [Is it] nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted [me]

What has the Lord done? The Lord has afflicted Him,

Lamentations 1:12 … in the day of his fierce anger.

By the chastisement of our peace which was upon Him. In His fierce anger, Jesus was punished for the sin that I have committed. Is it nothing to you? He stands by and says.

Lamentations 1:13 From above hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back:

Do you know that experience? That’s what Jesus went through.

Lamentations 1:13 … he hath made me desolate [and] faint all the day. 14 The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, [and] come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into [their] hands, [from whom] I am not able to rise up.

Ponder it, imagine it. Every time you go through something when it troubles you so badly that all day long and all night long you can’t be at peace or rest because you realize that, “I’m supposed to be changing this, I’m supposed to be doing that. It’s going to cause me so much trouble.” “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” says Jesus, “I’ve been through this and I remained loyal to God in what He expected of me, I went through with it. I went through with it for you, to take the burden that you have suffered, and I have suffered under it, and I have threshed it.” It becomes no obstacle to you anymore when you heart’s strings are thus touched.

The path from the manger to Calvary was shadowed by sorrow and grief. He was the Man of Sorrows, and endured such heartache as no human language can portray. He could have said in truth, “Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow” (Lamentations 1:12). His suffering was the deepest anguish of the soul; and what man could have sympathy with the soul anguish of the Son of the infinite God? Hating sin with a perfect hatred, He yet gathered to His soul the sins of the whole world, as He trod the path to Calvary, suffering the penalty of the transgressor. Guiltless, He bore the punishment of the guilty; innocent, yet offering Himself to bear the penalty of the transgression of the law of God. The punishment of the sins of every soul was borne by the Son of the infinite God. The guilt of every sin pressed its weight upon the divine soul of the world’s Redeemer. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. In assuming the nature of man, He placed Himself where He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, that by His stripes we might be healed. {TMK 66.2}

This is directly where the love of God is to place before our minds’ eye His effort to bring us to His holiness, and to enjoy holiness when by nature we don’t. This is His method, His effort, to try and bring us around. He touches our hearts’ string with the little suffering of our own suffering.

We must tread the path where Jesus leads the way. It may be in tears, in trials, in bereavements, in sorrow for sins, or in seeking for the mastery over depraved desires, unbalanced characters, and unholy tempers. {TMK 280.4}

We are to follow in the path of Jesus in the very things that we are launching out to study in detail. When there are unbalanced characters revealed, when there depraved desires unveiled to you, will you walk in the footsteps of Jesus then? Ignorance is bliss but when the mountain stands before you, knowledge is bliss. You will have an answer to the terrible suffering that is looming up before you and you will be able to conquer the difficulties because Jesus is the threshing instrument; and what is the wind that will blow the mountain of dirt away? Didn’t Jesus say the Holy Spirit is like the wind? Yes the Holy Spirit comes in into your life and takes of Jesus and shows it unto you; then as you gaze upon Jesus and that because a threshing destruction of all those mountains of difficulties, the Holy Spirit will blow it right out of your sight and you’ll have no more problems with it. That is the work of God for our salvation. Let us remember this as we proceed to the following studies:

1 Corinthians 10:31 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

May God grant us this, and a willingness to pursue the research, so that we will be ready when Jesus comes because the mountains of difficulties had all been laid low. There is a beautiful text that says it, The mountains will be laid low and the low places will be lifted up, and God’s people will walk a straight path (Isaiah 40:4). May God give us that grace, is my prayer, in Jesus’ name.

Amen.