John Thiel mp3
Scripture Reading: Romans 1:19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
Our scripture reading suggests something to us. What is contained in the scripture reading of Romans 1:19? That which may be known of God? The marginal reading simply says that which may be known of God is manifested to them. We may know, we may know, the things of God. They are manifested to us, for God has showed it unto them. We may be ignorant even though God has enlightened us by His revealing.
There is this little suggestion in this scripture: the things of God can be known. Why don’t they know? God has enlightened them. He has revealed it to them. But they still don’t know.
Luke 18:31 Then He took unto Him the twelve and said unto them, behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished.
God had spoken to them; Jesus had spoken to them very plainly about what would happen to Him.
Matthew 2:1-6 Now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the east and are come to worship Him.” And when Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, “In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet, ‘And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my people Israel.
The priests knew the scriptures, and when a question was posed to them, they could give the answer that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. But did they receive Him? Did they actually benefit from that knowledge?
In John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. 11 He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
As with the Jewish nation as a whole, the disciples also, who followed Jesus and recognised Him to be the Messiah, missed out on truly appreciating what they knew. The disciples, with the knowledge that Jesus had given them that He would be crucified, die, and rise the third day, still lamented.
Luke 24:17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? 18And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? 19And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: 20And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.
Their whole world came down in a heap because they expressed here, “He’s died, He’s been crucified and we thought that He would redeem Israel.” When Jesus had spoken the words that we were reading in Luke chapter 18, the Bible identifies that they didn’t pay attention. They didn’t receive those words.
Luke 18:34 And they understood none of these things. And this saying was hid from them. Neither knew they the things which were spoken.
Strange? Isn’t it plain language? Have you ever met Christians where you have seen plain language and they have not understood it? Here was such an occasion. Notice how Jesus now addresses them on the road to Emmaus.
Luke 24:25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: 26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? 27And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Why did Jesus call them fools? What is Jesus identifying here? What is it that shuts down our perception of God’s revelations? Why do we not understand the simple expressions of God like the disciples didn’t? Like the Jews did not. They knew that Bethlehem would be the birthplace, and yet they didn’t go and revere the one that was born in Bethlehem. The disciples knew that Jesus was the Messiah, and yet they did not listen to Him to understand what He was saying. We have this enlightenment.
Before His crucifixion, the Savior explained to His disciples, but the disciples were looking for temporal deliverance from the Roman yoke. They could not tolerate the thought that He in whom all their hopes centered should suffer an ignominious death. Great Controversy page 594.1
Have you picked it up? Jesus plainly said it to them, and it found them unprepared. We need to be prepared for the close of probation. Everything that is written, when the time of probation closes, we need to remember and be prepared to meet. But our being enlightened by God’s word, the angels have come and impressed the Bible truth into our minds, but is there something that prevents us, and human Christianity today, from comprehending exactly what was meant?
The principle here is that there is something that the disciples could not tolerate that Jesus was saying. It goes on to say, and I’ll just repeat the words which they needed to remember were banished from their minds, and when the time of trial came, it found them unprepared.
The death of Jesus was as fully destructive to their hopes as if He had not forewarned them. In the prophecies, the future is opened before us as plainly as it was open to the disciples by the words of Christ. The events connected with the close of probation will be revealed. Satan watches to catch away every impression that would make them wise unto salvation, and the time of trouble will find them unready. sn’t this a serious subject? We need to very diligently examine our own selves to see what may be in our way so that when the time of probation closes and the time of trouble commences, we may miss out because we correctly understood the plain revelations that God so intensely wanted us to understand. The angels are there, the three angels’ messages—the angels that were giving those messages to the human race—they are there to imprint them upon us. As we come together to hear God’s word and study it together, are there things in the way of us that make those messages of little impact as they should, just like with the disciples?
How does the Bible actually put this? That we may have knowledge but we’re still ignorant? What’s in the way? How does the Bible put it? The flood came. Today, people know about Noah’s flood, but what?
2 Peter 3:5 They are willingly ignorant that by the word of God, the heavens of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water, perished.
They knew, they know, they’ve got evidences and Christians know that Noah’s flood did take place. But they are willingly ignorant of all that is to be gained from it, as Jesus said, “As in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of man be.” They are willingly ignorant. That’s what the disciples were. They were willingly ignorant. They didn’t tolerate what Jesus said, so they willingly shut it out. We are in a world where light and knowledge abound.
Remember Daniel chapter 12? At the time of the end, there will be knowledge shall increase. We are in that world now. Knowledge abounds. Yet many claiming to be of like faith are willingly ignorant. Light is all around them, yet they do not appropriate it to themselves. How serious! That’s what is called willing ignorance. The light that shines about us—we know we can recite Bible texts, we can bring statements to light when questions arise, like the Pharisees did: “Bethlehem? Yes, that’s where He’s going to be born.” Well, did they pay attention to it? These are the serious issues that surround God’s people today.
With the Bible within our reach, we honour God by erroneous opinions. Many claim that it matters not what one believes if his life is only right, but their life is moulded by the faith. If light and truth are within our reach and we neglect to improve the privilege of hearing and seeing it, we virtually reject it.
We are choosing darkness rather than light. It’s getting serious, isn’t it? The discovery of what our blindness comes from. Where does ignorance arise from? By the idea that it doesn’t really matter what I believe, what I think, what you think, what others teach; it doesn’t matter. Just make our life right, that’s all.
Many people today are saying that, are they not? They are saying, “Just believe in Jesus, that’s alright.” You don’t have to study all these details of prophecy. And the very minister that I looked up to when I was ministering in the church I was in before, and I was going into the details of prophecy and studying this with the people that were joining the church, he said, “Oh, brother John, you don’t need to go through all that to bring people into the church. There are a lot of older women and older people that find it too hard to understand all that prophecy.”
The declaration of God that points us to the pure truth then falls upon us to take hold of the privilege and make it our study and be there where we can hear it and where it’s being presented, and where in the Bible it’s being presented, to study it through in the books.
This is why in my own research, I have sought the Lord like this, where I was thrown into confusion by everything that’s being taught around me. And I went to the Lord and I said, “Help!” And the Lord said, “First of all, I have a prophet for these last days. You’ve got to listen to her.”
Oh, test the prophets. So I did. I saw that Ellen G. White was correct after all, although I had certain hang-ups about her. And then, where is the pure truth? The Lord led me to that statement, which said, “The truth that the Lord has given over the past 50 years.” She said that in 1904. The truths that have been established over the past 50 years are our only safety. Because today, Adventism no longer stands full square on original Seventh-day Adventist doctrines. There is the reason: willing ignorance.
When the time of test comes, they will be bitterly disappointed like the disciples were.
“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” [Proverbs 16:25.] Ignorance is no excuse for error or sin, when there is every opportunity to know the will of God. Review and Herald June 28 1906 paragraph 5.
Every opportunity to hear, were rejected by not going there.
A man is traveling, and comes to a place where there are several roads, and a guide-board indicating where each one leads. If he disregards the guide-board, and takes whichever road seems to him to be right, he may be ever so sincere, but will in all probability find himself on the wrong road. Review and Herald June 28 1906 paragraph 5.
God has given us his Word that we may become acquainted with its teachings, Review and Herald June 28 1906 paragraph 6
Here, a man is traveling but will in all probability find himself on the wrong road. Such simple common sense. When we are confronted with multiple paths to follow, which one are we going to follow? It must be the ones that direct us in the right direction, and it’s a guide board—the Bible and the messengers that take from the statements of the Bible from their own perspective.
If after His crucifixion and burial, in the place of giving way to their sorrow, they were down a wrong road. They didn’t go back to find the statements that would take them down the right road. They stayed there down the wrong path and would totally bereft. It was as if the message of Jesus wasn’t even spoken to them. If they would have come to their disappointments and said, “Wait a minute, let’s go back. What did Jesus say?” They didn’t do that, did they? They just went on in their depressed state. Are you sometimes depressed? Do you read the word of God to help you out of depression? Or do you go to the world to receive help for depression? You see, God, when we’re on the wrong path, when we are depressed, when we are filled with negativity, there are plain statements that we must bring to memory, but they’ve been lost for the same reasons as we’re just reading here. Examine closely wherein lies your assurance. What do you rely upon? What do I rely upon for my assurance? Do I cling to my own comfort zone? You know, we’ve become very comfortable with certain ways of seeing things, and they become part of us. We rely upon those comfort zones of concept. They were relying upon that. But take that into any area of our life in principle. If I am relying upon a false dependence and I am placing my whole weight upon that and then that falls down around me, I’ve got no hope, have I?
“Prepossessions, prejudices, and passions have a strong influence to darken the understanding and confuse the mind even in the reading of the words of holy writ.” 1 Selected Messages, page 20, paragraphs 3 and 4.
What was the disciples’ problem? They had a prepossession. They possessed a security of thought that Jesus, if He’s going to be the Messiah, was going to relieve them from Roman bondage. That was a pre-possession. The Pharisees had prejudices, and others had passions that they relied upon. We are no different. We have special stamps of mind that are light to us. And that’s what Jesus said: “The light that is in you, if that is darkness, how dark is that darkness?” You are secure in your belief that that is right in your own mind, and yet it’s not true. How dark is that? In paragraph four, it goes on to say the disciples traveling to Emmaus needed to be disentangled in their interpretations of scriptures. Jesus walked with them disguised, and as a man, He talked with them, beginning at Moses and the prophets. How quickly He straightened out the tangled ends and showed the unity and divine verity of the scriptures. How much men in these times need their understanding opened!
The Jews read the prophecies and they couldn’t comprehend them. Jesus had to clarify it for them. Does God clarify for us today through the assistance of human beings, just like Jesus was a human being? He spoke to them as a man. Interesting, isn’t it? There are prepositions of false reading that prevent people from even receiving their help to get the correct understanding. Like the scripture says, don’t lean on the arm of flesh. How do you misinterpret that? That if the Lord sends a messenger and gives you the information and you say, “But he’s a man.” Yeah, I’m a flesh. No, that’s a misinterpretation of that scripture. A prepossession makes people think that way. To lean on the instructions and guidance that was given from God through that servant was not leaning on the arm of flesh. It was leaning on the arm of the Lord.
That’s another example of how people will misread the scriptures. When servants of God seek to remove the confusions that are in the minds of the people who have false understandings laid out in their minds by all the different variations of teaching, when the agent comes, the discomfort of being shown by a human being is too excruciating. I want to know this for myself. Why do I have to listen to that man? And we read this is a reality.
2 Chronicles Chapter 24:19 Yet He sent prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord, and they testified against them, but they would not give ear.
What happens? God sent them human beings, prophets, just like Ellen G. White was sent. Do people listen? Just like in those days, it’s only a woman, this little old lady—that’s what I hear Adventists saying. It’s only an arm of flesh. You’re leaning on a woman. You’re leaning on a man. You’re leaning on not the Lord. Well, He sent them prophets, and the prophets testified against their wrong, but they would not give ear.
It is by sinful indulgence that men give Satan access to their minds, and they go still clear of light until at last their habits of wrongdoing become fixed. Sin ceases to appear sinful to them. He who faithfully preaches God’s word, thereby condemning their sins. Review and Herald November 12 paragraphs 38 to 39.
Notice what happens. He who faithfully preaches God’s word, as we were reading there in that scripture that they testified, incurs their hatred.
Unwilling to endure the pain and sacrifice necessary to reform, they turn upon the Lord’s servant and denounce his reproofs as uncalled for and severe. Review and Herald November 12 paragraphs 38 t
Have you ever felt that way about some of the preachings I’ve communicated? Why does John have to tell us that? That’s what I have heard them say. “It’s taking things too far. It’s too hard.” Well, let’s go on reading. That’s what it said here in this statement. “That’s what it said here.” Unwilling to endure the pain because it’s too painful, too uncomfortable, excruciating, to be shown where I’m on the wrong track. It’s painful, and so they reject.
Like Korah, they declare that the people are not at fault; it is the reprover that causes all the trouble. And soothing their conscience to sow discord in the church and weaken the hands of those who would build it up. And soothing their consciences with this deception, the jealous and disaffected combine to sow discord in the church, and weaken the hands of those who would build it up. Review and Herald November 12 paragraphs 38
Every advance made by those whom God has called to lead in his work, has excited suspicion; every act has been misrepresented by the jealous and fault-finding. Thus it was in the time of Luther, of the Wesleys and other reformers. Thus it is today. Review and Herald November 12 paragraphs 39
The confusion of opinion without the intervention of passions to just have it straight as it is so straightly expressed—we can all agree. Why didn’t the disciples recognise what Jesus was saying? He said, “I was going to get killed. I’m going to be crucified. I’m going to rise the third day.” It was so plain, but it didn’t harmonize with their interpretation of scripture. We are called upon to heed what the messengers that are sent of God are saying. Those words of the king here, Jehoshaphat.
2 Chronicles 20:20 They rose early in the morning and went forth into the wilderness of Toccoa, and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, O Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established. Believe His prophets, so shall you prosper.”
That’s the counsel, so that we can get our minds disentangled from false conclusions and error.
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.
Apply that to the apostles’ example. Jesus, they recognised was the Messiah, and He said something to them which confused their understanding. They hung to their understanding. They lent to their own understanding and did not trust what Jesus was saying. That’s where, in examining our own case today, is there anything that you read in the Word of God that is plainly stated there, but it doesn’t…
Proverbs 3:6 And He shall direct thy paths. 7 Be not wise in thine own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. 8 It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones.
Do we get sick? Do we fall under the terrible pressure of anxiety and stress? Do we feel uncomfortable and unhealthy? Why?
When He says, “Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Read what I’m saying to you, and be careful how you interpret it. Fear the Lord and depart from the things that you are doing. Let My word trust Me so fully, trust Me so entirely. Don’t lean in any way to your own perceptions. Let your own perceptions be laid down. Listen to what the Lord is saying.”
What will happen to you? “It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones.” Something to think about. God can heal us. God can restore our health. Miraculously, He can, but He won’t do it while we do not listen to Him. That’s where Sister White writes many times when the ministers have been called and they’ve been called to pray for somebody, the Lord said, “Don’t pray for them. They’re not going to do it.”
Isn’t it in chaos? Isn’t it? Everything is weird. You can’t see your way straight anymore. Can God? Yes, He can. Decide, make a firm decision that in the morass of your confusions and things not working out right, go to God and decide what is written in Matthew 4:4, to live not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Makes sense? Is it simple? The only thing that makes things hard is that we have confusing ideas, and therefore we don’t recognize, like the disciples didn’t recognize, God’s word.
God help us to lay aside prepossessions, opinions, and personal understandings to a plain “Thus saith the Lord.” God grant that to us in these last days to be prepared for the close of probation and the time of trouble.
Amen.
