When you came in this evening you received a handout. And I’d just like to ask you to take that in your hand now because it’s going to be necessary for us to do just a little explaining.  This handout really isn’t directly connected with the service tonight, but indirectly it is.  But it is a handout that will require a lot of study—one that you’ll receive a great blessing from.  It took a long time to work this up and I’m sure that as you study it you’ll see that it truly has some meat in it.  It is built on the basis of the text that you find on the top arrow, Proverbs 23:26, My son give me thine heart and let thine eyes observe my ways.  It’s built on the basis of actually God begins from the inside and works outward and Satan always works from the outside in.  Exactly opposite. And on this basis we find that the top arrow here is depicting God’s method of working, he bypasses these circles and goes right directly to the heart. Each of those circles represents a resistance barrier, a resistance barrier that Satan sets up. For you see, where I’m actually an individual here at the call of God, contrary to what we normally think, the devil whispers in the ear of the individual who becomes serious about giving his heart to the Lord and says yes that’s exactly what you ought to do.  You ought to give your heart to the Lord.  And then he says, let me show you how.  You didn’t know that?  Well, Ellen White says that in every evangelistic campaign, while God is bringing true converts into the church, Satan is bringing unconverted souls into the church.  And believe me, we’ll show you in the next five meetings how that Satan has been very successful.  Now what actually happens, you see, when actually an individual decides that they want to give their heart to the Lord, the devil says, Now the way to do this is to get busy for God.  And the outside circle here you’ll notice is an activity ring.  At the top of the page you’ll notice that under the heading God’s method of imparting the divine nature to man is righteousness by faith.  God is only one way of imparting his divine nature to man, and that’s with righteousness by faith.  However, the devil has a substitute. And so he says, Now get busy for God.  And if he can keep a person who is interested in or who has given their heart to the Lord and thinks they have, if he can keep them busy in activities, he’s happy. And there are many, many Christian people today who are very busy doing things for God—so busy that they have not yet learned how to live for God.  For you see, it’s much easier to do for God than it is to be for God.  And there’s a vast difference.  To actually do for God in truth keeps self very much alive.  But to be for God crucifies self. And the devil doesn’t want us to know this and he doesn’t want us to enter into that kind of experience, so he keeps you busy doing things that we consider to be actually good things.  Now you’ll notice within the circle, each of these circles there are two verses or scripture and one activity—consecration, work, bible study, kindness.  All of these things, and Satan promotes these just as much as God does.  Now you’ll remember of course, that as he worked with Christ, he was constantly quoting scripture.  And he has done this all down through the ages of time working with human beings. And so you’ll find that at the bottom of the page, at the P, Satan’s plan is not underlined.  God’s plan to the right of each is underlined.  Now there comes a time in every person’s life when activity does not suffice, so they say there must be something more to religion than this.  And so the devil takes them then to the next circle, and that’s the circle of emotions.  Emotionalism.  And it may surprise you, but it is an actual fact that probably without doubt 90 to 95% of the Christian world live their religious lives in their emotions.  And the most recent charismatic movement is a demonstration of the effectiveness of this program.  For it has swept through every solitary organization including the 7^th Day Adventist Church. And we have many charismatics within the 7^th Day Adventist Church, whether we believe it or not.  I come from an area where there is a strong charismatic movement that has grown in five years from about 300 members to 3,000 members.  And last Sabbath, one week ago, this church had grown to the point where they held four services on every Sunday.  They were having so many 7^th Day Adventists attend these services that they started their first Sabbath service last Sabbath to accommodate 7^th Day Adventists.  Now don’t even foul yourself. This is making an impact in the 7th Day Adventist Church.  Emotional religion.  Based on satisfying self, pleasing self, feeling good.  This is Satan’s plan.  But if there comes a time in an individual’s life when they say, Well that’s not enough, I mean there must be something more than this to religion, the devil still has one circle to hold a man. And that’s the inner circle. And you’ll notice that that circle is feelings, senses.  One of the five senses.  It’s in this area where Satan takes the individual and it’s there that they become fanatics.  Every fanaticism is built on one of the five senses.  Out of proportion, yes.  But once a person becomes a fanatic in any one of these areas, it’s extremely difficult to actually touch them.  Now you’ll notice the top arrow, God goes directly to the heart and works out from the heart and actually begins with the five senses.  And from that spreads on to the emotions and to the activities. This is God’s plan--exactly the reverse of Satan’s.  Now at the bottom of the page you’ll notice that Satan’s arrow never reaches the heart.  His plan never does get to the heart, for Satan works through the senses.  That’s why Ellen White says that we need to guard well the avenues to the soul.  And then she defines this by telling us that the avenues to the soul are the five senses.  This is the devil’s playground.  And Satan makes us feel.  Makes us feel religious.  Makes us feel happy.  Makes us feel any way he chooses to make us feel, and this becomes the substitute to the true thing.  I’d like to have you take this chart and at your leisure study it, and you’ll discover some of the hidden secrets of Satan’s method of actually working.

My subject this evening now is How Good is Perfect.  And I’d like to call your attention to a verse of scripture found in Nahum.  And Nahum 1:9, there we find the prophets saying, what do you imagine against the Lord?  He will make an utter end.  Affliction shall not rise up the second time.  In my humble opinion, this verse of scripture constitutes probably without question the most incomprehensible promise that you find in the Bible.  God promises in this verse of scripture that human beings taken from this planet and placed in an earth-made new are never even in thought going to rebel against him.  I don’t understand how he can deal with this. Do you?

This, you see, is in spite of the fact that actually in John 8:36 God says, If the Son shall make you free, you shall be what?  Free indeed.  In this realm of freedom, still God promises actual total and complete to the entire universe the angelic heavens and inhabitants on other worlds that we rebellious, we sinful, flabby human beings will be able to be depended upon throughout eternity, that there will never arise sin again.  Now I’d just like to ask you one thing.  If you had to pick out individuals that would fit into that picture, what would you do?  Where would you start?  What kind of an examination would you give that would qualify a person for that kind of faith?  You can readily see that it’s God’s faith in us and not our faith in him that allows him to do this.  For man’s faith has always failed. But it is God’s faith in us that has enables this to become a reality.  You see the promise of Nahum 1:9 is actually a promise that defies all of the history of mankind.  For in reality, the natural man has proven over and over again for 6,000 years that he is totally and completely undependable.  He simply cannot be depended upon.  Still in spite of this, God in reality makes this promise.  How did he do this?  Well in the first place you see, as he said to Nicodemus in John the 3^rd chapter, when Nicodemus came to him that night in the darkness of the night because he was a proud Jew, didn’t want to be seen coming to a lowly Jesus, and when he came at night he started to compliment him as was the regular program of Nicodemus. And Jesus simply swept all his compliments aside and said, Nicodemus, you’re not gonna see the kingdom of God unless you’re born again.  Picture if you can, the mind the Nicodemus, a man who was wealthy.  He could actually buy anything that he wanted.  He had all the money he needed, and much, much more.  He was a member of the Sanhedrin.  He had influence with the Jews.  He was also very, very well respected by the Romans.  This is evidenced by the fact that Pilot granted Joseph and Nicodemus the right to actually take Jesus and bury him in that new tomb.  But when Jesus said, Nicodemus, you’ve got to be born again, I can just see the wheels in Nicodemus’s mind going around and saying, my money isn’t gonna do me any good.  My Roman influence isn’t gonna do me any good, and the influence of the Jews, that’s not gonna help me either.  And do you know what his conclusion was?  He said, How can these things be?  It’s impossible. And Jesus said, You’re right.  With man it is impossible.  And that’s true.  But you see, he followed on and he said that which is flesh is what?  Flesh.  And that which is spirit is spirit.  And Nicodemus said, I don’t get it.  I don’t understand this.  And Jesus pointed his finger to him and said, You a teacher in Israel and don’t understand this?  You see, what Jesus was trying to get Nicodemus to face is the same thing that he’s trying to get you and me to face.  To realize that it is impossible for us to do one solitary thing toward perfection.  Nicodemus thought he was also already there.  Just like the rich young ruler.  Is there anything more that I need?  If there is, just point it, I’ll do it.  Nicodemus felt exactly the same way.  And Jesus pointed out Nicodemus’s nothingness.  He said, Nicodemus, you haven’t even started at all.  You’ve got to become a new man entirely.  You see, that was a dilemma to him.  How can these things be?  Can a man enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?  This is ridiculous.  You see, the things of God as far as the human mind is concerned is ridiculous. They are ridiculous.  No way can we actually reason through the plan of salvation.  You can’t do it.  It must be done by faith.  And so Nicodemus must reach out by faith, and see that which God wanted him to actually see.

You see, the newborn Christian is entirely a new creation.  It’s not a made-over individual.  That’s why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.  New creation.  Old things are passed away.  Behold all things are become new.  New from the top of the head to the soles of the feet.  That’s why Ellen White wrote in Desire of Ages 172, the Christian’s life is not a modification or an improvement of the old.  But a transformation of nature, there is a death to self and sin, and a new life altogether.  This change can be brought about only by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit.  You see, we still are plagued with the same kind of a theology that Nicodemus was plagued with, that some way or other we can by effort resist, by determination we can do, by with a little help of God along the way that we can actually improve that which possesses us now.  But God says that’s not true.  The born again individual is an entirely new nature.  Why?  Why is this necessary?  Well, Paul tells us in Romans the 8^th chapter, verse 7, that the carnal mind is enmity against God.  It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.  You can’t bring it into harmony with God in any sense of the word.  Now the  word enmity simply means hatred.  The natural man hates God.  That hatred is manifested in many, many different forms.  Sometimes it’s even cloaked with a religious garb.  But it nevertheless is still hatred for God and cannot be brought into harmony with God’s law. There’s no way it can be.  So obviously there is only one destination for that natural man, that is the nature in which you and I were born, and that’s the grave.  It must die. When that old nature dies, then the new creation that God brings forth, God is capable and able to work with.  He can’t even work with the old nature.  There’s no way he can.  But he can work with this new nature.  You see, volume 5 Bible Commentary 11:32 says, Angelic perfection failed in heaven.  Human perfection failed in Eden, the paradise abliss.  All who wish for security on earth or heaven must look to the lamb of God.  Our only hope is perfect trust in the blood of him who can save the uttermost all the come into God by him.  Our only hope, our only hope, oh I wish I could think that truth deep into our hearts today. There is no hope for us except by placing our trust, perfect trust in him.  You may call it faith, because Ellen White tells us that faith is actually belief coupled with trust.  Faith is not faith unless it combines these two characteristics—belief and trust.  That’s why we learn that the devils believe, but tremble.  There is no faith there.  There is no trust.  There is belief, but there is no trust.  And in order for faith to be faith, it must combine the two.  Belief and trust.  When those are combined we have faith.  You see, not until actually the very root itself of sin it completely burned out of us in the incinerating fires, it actually is going to be possible for the fulfillment of Nahum 1:9 to be completed.  In the little book of Malachi in the very last chapter in the first verse 4:1 we read, For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven and all the proud and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and that day shall cometh shall burn them up, says the Lord, and it shall neither leave root or branch. The very root of sin is going to be burned out.  Well, you say, then when the very root of sin is burned out and sin is completely destroyed, the devil is destroyed, well it ought to be easy to live in fulfillment of Christ’s promise.  Affliction shall not arise the second time.  But let me remind you that it was in this kind of a condition that angelic perfection failed.  Still God promises that you and I are going to never disappoint the angelic hosts in heaven.  We’re never going to even in thought rebel against him.  It’s in this condition of a lack of even the presence of evil, where no temptation actually existed that Lucifer rebelled, and the human perfection failed on this earth.  Now when we began to analyze this, we began to realize that you see, this condition has already been reached in the heavens above. And Lucifer was cast out.  It’s been actually achieved in the worlds flung afar who were tempted and Satan no longer has access to them. Satan has zeroed in here and this world has become the theater, if you would, watched by the entire world above.  And only as Jesus Christ pledges his own life as it were, by his own word that they can trust us would they even accept a human family.  Do you think that just because you and I would promise that we’ll never sin again that angels of heaven or the worlds out there will say, well yes let him come.  No.  Never.  Only by Jesus’ pledge.  That’s the only way it could be.  Then can you understand, can we see how important it is to absolutely have no trust in self at all.  To trust wholly in him.  And until we actually do this, trust completely in him, Jesus can never make that promise for us.

What does this actually involve?  How deep does this literally go?  Well, let me just read to you another couple of quotations that will take us a little deeper.  In volume 5, page 294, Testimonies this time, we read the enemy is preparing his last campaign against the church.  This startles me.  He has so concealed himself from view that many can hardly believe that he exists, much less can they be convinced of his amazing activity and power.  They have to a great extent forgotten his past record. And when he makes another advanced move, and listen now, they will not recognize him as the enemy, that old serpent, but they will consider him as a friend.  One who is doing good work. That’s the church members. That’s the church members.  And actually not recognizing Satan’s work.  Now notice what actually follows.  She says, boasting of their independence they will under his factious bewitching influence obey the worst impulses of the human heart and yet believe that God is leading them.  Could their eyes be opened, they would distinguish their captain and they would see that they are not serving God, but the enemy of all righteousness.  They would see that their boasted independence is one of the heaviest fetters that Satan can rivet on unbalanced minds.  Have you ever heard anyone say in recent times—I want to do my own thing.  Could it be that this great surge of independent thinking throughout the entire country is this very last deception that Satan is perpetrating upon the human family?  Could it be even the reason why we see in the world independence arising from every avenue from nations rebelling, demanding their sovereignty.  Cities, villages, homes, families, breaking up on the one basis of independence.  I don’t have to take it.  And could it be that even within the church of God we hear the same thing echoing.  Independence. Could it be that even, and I hesitate to say this lest I be misunderstood, could it be that even the women’s lib movement is a part of this same deception.  Now you can throw me out if you want to.  But I believe that if we actually see and read correctly, she says they would see that their boasted independence is one of the heaviest fetters that Satan can rivet on unbalanced minds.  You see, independence is the total opposite to God’s plan.  God never in any sense of the word wanted us to be independent, but rather to be totally dependent, come now and let us raise them together. And God says, won’t you let me come in and actually be the motivating power in your life and do in you.  God wants us to actually recognize his leadership.  Our rightful position for God expected man to always live by total dependence upon him. For that’s the way he made us. God’s power, and not man’s power.  And yet man has been changed from an utter dependence as center that actually had God as center to a self-centeredness.  Where self and independent thinking is man’s greatest aim.  You see, unfortunately that this is even a large portion of our education.  Self-worth is thought to be of greatest value.  And when a person becomes in the slightest bit out of harmony of that which is taught, we have a tendency to say, well they do not have a sense of self-worth, therefore they cannot reach the goal.  I wish that we did have a true sense of self-worth.  One selected message, 405, says selfish thoughts not only unfit us for heaven, but when self is woven into our labors, then the truth we bare to others does not sanctify and ennoble our hearts.  It will not testify that we are fit vessels for the master’s use.  Oh, we need to recognize that we must be free from this self.  How can this be?  How can we possibly be free from this self.  Let’s go to Hebrews this evening to the 12^th chapter of Hebrews in verses 1 through 7, we read, Wherefore seen we all seem compass about with so great a cloud of witnesses.  Let us lay aside every weight in the sin which dost so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.  I wish we had time to distinguish tonight the difference between sin and sins that the Bible teaches.  Suffice it to say that on Sunday night, tomorrow night, we’re going to cover this thoroughly.  But may I suggest to you that there is a vast difference in the writings of Ellen G. White and in the Bible on the matter of sin and sins.  Sins are transgressions of God’s law and God is always ready and willing to forgive. But sin God cannot forgive.  Paul says here, wherefore seen we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witness, let us lay aside every weight and the sin was doth so easily beset us.  Oh, how we have misunderstood. We think that my particular little sin of this kind, my transgression, my weakness, is that which Paul is talking about.  No, that’s not it.  That’s not it at all.  For you see, sin is the very center.  Sin is the very nature.  You see, sin is the disease.  Sins are the symptoms of the disease.  And this matter of sin can only be dealt with one way.  Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary to earn the right to forgive me my sins.  But that didn’t earn him the right to forgive me my sin.  That’s my very nature, and he said it has to go to the cross.  It has to be crucified with him.  It has to die.  Why?  Because it’s incorrigible.  Forgiving my sin nature would not change me in the slightest bit.  I would still go on sinning. Because that sin nature has to be completely dead and I have to become a new person.  You see, Ellen White makes this very, very, very clear.  We’re going to deal with it tomorrow night in depth.  But Paul goes on and he says, Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him doeth the cross, despising the shame.  And he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, for consider him that in doing such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be worried and faint in your minds.  You have not resisted unto blood and striving against sin.  No.  But it takes it.  And tomorrow night we’ll learn how definitely and how hard it is to be willing to die, to be willing for this nature of ours to actually go to the cross.  That which is absolutely essential.  And Paul says, you have not striven against sin to actually unto blood.  That’s our problem.  We’d like to actually die without it really being a painful experience at all.  If we could go through it without any real torture, we might be more willing to follow in that pathway. But you see, sin will hold on because self does not want to die.  Paul says in you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as unto children.  My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him, for whom the Lord loveth he chastenith it and spurgith every son whom he receiveth.  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons.  For what son is he whom the father has not chastened.  You see, it’s absolutely necessary for us before we become sons of God, or we can become members of the church, that’s not the problem. And we have nearly 3 million members of the church today.  And we become members of the church by a process called baptism, and that process of baptism is in reality a symbol of a death, burial, and resurrection. And somewhere or other we have it in our minds that the baptism is what it’s all about.  But baptism is a symbol of an experience that is supposed to already have taken place.  Is that right?  Do you believe that?  Look you see, Ellen White says so many, oh so many were baptized, but self did not die, therefore they did not arise to newness of life.  Volume 5 of Bible Commentary page 75.  You see, this is a tragic part.  A tragic part, because this means that a great many people must actually come to this death experience after they have been baptized.  In other words, what we’re talking about is conversion and baptism are not necessarily the same thing.  Do you believe that?  That’s exactly right.  I know.  I know, because it was 11 long years after I was a minister of the gospel before I met Jesus Christ.  I thought I was unique in this until I met a man called Elder E. L. Mension.  And praise his name, he gave me courage.  Because I learned that Elder E. L. Mension has been a 7^th Day minister for 16 years before he met Jesus Christ.  Down there in Australia.  Do you know where he met him?  He went to a Methodist camp meeting and met him.  And was converted in a Methodist camp meeting and brought his conversion back and he began preaching righteousness by faith, and he went the world over.  I was talking with him not long ago in southern California.  He attended a series of meetings that I held at Loma Linda.  And he was rejoicing, rejoicing in that new faith that he found after he was a minister for 16 years.  Oh, I wish that every solitary minister and every solitary 7th Day Adventist would realize the importance of meeting Jesus Christ.  And actually learning what it is to be born again.  You see, in Hebrews 12 we find a whole list of individuals who actually endured this chastening of the Lord, and recognize that in the chastening of the Lord, God is perfecting those whom actually he loves to be sons and daughters of his, picked to actually trust throughout eternity.  How good is perfect?  Well, perfection is a matter of total and complete trust. And nothing else.  I start at lesson page 97, as the leaven one mingled with the meal works from within outward, so it is by the renewing of the heart that the grace of God works to transform the life.  No mere external change is sufficient to bring us into harmony with God.  You see, when we actually go out and work with people, so many times we say, well all they have to do now is to leave off their cigarettes and they’ll be ready.  Or all they have to do is drop this bad habit and be ready.  You’ve never heard that?  Oh yes.  You see, we look at the externals, and if a person doesn’t do this and they don’t do that and they don’t do the other, then we actually are ready to baptize them.  No mere external change is sufficient to bring us into harmony with God.  There are many who try to reform by correcting this or that bad habit, and they have hope in this way to become Christians.  But they’re beginning in the wrong place.  Our first work is with the heart.  God says, My son give me thine heart and let thine eyes observe my ways.  God works the change when we allow him to work from the inside out.  And we see the change.  And the habits drop off.  Now I’m not suggesting in any sense of the word that we baptize people with all these bad habits.  That’s not the point.  But we must work from the inside out and not from the outside in.  You see, Ellen White says, the man who attempts to keep the commandments of God from a sense of obligation merely because he is required to do so will never enter the joy of obedience.  He does not obey when the requirements of God are discounted a burden because they cut across the human inclination.  We may know that that life is not a Christian life.  Do the requirements of God ever actually cut across your human inclination?  Let me ask you.  But don’t answer me.  Brothers and sisters, you see it’s absolutely essential that we have a new heart, a new mind, be new creatures, because you can never bring yourself to the point where actually every command of God is your joy and rejoicing until you are a new creature.  Because the carnal nature hates God.  It’s enmity against God, and it’s not subject to the law of God.  And it will be constantly cutting across the human inclination.  You see, the new life springs from a love of righteousness, the love of the law of God.  Yes, righteousness perfection is God’s law. The law requires righteousness.  A righteous life of perfect character is God’s only goal for you.  And for me.  How is this life of perfection actually possible?  Christ came to earth as man.  Lived a holy life. Developed a perfect character.  These he offers as a free gift to all who will receive him.  His life stands for the life of man.  Thus they have remission for sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.

I was holding a series of meetings in a city, in Portland, Oregon, and I met the girl, the lady who actually this experience had happened to again after three years of time.  I discovered her to be a refreshing, loving, loveable Christian.  You see, for a number of years I served in the prayer and counseling committee at camp meeting.  And there we had various individuals come and seek counsel and advice, and there was a young lady, about 26 years of age, who came about three years ago. And I went with her into the counsel room and we began to talk.  She told me her family was breaking up.  There was no way it could be welded together.  On her lap was a 3-month old child.  She had a 3-year-old girl by her side.  And she said, this little baby on my lap was our last effort to weld our family together, but this has failed. We’ve sought marriage counselors, we’ve been everywhere, but there’s nothing to do but to break up our home.  I prayed with her and she went back to her tent.  This was repeated for three days.  Each time she told a little more detail of what the problem was. And when she came back on Thursday she said, I wish there would be something that could be done.  I said, are you ready to break your home?  She said, No I really am not.  I said, are you willing to pay any price to hold it together?  She said, I think so.  I had on some card this paragraph which I take to be the most potent paragraph in the entire writings of Ellen G. White.  I’ve seen it works miracles in homes.  I’ve seen it save lives.  I’ve seen it weld families back together even after there has been a divorce.  It’s found in Mount of Blessing, page 71.  You may find it on page 84 or 110, depending upon the edition you have. But it reads this way.  The Father’s presence encircled Christ and nothing befell him but that which infinite love permitted for the blessing of the world.  Here was his source of comfort, and it is for us.  He who is imbued with the spirit of Christ abides in Christ.  The blow that is aimed at him falls upon Christ the Savior who surrounds him with his presence. Whatever comes to him—that is to the man—comes from Christ.  He has no need to resist evil. For Christ is his defense.  Nothing can touch him except by our Lord’s permission.  I’m sure that you didn’t get all that this paragraph contains.  But let me just refresh you mind to a couple of points.  We are told that Christ accepted everything as coming from whose hands?  The Father’s.  You mean when they spat in his face, he accepted this as coming from his Father?  Are you ready to go that far?  You mean when they plated a crown of thorns and put it upon his brow and crushed it down and the blood flowed down his face, he accepted that as coming from his Father?  You mean when they took him to the hill in Nazareth and tried to push him off, he accepted this as coming from his Father?  Yes.  Every solitary experience that he experienced, he accepted as coming directly from his Father.  And here was his source of comfort, and it is for us.  When Christ’s robe with his righteousness surrounds us, he only parts it and allows to come through that which is for our best good.  I said to this girl, I want you to take this, take it to your camp, read it and come back tomorrow.  She came back on Friday.  I said, Have you read it?  She said yes.  Are you willing to follow the principles in that single paragraph?  She said, I don’t know.  I’m not sure.  I wish you could talk to my husband.  He said he’s coming tomorrow. That would have been Saturday.  But he wasn’t an Adventist.  I said, If you can get him to stay I’ll be glad to talk with him.  He did stay. She brought him.  I talked with both of them.  I gave him a card.  And I said, I want you to read it right now.  He read it.  I said, If either one of you will follow this instruction, simply accept this as the principle of your life, your marriage can be saved.  If both of you will follow it, it will be absolutely the most joyous experience you can possibly ever have.  Well I prayed with them and they left.  I didn’t know what had happened.  The next year at camp meeting I was walking down one of the trails and I ran right into this lady. And she said, I’ve been looking all over for you.  I said, Well now that you found me, what can I do for you?  She said, Do you remember when you gave me this counsel and gave me that card, I said I do remember.  For I had forgotten all about it by this time.  She said, I want to tell you what happened.  I said wonderful, tell me.  Did you actually apply this?  She said, I left this camp bound with the determination that I was going to accept everything that touched my life, everything as coming directly from Jesus’ hand.  I said, wonderful, how did it go?  She said, for the first three months it was hell.  And those were the exact words she used.  She said, I thought I was living with the devil. I have never seen my husband act so mean and ornery and devilish in his whole life.  But then she said after three months something began to change. And she said, I’m not sure yet whether it was in me or whether it was in him. But something began to change.  And she said, after another three months had passed we were enjoying the sweetest relationship we had ever had in our married life.  We had never ever experienced anything like that. Why she said, everything was just as though heaven had opened up.  But she said, I knew that the devil was not going to let this last very long. But she said it lasted for quite a while.  And then she said that baby that I held in my lap died.  I wasn’t ready for this.  I had accepted everything as coming from Jesus, but I wasn’t ready for this.  You see, it wasn’t that the baby died, but the way the baby died that really made it so hard.  I said, tell me about it.  Well, she said, my husband and I decided that we would go for a ride in the hills.  We had done this many times. And we left the baby with his mother.  She’s quite old.  And nothing had happened.  Everything was fine.  So we took the baby over to her, left the baby with her, now a child of about 11 months of age.  And we took the baby over to her, left it with her, and she said grandma had forgotten that she had left her pills on the end of the davenport where she laid the baby.  And she went across the room, began to read, and the baby was lying there.  Had fallen asleep. And when the baby awakened she didn’t pay any attention that the baby crawled over and she just saw the baby grab a handful of those pills and swallow them. And it so frightened her that she panicked, and froze in her chair.  She simply couldn’t move.  She couldn’t say, she couldn’t do anything.  And she said when my husband and I came back we saw the baby lying on the davenport in a coma.  We picked the baby up, saw the box of pills, picked the box up, and grandma was still sitting in the chair.  And we rushed that baby to the hospital and within an hour the baby died.  You see, she said it was difficult because within just a few hours the members of the church began to come and sympathize with me.  And they sympathized and their sympathy I accepted.  And this happened one day, two days, three days. And after three days of accepting their sympathy, I began to feel the same old feelings that I had when I came to visit you at camp meeting. The same old resentment, the same old feelings coming back to my heart. And she said, I began to realize that I had failed the Lord.  I had pledged that I would accept everything that touched my life as coming from Jesus.  But I had not accepted this.  She said, I rushed from the front room into the bedroom, I fell on my knees, and I said, Lord I failed you.  I’ve disappointed me.  Please forgive me.  I will accept the death of my baby as coming from your hands.  You know what you’re doing.  I don’t.  I don’t enjoy it.  I don’t like it.  But I know that you know what you’re doing and in good time you’ll let me know.  She said, I got up from my knees, walked out to the front room, and the doorbell rang within a few minutes time. And another lady came in to sympathize. She said, I put my hand up and said I don’t want to appear to be rude, please, please don’t sympathize with me.  You see, I gave my life to Jesus a year ago and I gave my baby’s life to Jesus a year ago.  We are in his hands.  He knows what he’s doing.  I don’t.  So please will you just get down with me and thank him for actually working in our lives rather than sympathize with me?  She said, we got down and we prayed. And the lady left immediately after the prayer.  And there were only just a few more that came because it soon got noised about that I didn’t want sympathy.  Well, this went on for three weeks. Then she said, the doorbell rang and I went to the door and there was mother, my husband’s mother.  And father.  And they said, may we come in. And she said, Yes of course.  And when they came in they said, Dear, we’ve been watching you. Watching you for a whole year.  Something has happened.  You’re not the same girl you were a year ago.  And we’ve watched you especially since the little baby died and we’ve seen no resentment in you.  We don’t understand it at all.  But we want to tell you something.  You see, when we were teenagers we were members of the 7th Day Adventist Church.  But since we were married, neither one of us had ever been inside of the 7th Day Adventist Church.  Never.  Our son was reared out of the church entirely.  But if God can do in you what he’s done in you in one year’s time, he can do it in us too.  We’re going to come back to the church.  She said, two months ago mother and dad were baptized.  Born again.  They have a new life.  And she that’s not all.  She said, after they were baptized my husband came home one day and he said, Honey you’re not the girl that I married.  If God can do in mother and dad what he’s done in them and if he can do what he’s done in you, then he can do it in me also.  And she said, One week ago my husband was baptized, a born again Christian.  Now she said I understand.  For she said, in the earth made new I’m going to have my baby.  My little girl.  My husband, my wife.  My husband and my mother.  And my father.  His parents.  She said, I understand now that God works in marvelous ways.  His wonders to perform.  And she said, I would just want you to pray with me.  That I will never forget this lesson.  To accept absolutely everything.  And accept that this is coming from Jesus and give God thanks.  You see, that’s what Paul says.  In everything, give thanks.  Rejoice.  And again I say unto you, rejoice.  Not for just the things that please me, but rejoice whatever happens, knowing that God is at the helm and realizing that Ellen White says, When troubles and trials come, recognize one thing, that upon no worthless material will God waste any effort.  So you can always rejoice and say, Lord thank you for thinking that I am worth working on.  You don’t even have to enjoy the way he’s working.  I’m sure that Jesus didn’t enjoy when the crown was put upon his head.  I’m sure he didn’t enjoy when actually the nails were driven through his hands.  But he still said, Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.  Can you see for just a moment this evening as we draw this to a close what this did in the life of Christ?  It took his eyes off of the human instrument, realizing that actually though the human being was the instrument through which actually his life was touched, it was not they who actually were responsible, but who?  Satan. Satan was working through the human instrument and so Christ never retaliated toward the human being.  Would that help you?  So that actually we never retaliate toward human instruments, but realize that they are being used of Satan.  But God takes that which Satan begins, and turns it into a blessing if I look at it correctly.  If I see it as coming from Jesus, then God can take that which Satan used or intended to destroy me with and actually turn it into a blessing.  And this dear lady said to me, I shutter every time I think of it.  If I had gone on with resentment in my heart, my husband or his parents would never have seen Jesus in me.  Will you let Jesus be seen in you?  That’s the real question.  Let us bow our heads in a moment of prayer.

Our precious heavenly Father, Oh how we need to learn this lesson.  Just to live as Jesus lived.  To accept absolutely everything, though it originate with Satan before it touched his life, it was your will.  Your permissive will.  And before anything can touch our lives, it is the permission will of Jesus. So Lord, open our minds to comprehend and then to actually rejoice even though the experience itself might be distasteful to us.  Thank you, dear Lord, for making this so clear and so plain to thy servants.  May we cherish this thought expressed in this simple paragraph and realize that it is this simple way in which the power of Satan is completely broken in our lives.  That actually while he tries to destroy us, you turned it about to be a saving factor and a source of comfort and joy to each one of us.  Make this possible.  Make it a reality in every person here tonight, and in thy people everywhere.  We pray it in Jesus’ wonderful and precious name.  Amen.  God bless you and direct in your lives until he comes.