Grace and truth

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14).

“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” (Ps. 85:10).

“Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” (Rom. 11:22).

“I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: and hast borne, and hast patience, and for My name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee.” (Rev. 2:2-4).

 

There are many more examples of these two pillars of polar opposite, which together, perfectly entwined, form the most powerful force in the mind of man—the power of divine love. Please look at my post from May 26, 2011, entitled, The Two Pillars of Divine Love. There you will see a list of the two pillars that I have found in the Bible. And there are no doubt many more.

 

Divine love, divine wisdom, always includes both of these polar opposite dispositions. Grace and truth, mercy and justice, et al, is God’s solution to sin. It was the foundation of His government from eternity past and will forever continue to be His firm foundation. It made up “the everlasting covenant” (Isa. 24:5) and it makes up the “everlasting gospel” (Rev. 14:6).

 

We looked at the parable of a man who left His wealth in the hands of three stewards. The last one who received one talent thought his master was a super-stern and super-demanding master. He looked upon his good master in an evil way, who had trusted him with his wealth. He repaid his trusting master with distrust.

 

Was his master really as he thought of him? No, not at all. He was a man of “an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts” (Dan. 5:12), in whom was “the Spirit of the holy [God]” (Dan. 5:11). His master was as joyful as Boaz, and as capable in his enterprises.

 

“And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD be with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee.” (Ruth 2:4). He joined together grace and truth, justice and mercy. Therefore, his servants loved him and loved to obey him.

 

Boaz was kind and merciful. He cared for his elderly aunt Naomi who had met with so much loss of loved ones. He obeyed the Law of God given to Moses by giving the gleanings to the poor and especially to his own household, Naomi and her daughter in law. He gave honor to strangers (foreigners), such as Ruth was. And Boaz was evangelistic, spreading the Hebrew faith by inviting the Moabitess into his faith and encouraging her to trust in the protection and salvation of Israel’s God. Therefore, Jehovah blessed him greatly.

 

“Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this?

And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab:

And she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house.

Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens:

Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them: have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? and when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn.

Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?

And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore.

The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.” (Ruth 2:5-12).

 

This is the perfect picture of the master of the three servants. That is why the first two servants loved to serve their Master Jesus, the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of Boaz. (Twenty-eight generations; but, the shortened version of that is “Jesus the son of Boaz”).

 

Then, if Jesus the son of Boaz, the master in the parable, was as good as Boaz, why did the least servant find his master so offensive? It must be that he misjudged his master. Something in the servant’s thinking caused him to see his master as having only justice without any mercy. It must be that instead of worshiping Elohim, he had been worshiping Baalim. Baalim was the other Elohim, the substitute who looked like the true with a few enticements for the flesh, the filthy counterfeit of Elohim. But, Baalim never mixed justice with mercy because Baalim was Satan. He found it easier to his palate to “[smite] the people in wrath with a continual stroke” and to “[rule] the nations in anger.” (Isa. 14:6). He never savors the things that are of God, but the things that are of men. The human mind is the devil’s perfect nesting place.

 

Living under such a terrorist regime as Satan’s realm, the servant saw God in the same light as Satan, and therefore he saw Jesus in the same light, also. Thus, he couldn’t love his master, whose name is “called Faithful and True” (Rev. 19:11) as the servants of Boaz loved their fair master. And therefore he found it impossible to obey his assumed evil master. Serving Baalim caused him to see evil everywhere he looked and in everyone he met. Devoid of love in his soul, he was suspicious of everyone. Serving “Baalzebub” (2 Ki. 1:2)—Beelzebub—leaves a soul permanently conscienceless and listless. Nothing in life pleases them, they are filled of Satan’s dark spirit. They departed from the God of Israel, the faithful God who made Abraham faithful, and He has given them over to the world of spiritualism.

 

“Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God.” (Isa. 51:20).

 

Continual service to Satan’s invisible presence left the servant ruined. His resistance to the misperceived character of his lord’s beautiful heart left him unable to cope with any justice, any truth, any accountability, any responsibility. Hence, Baalim made the servant self-indulgent. Pure, unadulterated justice and truth smiting his conscience with a continual stroke, drove him to Ashtoreth, the Cult of Isis, without him even realizing it. Under the promise of peace to the soul, the devil robbed him of all hope of peace. Under the doting Queen of Heaven, he had no appetite for balanced truth and grace, justice and mercy, responsibility and reward. He could desire no truth at all, only grace; no justice and only mercy. Baalim made him hate truth unadulterated with grace; now Ashtoreth makes him indulge grace unadulterated with truth. He went from eating floor sweepings under Baal to drinking corn syrup under Ashtoreth. Thus, Satan drives the whole world to hate the two pillars of God’s loving character. That leaves Him nothing left to offer them.

 

This is the spiritual condition of many today. Because the truth of the Spirit of Prophecy has not been taught to the world and no longer to the Advent movement, the beautiful blend of justice and mercy, of truth and grace, has driven the church and the wor ld to complete self-indulgence. Even in the churches, their warfare against any condemnation from God, and the offense of His Law, has left Protestantism devoid of reverential fear to God. They have disallowed His authority to condemn sin. They have been serving Ashtoreth, the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, the Mediatrix who is full of grace, grace and nothing but grace. Even in Adventism this abomination is seen and heard. How many sermons teach truth and justice, versus how many are increasingly teaching “grace, grace, God’s grace”, “Grace.nothing”?

 

Today, Adventism is copying our sister denominations of Protestantism, with no difference at all from the way the southern kingdom of Judah copied her sister tribes composing the northern kingdom of Israel. Today, it’s Baal and Ashtoreth, all over again! Names of the gods have changed to protect Satan’s scheme, but the identical system has for 170 years been foisted upon the Protestantism, and today upon Adventism.

 

We have been given great light, especially has Adventism. Both Protestantism and Adventism have been brethren in the work of taking back the world for light and righteousness. What a blessing with which we have been entrusted! The Bible! Rescued from the pile of burning martyrs, we still have the King James Version. It’s a miracle that Satan couldn’t remove it from the Earth. And, the Spirit of Prophecy, shedding great light upon the Holy Writ! But will we read the Spirit of Prophecy? Will we be strong and of good courage as we open our hearts to its sin-searching standard? Ellen White faithfully divided sin from righteousness, and a holy life from an unholy, just as Jeremiah was sent to do.

 

“Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before Me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.” (Jer. 15:19).

 

And what happened to Judah for rejecting the strong message from Jeremiah? What happened to the nations related to the Hebrews? Because Spiritualism made them weak, not only spiritually and socially, but also militarily, their national defense had departed. Babylon could say what Israel had been able to say when they served Jehovah, “Their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.” (Num. 14:9).

 

The Lord raised up Babylon, “the hammer of the whole earth” (Jer. 50:23) to give a good dose of justice back into the feminized, spiritualized nations. Having disregarded the Law of God, and its strong dose of justice and truth, they were left spiritualistic and weak, unable to stand before their Redeemer and King, or before the king of Babylon. Under the influence of heathen religion, the whole nation followed the same abomination of desolation that Solomon had, and they suffered the same result.

 

“From being one of the greatest kings that ever wielded a scepter, Solomon became a profligate, the tool and slave of others. His character, once noble and manly, became enervated and effeminate. His faith in the living God was supplanted by atheistic doubts. Unbelief marred his happiness, weakened his principles, and degraded his life. The justice and magnanimity of his early reign were changed to despotism and tyranny. Poor, frail human nature! God can do little for men who lose their sense of dependence upon Him.” Prophets and Kings, p. 58.

 

Jehovah punished Israel and her neighboring relatives for serving Satan and his spiritualism. Today, the effeminizing is taking place among the people of God today. Who is there who can speak strongly against sin? Who can call it by its right name? Who tells us the truth like Ellen White did? Nobody because we are effeminate and spiritualized. We are serving Babylon's religion, but the worst is yet to come. The Cult of Isis has escaped its bottomless dungeon of five centuries, and is finalizing its last moves to restore its power from the Dark Ages. Adventism is not a cult; we have the truth of the Bible. But, the Mother of cults has led our Protestant brethren to brand us with the name of cult. The Mother of Abominations in the earth is the cult—the Cult of cults.

 

“Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.” (Jer. 51:7). We have lost our truth and grace. We are spiritually insane and incompetent. Our punishment is due.

 

But, the promise was always held out for Israel, and it is held out to Protestantism and the Advent movement.
 

“Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine: thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of His people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again.” (Isa. 51:21,22).

 

“And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me.” (Jer. 32:40).
 

“Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, saith the LORD.

For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.

Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.

Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant.

And I will establish My covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD:

That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord GOD.” (Eze. 16:58-63).

 

The Lord will yet save His people, the Protestant and Advent movements. But, He will only save those who were not so ruined by their idols that they could never again listen to truth and justice. But there are yet many thousands “all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” (1Ki. 19:18).

 

“And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one King shall be King to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:

Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be My people, and I will be their God.

And [Jesus] My Servant shall be King over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in My judgments, and observe My statutes, and do them.

And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob My servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and My Servant [Jesus] shall be their Prince for ever.

Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.

My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.” (Eze. 37:22-28).

 

“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of [Jesus].

Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people.” (Isa. 55:1-4).

 

Jesus, is a strong commander and a wonderful counselor, full of truth and grace. Why should we eat the dirty sweepings of earthly floors and then drink corn syrup, when we can have of the fatness flowing from His heavenly floors? Jesus, our Prince and Saviour, the Son of the God of justice and mercy, will bring us all the way to holiness and righteousness. Lead on, O King eternal.