Omnipresent guilt and shame

"For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me." (Psa. 53:3).

Does emotional pain destroy the mind? Is it healthy to be swamped in self-destruction? "My sin is ever before me." Haven't you been there? Man says that constantly viewing personal shortcomings and mistakes is unhealthy. Psychology teaches us to never go there. But the Bible shows us differently.

"And whosoever shall fall on this Stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." (Matt. 21:44).

That was Jesus speaking. Is Jesus the Master of disaster? Isn't He the world's Redeemer? Isn't He the one who pledged His life, at the risk of losing His eternal existence, in order to bring us safely home again to set us all before His Father? "By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament." (Heb. 7:22).

And the concept of suretyship comes from Judah's bargaining with his father Israel when he needed to take his brother Benjamin on a dangerous trip to Egypt in order to buy food for their hungry families. Judah promised his father, "I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever." (Gen. 43:9).

Jesus, the only Begotten Son of the Most High God, pledged Himself to successfully battle the lethal temptations to serve self, temptations exquisitely engineered by devious Lucifer. Jesus must remain sinless through all that in order to make the provision to save every soul of humanity from the wrath to come.

But His excruciating death, while pleading for only mercy upon His beloved fallen race, didn't guarantee the eternal life of every member of humanity. No, it didn't! Universalists teach that everyone is going to heaven. But the scriptures over and over again warn against that delusion. There were idols to let go of in order to lay hold of heaven's boon of life and health.

Yes, Christ's self-sacrifice provided the carte blanche opportunity for grace that could save the world from the wrath to come. Yes, the good news is that He can for sure save us. "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." (Rom. 5:8,9).

But we must be convinced to want to be saved. We must be dying to have eternal life. We must die to live.

Doesn't everyone want to be saved? Yes, everyone does. But they aren't dying for it. They must give up everything. There must be an exchange. From our treasure chest there must be a transaction to Jesus' account an equivalent value of His death in our place. The rich young ruler was required to give up all for the joy and infinite pleasure with the Bread and Water of Life. He must be willing to walk away from all his future life of worldly wealth and prestige, which he would not do, but Zacchaeus gladly did.

It cost Jesus and His Father everything to have us back again delivered from sin and Satan. Shouldn't we feel obliged to reciprocate? If we truly appreciate our liberation from demonic enslavement and being spared infinite condemnation upon our thunderstruck consciences on the Day of Judgment, which would be grinded upon by burning guilt and fear until we would cease to exist, then we would be eternally thankful and would be willing to do whatever our new Lord asks of us. We must give back what we stole, clear up lies we said to individuals, reconcile with enemies, forever to be gracious to others fully conscious of our wicked past. That's what despot-turned-saint Manasseh did. 

"He took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel." (2Chron. 33:15,16).

"When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live." (Eze. 33:14-16).

But, there's more. We must confess our faults to everyone we trespassed, and our sins to God. We must be born again. We must repent to God; when it comes to private sins, no one else has the need to know. But repentance to God is not hard to do when we have an overpowering need for His acceptance and have sought Him with all of our heart.

Repentance comes before the other actions listed above. Repentance to our offended and ashamed Father, His Spirit then working in us, gives us the motivation to do the other things.

Yet, repentance, which many people call the first work, isn't the very first work. Ah, no! We can't repent of our own goodness, because the word, "repentance", assumes that we are completely wicked and rebellious. Rebels don't relent; the wicked don't repent. They always make their get-away. With a grin on their face they are always a slap to God's face. And Paul made it clear that we all are wicked until we come to God.

"There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 

Their throat is an open sepulchre;

with their tongues they have used deceit;

the poison of asps is under their lips:

whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

their feet are swift to shed blood:

destruction and misery are in their ways:

and the way of peace have they not known:

There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Rom. 3:10-18).

Then if we direly want to be saved, but we acknowledge the truth that we are incapable of only cheap, counterfeit repentance, then how can we be accepted by Christ and approved of God?

We need conviction of exceedingly sinful sin.

This is the first work, and the first test. Fail here and everything in the path laid out for your salvation is all for naught.

Deep, long conviction of sin is the first work. Not the conviction that the unbelieving world offers or wants to possess, not a repentance from it's own self-made list of sins for guilt and shame. No, no! That doesn't go nearly deep enough into our proud and rebellious heart! What does a Texas-size Judge want from a Rhode Island-size list of wrongs? Our Texas-size God needs a Texas-size list of wrongs and a Texas-size repentance. But we are from Rhode Island. How can we meet the Texas-size requirements of a Texas-size God? 

We go to the Texas-size Law of God! Oh, no? Oh yes! That's what we do! But, wait!! There's more!!!

We can only get to see the Texas-size Law of God via a Texas-size prophet of God. No Rhode Island-size prophet of Baal will suffice the Texas-size God of Law.

"Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord." (Jer. 23:32).

"Is not My word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal My words every one from his neighbour. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith." (Jer. 23:29-31).

"I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in My name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; which think to cause My people to forget My name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal." (Jer. 23:25-27).

"I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness; they are all of them unto Me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord.

They say still unto them that despise Me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you." (Jer. 23:14-17).

"They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace." (Jer. 6:14). 

Who today is an authentic exponent of the Law of God? There's only one. Like Elijah stood alone against 950 prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth, and as Paul stood alone against the lions of Ephesus, Isaiah against the people of Israel, and the Lord of life alone against the mobs who cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!", Ellen White has borne to the world the broadest depiction of sin since the world began. Therefore, hers has been the least popular message, albeit the most needed for these darkest days since the world began.

She writes of the "mighty Cleaver of truth",

"By God's mighty cleaver of truth we have been taken from the quarry of the world and brought into the workshop of the Lord to be prepared for a place in His temple. In this work the hammer and chisel must act their part, and then comes the polishing. Rebel not under this process of grace. You may be a rough stone, on which much work must be done before you are prepared for the place God designs you to fill. You need not be surprised if with the hammer and the chisel of trial God cuts away your defects ofcharacter. He alone can accomplish this work. And be assured that He will not strike one useless blow." Faith I Live By, p. 317.

In this final climax of the great controversy, we must be thoroughly humbled and shorn of sin. There is only one resource for the Texas-size humbling that will prepare us to be faithful until the end-- The Spirit of Prophecy counsels from Ellen G. White. 

Yes, all who go there will be chopped and squared, but all heaven is looking on, watching for the group that will rise to the top and surrender to being made subject to the mighty Law of God and of Love. Who will be at peace with rebuke? Who will so much trust in the wise love of the certified God of love that even His reproofs are gladly received. In short, who will join the hosts of heaven that trust in their Father and His Lamb to the point of perfect acquiescence, no matter how many times they are corrected and convinced of a shortcoming?

What holy angel is as holy as the Most Holy God and His all red Heifer who was burned to ash, His purest, only Begotten?

So, if we are going to fit into the happy scenes of Revelation chapter 4 and 5 and 7 and 15, then we need to start today by accepting the reproofs and consequences for our shortcomings and sins. Let the Spirit of truth grind on your conscience, reminding you of past derelictions of duty and times of dishonor to the God of goodness. Trust your God that, if you have been chosen to be intensely convicted of exceeding sinfulness, that He is sending you the gracious hint that you are being especially prepared for His glory. For likewise did He to His Son in Gethsemane until Golgotha.

"Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption." (Psa. 16:9,10).