The Art and Science of Taking Over the Nation for Rome

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Heaven: The Art of Ceaselessly Coming to Christ

“Heaven is A Ceaseless Approaching to God Through Christ”

The times we are facing are times of incredible stress, when ultimately men’s hearts will fail with fear. Right now, without delay, we need to learn the art of coming to Christ. “Heaven is a ceaseless approaching to God through Christ.” DA 331. Since we will be engaged in a ceaseless coming to Christ throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity, should we not learn the heavenly, wonderful art of coming to Christ now? This gospel invitation offered by Christ now to every soul. Every soul is wounded by Satan and needs the healing of Christ’s healing presence in the soul.

More and Still More Glory; Ever More Intense Happiness

“”Heaven, I long for heaven; Christ is the center of attraction. Our future state is a continuation of our work in coming to God in probationary time. Heaven is a ceaseless approaching to God through Jesus Christ. The longer we are in the heaven of bliss, the more and still more of glory will be opened to us; and the more we know of God, the more intense will be our happiness. The eternal weight of glory is not taken in all at once, but it pours its tide, wave after wave, of glory into the mind and heart. When Christ said, Come unto me, he means us to walk with him in this life, and be filled with love, satisfied with his presence in this world. All that human nature can bear, we may receive here. However, what is compared with the hereafter. “Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple, and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sunlight on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe all tears from their eyes.” –Ms 14, 1895, pp. 1, 2. (United, August 10, 1895.)” 6 MR 4.

 

God’s Presence In The Soul Gives Peace That Passes Understanding

The presence of Christ alone in the soul will avail to give us the peace that passes understanding, with the soul at rest, quieted in the assurance of God’s presence in us. Moses prayed, “Now therefore, I pray Thee, If I have found grace in Thy sight, shew me now Thy way, That I may know Thee, That I may find grace in they sight: and consider that this nation is Thy people.

My Face Shall Go

“And He said My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” Exodus 33: 13, 14. In Hebrew, “My face shall go, and I will give you rest.”

Ask For the Trodden Paths Of Eternity

In Jeremiah we read, “Thus says Yahweh: Stand upon ways, and see, and ask for trodden paths of eternity (time immemorial, everlasting, time, endless time, the distant future), which one is the way of the good, and walk in it, and you shall find rest (a resting-place) for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16 [Hebrew.].

All That Human Nature Can Bear We Can Receive Here

God offers the riches of heaven to the soul-tide after tide, wave after wave of glory, poured into the mind and heart-all that human nature can bear we may receive here. These are the things that “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

God Reveals His Deep Things By the Spirit

“But God hath revealed them unto us by His spirit: for the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” I Corinthians 2: 9, 10.

Here we are in waters exceeding the capacity of man to even conceive of, we are in the depths of the “deep things of God.”

Come Unto Me

 

Jesus called men to come to Himself to find rest for the soul, to find the wealth of eternal riches, of unending love, of pure holiness, of peace that passes understanding. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

“For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30.

 

Stille: My Soul is Quiet towards God

What is this rest for the soul? The German Bible, based on the translation of Martin Luther, reads in Psalm 62:2: “MEINE SEELE IS STILLE / ZU GOTT.” [All in caps in the German Bible.]

“My soul is still, quiet, silent towards God.”

Stille in German means stillness, silence, hush, quietness; tranquility. Nachtliche – the silence of the night. Calmness, peace.

At Rest Like a Nursing Baby

Anyone who has had babies knows how the piercing cry of a baby for its mother and milk can drive the soul to action more than almost anything else. However, once the mother is there, and the baby has its mother, finds its mother’s breast and her milk, it is quiet, at peace, and there is rest, not only for the baby’s soul, but also for the mother and everyone else.

Stille; Stillen

It is most interesting to let your eye run down the German dictionary from the word still, or stille (still), used in Psalm 62:2 in the German Bible [it is 62:1 in English] to the word stillen. Stillen is a nurse who breastfeeds the baby. Stillen is to quiet, calm, to silence, to appease; to still; to assuage; to ally; to stop, to staunch; to suckle, feed, nurse; to still, satisfy, gratify. [Wildhagen]. The Stiillen’s work is to quiet, nurse, feed, and give rest to the baby’s soul.

David Spreads Out For Us the Blessedness and Sweetness of the Peace of God

In like fashion to the hungry baby, our desperate, harried, harassed souls only can find rest in God. Only then are they quieted, secure, still, and a peace in His presence. In the sermon to the German-speaking congregation in Barcelona, Spain, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the young Lutheran pastor who dared to resist Hitler, said,

“O, sweet singer of our psalm, you have spread out for us blessedness and sweetness of the peace of God upon this earth. Like the vision of lovely dreams is your psalm, so longed for and so far, ah! So far. We love your vision…

The Rest of God

“Come near to us, come very close, in this holy hour, and tell us something of this ‘rest’ of God, of this rest for our soul. Imprint your vision deep in our hearts and show us something of the source of your blessedness. For we know that, you have much to tell us….

Sabbath Rest

The Hebrew word for Sabbath is Shabbat, which comes from the root meaning “to rest,” “to desist,” “to cease,” “to come to an end.” Thus, every wonderful sacred Sabbath speaks to us of the blessedness, the sweetness of peace and rest of God to our souls.

“…You, a human being, have a soul. Take care that you do not lose it, that you do not, awake from the turmoil of your life – professional as well as private – and see that within you is an emptiness, a plaything of events, a leaf tossed here and there and blown away, that you are without a soul. As a human being, take care of your soul!” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer, My Soul Finds Rest: Reflections on the Psalms by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. And trans. Edwin Robertson. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002, pp. 26,27. 

Empty Souls Like Powder, Like Chaff, Like a Reed in the Wind

The Bible describes this issue of the loss of the soul, of empty souls, this way; “And whosoever shall fall on this Stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. Matthew 21:44. “The ungodly are not so: but are like chaff which the wind driveth away.” Psalm 1:4.

“And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?”  Matthew 11:7.

The empty soul not anchored in God is like powder, chaff, and reeds shaken in the wind.

To Many Today Silence and Rest Are a Fearful Thing

Many today are very fearful of silence and rest. “We are so used to restlessness and noise that we feel uncomfortable in the stillness. And therefore we run away from rest, we chase from one event to another, lest, for a moment, we find ourselves face-to-face with ourselves alone…We are bored with ourselves…

“…This fear [of ourselves alone and meeting God alone] is a symbol of our time.” – Bonhoffer, Ibid. 28, 29.

Modern Man Seeks to Drown the Needs of the Soul

Modern man seeks to drown out the needs of the soul, instead of satisfying those needs in God. Man seeks to drown the soul’s need in drink, in entertainment, in sports, in obsessive work, in music, in drugs, in video’s, in DVDs, in a constant unceasing round of activity.

We Must Stop and Listen to Our Soul’s Need

Unless we stop and listen to our own soul and find out it’s need, we will never be able to address the needs of the soul and we will lose salvation. “God would have His servants become acquainted with the moral machinery of their own hearts.” 4T 84. “Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10.

John Calvin: The Knowledge of God and of Ourselves

The great John Calvin, in his magisterial treatise, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, opens his first book with these words:

“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is too say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.  However, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he ‘lives and moves’ [Acts 17:28]. For, quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves; indeed, our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God.

Our Poverty of Soul Leads Us To the Great Spring - God   

“Then, by these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as by rivulets to the Spring itself. Indeed, our very poverty better discloses the infinitude of benefits reposing in God…from the feeling of our own ignorance, vanity, poverty, infirmity, and – what is more – depravity and corruption, we recognize that the true light of wisdom. Sound virtue, full abundance of every good, and purity of righteousness rest in the Lord alone. To this extent we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of God; and we cannot seriously aspire to him before we begin to become displeased with ourselves…the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find Him.

It is Certain That We Never Achieve a Clear Knowledge of Ourselves Unless We First Look On God’s Face

“Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has looked upon Gods face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself. For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy-this pride is innate in all of us-unless by clear proofs we stand convinced or our own unrighteousness, foulness, folly, and impurity. Moreover, we are not thus convinced if we look merely to ourselves and not also to the Lord, Who is the sole standard by which this judgment must be measured. For, because all of us are inclined by nature to hypocrisy, a kind of empty image of righteousness in place of righteousness itself abundantly satisfies us. And because nothing appears within or around us that has not been contaminated by great immorality, what is a little less vile pleases us as a thing most pure-so long as we confine our minds within the limits of human corruption. Just so, an eye to which nothing is shown but black objects judges something dirty white or even darkly mottled to be whiteness itself….Suppose we but once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and to ponder His nature, and how completely perfect are His righteousness, wisdom, and power-the straightedge to which we must be shaped. Then, what masquerading earlier as righteousness was pleasing in us will soon grow filthy in its consummate wickedness…what in us seems perfection itself corresponds ill to the purity of God.

Man is Only Touched with Awareness of His Lowliness When He Compares Himself With God’s Majesty

“Hence that dread and wonder with which scripture commonly represents the saints as stricken and overcome whenever they felt the presence of God. Thus, it comes about that we see men who in His absence normally remained firm and constant, but also, when He manifests his glory, are so shaken and struck dumb as to be laid low by the dread of death-are in fact overwhelmed by it and almost annihilated. As a consequence, we must infer that man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty.” John Calvin, Institute of the Christian Religion, Volume One, Book One, ed. John T. McNeill, tr. Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960, pp. 35-39.

Our soul’s great need is our claim upon God and God’s fullness. God takes the hand that feels its need and directs it to lay hold in faith upon Christ and His righteousness. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6.

The Freedom of the Soul Must Be Sacredly Guarded

The freedom of the soul and the family must be sacredly and diligently maintained: “Few realize the importance of shunning, so far as possible, all associations unfriendly to religious life. In choosing their surroundings, few make their spiritual prosperity the first consideration….

Cut Off, Break Up, Sunder

“…it is your duty to cutoff every influence, to break up every habit, to sunder every tie, that keeps you from the most free, open and hearty committal of yourselves and your family to God.” CL 5.

“We are not to locate ourselves where we will be forced into close relations with those who do not honor God….A crisis is soon to come in regard to the observance of Sunday….” CL 20.

“…we are to preserve our individuality….We are to stand free in God, looking constantly to Christ for instruction.” CL 11.

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