The Great Controversy Is Not About Us
(A sermon by Michael S. Racine)
I’d first like to spend a little time looking into the matter of Trust, and I want to start by telling you of an experience from my own past which I hope will help to put us into a frame of mind to begin to think about what it means, and what happens, when trust is called into question.
Several years ago, I was a college student at one of our schools out West. The head pastor of the college church was a fantastic speaker who had a particular skill of speaking to young adults and college students, and I really looked forward to the service every Sabbath. His sermons were always pertinent, they were uplifting, they were well delivered, and he had a sincerity about him that complimented his abilities rather well. We all felt blessed to have him as our pastor. One Sabbath, in the middle of my junior year, he strode to the pulpit and faced the congregation and he told us that a woman he had been counseling had accused him of grossly improper behavior. He said that the accusations were untrue and that he was innocent of any such wrongdoing, but to save the church and the school from a potentially very ugly conflict, he announced his resignation and stepped down. And this dropped like a bombshell, you know. This all took place quite suddenly.
Well you can imagine the talking that went on and the rumors and stories that circulated - some of them, I recall, were rather dark, in regards to what he actually had been accused of. And the campus was divided. Some suspected that the charges must be true, and those people were relieved that he had resigned. Many others, me included, did not believe that the accusations were true, or at least did not WANT to believe them, and hoped that the whole mess would just go away and that he might be restored to his position there as pastor.
But the thing I particularly remember that I think is pertinent to my remarks today, is the question that seemed to hang in the air above our heads like a heavy gray burden: is it true? Could it be true? It seemed that if only we might somehow, magically, be given the answer to that question, we would know what to do, how to move on. But it also seemed that there was no way to know the truth. We had the word of one man pitted against the word of one woman, and we were stuck with that question – is it true?
I’d like to spend our time together this morning remembering, with you, an aspect of the Truth as we understand it, that it would seem to me we don’t often spend very much time thinking on or talking about. And yet I believe it is central to a complete and accurate understanding of this conflict between good and evil in which we find ourselves. This morning I’d like to consider a question in three parts:
And let’s begin with this observation – see if you don’t agree: all throughout the earth’s history, we humans have, at times, misunderstood and misinterpreted God, in many various ways. We’ve ALL misunderstood Him, at some time or another. We have gotten Him wrong in little ways or big ways, since the beginning. Haven’t we? And where did this start?
Well for us it started in the Garden of Eden. There you had Satan, disguised as a snake, loitering in the branches of the forbidden tree, contradicting God’s solemn warning. He said to Eve, “you won’t die at all if you eat this fruit.” What else did he say? What did he say about God? You know the story. He said “hey, allow me to let you in on a little secret here: God Himself KNOWS that if you eat this fruit your eyes will be opened up and you will be like gods who know good from evil”.
And we all know how that transaction turned out. We’ve been living with the consequences every since! Welcome to planet Earth. So as far as we earthly creatures are concerned, the record of our misunderstanding of God begins there. In that story, that first interaction between a human and the adversary, we see Satan establish his method of action with us – to misrepresent the Father to us. He also, there, initiated a lie that he has really gotten a lot of miles out of since then – the lie that sin doesn’t lead to death - as a natural consequence. But first, primarily, we were deceived there by Satan, about God’s character. And he’s been working overtime ever since to keep us in the dark about God, right? To get us to buy his picture of God.
And it pays to concern ourselves with the question – ‘how successful has Satan been in smuggling his picture of God into Christian doctrine? How successful has Satan been in smuggling his picture of God into Adventist doctrine?’ Has he had any success on that account?
But consider: did Satan’s campaign of misinformation about God really start in the Garden of Eden? It started before that! Before we humans came on the scene, before this earth was created, there had been a war up in Heaven, hadn’t there? The book of Revelation tells us of something that we might almost be tempted to believe would be impossible! A war in HEAVEN?
Let’s have a look at Revelation, the 12th chapter, starting with verse 7. (7 – 9)
Then war broke out in Heaven, Michael and his angels fighting with the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought but they were defeated, and there was no place for them any longer in Heaven. So the great dragon, the ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world, was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.
How about that? How often do we grasp the significance of this passage? This passage gives us a look into the very core of what the Great Controversy between good and evil is all about. It tells us that the conflict between God and Satan, into which we are now ensnared, began up in heaven, before we came on the scene! (And from that realization, certain consequences naturally follow.) Lucifer, his mind ruled by jealousy and greed, set about to undermine the trust that had existed in the universe from all eternity, by circulating lies about the Father’s government and character. Before he began to do this, there was perfect harmony and freedom in the universe. All of God’s creatures - the angels, whatever people of unfallen worlds there may be - they all lived in perfect peace. The angels and other beings could trust each other, they could trust God, and He could safely trust in them. I believe that the universe was built in perfect accord and harmony, which was dependent upon trust.
I imagine that Lucifer began by suggesting to his fellow angels, very quietly and with such apparent respect, I’m sure, that maybe God’s motives were not totally beyond question at all times. Can you imagine the skill with which he must have woven his lies into conversation, so that he sounded as though he really only had the very best of intentions in bringing these doubts to light? Now, as you all know, angels are not morons. They’re not dummies! These are brilliant beings, with splendid intelligence! But through subtle deception Lucifer persuaded one third of them, that God’s character was such that He did not deserve their trust.
We don’t know how long this simmered on beneath the surface, but we understand from the passage we’ve just read, that this conflict grew and matured, and finally blossomed into an all-out war in heaven. Heaven was divided.
Because of my own experience in college with the beloved pastor who was accused, I feel I can get a sense of the awful, sickening feeling that all members of God’s family felt during that time. The question was, is it true?
Now if you don’t mind, lets imagine for a moment what was going on behind the scenes while this debate over God’s character became a fierce struggle over the truth. I imagine that the Father, His Son, and the Holy Spirit conferred together and reasoned through the situation, and realized, you know, “we’ve got questions to answer here that we’ve never had to answer before. We’re going to need to demonstrate that these charges are false. And you know, that means we’ll need to demonstrate for our children the inherent outcome – the natural consequence of choosing to walk away”.
So they agreed on a plan. And notice what happens at this point. Let’s not allow the 8th and 9th verses to slip past us. Revelation 12, verses 8 and 9. They tell us something wonderful about God’s character, which was, really, “exhibit number one” in His demonstration of the evidence that Lucifer’s charges were false. We’re told there that Michael (that’s another name for Jesus, God’s own Son) we’re told that Jesus and the loyal angels clashed with Lucifer and his followers, and possessing the upper hand, expelled them from heaven. (Christ Himself later testified to this when He was on the earth. He said, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightening!” That’s in Luke chapter 10.)
Satan and his associates were tossed out of heaven. What does that tell us about God? What would it mean that the All-Powerful, when faced with an accuser, an adversary, would permit the conflict to be extended, that He would permit the accuser to follow his chosen course? Have you ever wondered why God didn’t simply wipe out the adversary at that point? Was He not powerful enough to destroy Satan?
I suspect we’ll agree that SURELY the Supreme God of the universe, who invented the sun and the stars and the planets and put them in place, and thought up and created atomic power and all the rest of it, and even created Lucifer himself, surely He had the power necessary to destroy Satan. He could have destroyed him. Then He could have eliminated the evidence of what He’d done by wiping the whole conflict from the memory of the remaining, loyal angels and other created beings. He could have eliminated all memory of Lucifer…
But was this controversy over whether or not God has sufficient power? Or is it over God’s use of His power, and over whether He can be trusted with His power? But then, He could have miraculously restored trust in Himself by planting faith and trust into the minds of the angels and other beings. Is that how God works? Did God want such artificial faith from His creatures?
Our God is a Person who is dedicated, absolutely, to freedom and to truth, and it is an intelligent faith based upon evidence that He wants from His family. The faith and trust He hopes to earn cannot be commanded, and cannot come by force.
Zechariah 4:6 – ‘not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord’.
By making his charges about God’s character - that God was arbitrary, exacting, untrustworthy, and therefore unfit to rule as sovereign of the universe, Lucifer raised a question that Jesus would come to answer. It was raised before we were created, and you, and I, will have to face it and we’ll have to decide for ourselves. The question is: Can God be trusted?
And that is why I like to say, I like to remind myself, that the Great Controversy is not about us. It’s not about us. It is primarily about whether or not the Supreme Being of the universe can be trusted. For consider this: supposing that Lucifer’s charges were true. If God actually were a selfish, jealous ruler whose chief concern at the end of the day, in regards to His people, was whether any of them were disobeying Him - so that He might prosecute them according to the law, - would you want to live with such a God for eternity? We sometimes, I think, speak as though the whole plan that has made our redemption a possibility was primarily set into motion just to save us. That God sent His son to this earth to die, simply and only to save His children that have caused Him so much trouble.
And that is true, of course. It is a precious truth that God’s plan of salvation makes it possible for us to live forever with Him. But before we come to that, we ought to address the more basic question, the issue that came first. We need to be mindful of the larger view: before there even WAS any question of your salvation or mine, another question had been raised, and it demands an answer: Can God be trusted? For if He can’t, would you want to be saved at all?
Now I’ll say this: I believe that sometimes, the way we explain that plan of salvation, we may often inadvertently nod in the direction of Satan’s own picture of what God is like. Don’t we sometimes say that Jesus’ death was meant to “appease the wrath of a just and offended God”? Don’t we sometimes say that “God is loving, but He is also just”, as though there is a difference between God’s love and His way of always doing what is right? And remember: the word “atonement”, which is literally “at – one – ment” and originally conveyed a melodious union, a coming together of God with His family, has come to signify a legal paying of penalty. As if the issue at stake was a legal debt that would have to be paid in order for us to be admitted to the Kingdom.
Have you ever had your character or your motives brought into question? Have you ever been falsely accused of anything, whether among people with whom you work, or by a member of your family? Have you ever been falsely accused? When such a thing occurs, a question is raised as to your trustworthiness, right? And how can the question be resolved with finality, but by the presentation of evidence pertaining to the truth about your character?
There is no shortcut to trust. It takes evidence to restore faith and trust. It requires the demonstration of trustworthiness, repeatedly, over time, and in many various and sometimes difficult circumstances. And it’s no different with God.
The Bible provides the evidence as to what sort of character our God possesses. It is a record of how God has answered the charges leveled against Him by Satan. At the same time it also tells us how we should live our lives in order to obtain the greatest possible happiness, health, and peace within ourselves and between one another. But primarily, the 66 books of the Bible are a record about God Himself.
And what, or in Whom is the culmination of the evidence about God the Father? But Jesus Christ! Jesus came to this earth to show us what the Father is like. In His life we see the healing love of the Father. And in His death, we see the natural result of sin.
From the very form that His ministry took here we may learn a wonderful truth about the Father. It’s interesting to note the sort of a figure that Jesus came as, while He walked here among us. Did He show up, the Son of God, as a Holy lawyer, a divine attorney, with the legal advice necessary to get us disentangled from the legal mess we had gotten into? To allow us to escape the anger of the Lawgiver? Was He like a lawyer? Or was He rather the most admirable, lovely combination of a teacher, and a healer? His every action and word was designed to instruct, to teach, to heal. We sometimes refer to our Father as the Great Physician, and in Christ we see that that is truly what He is.
The Great Physician. But do we always realize how well that designation applies to the Father? Do we realize that Jesus came as a perfect and complete illustration of the Father for us and for the entire universe?
In the life of Christ we have a visible, tangible, real depiction of the truth about the Father. Christ’s entire mission on Earth was to show us the Father, and He did so in every respect. His loving care, His every word of encouragement to the downhearted, His healing touch upon the worst of diseased sinners and outcasts. He was demonstrating the truth about the Father. He was demonstrating that Satan’s charges are false.
One of my very favorite passages in scripture is the account in the Gospel of John, of Jesus’ words to His disciples during His last few hours with them on the Thursday night before He was killed. His words there in the upper room made the substance, the whole purpose of His mission on Earth magnificently clear. The entire Christian theology can be found right there in the upper room! Here in these chapters, John 13 through 17, Jesus is with His disciples for the last time before His crucifixion. He knew this would be their last meal together. It seems He had so much that He hoped to impart to them, to teach them about what the purpose of His mission on Earth had been. He wanted them to understand the truth about His Father.
Let’s open up to John, chapter 14.
We join them here after Christ has washed the dirty feet of His disciples, even the feet of the one He knew would betray Him that very night. They were eating together, and Jesus was telling them of the future, to prepare them for what was about to happen and to give them peace and courage to endure.
John 14:6. Jesus here says
“I am the Way, I am Truth, and I am Life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you knew me, you would know my Father also. From now on you do know Him and you have seen Him.”
‘No one can come to the Father, no one can see the Father, no one can understand the Father except by coming to, seeing, and understanding me.’ But the disciples didn’t get it. They didn’t yet understand what He was saying to them.
Verse 8
Philip said to Him, “Master let us see the Father, and it will satisfy us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you, Philip, have not recognized me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Let us see the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in union with the Father and the Father is in union with me?”
Christ was trying to make them see that He came to reveal the truth about the Father. He was aware that God’s people had misunderstood God, and held an inaccurate picture of Him.
Philip and the disciples there had it in mind that this gentle Jesus was, maybe, a representation of God’s loving side, but they were curious about the other side of God, the “just” side. With some fear they wondered about the God who sent the flood to drown all but eight, and who thundered from Mount Sinai, and who sent fire to burn Nadab and Abihu. They were fearful of the stern God who gave the laws of Leviticus that called for the sacrificial deaths of thousands of his creatures. The arbitrary God who had even prohibited a man with a limp from serving as priest. They wanted Christ to tell them of the vengeful God who had sent the two bears to maul 42 youths that were so disrespectful of Elisha.
The Old Testament records the measures God took during crisis situations, to get the attention of His people, to get His children to listen. You who are parents, have you ever raised your voice with your children? Is that the method of communicating you prefer? God knew that by using such emergency measures He would take the risk of appearing arbitrary and severe. How wonderful that He was willing to take that risk, but surely we can see that He much prefers a different method of talking with us. These emergency measures seemed to the disciples to show that though God may be loving, He also must be just. And His justice looks nothing like His love, or so they thought.
Do we sometimes also picture God as Philip did in the upper room? Do we sometimes say “He has a right to be arbitrary, He’s the sovereign of the universe”? Do we sometimes say that some of His commandments are given as an arbitrary test of obedience? Do we believe this about the fourth commandment, “remember the Sabbath day to keep it Holy”?
But let’s move forward to John 16 verse 25 and read from there to verse 27.
John 16:25-27. I especially like the translation by J.B. Phillips called The New Testament in Modern English. It reads this way:
“I have been speaking to you in parables – but the time is coming to give up parables and tell you plainly about the Father. When that day comes, you will make your requests to him in my name, for I need make no promises to plead to the Father for you, for the Father Himself loves you... ”
“I make no promise to plead the Father for you!” The Revised Standard Version has “In that day you will ask in my name; and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loves you”
Do you see how that is wonderful good news? Do you see how it clears up some of what we may have been taught about God the Father? I’ve heard some say that they never knew the word “not” was there. “I do NOT say to you that I shall pray the Father for you”. I too remember being told when I was younger that we need Jesus as our advocate with the Father, pleading our case before Him, asking Him to overlook our sins and admit us to heaven. It would be a terrible loss to miss the main point of what Jesus had to say to His friends on His last occasion to sit and talk with them before His death. The whole evening of the last supper He was intent on breaking through the inaccurate views the disciples held of God, to represent Him more clearly and accurately to them.
This truth about God IS the good news, it IS the gospel, and revealing it is the purpose for which Christ came to this planet.
John 17. (1-4)
When Jesus had said these words, He raised His eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son now so that He may bring glory to you, for you have given Him authority over all men to give eternal life to all that you have given to Him. And this is eternal life, to know you, the only true God, and Him whom you have sent – Jesus Christ. I have brought you honor upon Earth, I have completed the task which you gave me to do”
Such wonderfully simple language our Savior used! He says there “I have completed the work which you gave me to do – I have revealed the truth about you and brought you honor upon Earth.”
Do you like to think about language and words? As He describes what His mission on Earth had been, in Jesus’ words there, do you note the absence of long Latin words such as “justification”, “sanctification”, “propitiation”? Words that we have, maybe, come to think are essential in explaining salvation?
Do we sometimes speak as if the sinful mess we are in here is primarily a legal problem, needing a legal solution? Do we sometimes talk as if Christ came to make possible the adjustment of our legal standing with God, so that we may be admitted to His eternal Kingdom?
Satan remains very hard at work to try to confuse us as to the truth about the character of God. As a result of his misinformation, sometimes we continue to talk as though Jesus is somehow more understanding of our peculiar situation here on the Earth than is God the Father. Sometimes we hear it said that Jesus is ever before the Father in the Heavenly Sanctuary pleading with the Father to forgive us, and to allow us to enjoy eternal life. Does it sometimes sound as though we believe that without Jesus between the Father and us, all would be lost? How well, how accurately does that view represent the Father? When we say such a thing, could it be that we misrepresent our Father in heaven by erecting a barrier between Him and the Son that is as inaccurate as it is slanderous?
Before I end I want to bring to your attention an article written by Ellen White which appeared in The Signs of the Times in 1890. It was entitled “God Made Manifest in Christ”, and although it isn’t reprinted or used very much, it sets out in plain and simple language the central core of Jesus’ mission on Earth.
Let me read to you just a few lines from this article before we close.
Christ came to represent the Father. We behold in him the image of the invisible God. He clothed his divinity with humanity, and came to the world that the erroneous ideas Satan had been the means of creating in the minds of men, in regard to the character of God, might be removed.
Christ came to save fallen man, and Satan with fiercest wrath met him on the field of conflict … Satan sought to intercept every ray of light from the throne of God. He sought to cast his shadow across the earth, that men might lose the true views of God’s character, and that the knowledge of God might become extinct in the earth. He had caused truth of vital importance to be so mingled with error that it had lost its significance. The law of Jehovah was burdened with needless exactions and traditions, and God was represented as severe, exacting, revengeful, and arbitrary. … The very attributes that belonged to the character of Satan, the evil one represented as belonging to the character of God. Jesus came to teach men of the Father, to correctly represent Him before the fallen children of earth.… The only way in which he could set and keep men right was to make himself visible and familiar to their eyes.
“The only way in which he could set and keep men right” - you could substitute “justify” and “sanctify” there if you like, but isn’t it wonderful to read how well Mrs. White could express Christ’s mission without such legalistic Latin words? “The only way in which he could set and keep men right was to make himself visible and familiar to their eyes.”
And in the words of Jesus Himself: “and this is eternal life, to know you, the only true God”.
Legalism is a preoccupation with our legal standing with our God, and I believe that it grows out of the devil’s own version of the plan of salvation. Legalism misrepresents God by presenting us with a misleading caricature of our God’s character. At the heart of legalism, is the belief in a legalistic God, who is preoccupied with satisfying legal requirements, with balancing accounts, with seeing that appropriate penalty is paid.
We would do well to look carefully at our understanding of what Christ’s mission on Earth was meant to accomplish. We would do well to examine closely what we have been taught about why Jesus had to die.
John 15 verse 14 - Jesus said “I no longer call you my servants, for servants do not understand their master’s business. I call you rather my friends, because I want you to understand.”
To be His servants, how gladly we would accept that offer, and what an honor it is. But to be His friends! How can we turn down an offer such as that?
My hope would be that each of us, individually, might determine to embrace Christ’s own testimony about His Father, to read His words carefully, and with a willingness to take Him as He reads. That we would not pass up the chance to be His understanding friends, for that is what He has offered to us. A friend is concerned for the wellbeing of a friend. Our God, as our Friend and our Great Physician, has shown Himself fully worthy of our trust. Let us be convinced, each in his own mind, of the truthfulness and trustworthiness of God.
©2001 Michael S. Racine