“Jesus came to this earth … to show us how to live so as to secure life’s best results.” The Ministry of Healing, 365
One of the most foundational principles of the great controversy between Christ and Satan is that the law of God is so basic, so fundamental, that it cannot be changed. It existed when Adam and Eve were created and it will last forever and will never be changed.
“And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.” Luke 16:17
Not a Tittle
The word tittle comes from the Latin and was used to distinguish the letter i from the strokes of other letters nearby. Hence the word means the dot above the lowercase i or j. The Greek word for tittle is keraia, a diacritic (an accent sign) used in Greek writing meaning a hook or serif that looks similar to an apostrophe. The Hebrew letter daleth is made with two strokes of the pen. The tiny extension of the roof line of the letter is a tittle .
Luke 16:17 is one of the strongest statements in the whole of Scripture regarding the permanency of God’s law.
Think about this text. Jesus Himself is speaking. But, you might say, “There are a lot of texts spoken by Jesus in the Bible.” Jesus is the Creator. Just imagine how He created the entire universe and upholds all things by the word of His power (Hebrew 1). And when the Creator says that God’s law will never be changed, then we can be confident that nothing, not one word, not one dot of a letter will be changed.
God’s government has a foundation. The Bible tells us what that foundation is. We find it in the book of Psalms.
“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne.” Psalm 89:14, first part
“For all Your commandments are righteousness.” Psalm 119:172, last part
Paul says, “Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.” Romans 7:12
The words just and righteous come from the same word in Hebrew and Greek. They are synonyms, so you can use just and righteous interchangeably and it would mean the same thing. All of God’s commandments are the definition of just and righteousness and are the very foundation of His government.
The great controversy began because Lucifer wanted God to change His law. Specifically, he wanted Him to change the first commandment. “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Exodus 20:3
The trouble was, Lucifer wanted a place in the Godhead, and God said “No.”
“For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ ” Isaiah 14:13, 14
But Jesus said He would destroy the entire universe before He would allow even a part of a letter of His law to fail. That is strong language, isn’t it?
The Bible says there is one God who has the ability to create and destroy; even the devil will find that out one day soon. We are told that the day is coming when God will destroy Satan and all those who follow him (Malachi 4:1).
The foundation of God’s government, His law, is based on two principles.
The first four commandments explain the first principle—to love God above all, the first and great commandment. And the last six commandments explain the second principle—to live to serve and help others, and to love them, affording to them the same value that God places on me (Matthew 22:34–40).
In simple language, the commandments teach us to love God and our fellow man more than we love ourselves, and that we are called to be servants to both God and man. Christ paid an infinite price to save sinners, all sinners. His painful death on the cross for humanity—no matter how deep in sin we may be—vividly demonstrates the immeasurable, incalculable value Jesus Christ and His Father places on us.
The basic principle of Satan’s kingdom is self-service. That’s it; and if I am living to please myself, to serve myself, to help myself get ahead, even if I call myself a Christian, then in the books of heaven it will be recorded that I am a member of Satan’s kingdom.
Mrs. White wrote many times that when Satan sees people serving themselves, he is satisfied. “They consent to live for the service of self, and Satan is satisfied.” The Desire of Ages, 130
If I am living for myself, I am a member of Satan’s kingdom, and he will be happy.
Conversely, if I love God and my fellow man, living for others and not myself, then it will be recorded in the books of heaven that I am a member of God’s kingdom.
Why Did Jesus Die?
“And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” 2 Corinthians 5:15
Jesus died so that you and I could learn how to deny self and live for others.
“ ‘Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.’ ” Matthew 10:34–39
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’ ” Matthew 16:24
Because of our sinful nature, we need specific instruction on this point, otherwise we would never think of this. The principle of the cross is self-denial, denying myself in order to help someone else. Jesus did that. He gave up His throne, power, and glory, and came to this world as a man. God was teaching the principle of self-denial through Jesus’s life here in this world (Counsels on Stewardship, 158; Matthew 19:29).
Born, not in a palace, but in a manger, Christ represented the principle of selflessness—“I gave up everything to save you.”
As one of the poorest men on earth—no money, property, possessions—the only one Jesus had to make provision for was His mother. For Mary’s care, he gave her into the hands of the one person who loved Him so much, knowing that He could trust John the beloved to care for her. With this one precious possession cared for, Jesus was ready to die so that mankind could be saved.
What did He leave behind when He left heaven? Denial requires giving up something. Christ left His throne, His position of leadership, His glory and the praise of angels, the companionship of His Father, to come here to be a man, so that He could know how to help me. He showed me by His life how to live my life, and then He gave up His life—fully separated from His Father and all of heaven—so that I would be able to deny myself and take up my cross and follow Him. After He died and ascended back to heaven, what did Jesus take with Him from this world? Some nail prints, perhaps scars on His forehead, a physical body like ours.
“He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” John 12:25, 26
Jesus is saying that if I want to be part of His kingdom, I must understand the basic principles of His kingdom. “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your, soul, and with all your mind.’ … ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” Matthew 22:37, 39, last part
In God’s kingdom, love reigns supreme, and love does no harm, it sacrifices, restores, and transforms. But in Satan’s kingdom, self reigns and selfishness abounds.
These two contradictory principles are the basis of the great controversy: the law of love and righteousness, the transcript of the character of God, that could not be changed, and the law of pride and selfishness that would not change.
God knew from eternity that when we fell, when we took on this selfish nature, it would be an uphill battle to overcome selfishness. Mrs. White says that selfishness is sin (The Signs of the Times, April 13, 1891), and it results in self-serving. I may profess to be a Christian, but if I am serving self, it won’t matter what I say, I am a member of Satan’s kingdom. Jesus came to this world and died to save me from the kingdom of selfishness. Will I accept this sacrifice? Will I come to understand that I must surrender my life to the Lord to be broken and converted?
God knows the battle that we must fight, and He is ready to provide strength and encouragement to those who choose to follow the narrow way and fight the battle.
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Matthew 7:13, 14
On the broad road, I can serve myself all I please—that is what comes naturally to me. But the broad road is Satan’s kingdom and I will lose my life when I follow that road. If I want to be a part of the kingdom of heaven, only the narrow road, the difficult way leads there, and that is the road I must take. Why is the way difficult and narrow? Because I have to overcome my sinful nature and my desire to serve myself.
God Our Father is Also Our King
It is a wonderful thing to live in America where we have no human king. The idea and desire for a human king came from the devil. But in heaven there is no republic or democracy, no elections to decide who our ruler will be. Heaven is governed by a King who has absolute, albeit benignant, authority.
Lucifer used this principle in his attack against God. He thought that if a king had absolute authority, then he could do whatever he pleases, and Lucifer wanted to do whatever he pleased. He told the angels that if they would join him, they would have absolute liberty, the ability to choose to do whatever they wanted to do.
This was the cause of the great controversy. Lucifer didn’t want to be under the authority of his Father and King. He wanted to be free to do as he pleased, and what would please him was to be a king himself, and so he protested against Jesus and God. He convinced thousands of angels to follow him in his protest. In spite of God’s efforts to win him back, to help him see the pride and selfishness that was developing more and more in his heart, Lucifer remained persistent, and ultimately, God was left with no choice but to expel him, and the angels who followed him, from heaven.
It should move all our hearts to understand what the rest of the universe has known for thousands of years. God, the King of all heaven and earth, with absolute authority, could exercise that authority to do whatever pleased Him. And what pleased the God of heaven and earth? To allow His Son to come into this world, to live a life of self-denial and self-sacrifice, and to finally die on the cross to save me.
Once Satan reached this world, he started telling people that if they would join his government, they could do whatever they wanted. Because man had inherited, since the fall of Adam, a selfish and sinful nature, that sounded great. It was the temptation in the garden of Eden and it is still the temptation today. Satan teaches that if I want to do something I shouldn’t, I should just do it, and that I can do it for my whole life, confess, and do it again … and still be saved. He says I can do as I please and still go to heaven. But that is a lie, a delusion, cooked up in the devil’s kitchen, and it is contrary to the law of God.
People wonder how they can ever resist the draw of their own selfish nature and the temptations that Satan brings to them every day. God knew these awful temptations would come. He provides encouragement through His word and this gives us faith and strength to overcome. We need only believe.
“ ‘To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.’ ” Revelation 2:7, last part
“ ‘He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the book of life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.’ ” Revelation 3:5
“ ‘To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.’ ” Revelation 3:21
“ ‘He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.’ ” Revelation 21:7
God says, “If you will choose to love Me with all your heart, soul, mind, and spirit, to serve and follow Me, to walk the narrow path, if you will deny self and love and serve your fellow man, if you will, by the power and grace I offer, overcome temptation and sin in the name of Jesus Christ, then I will send the Holy Spirit to work a miraculous transformation in your life, and I will give you the gift of eternal life. And for all your sacrifice in this life, I will repay you a hundredfold.”
Eternal life is a gift. You can’t earn it. You can’t buy it. You can’t take it by force. The devil will tell you that if you follow the Lord, you will lose all these things, worldly things. You won’t have fame or money, power, popularity. You won’t be able to do what you want to do nor can you do it with whomever you want to do it. Satan says that if you follow God, you will lose your freedom, but this, too, is a lie. God offers freedom from sin, freedom from the selfishness that rules your nature. Satan offers only slavery. God offers eternal life and compensation for what you sacrificed for Him. Satan offers only death.
How Do I Gain the Mastery Over Self?
Denying self is hard. There is nothing in the world that I will ever be asked to do that is more difficult. So how do I gain the mastery over my sinful nature? How do I continue to walk the narrow way? How do I keep from backsliding?
A backslider is a person who has been following God, but has slipped back to serving him or herself. They started up the narrow way, they were serving God and their fellow man, and they intended to always do so. But the devil came and flashed a shiny new temptation before them, and while they believed they couldn’t be tempted, they were, and they yielded to that temptation. When you go back to serving yourself, you have become a backslider.
We are living in a time when there are more backsliders than ever before, many of whom may not even realize they have backslidden. But we have a pattern that God’s word says we can follow with confidence. Jesus Christ is our pattern—the way we must follow, the truth in which we can place our confidence, the life we receive when we obey and trust Him. The shaking time is here. Will we stay true to God? Will we follow the pattern that Jesus has given us to follow?
“Jesus came to this earth to accomplish the greatest work ever accomplished among men. He came as God’s ambassador, to show us how to live so as to secure life’s best results.” The Ministry of Healing, 365
So, if that is what Jesus came for, then shouldn’t we be studying the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, asking the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds to receive the lessons that we need in order to follow Jesus’ pattern?
If I am going to take a trip to a place I’ve never been before, I will take out a map and plan out the roads I need to follow. It is the same with following Jesus’ pattern. I can’t know how to follow it if I don’t have directions.
“The life of Christ that gives life to the world is in His word. It was by His word that Jesus healed disease and cast out demons; by His word He stilled the sea, and raised the dead; and the people bore witness that His word was with power. He spoke the word of God, as He had spoken through all the prophets and teachers of the Old Testament. The whole Bible is a manifestation of Christ, and the Saviour desired to fix the faith of His followers on the word. When His visible presence should be withdrawn, the word must be their source of power. Like their Master, they were to live ‘by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ Matthew 4:4
“As our physical life is sustained by food, so our spiritual life is sustained by the word of God. And every soul is to receive life from God’s word for himself. As we must eat for ourselves in order to receive nourishment, so we must receive the word for ourselves. We are not to obtain it merely through the medium of another’s mind. We should carefully study the Bible, asking God for the aid of the Holy Spirit, that we may understand His word. We should take one verse, and concentrate the mind on the task of ascertaining the thought which God has put in that verse for us. We should dwell upon the thought until it becomes our own, and we know ‘what saith the Lord.’
“In His promises and warnings, Jesus means me. God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that I by believing in Him, might not perish, but have everlasting life. The experiences related in God’s word are to be my experiences. Prayer and promise, precept and warning, are mine. ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ Galatians 2:20. As faith thus receives and assimilates the principles of truth, they become a part of the being and the motive power of the life. The word of God, received into the soul, molds the thoughts, and enters into the development of character.
“By looking constantly to Jesus with the eye of faith, we shall be strengthened. God will make the most precious revelations to His hungering, thirsting people. They will find that Christ is a personal Saviour. As they feed upon His word, they find that it is spirit and life. The word destroys the natural, earthly nature, and imparts a new life in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit comes to the soul as a Comforter. By the transforming agency of His grace, the image of God is reproduced in the disciple; he becomes a new creature. Love takes the place of hatred, and the heart receives the divine similitude. This is what it means to live ‘by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ ” The Desire of Ages, 390, 391
Mrs. White isn’t talking about a cursory reading: this verse today, and another verse tomorrow. The Lord has instructed her to tell us that we must read the Scriptures and the words of Inspiration, and pray for understanding, daily, until the principles of truth have been assimilated into our lives. We are told to commit each word to memory, not to just memorize the words, but to fill our minds and hearts with their inspired meanings until there is no room for the world.
“The Old and the New Testament Scriptures need to be studied daily. The knowledge of God and the wisdom of God come to the student who is a constant learner of His ways and works. The Bible is to be our light, our educator.” Messages to Young People, 189
I loved to read as a child. I read so much, I believe I might have read myself into near-sightedness and had to start wearing glasses early in my life. As a teenager, I continued to read and I determined that I wanted to read the Bible and all the Spirit of Prophecy books I could, memorizing as much as my mind would hold. Later when I became a pastor, I learned to read the Bible in both Greek and Hebrew. I have to read more slowly in Greek and Hebrew, but I have found that, for me, in reading more slowly in any language, I have better comprehension of what the Lord is trying to tell me.
All of us in these last days—particularly our youth—should start a program of studying the life of Jesus Christ every day. This would involve reading the Gospels and The Desire of Ages.
“It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones.” The Desire of Ages, 83
Which Kingdom
We must learn the difference between God’s kingdom of love and Satan’s kingdom of selfishness. The primary principle of Satan’s kingdom is “me.” The primary principle of God’s kingdom is love for God and self-denial as demonstrated by loving service to others and by denying self.
One day very soon, heaven is going to be filled with people who lived on this earth to help and bless others just as Jesus did. No one who puts “me” first will be there. Only those who have struggled against their sinful nature and overcome by following after the pattern left by Jesus will be there.
Which kingdom will you be a part of?
Pastor John J. Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by email at historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at 316-788-5559.