The Ups and Downs of the Christian Experience, Part II

A person may go a certain distance in their walk with Christ, in their Christian growth, but then they reach a point where they say, No, I can’t go any further.  I can’t go along with that point of doctrine; that is too much.  They do not even know what has happened, but those watching can see that a different spirit has taken hold of them.  In the Scriptures it happened in one day—a different spirit took control.  (See John 6:60, 66.)

What happened when this different spirit took control?  “As those disaffected disciples turned away from Christ, a different spirit took control of them.  They could see nothing attractive in Him whom they had once found so interesting.”  The Desire of Ages, 392.

Notice what they did next:  “They sought out His enemies, for they were in harmony with their spirit and work. They misinterpreted His words, falsified His statements, and impugned His motives.”  Ibid.

Let’s just get this straight.  Who were Christ’s enemies?  Were they the Romans?  No!  Christ’s enemies were the professed, faithful, and true church!  They were the people who professed to be God’s people in the world.  They, not the Romans, were the enemies of Christ.  Christ was never in trouble with the Romans; the Romans only crucified Christ at the insistence of the Jews.  So when the disaffected disciples sought out His enemies, whom did they seek?  They went down to the big church; they went down to mainline Adventism in those days.  They went there because they were more in harmony with them.  This happened about 30 A.D., one year before the crucifixion.  One year before that time, around Passover of 29 A.D., the mainline church had taken an official position rejecting Christ (see The Desire of Ages, 200) at the time He healed a man at the pool of Bethesda (See John 5).  At that time, messengers had been sent all over the country to say that Jesus was an imposter.  So when these people left Christ, they went to the very ones who opposed what Christ was doing, because they were more in harmony with them.

False Reports

There is a spiritual war taking place in the world and in Adventism today, and you cannot just sit and watch.  You are going to be on one side or the other!  God is arranging things so that what is really in our hearts is going to be revealed.  When these followers went back to the mainline church, the church that had been opposing Christ for over a year, they misinterpreted His words.  It should be comforting to us to know that Jesus, Who was perfect, went through such misunderstandings.  Our words are not perfect; we are frail, mortal, defective human beings.  But Jesus was perfect, and even His motives and words were impugned and misinterpreted; His statements were falsified.

Why did they do that?  Ellen White explains:  “They sustained their course by gathering up every item that could be turned against Him; and such indignation was stirred up by these false reports that His life was in danger.”  The Desire of Ages, 392, 393.  The disciples who had left Christ had to justify what they were doing.  Have you ever noticed that when human beings are doing something, especially when they know it is wrong, they have to have a good reason for doing it?  Whether there is one or not, they have to think one up; otherwise they could not live with themselves.  The former followers had to sustain that what they were doing was the right thing to do, so they had to conjure up all of these false statements.

Were there some items that could be turned against Christ?  Yes, there were.  Did Christ have some followers who were making mistakes in those days?  You know that He did, because their mistakes are recorded in the Scriptures.  Were there people who had a pretty checkered past following Jesus?  Oh, yes.  People who were looked down upon as the most evil people in society had decided to follow Jesus, because He gave hope to the chief of sinners.  No matter how bad their past was, they could come to Him.  He promised that He would forgive their sins, take away their guilt, and give them the power to live a new life.  There were cheating tax collectors and prostitutes who were interested in a better life, and even though their past had been very checkered, they found the idea of having their guilt taken away and living a better life very, very attractive.

Jesus allowed all of these people to follow Him, so there were a lot of things that could be used against Jesus—all of these defective, low-life people who were following Him.  All of that information was gathered up, and some Bible studies were written for this occasion.  The purpose of the Bible studies was to prove, from the Old Testament, that Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah.

Counter Bible Study

Have you ever had someone give you a Bible study in an effort to prove that the seventh day is not the Sabbath?  Have you ever had someone give you a Bible study to prove that when somebody dies they don’t really die?  That is the type of Bible study that was developed.  I have actually trembled to think that if I had lived in that day and time, I may have been buffaloed by their misinterpreted Scriptures.  They were very convincing and effective.  They were so effective that Jesus questioned the twelve remaining disciples to see if they, too, would leave Him.  It appears that most of the 70 disciples that Jesus had sent out turned against Him.  Ellen White says that Christ winnowed His followers again and again until at one time there were only eleven men and a few faithful women for the beginning of the Christian church.  (See Testimonies, vol. 5, 130.)

Christ actually took His followers through more low experiences than He took them into high experiences.  They did have high experiences: there was Peter’s confession of faith; the time when they saw Him feed the 5,000; the times when they saw Him raise the dead—they saw it!  Wouldn’t that make shivers run up and down your skin to see that happen?  They saw that it only took a look, a touch, or a word and the most grievous physical disease would instantly disappear.  They had some high times.  They saw that if He said to someone, I am not going to condemn you, go and sin no more, that person’s life was turned around; they saw them set free from the spiritual disease which had held them in bondage all of their life.  It was exciting, but Jesus also took them through some low experiences, so deep, that when they started following Him they could not even have imagined what they would have to go through.

Highs and Lows

“The news spread swiftly that by His own confession Jesus of Nazareth was not the Messiah.”  The Desire of Ages, 393.  The disaffected disciples twisted His words.  He never said that He was not the Messiah, but since He did not do what they thought the Messiah had to do, they decided He could not be the Messiah.  Have you ever had anyone twist your words?

Mrs. White continues, “And thus in Galilee the current of popular feeling was turned against Him, as, the year before, it had been in Judea.”  Ibid.  The year before had been the experience at the pool of Bethesda when the popular feeling of Judea turned against Him.  Now the popular feeling in Galilee turned against Him.  When the mainline church had turned against Jesus, the disciples were not too worried, because there was a grass-roots revival and reformation movement among the common people that was centered in Galilee, and they thought it would overturn everything that the church leaders in Jerusalem could do.  So, as long as this popular feeling in Jesus’ favor continued in Galilee, there were thousands of people who came to see Jesus.

They were on a high then.  When you see 5,000 men plus women and children who have come to see the Lord all fed, you have to follow Him.  You have a church!  And the disciples were not worried right at that moment what the priests and leaders said.  So what?  Look at all the people!  They had a big group with which to work.  But those 5,000 people all disappeared.  The popular feeling turned against Jesus, and there were very few who followed Him.  Can you imagine it?—the Saviour of the world, the One who came to redeem the world, had lost most of His followers.  Would you have hung on?  That was a low experience, down in the very depths.

To Whom Shall We Go?

Jesus turned and said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to depart?”  John 6:67.  That is an interesting question.  You would think that by the time you only had twelve followers left you would do something to start a campaign to get more.  But instead, Jesus asked, “Are you going to go, too?”  But Peter responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”  John 6:68.  You ask us if we want to leave You, but if we leave You, where are we going to go?

I remember a few years ago when my brother was fired as a pastor from the Kansas-Nebraska Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.  When he was fired, they cut off his salary.  They thought that would be the end of him.  That has been the end of a lot of preachers.  We will never know until the Day of Judgment how many preachers the Seventh-day Adventist Church has ruined by just cutting them off.  They may now be pumping gas, fixing cars, or doing whatever they can to support their families.  People used to say that things like that were an isolated instance, but that is not true.  It has happened all over the world.  When I travel, I meet people from many different countries that have had this happen to them.  When my brother kept preaching, after he had been cut off, people were amazed.  They would ask, Where are you going to go?  Who are you going to join?  A lot of people think that you have to be with some organization or you cannot keep going.  They have not read about John the Baptist.

When people would ask these questions, Marshall would reply just as did Peter, To whom are we supposed to go?  What we have been doing we have been doing because we have been convicted by the Word of God that we have to do this.  Are we going to turn back on our convictions now, because it is unpopular, because we have been financially cut off, because everybody is trying to destroy us?  Should we have decided that our convictions were wrong because of the pressure, or were we going to stand for that which we had been standing?  There was no place to go.  We still had to stand for what we believed.

The remaining disciples could have gone back to mainline Adventism in those days.  Jesus told them they could, if they wanted to do so.  There were only twelve—and they were not on the mountain anymore; they were way down deep in the pit of despair.  “To whom shall we go?”

Ellen White says, “ ‘To whom shall we go?’  The teachers of Israel were slaves to formalism.  The Pharisees and Sadducees were in constant contention.  To leave Jesus was to fall among sticklers for rites and ceremonies, and ambitious men who sought their own glory.”  The Desire of Ages, 393.  To leave Jesus is to fall into human control.   The Spirit of Prophecy says that when a preacher goes to any of our large convocations, tell the people for their own soul’s sake, and for Christ’s sake, to not make flesh their arm.  The church of Christ is not to come under human control.   (See Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 375.)

Why did Jesus allow all of these awful things to happen?  Why does He allow His people to go through these low periods?  Why did He allow it with the children of Israel, with Daniel and the three worthies, or with the disciples?  Ellen White says: “When Jesus presented the testing truth that caused so many of His disciples to turn back, He knew what would be the result of His words; but He had a purpose of mercy to fulfill.”  The Desire of Ages, 394.

Mercy of God

Did you know that what Adventism is going through right now is because of the mercy of God?  People question, What is happening?  There are people who were with the home church movement, that were with the revival and reformation movement, who have left and gone other places.   Many people think that we should all be discouraged because of this.  We should not be discouraged at all!  We should be praising the Lord for His mercy!  Do you know how much more difficult it would be for God’s people if what has happened in the last five years would happen after the national Sunday law is passed?  It would be so much more difficult that a number of us would probably lose our souls.  You see, the Lord could not take those 5,000 men plus the women and children, 15,000 or 20,000 people, with Him and let them follow Him all the way to the cross, because when He came to His trial, they would have rejected Him.

Let us think this through.  What if the disciples, who saw these 15,000 or 20,000 followers, said, We do not have to worry about the priests and elders in Jerusalem; we have all of these people.  We have a strong movement here in Judaism.  But then when the whole group comes all the way up to the cross . . . they leave.  What do you think would have happened to the disciples then?  It was hard the year before, but if they had stayed on that high,—with all of those people, with all of that human support, and they had all left at the trial and crucifixion of Jesus,—the disappointment would have been so overwhelming that they could not have stood it.  It was overwhelming enough as it was.

Are you aware that we are approaching another time that is going to test and try men’s souls?  God is getting His people ready for that time.  Are you thankful that God does not just allow you to stay on a mountain high and then all of a sudden allow the biggest test of all time to hit you?  Are you thankful that He takes you through some low places first so that you can get some experience in faith?   If Jesus had not brought this test beforehand, some of His disciples may not have made it; some of the twelve might have been lost.  The Lord knew it all beforehand, and He said, I am going to do you a favor.  I am going to bring the test a year beforehand, while I am still with you, so that you will not fail.

What is happening today in Adventism is by the mercy of God, and we should be praising the Lord every day.  God is allowing people to reveal what is really inside.  If He let it go on and they all revealed their true characters after the national Sunday law is passed, it would be too much.  We could not take it.

Mrs. White wrote, “He foresaw that in the hour of temptation every one of His beloved disciples would be severely tested. . . .  Had no previous test been given, many who were actuated by merely selfish motives would have been connected with them. . . .  These self-seeking ones would, by renouncing their allegiance to Jesus, have brought upon the disciples a bitter, heart-burdening sorrow, in addition to their grief and disappointment in the ruin of their fondest hopes.  In that hour of darkness, the example of those who turned from Him might have carried others with them.  But Jesus brought about this crisis while by His personal presence He could still strengthen the faith of His true followers.”  The Desire of Ages, 394.

Does your faith hang on, not just at the high time, but when God’s people go down through a dark valley?  That is the kind of faith we are going to have to have, because we are coming to a period of time when it could easily look to each one of us that we are the only believers left.  It could look that way.

Cleansing

These same experiences happened in the beginning of the Second Advent Movement.  From the beginning of 1844 to the beginning of 1846, the number of believers went from between 50,000 and 100,000 down to 200 or 300.  They went from a high to a low, but there were some people that hung on.  There was a cleansing of the temple at the beginning of Christ’s ministry and there was a cleansing of the temple at the close.  Ellen White says, “He will purify His church even as He purified the temple at the beginning and close of His ministry on earth.”  Testimonies, vol. 9, 228.

Did God cleanse the Advent movement at its beginning?  Yes, He did.  Is He going to cleanse it at the close?  Yes, He is.   He cleanses it by bringing people down from a high and bringing them into the depths of a testing, trying experience.  When that happens to you, are you going to hang on?

I met a man who told me that a few years ago he was going to a home church where there were 60–70 members. Then they all left except four or five.  Praise the Lord for the four or five that are left, and get on with the work!  I am not saying that we should not pray for the people who left; some of them might come back, and that would be good.  Probation has not yet closed, and people can still decide that they are going to follow the Lord all the way.  But friends, God is preparing a people who are going to receive the Latter Rain.  It is not just any or every Adventist who is going to receive the Latter Rain.  Oh no, it will be just a little handful compared with all who profess the faith.  If we are going to be part of that group, we are going to have to hang on—not just when it is easy, when everyone is shouting and the multitudes are fed, when it is popular, when there are 15,000 or 20,000 saying, Let’s do it; Let’s have the Latter Rain and the Loud Cry, finish the work, and go to heaven!

The Lord reads the hearts of those doing all that shouting, and He says, It is time to do a little purging here, and He takes that group of people into a valley, and when that happens, suddenly you discover, as did Gideon, that the great majority are not really with you.  Are you going to hang on then?

We have been promised that there is going to be an army that will remain solid as a rock right through to the close.  Do you want to be part of that army?  I pray that you do.

[Bible texts quoted are literal translation.]

Pastor Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life Ministry and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas.