Ellen White counseled: “Parents, make your home a little heaven on earth. You can do this, if you so choose. . . . You can so relate yourselves to God that His Spirit will abide in your home. Come close to the bleeding side of the Man of Calvary. Those who are partakers with Him in His sufferings will at last be partakers with Him in His glory.” Sermons and Talks, vol. 2, 200. If your home is not a little heaven to go to heaven in, at least one of the people in that home cannot go to heaven in the condition in which they are right now.
Love Not Forced
The spirit of self-sacrificing love cannot be forced on anybody. A husband cannot force his wife to love him; a wife cannot force her husband to love her; parents cannot force children to love them. You cannot force it. It cannot be commanded.
Ellen White wrote, “The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God’s government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make it known.” The Desire of Ages, 22.
Let us consider this in a very practical way for a moment. Some of you will be able to relate to this because you have children. Now, a human baby is born to be loved, but the baby does not understand very much about love. Some of the babies you see today you would think know nothing about love. Be that as it may be, no baby knows very much about love, but the mother is supposed to know about love, and if the mother knows about love, the mother starts giving love to the baby. It is a wonderful thing to see. Every day, several times a day, the mother gives love to the baby. It is expressed in many different ways¾by touching, by stroking, by the expression on the face, by the tone of the voice, by giving food, by giving water, by making the baby comfortable. There is a reason that God made human babies so they require a lot of care. It is in the process of receiving that care that they learn what love is.
But the time comes when the baby starts to really respond to the mother’s love. It is very interesting to see this response. Why is the baby responding to the mother’s love? Because the baby has received so much love from the mother that now this baby has love to give back to the mother.
Now, let me ask you a serious question, albeit an awful question, but we need to face reality. What if the baby is born to a woman who is angry and bitter and does not have very much love to give? Do you know what will happen?
Let us read about it: “The reason why there are so many hard-hearted men and women in our world, is because true affection has been regarded as weakness, and has been discouraged and repressed. The better part of the nature of those of this class was perverted and dwarfed in childhood; and unless rays of divine light can melt away their coldness and hard-hearted selfishness, the happiness of such is buried forever.” Review and Herald, June 22, 1886.
How awful this is! Their happiness is buried forever, unless Divine love can break through that ice.
“If we would have tender hearts, such as Jesus had when he was upon the earth, and sanctified sympathy, such as the angels have for sinful mortals, we must cultivate the sympathies of childhood, which are simplicity itself. Then we shall be refined, elevated, and directed by heavenly principles.” Ibid.
There are people all around us¾I do not say this to judge anyone¾especially in our time much more so than 50 years ago who are spiritually and emotionally crippled, and they will be spiritually and emotionally crippled until Jesus comes, because of the spiritual and emotional damage that was inflicted on them from babyhood up through childhood.
I am not saying that those people cannot be saved. God can save people whether or not they are physically crippled or spiritually and emotionally crippled, but the fact remains that in this world they are spiritually and emotionally crippled.
I mention these things to hopefully be a little bit of help to those of you who are parents of small children. Do not repress or neglect to give affection to your small children. If you do, they will grow up to be hard-hearted men and women. They will be emotionally crippled for the rest of their lives in this world.
Feminist Movement
The principle of sacrificing yourself for the good of others has special meaning and implications when discussing the marriage institution. Through my studies, I understand a little bit about what has happened in society since ancient Rome.
In the world today is something that is called the Feminist Movement. Most Seventh-day Adventist preachers seem to delight in condemning and criticizing the Feminist Movement. I am not saying that it is good; I am not trying to promote it, but I think it is right to recognize that it came as a reaction to a different extreme. What was the different extreme? Men said to their wives, “I am the head of the house; you do whatever I say.”
In my studies, I was shocked to see how different society was in the time of John Wesley (1703-1791). A man and his wife came to Wesley, the wife saying that her husband had been beating her. Wesley had a lady examine her, and sure enough, she was black and blue from her neck down to her feet. The husband declared, “I was full of faith while I was doing it,” and he was excused. His actions were considered to be all right. As an outgrowth of such action, some of the Methodist Christians decided that they needed to make a rule. This just shows you how far the human mind can go astray¾they decided that a man should not beat his wife with a rod that was thicker than his thumb. What kind of society was that?
It was in reaction to this kind of thinking that the Feminist Movement arose. The Feminist Movement, of course, goes to a different extreme. This whole idea of who is the boss, who is the greatest, and all this, is something that destroys the homes and marriages. It can destroy the whole universe if it gets out of hand.
Who Is In Control?
You see, that is part of the original controversy. Who is going to be boss? Jesus addressed this problem in Matthew 20:20-23, “Then there approached Him the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons, worshipping and desiring a certain thing from Him. And He said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She said to Him, ‘Grant in order that these my two sons may sit one at Your right hand and one at Your left in Your kingdom.’ Jesus answering said, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink of the cup that I am about to drink of, and the baptism that I am about to be baptized with?’ They say, ‘We are able.’ And He says to them, ‘You shall indeed drink of My cup and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with; but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it shall be given to those for whom it is prepared by My Father.’ ”
At the time Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, suffering in terrible agony, if He had gone to James and John and asked them, “Are you able to drink the cup that I am drinking, and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” they would not have been so self-confident. But now, although He did not promise that He was going to give this honor to them, it still aroused trouble in the church. The apostles got very angry about it. We are told in verse 24, “And the ten, hearing, were indignant concerning the two brothers.”
Why were they angry? Because they wanted the top position too! This is the same thing that happens in the family. The husband and wife are fighting about who is going to get the final say on something.
Just Great or No. 1
Matthew 20 continues: “Jesus called them and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. But it shall not be like this among you, but whoever wishes among you to be great, let him be your deacon.’ ” Verse 25. (A deacon is a middle-class servant.)
What if you do not want to be just great; what if you want to be No. 1? Jesus said, “If you want to be great, become a servant,” but then He goes on to say, in verse 27, “And whoever wishes among you to be first, let him be your doulos.” Now, a doulos was not a middle-class servant; a doulos was a slave or a bondservant. That was the lowest level of servanthood.
If you want to be great, Christ said that you should be a diakonos, a deacon. But if you want to be first, be a doulos, a bondservant. Are you catching on to what Jesus is saying? If you just want to be great, you can be a servant, but if you really want to be great, then you need to go even lower in servanthood.
Jesus demonstrated this in His own life. Who was the Majesty of heaven? Jesus Christ. He was the Majesty of heaven. The Father called Him, My One and only One¾He is Mine, and I am well pleased with Him. (11 Peter 1:17.)
Christ was the Majesty of heaven. He was equal with God the Father. There are still Christians arguing about this today. I am not interested in arguing about it, if somebody does not believe it. Inspired writings are very clear, in my understanding, that Jesus Christ is equal with the Father. (See Philippians 2:6.)
The One that is in first place in the universe left it all, and He came down to this earth for a wretch like me. And then, after He came down, He went to the cross for me. When He died on the cross, He had gone as low as anybody could go. You cannot go lower than that in servanthood.
If you read the New Testament in the Greek language, you will find that when Paul addresses the Christian churches, he refers to himself as a doulos of Jesus Christ every time except one—when he refers to himself as a deacon. He considered himself to be a bondservant, a slave of Jesus Christ.
If you and I do not learn the lesson being given here, we will never be in the kingdom of heaven. We can keep the Sabbath; we can pay tithe; but if we do not learn this, we will not be in the kingdom of heaven. This is the very essence of heaven. This is the essence of its bliss.
I do not know about you, but when I studied this subject, I recognized that I am not ready to go to heaven. I need a change inside; do you? Before we are ever going to have heaven on the outside, we have to have heaven on the inside.
Our Great Need
I would like to illustrate for you our great need and the great lack that we have of learning this principle in Adventism, because I know that we do not have it. I am not judging anybody, but I am going to show you now how I know we do not have it. Consider the words of Ellen White:
“We, living far down the passage of ages, have the privilege of studying the Old Testament in connection with the New. Our faith and courage should be strong as we see prophecies fulfilling. But how many there are who are unbelieving. How many there are who reveal selfishness and unkindness in their dealings with one another. How many professing Christians seem never to be satisfied unless they are engaged in strife. How many home circles are broken because the members receive and act upon Satan’s suggestions.
“No unpleasant words are spoken in heaven. There no unkind thoughts are cherished. There envy, evil surmising, hatred, and strife find no place. Perfect harmony pervades the heavenly courts.
“Well does Satan know what heaven is, and what the influence of the angels is. His work is to bring into every family the cruel elements of self-will, harshness, selfishness. Thus he seeks to destroy the happiness of the family. He knows that the spirit governing in the home will be brought into the church.
“Let the father and mother always be guarded in their words and actions. The husband is to treat his wife, the mother of his children, with due respect, and the wife is to love and reverence her husband. How can she do this if he treats her like a servant, to be dictated to, ordered about, scolded, found fault with before the children? He is forcing her to dislike him and even to hate him.
“May God help fathers and mothers to open the windows of the soul heavenward and let the sunshine of Christ into the homelife. Unless they do this, they will be surrounded by a mist and fog most injurious to spirituality.
“Fathers and mothers, bring sweetness and brightness and hopefulness into the lives of your children. Kindness and love will work wonders. Never punish a child in anger. When you do this, you are acting like grown-up children, who have not left behind them the unreasonableness of childhood. Will you strive earnestly to be able to say, ‘When I became a man, I put away childish things’?” The Upward Look, 163.
In every family the devil is trying to do something. He is trying to bring in dissension and the cruel principles of selfishness, because he knows that if he can bring his principles in¾that includes the principle where I am No. 1, and you have to make me happy—it will destroy the happiness of the family.
Devil’s Success
As a pastor, I visit families all over when I travel. I am sorry to tell you that the devil has been very successful among Seventh-day Adventist Christians. He has been so successful that the divorce rate among Seventh-day Adventists is about the same as it is in the world. (<en.allexperts.com/q/Seventh-Day-Adventists-2318/biblical-inquiry.htm> June 4, 2007.) If your home is a little heaven to go to heaven in, do you suppose divorce is going to happen? No, it will not.
Why is the devil so hard at work in every single family to bring in the cruel principles of selfishness, dissension, arguing and strife, and destroy the happiness of the family?
Ellen White, as we read in the book The Upward Look, has told us exactly what his goal and his objective is. He is not trying to bring in dissension and the cruel principles of selfishness and strife just because he wants to destroy your family. He has something much bigger in mind. She says that the devil knows that the same principles worked out in people’s families will be worked out in the church.
Now, let us think this through. If every family in the church has a little heaven to go to heaven in, because they are practicing the principles of self-sacrificing love with each other, then when all the families get together, is it going to be like hell or heaven? Of course, it is going to be like heaven! But the devil knows that whatever principles are acted out at home will be acted out in church.
As I travel and preach at different churches, I find that the churches are experiencing terrible trouble with strife and dissension. What does that tell us? We do not have to be real intelligent; we do not have to have a college education to figure it out; we do not have to be prophets. If there is strife and dissension in the church, that tells us that there is strife and dissension in the homes of the people in that church. What does that mean? It means we are not yet ready to go to heaven.
Prayer Needed
We have some praying to do. We need to pray that the Holy Spirit will come in and change our hearts. There is a passage from Ellen White’s writings that I repeat to myself every day: “The part of the Christian is to persevere in overcoming every fault. Constantly he is to pray to the Saviour to heal the disorders of his sin-sick soul.” The Acts of the Apostles, 532. I have told the Lord that if He has told me to pray that constantly, I am going to do it.
Do you want the disorders of your sin-sick soul to be healed? Oh, I want to tell you that when the disorder of the sin-sick soul of the wife is healed and when the disorder of the sin-sick soul of the husband is healed, something will change in the family. It will no longer be like purgatory in the home.
There will be a change within the church too. We are going to experience what the early believers called “the fellowship of the saints.” “We are to engage earnestly in a spiritual warfare which we do not consider as we should, and we fail to appreciate what it means. The confederacy of evil is arrayed against those who would fight the battles of the Lord.
“But we battle not alone. The fellowship of the saints in light is ours, the championship of the hosts of heaven is ours, and more than angels are on our side; for leading the ranks of his armies is the Captain of the Lord’s hosts. He is Commander of the battle, and as he leads his army to the fields of action, his voice is heard above the din of the battle and the strife, ‘Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’ [John 16:33.] Our leader is a conqueror. Advance, then, to victory.” Review and Herald, March 14, 1893.
May we learn the lesson of self-sacrificing love, which is the very essence of the bliss of heaven.
[Bible texts quoted are literal translation.]
Pastor John Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by e-mail at: historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.