Dial Daily Bread: King Asa's "Perfect Heart" (part 2)

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

How could "good" King Asa have a "perfect heart" and still lose his temper, throw God's true prophet into jail, oppress his people, and end up rebelling against God in his old age? Kind of scary for anyone who thinks he/she is okay (story is in 2 Chron. 15, 16).

But the Bible makes the problem clear. There were two main words for "perfect" in Hebrew as our Bibles translate them. King Asa's heart was shalem (the root related to "Jerusalem," city of peace). The idea in the word is to be at peace, no inner conflict, live in good conscience, not going contrary to your own sense of duty. Asa's "perfect heart" was totally dedicated to Old Covenant ideas inherited from Mount Sinai.

The other Hebrew word for "perfect" is tawmim, meaning absolutely complete, right (related to tawmid, "continual," perpetual," "daily"). Thus tawmim meant morally perfect, not just living up to all the light you have or according to your own conscience (which can be enlightened or not). It really means perfect. Abraham's faith vs Mount Sinai.

King Asa's heart was not tawmim, but shalem. He did all the Old Covenant good he could think of. He did not violate his conscience. He followed his own inner sense of duty. Thus he could reason that God blesses the kingdom if they obey His laws perfectly. Therefore, you people, line up, promise to obey, toe the mark; anyone who doesn't join our "revival and reformation" gets killed (2 Chron. 15:13). And yes, the Lord blessed. Yes, He rewards you if you pay tithe; but what's your motivation--Old or New Covenant?

Asa's "perfect heart" meant that he lived up to Israel's Old Covenant ideas right to the letter. A wise writer says the Old Covenant was "obey and live." The New Covenant is "believe and live." How many more decades must we be confused about the two?

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: King Asa's "Perfect Heart" (part 1)

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Have you ever read the intensely interesting story of King Asa? He gets lost in the hoopla of David and Solomon. What's unique about his story is that on the surface he appears to contradict the Bible truth of righteousness by faith. His reign appears to prove the doctrine of salvation by works; it's the Old Covenant glorified, salvation by obedience. It appears on the surface to prove that Laodicea is right and the True Witness is wrong. The story appears to support the widely popular doctrine of salvation by obedience under the terms of the Old Covenant--it's right here in the Bible! Mount Sinai supremely successful.

Read it: 2 Chronicles 15, 16. The nation enjoyed wonderful security and prosperity. But did you notice that Asa and the people were so strongly committed to the Old Covenant that they decreed "death, whether small or great, whether man or woman," to anyone who didn't join in? Yes, for sure that secured "obedience," right to the letter (15:12, 13)!

This wonderful Old Covenant rule brought blessings for 35 years (vs. 19). Then "perfect" King Asa did "foolishly" and forsook the Lord (16:9). Hanani, an inspired prophet, rightly rebuked him; then good King Asa lost his temper and threw him into prison, and began oppressing his people (vss. 7-10). He ended his reign stubbornly refusing to humble his heart before the Lord when affliction came on him (vs. 12). "Perfect heart"?

Our problem comes in 15:17: "Nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days." How can you have a "perfect heart," then lose your temper at the Spirit of Prophecy, jail the Lord's true prophet, "oppress" your people, then turn your back on the Lord in your old age? Is it really true that righteousness is not by faith? That you can have faith and still go on sinning? Many worldwide believe so, and here's proof, they say. How can we understand this? Our time's up. Maybe we can look at it tomorrow.

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: A New Day

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

A new day is before you. You are tired of being selfish, world-loving, absorbed in your own pleasure. Night after night you go to bed feeling vaguely condemned for not having accomplished anything that God can be pleased about. You hate yourself for wasting precious time on TV, or reading novels, or wandering aimlessly in the mall. What's happening to you?

The Lord Himself is being merciful to you for He is giving you your own personal taste of what Isaiah had in his chapter 6 epiphany. You are realizing, "Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a [person] of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips" (vs. 5). This vague feeling of unease is not without meaning. The Holy Spirit of God is interacting with you. Heaven has come down to you; you are important in God's sight. He actually loves you as an individual so much that He will not permit you to be content in alienation from Him, and in alienation from your fellow human beings.

What's happening to you is the direct fulfillment of what Jesus promised: He would pray to the Father for you, and the Father is answering His prayer by sending you "another Helper, ... even the [Holy] Spirit of truth" (John 14:16, 17). You have first-hand evidence of His personal interest in you; Heaven has stopped to look at you, to notice you! He is fulfilling His first work: "And when He is come, He will convict the world of sin ... : of sin, because they do not believe in Me" (16:8, 9). To be worldly, to live for self, is sin!

You are worried because you do not see "fruit" in your life; there are no "works" that prove that you are useful in God's "economy."

Turn to Isaiah 50:4, 5. And when you read the personal pronoun "Me," believe that it is YOU whom the Lord "awakens ... morning by morning, ... to hear as the learned." "… that [YOU] should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary." You have no idea who that "weary one" is whom you will meet somewhere today. Suddenly, life has become interesting, challenging, thrilling, yes, you are on an adventure with the Holy Spirit. Knowing full well that you are "undone," that you don't know how to speak that "word in season" to anyone, you simply cast yourself on the mercy of the Lord. And you go forth.

Then tonight, kneel by your bedside and ask Him how the day went. I think you will be praising Him.

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: Does God Answer When We "Dial" His "Office"?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

What do you do when you dial a number and you hear it ring and ring, and no one answers? Hang up. That's what's natural for us to do when we "dial" God's "office" in prayer, and no one seems to answer.

The Bible is replete with stories of people who have "dialed" His "office" and said no one answered. And in every case they were tempted to hang up. Job immediately comes to mind. He said: "Why won't God give me what I ask? Why won't He answer my prayer?" (6:8, GNB). "If He lets me speak, I can't believe He would listen to me" (9:16). "There was a time when God answered my prayers. ...Why do You avoid me? Why do You treat me like an enemy? ... I want God to see my tears and hear my prayer" (12:4, 13:24, 16:20). Not only did it seem that God "avoided" him; but the more he prayed the more it seemed that God was getting angry with him; his troubles were getting worse. His dear wife of many years even advised him to forget about God; stop praying, and give up and die (2:9).

Then we remember Jeremiah. At one time he even resigned his job as prophet: "Lord, You have deceived me, and I was deceived. ... 'I will forget the Lord, and no longer speak in His name'" (20:7, 9). David was "the Lord's anointed" but often it seemed that God had forgotten him. Then we come to the best Man who ever walked this earth, the One who was sinless, and we hear Him cry in His dense darkness of soul while on the cross: "My God, why did You abandon Me?"

Yes, every one who "follows the Lamb wherever He goes" (Rev. 14:4) has to go through that same experience sometime of feeling forsaken, but nevertheless choosing to believe and trust in the darkness. Faith ultimately must rest, not on sight, but on confidence in God's character. Only then will it be possible to "enter into the joy of your Lord," and feel comfortable sitting with Him on His throne (Rev. 3:21).

Don't hang up. Believe Him in the dark.

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: Now's the Time to Pray the Lord's Prayer

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Suppose you don't know what to do, you don't even know how to pray. You can kneel, but you don't even know what words to use.

Now's the time to pray the Lord's Prayer. It's just inside the New Testament. Put it into the first person singular:

"My Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name" (Matt. 6:9; Jesus said, "In this manner, ... pray." No matter who you are, or how unworthy you are, you are given the right to walk in past all the holy angels to the throne of God with these words). Save me from bringing disgrace on Your name.

"Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (vs. 10; let me do or say something today that is right).

"Give me this day my daily bread" (vs. 11; and the inexpressible joy of being satisfied with what my portion is of either the temporal or spiritual kind. Thank You for my portion!)

"And forgive me my debts," (vs. 12a; that is—my sins). This credit card debt is a constant load I can't carry; oh, to breathe free again! Please teach me to say no next time I go to the mall; and yes, to say no to self all day.

"As I forgive my debtors" (vs. 12b; that means I practice self-denial until I pay my credit card balance; at the same time I pay my debt of forgiveness to those who have wronged me personally and painfully. It hurts, but yes, I do).

"And do not lead me into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one" (vs. 13a; any temptation to any sin is greater than I have the strength to endure, of myself. Thanks that at last I know the truth).

"For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen" (vs. 13b; thanks that at last I realize it's not mine).

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: Justification by Faith--Simple!

Ordinary people like you and me get stumped by big biblical words like "justification by faith." "Can't you make it simple?" someone asks. Well, it's in the Bible, and therefore God must want us to understand. Don't throw up your hands in despair, "It's beyond me! Might as well flip on the TV, that's easier than trying to study." But in fact, it's all as simple as 2 + 2 = 4 if you want to understand what God is saying, enough to ask Him in sincerity to teach you. He welcomes pray-ers (people who ask Him!) who don't have doctoral degrees! And there's good reason to want to understand because the final test of the mark of the beast versus the seal of God may well center in some issue like this.

(1) This has to do with the simple understandings of the heart, not intricate head-knowledge: "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness" (Rom. 10:10).

(2) It is healing the heart-alienation from God that is natural to all of us ("the carnal mind is enmity against God," Rom. 8:7). Healing that human enmity is the greatest problem God has ever faced. He can create worlds and fling Milky Ways into space easier than changing cold, worldly, self-loving human hearts to be at-one-with Him.

(3) What the Bible is saying is that nothing but the sight of blood can melt that icy hardness of the human heart: "We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Rom. 5:10).

(4) That means simply "justification by faith": "much more then, being now justified by his blood, ..." (vs. 9).

(5) We alienated humans must see Somebody's blood flowing and realize that it was we who shed it. Whose blood? Of the Son of God!

(6) If there's an ounce of honesty in our souls, the result is in verse 11: "We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the at-one-ment."

(7) We "survey the wondrous cross /On which the Prince of glory died, / [and] My richest gain I count but loss / And pour contempt on all my pride." That's justification by faith. Simple.

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: Can We Learn From the Past?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Have you ever wished you had had the courage to speak up for truth when you didn't? What's written in the Bible is there "for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come" (1 Cor. 10:11). Can we learn from those who in the past failed?

* Do you repent for letting Eve cajole you into eating the forbidden fruit when you knew better (she didn't!)? (Gen. 3:6; are you better than Adam?)

* ... for not standing up alone and publicly defending Noah when he was persecuted while he was building the ark alone? We're being tested today! (7:1; Matt. 24:37-39).

* ... for not believing and defending the inspired Joseph when his ten brothers hated him? (Joseph did have some real faults, hooks on which to hang doubts; Gen. 37:5-8).

* ... for not standing with Caleb and Joshua when "all the congregation bade stone them with stones"? Were you ready to be stoned with the two? (cf. Num. 14:10).

* ... for not standing up for David, telling King Saul "you're wrong for hunting David like you do. He's a prophet!"? (1 Sam. 23:9-15; the court were loyal to Saul).

* ... for not supporting Jeremiah in his dungeon when Kings Jehoiakim and Zedekiah "shut him up" and the national leaders wanted to kill him? (38:1-13).

* ... for not confessing publicly you too believe in Jesus of Nazareth when the Jewish national leaders "took up stones to cast at Him"? (John 8:59).

* ... for being a believing "chief ruler" too cowardly to confess Jesus publicly when "the Pharisees" said anybody who does "should be put out of the synagogue"? (John 12:42).

* ... for not speaking up for Jesus when you wanted to warm yourself by the fire, and this girl was taunting you; it's so hard to take ridicule from her, isn't it? (Matt. 26:69-75).

Thank God He gives us a new day today, a new opportunity to repent and overcome!

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: Behold the Lamb of God

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Really good people keep asking the same question the Pharisees asked long ago, "What shall we DO, that we might work the works of God?" (John 6:28). Israel were obsessed with that idea for they promised God, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will DO" (Ex. 19:8). That promise at Mount Sinai was the "old covenant," and it bound Israel to legalism through most of their history until finally they crucified their Messiah.

But God has always had a better way--the "new covenant," which is not the promise of the people but the one-sided promise of God, not a contract, or a "bargain" He makes with us. He promises to write His law in our hearts, and our part is to believe His promise. But the old covenant/new covenant tension still exists today, and the inherent legalism in the immensely popular old covenant discourages and perplexes multitudes, both in and out of the church.

Instead of our concentrating on what we must DO, God asks us to look and see what He has done and is doing. He taught this lesson to the people in the wilderness--"when he [the one bitten by a serpent] beheld the serpent of brass, he lived" (Num. 21:9). Jesus said that "serpent" represented Himself (exactly backward, we would think!), and our continual "perishing" will come to an end if we "behold" Him as a "serpent lifted up" (John 3:14, 15)--a Savior "made to be sin for us" (2 Cor. 5:21).

"Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth," He says (Isa. 45:22). John the Baptist agrees, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Jesus says, "If I be lifted up [for all people to see Me] ... I will draw all unto Me" (12:32). Paul saw his mission, to turn people's ears into eyes and "to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery" (Eph. 3:9). John says, "Behold what manner of agape" (1 John 3:1--that's a refreshing sight to see!). Even Pontius Pilate preaches one unforgettable sermon: "Behold the man!" (John 19:5).

Here's Good News: "a great reformatory movement" is coming, for God "will pour upon [His people and leaders] ... the spirit of grace and supplications: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced" (Zech. 12:10). Behold that sight and you can never be the same lukewarm person!

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: Feeling Incompetent as a Witness for Jesus?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

"I'd love to help somebody else but I don't know what to say!" If you bewail your incompetence as a "witness" for Jesus, welcome to the many who yearn to live for a purpose. They dread meeting Jesus at last with empty arms, a useless life. Let me try to encourage you:

(1) There is a prayer that Jesus HAS to answer, HAS to respond to; He can never say no. It's that of the man in Luke 11 who wakes his neighbor in the middle of the night banging on his door, "Lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him" (vss. 5-13). That's the prayer of the empty pantry, "asking to give" to someone else. You're not asking the Lord to give YOU something; you're asking Him to give you bread for somebody else. That prayer goes priority to the throne, and is always answered.

(2) It's the idea that permeates the "cry" of Jesus in John 7:37-39: "He who believes on Me, as the Scripture has said [Song of Solomon, that is], 'Out of his inmost soul will flow rivers of living water.'" If that "living water" is not flowing out of my own heart to refresh somebody else, it must mean that I don't "believe" on Him! Everyone who "believes" has the well of living water. Is unbelief the problem?

(3) Well, welcome again to the special "club" of fortunate people if you have begun to realize that your basic problem is that of ancient Israel--unbelief. Now you're ready to pray the prayer that can NEVER be denied: "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." Go kneel down beside the anxious father whose child is devil possessed (Mark 9:24). You can NEVER perish if you pray that prayer!

(4) You must FEEL, must realize, must confess, must know forever, your weakness before you CAN be "strong" (2 Cor. 12:8-10). Under heaven there is no substitute for the "broken and contrite heart" which God, fortunately different than we are, "will not despise" (Psalm 51:17).

(5) Yes, this means much less TV and novel-reading, and more hungering and thirsting for "righteousness." Kneel and tell the Lord your plate is empty; wait before Him, "wait, I say, on the Lord" (Psalm 27:13, 14). Don't rush off in a spin; give Him a chance. WAIT. Unbelief drains out of one's soul in a tiny drip. WAIT.

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: Can Anything Good Be Said for Halloween?

Can anything good be said for Halloween?

Not really, except to confess the honest truth that it is purest paganism that has wormed its way into the supposedly Christian faith of many millions.

So the question resolves itself into a simpler one: can anything good be said for paganism itself? The Bible offers the repeated comment that paganism imported into the supposedly Christian church is "Babylon" from which the sincere follower of Jesus Christ is sternly commanded forthwith to "come out!" (Rev. 14:8; 18:1-4).

But let's use sanctified common sense in the process: just to come down hard on Halloween alone and neglect the real significance of paganism entrenched in professed Christian thought is to repeat the whole sad apostasy from its beginning.

The story takes us to Daniel, the one book of the Old Testament that Jesus earnestly urges us to "read" and "understand" (Matt. 24:15). In chapters 8:11-13; 11:31, and 12:11, 12 paganism figures as impacting itself on the captive people of God taken to a 70-year exile in ancient Babylon.

As one who spent years in a missionary "exile" in eastern Uganda, this writer can testify: the endless night-time pagan singing and dancing and drum-beating are a continual harassment when you have to be a next-door neighbor. There is evidence in Daniel that the Israelites in captivity in literal Babylon had an idiom for what endlessly surrounded them: "the continual in transgression."

The literal Hebrew is: ha tamid be pesha, the word tamid being translated as "daily," and ha as the article, "the." It occurs those five times in Daniel, and nowhere else in Scripture in that way.

The Hebrew verb in 8:11-13 is rum, which does not mean primarily "take away" but "lift up," "exalt." The Catholic and Protestant Christians who lived through the end of the 1260 years of papal oppression in 1798 A.D. recognized "the daily" as paganism which became exalted in the early apostasy of much professed Christianity. The result has been described as "baptized paganism." The classic volume, The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, describes the process as "paganism incorporated" into Christianity (p. 50).

For interested readers, Dial Daily Bread has a little paper on the subject, "Have We Followed Cunningly Devised Fables?" which can be obtained by e-mail. Hit your reply button, and ask for "Fables."

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: My Shepherd Leads Me

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

David says "my Shepherd … leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake" (Psalm 23:3). "Leads" young people in their choice of a college, or training for a career? Yes! Leads you in your choice of a job, or where to live? Yes! Does He also "lead you in a path of righteousness" concerning whom to marry? The answer has to be Yes, or the psalm is a fake. (Of course you must accept His leading!)

And to all of us at some time comes that journey through "the valley of the shadow," whether we are teens or in our 90s, and we need a Shepherd or divine "Pastor" with us. Please note: the relief from fear in the Shepherd Psalm is the result of a choice: "I WILL [to] fear no evil." The choice can be made today, long before the shadowed journey begins. And it is not merely an adjustment of emotions through psychology; it is a rational, logical, reasoned choice arrived at through careful thought.

The reason why "I WILL [to] fear no evil" is because I believe the Good Shepherd is "with" me; I believe I have a Companion in my journey through either sunshine or shadow. And how can I bring myself to believe such Good News? Because I appreciate that the Son of God became our Second Adam, the new Head of the human race, the Father adopted me "in Christ," I am "in Him" as He went through the agony of "hell" (Psalm 16:10), I identified with Him when He cried out "My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Having by faith "in Him" and with Him conquered that greatest of all fears, no lesser fear can now assail me. From now on His "rod and staff" no longer annoy me; tribulations and chastisement "comfort me," says David, even though I may feel like I am "punished" "every morning" (Psalm 73:14, TEV). "Whom He loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every SON whom He receiveth" (Heb. 12:6).

Now by His grace nothing but joy lies before you, "goodness and mercy" all your "days." And best of all, you really WANT to "dwell in the house of the Lord forever" instead of in the movie theater or at the mall. A new motivation now transcends fear of being lost or hope of reward, and even for teens "the world is crucified unto [you]" (Gal. 6:14).

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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Dial Daily Bread: God's Receptionist Says, "Come In!"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Important people like executives, doctors, lawyers, have "receptionists" outside their office doors to keep you out, to administer non-reception. But there are two passages in the Bible that represent God as having His office door open to you all the time with a Receptionist or Secretary saying "Come in!" One is Christ's model prayer that instructs us to call God "our Father." You are invited; you are adopted; you are "family." Sinful and unworthy though you be? Yes! When the Father welcomed the wet, dripping Jesus as He came out of the water from John's baptism, He said of YOU, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17; Eph. 1:6). The other passage is Psalm 23.

(1) There is no fine print that warns the reader, "Beware! This psalm is only for good people who do everything right; only they can say that 'the Lord is [their] Shepherd.'" The last page of the Bible says "Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come" (Rev. 22:17).

(2) There is nothing you have to DO in order to make Christ become your Shepherd; He already is. You'll be a thousand times happier when you believe what is already truth.

(3) You "shall not want" because "my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:19). Rightly translated Psalm 23:1 says, "Your Shepherd is your Social Security."

(4) The "still waters" that refresh your soul even now come from the River of Life (Rev. 22:17).

(5) David probably wrote "He restoreth my soul" in his teenage years not knowing that he would some day pray with agonizing tears, "Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation" (51:12) after his quadruple sin of adultery with Bathsheba and cover-up murder. It's present tense for you; the "restoration" goes on, otherwise you'd be dead.

(6) The Shepherd "leadeth [you] in paths of righteousness" because "thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left" (Isa. 30:21). Unerring guidance!

(7) By God's grace, there will be a tomorrow for another glimpse of Christ as "my Shepherd."

Copyright © 2009 by Robert J. Wieland.
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