Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Because of immigration and the high birthrate of Muslims in the Netherlands, serious thinking people realize that in a few years the Netherlands (and much of Europe) will be virtually Islamic.



In what is a sincere effort to achieve a religious peace, some seriously propose that we drop our word “God” and substitute the word “Allah” for Him. After all, in Arabic the very word for “God” is Allah, whether you are Muslim or Christian; Allah is the name for God in the Arabic Old Testament and in their Arabic New Testament.



Muslims in Europe would be delighted for us to do that because the change would be virtually an abandonment of Christianity and an adoption of Islam instead.



There is a wide gulf between what the Bible word for “God” means and what “Allah” means.



“God” in the Bible means the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ; this truth is anathema in Islam.



“God” in the Bible is Himself love; love is not merely an attribute of God, one of His many characteristics; “God IS love,” says the statement in First John that is the highest point of inspiration in all the Bible (4:8).



“Love” is not mentioned in the Islamic Fatiha in its description of Allah. “Love” is a word that is out of place in Islamic thinking. The biblical idea of love is the gospel in a word; when the apostles fanned out to proclaim the gospel of Jesus, their enemies accused them of “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6); but they couldn’t do that; it was their message that did it And the message of the apostles was encapsulated in their one Greek word translated in our Bibles as “love (agape), but it meant infinitely beyond what our common word for love conveys.



Agape is the word that describes the self-sacrifice of God. “God so loved [with agape] the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” and the giving was for eternity, and it went even as far as hell. When the Son of God hung on His cross of shame and cried out in heart-rending agony, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He was “tasting death for every man” (Heb. 2:9), even “the second death” that is described in Revelation 2:11 and 20:12-19.



Islam knows nothing of this revelation of truth; honest hearts there are waiting for someone to tell them.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Because of immigration and the high birthrate of Muslims in the Netherlands, serious thinking people realize that in a few years the Netherlands (and much of Europe) will be virtually Islamic.

In what is a sincere effort to achieve a religious peace, some seriously propose that we drop our word “God” and substitute the word “Allah” for Him. After all, in Arabic the very word for “God” is Allah, whether you are Muslim or Christian; Allah is the name for God in the Arabic Old Testament and in their Arabic New Testament.

Muslims in Europe would be delighted for us to do that because the change would be virtually an abandonment of Christianity and an adoption of Islam instead.

There is a wide gulf between what the Bible word for “God” means and what “Allah” means.

“God” in the Bible means the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ; this truth is anathema in Islam.

“God” in the Bible is Himself love; love is not merely an attribute of God, one of His many characteristics; “God IS love,” says the statement in First John that is the highest point of inspiration in all the Bible (4:8).

“Love” is not mentioned in the Islamic Fatiha in its description of Allah. “Love” is a word that is out of place in Islamic thinking. The biblical idea of love is the gospel in a word; when the apostles fanned out to proclaim the gospel of Jesus, their enemies accused them of “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6); but they couldn’t do that; it was their message that did it And the message of the apostles was encapsulated in their one Greek word translated in our Bibles as “love (agape), but it meant infinitely beyond what our common word for love conveys.

Agape is the word that describes the self-sacrifice of God. “God so loved [with agape] the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” and the giving was for eternity, and it went even as far as hell. When the Son of God hung on His cross of shame and cried out in heart-rending agony, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He was “tasting death for every man” (Heb. 2:9), even “the second death” that is described in Revelation 2:11 and 20:12-19.

Islam knows nothing of this revelation of truth; honest hearts there are waiting for someone to tell them.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Jesus appears in the Bible as often taking action without asking permission. For example, in Matthew 12:11-13 He healed the man with the withered hand without asking him first if He had his permission. And in 14:13-21 He fed 5000 men besides women and children without anyone asking Him to do it. In Luke 13 He meets a woman who was bowed down for 18 years and could not straighten herself. Again He took action entirely on His own initiative: “When Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said unto her, Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity” (vs. 12). He did not ask her, Would you like to be healed? Instead, “He laid His hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God” (vs. 13).

Also, at the village of Nain He met a funeral in process, a widow’s only son. He asked no questions, no permission; He “said to her, ‘Do not weep. ‘ Then He came and touched the open coffin ... and He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, Arise.’ And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak” (7:11-15).

When we read in Philippians 2:5-8 the story of how Christ condescended to take those seven steps into humiliation on our behalf, we do not read that He asked any permission of the inhabitants of this lost planet. He simply took those steps, “even to the death of the cross.” God’s plan of salvation has been on His part a one-sided exercise of initiative.

On His cross, the Lord Jesus took our place without asking us if He could do so; the Father asked no permission from the inhabitants of this earth before He “gave His only begotten Son” for them (John 3:16).

But before the great controversy between Christ and Satan can be successfully closed, God must change His plan; now He must ask permission!

This time He cannot unilaterally do what He wants; He has elevated those who “overcome ... as [He] overcame [to] sit down with [Him] on His throne even as [He] overcame and sat down with [His] Father on His throne” (Rev. 3:21). Thus they share with Him executive authority in bringing to a close the great controversy between Christ and Satan.

He tried once unilaterally to pour upon His people the “beginning” of the latter rain and the Loud Cry of Revelation 18:1-4 without their previous permission and it was in a great degree a sad failure. Far from their since having to beg Him (reluctantly?) to grant that blessing He has been more than willing to give it if they would humble their hearts to receive the gift and the message that comes with it.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:
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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

One of the world’s most fascinating architectural wonders is a new Hindu temple being erected in the heart of America’s Protestant Deep South: Atlanta. No frame stucco this, that only looks imposing; this is the old fashioned kind of stone structure built to last a thousand years, its builders say. The wealth going into it seems unbelievable—19 million dollars.

Now the Bible faith of Jesus Christ won’t have to emigrate to India in order to chip away at the Gibraltar of heathenism; the Bible Belt’s mission field has moved into its own back yard. Hinduism claims to be the oldest religion on earth; it also claims to embody all the doctrines of all religions. It will have mass appeal to the modern public.

It will be useless to combat this new eruption with more expensively built churches intended to dazzle; and more artist’s imaginary pictures of Jesus won’t help (are they actually a form of Hindu expression? Hinduism has no end of pictures of “Jesus”). “The truth of the gospel” in its utter simplicity (cf. Gal. 2:5, 14) and its profundity, must confront heathenism. Preaching “Christ and Him crucified” is vastly more than the most ingenious PowerPoint program we can invent. Our clever creations can be deceptive if they leave us imagining that we have been successfully “rich and increased with goods” in our task of enlightening the earth.

Modern children and youth will be impressed by America’s Hinduism, especially its “spirituality” which is meant to constitute another “holy spirit,” and Krishna of course is another “christ.” Hinduism is not original; it rides piggy back on a distortion of the truly original faith of Jesus that dates from Eden through Genesis 3:15 where the Lord promised to “put enmity between [the serpent] and the “seed” of the woman.

Islam is also taking advantage of the American Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom, coming in “like a flood.” Now youth can’t rely on tradition to keep them grounded in a “post-Christian” kind of traditional faith; they must survey the field of religions that are in the world and make choices for themselves. That’s good, because the Lord Jesus is not honored by mindless, tradition-bound followers. But this influx of Islam and Hinduism is not all bad news: it creates the context for fulfillment of a glorious promise: when falsehood “comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against [it]” (Isa, 59:19).

That “standard” will be the message of Revelation 18:1-4 that does “lighten the earth with glory.”

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

One of the world’s most fascinating architectural wonders is a new Hindu temple being erected in the heart of America’s Protestant Deep South: Atlanta. No frame stucco this, that only looks imposing; this is the old fashioned kind of stone structure built to last a thousand years, its builders say. The wealth going into it seems unbelievable—19 million dollars.



Now the Bible faith of Jesus Christ won’t have to emigrate to India in order to chip away at the Gibraltar of heathenism; the Bible Belt’s mission field has moved into its own back yard. Hinduism claims to be the oldest religion on earth; it also claims to embody all the doctrines of all religions. It will have mass appeal to the modern public.



It will be useless to combat this new eruption with more expensively built churches intended to dazzle; and more artist’s imaginary pictures of Jesus won’t help (are they actually a form of Hindu expression? Hinduism has no end of pictures of “Jesus”). “The truth of the gospel” in its utter simplicity (cf. Gal. 2:5, 14) and its profundity, must confront heathenism. Preaching “Christ and Him crucified” is vastly more than the most ingenious PowerPoint program we can invent. Our clever creations can be deceptive if they leave us imagining that we have been successfully “rich and increased with goods” in our task of enlightening the earth.



Modern children and youth will be impressed by America’s Hinduism, especially its “spirituality” which is meant to constitute another “holy spirit,” and Krishna of course is another “christ.” Hinduism is not original; it rides piggy back on a distortion of the truly original faith of Jesus that dates from Eden through Genesis 3:15 where the Lord promised to “put enmity between [the serpent] and the “seed” of the woman.



Islam is also taking advantage of the American Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom, coming in “like a flood.” Now youth can’t rely on tradition to keep them grounded in a “post-Christian” kind of traditional faith; they must survey the field of religions that are in the world and make choices for themselves. That’s good, because the Lord Jesus is not honored by mindless, tradition-bound followers. But this influx of Islam and Hinduism is not all bad news: it creates the context for fulfillment of a glorious promise: when falsehood “comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against [it]” (Isa, 59:19).



That “standard” will be the message of Revelation 18:1-4 that does “lighten the earth with glory.”

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Ram Gidoomal is a former Hindu who is now a believer in Jesus. He has thought through what the Savior has accomplished for the world and has come to a profound conviction: on His cross, Christ has paid the karma debt of all humanity. Here, for vast numbers of Hindus in the world, is an exit from Hinduism into the beginnings of faith in Jesus.

Hinduism believes that we all come into the world with a karmic account. If we live evil lives, we increase our karmic debt so that when we leave this life we will have this mountain of karmic debt that will necessitate our transmigration into a lower form of life.

That’s a distorted spin-off from a basic biblical truth: we do come into the world under a burden of debt imposed upon us by our fallen father Adam and handed down to us in our DNA as the judicial “condemnation” we inherit from him. True, we did not ask for this burden but it comes with the gift of human life we have received from fallen Adam.

But something else has come to us all that we did not ask for: the lifting or reversal of that burden of judicial condemnation; it’s in the “last Adam” or second Adam—Jesus Christ. This former Hindu has seen something, blind as he may be, significant: Christ is a cosmic Savior who has rightly earned the title the Samaritans gave Him—“Savior of the world” (John 4:42).

Like the ancient Jews who couldn’t bring themselves to grant salvation to the Gentiles, many of us professed Christians back off from the truth that Gidoomal has seen: we are hesitant to grant that Christ has accomplished something for every human soul, given something to every human soul; as far as many of us are willing to go is to concede that Christ has accomplished only the right to offer every human soul salvation but many insist that what He offers doesn’t do us any good unless we first accept and believe: the idea is that He hasn’t given the gift of salvation to every human soul, He has only offered it.

Sounds great: we are afraid to let Jesus open the gates of the New Jerusalem and let people in who are undeserving.

But He doesn’t need our help; He knows what He is doing. Not one unbelieving soul will walk through the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem, not because the gates are closed against him but because in his unbelief he has chosen to reject the gift that Christ has given him. A widely distributed little book tells it right: “The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ; but if he does not resist he will be drawn to Jesus, ... to the foot of the cross in repentance for his sins” (Steps to Christ, p. 27). It helps people to realize that Christ has paid their karmic debt.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Is it a sin to live under the Old Covenant? Whether we can say yes or no to that question, we know the Old Covenant led the ancient people of Israel to crucify their Lord and Savior, and for sure that was a sin!

The Lord gave His New Covenant promises to Abraham, and he “believed” (cf. Gen. 12:2, 3; 15:4-7). He walked in the light for a time, at least until his wife Sarah persuaded him to abandon the Lord’s promise to give him an heir through her getting pregnant and bearing him a son. Sarah was down on herself and on God; she was Old Covenant in her unbelief. She blamed God: “The Lord has kept me from having children” (16:2, GNB).

We can all recall our multitudinous variations of Old Covenant thinking and experience. It was when we walked in “bondage,” for it produces “bondage” (Gal. 4:24). We make mistakes in unbelief and then we blame God for the resultant unhappiness, just as Sarah did.

It’s not fair to say that Abraham would have lived happily had it not been for Sarah dragging him back into unbelief, because when she suggested that he take a second wife, Hagar, he readily agreed. He chose to go back into Old Covenant unbelief!

Yet God had promised that he should be “the father” of “many nations,” and forever be known as “the father of the faithful” (Rom. 4:16). By taking Hagar who bore him Ishmael, Abraham had taken upon himself dark unbelief that he must overcome before he can be worthy to have that glorious title, “father of the faithful.”

Now, unless you are ready for translation, you and I have the same unbelief to overcome before we can acquire that glorious title of being “the faithful” in these last days.

Welcome to our universal battle with unbelief! Not one of us was born with a sinless nature, naturally believing; even the Virgin Mary inherited from our common fallen father Adam the DNA of our fallen, sinful nature; but she chose to believe God’s promise (Luke 1:45), and so can we choose. All around the world there are people just now choosing to “overcome, even as [Christ] overcame” (Rev 3:21), and thus to become part of the 144,000 who will glorify Christ by following “the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” (Rev. 14:4, 5, KJV). Let’s make those choices today!

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Is it possible that a sinful man could be right and God could be wrong (or at least appear to be wrong)? Could a man be reverent and rebuke God? Or correct Him? If that were to happen, would God be angry with him?

If God were like the Islamic Allah, the answer would be yes, God would be very angry with such a man.

But there was once such a man and God was pleased with him—Job.

He did not know about the altercation in chapters one and two between God and Satan over him. God told the truth about him, he was indeed a “perfect and an upright man, one that fear[ed] God, and eschew[ed] evil” (1:8; 2:3). In Job’s innocence, he could not understand why it appeared that God had treated him unjustly; his three friends pressed this thorn deeply into Job’s heart, telling him that God had not punished him as much as he deserved—Job was a terribly evil man, or all these calamities could never have come upon him.

Job knew positively that was not true, about him; he knew that he had been “a perfect and upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil.” That was plain, solid truth. To him in his innocent honesty, God was going back on His true character of righteousness and justice.

So Job did what any honest person should do under that circumstance: he called on God to repent and return to His true character of love and righteousness!

And God loved to hear him say it. Job proved that God was right when He told Satan that Job was “perfect and upright.” In the end God vindicated Job and honored him as a man who anticipated the people in Revelation 17:14 as the group who are “with” “the Lamb of God”[openly and bravely on His side in the great controversy!] and “are called, and chosen, and faithful.”

The Lord Jesus is even now calling His “144,000” out of “every nation, kindred, tongue and people” (Rev. 14:6). The story of Job is a great blessing, for it helps us understand that immense developments are happening behind the heavenly scenes when it appears to us on the surface that God has abandoned the great controversy with Satan. When probation closes, there will be a people who will “taste” of the “cup” that Jesus drank down when He cried on His cross, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Their hearts will be knit with His in eternal union!

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Romans 11 is the commentary inspired by the Holy Spirit that explains the constant turmoil that is Israeli/Palestinian current history. The famous Six Day war was thought to have established the state of Israel for all time to come; but now some thoughtful observers see it as a disaster so far as Israeli security is concerned. How can you sleep feeling safe when your next door neighbors believe you should not even exist, who want to drive you into the sea; you can’t indulge an innocent desire for recreation at a sidewalk café for fear of more suicide bombers, with the stock of youth supplying them increasing, not decreasing. Is dwelling in constant military fear what Abraham wanted his descendants to experience?

The apostle Paul has just discussed how ancient Israel were a “disobedient and rebellious people” (10:21), but he now insists that it was not God who cast them off in spite of the horror of their rejection and crucifixion of their Messiah; they cast themselves off. They are in a state of disconnect, which is “cast off” (11:15); but Paul’s point is that they “disconnected” themselves, “cast off” themselves; God was faithful, they were not.

All during the post-Pentecost explosion of soul-winning among the Gentiles, God had this “small number” of Israelites who were like the “seven thousand” that He had in Elijah’s day at Mt. Carmel when the prophet thought he was alone (1 Kings 19:10, 18). So today.

Modern secular “Israel” is a far cry from the spiritual nation that the descendants of Abraham were called to be (Gen. 12:2, 3); his descendant nation were to be God’s missionary agents to save the world through proclamation of the gospel, but they very largely forgot the vision. There is among them today still that “small number” who are thinking and pondering sacred history. The political and military world around them may (and will) crumble, but this “small number” will yet prove to be loyal to the Holy Spirit.

Jews who have learned to appreciate what Jesus of Nazareth accomplished on His cross will have a prominent part in the movement that “lightens the earth with glory” in fulfillment of Revelation 18. They will repent of their corporate age-long impenitence; they will repent of their ancestors’ rejection and crucifixion of their Messiah even though they were not personally present when it happened. No modern Israeli was physically there, but that “small number” will see themselves there.

Their repentance will be corporate; when they begin to understand the cross, they will see that they would have done the same had they been there, for our human nature is the same in all ages. Modern Jews will learn to understand corporate guilt.


So will we, Gentile Christians, for the Holy Spirit teaches it and convicts of it (John 16:8).

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

There’s a passage in Job that is pathetic, but it probes the inmost depths of human anguish.

Job doesn’t know the prologue that we know in chapters one and two; all he knows is that God has turned against him suddenly and has apparently become his enemy. All the good things that God gave him He has now taken away (poor people who have never known a moment of prosperity can endure their destitution more easily than rich people who lose it all). Job appears to be a lost man in hell.

Then his three “friends” come and in utmost sincerity try to help him but succeed only in multiplying his pain exponentially. Here’s the passage he tells his “friends”:

“In trouble like this I need loyal friends—whether I’ve forsaken God or not” ( 6:14). In other words, Job says, even if I’m in hell itself with no hope ever, I need someone to have compassion on me!

Suppose you knew that someone was in hell, had committed the unpardonable sin and was indeed lost (which you don’t know and you never will know of any person and you dare not judge!), but suppose everybody agreed that this person was lost (a multiple murderer for example, an unrepentant child abuser, etc. etc.). Could you say something to comfort and encourage him? Could you manifest some compassion?

Once upon a time there was such a person who had publicly let it be known that He was indeed in hell, utterly forsaken by God. The religious leaders of the one true church on earth condemned him (yes, the scribes and Pharisees were the leaders of what was still that true church then—it remained the true church up until the 490 years [the seventy weeks] of Daniel 9 had run their course).

But all those people could do was to continue to curse Jesus and torment Him unmercifully; He’s a human Write off, why not amuse ourselves like boys throwing stones at a wrecked, abandoned car.

I’m sorry to say that even the Eleven were mystified so much that not one of them brought Him a drink of water.

Oh Father in heaven! Save us from being Job’s three friends; save us from misjudging someone who is so Christlike that he/she is suffering like Jesus did apparently under the curse of heaven.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The most precious message of Christ’s righteousness exalts the cross of Christ and what He accomplished there for the world. He reversed the judicial “condemnation” that our fallen father Adam brought upon the human race and as the second Adam pronounced upon us instead a judicial “verdict of acquittal “ (Rom. 5:15-18). By His sacrifice upon His cross He gave the Father the legal right to treat “every man” in the world as though he has never sinned!

You may have thought about this a thousand times, but each new morning it’s a fresh new revelation of grace. The Father demonstrates what “be ye therefore perfect” means by “mak[ing] His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and send[ing] rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45, 48). And so, by His much more abounding grace (Rom. 5:20) which He bestows on us “in Christ,” He enables us to treat others the same way; and to our amazement, we discover that we begin to win souls! We discover in the most unforeseen places someone who is hungry and thirsty for the bread of life and the water of life that we can now share, and what a joy it is to meet that person.

When you know yourself and confess yourself to be empty, that you are eternally hungry and thirsty, you are prepared to be “filled” (Matt. 5:6), and no one is ever “filled” without at the same time his “cup runn[ing] over” (Psalm 23:5). Then everybody who comes in contact with you is blessed. You are continually exuding that much more abounding grace; there’s no end to it. You’ve found a new life.

What’s happening is that God’s New Covenant is playing itself out in you; all the promises He made to Abraham are being kept and fulfilled in you as a child of Abraham (you know, of course, that not one human soul will enter any of the gates of the New Jerusalem except as a child of Abraham [cf. Rom. 4:1-16], and that is what you are if your heart has just begun to “comprehend ... the breadth, and length, and depth, and height [of the] love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you maybe filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-19).

It’s real! You are not the water of life but you are a channel through which it can flow.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

There are two books in the Bible that the Lord Jesus has especially appealed to His followers to “read” and “understand.” And very likely, no matter what church you may attend, you probably never hear a sermon that explains those two books. The appeal of Jesus seems to be almost universally disregarded, even among His professed friends who say they’re the church that keeps the commandments of God and has the faith of Jesus.

Those two special books are Daniel the prophet in the Old Testament (see Matt. 24:15), and the last book of the Bible, the Revelation (D&R; see 1:1-3).

The problem is that “ Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,” but Babylon is what the world loves; and what the world loves is too often what we love, too.

The great user-friendly mega-churches soft-pedal D&R. The Enemy in the great controversy between Christ and Satan has two methods of attack on this truth: (1) minimize attention, neglect the two books, make people think the prophecies are impossible to be understood; (2) inspire fanatics to invent ever new and fantastic “interpretations” of the books that are senseless and self-contradictory.

Let the Lord deliver you from both of these heresies: (1) Daniel declares that his prophecies were unsealed as “the time of the end” began (cf. 11:35; 12:4); (2) Christ Himself pronounces a special “blessing” on the one who either reads or listens to someone else read, the prophecies of the book of Revelation (1:1-3).

Both Daniel and Revelation make clear that “the time of the end” began at the end of the 1260 years of the Dark Ages, the time of papal oppression, in 1798. It was then that Daniel’s prophecies were unsealed. The understanding of these prophecies of D&R that was held by those who emerged from that darkness is the understanding that Jesus declared would confirm God’s people unto the end. He said: “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (Matt. 24:34). The glorious light of that “other angel” of Revelation 18 was a gift that God gave to “the angel of the church of the Laodiceans” and the gift was within the lifetime of those pioneers; but the light was in a great degree kept away both from the church and from the world.

The truth of why Christ has not come yet is so simple that even a child can understand!

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

It’s everybody’s nightmare become reality: the solid steel and concrete beneath your car’s or truck’s wheels suddenly collapses and throws your vehicle like a toy into the murky waters of the river. Now worldwide those millions who daily drive over these steel and concrete spiderwebs that are Interstates in our glorious cities will wonder anew how secure they are. Just three years ago engineers who inspected Interstate 35 over the Mississippi saw nothing that worried them: they gave the huge bridge a clean bill of health.

The Interstate 35 bridge was just an integral part of Minneapolis; it was there, like the great Temple was an integral part of Jerusalem, to Christ’s disciples. He shocked them in Luke 21, telling how not one “goodly stone will be left ... upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (vs. 6, REB). Those “stones” were unbelievably huge; what He said seemed totally impossible. Coming history could never prove Him right, they thought; this apparently impossible prophecy astonished them with a burden of belief that weighed on them just as they entered into the cataclysmic events of the crucifixion, when their hopes in the Messiah would be dashed.

“On earth nations will stand helpless, not knowing which way to turn from the roar and surge of the sea. People will faint with terror at the thought of all that is coming upon the world; for the celestial powers will be shaken” (vss. 25, 26, NEB).

But the frightful news in the lips of Jesus is not Bad News: He adds, “Not a hair of your head will be lost. By standing firm you will win yourselves life. ... Stand upright and hold your heads high ...” (vss. 18, 25). There’s something to hope for.

We sympathize with Minneapolis today; their baseball game got mixed into all this turmoil, life for many is turned upside down. Let’s not treat the news as another ho-hum disaster, but let’s read again that pivotal chapter in the gospels, Luke 21, and its counterparts in Matthew 24 and Luke 13. The bridge began to shake before it collapsed; you don’t have to look far to see signs of things shaking all around us.

The great plan of salvation that engages Heaven’s attention is winding to its close on this planet; you and I are being “called” to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes,” to be among His loyal “bodyguard” of 144,000 who will share with Him His cross on which self is crucified with Him. Give all for the treasure of oneness with Christ; know your inheritance.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Many of us can look back on our “Christian experience” since we were “converted” and lament that often we have done like Peter: denied Christ.

Maybe we have been too cowardly to confess publicly our “peculiar” beliefs.

Maybe we have laughed at a crude joke in order to avoid appearing puritanical.

Or gone to an unChristlike movie for the same reason, wanting to be part of the social circle.

Or voted with the majority to deny Christ.

Yes, we have forgiveness with the Lord, thank Him (Psalm 130:4). But can we overcome this inner cowardice? The Lord is obliged (cf. His promise in Hebrews 12:5-11) to try us again and again, over and over, until we finally “overcome.” Remember, He was obliged to “test” Abraham in Genesis 22 (the offering of son Isaac), or He could never have inspired Paul to speak of him over and over as “the father of the faithful” in Romans 4:11-16. Although God had called Abraham to be the “father” of all who should be faithful, he had failed again and again to be “full of faith.” In several successive incidents he had not told the truth about his wife, fearful that the Lord would not protect him. Now when he has become old and weak (120 years even then, old age), Abraham must endure the most trying of all his tests of faith—to offer his “only” son, Isaac; God cannot let Abraham close his life record without proving for all time that he deserves this wonderful title.

It’s in mercy to our souls that the Lord gives us opportunity after opportunity to demonstrate that we have overcome our unbelief; hence, our trials! They do not “seem to be joyous [experiences], but grievous” (Heb. 12:11); the Lord knows that. The heavenly angels must watch with deep interest—will we bear the test?

The real issue is far greater than our own personal salvation: we are called and privileged to be key personnel seated “with Christ on [His] throne” in the closing up of the great controversy between Christ and Satan (see Rev. 3:21). In the final battles of the “war with the Lamb, ... they who are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (17:14).

The conflict may be intense, but remember that you are “with Him,” not alone. Buddies in fierce battles learn to be special friends; often they have saved each other. You are developing a special oneness with Christ that you will treasure through all eternity.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

You see them, all through the Bible—individuals who cared more for the cause of God in the “great controversy between Christ and Satan,” than for their own lives (and that meant in their context, their eternal lives).

Probably the first is Job, the unknown man who worshipped the LORD (the Hebrew name for the God of Israel; Job’s “LORD” was not the Allah of Islam, He was the God whose character is agape, the One who would die the world’s second death. You can see intimations of agape in Job: try 6:14; 13:14, 15; 19:25-27). In those early days, life after a “first” resurrection was not generally understood; Job had to battle his way by faith. He was willing to sacrifice himself to defend the honor and stability of the government of God. He proved that Satan was wrong, who charged that God had no one who served Him “for naught” (1:9) and thus he helped to save the government of God.

Did Noah understand? He proclaimed the “righteousness which is by faith,” which you can’t do meaningfully unless you understand agape.

Did David understand? At least sometimes (cf. Psalm 22, 69).

Isaiah? How could he write chapter 53, otherwise?

Jesus Himself? John 5:30; 6:38; Matt. 26:39, 42. He IS agape; He died the world’s second death; He endured the curse of God, which is the second death (Gal. 3:13).

Paul? At least he loved Israel more than he loved his own salvation (Rom. 9:3).

The great controversy between Christ and Satan, the battle of the universe, cannot be ended and won until God has 144,000 Job-like people who “follow the Lamb wherever He goes,” in whose mouth there is “no guile” (Rev. 14:1-5). Their story is inserted at that precise point in the Bible where a last-days proclamation of the “everlasting gospel” grows to become a message that “lightens the earth with glory” (vss. 6, 7; 18:1-4).

Don’t say the fulfillment of that prophecy lies maybe centuries away; the Holy Spirit is working and around the world there are some (maybe few) who are responding to Him without resisting Him further. Join them!

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Ephesians 2:2, 3 is everyone’s life story: we “once walked according to the course of this world, ... in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” Thus we can all see how we are potentially guilty of the sins of others; if we had never been saved by the Lord, think of what frightful evil we could have descended to!

So, “Out of the depths [we] have cried to You, O LORD” (Psalm 130:1). As we review our pasts, anguish covers us. How could we have been so foolish in our childhood and teenage years? If we had had no Savior, the sins of others would have become ours; we are by nature no better than anyone else.

“If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” No one.

Then there comes this glorious assurance: “But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared [reverenced]” (vss. 3, 4). The music changes from sad minor to glad major key.

The Lord has saved us from ruin. “Henceforth” we live in thanksgiving.

“Forgiveness” is more than pardon; it’s the taking away of the guilt and the taking away of the sin from the heart. We hate it now and never want to do it again. No one can do that for us except the Savior of the world, our personal great High Priest.

Ephesians continues: “God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” From being depressed “in the depths” we are elevated to “sit together in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-6).

Two solemn truths stand out: (1) We are “just as the others” (takes us down several notches). We are neither sleeping under freeway passes nor confined in prisons for crimes, due to “God’s rich mercy.” Let’s not be proud. (2) Before we were even born, “by grace [we] have been saved through faith, ... it is the gift of God.”

Time now to sing His praises forever! And live to His glory, not our own.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Those dear contenders of past centuries were not bad people who loved doctrinal strife; each side saw glimpses of truth that they knew were important. It was not their fault that they lived too soon to see the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary in the cosmic Day of Atonement (cf. its revelation in Dan. 8:14).

Calvinists could see: the Bible does teach “predestination” (Rom. 8:29, 30; Eph. 1:5). But they lived too soon to see it’s “all men” that He predestinates to salvation!

The Arminians could see: the Bible does teach that God wants “all men” to be saved and calls all to come and to believe. But they couldn’t see how He actually makes salvation to be a “gift” given to “all men” as a “judicial verdict of acquittal” that reverses the judicial condemnation that comes upon “all men” “in Adam” (cf. Rom. 5:15-18, NEB). They couldn’t see how infinitely grand is Christ’s accomplishment; all they could see was that Christ died for everyone and calls everyone, but has not actually saved anyone unless he first believes. Therefore, they thought, our salvation is ultimately due to our own initiative.

The lost will have persistently committed the unpardonable sin of crucifying “the Son of God afresh, and put[ting] Him to an open shame” (Heb. 6:6). When all gather before the Great White Throne at the end of the 1000 years (Revelation 20) each will see the full consequence of his heart rebellion against the Son of God (vs. 12ff).

Truth will bring them (as one inspired writer puts it) to where “they will welcome destruction,” each judging himself in the light of justification by faith, each seeing himself as an unrepentant crucifier of Christ. Each will “welcome” the Lake of Fire.

“The truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5, 14) assures us that we have been “chosen,” “predestinated,” “adopted,” “accepted in the Beloved,” “elected” (Eph. 1:4-6; Rom. 8:33). It’s impossible to “comprehend” the grand dimensions of these truths and still remain “lukewarm” in our devotion to the One who (now we understand) died our second death! If you permit Him, the Holy Spirit will “enlarge [your] heart” (Psalm 119:32), stretch it out of its present narrow “comprehension,” and cause you to “grow up” out of spiritual infancy, to live “in Christ.”

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

For centuries, sincere godly men have debated, “What did Christ accomplish by His sacrifice on the cross?” The true answer is the most glorious knowledge we humans can come to know!

(a) Did He only make a provision whereby it might be possible for “all men” to have salvation and now He offers it to us, but it’s not ours until or unless we accept and believe? This was the essential idea in Arminianism which arose as a protest against Calvinism which was understood to teach that God has elected only some people to be saved, and elected all others to be lost. Arminius insisted that the Lord calls “all men,” and that Christ died for all; very true.

(b) Or did He actually purchase salvation for “all men” and actually give it to them in the gift of Himself, so that the only way they can be lost is to despise and reject it as Esau despised and sold his birthright? (Heb. 12:16, 17).

If (a) is the answer, it follows that ultimately our salvation depends on our own initiative. The key word is “offer,” which some theologians use over and over (although it is not in the Bible teaching of justification by faith; but the idea of “give” is in Romans 5:15-18 some five or six times). The cross of Christ is the grand truth of all the Bible and we want to “comprehend” it—not simply like we accept an insurance policy almost mindlessly so we can hurry away and think of other things (we go to church, sing hymns about the cross, close the hymnbook, and then think of other things for a week).

If (b) is the answer, it engrosses our thinking! It motivates us because we see that our salvation is due entirely to the initiative of Christ. We want to sing His praises for now and for eternity. “The love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead,” meaning, all of us would be dead if He had not died in our place; and now “henceforth” we are constrained to live only “unto Him who died for us” (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). Paul prayed that we might “comprehend ... the breadth, and length, and depth, and height [of] ... the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:14-19).

In (b) we see how every blessing of life, even those the wicked freely enjoy, is the purchase of the One who was “bruised for our iniquities,” upon whom fell “the chastisement of our peace” and by whose “stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5; the lost either don’t know or reject this truth that supports all life itself, which is why they don’t say Thank You to Him!).

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

As in days of pastoral ministry, my wife and I last evening visited a lonely lady of many years in her humble little trailer home. Some kind person brings her week by week to our Bible study class and she takes an active interest and often contributes helpful comments.

There was on the wall a portrait of her in her beautiful 21st year, yet she said she was not a Christian then; she grew up knowing nothing of what the Bible says. But in recent years she chose to believe, asked for baptism, and enjoys church fellowship. Now she is a competent Bible student and she enjoys what Jesus promised, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10, KJV).

What interested me was her remark, “I was a throw-away baby, raised as an orphan, early taught to work.” Here is a soul saved by the grace of the world’s Savior!

I thought of Psalm 27:10: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.” Actually, that truth applies to each one of us, no matter how loving our parents may have been.

Each of us is an individual created and redeemed by the Lord; we have each been given a new life, for none of us is a clone. There always comes a time when “father and mother” can go no further with us; God decreed in the beginning that “man [shall] leave ... father and ... mother” (Gen. 2:24) and henceforth his/her relationship with the Lord shall be that of child-to-Parent more intimate than any that can be known in the best of our childhoods.

We go through the longest of our lifetimes crying as a child continually “in the Spirit of adoption, ... Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15). The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is infinite but deeply personal to each of us, as though we were His only child.

The Lord Jesus has taught us, “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven ...” (Matt. 6:9). He is “in secret,” He sees “in secret,” and we are to “pray in secret,” using carefully chosen, thoughtful words (vss. 6-8). We are to “call no man your father upon the earth: for One is your Father, which is in heaven” (23:9). In other words, we are to be “protestants” forever, not because of cold theology but constrained by purest filial love and loyalty.

The Lord has “taken up” each of us as an “orphan”! Be forever thankful.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

This unworthy servant was sent by a church missionary board to East Africa back in the almost prehistoric era of 1945. One reason he was eager to go: our church paper was reporting enthusiastically that the “latter rain” of the Holy Spirit was falling in Ruanda, evidenced by large accessions of adherents by baptism. There were photographs of people covering hillsides at “camp meetings.”

Also, mass conversions were reported in the Lake Victoria area of Kenya. The people, many of them, were only recently from paganism; they had difficulty distinguishing economic development (which they naturally wanted) with being “Christianized.”

However, I was appointed to neighboring Uganda where there was a rich history of martyrdoms going back to the 1880s, with Protestant and Roman Catholic missions building cathedrals on Rubaga and Namirembe hills in Kampala, complete with pipe organs. The people were literate; they had history of kingdoms going back to the 16th century, and a high level of sophistication. The Protestant Christians loved the Bible and regarded it as the only rule of faith. Our particular mission was regarded as an interloper, and “conversions” to the church I represented were hand-picked and slow.

When I learned the language and came to know the people, it became painfully evident that the mass conversions in Ruanda were not the biblical “latter rain,” the miracle stories notwithstanding. They were the “former rain.” The knowledge of the gospel was superficial; there was almost no understanding of healthful living—an important part of the message in these last days; Christian home life was largely undisciplined, love often rare; the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, which Jesus enjoined upon us all to “understand,” were almost unknown; yet people flocked into “church” membership.

Also perplexing was the famine for understanding justification and righteousness by faith in Romans, Galatians, etc. The “gospel” should produce purity of living, transformed characters (cf. Rom. 1:16), a people raised up to welcome Jesus Christ when He returns at His second advent.

The world church is the seventh of those of Revelation; the word “lukewarm” fits us perfectly ( 3:14-17). Africa (as well as we) awaits that final “everlasting gospel” that will “lighten the earth with glory”(14:6; 18:1). The “latter rain” will prepare its way; but let’s remember that when the Lord “pours out” the Holy Spirit, His first work will be to ferret out and convict of sin (John 16:8), a comforting message, for it reconciles us to God, at last.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Can we humans do something to help God that is more than mere child’s play?

The Lord staked the honor and stability of His throne on that one man, Job; in the great cosmic controversy between Christ and Satan, the Evil One challenged God: Your people who serve You are all doing it for selfish, acquisitive reasons, and therefore they rightfully belong on my side! “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Take away Your blessings, “‘and he will surely curse you to Your face’”(1:8-11). It wouldn’t do for God merely to contradict Satan; He had to prove that He had at least one human who was devoted in the genuine God-like motivation of agape-love—and that one man was Job.

The afflicted man didn’t understand what was going on, but he did the best he could in his innocence. He was half right and half wrong: “‘The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away” (1:21). True, God had given; but it was Satan who “took away.”

Job’s agape-loyalty saved God from terrible embarrassment before the universe. Yes, and ruin; if God should win by force of arms, He would have become the Islamic Allah. Job prepared the way for Christ to come.

All through the incarnation of the Son of God, the Father entrusted Him to the care of humans. Rightly read, the story does not say that angels miraculously protected Him; they impressed humans what to do to protect Him. An angel warned Joseph of King Herod’s plot to kill Him; the angel didn’t whisk the Baby off to Egypt, Joseph took Him there.

When Jesus was tired, hot, and hungry at Jacob’s well in Samaria, humans cared for him; true, “the woman at the well” forgot to give Him His drink, but the disciples went to the Sychar market and bought a tasty safari-feast for Him and “prayed Him, saying, Master, eat!” (John 4:31, KJV). That was the “backward prayer,” backward because our prayers are almost always the opposite, childish, Old Covenant, “Master, I’m hungry! Please feed me!” Be sure you save me and my loved ones!

Well and good; that’s a proper prayer to pray. But in this cosmic Day of Atonement, when the heavenly sanctuary is to be “cleansed,” can His people “grow up” out of their infancy to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13), to “comprehend” the mind and soul-stretching “width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that [we] may be filled with all the fullness of God”? (3:18, 19). Can we prepare for translation at Christ’s coming? Yes, yes! He will have a small but very real number—“144,000.” And they not He, will judge the unbelieving billions of earth.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The simplest, most common thing you can do for anyone is to pray for him, to get up out of bed when you crave sleep, and pour out your soul for that person, taking the time and trouble to put yourself in that person’s place, to think about him, to share his burdens, to realize your corporate oneness with him.

That’s just a little of what Jesus meant, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13, KJV).

When you pray for someone, does it induce God to do something that otherwise He would not do?

Actually, it’s not that God would not do it (He is more than willing all along), but it makes it possible for Him to do something that otherwise He could not do.

That’s the reality lesson that the Book of Job teaches: God cannot save the world without “[His] servant Job” (1:8; 2:3); He cannot win the struggle of the great controversy between Himself and Satan, without that “servant Job” doing something that even God cannot do.

Job was the “servant” that God needed, making a contribution to the divine economy. He had this quintessential part to play in the cosmic war that no angel could have filled, but he himself had no idea who he was. His task was to defend God and be loyal even to the point of enduring the curse of God—yes, going to hell, yet still maintaining his faith in God (cf. 13:15, KJV). The book of Job is full of that truth. He anticipated the sacrifice of the cross.

If the Jews had understood Job, they could never have crucified their Messiah; Job was the biblical Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders. Now today God has 144,000 modern “servants” like Job, each holding the line in one of 144,000 categories of defense that God needs when and where He is on trial (Rev. 14:6, 7). Each would rather perish eternally than bring shame on Christ. Christ is the real One for whom you get up out of bed, to pray (Isa. 50:4, 5).

It’s shocking but true: in His incarnation, the Lord Jesus Christ needs help. Maybe more tomorrow, the Lord willing.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The recent prospectus of the History Book Club recalls the tragic story of the United States presidency of Richard Nixon as told in Robert Dallek’s Partners in Power: Nixon and Kissinger. In the history there’s an illustration of the conflict with demons in the great controversy between Christ and Satan.

Dallek rightly says that Nixon’s “inner demons both lifted him up and brought him down.” That’s for the author probably an unconscious allusion to Psalm 102:10, “Thou hast lifted me up and cast me down,” the cry of the painfully troubled soul who pours out his heart to God in anguish. Nixon was the son of a devout Quaker mother in a humble home; gifted with keen discernment of right and wrong, he distinguished himself as a senator seeking to protect the nation from Communism, and rose to political prominence.

He naturally enjoyed his triumphant rise to fame and power, but he was deprived of a knowledge of how to endure success. Power corrupts the best of men; even King David of old fell victim. The demons who “lifted up” Nixon delighted in tormenting him when they “cast [him] down.” There are “shadowy labrynths” of the once-secret White House history now starkly exposed, illustrating Jesus’ warning, “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known” (Matt. 10:26). That “labrynth” that Nixon hoped would be forever in shadow is now in open sunlight for the world to see.

The time comes when impeached Nixon kneels in the White House with Kissinger (the [unelected] “co-president”) in desperate prayer to the God whom he knew so slightly. Perhaps his own deprivation of a father in childhood made it difficult for him to address God as “our Father which art in heaven,” who could sustain him through his great and lonely presidential trials.

Nixon came to be despised and hated, and even now is reviled; but we pause to ask the question: can such a man hope to be saved at last?

Yes, even presidents of great nations can repent. The dear Lord granted him decades of quiet introspection and none of us should question what He as the world’s “great High Priest” may have accomplished for him in the end. Not only is the Savior busy trying to save presidents; He is infinite, and is working on you, too. Christ’s work as our High Priest is to re-build us from our childhood anew; no one else understands what influences were upon us when we were in the womb (cf. Psalm 139:13-16); learn to trust Him, let Him work, for He is only your Friend from your mother’s womb.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

President Bush is seeking to take advantage of a lull in the popularity of Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, and is espousing again the idea of two states side by side—Israel and the Palestinians. It’s a noble goal; but is it chasing a chimera?

The innate alienation that persists between the two ethnic cultures shows no sign of abeyance; even Abbas has in his history a record of denying the Holocaust, and saying the State of Israel shouldn’t exist. Of course, people can change their minds and attitudes; but somehow the old suspicious hostility erupts in each generation.

The Bible tells how it began: Abraham and Sarah were waiting for the Lord to fulfill His New Covenant promise to give them a male heir; the promise was embedded in God’s plan of salvation for the world—through their offspring should come the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the only hope for the world, in fact. (No wonder Satan opposed the idea.)

Sarah’s bitter unbelief exploded in a hasty complaint against the Lord: “Sarai ... said to Abram, ‘The LORD has kept me from having children’” (Gen. 16:2, GNB). This was a serious calumny against Him! Wrapped up in this was her unbelief against the gospel: God promises a blessing, then He turns around and stops it from coming! (Go slow here: you and I may be the “Sarai’s” of this age! All Laodiceans are.)

“‘Why don’t you sleep with my slave girl? Perhaps she can have a child for me.’ Abram agreed with what Sarai said. So she gave Hagar to him to be his concubine. ... Hagar ... became pregnant, ... proud and despised Sarai.” Then she blamed her unhappiness on Abram; “‘May the Lord judge which of us is right, you or me!’ ... Then Sarai treated Hagar so cruelly that she ran away.” With such turmoil in her womb, it’s not surprising that Hagar’s son Ishmael had a disposition to “live like a wild donkey, ... against everyone, and every one will be against him” (vs. 12). (Here are the roots of jihads.)

The promised heir finally arrived after Sarah repented of her bitter unbelief (cf, Heb, 11:11), but in this story we see the beginnings of the tension that exists continually between Israel and the Palestinians. (In these last days we live only a step from Abraham.)

Can repentance, reconciliation, and peace ever come between the two peoples? Yes, when Laodicea learns how to repent and can teach them how (cf. Rev. 3:19); hearts in both cultural camps in the Middle East will be melted through the final proclamation of “Christ and Him crucified.” The world will see that there is indeed “power” in the finally unfolded gospel that lightens the earth with glory (Rev. 18:1-4; 1 Cor. 2:1, 2). Among that group who “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (14:3, 4) there will be some Israelis and some Palestinians, who will dwell amicably in the New Jerusalem at last.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

A recent issue of Newsweek devotes its lead article to “Muslims in America.” Filled of course with statistics of their growth and power (“Islam in America is a success story”), our brief look at the article is not concentrated on statistics (we deplore the one that says that 26 percent of our Muslims age 18 to 29 believe that suicide bombing can be justified). Strange as it may seem, we here are hooked on the cover picture.

It’s a gathering of American Muslims looking you in the eye, faces sober, serious, very human but very different than almost any similar group of American faces would be. Nobody is grinning, no flashing white teeth; the photographer hasn’t been telling jokes to get the people to look hilarious. The young women are as beautiful as ours in our post-Christian culture. But you are looking at thoughtful people who tell you they are resigned to living for a sober purpose, which in their thinking is “holy.”

Is there some way these people can be granted at least a glimpse of what it means that the Son of God became one of us, took our nature upon Himself, redeemed the world by His sacrifice on His cross and will yet win the great controversy with Satan?

When the Bible says that the proclamation of His message must go to “ever y nation, kindred, tongue, and people” and “lighten the earth with glory” (Rev. 14:6, 7; 18:1, 2), does it embrace the world’s billion plus Muslims?

It has to, because “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” and He is “the Savior of all men, especially those who believe,” and is “the Savior of the world” (John 3:16; 4:42; 1 Tim. 4:10). These Muslims looking you in the eye have hearts that have not as yet been stirred and melted by the self-sacrificing love of that Savior; to them the idea of agape is strange even if they could comprehend it; but Jesus Christ is their Savior just as much as He is yours—they just don’t understand the truth about Him.

“The everlasting gospel” in this biblical “time of the end” proclaims that we are living in the world’s solemn cosmic Day of Atonement. All who will recognize that final “enlightening light” will be the world’s most sober-minded people in history. They will be delightfully happy but at the same time in a Christlike way, serious. Muslims will hear and see; some will believe with honest hearts. May the message to be proclaimed be so clear that it will fulfill its divinely inspired purpose—to grip every heart that will survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died. Hang on, don’t give up; there has never been an hour on earth like the one just before us.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray the prayer that may be over our heads in understanding: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10, KJV).

The “kingdom” has not yet “come.” It’s been awaiting establishment now for two millennia since Christ gave us this prayer of expectation; many who reverence the Bible as the Word of God wrestle with the conviction that it’s overdue. It’s been hindered.

But they also are convicted that if there is any delay, the honor of God will be compromised. People wiser than I have said that.

The coming of “the kingdom” is equivalent to the great “other angel [who] comes out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sits on the cloud, ‘Thrust in Your sickle, and reap; for the time is come for You to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe” (Rev. 14:15). It’s the grand close of probationary history of this earth.

The coming of the kingdom is also equivalent to the grand climax of Christ’s work as the world’s High Priest: “We have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, ... not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:14, 15, KJV). The High Priest’s work is to reconcile the alienated hearts of God’s people to Him; another name for that is the ministry of the antitypical Day of Atonement (a simple Anglo-Saxon word, at-one-with-God-in-heart). Yes, for that to happen would be a miracle; but that’s what the Lord’s Prayer has been praying for all this long while!

Another word for that is “the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary” (see Dan. 8:14, KJV), a phrase that makes sense only if it is understood as the cleansing of the hearts of God’s people from all sin, known and also unknown. The honor and vindication of Christ in the “great controversy with Satan” is involved in thus establishing “the kingdom.” That is our true motivation, something that transcends our concern for saving our own poor little souls.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.
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