Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

“For Sweden’s prime minister, celebrating New Year’s after the Asian tsunami felt ‘completely wrong.’ Paris, is heart heavy with the tragedy, draped black cloth along a favorite haunt for romantic reveling—the Champs Elysees. Elsewhere, prayers substituted for parties in the final minutes of 2004.” So “the world tones down revelry to honor Asia victims,” says the Sacramento Bee on New Year’s Day.

Teens are noted for thinking they are immortal; all our lives, the Bible has been telling us we are always only a minute away from eternity. When a moral tsunami rolled over wicked King Ahab of Israel, he finally humbled his arrogant heart and “walked softly” for awhile. The stern prophet Elijah had read him God’s riot act--in mercy to his soul (1 Kings 21:20ff.).

Prayer is always a proper substitute for wild partying. The Tsunami coming at New Year’s has sobered the world--for awhile. What the world must understand and in God’s providence will yet be told them, is that we, as the world, have been living in His cosmic Day of Atonement for well over a century. Revelry was always inappropriate on Israel’s ancient days of atonement, for in type that solemn day prefigured the antitype that came at the end of the 2300 years of Daniel’s solemn prophecy (that Jesus said we must “read” and “understand,” Dan.8:12; Matt. 24:15). “As it was in the days of Noah,” said Jesus, is the way to live since this solemn cosmic “Day” has come upon the world. The Bible makes plain that we all are minutes from eternity.

Isaiah describes the Lord’s disappointment when we forget when He calls for Day of Atonement living: “Instead, . . . slaying oxen and . . . drinking wine, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’ Then it was revealed in my hearing by the Lord of hosts, ‘Surely for this iniquity there will be no atonement for you, even to your death,’ says the Lord God of hosts” (22:12-14). The whole world has been stunned; let us read what God’s prophets have been saying.

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/daily bread/


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

For the past few years I have been posting these messages on this blog. They are messages written by someone else. I subscribe to their e-mail list, after I receive them I blog them so others can enjoy as much as I do. For the past few weeks I have had difficulty getting them. I contacted the person in charge of the e-mails, which told me that they have not stopped. I have tried subscribing again, with no luck. For those of you that still want to receive the new ones you can subscribe directly with them. Perhaps you will be more fortunate than I am. In the meantime here are some old ones. God bless.

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

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The question has come in: “Could this truly terrible disaster be the specially designated ‘a great earthquake’ of Revelation 6:12 (KJV):

‘And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake . . .’”?

That particular “great earthquake” is precisely located in the chain of prophetic events that are clearly demarcated in history--it comes at the beginning of “the sixth seal” which in turn is fixed by following the fifth seal which included the persecution of God’s people at the hands of the papacy during the 1260 years of the Dark Ages (vss. 9-11).

The timing of that particular “great earthquake” is specified in the prophetic word as the first of a group of natural and supernatural events which includes the darkening of the sun (May 19, 1780), and the unique event of the “falling of the stars” (November 13, 1833). Jesus pinpointed these events even more closely: “But IN those days, AFTER that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light” (Mark 13:24). “In those days” is the 1260
days/years of Daniel’s prophecy (7:25). The actual bloody persecutions tapered off before the precise end of the 1260 years (1798) as Jesus had predicted (“except those days be shortened, there should no flesh be saved,” Matt. 24:33; martyrdoms ended around 1750).

We must remember the trail of the Holy Spirit’s leading through the centuries: thoughtful, consecrated Bible students recognized these “signs” contemporaneously, and knew where they “were” in time.

But for sure this truly horrendous disaster of 125,000 dead shapes up to be the most terrible in known numbers since the Flood of Noah, or at least the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. (The “great earthquake” of Lisbon in 1755 killed about 30,000 people. The known world was stunned then; the whole world is stunned now.) It’s time for the last-days events. God’s people will listen to His Voice.

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/daily bread/


----------------------------------------------------------------------
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":

I wish I could write a message of thanks to each of you around the world who has sent e-mails expressing comfort in my grievous loss of my dear wife Grace.

I continue to speak of her in our daily messages; and I want to thank each of you by this note of appreciation.

Sincerely,

Robert J. Wieland (for Dial Daily Bread)

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

The ancient pagan Romans had an idea that a god named Cupid would shoot a couple with his mysterious arrow and cause them to fall in love. The idea is still quite widely prevalent.

The problem was that the same Cupid could shoot them again and cause them to fall out of love so that fornication, adultery, and divorce were common as a new “love” takes over.

Bible teaching on love and marriage is beautifully clear and is lasting good news. Great principles are seen in the story in Genesis 24 of the courtship, love, and marriage of Isaac and Rebecca:

1. Make up your mind that you will put Christ first in your life and that you will not marry someone who is not equally committed to Him (vs. 3).

2. The Lord loved them both so much that it was He who appointed them for each other (vss. 14, 44). He loves you that much, and if you will let Him lead you He will give you that happiness.

3. The Lord loved them so much that He held them and kept them both as virgins until He brought them together in marriage (see vs. 16). Fornication (which is the same as adultery) leaves a painful memory that can be poison to happiness in marriage.

4. The parents were taken into confidence, their counsel was sought, and they became convinced that the Lord was leading these two young people together (vs. 50). This in itself was a blessing.

5. All this Genesis 24 story about Isaac and Rebecca happened after Abraham had discovered the joy of New Covenant living (Gen. 15:6), although he faltered in his faith.

6. Now you can discover the New Covenant today. It’s the Lord’s seven great promises in Genesis 12:2, 3 that apply to you as a descendant of Abraham by faith.

7. You don’t earn your status as a descendant and thus an heir of Abraham; it’s a gift given to you by the Lord Jesus. Now, on your knees to thank Him for the gift!

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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":

After you’ve been married to a wonderful one for over 66 years and you lose her, you grieve and the tears come.

It used to be that she looked to me for answers to questions; now I think of her as being on a different level; I must speak of her with a new sense of respect, yes, with a touch of reverence, for she has been given a new gift I have never had—yet. It’s a new “blessing” most special:

Says the Bible, speaking of our day today,

“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the [Holy] Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:13).

Not everybody who dies “from henceforth” is so highly honored: only those who “die in the Lord.” And my Grace did; when we were about to eat our last little supper together [not knowing], I asked God’s blessing on it; she said a fervent “amen.”

Jesus describes in detail those specially “blessed” ones; they are students as it were in a special elevated class—“they who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead ... they [cannot] die any more: for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:35, 36).

I know my darling Grace is at rest, “sleeping” in Jesus, for “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him [that is, from the dead]” (1 Thess. 4:14). But she is being “accounted worthy” in that great pre-Advent judgment; her death has been “precious in the eyes of the Lord”(Psalm 116:15); He too has grieved with me just as Jesus grieved with bereaved Martha at Lazarus’s funeral (John 11:35), but her death was received by Jesus and treasured by Him for He has enrolled her in that special “class.”

In reality she “sleeps in the dust of the earth”(see Dan. 12:2), but being enrolled in that special “class,” she is “a child of the resurrection.” To Him to whom a thousand years are as a day (Psalm 90:4), God sees her as already resurrected, for He “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17). I used to cuddle her in my arms and answer questions; now she is somebody above me in God’s great kingdom—now sleeping, but “in Jesus.” In God’s eyes, she is already resurrected; my job is to believe by faith, and to let that faith work its beautiful fruit of at-one-ment with Him, reconciled to Him, reconciled to His holy law, at one with Him, in harmony with that pre-Advent judgment that Jesus has described. I grieve, but I live “in Him.”

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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 the many who have inquired: A Memorial Service for Grace Wieland will be held February 16, 4:00 p.m., at the Meadow Vista Seventh-day Adventist Church, Meadow Vista, California. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, charitable donations be sent in Grace’s memory to ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency) for the Kenyan Refugees Project. Address: 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904, USA (www.adra.org)

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

When someone loses a beloved wife of 66 years of happy marriage, the loss is devastating. He longs for comfort, some truth that can assuage the pain of the bereavement.

The comfort that Bible teaching gives is vastly more effective in softening the blow of the loss, than popular ideas about the dead.

Multitudes think is that the human soul is by nature immortal; there is no death—the good people supposedly go to heaven immediately at death and the bad people go immediately to some kind of hell where they suffer endlessly. (Imagine the anguish some feel when they realize that the loved one whose loss they mourn was not a good person!)

According to this popular idea, when the saved person dies and goes to heaven, he/she is fully conscious; imagine the pain that “saved” person must feel watching all the tears and anguish of those sorrowing in bereavement! (Grace would be miserable watching me cry!)

Imagine the confusion a person must feel according to this popular idea when he hears the preacher at the funeral say the dead person is in heaven in bliss when you know deep in your heart that person could not be happy in the righteousness that pervades heaven! Suppose the dead person they mourn was indeed an unbeliever and they know it: that’s when many turn to drugs or alcohol to relieve the mental anguish they feel.

How much more comforting is Bible teaching:

The human soul is not immortal, for in the beginning the LORD God said that the result of sin is that “thou shalt surely die” (see Gen, 2:17).

But such death is not eternal, for Jesus adds when He talked with weeping Martha, “Thy brother shall rise again” (John 11:23). “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth” (John 5:28, 29).

Revelation 20 says there will be two resurrections: those who have believed (“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power,” vs. 6). But the unbelieving hosts will come up in the second resurrection at the end of the 1000 years (vss. 5, 6; 11-15).

My beloved Grace is “asleep in Jesus.” She feels no pain; she does not weep at my pain of bereavement; she is at perfect peace. She is now one of those “blessed” ones who are special, for “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:13). That’s where my beloved Grace is resting, “in the arms of Jesus” as it were, in a group that are specially “blessed,” awaiting that happy first resurrection.

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

To un-subscribe click on this link: Unsubscribe me from this mailing list

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

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 never realize how deeply you have loved the one closest to you until that one is gone. It’s then that you sense what’s real in God’s great universe: the love enriched by the love of Christ (agape).

If Jesus, the Son of God wept (John 11:35), it’s good for us to cry. Thank God we can. The Lord needs to help the man or woman who can’t.

And some from babyhood through no fault of theirs aren’t able to cry tears; the Lord wants to heal them.

Some will want to know how my beloved Grace went last Wednesday night (February 6), and why in the midst of our tears we are praising the Lord for mercies granted. We had had a nice day together (that last day; had we known we could not have been happy). Then as it was getting dark, we had opened a tin of soup and were enjoying it, sitting by the fireside.

Then I said, “Grace, I need to go to my little office down the hall and work on my message for Dial Daily Bread.” She said, “Bob, please don’t leave me now.” I think she sensed that something was coming. I am so thankful to the Lord that I listened to her and stayed.

It wasn’t long until I noticed she had become distant, unresponsive. I said “Grace, Grace!” No response. I knew what had come. I dialed 9-1-1, they came, worked on her, no consciousness; took her in ambulance to hospital, I followed.

I stood by her side, holding her hand, and watched the monitor figures go lower and lower. She couldn’t hear me, I knew, but I said, “Grace, I’ll see you in the morning. Thanks for marrying me!” (I’d said it a thousand times; it’s marvelous that one so unworthy as I should have married such a wonderful girl.)

She went so easily, so simply, no pain. We were both so afraid of being bedfast in a nursing home for months. The dear Lord was merciful to us!

So, in our tears we have some rejoicing.

Believe in Him; be reconciled to Him; let His love fill your soul. Even in death He is faithful and merciful.

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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 wise and gifted writer once said that ”Love is a precious gift, which we receive from Jesus” (Ministry of Healing, p. 358). When, after 66+ years of such preciousness, one of the two has to go, the loss the other feels is enormous. The deeper one has loved, the more painful the loss.

But the absent one is “safe in the arms of Jesus,” as an old hymn says. From the moment sleep came until the resurrection morning is for her hardly a second of time; but the grieving one is left alone.

But not alone: the tears pour out and one cries in anguish, but the shortest verse in the Bible takes over: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). His comfort is as great as His inexhaustible supply of much more abounding grace (Rom. 5:20).

He wept at a funeral where Mary and Martha were grieving; He wept in sympathy with them but also in sympathy with everyone who all through time would weep in bereavement.

So close to us has the Son of God come in His incarnation! He knows what painful loss is; He knows also the more bitter pain of divorce which so often involves the agony of rejection from love.

If in time of suffering your lonely heart cries out “Father! Father!” you can be happy for one wonderful encouragement: it means that the Father has adopted you as a child into His family (consider what Rom. 8:14-17 says). You can walk past all the holy angels directly to His throne because you are now more than any of the angels: you are family!

Verse 14: step one—you are not resisting the Holy Spirit; where He leads you follow. Thank Him!

Verse 15: step two—you do not resist the good news; you believe that the Father has adopted you!

Verse 16: step three, the Holy Spirit manifests agreement with our human “spirit” that it’s true! We are the children of God!

Verse 17: step four, here comes the dessert, purest 2 + 2 = 4 reasoning: being children means we are “heirs of God.” Conclusion: heaven and the wide universe have become ours. An idea too big to be true?

It is true. Inheritors of the vast universe. The Milky Way has become ours “in Christ.”

So why the weeping and wailing when we occasionally now have “the fellowship of [Christ’s] suffering”? (Phil. 3:10).

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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":

Grief has overwhelmed me at the sudden death of my darling wife of 66 years, Grace Wieland. She was a loyal and devoted friend of Dial Daily Bread as she often denied herself my companionship as I studied and wrote this little daily message.

But may I voice my praise to the Lord for two things that were direct answers to my prayers of the last few months:

1. I had often prayed to the Lord that He would enable me to become a good caregiver to her in her last years. He did. I was enabled to minister to her until the last moment.

2. I had also prayed earnestly that the Lord would care for her in a special way. He did. She simply lost consciousness Wednesday evening, and slept until she drew her last breath; Now I am overwhelmed with thanks to the Lord for His mercy.

3. I want to praise Him for goodness like this. And recommend Him to you as a faithful and loving heavenly Father.

4. You know I am sure that if in time of trouble your heart cries out “O Father, ... Father!” that is the proof that He has already adopted you as His child (study carefully Romans 8:14-17). Maybe you are not yet His very faithful child, but you have been adopted!

Thus, we are very brief today: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, Be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

Even in bereavement He demonstrates His love and faithfulness!

Call upon “the Father” and be reconciled to Him.

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

A memorial service for Grace Wieland will be held February 16, 4:00 p.m., at the Meadow Vista Seventh-day Adventist Church, Meadow Vista, California. Charitable donations may be made in her memory to Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) for East African Projects. 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904, USA (www.adra.org).

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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":

We have some very sad news to report. Grace Wieland, precious wife of Robert J. Wieland, author of “Dial Daily Bread,” passed away February 6. Please join us in prayer for Elder Wieland and his family in their time of sorrow.

When you think of Elijah the prophet, you think of a towering personality bossing King Ahab about like he was a child, standing alone before a huge crowd on Mt. Carmel as the prophet’s prayer brings heaven’s endorsement in fire flashing from heaven.

But wait a moment. Think also of his humiliation: his years of apparently unanswered prayers up in the mountains of Tish as he pleaded for Israel’s repentance, all apparently in vain.

The Lord had given him an understanding of truth, but it brought him pain as he was forced to watch his beloved Israel sink ever deeper in the horrible morass of Baal-worship. It seems that a precious knowledge of God’s truth always brings pain to God’s servant who must watch his people turn from it.

Elijah spent no one knows how many years in such apparently fruitless prayer, denying himself also in fasting. Finally the Lord invited Elijah to share the “Revelation 3:21” experience: “to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne ...” Come, Elijah: you have the good of My Israel on your heart: what do you say we do for them, to save them from utter ruin?

As we study the story, it seems that the 3-1/2 year’s drought was Elijah’s idea (James 5:17, 18). This drastic step was the only way the nation could be awakened to reality. (Yes, Elijah agreed with what James says when he told King Ahab there would no rain until he himself, unworthy as he may have been, gave the order for heaven to send it (1 Kings 17:1, “but according to my word.”)

As the weary 42 months dragged by and all vegetation gradually dried up, the lone but sorrowful prophet was forced to watch the people suffer and some children die; he himself survived only by a little water trickling through the Brook Cherith, and casseroles the ravens brought him—and when even that brook dried up, the Lord sent him to the widow of Zarephath in pagan Sidon (giving Jesus a magnificent story to tell the people of Nazareth, Luke 4:25, 26).

You too have sincere prayers lifted heavenward daily for the good of someone else: Elijah never stopped praying, but he also let the Lord show him what to do to bring about an answer to his prayers.

Yes, pray; but such prayer may not be enough. Ask the Lord to deepen your knowledge of His gospel: that special “everlasting” one of Revelation 14:6, 7 which is the only way the Holy Spirit can reach the heart of your beloved one you are praying for. Come sit with the Lord on His throne: takes more than fasting and prayer—takes study and understanding, to be at-one with Him.

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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":

When we think about what Jesus Christ accomplished in His incarnation, and by His sacrifice on His cross, we must take a serious look at the idea of His being the second or “last Adam.”

When God created man in Eden, He did not create billions of individuals such as we today: He created one man, and one woman to be his “help meet.”

They were to be “fruitful” and “multiply,” and fill the earth with people—through the exercise of love and sex.

But they rebelled against their Creator, and imposed upon their progeny a “judicial ... verdict of condemnation”(Rom. 5:16, NEB).

When God so loved the world that He gave His Son to be our Savior, Christ had to dismiss Adam as head of the human race and take His place as the new or “last Adam” (see 1 Cor. 15:45).

And Christ has also dismissed or has reversed that “judicial ... verdict of condemnation” that Adam fixed on all of us, and has given all of us instead His “judicial ... verdict of acquittal” in Himself (Rom. 5:16, NEB).

This does not mean that now we are all forced to go to heaven, against our will; but for sure He has opened the gates of the New Jerusalem for all to enter if they choose. But it does mean that even those who come up in the second resurrection do so “in Christ,” for “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).

Amazing, but there it is: the hopelessly wicked who come up in the second resurrection (cf. Rev. 20:5ff) do so “in Christ.” They will at last realize, when it is too late, that every breath they ever took was by the grace of Christ as their “last Adam,” and that the cross of Christ was stamped on every loaf of bread they ate. They will at last realize that their true name is Esau—they HAD the most precious “birthright” “in Christ” but wickedly “despised” it and “sold” it for “a mess of pottage” (comparatively speaking), as Esau treated his birthright (Gen. 25:34).

How happy we will be if we can come to see all this glorious truth now, today! Then we will thank the Lord for every breath we have, for every morsel of bread; and we will gladly yield Him our life in return and sing forever after.

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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":

People around the world are asking questions: what is the rock-bottom truth of what Jesus Christ accomplished when He died on His cross? Two ideas are in conflict: (1) Did He make a provision whereby it might be possible for “all men” to be saved if they take the initiative to do everything right, that is, keep all God’s commandments? Or, (2) did Jesus actually save “all men” by His sacrifice on His cross? An accomplished deed.

Ordinary people are in perplexity; so also theologians. Is there a clear answer?

1. John 3:16: the Father so loved the world, including all its bad people, that He GAVE His only Son. The giving was done, finished, accomplished, total, eternal. He was given to “all men” (Rom. 5:15-18).

2. Just before He died, the Son told the Father that He had “finished the work” the Father had given Him to do: what work?

3. “Save the world”! (cf. John 17:4).

4. The Samaritans understood before the disciples did: He is “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).

5. But how can the Bible say He is “the Savior of the world” when the world is largely still in rebellion against God?

6. Romans 5 has an answer: as our fallen father Adam brought upon all his descendants a “judicial ... verdict of condemnation,” so Jesus Christ as the second or “last Adam” brought upon the world a “judicial ... verdict of acquittal “ (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB). He actually reversed what the first Adam had done to us all!

7. This means that because of His “much more abounding grace” (vs. 20) the Father can treat every man, including all sinners, as though they have never sinned, sending His rain and sunshine upon good and bad alike (cf. Matt. 5:45).

8. Now if the sinner sees and believes what Jesus Christ has done for him, he will cease the process of “self-perishing” that he has done all his life (read John 3:16 carefully: the “perish” is in the voice of the Greek verb that gives that insight; the Father eventually gives each one of us what we want).

9. The initiative to save was taken entirely by Christ, the Good Shepherd; there is no parable of a lost sheep that must look for its shepherd.

10. We sinners are like a woman loved initially by a man; he did the seeking, for her. Then she responds to his initiating love: that’s the church making herself ready for “the marriage of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:7, 8). The love process begins with Christ.

11. So, from beginning to end, Christ alone is our Savior; in no way do we save ourselves; every tongue in eternity will sing His praises—because the redeemed will at last appreciate that Christ died the second death of “every man” (Heb. 2:9).

12. Maybe more tomorrow, the Lord willing.

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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":

Have you wondered why God permitted you to suffer a keen and painful disappointment? Perhaps an illness, a bereavement, perhaps a love betrayed and lost?

The biggest, most painfully shrieking “WHY?” ever screamed was on the Cross by the Son of God Himself: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Everything came apart; His life and His mission totally disintegrated; He drank to the full the bitter cup of purest disappointing agony that you have had just a brief taste of; and He drank it to the full so that He could comfort and encourage you now in your experience of pain.

And He permitted you to have this taste of it so that you might share with Him the joy of ministering comfort to someone else who is going through it.

For example, here is the divine anatomy of comfort: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the all-merciful Father, the God whose consolation never fails us! He consoles us in all our troubles, so that we in turn may be able to console others in any trouble of theirs, and to share with them the consolation we ourselves receive from God” (2 Cor. 1:3, NEB).

Talk about fun! To become a pipe through which flows the healing water of life to people who suffer—that’s a little taste of the joy that the Lord Himself knows! No way can we fully appreciate what the Son of God went through for us, but this little is a heavenly gift of joy—to become “consolers” who minister the consolation He ministers!

Think of that outstanding example of suffering: Job. He and his wife suffered enormously, but what he was doing was to defend the plan of salvation before the rebel forces of the universe; he was loyal to the character of God; he proved Satan was dead wrong and that God is totally right—a magnificent achievement that will make him happy forever, and maybe better still, has “comforted” billions in our here and now before final judgment.

Find somebody (you won’t have to look far) who needs a living word of salvation to come from some human lips; and take your place in God’s great economy of comfort ministered.

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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":

John Ernest Bode was as faithful and sincere as a pastor could be when he wrote the poem that has become popular in Protestant church hymnals around the world—“O Jesus, I Have promised to serve Thee to the end, be Thou forever with me, my Master and my friend.”

Pastor Bode wanted to lift the spiritual experience of his church, and through them the moral tone of their town of Castle Camps near Cambridge, England, a worthy goal for any pastor.

In 1866 he has three teenage children, a daughter and two sons, who are to be confirmed Sunday morning in the Church of England. Teen temptations were as alluring then as they are now; thus he wrote, “O let me feel Thee near me; the world is ever near! I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear. My foes are ever near me, around me and within, but Jesus, draw Thou nearer, and shield my soul from sin.” If my teen children will only promise from the depths of their hearts that they will be faithful to keep God’s commandments, he thought, they will be faithful to Him. Thus this hymn.

Yes, Pastor Bode was faithful to the light as he knew it. But the advancing Protestant Reformation had not as yet discovered the Old Covenant confusion that lurks in this popular idea of making promises to God to be faithful to Him.

The principle is clear: the value of promises depends on the righteous fidelity of the Promisor: If the Promisor is God, be thankful and rejoice in His promise, for it will never fail; but if the promisor is a fallible sinful mortal, the promises are empty, for Scripture maintains that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

We only set our clock back when we make these vain promises to God. Abraham experienced his sad foray into the old covenant when he married his second wife Hagar; finally he overcame by believing God’s new covenant promises (cf. Gen. 12:2, 3; 15:6).

At Mt. Sinai 430 years later God sought to renew His new covenant promises to Israel, newly released from Egyptian slavery (cf. Ex. 19:5), but they were absorbed in Pastor Bode’s hymn and made their vain promises to keep God’s law (vs. 8). Result: the “bondage” that Paul explains in Galatians 4:24 always follows absorption in the old covenant.

Pastor Bode’s hymn is still beautiful and now effective when we sing it in its true wording, “O Jesus, I Have Chosen ...”

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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 Father has so loved us, unworthy sinners, that He gave us His only Son, a gift for eternity. He is the “brother born for adversity” (Prov. 17:17), and our “Friend closer than a brother” ( 18:24). Jesus will forever remain what He was given to be—one of us, the Son of God but now forever, the Son of man. As He sits at the Father’s right hand in heaven, He feels lonely there, for His heart is with us.

He can never forget His divinity nor can He forget His humanity; He is one. He has promised to come again the second time, visibly, personally, literally; but not only does He want to keep His promise, He wants to come on His own—that His people may be with Him, one with Him (cf. John 14:1-3). The reason? He loves them!

That means He is lonely in heaven; He has loved every individual believer since the world began, vast multitudes now sleeping in the grave; He loved each one individually (excuse me, I have a mother who died at 42 when I was only 2; I never knew her) but the Lord Jesus knew her personally and He longs to bring us together in the resurrection morning. Think of the joy that awaits Him! Only someone infinite could experience a joy that will be infinite in itself!

We have often thought of the joy that will be ours in that glad morning; but let us enlarge our hearts a bit and think of the joy that will be His! And think how He longs for that day to come, yet He has been disappointed time and again as His own people have in various ways postponed the joyous day.

We are living in the time when God’s people are to grow up “unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ”(Eph. 4:13). The church is many individuals, but it is to become the Bride of Christ at the “marriage of the Lamb.” All who “grow up” in the Lord are “guests at the wedding” (don’t turn that invitation down!). But as a corporate body, the church becomes the Bride of the Lamb (cf. Rev. 19:7, 8).

The Chinese have said that a picture is worth a thousand words; here’s the picture (Song of Solomon 5:2-7). The girl whom the Bridegroom loves has gone to bed; He has been on a journey; He has come “home” to her; it’s night; it’s raining; He’s hungry; but most of all He longs for her; she is snug in bed, warm and cozy; He is knocking at her door (the Hebrew text says He is banging on the door); she doesn’t want to give up her comfort and let Him in—she snuggles closer; He keeps on banging; finally, she “grows up” enough to forget her selfish comfort and thinks of Him out there in the rain and cold and decides to let Him in.

But when she opens the door, He is gone.

That’s another portrait of the church that Revelation says is Laodicea (cf. 3:14-21).

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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 leader of what is probably the most widespread Protestant church in the world has openly declared that it is not necessary for anyone to know whether Christ in His incarnation “took” the unfallen or the fallen nature of our first father Adam.

To discuss it, he says, is unprofitable.

But there is a growing segment of Christian people worldwide who believe that the “humanity of the Son of God is everything to us,” whether He came “nigh” unto us, or has stayed far away so that people see Him in cathedral windows.

The problem centers in the Roman Catholic dogma of the “Immaculate Conception” of the Virgin Mary—which states that in her conception the Holy Spirit worked a miracle that “exempted” her from inheriting the fallen, sinful nature that all other humans have inherited from their fallen father Adam, so that she is a new creation as our mother Eve was.

This on-the-surface beautiful dogma appeals to millions, including many Protestants who do not realize that in accepting it they have virtually lost their name of “protestant” and have in heart returned to the fold of Rome.

One hundred twenty years ago this year, two young Protestant ministers felt led by the Lord to declare openly that this Roman Catholic dogma is poison to true Protestantism. Their message has become highly controversial today, all these many years later.

This dogma removes Christ from being our Savior from sin and leaves an imagined “Christ” claiming to save us in sin.

Scripture is clear: the Father in His love for humanity sent Him in our nature so that He might save us there: “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3, 4).

These thousands world-wide treasure this assurance, and clasp it to their hearts in deepest gratitude. Join 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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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":

We thank the Lord for preserving for us the Christian experience of David, the Psalmist. He is brutally honest with himself: he confesses that he is a sinner of sinners, that he deserves to have the Lord remove from him forever the blessing of the Holy Spirit (Psalm 51:11). This meant—his eternal salvation.

He makes no effort to hide the guilt of his double crime—his sin of adultery, his coveting of his neighbor’s wife, plus the sin of adultery with her, plus the terrible sin of his murdering the lady’s husband (we can’t say one sin was worse than the other!). David is reduced to the lowest place and he doesn’t try to hide it.

In Psalm 27 he teaches us in a simple way how to be happy in the Lord:

(1) He begins by recognizing the truth: The Lord [alone] is his light of life, and his salvation. A good confession of faith; let this be our confession, to begin with (vs. 1).

(2) He accepts the Lord’s New Covenant promises and contradicts Satan’s effort to make him afraid (vss. 2, 3).

(3) He states the truth in powerful terms: even if an enemy army comes against him, he chooses that his heart shall not be afraid (that’s how to conquer fear: choose not to let your heart be troubled, says Jesus in John 14:1-3).

(4) David makes the choice: what he wants above all else in life is simply to “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life” (vs. 4).

(5) And that’s not to become wealthy: no, his prayer is to behold “the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple” (vs. 4). The infinite wealth of the Lord is for anyone to take, and it makes Him happy to see someone on earth who appreciates Him enough to desire Him more than what this earth can offer us.

(6) “The time of trouble” scares many serious-minded Christians; it doesn’t hurt to think about it ahead of time, BUT think as David does—in absolute confidence that the Lord whom you worship “in His temple” will “hide you in the secret of His tabernacle” (vss. 5, 6).

(7) You are not to feel proud because of this holy preference the Lord has for you; it’s simply His “family love” for you since you are a member of His family by adoption (see Eph. 1:3-6)!

(8) Your heart is moved to sing, because His love (agape) has redeemed you (vs. 6).

(9) But yes, there is something for you to do: when the Lord said to you, “Seek My face,” you responded immediately, no dilly-dallying about it, “Your face, Lord, I WILL seek!” (vs. 8). Your heart was one with the heart of the Lord!

(10) You think of the loving care your earthly father and mother lavished on you, but good as they were, your parents could only go with you a certain distance: they had to leave you to go on alone with the Lord in ways they could not understand (vs. 10).

(11) David confesses that he would have “fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (vs. 13), that is, unless he had believed that he would see the answer to all his prayers while he was still living—before the Lord comes. Sobering thought!

(12) But what you can’t see with your earthly eyes, see with eyes of faith. Psalm 27 is a treasure; adopt it as yours.

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: <dailybread@1888message.org>

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

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.