Daily Bread: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

Can You Imagine!

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Can you imagine a Christian church where fornication and adultery are not only tolerated but the immorality condoned is shameful even to the non-Christian community? The church members are smilingly self-satisfied in the midst of this moral cesspool. Can you imagine?

Believe it or not, the celebrated church was Corinth, and Paul was its de facto pastor. How did he handle the crisis? Enforce a super-tight church discipline?

YES! He urged the church to discipline the immoral member severely. He sharply rebuked their moral complacency in a way similar to Christ's rebuke to the leadership of the church in Laodicea (who felt "rich and increased with goods, in need of nothing," Rev. 3:14-18). The Corinthian church, like the Laodicean church, has become world-famous for self-delusion--striding naked on the stage while blissfully unaware. Paul's sharp rebuke brought the church in Corinth to their knees; they promptly disfellowshipped the erring member. They received, not resisted or rejected, from God a gift of repentance. They "sorrowed to repentance" "after a godly sort" with "carefulness," "clearing of yourselves," "indignation," "vehement desire," "zeal," spiritual "revenge," intense "godly sorrow" (2 Cor. 7:9-11). As captain, Paul ran a tight ship.

But Paul also knew that disfellowshipping right and left could not be the solution. Discipline may be great in the nation's military, but Paul knew these "naked" people needed the robe of Christ's righteousness. They had to understand the gospel. No soft-soap "Jesus forgives, it's okay, you can't help sinning." Their pastor "determined not to know anything among [them], save Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:1-5). His own heart was broken. The church members saw a pastor "in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." They saw tears in his eyes (oh that youth today could see tears in the eyes of their pastors, their teachers, their parents!) Their pastor's message always was agape, the self-emptying love of a Savior who went to hell in order to save them. That did more good than all his cracking of the whip.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 11, 2003.

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Saturday, October 29, 2011

What It Means to Believe in Jesus

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

It's among the more fantastic things that Jesus said about what it means to believe in Him. The statement was made under the heat of his passion just before His crucifixion, as if it were His farewell message to the people at a Feast of Tabernacles:

"On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water'" (John 7:37, 38).

The evidence that we truly believe in Him will be seen in the quality of the spiritual food, or refreshing "water of life," that we share with others. We can't help it--that "water" is continually flowing like an artesian well to refresh the people the Lord brings us in contact with. You and I don't need to worry about it, or be anxiously concerned (well, we are of course concerned lest we may muddy the "waters" somehow), but we don't make the water flow out from our hearts. That's just the nature of the "water of life," it flows up continually.

It's what Paul said is "the truth of the gospel" (Gal. 2:5), which is "the power of God unto salvation" (Rom. 1:16). New Covenant truth is explosive "gospel." "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason the hope that is in you ..." (1 Peter 3:15).

A prayer that is according to the will of God (1 John 5:14) and therefore sure to be answered in our behalf is a prayer for understanding of the pure truth of the New Covenant in contrast to the Old; the Old leans toward bondage (Gal. 4:24). For sure, that is not "water of life"! Only the New Covenant has life in it.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: November 9, 2007.

Friday, October 28, 2011

An Every-morning Invitation to "Breakfast"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The controversy has raged for decades, yes even thousands of years: are human beings saved from eternal death by faith alone or by works? Or by faith plus works? It began with Abraham when he took a second wife, Hagar, to supplement his "faith" with "works." Christians of many churches are still perplexed.

The Bible seems clear, but it doesn't seem to end the conflict: "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man [person] should boast" (Eph. 2:8, 9). So, (a) salvation is a "gift by grace" (see Rom. 5:15-18; the Bible doesn't say it's "an offer"); (b) even the faith is a gift; (c) and salvation is specifically not of "works," but the faith itself "works" (Gal. 5:6; it's a verb, not a noun).

Now, here's a simple bolts and nuts test: is day-to-day living also by faith or is it partly by works of obedience? For example, you wake up in the morning. Is it your job now to initiate a "relationship" with God as though you ring Him up, wake Him up, and start a conversation with Him? And if you forget, too bad for you; He is off on other business and you are left on your own?

Well, here's the conflict: many sincerely think they see in the Bible evidence that the initiative is ours; it's our "works" or we have no connection, no "relationship" with Him. Maybe they are reading their "works" philosophy into the Bible. Here's an interesting insight: According to Isaiah 50:4, God is awake before we are; He is trying to wake us up, inviting us to listen to Him; He is taking the initiative to maintain a "relationship" with us (which He started in the first place); our part is to respond to His renewed invitation. He loves us more than we have thought; His Good News is better than we imagined.

"The Lord God ... wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned," He "hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary" (Isa. 50:4). Yes, it's true! Now don't be "rebellious" to His every-morning invitation to "breakfast," nor "turn away back" (vs. 5).

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: August 23, 2000.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Magnificent Truth That Paul Saw

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

All around the world people study about the cross of Christ. What happened on that cross? Why did Jesus die? What did He accomplish? What does His cross mean to you? Suppose you do not believe in Jesus at all (millions, yes billions, don't), does the cross mean anything to you as an unbeliever? What does the cross mean to the believer?

The answer is: it means everything to us, whether we are unbelievers or believers. In John 6:33 Jesus says, "The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." And in verse 50 He says, "This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die."

The only life that unbelievers have is the life which Christ gave them by virtue of His cross. They live because He died for them. They may not know it, they may not acknowledge it, but every breath they have ever drawn is purchased for them by that sacrifice. Furthermore, if an unbeliever repents of his unbelief, then he "will live forever" (vs. 51).

In verse 53 Jesus explains further: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you." This is true even of our physical life. Our daily food is purchased by the cross of Christ; every day, every loaf of bread is stamped with the cross.

The apostle Paul saw this magnificent truth when he said in Galatians 6:14: "God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." When you see it, you will glory in the cross like Paul did. Do you want to?

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: 1994 Phone Message.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Is the "Blessed Hope" Imminent?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

You don't hear much about it, but it's clearly a part of Bible teaching: God's people who are ready will be translated without seeing death at the second coming of Jesus.

To some, that Bible doctrine sounds too close to fanaticism for comfortable discussion. Actually, it's no more difficult for God to translate His people without their dying than it will be for Him to resurrect the dead ones from their graves--at the second coming. This is the essence of "the blessed hope" that is cherished by those who believe in the second coming (Titus 2:13). Paul makes clear that when Jesus returns there will be a people "who are alive and remain [who] shall be caught up together with [those resurrected from the grave] to meet the Lord in the air [and] ... always be with the Lord" (1 Thess. 4:17).

Is this blessed hope something imminent? Or is it no longer so? "Occupy till I come" (Luke 19:13) is a command of Jesus that suggests for many the implication that if we are wise we should be planning for peace and prosperity here on this sin-cursed earth. It's a very sensitive issue. Suppose you do have a long retirement ahead of you, a long life to live before Jesus returns the second time? Suppose He further delays His return beyond the current "blessed hopes" of His people? Shouldn't you invest here wisely?

But whatever we do, we remember the experience of Noah. While others were investing and counting this world their home, he kept busy putting all he had into the building of an ark. People thought he was crazy; but actually, building the ark became fun for him; it was a project on which he felt the blessing of the Lord, and when you're doing anything that you know God blesses, you find real happiness.

And we remember the words of Jesus applicable to us right now: "Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighted down with ... cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly" as it was in Noah's time (Luke 21:34; 17:26, 27). Don't be fooled into thinking this world is your home.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 2, 2000.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Most Earth-shaking Letter Ever Written

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Probably the most earth-shaking letter ever written in history was dashed off by hand by a man with poor eyesight--God's apostle, Paul. The impassioned epistle was sent to the "Galatians" to correct a fatal error threatening to poison the young church that Christ and His apostles had just raised up. The subtle deception came from the then-headquarters of the church in Jerusalem: the idea that the gospel of Christ is a revival of Old Covenant "righteousness," supposedly by faith, but in reality by a counterfeit of it. The problem has plagued Christianity ever since.

Even the most astute of Christian scholars confess that "a haze" of confusion about the Old and New Covenants still covers "the landscape of the church."

The principal idea Paul made was that "God ... preached ... the gospel unto Abraham" (Gal. 3:8). Still today a suspect doctrine! The usual concept is that the gospel came later than Abraham--for example, 430 years later at Mt. Sinai.

Paul's idea is that Abraham's unusual response to God's New Covenant promises (Gen. 12:2, 3) was genuine faith--the kind that appropriates the much more abounding grace that saves us (Gen. 15:6; Eph. 2:8, 9). Abraham's faith therefore was like turning on a switch that allows the electricity to flow through the house. It's a simple idea: faith doesn't save us, but it closes the circuit so that God's grace is free to flow through us and save us. But that idea has created theological explosions all through history.

Abraham's descendants at Sinai were the first of countless generations to brush off the gospel truth; they have wanted the Old Covenant as their belief--"all that the Lord hath spoken we will do" (Ex. 19:8), they have promised vainly.

The great Day of Atonement is now--when it's time for God's people to overcome every trace of that Old Covenant confusion and recover the pure love for the gospel that Abraham knew when he "believed in the Lord, and He counted it [his faith] to him for righteousness" (Gen. 15:6).

True obedience to God's law is possible only through the New Covenant. Thank God He has given you a "hunger and thirst" to understand it.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 11, 2004.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Psalm 23--It's Good News!

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Do you ever feel lonely? Afraid of the future? Feel like your life is empty?

David often felt that way. Sometimes he even wished that he could die. But when he thought about the goodness of the Lord, his joy revived, and peace filled his heart. You can have the same experience today. David says in Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." So, there is nothing to be afraid of. He says in verse 5, "My cup runneth over." Your cup may be small or it may be large, but if you will believe that the Lord is your shepherd, your happiness and peace will be like a cup that is so full it spills over.

Think of the Lord as having only one sheep to take care of--that's you. He gives you His undivided attention. Since He is infinite, He can do that. The blessing is realized when you believe it.

David says, "[The Lord] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness" (vs. 3). That means, He will direct your life, every step that you take. Your education, your business, your marriage, your ministry. Each path He directs you into will be a path that is right for you. Galatians 6:4 says that each of us has a special knack for doing something that no one else can do as well--and we will fit into our proper niche as the Lord leads us in those paths of righteousness.

David says, "[The Lord] restoreth my soul" (vs. 3). That means He heals you. Everybody has in some way been wounded, or been sick spiritually. We have lost something precious out of our lives, and may be tempted to discouragement. But the Lord will restore what we have lost, and heal our souls. We've only scratched the surface of Psalm 23--read it--on your knees, and believe it. It's Good News!

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: 1994 Phone Message.