Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
If Christ is "the Savior of the world" (and He is, John 4:42), then why does "the whole world [still] lie in wickedness"? (1 John 5:19). He has given the gift of the Holy Spirit for some 2000 years; we have Bibles; there is a church which has been loyal to the truth during all these many centuries (including the Waldenses) and is now "the remnant ... who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev. 12:17). So why is the "whole world" still "in wickedness"? What is the point of this long, long delay?
Christ Himself in His glorified state must be weary of the anguish that sin creates every day (yes, Isaiah says He isweary of it; He must feel all the pain, 24/7; Isa. 63:9); must His agony go on for centuries more?
There are three "angels" in Revelation 14:6-12 commissioned to proclaim "the everlasting gospel" worldwide, a ministry that ends with a "harvest" of people "ripe" in preparation for the second coming of Jesus (vss. 14, 15; they are obviously the 144,000 introduced at the beginning of the chapter, vss. 1-5). But another "harvest" also becomes "ripe," people in total rebellion against God like grapes thrown "into the great winepress of the wrath of God" (vss. 17-19). Thus two "harvests" ripen side by side.
The ministry of these three "angels" is performed by human agents, as God's saving ministry always is; and the agents must be that "remnant." But another parallel prophecy in Revelation pictures that same "remnant" worldwide as being "lukewarm" (3:14-21) with the Savior earnestly pleading, "Be zealous and repent" (vs. 19).
God's plan has included the message of "another angel ... having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory" (18:1-4). Heaven has not failed to fulfill also this promise; as surely as the three have been sent, so surely did the Lord send this "most precious message" of the "other angel," the fourth.
But for some reason the world has been starved to know what that fourth message is. Therein lies a reason why it has been so plagued with hatred, bloodshed, corruption; "it's hungry animals that fight." A thoughtful writer has said that the message of Revelation 18 "has been in a great degree kept away from the world." Repentance is due, the world must no longer be deprived. That "light" must yet come. Be hopeful, confident, pray.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: November 13, 2006.
Copyright © 2013 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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