Daily Bread: September 2013

Monday, September 30, 2013

Sabbath School quarterly on "The Sanctuary,"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

For those of you studying the new Sabbath School quarterly on "The Sanctuary," we would like to invite you to subscribe to "Sabbath School Today," weekly essays on the lessons which may be received via e-mail. Some of the lesson essays will be prepared from the writings of Robert J. Wieland, author of "Dial Daily Bread."

To begin a new subscription please send us an e-mail with the words "Subscribe SST" in the body of the e-mail or in the heading. If you are already receiving "Sabbath School Today" there is no need to resubscribe; your subscription will continue.

Obedience From the Heart

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

We don't know who it was but somebody once asked Jesus the really hard question: "Lord, are there few who are saved?" He gave an honest answer: "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able." He will at last be forced to inform the "many," "I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. … There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." In the last judgment they will argue with Him vociferously, "We ate and drank in your presence, and You taught in our streets" (Luke 13:23, 24, 27, 28). Sorry, He says; "I do not know you." "Few are chosen," "the laborers are few," etc. (Matt. 9:37; 22:14).

But wait a moment; get the full picture. The "144,000" of Revelation 7:1-4 seems like a tiny number from earth's billions, yet when John views them through a zoom lens they turn out to be "a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, ... clothed with white robes" (vs. 9). "In their mouth was found no guile [falsehood]" (14:5).

The Good News Bible (Today's English Version) says "they have never been known to tell lies." Their being "without fault" in the judgment does not mean they never have sinned; they are a pretty sorry lot down at the end of the sinful human race where "the love [agape] of many [has grown] cold" (Matt. 24:12), but they have been "justified by faith." That means, like Abraham, sinful as he was, when he "believed" his faith was "counted to him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:3) and he stood before the throne as though he had never sinned! The sins of those who believe are cast into the ocean deeper than the Titanic and can never be retrieved.

Don't worry whether you are one of the "few" or "many." Thank the Father that His Son whom He "gave" died yoursecond death, and rejoice every moment of your life from now on. You will then obey from the heart!

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 21, 2006.

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe 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.

Friday, September 27, 2013

The Voice That Embraced Humanity

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

To whom did Jesus preach His Sermon on the Mount--to His disciples or to the multitude?

Some say that God is NOT the Father of "all humanity" but only of those who are converted. All the rest are children of the devil. But Matthew 5:1 says that when Jesus saw "the multitudes, He went up into a mountain" and preached, about "your Father which is in heaven," and "after this manner pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven," etc. (chapters 6, 7).

The Muslim is told that he must make himself pure before he can come to Allah. But Jesus says, Come, and I will make you pure. He became one of us so that He might invite us to regard His Father as our Father. True, there are many who are unconverted; but why ...? Is it because they have finally, irrevocably, determinedly rejected Christ, or for many is it because they have never understood the gospel? Are they wolves, or could they be lost sheep who haven't been "found" yet?

We know that Jesus said, "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd" (John 10:16). In those words He describes the soul-winning work of that fourth angel who "comes down from heaven, having great power; and the earth [is] lightened with his glory" (Rev. 18:1-4). That "voice" will call to those "lost sheep," "Come out of [Babylon], My people, ... that ye receive not of her plagues."

A wise writer says that when Jesus was baptized and a voice was heard from heaven declaring, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," that Voice embraced humanity (Matt. 3:17, The Desire of Ages, p. 113). If you have felt like you are an orphan outside the "family," please accept the Good News: The Father has "adopted" you "in Christ" (Eph. 1:5, 6), and He invites you to pray, "Our Father ..." You are as precious as that discouraged five-times-loser at Jacob's well when Jesus told her, "True worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him" (John 4:23).

Yes, He is seeking YOU! Come.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: December 6, 1998.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Another Opportunity for Repentance

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

We don't have to wait until the Last Day for judgment; it's a do-it-ourselves project, today. Jesus made it plain in John 3:18: "He that believeth not is condemned [judged] already, because he hath not believed .. " Not "will someday be condemned," but "is condemned already." And the previous verse, to the consternation of many church people, makes clear that it's not a vengeful Christ who condemns the lost, "for God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." And He enlarges on this assurance in chapter 12, verses 47 and 48: "If anyone hear my words and believe not, I judge [condemn, Greek] him not: for I came not to judge [condemn] the world, but to save the world."

How then is the one who rejects the Gospel "condemned" or judged? The next verse explains: "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." The "word" is the gospel of what it cost the Son of God to "save" us; and the unbeliever performs his own do-it-yourself judgment by recording in his own soul his responsibility for "receiving not" [rejecting] that "word" of the Good News. When the woman taken in adultery faced her accusers, Jesus made no accusatory tirade against them. Each who looked in His eyes slunk away self-condemned, a preview of the final judgment (8:9).

Some will say, "No, in the parables of the sheep/goats and talents/pounds, Jesus harshly berates the down-and-outers" (Matt. 25:26-30, 41-43). But Revelation 14:10 explains the apparent self-contradiction: before the world and the universe, the lost will be forced to look into the eyes of "the Lamb of God" whom they have persistently "crucified to themselves afresh, and put to an open shame" (Heb 6:6). They will be forced to see their part in the crucifixion and re-crucifixion of the Son of God. Fire and brimstone will feel great compared to that agony.

Do you have a new day? Thank God for it. It's another opportunity for repentance.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 14, 1999.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Something Jesus Said That's Difficult to Believe

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Jesus said something He obviously wants us to believe, but of all the things He said, this seems the most difficult to believe: "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light" (Matt. 11:30). Everyone who has been serious about following Jesus has discovered that "in the world ye shall have tribulation" (John 16:33). It's also painfully true that "the world hath hated them [those who believe in Jesus], because they are not of the world, even as I [Jesus] am not of the world" (17:14).

The problem is that there are "children of light" in the world, and there are "children of disobedience" or "children of wrath" who instinctively feel toward the "children of light" as the world felt toward Jesus. "If they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you," He says.

But you and I cannot be sure who is who! When Stephen was being stoned, he would naturally have thought that Saul of Tarsus (holding the coats of those throwing stones to kill him) was a "child of the devil" like the others (Acts 7:59-8:1). But Steven's Christlike spirit witnessed to Saul, and that man "consenting unto his death" became wonderfully converted to Christ. (Imagine how Stephen will feel in the first resurrection when he meets the apostle!)

So Jesus encourages us to cherish hope in our hearts toward those who "despitefully use you," and to pray for them (Matt. 5:44). Even our "tribulation" then becomes the joyful experience of soul-winning! As we endure our pain, we are buoyed up by the constant hope that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17) just as Stephen's stoning-affliction has "worked" for him. We actually learn to know by experience what it means to identify with Jesus when He said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

"In Him" we too "overcome the world." Joy fills our hearts. The unthinkable becomes real, and wonder of wonders, we selfish, worldly people ourselves (that's what we all are by nature) discover that we can actually pray for those who harm us. Miracle!

And then we're on top forever after, for "we walk in the light, as He is in the light, [and] we have fellowship one with another" (1 John 1:7). We are never left alone.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 10, 2002.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Mary's Soul-Bursting Joy

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Imagine the joy you would feel if you were saved from death either by drowning, or illness, or an accident; you are ever after elated. Can you even begin to imagine the infinitely greater joy you would feel if you could realize you have been saved from what the Bible calls "the second death"?

When old Simeon "blessed" Mary the mother of Baby Jesus in the Temple, he told her that "a sword shall pierce through thy own soul" (Luke 2:34, 35). The word he used was the Greek one for Goliath's enormous sword, thus describing the pain that she would know at the crucifixion of her Son.

Probably no other human has felt quite the extent of that pain: she knew that His conception and birth were that of a virgin; she knew the angel had announced it all to her; she knew His righteous, loving character as no one else could know; and yet now He is stripped naked, crucified like a common criminal before her eyes. Greater than her concern for her own salvation was the anxiety she felt for the world and the very universe of God--is the plan of salvation a failure? Is the great controversy lost? How she agonized! Has any other human been so stricken with any "sword" that pierces the "soul"?

She must have been in such pain through the long weekend Jesus lay in His tomb. Now imagine her soul-bursting joy when He is risen! That is the same joy God wants us to know. But we must not remain infants spiritually: we must grow up "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13), so our heart can be stretched outsize enough to savor what has happened, to appreciate what He has done for us.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 27, 2005.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Why Do People Who Love Truth Feel Motivated to Tell It?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Abel told his brother Cain the truth in kind, loving words; the latter rose up and murdered him. For six millennia (and more), unnumbered Abels have told unnumbered Cains the truth in the same kind, loving words, and have been hated for it. For nearly 1260 years of the Dark Ages, millions of Christians who loved truth were persecuted by millions more professed Christians who were Cain redivivus.

Why do people who love truth feel motivated to tell it? The Holy Spirit impels those who love truth to "cry aloud, spare not, ... and shew [God's true] people their transgression, and ... their sins" (Isa. 58:1). Until now, those who thus respond to the Spirit are resented. And we are all either Abels or Cains at heart.

Imagine yourself in Jerusalem in the mid-first century A.D. The most "spiritual" members of your "church" are "the devout and honourable women," the "good works" people (history says they gave pain killers to the crucified wretches, works of motherly kindness). But they oppose Paul's preaching about their "despised and rejected" Messiah and "expel" him (Acts 13:49, 50). Paul proclaims Christ with kind, loving words, tears in his voice, but he can't help bringing in "Christ and Him crucified."

Would you in sanctified common sense tell him, "Say less on that disturbing aspect of our message and tell it to these 'devout and honourable' people in a more palatable way. Paul, be a little more 'serpent-wise, but harmless as a dove.' Maybe you could win more that way; the cross is offensive. Why make these 'devout' ones so uncomfortable?" Would you?

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 11, 2005.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Have You Ever Lost Your Temper?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Have you ever lost your temper in a momentary trial of your patience? Well, poor Moses did. And it wasn't when he was a young man. The tragic mistake came in his old age. Now Moses may not have felt "old age" like people do today for we read that at the time of his death at the age of 120 "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated" (Deut. 34:7).

But it was at the end, not the beginning, of Israel's 40 years of wandering for their unbelief that Moses' patience gave way. Maybe his physical and mental stamina was a bit weakened by then. The "straw that broke the camel's back" in his case was the cynical cry of the rebellious people, blaming him for lack of water. "Listen, you rebels!" he cried out. "Must we fetch you water out of this rock?" (Num. 20:10). Then in his fit of temper, he struck the rock twice with his rod instead of once, thus destroying the accuracy of the ceremony which symbolized the death of Christ.

What Moses had done was to teach that Christ must die twice for the sins of the world, and he took to himself (Moses did) the glory for producing water out of a dry rock. God loved Moses; the man was very special. But his public sin of losing his temper made it impossible for Moses to lead Israel at last into their Promised Land. "Because ye believed me not, ... ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them" (vss. 10-12).

It's not only old people, but young people too have this same test of impatience. It seems severe for the Lord to sentence Moses to die for such an apparently "innocent" sin of momentary impatience. But Moses must be a teacher for succeeding generations as well; no matter how high we have been in the favor of God, a sin of impatience is serious. But the root of their sin was not merely being angry (even God sometimes is angry, and several times Moses experienced "righteous indignation"). The problem, said the Lord, was Moses' unbelief. "Because ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, ..." the Lord said to both Moses and Aaron.

It is impossible for you and me to lose our temper so long as we believe the word of the Lord! Whatever the trial that tempts you to impatience, a choice to believe the promises of God will every time deliver you from sin.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 17, 2000.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Joy That's Free, Just for the Believing

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Have you learned to appreciate, to enjoy, to welcome, the holy Sabbath day each week? If so, you have also begun to appreciate the Lord Jesus Christ, because His presence is in the holy Sabbath. And that's Good News! To love the Sabbath, not only because it is a day of physical rest from the week's hard work and stress, but because--well, let's look at a beautiful hymn that crystallizes the joy of the Sabbath: "O day of rest and gladness, O day of joy and light." Yes, one day in the hectic week of cares, of pure joy!

"O balm of care and sadness, most beautiful most bright." Here we have a metaphor--the Sabbath is like soothing ointment for a wound. "Thou art a port protected from storms that round us rise." Have you ever been in a wild storm at sea with the ship tossing dangerously, and then felt the unutterable joy of gliding into a quiet harbor? "Thou art ... a garden intersected with streams of paradise," says the poet Christopher Wordsworth, further. And then, "Thou art a cooling fountain in life's dry, dreary sand; [and] from thee, like Pisgah's mountain, we view our promised land."

That's a reference to the lofty top of what is also spoken of in the Bible as Mt. Nebo, where the Lord led Moses to view the glories of the Promised Land before he went to sleep in the arms of God. From Mt. Pisgah today you can see far south to the Dead Sea as far as En-geddi, to the north as far as the snow-covered peak of Mt. Hermon, and to the west to encompass what was in Moses' day the land the Lord gave to Israel. And so, on each holy Sabbath day it is yours and my privilege to catch a glimpse of brighter scenes to come, another poet says, to feel the thrill deep in our souls of a joyous eternal life "in Christ" our Life-giver.

Don't miss out on this joy; it's free, just for the believing. "Remember" it all through the week!

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 29, 1998.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

An Alternative to Being "Under the Law"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

A man wrote of his experience as a youth when he would read the Bible every day simply because he enjoyed it. He had a Good News Bible, and was attracted to it. Then he went away to college and got in with a group of earnest-minded people who emphasized discipline. "Have you had your 'quiet time' with the Lord?" they would ask him frequently. "Are you maintaining your devotions?"

He got so he dreaded to hear the questions. Now, reading the Bible and praying had passed from a pleasant experience to a burden, an obligation imposed upon him with dreaded consequences if he slipped up. Now his "Christian" experience had become a list of "shoulds": you "should" pray more, you "should" read your Bible more, you "should" do this or do that more.

What happened? He tried to think it through and concluded that he was in the spiritual condition that Paul describes as "under the law" (Rom. 6:14, 15). He was trying to do all the right things for the wrong reason. The joy was gone.

The "world" is much with us; we are enmeshed in countless activities and it seems the busy days fly by and we drop exhausted into bed at night and remember, "Oh, I forgot to pray, or I forgot to read my Bible, today! Now what's going to happen to me?!" That's what it's like to be "under the law," under the gun, if you please.

Yes, you're busy; but when you drop into bed at night do you suddenly reproach yourself, "Oh, I forgot to eat breakfast this morning! I've been too busy to eat lunch! And there was no time to eat supper! And I haven't even had a snack for a week!"? I doubt it; you have a built-in device called "hunger" that pretty well makes that impossible, at least for very long.

There's an alternative to being "under the law"--being "under grace" (6:14), under a new motivation imposed upon you by a heart-appreciation of God's loving and His giving that you might not "perish" (John 3:16). And THAT produces a "hunger and thirst for righteousness" that simply will NOT go unsatisfied for long! (Matt. 5:6).

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: August 27, 1998.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Greatest Love-and-Reconciliation-Building Ministry on Earth

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Queen Jezebel outright hated the prophet Elijah, but King Ahab probably feared him more than hated him. She was a non-Israelite; her hatred was that of the wicked world against Christ. Ahab was capable of feeling guilty for his fear. The mass of the people were bewildered; not one (with the possible exception of Obadiah who hid some of the Lord's servants in a cave) had the courage to stand with the holy prophet of the Lord. Everybody except Elijah trembled on Mt. Carmel. The air was charged with tension.

Well might we all tremble today as we inexorably approach our rendezvous at our last-days "Mt. Carmel." It will be a preview of the last day of Judgment, when the apostle John says we shall all be judged by the one indispensable question: "Have you learned how to love (with agape)?" (Yes, read 1 John 4:8: "He who does not love [with agape] does not know God.") The newly-sent "Elijah's" mission will be teaching God's people how to love: "He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers" (Mal. 4:5, 6). That's his primary task, not administering lethal judgment.

Elijah's mission will be the greatest love-and-reconciliation-building ministry ever performed on earth since Pentecost. Satan can perform physical miracles (he is a very qualified orthopedic or cardiac surgeon), but reconciling alienated human hearts is a greater miracle. A five by-pass in the operating theater may not bring husband and wife together again. Only "Elijah" can do that; but that's what he has come to accomplish, and if we condemn him like Jezebel and Ahab did and stubbornly disregard the fire that falls at "Elijah's" prayer, then mustcome the "Brook Kidron" (1 Kings 18:40).

Elijah was very patient for 3-1/2 years; then came Carmel and the end of patience forever. God is infinite, but His patience is not. Let the one who trembles find comfort in Psalm 130. What makes one really "fear" is the awareness of His forgiveness!

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 31, 2006.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

A Message That Will "Lighten the Earth With Glory"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The Bible specializes in Good News which is "the power of God unto salvation" (Rom. 1:16). There is power in the word itself, as there is in the seed that sprouts. Those who wait for the second coming of Christ will demonstrate that power so fully that their message will "lighten the earth with glory." The message itself, not their personalities nor any goodness in themselves, will call believers to "come out of Babylon, My people," and honest-hearted people will respond to the "voice" from heaven (see Rev. 18:1-4). Nothing will be able to hold them back from stepping out boldly to honor Christ in the closing work of the gospel.

The message will be proclaimed not just by one or two super-gurus, but by a multitude of voices all over the earth. God can use people trained in literary institutions provided self is humbled and crucified with Christ so their ministry draws listeners to Jesus and not to themselves, but often self has gotten in the way and marred the picture. Baal worship has delayed the finishing of God's work in the earth--the worship of self disguised as the worship of Christ. In the last great work as the truth is proclaimed powerfully, God will use humble people who are called from "the plow" as Elisha was called (1 Kings 19:19).

What will bring about this great development? The Bible is clear: the experience of justification by faith, which is the same as the experience of righteousness by faith. The faith itself will "work by love," the love of Christ (Gal. 5:6), not our own love. There will be no self-righteousness in this wonderful work that lightens the earth with glory. When self is laid aside, gets out of the way, the cross of Christ can be uplifted clearly, because self will be "crucified with Him." Then He will "draw all unto [Himself]" (John 12:32).

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 12, 2005.

Monday, September 16, 2013

What's So Different About "Day of Atonement" Living?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

What does it mean to live while that great "seventh angel" of Revelation 11 blows his "trumpet" (vss. 15-19)? What is "Day of Atonement" living? What is so different about it and living on any ordinary "day"?

The day of atonement for Israel of old was what Jews today regard as "Yom Kippur," a day just observed by Jews around the world. This is a solemn "day," different than any other of the year (Lev. 23:27-32). It was a kindergarten lesson, a sandbox child's view, of the cosmic Day of Atonement in which we live today, a time of being completely reconciled to God (the word "atonement" means "at-one-with"). It's the opposite of being scared of God; it's living totally, fearlessly, in harmony with Him.

It's NOT wearing hairshirts or walking on hot coals or starving yourself (Hinduism has been specially designed as a gross counterfeit of it). It's NOT being ascetic, going off in the desert to be a nun or a monk (the Dark Ages idea was a total distortion of it). It's NOT the karma idea of piling up "good works" to make up for all the bad things you've done. It's NOT fear-motivated living; it IS love-motivated living. It's totally being at-one with Jesus, of living in heart-union with Him. It's NOT fanaticism or dour self-torture. It's NOT singing sad hymns all the time.

So, what IS Day of Atonement living? It's "growing up" out of spiritual infancy "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13), and loving every moment of it! It's a mature "comprehension" of His thinking, His feelings, His aspirations (3:14-21). It's identifying with Him to the point of being "in Him," of looking at the world as He looks at the world and being supremely happy in that identity.

Yes, since time began there have always been "some few in every generation" who have "grown up" out of the kindergarten sandbox idea of worshiping God and have been at-one with Him, like Enoch who "walked with God," and Moses, whose heart was so in tune with Him that he was willing to have his name blotted out of the Book of Life rather than see Israel go down the drain (cf. Heb. 11:5; Ex. 32:31, 32).

But now on this cosmic Day of Atonement, this "antitypical" one, God has a worldwide corporate "body" of people so unitedly "at-one" with Him that they become a Bride to Christ who "has made herself ready" for "the marriage of the Lamb" (Rev. 19:7). Every moment of every day becomes an exciting adventure "with Him."

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 7, 2001.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Does God Need Someone to Defend Him?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Can you conceive of the possibility that God may need someone to defend Him? That He could use a human being for that purpose?

Goliath was an arrogant, blaspheming Philistine giant who not only defied the armies of Israel but also for weeks publicly defied and blasphemed "the God of the whole earth." Israel and its army were not the primary issue; Goliath was challenging God's existence and His authority to choose and to bless a nation through whom must come the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Will God suffer this insult in silence, slinking away as it were, leaving Goliath to win the day?

God cannot strike Goliath with a lightning thunderbolt because He does not want to force a subservient worship based on fear. Goliath may himself be a big bully, but God cannot win the day by being a Bigger Bully. He can roar from heaven with a loud voice and frighten Goliath and the Philistines, but again that is not His way of doing things. Actually, as in the days of Job, God needs a human being to defend Him, because the battle is not "with sword and spear" (1 Sam. 17:45). Someone must speak up to maintain God's honor.

Enter into the arena the stripling, David, clad only in his shepherd's garb and armed only with a slingshot and a few pebbles. David was not principally a partisan contestant for national greatness; he had an understanding of God's character of love and of the sacrifice of Christ for the world. He spoke publicly in defense of the plan of salvation itself. To demonstrate for all time to come how God works in cooperation with man, He blessed David's skillful aim of a pebble from his slingshot, which caught the giant between his eyes, blinded and stunned him. Picture this lad jumping on the giant's prostrate belly, wresting from its scabbard his huge sword to use it on him before the giant recovers. A teenager has learned to appreciate the character of God, to trust Him, willing to face eternal death for His honor.

Can you conceive of 144,000 giant "Goliaths" blaspheming God in these last days? And 144,000 "Davids" challenging and conquering them? Get in training today.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 26, 1999.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Time for Christ to Be Known in Truth Among Muslims

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Our Muslim friends like to say that "Allah is great!" According to the first chapter of the Qur'an, they speak of Him as being "beneficent, Lord of the worlds, the merciful owner of the Day of Judgment." When they know they are about to die (that is, for example, suicide-bombers), they love to repeat that phrase, "Allah is great!"

But the Bible says that God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator, is far greater than the Muslims understand "Allah" to be. God is our Father, who loves the world so much that He gave His only Son, who sent Him to die for us. The God who is revealed in the Holy Bible is more than being "Lord of the worlds," He is the Savior of the worlds!

He is the Author of life, and yet He is also the Conqueror of death. He is the One who has defeated Satan. The Bible describes the true God as the One who Himself "is love," that is, "God is agape." The Quran knows nothing of a God who is love--the kind of love that led the Son of God actually to go to hell in order to "save the world." He died what the Bible calls "the second death" (Rev. 2:11). That is a death that is eternal; it is hell itself. Isaiah 53 says He "poured out His soul unto death," like you empty a bottle of its last drop. When one dies hoping for a resurrection, the Bible says that is not "death," it is only "sleep." Death, the real thing, is death forever; it is forfeiting all the joys of life itself, forever. It's hard to imagine how terrible hell is--the utter defeat of all that you are, it includes eternal shame and disgrace.

And that precisely is what Christ chose to endure in our behalf! Peter says that the Father would not leave Him in hell (Acts 2:25-27), but raised Him up. But the resurrection of Christ does not weaken the extent of His love for us. "Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:8). And Galatians 3:13 tells us that the death of the cross involved "the curse of God." Christ "was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin" (2 Cor. 5:21).

Love that dies our second death for us, that takes our hell upon Himself--that is the measure of the true "beneficence" of God, His true "mercy." This is what qualifies Him to be truly "the Lord of the worlds, Owner of the Day of Judgment."

The time has come for Christ to become "King of kings, Lord of lords," and be known among the Muslims for what He is in truth--"the Savior of the world" (John 4:42).

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 1, 2002.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Paul's "Big Ideas"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

From the very beginning of the early days of Christianity, there have been conflicts about how good the Good News is. The Letter to the Galatians is evidence. The early converts from the Jews had to wrestle against a deep mind-set idea that no one could be saved except Jews, that Gentiles were automatically excluded from the benefits of Christ's sacrifice.

Remember how Peter had to overcome that prejudice in Acts 10:28 when he was sent to Cornelius? And how "certain [ones] came from James" to Galatia to enforce the ideas at the Jerusalem headquarters of the Christian church that Gentiles must first become ceremonial-law Jews (see Gal. 2:11-21)? How Peter "and the other Jews dissembled" when they "withdrew and separated" themselves from Paul and his Gentile converts to the gospel?

Deeply laid prejudices seemed almost ineradicable. The "faithful" Jewish Christians just felt in their bones that the gates of the New Jerusalem had to be shut against Gentiles, that Christ was Messiah and Savior only to themselves, that their work as apostles was to go to all the Jews in the Diaspora scattered around the world.

But Paul's mind had been enlightened with a far brighter view of how good the Good News is! "God ... will have all men to be saved," the Messiah is already "the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe," He has "abolished death [the second!] and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel," and has become the new or second Adam for the entire human race and has given, not merely offered, the "gift" of salvation to "all men" just as Adam gave "condemnation" to them.

These "big ideas" (all from Paul) stretched the minds and hearts of the early Jewish Christians, and they still challenge our thinking today. Does the Son of God merely "offer" justification to "all men" with the initiative in their hands, or has He on His own initiative given it freely by grace as a "gift" to "all men"? Does He open the gates of the New Jerusalem to "all men" so that in the end the only ones who are outside are those who themselves refuse by unbelief to enter? Could the Good News be that good??

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 29, 2000.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Does It Hurt God for Us to Think Evil of Him?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

What difference does it make to God what we think inside of us? Why would God even care what we think? What difference could our private thoughts make to Him?

We can ask another question: What difference does it make to you what your neighbor may think about you? If you are a hard, harsh, arrogant person, probably, nothing. But if you are a kind, considerate, loving person, it would surely burden you to know that your neighbor sees you as bad, selfish, or unjust, even if he doesn't gossip about you to others. Just the knowledge that in his mind he cherishes these evil thoughts about you must burden you.

Does it hurt God for us to think evil of Him? It must, because "the carnal mind is enmity against God" (Rom. 8:7), and enmity is incipient murder, says John: "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer" (1 John 3:15). If you were God could you "rest" knowing that there are people who would crucify You all over again? (If He were to come as Christ came 2000 years ago?)

Yes, God longs for "rest," which since sin began on this planet, He has never been able to do. He is burdened 24/7. And He cannot rest until the great controversy between Satan and Himself has come to an end.

We are now living in the grand cosmic Day of Atonement, of which the ancient Levitical Yom Kippur was a symbol. God so loves the world already that He gave His only Son for us, proving that He is reconciled to us; what remains to be done is for us to be reconciled to Him.

Don't resist or stop the Holy Spirit from ministering that final reconciliation to you. He speaks, "Be ye reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:18-20). To find out how He does it, read the rest of the chapter. Let Him turn your attention to what happened on the cross when "He was made to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (vs. 21).

God's heart doesn't need to be changed toward you, but yours needs to be changed toward Him. On this cosmic Day of Atonement, that's the work of the Holy Spirit. Don't "resist our Lord in His office work."

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 6, 2003.