Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
There is a verse in the Bible that tells such glorious good news that many people hesitate to believe it. It seems to some theologians that it just can't be true: "It shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Joel 2:32). Can this really be true?
We scramble to see if there is something in the context that can discount that good news, some conditions to that promise that can get us out of the clouds back on the solid earth of works/fear-philosophy. But the context is talking about the signs of Christ's soon second coming, "wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire, ... the sun ... turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord" (vs. 31).
Then the fantastic promise. No context discounts it.
Today [Dec. 21, 2005] was my Aunt Ida's birthday. When she was not in the mental hospital, she lived with us; I was just a child of 10 or 12. I couldn't understand. I still don't understand why she was so fearful of everything. There were dark secrets hidden in closets in those days long ago.
I wish I had known enough in my childhood to have read this to her, and assured her that whatever preacher or church had told her bad news, or withheld good news, that this good news in Joel is of a Savior who truly hears and answers that cry from any human soul in distress. Anytime.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: December 21, 2005.
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