Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
The last page of the Bible extends the final invitation, "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!'" (Rev. 22:17). The Spirit is appealing to people who we may think are hopeless, and the church which is to be the Bride of Christ is to be in perfect sympathy with Him in His concern for them. Many more than we suppose will respond. God's true, honest people are still in the darkness of the world. They will take the place of those who will leave Christ in the last great crisis, who have long professed the gospel but have rejected it in heart because they have resisted the kind of self-crucified devotion to Christ that the cross demands.
Angels and the Holy Spirit still cooperate in holding back the final outburst of strife and plagues symbolized by the loosing of the "four winds" (Rev. 7:1-4). The entire world would be engulfed in ruin unless the Holy Spirit were restraining the evil that is about to burst loose.
But the Holy Spirit is being withdrawn from the world, not because He wants to leave but because mankind is steadily driving Him off. "Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts" (Heb. 3:7, 8). The final sin against Him which is unpardonable is that last choice to reject His pleading when He says, "This is the way, walk in it" (Isa. 30:21). If we reject His conviction of sin and the remembrance of truth, then He is grieved and is forced to turn away forever. We are all rapidly coming to a final choice--to go all the way with the Holy Spirit and be sealed for the coming of the Lord, or to make a last choice to reject Him.
Only one thing is truly difficult for us--and that is to believe how good the Good News is. Our constant battle is to "fight the good fight of faith" (1 Tim. 6:12). Mankind is so held captive to unbelief that nothing can break through those chains except the truth of the cross of Christ and the full reality of the Holy Spirit's constant ministry. He is still the Vicar of the great High Priest who is cleansing the heavenly sanctuary.
His Good News is powerful. Stop resisting Him. Let Him lead you all the way.
--Robert J. Wieland
From: Powerful Good News, 1989.
Copyright © 2016 by "Dial Daily Bread."
