Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
What really is "Day of Atonement" living? What's so special about living "in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound" (Rev. 10:7)? Well, "another mighty angel [comes] down from heaven, ... a rainbow was on his head, his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire. He had a little book open [Daniel] in his hand. ... And he ... cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roars. ... And the angel ... lifted up his hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, ... that there should be [time] no longer, but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished" (vss. 1-7). It's that last statement! No, it's not fear-motivated living; it's solemn, holy awe. Something's going on that makes your spine tingle.
But isn't that the same "at-one-with-God" living that Jesus, His apostles, and all the holy prophets have called for in past millennia? Yes, precisely! But, this is the first "time" in world history that God has a people, a corporate "body" on earth, not just a scattered insignificant, uncoordinated few, who truly "follow the Lamb wherever He goes" (Rev. 14:4).
Now at last that Lamb of God "see[s] the travail of His soul, and [is] satisfied" (see Isa. 53:11). Now at last Paul's heart-melting prayer is answered: Christ has a people on earth, a church, a "body," who are "rooted and grounded in agape ... able to comprehend" something that no such "body" of saints has ever fully grasped--"the width and length and depth and height" of that "love of Christ which passes knowledge." At last, they are "filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:14-21). At last, ready for Christ's coming!
But won't that make Satan angry in his "great controversy" with Christ? Why disturb him? Yes, but it will prove to the world and the universe that Satan's stranglehold on this planet is broken; he has been defeated; sin has been "condemned" in fallen, sinful flesh; Christ's enemy has lost his last great battle; the war is over!
All heaven rings with the triumphant anthem: "Let us be glad and rejoice ... , for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife [His Bride] has made herself ready" (Rev. 19:7). At last she's grown up--no longer the flower girl at the wedding.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 9, 2001.
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