Sunday, July 24, 2016

Dial Daily Bread: Does the World Know What Christ Accomplished?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The towering and "wondrous cross" of Christ is the great truth around which all truths mankind can know are clustered. It validates the prophecies of Daniel, which in turn validate the prophecies of Revelation. All that makes any sense in world history finds its focal point in that cross. Its truth is proclaimed in every seed which is cast into the earth and grows: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. ... This He said signifying by what death He would die" (John 12:24-33).

By His sacrifice in which He "poured out His soul unto death" (Isa. 53:12) Jesus has won the hearts of honest people everywhere. He has ascended His throne not by military conquest but by the power of love (agape). He did the unthinkable: He died the second death, which "every man" has earned for himself (Heb. 2:9; Phil. 2:5-8; Gal. 3:13).

But does the world know about what He accomplished? Two millennia after He demonstrated His love in His life and death, does mankind know and understand? Since "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," shouldn't people everywhere know the reality of that truth? They all must have a chance!

The human souls distressed by our innate selfishness, longing for deliverance, for freedom to escape the tyranny of self-love and the allurements that plague this world, cannot despair when they "behold the Lamb of God" enduring the "curse of God" so that we might live. "Pour contempt on [our] pride," yes; but let's not pour contempt on that cross and its divine Sufferer. That would be a sin with the dimensions of eternity--unpardonable.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 28, 2005.
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