Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Before He ascended to heaven, Jesus made a promise that we hang on to: "I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also" (John 14:1-3). World population desperately clings to that as their only hope.
The second coming of Christ is not bad news even to those who say they don't believe in Him, for many, when they finally hear the gospel presented clearly, will believe. They've been waiting for it all their lives. And for those who finally steel their hearts and souls against it, they'll be glad that their hell is now at an end. Christ is always only "good tidings of great joy which will be to all people," as the angels originally said (Luke 2:10).
The coming last days' events have terrorized many who say they long for Christ to come again, but they cannot bear the bad news that has given so many youth their nightmares and frightened them out of the church. The "mark of the beast," for example, enforced by a death penalty as Revelation 13:15 predicts: it's not God's intention that our lives be shadowed by that heavy cloud of apprehension.
Those who have come to understand "the everlasting gospel" of Revelation 14:6, 7, "the third angel's message in verity," walk into that crisis with "the joy of the Lord" on their faces. It will be the greatest soul-winning thrill they have ever known because at last the glorious days Isaiah predicted in chapters 49 and 60 will be happening all around them. (God will never let Isaiah come to nothing!)
Fear? Those who believe in Jesus won't know it, no matter how precarious their situations may seem to be. They have at last learned what the love is that is agape, which "casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). It does it! At long last they have looked at the uplifted cross on which the Son of God died the world's second death; they have "comprehended with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height--to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge." Super-astounding as the truth may be, they are "filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:17-19). How could the desperate ranting of a frustrated devil with his empty "mark of the beast" threats disturb their peace now?
They are not enduring these trials "alone"! "Lo, I am with you always" is ringing in their souls' ears. "Yea, though [they] walk through the valley of the shadow of death, [they] will fear no evil; for [the Lord] is with [them]" (Matt. 28:20; Psalm 23:4).
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 24, 2007.
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