Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
The great theologians may wrangle over what the prophet Daniel meant, but an ordinary person is impressed with the literal fulfillment of one of his prophecies: "[In] the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase" (12:4).
Merge into traffic on any city freeway, or visit any electronics store, and consider the intense explosions of travel and scientific "knowledge." Or "visit" the Internet! All the angels in heaven couldn't drum it into your consciousness more vividly: we are living in the closing hours of "the time of the end."
With all this "increase of knowledge" is it reasonable that we should understand more clearly what happened on the cross when the Son of God died for the world? Should the Holy Spirit impart a greater appreciation of what it means to say, "God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world"? Would we be less inclined to think someone a fanatic if he is "determined not to know anything among [his congregation] except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (Gal. 6:14; 1 Cor. 2:2)?
Luther, Calvin, Arminius, and the Wesleys were great in their day; God was with them. But this "time of the end" is the "hour of [God's] judgment," the world's grand cosmic Day of Atonement. What is due now is not a proud triumphalism to "glory in the cross," but a self-humbling appreciation for the agapelove seen there. Now is the time to "comprehend" what Christ accomplished on His cross (Rev. 14:6, 7; Eph. 3:14-21).
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 2, 2005.
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