Daily Bread

Friday, November 16, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Why is unbelief a downright sin, and not merely a weakness of the flesh or a little fault?

It’s extremely serious, for (a) the world is condemned for it (John 3:18). (b) Israel was kept out of the Promised Land because of it (Heb. 3:19). (c) It is sin itself (vs. 12). (d) It keeps people away from salvation (Luke 8:12). (e) It makes one a fool (Luke 24:25). (f) God has concluded everyone in unbelief—it’s the sin of sins, the one universal sin (Rom. 11:32). (g) It is the ultimate rejection of Christ (John 5:38). (h) Unbelief is the actual love of darkness (John 3:19). (i) Unbelief brings the loss of souls (2 Thess. 2:10-12).

Unbelief is the preeminent sin that we should pray to be delivered from (Mark 9:24).

It’s hard-heartedness. I have had men confess to me with anguish that their hearts are just plain hard, they find it impossible to shed even a tear, anytime. Even the story of the cross leaves them cold.

I tell them Thank God! You sense your need. That’s tremendous progress. Ask Him and He will “restore unto [you] the joy of [His] salvation (Psalm 51:12). But don’t let your heart resent the fact that you have become hard-hearted; it’s true of many people. Often unwise parents kill the little plant of tenderness in the heart of a child; fathers sometimes want to make Johnny become “hard,” like they think a “man” should be, forgetting that we read of the greatest Man who ever walked this earth, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

I knew a man once whose pastime in childhood was pulling wings off of flies; when he became a man, it was hard for him to feel compassion for people in need.

Even the “cream” of the Twelve apostles, Peter, James, and John, went sound asleep rather than sit up with Jesus and empathize with Him in His awful hour of Gethsemane anguish (Matt. 26:37-45). They missed an opportunity of the ages!

How can a hard-hearted person become tender-hearted? By learning to feel for Jesus, to sympathize with Him. (That’s another word for “faith”).

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

David and Bathsheba: Adultery and After

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The Bible has two very special books which are often neglected in both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.

They meant much to the Protestant Reformers of the 16thCentury who saw in them the story of Roman Catholic supremacy and political power in the Dark ages.

To Daniel, this political-religious power symbolized the “little Horn” of Daniel 7, and also of chapter 8. The symbolism is so precise and simple to understand, that serious people have recognized it for hundreds of years.

In Daniel 8 it is seen as lifting itself up arrogantly against the “Prince of princes,” which of course is Christ. It lifted up “the continual” in vss. 11-13, which some thoughtful Bible students believe is the paganism that has flourished in the Roman Catholic church in its history and in its doctrines (for example, Sunday keeping in place of biblical Sabbath keeping).

In chapter 7, the little horn exercises political-religious power for “a time, times and a half of time,” meaning 3-1/2 years prophetic time, but 1260 years literal time. This time period is easily identified as being 538 A.D. to 1798 A.D. when Berthier, the French general, arrested and imprisoned the pope of Rome, and ended its political power, ostensibly.

But Revelation, which fits with Daniel superbly, declares that this “deadly wound” was to be healed. Thoughtful scholars believe that this describes the phenomenal resurgence of popularity and influence that the papacy has achieved in recent decades. After 1798, people thought the papacy was dead forever, including Thomas Carlyle of England.

The prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation are unique in Scripture because Jesus singled out Daniel, of all the Old Testament books, as worthy of our attention: “Whoso readeth, let him understand” (Matt. 24:15), and likewise Revelation, because Jesus pronounces a special blessing on the person who either reads the book, or if he can’t read, who “hears” it (1:1-3).

The common theme of both precious books is the identity of Jesus Christ as the true Messiah, the true Son of God.

We must not allow the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception to influence how we view Jesus, whether He took the sinless nature of the sinless Adam or if He was “sent in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, [who] condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3), One is the true Christ of the Bible; the other cannot be.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Thursday, November 15, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

One of the most neglected passages in the Bible explains simply how righteousness by faith works. Yet it’s profound.

The topic talks about when you and I will meet Jesus Christ face to face in final judgment, a very real moment of life, the most real ever (2 Cor. 5:10), “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ”). What will ensure our happiness, then? Not what we have done in achievement, but what we have permitted Him to motivate us to be and to do: “The love of Christ constraineth us” (vs. 14), the opposite of re-strain—that love impels us, pushes us outside of ourselves, makes us do things we never thought we could do. When you’ve been “constrained” by love to do something any whiff of merit is denied.

This “constraint” is not mysterious emotion but sober, rational thinking: “because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then [that’s equivalent to saying that] all died, and that He died for all.” In other words it’s a 2 + 2 = 4 phenomenon: what happened on the cross means that when He died, actually you died, for the simple fact that if He had not died then you would not have survived! “We thus judge,” the most profound reality of all human life. You and I owe everything in exchange, to Him.

From now on living is simply recognizing the honest obligation that we are in debt eternally and infinitely.

It’s the most joyous debt you can imagine.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The famous “History Channel” on TV loves stories of rebellions and war. Watch them before you go to bed at night and you’ll have nightmares all night long.

They should tell the story of the greatest rebellion drama ever told—Lucifer’s rebellion against the King of the Universe (if they should tell it straight, and you believed the truth, you wouldn’t have any nightmares ever, for “the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes, Rom. 1:16; precious good news).

Lucifer was the highest created being in the universe (the name means bright light).

He was like the multibillionaire who wants more money (actually, same spirit). He was not content with his highest position; he wanted to be “like God” in power, and eventually this greed turned into his hatred of God and his desire to drive Him from His throne and grab it himself.

He fomented his rebellion, telling his accusations against God everywhere, and “one-third” of the formerly holy angels of heaven joined him in his rebellion. “War broke out in heaven: Michael [another name for Christ] and His angels fought against the dragon [Lucifer]; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him” (Rev. 12:7-9).

The inspired story doesn’t say they fought with sticks and stones or with bullets; they fought with lies catapulted against truths. It was ultimate war. Lucifer’s “weapon” was false charges against God, lies, but they sounded plausible to one-third of the angels.

God’s true character was known —He is pure unadulterated love (agape). Lucifer said He is selfish, unfair; that for God to ask that everyone be obedient to His holy law of ten commandments is just too impossible, especially so for the people who can’t help that they have come from the one man on earth who joined Satan—our father the fallen Adam.

Don’t imagine that when Lucifer was cast out that he stopped telling lies; He deceives the whole world” (vs. 9). His lie Number One: just because you’re human, you are doomed to keep on sinning forever or until the Lord Jesus comes and gives you a different nature. Grand lie!

Jesus came from heaven with a “job description” from the Father: defeat Lucifer, prove him wrong, condemn sin in the last place where sin had taken refuge—human hearts. His job: “condemn” sin, stamp on it, defeat it, annihilate it, disarm all its temptations, set the entire world population free from its slavery.

Christ did it!

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

What’s wrong with the world?

The Lord Jesus Christ has His answer: “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12).

Love is the problem? Or the lack of it?

Could we translate that to mean that people are disobeying the holy law of God? Yes, of course that’s true. And they need to be warned?

But is it wiser to say that people are disregarding the holy law of God because they do not truly know that “love of God”—what it means?

Could it be that instead of needing again to be warned people need to be won?

If we had a kind of meter that could determine the extent of our true obedience (like a thermometer determines how warm we are), it would register the awareness there is in our soul of the love of Christ; and that would directly correlate with the extent of our obedience to the law of God.

The reason? “He who loves another has fulfilled the law. ... If there is any other commandment [it] is all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:8-10; that is not teaching we should love self; Luther got that right long ago: now you love others as you have always previously, naturally, loved yourself).

Our “love-thermometer” is not to measure our love for Christ; it is to measure our appreciation of His love for us.

We are not saved by our love for Jesus. We are saved by His love for us.

We will gain an incalculable blessing if we will get on your knees and spend “a thoughtful hour in contemplation of the life of Christ, especially its closing scenes.” Let His love, not yours, wash through your soul. Don’t begrudge the time!

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" phone message is available via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Letters come from heart-broken church members dismayed and discouraged by apostasy they see overwhelming their church; they are tempted to stay home on Sabbath.

The Enemy seems to be coming in as “a flood,” but the Lord has promised, “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him” (Isa. 59:19). That is happening today! The Lord is faithful!

The church where they were baptized seems to have departed from the faith. There is now a new meaning to the solemn words of Jesus: “On the earth distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear, and the expectation of looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven will be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26).

It’s those “powers of heaven” being “shaken” that so distresses sincere, honest-minded people. The Psalmist anticipated this when he said, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).

Answer: They must stand firm even if the foundations around them crumble. The Lord has placed these messages in His Bible to alert us of the terrible “shaking” that must come. The answer to the Psalmist’s question is clear: stand for the “truth of the gospel.” Bear witness of your faith; the Protestant Reformation was a work of the Holy Spirit, but even Protestantism has now crumbled, and no longer is protestant; but nevertheless the Holy Spirit keeps the spirit of “protest” alive. Truth has not died.

In the final “shaking” everything that has been built up may crumble around us like ashes after a fire. “Think it not strange,” says the apostle Peter, “concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you.”

The Lord is a jealous God, He has tremendous Self-respect, determined not to let the Jews crucify Christ again, and also determined not to let His glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the latter rain to be “insulted” again. When Laodicea lays her self-righteous, proud offering on His altar, “rich and increased with goods” when in reality she is of all the seven churches of history the most “wretched, and miserable, and poor and blind and naked,” He will treat her offering as He treated the offering of Cain—just walk away until it withers and becomes garbage that the janitor has to cart away. The Lord will not accept the offering of those who choose to remain proud and self-sufficient.

It’s time to let the Lord have all there is of us; share the cross of Jesus with Him (that’s where we belong, you know). “Humble [ourselves] ... under the mighty hand of God” (1 Peter 5:6). Get down to rock bottom.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

That grand day when “Jesus stood and cried out” so all the world could hear Him (and heaven too), “If anyone thirsts, ... come to Me and drink,” He knew that some people are not “thirsty.” Even He cannot force them to drink. They go through life bereft of a drop of the “water of life.” They may be billionaires, but don’t envy them.

There’s much being said in the media about how important it is to drink more water for our health. We should drink it even if we don’t feel thirsty, doctors tell us. Maybe we can learn to develop a thirst mechanism that will keep us healthy (!?).

Suppose you’re not “thirsty,” but in cold logic you sense that you are spiritually dry; you know that your heart is onto worldly pleasure, self-seeking, empty vanity: can you make a life choice that involves doing what Jesus said—“come to [Him] and drink” even if you don’t think you feel like it?

You cannot save yourself; and no, you cannot come to Him on your own for He said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). The “drawing” is a very real tug on your heart; the Spirit of God is active. He is working even when you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat after a disturbing dream; “come” right then! Get out of bed onto your knees and thank Him from the depths of your soul that it was only a dream.

I dreamed one terrible night that I had been unfaithful to my dear wife who was sleeping beside me; I remember the moon was shining full in the window; I just got out on the floor and poured out my unworthy heart in profound thanks to the Savior that the dream wasn’t real. You read about people who never stop thanking and praising the Lord; well, I’m one. It’s my eternal choice. Isaiah reminds us that we don’t “own” an iota of character perfection; “their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord” (54:17).

Yes, begin where you are with a prayer of thanks that you have been saved from a hell on earth; just that, nothing more profound. (It’s the truth!) That will be for you the beginning of eternal life “in Christ.” That choice will be “the right action of your will,” for it will make an entire change in your life, for eternity.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Is it possible that the Lord Jesus Christ in His glorified state is discouraged with the slow progress of His church on earth? Their progress, that is, in getting ready for His second coming? He wants to come, He says, “that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3).

Their lack of spiritual progress delays that homecoming.

We may not say that He is “discouraged” (actually, we are told that “discouragement” is a sin!); but the word that we may use to describe how Christ feels is, “disappointed.”

Divine “disappointment” cannot be described as a sin, but it is very painful for Him to endure while we go on generation after generation in a spiritual state that is childish. His “disappointment is beyond description.” We should be growing up to be a bride for “the marriage of the Lamb” (cf. Rev. 19:7, 8), but generation after generation goes by with each repeating the spiritual childishness of its predecessor. In fact, it’s century after century!

Can you imagine the “beyond-description-disappointment” that the Lord Jesus feels?

He loves His corporate people who are His church; yes, He loves them individually. He loves you as an individual, yes you, the one-of-a-kind person you are; but He also loves His church corporately. The church has a corporate personality that in Scripture is given the female pronoun (Rev. 19:7, 8).

A teacher is disappointed “beyond description” when his student makes no progress in learning. Such was my first violin teacher’s feelings about me as a student; I was working, holding the bow correctly, etc. But my heart wasn’t in it; nothing in violin music attracted me. Until one day I discovered an old broken Victor Red Seal record of Jascha Heifetz. My mother had left it before she died (when I was two); my father glued the two halves together on the back of another record. Heifetz was playing a Schubert-Wilhelm melody on the G-string of a genuine Stradivarius violin.

I thought, if that’s what a violin should sound like, I love it! From then on my teacher saw progress.

This is a crude illustration; but when God’s people learn to appreciate the kind of love (agape) that motivated Jesus to die the world’s “second death,” that is, when they see the “breadth and length and depth and height” of that love “which passes knowledge”(Eph. 3:18, 19) their progress will become phenomenal,—yes, in one generation!

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Monday, November 12, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

It’s among the more fantastic things that Jesus said about what it means to believe in Him. The statement was made under the heat of his passion just before His crucifixion, as if it were His farewell message to the people at a Feast of Tabernacles:

“On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37, 38).

The evidence that we truly believe in Him will be seen in the quality of the spiritual food, or refreshing “water of life,” that we share with others. We can’t help it—that “water” is continually flowing like an artesian well to refresh the people the Lord brings us in contact with. You and I don’t need to worry about it, or be anxiously concerned (well, we are of course concerned lest we may muddy the “waters” somehow), but we don’t make the water flow out from our hearts. That’s just the nature of the “water of life,” it flows up continually.

It’s what Paul said is “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5), which is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). New Covenant truth is explosive “gospel.” “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason the hope that is in you ...” (1 Peter 3:15).

A prayer that is according to the will of God (1 John 5:14) and therefore sure to be answered in our behalf is a prayer for understanding of the pure truth of the New Covenant in contrast to the Old; the Old leans toward bondage (Gal. 4:24). For sure, that is not “water of life”! Only the New has life in it.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

It was an innocuous magazine advertisement (the latest TIME) but it said something the advertiser didn’t think of: “Tomorrow Begins Today.” (They were advertising Conoco Phillips gasoline.)

But they unwittingly repeated what the Lord said when He made the week in seven days: “And the evening and the morning were the first [then second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth] day” (Genesis 1:5ff). Always, the evening comes first; then the “day.”

Was this an accident?

We haven’t learned to live happily and healthfully until we learn this.

Roman so-called civilization denies it; you can’t (or you shouldn’t) stay up until midnight in order to welcome the new day; but each new day should be welcomed as another gift of God’s much more abounding grace. We read in one wise author’s writings that when the Lord Jesus was with us in the flesh incarnate, it was with the voice of glad melody Jesus in His youth and in His ministry went out to some solitary place early in the morning (without waking the family), and He would welcome the new day.

What happened was that the heavenly Father (His Father and ours, too) would awaken Him (see Isa. 50:4, 5); not too early, for the Bible also says that the Father “giveth His beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2). The Father always let Jesus have the rest He needed, and He knows we need adequate rest (children and teens seldom get enough).

But what they need is not late morning sleep unless in some emergency; they need to learn (like Jesus) to welcome the morning light.

The problem is going to bed too late at night. Forgetting that “the evening and the morning” are each “new day,” they follow Roman paganism’s way of living and think the day begins at midnight. Watching a late-late show on TV is a violation of God’s original plan for our daily happiness.

Sometimes we think we need a violent one to watch, just for excitement, also forgetting God’s wisdom, for He says in Psalm 11:5, 6 that if people “love violence” He will give them what they love. (Wow, that’s serious!)

And then the happiest “evening morning” sequence is the holy Sabbath. It begins at sunset, blessed plan of God. It’s when husband and wife kneel together to welcome the holy day in mutual peace. Maybe because they are human and not yet quite ready for perfection, there has been a tiff; thank God for Sabbath “family worship;” both join in praying, and the dear Lord forgives both. And if there are children, they are part of our Sabbath “family circle”—kneeling together before the throne of the heavenly Father. A moment of heaven’s peace in a tumultuous world! It’s healthful; life-giving.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Sunday, November 11, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Two millennia ago in the days of Christ, the captives of Satan were a pathetic lot whom nobody could help, like the demoniac who lived in the graveyard. “No man could bind him, no, not with chains, ... neither could any man tame him” (Mark 5:1-5). Another example, the lady whose daughter “had an unclean spirit” (7:24, 25). And many more. But Jesus Christ delivered them all.

Today the helpless but pathetic captives are addicts: slaves of alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, pornography, kleptomaniacs, even gluttons whose appetite they can’t control. On and on the list goes. There are even slaves to shopping who feel driven to buy stuff they will never need.

The Book of Ephesians presents a power greater than that of all the addictions the devil has invented: the power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead. That’s beyond any guru! Paul says in Ephesians, “I pray that your inward eyes may be enlightened, so that you may know ... how vast are the resources of His [the Father’s] power open to us who have faith. His mighty strength was seen at work when He raised Christ from the dead. ... He put all things beneath His feet” (1:18-22, REB).

A few verses later he reminds us that we have been “dead because of your sins and wickedness ... We too were ... ruled by our physical desires, and did what instinct and evil imagination suggested ... like the rest of mankind” (2:1-3). But now there is salvation:

“God is rich in mercy, and because of His great love for us, He brought us to life with Christ when we were dead because of our sins” (vss. 4, 5). Wait a moment: let’s look at that again. When the Father raised Christ from the dead, says Paul, He raised us too! But we weren’t even born then!

Paul’s “big idea” is this: (a) In joining our humanity, Christ became the “last” or second Adam; and this is forever. (b) He assumed all our liabilities, took our guilt, died our second death, redeemed the human race. (c) He became totally our Substitute—the law cannot demand second death from us now (unless of course we take the condemnation back upon ourselves—many do). (d) Thus when Christ was resurrected, “we” were resurrected “in Him.” All this is our “inheritance.” Paul speaks of it as our right, given to us; nothing but our own choice of unbelief can prevent the same divine power from saving us today from our addictions.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

In our Sabbath evening family worship, the question came up: “What is the difference between imputed righteousness, and imparted righteousness?” The question is momentous, for it opens the door to vast understandings of truth.

The Greek word for imputed righteousness is dikaiosune, a good word to learn, to know, to write in your Bible margin. It is always only the righteousness of Christ—He is always its ultimate value. He is the only God in the universe who possesses genuine righteousness because He went to the cross and there died the “second death.” None of the inhabitants of the vast unfallen universe possesses real righteousness, for none except Christ has died the “second death.” No unfallen angel possesses “righteousness.” They have only “holiness.”

The reason? To choose of His own free will to die the second death motivated by genuine love (agape) is alone genuine “righteousness.” The Islamic God (their Allah) rejects the cross of Christ, rejects the love revealed there; thus rejects dikaiosune, which is defined as “the righteousness of saints” (Rom. 8:4).

Imputed righteousness is a legal or “judicial verdict of acquittal” (Rom. 5:16, REB) achieved by the Son of God because He has died the “second death” of the world (yes, of the universe). What He has accomplished is alone the legal or ultimate tender of character—value that the universe can know. Scripture assures us that the “unfallen inhabitants” of the universe appreciate that divine sacrifice of agape and ascribe unending praise to the Son of God (cf. Rev. 19:1-7). It’s time that those who profess to keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus also learn to appreciate or “comprehend with all saints the what is the breadth, and length, and depths, and height; and to know the agape of Christ which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, KJV).

Imparted righteousness is a different word in the original language—dikaioma. It is the gift of Christ’s righteousness finally appreciated, received into the heart so that the soul can never be moved, it now hates sin with such total hatred that he or she would rather die forever than yield to a sinful temptation; it is a sharing with Christ that agape, being a “partaker with Christ of the divine nature”(2 Peter 1:4).

For example: I give you a check for a thousand dollars and you have the check in your hands; but in fact you don’t even have a dime. The money is still in the bank in my name. You only have an imputed $1000, worthless to you until you take it to the bank and “cash” it.

But even the paper money is worthless unless it is backed up by what is of monetary value—gold, silver, or platinum. We could say that only that in your possession is value imparted. Until then money anywhere has had only imputed value.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Friday, November 09, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

We have witnessed the sad wreckages of broken homes, the husband and wife alienated and the children suffering. And they were miserably unhappy, too.

So often it’s like a broken egg; no one seems able to put it together again—happily. And the pain is deep; money and fine cars don’t help. Even trips to Hawaii don’t heal the wounds.

There are tons of books about what to do. But a list of rules makes one feel helpless. Is it possible that the Gospel can help?

No matter what mistakes the husband and wife have made, the Gospel presents Good News:

(1) God cares about your marriage, in fact, more than you do. If it breaks up, He is the One who gets the rap, because it embarrasses Him. He’s the one who invented marriage; and if it doesn’t work, the real pain is on Him. (And of course, He feels the deeper pain the children feel, that no one can express.)

(2) It was God who brought the two of you together. “When we’re so unsuited to each other?!” you say? Well, He knows the two of you better than you know yourselves. He knows what the problem is, and He knows that if you will believe that He brought you together, and if you can trust Him because He did so, springs of healing can be opened to flow again. You may think you can’t trust each other; but a choice to trust Him sets you free from your dark bondage, into sunlight.

(3) “But suppose the love is dead?” If there is to be a resurrection when Jesus comes, then there must be a resurrection of “dead” love now. Yes! By the same One who presides at both resurrections. It’s time to believe Romans 4:17.

“For he [Abraham] is the father of us all, as Scripture says: ‘I have appointed you to be father of many nations.’ This promise, then, was valid before God, the God in whom he put his faith, the God who makes the dead live and summons things that are not yet in existence as if they already were” (NEB).

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

George F. Will, columnist for the Washington Post, writes in today’s newspaper that “It’s Not So Easy Being Ultra Rich.”

That’s unusual common sense to come from a popular newspaper columnist.

But who are the “ultra rich”?

Almost any of us who has a roof of some sort over our heads in the rain, who has a water tap out of which flows clean water, a toilet that flushes; you went to bed last night not hungry, you have some kind of wheels to take you places. My wife and I have lived among people who lacked all these things; I was well off for I had a BSA bicycle to go to town 12 miles away over a rocky rough road.

One percent of America’s population controls 90 percent of its wealth ($16 trillion). But the fun of being super-rich is diminishing because now being wealthy is easier for everyone to attain; the fun of being wealthy is largely the fun of being better off than others.

George F. Will ends with sage advice—if you want to really have fun, start giving your wealth away.

How we ultra-comfy people will fare in the final judgment is the impact of some interesting biblical economics:

“Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6:6-10).

You won’t believe this: yours truly was once so pathetically idolatrous that to him possession of a 1928 Chevrolet was his dream. How silly it looks now; and how silly will we look in our final judgment with our yearning for a 2008 SUV.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Thursday, November 08, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Conservative Christians for hundreds of years have discussed (even argued) the relationship between faith and works. Their favorite word used to describe it is “balance.” The popular idea is that one must hold faith and works in “balance.” If you talk about faith for ten minutes then you must also talk about works for ten minutes. However, a check of the concordance reveals that nowhere in the Bible is the word “balance” used to describe this relationship. In inspired writings, there is practically nothing to suggest the use of that word as being appropriate. Scripture and inspired writings are clear “beyond question” that salvation is totally by grace through faith, and Paul even goes out of his way to add, “Not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 9). The “balance” idea strongly suggests that salvation is by faith and by works, a 50/50 deal. Which if true, would certainly give the saved ones something to boast about: “yes, Jesus saved me, but look, I did my part too!”

One popular little book is entitled Faith And Works, the title having been added by editors long after the author’s death. Yet inside the covers, the original author repeatedly speaks of the correct formula as being “faith which works.”

Yes, the Bible is true; there is only one Savior, Jesus; none of us is a co-savior. It’s not a 50/50 salvation trip; it’s 100% salvation by Christ, received by faith. But the faith is not the “dead faith” that the apostle James decries (James 2:20). A “dead faith” can produce nothing except self-righteousness (which doesn’t have a very nice fragrance!). A living faith works; it has to work; it will work; it always works. The “works” is a verb and not a noun.

What is faith? How does the Bible define it? It is not a synonym for works! The devil hates the idea of salvation by faith alone, by faith which works. If in any way he can inject into our thinking the idea that faith is itself works, then he has us deceived. John 3:16 has it: “God loved,” “God gave,” and we “believe” (the same in Greek as have faith). Faith is a human heart response to God’s loving and giving. “With the heart one believes to righteousness” (Rom. 10:10). “Beware, ... lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief” (Heb. 3:12).

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

In the centuries since the apostles, there has been a constant underground tendency among professed Christians to doubt or to underplay the reality of Christ’s full humanity. This has been justified on the assumption that if we believe that Jesus took our full humanity as it is, then we must believe that He was a sinner (which is blasphemy), for Paul says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

But that “all” has the One grand exception: Jesus Christ, who “condemned sin in the flesh;” the common flesh that all humans have inherited from the fallen Adam (Rom. 8:3).

Paul’s next verse says that He did this so that “the righteousness of the law [dikaioma] might be fulfilled in us.” That is a rare word; it appears again in Rev. 19:8 where the we read that the bride-to-be of the Lamb will be “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, ... the dikaioma of the saints.”

The reason for the denials of the full humanity of the Savior is the shying away from the reality of our overcoming completely. Biblical “perfection” has often been misunderstood, it being assumed that it means physical perfection but that is not biblical perfection; it’s character perfection—and that is never to be a matter of “works” but only of faith.

The Enemy in the “great controversy between Christ and Satan” has his most violent hatred bottled up in this idea of human beings overcoming sin through the faith “of Jesus,” because this Reality of “the power of the gospel” (Rom. 1:16) will constitute his final defeat and eternal condemnation—soon.

If a corporate body of believers in Christ so “overcome,” they will “judge” all humankind for the 6000 years (plus) of life on earth; and Christ will stand vindicated for all eternity. It will be seen by the universe that Christ has defeated Satan in his last lair where he has holed up for his last great conflict—the fallen, sinful flesh of humanity. People living in the same sinful flesh that Adam has passed on to us all, will themselves trample Satan underfoot in their “overcoming, even as [Christ] overcame” (cf. Rev. 3:20).

Oh the joy of victory over Satan! Not through self-righteousness (not a whiff of it!); but “in Christ.” The stories and the news will be flashed over the universe; at last the wound of sin will have been healed, and the Lord’s prayer will be answered, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The climax of the book of Revelation is not the reward that the saints will receive for their self-sacrifice in following Jesus, but the reward that Christ will receive for His great sacrifice.

It is a grand paradigm shift in thinking for us to get our minds off praying about our reward (“Lord, please be sure to save me and my loved ones”), and begin to think of Christ and the reward that He deserves.

Isaiah speaks of Him, “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (53:11). It’s like little children finally growing up so they can be mature and think of the “travail” of their mother in bearing them and of their parents in caring for them.

God’s people cannot remain children forever. “Let us go on to full growth, “ to “maturity” (Heb. 6:2), to the possibility, yes, to the blessing of being able to think of Him rather than always thinking of ourselves. This is the interesting turn that the story in Song of Solomon 5:2ff takes when the bride-to-be, warm and snug in bed on this cold rainy night can change her thinking from how much fun it is to snuggle under the covers, and begins to be able to think of her true Lover out there in the rain “knocking” on her door.

The famous “Laodicean message” that we have all memorized by now has its setting in that little story, for Jesus concludes His last days message with a quotation from that story: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev. 3:20; taken from the LXX). The original story tells how she finally repents and gets up to let Him in; how long she left Him out there “knocking” it doesn’t say; but when she got to her side of the door, she found him “gone.” (In our case it’s well over a century.)

We cannot always serve as the flower girl at the wedding, “the marriage of the Lamb” (cf. Rev. 19:7, 8). God’s people in a corporate sense must become the “wife” at the wedding.

And that must be the ability to appreciate “the travail” that the Bridegroom has gone through. With no trace of extremism, the remnant will learn to proclaim “nothing ... except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

All that the little flower girl at the wedding cares about is the refreshments; the bride has begun to enter into the Bridegroom’s thinking and to feel for him (at least, let’s hope so; else there can not be a happy marriage!). Those who have never learned to appreciate “the travail” of the Savior cannot be happy in His personal presence. Which is the practical truth of shutting oneself out of heaven by one’s unfitness for its companionship. Let’s use our last few moments of time in learning to understand.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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Dial Daily Bread

ear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

In my copy of the Holy Bible, 944 pages are called “the Old Testament,” and 285 pages are called “the New Testament.” The word “testament” is the same as “covenant.” So 77 percent of the Holy Bible is called “The Old Covenant” and 23 percent is called “the New Covenant.” Why this difference?

Are these two “dispensations” in God’s plan of saving the world? Many hold to that view. They understand that the New Covenant began with the crucifixion of the Son of God.

But does it make sense that God has been experimenting, that He tried for 4000 years the Old Covenant method and finally decided that it didn’t work, and now He is trying a new method? If so, can we really trust Him that He knows what He’s doing?

Instead, the Bible is clear that God has always had only one method of saving people. It’s called “the everlasting gospel” or “the everlasting covenant” (Rev. 14:6; Heb. 13:20). No, God is infinitely wise; He has not been poking around with trial-and-error experiments. Ever since the Garden of Eden He has had only one plan of salvation—“by grace through faith” (Eph. 2:9). Christ is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).

Then why the two Covenants?

They are not two methods of salvation; they are two understandings of God’s people through the ages, two opposite perceptions of God’s plan of salvation, not two “dispensations” that He has used as experiments. The Old Covenant was a “faulty” understanding of His people at Mt. Sinai—God was not to blame for it. He tried His best to get them to understand His glorious “New Covenant” as Abraham understood it and was “justified by faith.” But no, they were perverse; they themselves chose the Old Covenant idea. It led them to “bondage” and finally to torture and crucify our Savior (cf. Gal. 4:24). That’s not really good, is it? (Read Gal. 3 and 4.) A kindergarten child can easily understand.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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