Daily Bread

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

I bristle when I hear someone say (in all good intention), “Everybody has to die someday,” when the Bible says precisely the opposite: “Listen, ... we shall not all die” (1 Cor. 15:51, GNB; it’s a good translation; our KJV says, “We shall not all sleep”).

The inspired apostle Paul wants to make doubly sure we don’t misunderstand: “I do not want you to be ignorant ... concerning those who have fallen asleep.” He goes on to explain that there will be a generation of people who “are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord.”

They will have no advantage over those who died and who come up in the “first resurrection” at the call of Christ at His second coming, for “we [who remain alive on earth at that time] will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.”

Then comes what he calls “the blessed hope.” The two parties will have no advantage over each other: “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:14-17).

“The blessed hope” is explained elsewhere: “The grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared, teaching us to say No! to ungodliness and worldly lusts. ... looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11, NIV).

In other words, we are not to look forward to death, but to meet the Lord at His second coming. This has always been “the blessed hope” cherished by the pioneers of faith in the second coming of Christ.

And Paul can’t talk about “the blessed hope” without remembering in the same breath what He endured for us on His cross: “Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”

This precisely is the work that Jesus as our “great High Priest” is now performing in His solemn cleansing of the sanctuary. Do we understand every minute detail perfectly? No, but our hearts tremble with excitement to contemplate it.

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.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The last generation of those who wait for Him just before the return of Jesus will be the happiest of all time because the “marriage of the Lamb has come and His wife has made herself ready” (Rev. 19:7).

A man and a woman who are in love want the wedding day to come because they want to be united as one. It was God who made them thus, and who built in to them this attraction for each other. Each feels incomplete without the other; the woman is made to be a “help meet” as the KJV puts Genesis 2:18. She wants to be what she was “made” to be—and it’s her greatest joy. She has tasted “love.”

He feels empty and alone until he finds her, no matter how wonderful a man he has been (“no rose in all the world until you came”). No man is complete of himself. The “marriage of the Lamb” comes only in “the last generation.” Those who are ready for the second coming of Christ are not happy because they anticipate palaces in the New Jerusalem, but because they are soon to be united in “marriage” with the Lamb. Their pent-up love can hardly wait fulfillment.

A bride who loves is happy only to be with her bridegroom. I remember reading of a woman from California who loved a man, married him, and went where he wanted to go—study lions on the Serengeti plains. She slept happily on the ground only to feel a lion nibbling at her toes through her sleeping blanket. She had married this man for love and was happy to be where he was.

That’s what this kind of love does to two who love with it.

The love of His people for Christ as a wife loves a husband is the mystery of mysteries; it’s been talked about and written in the Bible all these thousands of years, but now in the final generation it becomes Reality.

All of eschatological theology that fills the library tomes can be distilled into a drop of this divine-human conjugal love. Read from Genesis to Revelation with this insight and the Bible becomes new to you.

The Bridegroom is so eager that He can hardly wait; but something has cooled His bride-to-be. Could it be an inner infidelity? Is that Laodicea’s real “lukewarm” problem? Thought through it becomes an overpowering motivation for repentance.

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“Jesus and His Last Generation of Saints on Earth”

December 28-30, 2007

Weimar Institute, Weimar, California

Speakers: Robert J. Wieland, Paul E. Penno

Call: (530) 637-4111, ext. 7933, for lodging at the Inn

E-mail: dailybread@1888message.org for more information

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

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Sunday, December 09, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The Bible truth of the “last generation” tells a great story of success in God’s work. It will include the outpouring of the gift of the Holy Spirit in a full measure the world has not seen since the Day of Pentecost when Christ was ushered into His ministry as the world’s High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary.

What did the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost include?

Jesus has said that if He goes away, He will not leave us “orphans,” but He will send us “another Comforter,” whose first work will be to “convict of sin” (John 14:16;16:8).

What sin did the Holy Spirit convict the people of, at Pentecost? Answer: the awful, the terrible sin of crucifying the Son of God (Acts 2:36). There is no sin deeper, more horrible.

To the last generation of people on earth, the Lord will send the same Gift in His fullness—bringing a conviction of sin that goes deeper than He has ever gone with a “body” of God’s people, since Pentecost.

This outpouring of the Holy Spirit will be a fulfillment of Zechariah 12:10-14:

(a) The call to repentance will come first to the leadership of the church “(“the house of David, ... the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

(b) It will be “the spirit of grace and of supplications.” No high-pressure “professional” calls for superficial responses; this will be “grass-roots” in that it will go directly to the lowest layers of consciousness.

(d) This means that it will be an exaltation of “Christ and Him crucified,” not just beautiful Power Point pictures, but by a clear heart-conviction of how contrary our character has been to that of Jesus.

(e) Repentance will be the direct result.

(f) But the fruit will bring glory to Christ which will be the most glorious in all time.

May the Lord hasten the day! It is to this that we dedicate our December 28-30 meeting at the Weimar Chapel.

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 Last Generation” idea has caught the interest of thoughtful Bible-lovers worldwide, which for many has become a new book.

All the grand salvation themes come together to constitute a crescendo of Bible truth like:

(1) A choir singing a “new song” that has never struck such a high note: “They sang as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures, and the [twenty four] elders. And no one could learn that song except the 144,000, who were redeemed from the earth” (Rev. 14:3).

(2) Imagine the excitement that would thrill the musical world if someone were to discover the manuscript of Beethoven’s TENTH Symphony (the world has never heard more than those famous “nine”). But nothing like that has ever happened. The “Last Generation” Bible idea is of far greater impact for it will thrill seekers of truth from “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” Deep convictions in hearts come together in unison.

(3) Another biblical image of the last generation movement is a forest fire in people’s hearts. No church hierarchy can put it out. Although the “elders” of 120 years ago did quench the flame then, now the Holy Spirit is unmistakably in charge, and honest-hearted people will make their way through every obstacle to grab it. The quiet, even painful ministry of gospel-lovers worldwide has at last borne fruit.

(4) Nobody has to study psychological tricks to induce people against their will. “The LORD has kindled a fire in Zion” (Lam. 4:11). The Holy Spirit will motivate them to forsake all that has held them back; the last generation idea punctuates soul-winning ministry; there is no time-setting, but there is seen the final significance of the Daniel and Revelation teaching since the commencement of “the time of the end” in 1798 (Dan. 11:35; 12:4). There is awareness that God does have a time schedule.

(5) The light that shines so brightly is the accumulated rays from millennia of growth in grace, “the path of the just” that “like the shining sun ... shines ever brighter unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18). It’s the brightest light in 6000+ years; it can not pass unrecognized. Christ will be honored.

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

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Friday, December 07, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Marriage counselors who try to help troubled couples generally advise them never to let the “D word” escape their lips. There is solid biblical or theological reason for this counsel.

Whether or not the troubled married couple are active church attendees, if they are seriously disturbed in their marriage they have very likely in some way breathed a prayer that God would save their marriage.

If, after so praying, they talk about the possibility of divorce ending it, this betrays unbelief on their part, and thus virtually nullifies their prayer.

The Lord Jesus has told us, “All things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matt. 21:22). Jesus strongly implies that Satan cannot know what we say to our Father in secret prayer (Matt. 6:6); but we also know that where there is strife and bitterness, there Satan is for sure, listening in.

Now, when we talk words expressing doubt and unbelief in the miracle-working power of the Holy Spirit, we are in effect inviting the Enemy to listen in.

The counsel about the “D word” applies to all our prayers. The Lord takes a special delight in His people who trust Him in the face of discouraging circumstances. To trust Him before others, before the world, is itself a form of missionary work, because people are “reading” your Christian experience before they read your tracts and books.

Jehoshaphat leading unarmed Israel by faith, with hymns of praise to God, to face a huge opposing army—this is a grand example of trusting the Lord in the face of apparently hopeless opposition (2 Chron. 20:15-22). If King Saul, even though he had sinned grievously against the Lord, had led Israel likewise to face the Philistines in humble, honest, confessing faith, the Lord would not have abandoned him (the sad story of his unbelief is in 1 Sam. 31). The Lord loves repentant sinners!

Your battle of faith is as precious to the Lord as was Jehoshaphat’s; his story is written “for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come”(1 Cor. 10:11). The writing of the Bible is already finished, but your story of trusting the Lord can still encourage others and give you the joy of witnessing for the Lord.

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

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Thursday, December 06, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

“Jesus and His Last Generation of Saints on Earth” will be the principal topic at the Mini-Conference announced in last night’s “Dial Daily Bread” to be held December 28-30 at the Weimar Institute Chapel, Northern California (maybe some far away can plan their mini-conference nearby).

This topic has grown tremendously in interest after a congress of Biblical scholars met at Andrews University to discuss the publication of the book Questions on Doctrine 50 years ago, and the tragic false teaching that crept in.

“Last Generation” takes its place in prominence, and the interest is worldwide. The basic idea is rooted in Scripture:

(1) The honor and vindication of Christ will be enhanced by a group of His followers who lay self aside and permit the Holy Spirit to reproduce in them a character that fully reflects Christ.

(2) Thus it will be demonstrated that sin has never been a necessary thing; “the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to those who believe” (Rom. 1:16). It has power to enable those who cherish the faith of Jesus to “overcome [sin] even as [He] overcame” (Rev. 3:21), that is, to “condemn sin” in their fallen, sinful flesh (Christ did!); they are the ones in that text who at last will “sit with [Him] on His throne”).

(3) Further, they will be the 144,000 “who follow the Lamb [the crucified Christ] wherever He goes” (Rev. 14:4).

(4) They will be the “we” that Paul speaks of in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17 who “are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord ... [when] the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we [that’s the saints who follow the Lamb everywhere in that last generation] will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

(5) Thus “Jesus and His last generation saints” are “the blessed hope” of all ages, truth that has often been nearly forgotten.

(6) What will bring about this tremendous change, the most glorious in the history of the world?

(7) Answer: the pure true message of “Christ and His righteousness,” that has no “Babylon” confusion left in it.

This will be the principal topic that Pastors Penno and Wieland will discuss at this “last Sabbath of the year” meeting. You are invited.

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

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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The Lord does not “balance” the Good News of His pure gospel with even a drop of legalism to poison it.

If you open to Ephesians, the pure unadulterated “truth of the gospel” (cf. Gal. 2:5, 14) will soon stare you in the face:

“By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (2:8, 9). Note:

(1) What Christ accomplished is not a mere “offer” as is so often said: it is a “GIFT.”

(2) “Grace” is kindness not “offered” but GIVEN to the sinful, fallen human race “in Christ.” “God so loved the world, that He gave ... “ (John 3:16).

(3) You may ungracefully resist and refuse the “gift” (let us pray that you don’t!) but in the final judgment you will see the stark evidence that the Lord did GIVE it to you and you scornfully refused it. (Again, a thousand times, may the Lord save us from doing that!)

(4) Even the “faith” that we need in order to appropriate and receive the “gift” is not of ourselves, but again is a “free gift.” God specializes in giving goodies, not just “offering” them.

(5) If that were not true, then the gospel would end up telling us how to save ourselves. If our salvation depends on us accepting an “offer,” then inevitably we would have a significant part in saving ourselves.

(6) Two steps are clearly demarcated: (a) We “have been saved,” past tense; Christ saved us. The “we” is not a little group of Calvinist “elect,” but is clearly everybody. If it is “by grace,” that must include all the undeserving people in the world. Otherwise it is not “by grace” but is clearly “by works.” (b) The receiving of the “gift” is also “through faith,” again, a “free gift.”

(7) And then, you end up in God’s kingdom forever singing His praise, for He saved you from A to Z, not yourself doing it. You let Him do it.

If you open your Bible to Romans, there again you will hear angels singing the same melody of grace:

“As through one man’s offence [Adam’s] judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life” (5:18).

Does that mean that people will be “saved by grace” while knowingly transgressing the holy law of God? As Paul says it, “God forbid!” The heart that says “Thank You!” for “the free gift” of justification is constrained forever by the love of Christ to live a life of glad obedience (2 Cor. 5:10-21).

On this, the world’s grand antitypical Day of Atonement, the world’s High Priest is ministering that salvation to all who will open the heart to receive the blessing.

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":

“Balance” is a popular word used in describing the relationships between different understandings of the gospel. We mustn’t go to extremes in saying that salvation is by faith, nor should we say too much it’s by works; the popular idea seems to be that we need “balance” between the two ideas. You might become a fanatic if you emphasize “faith” too much; and of course you’re already a legalist if you emphasize “works” too much, is the idea.

However, look up the word “balance” in that enormous Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance; it should be right there next to “Balaam,” but lo and behold, it’s not there. Not even once. The word “balance” is not in God’s vocabulary in describing the gospel of Jesus.

From the very beginning, the night when Jesus was born, it was pure “good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people,” according to the inspired angel (Luke 2:10).

Jesus commissioned His apostles to tell the good news “to every creature” (Mark 16:15). No mention of “balance” with legalism; no, give them the full, unadulterated “glad tidings” that Jesus is the Savior of the whole world; that’s what He was sent to do, save the world, and He did it.

The pure unadulterated gospel simply tells the world what He did; now please believe it. Don’t mix a drop of legalism in it, is the idea.

But wait a moment: aren’t we to tell people to keep the Ten Commandments? Isn’t that part of a good “balance”?

The Holy Bible does not homogenize the Old and New Covenants; the distinction is crystalline clear. The Ten Commandments metamorphose into ten wonderful promises when we believe the Preamble that should come with them (Ex. 20:2): the LORD who brought us out of “Egypt, out of the house of bondage” is Christ our Savior from sin.

He accomplished it; He did it all by Himself; our job is to believe it in its truth for us individually, 100% straight. It is powerful to save from sin. Romans and Ephesians, for example, tell it as it is. More tomorrow, the Lord willing.

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

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Monday, December 03, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Yes, the LORD loves everybody, doesn’t He? The Bible says so, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son ...”

But the Bible also says that at the same time the LORD “abhors” some people!

How can He love somebody and at the same time “abhor” him?

The answer is that He can “abhor” somebody’s character and at the same time want him/her to learn repentance and be saved eternally.

The text that mentions this anomaly is Proverbs 22:14: “The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit. He who is abhorred of the LORD will fall therein” (KJV and NKJV).

Of particular abhorrence to the Lord is a pastor, an ordained shepherd entrusted with the Lord’s flock, who betrays his solemn, holy calling by yielding to the temptation to commit adultery with “an immoral woman” (well, that’s any woman who will seduce such a servant of God).

Yes, the Lord can forgive as He forgave King David; many cite David as an example of easy “forgiveness,” just say you’re sorry it happened, and everything is fine. You can go on being a pastor again. (Just get moved to another church, they’ll never know.)

But David’s experience is anything but “easy.” Read the story of the rest of his life: sorrow, pain, and deep shame. He may be saved at last in God’s kingdom, but think of the stain that never was washed out.

And think of the young people who had put their trust in this pastor, ordained of God, who was their shepherd but youth who stumbled because of his evil example never to rise again spiritually.

The Lord wants to give everyone who believes in Him an “abundant entrance” into His eternal kingdom (cf. 2 Peter 1:11); but such an unfaithful shepherd may have what Job describes as “escaped with the skin of my teeth” (19:20).

If you are a pastor who has escaped falling into that horrible “pit,” that’s something to praise the Lord for endlessly, forever.

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

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Sunday, December 02, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

This particular weekend millions of Christians around the world are studying what it means to praise the Lord. Why does the Bible talk so much about praising Him endlessly? For example, Psalm 150: “Praise Him according to His excellent greatness” (cf. vss. 1-6; and numerous other psalms).

What does our praise do for Him? It cannot be that He exists on the endless flattery of unnumbered sycophants; He is not vain! Psalm 22:3 says, “You are holy, enthroned upon the praises of Israel” (Hebrew).

Are we enjoined to praise Him endlessly because of His mighty power as Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the Author of life?

Islam says, yes; prostrate yourself before Allah five times a day. Be physically reminded externally to do so. But the Bible goes further.

The LORD of the Bible, the God of Israel and also “the Lord of all the earth” (Zech. 6:5), is indeed the Almighty who holds the nations as dust in His hands and they are counted as “less than nothing” (Isa. 40:15-17); but is that the reason why we praise Him so much?

No, there is a far greater reason that Islam does not discern—yet. It fuels the multitudinous calls in the Bible to “praise ye the Lord.”

The LORD of the Bible is the One whose love motivated Him, drove Him, to “taste” the second death of this lost world. He “tasted death” for every one of its doomed inhabitants (Heb. 2:9). It was eternal death that He tasted, hell itself. That’s the measure of His love.

Understand that breadth and length and depth and height of His love (cf. Eph. 3:18, 19), and you too can never stop singing His praise. But that reason is way beyond Islam at the present time to grasp.

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

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Friday, November 30, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The world is spiritually dark no matter where you look, but the bright light of Jesus shines: “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels ... that He by the grace of God might taste death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9).

Here is a brilliant revelation of salvation through “much more abounding grace” (cf. Rom. 5:21). Satan may try to foist on us enormous, impenetrable darkness, but here the light shines beautifully: “Jesus tasted [the second] death for everyone.”

No matter who you are or where you are sitting in your darkness of despair, this simple but brief revelation of truth is like a shaft of lightning on midnight darkness. Christ has already died your second death! That’s the biggest truth you will ever confront.

That’s what Hebrews 2:9 says, a million highly trained theologians to the contrary notwithstanding.

Note what Hebrews 2:9 does NOT say: By the grace of God Jesus offered to taste your second death IF you first do something to please Him.

No! The Bible is clear: “God so loved the world, that He gave [not merely offered to give!] His only begotten Son” (John 3:16); the Father actually GAVE His Son to you as your Savior; and He “tasted [your second] death” when He “tasted” it for “everyone.”

Now, simply believe this real, solid truth. Of course, that does not mean that He will force you against your will to enter the New Jerusalem; along with the gift of Himself to you He has given you the freedom of your own choice to refuse the gift of Himself as your Savior, if you want to make that choice (it will break His heart if you do).

Only one text comes to mind as soon as we say that: “But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation” (Heb. 6:9).

A heart appreciation of what Christ suffered for you when He “tasted” your second death will motivate you “henceforth” to live unto His glory forever. You will never tire of saying “Thank You!” This faith delivers you forever from that “fear of death” which has kept you “in bondage all [your] life.”

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

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Thursday, November 29, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Why is there so much opposition when truth is proclaimed, even sometimes in the church?

For example, Bible teaching is clear as sunlight that the New Covenant is the “better promises” of God, and the Old Covenant is the worthless promises of the people (cf. Heb. 8:8-10): yet Old Covenant ideas keep cropping up, and there is tension and suspicion where there should be pleasant fellowship and harmony among the people of God (“Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”! Psalm 133:1).

Like the prophet Jeremiah who was hounded and cursed in Jerusalem by God’s own people until he longed for a place in the wilderness where he could cry and cry (“Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night ... in the wilderness ...” (Jer. 9:1, 2); people who love the truths of the Bible weep today. Jeremiah was not a psychopath; the truth is that his opposing people were at war with God Himself. After Jeremiah’s death, the Jews began to recognize how he was the greatest of the prophets whom God had sent to them; yet they made his life a hell on earth for him.

The Son of God came one Sabbath day to a congregation of God’s true people in the town of Nazareth, and told them He was the true Messiah their people had looked for, for millennia. Result? The people of God who “kept” the holy Sabbath tried to kill Him (cf. Luke 4:16-29).

The common people “heard Him gladly” but the higher you went in the hierarchy of the true church of that day, the more bitter was the hatred that the meek and gentle Jesus provoked (Matt. 12:37; John 1:11).

A delegation from the intellectual capital of the then world came to invite Jesus to come and teach them in Greece. The temptation for Him was enormous—get away from this bitter prejudice where he could go and teach receptive people; but He chose to stay and go to His cross and be crucified by the leaders of God’s people (cf. John 12:20-27).

He has told us not to be surprised by the painful opposition coming sometimes from God’s true people in the last days. As Jesus prayed “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), so He prays today.

And the prayer will be answered: God does forgive His people for opposing and rejecting the beginning of the latter rain and the loud cry; but He will also be very severe. He gives any generation only one chance to accept or reject “the beginning” of that rare and most precious gift of the latter rain. Let no idle word escape our hearts from now on!

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

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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Bible prophecy is clear: we have come to Daniel’s “time of the end” ( 11:35; 12:4), to the “last days” Paul describes (2 Tim. 3:1), to when “then shall the end come” that Jesus speaks of (Matt. 24:14).

Yes, “there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was” (Dan. 12:1). But it will also be a time of lighting “the earth with ... glory” such as has never been because God will prepare a people all over the world to stand at Christ’s second coming. It will be the time when God’s people shall be delivered from fear. The righteousness of Christ will clothe them, and so clothed, they cannot be afraid any more than Christ was afraid when He was among us and faced the raging tempest (Matt. 8:26), or the wild men of the Gadarenes (vs. 28).

Deliverance from fear “in Christ” will be a glorious blessing; but even now we can learn to receive such deliverance from fear.

This is accomplished through understanding how close Christ is to us, says Hebrews 2:9-15: “We see Jesus, ... that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man. ... Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy [paralyze, Greek] ... the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

Note: eventually, Christ will destroy Satan; but for now, He paralyzes [Greek, makes ineffective] the one who has “the power of death.” We are “the children” who “partake of flesh and blood” now; and we do have a mortal enemy; but Christ has “shot” our enemy with a tranquilizer that paralyzes him, so we do not need to be afraid of him.

The common excuse that we give for falling into sin is a false one, “the devil made me do it.” The devil cannot force us to do one wrong thing! Temptation to sin may be fierce but the much more abounding grace of Christ is far stronger. The key truth involved here in learning to overcome fear is that in His incarnation Christ “took part of the same ... flesh and blood” that we have received from our fallen “head,” Adam. Thus we realize that we are united with Christ; His faith becomes ours; His fearlessness also becomes ours. There is no need to fear a paralyzed enemy!

Over and over the Lord tells us, “Don’t be afraid!” In fact (and I speak softly and reverently) it’s a sin to be afraid; it implies that there is unbelief buried or woven into our so-called “faith.” And unbelief is the sin of the ages, the last sin to be overcome on planet earth.

But we can overcome it! And we must overcome it, and for all those who “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (cf. Rev. 14:1-6—God will have such a people!) there is that blessed gift of freedom from fear.

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

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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

If you have ever been in despair, be encouraged, the apostle Paul himself was there too. It was in Romans 7 when he cried out, “‘O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?’”

Then imagine his delight when he gets into the joy of Romans 8: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

“No condemnation” means release from what the fallen Adam left to us—our inner sense of a verdict of divine judgment which has hung over us all our lives. Although these feelings of psychic wrong and maladjustment were deep and penetrating, “the law of the Spirit of life” has gone even deeper and is therefore more far reaching. A new principle delivers from the craven sense of fear. Guilt and moral disorder have enslaved us even from infancy.

No psychiatrist can accomplish such a catharsis of the human soul. It heals. Wrongs and anxieties that even our parents were helpless to relieve find inner cleansing. David speaks of the process: “When my father and my mother forsake me [that is, where they must leave off], then the Lord will take me up” (Psalm 27:10; my dear mother had to “leave” me when I was two! “The Lord” has taken the place of my mother; He alone has understood me).

Here’s a breathtaking bit of good good-news: “he who takes God for the portion of his inheritance, has a power working in him for righteousness as much stronger than the power of inherited tendencies to evil, as our heavenly Father is greater than our earthly parents” (E. J. Waggoner).

God the Father solved our problems by “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3, 4).

The word “likeness” means identical, the same as. Christ who was fully God now became fully man. He built a divine-human bridge that spanned the gulf of alienation that sin had made between us and God. Its foundations reach all the way to the deepest root within us of sinful alienation.

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

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Monday, November 26, 2007

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Someone unknown to us writes asking us to pray that God will send “THE man into [her] life” that God has called to be a father to her baby. She quotes extensively from Steps to Christ, and we can only pray that the Lord in His mercy and grace will help her to believe its message and save her from making a tragic mistake now.

God has promised to write His holy law in our human hearts; that law says “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and the prohibition includes the sin of fornication.

When we believe the Preamble to the Ten Commandments which says that the LORD has “brought us out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, “ the apparently stern Ten Commandments become ten precious promises (cf. Ex. 20:2, 12). That Preamble is the statement of the Lord’s forgiving gift of justification (cf. Rom. 3:21-26; 5:15-18).

Any mother anywhere in the world needs the LORD God to be with her, to guide her in raising her baby, whether she is married to a man or not, and whoever that “man” may be. Even if he is the best man in the world, she needs to be guided by the Lord; and if she has no husband, she still must “know the Lord,” and she can know Him.

Here’s what it means to “know” Him (the wisdom is in Jeremiah 9:23, 24):

(1) “Let not the wise person (the masculine pronoun is not in the Hebrew) glory in his [her] wisdom,

(2) let not the mighty person glory in his [her] might,

(3) let not the rich person glory in his/her riches,

(4) But let him [or her] who glories glory in this, that he [she] understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

(5) For in these I delight, says the LORD.”

A single mother who “knows” this by faith, believing this truth about the love, forgiveness and goodness of the LORD, will know His blessing in raising her child.

“Any man,” whoever, can be a very poor substitute for the LORD. But the Lord gives Himself to anyone who seeks Him in faith.

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":

When the little Boy of 12 watched His first Passover at Jerusalem, He wondered what it meant. No one could explain it to Him. He had to reason it out through His inspired mind and conclude that it meant that Someone sinless must come and be sacrificed as the Lamb of God.

What’s amazing is that this teenage Boy did not fight the conviction that He was called to die as the “Lamb of God”!

We know He accepted the call, because the first words we have from His lips were what He said to His mother when she later found Him in the Temple, “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). That 12 year old Boy was dedicated! He was the first of many who have out-thought their parents, and yes, their pastors, in understanding the leading of the Holy Spirit.

That “Boy” stayed dedicated to His Father’s “business” until He “set His face” to go to Jerusalem to be crucified (see Luke 9:51).

There are in the world today many teens who likewise hear and respond to the call of the Holy Spirit to dedicate themselves to the Lord Jesus. The nation’s religious leaders in the Temple in Jerusalem had no idea what was happening up in Nazareth in Galilee, while this Teen was growing up and while He was working as a carpenter. The Holy Spirit was teaching Him.

So there are youth today, some as young as 12, who are thinking very seriously, and responding to the Holy Spirit very deeply. They may be 144,000 in number!

Let them ponder that Youth of 12. He does not impose upon them the heavy burdens of Old Covenant living; He invites them to fellowship with Himself in joyous New Covenant freedom. Theirs will be the once-forever joy of proclaiming the message that will lighten the earth with glory (Rev. 18:1-4).

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

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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" web page resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/

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