Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

We could make a long list of the good works that we could do for Jesus (and which we should do for Him!); but there would be not an iota of merit in all those “good works.”

We are not saved nor are we benefited by any “good works” that we might be able to do; “our beloved brother Paul” has told us that it’s only “by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (2 Peter 3:15; Eph. 2:8).

It’s not by anything “good” that we might be able to do (actually, “there is none righteous, no, not one,” Rom. 3:10), but it’s by the good things that Jesus has already done for us that any of us are benefited or saved. Let’s concentrate for a moment on what the Lord has already done for us:

He “hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). Past tense and also present tense! God, who sees things that “be not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17), sees us as though were already safely settled in the grand new earth that He will create in the future.

He also, thanks to the cross of Christ, sees us as though we had never sinned! Yes, Romans 5:15-21 says: “God’s act of grace [the cross!] is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing” [in the Garden of Eden]. “For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many [all of us!], its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ” (REV). The idea is that the grace of Christ is far greater than our sin!

“And again, the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man’s [Adam’s] sin; for the judicial action, following on the one offense, resulted in a verdict of condemnation [which has come down upon all of us!]; but the act of grace, following on so many misdeeds, resulted in a [judicial] verdict of acquittal” for all of us, even the most sinful (vss. 15, 16).

Therefore the heavenly Father is now free to treat every person as though he/she had never sinned! That is the meaning of the “much more abounding grace” of the Lord (cf. Rom. 5:20).

Does this mean that God will take very person into heaven, even against his own will? No, for it is possible for us to resist and reject this “much more abounding grace” of our Savior!

Oh, may the dear Lord save us from ourselves!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Mary, the mother of Jesus, says something that is of great encouragement to us.

When the angel Gabriel announced to her that she would become the mother of the Lord Jesus, she said that God had “regarded the low estate of His handmaiden” (Luke 1:48).

When we consider our true “estate” in the eyes of the Lord, we too are constrained to confess that we are in a “low estate” (the Greek word means humble).

But as soon as we become willing to confess that precious truth of the reality of our humble place, we have this encouragement: the Lord “regards” our “low estate”! The word “regards” means He notices it, and He will lift us up.

He will raise us up from that “low estate.” In the case of Mary, she was raised up to where she said, “from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.”

We may not be raised up to that very highly exalted place, but for sure we will be “raised up” to the highest level of honor that we can endure without becoming inordinately proud (which would ruin everything!).

The Lord God is Almighty, yes; we know that. But He also is in need: there are some things that even He cannot do. There is some soul in the world somewhere that even the Holy Spirit cannot reach without our help. When young Isaiah was in the Temple of the Lord, He heard the Lord’s voice describe the desperate condition of His people, “a people of unclean lips.”

But the Lord confessed how much even He needed someone’s cooperation:

The Lord Himself asked, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Even the great and mighty Holy Spirit needed someone to “go,” someone to “send”!

Young Isaiah said, “Here am I: send me” (cf. Isa. 6:1-8).

Please—you be willing also! The Holy Spirit is calling again today for someone to “go.”

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

What Solomon says sounds almost like a put-down for youth: “Rejoice, O young man [and of course, young woman], in the days of thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will being thee into judgment” (Eccl. 11:9). In other words, enjoy yourself in your pride, but—judgment is coming. The Good News Bible renders it, “enjoy your youth. ... Do what you want to do.”

Youth is when we make decisions that last for all our lives, even for eternity. There’s many an old man, feeble long before his age, in nursing homes who was a great star in his “rejoicing” youth. He did what he “wanted to do.” The thought of judgment didn’t cross his mind.

And there are many old women in the same places, shriveled in body and in spirit (the last is what’s important!) who were beauty queens in their youth. They did what they “wanted to do.” They also never thought they would ever get old.

And we’re all the same: proud of what God gave us which somebody else doesn’t have. We strut about, displaying ourselves. (“All” of course means both sexes, equally.) Is there a remedy?

Youth are just as ready to believe the only remedy, if only they can learn what it is. Isaac Watts summed it up nicely: “When I survey the wondrous cross / On which the Prince of glory died, / My richest gain I count but loss, / And pour contempt on all my pride.” Is it possible that YOUTH can do that?

God Himself would never humiliate anyone before others. Our natural human pride (which all of us inherit) has its own way of turning what we cherish into ashes. Blessed beyond measure is the youth, boy or girl, who has been privileged to SEE what happened on that cross.

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Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

A mystery comes unraveled as we compare Hebrews with Exodus. The problem has been to find out what God actually said to Israel when they were at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19. The scholars have wrestled over this for centuries. Now it comes clear, with the help of that New Testament book.

In that confrontation just before God wrote the Ten Commandments on stone, He made a generous proposition to His people. But the King James Version makes it sound like He told them, “If you will first get a perfect record in obedience to all My commandments, then I’ll bless you.” And of course, the people wanted that blessing, so they promised, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do” (vss. 4-8). The bottom line idea that many have had is that the Lord Himself was to blame for starting the Old Covenant with all the misery and ruin it brought on ancient Israel.

But now, investigation reveals that God had nothing to do with forming the Old Covenant. It was the people’s idea 100 percent. The mysterious word translated “obey” in verse 5 is SHAMEA in the original language, but it doesn’t mean “obey” as its primary meaning. It means, “listen to My voice” (the word “voice” gives it away, so “we” should have seen this centuries ago).

Here’s where the New Testament Hebrews comes in to help us. Now we see where and why the Old Covenant was a failure from the word go: “the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it” (4:2). It was useless hearing, without faith “mixed in”!

This insight makes the Hebrew verb SHAMEA in Exodus 19 come alive: what God proposed to Israel at Sinai was, “If you will listen to My voice and not at the same time brace yourselves against what I am saying, if you will listen with faith ‘mixed in’ with your listening, I promise you that you will be the most wonderful people on earth, etc., etc.”

Thus it is clear that what the Lord was wanting to do at Mount Sinai was to renew to Israel the same NEW Covenant He had promised to Abraham! He listened to God’s “voice” with faith “mixed in.” The legalism problem was all Israel’s fault from beginning to end.

And the Good News to you and me is this: if we are struggling with sin and selfishness (who isn’t?), the remedy is to LISTEN to what the Lord says and stop at the same time resisting what He says. Listen with faith. Listen and believe. Then will come all the obedience we’re so concerned about.

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Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

It would be nice if we could celebrate the birth of Jesus at a time of year more appropriate to the time when He was born in Bethlehem. December is the one month of the year when it would not be appropriate because the Bible record says that “there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8).

It’s cold and rainy in Bethlehem in December, so it would be impossible for shepherds to “abide” [camp] in the field” overnight. Bethlehem is in the Northern Hemisphere; December is winter.

Then why and how did a date in December become accepted as the date of Jesus’ birth?

The answer is interesting:

The early church “left [their] first love,” says the record in Revelation 2 under the symbol of the first “church” of the seven great epochs of the church throughout history, “Ephesus.” It was in that first era of the church that the enemy of righteousness sought to pervert the pure and simple truths of the gospel by introducing compromising ideas from paganism.

One of those extra-biblical ideas was the observance of Sunday in place of the biblical seventh day of the week as the church’s day of rest and worship. (In God’s holy law of ten commandments, the Lord Himself wrote in tables of stone that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ... ,” Ex. 20:8-11).

The Roman Empire was engrossed in sun worship in the time of the early church. Some critics unwisely decided that keeping the Lord’s holy day the seventh, smacked of Judaism; and thinking that they could attract more supposed “converts” to the church by abandoning observing the biblical Sabbath, they welcomed the “day of the sun,” the first day of the week, and their so-called “Christian sabbath.”

Now we have come to the last days of earth’s history; now is the time for us to prepare for the second coming of Christ, when He shall come in the clouds of heaven (Acts 1:9-11).

The Lord commands us to “come out of her [Babylon], My people” (so that not a trace of Babylon’s false teachings are left). That is why worldwide a great movement is taking place when literally millions are abandoning “the day of the sun” and restoring the true Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh-day.

Come and join them!

They also realize that the Lord Jesus never told us to try to remember His birth by keeping any day for its observance; let Him be born anew in us—that’s what He wants to happen!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Someone says that whenever we preach about Esau selling his birthright and then weeping tears forever after; she is afraid.

We should not be afraid of Satan, for he is a defeated enemy. And fear is not the motivation by which we come to Christ; it’s His love that draws us, not craven fear. We come to Him because our shriveled up little selfish hearts are stretched outsize with an appreciation for Him, appreciation of what He has done for us in dying our second death. He went to hell to find us and to save us! And He gave Himself to that second death for us, which is hell itself.

But there is someone we should be afraid of—and that is self.

We cannot trust self; it is our nature to be at “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). That means that if we were left to ourselves without a Savior, that’s what we would do: sell our precious birthright.

So, yes, we should be afraid!

Life today is much the same as life was for young Moses in Egypt long ago. He had a “birthright” but being just as human as we are, he was tempted to “sell” it in exchange for what Hebrews calls “the pleasures of sin for a season” (11:25).

“The pleasures of sin” are always only “for a season.” They are always to be feared!

Moses was given a special resurrection so he could join Enoch and Elijah in heaven (who were both translated without seeing death; see Gen. 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11; Jude 9).

But Moses firmly decided that he would not sell his birthright. Even from a boy, Moses settled in his mind his choice to be true to God. Through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Moses stood firm like a rock in the midst of enormous temptations in wicked Egypt.

Temptations today attract the young as they appealed to young Moses; but he said “No!” to them.

The little book of Titus is our lifeline to sanity and overcoming: “The grace of God [not craven fear!] brings salvation to all men, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.” It teaches us how to live “soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world” which is wicked as was ancient Crete where Titus lived and ministered.

But Paul cannot teach obedience to the law of God without presenting the sacrifice of Christ “who gave Himself for us” (2:11-14). Contemplating and appreciating that sacrifice saves us from selling our precious birthright today!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

A lady asked me about her grown son who is estranged from God spiritually.

“I’m so mad at Him,” the young man says, “that I feel like punching Him.”

I felt a little tinge of encouragement: perhaps we have here another “Saul of Tarsus” in-the-making.

God actually prefers the out-and-out opposition of someone rather than the indecisive, “lukewarm” attitude of hypocrisy of so many.

I suggested to this lady that she not write to her angry son by using the word “God,” but speak of “your heavenly Father.”

I did not know if this young man’s filial relationship to his earthly father was a good one, or vice versa; but we know that in either case, our concept of God must be that of being a child of a heavenly Father. I know that because Jesus Himself has taught us all to pray, “Our Father, which art in heaven ... ”

Even for the young man who had a bad filial relationship to his earthly father, deep in his heart there is a hunger for the love of a good Father, and that good Father is the Lord Himself. All the while he feels like punching “God” in his anger against Him, deep in his soul is that unrequited longing for the real “Father.”

The apostle Paul, wise in the knowledge of human hearts, says that we have “received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father ... ” (Rom. 8:15).

Oh, what Good News! The heavenly Father has already given each of us the assurance of our being “adopted” into His family, whether we are worthy or not (well, none of us is really worthy!). Jesus gives every human being, even the vilest sinner, the privilege of praying the Lord’s Prayer: this is His “much more abounding grace” in actual operation!

Because of Christ’s sacrifice and what He has already done for us, the Father treats every human being kindly, even the wicked, as though he has never sinned.

“Come unto Me,” says Jesus (Matt.11:28); come!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The Lord Jesus Christ is a Man, as real as any human is on earth; He is the Son of God, totally divine; but He is also the Son of man, totally human.

He has many names; one of them is “Melchizedek.” Do you know Melchizedek?

The name sounds strange to us; but we need to get acquainted with him.

We cannot say that he was Christ Himself, but for sure, he was a type of Christ who is our heavenly High Priest.

The truth about him is not lost in the complexities of theological acumen; Melchizedek was the great High Priest for the world, more than for Israel only. That’s where you and I come into the picture: we are what the Bible calls spiritual Gentiles, and we need a priest who is greater than the priests of mere Israel were.

Melchizedek was the Gentile sinner’s link with God, the assurance to lost people everywhere that God cares about them, those of us who stand on the outside in the dark watching the party go on in the lighted house, where there is feasting and merriment and we wish we could be inside. Melchizedek is our high priest—ordained outside the Israelite nation.

His name means “king of Jerusalem” as it was before David ever entered the city; Melchizedek was “king of Salem, that is, king of peace” (Heb. 7:2).

Representing Christ, he is our High Priest who never has to “slumber or sleep”(Psalm 121:3, 4).

If you wake up in the wee hours of the night, you can pray to Him; He is there.

If you are laden with the heavy burden of guilt for sin, He is on duty as your High Priest with His forgiveness for your sin. He has taken your sin upon Himself; He was “made to be sin for us, who knew no sin”—and it was our sin that killed Him (see 2 Cor. 5:21).

He has done everything to save us; is there nothing we are to do? There is something for us to do: not a list of good works that we do to earn salvation, no; we are to believe what He has done to save us, and the supporting text is John 3:16; but what does it mean to “believe”?

It means to let our heart appreciate what He has done, appreciate the cost of our salvation, appreciate the length and breadth and depth and height of that love (agape) that led Him to His cross to die for us (Eph. 3:17-19). It’s our poor shriveled up worldly hearts being stretched outsize to contemplate, think about—well, the right word is, appreciate the love (agape) that led Him to die our second death, to go to hell, to surrender Himself for eternity for us.

Yes, there is something appropriate for us to do: “behold,” look, look, and look, at “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world”).

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

There are two prayers that God always loves to answer with an enthusiastic “Yes!” on His part. They are found in Psalm 51, David’s heart-felt repentance psalm:

(a) “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me” (vs. 11), and

(b) “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation” (vs. 12).

King David was the greatest man in the world at that time—king of the greatest nation of the world—Israel. He was so high in prestige and honor that there was no one above him.

But he fell into the darkest pit that one can fall into: the guilt of adultery—robbing an innocent man of his wife; and as if that was not bad enough, the added crime of murdering her husband—Uriah the Hittite. To make matters worse (if they could be worse!), Uriah was the faithful servant of King David, risking his life in defense of David’s throne.

This double burden of guilt that King David now carried in his soul was hell itself. He describes it in Psalm 32:

“Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer” (vss. 3, 4). It’s a vivid metaphor: a beautiful garden dead for lack of water.

But there was one good thing that David did: he “acknowledged” his sin. He opened up and confessed: “I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (vs. 5).

Then King David becomes an evangelist: “For this shall every one that is godly pray unto Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found: ... in the floods of great waters” (vs. 6).

We may flatter ourselves that we could never fall into that deep pit that King David fell into.

But the dear Lord reminds us in Isaiah 54 that even if He does deliver us from evil so that “no weapon that is formed against [us] shall prosper,” still we have nothing of which to be proud, for He says, “Their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord” (vs.17).

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The Lord Jesus Christ loves His church on earth so much that He has sent seven special messages to His world church in seven eras of its history since the time of Jesus and His apostles. They are recorded for us in Revelation chapters 2 and 3:

“Ephesus”(2:1-7) is the first church, that of the apostles. The Lord Jesus is happy with that “church,” for He commends them for enduring persecution and for thinking clearly and exercising inspired discernment (“you cannot endure them which are evil”). The Christians there have “labored” patiently.

But He has one thing against that “church”: “You have left your first love [agape].”

Careful scholars have detailed how the leaders of the early church step by step abandoned the truths of agape and substituted the pagan Hellenistic concepts of love. The people blindly followed them! The Dark Ages had begun with that false doctrine imported.

Even the great Protestant Reformation of the 16th century did not succeed in completely overcoming the Hellenistic ideas that had watered down agape.

What happened was that there developed a superficial view of the extent of the sacrifice of Christ on His cross. The idea was lost that Jesus had not only gone to sleep for a weekend before His resurrection, but that on His cross He had actually died the “second death” of the whole world (see Rev. 2:11, and 20:6, 14). He was serious when He screamed while on His cross, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Christ endured going to hell!

In consequence of losing this great truth of what happened on the cross, the early church soon fell prey to Hellenistic ideas imported into the church, one of which was the pagan doctrine of natural immortality. Today almost all Christian churches handicap themselves by holding to that Hellenistic idea.

Those who mistakenly received that false Hellenistic idea were still seventh-day Sabbath observers; but having accepted that pagan doctrine, they soon abandoned the true Sabbath and embraced the observance of the great “day of the sun” (Sunday) in place of the Lord’s true holy Sabbath. Now the Dark Ages became even darker.

But there is Good News: the Books of Daniel and Revelation pinpoint the end of the Dark Ages as coming at the close of the 1260 years of papal supremacy, which began in 538A.D. and extended to 1798 when, for the first time, the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation began to become widely understood.

Fast forwarding to the end of those Dark Ages, we find that the Holy Spirit raises up a world-wide people who distinguish themselves as those “who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 12:17).

That is what is happening today, the world around. Come, take your place with them! The Lord Jesus has prepared a “place” for you there.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

If you have known this, you have been blessed with happiness. If this is new for you, then your day is “made”—now and forever:

“Blessed is the man [or woman] who listens to Me, watching daily at My gates, waiting at My doorposts. For he who finds Me finds life, and obtains favor from the Lord” (Prov. 8:34, 35).

The word “blessed” means “happy.” From your first moment of consciousness when you awake in the morning, your thought becomes a prayer: “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.” “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation” (Psalm 51:11, 12).

Your first wakeful thought is not a desire for a cup of coffee; but you are hungry for some word from the Lord, you are thirsty to “listen” to the Holy Spirit.

And we are talking about “blessedness,” which is true happiness for here and now. Not a “pie in the sky” kind that leaves you miserable here and now.

There is a prayer that is one hundred percent sure to be answered, and it does not depend on some so-called worthiness on our part. The most unworthy sinner in the world can pray this prayer and know that God hears it and treasures it:

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13).

It’s true—the Lord loves sinners; they are dear to Him because Christ came very close to them, in fact, He was “made to be sin, who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). His enemies complained, saying, “This Man receiveth sinners” (Luke 15:2). Jesus was happy that they said this!

His job is forgiving sinners and cleansing their hearts and preparing them to be at home and to be happy in His eternal kingdom.

Let Him do it to you!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

You have a loved one for whom you are praying. Often our beloved family members are those whom we find most difficult to help spiritually; something in the past has built a wall between us. You plead in prayer, “Please, Lord, I don’t know what to do or say! Let some good angel lead

him/her to salvation.”

There is some special Good News in the Bible put there to encourage us: ”If anyone sees his brother [or sister] sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He [God] will give him [the one praying] life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death” (1 John 5:16, 17, NKJV). Let us glean the Good News:

(1) If you feel a heart-burden for the salvation of someone, you can know that it is the Holy Spirit who gives you that burden. He would never burden you to pray for someone who has committed the unpardonable sin.

(2)”Sin not leading to death” is obviously still sin, but it is sin which the sinner is capable of repenting of. (If it is never repented of, then of course it becomes “sin leading to death.”)

(3) The solution that God has for the problem is to give YOU “life” for that person, not somebody else or even an angel.

(4) The reason is that God knows that nobody else can be as efficient an agent in reaching that person as you can be.

(5) That means you need repentance yourself, great sensitivity, and insight, to discern what to do or say and what not to do or say. Sometimes the first good step is to say nothing, to get out of the way of the Holy Spirit, to give Him some freedom to work without your interference. It can be a real blessing to learn how to pray for someone without nagging him or her.

(6) When and if it comes time to say something, then is when the Holy Spirit will “give [you] life” for that person; knowing what and how to say it—that’s worth praying about VERY seriously!

(7) And just remember, the Lord loves that person more than you do!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Is it possible that the difference between eternal life and eternal death can be boiled down to a simple matter of knowing something? Jesus says, Yes! It’s in John 17:3: “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.”

How does one get to know Him?

Everything depends on that. Step number one must be to learn how to distinguish the true God from false gods; and that also requires distinguishing the true Christ from “false christs.” Jesus warns us that in these last days “there shall arise false christs ... and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive even the very elect” (Matt. 24:24).

The “false christ” is the “antichrist” that John speaks of in 1 John 4:1-3: “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist.” Hebrews makes clear that “as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, [Christ] also Himself likewise took part of the same, ... in all things ... made like unto His brethren” (2:14, 17). Paul makes clear what it means for the true Christ to “come in the flesh”: “God [sent] His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). The word “likeness” in the Greek is homoioma, from which we derive a number of English words that mean “sameness,” “identical.”

Therefore, to “know Jesus Christ” is to know the reality of His taking upon His sinless nature our sinful nature, that He might “in all points [be] tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). In His human nature He had to deny self, to deny His own will, that He might “seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me” (John 5:30). This self-denial extended throughout His life on earth right up to His cross. Would you like to follow Him? “If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me,” He says (Luke 9:23). Yes, you will know Him intimately!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the Book of Hebrews. This means that the Lord intended that the Book will be understandable for common people—in other words, good “bedtime reading.”

“We see Jesus,” it says (2:9); out of the shadows and confusion that so often prevail in our thinking, here is a clear, sunlit view of the Son of God:

(a) He is “the express image” of His Father’s person, “the brightness of His glory” (1:3). He is at the very top.

(b) He “upholds all things by the word of His power.”

(c) The same “word” that holds the Milky Way holds you and me from sin; it saves us deeply from it.

(d) The correct word that Hebrews uses is that it “purges” us from sin—a thorough cleansing. The purging process goes down into the heart and leaves us “at-one” with the Lord and at one with His vast unfallen universe.

(e) This high and holy Son of God is worshipped by all the angels.

(f) Because of His love for righteousness He is “anointed with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows” (vs. 9). In simple language, that means that Jesus is the happiest Person in all the universe.

(g) That is because He endured the cross—on which He died the second death for “every man.” That death is the final punishment for sin—the withdrawal of the Father’s reconciling face—what the Son of God endured as He hung on the cross.

(h) The holy angels minister this supreme happiness of victory over death to us “who shall be heirs of salvation.”

(i) We cannot endure the pain of the “second death,” but we can learn to appreciate what it cost Jesus to save us. This is what the Book of Hebrews wants to tell us—it’s a Book about the heart.

(j) Verse 14 (chapter 2) reminds us that in His incarnation Jesus “likewise took part of the same” nature as fallen men have, and “through [that] death He paralyzes Satan who had the power of death” (read it!).

(k) The death of Jesus did not destroy Satan; we still have him to contend with—but Jesus has paralyzed him. He is like the lions in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress who could roar at Pilgrim, but could not touch him.

(l) “The faith of Jesus” requires that we not be afraid of Satan.

(m) We are to believe Jesus when He says: “Let not your heart be troubled ...” (John14:1-3).

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Jesus said, “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).

But that frightens some people, for they know that they have not been “born again,” and they don’t know how to be “born again.”

Jesus never says “ye must” do this or that, if it is impossible, or even difficult.

Let’s read His context, and it will become clear, and it will be wonderful Good News for us:

(a) Verse 5: the being “born again” is not what we do, but what the Holy Spirit does in us “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (vs. 8). To be “born again” is not a do-it-yourself enterprise.

(b) Any person born in this world has a parent who brought him/her to birth; no one can “born” himself (excuse my lack of vocabulary—we don’t have a word for it!).

(c) Here is a job for a Divine Obstetrician; the Holy Spirit does the new birth work;

(d) And we let Him do it

(e) And He will do it if we don’t frustrate Him. (People who love Bad News won’t like this.)

(f) That divine “wind” is forever blowing seeds of heavenly truth into our minds and hearts, through various means; maybe a hymn you heard, a sermon you heard, or a book or an article you read.

(g) We may not know where the seeds come from, or when, or how; but they find a lodgment in our hearts, or in our consciousness somehow.

(h) Then comes the struggle!

(i) The Holy Spirit will not force His presence, or those “seeds,” against our will;

(j) The “seeds” have life in themselves, and so they sprout.

(k) Now, if you and I do not practice an “abortion,” the new life comes to birth within us.

(l) You haven’t “saved” yourself; you have let the Lord Jesus save you through the ministry of the ever-present Holy Spirit.

(m) This “new birth” is not the fruit of a terrifying fear; it is the fruit of the “much more abounding grace” of Christ. Your heart is melted as you “behold the Lamb of God,” as John the Baptist said (John 1:29).

(n) You “behold” Him on His cross; you begin to appreciate what it cost Him to save us; your heart is “enlarged” to “comprehend” the grand dimensions of that love (agape), as David says: “Thou shalt enlarge my heart” (Psalm 119:32).

Let Him do it!

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

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The great King David had fallen from his dizzy height of honor into the dreadful pit of adultery, and then gone further into sin by a deed of murder to cover it up.

He felt that he was lost forever. His nights were filled with tears. He says, “Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer” (Psalm 32:4).

It’s vivid writing: he thinks of a killer drought when every drop of moisture is dried up; that’s his heart!

People sometimes misunderstand the story of King David. They know that the Lord still loved him and forgave him his sin, and they read into the story the wrong idea of a license to sin. They say, “King David was forgiven his sexual sin; now go ahead and do it, don’t worry, the Lord will forgive you, too.”

But that’s the wrong way to read David’s story. Yes, the Lord forgave him; but let us note, David came within a millimeter of losing his soul forever. He cries out in anguish, “My sin is ever before me. ... Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me” (51:3, 11).

David actually tasted the horrid anguish of being in hell forever. There is nothing worse to experience than being forsaken by the Lord. How would one feel being dumped on the moon all alone forever?

David tasted that; he’d had enough. Never again did he want to transgress the holy law of God.

No, don’t do that evil deed that your lustful heart craves. Satan can never force you to do it; and remember that the temptation to do it is not the sin of doing it. But Jesus says that the deed can be done in the heart if it is your choice to do it when the opportunity comes.

Here’s where the little Book of Titus comes into focus:

“The grace of God [not craven fear!] ... teaches us to say ‘No!’ to ungodliness and worldly lusts” (2:11, 12; NIV). The battle with the sin of lust is won in the heart by choosing “in Christ” to be loyal to Him, learning how to say “No!” Satan has to depart; you are the boss. The Lord Jesus has set us all free from sin. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again ...” (Gal. 5:1).

Sometimes standing still is great progress.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

As we seek to understand whether the church can hasten or delay the promised second coming of Jesus, we need to ponder who is “the Lamb’s wife” who must first “make herself ready” (Rev. 19:7, 8). Those who say the church can do nothing to hasten the return of “the Lamb” tend to be perplexed on this issue.

They see Revelation 21:6-27 as defining “the bride, the Lamb’s wife” as the literal “city” of the New Jerusalem. This raises a question: if “God is [its] builder and Maker” (Heb. 11:10), how can the “city which hath foundations” be said to “make [itself] ready”? And further, wouldn’t Jesus be guilty of idolatry if He loves a material city of golden streets, walls of jewels, and literal gates? When He cried out to the old city, “O Jerusalem, ... thou that killest the prophets” (Matt. 23:37), was He addressing its literal gates and stones, or the people who inhabited it? When you were married, did you love the bride or your house?

When John in vision saw “the Lamb stand on mount Zion,” was it the literal city or the “144,000 who had His Father’s name written in their foreheads”? As John saw them, as a group they apparently had by that time “made [themselves] ready,” for “they sung as it were a new song before the throne [and] ... [followed] the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. ... Without fault before the throne of God” (Rev. 14:1-5).

No woman in the world is worthy to be the Bride of the Son of God! But all through the Bible His church in a corporate sense is said to be the object of His conjugal love. Neither Luther nor C. S. Lewis had much use for the Book of Revelation. But those whose hearts yearn for Christ’s soon return are thrilled with its message; they don’t help to save themselves by a legalistic do-it-yourself method, but they stop resisting “the Lamb” and they let Him “wash” them “in His blood.” And they let Him GIVE them the GIFT of special repentance (3:19). Is it not in that sense that the Bride, “the Lamb’s wife,” can “make herself ready”?

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Daily Bready

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

There is a little Biblical Greek word that has within it a world of meaning: anti.

You’ll find it in Hebrews 12: “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for [anti] the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, etc.,” (vs. 2). Our common translation lends a whiff of possible egocentricity; Jesus endured the cross because He saw a great reward awaiting Him at the end if He endured it.

In contrast, the Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich Lexicon of New Testament Greek (p. 72) says that the primary meaning of anti is “instead of.”

If that insight is valid, we have Hebrews 12:2 saying that “instead of the joy that was set before Him, [Jesus] endured the cross, ...” etc.

What “joy” lay before Him?

“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Christ was “touched with the feeling of our infirmities; ... in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15, emphasis added). He had laid aside the prerogatives of His divinity and shared human life with us in His incarnation, as we must live it—all “yet without sin.” At the young age of 33, as is true of all young men, He was just leaving behind His human youth and taking upon Himself our adulthood, and facing a career before Him.

He was already aware of His marvelous divine gifts; for example, in His public speaking He could hold a crowd in attention all day; He saw a marvelous future opening before Him. Crowds wanted to crown Him the King (John 6:15). The “joy” set before Him was boundless. No man on earth has been so tempted by “joy” placed before Him.

Yet because He loved us, Jesus chose the way of the cross, “instead of” the “joy that was set before Him.”

In His divine preexistence, Jesus had made a covenant with the Father to give Himself for the salvation of this lost planet; now in His incarnation, He ratifies that covenant. He will “set His face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). Satan will seek to turn Him aside from that sacrifice (see Matthew 16:22, 23), but Jesus will reject every temptation to want to “live.” He has chosen to go the way of the cross and the way of sacrificial death.

The Greek scholars in this instance are right: the word anti means “instead of.” All the “breadth, and length, and depth, and height ... [of] the love (agape) of Christ” is hidden in that little word anti.

Living in our flesh, facing our temptations and above all the inward desire to live, Jesus fulfills the divine covenant He made with the Father aeons before; He will go all the way to hell and take upon Himself the guilt of all our sin; He will become “made ... sin for us, who knew no sin”(2 Cor. 5:21). He has died our second death.

There is only one thing we can do—let His love constrain us to live henceforth only unto Him who died for us and rose again.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Mary, the mother of Jesus, expressed some Good News that all of us can receive.

The angel Gabriel had just appeared to her, informing her that she was to become the mother of the Messiah.

She said: “My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, for He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed” (Luke 1:47, 48).

The Good News that we can accept is that whenever we see and confess that our “estate” is “low,” the dear Lord “regards” it.

In the case of Mary, the Lord wonderfully exalted her to worldwide, permanent honor.

The Lord does not want us to suffer the pain of being in a “low estate.”

He exalted Mary very highly, and although we may not be so highly exalted, yet it is sure that the Lord will “exalt” us in our little sphere and “give [us] the desires of [our] heart[s]” (Psalm 37:4).

The Lord does not desire us to suffer the privations of sickness, ill health, or poverty; and although we may be called to endure such things for a time, yet we are to cherish the hope and trust that the Lord will relieve our plight, and will “exalt” us appropriately in our place.

“Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (Psalm 37:4).

That’s a BIG promise!

Now let us learn what it means to “delight” ourselves in the Lord.

It’s a happy “safari” before us!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The age of 33-1/2 is a prime age for all able young men.

At that age, you are just entering the excitement of being an adult; you are still young, just out of your youth; the beginnings of maturity are being seen and felt in your being; you are in that little period just between youth and manhood.

Your dreams for your life’s accomplishments are now the brightest and most hopeful. All of your natural abilities are at their best.

And that was the age when Satan attacked the young Man Jesus, and killed Him by crucifixion.

The Bible is clear that Jesus in His incarnation was “in all things ... made like unto His brethren” (Heb. 2:17) “As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same”(vs. 14).

As a young Man of 33-1/2 Jesus looked forward to life, just as we do at that age; He was indeed the divine Son of God, but He had laid aside the prerogatives of His divinity and chose to face life and to live it as we do with only one difference—“yet without sin” (4:15).

His consciousness was like ours at that age; for 33-1/2 years Jesus had successfully resisted all of Satan’s temptations, and had conquered him. And Jesus had come as the long-promised Messiah to the Jewish people; but ”He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11).

Yes, He was the divine Son of God; but does that mean that in His consciousness as One of us He was omniscient at that time?

He knew of His coming death for the sins of the world—He had known it ever since at the age He was attending His first Passover with Joseph and Mary Jerusalem. He said to them then, “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). He looked at the white robed priest slaying the Passover lamb and He knew deep in His soul, that the Lamb of God was Himself.

When He returned later to Nazareth, the village children tried to get Him to play with them in their games; but He couldn’t put His heart into playing games. His mother Mary was perplexed by Him; already old Simeon’s prophecy of her was beginning to be fulfilled, “a sword shall pierce through thy own soul”(2:34, 35). Imagine the horror of her soul when she had to watch her Son be crucified!

In the resurrection day I hope I can have a minute sometime to thank her for being the mother of our Savior! No other mother has endured the burden that she did.

And I will kneel and thank her Son for saying No! to all the earthly joy that could have been His at the age He died for us.

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Daily Bready

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Thanksgiving is traditionally the day for eating turkey and maybe other unhealthful foods, sometimes even to excess, and then saying we are thankful for it all. But the person who has begun to glimpse the reality of the Gospel as good news better than we have thought, will find something else crowding out mere thanksgiving for material blessings: a deep sense of gratitude for Christ dying our second death for us.

It’s something we mortals think very little about. The Gospel as Good News evokes from honest human hearts a profound sense of gratitude. But such a sense is impossible unless we appreciate the value of what we have received, or what it cost the Savior to procure it for us. Sometimes explorers have noted that very primitive people have no sense of gratitude. They simply take what is given them with no show of saying thanks. They just do not realize obligation until they become educated. Our preoccupation with material blessings at this season of the year is the direct result of our not understanding what it cost the Savior to redeem us:

(1) We say it with reverence—He died our second death (Rev. 2:11; Isa. 53:12). And His human nature suffered as did His divine nature. His sweating drops of blood in Gethsemane bears witness to the soul-agony He went through. And the hatred and ingratitude of those He came to save did not make His burden any lighter.

(2) He gave Himself forever to the human race. How would you like to give your entire life to living in a leper colony in the African jungle—never to come home again? That is infinitely inadequate to portray the eternal sacrifice that Jesus made for us.

(3) With His blood He bought the life and happiness of every human being, even of those who do not believe and who hate Him. He has made it possible for the wicked to enjoy life (if enjoy they can!). His grace is given, not merely offered, to every person. So, more clearly than we can realize, “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15).

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Daily Bready

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The Book of Hebrews is the “New Covenant” book that God has given us. It glorifies Jesus as God, equal with the Father (1:3-8), yet as the One who was “made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death” (2:9). He is the only Boy who was born in our 6000+ years who grew up knowing that He must die a “death for every man” (2:9).

What we call “death” the Bible calls a “sleep.” But this death that Jesus must “taste for every man” is not that death; Jesus did not merely go to sleep for us for a weekend; and it would not make sense to say that He merely slept “for every man.”

The death that Jesus died “for every man” has to be the “second death” that is mentioned in Revelation 2:11 and 20:14. It comes at the end of the 1000 years of Revelation 20, after the second resurrection. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power” (Rev. 20:6).

The Book of Hebrews makes clear that Jesus died that death “for every man.” The only possible conclusion is that no one on earth needs to die that second death at last unless he despises and rejects what the Son of God has already done for him.

This is illustrated in the experience of Esau; he had the “birthright,” it was his by inheritance as the elder son of Jacob. But our Book of Hebrews tells us that “for one morsel of meat [Esau] sold his birthright” (12:16). In modern language, Esau gave up his title to the kingdom of God and eternal life for what we ordinarily call a mere “square meal” of venison, when he was hungry.

To be fair, we must say that the younger twin Jacob took a cruel advantage of his older twin brother Esau when the latter was inordinately hungry; Jacob knew the exact spices to use. But the deed done had eternal consequences. “Afterward, when he [Esau] would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (12:17). He cried tears forever afterwards.

The most expensive “good square meal” the world has ever known about!

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Daily Bready

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Have you ever been angry with God? For any reason? You prayed for something that you felt you needed, maybe healing, maybe happiness in marriage, maybe for a child, maybe for an honest job—and your prayer wasn’t answered. Seemed like Heaven was closed to you. This is a common problem many people have; and some just turn their backs on the Lord. “If He doesn’t care enough for me to help me, I’m through with Him!” But that’s not the solution! Let’s try to help a wee bit:

(1) God never promised He would be your lowly servant, to come and go at your request.

(2) He never promised that His children would be exempt from suffering, disappointment, pain. If He did “exempt” them, people would profess to follow Him who only wanted material benefit. Heaven would get crammed with hypocrites.

(3) Though He hasn’t promised you “exemption” from what all human beings have to endure, He has unequivocally promised to give you grace (an inner peace) to endure your pain, sorrow, disappointment, in a way that honors your Savior.

(4) That endurance (Rom. 5:1-5) immediately admits you to the privileged inner circle of those who are “partakers of the sufferings of Christ” (1 Peter 4:13).

(5) Bearing your suffering (whatever kind) in that spirit then qualifies you to be a member of the Lord’s University Teaching Staff where you are given the joyous labor of helping someone else in his/her suffering. I’m serious! A Christian psychiatrist told me that a humble lay member who has genuine faith and sanctified understanding, can help a needy person as much as psychiatrists can. (I didn’t say that—he did.) See Exodus 19:4, 5; if Israel had been willing to believe the New Covenant, they would have become a “kingdom of priests,” psychiatrists.

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

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Of all the billions of people who have lived on planet earth in the past 6000 plus years, only One has died what the Bible says is “the second death” (you will find it mentioned in Revelation 2:11 and 20:14).

That One is Jesus.

If He had not died our world’s “second death,” He would not have the right to accept the plaudits of the Samaritans who said He is “ the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).

By dying our “second death,” Jesus has earned the right to save us in His eternal kingdom, for “the wages of sin is death,” and that’s the real thing—the second (Rom. 6:23).

The idea that Jesus just went to sleep for a weekend is infinitely far from the truth. It has to be true that anyone who suffers the awful physical pain of crucifixion would want to be able to sleep for a weekend—it is so terrible. But that is not what Jesus did!

When He was on His cross, He screamed in agony, “My God why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). That rejection by His Father was worse than all the agony of physical crucifixion; He was dying the world’s second death, enduring the condemnation of the Father for the sin of the world (He was “made to be sin, who knew no sin,” (2 Cor. 5:21).

He bought all our sins with His blood; we have no right to keep them any longer! He bought all our souls with His blood—we don’t belong to ourselves any longer.

It’s just simple honesty that we give ourselves and all we have to Him; and that is the only way to be happy in this world in the midst of all the trials that we have.

That is the message of 2 Corinthians 5:20, 21—“be reconciled to God.” Don’t any longer be on the outs with Him. Be “one” with Him.

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Dial Daily Bread

The New Testament Book of Hebrews may take us into the theological stratosphere in the knowledge of God, but it is also written for the little child to learn to know the Lord who saved us on His cross.

Paul says, “We see Jesus”! That’s what we want above all else! Not big heavy books that no one can understand, but something we can grasp.

John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1:29). That’s the same as Hebrews says, “we see Jesus.”

How do we see Him there?

(a) “He was made a little lower than the angels,” made to be what He was not by nature.

(b) But because He bore that cross on which He died our terrible second death, Jesus is forever “crowned with glory and honor.”

(c) Jesus was born for that very purpose; our children grow up expecting to live; but this Boy grew up expecting to die—and not our ordinary death, but the death which lasts forever in hell.

(d) Hebrews tells us here that Jesus “took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham” (2:16). Thus, specifically, Hebrews tells us that the nature which Jesus “took” in His incarnation was our fallen, sinful nature.

(e) But the glory of it all is that in that fallen, sinful nature like we all have, Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life. “We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (4:15).

(f) If you can think of any temptation that is alluring to you, that you think it’s impossible to say “No!” to, read again. “In all points LIKE” we are. Our salvation is not our work, it’s His work.

(g) It’s great Good News: He will have 144, 000 (maybe a figurative number) at His second coming who will welcome Him in joy, “without fault before the throne of God” (Rev. 14:1-5).

(h) It’s not a legalism contest; it’s the “much more abounding grace” of Jesus.

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