Daily Bread

Friday, November 17, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

We’re still thinking about what it means to live under the new covenant. Something is going on that is radically different from the way we humans normally think.

Abraham (his name at first was Abram) is the key to this radically different way of thinking, because in Galatians the apostle Paul singles him out: “To Abraham and his seed [descendants] were the promises made, ... who is Christ. ... God gave [the inheritance] to Abraham by promise. ... And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise ” (3:16-29). Now note the strange thing that happens.

What is going on?

“God ... calls those things which do not exist as though they did.” It’s all illustrated in Abraham’s life story: God said to him, “I have made [past tense] you the father of many nations” when by all laws of observation as we humans view things, Abraham didn’t yet have baby #1 (Rom. 4:17). What was to happen many years later God declares has already happened! It’s something like creating a world out of nothing, just speaking, and there it is.

We see the same idea revealed in what the Father said when Jesus was baptized by John in the River Jordan. He said about Jesus, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” and then He put His arms also around the entire sinful, selfish, rebellious human race and said the same thing! It would be a long time before the human race is “well pleasing”! Another instance of “calling those things that do not exist as though they did”!

We see the same idea in Ephesians 1 where we read that we are sitting “in heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” “chosen ... in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, ... predestinated ... to the adoption as sons. ... He has made us accepted in the Beloved” (vss. 3-6). Again, the past tense describes what just isn’t in existence yet! That’s objective truth awaiting its subjective fulfillment.

Abraham was the one man in all the world at that time who took that mighty leap of faith and chose to believe all of this “not yet” promise. “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, ... fully convinced that what He had promised He was able to perform” (Rom. 4:20, 21).

We live under the new covenant when we believe as he did.

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.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

We have our choice: we can live under the old covenant (the still popular way as for millennia), or under the new. And if we choose to live under the new covenant, all will go well with us; right?

If we are driving, all the lights will change to green for us; the boss will give us a raise; our spouse will smile sweetly at us; our investments will prosper. Right?

Jesus surely lived under the new covenant, but He also died under it; from His boyhood He met constant opposition and turmoil that led Him eventually to the cross. No, new covenant living is not a picnic.

As a student in the “school of Christ” you are under serious, loving discipline (Heb. 12:5-10). Some setbacks and disappointments may be good for you in the long run. But the Lord tempers our trials, giving each of us the benefit of infinite wisdom. To each of us is given the “measure of faith” that makes life where His providence has placed us a thing of quiet, steady joy.

Even Jesus in His incarnation endured discipline. We read that “He ... learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (5:8). You will someday thank the Lord Jesus for permitting certain disappointments to come to you; your present happiness can be greatly enhanced by anticipating this through your confidence in His faithfulness. The joy of the future can become yours in the present through faith.

The first message Jesus gave to the assembled disciples after His resurrection was, “Peace be unto you (John 20:19). This is no vain compliment; peace of heart is what you long for and He gives it to you today. “My peace I give to you, and that is in the midst of tribulation. The peace comes with your believing the new covenant promises, all seven of them in Genesis 12:2, 3.

You may have to pray the prayer of Mark 9:24: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” A wise writer assures us that we can never perish while we pray that prayer. Every little prayer you pray, making that choice, makes you stronger in the Lord.

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

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

If Christ is “the Savior of the world” (and He is, John 4:42), then why does “the whole world [still] lie in wickedness”? (1 John 5:19). He has given the gift of the Holy Spirit for some 2000 years; we have Bibles; there is a church which has been loyal to the truth during all these many centuries (including the Waldenses) and is now “the remnant ... who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ”(Rev. 12:17); why is the “whole world” still “in wickedness”? What is the point of this long, long delay?

Christ Himself in His glorified state must be weary of the anguish that sin creates every day (yes, Isaiah says He is weary of it; He must feel all the pain, 24/7; Isa. 63:9); must His agony go on for centuries more?

There are three “angels” in Revelation 14:6-12 commissioned to proclaim “the everlasting gospel” worldwide, a ministry that ends with a “harvest” of people “ripe” in preparation for the second coming of Jesus (vss. 14, 15; they are obviously the 144,000 introduced at the beginning of the chapter, vss. 1-5). But another “harvest” also becomes “ripe,” people in total rebellion against God like grapes thrown “into the great winepress of the wrath of God” (vss. 17-19). Thus two “harvests” ripen side by side.

The ministry of these three “angels” is performed by human agents, as God’s saving ministry always is; and the agents must be that “remnant.” But another parallel prophecy in Revelation pictures that same “remnant” worldwide as being “lukewarm” (3:14-21) with the Savior earnestly pleading, “Be zealous and repent” (vs. 19).

God’s plan has included the message of “another angel ... having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory” (18:1-4). Heaven has not failed to fulfill also this promise; as surely as the three have been sent, so surely did the Lord send this “most precious message” of the “other angel,” the fourth.

But for some reason the world has been starved to know what that fourth message is. Therein lies a reason why it has been so plagued with hatred, bloodshed, corruption; “it’s hungry animals that fight.” A thoughtful writer has said that the message of Revelation 18 “has been in a great degree kept away from the world.” Repentance is due, the world must no longer be deprived. That “light” must yet come. Be hopeful, confident, pray.

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

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Monday, November 13, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

We read in 1 Timothy 2 that God “desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (vs. 4). We believe it.

But how seriously does He “desire” that?

(a) He gave (did not merely lend) His Son to be our Savior (vs. 6).

But for anyone to be “saved” truly, he must learn to be happy in heaven, to be “pure in heart” (Matt. 5:8). That means a change of heart, a “renewed mind”(Rom. 12:2), a total change of character. But what is God doing to make that possible for sinners? Has He piled up roadblocks to make it difficult?

(b) He gives us the Holy Spirit whose first work is to “convict [convince] the world of sin” (John 16:7, 8). He cannot employ force. But the Holy Spirit does more than merely convict us of sin; He does all for us that Christ did 2000 years ago for the people of His day, for He convicts “of righteousness, because [Christ has gone] to the Father, and we see Him no more” (vs. 10). So the Spirit does all that Christ did long ago!

(c) The third work the Spirit does for us to convict us of “judgment, because the prince of this world [Satan] is cast out” (vs. 11). The Holy Spirit assures us that His power is stronger than the power of Satan; and that is the reason why Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light,” because as it was with Saul of Tarsus, “it is hard for [us] to kick against the goads” (Matt. 11:30; Acts 26:14).

(d) So much does the Lord “desire” us to be saved, that Jesus says the Holy Spirit actually makes it hard for anyone to be lost! We can resist and reject all that He does for us; but a wise writer has said that “all along the road that leads to [eternal] death there are pains and penalties, there are sorrows and disappointments, there are warnings not to go on. God’s love has made it hard for the heedless and headstrong to destroy themselves.”

(e) Jesus says His “yoke is easy” and it is “hard” for us to resist Him. The Father “desires all men to be saved,” and He cannot do more to save those “all men” than He is doing!

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

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Sunday, November 12, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Sent in by a Thoughtful Reader:

“When you say the new covenant is summarized best in ‘Believe and live,’ are you not opening your words to a big misunderstanding? This sounds exactly like the mantra of superficial Evangelicalism, which focuses on grace as divine pardon without an equal emphasis on grace as divine power to enable us to overcome sin.”

Thank you for a thoughtful observation!

If we believe in the papal/pagan doctrine of natural immortality (which is popular), we cannot truly appreciate the sacrifice that Christ made on His cross, or believe that He truly died. And if we cannot believe that, we cannot appreciate “the width and length and depth and height” of the love [agape] revealed there that “passes knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, 19).

The inevitable result: faith is limited, circumscribed, paralyzed, because faith is a heart response to the love demonstrated in the sacrifice of Christ. When faith is devitalized, so then is our spiritual life.

The death which Jesus died for us was the equivalent of “the second death.” Thus His commitment to the cross meant to die the very death of hell—not a measure of physical pain in decibels, but the total abandonment of Himself to the eternal “curse of God” (cf. Deut. 21:22, 23; Gal. 3:13). His cry on the cross was not superficial, “Why have You forsaken Me?” Jesus endured in His own soul what the lost will have to endure in the final judgment at the end of the 1000 years (Rev. 20:11-15). Thus He was “made to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). That’s the Bible definition of love (agape).

When faith is a melted-heart “believe and live” rather than an ego-motivated “obey and live,” we are tapping into the message that will lighten the earth with glory (Rev. 18:1-4). This understanding is implicit in Hebrews 2:9: Christ “tasted death for every man,” that is, the real thing. To understand that truth is what we mean by “believe and live.” The “living” from then on is in obedience to all the commandments of God, heartfelt, beyond fear of hell or thought of reward. Such love “constrains” us to that total heart obedience (2 Cor. 5:14).

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

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Friday, November 10, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Anyone who watched the president’s bruising (and being bruised) post-election press conference can think of the words of Jesus: “on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity” (Luke 21:25). The plural (“nations”) can include “the coalition.”

A “blue House” will find the Iraq tragedy as perplexing as it has been for the “red.” Jesus said that people’s hearts will be “failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth” (vs. 26). His “fear” embraces more than our modern terrorism; now there is the deeper fear of dictatorship in the land that once prided itself on its love of liberty in law, under a precious Constitution that terror-induced fear would vitiate.

What could metamorphose this lamb-like, liberty-loving second “beast” of Revelation 13 into a fearsome “dragon” that reproduces the terrible tyranny of the Dark Ages (vss. 14-17)? The next chapter of Revelation answers:

(a) Just after the 1260 years of papal oppression finally end in 1798, a new interest in Bible truth emerges. One small example: the unquestioned love of Christ that motivated the early Church of England missionaries to Uganda. Theirs was genuine spiritual life.

(b) Then comes the spiritual disaster of the fall of “Babylon” (14:8), the “fall” primarily of Protestantism (“the church of Sardis”) which had “a name that you are alive but you are dead” (Rev. 3:2). The “fall” was the ceasing of Protestantism to protest, in the rejection of the “everlasting gospel” of the first angel’s “advent message” of 14:6, 7.

(c) The abandonment of “the everlasting gospel” is the root problem. The horror of “9/11” signals the loss of the invulnerability we had always thought our two oceans provide us. The “fear” Jesus spoke of is now becoming intense.

But “fear” or terror is not an option for a child of God; “we will not fear,” says the inspired psalm (46:2). The “will” is significant: you can’t “fear” unless you “will” to do so (“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,” John 14:27). Whatever time of trouble comes, if we understand that “everlasting gospel,” we see it as an opportunity to reveal the message to the world. So, what’s to many as fear-inducing is to God’s people a privilege.

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

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Regardless of whether we have expressed ourselves in our vote as leaning toward “red” or “blue,” as a corporate body of people America fits into the biblical prophecy of the second “beast” of Revelation 13.

It “came up” in the vast expanses of North America as a nation with the character of a lamb proclaiming to the world twin principles of civil and religious liberty (vs. 11). It was a wonder to the masses of Europe who had sustained the persecuting power of the first “beast” who had ruled for those 1260 years from 538 to 1798 A. D.

Now when judgment had finally fallen in 1798 (vs. 10), the lamb-like character of the young United States of America just “coming up” shone brightly around the world. My wife and I remember the “yo-para-America!” spirit that pervaded Europe when we spent six weeks there in 1945 on our way to East Africa as missionaries. There was hope that Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!” spirit might pervade the world; and in that spirit of love of liberty the world’s masses might come to understand and appreciate God’s “law of liberty” as “the everlasting gospel” “by which Christ has made us free” (Rev. 14:6-12; Gal. 5:1).

God’s foreknowledge of our national character (expressed in Revelation 13) has not been predestination; the American populace has indeed been “free” politically and religiously to enjoy the greatest economic and military power of any nation in history.

But Revelation 13 also chronicles in advance the apostasy of that national character to one that is willing to enforce the denial of those great principles (vss. 12-17). Often as we have proclaimed this prophetic picture, loyal citizens have protested saying that “we” could never as a nation do such things in national apostasy. But the raw fear of terror combined with a prevalent “post-Christian” mindset undermines Patrick Henry’s love of liberty; and whether we are “red” or “blue” in our political persuasion, our new national spirit seems ready to exchange liberty for economic and military security.

Or is it? Thank God for a minority still willing to sacrifice self for the upholding of God’s principles of truth. That minority will fearlessly proclaim the message of Revelation 18! No need for anyone’s heart to “fail [him] for fear” (Luke 21:26).

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

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The Evangelical mega-church movement in North America is reeling under a shameful, humiliating scandal that tries the faith of multitudes. One of the movement’s most glittering bright lights has flashed out—Pastor Ted Haggard, a meteor that has streaked across the sky.

When a male prostitute discovered that his regular client was the prominent church leader of thousands of trusting church members, even he felt a revulsion of soul and chose to expose him publicly. As often happens, when sexual infidelity is exposed, the adulterer adds to his violation of the seventh commandment the violation of the ninth, and lies about it. Then when cornered by the full exposure, he breaks down and confesses both the sexual sin and the sin of lying about it.

Paul reminds us when we are forced to witness such a horrid fall from grace that we must not suppose that we are made of better stuff: “If a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted” (Gal. 6:1). Strangely, it seems that ordained ministers of the gospel, of whatever persuasion, are peculiarly susceptible to sexual temptation. To stand in a pulpit with many sincere Christian people looking up to you as a messenger of God is a scary place to be in. Lurid temptations lurk in the most unlikely places. And yes, ministers of the gospel and ordained “priests” are no better than anyone else in the flesh; all are sinners by nature.

John Bunyan, in writing Pilgrim’s Progress (a book that breathes the spirit of heaven), reminds us that directly by the gates of the New Jerusalem is a tunnel that goes down to hell. The higher one is in the eyes of people the greater is his peril.

But we must ask the ultimate question: why wasn’t the gospel that Ted Haggard thought he was proclaiming powerful enough to save him from falling into this abysmal pit? “The mouth of an immoral woman [and we can add, male prostitute!] is a deep pit; he who is abhorred of the LORD shall fall therein” (Pr. 22:14). But why can’t the true gospel save one from becoming “abhorred of the LORD”?

Maybe there’s the ultimate problem: is the Evangelical “gospel” of justification by faith the true “everlasting gospel” of Revelation 14:6?

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

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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Again, what does it mean to “live under the new covenant,” or the promise of God?

All God’s promises were made to the “Seed” (singular), which is Christ (Gal. 3:16), and the only way we come into the picture is “in Christ.” But thank God, that’s our “way.”

Christ was known as “the son of David” not only through physical ancestry, but because in His incarnation He “lived” in David’s psalms. As the leadership of God’s true church condemned Jesus, so the divinely appointed leadership of His true church in the days of King Saul condemned David. Saul was “the anointed of the Lord,” and David’s agony was not only the physical exertion of constantly fleeing from Saul but wrestling with the greater temptation to doubt that God had truly anointed him to be king of Israel, when “the anointed of the Lord” condemned him. He had to overcome, to believe that God would take care of him.

Thus we have David’s psalms written during his exile (57, 59. for example); repeatedly, the future king begins by wrestling with fear (old covenant-inspired!), and before the end of the psalm he erupts in new covenant joy of believing that the LORD will not forsake but vindicate him.

A millennium later the Son of God, “sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” which He had taken upon Himself, wrestles with the same temptation. Again He is “tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15), triumphing again over our old covenant fears, emerging day by day into new covenant sunlight (cf.. Isa. 50:4, 5). This goes on continually in His earthly life until the greatest temptation of all to old covenant unbelief as He hangs on His cross in the darkness crying, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” And there on the cross He wrestles His way through the darkness into the sunlight of new covenant faith, crying out joyously as His heart was already bleeding to death, “You who fear the Lord, praise Him! ... He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted [Me!], nor has He hidden His face from Him [Me!], ... He heard”! (Psalm 22:23, 24).

Jesus has taught us how to live under the new covenant.

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

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Monday, November 06, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

A thoughtful person writes asking to understand more clearly about the two covenants: (a) What is the “everlasting covenant” (Gen. 9:16; Heb. 13:20)? (b) What does it mean for us to live under the New Covenant today?

May the Lord save us from controversy and confusion!

(a) Obviously, “the everlasting covenant” of Gen. 9:16 and Heb. 13:20 has to be the same, for “God is not the author of confusion”(1 Cor. 14:33). And Gen 9:16 makes clear that it is a promise that God makes to “every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth,” symbolized by the rainbow. God’s covenants are never bargains He strikes with man; they are unilateral promises He makes.

(b) But we humans are in love with the idea that we can make bargains with God; we want to be able to help save ourselves. It is too humbling to our proud souls to realize that we are dependent 100% on God fulfilling His promise to save us. The rainbow is a “promise” from God to every human being, good or bad. Because of that promise, God is able to treat every human with grace, as though he/she had never sinned. The grace in that “everlasting covenant” makes it possible for Him to make “His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and [to] send(s) rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).

(c) The same “everlasting covenant” is God’s promise to every human being on earth to “make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever” (Heb. 13:20). That’s why the Father gave His Son that “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Christ loves the world, He died for the world, He redeemed the world, He died the world’s second death (Heb. 2:9), “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21), the “us” being “every man.” He wants “all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3, 4; if we had the courage to tell “every man” that “knowledge of the truth,” the full truth, more would believe).

(d) But every man has freedom of choice, and many resist and reject what Christ has already done for them, promised them, and given them because acceptance includes deep humbling of heart before God. They deny and nullify His grace for them and so they condemn themselves.

(e) Thus the “old covenant” is always based on man’s promise; the “new covenant” is always God’s promise. Come, get under the “new.”

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

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Sunday, November 05, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Someone says, Yes, God considered this girl Rebekeh to be Isaac’s wife long before she knew of him because Eliezer prayed for God’s guidance to lead him to the girl whom “Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac” (Gen. 24:12), and he later realized that this girl Rebekeh was the one (vs. 44).

But how do we know that God is as careful and considerate for us ordinary humans as He was for Isaac? Does He regard every girl as Mrs So-and-so yet-to-be, so having sex with her is already adultery? Does He respect every boy that highly?

Because of His love (which is agape), God respects us humans far more than we respect ourselves! He considers us as “sons of God” (1 John 3:1), and children of Abraham on a level with Isaac (Gal. 3:8; 4:6, 7). As high as heaven is above earth, so high is His ideal for each child.

If by the grace of the Lord teens can see what the crucifixion of Christ was like, how the Jews and the Romans degraded His physical body, crucifying Him naked, yet this hated, abused, despised Man was the divine Son of God, they will begin to know a sacred reverence for the human body which is “the temple of God” (1 Cor. 6:19. 20). Sexual intimacy before marriage is not true friendship—it’s a violation of the dignity of God; that’s what the crucifixion was.

Every human being is sacredly created by God, and his/her maleness or femaleness is specifically “in the image of God”(Gen. 1:27). That’s why Proverbs says that “whoever touches her shall not be innocent”(Pr. 6:29) and since “there is neither male nor female, you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28) it makes just as much sense to say that whatever girl “touches” a boy in the same way “shall not be innocent.” Pre- or extra-marital sex (and foreplay) “is a deep pit; he [she]who is abhorred of the Lord will fall there” (22:14).

But the Lord loves people whom He “abhors,” because His abhorrence is not for them personally, but for the sin that they fell into. King David fell into that “deep pit,” and he tasted its horror. The Lord “brought [him] up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set [his] feet upon a rock and established [his] steps” (Psalm 40:1-3). Ask Him; He will do the same for you.

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

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Saturday, November 04, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The pastor’s collection of prayer letters was washed up at the beach in a plastic bag, letters containing heart breaking stories of human anguish.

They were intended to have been laid on the altar in a Baptist church and the pastor and congregants praying that God would notice their pleas and respond. (If they had known, they needn’t have tried to “pray” this way.)

There was the teenage girl who prayed, “Lord, I know that I have had an abortion and I killed one of your angels. There is not a day that I don’t think about the mistake I made.”

Imagine the anguish she knew and the pain that followed. In some way it poisoned her life ever after—even after forgiveness may have been grasped. Premarital sex among Christian youth is the source of enormous beneath-the-surface pain. Says one devout psychologist: “Fornication causes more suffering in America than theft and perjury and random violence combined. ... Churches are unwilling to give this sin the attention it so richly deserves” (Dr. Reo M. Christenson in Spectrum).

God took pains to talk about it in the Bible. Enclosed in the heart of His holy law is the New Covenant promise to all who believe His Good News in the Preamble to the Ten Commandments, a promise that says: “You will not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14, sex with anyone not already one’s lawfully wedded spouse). Any pre-marital teen is already someone’s spouse in God’s loving foreknowledge; see Gen. 24:14, 16; Pr. 6:29 (sexual titillation is not God’s ideal for teen recreation); 22:14; 1 Cor. 6:18, 19.

But sexual license is mankind’s obsession. Sir Julian Huxley admitted it was the driving force behind evolution: “I suppose the reason we leaped at The Origin of Species is because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.” Aldous Huxley: “The liberation we desired was ... from a certain system of morality.” Hence the enormous popularity of evolution.

How can teens be blessed for time and for eternity? Instilling fear is not the answer. There is an often undiscerned truth in “Christ and Him crucified” that is powerful: “The love [agape] of Christ constraineth us ... that they which live should not [cannot!] live unto themselves [to self], but unto Him which died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14, 15, KJV). There is power.

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

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Friday, November 03, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

In Bible times, the LORD, “the Judge of all the earth” (Gen. 18:25), kept an account with nations and empires, and judged them on the basis of the light He had permitted them to see in their corporate nationhood. He judged cruel Babylon accordingly, then Medo-Persia. The pagan Roman Empire was finally judged for its cruel “teeth of iron, and his nails of brass,” being “exceeding dreadful” (Dan. 7:19).

The Northern Kingdom of Israel was what we would call today “post-Christian” in that it was in apostasy from truth God had permitted them to see; He judged them by letting the Assyrians snuff them out of nationhood. The Kingdom of Judah was likewise in judgment; God did not personally harm a hair of the head of the people—He stood back and permitted the Babylonians to capture them likewise for their “post-Christian” apostasy.

The United States has known a Christian conscience; its president once confessed the divine judgment against the awful corporate sin of slavery and in the president the nation bowed consciously beneath the divine lash.

We acknowledge the judgments of Almighty God against Nazism.

Now will God judge us for our post-Christian “culture”? We who once were known worldwide for speaking “as a lamb” in defense of civil and religious liberties are becoming known for speaking “as a dragon” (cf. Rev. 13:11). Is it “Christian” or post-Christian to acquire the reputation of the world’s outstanding (that is, most prominent) nation that tortures?

A thoughtful Christian essayist has seriously suggested that our national response to 9/11 should have been inspired by the Amish. Our “tooth-for-a-tooth” response has not yet brought us closure nor an enhanced world image. Yet we claimed to have the “Christian” response.

Now comes U S News’s latest sober editorial chronicling our national moral descent into widespread “cheating.” There is visible progress again in what can only be honestly labeled as “national apostasy.”

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

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Thursday, November 02, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The Lord has mercy on anyone who has sinned away his life and confesses the truth. The Savior knows what failure feels like—no one has ever been “forsaken of God” as He on His cross; that experience has enabled Him ever after to sympathize with people who at last know they deserve to be forsaken of God, and feel heartbroken.

The Bible is full of “come’s,” inviting those who know they have sinned:

(1) “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden” (Matt. 11:28, KJV). Who? The angst-laden souls convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit.

(2) “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37). Note: the invitation is specific: just those who are thirsty. You must feel it.

(3) “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). This “come” will be spoken in the last Judgment Day, but if you come to Him as a sinner today you will revel in anticipating those words at last, for you will know and believe today that the kingdom was prepared for you from that long ago. That’s included in justification by faith.

(4) In the wild storm on the lake, Peter saw Jesus walking on the water and begged, “‘Lord, ... command me to come to You on the water.’ So He said, ‘Come’” (Matt. 14:25-29). He was totally unfit to walk on water, yet the Lord did not discourage him from doing what he wanted. He never discourages you in your desire to honor Him and to bless your fellowmen.

(5) “He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, “Come after Me, and I will make you become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). How can He make you become a soul-winner? Simon and Andrew have moved aside; the call is now to you. Keep on “following [Him].” “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a serving to seven, and also to eight” (Eccl 11:1, 2). That’s a promise of soul-winning success. Be patient, and let it be fulfilled in you.

(6) “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid [hinder] them” (Mark 10:14). We must pray for forgiveness for blocking their way so often! When they see us as humble fellow-sinners, they will respond.

(7) To rich and powerful people (in this context), Jesus says, “‘Come, take up the cross and follow Me.’” We (He means all of us) are “to sell whatever you have and give to the poor’” (10:21). At this juncture on His great, final Day of Atonement, that makes good sense.

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

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Two men, 90, meet in their little foothills town after 20 years of separation, one having been felled by Alzheimers, the other apparently in fine health. Both were servants of the Lord Jesus, proclaimed the gospel as best they knew it, were faithful to the light the Lord had given them. One is in the casket, the other conducting the memorial service.

Why was one stricken, and not the other?

Millions around the world would like to know, but the Lord does not grant us that privilege; the elder who survives realizes that he has not an iota of merit—every ounce of mental or physical life granted him these two decades is only lent to him so that he senses a constant obligation to consecrate his all to the One who is the Savior of them both.

Why some people must suffer and others go free gets a good discussion in the Bible. Jesus Himself takes on the problem in Luke 13. An accident had happened in Jerusalem in which a “tower” fell on eighteen people and killed them; could have been an accident in building, or a contractor’s cheating, as sometimes happens. People thought the 18 must have been especially “worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem,” but Jesus emphatically said, “I tell you, no”! (vss. 2-5).

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is simply the possible lot of all humans who survive infancy, only to meet tragedy some other time or place. Jesus speaks up decidedly to defend the victims; they are just as dear to the heart of God as those who never meet it. Jesus classified the “18” as in no way more guilty than us all, but added that repentance is equally incumbent on us all—a truth proud humans don’t like to face.

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

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