Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

It’s the universal problem: how do we TRANSMIT good desires into righteous character? The alcoholic hates himself because he got drunk again; the addict wishes he could be free again; the pornographer despises himself after he has indulged again; the glutton likewise. And the gossiper feels polluted after doing it again. “To will is present with me,” says Paul, echoing our universal cry of despair, “but how to perform that which is good I find not. ... The evil which I would not, that I do. ... When I would do good, evil is present with me” (Rom. 7:18, 19, 21). Peterson renders the same passage, “The power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, ... I don’t have what it takes. I can will it but I can’t do it. ... I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. ... Something has gone wrong deep within me. ... I’m at the end of my rope.” Transmission kaput.

That’s Romans 7. Now we go on to Romans 8, which says that Christ is the answer. Of course, we’ve heard that for centuries! But look again—Paul presents Him in a different light than Christians have seen Him for centuries: Christ is not simply a clever lawyer who gets you out of scrape after scrape, paying your fines for you, substituting His righteousness to “cover” your on-going sins time after time. Verses 1-4 draw back the curtain that has hid the true Christ from view and show Him as the Son of God who became the Son of man in the truest sense, taking upon Himself the same sinful nature that we all inherited from Adam, wrestling with our same problem but conquering it in our own sinful nature. God sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

The point? He took upon Himself a SELF as we each have a self, and He denied that “self.” In other words, He took upon Himself a will of His own that was in conflict with his Father’s will, but He totally denied His own will—all the way to the cross whereon He was crucified (John 5:30; 6:38; Matt. 26:39).

Believe the truth about Christ, and then you share with Paul, “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). Victory!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

There is nothing the Lord loves more to do than to lift the burden of fear and guilt that oppresses a human heart.

He says to us all, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).

The “coming” implies for us all, that we confess to Him our sin; we must get it off, away from, our heart.

But what is our sin?

Paul says that our “carnal mind” is “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). And “enmity” is something that always ends in the murder of the innocent one, according to John: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15). Already is!

Therefore, if we have a “carnal mind,” that carnal mind is “enmity,” and the result is inevitable; enmity against a “brother” is already the sin of murder.

Therefore, it follows: if we all as fallen humans have a “carnal mind” which is “enmity against God,” we all share the guilt of the murder of the innocent Son of God.

But that is a corporate sin; and, the only repentance which is appropriate for a corporate sin is corporate repentance. And therefore that is what the Lord Jesus calls us to experience when He says to Laodicea, “Be zealous, therefore, and repent” (Rev. 3:19).

We cannot repent on our own—repentance is a gift (see Acts 5:31, “God exalted [Him, Jesus] ... for to give repentance to Israel”).

Let us receive the gift that Heaven waits to give us!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Suppose you didn’t choose to seek temptation by walking on Satan’s ground, but suddenly it confronts you. It may come to you from a thousand directions. What Jesus described as “looking” worries you and you wonder about that “sin in the heart.”

(1) Here is Good News. That was Joseph’s problem in Potiphar’s house in Egypt. He wasn’t looking for temptation, but it came. At the age of 17 or so, Joseph had committed himself totally to the Lord because he understood the New Covenant promises. He was not in fear desperately trying to hold on to God’s hand—God was holding him by the hand, and the Savior kept him from falling into a sudden, alluring temptation. He ran.

(2) You prepare ahead of time as he did by giving yourself to the Savior. Don’t worry; He won’t forget you. His much more abounding grace will “teach [you] to say No!” and run (see Titus 2:11, 12, NIV).

(3) Joseph alone in pagan Egypt was surrounded by a constant atmosphere like Sodom and Gomorrah. One wise writer tells us that he was as one who saw and heard not. It wasn’t fear; he was living under the New Covenant and the Lord had written His ten commandments “law of liberty” on his heart.

(4) Now praise Him that He has done the same for you. Walk softly, be humble, you “need Him every hour.” If Christ has saved you from committing fornication or adultery, you can praise Him throughout eternity, starting now. Thank Him for the mind of Christ.

(5) And if you have stumbled and fallen, receive His already-given gift of repentance as David received the gift (Psalm 51). Don’t water it down into pious lukewarmness.

(6) Now tell others that He has saved you. That’s what it means to “witness” for Him.

(7) As High Priest He is even now sealing His people (Rev. 14:1-5). Don’t resist Him in His office work. He has business to do; let Him do it in your heart.

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

Dial Daily Bread: Psalm 31

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Would you like to have an hour of sheer, purest joy?

(a) Read Psalm 31 on your knees, word by word, verse by verse.

(b) Remember what Jesus says in Matthew 6, “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and ... shut thy door, [and] pray to thy Father which is in secret” (vs. 6). That means, shut out every worldly voice—your radio, TV, iPod, whatever.

(c) Then read this precious psalm.

(d) You will see that it is the psalm that Jesus recited when He was dying on His cross: “Into Thy hand I commit My spirit” (vs. 5; cf. Luke 23:46—and “having said thus, He gave up His spirit”).

(e) In Psalm 31:10 Jesus speaks of “Mine iniquity,” but it is not His; it is ours which He has taken upon Himself.

(f) Verses 11-13: to feel utterly forsaken both by God and by your “neighbours” and “acquaintance” is a horrible feeling; but that is what Jesus felt and what He endured on His cross.

(g) But Jesus chose to do what we can choose to do: “I trusted in Thee. ... Thou art My God” (vs. 14).

(h) The Lord will forever save you from self-humiliation (vs. 17: “Let me not be ashamed”).

(i) Verse 19 speaks of a treasure of “goodness” which the Lord has “laid up” for you—which you may not be able to see just now, for it is “laid up.” But you can rejoice now in that assurance.

(j) While you live happily in the rejoicing of his “goodness,” the Lord “hides [you] in the secret of [His] presence” (vs. 20), where you are safe.

(k) Now, what you have to repent of is the sin of doubting His fidelity to you (vs. 22); don’t let yourself “say in [your] haste, ‘I am cut off from before Thine eyes.’”

(l) Now forever more into all eternity, “be of good courage, ... He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord” (vs. 24).

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,"

Someone writes from far away saying that he is “spiritually starving, for Bible study and prayer are sometimes tasteless.”

Is there anyone one who can testify that he/she has never felt this way?

The fault lies with “Babylon,” that great system of false and counterfeit faith that has removed Christ far away from us because:

(a) Babylon teaches that in His incarnation Christ did not take upon Himself our true human nature which is fallen and sinful, but Babylon teaches that Jesus took upon Himself the sinless nature of Adam before the Fall, so that therefore Christ is separated from us, removed far away.

(b) If Babylon is right, then Christ could not be the One that Hebrews describes as “touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” and “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (4:15).

(c) But Babylon is wrong; for Christ has come all the way to where we are in our lost and sinful condition, yet without sin. He has “condemned sin” in our fallen, sinful flesh and proved for all the world and the universe to see that if one has a fallen sinful nature he need not continue in sin.

(d) Now the Lord says, “Come out of her [Babylon], My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4).

(e) Around the world there are”144,000” people who believe the truth and have chosen to “come out” of Babylon, and to “follow the Lamb [the crucified and risen Christ] whithersoever He goeth” (Rev. 14:4).

(f) Come, join them! “And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17).

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,"

Yes, it is true that Romans 5 says that the Father treats every man as though he has never sinned because of what Christ accomplished on His cross for all men. Christ has taken every man’s sin upon Himself; Christ was “made to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Therefore the Father has pronounced for “all men” a “judicial verdict of acquittal” (Rom. 5:16, REB).

But the question comes: “Does this not encourage ‘all men’ to continue sinning, for the Bible says, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11).

The idea is that the Father permits “evil men” to go on sinning if they choose, not that He encourages it but He permits it.

Why?

Because the Father wants a more pure kind of righteousness to be in His people: not one based on craven fear, but a righteousness that comes from a heart appreciation of the love (agape) of Christ in pouring Himself out unto death for us (Isa. 53:12), even our second death.

That love (agape) “constrains” us “henceforth” to live unto Him, not unto self (see 2 Cor. 5:14, 15).

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Questions pour in about what we said, well, not what WE said, but what the apostle Paul says in Romans 5:

(a) “Yes, Paul does say that because of His sacrifice, Christ has given ‘every man’ a ‘judicial verdict of acquittal’” (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB).

(b) “But does that mean that every man is going to be saved eternally?”

(c) No, because “every man” has the power of choice, and some [sorry, many] refuse the much more abounding grace of the world’s Savior and actually prefer to be lost.

(d) To reject that “much more abounding grace” is the most terrible sin humans can make themselves guilty of.

(e) Fast forward to Revelation 20:5, 12, 14. There we see the “second resurrection,” when all the lost come out of their graves and face the final judgment when “the books [are] opened” (vs. 12).

(f) The opening of the “books” is the final judgment; every lost person will come face to face with the full reality of what his life has been.

(g) He will at last see the full dimensions of his rebellion against the King of the universe and the Savior of the world; the lost at last will realize fully the horror of their lifelong re-crucifixion of the Son of God.

(h) The realization will be so utterly overpowering that each will cry to the rocks and mountains, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb” (cf. Rev. 6:16).

(i) So if you have thought that the Lord Himself is throwing these “rocks” down on them, it’s not true; they ask for it. All they need is to look into the eyes of the world’s Savior whom they have life-long despised and rejected, and they won’t need to be thrown into the Lake of Fire; they can’t wait to jump in.

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,"

Jesus Himself says that a universal disease afflicts His true church world-wide-being “lukewarm” (see Rev. 3:14-21). It’s a spiritual virus that weakens the immune system of the church as a “body,” making it susceptible to the alluring (and lethal) temptations the Enemy has devised for these last days.

The result? Its visible symptoms include six-day-a-week absorption in worldly pleasures or labors so that love of the Bible and devotion to Christ are crowded out (and love for one another, too). Mall-shopping, sports, ego-building, sensuality, materialism—the nearer we come to what Jesus called “the end,” the more invasive and compelling these temptations become.

The Book of Revelation unveils a curtain; “behold, a door opened in heaven” (4:1). And when we look, we see the world’s Savior deeply embarrassed before Heaven. “Immanuel ... God with us,” He is still human as well as divine. How can He claim success in His mission to “save the world” when His people, His church, remain “lukewarm” century after century? The larger His church becomes, the more serious is this problem He has.

It appears to be the most difficult problemGod has had to confront in thousands of years of world history. The solution? Legalism, denunciations, superficial “revivals,” fear-induced “conversions” that last only a few weeks? No. God has a solution—the lifting up of the cross of Christ so that His love is “comprehended” in its full “breadth, and length, and depth, and height” (Eph. 3:14-21). Then “we thus judge” that when “One died,” “all died.” We see what He accomplished by His cross. The revelation forever heals lukewarmness (2 Cor. 5:13-21). (Leave it to Satan to try to enshroud that cross in foggy confusion.)

But look, behold, see, comprehend what truly happened there!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

There is a chapter in the New Testament that I was always scared to try to talk about because it was over my head, even after I had been ordained to the gospel ministry. Even during my 24 years in East Africa, I think I never preached about it there.

But now it has become virtually an obsession with me: Romans 5.

The first part has been easy; the problem is in verses 15-21:

(a) If the Lord’s “free gift is of many offenses unto justification” for “all men,” does that mean that “all men” are going to be saved? Does Paul teach “Universalism”?

(b) No, the fact that justification is a “free gift” to “all men” does not mean that all men have opened their hearts to receive the “free gift.” The latter is our part in salvation: God’s part is in His giving; our part is in our “receiving.”

(c) “Receiving” means making room in our hearts for His “much more abounding grace” (Rom. 5:20; there is no room for anything else! All the world and its worldly pleasures are out, in order to make room for this heavenly grace.

(d) To “receive” means a heart appreciation; a comprehension of the great extent of that “grace” which means that on His cross the Son of God gave Himself to go to hell for us, that is, He did not merely go to sleep for a weekend—He died our second death.

(e) Someone objects: how could that be when He was resurrected the third day; there is no resurrection after the “second death”!

(f) But Jesus committed Himself to the second death; hope did not present to Him His coming forth a conqueror in the resurrection; therefore His commitment equaled the act of dying our second death.

(g) Of course, we cannot duplicate that; but we can appreciate it!

(h) This little message is a call to us to stop, think about it on our knees, and learn to appreciate it.

(i) Now nothing will ever be the same again.

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 Lord’s people on earth rebelled against Him in sin, this planet became the only one in the universe in rebellion against God. This presented the Lord with a new and serious problem: what to do.

To the utter surprise of the vast unfallen universe, the Lord solved the problem in the most unthinkable way: He frankly forgave us all.

The apostle Paul thought it through, and he has written out the story for us in Romans 5:

“It was through one man [Adam] that sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus death pervaded the whole human race, inasmuch as all have sinned. [That last phrase in the Greek suggests that we can’t blame Adam entirely for our plight, because we have all done what he did—sinned].

“... But God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many [everybody!], its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many [everyone] by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. And again, the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man’s sin; for the judicial action, following on the one offence, resulted in a verdict of condemnation, but the act of grace, following on so many misdeeds, resulted in a [judicial] verdict of acquittal. ... Much more shall those who in far greater measure receive grace and the gift of righteousness live and reign through the one man, Jesus Christ.”

So, what is Paul’s point?

“It follows, then, that as the result of one misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act is acquittal and life for all” (vss. 15-18, Revised English Bible).

(a) Since the world began there has been only one act of “righteousness” ever performed—the sacrifice of Christ.

(b) On God’s part, it is a gift given.

(c) Our salvation personally therefore consists simply in a gift received.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

There are many good people in the world who want to live and let live, to be a help to their neighbors, they are morally upright, but they live with a serious problem: they are victims of an addiction.

It may be the addiction of drugs; or the captivity of alcohol.

In some cases (and these too are serious) they are addicted to food and their weight problem is out of control. All kinds of addictions assail us humans; we seek the solution to our problem.

Come January 1, these dear people believe that a New Year’s Resolution may help them; so they “resolve” in the next twelve months to rise above their addiction and conquer it.

They promise themselves and often their family, “I’m going to lick this problem in this New Year!”

They are utterly sincere, and their hearts are right; they mean well and the Lord pities them. They just need to know the truth and to act on that truth, for Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). The truth is not the value of our own promises to do and to be good; our own promises are like “ropes of sand,” they look good and our friends and loved ones hope that they will hold; but they don’t.

The problem with making promises to God is that wonderful “I” that makes the promises. “Our beloved brother Paul” again sees through the problem; he says that our “carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7). The solution: stop relying on that “wonderful I” and begin relying on the Lord’s promises.

Making promises to God is not the answer because our promises are the “Old Covenant” that “genders to bondage,” says “our beloved brother Paul” in Galatians 4:24. The New Covenant in contrast is believing God’s promises to us.

A New Year’s Resolution is not the solution; a New Year’s choice is.

A prayer to pray may go like this: “Father in heaven, thank You for giving me another New Year; thank You for loving me so much that you gave Your Son to me to be my Savior; yes, I do believe—but “help Thou mine unbelief.” Those are the words of the distraught father in Mark 9:24 whose son was devil afflicted; Jesus had promised him “all things are possible to him that believeth.”

The poor father set the stage for all of us: “Lord, I believe” he responded; but then immediately begged for forgiveness, (as must we) for he added, “help Thou mine unbelief.”

A New Year’s resolution is not your solution; a New Year’s choice and a New Year’s prayer, is.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

On January 1, 1863, the president of the United States took a bold step. He issued his Emancipation Proclamation that legally freed every slave being held within the states that were in rebellion against the Federal government.

Some 40 years later a certain writer grasped the idea that Lincoln’s Proclamation was an analogy that illustrated what Christ accomplished on His cross. The statement occurs in her 1905 book The Ministry of Healing, page 90: “With His own blood He [Christ] has signed the emancipation papers of the race.” The New English Bible translates what Paul said that in essence is the same analogy: “The judicial action, following upon the one offence [of Adam], issued in a verdict of condemnation [slavery], but the act of grace [of Christ], following upon so many misdeeds, issued in a verdict of acquittal. ... It follows, then, that as the issue of one misdeed was condemnation for all men, so the issue of one just act is acquittal and life for all men” (Rom. 5:16, 18). (All responsible translations say essentially the same.)

All Lincoln could do was issue the Proclamation (which he had a perfect right to do as military Commander-in-chief of the nation). But no slave would experience freedom unless (a) he heard the news, and (b) believed it, and (c) acted upon his belief and told his slave-master goodbye. So Christ reversed for “all men” the “judicial verdict of condemnation” that came upon them “in Adam,” and instead proclaimed His “judicial ... verdict of acquittal” for the same “all men.” This is why God can treat “every man” as though he were innocent!

Christ has truly borne “the iniquity of us all,” died “every man’s” second death. God is reconciled to the sinful human race; now He begs us, “Be ye reconciled to God” (cf. Heb. 2:9; 2 Cor. 5:18-20). And in His closing work as our great High Priest Christ is seeking to complete that reconciliation in the hearts of all who will believe and appreciate what He accomplished as “the Lamb” of Revelation. That work of reconciliation in human hearts is spoken of as “the final atonement,” which results in a people who “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” (Rev. 14:4, 5).

Be one of them!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

We read of Jesus that “He is despised and rejected of men” (Isa. 53:3).

We might say, “Oh, He was the Son of God and He knew that all heaven was His, so it didn’t bother Him!” But we can forget that when He came to earth to be incarnate, He became one of us truly, fully, and He laid aside all the prerogatives of His divinity. He never laid aside His divinity, no; but He laid aside all the benefits that His divinity could give Him.

So, when He experienced being “despised and rejected” it hurt Him just as much as the experience hurts us. What makes rejection especially painful to endure is when you know that this bitter hatred you now must endure was once love; it’s love that has gone sour, curdled as it were.

Think of the people of Nazareth; once upon a time they loved Jesus as Mary’s Baby and as a Child, not knowing of course who He was or is; but the women would coo over Him as a Baby, and admired Him as a Teenager, etc., but when He went back one time to visit them and to preach in their Sabbath worship hour, all that human neighborly love they had once felt for Him turned sour and bitter, and they tried to throw Him over a cliff and kill Him (see Luke 4:16-29).

What was once love had turned to become bitter hatred! Divorcees probably know something of this experience; the Lord never intended that it should be ours. But if you have tasted it even a tiny bit, you can sympathize with Jesus in the pain He has had to feel.

Instead of spending your time praying that you might become happy, spend some time praying that the Lord Jesus may be rewarded soon for the pain He has had to endure.

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,"

King Solomon was the wisest, most knowledgeable man of his generation (maybe of all time)! The Lord had richly endowed him with this wisdom that surpassed all of his day.

Yet underneath was a solid foundation of pure humility that made it possible for the Lord to bless him as He did. When the Lord offered him (as King David’s descendant) anything he might ask for, he was wise to ask for the right things: “O LORD my God, Thou hast made [me] Thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in. ... Give therefore Thy servant an understanding heart ... that I may discern between good and bad” (1 Kings 3:7-9).

The Lord commended him because he had not asked for riches, or fame, or power: “And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.”

Therefore the Lord gave him what he had asked for, but besides that, the Lord gave him wealth and power and fame beyond estimate: “I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and honour” (vss. 12, 13).

Have you ever felt like you don’t know how to go in or come out, as if you didn’t know how to live this new day? Blessed are you, if you confess this reality before the Lord, and simply ask Him to direct your steps, to keep you from making any stupid mistake, to save you from yourself, and to enable you to live for the One who died for you.

The Lord still hears such a prayer!

Pray it.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

In telling us the story of the birth of Jesus, Luke tells how when Joseph and Mary (great with Child) came to the inn in Bethlehem, the innkeeper told them there was “no room in the inn.” (If the Innkeeper had known, he could have given them his room and gone down in history as the greatest Innkeeper of all time!)

(a) We never know what marvelous opportunity has come to us at any moment each new day; only if we are moment by moment connected with the Holy Spirit by faith can we be prepared.

(b) There is never any “room” for Jesus anywhere in this sinful earth. Jesus was the target of violence more than any other children, for He was hated when He was a Baby. King Herod sent soldiers to kill all the babies in the environs of Bethlehem in his hatred of the one Baby ... Jesus (Matt. 2:16-18).

(c) Paul reminds us that “the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).

(d) We don’t like that word “carnal mind,” but we all have it by nature.

(e) We inherited it from our fallen father Adam; it is our nature to be at “enmity” with God, and therefore at enmity with the Lord Jesus.

(f) But thank God, we can be converted, and we can receive a new “mind,” for Paul says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).

(g) Paul would never say “Let this or that be,” unless it were possible for it to be!

(h) And this “new mind” is not something we have to work for or attain to, for Paul says, “Let” it be; don’t stop the Holy Spirit from giving you this “new mind.”

(i) There is nothing He wants to do greater than that!

(j) On your knees, ask Him for it.

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

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Has anyone thought about the poor innkeeper in Bethlehem who said he had “no room” in his inn for Joseph and Mary and the Baby Jesus?

“I couldn’t help it! I didn’t know who Joseph and Mary were or who the Baby expected was!” he may wail.

Ah yes, Innkeeper; but you could have given them your room!

If you had done so, you would have gone down in history as the most blessed innkeeper ever.

The Innkeeper in fact is we; we never know from one day to the next what opportunity may be ours suddenly.

The Lord Jesus teaches us the significance of the most lowly opportunity that may confront us when we least expect something important. He says, “Inasmuch as ye have done it [anything good or bad] unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me” (Matt. 25:40).

The Lord is not trying to compile a list of all the bad things we have done or said in an effort to make a case against our entering His kingdom; He wants to amass a host of good things so that He can say to us individually and sincerely, in the presence of the universe, “Well done! Good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of thy Lord!” (cf. Matt. 25:21).

There is nothing that gives the Lord Jesus so much fun as saying this to humble people who feel like they don’t deserve any honor in God’s kingdom.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

No baby has ever come into the world more feared and hated than was Baby Jesus.

Herod the king sent his soldiers out to scour the countryside around Bethlehem to kill every male child two years old or younger (Matt. 2:16-18). What hatred against our Baby!

This demonic hatred of Jesus points to the attitude which the whole world shows to the Savior; the apostle Paul says that “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7).

John says that Jesus “came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (1:11). He “was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not” (1:10).

Thanks to our fallen father Adam, his long arm has reached down to where we are 6000 years later and has imbued us with what this Adam-given “enmity against God” implies. None of us can claim exemption from this Adam-given inheritance.

We can easily test ourselves: we say that “we love Jesus,” but do we love His word, the Bible?

None of us can truly love Jesus more than we love the Bible. If we have a few moments of leisure, what do we turn to for amusement, for interest?

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 Lord has never commanded us to observe any day in remembrance of the birth of Jesus. The Lord Himself instituted the Lord’s Supper as a remembrance of His death, but He gave us no date for His birth.

All we know according to the Bible is that no date in December could be the date of His birth because in that month shepherds could not be camping outdoors “keeping watch over their flock by night” (cf. Luke 2:8), because Bethlehem is in the Northern Hemisphere and it’s cold and rainy there in December making camping outdoors impossible. This is an example of how far from truth “Babylon” has strayed.

But do we mean to suggest that any observance of Christmas is evil? No, the holiday cannot be ignored, if for no other reason, for the sake of the children.

We can tell them the truth (and we should!) about the observance of December 25, and make clear to them the divinely appointed memorial of Christ’s birth (baptism by immersion), and seek to present to the children the gospel truths that will deliver them from acquisitiveness and will enable them to practice that “it’s more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Thus the popular year-end festivities can be employed to teach soul-saving truth.

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,"

I confess that I am one of those who have been estranged from the Apostle Paul. Of course, I live in a generation long after his time; but Paul’s Letters in the New Testament have been over my head, as it were.

The Gospel of Mark, for example, has been easy reading; but Paul has not been bedtime reading for me!

And I confess that this has not been good for me spiritually, for the dear Lord is the One who has seen fit to include Paul’s great “Letters” in our New Testament.

The Apostle Peter was long ago aware of my problem for he mentions it in his Second Epistle chapter 3:

“Our beloved brother Paul ... in all of his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood” (2 Peter 3:15, 16).

Peter was in no way an opponent of Paul’s writings; but he frankly recognizes the problems some of us have had with trying to read Paul. And he upholds Paul in that he calls him “our beloved brother.”

But the way the KJV translates Peter here the impression can be gained that dear brother Paul was not an efficient communicator. Anyone who writes or preaches the Gospel of Jesus must make it clear and plain; confusing the Lord’s Gospel and failing to set the feeding trough low enough for us “little ones” to reach it would be almost an unforgivable offense. The last thing you as a preacher or a teacher want to hear from someone it that what you are saying is unintelligible. How would “our beloved brother Paul” feel if he were to read Peter’s comment? Would he feel rebuked?

Well, let’s look at exactly what Peter is saying: the word he uses is “dusnoetos,” which does not mean unclear or over our heads; it means “misperceived.” And it may in no way be a fault on the part of “Brother Paul.” The misconception may be entirely on our part.

Take for example Paul’s Romans chapter 5:15-21:

Paul’s idea is simply that the “much more abounding grace” of Christ is immeasurably beyond the extent of our sin against Him. Paul is obsessed with this “grace,” and happy will we be when we let Paul light our snuffed out tapers with a heart appreciation of that immeasurable “grace.”

Think about it on your knees alone, your door “shut” and worldly things laid aside; you will have the happiest moments of your life.

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

Around the world this week millions have been studying about the “Atonement,” especially as it is taught in the New Testament.

The word is not of Latin origin; it’s a plain old Saxon word that means to “be at-one-with” someone from whom you have been alienated. It’s always a sweet experience to become “at-one-with” a friend or relative from whom you have been alienated, but no words can describe the sheer joy that becomes ours when we are at last “at-one-with” the Lord--so there is no alienation between us. Our natural state as fallen humans is to be alienated from Him: “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).

“At-one-ment” means to be restored to the intimate closeness with the Lord that was ours as humans before our first parents yielded to the deceptive claims of the fallen Lucifer in the Garden of Eden. Ever since, as humans we have been at odds with the Lord; it’s our nature; it’s something passed on down to us through our fallen father, Adam. “The carnal [natural] mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” And no one can claim that he is better than all the other fallen sons or daughters of Adam and claim that he doesn’t have that problem. We are all in the same boat.

No one can claim that he/she does not need the divine human Saviour who gave Himself for us.

The very story of Jesus moves us toward salvation if we will but listen and believe it; there is redemption in the story itself.

(a) Our fallen father Adam passed on to us in our nature the lostness that became his.

(b) Christ has fired him from his job of being our “father,” and Himself has become our “second” or “last Adam,” reversing the judicial condemnation that sin has brought on all of us.

(c) Therefore as our “last Adam,” the Lord Jesus Christ has given to the human race another probation: Christ has erased the judicial condemnation that was against us “in Adam” and has given us, not merely offered us, a judicial verdict of acquittal. Let’s read it in Romans 5:

(d) “It was through one man that sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus death pervaded the whole human race. ... But God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many, it’s 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. And again, the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man’s sin; for the judicial action, following on the one offense, resulted in a verdict of condemnation; but the act of grace, following on so many misdeeds, resulted in a verdict of acquittal ... It follows, then, that as the result of one misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act is acquittal and life for all” (Rom. 5:12-18, REB). What does this say?

(e) The Father has not merely offered to give Jesus to us; He has given Him to us!

(f) Since the world began, only one “righteous act” has ever been performed--the sacrifice of Jesus.

(g) The Father gave Him and He gave Himself for us, each one individually, going to hell and giving Himself forever, to save us each individually.

(h) Kneel and think about it, your eyes closed, your radio and TV off, until you can begin to appreciate it.

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