Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

As a thoughtful boy of 12 in 1928 this writer obeyed his Sunday School teacher and proceeded to memorize the Ten Commandments. This in the most prestigious church in our little town of some 2000, where the bank president was a member (daughter also 12 played the piano beautifully, accompanied the boy while he played violin). The church was to him imposing—Gothic windows, a robed choir, a Doctor of Divinity pastor, and a real pipe organ (in those days they didn’t make imitations; it shook the walls with the bass, and this boy loved it).

He was puzzled by the “seventh day” language of the 4th commandment when he glanced at the calendar and saw how Sunday is the first. Next Sunday his question was turned aside—not only do our Presbyterian, but also the Baptist and Methodist churches keep Sunday. Must be true. My father, reared a Lutheran and a strict Calvinist, would not buy a gallon of gas on Sunday, nor would he let me ride my bike around town (hoping for a glimpse of the bank president’s daughter) on Sunday afternoon.

This writer’s brother (older by six years) told him why the discrepancy between the “seventh ” and first-days: the Roman Catholic Church was responsible. News! Whereupon this lad made a decision that he would keep the Bible day, not knowing there was another congregation that did. (He had learned about Martin Luther from his Protestant father.)

Along with the Sabbath insight came the knowledge of the “soon return of Jesus,” with fascinating things in Daniel and Revelation that made sense, and baptism in a lake with membership in a tiny little church that worshipped every Saturday. (The bank president’s daughter thought he was crazy walking through town to church on Saturdays. Other high school friends, including the principal, thought so too.)

Now in 2007 lots of time has gone by; still Jesus has not returned.

Am I disappointed that “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:11-13) hasn’t materialized—yet? Of course. But I remember how Jesus lost His crowd in John 6:66ff. and suffered rejection. I get my Bible down and read again the evidence. And again, I choose to follow Him.

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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

We caught just a few minutes of the History Channel while eating lunch. It was about the Colosseum in ancient Rome, that pagan temple to cruelty and the vain amusement of the masses. They would flock there day after day to watch gladiators fight each other to the death and ravenously hungry lions kill and eat Christians. It was Disneyland gone horribly wild and cruel, and it was our TV violence live.

Two poignant facts stood out:

(a) This enormous structure built after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. was financed by the treasures of the Jewish Temple which Rome had taken as the spoils of their expensive war.

(b) The laborers who built the structure were largely Jewish slaves captured in that last siege.

This was historical and theological irony that caused immense rejoicing in Satan’s kingdom of darkness.

Think of it: up until the Savior had pronounced the woes upon the Pharisees in Matthew 23:13ff., the Temple had been the divinely recognized “house of God” on earth for the true church of that time. The Jews who rejected Jesus thought their wonderful Temple would stand forever, but He told His disciples that “not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matt. 24:2). The destruction of Jerusalem, and Solomon’s Temple in 586 B.C., was terrible, but this of 70 A.D. was the most frightful humiliation any nation in history had ever experienced. All so unnecessary!

And now the rejectors of Jesus toil as slaves to build it, while their looted Temple supplies the cost of building the most horrible “temple” Satan has ever had on earth. Thus the Enemy gloats over his hatred of what was formerly the true “church” on earth.

A prominent speaker at a huge assembly of serious-minded Christian youth (General Youth Conference) recently declared openly that World Wars I and II need never have cursed this earth but for the unbelief and hard-heartedness of God’s professed people who “just like the Jews” rejected glorious truth that “the Lord in His great mercy sent” them—truth that was an emblem of Christ Himself.

Rather than give Satan an advantage in creating another “Colosseum” as precious time going by, would it not be better for us to humble our hearts before the Lord in repentance?

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.
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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

There are two widely different kinds of people, and both are beloved of God: (a) those who skip through life with endless light-heartedness: “He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast,” or otherwise translated, “He who has a cheerful disposition enjoys a lifelong picnic” (cf. Prov. 15:15, KJV). It seems the Lord crowns such a person with sunlit favor. Some of us are tempted to envy their constant upbeat smile and ready chuckles. They have their work to do for the Lord.

(b) But there are others for whom life seems an endless discipline from the Lord. The Psalmist concedes that “God is good to Israel [the good people], to such as are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled. ... All day long I have been plagued, and chastened every morning” (Psalm 73:1, 2, 14). The Bible is clear that the Lord loves them, too: “Whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” The apparently severe discipline “yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:6, 11).

Has the Lord given us the liberty to choose whether we want (a) or (b)? If so, we’d all go for (a). But probably all of “Israel” (the good people) experience a mixture of the two with the pain of discipline tempered by occasional sunlit days that are a relief from the dark, stormy ones. As the Psalmist said above, “God is good . ...” “The Lord ... will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not ... punished us according to our iniquities. ... The Lord pities those who fear [reverence] Him, ... for He remembers that we are dust.” If we will believe that truth, then we will “bless the Lord, O my soul!” (Psalm 103:8-14, 22).

But there is a special category of people beyond (a) or (b) that none of us knows quite how to classify just yet. They “rejoice to the extent that [they] partake of Christ’s sufferings” (1 Peter 4:13), which is a specially intimate “fellowship” with the Son of God (Phil. 3:10; 2 Cor. 1:7). Let’s not try to sugarcoat the experience. Frankly, it is “NOT joyful for the present, but grievous” (Heb. 12:11). If you can watch Baghdad’s current history (and the world’s!) through the eyes of Jesus, you won’t likely be joking around very much; you’ll be pretty serious. You’ll actually be sitting “in heavenly places in Christ” which may not be as much fun as we have always thought, but that’s what the coveted “adoption” entails (cf. Eph. 1:3, 5). Revelation 3:21 tells it clearly: if you are in fellowship with Christ you’ll be sharing with Him executive authority in closing the great controversy with Satan. The “government will be upon His shoulder”(Isa. 9:6), but you’ll be sharing its weight with Him. You will be working “with Him,” on His side, “called, and chosen, and faithful”(cf. Rev. 17:14), helping lift His burden.

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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

It’s one of the biggest “IF’s” in the Bible and it makes us wonder why the Lord let it get in there: “IF any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5).

Have you ever met anyone who had all the wisdom he/she needs? It seems we all lack it, even the great King Solomon, said to have been the wisest man who ever lived. He so “lacked wisdom” that like a fool he fell into that awful “deep pit” of “the mouth of strange women” whom the Lord never intended him to marry; “he who is abhorred of the Lord will fall there,” he himself had said (Prov. 22:14, KJV). Those women led him to ruin.

The apostle James encourages you to receive this priceless gift of wisdom:

(1) If you have been delivered from arrogance and you realize your emptiness of wisdom, thank God for this clear evidence that the Lord does not “abhor” you. Remember, He can love you dearly and at the same time “abhor” your spiritual stupidity. A good dose of feeling how much the Lord “abhors” one can be a tremendous blessing.

(2) The call to “any of you” means that the Lord puts all of us, educated and not, on a level in His sight: work yourself almost to death getting a dozen doctoral degrees and you can still remain a fool. If you are someone who has never had the chance to get “higher education” (there are still a few such people in the world), please don’t despair and think of yourself as handicapped. There’s a story in our precious book of Ecclesiastes about a “poor ... man” who was nevertheless “wise “ who saved a city from almost certain conquest (but nobody ever thought to thank him; yet he “lives” in genuine fame, 9:13-15).

(3) You wisdom-needing soul, be happy: the Lord does not bawl you out and make you feel like two cents because you “lack wisdom.” He gives it to you “liberally and without reproach.” Oh, I love that! No berating, no torrent of reproach. He respects you as well as loves you! His affection for you is not that of yours for your dog. He honors you! He is constantly trying to build your self-respect.

(4) He is training you to sing a beautiful solo: “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit [if He has saved you from fornication or adultery, sing the Hallelujah chorus], out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth” that “many” will rejoice to hear (Psalm 40:1-3, KJV).

Be happy! You are “blessed” (Matt. 5:3).

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

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

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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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The pure gospel gives a deep peace that grows in a heart that has been delivered from the subliminal fear that shadows us all our lives.

But sometimes an inner volcano erupts from the murky depths of our unknown selves, a rage or bitterness that we thought was as extinct as Vesuvius. Deep emotional fires that may go back to our infancy, like the child who comes to realize that he is an accident in this world, wasn’t wanted. The unwanted child may wonder, “Where was God when all this happened?”

Parents may not realize that they are destroying the self-respect of the child through endless fault-finding. We can carry a crushing load of guilt and alienation when it’s not our fault at all. And there are traumas of rejection that can devastate out adult lives like the death of a spouse or worse, a divorce. It covers us with a never-ending blanket of emotional rejection.

Does the gospel have some Good News for us that’s practical?

Yes! Justification by faith! It gives you peace with God as though you had never sinned, and as though no one else had ever sinned against you. You have truly laid it all on Christ, including all the mysterious secrets beyond even you.

We can forgive parents—maybe after they’re long gone, remembering that they didn’t know how to handle their problems. This healing through corporate repentance is ministered by the great High Priest, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). He is so infinite that He gives you His full attention as though you were the only patient He has.

You have a job. Step one: believe the Good News truth about Him. Step two: do what the Holy Spirit then tells you to do—He will hold your hand while you do it.

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

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

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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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

I get them all the time—letters informing me that it’s a mistake to say that the Lord loves people so much that He makes it “hard” for them to be lost; and that it’s wrong to tell them that Jesus says His yoke makes it “easy” for people to be saved.

They invariably distort reality and leave out the giant IF that’s always there: it’s hard to be lost and it’s easy to be saved IF you understand and believe how good the Good News is. What it boils down to is this: God actually loves sinners and He wants them to be saved (John 3:16; 1 Tim. 2:3, 4). He doesn’t sit back and wish vainly; He gets busy and does something for each individual sinner besides merely giving a Book of instructions; He sends His Holy Spirit to work on them individually and personally 24/7 in a never-ending conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8-11). The last of those three is a conviction that Satan has been “judged,” that is, condemned and “cast out” as a hindrance to your being eternally saved. Christ is in the business of being the Savior of all who will permit Him and not reject Him. Understanding Him is what’s important.

The gospel is not a theological conundrum that only those in the ivory towers of a university can put together; neither is it merely the nursery song, “Jesus loves me/This I know ...” that leaves you seeking as a panacea for your boredom the empty pleasures of this world. The true story of Jesus and His justification by faith is so intensely interesting that if you’ve even begun to understand it, your heart is captured forever. (A lady in her 90’s told us in Bible class last Sabbath, she is so excited with life that she can hardly wait for the sun to come up each new morning so she can do something else for people.)

It sounds wild but it’s true: when you “taste and see” what the Lord’s “everlasting gospel” (Rev. 14:6, 7) is all about, the silly TV that you once reveled in for entertainment becomes a bore; you feel like retching. “O how I love Your law; it is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97; the word “law” is not a fanatical legalism; it’s that perfect statement of eternal truth that “converts” your human soul; Psalm 19:7). Far from being a cold list of rules, “the law of the Lord” becomes your 24/7 obsession of joy “henceforth” (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14-21).

The ancient pagans had a saying, “‘What will you have?’ quoth the gods; pay for it, and take it!” You and I this morning stand on the threshold of life; what will you have? Eternal life? You don’t “pay” for it, it’s too expensive, you can’t; but you can believe and take it from Him who did pay an expensive price for it—His own eternal life.

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

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

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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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Daniel said that in the time of the end “many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (12:4). For many years our forefather evangelists explained this prophecy as fulfilled with Model T’s running almost everywhere; today, we cite space travel, computers, and now itelephones for $699.

But while scientific and technical knowledge keeps quadrupling, the “knowledge” that God’s people have of the gospel of justification is also being “increased” through the blessing of the Holy Spirit. In the days of the Waldenses, they understood as much as they could; Luther and Calvin were agents for greater light; then the Wesleys and Arminianism pressed in with greater light; then came the great Second Advent Awakening followed by the “present truth” of the sanctuary and the great cosmic Day of Atonement.

Those who were preparing to “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” (Rev. 14:4, 5) gladly welcomed each new glimpse of truth the Holy Spirit gave them.

But no new truth will contradict truth previously known; “the path of the just is as a shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18, KJV). If at any point as truth unfolds like a rose bud unfolds, we reject the new revelation of truth, we in fact reject Christ at that point, for He says, “I am the ... truth” (John 14:6). Therefore it is impossible to reject any truth without rejecting Him!

A massive problem rises with the story of the “angel of the church of the Laodiceans,” the last great church just before the return of Jesus. It knows no “hunger and thirst after righteousness” (cf. Matt. 5:6), for it asserts of itself, I am “rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing”(Rev. 3:17). If you had lived in the days of Luther and had rejected the message God sent by him, you would very likely have severed your connection with the true Holy Spirit. It would have been very dangerous to do so. The same with the Wesleys.

And now today? The great “present truth” of now is that message which is to “lighten the earth with glory.” The new light will not cancel or contradict any light that has shone in the past; but it will be to the message of Luther’s and Calvin’s day what a sleek now V-8 is to a Model T—or ox-cart.

Beware that you don’t separate yourself from the sure leading of the Holy Spirit.

It still involves bearing a cross.

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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The Lord Jesus commanded us to “go into all the world and proclaim the Good News to every creature” (Mark 16:16). But can we make it too good?

God Himself is a Specialist in devising what is Good News; in fact, it is He who invented it. And it is He who made it Good, like it is.

But can we take a cue from Him and then on our own devise a version of it that is more good (that is, better good news) than He has invented for us?

If so, are we in danger of giving people a false hope so that they will someday end up at the Pearly Gates and find they can’t get it?

(a) John 3:16 says that the pre-requisite for eternal life is to “believe,” that is, to have or to exercise, faith. God has given us no right to tack anything else on.

(b) Therefore we must learn what is faith.

(c) It’s “heart-work” as one writer often says (cf. Rom. 10:10). Thus it’s the end of arrogance, pride, love of self.

(d) The miracle can happen only as we l-o-o-k at Christ on His cross like the Israelites looked at the serpent of brass on Moses’ pole. It’s to contemplate Him, sense what it cost Him to save this hell-bent world and how He actually went to hell for us rather than see us be lost; it’s not a “work” that you do, no list of pre-requisites. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whoever believes in Him should not perish ” (John 3:14). There it is simple and clear: (1) He is “lifted up,” (2) you see Him, (3) you “believe.”

(e) “Henceforth” you are “constrained” by the love revealed there (agape) to live not for your own selfish pleasure, not for your lust, but for Him. People use a long word for that—sanctification; but it’s simply living for Him as a bride lives for her bridegroom—a new center of reference for one’s life.

(f) Jesus says that to resist the “constraint” of that love is “hard,” the most difficult life we can live (cf. Acts 26:14; 2 Cor. 5:14-21).

(g) He also says that to let that constraint move you to such a life is the easiest life you can live “henceforth” (cf. Matt. 11:28-30).

No need for us to invent a version of “good news” more good than that one! The ticket for entrance into the Pearly Gates is the capacity to enjoy the life there is there forever.

“Come”!

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.

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

If you watched the President of the United States last night, you saw a man deeply distressed. He’s a human being with human limitations; his counselors likewise don’t know how to advise him. Whether you’re “red” or “blue” you don’t want to torture a political opponent. We don’t want to indulge in man’s inhumanity toward man, for that’s the spirit itself of Baghdad.

In war and politics there is little room for the kind of love that the Bible says is agape. But in a Christian culture some of it does get through, thank God. Some pundits are comparing our current President’s baffled perplexity with that of Lincoln in our Civil War, but his steadfastness was not stubbornness or arrogance. He was under some divine mandate to preserve the nation which in God’s providence should make possible the free proclamation of the gospel to the world. Now today there is still a divine mandate.

God’s people may be poor and unknown in the world (the Roman Empire rulers didn’t notice Jesus, either), but if they love (with agape), they will have influence. A “remnant” that is truly reconciled to God in this grand Day of Atonement will be agents whom the Lord will employ in some way. They will fulfill the role of those “four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth” that hateful violence shall not break loose until “the servants of our God [are] sealed” (Rev. 7:1-3). That “seal of God” is even now being placed on those “144,000,” a mystic symbolic number whose prayers are in tune with Heaven.

“Democracy” in a Muslim culture is not effective progress. Multiplying “smoke out of the bottomless pit” in a “democratic” plurality doesn’t “lighten the earth with [the] glory” that God wants to happen (cf. Rev. 9:1-3; 18:1-4). But what God does want to happen is that the pure gospel, free of Babylonian confusion, shall penetrate to the consciousness of the warring multitudes of earth. Including those in the Middle East.

The “four angels” symbolize people on earth who pray to that end, with agape. Join them!

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

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

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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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

It’s a never failing encouragement to “arise and go down to the potter’s house ... to hear [the Lord’s] words” (Jer. 18:2).

 

(a) You are a “vessel” He has been forming on the potter’s wheel. He has a happy purpose for you to be useful in His great work of lighting the earth with the glory of His “everlasting gospel” message.

(b) No matter who you are, as a vessel you have in some way been “marred,” because “all” of us “have sinned, and [do] come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). The only “vessel” the Potter has succeeded in turning on His wheel that has turned out perfect is Jesus Christ Himself. His experience on the “wheel” is illustrated in Isaiah 50:4, 5, where the Father awakened Jesus “morning by morning ... to hear as the learned.” The Father taught Him during those early hours. He constantly resisted our temptation to be “rebellious” and “turn away back.”

(c) The divine Savior-Potter never throws any marred vessel (us) in the trash, no matter how lowly it may have become in its being “marred.” There’s always a useful purpose left that you and I can serve. There is the “good news” encouragement.

(d) Always the {Potter “[makes] it again into another vessel, as it seem[s] good to the Potter to make” (v. 4). This is redemption in action.

(e) Every “vessel” is made to receive something, from which it can be poured out in some act of service to others. It’s a container to be filled and emptied continuously.

(f) But the “vessels” are living beings who have been given freedom of choice who can “resist God’s will.” “But who are you, my friend” asks Paul, “to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (Rom. 9:19, 20, GNB).

(g) Obviously, the “clay pot” needs to be reconciled in heart to the Potter! This is accomplished in an amazing way.

(h) The Potter Himself has become clay; the Son of God Himself has emptied Himself in those seven steps of condescension in Philippians 2:5-8, “even [to] the death of the cross” which involved enduring being “made” the “curse of God” (cf. Gal. 3:13). Tried and tempted, feeling “forsaken” by God, He has known to the full what no other human being in history has known to the full—what it feels like for the Potter to throw someone into the trash. He “took” upon His sinless nature our “sinful flesh” that He might “in every way be tempted that we are, but did not sin” (Heb 4:15). Then He died the world’s “second death” for every man (2:9), so that no one of us might have to feel what it’s like to be thrown in the eternal trash heap (cf. Rev. 20:15).

(i) Each of us is an empty vessel each new morning of life. But “God has poured out His love [agape] into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us” (Rom. 5:5, GNB). He fills each empty, willing vessel.

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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

What does the Bible means when it says, “Whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6)? If you truly believe in Jesus, must you awaken every morning to a new scourging?

 

The author of Psalm 73 thought so, and the Lord saw fit to include his cry in the Bible: “Is it for nothing ... that I have kept myself pure and have not committed sin? O God, You have made me suffer all day long: every morning You have punished me” (vss. 13, 14, GNB). And it’s pathetic how David cried out, “Don’t punish me any more. ... I am about to die from Your blows. You punish a man’s sins by your rebukes. ... Leave me alone so that I may have some happiness ...” (Psalm 39:10-13, GNB). Do you feel that way?

 

All the psalms that pour forth such frank honesty end in a joyous note of triumph, but there is one exception: Psalm 88 is unrelieved disappointment throughout. It expresses the total despair that Christ experienced when He cried out on His cross, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

 

When you think of these things, back in your mind is that reassurance, “Whom the Lord loves, He chastens ...” and you are comforted. As you kneel before Him in personal, private prayer (shut in with the Lord intimately), you are reminded always that the Lord honors you as His “child”; that’s why He “chastens” you. He considers you somebody important in His vast plan of redemption for a lost world. It’s part of His process of inviting you to “sit with [Him] on His throne”(Rev. 3:21) and share with Him executive authority in bringing to a close the great cosmic controversy with Satan. No one is worthy of such a high position, no one could function in that capacity who has not endured the Lord’s severest discipline. You don’t earn a PhD without serious testing.

 

And you can’t say, “Lord, I don’t want the discipline; just let me be saved without it; I’ll ride on a third class ticket, just so I can squeak through the pearly gate somehow.” No; if the Lord invites you to be one of the “144,000” you cannot decline, asking for a lesser responsible honor. That is contrary to the basic principles of the gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14, 15).

 

Then there is Psalm 94 with its assurance of Good News in the Lord’s discipline: “Blessed [happy] is the man [or woman] whom Thou chasteneth, O LORD, and teachest him out of Thy law; that Thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, ... for the Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance” (vss. 1-14, KJV). And in His nadir of despair on His cross, the Lord Jesus “overcame” and died in glorious victory (cf. Psalm 22:21-31).

 

Whatever you do, don’t despise “fellowship with Christ in His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10; 1 Peter 4:13). You don’t want to miss the greatest joy any human can ever know!

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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

It is true that God “calls those things which do not exist as though they did.” It’s strange; but on the basis of that principle He declares to childless Abraham “I have made you a father of many nations” (Rom. 4:17). How could He declare that to a man who is in fact hopelessly childless, and whose wife is undeniably beyond the age of childbearing? And it’s also morally a problem, for he has no right to take a second wife in order to maneuver a supposed fulfillment of God’s promise as in siring Ishmael by Hagar.

 

On the same unearthly but divine basis God declares for the entire sinful, rebellious human race a “verdict of acquittal” because “the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to [the] many [that is, everyone]. And the gift is not like that which came through the one man who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation [a legal verdict], but the free gift which comes from many offenses resulted in justification” [a verdict of acquittal]” (Rom. 5:15, 16; cf. NEB).

 

But what moral right does God have for making this declaration? It seems so contrary to reality!

 

Is He playing a game of make-believe?

 

There is a grand event which underlies this apparent moral injustice: it’s the cross of Jesus Christ.

 

He has taken over from the fallen Adam the true Headship of the human race, by virtue of His incarnation. By so doing He is in a corporate sense the human race, and the human race is in a corporate sense “in Him.”

 

In that capacity He goes ahead on His own without asking our permission and dies the second death “for every man” which the entire human race deserves; it’s an act of grace unbounded (cf. Heb. 2:9; 2 Cor. 5:21). It’s a fait accompli, a done-deal, for the “all men” of Romans 5.

 

And now having died “every man’s” second death, Christ has acquired the moral right to declare of “all men” what He desires for them, for He has paid their debt. Now He can treat “every man” as though he has not sinned; He can encircle the earth with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air we breathe; He can shower the field of the wicked with rain (if He wants) as well as let His sun shine on them, too (Matt. 5:45).

 

And what does He “desire” for “all men”? Eternal salvation (1 Tim. 2:3, 4). And it will be theirs if they do not resist and reject His ongoing gift of the new covenant of His grace.

 

Having the power of choice, they can reject if they want, and many do. But you can choose to accept the “gift.” Please do!

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.

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

In His infinite wisdom, the dear Lord chose to have the apostle Paul define clearly for us all what it means to live under the new covenant (the Letters that he wrote were decades before the apostle John wrote his Gospel). God inspired Paul’s writing of Galatians, Thessalonians, Romans; these went everywhere in the young church. Paul defined the idea as God’s justification of the world. It’s the new covenant principle of God calling those things which do not exist as though they exist already. It’s like His telling Abraham that He has already “made him a father of many nations” while he is still helplessly childless (see Rom. 4:17).

 

So, Paul says, while the lot of us in this world are sinful, selfish enemies of God, He has “justified” us! Sounds crazy to people who still love the old covenant. It’s saying something about us that isn’t yet practically true as though it were already true. It’s objective Good News spoken by God long before it becomes subjectively true in our personal lives.

 

But ever since Mt. Sinai God’s people have had trouble believing this new covenant principle. John wraps it all up as “unbelief.” “He who believes in [Jesus] is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, ... and this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light ...” (3:18, 19). In other words, they love the old covenant more than they love the new. Joyously living the new covenant is always preceded by personally believing the objective truth of what God has declared even though it seems impossible.

 

But this same unbelief today hinders that wonderful work of lighting the earth with the final Good News message of glory (cf. Rev. 18:1-4).

 

Let’s review how Paul says it: “As through one man’s offense [Adam’s] judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation [a judicial “verdict of condemnation,” NEB], even so through one Man’s righteous act [since the world began, there has been only one “righteous act”!] the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life” (Rom. 5:18).

 

As Paul has explained in verses 15, 16, “justification of life” is a “judicial” “verdict of acquittal” (NEB) pronounced upon the world while the world is still at enmity with God. It’s what makes it possible for God to “make ... His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and [to] send rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). Christ has taken the sin of the world upon Himself in His own soul, in His body, “made to be sin for us”(2 Cor. 5:21). For the one who believes, who appreciates this new covenant truth, his faith enables him to “become the righteousness of God in Him.”

 

If the Lord gives us a tomorrow, maybe we can dig a bit deeper.

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.

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

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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.

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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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.