Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Mark tells the story of the “rich young man” who came to Jesus, sensing his spiritual emptiness (10:17ff).

The Lord Jesus saw in him a potential “Apostle Paul,” to-be, and yearned for his soul. Jesus extended to him an official invitation to “come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” What a wonderful life could have been his! And what wonderful books he might have written.

But when the young man turned down the invitation, the Lord Jesus did not rain down on him fire and brimstone; He simply let the young man go away and have what he wanted, and enjoy his wealth (as much as he could with a guilty conscience).

Jesus does not force anyone to follow Him; and neither did Jesus seek to entice the young man or beg him or run after him; the Lord simply backed off and let him have what he wanted.

You who read this may not have “great possessions” (although I would be happy if someone rich could read this and give himself to Christ!), but you have what you have and you have your life; Christ’s invitation to the “rich young man” is extended to you; if you respond with what is appropriate—a total consecration of yourself and all you have, He will marvelously bless your commitment.

God’s promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:2, 3, will be fulfilled to you: He will “make of [you] a great nation” (that is, your life will be important in the cause of God); He will “make [your] name great,” that is, you will be someone important all your life; He will “bless thee,” that is, make you happy truly; and He will “make you to be a blessing” wherever you go throughout the earth.

Big deal!

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 Virgin Mary made a confession that has in it some Good News for our encouragement. It’s in Luke 1:48 where she says that the Lord “hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.”

No one likes to be in a “low estate.” We want to be in a higher “estate.”

But the Good News is that if we confess the truth of our “low estate,” the Lord makes a response:

He “regards” it.

The Lord responded to her humble confession by lifting her to the highest “estate” that any woman could envisage—to be the mother of the world’s Redeemer!

If you and I can humble our souls and confess the truth of our “low estate,” the dear Lord will “regard” it, that is, think about it, and He will plan for our better future.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil ...” (Jer. 29:11). The Lord thinks of each of us as though we were the only person in the world; and His “thoughts” about us and for us are always “good,” in that His plans for us are always bright and prosperous in our circumstances.

He “thinks” about each of us individually; He knows all about our history, even from our days as a fetus in the womb of our mother; and because of the sacrifice of Christ when He saved the world by His cross, the Father individually ponders and thinks about us.

Even if we have sinned grievously, the “thoughts” that the Father has towards us are always thoughts of His much more abounding grace; this is because of the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.

The Father is not planning vengeance or punishment toward us—no! Even if we deserve such; His “thoughts” or His planning are of His much more abounding grace.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

In the Bible story of the birth of Jesus, the Lord has demonstrated His love for the lowly and humble of earth.

(a) It was two lowly shepherds camping out in the fields, watching over their flocks by night to protect them from lions and other predatory animals, that the angels appeared.

(b) Doubtless the brilliant light and the loud singing of the angels may have frightened the humble creatures—although as soon as I say that I think that the Lord would not want to frighten these creatures with His presence. Lambs are a symbol of Christ, “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29).

(c) And the holy angels did not want to intrude upon the lowly shepherds, for we read that they were discussing the prophecies of the Bible that predicted the coming of the world’s Savior.

(d) Doubtless some of them wondered, “Wouldn’t it be great if that world’s Savior should be born now? The prophecies of Daniel (9:24-27) tell us of His coming; and the time has come!”

(e) The angels of the Lord come only when they are welcomed, and these humble shepherds welcomed them through their love of the Bible prophecies!

(f) And the Virgin Mary herself proclaimed her humility in life when she said of herself, “[The Lord] hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden” (Luke 1:48).

(g) Well did the Lord speak of the Reality of humility: “Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him [or her] also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isa. 57:15).

(h) There are some crumbs of truth there even for us to enjoy at this late date.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Have you learned to appreciate, to enjoy, to welcome, the holy Sabbath day each week? If so, you have also begun to appreciate the Lord Jesus Christ, because His presence is in the holy Sabbath. And that’s Good News!

To love the Sabbath, not only because it is a day of physical rest from the week’s hard work and stress, but because—well, let’s look at a beautiful hymn that crystallizes the joy of the Sabbath: “O day of rest and gladness, O day of joy and light.” Ah yes, one day in the hectic week of cares, of pure joy!

“O balm of care and sadness, most beautiful, most bright.” Here we have a metaphor,—the Sabbath is like soothing ointment for a wound.

“Thou art a port protected from storms that round us rise.” Have you ever been in a wild storm at sea with the ship tossing dangerously, and then felt the unutterable joy of gliding into a quiet harbor? “Thou art ... a garden intersected with streams of paradise,” says the poet Christopher Wordsworth, further.

And then, “Thou art a cooling fountain in life’s dry, dreary sand; [and] from thee, like Pisgah’s mountain, we view our promised land.” That’s a reference to the lofty top of what is also spoken of in the Bible as Mt. Nebo, where the Lord led Moses to view the glories of the Promised Land before he went to sleep in the arms of God. From Mt. Pisgah today you can see far south to the Dead Sea as far as En-geddi, to the north as far as the snow-covered peak of Mt. Hermon, and to the west to encompass what was in Moses’ day the land the Lord gave to Israel.

And so, on each holy Sabbath day it is yours and my privilege to catch a glimpse of brighter scenes to come, another poet says, to feel the thrill deep in our souls of a joyous eternal life “in Christ” our Life-giver. Don’t miss out on this joy; it’s free, just for the believing. “Remember” it all through the week!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

When the Bible says that “God is love,” the word in the original is AGAPE. A different idea than what we think of when we think of “love.”

Our natural idea of love is to love nice people, beautiful people, people who are good to us.

The idea of loving a bad person, ugly, mean, even an enemy, is foreign to our thinking; it seems to be impossible, and in fact, such love is indeed impossible for us humans to experience.

We would never have known about it, never imagined its existence, until God made it known to us.

All through the Old Testament, this love (agape) was revealed for the Lord never kept it away from us; but its real revelation came when God’s own people, the Jews, grabbed His only Son, Jesus, and took Him to a place where they made a cross and nailed Him onto it to kill Him; thus they hated Him.

We may say, “Oh, I have nothing to do with that; I would never have joined them in killing God’s only Son! I am a better person than to have done that!”

But we don’t know ourselves; we think that we are righteous, but the Bible says that “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, ... there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10-12).

“The carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7), and the word “carnal” means natural, of the flesh, the kind of mind that we all have by nature. It may be dressed up in good clothes and we may make it seem like we’re good, but our natural self is at odds with God.

None of us can say, “I wasn’t there when they killed God’s only Son. I had nothing to do with it.”

In a corporate sense, we were ALL there; the carnality of our human mind that we all have by nature is basic enmity against God and against His righteousness. Don’t ever say that you are too good to have taken part in the crucifixion of Christ, for you don’t know your own self. Someone very wise has said that “the books of heaven record the sins that we would commit if we had the opportunity.”

The crucifixion of Christ is the sin of the whole world; and we have not even begun to repent until we include that sin in our personal guilt.

But this is not Bad News; it is Good News to confess this truth, because the Son of God pleaded with His Father while they were driving spikes in His wristbones and anklebones, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

John says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, 10).

But please note: if we don’t confess our sin in the crucifixion of Christ, we lose the joy of that forgiveness and cleansing!

That’s why confessing the truth of our involvement in the crucifixion of Christ is Good News.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Have you ever lost your temper in a momentary trial of your patience? Well, poor Moses did. And it wasn’t when he was a young man. The tragic mistake came in his old age. Now Moses may not have felt “old age” like people do today for we read that at the time of his death at the age of 120 “his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deut. 34:7).

But it was at the end, not the beginning, of Israel’s 40 years of wandering for their unbelief that Moses’ patience gave way. Maybe his physical and mental stamina was a bit weakened by then. The “straw that broke the camel’s back” in his case was the cynical cry of the rebellious people, blaming him for lack of water. “Listen, you rebels!” he cried out. “Must we fetch you water out of this rock?” (Num. 20:10). Then in his fit of temper, he struck the rock twice with his rod instead of once, thus destroying the accuracy of the ceremony which symbolized the death of Christ.

What Moses had done was to teach that Christ must die twice for the sins of the world, and he took to himself (Moses did) the glory for producing water out of a dry rock. God loved Moses; the man was very special. But his public sin of losing his temper made it impossible for Moses to lead Israel at last into their Promised Land. “Because ye believed me not, ... ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them” (vss. 10-12).

It’s not only old people, but young people too have this same test of impatience. It seems severe for the Lord to sentence Moses to die for such an apparently “innocent” sin of momentary impatience. But Moses must be a teacher for succeeding generations as well; no matter how high we have been in the favor of God, a sin of impatience is serious. But the root of their sin was not merely being angry (even God sometimes is angry, and several times Moses experienced “righteous indignation”). The problem, said the Lord, was Moses’ unbelief. “Because ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, ...” the Lord said to both Moses and Aaron.

It is impossible for you and me to lose our temper so long as we believe the word of the Lord! Whatever the trial that tempts you to impatience, a choice to believe the promises of God will every time deliver you from sin.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, may the dear Lord save us from ourselves!

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,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

The answer is interesting:

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

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

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

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

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

Come and join them!

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

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

So, yes, we should be afraid!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let Him do it to you!

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

him/her to salvation.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

How does one get to know Him?

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

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

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

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(d) And we let Him do it

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

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

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

(h) Then comes the struggle!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let Him do it!

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Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes standing still is great progress.

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Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

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Daily Bready

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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

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

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

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

What “joy” lay before Him?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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