Daily Bread: 2005

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The apostle John was shown “an open door in heaven” (Rev. 4:1). There he saw scenes the whole world should know about—especially Muslims. No one in heaven, in earth, or even in hell, could “prevail” to break the seven seals that kept that mysterious book (scroll) closed in the hand of the One who sat on the throne of the universe. John cried “much.” Then “the Lamb, “ all bruised and mangled in His death, “prevailed”—the Son of God crucified. He broke the seven seals! He had saved the universe from ruin!

John saw all the redeemed people overcome with joy as they cried, “Salvation belongs to our God” (7:10; NKJV). But that doesn’t mean primarily that God Himself is now “saved,” although in a sense that can be true. The idea is that God’s redeemed ascribe their “salvation to Him.” That mangled Lamb gave them salvation; it was He who took the initiative 100% in saving them. He was the Good Shepherd who went on a long safari to seek and find them. By His “much more abounding grace” (Rom. 5:20) they were saved. Their song of triumph in Revelation 7 is the same as Paul’s word in Ephesians, “By grace you have been saved, through faith” but their faith was not the means of their salvation. Immediately they insist that their faith is not “of [themselves; 2:8, 9].” They take no credit for their “decision to accept Christ.”

As Paul says in Romans 5:15-18, it was Christ who gave them the “gift” of “justification unto life” (KJV, NKJV) even “while we were still sinners” (vs. 8). Just let your heart begin to grasp this, and you will throw yourself down with them “before the throne” even as that great multitude did, that crowd that “no one could count” (TEV).

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.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Our local newspaper tells the harrowing story of a marital breakup in which the husband (and father of his 8 year old daughter) is trying to separate his wife from her family. His father-in-law and grandfather to the child sent her a doll as a gift. She loved it as any 8 year old girl would.

Then papa in his rage beheaded the doll, probably inspired by the beheadings in Iraq. The child was of course devastated. You can imagine how she felt watching this.

Now shift gears to ancient Israel. When the sinner would realize his guilt, he would come to the sanctuary to offer an innocent victim who would die in his stead for the sin. When he would ask the priest to slay the lamb or whatever he had brought, the priest would hand the sinner the knife, “You do it!” (cf. Lev. 1:3-5, 3:3, 4:4, 8:14, 15, etc.). Can you imagine how the sinner would feel doing this deed, especially if the lamb is a pet?

For us today, true and genuine repentance is not complete until we realize our part in the murder of Jesus Christ. WE took His innocent life. His blood was shed for US. “All the world” is guilty of slaying the Son of God (Rom. 3:19); that’s in a corporate sense.

Now when the sinner hears the truth, he realizes his own personal guilt. God has foretold in Zechariah 12:10-13:1 a repentance of the ages yet to come—“the spirit of prayer and of supplications” when we “look upon [Him] whom [we] have pierced.” Then at last will come the “cleansing”—not so much from guilt realized as from forgiveness realized. But the forgiveness can never be effective until the guilt is finally fully comprehended!

This gigantic task will be accomplished by the ministry of the true and genuine Holy Spirit. His primary work: convicting us of what we are ignorant of—sin (John 16:8).

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

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Thursday, December 22, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

You may have dreamed of doing some great work for the Lord. He has put that vision in your heart. If you have had success, thank Him in humility. It was all His blessing.

But if you feel that you have accomplished little of what you had hoped to do, please do not wound your Lord by doubting His love and faithfulness for you. He has heard your prayers; if you can receive this brief message, that proves that there is still opportunity for Him to bless the meager offering you have to give Him. The little boy in the big crowd of 5000 plus women and children had only his two fish and five barley buns his mother had baked for his lunch—but in love and boyish faith he gave them all to the disciples to give to Jesus (Matt. 14:15-19; John 6:9-11; did you know that John is the only one of the four Gospels to give the “lad” credit for his loving offering!).

You know how the Lord Jesus blessed that humble gift!

Now ask the dear Lord to show you what little thing you can do to bring some truth or some blessing in another way, to someone. The angels keep the record books; don’t even think about a reward for yourself. Forget that. But do pray that the Lord will bless your tiny little offering and trust Him that He will for the good of someone, somewhere. Someday someone will walk up to you and thank you for what you gave or what you did TODAY.

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

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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

If someone is sad or melancholy, we in today’s culture usually condemn him/her as mentally ill, and useless to society. In the ancient Persian Empire, anyone who wasn’t smiling and laughing at the imperial court was in danger of losing his head (cf. Neh. 1:4; 2:1, 2). You wouldn’t last long as a TV Anchor today, likewise, if you weren’t bubbly and bouncing on camera.

The October ATLANTIC magazine has Abraham Lincoln on its cover and says: “Today he’d be called ‘unfit for office’—but his struggles with mental illness gave him the tools to bind a nation” in its Civil War wounds. The article says: “Being able to look troubling reality straight in the eye also proved a great strength” of character. His problem may not have been genuine mental illness: perhaps he simply understood the reality of our humanity in our corporate alienation from God. “Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud!” was his favorite poem he loved to recite to people who wanted him to crack jokes. Slavery and the Civil War, he felt, were no joke.

One wonders what he would do if he were in the White House today. Iraq is also no joke.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). But He was truly “healthy.” His grief enabled Him to sympathize with you and heal you—and the world. Says Jesus: “Happy are those who mourn: God will comfort them!” (Matt. 5:4, TEV). Sounds backward. But only those who have been hungry can ever be truly thankful for a square meal. Every loaf of bread is stamped with the cross that Jesus bore for us. The “faith” that the Bible talks about includes the gift of being able to appreciate what that loaf of bread you eat cost the “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” We learn to walk softly. We look reality in the eye—soberly. That’s happiness.

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

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Sunday, December 18, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

We just received a letter from a Christian man in Zambia (Africa). He tells of the blessings he has received in reading some of my writings (which have been widely circulated in Africa, where I spent 24 years).

He calls himself “a peasant farmer.” He writes page 2 as a plea for me to send him American dollars so he can buy food to feed his starving children. Drought has ruined his crops, and the well where he and his fellow villagers draw water has dried up. He writes an excellent, courteous letter; I have no reason to doubt its utter truthfulness. I do not know him personally; I never lived in Zambia.

I must respond positively. Said Jesus, “Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away” (Matt. 5:42). A check would do him no good, and a Western Union Money order would eat up a considerable portion in fees, and he probably wouldn’t be easily able to cash it. If I send him some cash and ask him not to tell others, that would be selfish of me (just let the word get out that a letter to this strange person in America brings American dollars!). Yet how can I sit in judgment on all the letters I receive as to which represents genuine need? How can I help him? If I give him a “fish,” it will soon be eaten up; how can I teach him thousands of miles away to “fish”?

As the holiday season comes on us, I cannot, I must not, forget Jesus; it is He who tells us in His word that we are living in the world’s grand Day of Atonement—the one day in the ancient Levitical year when the Lord called for fasting. We can’t fast all the time, of course, in this antitypical Day of Atonement; but we can live humbly in the presence of the Lord, in self-denial, and not feast to the point of obesity while multitudes of fellow humans as dear to Christ as we are, starve.

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

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Thursday, December 15, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

If some heartache, worry, fear, has driven you to prayer, be sure that our Enemy Satan will try to overwhelm you with doubt that the Lord has heard you and that He cares.

Now is the time to turn again to Psalm 27: “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (vs. 13). Those words are perfectly written to meet your need just now!

What keeps us from “losing heart” is “believing” that we WILL “see the goodness of the Lord” while we still live and can enjoy His blessings. There are several “most precious” ones in this Psalm:

(1) Declare your confidence that the Lord alone is the light of your life (vs. 1).

(2) Recount how in the past He has delivered you from your enemies (2).

(3) Choose to trust Him totally even if “war rises against you” (3).

(4) Repent of your selfish prayers; ask for a nook in the Lord’s house and be content to live there and let the fashions and pleasures of the world go by (4).

(5) Snuggle tight in that “secret place” where you dwell alone with Him (5).

(6) When He says “Seek My face,” don’t waste a moment: do it! (8).

(7) Confess the truth: your father and mother have forsaken you! Good as they were, they couldn’t know how to hold your hand any longer. Now rejoice that the heavenly Father Himself has adopted you into His great family (10).

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

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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

When we think of the prophet Hosea (his little book is just after Daniel), we all agree that he truly loved Gomer. She was no mere one night stand. A man may prize his Hummer or Rolls Royce, but when it gets wrecked, he doesn’t weep and moan the rest of his life; he simply gets another one. No big deal. And when one romance fails, a man with skin deep affection simply gets another woman. This is typical Hollywood romance.

Not Hosea. This woman Gomer had engaged his deepest affection; he was imprisoned forever by his love for her, the kind that “never ceases.” She had believed in him, given her heart to him. Their eyes and their souls had met. When she fell for another man (someone who could not love her truly, because God does not put true love for one woman in the hearts of two men!) he was deeply pained. The break-up tore him up. The thought that his deep love for her was not appreciated, not reciprocated, was painful as death.

Now shift gears: Jesus Christ is the real Hosea; He loves His true church with that kind of love—“infinitely,” for Christ became “Immanuel, God with us” (Matt. 1:21); although he is God, yet He is also human. He is the source of all human love and fidelity in it. But think of the pain that the superficial faith, the worldliness in His church, her infidelity, has brought Him. She is His “Gomer”! There is a wrong that must be made right before the great controversy between Christ and Satan can be concluded. Read Hosea: Gomer finally repented. So will the Lord’s church, His Bride-to-be, repent! There is Good News in the story of “Hosea.” It is being played out today. Let us be alert and watch.

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

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Monday, December 12, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The most sanguine of politicians of whatever party are worried. They may not know that they are in the Bible, but they are: Jesus spoke of our very days today, “‘There will be.... on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity,.... men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth” (Luke 21:25, 26). They know that there is something seriously wrong; Jesus pinpoints it in that same discourse on the Mount of Olives: “Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because [unholy] lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” (Matt. 24:11, 12).

That “love” is the same love that Hosea had in his heart for Gomer, his attractive, charming but unfaithful wife (1:2; 3:1, etc.). Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25), such love being a precious gift which we receive from Jesus—love that never ceases (1 Cor. 13:8, KJV). It was known of old, for Isaac “loved” Rebecca (Gen. 24:67), and the Song of Songs says such love is “strong as death,” that is, it never dies (8:6). It’s from the Garden of Eden.

The word is not in the American Constitution; but its principle pervades it, for it safeguards holy law. “Lawlessness” is the evil that causes such strong-as-death “love” to cool for “many”—bold, callous disobedience to the holy law of God, His ten commandments. The growing crisis of today leads the two-horned “beast” to abandon its lamblike character, henceforth to “speak as a dragon,” assuming the role of dictator to the world (Rev. 13: 11, 12ff). Find your place in that chapter, loyal to the Lamb of God who was “slain” (vs. 8).

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

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Saturday, December 10, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

In our great city of Sacramento, some mega-churches are closing their doors on Christmas Day, Sunday. The pastors are telling their people to stay home and open their presents.

This creates a real problem in logic for them: if Sunday is the true Lord’s Day, then we should keep it holy even if it’s Christmas! Nothing can supersede the obligation for the church family to worship before the Lord on His holy day.

But Sunday is not the Lord’s Day, according to the Bible. It’s one of the “six working days” of the week (Ezek. 46:1). The only one the Lord claims as “My holy day” is the seventh-day Sabbath (cf. Ex. 20:8-11; Isa. 53:13).

But the mega-church pastors have another problem: the Bible does not identify December 25 as the birthday of Christ. It says it’s impossible that it could be because “there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8). You don’t camp outdoors around Bethlehem in December, a rainy, cold month in Palestine (in the Northern Hemisphere). Nor do you take an 80 miles walk on foot, as did Joseph and Mary coming down from Nazareth. The roads would be mud.

Why then do so many who worship Jesus keep Sunday, and Christmas as His birthday? It’s a mix-up in history. Here in the North you can see that on December 21 the sun has gone as far south as it can go; then by the 25th you can detect a slight movement back north again—promising another spring and summer to come. The wild pagan tribes of antiquity hailed December 25 as the birthday of their god, the sun—one of many pagan ideas “baptized” into the church. Let us worship the Lord in spirit and in truth (John 4:23).

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

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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

The Bible is clear that the divine Son of God, whom the Father gave to the world, became a man. His name is “Immanuel,.... ‘God with us’” (Matt. 1:21).

But we humans have not as yet been clear in our understanding of how close He has come. He came “in the flesh” (1 John 4:2), which means “closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24), “in all points tempted as we are [tried, tested]” (Heb. 4:15, Rotherham, Twentieth Century).

What “we” as the fallen human race have been slow to grasp is that His taking our fallen sinful nature upon His holy, sinless nature meant that He became a “man,” the Greek word that means a male. And a “man” loves a “woman” and wants to be one with her; the “woman” whom Jesus loves in His humanity is more than a woman—she is the church (cf. Eph. 5:25). What we can’t seem to grasp is how He loves her as a man loves the one woman out of billions whom his heart is devoted to with conjugal love... “Many waters cannot quench” such love; it’s “strong as death” (S.S. 8:6, 7). But “she” has been unfaithful!

If a woman loves a man who forsakes her, it is painful for her; but if a pure man loves a woman who forsakes him, there is a special lonely pain there that our Savior can understand in a unique way. He has suffered the same pain in an enormously greater way. Nowhere does the Bible say that it’s not good for a woman to be alone; but the Lord said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18, KJV; I’ll probably be shot for quoting this).

The story of Hosea (1:2) gives us a tiny glimpse into reality: it’s clear that he loved Gomer as a good man finds it in his heart to love one woman only; read the story in the book of his heartbreak. Then try to understand Jesus as He is today. (And don’t forget Rev. 19:7, 8.)

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

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Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

It’s shocking, but it’s true: our heavenly Father wants us to be rich—not only spiritually, but in money! While it’s true that He is especially kind and merciful to poor people, and the famous poor widow who cast in her two mites into the temple treasury is eternally blessed (Luke 21:1-4), the Bible actually says that God wants His people to be materially rich. But wait a moment, let’s read what the Lord says, in context:

“God is able to give you more than you need.... [He] will always make you rich enough to be generous at all times, so that many will thank God for your gifts” (2 Cor. 9:8, 11, TEV).

He blessed King Solomon with enormous worldly wealth so long as the king was willing to use it wisely (1 Kings 3:9, 12, 13). The key is our readiness to lay aside our natural-born love of self. Jesus was poor in this world’s wealth; He had nothing but His clothing as His wealth when He was crucified. Therefore, every poor person in the world can hold his head high in self-respect; God honors him for He has adopted him into His “family in heaven and earth” (Eph. 3:15; 1:5, 6).

But Paul’s idea is that God would be honored and pleased if we could “grow up unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” out of our childish love of self, so He could trust us with money (cf. 4:13, 14). But let’s not waste time yearning to be rich, thinking we are strong and wise enough to use wealth in an unselfish way; we are probably like Peter when he promised he would never deny his Lord (Luke 22:31-34, 57-60). May the love of Christ move us now to let self be “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20) so we share what we do have. And then trust the Lord to give us of His grace to “grow up” in due time, when He can entrust us with more.

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

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Monday, December 05, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

It’s not a sin to feel depressed; even Jesus felt depressed (He cried out on His cross, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?”). Isaiah speaks patiently and tenderly to those who do everything right, they “fear the Lord” (which means, they reverence Him), yet they “walk in darkness, and have no light” (50:10).

If you feel depressed, Jesus does not cast you off; He remembers how He felt on His cross!

Part of the answer to your prayer is two verses later, in 51:1: “Listen to Me,.... who seek the Lord.” Discouraged as you may be, He gives you a message especially written for you! Don’t overwhelm Him with your tears on your knees so you can’t hear what He is saying to you: “LISTEN” to Him. (Remember, Mary Magdalene on the resurrection morning couldn’t see Jesus for her tears, Jn 20:13-16).

Here’s the blessing in Isaiah you need just now, verse 1: “Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug.”

If you have lived with that silver spoon of a multi-billionaire in your mouth all your life, you probably can’t get this: but if you have known poverty and trials (as I have), you’ll get a breath of fresh air from heaven if you will call to mind the humble days of your origin. Remember your sorrow then, your hunger, your poverty, your loneliness. Then think of the many blessings He has given you since then! Yes, looking to the pit whence you were dug (KJV) and the hole out of which you came—you will thank God for all you have and all you are today. Isaiah had just the message you need to lift up your soul again!

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

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Friday, December 02, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

“Who among you fears the Lord [you’re converted, you keep His commandments, etc.]? Who obeys the voice of His Servant [you do everything right, and yet] who walks in darkness and has no light?” (Isa. 50:10). The Lord is merciful to those who should always be smiling and happy but for some painful reason they’re not.

This from Isaiah is to the point:

(1) “Let him trust in the name of the Lord.” It’s downright sin to doubt the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord! To mistrust Him wounds Him, and the unnecessary suffering that results [yours, and those who know you] makes Him sad. The name of “Jesus” means “Savior,” so to “trust in His name” means to believe He is your Savior from whatever ill you find yourself in. Get on your knees, tell Him, “Thank You, Lord, for saving my soul, for giving me the gift of eternal salvation in Christ! Thank You, Lord Jesus, for already dying my second death on your cross!” You may feel you can’t talk to anyone else about your pain (incidentally, that’s good—they couldn’t be the ones to help you anyway, only the Lord can), but thanking Him for His cross where He went to hell instead of you will clear much darkness out of your soul immediately.

(2) “And rely on his God”(same verse; KJV says, “stay” upon Him). He loves to have someone pester Him by “staying” at His gates, “watching daily at My gates, waiting at the posts of My doors” (Prov. 8:34). He will never get impatient and drive you away.

(3) Don’t waste time and energy reading psychology books. “Those who encircle themselves with.... sparks [they] have kindled” will find only “torment” (vs. 11).

(4) Time’s up; more tomorrow, the Lord willing.

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

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Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

When God promised to send us “Elijah the prophet” just before the second coming of Christ (“the great and dreadful day of the Lord”), his message is not to be a thunder and lightning denunciation of mankind reminiscent of his slaying the 450 prophets of Baal at the Kishon River (1 Kings 18:40). Rather, “Elijah’s” message will perform the most effective reconciliation of alienated peoples the world has ever known: “he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” (Mal. 4:6). That is the last message of much more abounding grace this world will hear—that of the fourth great “angel” in Revelation 18 that “lightens the earth with glory” (vss. 1-4).

Only one Bible message can close the great gospel commission with such glorious success—the lifting up of Christ on His cross as He predicted: “‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Me.’ (In saying this He indicated the kind of death He was gong to suffer)” (John 12:32, 33, TEV). The message of the three great angels of Revelation 14 appears superficially to be the most terrorizing ever proclaimed, the scariest fear possible for human hearts (whoever takes the “mark of the beast” “shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God,.... poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation.... tormented with fire and brimstone.... in the presence of the Lamb.... for ever and ever:.... no rest day nor night,” etc. (vss. 9-11). Could any message be more blood-curdling? But wait a moment: it’s introduced as “the everlasting gospel” of Good News (vss. 6, 7). Look more closely! It’s the last effective call: “Be reconciled to God”! (2 Cor. 5:19, 20). How? By His love at last fully revealed at His cross (vss. 14, 15)!

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

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Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

It happened one Sabbath evening when the quiet, holy calm of the Lord’s Day should fill one’s soul, but it wasn’t there. I was embroiled in a silly unholy spat with my dear wife that left me crushed with shame. I hadn’t realized there was a demon still lurking deep in my soul; I felt honestly like Paul’s “chief of sinners,” “less than the least of all saints,” the one “born out of due season” (1 Tim..1:15; Eph. 3:8; 1 Cor. 15:8); Christ’s “unprofitable servant” (Luke 17:10). What made it most painful was that not only was I a husband who now felt most undeserving of the wife the dear Lord had given me—horrors, I was also a pastor! The senior pastor of this big Nairobi Central Church, and I was to be the speaker tomorrow morning! I felt polluted because of this quarrel; “self” had gotten the mastery in me. For me to enter that pulpit would be utter hypocrisy. I got on my knees, and for sure it was “out of the depths [that] I cried unto thee, O Lord” (Psalm 130:1). I felt as “lost” as anyone on earth, polluted with the ugly sin of self-love. I was at the bottom, “I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips’” (Isa. 6:5).

But I couldn’t cut and run; I was in prison. I had to keep that appointment! No one else could take my place in that pulpit; I couldn’t stay in bed and mope. I had to enter that “most holy” spot totally “undone,” the most unworthy penitent in the “great congregation” (Psalm 40:9). “If I perish, I perish” had to be my resolve (cf. Esther 4:16). What kind of lightning bolt of hot wrath would the Lord send on a hypocrite in His pulpit? If you want to know, read Psalm 130 all the way through. It became my psalm.

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

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Sunday, November 27, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

All during the time that Judas Iscariot was one of the Twelve, he was constantly spreading among them subtle opposition to Jesus. He was a great man as to personality; the Eleven thought he was just the one qualified to become Prime Minister of the new kingdom Jesus would establish.

An example of his resistance of the Holy Spirit was his condemnation of Mary Magdalene for her offering when she washed the feet of Jesus with her tears. Judas despised her for that, and the Eleven knew no better than to follow his lead and despise her also (Matt. 26:6-13; John 12:1-7; an illustration of how the final “shaking” can take place in the remnant church of the last days—many following some great apostate personality).

Judas sincerely thought that in betraying Jesus he could force Him to follow his lead in setting up His kingdom. He was so wise! But when he realized that he had betrayed the Messiah to His death, he was “remorseful and brought back the 30 pieces of silver,.... saying, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’” Then he committed suicide.

In the day of final judgment when the resurrected lost (Rev. 20:5) gather before the Great White Throne and the book of record is opened for all to see what they have done with the life that God gave them, they too will be “remorseful.” Jesus never said one word of reproach to Judas; he condemned himself. So at last the lost will condemn themselves, “will welcome destruction,” and will choose to jump into the Lake of Fire (20:11-15).

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

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Friday, November 25, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

We get a most precious little glimpse into the heart of Jesus during the moments that He was arrested in the Garden. His “loyal” disciple Peter has drawn his sword and slashed away wildly (like we do sometimes when we try to ”defend” the truth thoughtlessly), and he has chopped off the high priest’s slave’s ear. Ludicrous accomplishment, Peter! You thought you’re protecting the King of the new kingdom, didn’t you; you said so proudly that you will never deny Him. This is a sorry performance to begin with.

Well, Peter meant to do the right thing. Jesus patiently endured him, this time once again; he had often done foolish things. But Jesus now told him to stop fighting and let things happen. The Father, after all, was leading.

Then our Lord uttered a brief soliloquy that tells us something profound: “How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?” In other words, Jesus didn’t know what was going to happen except for what He read in the Old Testament! Moments later He told His enemies, “‘I sat daily with you, teaching in the Temple, and you did not seize Me. But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled’” (Matt. 26:52-56). Jesus held in His hands the same Book you hold in your hands, and the same Holy Spirit who taught Him the word is teaching you. Study!

Jesus was the divine Son of God, but He had laid aside the prerogatives of divinity (not the divinity itself!), that He might take upon Himself our humanity and live life as we must live it, “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). He learned what He learned as we must learn—from His study of the written word. He risked everything on what that written word said. We are daily tested: will we also trust our all to it?

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

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Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

There is a precious little book called Steps to Christ which presents the gospel of Christ very clearly. Some publishers printed a special edition in which they printed on the back cover these words: “Jesus Wants to Be Your Best Friend.” They sincerely thought they were doing the right thing, but they were vitiating the message of the book and transforming its Good News into Bad News.

The implication was clear: Jesus is not your Best Friend and He will not be your Best Friend until you do something right first which will change Him into becoming your Best Friend. And thus the book becomes a subtle statement of our old-fashioned legalism.

Question: Did the repentant, believing thief crucified with Jesus make Him become his Best Friend? Or was He so already? Had God already loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son to save us? Or did we do something first to induce Him to love us?

Was Jesus already the Best Friend of the cruel men who nailed Him to the cross? He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”(Luke 23:34). One of them did repent and we trust he will be saved eternally—the centurion (vs. 47). He came to know Him as his already-Best-Friend Savior!

Caiphas never in his life had such a Best Friend as the Jesus of Nazareth whom he condemned to be crucified. All these deliberately unbelieving people will realize in the final day of judgment how evil and stupid they were not to realize that the Jesus whom they rejected was the only true Friend they had ever had. May the Holy Spirit enable us to present Him thus to every person whom we shall meet! Including children and youth!

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

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Monday, November 21, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Ex-president Jimmy Carter has just published his first “political” book in which he very frankly criticizes the way this nation is going in supporting pre-emptive war and torture—both of very un-American character.

It’s difficult not to believe that God has blessed this man in his ex-presidency. (He confesses that he is a better ex-president than he was a president! But with that smile.)

All three of the prominent presidential figures (Bush, Carter, Clinton) need to be informed about what the Bible calls “the everlasting gospel.” Granted, they are all extremely busy, occupied men; who can get them to sit down and patiently listen to what Romans and Revelation say? And who has the wisdom to tell it in a way that they can understand its relationship to the Constitution and the history, past and future, of this Republic?

The Lord Jesus made it plain that the time will come when unworthy “we” will “be brought before governors and kings.... for a testimony” (Matt. 10:18). Voices we have always thought will never be more than a pipsqueak “in the wilderness” will be heard from the housetops when “governors and kings” hear the echo of the voice of Christ in ours.

Are we ready to be the agents? The answer is no, never—UNLESS self is crucified with Christ. And that experience can be ours only if we “comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height.... [of] the love [agape] of Christ”(Eph. 3:18). All this means that the one greatest need of the “remnant church” is to humble our hearts and understand what is the gospel of the message of Christ’s righteousness. There will be great humbling of hearts on the part of all who remain faithful and true to the end.

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

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Sunday, November 20, 2005

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Some Europeans who came looking for Jesus found Him in a pensive mood a few days before Calvary. Their invitation to Him to come to Europe and escape the horror before Him in Jerusalem was a severe temptation, and drew from Him a sober statement of the kind of death He knew He was to die: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.” If I accept your invitation to escape My cross, I will be the grain of wheat laid up on a shelf “alone” and useless, side by side with your Greek philosophers. “But if it dies, it produces much grain.” If I go through with what My Father has appointed Me to do—die the second death on a cross—then I will fulfill My mission and the hopes of the Sychar Samaritans as “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42; any death on a cross involved the irredeemable “curse” of God—Gal. 3:13; Deut. 21:23). “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for life eternal..... What shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour?’” His answer to that question: No!

Then His mind went forward to our day when our world is locked in the futility of self-seeking. “‘And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.’ This He said, signifying by what death He would die” (John 12:20-33). Thus He described the light that will “lighten the earth with glory” in the work of that “other angel” whose final message will call out of Babylon all God’s people scattered around the world (Rev. 18:1-4).

His being “lifted up” for all to see, to “comprehend” (cf. Eph. 3:18, 19), will be the full revelation of the significance of “what death He would die”—all men’s “second death” (cf. Rev. 2:11; 5:18). The world will then be terror-stricken, but His final message will not be terror-driven. It will not be a me-first, but Christ-first, message—an at-last full revelation of the love (agape) intrinsic in His much more abounding grace. It will “constrain” every honest heart to self-less devotion to the One who died for us (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14, 15).

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

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