January 31, 2005

Ever since sin entered in the Garden of Eden, there has been a cross erected. An innocent creature had to be killed, its blood shed, in order for Adam and Eve to have clothing to shield them from the cold and from their newly acquired shame of nakedness. Each new generation of those who feared and reverenced God has had to face a cross whereon self has been crucified.

• Abel recognized its principle and proclaimed his faith; what did he get for his sacrifice? Death at the hands of his older brother. But wait--he gets more! “He being dead yet speaketh” (Heb. 11:4), which means--Abel has been preaching a powerful, soul-winning sermon for all these 6000 years! If you want to talk about “stars in somebody’s crown,” look at that firmament!

• All Isaac did was to be born as “the child of promise,” and what does he get? Persecution from his older brother, Ishmael (Gal. 4:29). But there is more: God said, “Cast out the bondwoman and her son” (vs. 30). Isaac gets an eternal inheritance.

• Joseph was simply being true to his conscience, and what does he get for that? A taste of the cross: sold by his older brothers into slavery in Egypt. But the story is not ended: he becomes prime minister of Egypt. The story is not a novel; it’s soul-saving.

• David simply defends God’s people against their oppressors, the Philistines; and what does he get for it? The constant enmity of “the anointed of the Lord,” against whom he will not lift up his hand. But what blessing did David get? The throne? Think more deeply: his understanding of the cross as we can read in Psalms 22, 69. Most precious!

• Elijah saves Israel from ruin, is hated by king and queen; but he is translated.

• Jeremiah is called from the womb to serve the Lord, and what did he get? An entire lifetime of rejection and calumny at the hands of God’s people, with no respite or interlude of peace. But now the Jews regard him as the greatest of the prophets.

• “Whoever loses his life for My sake,” says Jesus, “ shall find it” (Luke 9:24). They did!

January 29, 2005

The towering and “wondrous cross” of Christ is the great truth around which all truths mankind can know are clustered. It validates the prophecies of Daniel which in turn validate the prophecies of Revelation. All that makes any sense in world history finds its focal point in that cross. Its truth is proclaimed in every seed which is cast into the earth and grows: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. . . . This He said signifying by what death He would die” (John 12:24-33). By His sacrifice in which He “poured out His soul unto death” (Isa. 53:12) Jesus has won the hearts of honest people everywhere. He has ascended His throne not by military conquest but by the power of love (agape). He did the unthinkable: He died the second death which “every man” has earned for himself (Heb. 2:9; Phil. 2:5-8; Gal. 3:13).

But does the world know about what He has accomplished? Two millennia after He demonstrated His love in His life and death, does mankind know and understand? Since “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” shouldn’t people everywhere know the reality of that truth? Take for example the Muslim world of a billion souls: the faith of Jesus has been distorted and misrepresented to them by and large. The history of the Crusades still rankles in their hearts, and the Crusades were for sure a distortion of that genuine love of Christ. By and large the Hindu world sees the cross of Christ as just another icon to be reverenced and knelt before. And more than a billion professing Christians have yet to “survey that wondrous cross and pour contempt on all their pride,” discerning its “width and length and depth and height,” an agape that re-motivates selfish, world-loving human hearts as nothing else can. They all must have a chance! The human souls distressed by our plague of innate selfishness, longing for deliverance, for freedom to escape the tyranny of self-love, the allurement of illicit sex, the plague of this world, cannot despair when they “behold the Lamb of God” enduring the “curse of God” so that we might live. “Pour contempt on [our] pride,” yes; but let’s not pour contempt on that cross and its divine Sufferer. That would be a sin with the dimensions of eternity--unpardonable.

January 28, 2005

The latest Smithsonian Magazine tells of “Uganda the Horror,” describing a terrorism that our American media have not told us of. A movement resisting the Uganda government calling itself “The Lord’s Resistance Army” has captured large numbers of children and youth, and brainwashed them into killing their parents, siblings, and other children. The Smithsonian article describes it as “the world’s largest neglected humanitarian emergency.”

The reporter who interviewed surviving children in Gulu in northern Uganda says their stories gave him endless nightmares; only when he returned to Australia did they subside. Then when he began to write this article and look at the pictures, they returned.

I am personally involved, or more accurately, was almost involved. When Grace and I were in our early 30’s as missionaries, we lived in south central Uganda, at Kampala. Our Mission Board had decided to have a fellow-missionary, Donald K. Short, and me go up to Gulu and open a mission there, and proclaim the gospel of a soon-coming Savior. We had just discovered a message that recovered some of the clarity of the gospel of the apostles: Jesus Christ does not belong in stained glass cathedral windows (as the Africans thought) but gloriously near to us--the Father sent Him “in the likeness of [our Ugandan] sinful flesh, and for sin, and . . . condemned sin in [our Ugandan] flesh” so that by His faith we too may “condemn sin” in our sinful nature and “overcome even as [He] overcame” and thus prepare for His second coming (Rom. 8:3, 4). This was “present-truth” justification by faith!

But before we could even begin to build a mission in Gulu, the Board moved us both elsewhere. And the people in Northern Uganda were bereft of that message. Revelation 7:1-4 describes a nightmarish “tornado” of “four winds” of Satanic human passion straight out of hell engulfing the earth but held in check only by this gospel proclamation of a “sealing” message. It’s the full recovery of “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5) that conquers the sin problem in fallen, sinful human hearts, whether in Uganda or wherever. It alone has power!

January 27, 2005

The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century was the greatest spiritual blessing since the apostles--an unfolding of justification by faith that can never be overthrown until the end of time; it was what Paul said is “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5). Truth is utterly essential. Jesus said He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6); He has always been the “Lord God of truth” (Psalm 31:5). “Truth in love” is vitally important because it’s “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16; Eph. 4:15). It’s the revelation of the very
character of God.

But does that mean that our understanding of the “truth of the gospel” was frozen in the 16th century so that no later generation can ever perceive a clearer grasp of it? One thing we know for sure--sin has “abounded” since the time of Luther and the Reformers; has the grace of God been restricted so that sin has developed more than our understanding of the gospel can develop? The gospel is “everlasting,” but our understanding of it is finite.

To freeze it would be tragedy. The Bible unfolds a greater development in the great controversy between Christ and Satan, for “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom. 5:20). In the 16th century, God was on top of the situation; He still is in this 21st. “The everlasting gospel” will yet “lighten the earth with glory”--a still clearer grasp of saving truth in these last days (Rev. 14:6; 18:1-4). God assures us that He will not permit Satan to out-think the Holy Spirit, for He has more truth to reveal: “The path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18). The great Protestant Reformation of justification by faith has prepared untold numbers of precious souls to die prepared to come up in the “first resurrection” (see Rev. 20:6). They can be happy in the kingdom of God forever. Now we’ve come to the time when the Holy Spirit will reveal a clearer understanding of truth that prepares people for translation at the second coming of Jesus (see 1 Thess. 4:16, 17)--something to do with the “Elijah message.”

This means even deeper, clearer understandings of justification and righteousness by faith.

January 26, 2005

Some sincere subscribers of Dial Daily Bread are asking, “Is there Biblical evidence that Elijah understood and preached the grace of God, that is, righteousness by faith? Was he stern, hard, lacking compassion?” We know:

1. God sent him (1 Kings 17; 18), and “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

2. His message was preeminently reconciliation of alienated hearts in home and national life (Mal. 4:5, 6). That took “grace unlimited.”

3. His prayer on Mt. Carmel was calm, simple, heart-felt, gracious.

4. The people’s “heart” was “turned . . . back again” (1 Kings 18:37).

5. What did it was God’s acceptance of the blood sacrifice that clearly prefigured Christ’s sacrifice on His cross (vs. 33). It’s not too much to say: Elijah preached to the nation a great sermon on the cross that day.

6. The people responded, believed, humbled their hearts before this divine revelation of the abounding grace and forgiveness of God. But the priests of Baal hardened their hearts against it; in hopeless rejection, they would crucify Christ a thousand times over. This demonstration was in miniature the judgment at the end of the millennium (Rev. 20:11-15). To execute the priests of Baal was the people’s choice, their unanimous will. It was clear: their sin was the unpardonable one.

7. The fruit of Elijah’s ministry? Genuine reformation and revival. And God translated him! (2 Kings 2:11). Pretty good evidence of grace.

If at the tsunami someone knowledgeable had yelled and screamed at you, “Run for higher ground!” would you have said, “Stay put. He doesn’t sound sweet and mild!”? There are times when love (agape) must scream at you.

January 25, 2005

The last two verses of the Old Testament tell us of the only hope this strife-torn human race has: the coming of “Elijah.” God says, “I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord [Jehovah or Yahweh]. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Mal. 4:5, 6).

That will be the most far-reaching reconciliation we have seen since Pentecost. (Think how much Iraq and all the Middle East needs “Elijah”!)

It’s not idle words. God has made this promise. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on His cross is the only reconciling agency in existence; therefore it follows that the coming of “Elijah” must be proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ in all His reconciling power. It will be what unbelieving hearts find almost inconceivable: a proclamation of what the Bible calls “the atonement” that will work miracles of grace worldwide. The mention of “fathers” and “children” means the entire human race in all our multi-ethnic, multi-cultural alienations. A blessed unity will be realized as people kneel together at the cross of the Son of God, at last “beholding” or perceiving its full significance.

No, it will not be 100 per cent successful. It would be, except for one anti-Elijah-message factor that will intrude: the Battle of Armageddon. Side by side, two movements will develop--on the one hand, a blessed reconciliation (“at-one-ment”) of human hearts with each other and with the heavenly Father, and simultaneously on the other hand, the exacerbation of enmity between humans and God (Rom. 8:7): it will be the ultimate polarization of the human race, “the hour of His judgment” (Rev. 14:6). No one will be neutral.

A big job for one “prophet” to accomplish! The already-translated Elijah (2 Kings 2:1, 11) will be “sent” to do the work worldwide as he was sent personally to encourage Christ at His Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-3). (That was a work of reconciliation!) Elijah will have “144,000” to help him (Rev. 14:1-5).

January 24, 2005

There may be a little treasure of truth buried in the story of Elijah that illustrates the kindness and compassion of the Lord. The faithful but lonely prophet has been directed to seek shelter in the home of the widow of Zarepath. He appreciates her hospitality and her faith. But a terrible sickness suddenly takes the life of her young son (1 Kings 17:17, 18).

At first Elijah has brought sunshine and gladness into her widowed life. But now the bereaved mother imagines that the man of God has ministered this grief to her in that his holy presence in her home has brought all her sins into memory and judgment. (Evidently she has had a checkered past--well, who hasn’t!) She wails in her anguish, “Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?” (vs. 18).

Elijah takes it personally; he knows he is hated in Israel and Phoenicia, everybody everywhere blames him for this famine. Now it seems that God has humiliated him by bringing this bereavement on this widow. When he takes the dead son from her, he doesn’t pray a quiet, unimpassioned prayer as he did later on Carmel; he agonizes his distress. “He cried out to the Lord, ‘O Lord my God, have You also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son?’” (vs. 20). A prayer from a broken heart!

In mercy, the Lord answered his prayer of distress and resurrected the child.

Do you suppose that the Lord granted this precious interlude blessing as a way to strengthen the faith of Elijah when he stood alone and friendless before the king, the priests of Baal, and the multitude, on Mt Carmel? He remembers: the Lord has honored his prayer by raising a dead child to life. Wouldn’t that recent memory nerve his spirit and encourage him? Since he had been hidden from the murderous hatred of Israel, no one on Carmel knew of this recent happening in Sidon; Elijah shared this little secret with the Lord. That should be enough to fortify his faith: yes, the fire will fall!

January 23, 2005

Elijah the prophet is often misunderstood and unappreciated. It is true that he was a humble man from the mountains of Gilead with no official endorsement. But he was a deep and keen thinker on a level far beyond that of the leadership of Israel. As he saw the horrible effects of the national apostasy, he thought of its cosmic consequences. The great controversy between Christ and Satan was involved. The honor of the very name of the true God was in jeopardy. If God could not save Israel, how could the Messiah save the world? This was a portentous crisis.

We need to understand Elijah better. God has promised to send him again “before the great and terrible day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5, 6). Unless we understand correctly, there is danger that we may follow ancient Israel in their national apostasy from the truth of God.

Elijah shares with one other man in the Old Testament a profound understanding of God’s character of love (agape). In Exodus 32 we read of Israel worshipping a golden calf within days of their forming the grand Old Covenant at Sinai. God purposed to be done with them, but Moses changed God’s mind in his plea: if You can’t forgive and save Israel, “blot [my name] out of Your book which You have written” (vs. 32). Rather than see Israel lost, he says, I choose to relinquish my own eternal salvation. In the exercise of such faith, Moses found a link that bound him to the cross of Christ, for that is what Jesus did in His love for us--the “width, and length, and depth, and height of the love (agape) of Christ . . . which passes knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, 19).

Now, in his love for apostate Israel, Elijah finds a link that binds him in faith to Moses. Could this be the reason why heaven sent Moses and Elijah to visit with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration? Only they could encourage Him in His self-sacrifice on His cross, when He died our second death to save us!

We can be sure this kind of love is implicit in whatever message “Elijah” will bring us when he comes back.

January 22, 2005

Mike Pearse has written a thought-provoking book entitled WHY THE REST HATES THE WEST. He examines the phenomenon of the most “Christian” of nations evoking the most virulent hatred of the non-West peoples of the
world. His thesis is simple if stated in simple biblical terms: “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,” and no longer represents the values of Christ (Rev. 18:2).

It wasn’t always like this. When President Theodore Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet around the world, it was revered. In the halcyon days of the Marshall Plan, the common people in Europe would shout, “Yo para America!” President Lincoln’s “last, best hope of mankind” stirred wonder in human hearts everywhere. There was hope that God was intervening in human history!

The God whom Christians profess to worship says He is “love” (agape). He must be honest and fair, as well as just and merciful. The Book He has given the world (the Bible) warns us of the final events of world history when the Enemy in the “great controversy” will seek to wreak his hatred on mankind. The One who is a God of love (agape) has promised that in His love He will “send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” who will perform a ministry of unprecedented reconciliation between honest human hearts and the true God (Mal. 4:5, 6). The “rest” may not overcome their hatred of “the West,” but every human heart that will believe truth will respond to this final revelation of the true character of God. Speaking of the last angel’s message of the more abounding grace of God, His promise is that “the earth [will be] illuminated with his glory.” That last angel’s message and “Elijah’s” final message will be the same--the yearning heart of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ pleading with “every one,” “Be reconciled to God!” (2 Cor. 5:20). When the true “Elijah” came to the Jews in the person of John the Baptist (Matt. 11:13, 14), they brushed him aside. Now is our last chance to repent: let’s not reject “Elijah” one last time!

January 21, 2005

This coming weekend millions of earnest Christians will be focusing their study on the humanity of the Son of God. This will not detract in the least from His divinity; they will “behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and in so doing will “behold” Him as the One whose “name [is] Immanuel, which is translated, God with us” (Matt. 1:23).

In order for us humans to “behold” Him, we must see Him as He has revealed Himself to us. That is, He is “the Word [which] became flesh, and dwelt among us.” It is there that we “behold His glory” (John 1:14). “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given” (Isa. 9:6). “The humanity of the Son of God is everything to us,” says a thoughtful writer. And Jesus Himself tells us to look, and look, and look to Him in His humanity, for only thus can we perceive Him in His divinity. “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, but have eternal life” (John 3:14).  To “believe” in Him is the same as to choose to “behold” Him. That was the only hope for the Israelites in the wilderness bitten by the poisonous serpents--to “behold” that rpent on the pole that Moses had made at the command of God, representing Christ.

Yes, our very life itself, our salvation, depends on “beholding” Him in His humanity which veils His divinity. No one can spend too much time “beholding the Lamb of God” there. In Hebrews one we “behold” Him in His pre-incarnation divinity, as “God” (vs. 8); but the inspired author says we don’t “see” Him clearly until we “see Him” “made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, . . . that He . . . might by the grace of God taste death for everyone” (2:9).  We must see Him in His humanity.

The chapter goes on to focus our view intensely on Him as One who “likewise took part” of the same “flesh and blood” that we have, so that “in all things He had to be made like His brethren” (vss. 14-17). Only so, as He has “suffered, being tempted [is He] able to aid [us] who are tempted” (vs. 18). As we “behold” Him thus, are we becoming fanatical? A million times, no! Why, He is our only hope!

January 20, 2005

People around the world continue to ponder what significance the recent great tsunami may have for us. Was this “natural disaster” just something that happened, or did either God or Satan have something to do with it? A subscriber has suggested that these thoughts are meaningful and relevant:

1. “Satan works through the elements . . . He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows.” That makes sense for Jesus says Satan is “the prince of this world,” and Paul says he is “the prince of the power of the air” (John  14:30; Eph. 2:2).  Satan was once the highest of the angels; he is malevolent in nature (Isa. 14:12-19; Rev. 12:7-12).

2. When Satan was “permitted to afflict Job, how quickly flocks and herds, servants, houses, children were swept away, . . . as in a moment.” That is precisely what we read in Job 1, 2. Therefore how urgently important that we “dwell in the secret place of the Most High,” and “abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1).

3. None of us has more than a breath between us and our appointment when we “appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10). (On His part, that is not a fault-finding judgment, He wants to vindicate us! And He will do so if we do not “frustrate His grace,” Gal. 2:21).

4. “It is God who shields His creatures and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer.” Thank Him for the “hedge” we have today!

5. “But the Christian world have shown contempt for the law of Jehovah.” He must “withdraw His blessings from the earth and remove His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law.” Somehow He must get that message across to the world.

6. “Satan will . . . bring trouble . . . and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them.” It is our privilege to proclaim to the world that His grace abounds “much more” than all the evil Satan can invent.

7. Pretending to heal, Satan will “bring disease and disaster . . . These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous” (Isa. 24:4, 5). Let’s read and memorize Psalm 91; it’s present truth.

January 19, 2005

The History Channel is pushing the da Vinci Code as something to appeal to devout but serious thinking people. There is enough of a little smattering of biblical connection to lend it an assumed legitimacy, while in fact it is a glorifying of pagan legends of the so-called Holy Grail. Antichrist has been invested with an enticing allurement. The idea deceived the Nazis.

The prominent female in the legend is a distorted personification of the Mary Magdalene of the Bible. The History Channel purports to be “history,” and lends credence to the supposed story of Jesus Christ yielding to Mary’s sexual blandishments--unable to overcome the supposedly irresistible temptation of illicit sex. Trying to track the historical whereabouts of “Christ’s love child” is the TV mystery ensnaring millions. The underlying idea is that sexual temptation is beyond control. But it’s the basic stuff that makes AIDS and broken lives. Fornication and adultery are made “holy” in the pursuit of the Holy Grail. The fruit: broken hearts and blasted lives, a moral tsunami. The soul devastation may be near you, even next door. There is a nightmarish bomb that can kill the people in a city but leave its glittering architecture unscathed; the da Vinci Code is its spiritual counterpart.

Has it caught God by surprise?

His promise is that when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against the evil one (Isa. 59:19). That promise is in the final gospel message of Revelation 18:1-4. It will “lighten the earth with glory.” God’s Good News is the message of three angels in Revelation 14 that must go to “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” before the return of Jesus. The third one’s message is especially significant (vss. 1-12).

Just before His death, Jesus said that the Bible truth of the story of the authentic Mary Magdalene must be told “wheresoever this gospel shall be preached” (Mark 14:9). It’s a part of that third angel’s message in verity!

January 18, 2005

The latest issue of TIME is devoted to the American dream of “the Pursuit of Happiness.” It would make a sizable book on the subject from every perspective --except that of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What does His Good News say?

1. He is “the Savior of the world” (Joh 4:42) which means He is already your personal Savior, sinful and unworthy though you know you are.

2. If your unhappy heart cries out, “Father!” that is the litmus test that proves you are already “adopted” as a child of God (Rom 8:14-17).

3. In fact, it is God Himself who “has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your heart, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). Christ promised that He would not leave you an orphan (John 14:18). Not ever.

4. Your unbelieving heart says, “But I am so sinful! How can I already be ‘a child of God,’ ‘adopted’ into His family?” The Son of God redeemed, saved, justified the human race when He died our second death on His cross (Heb. 2:9). Believe and you are “justified by faith.” He (a) “chose” you, (b) “predestined” you to be saved, (c) “adopted” you, (d) redeemed you, (e) forgave you, (f) has “abounded toward you in all wisdom and prudence,” and (g) has “accepted you in the Beloved” (all this is in Ephesians 1:3-11). The first person plural pronouns’ antecedent is “all men,” “every man” (Rom. 5:5-18)--all because “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (vs. 20).

5. It all means that you are indeed a “child of Abraham” by faith  (Rom. 4:1, 4, 5, 11, 12, 16, etc.).  He is the “father of all who believe.”

6. “But my faith is not perfect!” you cry. Neither was Abraham’s--until he finally offered his only son on Mt Moriah (Gen. 22). You are a new-born child; you have growing to do (1 Peter 2:1-5). By God’s grace, you are on the way. Your “faith will work” perfect obedience (Gal. 5:6).

7. The way to happiness: believe the new covenant promises to Abraham. They are in Gen. 12:2, 3 and Ex. 6:5-8 (to us); and don’t forget, John 3:16.

January 17, 2005

A thoughtful reader in Europe writes, “I’d like to know English well so I could have a long face-to-face dialogue with you” about God’s “explosive righteous anger” [that we mentioned on DDB a few days ago]. “I believe it’s very important for the Bride-to-be [of ‘the marriage of the Lamb’] to understand the Bridegroom’s character before choosing to spend eternity with Him. When does His anger ‘explode’? After we talk about ‘God is love,’ must we still remain terrified of His losing His temper? Is love still fear?”

It’s 100% true that God is not a heavenly Wimp. What makes His anger white hot is the inhumanity of man toward man, especially abusing helpless children (as in the tsunami aftermath). Jesus went on and on about that in Matthew 18:2-14, saying that if anyone “offends” even one of them, it would be better if a millstone were tied around his neck and he were dumped in the ocean. True love (agape) is not only soft as velvet, it’s also hard as steel. God’s righteous anger exploded toward Sodom and Gomorrah because they did not “strengthen the hand of the poor and needy, and they were haughty” (Ezek. 16:49, 50, KJV).

The most awful wrath in God’s great universe is “the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16; who has ever seen a lamb angry? watch out when this One loses His temper!).

I have seen marriages collapse because hubby was a wimp. A woman loves a gentle man, yes; but it’s still true she loves a m-a-n.
 

The “Lamb’s wife” to-be is the corporate body of His church; her surrender of heart to Him for eternity (as to her Bridegroom) is based on her appreciation of His character (Eph. 3:14-21). But let’s not forget that this “appreciation” on her part includes in her soul a powerful hatred of sin. She loves Him more intimately because she reverences that holy temper of His. “There is no fear in agape, but perfect agape casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Yes!

January 15, 2005

This weekend millions of Christians worldwide are studying about “blood.” After all these ages, the common questions people ask are, “Why does God demand blood sacrifices in order to be nice to people and save them? Is He bloodthirsty? First, for 4000 years He demanded untold numbers of innocent animals to be sacrificed in a bloody manner in order to forgive the sins of human beings. Now it appears that He demands the blood of His own beloved Son in order to forgive. Why this apparent obsession with blood?” multitudes ask.

For sure, multitudes of Christian youth wonder.

We can reply with the time-honored traditional answer, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission [of sin]” (Heb. 9:22). But why? This 6000-year-old answer appears on the surface to support the fear-driven old covenant ideas of a mysterious, vengeful God who delights in cruelty, punishing people, perpetuating an ever-burning hell fire wherewith to torture the people He doesn’t like. Could this widely prevalent idea lie at the bottom of the thinking of “Christian” American youth who delighted in obscene tortures at Abu Ghraib? We know that all this is a distortion of truth, but how can we make the truth appealing in such a way that it changes hearts?

(1) The first animal sacrifice was slain in the Garden of Eden not to appease an angry God, but by a tearful God Himself to provide clothing for a fearfully cold first human couple, and to cover their lethal shame. (Their leaf skirts were hopelessly inadequate.)

(2) Human hearts became so hard, so selfish that there was no way in the universe to melt them with love (agape) except to let man act out to the full his resentful hatred of God (that’s what sin is!) by murdering, torturing God’s own Son, their Savior. The legalistic lawyer’s arguments are valid, “the law demands it”; hold them. But a reason of love transcends them all.

January 14, 2005

The Bible book that has been neglected for thousands of years is now on center stage of our thinking: The Lamentations of Jeremiah.

The disaster then was entirely man-made; our great tsunami is a natural one. But the questions are the same: who is God, what is He, is He angry, is He a personal Being, has He caused this horror, is He good or is He evil?

Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Christians--all are casting about in their thinking. When we’re done at time’s end, one religion will have to win out as the only way mankind can make sense of this, because only one sees that a personal “God is love,” a heavenly Father, despite this horror. Increasingly, thoughtful writers are recognizing this disaster is in Biblical, apocalyptic dimensions. A team of self-sacrificing Israeli Orthodox Jews who specialize in identifying corpses in disasters say this has been the greatest one since Noah’s Flood, not in physical extent of course but in the impact it is making on world thinking.

The Bible has always seen the ocean as an enemy. There will be none in the earth made new (Rev. 21:1). Even Jesus spoke of “the sea and the waves roaring” as a disaster at the end (Luke 21:25). Ocean front real estate is actually a deception; in fact, all luxury is a deception. Jeremiah was God’s inspired prophet; the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this “manual” to be read when “we” lose everything except life. Due to our corporate nature as humans, the sufferings of the victims in Southeast Asia have become our sufferings, too. We “feel” it all; “let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. . . .” (3:40, 41), We must believe He is Love, a kind heavenly Father, or we shall lose our reason. Thus the Christ who was forsaken of God on His cross will not, cannot forsake you. His New Covenant promises are still valid.

January 13, 2005

Back and forth the solemn debate goes, on the Internet and in the media and in church pulpits: is this recent disastrous tsunami a judgment from God? Or just a quirk of nature?

Christian people who loved the Bible said that the terrible Lisbon earthquake of Sunday, November 1, 1755, was a judgment from God. John Wesley thought so (he labored to save dissolute England from a similar fate). Voltaire of course said no, there is no God who could care, and he offered arguments to counter the conviction that many God-fearing people had. But 1755 made an impact on history. It led to the discovery of Revelation and its predecessor, Daniel.

Those who believe the Bible today accept that the natural disasters of the flood of Noah and the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah were judgments from God to condemn the wickedness of the time as a lesson to the whole world. And we must confess that these Bible stories have sobered many selfish people, and much ministry of mercy to needy people has been the fruitage. (“This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread and abundance of idleness, . . . neither did they strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw good,” is what the prophet Ezekiel reported God as saying (16:49, 50.)

There is similar wickedness all over the world today; why would God single out Southeast Asia for such a severe rebuke? Many of the people there are poor (indeed most natural disasters seem to strike poor people more than the rich). The great cities of the West have wickedness in them. Is there judgment in store for them?

Thoughtful people have seen God’s great blessings on the United States of America’s two centuries of history as a divine recognition of God’s pleasure that this nation has from its beginning led the world by embracing in its Constitution the two principles of civil and religious liberty. At least it made an impact. According to one of its revered ex-presidents (Jimmy Carter), it has now become the Roman Empire redivivus. If or when this great nation abandons those holy Constitutional principles, what could happen? Then it will be time to live Psalm 91 in our daily life. (Well, isn’t it time anyway to live in that psalm?)

January 12, 2005

Much is being said as thoughtful people of all religions (and none) ponder if and how a Being known as God can relate Himself to the unmitigated horror of our great tsunami. A thoughtful subscriber asks us to explain how we can say that He is a heavenly Father, a God of love, and also permit this hell to come on His children on earth. Through the media we are all in the helicopter with Colin Powell and Jeb Bush surveying the scenes of wreckage and death. It all happened “just next door.” It’s happened to us!

# 1. Speaking in behalf of the world, the scribes and Pharisees condemned the One whom the Father sent to save the world, “Crucify Him!” They expelled Him; He had nowhere to go except back to heaven where He had come from. The corporate “carnal mind” of man is still “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). It’s often said and its true that if Jesus Christ were to return in person as He came 2000 years ago, “we” would again reject Him. That “carnal,” self-worshipping “mind” is still corporately with us.

#2. “The prince of this world” is not Christ, it’s Satan, by “our” own choice (“we have no king but Caesar!” “we” said, John 19:15; 14:30). We know the crucifixion of the Son of God was “our” deed.

#3. That malevolent “prince” is also described in Ephesians 2:1, 2 as “the prince of the power of the air.” It’s true in a spiritual sense but the implication is clear that Satan is “the prince” of physical destruction and disasters on earth. He never creates, he can only destroy what God has created. And he loves to.

#4. Even so, the God of love (agape) has set bounds upon that evil “prince.” After the monstrously destructive flood of Noah, He promised, “Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth” (Gen. 9:11, KJV). In that “air” that Satan is “prince” of, God set His rainbow of promise (vs. 13).

#5. Even though Colin Powell saw hundreds of seemingly endless miles of hell-on-earth-shoreline, God set a limit on that evil “prince of the air,” Satan. God again said to the ocean, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed” (Job 38:11, KJV). There is still mercy!

#6. But a God who is a heavenly Father of righteousness, is no heavenly Wimp. Let Him wrestle with His own explosive righteous anger (He is a Person!). Let us confess we do not fully understand Him. Like the arrogant king Ahab who spent his life doing evil but finally repented and “went softly,” let us walk humbly before an infinite God of righteous love whose patience must be, has to be, far from being infinite (cf. 1 Kings 21:27). He is trying to tell us something: don’t presume on that divine patience!

#7. In walking “softly,” thank Him for everything you have, even the bread you had for breakfast.

January 11, 2005

• The text stares at you, telling you to do something you feel you just can’t do: “Be ye reconciled to God.” It says it with emotional intensity, “As ambassadors for Christ, we beg you, we plead with you, we implore you, as though God were on His knees before you begging you to give in and drop your hatred of Him, your alienation from Him, your heart-resentment against Him, and let your bitter heart be at-one with Him!”

• But you can’t. You’ve been through the tsunami.

• You feel He is totally at fault, He has taken your wife, your husband, your children, all your family, from you and has left you their bloated, rotting corpses to bury. The loss of your house and possessions is nothing compared to this. God did it!! Of course you resent Him! You hate His beautiful blue ocean, too, you never want to see it again. Why, O why has He done this to you? You have been taught all your life to believe in Allah.

• And now the Bible says, “Be reconciled to Him!” You wish you had drowned, too. That would have been the easiest way to go.

• You “survivor” reading this, where you are in comfort, probably feel miffed at Him for letting you have a fender-bender in the rain. Or letting you lose at the gaming table. Or get shot at in Iraq. Or catch AIDS, or cancer. You are the young couple in Sacramento who had just bought a house and then a drunk drove his car into it and set it and himself on fire. Why did You do it, or let him do it?

• Or, in Paul’s Corinth,--God is the One who lets you be the Roman slave to spend your life walking barefoot while others worse than you ride in chariots.

• Well, the same Christ who begs you “be reconciled to God” is in the darkness naked before the world, in torture, screaming, “Why, O why, have You forsaken Me?” Not, I am tempted to feel that way, no; You did it! You abandoned Me! And if I don’t reconcile Myself to You, the world and the universe are lost forever. I can’t! but I must; and He did. See Psalm 22, 69.

January 10, 2005

Why did our heavenly Father permit the Song of Solomon (Canticles, Song of Songs) to get squeezed into the Bible? It’s sexually sensual! It makes no mention of God, „righteousness,” “obedience,” “covenant,” “justice,” not even of “grace.” And the “law” is absent. It’s just heterosexual love. Would any church board vote to include it? Would any church school or academy have teens study it word for word? (They don’t, and maybe they’re missing something God put there to help solve the teens’ sex problems.)

Yet Jesus Himself quotes it several important times. For example, John 7:37, 38/4:15; Rev. 3:20/5:2-6; Eph. 5:27/4:7). The reference to the “knocking at the door” is from the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint). Christ and the apostles frequently used that version just as we use different Bible versions today. Any book of the OT that the NT quotes approvingly demonstrates it’s right to be in the Bible.

So, the Song of Solomon is undeniably part of the Word of God that is “living and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, . . . a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” “profitable for doctrine, . . . for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (Heb. 4:12, 2 Tim. 3:16). What value is there in such a sexually explicit book?

SS owes its place in the Bible to Revelation 19:7, 8. Two verses explain why the Lord God created us in the Garden of Eden to be “male and female.” The rain-soaked Bridegroom-to-be who “knocks on the door” of the beautiful girl at night and she ignores Him (SS 5:2-6), turns out to be Christ Himself; and the fiancee who has not “made herself ready” for the marriage turns out to be the “remnant” church of Rev. 12:17. Her long refusal to get up out of her comfy bed and let Him in breaks His heart, and He leaves disappointed beyond description (SS 5:6).

But there’s Good News in the Bible: He still loves her (7:6), and she will yet “make herself ready” for “the marriage of the Lamb.” Then at last “the Hallelujah Chorus” breaks out exuberant (Rev. 19:6).

January 9, 2005

The tsunami weighs on people’s minds everywhere, while we give to relieve the distress as best we can. Someone asks a deep question:

“If people can be saved eternally in God’s kingdom without ever hearing the name of Jesus, why do we send missionaries? Why not just let them live up to whatever light they have? Paul says, ‘What may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. . . . Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law, these, . . . show the work of the law written in their hearts’” (Rom. 1:19; 2:14, 15).

If Christ is “the true Light which gives light to every man who comes into the world,” what is the need of preaching the gospel? (John 1:9). The “Light” will of itself judge “every man.” Let people be--with what light they have!

If there should never be a personal, visible second coming of Jesus Christ, and every one must depend on a resurrection from the dead, there could be a bit of logic in that idea. BUT . . . there can be no resurrection for anyone without the personal appearance of Jesus! If He doesn’t come, no one can realize eternal life. He only is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). And that means some people must be prepared to endure meeting the glorified Christ face to face while still alive, whom to see is death unless they have become “pure in heart,” for only they can “see God” and live (Matt. 5:8).

That means to “overcome even as [Christ] overcame” (Rev 3:21). And there the “everlasting gospel” of Revelation 14:6-15 comes into focus— yes, the final “light” which must “lighten the earth with glory” (Rev 18:1-4). We will need a much more clear understanding of the cross, the sacrifice of Christ.

January 6, 2005

If you are not depressed, or have never been depressed, you can shout Hallelujah and thank the dear Lord. It’s only by virtue of His sacrifice on your behalf when He suffered depression on His cross, that you are free to sing and rejoice in the bright sunlight of His favor. If He had not suffered and died in your place on your behalf, you would be in the place of that poor man Jesus told us about--who has been cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 25:30). And you will not despise those who do suffer depression. You will not be hard-hearted toward them, callous, telling them to “snap out of it,” “you’re foolish,” “go help somebody else,” etc. The closer you come to Jesus, the more sympathy you will have for others who suffer.

The basic problem for Christian people in depression is the haunting fear that God does not hear their prayers. They pray, and nothing happens; it seems that God does not care. And to believe in God but that He does not care is worse than not believing in God at all! That’s why Christian people, especially Christian teenagers, often suffer the most excruciating pain in their depression.

So, once again, we look to that cross where Jesus was uplifted, and where He will draw “all” unto Himself, where we too can learn to “glory” (John 12:32, 33; Gal. 6:14). As He hung on His cross in the darkness, He felt that His Father was despising Him. He said, “My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are you so far from saving Me? . . . I cry out by day but You do not answer” (Psalm 22:1-3, NIV). The weight of all our sinful guilt was pressing upon His human heart. But did He give up and yield the battle to Satan? No. Look what He did--read the rest of Psalm 22. He made a choice to believe in the character of His Father as He knew it from His own history. Thus He was able to trust, to believe, despite the total darkness of His soul. In Him, right there, is healing for our human depression.

January 5, 2005

Is anybody bored? Empty routine? The vanity of work and useless entertainment? Here’s a suggestion: pray for those thousands of homeless people.

We wonder, how can prayer help them? If enough people pray, and pray “hard” enough, will that move God to do something for them that otherwise He will not do? Is He like Congress, “moved” by the opinion polls if enough people are concerned for these suffering ones? Or the starving ones in Sudan? WHY do we pray?

To think that God is indifferent until we bang hard enough on His door is paganism. The Bible says He sees and cares when a little bird falls to the ground (Matt. 10:29). Doesn’t He care even more for the tsunami homeless or the Sudanese? If you have a Christian idea of God, you must say “Yes.” Then WHY doesn’t HE do something??

(a) This world at present is not His sovereign territory, for “we” sold out to Satan, and “we” crucified the Son of God and expelled Him from our planet, and thus elected Satan to be “the prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).

(b) Those who worship God truly are the “underground,” the opposition to the rule of “the prince of this world.”

(c) The rules of the great controversy forbid God to intervene on this planet except as the “underground” behind-the-front-lines infiltrators (His people) appeal to Him to do so.

(d) Hence “the prayers of all saints” (Rev. 8:3) are important.

(e) But God is embarrassed if their “prayers” are only “bless me and mine,” and not genuine expressions of concern for others rather than for our own selfish comforts and security (our own “good economy,” “health care,” and “education”).

(f) The “grand invasion” that God longs to effect cannot take place until His people are at-one with Him, their hearts beating totally in unison with His.

(g) Prayer teaches US that at-one-ment. God is already willing; are we ready to share His concern and total consecration?

January 4, 2005

Is there anywhere a human heart that by nature doesn’t have a storm inside? If you are perfectly at-one-with God, you belong in Heaven. Well, at least, it’s your job to help those billions who by nature share the universal human problem of alienation from God. “Why has He allowed ME to suffer? Why ME . . . to endure injustice? Is God fair?” One may piously exude all the -self-righteous phrases while deep inside unanswered questions destroy our “peace with God” (Rom. 5:1). And it’s not only teens who have that cauldron boiling inside; grey-hairs do, too.

Here’s a shocker: the closer you come to Jesus Christ, the bigger you will realize your problem to be. Come VERY close to Him, and you will “taste” the depth of the darkness He experienced on His cross when He cried out, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken ME?” If one has never grown up out of innocent childhood, he may never think or feel on that level; but Jesus did. “Why doesn’t God DO something?” is the heart-cry of the person who dares to think, not only about his own tiny little problems, but about those suffering millions, . . . and about the people in Iraq, . . . and why do the poor have to suffer while the rich have long since left being millionaires, now you’re nobody unless you’re a billionaire, . . . and why must the innocent suffer so? “My God, My God, why have You forsaken our world?”

Back again to the cross on Calvary: in that total darkness, while He hung there in that deepest perplexity and despair, He made a choice--to BELIEVE that His Father was good even though everything was shouting in His ears that His Father was unjust. In total darkness, in the vastness of empty heart-broken space, He built a great bridge between alienated humanity and God. It’s called the Atonement, the at-one-ment. If His Father has forsaken Him, HE WILL NOT FORSAKE HIS FATHER. On His cross He built something out of nothing like He had created a universe out of nothing. At any cost, He will believe Good News. He will create Good News. You don’t have to build that Bridge; all you have to do is, well, believe that He built it.

January 3, 2005

“For Sweden’s prime minister, celebrating New Year’s after the Asian tsunami felt ‘completely wrong.’ Paris, is heart heavy with the tragedy, draped black cloth along a favorite haunt for romantic reveling—the Champs Elysees. Elsewhere, prayers substituted for parties in the final minutes of 2004.” So “the world tones down revelry to honor Asia victims,” says the Sacramento Bee on New Year’s Day.

Teens are noted for thinking they are immortal; all our lives, the Bible has been telling us we are always only a minute away from eternity. When a moral tsunami rolled over wicked King Ahab of Israel, he finally humbled his arrogant heart and “walked softly” for awhile. The stern prophet Elijah had read him God’s riot act--in mercy to his soul (1 Kings 21:20ff.).

Prayer is always a proper substitute for wild partying. The Tsunami coming at New Year’s has sobered the world--for awhile. What the world must understand and in God’s providence will yet be told them, is that we, as the world, have been living in His cosmic Day of Atonement for well over a century. Revelry was always inappropriate on Israel’s ancient days of atonement, for in type that solemn day prefigured the antitype that came at the end of the 2300 years of Daniel’s solemn prophecy (that Jesus said we must “read” and “understand,” Dan. 8:12; Matt. 24:15). “As it was in the days of Noah,” said Jesus, is the way to live since this solemn cosmic “Day” has come upon the world. The Bible makes plain that we all are minutes from eternity.

Isaiah describes the Lord’s disappointment when we forget when He calls for Day of Atonement living: “Instead, . . . slaying oxen and . . . drinking wine, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’ Then it was revealed in my hearing by the Lord of hosts, ‘Surely for this iniquity there will be no atonement for you, even to your death,’ says the Lord God of hosts” (22:12-14). The whole world has been stunned; let us read what God’s prophets have been saying.

January 1, 2005

The question has come in: “Could this truly terrible disaster be the specially designated ‘a great earthquake’ of Revelation 6:12 (KJV): ‘And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake . . .’”?

That particular “great earthquake” is precisely located in the chain of prophetic events that are clearly demarcated in history--it comes at the beginning of “the sixth seal” which in turn is fixed by following the fifth seal which included the persecution of God’s people at the hands of the papacy during the 1260 years of the Dark Ages (vss. 9-11).

The timing of that particular “great earthquake” is specified in the prophetic word as the first of a group of natural and supernatural events which includes the darkening of the sun (May 19, 1780), and the unique event of the “falling of the stars” (November 13, 1833). Jesus pinpointed these events even more closely: “But IN those days, AFTER that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light” (Mark 13:24). “In those days” is the 1260 days/years of Daniel’s prophecy (7:25). The actual bloody persecutions tapered off before the precise end of the 1260 years (1798) as Jesus had predicted (“except those days be shortened, there should no flesh be saved,” Matt. 24:33; martyrdoms ended around 1750).

We must remember the trail of the Holy Spirit’s leading through the centuries: thoughtful, consecrated Bible students recognized these “signs” contemporaneously, and knew where they “were” in time.

But for sure this truly horrendous disaster of 125,000 dead shapes up to be the most terrible in known numbers since the Flood of Noah, or at least the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. (The “great earthquake” of Lisbon in 1755 killed about 30,000 people. The known world was stunned then; the whole world is stunned now.) It’s time for the last-days events. God’s people will listen to His Voice.