Daily Bread  -  January, 2007

by Robert J. Wieland

Our local phonebook lists many specialty physicians. Each takes long extra training in the one branch of medicine for which he/she is uniquely qualified.

If Jesus had a place in our phonebook He would be listed as specializing in brokenheartedness. That is the one branch of heart-illness in which He is supremely qualified by experience. He is the only person in our 6000+ years who has experienced to the full the anguish of being totally “forsaken” by the Father (cf. Matt. 27:46; true! no one else has ever yet died the second death!). That death-pang of anguish on the cross was His extra training in His Physician-specialty!

“The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18). The problem is, they don’t realize it; to them, He seems billions of miles away.

But there is only one spot where they can realize that nearness—on His cross with Him. Come, there.

“A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise,” and “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit” (51:17). The brokenness is in contrition, sorrow for sin, not fear for the punishment but pain for having caused suffering to the Son of God. That repentance is precious gift from God!

Christ’s expertise in being a Physician to the brokenhearted is told in Psalm 147:3: “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” It’s not merely superficial comfort that He offers, to get you by with a band-aid for another dark and dreary day; He heals that brokenness. From the deep inside, He makes you smile again.

Jesus announced His Physician-specialty in the Sabbath worship service in His home town of Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath Me to preach the gospel [Good News] to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives [slaves], and recovering of sight to the blind [an Optician supreme], to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18).

Time’s up; maybe more about His blessed specialty tomorrow, the Lord willing.

Many thoughtful, sincere people worldwide who reverence the Bible are convinced that the world has come to the “time of the end,” the “last days,” and that Jesus’ promise to come again is overdue in timing. The world desperately needs Him to come as “King of kings and Lord of lords.” The anguish and pain worldwide are enormous, many suffer miserably while the wealthy revel in selfish pleasure. It’s “the days of Noah” redivivus.

The Bible abounds in promises of Heaven pouring out on earth a final revelation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that came initially at Pentecost. We are told to “pray for the latter rain” of the Spirit. A number of movements have arisen in which large masses of people have made this prayer their combined concern.

This particular writer remembers the “Victorious Life” revivals of the 1920’s and 1930’s. They were interdenominational. In particular, one church expected a period of 40 years’ “wandering in the wilderness” to reach its end in 1928. The revivals extended into the 1930’s and were snuffed out in the rise of Nazism and a cruel war greater than any history had recorded.

The bloodbath was utterly horrible; may it never be repeated!

Then the war was finally over; now came wonderful economic prosperity, and another movement to petition Heaven for that long delayed gift of “the latter rain.” This writer and his wife were sent to Uganda and Kenya as missionaries. We thought the Lord was returning soon as He has promised in John 14:1-3.

Is the Lord reticent to grant the gift He has promised? No, it cannot be; Jesus told us that He is more willing to grant the outpouring of His Holy Spirit than parents are to give their children good gifts (Luke 11:13).

But are they ready to recognize, and to receive His blessings, and are they ready and competent to distinguish between the genuine gift and the very clever counterfeits which the world’s great “false christ” will foist upon us?

And are we sure that we have an informed understanding of what a genuine gift of the latter rain of the Holy Spirit really is?

Heaven has not been dilatory, nor reticent to respond. Google may not help in the research, but there has been a tremendously important history of the “latter rain.”

Two thousand years ago God’s people were expecting their long-awaited Messiah to appear. But when He came as a Baby in Bethlehem, they did not recognize Him, and the leaders of the true church of that day led the people to murder Him.

Now God’s people are expecting a great blessing to come from heaven, that is, the long-promised “latter rain,” the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that will “lighten the earth with glory” (Rev. 18:1-4). It will be a message that will prepare God’s people for the second coming of Jesus.

Not everyone on earth will be converted for many will reject, as many rejected Jesus long ago; but the message will seek out honest hearts everywhere who will respond. The Lord will be honored. Some will come from places that will seem unlikely to those who have been in the way a long time; the message of the “everlasting gospel” will be presented so clearly and powerfully that Christ will be uplifted as the crucified Son of God. He not only died for the world in a vague corporate sense but He also died for each individual soul. And each who permits his heart to be moved by the “love of Christ [that] constrains us” (2 Cor. 5:14, 15) will be sanctified by the message that will be finally full-blown.

The watching universe will be amazed at the transformations that the pure, true gospel will accomplish, as Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). But Satan’s cleverness has confused “the truth of the gospel” even as “certain men [who] came from James” (the early leader of the church in Paul’s day) confused even Peter and Barnabas (Gal. 2:6, 12-14). The story of that stumbling on the part of the early leaders of the church is not well known (cf. Gal. 2:1-13). Paul was right! And his Romans is “the clearest gospel of all.”

This often neglected story of human fallibility encourages us to study “the truth of the gospel” (vss. 5, 14) directly for ourselves. Even in modern times, sincere, converted leaders can err and can mislead people, even the “faithful” such as Barnabas long ago. There is no prayer that Heaven is more eager to answer than the prayer of an honest heart who wants to understand truth! The Lord would rather empty heaven of angels, sending them all down here to help one soul, rather than allow that soul to become misled.

Children are very important people who need Good News, not Bad. Jesus is very severe with people who abuse children spiritually—that is, pastors, or parents, or teachers who tell them Bad News instead of the pure, true “gospel” that He commanded us to tell everybody (Mark 15:16; Matt. 18:6).

When it’s our turn to tell the Children’s Story in the church service, we must beg Him to help us do it right, to tell them something that will turn their little feet toward the kingdom of God, and not vice versa.

Sometimes I like to make it into a game that a child can play with me. If one volunteers, I tell him/her that all I want him to do is to go for a walk with me down the aisle of the church, and he/she hold on to my hand. That’s all!

So, the trusting child, smiling a bit sheepishly, stands with me there in front of everybody, and tremulously holds my hand. Whereupon I take off in top gear down the aisle with the child left there behind, not having taken a step, because of course there was no hanging on.

Then, after “berating” the child for not holding on to my hand as I told him/her to do, I say, “Now let’s try it again; and this time instead of you holding on to my hand as we go for a walk, let me hold you by the hand. Then we take off and I hold on tight.

Then I make my point: being saved in God’s kingdom does not depend on you holding on to God’s hand, because you and I and all of us are too weak to hang on. But it depends on us believing that He is holding tight to our hand.

He says so: “I, the LORD your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you’” (Isa. 41:13).

The idea is not that we must take the initiative in our salvation and start the process going; we must believe that His love for us takes the initiative; it’s an important point that must not be twisted or distorted. It’s “God [who] so loved the world that He gave ...” It’s not we who persuaded Him to love us! You and He are crossing this busy street of worldly traffic and you are the little child. “Father” is not going to let you run across on your own. He is going to hold you tight by His hand. (True, if you are perverse, you can wriggle yourself out of His hand; a child can do that, and get hit by the traffic.)

You don’t want to do that, do you? Respond to His constant gripping of your hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two poignant facts stood out:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are two widely different kinds of people, and both are beloved of God:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It still involves bearing a cross.

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

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

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

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

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

(b) Therefore we must learn what is faith.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Come”!

People who love Bible truth are being disturbed by a gigantic earthquake of their faith: the scientific evidence seems irrefutable that the earth is far older than what the Bible says. They have only one life to live; they cannot pursue another life calling of paleontology or even geology or any scientific study that would give them expertise in evaluating evolution.

Long before their faith in Christology or the Sabbath truth is ridiculed by the public, they are pained that their belief in the Genesis account of creation is embarrassing.

(1) They’ll never be able to “prove” Creation scientifically. But don’t forget: no one will “prove” it false, either.

(2) Simplistic as it may sound, the answer is ... Jesus. Is He real?

(3) He is ever so sweet, and loving, and gentle (as the stories for children say); but He is direct and demanding—you can’t “believe in Him” unless you take up your cross on which self is crucified, and follow “whithersoever He goeth” (Rev. 14:5, KJV).

(4) You will shy away from that unless you have “seen” Him bear His cross and you understand what it cost Him to save you from darkest hell. The days when fear was the prevalent motivation for following Him are gone; a new motivation is now possessing human hearts worldwide—an intimate view of Jesus Christ in which you become as “married” to Him as is any loving bride to her husband; your concern is for Him that He receive His reward. You’re living in a new world: it’s no less real than the old one of self was, but what happened at Pentecost now grips you. Something real but intangible is what grips you: the love (agape) of Christ is now constraining” you, motivating, possessing you. Your heart is like a woman who has fallen deeply in love. The cross of the Son of God has spoken to you.

(5) In usual social culture, a bride takes her new husband’s name; she has found a new identity, and if she truly loves and honors him, she is delighted with it. She is still her old self, yes; but no, she is not. From henceforth she is now “Mrs. _______.”

(6) The most stupendous Reality of the history of the universe has taken place—the Son of God has died the second death of the vast population of earth (Heb. 2:9). He has chosen to go to hell (cf. Acts 2:27; Psalm 22 passim). He has said, “greater love [agape] has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13). You can jump in to rescue a drowning person and thus lay down your physical, temporal life while all the time hanging on to your eternal life in Christ (yes, that’s also a great sacrifice!). But since the world began, no person has ever gone to an eternal hell to save someone else, except the incarnate Son of God.

(7) That’s love (agape). The Creation embarrassment is gone; Christ is the greater truth that swallows up all others.

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

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

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

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

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

The Eleven disciples did wonderfully proclaiming Christ to the world after Pentecost. They thought their first job was to know who could be “numbered” to replace Judas Iscariot, and their lot fell on one Matthias (Acts 1:26); but strangely we never hear from him again.

But the man we do hear from thereafter is Paul, who said he was as “one born out of due time” (1 Cor. 15:8), a kind of interloper, “the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle” (vs. 9), “less than the least of all saints” (Eph. 3:8), the “chief” of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). But there was no modesty in his claim to understand “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5, 9)!

He propounds it in depth in Romans 5, but it being “deep” doesn’t mean that it’s “hard to be understood” (as a mistranslation of another apostle’s dusnoetos implies, 2 Peter 3:16). It’s like the water of Silver Springs, Florida, where you can see a pin fathoms deep. Paul never saw the crucifixion in person but he outdid the Eleven in portraying its significance clearly, for common people and even children, to see.

His idea will again revolutionize organized Christianity when it is grasped: “all are justified by God’s free grace alone, through His act of liberation in the person of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 3:24). “All are” (present tense)? And is its grace “free”? Let the Bible say:

Yes, Paul explains in 5:12-18; “if the wrongdoing of that one man [Adam] brought death upon so many [that is, everybody], its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift of the one man, Jesus Christ. ... The judicial action, following on the one offence [of Adam] resulted in a [judicial] verdict of condemnation, but the act of grace, following on so many misdeeds, resulted in a [judicial] verdict of acquittal. ... It follows, then, that as the result of one misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act is acquittal and life for all”(REV). Yes, Paul, you mean what you say: “all.”

Those lost at last will see (cf. Rev. 20:12) how God did more than make an “offer” of salvation to them; five times in the above, in the Bible itself, Paul says He “gave” it.

And what did many do?

They threw it away. They will at last kneel and confess to Him, “Just and true are Your ways” (Rev. 15:3).

Why not kneel before Him today and confess the same, and thus “be ... reconciled to God”? (2 Cor. 5:19). God wills that the world hear what Paul has to say.

There are encouraging promises in the Bible. One assures us that in the final proclamation (“the everlasting gospel” in the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14:6-12), the Holy Spirit will be poured out in such fullness that He will convict people in the highest echelons of world leadership. Some are motivated to step out fearlessly and identify with the despised “remnant” who “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (cf. Rev. 15:2, 3; 12:17). The gospel commission will not be finished with a whimper but with a blaze of glory.

Isaiah 49 is a wonderful treatise on these glorious days as finally the pure truth of the gospel is understood and proclaimed. The Lord says, “‘I will say to the prisoners, Go free!’ and to those in darkness, ‘Come out to the light!’ ... I will make a highway across the mountains and prepare a road for My people to travel. ... Look around you and see what is happening! Kings will be like fathers to you; queens will be like mothers. They will bow low before you and honor you. ... I will fight against whoever fights you, and I will rescue your children” (vss. 9, 11, 18, 23, 25, GNB).

Under that proclamation of “the everlasting gospel,” agencies that have held people back are powerless to keep them from stepping out for the Lord—like employment that threatens dismissal because of the holy Sabbath, or friends or family; truth is more precious than all besides. Honorable people honor the Lord. Some in the very highest levels of the Roman Curia will respond, according to the Revelation 15:2 prophecy.

Abraham was a wealthy, distinguished man in his day. If God Himself preached the “gospel” to him (Gal. 3:8), it must have been “Christ and Him crucified,” for that alone is the gospel (1 Cor. 2:1, 2). Jesus said that “Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 9:56). It was not craven fear of hell that motivated him to leave his comfortable home in the great city of Ur and live in tents the rest of his life; it was a glimpse of the abounding grace of the Lord. Yes, in the story of the offering of Isaac in Genesis 22, Abraham saw the “breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of the love (agape) of Christ; that’s what nerved and moved him to shine as “the father of all them who believe” (Rom. 4:11).

The same vision will move you and me today, and also many in time to come! Agape is a far more effective motivation than any kind of fear the old covenant can generate.

Does the Bible make its Good News too good? Does it give ordinary people a false hope? Take its last page, for example: “Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (vs. 17). And the one verse everybody knows, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life;” does that give the common man an unrealistic hope? What it says, is:

(1) God takes the initiative; He didn’t ask our permission before He “loved” and “gave.”

(2) He “gave,” specifically not “offered to give.” He actually on His own did it.

(3) The “perishing” is not an action of God in condemning and destroying the one who does not believe, because in the original language the “perish” is in the middle voice of the verb, literally the “should not perish” says “does not bring about his own perishing by his own action or choice.” In other words, “to believe” is clearly a powerful movement that saves the one who believes from self-chosen death. (I am indebted to a friend for this insight that eluded me for decades.)

(4) John 3:16 does not give a check list of things to “do.” It says “believe.” That can’t be a false hope for the ordinary person! God does not mislead us with fine print.

(5) When Joel 2:32 describes the trials of the last days and says that “whoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered,” is that too easy and therefore misleading? Does God open the door for us to be lost?

(6) Does Jesus confuse us when He says the same as the last page of the Bible says, “Come, ... My yoke is easy and My burden is light”? (A misleading translation in the NKJV forces Him squarely to contradict Himself in Matt. 7:14, saying, “Difficult is the way which leads to life.” The Greek thlibo does not say “difficult,” it says “narrow.” A narrow gate is not a difficult one; all you have to do is drop your baggage of “self,” and the love [agape] revealed at His cross teaches you to do it; Titus 2:11-14.)

(7) Were the Samaritans wrong when they said Jesus “is indeed the Savior of the world”? (John 4:42). Should they have said He would only like to be?

We’ve gone on enough. A proper definition of “faith” or “to believe” does not exclude common sense, which God has given to “every man” (Rom. 12:3). Anyone who reads the last page of the Bible or reads John 3:16 knows already that “with the heart man believes to righteousness” (Rom. 10:10). Let the heart be “reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:19), and the life will be transformed, “at-one” with God. When the Bible keeps on saying over and over “come,” it means come to the cross, and l-o-o-k at the “serpent” on the pole (John 3:14, 15; Num. 21:9; 2 Cor. 5:21).

That resolves all the supposed contradictions.

The 16th century Protestant Reformation was a glorious movement of emancipation from Dark Ages, papal thinking. The freedom to think biblically had to precede political and social freedom. All during those Dark Ages God had a “remnant” church who preserved her liberty of conscience while having “fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days [prophetic years]” (Rev. 12:6, KJV). These were faithful Bible-believing and Bible-preserving saints; they lived secluded in the mountains of southern France and northern Italy, who sent out their young people as missionaries to spread among common people a knowledge of the true gospel. They prepared the way for the grand Reformation of Luther.

Finally, came full deliverance from papal darkness with the end of those 1260 years in 1798 and the near simultaneous discovery in many lands of the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation; “the time of the end” had begun. Then in swift succession came the discovery that the world is now living in God’s grand antitypical Day of Atonement. The time has come for that fully understood “gospel of the kingdom” that Jesus declared must be “preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations [before] the end shall come” (Matt. 14:14). That’s exactly where we are now in the progression of God’s gift of time.

The understanding of the gospel that the saints had in the 16th century was great for their day; but now comes that paradigm shift that transcends both Calvinism and Arminianism in the recovery of justification by faith. Heaven’s glorious goal is the ripening of “grain” for “harvest.” “One” must be seated on a white cloud thrusting in His “sickle” to “reap the harvest of the earth”(Rev. 14:14, 15). That is the second coming of Jesus and the final translation of His people with the closing act of the heavenly drama: the great controversy between Christ and Satan will be at last ended. First, that “grain” must “ripen” for harvest.

Could we be just about there?

At last the world is to gather before the cross of Calvary to “comprehend ... what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height: and to know the love [agape] of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:17-19, KJV). At last the full-fledged gospel is to “lighten the earth with glory” (Rev. 18:1-4). The world will be catalyzed into two camps—those who welcome the full “comprehension,” and those who reject it. The little girl who was the flower girl at the wedding, caring only for the cake and ice cream, will now “grow up unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” to where she appreciates the Bridegroom for what He is (cf. 19:7, 8). She will become the “Lamb’s wife” who has at last “made herself ready” for the “marriage of the Lamb.”

Time’s nearly up. We’re just about there!

We were discussing in class the story of the great King Solomon in his old age, when he was broken and repentant for a life lived badly. He started off well, asking the Lord not for wealth and fame but for wisdom to judge his people righteously; that choice made the Lord so happy that He gave him wisdom above any other man and added all the wealth and pleasure free.

He was like the fabled 5th century B. C. king of Lydia, Croesus, to whose touch everything turned to gold, only this time, God made it so. The Bible says that the Lord “magnified,” “exalted”him”(2 Chron. 1:1), which may not have been the most good the Lord could have done for the man. In later life, Solomon wrote, “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His corrections for whom the Lord loves He corrects [chastens, KJV] just as a father the son in whom he delights” (Prov. 3:11, 12). James says, “Let ... the rich [rejoice] in that he is made low” (1:9, 10, KJV). Bunyan sang in Pilgrim’s Progress, “He that is down need fear no fall, / He that is low, no pride; / He that is humble ever shall /Have God to be his guide.” But Solomon apparently was deprived of that painful discipline of the Lord.

We were discussing in class how could the Lord bring the errant, apostate old king to repentance?

Should He send a prophet to denounce him and threaten him with torture and hell fire?

Fear has sometimes produced a change in outward conduct; in fact, fear is pretty well what makes the world go around; you enjoy comparative relief from dangerous crime because criminals know that civil law prescribes dire punishment. Some Old Testament “revivals” were fear-oriented; and it’s still good common sense to look both ways before you cross a busy street.

But would fear of the seven last plagues or of hell fire have brought about a heart-repentance from old Solomon? We all agree, No. The Lord says, “With lovingkindness I have drawn you” (Jer. 31:3). Jesus said, “I, if I am lifted up from the earth [His crucifixion in love for us], will draw all to Myself” (John 12:32).

Telling us what to do will not lighten the earth with the glory of the final proclamation of the gospel; but “lifting up Christ” on His cross in the proclamation of what He has done for us, what His cross means, what it cost Him to save us by the “width and length and depth and height [of] ... the love of Christ” (Eph. 3:18)—that will do what nothing else can.

Conclusion: study what His cross means.

“THE APOSTLE PAUL IS NOT GUILTY!” That’s how the black headlines should run in the world’s media. The apostle Peter is not accusing Paul of being “hard to be understood,” which is the cardinal fault of would-be gospel preachers who are superficially minded (cf. 2 Peter 3:16). For anyone to stand in a pulpit and confuse people about the most blessed truth the world can know, is awful! Paul was anything but confusing to people.

People have glanced superficially at what the apostle Peter says there. It mentions Paul’s “epistles, speaking in them of ... some things hard to be understood,” and they assume (from their English Bible) that Paul’s Romans or Galatians is a forbidding thicket of theological confusion; so skip Paul. You’ll get to heaven fine without understanding him; all you need is the little ditty, “Jesus-loves-me-this-I-know.” Period. God asks no more of your understanding.

But the Lord Jesus Himself declared of Paul, “He is a chosen vessel of Mine” (Acts 9:15). It was He Himself who saw to it that many of Paul’s “epistles” got into the New Testament; we need every one of them, especially Galatians and Romans. That’s where at last we find the clearest answer to the question of what Israel’s convoluted history means; set in perspective, it’s the world’s best good news for it’s told in the light of the cross where the Jews crucified the world’s Christ. In this grand Day of Atonement, the last of earth’s history, we are privileged to overcome ancient Israel’s sins, for as never before in 6000 years the message of “Christ and Him crucified” is to be proclaimed most clearly.

What Peter meant and said is different from the popular understanding: the problem was (and is) that people “wrest” or distort what the apostle Paul said, and thus rob themselves of eternal life, for it’s “to their own destruction.”

An example of a blessing overlooked is Romans 5. I well remember in younger days avoiding that chapter; I thought it was well over my head. So I deeply sympathize with those who think Romans 5 is forbidding to read. But the word that Peter used (in the Greek) was dusnoetos, which literally simply means “misperceived.” It gets Paul off the hook; all you have to do is to read his epistles with perception! Try reading his Romans 5 with a different version also, it may help. He is simply saying that the sin of Adam brought on “all men” the inheritance of a fallen, sinful nature, with its death; Christ took on Himself that same nature (with its death), and became our new, or second Adam, reversing all that the first Adam did to us. Thus He gives the same “all men” His eternal life instead. And Paul says five times that it’s a “gift,” not a mere “offer”!

But you have something to do, and if you’re an honest soul, you’ll do it: you receive the “gift,” you thank Him for it, you appreciate it, you believe; and in gladness of heart you obey forever after.

Sin itself is one vast addiction to evil; all such addictions are snares of Satan. He is the great Enslaver of the human race. The addictive nature of sin is seen in Proverbs 5:22: “His own iniquities trap the wicked man, and he is caught in the cords of his sin,” or as the NEB expresses it, “held fast in the foils of his own sin,” or “gets caught in the net of his own sin” (GNB).

The “enmity against God” of the “ carnal mind” (Rom. 8:7) is the grand addiction of humanity. It burst forth in a complete display in the hatred against Jesus Christ that was His murder and crucifixion. All hatreds and violence are an outgrowth of that core sin. The world is arraigned at the cross of Christ; there we see our judgment. Addiction grows out of sin. Sin must be seen for what it is—hatred of God, the desire to eliminate Him, and take His place as the Ruler of the universe. That has always been Lucifer’s (Satan’s) urge. In these last days of earth’s history the Enemy is poised for one last great putsch that he hopes will finally win his great controversy against Christ; the earth being filled with violence today as it was in the days before the Flood of Noah is an evidence of his desperate working.

Any transgression of the holy law of God leads to an addiction in that sin: pornography for example is an addiction of “coveting one’s neighbor’s wife,” the ensnaring transgression of the tenth commandment (“thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” Ex. 20:17, KJV). Gossiping is an addiction that “crucifies Christ afresh” (cf. Heb. 6:6), it’s lovelessness gone wild. Alcoholism is a form of drug addiction which is closely related to gluttony, both a demonstration of self run riot, and both show the “carnal mind,” the enmity against God still in charge.

Deliverance full and complete comes through Jesus Christ, but only through Him. The angel Gabriel said at His birth, “He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). “His disciples” understood something of how they needed Him when they cried out in the wild tempest as it swallowed their ship with waves, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” (Matt. 8:25). Every addict of whatever kind comes to that same desperate moment.

The Savior responds to such a deeply heartfelt cry. You cast yourself upon His mercy totally; you are Peter sinking in the waves that he thought he could walk on (and he did while he kept his eyes on the Savior! Matt. 14:29). But as He grasped Peter and pulled him from drowning, so He grasps you and saves you.

You end up singing the most joyous song any addict ever sang: “O LORD, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have loosed my bonds” (Psalm 116:16).

Is there someone out there around the world battling with an addiction who is crying out to God for deliverance? It may be alcohol, or pornography (a real addiction if ever there was one!), drugs, tobacco, illicit sex, unclean thoughts and imaginings, on and on.

Yes, and appetite!

(1) There is power in the actual words of the Bible, in the Bible itself rather than in some book about the Bible, for “the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12). Get your own Bible, invest in a good one with center markings, a Bible you can mark up as your own personal Book. Treat God in a business-like way; buy the Bible that will be your life-long companion. Let God see that you are serious. He is more than willing to listen to you call on Him for help and respond; but it’s only fair that you be serious.

 

(2) Sinful as you are, weak and in captivity to your addiction, “come” to Him and be honest; tell Him exactly how you feel. Very likely you have also together with your addiction a hatred for someone whom you blame for your problems. Tell God all about it; lay it all out before Him. He won’t zap you; an honest visit with Him will give you evidence that He is real. And for sure, He will convict you deep in your soul of your wrongs, your wrong attitudes, let Him lay it on. If you go see a doctor you usually wait around in the waiting room a while; give the Lord Jesus some time, “waiting” on Him. He is the Divine Psychiatrist. Don’t run from Him. He can “tell” you more in a few minutes than you can learn from books in many hours.

 

(3) He has promised to heal you of your addictions, your obsessions, your fears; but He must have your cooperation. There comes the time when you MUST make the choice, choose, to give the evil thing up forever. But note carefully: not promise, no, but choose. You realize that of yourself you are powerless to gain this victory. You must confess the truth. You’ll flounder around up and down for decades constantly making New Year’s Resolutions, breaking them all and sinking your soul deeper and deeper in despair. God never asks you to make good-for-nothing promises! God made seven grand promises to Abraham but did not ask him to promise anything in return; what God wanted was for Abraham to believe His promises! (cf. Gen. 12:2, 3). Then ask the Lord Jesus to accept your choice, ask Him to save you.

 

(4) The hardest thing you will ever have to do is to BELIEVE the truth: (a) He loves you even if your parents never did; (b) He hears you; (c) He is faithful and won’t forsake you; (d) wants you to address Him as “Father” (Rom. 8:15; Matt. 6:6-13).

Some dear soul will tell you no, the hardest thing you will have to do is to obey the ten commandments. Take a look: there is a Preamble in verse 1 of Exodus 20. Believe that Preamble, and then the ten commandments become ten promises. The Law is not there to punish you, but it is a “Schoolmaster” whose job will be to lead you as by the hand around to Jesus, that you might experience justification by faith (Gal. 3:22-24). That makes you obedient to all the commandments of God.

Someone asks a question: “If I have been baptized, are not all my sins washed away? ‘If we confess our sins, He [the Lord] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ emphasis added” (1 John 1:9). How then can we be burdened with any “unknown sin beneath our consciousness”?

1. Yes, our known sins (plural) are washed away.

 

2. But there is a deeper layer of sin (singular) that underlies deeds.

 

3. Peter was baptized and then ordained to the gospel ministry by hands laid on his head that had made the world; and he had been faithful to the extent of his consciousness. But he had no idea of the cowardly sin of denying His Lord that all the while lay buried deep in his soul (cf. Mark 14:66ff).

 

4. In His last message to His beloved church on earth, the Lord Jesus reminds us of our great world-wide unknown sin of self-sufficiency and pride (Rev. 3:13-21).

But what is our great world-wide unknown sin?

We see it displayed at the cross of Christ: the murder, the crucifixion of Christ (Luke 23:34). This is explained in Romans 8:7: “The carnal mind is enmity against God,” which in turn is explained further in 1 John 3:15: “Whoever hates his brother is [already] a murderer.”

The sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden was greater than their conscious minds could handle; that sin of murdering God was unthinkable, totally lethal, they would have died physically on the spot had it not been that there was a Lamb “slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8) who covered that sin for them. The unspeakable guilt was thrust into unconsciousness for they could not bear the full consciousness of it until there comes the cleansing ministry of Christ in His Most Holy Apartment ministry at the end of the 2300 year prophecy (Dan. 8:14).

Only when His people grasp “the breadth, and length, and depth and height” of the love that “passes knowledge,” the full proclamation of “Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:1, 2), can the Holy Spirit succeed in imparting that conviction of sin. It is on the great antitypical Day of Atonement that His people finally come to realize that the death which Jesus died for them on His cross is “the second death.” An appreciation of this love forever “constrains” them to live wholly for Him, and not for self or for the world.

The Christian church is divided into many denominations and sects, but all would agree on one statement: the Gospel is Good News. The angels at Bethlehem said so: it’s “good tidings of great joy ... to ALL people” (Luke 2:10). But how good? There’s where we split off into contentions and conflicts.

A writer of great acclaim once penned a little book, Steps to Christ. She blew the lid off of legalism; speaking on one page seven times about what the cross of Christ means, she said: “The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ, but if he does not resist he will be drawn to Jesus, ... to the foot of the cross in repentance for his sins” (p. 27).

Can the Good News be that good—that you have to “resist” Christ, reject Him, in order to be lost? There’s the “Armageddon” battlefield in at least one church over the teachings of righteousness by faith. “No way!” some contend; to say that you have to resist Him in order to be lost will open the gates of the New Jerusalem and admit hordes who don’t deserve to get in. So let’s go to the Bible, trusting we can settle the question there:

“I have loved you with everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you” (Jer. 31:3). Speaking of what Paul meant when he said, “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), the Lord Jesus said: “I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself” (John 12:32; that’s the Loud Cry!). Yes, there’s a huge “IF” there, preachers! No superficial preaching will “draw” people to repentance. They’ll go home Sabbath after Sabbath from your services in hard-hearted lukewarmness, otherwise.

“God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them” (2 Cor. 5:19), but instead “He has borne our ... transgressions, ... bruised for our iniquities, ... the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all”(Isa. 53:4-6). The Father “imputed” our guilt onto Him so that Christ who “knew no sin” was “made to be sin for us” (that’s everybody! 2 Cor. 5:21). In that act on His cross, Christ died “the second death” of “every man” in the world (Heb. 2:9). He did it before any of us were even born, for He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).

The logic follows as day follows night: if He has already died your second death, paid the penalty for your sin, the only way you can be lost therefore is to veto what He has done for you.

And there’s the mountain-high problem: your “carnal mind” is “enmity against God”(Rom. 8:7). Hang on to it, and you are wearing out your life in re-crucifying Christ “afresh,” and in your blind selfishness you are putting Him “to open shame” before the world and before the universe (Heb. 6:6, KJV). What you are doing is so “hard” you are “kicking against the goads,” forcing yourself into premature old age, disabilities and death (Acts 26:14), demonstrating for the final Judgment what you really choose: eternal death. The “hardest” thing in the world for anyone to do is to resist the seeking love of Christ.

It was last night in the concluding meeting of a mini-conference on “The Ten Great Gospel Truths” of righteousness by faith. Some five or six of us, pastors and Bible students, were absorbed in a round-table discussion on a closely defined topic: “How does Jesus Christ as the world’s great High Priest cleanse His heavenly sanctuary?”

The “cleansing” idea of course comes from Daniel 8:14 which says that “unto 2300 days [in literal time, years], then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” (it’s going on now). Christ is the antitypical High Priest, of whom Aaron and the Levitical priests of Israel were the type; His antitypical “sanctuary” is the heavenly one of which the earthly Levitical was the type; once a year “the day of atonement” was its “cleansing,” the type of the antitypical Day of Atonement in which the world is now living (by and large doesn’t know it). The ultra-special work of “cleansing” the ancient high priest did on that one day was a type of what Christ is doing now (Lev. 23:27-32).

But what is it that He is doing? This was our topic.

As the discussion continued and each spoke his mind, it became apparent that we were all united in one conviction: Christ is especially searching the hearts of His people on earth through the Holy Spirit (He has told us long ago that’s His first work, to “convict of sin,” John 16:8); but what is so special about “Day of Atonement conviction of sin” different from past ages?

Again we found ourselves “at-one”: He is now convicting His people of unknown sin, sin lying so deeply buried in human hearts that it is unrealized.

A prime example: Peter—so sure that he could never fall so low as to “deny” Christ; that awful sin was there all the while but beyond his knowledge. Another example: King David—blessed with inspiration to write our beloved 23d Psalm, he has slain Goliath and done many grand works, but he stumbles headlong into the “pit” of adultery and an awful cover-up murder. Another prime example of tragically “unknown sin” is the very “angel of the church of the Laodiceans” who “knows not” the pathetic poverty and blindness that characterizes Christ’s church today, which hinders His saving work for which the world suffers deprivation.

The high priestly ministry of Christ in the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary brings conviction of known sin; wonderful work! Thank God for it.

His high priestly ministry in the Most Holy Apartment goes deeper; unknown, unrealized sin—the great curse in the lives of “saints” who have forgotten that they are sinners.