Daily Bread  -  May, 2007

by Robert J. Wieland

Jesus said that anyone who is healthy doesn’t need a doctor (Luke 5:31). It would follow likewise, that any married couple who know what love is don’t need a marriage counselor.

But we live in a fallen world where the healthiest sometimes need a physician and the happiest of couples sometimes need some encouragement and reproof.

What a blessing when that Physician is Christ Himself and that Counselor is our Savior. In each instance, He is the One of whom it is said, “Unto us a Son is given” (Isa. 9:6); Christ became one of us, a member of the fallen human race who was Himself never sick and who never sinned. Yet whenever He healed the sick, He took their sickness upon Himself: “He ... healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying: ‘He Himself ... bore our sicknesses’” (Matt. 8:16, 17). A supremely healthy Man bore sickness in His own body! (Let anyone who is sick ponder this.)

As a Marriage Counselor He is also “unto us a Son is given,” One of us. The most painful experience a good man can suffer is to be despised, rejected, hated by the one woman in all the world whom he truly loves, and Jesus has had that experience—in an infinite dimension. Because the “woman” is the “church” on which He has bestowed His supreme regard.

“Church” isn’t necessarily synonymous with the word “denomination,” but it is distinguished in Revelation 12:17 and 14:12 as the one that stands out distinctly different in that it “keeps the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Thus it is different from “Babylon” which is “fallen” (14:8; 18:2). If this church keeps the commandments of God, it has had to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes,” and “in whose mouth there is no guile,” who is “without fault before the throne of God” (14:4, 5). There has been something in its earthly history that is different: there was a time when it eagerly and sincerely accepted every ray of truth that God permitted to shine on its pathway. No resistance; a betrothal that brought joy to the heart of the Son of God who is still and will be forever a human being as well, but “God with us.”

And then as “she” grew to maturity, “she” turned on Him in “cruel” rejection. “Impossible,” you say? It’s portrayed in Scripture in the Song of Solomon chapter 5. It’s the love story of the ages. And the alienation must and will be healed in at-one-ment, reconciliation, repentance. Don’t “divorce” yourself from the church. It is to become the bride of the Lamb when it learns to appreciate what the Lamb has suffered and given for it.

The marriage is on the rocks and healing seems impossible; a flood of bitter memories is almost all they have left between them. Yet they are church members and they both dread divorce and each knows he/she is unworthy (and incapable!) alone to raise the innocent children whom they have brought into the world. What once was love (or was it just fun for sex?) seems dead.

But there’s that nagging remembrance: our marital failure brings shame and disgrace on the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is the One who invented marriage, and the universe is watching.

When we think of Him as a cold infinite institution even bigger than the Pentagon, that doesn’t disturb us because what we do is a mere pinprick. But when we think of Him as a real human (divine) Person forever intimately given to us, a purpose begins to form in our souls—we can’t heap further pain on Him. Our marital failure is a re-crucifixion of the One whom the Jews nailed to a tree, and He still feels pain (and nakedness-shame).

Marital failures are serious; they drive spikes in His wrist and ankle bones. And He must bear listening to the sobs of innocent children.

Satan says this couple must have the pleasure of divorce so they can start again with someone else, or at least, find peace alone; and the children? Better off with the divorce, at least that’s what the world says (and if we forget Christ and heaven that seems true).

But we don’t want spiritual disaster; and yes we both love the children. So let’s welcome the path to healing; the Savior shows it to us in His word:

(1) Spend a full hour alone with Him, the best Marriage Counselor ever; accept the “chastening of the Lord”(read Heb. 12:4-12).

(2) Be serious: turn off TV, radio, CD’s; humble your soul in quietness alone.

(3) Welcome this “chastening of the Lord;” stop resisting it.

(4) Let Him “slay” you (Job 13:15). Our text says “every son whom He receiveth,” so the “houseband” is the one primarily in need.

(5) Don’t resist identifying yourself as “less than the least of all saints” (Eph. 3:8). In your broken-heartedness don’t reject that last word—you are one of His “saints.”

(6) That’s a tremendously healthy gift of self-respect.

(7) Rejoice, you’ve taken the first step in saving your marriage.

A new book about Islam has been published, ISLAM: GOD’S FORGOTTEN BLESSING, by a lay evangelist, Stephen Dickie, who has successfully proclaimed the everlasting gospel in a Muslim community in central Asia.

Thank God for this book and for this man’s ministry! Theologically, he believes that 2 + 2 = 4 and he says so; that’s refreshing! Instead of coming up with some new-fangled private interpretation of the “seven trumpets” of Revelation 8-11, this man humbly recognizes that the Holy Spirit has been working through the centuries and has enlightened reverent-minded Bible students who have clearly seen Islam in chapter 9. That truth is a key to unlocking the book of Revelation!

This author recognizes August 11, 1840 as the fulfillment of the “hour, and a day, and a month, and a year” of prophetic time in 9:15. He says let’s pay attention to the pioneer students of Bible prophecy, not that they were infallible (no one claims that!) but that the Holy Spirit was leading them as they were able to understand and follow. One author whom he rehabilitates is Uriah Smith whose book on Daniel and Revelation was a classic in the 19th century. Not everything written in the 19th century was horse and buggy thinking.

In fact, the Lord Jesus was prepared to bless those who then believed that 2 + 2 = 4 (in understanding Daniel and Revelation!). He wanted to send that “other angel” of Revelation 18 to lighten the earth with the glory of the message of Christ and Him crucified, the message that would have penetrated into the heart of Islam and reached its fourth part of world population. Many Muslims want to understand the Bible. Jesus has been deeply disappointed that His people have been so dilatory in believing and proclaiming truth.

An example of the disappointment that Jesus has had to endure is the story of that celebrated author Uriah Smith: he did have a basically correct view of Daniel and Revelation but he hardened his heart against “a most precious” new understanding of Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians which was what Paul actually said. Thus Smith knocked himself out of the running. And now much time has gone by and confusion has been prolific.

Dickie’s book respects the pioneers. It will not be the end of controversy, true; but it may be the beginning of the end of confusion. (P. O. Box 385, Kasson, MN 55944; sdickie@kmtel.com)

Millions of Christians around the world are studying today about King Josiah of Judah, the king who did everything just right. He knew that the kingdom of David of which he was now the ruler was virtually on the rocks; their very existence was only a millimeter away from national disaster, for God was on the verge of withdrawing His care and protection from them, leaving them to the tender mercies of the pagan Babylonians.

Hilkiah had found the book of Deuteronomy in the Temple; reading it brought the king to his knees and tears to his eyes. He was utterly sincere in his efforts to avert the national ruin he saw coming. He put his whole soul into a work of repentance as he saw it was needed; what he led the people into was a “national repentance” or one might say, a “corporate repentance.” It began in the king’s palace, the proper place for any national or corporate repentance to begin.

The dear Lord heard and answered the penitent king’s prayers—the God of heaven recognized Josiah and honored him before the world. The young prophet Jeremiah was ecstatic; at last the Holy Spirit is being enabled to work; the throne of David is being rehabilitated; Jeremiah hopes that there will be no more occasion for weeping his eyes out in anguish for the incomprehensible rebellion of God’s own people. The evidence indicates that they are repenting and doing what is right, for they are following their king (cf. 9:1, 2).

But that was exactly their problem—they were following their king. That’s what Israel did throughout their history—they followed their good kings like Hezekiah and Josiah and they followed their bad kings like Manasseh and Ahab. They never truly followed the Lord!

Josiah’s glorious work came to a sudden and abrupt end when he rejected the living demonstration of the Spirit of Prophecy. Everything depended on his discernment, the “eyesalve” that Christ offers His last days church. But Josiah didn’t discern the strange thing that God had done, which he normally couldn’t fathom—God had given Pharoah Necho that gift, and good king Josiah refused to believe it.

Against this inspired counsel, he went to war against the Egyptian king, was wounded by an Egyptian arrow, driven back to Jerusalem in his “ambulance” chariot (imagine his physical agony in that rough ride!), where he died and Jeremiah and the nation mourned.

Study the story in 2 Chronicles 34, 35; you will see evidence that the poor king knew only the old covenant, not the new. Then 36 is downhill, all the way to ruin. Now let us learn!

The Bible tells of “last things” that simple-minded people around the world can understand (Lincoln said that God must love common people, He made so many of them):

• * “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God” (1 Thess. 4:16; that’s the second coming of Christ that He promised in John 14:1-3—personal, visible, literal).

• * There will be a mortal people living on earth who will welcome Him: “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (vs. 17).

• * Then and only then will this “mortality” be exchanged for “immortality,” because “we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed, in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet ... This mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15: 51-53). Clear, simple!

• * Those who at that day are “alive and remain” will be “the harvest of the earth.” Jesus Christ, as an eager Bridegroom longing to come to claim His Bride will be straining at the leash for the command that lets Him come but He must wait until “another angel [who comes] out of the temple ... [cries] with a loud voice, ‘Thrust in Your sickle and reap: for the time is come for You to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe’” (Rev. 14:14, 15). Jesus must follow directions! The timing of the permission depends on His people on earth. 

• * The context tells what “ripe” means: a group in mystic number “144,000” have “overcome even as [Christ] overcame and sat down with [His] Father on His throne” “without fault ... in whose mouth there is no guile” (3:21; 14:5). Impossible? No! It’s true.

• *Being “ripe” means they have outgrown their former status of mere flower-girl at the “marriage of the Lamb,” now grown up to share with Him executive authority in bringing to a belated end the great controversy between Christ and Satan. Due to His people overcoming, He now can be acclaimed “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Nobody dares be arrogant and say who will be in that mystic “144,000.” The Bible says there will be such a people who like Christ have “condemned sin” while living in the same “sinful flesh” He “took” in which He “condemned sin” and rendered it forever defeated (Rom. 8:3, 4; Heb. 2:14-17). The idea is a “blessed hope” to be cherished by all who have begun to appreciate the grace of God (Titus 2:11-13).

Your unworthy servant is simple-minded, neither theologian nor scholar, just a missionary to likewise simple minded people everywhere. To him the gospel must be clear and simple:

• The loving Creator is our personal heavenly Father (Matt. 6:9).

• He made us to be happy in sinlessness (Eccl. 7:29).

• But our first father Adam plunged us into sin (1 Cor. 15:22).

• “In the day” that we should sin, “thou shalt die,” the Father said (Gen. 2:17). The condemnation of Adam now passed on the whole human race because we are all children of Adam. (Adam brought it on us, not God!)

• But not one sinner in 6000+ years of “our history” has suffered that actual, real “condemnation.” It has only been a legal verdict hanging over us; this should be clear to all—otherwise we would all be dead forever! (Our first death is only a sleep, 1 Thess. 4:16.)

• But there has been One Exception: Christ, the Son of God, took upon Himself our humanity, became one of us, mortal as we; took on His sinless nature our sinful nature, specifically so He might bear that “condemnation” in Himself and set us free from it (Rom. 8:3, 4).

• It was on His cross that He endured its full brunt. The death He died was the real thing, the 100% outworking of that “condemnation” that now only legally hangs over us (Gal. 3:13; Deut. 21:22).

• Therefore, really and truly, up to this moment, He has saved us all from the second death that is our “condemnation.” “Every man” who breathes, believer or not, can shout, praise the Lord! (Gal. 5:1; Eph. 1:3-6).

• Other than Christ, not one human has suffered the “condemnation” thus far, no matter how bad he has been. No one will, until at the end of the 1000 years of Revelation 20:11-15.

• No matter who you are, or how sinful you have been, Christ has indeed saved you from that “second death,” so far! The fact you breathe is proof.

• Another name for all that is “grace” that abounds more than all our sin (Rom. 5:21).

• You cannot ever suffer eternal death unless you choose to resist and reject the gift that Christ has given you “in Himself” (vss. 15-18).

Leap for joy forever after!

A prince in Israel, Herbert E. Douglass, has just passed his 80th and of course there was a celebration of family and friends. Your servant was invited to be present; he greeted the guest of honor as “spring chicken,” because, well, he has just turned 91.

The two of us are privileged to be among that select few who still serve the Lord as best they can in the rarified Mt. Everest atmosphere of their 80’s and 90’s. Are we few seeking to be among that special company who will welcome the return of the Lord Jesus as Paul describes them in 1 Thessalonians, “we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord”? ( 4:15). No, that could be arrogance; and that would be inappropriate for elders.

But let’s confess the truth: we do cherish what Titus 2:13 says is “the blessed hope.” We two, apparently, though far separated in youth, have both cherished it since we were about 12 when we individually unknown to each other were baptized into the fellowship of the church that professes to look for Jesus’ second coming.

Your servant was privileged to say a few words in the august gathering, from his now rather exalted status of an older birth date by a bit more than a decade. Remember, guest of honor, that Moses was 80 when he began his life work; the dear Lord has granted you a clear mind and a warm heart of love for “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5, 9). Don’t lay down your pen; let the Master quicken you and nerve you to speak to the hosts of Israel. Some will enter the Promised Land; don’t hesitate to hold your place among them as the Lord shall direct.

It’s always exhilarating to stand in defense of truth when it seems that all around you forsake it and would humiliate you for taking an unpopular stand. Douglass stood tall and erect in defense of this unworthy servant one day some 40 years ago in a committee of revered theologians and church administrators who were severely hostile; they smelled blood—this writer stood poised to be expelled from fellowship in the ministry by the loss of ministerial credentials when in a real sense Douglass saved his “life” (a pastor/missionary’s “life” is his career of ministry).

The end is not yet; there are a few more steps to the summit and the atmosphere gets more rare each new day. Whoever you are out there somewhere around the world who reads this trivial daily contribution, you can help; you are important. You can pray.

Please do.

It was the greatest love affair that has ever been on this earth: a man had met the woman of his dreams. His loneliness had been the most painful ever felt on earth, his life a profound emptiness until he came face to face with her—then suddenly his life was thrilled with meaning. She was the perfect fulfillment of his dreams, every cell of his being in love with her. There was “no rose in all the world” until she came, no star that shone until her light arose on him.

The one man who has known the most of what it means to be a man in love was Adam, and the woman whom he loved was Eve. She was indeed God’s gift to him, as the Hebrew tries to tell us, “an help meet for him,” KJV, or “answering to him” (Gen. 2:18). Just perfectly what his soul longed for.

And then she had transgressed the holy law of God, her sin the prototype of billions of sins on earth to come. And she seemed to be so happy in her new-found freedom of rebellion against God; a new life, a new freedom, a new wonderment. That gorgeous creature, the glorified serpent had introduced her to real l-i-f-e and she became an instant “missionary” for her new life treasure. She longed to share it with her husband. So Eve became the temptress of all time.

In a flash Adam knew what had happened when she handed him the forbidden fruit; God had not forbidden them to touch it—only to eat it. Holding it in his hand, Adam had not sinned. He knew what was involved; he saw these 6000+ years of anguish stretching before them. But oh, how could he separate himself from her, the woman of his dreams, his love? Seizing the fruit he thrust it into his mouth—love for her must win this struggle, not devotion to God. And so sin entered this world.

Has any man ever sacrificed the love of woman for fellowship with Christ? Christ Himself knows love for a “woman,” love that absorbs His soul. We sinful humans can only pray, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief,” or transliterated, “Lord, I love You, but help my weakness in my love for her (or him)!”

None of us can be “worthy” of Christ; but He says the truth: there comes a time when we must yield “the dearest idol I have known, whate’er that idol be” in devotion to the One who went to hell for us, for He alone is agape (Matt. 10:37; Luke 14:26). We’re closer to Eden than we may have thought. Whom do we truly worship?

Thank God, the Father, that:

(a) We have the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

(b) We have the history of God’s dealings with His people of all ages.

(c) We have the Savior, the Son of God, who has been given to us for eternity,

(d) Who has redeemed us, predestinated us to salvation in Himself,

(e) Has “poured out His soul unto death,” thus has died the second death of the world,

(f) Has given us the gift of “the Comforter,” the Holy Spirit,

(g) Whose first work and thus the assurance of His presence is, that He convicts us of sin,

(h) And thus we know that we are not “orphans,”

(i) That we can pray “Abba, Father” and thus know that we have been “adopted,”

(j) That we have Psalm 130 and we can cry to God “out of the depths,”

(k) That we have the story of Gethsemane,

(l) That we have the story of the cross where the Son of God felt forsaken of His Father so that we may never feel that forsakenness.

(m) And thank God that we have the story of Ziklag.

David has been anointed of the Lord in his youth to be king of Israel; “the anointed of the Lord,” King Saul, has persecuted him mercilessly, and hunted him as though he were an animal. David has taken refuge in caves, has appeared forsaken of God. His anointing of the Lord has appeared to be only a joke. The deep pain of feeling forsaken, betrayed of God, has been inexplicably persistent, apparently endless and total and final (he doesn’t know that he is a symbol of Christ, that he must live out Christ’s coming rejection so that the grand and glorious Messiah must be “the Son of David”).

Now, Wall Street wouldn’t risk a dime on David’s future; his own men are talking of stoning him. Next to Christ at His cross, this seems to be the most disconsolate situation any servant of God has ever gotten himself into.

So what did David do? (a) He prayed, “bring me the ephod.” God responded, he felt certain that he must chase those who carried his family captive (he overtook them and saved his family). (b) David “encouraged himself in the Lord” (see 1 Sam. 30:1-6). When you feel that your life is in ruins as David’s was, count what you still have as gifts from the Lord. At your worst, you’re better off than many are! Say thank You to the Giver.

Commentaries and scholarly tomes can line our library shelves, but if you want to understand something in the Bible, let the simple text speak.

Take that celebrated Romans 5 passage that the apostle wrote: the New English Bible makes it clear, and the Revised English Bible a trifle clearer yet. Note as we read (a), what is the “condemnation” that Adam brought on all mankind; and then in that light (b), note what is the salvation that Christ (as our “last” or second Adam) gave every one of us:

“God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. For if the wrong doing of that one man brought death upon so many, its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. And again, the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man’s sin; for the judicial action, following on the one offence, resulted in a verdict of condemnation, but the act of grace, following on so many misdeeds, resulted in a verdict of acquittal. If, by the wrongdoing of one man, death established its reign through that one man, much more shall those who in far greater measure receive grace and the gift of righteousness live and reign through the one man, Jesus Christ.

“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” (vss. 15-18).

Note, Adam’s “condemnation” on us is a “judicial action, ... [a] verdict of condemnation.” Not one human being has as yet suffered that actual, literal “condemnation” with the one exception of Jesus on His cross (“My God, why have You forsaken Me?”). It hangs over us but has never yet been effected (cf. Matt. 5:45).

Note again: what Christ did to reverse that “verdict of condemnation” on the entire human race is a judicial “verdict of acquittal” in the gift of Himself on the same human race. But note: we are given liberty to “receive” the gift or we can refuse it; those who “receive” it “reign” as kings “through the one man, Jesus” (there’s your simple John 3:16 “believing”).

The “condemnation ” and the “acquittal” are balanced, both with no input from ourselves. Both happened before we were born. What the second Adam did cancels what the first one did. When we receive His gift,” we experience at-one-ment with God and that includes reconciliation with His holy law. And there’s your beeline of truth simple and clear, direct through reams of musty commentaries. Look up, rejoice, “receive” the “gift.”

Nduri (this is Part II) was the little African widow living in a village on the slopes of Mt. Kenya who had been taught by the Presbyterian missionaries to reverence the Bible and the worship of God (thank God for their work!). In her “family worship” one day she read Hebrews 7, the story of the strange man, “Melchizedek,” who served God all alone, “without father, without mother,” vs. 3). She briefly marveled that any one could serve God all alone like that.

Then she hurried to sell her beans in the market, but no success for three days. In desperation, she walks many miles, dodging elephants, to Tharaka, where people always have cash for beans. There she listens to Pastor Solomon explain Bible truths she had never dreamed were therein;—the second coming of the Lord Jesus, the thousand years of Revelation 20, the glorious new earth yet to be created, we humans being mortal await immortality as a gift from Christ at His coming, on and on. The pastor’s sermon probably lasted all morning; he told everything he knew, including the news about the holy seventh day Sabbath of the Lord.

As he pleaded with the congregation for a decision to follow Jesus all the way, renouncing the world and its sinful ways, trusting in Him, taking up the cross to follow Jesus, her heart thrilled; she wanted to say “Yes!” but then she thought, “How can I serve the Lord all alone in my little village? I would be the only one there who kept the Sabbath as the Bible says we should; no, I’m afraid that being all alone I might not remain faithful!”

But then like a flash there popped into her mind that story about that strange man, “Melchisedek.”

“If he could serve the Lord all alone, I can, too!” Then came that smile of victory.

I get into the story later, because when I came up and met her, she asked me to baptize her, to seal her decision to follow Jesus every step of the way. (I’ll never forget that clear ice water in that stream that flowed from Mt. Kenya’s snow.) Until her death, Nduri remained an inspiration to many in Kenya, and those around the world who have heard her story.

Don’t despise the littleness of your witness for Jesus!

It’s a fascinating story of how the plain, simple Bible, well, in this instance the New Testament only, brings joy to uneducated people. It happened on the slopes of Mt. Kenya where little streams flow down from the melted snow.

Nduri, a poor African widow lived in a little hut where she loved her Kikuyu New Testament. She had just enough education to know how to read it haltingly. The English Presbyterian Church had done a wonderful mission work among this people, giving them this portion of the Bible in their own language and opening schools for them. Some saint of God had taught Nduri to have “family worship,” even though her family was only herself; each day, before going to work in her bean field she would read a portion, and pray.

Today she must sell some beans in the market because she needs money to buy a little soap, salt, and kerosene for her lamp. She spreads little piles of beans on her banana leaf, and awaits customers. Her Scripture reading this morning happens to be Hebrews 7:1-4 about a strange man named “Melchisedek,” who served God all alone, “without father, without mother.” She wondered, how could anyone serve God like that, all alone with no family?

But not a bean does she sell today. She tries again tomorrow; same economic disaster; again the third day. Amazed, for this has never happened before, Nduri gets desperate; she is out of soap, salt and kerosene. So she walks many miles to Tharaka, dodging the elephants, where the people can’t grow anything to eat but they raise goats to sell; they always have cash to buy beans.

She times her arrival for early morning, anxious to get to that market. My personal friend, Pastor Solomon Ngoroi, is holding a series of evangelistic meetings in our little prayer chapel and is walking up and down the road inviting people to come. Nduri tells him she loves the Bible, etc., but sorry, she must get to the market and sell her bag of beans. The pastor assumes the posture of a prophet, looks her in the eye, and solemnly assures her: if she will come, the Lord will sell those beans.

The mystery happens—“deep calleth unto deep” (Psalm 42:7); Nduri recognizes the Holy Spirit in the strange pastor’s invitation. She comes, drops her heavy bag of beans in the back of the meeting place, and listens eagerly.

“Melchizedek” gets into the picture now, and later I do; but we don’t have time to finish, for this must be brief. Maybe we can tell the rest tomorrow, the Lord willing.

Intervarsity Press publishes these two complementary books, Why I Am Not a Calvinist, and Why I am Not an Arminian.

Both Calvin and Arminius were honest men living up to the light they had for their day, and the Wesleys, too. And their respective followers today we believe to be sincere. But what is “the truth of the gospel” that so fired the apostle Paul to write Romans, Galatians (2:5), Ephesians, etc.? The love of Christ, agape, which constrained him to follow the Lord Jesus in total devotion. What he knew was beyond both Calvinism and Arminianism.

Neither can grasp that agape, because both even today hold the non-biblical idea of natural immortality. The Bible is clear: Christ died for us! Yes, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, died! When He “tasted death for every man” (Heb. 2:9), the death He “tasted” was what the Bible calls the second death.

This profound truth opens up a new world of gospel understanding—what Paul means when he says that Christ “emptied Himself”(Phil. 2:7). He “tasted,” that is, experienced the horror of soul that the lost will know as they face those at-last opened “books” and the lake of fire. He was “made to be sin for us who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21), endured the most dreadful “curse of God” (Matt. 27:46; Deut. 21:22, 23), “poured out His soul unto death” (Isa. 53:12). “Herein is love [agape], not that we loved God but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Oh, joy!

When Christ died for the world, He died the world’s second death and therefore achieved a “verdict of acquittal” for every sinner on earth. At the same time He achieved, purchased, won, secured, obtained, a real justification for every sinner—real but not recognized by the world as real. That “verdict of acquittal” satisfies the broken law of God because Christ died as the last or second Adam, the new Head of the human race; it was a perfectly valid legal “verdict of acquittal.” It ought to stun you: the Father looks upon you as though you have never sinned! But you cannot, forever cannot, continue living in sin (Rom. 6:1-14)!

Therefore, it’s the same as saying that Christ has given every human being the gift of salvation “in Himself.” It’s time to appreciate what He has done for us. Isn’t it a sin to remain babes in understanding forever? May His love constrain us to live “henceforth” for the One who died for us and rose again (2 Cor. 5:14, 15), so we can have some little part in crowning Him King of kings and Lord of lords. It’s a joy to forget self.

You must think and study in order to follow Jesus faithfully, for He has warned us that there will be “false Christs, and false prophets” who will show “signs and wonders ... [to] deceive the very elect” if possible (Matt. 24:24). There are some very good things, once pure truth, that are perplexing and confusing, but now are contradictory.

Intervarsity Press publishes two complementary books, Why I Am Not an Arminian and Why I Am Not a Calvinist. They are like Eugene Field’s famous gingham dog and calico cat that had a row and ate each other up so nothing was left; when you finish the two books you have no gospel left.

Both Calvin and Arminius were sincere, good men doing the best they could with what they had: they just lived too early to grasp the “time of the end” truth of the Day of Atonement and the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary.

Calvin saw that what Christ started He had to finish or He would be disgraced before the universe; He had to save the world! But Calvin felt he had to define the “world” as that special group of people known as “the elect” whom God predestined to be saved; and of course, all others must then be predestined to be lost. Solved the problem: why there are so many bad people still in the world.

Arminius said, No, that’s not fair. “All men” must have an equal chance. Christ must die for all, but His death does no one any good unless first he believes and obeys. It’s just a provisional offer (unless you think of the physical life we all have, but the animals have that, too!). But the problem with Arminianism is that it leaves one’s personal salvation dependent on his own initiative: and therein we have the hidden, secret source of world-church lukewarmness. That inevitable touch of self-dependence eats away beneath the surface.

Finally in the late 19th century two young men broke through the clouds to recover what Paul saw: Christ did accomplish something beyond a provisional offer—He did save the world, He did give the gift of salvation to “every man” (Romans 5:15-18 is clear as sunlight) as surely as Esau had the birthright which he despised and sold. The lost throw away what Christ gave them. Yes, He is “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42),”the Savior of all men” (1 Tim. 4:10) in a very real sense. But the gift can be refused. You can despise, reject, and crucify Him afresh; don’t do it!

What does it mean in these last days to become a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ?

(1) You believe God is, and that He rewards your devotion and hears your prayers; that He is your heavenly Father, that He loves you so much He gave His dearest treasure to become your Savior—His only Son; and that He stays with you forever through the on-going gift of the Holy Spirit.

(2) You have begun an eternity-filled and growing heart appreciation of the love that led Jesus Christ to die your second death on His cross; that love has begun to “constrain” you to live “henceforth” unto Him and not for “self.”

(3) Your baptism is a sign to the world that you turn away from its ways and sinful pleasures; you have now taken up your cross to follow Jesus.

(4) You believe that the One who died for you was resurrected and now lives forever as your personal High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary, your Attorney on your side, defending you from the attacks of Satan.

(5) You have begun to love the Bible as God’s personal word to you; and you ask Him to deepen that love and confidence from now on forever.

(6) You have begun to love God’s law, His ten commandments as ten promises of victory over temptation Satan may bring against you; you love obedience to the fourth, keeping holy His blessed seventh-day Sabbath as a precious gift from Him.

(7) The “blessed hope” you cherish is the imminent personal, literal, visible second coming of Jesus and you want to help others also to get ready.

(8) You thank the Lord for the “gifts” He has given to His “body” on earth, the church—one of which is the living gift of prophecy, evidence of His on-going love.

(9) Since His church is His “body” on earth, you want to remain forever one of its loyal members, supporting it with tithes and offerings returned to the Lord.

(10) You believe that your physical body is the “temple” the Holy Spirit dwells in; you choose to keep it in health and purity, for it was purchased by the sacrifice of Christ.

(11) You ask to be baptized by being buried in the water as a declaration to the world that you are now “crucified with Christ” and you are risen with Him to a new life.

(12) You seek fellowship in that “church” that Revelation singles out as “the remnant” which “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

(13) You are happy forever “in Christ” living under His new covenant of grace.

It’s so easy for us naive humans to conceive of the Lord as drawing a circle that shuts out bad people. But He draws a bigger circle to include them—at least until they shut Him out by never-ending resistance.

The Lord looks upon lost people not as wolves to be shot down as soon as possible, but as sheep who have wandered away—as potential heirs to His estate. His grace persists in seeking some way to intrude. What a pity that so many church people don’t yet understand this concept and consequently treat “unsaved” people as if they were wolves! The church has hardly begun to love as God loves! That idea of agape is slow to grasp, it seems.

Being “justified by faith” is something that nearly staggers one’s mind just to realize how wonderful it is. It makes you want to get up on the housetop and shout the news to everybody. Christ’s death on the cross is for every sinner—it’s a sacrifice for his or her salvation. God has no chip on His shoulder against anyone. And this “gift” is “out of all proportion” to sin, which is “vastly exceeded by the grace of God” (Rom. 5:15, NEB). Thus there is no reason why “everyone” should not be saved except that they refuse Christ’s grace and spurn the “gift” of salvation.

In his same letter Paul goes a step further and says that “God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3). So, (a) God has brought justification for “everyone” by the sacrifice of His Son, and (b) He has given “each one a measure of faith” to appropriate that justification. Would that everyone said Yes and exercised the faith already given him!

It all adds up to the conclusion that, if anyone is lost at last, it will be because of his or her own persistent rejection of what God has already done to save him. And if anyone is saved, it will be because he stopped resisting God’s initiative in saving him!

[From The Good News Is Better Than You Think, by the author of “Dial Daily Bread.”]

For hundreds of years reverent-minded Bible scholars have recognized that Revelation 9 presents the story of Islam. It is “the smoke out of the bottomless pit” (vss. 2, 3). It has darkened the bright sunshine of the pure gospel of Christ.

But professed Christianity has also not let much more of the pure gospel sunlight get through. The Crusades were not a proud chapter in our history.

The coming of the Messiah to Israel and to the world was to be the world’s best good news; the truth of the gospel of Christ was to lighten the earth with glory. The coming of Christianity was to “go forth conquering and to conquer, symbolized by the rider on the white horse of 6:2. The pure gospel of Christ was so clear, so powerful, that it would sweep through the world and demonstrate its character as what Paul says, the power of God unto salvation to all who believe” (Rom. 1:16). The Messiah was to save the world, and devout Jews for many years had looked forward to this glorious climax of all human history.

But then the prophet Daniel was given a vision in which he saw an evil power arise that would pervert that pure gospel of Christ, and to his amazement and horror it would become a greater curse to the world than paganism had been. The story is in chapter 8. The great cosmic controversy between Christ and Satan was won by Christ on His cross in a legal sense, assuring us of its final triumph; Satan knows that he is already a conquered foe. But he is fighting with mad desperation in his hatred of Christ, trying to keep people in deception, and thus keep them from being reconciled to God.

The enemy’s masterpiece has been to introduce into Christianity the key doctrines of paganism, which Muslims have from their beginning seized upon as their cause celebre to justify them in rejecting the gospel truths of the cross of Christ and of His atonement.

Still, it’s not too late to seek like a Good Shepherd seeking His lost sheep, for honest souls among Muslims who will respond to the pure gospel (what Paul says is “the truth of the gospel,” Gal. 2:5, 14). Foremost among anti-evangelism obstacles are the mistruths of double predestination, idolatry and image veneration, and justification by works, and all confusion regarding what Christ accomplished for the world. The cross of Christ is the focal point of Satan’s subtle enmity. God’s promise is that in these last days the pure “truth of the gospel” will emerge from the darkness of misapprehension of God—and accomplish what the apostles did after Pentecost.

In his excellent book, A READY DEFENSE, Josh McDowell writes his chapter 29 on “Islam.” His explanation of what Islam believes is something every one of us can read with profit. We must remember that in the Arabic language, the word for “God” is Allah. Josh rightly recognizes that much of the Quran has been derived from the Bible.

But Islam denies who Jesus Christ really is. Thus Muslims have closed the door of their hearts to that gospel that Paul said is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). Among other tragedies, “Baghdad” must suffer.

But have we as Christians who have tried to win Muslims to the gospel correctly understood the gospel ourselves? Could it be that we have unconsciously erected barriers that have barricaded Muslim hearts against the pure, true gospel which does have the power to break through many centuries of unnecessary prejudice?

What we know for sure is that the God of heaven and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who manifests Himself through the Holy Spirit, loves Muslims just as He loves everybody else. When John 4:42 describes Jesus as “the Savior of the world,” it means “the Savior of Muslims” just as surely as it means the Savior of you and me. But they must believe!

And they can’t “believe” unless they hear the pure truth! Josh ends his chapter 29 with these words: “The Islamic God of strict judgment, Allah, cannot offer the mercy, love, or intimate sacrifice on mankind’s behalf that the Christian God, incarnate in Jesus Christ, offers to each individual even today.” Note: the two uses of “offer.”

And of course we use the word “offer” in respect of what Christ accomplished on His cross; but the word is not found in the Bible presentations of what Christ accomplished for the human race. It’s not a bad word, of course not; but misunderstood in a limited way, it can close human hearts against an appreciation of the love of Christ. The reason we use the word “offer” when the Bible plainly uses the word “gift” or “give” (and repeatedly!), is that we don’t want to give the impression that the “verdict of acquittal” that Christ accomplished in behalf of the human race, and for each of us, is forced upon us to receive.

Let us renew our love for the pure biblical gospel, getting back to what the apostles taught, so we can give Islam a clearer, more powerful version of what Christ commanded us to “proclaim to all the world”—“the everlasting gospel” in purity (Rev. 14:6, 7).

Pornography is the mouth of hell, and it is yawning all around us in our modern post-Christian culture. There are disturbing statistics gathered somehow of the number even of pastors who indulge.

Bathsheba has been vindicated, but King David is not; he fell into that pit of hell that his son later wrote about: “The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein” (Prov. 22:14, KJV). The allurement of illicit sex splashes its tragedies across our newspaper headlines and TVs, as honorable career after career is shattered by exposure.

But to be “abhorred of the Lord” does not mean that He hates you or that He has forsaken you forever; He can love somebody’s soul whose character He “abhors.” He loved King David’s soul throughout his painful ordeal, but He hated, abhorred, the pain and disgrace and death that the sexual sin entailed.

And although we “justify” Bathsheba in this prominent case history, we cannot say that only men are sinners in the eyes of God (Rom. 3:9, etc.). It would be spiritually healthful for us all to taste the evil of what it means for “self” to be un-crucified—what it means to be “abhorred” in the eyes of God because we all are really wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked in His sight (cf. Rev. 3:14-18). If it weren’t so sad it would be funny, strutting self-confidently and always smiling on the stage of the world and of the universe like the Emperor in his new “clothes.” Reality is what the true Holy Spirit ministers to us (John 16:8-11), both personally and corporately.

For the earth to be lightened with the glory of God’s last message of mercy (Rev. 18) is wonderful; but for that to happen, the Holy Spirit will have to perform His ministry of the ages in the most profound repentance the world has ever seen (see Acts 5:31). It will take us (or whoever takes our place if we insist that it must be a future generation) to the cross of Jesus, where at last self will be “crucified with Him,” both personally and corporately.

The “woman” of Song of Solomon 5 deeply wronged the only Man in the world who truly loved her; but the Song plays out in the drama before she repents appropriately; she never finds Him in the Song. That has to come in the last pages of the Holy Bible.

Some of the best good news the Bible has for us is found where we read that the Lord wants us to understand that last book of the Bible, and yet many think it’s impossible. Here’s the promise of God: “Happy is the one who reads this book, and happy are those who listen to the words of this prophetic message and obey [that is, cherish] what is written in this book!” (1:3).

The book of Revelation has never been sealed as was Daniel; and even Daniel was un-sealed as we entered “the time of the end” which time is defined in 11:35, 12:4, and 7:25. Interest in both Daniel and Revelation was widely aroused in the first half of the 1800’s.

But who can we trust as capable and reliable teachers of those key prophecies? Today there is a multitude of voices saying they have the right knowledge, but they disagree with one another. That tells us to look again at what Peter says, “No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 Peter 1:19-21). In other words, don’t follow any “solo” interpreter; “in the mouth of two or three witnesses [at least] every word shall be established”(Deut. 17:6). Truth will attract more than one supporter! A reliable student of Bible prophecy must be a person in whom self is crucified with Christ, someone who is courageous to stand for Him against the crowd, yet who recognizes God leads others, too.

At the first church council in Acts 15, the elders spoke of those faithful servants of God “who have risked their lives in the service of our Lord Jesus Christ” (vs. 26, GNB).

Such were those pioneers of the early 1800’s who not only championed the fresh message of Daniel and Revelation, but also the dangerous public defense of the slaves in the South. Many listened to these godly men, among whom were J. N. Lougborough, Joseph Bates, J. N. Andrews, and there was Uriah Smith with his monumental Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation, a 600 page book that has become a treasure to many worldwide, and has stood the credulity-test of time. It may be Victorian English but it is solid truth. This is not to say it’s perfection—no book is, aside from the Bible; we need common sense and God gives it.

The dear Lord is leading His people in these last days, not just a stray soul here and there.

Everything in Daniel and the Revelation points to a corporate body of believers preparing for the second coming of Jesus, a world “church” in unity and harmony in Christ.

The books of Daniel and the Revelation are an integral part of the Holy Bible: Jesus expressly charged upon us the duty of “reading” and “understanding” Daniel (Matt. 24:15), and Revelation is obviously the fulfillment of His promise to the disciples that “the Comforter [the Holy Spirit] ... will shew you things to come” (John 16:13; Rev. 1:1-3).

We need a rock-solid understanding of those prophecies as valid as the original inspiration that gave them to us. Daniel was “sealed” until it was opened when “the time of the end” came at the end of the 1260 years of the Dark Ages (Dan. 7:25;11:35; 12:4; Rev. 12:6, 14, etc.). That unsealing was a dramatic miracle of awakening that occurred simultaneously in many lands among many Christian churches in the early decades of the 19th century.

Foremost among the early pioneers of prophetic study was a little group who were united in a common hatred of slavery in the United States of America. They risked their lives in publishing their abhorrence of that devilish traffic in the souls of men and women and children; these students of the prophecies were in at-one-ment with Jesus Himself for He too has always hated the slavery cruelty of man to man. They actively opposed the terrible injustice of the Fugitive Slave Law and helped runaway slaves to freedom at the risk of their own lives (would you do that today?).

Several of these noble men were led by the Holy Spirit to pursue a study of all the prophecies of those two inspired books. They may not have had every tiny detail perfectly understood, but they were united in the same basic convictions; people far and wide became convinced that the Spirit of God was leading; it wasn’t emotional miracles based on shallow understanding—these were solid, reasonable dissertations on Daniel and Revelation that appealed to and convinced highly intelligent, honorable, reasonable men and women.

The little group developed until they became a leading movement of 19th century Christian reformation that also led the world in health reform, building the finest health institution of the day in Battle Creek, Michigan, to which came kings across the Atlantic.

The point of this little soliloquy: the understanding those pioneers gained of Bible prophecy was taught of God; none was of the “private interpretation” that the apostle decries in 2 Peter 1:19-21. These pioneers were led by a loving fellowship in Christ to lay aside their private views and recognize together the leading of the Lord. The Holy Spirit led the community, and His leading has stood the test of these centuries of time. (If the Lord wills, more tomorrow).

Now comes something welcome and refreshing, long overdue: a scholarly, credible defense attorney’s vindication of poor Bathsheba in her affair with king David. No stone has been left unturned; every logical, reasonable, and linguistic detail has been uncovered: King David turns out to be guilty of what we call rape! She is declared innocent. (We are indebted to Dr. Richard Davidson, Journal, Adventist Theological Society, Autumn 2006):

She was upright and pure throughout the ordeal. We may have wondered what business she had in taking a bath out in the open in the privacy of her house in Jerusalem: she was engaged in Levitical ritual bathing following her monthly period (2 Sam 11:4; Lev 15:19, 28. This was duty).

We may have wondered whether there was some coquetry, some “come hither” attitude on her part that took advantage of a healthy man in his prime: David should have been with his army fighting, not relaxing, walking around ogling houses below the palace (vs 11).

We may have wondered if when the king “sent” for her she rejoiced at the prospect of an “affaire royale,” because honestly, many would have: she did not try to stay in the palace but went home to renew her lowly status as Uriah’s wife (vs 4).

We may have thought her husband Uriah the Hittite, being a convert to Israel and apparently over-zealous in fanatical devotion to the king and his many battles, was a strict-to -extreme legalist, unbending, severe, whose rigidity drove a healthy woman to desperation. We have assumed that when he died suddenly, her period of mourning was the minimum required after which she rushed into the arms of the king, her new lover: her mourning for her slain husband is described in Hebrew as “wails/laments with loud cries” (vs 26). She loved him and was loyal to him!

We may have thought that the king was suddenly overcome by an orchestrated exhibition of live pornography, more than any man should be expected to weather: the prophet Nathan’s rebuke targets the king alone in this affair for rape (12:1-4).

We may have thought that whatever was the nature of his moral lapse, David’s sin was forgiven by a sweet and indulgent heavenly Father who knows we can’t help being what we are: David came close to losing his soul eternally over this sin (Ps 51:4, 11). David gives no excuse for moral lapses today.

Did the apostle Paul have something wrong with his emotional makeup that he was so obsessed with his weakness and unworthiness? He said he was “the chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), “less than the least of all sinners” (Eph. 3:8), “one born out of due time” (1 Cor. 15:8), “not worthy to be called an apostle” (vs. 9), etc.

Then he added that the weaker and more unworthy he saw himself in his own eyes the more the Lord was able to use him in helping others (15:9). Even though he was less than the least of all saints, yet the Lord had granted to him a most unusual measure of the grace of God, that his preaching to the Gentiles should be so blessed by the Holy Spirit with power (2:12, 13).

What should we think about ourselves?

Psychologists tell us to think big: if we think lowly thoughts about ourselves then automatically people will think lowly thoughts about us: the popular idea is that we should assert ourselves.

That’s the world’s way of thinking.

But when the Son of God became a man, the Savior of the world, He gave up His equality with God, made Himself of “no reputation,” that is, humbled Himself, took on Himself the role of a servant (slave Greek), was made in the likeness of lowly man, not Superman, and even further humbled Himself, and did something no other human in all the thousands of years of human history has ever done—He became “obedient unto death” (Phil. 2:5-8). But He didn’t stop there. He found that there is a notch down lower than “death.” Terrible as that is: “even the death of the cross,” that involved “the curse of God” and of the universe (Deut. 21:22, 23).

That grabbed Paul’s attention, obsessed him, charmed him forever; he could do nothing else than “glory in the cross”(Gal. 2:20). He felt he had no choice but to “live henceforth not unto” self, but unto the One who went to hell and died his second death for him (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14, 15). Right here we have the vast difference between the Bible and the Quran, and all the other “holy books” of Hinduism or whatever from anywhere.

Paul was mentally healthy!