Daily Bread  -  July, 2007

by Robert J. Wieland

Many of us can look back on our “Christian experience” since we were “converted” and lament that often we have done like Peter: denied Christ.

Maybe we have been too cowardly to confess publicly our “peculiar” beliefs.

Maybe we have laughed at a crude joke in order to avoid appearing puritanical.

Or gone to an unChristlike movie for the same reason, wanting to be part of the social circle.

Or voted with the majority to deny Christ.

Yes, we have forgiveness with the Lord, thank Him (Psalm 130:4). But can we overcome this inner cowardice? The Lord is obliged (cf. His promise in Hebrews 12:5-11) to try us again and again, over and over, until we finally “overcome.” Remember, He was obliged to “test” Abraham in Genesis 22 (the offering of son Isaac), or He could never have inspired Paul to speak of him over and over as “the father of the faithful” in Romans 4:11-16. Although God had called Abraham to be the “father” of all who should be faithful, he had failed again and again to be “full of faith.” In several successive incidents he had not told the truth about his wife, fearful that the Lord would not protect him. Now when he has become old and weak (120 years even then, old age), Abraham must endure the most trying of all his tests of faith—to offer his “only” son, Isaac; God cannot let Abraham close his life record without proving for all time that he deserves this wonderful title.

It’s in mercy to our souls that the Lord gives us opportunity after opportunity to demonstrate that we have overcome our unbelief; hence, our trials! They do not “seem to be joyous [experiences], but grievous” (Heb. 12:11); the Lord knows that. The heavenly angels must watch with deep interest—will we bear the test?

The real issue is far greater than our own personal salvation: we are called and privileged to be key personnel seated “with Christ on [His] throne” in the closing up of the great controversy between Christ and Satan (see Rev. 3:21). In the final battles of the “war with the Lamb, ... they who are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (17:14).

The conflict may be intense, but remember that you are “with Him,” not alone. Buddies in fierce battles learn to be special friends; often they have saved each other. You are developing a special oneness with Christ that you will treasure through all eternity.

You see them, all through the Bible—individuals who cared more for the cause of God in the “great controversy between Christ and Satan,” than for their own lives (and that meant in their context, their eternal lives).

Probably the first is Job, the unknown man who worshipped the LORD (the Hebrew name for the God of Israel; Job’s “LORD” was not the Allah of Islam, He was the God whose character is agape, the One who would die the world’s second death. You can see intimations of agape in Job: try 6:14; 13:14, 15; 19:25-27). In those early days, life after a “first” resurrection was not generally understood; Job had to battle his way by faith. He was willing to sacrifice himself to defend the honor and stability of the government of God. He proved that Satan was wrong, who charged that God had no one who served Him “for naught” (1:9) and thus he helped to save the government of God.

Did Noah understand? He proclaimed the “righteousness which is by faith,” which you can’t do meaningfully unless you understand agape.

Did David understand? At least sometimes (cf. Psalm 22, 69).

Isaiah? How could he write chapter 53, otherwise?

Jesus Himself? John 5:30; 6:38; Matt. 26:39, 42. He IS agape; He died the world’s second death; He endured the curse of God, which is the second death (Gal. 3:13).

Paul? At least he loved Israel more than he loved his own salvation (Rom. 9:3)

The great controversy between Christ and Satan, the battle of the universe, cannot be ended and won until God has 144,000 Job-like people who “follow the Lamb wherever He goes,” in whose mouth there is “no guile” (Rev. 14:1-5). Their story is inserted at that precise point in the Bible where a last-days proclamation of the “everlasting gospel” grows to become a message that “lightens the earth with glory” (vss. 6, 7; 18:1-4).

Don’t say the fulfillment of that prophecy lies maybe centuries away; the Holy Spirit is working and around the world there are some (maybe few) who are responding to Him without resisting Him further. Join them!

Ephesians 2:2, 3 is everyone’s life story: we “once walked according to the course of this world, ... in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” Thus we can all see how we are potentially guilty of the sins of others; if we had never been saved by the Lord, think of what frightful evil we could have descended to!

So, “Out of the depths [we] have cried to You, O LORD” (Psalm 130:1). As we review our pasts, anguish covers us. How could we have been so foolish in our childhood and teenage years? If we had had no Savior, the sins of others would have become ours; we are by nature no better than anyone else.

“If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” No one.

Then there comes this glorious assurance: “But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared [reverenced]” (vss. 3, 4). The music changes from sad minor to glad major key.

The Lord has saved us from ruin. “Henceforth” we live in thanksgiving.

“Forgiveness” is more than pardon; it’s the taking away of the guilt and the taking away of the sin from the heart. We hate it now and never want to do it again. No one can do that for us except the Savior of the world, our personal great High Priest.

Ephesians continues: “God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” From being depressed “in the depths” we are elevated to “sit together in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-6).

Two solemn truths stand out: (1) We are “just as the others” (takes us down several notches). We are neither sleeping under freeway passes nor confined in prisons for crimes, due to “God’s rich mercy.” Let’s not be proud. (2) Before we were even born, “by grace [we] have been saved through faith, ... it is the gift of God.”

Time now to sing His praises forever! And live to His glory, not our own.

Those dear contenders of past centuries were not bad people who loved doctrinal strife; each side saw glimpses of truth that they knew were important. It was not their fault that they lived too soon to see the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary in the cosmic Day of Atonement (cf. its revelation in Dan. 8:14).

Calvinists could see: the Bible does teach “predestination” (Rom. 8:29, 30; Eph. 1:5). But they lived too soon to see it’s “all men” that He predestinates to salvation!

The Arminians could see: the Bible does teach that God wants “all men” to be saved and calls all to come and to believe. But they couldn’t see how He actually makes salvation to be a “gift” given to “all men” as a “judicial verdict of acquittal” that reverses the judicial condemnation that comes upon “all men” “in Adam” (cf. Rom. 5:15-18, NEB). They couldn’t see how infinitely grand is Christ’s accomplishment; all they could see was that Christ died for everyone and calls everyone, but has not actually saved anyone unless he first believes. Therefore, they thought, our salvation is ultimately due to our own initiative.

The lost will have persistently committed the unpardonable sin of crucifying “the Son of God afresh, and put[ting] Him to an open shame” (Heb. 6:6). When all gather before the Great White Throne at the end of the 1000 years (Revelation 20) each will see the full consequence of his heart rebellion against the Son of God (vs. 12ff).

Truth will bring them (as one inspired writer puts it) to where “they will welcome destruction,” each judging himself in the light of justification by faith, each seeing himself as an unrepentant crucifier of Christ. Each will “welcome” the Lake of Fire.

“The truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5, 14) assures us that we have been “chosen,” “predestinated,” “adopted,” “accepted in the Beloved,” “elected” (Eph. 1:4-6; Rom. 8:33). It’s impossible to “comprehend” the grand dimensions of these truths and still remain “lukewarm” in our devotion to the One who (now we understand) died our second death! If you permit Him, the Holy Spirit will “enlarge [your] heart” (Psalm 119:32), stretch it out of its present narrow “comprehension,” and cause you to “grow up” out of spiritual infancy, to live “in Christ.”

For centuries, sincere godly men have debated, “What did Christ accomplish by His sacrifice on the cross?” The true answer is the most glorious knowledge we humans can come to know!  

(a) Did He only make a provision whereby it might be possible for “all men” to have salvation and now He offers it to us, but it’s not ours until or unless we accept and believe? This was the essential idea in Arminianism which arose as a protest against Calvinism which was understood to teach that God has elected only some people to be saved, and elected all others to be lost. Arminius insisted that the Lord calls “all men,” and that Christ died for all; very true.

 

(b) Or did He actually purchase salvation for “all men” and actually give it to them in the gift of Himself, so that the only way they can be lost is to despise and reject it as Esau despised and sold his birthright? (Heb. 12:16, 17).

If (a) is the answer, it follows that ultimately our salvation depends on our own initiative. The key word is “offer,” which some theologians use over and over (although it is not in the Bible teaching of justification by faith; but the idea of “give” is in Romans 5:15-18 some five or six times). The cross of Christ is the grand truth of all the Bible and we want to “comprehend” it—not simply like we accept an insurance policy almost mindlessly so we can hurry away and think of other things (we go to church, sing hymns about the cross, close the hymnbook, and then think of other things for a week).

If (b) is the answer, it engrosses our thinking! It motivates us because we see that our salvation is due entirely to the initiative of Christ. We want to sing His praises for now and for eternity. “The love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead,” meaning, all of us would be dead if He had not died in our place; and now “henceforth” we are constrained to live only “unto Him who died for us” (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). Paul prayed that we might “comprehend ... the breadth, and length, and depth, and height [of] ... the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:14-19).

In (b) we see how every blessing of life, even those the wicked freely enjoy, is the purchase of the One who was “bruised for our iniquities,” upon whom fell “the chastisement of our peace” and by whose “stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5; the lost either don’t know or reject this truth that supports all life itself, which is why they don’t say Thank You to Him!).

As in days of pastoral ministry, my wife and I last evening visited a lonely lady of many years in her humble little trailer home. Some kind person brings her week by week to our Bible study class and she takes an active interest and often contributes helpful comments.

There was on the wall a portrait of her in her beautiful 21st year, yet she said she was not a Christian then; she grew up knowing nothing of what the Bible says. But in recent years she chose to believe, asked for baptism, and enjoys church fellowship. Now she is a competent Bible student and she enjoys what Jesus promised, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10, KJV).

What interested me was her remark, “I was a throw-away baby, raised as an orphan, early taught to work.” Here is a soul saved by the grace of the world’s Savior!

I thought of Psalm 27:10: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.” Actually, that truth applies to each one of us, no matter how loving our parents may have been.

Each of us is an individual created and redeemed by the Lord; we have each been given a new life, for none of us is a clone. There always comes a time when “father and mother” can go no further with us; God decreed in the beginning that “man [shall] leave ... father and ... mother” (Gen. 2:24) and henceforth his/her relationship with the Lord shall be that of child-to-Parent more intimate than any that can be known in the best of our childhoods.

We go through the longest of our lifetimes crying as a child continually “in the Spirit of adoption, ... Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15). The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is infinite but deeply personal to each of us, as though we were His only child.

The Lord Jesus has taught us, “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven ...” (Matt. 6:9). He is “in secret,” He sees “in secret,” and we are to “pray in secret,” using carefully chosen, thoughtful words (vss. 6-8). We are to “call no man your father upon the earth: for One is your Father, which is in heaven” (23:9). In other words, we are to be “protestants” forever, not because of cold theology but constrained by purest filial love and loyalty.

This unworthy servant was sent by a church missionary board to East Africa back in the almost prehistoric era of 1945. One reason he was eager to go: our church paper was reporting enthusiastically that the “latter rain” of the Holy Spirit was falling in Ruanda, evidenced by large accessions of adherents by baptism. There were photographs of people covering hillsides at “camp meetings.”

Also, mass conversions were reported in the Lake Victoria area of Kenya. The people, many of them, were only recently from paganism; they had difficulty distinguishing economic development (which they naturally wanted) with being “Christianized.”

However, I was appointed to neighboring Uganda where there was a rich history of martyrdoms going back to the 1880s, with Protestant and Roman Catholic missions building cathedrals on Rubaga and Namirembe hills in Kampala, complete with pipe organs. The people were literate; they had history of kingdoms going back to the 16th century, and a high level of sophistication. The Protestant Christians loved the Bible and regarded it as the only rule of faith. Our particular mission was regarded as an interloper, and “conversions” to the church I represented were hand-picked and slow.

When I learned the language and came to know the people, it became painfully evident that the mass conversions in Ruanda were not the biblical “latter rain,” the miracle stories notwithstanding. They were the “former rain.” The knowledge of the gospel was superficial; there was almost no understanding of healthful living—an important part of the message in these last days; Christian home life was largely undisciplined, love often rare; the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, which Jesus enjoined upon us all to “understand,” were almost unknown; yet people flocked into “church” membership.

Also perplexing was the famine for understanding justification and righteousness by faith in Romans, Galatians, etc. The “gospel” should produce purity of living, transformed characters (cf. Rom. 1:16), a people raised up to welcome Jesus Christ when He returns at His second advent.

The world church is the seventh of those of Revelation; the word “lukewarm” fits us perfectly ( 3:14-17). Africa (as well as we) awaits that final “everlasting gospel” that will “lighten the earth with glory”(14:6; 18:1). The “latter rain” will prepare its way; but let’s remember that when the Lord “pours out” the Holy Spirit, His first work will be to ferret out and convict of sin (John 16:8), a comforting message, for it reconciles us to God, at last.

Can we humans do something to help God that is more than mere child’s play?

The Lord staked the honor and stability of His throne on that one man, Job; in the great cosmic controversy between Christ and Satan, the Evil One challenged God: Your people who serve You are all doing it for selfish, acquisitive reasons, and therefore they rightfully belong on my side! “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Take away Your blessings, “‘and he will surely curse you to Your face’”(1:8-11). It wouldn’t do for God merely to contradict Satan; He had to prove that He had at least one human who was devoted in the genuine God-like motivation of agape-love—and that one man was Job.

The afflicted man didn’t understand what was going on, but he did the best he could in his innocence. He was half right and half wrong: “‘The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away” (1:21). True, God had given; but it was Satan who “took away.”

Job’s agape-loyalty saved God from terrible embarrassment before the universe. Yes, and ruin; if God should win by force of arms, He would have become the Islamic Allah. Job prepared the way for Christ to come.

All through the incarnation of the Son of God, the Father entrusted Him to the care of humans. Rightly read, the story does not say that angels miraculously protected Him; they impressed humans what to do to protect Him. An angel warned Joseph of King Herod’s plot to kill Him; the angel didn’t whisk the Baby off to Egypt, Joseph took Him there.

When Jesus was tired, hot, and hungry at Jacob’s well in Samaria, humans cared for him; true, “the woman at the well” forgot to give Him His drink, but the disciples went to the Sychar market and bought a tasty safari-feast for Him and “prayed Him, saying, Master, eat!” (John 4:31, KJV). That was the “backward prayer,” backward because our prayers are almost always the opposite, childish, Old Covenant, “Master, I’m hungry! Please feed me!” Be sure you save me and my loved ones!

Well and good; that’s a proper prayer to pray. But in this cosmic Day of Atonement, when the heavenly sanctuary is to be “cleansed,” can His people “grow up” out of their infancy to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13), to “comprehend” the mind and soul-stretching “width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that [we] may be filled with all the fullness of God”? (3:18, 19). Can we prepare for translation at Christ’s coming? Yes, yes! He will have a small but very real number—“144,000.” And they not He, will judge the unbelieving billions of earth.

The recent prospectus of the History Book Club recalls the tragic story of the United States presidency of Richard Nixon as told in Robert Dallek’s Partners in Power: Nixon and Kissinger. In the history there’s an illustration of the conflict with demons in the great controversy between Christ and Satan.

Dallek rightly says that Nixon’s “inner demons both lifted him up and brought him down.” That’s for the author probably an unconscious allusion to Psalm 102:10, “Thou hast lifted me up and cast me down,” the cry of the painfully troubled soul who pours out his heart to God in anguish. Nixon was the son of a devout Quaker mother in a humble home; gifted with keen discernment of right and wrong, he distinguished himself as a senator seeking to protect the nation from Communism, and rose to political prominence.

He naturally enjoyed his triumphant rise to fame and power, but he was deprived of a knowledge of how to endure success. Power corrupts the best of men; even King David of old fell victim. The demons who “lifted up” Nixon delighted in tormenting him when they “cast [him] down.” There are “shadowy labrynths” of the once-secret White House history now starkly exposed, illustrating Jesus’ warning, “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known” (Matt. 10:26). That “labrynth” that Nixon hoped would be forever in shadow is now in open sunlight for the world to see.

The time comes when impeached Nixon kneels in the White House with Kissinger (the [unelected] “co-president”) in desperate prayer to the God whom he knew so slightly. Perhaps his own deprivation of a father in childhood made it difficult for him to address God as “our Father which art in heaven,” who could sustain him through his great and lonely presidential trials.

Nixon came to be despised and hated, and even now is reviled; but we pause to ask the question: can such a man hope to be saved at last?

Yes, even presidents of great nations can repent. The dear Lord granted him decades of quiet introspection and none of us should question what He as the world’s “great High Priest” may have accomplished for him in the end. Not only is the Savior busy trying to save presidents; He is infinite, and is working on you, too. Christ’s work as our High Priest is to re-build us from our childhood anew; no one else understands what influences were upon us when we were in the womb (cf. Psalm 139:13-16); learn to trust Him, let Him work, for He is only your Friend from your mother’s womb.

President Bush is seeking to take advantage of a lull in the popularity of Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, and is espousing again the idea of two states side by side—Israel and the Palestinians. It’s a noble goal; but is it chasing a chimera?

The innate alienation that persists between the two ethnic cultures shows no sign of abeyance; even Abbas has in his history a record of denying the Holocaust, and saying the State of Israel shouldn’t exist. Of course, people can change their minds and attitudes; but somehow the old suspicious hostility erupts in each generation.

The Bible tells how it began: Abraham and Sarah were waiting for the Lord to fulfill His New Covenant promise to give them a male heir; the promise was embedded in God’s plan of salvation for the world—through their offspring should come the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the only hope for the world, in fact. (No wonder Satan opposed the idea.)

Sarah’s bitter unbelief exploded in a hasty complaint against the Lord: “Sarai ... said to Abram, ‘The LORD has kept me from having children’” (Gen. 16:2, GNB). This was a serious calumny against Him! Wrapped up in this was her unbelief against the gospel: God promises a blessing, then He turns around and stops it from coming! (Go slow here: you and I may be the “Sarai’s” of this age! All Laodiceans are.)

“‘Why don’t you sleep with my slave girl? Perhaps she can have a child for me.’ Abram agreed with what Sarai said. So she gave Hagar to him to be his concubine. ... Hagar ... became pregnant, ... proud and despised Sarai.” Then she blamed her unhappiness on Abram; “‘May the Lord judge which of us is right, you or me!’ ... Then Sarai treated Hagar so cruelly that she ran away.” With such turmoil in her womb, it’s not surprising that Hagar’s son Ishmael had a disposition to “live like a wild donkey, ... against everyone, and every one will be against him” (vs. 12). (Here are the roots of jihads.)

The promised heir finally arrived after Sarah repented of her bitter unbelief (cf, Heb, 11:11), but in this story we see the beginnings of the tension that exists continually between Israel and the Palestinians. (In these last days we live only a step from Abraham.)

Can repentance, reconciliation, and peace ever come between the two peoples? Yes, when Laodicea learns how to repent and can teach them how (cf. Rev. 3:19); hearts in both cultural camps in the Middle East will be melted through the final proclamation of “Christ and Him crucified.” The world will see that there is indeed “power” in the finally unfolded gospel that lightens the earth with glory (Rev. 18:1-4; 1 Cor. 2:1, 2). Among that group who “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (14:3, 4) there will be some Israelis and some Palestinians, who will dwell amicably in the New Jerusalem at last.

Jesus told us, “Do not be worried about the food and drink you need in order to stay alive, or about clothes for your body. ... Do not start worrying, ‘Where will my food come from or my drink? Or my clothes?’ (These are the things the pagans are always concerned about).” (Matt. 6:25-32, GNB).

Our modern malls are the temples where “the pagans” come to worship; more and more architects are designing them to resemble great houses of worship. And even for many who say they worship the Lord, the true God, the malls are the places to go in order to while away the hours, fun to be “concerned” about. The malls feed our robust modern economy, which in spite of the daily horrors of war has never before reached the heights of the Dow Jones and Nasdaq readings.

But the culture is basically pagan!

Then Jesus adds (in the KJV), “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness ...” (vs. 33). It’s probably for centuries that “we” Christians have understood that to mean, Make sure of your own soul’s salvation in the kingdom of God! (I can remember as a child hearing the elders tell me that the most important question for me is my own salvation.)

But is this egocentric concern what Jesus meant? When He spoke of “the kingdom of God,” could He have been referring to the issues of the great cosmic controversy between Christ and Satan? Is it possible that mall-centered Christians can “henceforth be no more children, ... but ... may grow up into Him in all things” and learn to share with Christ the burden of heart which He carries?

Yes! Jesus appeals especially to those who have at least some awareness that we are living in “the time of the [world’s] end” (Dan. 12:4) and of the great “Day of Atonement.” He begged Peter, James, and John to stay awake and “watch with [Him] one hour” while the fate of the world (and of the universe) was in the balance (cf. Matt. 26:40). But no, they slept soundly through that most solemn hour!

Hasn’t the time come for us to “overcome” even as Christ did, and take our position with Him on His throne, to share with Him the state affairs of “the kingdom of God” (read Rev. 3:20)? Let no one despise the unprecedented invitation that is pertinent for us today!

We are invited to come to Jesus, “just as I am.” He “receiveth sinners” (Luke 15:2). We don’t have to make ourselves good before we come, in fact, we can’t.

But there is one thing we must “do” before any prayer can be listened to and answered; don’t misunderstand, this is not a “work” that we must do; but it’s a serious step that we must take if we are serious about coming to God.

It’s not that God is putting up a barrier to keep people away; it’s just that we have already put up a bad barrier ourselves that is hindering us, and it’s only common sense that any barrier we have erected between ourselves and God must be removed—by ourselves.

Here it is: “He that cometh to God must [1] believe that He is, and [2, believe] that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6, KJV).

This is a step that you and I must take.

I know someone who confesses that she is tempted to believe that God has dealt with her severely, that He has been, well, not nice to her in permitting all the trials He has suffered to come upon her. Everything looks like it has been against her, from girlhood. (She probably has many “sisters” around the world!). I know someone else who believes that God made a promise to her many years ago which has never been fulfilled.

And yes, I have had “dreams” which have never been fulfilled.

Dear friends around the world, whoever you are, yours and my job is right now to get on our knees and tell the Lord frankly, “Father forgive me for doubting You; I choose to believe that you are ‘a Rewarder of those who seek You diligently.’ It’s the hardest thing I have ever done, to confess that I believe this, for it makes me now to be a fool ever to have doubted Your goodness, your faithfulness, Your, ... yes, Your love. But You told me to pray this prayer and if I do, I can never be lost: ‘Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief’” (Mark 9:24). Thank You, Lord, for welcoming beginners in your kindergarten.

Millions of Christians around the world this weekend are studying the Bible story about Abraham and Sarah. It appears quite certain that young Abraham was the only person in the world at first who worshipped the one true God, for his father Terah was still an idolater, and still worshipped the moon. Jewish legend says (which may have a grain of truth) that young Abraham was so vociferous in his promotion of the worship of the one true God that the townspeople of Ur of the Chaldees ran him out of town.

Even so, Abraham was not a good example (through most of his life) of faithful trust in the Lord. In unbelief, he lied twice (to Pharoah and to Abimelech) about his wife Sarah; and he permitted Sarah to lead him astray, in unbelief, to marry Hagar (he same mistake Adam made, in putting his wife Eve before the word of the Lord). While it is true that a husband must love his wife dearly, putting himself out for her, he must also be sure to worship the Lord first! Love must never become idolatry.

Was it kind and generous of the Lord to let Abraham and Sarah wait so long for the fulfillment of the promise to them of a child? The Lesson Book being studied suggests that the Lord Himself was the One who “delayed” the fulfillment of the promise; true or false? Did the Lord delay it, or was it the unbelief of the couple themselves who delayed the promise being fulfilled? Let’s not accuse the Lord of violating His own promise!

In Genesis 22 we read the story of how the Lord told Abraham to offer his “only son, Isaac,” as a burnt offering. In Romans 4:11-16, we read that Paul was able to say that Abraham was “the father of the faithful,” “of all who believe,” because Abraham passed this exceedingly difficult test. What effect did this have on the waiting and watching universe?

Doubtless it convinced the unfallen worlds that God’s plan of salvation will be a grand success! He will have at last a mystic number of “144,000” who “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (cf. Rev. 14:4, 5).

Have we come to that glorious time as yet? Or will our unbelief postpone it for another generation, or for generations?

We knew something was wrong, but what, we didn’t. Grace wasn’t well, her color not good. Finally, the physicians said it could be the bile duct in the liver-pancreas assembly is blocked; and a Cat-scan said yes.

The surgeon warned: it’s an invasive, difficult procedure, and the picture is not definitive; there might be something incurable there.

For our 65+ years “family worship” we were this week reciting the 23rd Psalm (KJV) together (yes, we can; the Lord made us “one” that many years ago!): 

“The Lord is our Shepherd; we shall not want.

“He makes us to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth us beside the still waters.

“He restoreth [heals] our souls.

“He leadeth us in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

“Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death [Grace’s voice faltered here, and so did mine; then we went on] we will fear no evil, for Thou art with us.

“Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort us.

“Thou preparest a table before us in the presence of our enemies;

“Thou anointest our heads with oil;

“Our cup runneth over [anyone who can pray this prayer after turning 90 has a running-over-cup].

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives,

“And we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

The procedure came this morning; our fears of something incurable were lifted.

Now we renew our dedication of ourselves and all we have to the One who is our Shepherd and Savior (and yours, too!).

And we pray for those whose fears have not been dissipated, who have to wrestle with a burden the Lord has spared us now; we are a corporate “body in Christ.” We “rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep” (Rom. 12:15), and rejoice to remember that the Lord Jesus Himself intimately shares corporately with all of us our rejoicing and our weeping. None of us need feels alone.

The latest issue of TIME has a cover article on “How We Get Addicted,” confessing that all of us without exception will get addicted to something if we are allured or tempted enough; we would say, we all could become addicts if we did not have a mighty Savior to save us from it. “Humans ... will always want to experiment with things to make them feel good.”

Addiction: “Has a specific definition: you are unable to stop when you want to, despite [being] aware of the adverse consequences. It permeates your life; you spend more and more time satisfying [your cravings].”

Addiction: “Is a chronic and relapsing brain disease characterized by uncontrollable drug-seeking behavior and use. It persists even with the knowledge of negative health and social consequences.” Addiction will sacrifice heaven for the craving!

TIME rejoices in the hope that new brain physiology and technology will provide a cure. The egocentric motivation of the Old Covenant is powerless to deliver from an addiction. The article is full of the popular fear or hope-of-reward motivations; in principle, they are no different than the treats the animal trainer gives his pets.

The “light” that is yet to “lighten the earth with glory” will break through the present clouds and reveal the love of Christ at His cross as the true motivation for delivering any addict from anything, liquor or drugs. But most Christian churches believe in the pagan-papal doctrine of natural immortality; automatically, they are prevented from being able to comprehend the dimensions of the love that moved Christ to die the world’s second death. Hence, addictions win the day.

We read often about “the faith of Abraham” and how he is “the father of all that believe,” etc., but only once about Sarah his wife being a woman of faith, and that at the very end of the many years of their waiting for an heir (Heb. 11:11).

She was bitter in her heart against the Lord all this while that He had been proclaiming New Covenant truth to Abraham (Gen. 16:2). In her unbelief, she did not state the truth when she said that “the Lord has restrained me from bearing,” from getting pregnant; the truth was quite different:

When the Lord promised Abraham that he would be “the father of many nations,” the promise naturally included that Sarah would be the mother of many nations because the two were married, they were “one flesh” in God’s sight. God recognizes and honors the marriage relation. Sarah was a faithful wife when it came to “works;” she prepared food for example, for the entertaining of his guests (18:1-8); there is no hint that she complained about her husband’s hospitality that made her extra work. All this while she was the good “Laodicean” wife of good works (cf. Rev. 3:15). Meanwhile, Abraham humbles his heart to believe God’s gracious New Covenant promises (Gen. 12:2, 3) and has this rich “Christian experience” of walking in the light while Sarah nurtures her dark unbelief.

Admittedly, her “burden” was heavy for her to bear: all around for miles, all the wives of the neighbors were getting pregnant and bearing children (every woman’s dream of success!), but Sarah apparently was being passed by, and this by the Lord Himself. It seemed that God was against her—“the Lord hath restrained me from bearing”(!). He leaves me to be humiliated before everybody!

She was as honest as Martin Luther when his father-confessor Staupitz told him to just “love God, that’s all you need to do!” and young Luther blurted out, “But I hate Him!” That honest confession from his heart was the beginning of Luther’s conversion.

Sarah at last confesses her resentment against the Lord; and now she is on the way toward resolvement of her problem when Hebrews 11:11 could eventually come: “Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.”

This week millions of Christians around the world will be studying together the story of Abraham and Sarah, how they waited until they were 100 and 90 respectively before the birth of their long-awaited child Isaac. It seemed that God was nowhere to be found; all their prayers and efforts to provide an heir were in vain.

When you have to wait that long for a promise to be fulfilled, you would think that you could be excused for getting impatient. But impatience is a sin. The Lesson book everybody is studying suggests that God Himself was responsible, who delayed the fulfillment of His own promise.

It’s this writer’s job to teach (or preside) at a class that will discuss the lesson; but this bothered me. Is it true that God Himself delayed the fulfillment of that promise of an heir to be borne by Sarah herself? (She was always his only lawfully wedded wife!)

This bothered me; if God Himself gives a promise and then deliberately delays its fulfillment, this looks like it casts aspersion on God’s character. It makes Him work against Himself!

Or would it be more correct to say that the unbelief of both Abraham and Sarah was what delayed the fulfillment of the promise?

Abraham’s and Sarah’s decision to get Hagar mixed in as a second wife was sinful unbelief; the result: family pain and tension. Ishmael “mocked” Isaac when he was finally born, suggesting that all through the experience, the affair with Hagar poisoned the family relationship of Abraham and Sarah. Let’s be very careful here; people need to be reconciled to God, not alienated from Him through misunderstanding His character of fidelity.

Up to almost the end Sarah’s heart was like cold stone against God (see Gen. 16:2; she was the first to blame Him for “delaying” things; she anticipated the Lesson book!). But Hebrews 11:11 makes clear that she finally repented, fully; and that spiritual experience made it possible for her to have sex with her husband with a melted heart so that the Lord could at last do what He had always wanted to do—enable her to get pregnant.

The Lord Jesus wants us to “hunger” for a morsel of the “bread of life” and to be thirsty for some “water of life” because it’s fun to be both hungry and thirsty in a healthy way. It’s evidence that you’re alive. We yearn for a grasp of the issues of truth that will be contested as we enter the final moments of this earth’s history.

Today let’s invite the apostle Paul himself to contribute our “Dial Daily Bread” in his own words. He is writing the purest Good News gospel truth ever penned. He lays to rest contentions that have spanned centuries of conflict; he opens gates of truth that lead to the blessed experience that fills this cosmic Day of Atonement with meaning—heart reconciliation, at-one-ment with the Lord. Let’s permit Paul’s inspired words of Romans 5:15-18 to speak:

“God’s act of grace [at the cross] is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many [that is, all], its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to [the same] 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 [judicial] verdict of acquittal. ...

“It follows then, that as the result of one misdeed was [judicial] condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act [the cross] is [judicial] acquittal and life for all” (Revised English Bible; all responsible versions agree)

It’s purest sunlight, so simple and transparent a child can grasp it.

Read it over and over, word for word; let your mind grasp the truth God has for you in it. It’s “most precious.” Add it to your repertoire of memory classics like Psalm 23 and the Lord’s Prayer. Romans here gives us the “bread of life” we hunger for, the “water” we’re famished for that flows from the throne (Rev. 22:1).

Would you like to have the joy of falling on your knees and thanking the Lord profusely for some huge blessing He has personally given you?

Like saving you from involvement in a split second car crash; you realize now how your life is not your own.

One day you wake up and realize that you have somehow escaped the ravages of cancer, that afflicts so many; you realize it is due to no virtue of yours; it’s just a reminder that your life has never been your own. Now you gladly consecrate your all to the One who died for you, just out of sheer gratitude.

Maybe you are a pastor: pastors are as susceptible to temptation as any other humans. But they are supposed to know how to endure and to conquer temptation. To fall victim to a sexual temptation would cover you with shame, would traumatize your church, discourage the teens who are in it; would break your wife’s heart and horrify your own children; and yet there are charismatic pastors we have all known who have gone down in that painful disgrace that never truly ends as long as they live.

You too have known that wrenching and alluring temptation at some point in your ministry. The Master Enemy cruelly assails busy, devoted pastors; if he can make a conquest here, Satan has won a significant triumph, and how utterly crushed is the pastoral victim: “The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit; he who is abhorred of the Lord will fall therein” (Prov. 22:14, NKJV and KJV).

If you realize you “stand” only because Someone held you tight when you were about to stumble into that awful “pit,” you can know that exquisite joy of thanking the Lord for saving you from yourself! The sun will shine now for a long time for you.

This is called “a heart appreciation for what Christ has done for us,” very close to being a definition of what it means to “believe.” “Henceforth” this is your motivation for obedience and service, not fear of hell or hope of reward.

Does the Lord respect the prayerful commitment of a teenager? Or, because he is so young, does He trivialize it?  

(a) He very seriously noticed the devotion of teenage Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees when the boy insisted on worshipping the one true God, the God who made the moon rather than worship the moon itself, as father Terah did. Apparently young Abraham was the only teenager in the world at the time who worshipped the one true God (Gen. 11:27-12:1-3).

 

(b) When teenager Joseph wept his eyes out the night after he had been sold as a slave to the Midianites, he resolved in solemn prayer to dedicate himself heart and soul to God; his prayer was respected in heaven. Even though great trials of faith followed, the Lord never trivialized Joseph’s teenage devotion. He loves to interact with serious-minded teenagers!

 

(c) Samuel hadn’t even reached his teen years when the Lord chose him as the only person in Israel He could entrust with a serous message for Eli (and thus for the nation; 1 Sam. 3). And even as a teen, Samuel’s words were not permitted to “fall to the ground“ (vs. 19). Many a mature pastor would love to know that the Lord will bless his “words” accordingly!

 

(d) David was a shepherd-boy-teen when a “lion ... took a lamb out of the flock, and [he] went after him, and smote him, ... caught him by his beard, and ... slew him.” He also slew a bear! (17:34-36). Whether David had time to pray during these exploits we do not know; but his devotion to duty was total; God respected him. David set his course for life, during his teen years.

 

(e) Daniel was another teen who committed himself heart and soul to the Lord, and the Lord respected his commitment and the boy grew to be a man “greatly beloved” in heaven (9:23). Wouldn’t you like to hear an angel tell you that?

 

(f) Jesus wasn’t yet quite a teen when He watched His first Passover; when it dawned on Him that Someone sinless must die for the sins of the world, as “the Lamb of God,” His young heart thrilled with the resolve that He would surrender himself to be that Lamb. The Father noticed His prayer and took Him seriously.

Yes, teens: grow up! You are very important in the economy of God, especially in this cosmic Day of Atonement. The Heavenly Father takes you seriously!

If you wish that you knew how to pray a prayer that would be answered by Heaven 100% in the affirmative, here are a few examples:

“Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24, KJV). Read the context of the prayer; the man was absolutely desperate; he confessed the truth of his latent unbelief that he knew was deep in his heart. He was on the verge of losing everything, for Jesus had told him plainly that “if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (vs. 23). The man didn’t know how to believe! He felt he couldn’t because three-fourths of the pastors and evangelists of his day also were helpless to lead him to genuine faith (it’s pathetic even today when a sincere soul seeks the Lord but finds the majority of pastoral leadership simply mocks your heart cries). And yet the distraught man chose to believe when he did not feel like believing and saw no evidence that believing would do any good. That is an inspired pattern of genuine “Christian experience”! Linger on it; it’s pregnant with good news.

Another prayer that will surely be answered in the affirmative is this: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner” (Luke 18:13, margin). The article is in the original Greek; the man was saying, Lord, of the two of us praying here, I know that this great man here is more worthy than I am; of the two of us, please answer his prayer. But Lord, I am so unworthy in contrast. All I can pray is, please be merciful to me, the one who is most unworthy, THE sinner.

You have a divinely inspired assurance that the man’s prayer was answered in the affirmative for eternity (vs. 14). He could become the happiest man in heaven when he arises in the first resurrection!

This week millions of Christians around the world are beginning a 13-week series of Bible studies into marriage, studying some Bible marriages that were happy (few!), and others that exhibited problems. The series will culminate in #13, devoted to “the marriage of the Lamb.”

Our infinite heavenly Father looks with kindness and mercy on the many people who suffer unhappiness in marriage; He also looks with the same grace on those who long to get married and experience the love of a spouse, but cannot. All should “rest in the Lord” (Psalm 37, please re-read the entire psalm), and let Him encourage you.

One can be terribly lonely in an unhappy marriage; Adam was very lonely before the Lord brought Eve to him. His loneliness would have been impossible to assuage. But the infinite Creator performed a surgery to fulfill His ministry of mercy.

Drink in Psalm 37 and let Him bring you “the ministry of healing.”

We read of one man who had been forced to be castrated in the cruelty of war (the prophet Daniel) who was in a special sense “greatly beloved” of heaven ( 10:11). The man who was bereft of earthly or human love was granted the love of heavenly beings; you can be sure that his heart thrilled with this “companionship.” But such “love” from heavenly beings did not make him in any sense arrogant; although no human loved him as a wife would love a husband, he loved people with heaven’s disinterested love.

And he was happy—which married people long to be!

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To “believe” in Christ is to let one’s little shriveled up selfish heart be “enlarged” and “quickened” (made alive) to at least begin to “comprehend” the “breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of the love of Christ which “passes knowledge” (Psalm 119:25, 32; Eph. 3:14-21).

It’s painful, not because the Lord wants to hurt us, but because we have been “brought forth in iniquity” (Psalm 51:5, “shapen” in it, KJV), and every cell of our souls is egocentric in its being. You sit with legs crossed, your leg “goes to sleep,” you lose consciousness in it, it feels as though it is not there; then when it begins to “awake” it tingles with painful feelings. When you’re being converted, you’re being “born again” and it tingles with painful feelings; it’s always painful to be “born,” much nicer to stay snug and cozy in mother’s womb.

But your Creator and Savior says No, come out into the world and face Reality; be what you are; share life with its Author. The New Covenant gospel assures you that even though you have left the “womb,” you are still as secure in the battlefields of life as if you were still in the womb. The Lord assures you, “’I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’” (Heb. 13:5, 6). So, now instead of cozying up in the “womb” you are living by faith. Exciting, but it’s living with Christ.

To refuse to be “born” is therefore the sin of unbelief.

God is not saying that you must DO this or DO that in order to be saved eternally; but He has to tell us, You MUST believe: “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe [1] that He is and [2] that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (11:6). Hard work, learning to believe? It will stretch every “muscle” of your soul, but it’s the beginning of eternal life.