Daily Bread  -  January, 2008

by Robert J. Wieland

God’s promises are all good news, but there is one that is in a special way precious to anyone who likes to think seriously:

It’s the fourth of the seven that the Lord made to Abraham as being the New Covenant promises; they are found in Genesis 12:2, 3:

“You shall be a blessing.”

Not only, I will bless you, etc., etc., so you will be enriched.

Better still, you yourself will be a blessing—no matter where you go in this dark world.

You will be a pipe through which will flow the “water of life” to soul-thirsty people.

You will be an oven with freshly baked “bread of life” for soul-starved people.

You will be the “new song” that only the 144,000 can learn and sing (cf. Rev. 14:3). It will cheer their hearts and save their souls.

The very fact that you are following “the Lamb wherever He goes” will show people the way for them to go; and some will choose to go because of you.

Your daily speech will be different and people will notice it; their cursing will die on their lips as they think about how you talk. In your mouth will be found no “guile”(the GNB says “they have never been known to tell lies,” vs. 5).

Your face will be like Moses’ face when it shone (Ex 34:29); “the Father’s name [will be] written on [your] forehead.”

You will never want to fall away, or to apostatize, and all Satan’s efforts to unsettle you and cause you to fall will be defeated, for because of your faith in the New Covenant promises, you will be “sealed.” No longer will you envy the wicked their “fun.”

You will deserve, by the grace of Christ, to have a palm branch in your hands.

Come to what the Lord has created you for—He has redeemed you, too. Come today.

What do you do when you pray and pray and you don’t get an answer? Or the answer is a plain No? Did I hear you say that all your prayers get a Yes answer? If so you are a most unusual person. Many people, especially children, are perplexed when they hear stories of some people always getting an immediate YES answer; they don’t seem to get such answers. Well, neither do I.

Even the apostle Paul had to suffer the disappointment of not getting a Yes answer to his prayers. He tells us about it in 2 Cor. 12:7-10. He had a painful physical problem, and three times he earnestly prayed, Lord, take this away; am I not serving You? And he probably said, like we do so often, “Don’t I deserve  something?” The Lord said No to his request: “My grace is sufficient for you,” and with it you can endure this pain.

The children need to understand that if the Lord says No, it does not mean He doesn’t love us; He does. His “No!” can be a greater proof of His love than if He let us win the lottery.

We can be sure that He will always give us enough from His store of much more abounding grace that will enable us to bear the trial and endure its pain. That grace is often much better than to have the trial taken away from us.

Why?

Because His wonderful grace is strongest when you and I are at our weakest: “My strength is made perfect in weakness,” He said to Paul (2 Cor. 12:9).

Paul immediately took the hint and capitalized on it: “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”  My trials turn out to be a great bargain, Paul said!

Take a new look at yours; you may be missing a bonanza.

When a man and a woman marry, they stand before God as it were and ask His blessing on their union; does He hear that prayer?

Yes. Most emphatically. And seriously.

The very fact that they are married before God is a tremendous boost toward their being happy together. It means that God is actively working to give them both the gift of happiness in their marriage; the Holy Spirit is active in their marriage relation.

The Bible is very clear that when Jesus was on earth, the Father actively initiated His fellowship with His Son by awaking Him every morning to maintain this relationship. The amazing story is in Isaiah. Among other things, it tells how the Father gave Him those wonderful stories and parables to tell the people: “The Lord God hath given Me the tongue of the learned [Jesus never went to the colleges or universities of the Jewish rabbis], that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth Mine ear to hear as the learned” (50:4).

And Jesus, although He was at that time a teenager, did not resist; when the Father woke Him up, He listened and He got up in obedience; as one translator renders it, He did not pull the covers over His head and go back to sleep.

Now for our question: does the Lord who invented marriage and has a stake in its success, care less for your peace and happiness in it? Happy marriages always bring honor and glory to the One who invented the idea!

All married couples are only human, finite and fallible; there has never been a perfect husband anywhere, nor even a perfect wife. In every marriage, no matter how happy they have been, when each has occasion sometimes to ask, “Please darling, will you forgive me?”

Here’s the path to happiness that never fails: “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32).

Never forget that “even as ...” Remember the cross; let Christ’s forgiveness enter your own soul. It will make you overnight to be a new husband, a new wife.

Happy together forever.

Seven times in Romans 4 Paul tells us that Abraham is “our father”(vss. 1, 11, 12, 12, 16, 17 18). Therefore, his life deserves our closer attention.

First, he comes on stage as the child who worshipped the God who made the moon, rather than the moon as his father Terah did. All his life long poor Terah had a strain of that idolatry in him; but the lesson Abraham teaches children is: believe in the God who made the moon, rather than in the idol of the moon as your father believes!

Yes, children should respect their parents; but the commandment means, “in the Lord,” for that is how Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.”

Jesus respected His mother in the flesh; but He told her when He was 12 that He must be about [His] Father’s business” (Luke 2:49).

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that “he that comes to God must [1] believe that He is, and [2] that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him diligently.” Abraham believed both; in Genesis 12:2, 3 we find seven glorious New Covenant promises that God made to Abraham; at first, he stumbled and staggered in his faith, but at last he learned to believe them totally. So can we, and so will we when the earth is to be lightened with the glory of God’s final message.

His wife Sarai (later, Sarah) led him into the Old Covenant in his ill-fated marriage with Hagar her slave. Abraham made a bad bargain, but he was honorable when he kept the terms. Don’t get discouraged when you finally realize that the Old Covenant has led you into spiritual bondage (cf. Gal. 4:24) and don’t blame the pastors or teachers who ignorantly led you there; be thankful when you first discover the New Covenant and rejoice ever more in it.

It leads you into the reverse of “bondage.” It’s the “glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). Hardships, loss, even persecution, you endure with a smile for the New Covenant cements your union with Christ; what you endure is fellowship with Him in His sufferings (Phil. 3:10), and that is a link of your soul with Him that will be eternal joy. All this you learn from your father Abraham. The Lord willing, maybe more tomorrow.

Almost all Christian churches are talking about the second coming of Christ, and the possibility of the imminent end of the world. Yes, it does make good sense to talk about preparing for such an event!

There are many pastors and theologians who tell us that there is no special preparation—just live a good life and do the best you can and you’ll be ready either to die or to meet Jesus and be translated when He comes. But even a child can see that there is something special involved: there is a final exam coming, a great test that Revelation 13 says is “the mark of the beast” that in one final issue will divide the sheep from the goats forever. The “mark of the beast” will involve “great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matt. 24:24).

Never in history have God’s people met such a test! Jesus said, “Ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake and then shall many be offended and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another” (vss. 9, 10). In other words, many who now profess to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus will then turn traitor and accept the mark of the beast. And Paul sobers us even more when he warns us, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Peter was cocksure he would never “fall,” but a girl in or barely out of her teens overthrew him.

The Good News is that there is an alternative to the mark of the beast: the seal of God (Rev. 7:1-4). That involves a special work of purification of the heart: “When [Christ] shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2, 3). On this great cosmic Day of Atonement, that precisely is the work of the great High Priest. Don’t stop Him, don’t resist Him. Cooperate with Him!

As we seek to understand whether the church can hasten or delay the promised second coming of Jesus, we need to ponder who is “the Lamb’s wife” who must first “make herself ready” (Rev. 19:7, 8). Those who say the church can do nothing to hasten the return of “the Lamb” tend to be perplexed on this issue.

They see Revelation 21:6-27 as defining “the bride, the Lamb’s wife” as the literal “city” of the New Jerusalem. This raises a question: if “God is [its] builder and Maker” (Heb. 11:10), how can the “city which hath foundations” be said to “make [itself] ready”? And further, wouldn’t Jesus be guilty of idolatry if He loves a material city of golden streets, walls of jewels, and literal gates? When He cried out to the old city, “O Jerusalem, ... thou that killest the prophets” (Matt. 23:37), was He addressing its literal gates and stones, or the people who inhabited it ? When you were married, did you love the bride or your house?

When John in vision saw “the Lamb stand on mount Zion,” was it the literal city or the “144,000 who had His Father’s name written in their foreheads”? As John saw them, as a group they apparently had by that time “made [themselves] ready,” for “they sung as it were a new song before the throne [and] ... [followed] the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. ... Without fault before the throne of God” (Rev. 14:1-6).

No woman in the world is worthy to be the Bride of the Son of God! But all through the Bible His church in a corporate sense is said to be the object of His conjugal love. Neither Luther nor C. S. Lewis had much use for the Book of Revelation. But those whose hearts yearn for Christ’s soon return are thrilled with its message; they don’t help to save themselves by a legalistic do-it-yourself method, but they stop resisting “the Lamb” and they let Him “wash” them “in His blood.” And they let Him GIVE them the GIFT of special repentance (3:19). Is it not in that sense that the Bride, “the Lamb’s wife,” can “make herself ready”?

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Please don’t forget the special studies at Cave Springs Home, Pegram, Tennessee, this Sabbath, January 26, on “The 1888 Message and the Book of Ephesians.” Chaplain Craig Barnes will lead the studies. E-mail: cshmra@yahoo.com, or call: (615) 974-1184 for more information.

Our Sacramento Bee had a prominent article today entitled “Will Oscar Go Dark?” At the same time there was the story of the young Hollywood actor (28), Heath Ledger, who took an overdose and killed himself.

Yes, “Oscar” will go dark; actors who spend their lives “acting,” seeking to talk and act as though they are somebody else, are immersing themselves in basic fiction; and for them, a life of truth is strange. Just to say something that is 100% true is contrary to their career.

We pity any young man of 28 who has known so much adulation, ending his life. But he had unwittingly alienated himself from truth, and found himself spiritually bankrupt for want of truth. The Bible says that God the Father is the “LORD [caps] God of truth” (Psalm 31:5, the sacred name of the Eternal One). It’s close to the statement in 1 John 4:8 that “God IS love” [agape].

We pity the victims of the fiction industry (monumentally remunerative); but should we as people awaiting the second coming of Christ patronize the fiction? We don’t need to buy tickets and go to the theaters to imbibe their spirit; we can watch them endlessly on our TV.

As we come closer to the end, church discipline will not tighten up to be extreme; but those who “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” (Rev. 14:4, 5) will voluntarily hunger more and more for the rock bottom reality of solid truth.

Jesus prays in His prayer to His Father just before His death, concerned for us, “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth” (John 17:17).

A prayer that the LORD God of truth is happy to hear and answer in the affirmative is one that the Lord may give us an appetite, a hunger, for truth, a yearning for it before we close our eyes in sleep at night; a yearning for it (more than even for breakfast) as soon as we awaken in the morning.

The Father awakened His Son Jesus in the mornings; He will awaken us too, making alarm clocks unnecessary, if we want Him to (see Isa. 50:4, 5).

Moses is spoken of as the servant of the Lord; when the Lord called him, he got up immediately in ready answer; not grudgingly, but eager to know what else the Lord might say to him. Come to the Lord, confess your backwardness spiritually, ask forgiveness, and rejoice in answered prayer! You will hunger more and more for the coming of the Lord Jesus.

Proverbs tells us that “the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (4:18). The “just” means the corporate body of God’s people, which is the church that Jesus founded. In other words, the church is to grow in their grasp of the truth until the last day of world history comes—the second coming of Jesus.

The Books of Daniel and the Revelation come on stage here; that’s where this “path” is detailed. Both describe the monstrous apostasy and deception of “the little horn” of Daniel, which was to “prevail against the saints” for 1260 years (7:19-26; Rev. 12:6, etc.).

But before the 1260 years should end, the light begins to grow brighter for those who are watching: the Protestant Reformation beginning in the 16th century brings what Daniel calls “a little help” (11:34). Finally, the long period of papal darkness and persecution ends in 1798 (538 A.D. to 1798 A.D. = 1260 years), and the Book of Daniel is unsealed (12:9) world-wide, “the time of the end” has begun (12:4). Then comes the beginning of the great Day of Atonement for the world—the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary (Dan. 8:14; the 2300 years end in 1844), and the complementary message in Revelation of three angels comes (14:6-12).

The result of the three angels proclaiming their message to “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” is the raising up of a new corporate “remnant” church who believe. It is specified as those who “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (12:17). They are raised up for the purpose of preparing a people to be ready for the close of human probation, to endure the “time of trouble,” and to witness the personal, literal, visible return of Jesus Christ (cf. John 14:1-3; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17). It’s the great “blessed hope” cherished by all who “love His appearing” (Titus 2:11-14; 2 Tim. 4:6-8).

Jesus wants to come; He is in love with a “woman,” the corporate body of the church that loves His appearing. But He cannot come because there is an angel who is telling Him no, You can’t come yet: John describes that angel: “Another angel came out of the temple [in heaven], crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for Thee to reap: for the harvest of the earth is ripe” (Rev. 14:15).

Not until that “harvest” is “ripe” can the Lord come the second time!

The message that must now go to all the world is that “Loud Cry” message of Revelation 18. It’s not only a warning message; it’s a winning message—it’s of Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

Abraham “rejoiced to see [Christ’s] day and was glad” (John 8:56). That meant that he believed in Jesus with a heart appreciation of who He is and what He has done for the world. Now, if you believe in Jesus as Abraham did, then you come under the New Covenant as He did and all the promises God made to Abraham are now transferred directly to you, because you are a child of Abraham.

They are seven, in Genesis 12:2, 3. You can’t pick and choose; you have to take them all: (a) you will become a “great” person (nation); (b) you must let God “bless you”; (c) you must let Him “make [your] name great (yes, the older you become, the more wonderful you will be as a person!); (d) best of all, “you shall be a blessing,” everywhere you go around the world you will leave behind blessings; (e) you must let the Lord “bless them that bless you.”

But now there’s a problem: He says, (f) “I will curse him that curses you,” and we hesitate there; we’d rather bless those who curse us.

But you must let the Lord do what He says is part of His New Covenant promises. A wise old medical doctor told me in my teen years, “There are more blessings in God’s curses than in man’s benedictions.”

If you are serving the Lord faithfully and somebody “curses” you, condemns you, even criticizes you unjustly, the Lord notices it, and takes account. Whoever does that to you is going to be punished—that’s for sure.

Let the Lord do it; it’s His agape-love in action—judgment now in this life rather than waiting for it in the last day when it’s too late to learn anything. “Vengeance belongs to me, I will recompense, says the Lord. ... It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:30, 31).

Just be deeply thankful that His “vengeance” comes now and not at the end of the thousand years! You love your “enemy”; let the Lord love him too—with His loving but severe discipline.

Can an ordinary individual enjoy the blessings of the New Covenant even though the majority in “the body” of the church do not?

To answer this question, the Lord in His great mercy has given us the psalms of David. Over and over David cries to the Lord for deliverance when he is alone in his distress. As an individual in the nation of Israel, he is highly significant because the Messiah is declared to be “the son of David”—not merely in DNA physical descent but because Jesus is spiritually “the son of David.”

In other words, in His earthly life, in His incarnation, Jesus’ mentor was David in his psalms. He lived in those psalms; He saw Himself in them.

We may nod our heads in agreement, but then what about those imprecatory psalms? David prayed that the Lord would punish his enemies, even destroy them; do we have a record that Jesus prayed that His Father would harass and destroy His Sanhedrim enemies who wanted to crucify Him? No; we have the record that He prayed that His Father would forgive them, “for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Are those bitter, imprecatory psalms not inspired, or do they not apply to “the son of David”? Should we follow David and pray down curses on those who oppose us?

One of God’s most precious New Covenant promises He made to Abraham was that “I will ... curse him that curseth thee” (Gen. 12:3); David lived under that New Covenant promise.

Jesus did, too. His prayer for forgiveness for those who crucified Him was specific—only so long as they “know not what they do.” Behold in the horror of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. the fulfillment of that New Covenant “curse” on those who determine to “crucify Christ afresh and bring Him to an open shame” (Heb. 6:6).

Humble, helpless soul, let the Lord defend you in your distress. Don’t try to stop Him; He must fulfill His word, and it is both His “goodness and severity” (Rom. 11:22).

The Father so loved this lost, sinful world that He gave His Son to save it; and the Son did so. Before He died He prayed to His Father, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do” (John 17:4). Paul says that He is “the Saviour of all men,” not merely wants to be, but He IS their Saviour; but Paul must add something significant: “especially of those that believe” (1 Tim. 4:10).

In a legal sense Christ won “a judicial verdict of acquittal” for “all men” (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB). But the rebel who chooses to follow Satan can deny and cancel all that Christ has done for him, and has actually given him; that’s why Paul must add that He is the Saviour “especially of those that believe.”

In His “great controversy” with Satan, when He was with us in the flesh, did Jesus have to deny His own will in order to follow His Father’s will? Was His own will potentially contrary to His Father’s will for Him? Jesus says some surprising things:

(1) “I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me” (John 6:38, emphasis added).

(2) “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me” (5:30).

(3) Thus, He came so close to us that He took on Himself the identical struggle we have with self; He realized that self must be denied, crucified. His cross therefore was for Him the summation of His entire life (even from Childhood) spent in crucifying self. He never asks us to do something He has not done!

Was this constant struggle easy for Him? He tells us that His “yoke is easy” for us to carry (Matt. 11:28-30), but was it easy for Him?

Tomorrow, the Lord willing, we must look at how in learning to deny self He actually had to sweat blood! Never in 6000+ years of human history has anyone suffered more keen pain in self-denial than has Jesus. Satan tried to kill Him before He even got to the cross. Yes, it hurt.

There is salvation in looking at Him.

There are still wonders in our fascinating 2 Corinthians 5.

People think we’re crazy, says Paul, but we’ve discovered the love of Christ that’s different from any love we ever dreamed of: it has power embedded in it that delivers human captives from addictions, from lust, from sin. “The love [agape] of Christ constrains us”(vss. 14, 15).

It’s a “constraint” that is almost impossible for an honest heart to resist: it’s ministered by a grace that is “much more abounding” than all the sin that Satan can invent (see 2 Cor. 5:20, 21); John says that God IS agape, not that agape is just His characteristic—God IS agape (1 John 4:8).

That abounding grace is seen in the agape of Christ; when we “behold” what happened on the cross (that’s the only proper word to describe our looking; cf. John 1:29) we are seeing the agape that IS God; we are pondering the grand dynamo of heaven; opening the doors of the heart invites that grace to enter in.

“Henceforth” is now a key word in this chapter; it comes twice (vss. 15, 16): almost as it were from a decisive point when we “behold” and choose to believe, to appreciate that the Son of God has died our second death, has paid a ransom for our souls that “passes understanding” (Eph. 3:19) we are captives of the love known as agape.

No, we’re not agonizing in our struggle to “overcome,” constantly sighing and crying. Nevertheless, be ready to agonize because not yet is your faith perfect!) but Paul insists that “henceforth” we have crossed a Rubicon River of new life in Christ: “henceforth” they who live are constrained to live not for self, not for themselves (note the important negative—“not for themselves”). They have learned to say “No” to self just as Jesus did. Five times we read how Jesus had the constant struggle within His own soul that required Him to “deny” His own will, say “No!” to it (cf. Titus 2:12, NIV). They were frightfully painful. (We’ll look at them tomorrow, the Lord willing.)

It’s the chapter where sanctified logic and reasoning have reached their zenith: it’s 2 Corinthians 5. It tells what Christ accomplished (not merely wanted to, or merely offered to do) for you and for the world; and it tells the truth in such a way that the hardest and most impenetrable worldly heart can be captured.

The chapter begins by reminding us that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (vss. 10, 11) not to be condemned but to be defended and accepted by Him (the KJV word “terror” is godly fear or reverence in the original). “We persuade men,” says Paul, not as Muslim terrorists offering the sword or Islam, but as he explains, because “love” motivates us.

Paul faces the gossip that goes on about him that he is losing his sanity: “if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are of sound mind, it is for you.” Either way, says Paul, we are serious. People wonder if I am insane, he implies, because I cannot retire or even take a cruise; I remain “on duty” for Christ 24/7 even into long past-retirement age because “the love of Christ constrains us” (vs. 14). People don’t understand!

It’s not emotional instability; there is a sound, rational logic at the bottom of my devotion to the Lord Jesus, he says: “We judge [or reason] thus: that if One died for all, then all died [or were dead, or would have died if that One had not died for them!].”

Paul’s logic is overwhelming: if the Lord Jesus died for us, instead of us, then it follows that if He had not died for us, we would now be stone dead.

In other words, instead of the life we now enjoy, what we would have today would be a grave—and an endless one at that.

Paul believes that everybody who is not hopelessly committed to total rebellion against God will respond in heart to this inescapable logic. The morning paper tells of a local lady who was saved by a passing stranger from being horribly mauled by an unrestrained pit bull; she didn’t get the man’s full name, but advertised in the Journal so he would come forward and let her thank him.

The world has never yet heard the full story of what Jesus did to save us; to a large extent He has had to remain un-thanked, un-appreciated.

Surely a change is in order, and that is what Revelation 18:1-4 is talking about. You’ll be surprised how many in the end will respond, and make Jesus glad (cf. Isa. 53:11).

Has any man ever given up, for Christ and the gospel, the one-and-only woman whom he loves with all his heart?

For sure it wasn’t Adam in the Garden of Eden: he did the opposite: he sacrificed Christ and heaven for the woman he loved!

Many like Adam would give up every thing in order to have that one woman whom they love.

It’s possible that John the Baptist made that sacrifice. We never read of his having a wife. But he says something that sounds like the love of Christ constrained him to make that rare, total sacrifice.

When he began to preach at the Jordan River, multitudes flocked to hear him (Matt. 3:5). Then when Jesus came, the crowds abandoned John and flocked to hear Him (cf. Luke 7:18ff). To have the crowds turn their back on you is not easy. John describes how he felt toward Jesus:

“No one can have anything unless God gives it to him. ... The bridegroom is the one to whom the bride belongs; but the bridegroom’s friend, who stands by and listens, is glad when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. This is how my own happiness is made complete. He must become more important while I become less important” (John 3:27-30, GNB).

John was willing to say goodbye to the crowds who had flocked to him; he was happy, content, to become the “less important “one as “the bridegroom’s friend.” And John finally perished alone in Herod’s dungeon, apparently forsaken by Jesus, even though he had dedicated his all to the work of Jesus (see Matt. 11:2-14). Jesus could not go to comfort him because He knew that in ages to come millions of saints would also perish alone unjustly, and Jesus knew they would have to gather comfort from the story of John the Baptist.

And there in prison Herod cruelly had John beheaded for no reason.

John laid aside his own deeply rooted, God-given love for woman, that he might honor the Savior of the world.

Jesus didn’t ask him to do it; but the love of Christ constrained him to do more than Jesus asked. It’s a picture of how much people are willing to sacrifice for Him. John’s original understanding of Jesus was that He is “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29); thus it was “Christ and Him crucified” that motivated John to his end (cf. 1 Cor. 2:2). Us too!

Have you ever been frustrated, stymied, perplexed, every way you turn? As far as you can see, everybody is turned against you, and it even seems that God is against you?

Welcome to the Savior’s “Club”!

Yes, He has a select number who are privileged to be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), “partakers of His holiness” (Heb. 12:10), who have tasted of His sufferings. They have an important part to fill in the closing hours of the “great controversy between Christ and Satan.”

They can appreciate the pain and bewilderment that Jesus suffered as His 3-1/2 years of ministry drew to a close and everything began to close in against Him. The leaders of Israel (still the one true church in the world up until the end of the 490 years of Daniel’s chapter 9 prophecy, 34 A. D.), were in process of rejecting Him. Soon they would condemn Him completely. His Eleven disciples were quarrelling about who would be greatest in the new kingdom (laughable if it were not so painfully tragic); one was secretly a traitor already; people whom He had saved from ruin, whom He had healed from mortal illness, would soon yell to Pilate, “Crucify Him!”

It was comparatively easy for Him to endure this hellish hatred of the leaders of His own Israel; but now it seems that even God is against Him for on His cross He cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

That deep conviction of God-forsakenness had never been felt to the full by any person in the world’s 4000 years of history; it’s a story that has health and healing built into it; just learning what happened can be life-giving to your soul. That “learning” is what Jesus meant when He promised, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all unto Me” (John 12:32).

The story as Jesus tells it is in Psalms 22 and 69—worth a weekend of your intensive reading. Chapter 22:1 is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Chapter 69 begins, “Save Me, O God! For the waters have come up to My neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; ... Those who hate Me without a cause are more than the hairs of My head ...”

He experienced all this for you; now read it verse by verse until your soul can grasp the “width, and length and depth, and height” of the love displayed there. It “passes knowledge” but you can absorb it (cf. Eph. 3:14-19).

I was sorting out some past correspondence when my eye fell on these words from a young lady writing from overseas who had suffered a marital breakdown:

“I still keep my childish dreams of a re-united family, even though I know it may be utopian. All things are possible to God aren’t they? We certainly appreciate your prayers for our family. We are brokenhearted and it’s not easy for our children to cope.”

Before I chucked that (even though I had once responded), I felt impressed to try again. I said:

“Your childish dreams of a reunited or united family are not ‘utopian.’ ‘Utopian’ suggests unattainable.

“Those dreams are the very same ones that the Lord Jesus Christ has dreamed in your behalf!”

You may ask how can He have “dreams” for all the billions of marriages around the world; but He is infinite. Our heavenly Father is infinite, yet He notices when a sparrow falls to the forest floor (Matt. 10:29). Infinite enough to guide the millions of suns in the Milky Way, yet personally, intimately concerned about your marriage; sad when harsh, selfish talk tears it asunder, delighted when husband and wife yield to the Spirit’s conviction—humble their hearts and kneel together to pray (and let the tears come).

Two men nearly 700 years apart, both were officially highly honored of heaven. Yet both “officially” were dishonored by their fellow men, yes, virtually “cursed.”

As a child, Joseph was honored with heaven’s gift of prophecy; yet even his own father Jacob would not recognize the gift. Joseph’s lot—to endure the most horrible violent rejection a boy could experience—sold by big brothers as a lifelong slave into darkest Egypt.

As a child, by God’s appointment David was anointed king of Israel; yet he had to suffer the most bitter hatred of the “officially” “anointed” King Saul, who reigned 40 years.

There was a third Child who at the age of 12 surrendered Himself to be the “Lamb of God,” yet suffered the most horrible rejection that God’s people could think to inflict upon Him—a Cross.

What can we learn from these stories?

(1) The more highly Heaven honors a person, the more bitter is the “official” hatred he is called to endure from people—even the ones who say they are God’s people. In Joseph’s case, it was the ten sons of Jacob, Israel, sons of the true “Israel,” who “cursed” him with slavery in Egypt. (But the Lord delivered him from their curse!)

(2) In the case of David, Samuel the prophet anointed him; yet he had to endure decades of hatred from the officially “anointed” king of Israel.

(3) The Lord does not choose to exempt us from suffering; rather, He chooses to sustain us in it. He blessed Joseph in Potiphar’s house, then He blessed Him in Egypt’s royal jail, then at last He exalted him to be prime minister of the world.

(4) “Trust in the Lord, and do good: so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed” (Psalm 37:4, KJV). The Lord will watch you closely every day; and it’s your job to let your soul be reconciled to God: “Delight thyself in the Lord,” the text says next; when it seems on the surface that God has abandoned you to be despised and rejected, grasp the truth of the atonement of Christ and believe it; “and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”

(5) When the Lord had caused Joseph to “forget” his losses and sufferings, then blessed relief came in the form of love and marriage to the right woman (cf. Gen. 41:50, 51).

Neither Joseph nor David can’t save any of us—but Jesus saves. You have something to do in your salvation: surrender your heart to believe in Him.

We apologize for the “blackout period.” A big storm in northern California took out power lines, telephone lines, and the Internet. After a week without phone lines, we’re still being told that it may be several days before the lines and cables will be restored. Until then, we will try to send “Dial Daily Bread” occasionally from a computer in another town. We appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

The DDB Staff

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Whether an addict is caught in the meshes of alcoholism, drug abuse, tobacco, or whatever makes him/her a prisoner, his plight is described in inspired language:

“That which I do I allow not;

For what I would, that do I not;

But what I hate, that do I” (see Rom. 7:15-24).

The addict doesn’t want to surrender again and again to his evil habit; but he’s in captivity.

What’s at the bottom of it? Only one answer is clear and direct: “I am carnal, sold under sin. ... If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law [of God] that it is good.”

The apostle Paul had thought the problem through: “Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not” (KJV).

There you read the anatomy of an addiction. The root problem: sin.

You hear the voice of the Holy Spirit pleading with you, “Take this Exit to freedom from the freeway of sin;” you confess that your addiction to evil, whatever it is, is sin and you need a Savior. You see what is happening: “There is another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”

You can’t be happy in that captivity! You cry out, “O wretched man that I am!” Sin is not a pleasant master; you once thought it is, but now you know.

“Who shall deliver me?” the captive asks.

The answer—the real Lord Jesus Christ. The Father sent Him “in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin the flesh” of all humanity (4:3, 4).

The real Lord Jesus Christ is the one who took upon His sinless nature our fallen, sinful nature and battled against sin therein—completely triumphing over it right there precisely where the problem is—in our sinful human flesh and nature. “I am crucified with Christ,” declares the same apostle in Galatians ( 2:20). He so loves righteousness that now his song of victory is for ever. Jesus is as ready to give you victory as He was to give it to Paul. Now, tell Him in advance, “Thank You!” That is always step one and it leads to the next ones.

The Sacramento Bee reports what the scientists at our California universities trumpet as a great discovery: “Happily married women recover faster from workday woes.”

Well, anyone who believes the Bible could have told them that long ago.

A loving Creator made woman to be loved in a forever fidelity, which the Bible says is marriage. Such love is a precious gift which we receive from Jesus; and gifts are to be appreciated and thanks to be said for them.

For example, our “daily bread,” our literal food, is to be appreciated with thanksgiving; never should we wolf it down without humbly thanking the Lord for it. And love of man and woman is to be celebrated in holy marriage as a gift from Himself to us. Sex is not to be wolfed down as animals do.

Love in marriage is a faint reflection of the love in the “marriage of the Lamb” when Heaven rejoices in Hallelujah choruses (Rev. 19:1-8). Christ marries one “wife,” not multiple ones; and His conjugal love singles “her” out as His one choice in love. In God’s delightful plan that our University professors have apparently just discovered, He plans for woman to be treasured in lifelong love by one man who sees in her his one dream of life companionship.

Of course “she manages stress well;” she comes home at day’s end to what is a relationship more solid than Gibraltar, for it is pure and holy love. A fornication-relationship is not our Creator/Savior’s plan; far too often the “love” is only temporary; it’s not dedicated to the Lord.

Purity in sexual relationship is built solidly on the truth that our physical organisms, our bodies, do not rightfully belong to us: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? ... Flee sexual immorality” (1 Cor. 6:15, 18). The reason why the apostle says this is because the Son of God purchased us with His eternal life that He gave up for us; His life is holy; therefore we have been bought with a holy, immeasurable price.

Temptations to indulge sex outside of holy marriage are bewildering and compulsive; young people are afraid of marriage because they are afraid of true love. But fornication is destructive of it. “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (vss. 19, 20).

Does God forgive? Yes, but He saves one in the process.

What does the Bible say about addictions—whether to cigarettes or tobacco, or to liquor, or to drugs? Yes—let’s be faithful and thorough—including to coffee.

The Bible teaches liberty from them all! “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5:1). “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof” (Lev. 25:10).

The first of God’s Ten Commandments forbids addiction to anything evil or harmful: “You shall have no other gods before Me,” the Lord says. Addictions to habit-forming substances are idolatry and thus a violation of the first commandment.

They are loveless idolatries and for that reason are wrong. The truth says, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.” Love can’t be forced by terror. All His commandments are love-awakening love. The agape of Christ “constraineth us” (2 Cor. 5:14, 16, KJV). The commandment to love the Lord with all our minds is in fact a divine promise: true worship rests in that love—and we are heart and soul devoted to Him because of His love for us.

When that kind of love has penetrated our souls, addictions fall off like dead leaves. Our idolatrous love for what is harmful to our souls (even coffee!) is transcended by a deep heartfelt reverence for the One who went to His cross to find and save us. In such worship is the purest liberty.

We can never know the joy of obedience to the first commandment unless we believe the Preamble to the Ten. Many helplessly break God’s holy law because they don’t know that Preamble where the Lord says He has “brought [us] out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex. 20:2). Yes! delivered us from all our evil addictions by His sacrifice on His cross.

He has reversed the “condemnation” Adam brought upon us, by giving us His “judicial verdict of acquittal” (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB). Therein is truth that the addict of whatever kind needs to understand; there is liberty in it!

Our American Hymn is seldom sung, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” The last stanza is arresting: “Our Fathers’ God, to Thee, Author of Liberty, To Thee we sing.”

Our heavenly Father says: “you shall proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants” (Lev. 25:10).

There was not to be an addict of alcohol, tobacco, or harmful drugs “throughout all the land” of Israel: everyone was to be free. Liberty was to be “proclaimed to” the addict!

And in the very proclamation of “liberty,” the freedom was to be realized.

This principle is expressed in Romans 1:16: in the “good news” itself of liberty is “the power of God unto salvation.” There is power in the proclamation!

A leper came to Jesus and said, “IF you are willing, You can make me clean!”

Giving evidence that He is the Son of the Father of liberty, Jesus responded immediately, “I am willing; be cleansed!” (Matt. 8:2, 3).

Matthew says, “Immediately, his leprosy was cleansed.”

The leper didn’t need to add that IF, for the Father is always willing! He always wants the addict to be set free from his/her captivity. That can be set down as solid fact: Jesus did not ask the leper any questions first to see if he was worthy to be cleansed; He accepted the poor man’s request as it was, gladly. And healed him, unworthy as he may have been.

And He will accept your request.

It may be that you are to blame entirely for your addiction; but the Lord is not adding up debits against you. Jesus still is doing what the scribes and Pharisees accused Him of doing: “This Man receives sinners” (Luke 15:2). The verb means He spreads out the red carpet for them, welcomes them like long-lost brothers.

Let yourself be welcomed and received! Believe that He is willing to set you free from your addiction; and believe that His word does it. Walk down the red carpet!

And thank Him for delivering you, thank Him now ahead of time. You may say, “But I am still a captive!” Time’s up; if the Lord gives us tomorrow, we’ll probe further.

Calling drug, tobacco, and alcohol addicts: come to the Lord Jesus Christ!

The Father sent Him to be the Savior of the world, He succeeded. The Samaritans said He is “the Saviour of the world” (John 4:42).

He has promised that “it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call” (Joel 2:32).

“Mt Zion” is another way of saying the Lord’s corporate “body” on earth, His church. (It will become the “Lamb’s wife.”)

The word “remnant” pinpoints His church as those who “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ”(Rev. 12:17). The Lord, when He issues an invitation like this to addicts, is in dead earnest; He means every word He says. His business is “deliverance.”

The Savior has honored us by giving us permission to call His Father “Our Father.” If you cry out in your distress to the “Father,” not only does He hear you, but He also adopts you as His child! This is proven true here, “You have received the spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Rom. 8:15). Now you are walking with Him, and you are letting Him hold your right hand (Isa. 41:10, 13).

Now your heavenly Father is far stronger than your earthly parents were; all they could do was pass on to you the “judicial condemnation” that our first father Adam gave us; now your heavenly Father through Christ is pronouncing over you a “judicial verdict of acquittal” in Christ, and that has “much more power” than what Adam gave you (Rom. 5:17, 18).

The grace of Christ is “much more abounding” than all the sinful habits and addictions that Satan can invent ( 5:20). He has given all this to you already; now thank Him for it.