Daily Bread - September 2004

September 29, 2004

The enormous disaster of four destructive hurricanes in one season in our beloved Florida stuns the world. The state has been mercilessly battered. And we can’t blame it on terrorists. For those who believe in God, the question naturally arises: is this somehow a punishment from Him? What is He trying to tell us? It is good to ask questions:

Florida is our darling state where millions go just to play and dream of a carefree retirement in an earthly paradise. Does the Bible say something about destructive storms?

The wild storm of the Flood of Noah was a divine judgment on a people given to sexual sin and violence (Gen. 6:2, 3, 12, 13). Everywhere we look on planet earth we see evidences of that one.

The fire that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah was again a divine judgment on highhanded wickedness. You remember, Billy Graham once said that God will have to apologize to those people in the final judgment for His
continued indulgence of our national moral depravity.

In the Bible God is pictured as the One “who walketh upon the wings of the wind” (Psalm 104:3). Storms remind us of the helplessness of our modern technology; they deflate our scientific ego. “Florida” can teach
us: beachfront palaces may possibly be no safer than trailer-park homes; let’s thank God humbly if we have drinking water, electricity, can take a warm bath, can use and flush our toilets, have any kind of roof over our heads when it rains.

What we know for sure is that God is sending special angels to remind us that we live in His Day of Atonement. The cosmic controversy between Christ and Satan is on. “Seekest thou great things for thyself?” God asks; “seek them not.” “The powers [even] of heaven shall be shaken” (Jer. 45:5; Luke 21:26). The Day of Atonement word doesn’t mean wrath and anger: it means reconciliation, at-one-ness with Christ. Instead of
seeking “great things for thyself,” seek that.

September 28, 2004

For the next 3 months, millions of Christians around the world will give special attention to the book of Daniel. This is an opportunity, for Jesus Christ promised that those who “read” that particular book will be given “understanding.” That’s something precious! The exact wording of His promise is, “Whoso readeth, let him understand” (Matt. 24:15). The word “let” implies that the Holy Spirit will release the “reader” from the deadly grip of his love of ignorance of holy truth that is so common to all humanity--“the darkness of this world” (Eph. 6:12).

In other words, the lethal spell of neglecting Bible study will be broken; the captivity to the allurement of TV or worldly pleasure (sports, fashions, sensuality) will be released. “Reading” the book of Daniel will be the key that sets the soul free from the prison of this world’s spiritual slavery.

The special blessing comes in a corporate sense--when millions of people together hunger for this understanding, it becomes greater than when one in lonely solitude prays.

The word that Jesus used for “read” is itself a little stick of mental dynamite. It means much more than glancing at the newspaper headlines. It is ANA-GINOSKO in the original language, which means “again and again” seeking to know, repeated pondering, continued efforts to satisfy mental and spiritual hunger or slake its thirst. The idea in that word is a cherishing of written truth which comes from “hungering and thirsting for righteousness” (Matt. 5:6). That is wisdom! Such attention to the book of Daniel will reward you with eternal starlit glory: “they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament . . . as the stars for ever and ever” (Dan. 12:4). That “shine” begins even now, in this present life, and it will never end.

September 27, 2004

After making a fantastic promise that the Holy Spirit is stronger than our sinful flesh with its lusts, Paul tells us in Gal. 5:18, “Moreover, if you are led by the Holy Spirit, you are not under the law.” He has told us in verse 1 to “stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” He has told us in chapter 3:10-13 that disobedience to the holy law of God is bondage, but obedience is freedom. So, if we are led by the Holy Spirit, we “walk at liberty,” we are free from the accusations of a broken law of God, we are not in prison, the glorious liberty of the children of God is ours.

* Wouldn’t you rather be free today, free to go where you wish and do what you wish, instead of being locked up in the penitentiary? But what does it mean to be “led by the Holy Spirit”?

The Good News is that He is a Leader! He knows the way through the maze and pitfalls of your life, He will never lead you on a false path. If you are climbing Mt. Everest, you need a leader! Day by day, the Holy Spirit will direct your path. David says, “Where is the man who reverences the Lord? He will teach him in the way that he shall choose” (Psalm 25:12). “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth to such as cherish His covenant, [His promise] and His testimonies” (vs. 10).

The Holy Spirit is sent to lead you individually in those paths of mercy and truth just as if you were the only person on earth. The Heavenly Father who notices when even a little bird flies into my office window and falls to the ground (Matt. 10:29) notices you a million times more. Your life, your happiness, is precious to Him; He
will lead you.

Now your job is to follow. His word, the Bible, points out the path when it’s dark and you can’t see clearly: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). So, following the Bible and the constant convictions of the Holy Sprit, “the Spirit of truth” (John 16:13),you reach the top of Mt. Everest.

September 26, 2004

In the most recent issue of Christianity Today [October’s] Charles Colson has said out loud what serious people have been thinking quietly: “When we Americans tolerate moral trash on television and permit pornography to invade our homes via the Internet and allow babies to be killed at the point of birth, we are inflaming radical Islam.”

“Six years ago Harvard professor Samuel Huntington in his The Clash of Civilizations predicted that in the 21st century the great clash would occur between Islam and the West--and that Islam will ultimately prevail.”

By purveying moral filth, and by Abu Ghraib pictures, we provide bin Laden with ammunition “to recruit more snipers and hijackers  and suicide bombers.” Jihadists see themselves as “holy warriors fighting a holy war against decadence,  . . . the kind they see as a blot on Allah’s creation.” Right or wrong they feel driven to regard America as Allah’s enemy of decent human life. Can our enormous military superiority protect us from their religious zeal? Could Babylon’s protect them from Medo-Persia’s zeal, or Medo-Persia’s from Alexander’s?

Since 9/11 the solemn prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, and Christ’s warnings in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, have assumed enormous significance for thoughtful people. Life is not what it used to be; long blind to those prophecies, we are forced now to see that we are living in the great cosmic Day of God’s Atonement.  The “distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” that Jesus described  (Luke 21:25) is our daily life now.

This “Atonement” (at-one-ment-with-God)  is not imposed by the greatest legalist fear of all the ages, but by the clearest-ever vision of what Christ accomplished on His cross.  At last He will “be lifted up” so He can “draw all” unto Himself (John 12:32, 33; Rev. 18:1-4). His AGAPE will be fully manifested, and “all” will let themselves be “drawn” to Him or will finally despise His Holy Spirit.

September 25, 2004

The truth of the Christian religion is rooted in a problem discussed in the latest issue of NEWSWEEK: female fertility. Abraham’s wife, Sarah, is Exhibit Number One.

The article is entitled “Health for Life: A new Fertility Factor.” The “factor” is overcoming “stress.” Medical scientists are concluding that “mind-body medicine” is relevant to couples’ “quest for pregnancy. . . . Distress can hamper fertility--and relieving distress can help improve your chances of conceiving. . . . Women who have difficulty conceiving suffer as much anxiety and depression as women with heart disease or cancer . . . 40 percent [do]. . . . You can’t make it happen at will. . . . Cognitive behavioral therapy [transforms] negative thoughts” (September 27, pp. 72-74). The books of Genesis and Hebrews explain it in simple language.

The stark truth is that Christianity couldn’t have happened if Sarah had never become pregnant. The coming of the Messiah, “the Savior of the world,” was dependent on her (Gen. 15:4-6; 16:1, 2). No, a second wife for Abraham couldn’t solve the problem. Sarah and the patriarch were “one flesh.” If she doesn’t overcome her unbelief she won’t get pregnant; and if she doesn’t get pregnant, God’s promises must fail. And then what hope is there for the world? God risked everything on an unbelieving, bitter, cantankerous woman learning to repent and to believe!

Her very name, Sarai, meant something like “bitter. “ She blamed her humiliating infertility on the Lord (Gen. 19:2). Simply put, she was not “reconciled to God,” her mind was “enmity against God (cf. Rom. 8:7; 2 Cor. 5:20). She professed to worship Him but was mad at Him. She must have made life unpleasant for everyone around her, including her husband.

Then, says Hebrews 11:11, she repented of her dark unbelief, chose to believe God’s New Covenant promises, and exercised the unused gift that God had given her all along--faith. When her “child of promise” was born, they named him “Laughter” (Isaac). Whoever you are, believe those same New Covenant promises (Gen. 12:2, 3). Sarah became a wonderful person when she exercised faith; and you will too, when you “believe” as she did.

September 24, 2004

Sometimes we humans get into situations that seem to be so hopeless, so terrible, that we imagine that hell itself could not be worse. It is then that we can lose our faith, lose our grip on God; and then we really are in a hell-like condition.

Then we must remember (and we cannot remember what we have never known, so we need to learn!) that the Son of God was actually in hell itself. Peter at Pentecost spoke of “the pains of death” that were trying to hold Him at His crucifixion and in His burial, then he quotes the prayer that Jesus prayed after His victory of faith on His cross, “Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell” (Acts 2:24-27, KJV; the word is “Hades” in Greek, “sheol” in Hebrew; the KJV renders it correctly!).

In His incarnation, Christ had laid aside all that His previous omnipotence had been. In becoming man, He had “emptied Himself” like one drains the last drop from an upturned bottle (Phil. 2:5-7). The only residue of His divinity that remained was His character of AGAPE, a heavenly love that chooses to go to hell in its concern for someone else so that person won’t have to go to hell. That is “love”! All “the pains” that any lost person will ever feel in the last judgment, Jesus felt. The Psalmist was right--Christ’s “soul [was] in Sheol,” facing “corruption,” and Peter understood it correctly (Psalm 16:10).

And the point we are now considering is that when you feel that what’s happening to you couldn’t be worse, the News is that the Son of God is suffering its agony side by side with you, and that News is Good. He is closer even than “side by side”: He is suffering AS you--even to the infinite extent of what hell will be. He is intimately one with you.

Because of that, He gives you some words to believe; they are His words but they become your words the moment you choose to believe in Him: “My heart instructs me also in the night seasons. . . . I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, . . . You will show Me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (vss. 8-11). That is the light that shines even in the darkness of hell. Like Jesus, you “rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in hell” (vs. 9).

Don’t resent an experience that deepens your intimate oneness with Jesus!

September 23, 2004

One of the most serious problems we have is what to do when we feel depressed. It’s easy for some one to tell you, “Snap out of it!” But you can’t. All kinds of remedies are suggested: some say, “Go take a drink of beer or whiskey”--we know that’s not good! Or, “Take some drug”--that’s not good. Or, “Get out and help somebody else in trouble”--always good advice, but when you’re depressed, you don’t have the energy to do so. “Go see a psychiatrist”?--Well, that depends on who the psychiatrist is. If you spell it with a capital P, your divine Psychiatrist, your Savior, I say YES. But often we don’t know how to talk with Him; does He listen or answer us?

Let’s be honest: we do need help. Here’s where it is--at the cross of Jesus, for without understanding His cross we can’t understand His High Priestly ministry. No one has ever been so depressed as Jesus was as He hung there in the darkness, “made to be sin for us who knew no sin,” feeling forsaken by His Father, without hope, seeing no light ahead. His broken heart cried out sincerely, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

If you are depressed, you need something more solid than a shot of pop psychology to stir your emotions. You need some rock-bottom truth to stand on, irrespective of your feelings. And here it is: when Jesus felt totally forsaken by His Father, the truth was that His Father was near, suffering with Him. His Father had never forsaken Him! Jesus only FELT forsaken, because He had been “made to be sin for us.” A “broken relationship” does not mean that God has turned His back on you. There in the darkness Jesus chose to believe that His Father accepted Him when everything else, His feelings, the appearances. said the opposite. There in the darkness He built a bridge called THE ATONEMENT, the reconciliation, on which you and I can walk into the light of eternal life.

Jesus was “made to be sin” itself, yet He believed and trusted, while in the total darkness. So can you; and so WILL you as you appreciate what it cost the Son of God to save you from the darkest hell. Say Thank You, even though it’s dark outside and inside. “Be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

September 22, 2004

Have you ever been persecuted? If honesty forces you to say No, then you have never been fully “blessed.” You are deprived! The word “persecution” has come to mean primarily suffering unjust opposition or affliction from religious authorities. When people who are openly godless attack you, it is easier to bear than when those who profess to be servants of God do it. Jesus says, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad . . . for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11, 12).

Why is such persecution so painful for sincere people to endure? Church fellowship is like family fellowship, often more intimately so. It’s like yanking a plant out of the ground by its roots; it soon withers. Where is Jesus when that happens to you? We can find the answer in John 9: Jesus had healed the man born blind; the Jewish clergy harassed him, persecuted him, finally “cast him out” of his “church fellowship,” the synagogue. “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and . . . He . . . found him” (vs. 35). For Jesus to find him and be with him was part of the “blessing” that He promised to those who are persecuted for His sake.

I am not wise enough to judge the merits of your case if you have been so “persecuted,” but I can assure you of one blessing regardless of the merit of your case: when your heart is aching because of your persecution you are enduring, Jesus finds you. Further, He had a conversation with the man who was born blind, to encourage him (vss. 35-39). And for sure Jesus will have a conversation with you to encourage you in the way of truth. Jesus feels especially close to everyone who suffers for the sake of his/her conscience, even if your conscience is “sick” in need of healing. Accept His presence; listen to Him, talk with Him; accept His healing.

Your “roots” may have been yanked out of your church fellowship; now let your roots be established in Him. He will not encourage you to be self-righteous or proud, or vindictive or accusing. Instead, He will teach you holy wisdom. If you are indeed suffering “for righteousness sake,” He will encourage you to endure humbly until He vindicates your case as He did David’s when he was suffering persecution under “the Lord’s anointed,” King Saul. Read his Psalms! Walk softly; let Jesus lead you.

September 21, 2004

Should you and I be afraid of the judgment? Is it like a final exam that students face, the kind where they cram the night before and come to it trembling with fear? There is a judgment that comes before Christ returns--otherwise He could not bring His reward with Him to give every man according as his work has been (Rev. 22:12). And before there can be a resurrection, there must be an "accounting" which is a judgment to determine who is "accounted worthy" to come up in that most glorious of blessings--the first resurrection (Luke 20:35). But can we know anything about when that pre-Advent judgment is to take place? Does the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel 8:14 make any sense?

There is only time to give the short version:

(1) The Day of Atonement in the Hebrew sanctuary service was an object-lesson of that final pre-Advent judgment.

(2) The Lord did not intend that its purpose should be to condemn Israel or the people, but "on that day shall the [high] priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord" (Lev. 16:30).

(3) That precisely is the purpose of the investigative judgment--not to condemn God's people, but to cleanse them so they can meet Jesus in person when He returns.

(4) There is sin, conscious and unconscious, that must be discovered, repented of, "overcome" (Rev. 3:21), so that those who follow the great High Priest in His closing work of Atonement may not be consumed by the brightness of Jesus' coming. That's going to be a serious moment!

(5) The High Priest doesn't want to condemn you; He wants to vindicate you--that's the only judgment He wants to make in your case.

(6) Don't stop Him, don't hinder His on-going work!

(7) The Septuagint translators of Daniel 8:14, 150 years B.C., clearly saw in the 2300-day prophecy a reference to the Day of Atonement; and long before there were any people known as Seventh-day Adventists, Christian scholars saw that 1844 was the terminus of that prophecy.

September 20, 2004

Again this week, millions of us will be studying about how we SHOULD witness more, how it is our duty to do so, what we must do, how guilty we are for not doing more.

But there is a bright spot in our study: We read that “Christ’s death covered every human being who ever lived. It was complete for the whole world. The atonement for a lost world was exceeding abundant to reach every soul that God had created. It could not be restricted so as not to exceed the number who would accept the great Gift, There is enough and to spare.”

Thank God for this emphasis on the truth that Christ accomplished something for every human soul. He died for the world. You and I can tell anyone, “Christ died for you; He paid the price of your sins; He died your second death; there is no reason under heaven why you must die the second death--He died it for you! What He accomplished is a blessed gift, it’s far more than an “offer” that depends on your goodness.”

There are many in the world who will respond when the message is told them clearly and simply so they can understand. The bottleneck right now is our own failure to understand how good the Good News really is! Jesus made one of His most profound statements when He said that if anyone truly believes in Him, he/she will become a source of the Good News. In His deepest soul will flow a well of living water. You won’t be consuming precious time lamenting how little you have done; you won’t be dreading the final judgment day because you haven’t done more. The “truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5) will captivate your interest and your enthusiasm; it will flow out from you to others without your realizing what’s happening.

September 19, 2004

This past week millions of Christians around the world have been studying about loyalty to and supporting church leaders. Rebellion against Moses was a sin; and the New Testament teaches loyalty to elders and pastors, and church administrators. But is there ever a time when a lowly church member should confront a leader? Is it ever possible that loyalty to Christ should supercede supporting a bishop? The Bible records many instances, yes:

Young Joseph, by conscience, had to oppose his ten older brothers and even his father, old Jacob, and angered them. They were equivalent to leaders of the true church of his day! They misunderstood him.
David, only a youth, innocently found himself opposed by the anointed king of Israel, Saul. But his example of deference and loyalty to Saul is beautiful.
Elijah was forced by his conscience and by his love for Israel to pray that God would withhold rain from them for three and a half years. He withstood King Ahab to his face. He is a type of those who will be saved out of the world in the very last days, for he was translated to heaven. The Baal worship that Elijah faced is rampant in the world and in the church today. (Baal worship is the worship of self disguised as the worship of Christ.)
Jeremiah suffered persecution from the leaders of the one true church of Christ of his day. Yes, Kings Jehoikim and Zedekiah sat on David’s throne; when Zedekiah asked him, “Is there any word from the Lord?” Jeremiah was forced by his conscience to tell him the truth, which he didn’t like.
Jesus was forced by His conscience to tell the leaders of the one true church of His day the truth they didn’t like to hear. Yes, but there were tears in His voice! And He was loyal.
Paul was forced by his conscience to rebuke Peter to his face, at Antioch. But he did it in love, and in absolute loyalty to the organized church.

September 18, 2004

A small, conservative Christian denomination is wrestling with the problem large mainline ones have succumbed to: evolution. Our Third World adherents want to hold firmly to the Bible’s literal six days of Creation and worldwide Flood of Noah. Our membership in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand has a significant segment who can no longer believe the literal Bible account; the earth has to be billions of years old. A “short” earth history is scientifically impossible, or at best scientifically doubtful, they say.

These scientists are employed to teach in the church’s educational institutions. The Genesis account must be literally naïve, intellectual honesty implies. Academic freedom secures their tenure.

Is the Bible story of the virgin birth of Christ any more scientifically believable? Is the Exodus of Israel from Egypt historically validated? Can the miracle stories of the repeated deliverances of God’s people be defended rationally? Can we hold to the resurrection of Lazarus after he had been dead four days? Does the literal, visible, personal return of Jesus make sense today?

The same conservative denomination is also riven with theological controversy over the very gospel itself. Some declare it would have been impossible for the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, to take upon Himself the fallen, sinful nature of humanity and live therein a life of totally overcoming or condemning sin. Short of becoming a sinner Himself, He had to sidestep the genetic sinful inheritance of “all men.” The “scientific,” preponderant facts of life prove the universal nature of sin; for us ever to live a sinless life would be as impossible as a six-days Creation week. So it is said.The two ideas are parallel.

As the mainline denominations long ago gave in to evolution, so must this little conservative church also give in to the popular doctrine of continued sinning in human nature? The two ideas are deeply related.

Let’s start from scratch with John 3:16. Do we believe??

September 17, 2004

Far too many people, yes and children, suffer from depression. In their desperate search for relief, they turn to the only remedy they know--drugs. Their relatives and friends urge them to take the only antidepressants that they think medical science can offer.

What is the secret cause of depression? One of Christ’s disciples specializes in it--John. His gospel, his three Letters, and his book of Revelation, plumb the depths and disclose the buried roots of depression. A drug may provide what appears to be relief, but a spiritual lobotomy is not what anyone wants. John says there is a universal primeval “darkness” of soul that afflicts “every man that cometh into the world” until “the light of men” “shineth in darkness” (John 1:4-9). Christ is “that true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” He gave Himself to “every man” and in so doing, He “lighteth every man.” In that Light if it is believed, depression cannot exist. Therefore, the cause of depression is something that has shadowed that Light, obstructed it, closed the windows of the soul against it.

In chapter 3:16, John tells us what is the fear that has shut out the Light: it’s the fear of “perishing. “Not the fear of just going to sleep, but the fear of being abandoned alone in a vast dark, utterly lonely universe that is hell. It’s precisely what afflicted the soul of Christ as He hung on His cross in the darkness--the fear of being “forsaken” by God. He cried out, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” We say it reverently: Christ was the most depressed Man who has ever been. But “God so loved the world [that’s the “all men” or “every man” of John 1:9] that He gave His only begotten Son [that’s “the Light, which lighteth every man] that whosoever believeth in Him [that’s receiving Him, appreciating the Light] should not perish [that’s what the depressed person fears] but have everlasting life [that’s the confidence, the assurance, that cures the depression].”

“Babylon” is the massive headquarters of the unbelief that obstructs the Light and leaves human souls in the lethal darkness that the Food and Drug Administration tries to cope with. But today a special message of Good News cries out, “Come out of her, My people, . . . that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4). “Babylon” at last “is fallen”! And a clearer conception of Good News has “lighted” the earth than has ever shone in the past.

(We have published a book that we believe begins at least to present the goodness of that Good News, entitled, THE GOOD NEWS IS BETTER THAN YOU THINK. If you can afford a donation to cover its wholesale cost and postage [$10], kindly send your postal address).

September 16, 2004

Recent media reports are concentrating on the effects of drugs on children (and adults) for depression. The Food and Drug Administration is concerned with the side-effects of drugs that appear superficially to help bring healing.

Medical advice from psychiatrists or family physicians is considered sacrosanct; the professionals do not have the time for spiritual counseling. Prescribing a drug that appears to work wonders, is a terrific temptation. Yet the real problem is still there, beneath the surface.

Depression is the result of mysterious workings of subconscious or unconscious beliefs. The reality of the existence of an unconscious layer of human nature is taught in Scripture: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). David learned by hard experience. He prayed: “The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee . . . Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:23, 24).

King Hezekiah, the wonderfully good king who did everything just right, didn’t know his own heart. He sincerely thought, “I have walked before Thee [God] in truth and with a perfect heart” (Isa. 38:3), but he sinned grievously when he displayed his sinful pride before the ambassadors from Babylon. It led to the ruin of his kingdom. We read that in this experience, “God left him to try him, that he [Hezekiah] might know all that was in his heart” (2 Chron. 32:31).

Jesus was the most depressed Person in all history when He cried out, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). He even refused the mild drug that was a pain-killer that kind people offered Him. A long, close season of fellowship with Him is what every depressed person needs. Don’t despise it. It’s yours for the taking. Nothing can counteract Bad News but Good News.

September 15, 2004

Did Jesus die for everybody? Or only for “the elect,” that is, a special group that God has chosen shall be saved? Has He consigned all others to be lost?

One of the celebrated “five points of Calvinism” is called “Limited Atonement,” the idea being that Christ offered His blood as an atonement only for a limited group of people--the lucky “elect.”
If the idea is true, it leaves me wondering if I am one of the lucky few! And that can trigger all kinds of depression, endless worry. Or if I can be sure that I am one of the lucky few, then it leads toward monstrous arrogance. Why can I assume that the Lord has chosen me to eternal salvation and consigned my neighbor next door to eternal damnation? He may be as good a person as I am!
Careful scholarship brings forth massive evidence now from Calvin’s writings that he did NOT believe in “limited atonement.” He believed that Christ died for all men. That’s Good News indeed.
But the same careful scholarship finds that Calvin believed that only the sacrifice at the cross was for all men, but His intercession at the throne of His Father is “limited” to “the elect.” In other words, Calvin believed that all that Christ accomplished at His cross does no one any good unless Christ intercedes for him--and that is what is “limited” only to those special “elect.” Salvation is still due to a special, pre-ordained, arbitrary divine “election.”
Calvin was a wonderful man and did enormous good. But he lived too early in the history of the world to realize how Paul says that Christ GAVE the “free gift” of “much more abounding grace” and “justification” to “all men” (Rom. 5:15-18, 20). His “much more abounding grace” is as unlimited as His atonement! As surely as God gave “the birthright” to Esau, so surely He gave the GIFT of salvation to “all men,” in Himself. He gave Himself for the world and to the world. But along with that “gift,” He gave the power of choice; and therefore no one will at last be lost who has not chosen to resist, reject, “despise,” and has “sold” the precious “birthright” that was GIVEN to him (Gen. 25:33, 34; Heb. 12:16, 17; Rev. 22:17). “Whosoever will may come.” Those who “will not” won’t want to enter the New Jerusalem.

September 14, 2004

Someone asks, “How is justification by faith more fully grasped in these last days, than it was by Luther and Calvin in the 16th century? Didn’t they ‘clearly’ proclaim it?”

Yes, they did--for their day. But they lived BEFORE “the time of the end” when “knowledge shall be increased” (Dan. 12:4). Their work, which the Lord gave them, was to prepare a people to die and come up in the first resurrection--a wonderful work indeed (see Luke 20:35; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17). And they were faithful to the light they saw.

But now in this “time of the end,” we are living in the great cosmic, antitypical “Day of Atonement.” God is preparing a people to be “accounted worthy . . . to STAND before the Son of man,” to be translated at His second coming (Luke 21:36). And there is no power in heaven or earth that can accomplish that objective except “the gospel of Jesus Christ.” It alone “is the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). It’s what Peter says is “the present truth” (2 Peter 1:12). That clearer understanding of “the everlasting gospel” (Rev. 14:6) will teach God’s people to “sing a NEW song” that “no man” can “learn but the 144,000, which [are] redeemed from the earth,” in whose “mouth [is] found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God” (vss. 3-5). There is not a progression of truth involved, but there is a progression in the comprehension of truth. “Knowledge shall be increased.”

That will be the fruitage of Christ’s work as the world’s great High Priest in His closing work in the Most Holy Apartment of His heavenly sanctuary (see Heb. 4:14-16; 7:25; 9:23-28; 10:18-25; 11:39, 40; 13:20, 21).

“But what change in character is involved?” someone may inquire.

The legally imputed righteousness of Christ becomes His practically imparted righteousness, when the Bride of Christ “has made herself ready” for the long-delayed “marriage of the Lamb.” For the first time in the long ages of the great controversy, she is “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the [imparted] righteousness of saints” (19:7, 8; Greek). Now the Bride is more concerned for His honor and glory than even for her own salvation; that’s biblical justification by faith. She “overcomes even as [He] overcame” (3:21), self at last crucified with Him.

September 13, 2004

There are conscientious, honest-hearted scientists who are Christians, who see the church pinpointed in Revelation to be the one that “keep[s] the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12). They have a problem that ordinary church members don’t have. Their profession, their life-work, is geology or paleontology--or some full-time science--and so they are deeply impressed by logical deductions that (to them) make a six-day creation week seem impossible.

In a search for unity, others quote Hebrews 11:3, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God” (in six days, of course). And so here we have the “faith/science” tension in the church’s colleges and universities.
The ultimate solution of course is to realize a faith that can penetrate into dimensions of true science as yet unapproachable to “scientists.” The church’s problem is a failure to grasp what true biblical “faith” is.
- (1) Millions of Protestants and Roman Catholics sincerely embrace the doctrine of natural human immortality.
- (2) That doctrine automatically enshrouds the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice on His cross. No way can anyone appreciate the “breadth and depth and length and height” of the love (agape) that led Christ to die there, if he holds to natural immortality. They can’t believe He died for us!
- (3) Consequently, those who believe in natural immortality have a restricted view of what faith is, for faith is a heart appreciation of that agape-love.
- (4) Devalue the love (agape), and automatically you devalue the faith.
- (5) But if the church borrows its views of justification by faith from those who hold to natural immortality, our concept of faith will automatically be paralyzed into lukewarmness. We may sing about the cross, but fail to grasp how “by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.” There’s a dimension of faith we haven’t yet plumbed.
- (6) The resultant confusion short-changes our “righteousness by faith.”
- (7) Conclusion: the “righteousness by faith” embraced by those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” must be much more clearly defined than that held by those who hold to natural immortality. Here can be found the secret root of our bemoaned dis-unity between “faith and science.”from above.” Such faith can see beyond the limits of science, for it “works.” It is “alive” (Gal. 5:6; James 2:17, 18; 3:17).

September 11, 2004

This weekend millions of Christians around the world are studying about unity--how people in a church can truly believe the same thing. It’s important, because Jesus said that the only way the world can be brought to believe in Him is when His followers “all may be one, . . . that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me” (John 17:21). Something He calls “Thy truth” is the only thing that will unite them (vs. 17). Paul calls it “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5, 14). The success or failure of Christ’s mission for the world therefore depends on that “truth” bringing His people who profess to “keep His commandments and the faith of Jesus” into one (Rev. 14:12).

For example: how could a group of mathematicians come into unity unless they all believe that 2 + 2 = 4? Suppose some said it equals 5?

Is that “truth of the gospel” so simple and clear that it appeals to honest hearts with a similarly powerful logic?

Take the problem of Genesis 1: Christ and His apostles accepted that “the truth of the gospel” required sincere, honest hearts to believe that God created the earth in six literal days. People who insist they are equally sincere understand the idea of six literal days to be ancient mythology; science makes such belief naive, they say.

Take the problem of Jesus Himself: when He became incarnate, did He “take” the sinless nature of the unfallen Adam, thus breaking the genetic line of His descent from the real Adam? Or did He accept the working of the great law of heredity and enter the stream of humanity by taking our fallen, sinful nature yet living a sinless life? Here again is disunity; the assumption is that unity is an impossibility.

Or is it impossible?

The kind of faith that “believes in Jesus” is not anti-intellectual but it is enriched with something called “wisdom that is from above.” Such faith can see beyond the limits of science, for it “works.” It is “alive” (Gal. 5:6; James 2:17, 18; 3:17).

September 9, 2004

Two phenomena of unprecedented proportion are developing side by side:

(1) A generation of young people described in the Bible as peculiar to these last days, “lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, . . . fierce, despisers of those that are good, . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:1-5). These are described in NEWSWEEK’s latest cover article as “an unanticipated legacy of the affluent ‘90s,” victims “of the dangers of overindulgence.” To their parents they “nag and pester and insist that ‘everyone has one’” of the latest iPod or whatever. They are high school kids who “drive cars that many adults can only dream of owning,” like a silver Yukon Denali. A fun and pleasure and self-abandon generation duplicate the age of Noah who “knew not until the flood came and took them all away,” says Jesus (Matt. 24:38, 39). In particular, NEWSWEEK’s youth are an American generation widely removed from the one that valued liberty written in their Constitution more than material security. The God of heaven will apparently indulge them almost endlessly, even in a world of suffering, until . . . they repudiate their Constitution and turn to persecute His faithful people. Then, says Revelation, judgment will fall (18:5-24).

(2) Also, another generation of youth is developing. They “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” (Rev. 14:1-5). They gather warmth from the spiritual coldness of others; they respond to nuances of spiritual inspiration that heaven grants them; self-denial has become for them a joy; their enthusiasm is in purposeful living never so clearly perceived in past ages--“fellowship with Christ in His sufferings,” a heart union with the Son of God in His cosmic controversy with “that great dragon, . . . called the devil, and Satan” (12:9). These youth understand that the “plan of salvation” is more fascinating than the intriguing mysteries of modern paganism.

September 8, 2004

For Americans, the first weekend of September is the last bash of fun for the long summer. But our attention has been gripped by disquieting news: the utterly horrendous story of the school hijacking in Beslan, Russia, combined with the almost mysterious double whammy of hurricanes in our beloved Disney World state of Florida. Mr. Putin says the Beslan disaster is a wound to all of Russia, deep and inconsolable; our economic disaster in Florida is nothing compared to that, but one wonders: is God trying to say something to the world? Not that He sends these troubles--He does not; but is there a still small voice saying something that we can hear above the violence and shrieking of the hurricanes?

With all our scientific expertise we are powerless to tame storms like Charlie or Frances; we just have to watch thousands of homes devastated. Our other “fun state” of course is California; and there we usually year by year watch hundreds, sometimes thousands, of homes burn in our dry season.
One lesson seems to come through loud and clear: our economic possessions are extremely fragile. And the Beslan disaster is not only pain to all of Russia’s heart; it wounds humanity. Russia’s agony is ours. We are all the human family, corporately one.
In some way or other, the injustice of James 5 is related to this problem: “your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire” (vss. 2, 3). “The Lord of hosts” is an observant Witness. “Wanton” living, whether here or there, is inappropriate today although it has never been more widespread. The world is living in the grand cosmic Day of Atonement. It’s the biggest news to go to “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6, 7), and somehow the attention of the world must and will be secured.

September 7, 2004

The car ads, the sports, the business section, the “magazine,” the movie ads, in the Sacramento Bee seem so crass, so heartless, so inappropriate today when combined with those poignant photos of mothers (and fathers) with dead children in Beslan, Russia.

Why could God let this unspeakable disaster happen?
“Everyone wet their pants,” one child, Sosik, said. Some were rinking their urine (the Bible says the Assyrians threatened God’s people with that fate, Isaiah 36:12). “People were praying all the time, and those that didn’t know how to pray, we taught them,” said one mother, Gadieyeva. But hundreds died in this modern hell. Think of little children going through that!
One tiny uplift comes through: the L. A. Times had told of Zalina forced to leave her 6 year old daughter Alana in order to carry out her 2 year old son to freedom; the terrified girl, covered with blood, was eventually saved.
We don’t know the people in Beslan; at least some didn’t know how to pray--they had to learn quickly. We can’t know why God had to let it all happen. But there is lots going on in this world that God doesn’t want to happen. The honest truth is that this world has been wrenched out of the hand of God. He has been exiled, expelled, “despised and rejected of men.”
But wait a moment: even though “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2) claims the lordship of the world, it is the Lord’s blessing that He has warned us of what is coming. Never has the Bible been more
precious! You have that “secret place of the most High [where you can] abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” Treasure it! The promise won’t fail: “under His wings shalt thou trust. . . . Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, . . . nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side . . .” (Psalm 91).
Never has Day of Atonement living seemed more desirable. Common sense appropriates much more abounding grace. Learn now, how to pray.

September 6, 2004

At the very time that one’s church is giving special study to Jesus’ command that we love our enemies as Christ has loved us, here comes the horror of the Beslan school in southern Russia--300 killed mercilessly. If you were a parent there and these terrorists had murdered your children, could you “forgive” them as Jesus forgave His murderers? You can maybe forgive them for murdering you, but, . . . your children?

Revenge, hatred, are the natural reactions of human hearts; and of course, they lead to more atrocities. Jesus described these days when He spoke of world conditions near the end, “The powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:26).
When everything comes apart as it seems to have done there, and the world has become hell, there must be somebody left on earth who remains Christlike, someone whose heart has been moved and gripped by the love which is agape; and that someone must be you, and me.
In the antediluvian world of rebellion against God, there must be one Noah, the “preacher of righteousness.” In captive Israel’s darkest days in Egypt, there must be one mother of Moses who is faithful; there must be one David to fight Goliath; there must be one Daniel in Babylon; yes, in terrorism’s modern world, there must be one human soul who will keep alive the agape-love of Jesus.
When everything tells you that God has utterly forsaken you, that every ray of hope is extinguished--that’s the very time to believe in Him, for that’s what Jesus did on His cross when He felt forsaken of God. “Even if God has forsaken Me, I will not forsake Him!” was the language of His heart. Jesus cried out from the depths of hell itself; heaven was gone; the Father had turned His back on Him (it seemed). So Jesus re-created Heaven by His faith. He is utterly alone in the gross darkness of an empty universe; nevertheless, He will love with that genuine love, agape.
And He will have His followers, today; they will appreciate the grand dimensions of His agape-love and it will blossom in their hearts.
Now let it be in your heart and mine.

September 6, 2004

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us to “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” But no one knew what He
meant. It went right over people’s heads (Matt. 5:44). No one really understood the true dimensions of “love” until the cross (cf. Eph. 3:18, 19). The word Jesus used for “love” was not the ordinary, day-to-day one that people used in the Greek or Latin world--it was AGAPE. The idea was foggy; it couldn’t be defined until the cross.

The world marvels at the miracle of His resurrection after three days in the tomb; but the even greater miracle was the love He demonstrated. It was unearthly--had never been seen since time began. Every crucifixion done by the Romans had been a demonstration of cursing, invective, raw hatred; here was one where the Victim prayed for His murderers! It became talked about throughout the Empire. No PR advertising could have been purchased at any price that was more effective for proclaiming the gospel.
This love known as agape is a different genre than what we call love. Unlike the “natural” love we are born with that loves its own, or loves nice people, agape loves ugly people, mean people, unworthy people, yes, enemies. Unheard of!
On the lips of the apostles, it became the word “that turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). Its origin was unearthly. It had to be “poured into” emptied human hearts from an Outside source (Rom. 5:5). It couldn’t be conveyed by lectures; it can’t be propagated by PowerPoint; it has to be communicated by a white hot flame burning in a human heart that has been deeply moved by the Holy Spirit (any willing human heart will do!). You look, you stare, you wonder; you “behold the Lamb of God” on His cross. Takes time--you’ll be doing it right on into eternity.

September 5, 2004

Jesus of Nazareth was the best man who ever walked this planet. But did He ever have enemies! It was a puzzle to Him when He was a Boy, why people hated Him so much. He meant no one any harm, yet He seemed to be a lightning rod that attracted people’s animosity, and He couldn’t help it. Here is a precious personal glimpse into the heart of Jesus--He says, “They that hate Me without a cause are more than the hairs of Mine head” (Psalm 69:4). Only one person in all human history could have said that; and it was literally true. Every human being (you included!) has come into the world with the natural equipment of ingrained enmity against Jesus: “The carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). That’s our natural state if we never hear the gospel. Every human being rates one of those hairs on Jesus’ head!

As a Boy, He learned that it’s no fun when people don’t like you, and there seems to be nothing you can do about it. They were His “enemies wrongfully,” He says. He had to act continually as though He had stolen
things (which He had not done!) and be forced to pay back what He had never stolen! “I restored that which I took not away,” He says (Psalm 69:4).
He loved family ties as much as any of us (it’s not nice to be alone in an unfriendly world); but He “became a stranger unto [His] brothers and an alien unto [His] mother’s children” (vs. 8; yes, Mary had more children). The other kids weren’t picking on Him because He was weak or sickly, but for the opposite reason: He was the only “healthy” One in the family, and they couldn’t stand His constant example of being unselfish.
Sometimes He couldn’t help but cry; even as a Boy He carried a burden they had no idea about; but “when [He] wept, . . . that was to [His] reproach” (vs. 10). “When I poured Myself out in prayer and fasting, all it got Me was more contempt” (Peterson).
The hatred young Jesus was up against stuck to Him all His life until His same enemies tortured Him in His death. And here’s where I don’t know how to write it: He loved them and prayed for His enemies at His painful end.
“Lord, we don’t know how to follow Your Example! It’s not in us to love enemies. Hell is where everybody hates everybody else; please save us from it!”

September 3, 2004

Jesus said many things but there is one thing He did NOT say: “Whoso watcheth videos or movies, let him understand.” What He DID say was, “Whoso readeth [Daniel] let him understand” (Matt. 24:15). Over and
over He urged people to “read” the Bible which the Holy Spirit has inspired: “Have ye not read . . . ?” “Have ye never read . . . ?” “Did ye never read in the scriptures . . . ?” etc., etc. (Matt. 12:3, 5; 19:4; 21:16, 42; 22:31).

When He was invited to preach on Sabbath, He turned to Isaiah and read to the people.
A special “blessing” (happiness, life-giving joy) is for anyone who “readeth” the inspired words (Rev. 1:3). But a great proportion of those who claim to “love Jesus” don’t love His word; they look on the Bible as boring. It has to be acted out as theater; then they think they can grasp it.
But the problem is that inevitably “theater” distorts and misrepresents the message God wants us to “understand.” With the best of the actors’ intentions to “act” Jesus, they produce fiction. We may think the drama helps us to visualize the original story, but it’s always confusing in some way. And in this time of world history, confusion is the last thing any child of God wants. In fact, we are expressly called to “come out of [Babylon, confusion], My people, that [we] be not partakers of her sins, and that [we] receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:3, 4).
God particularly, expressly, calls us to “read.” The reason is that the Holy Spirit speaks in the word, which is the Bible; “I will make known My words unto you,” He says (Prov. 1:23).
Yes, the promise is real: He will flash on to your mind the true re-creation of the original message or story God put into the text. You don’t need some man to “act” Jesus for you in a video or movie (he will in every case distort and “confuse” the representation, because no man on earth is qualified to stand in for Jesus in a movie). “Read” the word!
Stay close to it, exercise your mind on it, bring it into focus, study; deny self. Let the Holy Spirit discipline you. Your salvation may depend on it.

September, 2004

Dial Daily Bread is at present authoring a new book, a verse-by-verse account of the book of Daniel, written in simple style for non-theological people. It will be entitled THE GOSPEL IN DANIEL, to keep company as a twin with our THE GOSPEL IN REVELATION.

But we meet with a problem, and will appreciate your prayer in our behalf.
Among conservative, thoughtful Bible students, there is a difference of opinion about the last part of Daniel 11—“the king of the north.” Some are deeply impressed that the “angel” who communicated with Daniel purposefully identified “the king of the north” as that power which through history should control what was the northern part of the empire of Alexander the Great. (By the same token, “the king of the south” remains Egypt,) As an author, I dare not prognosticate or be unnecessarily rigid in my view. But I am deeply impressed that godly Bible scholars in past years have understood that the “king of the north” must be an Islamic power which occupies that area which originally was the northern part of Alexander’s empire.
The book of Revelation devotes one entire chapter to the story of Islam (chapter 9). Does it not seem reasonable that at least a portion of one of Daniel’s chapters should likewise feature Islam?
The alternate view which many godly people hold is that Daniel’s “king of the north” is the papacy acting in his capacity at the end of time. This view is fueled by the fact that the previous lines of prophecy in Daniel end with the papacy, so it is assumed that chapter 11 must do so also.
Your prayer will be appreciated. DDB

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