October 31, 2004

TIME magazine is worried. It questions if the American nation will even have a decision come November 3. Whoever wins will need prayer more than praise. “To the victor goes a nation divided, . . . split over its basic values. . . . No matter who wins, the Uncivil War is likely to continue. After such a venomous campaign, will it be possible . . . to reunite the United States?”

Is “uncivil war” in the very air we breathe? Are there “two” anywhere who can “walk together, . . . agreed” as Amos 3:3 asks? Is there even a church anywhere in the world that is not riven with disagreements, even strife? Is there any group anywhere that believes for sure just what is the truth? For several hundred years “we” have talked about “the signs of the times” that herald the coming of Christ; will the “signs” be getting more serious now? Could it be that “men’s hearts [will be] failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth”? Will we soon be watching “the powers of heaven . . . shaken”? (Luke 21:25, 26). Is God’s patience beginning to wear thin with modern “Babylon”? How close are we to Belshazzar’s Feast? Let’s be awake!

On the last night of the existence of Babylon as a world empire the national comedians had great fun and the government leaders rejoiced in their military and political supremacy. Likewise on Sodom and Gomorrah’s last night the elite reveled in their pleasurable but sinful luxury, but God couldn’t find even “10” there whose hearts were right. (Ezekiel tells us there must have been a slum section where the slaves of the wealthy had to live in squalor [16:49]). The Bible warns us that the world will experience another last night as did Sodom (Jude 7, 8). It’s time for God’s people to do some serious heart-searching. If somber thoughts are published even in TIME, shouldn’t those who seek to “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” begin seeking to be “one”?

October 29, 2004

You’d think that if a person knew that even before he was born, he was called of God to be a prophet, such a high honor would give him a healthy sense of self-respect. The Lord told that to Jeremiah (1:5), but here he is so down in the dumps that he wishes he could die (1:5; 9:1, 2; 20:14-18). Of all the Lord’s prophets, he is the most open in telling us of his inner battles with self and his disappointments in his relationship with the Lord.

Elijah also wished he could die (1 Kings 19:4), but the Lord gave him the very high honor of being translated, and not dying. Isaiah went through an experience of deep humbling of his heart before God (6:5), but the Lord gave him the joy of ministry to a king who appreciated him (37:1, 2, etc.). But Jeremiah! He suffered nothing but rejection and disappointment for his entire lifetime, and even after the remnant of people who were left alive after the ruin of the kingdom saw the unmistakable evidence that he had been right all along in his ministry, they treated him like dirt (43:2-6ff). His story comes to an end in tragedy.

After he was dead, his people changed their mind about him, and they rated him the greatest of the prophets, even thinking that Jesus Christ might be Jeremiah resurrected (Matt. 16:14). Sometimes people write us who have experienced painful disappointment in life; they are little “Jeremiahs” and they will come up to him in the new earth and thank him for writing his book!

One experience in his life is of special encouragement to all of us who are “students in the school of Christ.” Jeremiah prays in 10:23-24: “O Lord, correct me, but with justice; not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing.” Do you believe the gracious, kind Lord answered that prayer? Yes! Did He bring the poor servant of His “to nothing”? No! Jeremiah tells us how the Lord kindly rebuked him, corrected him, disciplined him as a “student” in His school (15:15-21), and made a great man out of him. You are a student, too. Don’t quit “school”!

October 28, 2004

Paul tells us, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves” (2 Cor. 13:5). So, let’s take a little self-help quiz. Maybe we can anticipate the final judgment in a sober, healthy way (it would indeed be a good idea):

(1) If you had been living in Noah’s day, would you have faced the ridicule of the crowd and walked up the gang-plank into his ark, all alone?

(2) If you had been living in Abraham’s day, would you have left your family and kindred in Mesopotamia, and followed him in his visionary journey to a land that he (and you) had not seen, in response to God’s call?

(3) If you had been living in Elijah’s day, when he stood on Mount Carmel facing an angry king of Israel and 450 leaders of the popular religion of the day, would you have stepped out from the crowd and joined him when he stood there alone? (Not one did!)

(4) If you had been living in Jeremiah’s day when King Jehoikim and the princes, the priests, and “all the people” wanted to execute him as a traitor to the nation, would you have been brave enough to defend him before them all? (Read Jeremiah 26!)

(5) When King Zedekiah had him thrown into the dungeon, and put down that muddy deep well, would you have risked your life to pull him out like the black man, Ebedmelech, did? (Read Jeremiah 38.)

(6) If you had gathered on the plain of Dura with the multitudes before Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image, when the symphony orchestra stuck up the national anthem, would you have bowed also to avoid going into the burning fiery furnace with Sharach, Meshack, and Abednego?

(7) If you had been there that Friday morning before breakfast gathered before Pilate, when the multitude shouted, “Crucify Him!” would you have told His Excellency the Governor, “Sir, if you crucify this Man, you crucify me, too!”?

Were you there, whey they crucified my Lord? Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, . . . tremble!

October 27, 2004

A wise teacher who helps teens has come up with a good sub-title for the book of Hebrews. He calls it, “Unfinished Business.” And when you read the book, that idea surfaces repeatedly. God is doing something, accomplishing a great work as our heavenly Father, as the Son who is our great High Priest, and as the Holy Spirit who is our Comforter. But what He’s doing He hasn’t finished yet. All heaven is excited, anxious to see His work completed.

We see a hint of the unfinished business in chapter 2. Our brother Paul is talking there about the great Cosmic Insurgency being “put under,” and peace restored to the universe. Our current insurgency problems in Iraq are heart-rending--we long to see rebellion conquered there so the war-weary Iraqi people can rest and “live” in peace. In greatly larger circumstances, the Rebel, Satan, has masterminded an Insurgency of gigantic worldwide proportions that affects the entire universe. And the Father has promised that He will bring order and peace through Christ. “You have put all things in subjection under His feet,” He says (2:8, first part).

But the sad truth is that the gigantic job isn’t finished yet: “Now we do not yet see all things put under Him” (second part). “Not yet”--there’s the “unfinished business.” And unless you are ready to be translated at the second coming of the Savior (1 Thess. 4:16, 17), the Holy Spirit has “unfinished business” yet to accomplish in your own human heart (and I know He has in mine!).

What encourages us is to know that He is carrying on this work. He had “unfinished business” with His Son Jesus--when He was born as a Baby He was “holy”(Luke 1:35) but He was “not yet” ready to save the world until He had been through an intensive course of “suffering.” “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (3:8, 9). The Son who was “holy” at His birth had to become “righteous” at His death (Rom. 5:18). And “suffering” was part of His training (the angels don’t have it).

Therefore don’t marvel if He permits a little suffering to come your way!

October 26, 2004

How do you think Jesus regards you as an individual? Of course, you believe that he “loves” you for you have read John 3:16 and you believe it. But how does He love you? Do you feel that maybe He loves you like you love your faithful dog--or is His love different? Does He respect you? Does He honor you? Does He actually value your opinion? Does He like to hear what you say? In other words, is He interested in your prayers aside from being merely the Source for your requests--your spiritual “Santa Claus”?

He says something very thought-provoking in Revelation 3:21: “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” You can’t imagine that the Father treats His Son as anything less than in full confidence, can you? And you can’t imagine that Jesus would invite you merely to “sit” on His throne by His side as only an observer who cannot participate, can you? Just to have your picture taken There for the fun of it? No, of course it’s more than that! Jesus is totally sincere; it must mean that when He invites you “to sit with [Him] on His throne,” He must honestly share with you executive authority; He must respect you as a friend who has His full confidence. Otherwise, why would He say that?

In fact, if we turn to John 15:15 we find He told “us” through His disciples that He “no longer” calls us “a servant, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” And Ephesians 1 tells us over and over that the Father has “adopted” us as His children “in Christ.” Adopted kids have full rights as children in the know! That’s what you are.

Hold your head up high! Unworthy as you feel yourself to be, you are “somebody” in Christ!

October 25, 2004

So fully has the Son of God identified Himself with us fallen humanity, that it’s difficult to take a scalpel and separate the heart cries of Jesus in the Psalms from the heart cries of king David. For example, in Psalm 22:1 David cries out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” But then we discover that Jesus cries the same dereliction as He hangs on His cross (Matt. 27:46). Then as we read further in Psalm 22, lo and behold, we find that the entire psalm records the heart cries of Jesus up to the moment of His death when He cried out, “It is finished” (asah, the last word in the Hebrew, which means ”it’s done!”).

• But how could Jesus Christ, the sinless One, pray the same words that the guilty, bloodstained sinner David prayed? Wasn’t Jesus “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Heb. 7:26)? He should be as far away from feeling like the despicable sinner, David, as day is from night!

• But wait a moment: isn’t His “name Immanuel, which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matt. 1:23)? Isn’t it “unto us” that this “Child is born, unto us a Son is given” (Isa. 9:6)? Didn’t the Father “so love the world that He gave” Him to us forever? Don’t we “see Jesus . . . made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death” (Heb.
  2:9)? How could He “suffer death” unless He came inside our skin, as it were? He is “not ashamed to call [us] brethren” (vs. 11)! He had to be “MADE perfect through sufferings” (vs. 10). But wasn’t He “perfect” all along? In holiness, yes; but He had to go through a process of education for 33 years in order to qualify to cry out sincerely from a broken human heart every word of Psalm 22!

• That word “made” is pregnant with enormous meaning: “In all things He had to be MADE like His brethren. . . . In that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (vs. 18). He was “MADE of a woman, MADE under the law” (Gal. 4:4, KJV). He was “MADE in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7, KJV), He became truly a man “in the [same] likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3), “MADE . . . to be sin for us,” who “knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21).

• What does it all add up to?

• Jesus Christ is the Son of God who became “the Son of man,” your Savior “in the flesh.” He knows 100% empathy with you. Here’s a double negative that makes a powerful positive: “We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Don’t turn your back on Him even for a day!

October 24, 2004

There was once a man who was proud, haughty, arrogant, even cruel--a king whose name was Nebuchadnezzar; and Iraq was his kingdom. Like most kings of his day, he could have lived and died in hopeless proud self-deception except that a man of God prayed for him personally--Daniel the prophet. Daniel discerned in the king a streak of honesty and reality in his makeup. He did what the apostle John said we should do: “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He [God] will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death.” The king’s dream of Daniel 4 was God’s answer to the prophet’s prayer. The Lord permitted Daniel to be an “evangelist” to teach Nebuchadnezzar gospel truths.

• The Lord loved the king so much that He gave him a special blessing--He humbled the man in the dust, gave him a form of insanity in which he thought he was an animal or a cow (called lycanthropy or bovanthropy), and in seven years of gross humiliation the proud king learned a proper heart attitude of reverence for the King of kings and Lord of lords. You could hardly say that the king humbled himself; God humbled him, even humiliated him.

• We all too have problems with pride and arrogance. God has given us each wonderful gifts that we can easily become proud over. But let’s not you and I be so stubborn that we wait for the Lord to humble us, like the king. To be humiliated is a very severe ministry of the Lord! It’s too late in the day now for the Lord to resort to those extreme measures to “heal” us, for we are living in the great cosmic Day of Atonement; now we want to humble ourselves. Self-starters were a wonderful invention for balky Model T’s. Let’s find a self-starter for humbling self, and not wait for the Lord to have to do it for us, as with Nebuchadnezzar! “When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.” That is better--that’s self-humbling.

October 23, 2004

Jesus Christ has been resurrected from the dead, and has ascended to heaven where He now functions as a great High Priest. Does He have work to do? Just what is it that He is doing? Is His work easy? Does He always have success? Is it possible that there are people on earth who can hinder what He is doing?

We read in the book of Daniel about one of the mightiest of the angels of heaven who was hindered in what he was doing (“the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, . . . but lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me,” 10:13; Michael is another name for Christ).

Christ’s work as High Priest is a ministry on the hearts of people. Yes, they CAN resist Him! He does not force anyone. The king of Persia in Daniel’s time is an example; he was working against God, but through the Holy Spirit Christ persuaded him to stop resisting and let God’s people go free and return to their homeland.

It could well be that Christ as the world’s great High Priest has been pleading with your heart to stop resisting Him, and to let Him lead you to get ready for His second coming. The Lord told Saul of Tarsus that “it is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14). Continual resistance of the Holy Spirit is terribly hard! It wears a person down--fighting against God is no fun! We read in Galatians 5:17 that the Holy Spirit “strives against the flesh,” another name for our sinful nature. Thank God He does! If He leaves us alone, we are lost. Our sinful nature “strives” against the Spirit--true; but it’s good news that the Spirit is stronger than the flesh. How do we know that? “Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom 5:20).

What is Jesus Christ doing today? A work which the Bible calls “the cleansing of the sanctuary,” the last work He will do as High Priest before He comes again as “King of kings and Lord of lords.” Now is the great cosmic Day of Atonement. That work is His last great effort of grace to woo us away from worldliness and win our hearts to be ready for His coming. He has a big job to do! He’s at it 24/7. Don’t hinder Him.

October 22, 2004

Yesterday we referred to “the family altar,” and someone is wondering what that is. “Didn’t our great grandparents have something like that, along with their horse and buggy? Today’s world is different. Mom has her career, and she’s busy in the morning getting ready to go, and dad works his long hours. Seldom are they even together; they’re professional and everybody thinks they’re still married, but a ‘family altar’ seems impossible. The world is different.”

• Yes, it is; it’s the one where “the love of many shall grow cold” (Matt. 24:12; Jesus’ noun there for “love” is the same as the verb form that says “Husbands, love your wives,” Eph. 5:25). The “love” that Jesus talks about is marital love.

• If you wonder what the “family altar” is, read Matthew 18:19. Jesus says, “And so I tell all of you: . . . whenever two of you on earth agree about anything you pray for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven” (GNB). It’s husband and wife kneeling together and both of them praying. You both realize that you are sinners; you ask each other for forgiveness (show me two that never need to do that and I’ll show you two that don’t belong on this planet; they should have been “translated” long ago). Some tears oozing out would be precious!

• And if the children should happen accidentally to see them, oh God, what a blessing!

October 21, 2004

My wife and I have “family worship” in our home morning and evening. Every day since the night we were married, we have wanted to kneel together and ask the Lord’s presence to be with us (that’s 62+ years). He has promised to do things in answer to such prayer that otherwise He cannot do, much as He wants to (cf. Matt. 7:7-11, Satan claims the rulership of this world, we don’t want to try to make it alone here).

• We were reading Jeremiah and came to 4:1, 2 and I saw something. It was the Good News Bible (excellent for Jeremiah): “The Lord says, ‘People of Israel, . . . turn back to Me. If you remove the idols I hate and are faithful to Me, it will be right for you to swear by My name. Then all the [pagan] nations will ask Me to bless them, and they will praise Me.’”

• The Lord wanted to bless the benighted pagans of the world but He couldn’t without the cooperation of His own people, Israel! Why? “In Adam” the human race had invited the fallen Lucifer (whose new name was Satan) to rule them; God was exiled from His world. He cannot intrude unless some humans invite Him and work with Him. If only His ancient people had believed the New Covenant gospel, through them the Holy Spirit could have brought light to the pagan nations steeped in their darkness. World history would have been different!

• And now today? Every time I sigh and pray, “Lord, why don’t You do something to help this sick world?” the answer comes back, “Why don’t you do something?” We have work to do!

October 20, 2004

The Associated Press reports that a 13 member panel of the National Institute of Health reports that a “tough approach doesn’t curb teen violence.” Boot camps where scare tactics are employed in an effort to teach these teens to behave just don’t work, they have found. The official conclusion: “Scare tactics don’t work.”

In soul-winning work, scare tactics also “don’t work.” A friend recently returned from a visit in Ghana where she heard an evangelist spending 20 minutes in his “appeal” sermon, telling the people that if they didn’t come forward for baptism, they would be lost at last. This kind of technique may increase the baptisms, but in the end the church boards who have to deal with the results after the evangelist is gone, also conclude that “scare tactics don’t work.”

In soul-winning evangelism, nothing works better than the appeal Jesus makes: “If I be lifted up [on the cross] I will draw all unto Me,” He says (John 12:32, 33). 1 John 4:8 says that ”God is agape [love], and that “agape casts out fear” (vs. 18). Of course, government is not to teach the gospel to teen delinquents; but there are many teens in trouble who are not in boot camps. Parents and teachers must study what Jesus says about winning souls. God help us for the sake of our teens!

October 19, 2004

When Jesus said that those who mourn are happy people (Matt. 5:4), He shocked everybody. As Luke reports the statement, he has Jesus saying, “Blessed are you that weep, for you shall laugh” (Luke 6:21).

It may not appear on the surface to be true, but like many things that Jesus says, there is a profound reality involved. When you shed tears in mourning, if you believe the gospel, you are in fact realizing a point of intimate contact with Christ, the Son of God. The secret is revealed in 1 Peter 4:13 which says, “Rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad with exceeding joy.” That is something to rejoice over! That’s a dividend that will continue to pay you throughout eternity! It makes you a prince in the realm of the kingdom of God, for Paul says in Colossians 1:24 that you can rejoice for you “fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ.” Think of it--intimate fellowship with the Son of God!

But the second reason why Jesus said those who mourn and weep are “happy” is that when you realize your sinfulness apart from Him, then you can appreciate the gift of His righteousness. When David sinned in adultery and murder, he knew bitter tears of deep repentance (see Psalms 32 and 51). But at last he knew who he was--a sinner; he had discovered reality; his feet were on solid rock at last; and that became the foundation for genuine happiness.

As long as we are self-deceived into imagining our goodness, which is not reality, we can never be truly happy. When Jesus said “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” He meant two great truths: the truth about ourselves, how unworthy we are, and the greater truth about Him, our Savior 100%. When that truth dawns upon your consciousness, you can’t help but be happy--forever.

October 18, 2004

In the Roman Catholic confessional, the penitent is expected to confess all his/her secret sins to the priest, including the lustful, lascivious thoughts and imaginings. Nothing is to be held back. Merely for the penitent to tell the priest in a general unspecific way, “I have sinned,” is not good enough; confession must be explicit. Then the priest can prescribe acts of penitence.

The Bible tells us a better way, “If we confess our sins [to Christ], He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). There is no danger in such confession, to either party--the repentant sinner, or to the divine Savior, whereas in the human confessional there is danger to both parties. Immense blessings flow from our confessing our sins to Jesus--total cleansing “from ALL unrighteousness.” The promise is sure.

Do it. Confess all your sins as the Holy Spirit brings conviction to you. ALL. Hold nothing back; articulate your full confession--all the secret things that you are ashamed even to tell Him. Jesus will never break your confidence. But you need to confess them--even all the lascivious thoughts and hidden covetings of your neighbor’s wife (or vice versa), your pornography-indulgences, your hatreds, whatever--lay it all out in the secret openness before the great High Priest who is your only Savior FROM sin. He will cleanse.

And someday by the grace of God the Holy Spirit will bring to you the ultimate conviction of sin--you will see your part in hating and crucifying the Son of God. It will be a great experience (Zech. 12:10-13:1)--a “fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness.” Thank God!

October 17, 2004

There is a beautiful illustration of genuine faith in the story of the three Hebrews of Daniel 3 who were thrown into the fiery furnace. They told the insanely angry king that (1) the living God whom they served was “able” to deliver them from his power, but (2) it might possibly be that He would be unwilling to do so--they didn’t know for sure--but if He were unwilling to deliver them they would serve Him nonetheless, and they would not cast contempt on His holy law by bowing down to his golden image.

In this way these three men demonstrated that their faith in God was the New Covenant kind, not the Old Covenant kind. (They probably had been studying the writings of Jeremiah!) The Old Covenant kind of “faith” is a counterfeit of the genuine: it’s making a “bargain” with God. Old Covenant faith says,” Lord, if You will deliver us, then we’ll keep Your commandments.” Sometimes preachers lead their people into Old Covenant faith when they tell them that if they take the initiative to “pay tithe,” then God will bless them financially. New Covenant faith is a choice to pay tithe whether or not the Lord rewards us.

The New Covenant is God’s out-and-out promises to His people, and their heart response is to believe and appreciate what He promises. His love, not fear, “constrains” them to loyalty and service (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). The Old Covenant is “bargaining” with God. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego rebuke us for that. Jeremiah promises (31:31-34) that the time will come when God’s people graduate completely out of the Old into the living faith that is in the New. As God’s people face the trials of the last days, their faith will mature into that of “the Lamb’s wife”--a church that has grown up into that “measure of the stature, of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). It’s time for the New Covenant, now.

October 16, 2004

When some Gentiles from Greece invited Jesus to come (probably) to Athens, He responded with His memorable words about a grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying and then bearing “much fruit” (John 12:20-24). No, He must set His face steadfastly to suffer in Jerusalem and die there for the world. He made a great promise: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all unto Me. This He said, signifying what death He should die,” that is, on His cross (vss. 31, 32).

That big “IF” and that universal promise of “drawing all” meets its fulfillment in Revelation 18:1-4. “Another angel” will finally “come down from heaven, having great power” (that’s the “drawing” that will be some people “lifting up Christ on His cross” as He has never before been “lifted up”). To “draw all” does not mean necessarily to WIN all. “All” will sense His drawing but not all will respond favorably; many will resist and reject. “Precious ones” are to be called forth from “Babylon.” A compelling power will move the honest in heart and God will bring a restraint upon unbelieving relatives and friends so that they will dare not nor find it possible to hinder those who feel the work of the Spirit of God upon them. The last call will be carried even to the most downtrodden of humanity. Signs and wonders will follow the believers. God will be in the work, and every saint, fearless of consequences, will follow the convictions of his own conscience. The gospel message will close with power and strength. Servants of God will be endowed with power from on high to declare the message “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,” and souls scattered everywhere will answer the call.

What will give power to the message? Lifting up “Christ and Him crucified” in a clearer way than any movie, play-acting, or pictures can do. Why hasn’t Revelation 18 yet been fulfilled? We can’t lift up Christ crucified while we also lift up self un-crucified. But the Holy Spirit will solve that problem (see Zechariah 12:10 to 11:1). There is Good News before us.

October 15, 2004

I’ve probably read the story a dozen times but never picked up on this delightful little detail. While our Lord Jesus was being pummeled about, beaten, and abused and insulted in His final trials before Annas, Caiphas, Herod, and Pilate, He gave some thought to Mrs Pilate. Perhaps He had met her somewhere or seen her; evidently He knew about her. He knew that there was some streak of goodness in Pilate’s heart and He wanted to help him avoid the condemnation of the world in all ages. He saw some nascent desire there buried under all the selfish politics Pilate had known, to see justice done. So He prayed to His Father in heaven to send Pilate’s wife some message alerting her to what was going on. Apparently Pilate and his wife were faithful to each other, for the Father entrusted her with a message for him.

Blessed Jesus! Gracious and kind and loving, even in the midst of His own terrible trials! He had a heart for these two Gentiles who understood so little of the message which Israel had been commanded to proclaim to the world. The dream alarmed her (Matt. 27:19). What she saw was evidently the great controversy between Christ and Satan all at once; she even beheld Jesus of Nazareth, now on trial before her husband, coming in glory in the clouds of heaven. “Have nothing to do with that just man,” she said, “for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of Him.”

Pilate wanted to release Jesus, for he saw that justice required it. But the Satanic fury of the leaders of the one true church of that day unnerved him; when they threatened to tell on him to Caesar, he crumbled and gave his reluctant permission for Christ to be crucified. He burdened his conscience with a condemnation he never recovered from, so says secular history, unless perchance he heard what Jesus had prayed as He was dying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). But then, he “knew,” didn’t he?

We never hear about Mrs Pilate again. But she with the centurion who confessed, “Truly this was the Son of God” (27:54) bore her Gentile witness that He was “that just man.”

October 14, 2004

The yo-yo ride of the stock market plainly has thoughtful people concerned because the U.S. economy is tied to the world economy. Most of us have never experienced a genuine Depression where you are literally hungry and you have no roof over your head. Bible prophecy indicates that the final test that will determine whether a person truly serves God or joins in rebellion against Him, will be linked to economic security.

The stories in Daniel of a few of God’s people remaining loyal in the face of death (Daniel in the lion’s den, the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace) illustrate the dynamics of the final test of the seal of God or the mark of the beast (Rev. 7:1-4; 13:11-18). God’s true people are those who “love not their lives unto the death” (12:11). Their loyalty to Him is not mere fanatical stubbornness; they see the honor of God in the fiery trial as more important than their own security. And they will be the ones who will be so highly honored that they will be invited to “sit with [Christ] on His throne” (Rev. 3:20), the princes of the realm.

What will transform these world-loving, luxury-loving, gourmet diners into such heroes? They “overcome” “the great dragon” (Satan), “by the blood of the Lamb” (vs. 11). A heart-melting appreciation of what it cost the Son of God to save them, the comprehension of the reality of His sacrifice on His cross--this alone can motivate people who by nature revel in this world’s luxury to unite voluntarily with the One who said that He had not where to lay His head (Matt. 8:19, 20).

Overcoming the lure of the shopping sprees at the mall, learning to say No to appetite and covetousness (which is sin! see Col. 3:5)--this is possible for anyone who will “survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died.” And what will honor Him truly is the witness of those who do so voluntarily BEFORE they are driven to it by losing their wealth in a stock market crash, a world Depression, or even persecution.

October 13, 2004

God’s promise regarding Baal worship is tremendous Good News because it means He “will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5). Israel was in a terrible condition spiritually when the Lord sent him to King Ahab with his terrible news of drought and famine. But there was no other way to arouse the apostate people of God. Elijah was sent to them in love.

We want to be very careful that we know how to recognize “Elijah” when the Lord sends him again. Every one of us without exception should walk in fear and trembling lest we make the same mistake the Jews did in the days of John the Baptist. Their “Elijah” came and went and they had no idea what had happened! God always loves His people but He seems to take delight in taking them by surprise: ancient apostate Israel hated the messenger of the Lord when He sent him--Ahab and Jezebel wanted to kill him and when the leaders of the Jewish church saw the new “Elijah” in John the Baptist they didn’t recognize him. They said, “He has a devil” (Matt. 11:18).

Wouldn’t it be terrible if, in these last days we treated our new “Elijah” that way and didn’t know what we were doing? Their “Elijah” was a humble man notably not dressed in “soft raiment” as “in king’s houses” (vs. 8). Someone very humble, “despised and rejected of men” as was Jesus, may be “come already, and [we] not know him, but [do] to him whatever [we] wish” (17:12). Let’s study the story of John the Baptist.

God is faithful. Many people today “sigh and cry for all the abominations” they see in the “land” (cf. Ezek. 9:4), but let them not yield to sinful despair and “smite” their “fellowservants” in their frustration (cf. Matt. 24:48, 49). The “Elijah” message is here somewhere. Don’t misunderstand and overlook it!

October 12, 2004

Can you imagine a man can love a woman truly who becomes mean to him, and yet he can still love her? Such a love may be rare, but it is the kind of a love that “suffers long,” that “bears all things, . . . endures all things,” a love that “never fails” (1 Cor. 13:4-8; yes, don’t marvel: that word translated there as “love” is agape which is not only the spiritual love of Christ for us--it is also conjugal love, the love of a man for a woman, see Ephesians 5:25 where we read the same word in “husbands, love your wives.” That is a love beyond the “chemistry” that is mere sexual passion in a brief infatuation. It’s the kind of love similar to that of Abraham Lincoln when he gave Mary Todd a ring inscribed, “Love is eternal”).

Can you imagine the conjugal love that Jesus has for a church that He says is His “wife”? It’s a love that is more than mere pity or compassion or forgiveness; the love of a husband for a “wife” who has mistreated him when he still loves her is the kind of love that “controls” him--and that’s the love Christ has for His bride-to-be, His church (Eph. 5:25; Rev. 19:7, 8). He does not stand toward her as a Judge, but as a Lover. True, His church is feeble, defective, and unfaithful; but He still cannot turn from her to another “woman,” mysterious as that love may be for us to understand. He simply loves “one.”

The love that is agape does not depend on the goodness or value of its object, but it creates value in its object. A heart response to that love will motivate His church to “make herself ready” for “the marriage of the Lamb.”

October 11, 2004

The last two verses of the Old Testament give us the wonderful Good News that the Lord will send us “Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5, 6). Elijah’s specialty mission had been to confront the apostasy of Baal worship. This fact that Elijah is to return during the last days raises a reasonable question: could it be that the reason for the Lord sending him back is that the ancient worship of Baal is again current among us?

The merest suggestion that we have a problem with Baal worship creates abhorrence: “Impossible! We may be worldly and backsliding, but we’re not that bad!” Then why does the Lord say that we need Elijah to come back? On quiet reflection we begin to realize that something is wrong with our spiritual devotion. Could it be “Baal worship,” and what is it? It was prevalent in Elijah’s day, but Jeremiah wrote a book (Elijah didn’t!) describing what it was. Some points of identity emerge:

(1) It was an unconscious apostasy in ancient Israel which crept upon the nation surreptitiously (see Jer. 2:23, 25; 16:10, 11; 11:13, 18, where the people deny its existence).

(2) It was combined with the worship of the true Lord and God in His Temple in Jerusalem, so it was difficult for anyone to tell where one began and the other ended. It was all woven together (7:9, 10, 30).

(3) The religious leaders at the headquarters of the nation aided and abetted this process of amalgamation (23:11, 13, 15, 26, 27).

(4) Elijah and Jeremiah themselves would not have been able to discern the subtle presence of the apostasy had they not been enlightened by the gift of prophecy (1 Kings 17:1, Elijah cited “the Lord God of Israel” as his authority; Jer. 11:18).

Modern Baal worship is serious: it is the worship of self disguised as the worship of Christ. Therefore religious leaders are terribly prone to it, for they are often flattered by the people. God, save us!

October 10, 2004

Is the story of the “burning fiery furnace” in Daniel 3 pious fiction? Or authentic history? Historical and archaeological research confirms supportive details: such brick kilns were common; Jeremiah 29:22 tells the history of how King Nebuchadnezzar “roasted in the fire” two seditious Jews; another Babylonian king boasted of burning some political enemies--evidence that this method of execution was actually practiced; Herodotus and Pliny tell of ancient kings who built huge statues covered with gold leaf.

The deliverance from death by fire had been promised: “When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.” Doubtless the three Hebrew youth thrown in the fire had cherished this assurance. The promise “I will be with you” was literally fulfilled (Isa. 43:2). “The Son of God” shared the “furnace” with them, as even the pagan king confessed (Dan. 3:25).

This is the point of Daniel 3: will we believe that the Son of God shares our sufferings for His sake? Will He give divine courage to “stand up” when everybody else bows down? The apostle Peter collapsed when the test came to him (Matt. 26:69-75); in fact, all the eleven disciples ran away. Many Israelites had been exiled to Babylon when Daniel and his three companions went, but none of them had the courage to obey God’s ten commandments except these four! Granted, the three who faced the fiery furnace were terrified at the prospect of death by fire; but they sensed that they were called to honor the truth of God before the assembled leaders of an empire. He gave them courage, even if God should choose not to deliver them from death (Dan, 3:16-18; this was a selfless motivation inspired by agape).

A similar final test will come to us all in the “mark of the beast” crisis (Rev. 13:11-17). The Good News: right now worldwide the Holy Spirit is preparing, nerving, strengthening, training, willing people to endure the test. Fellowship with Christ in “fire” is precious, even today as we honor Him in school, in college, at work, at home.

October 9, 2004

There is a fascinating story in Daniel 2, telling how the intelligentsia of ancient Babylon were up to the minute in their modern counterfeit idea of God. The rock-bottom basis of their false idea is held today by millions.

The king (Nebuchadnezzar, a real historical figure, by the way) had understood enough to know that there is somewhere in the universe a true God. He had blindly trusted the religious leaders of his empire, assuming they were in touch with whoever this “God” is. The true God of heaven had given him what we now know was a prophetic dream with tremendous import. But God also gave the king a temporary spasm of amnesia so that events could disillusion him. He correctly decided that if the religious leaders of his empire were indeed in touch with “God,” whoever He was, they could learn from Him the details of his prophetic vision and explain it.

Good thinking! But they were stumped. The king was in distress; it seemed that the fate of the world depended on his understanding this strange divine revelation (in a way, it did!). He demanded that they earn their salary by demonstrating their “superior” wisdom. Impossible, they said; no one on earth could do what you want “except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh” (2:11).

And there lies the root of all religious falsehood, even some so-called “Christian.” The Bible says there are “many false prophets” today (as there were in Babylon). Their fundamental idea? The same as “the Chaldeans--it “does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, . . . and this is the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:1, 2, NKJV).

The Babylonians believed there is a “God,” but not one who has taken upon Himself our “flesh,” “the likeness of sinful flesh,” who “took part” of the same fallen “flesh and blood” that all we “children” of the fallen Adam by nature possess. In that same “flesh” that we have, Christ “condemned sin” so that “the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled” in all who will simply have “the faith of Jesus” (see Rom. 8:3, 4; Heb. 2:14-17; Rev. 14:12).

Daniel gave the king Good News. Let’s believe it!

October 8, 2004

It is interesting to think about Mary, the mother of Jesus our Savior. She was as human as anyone else on this planet. The Bible makes clear: there was nothing special about her that sets her off as different from the rest of humanity, except one thing: SHE BELIEVED THE WORD OF THE LORD. We find that when, newly pregnant, she came to the hill country where Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist lived, Elizabeth greeted her by saying, “Blessed is she that believed” (Luke 1:45).

You’d think that the mother of the Messiah would be the happiest woman ever. But she knew our sorrows, our loneliness, our pain. And she said, “My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior” (vs. 47). She knew her need for a Savior from, not in, sin.

But no other woman in all of history ever had a giant sword thrust through her “own soul,” as the one that the old prophet Simeon predicted would happen to her (2:34, 35). Elizabeth had said she should be preeminently “blessed among women” (that is, especially happy), but Simeon said she must also be preeminently wounded among women by the “pierce” of that “sword.” (This teaches us that God has a special regard for the sorrows women have to endure.) Seeing her son crucified was a cruel experience. You can’t imagine a worse one.

But there was pain greater than her mother-pain. She knew that her Son was born to be the Savior of the world; now, what could His death (on a cross, of all places!) mean? Was this the end of the plan of salvation for the world itself? She may not have understood “the great controversy between Christ and Satan” as clearly as we do today, but it would have been natural for her to have agonized throughout that painful “three days and three nights” while her Son lay in Joseph’s tomb. It seemed that the very foundations of heaven itself had crumbled, and that Satan must emerge finally victorious.

God has an agenda for His people. We are to “grow up” out of our childish concern for self so we can share the concern that Jesus has for His triumph in the “great controversy.” Will this not be the loving concern of a Bride for her “Husband,” the Lamb? “Abiding in Him” involves a deeper intimacy.

October 7, 2004

When Jesus cried out on His cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46), had the Father truly forsaken Him? It seemed so to Him. All His feelings told Him so. Everything was against Him. His “church,” His nation, had turned totally against Him. The supposed guardian of civil justice, the government of Rome through Pilate had abandoned Him to mob injustice. Little things that He had said, like “destroying this Temple and I will build it in three days,” were being misquoted, distorted, and used against Him, condemning Him as both a fool and a blasphemer.

His entire lifework and career were a monumental failure, it seemed to Him now. He was suffering the quintessence of an experience many Christians have come to know personally as “the Great Disappointment.”

The very bottom falls out of your “Christian experience” and you start descending into a bottomless pit of darkness and despair. The rent rocks in the earthquake that accompanied the darkness of Calvary were a fit emblem of the state of the mind of the incarnate Son of God--Psalm 22 tells us that He was on the verge of a final collapse of soul, a nervous breakdown (vss. 11-19)

Worse yet, Jesus felt to the core of His being the pain of being forsaken by His own intimate circle. He had called them “My friends” (Luke 12:4). The lovable Peter had cursed and denied Him, and then they all had left Him--alone. Even His faithful mother was suffering her “Great Disappointment” when that giant sword had “pierced [her] soul” as Simeon had predicted (Luke 2:34, 35). She was in the greatest shock any woman has ever had to endure. Her whole life was in ruin--the very foundations of her faith in God were shattered; it seemed that she had been deluded from the beginning. (But there was something even yet worse, but that must come tomorrow.)

Then on His cross Jesus remembered that He was “a child of Abraham,” and He chose to cling to His faith in the New Covenant promises God had made to Him as Abraham’s “Seed” (Gal. 3:16). Now, thank God, you can, too.

October 6, 2004

Someone writes us with a question: Why do we always pray “Thy will be done” when we pray for someone very sick? We give the Lord an excuse not to answer our prayer! Why don’t we exercise more confidence and pray for the miracle of healing, period? “Our will be done!” Isn’t that faith?

There was once a very good king on David’s throne who did everything right, who became mortally sick. Hezekiah was young, only about 40, when Isaiah told him his sickness would end in death (38:1-3). He prayed for healing with no “Thy will be done.” The Lord granted his preemptive demand, adding 15 years (vs. 5). But they became a curse; he sired Manasseh, the worst king ever to sit on David’s throne (he led the kingdom to eventual ruin, Jer. 15:4); he allowed pride and vanity to sully his life record; he invited the Babylonians to covet his kingdom’s wealth (Isa. 39:1-8). He was healed but we read that “God left him, to try him, that he [the king] might know all that was in his heart” (2 Chron. 32:31). Good king Hezekiah became an example of unknown sin. He would have been wise if he had prayed, “Lord, heal me, IF it be Thy will.” He could have been the finest king ever to sit on David’s throne. But he left a sad record of the horror of self-righteousness. “I have walked before Thee . . . with a perfect heart,” he tearfully claimed. Pathetic! Maybe so, past tense; but he didn’t know the truth of what was in his heart. It all came out, future tense.

There are some things worse than death.

The Lord granted Elisha more miracles in answer to prayer than any other prophet; yet when he became ill the Lord chose to let him die of his illness (2 Kings 13:14). In the judgment day at last, Elisha will be glad he agreed for God’s will to be done. “God is love [agape],” all the way through.

October 5, 2004

There are some people who seem to live on cloud nine all the time. They are always smiling, laughing, their very nature seems to be upbeat. Confidence exudes from them. You could say that for them life is a continual picnic. They are described in the Bible like this: “He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast” (Prov. 15:15). The world would say that they are of a sanguine disposition. Their merry heart “maketh a cheerful countenance” (vs. 13).

But there are others of whom the world would say that they are of a melancholy disposition. The Bible describes them too, in contrast: “By sorrow of heart the spirit is broken.” “All the days of the afflicted are evil.” In the long run it’s debatable which of the two groups is better off. In His incarnation, the Son of God knew what it is to be “despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). The first words of His Sermon on the Mount are, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, . . . blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:3, 4). Psalm 73 discusses this dichotomy at length. Those who “are not in trouble as other men . . . [nor so] plagued” may more easily wander away from the Lord. But those who feel “chastened every morning” may be star students in the Lord’s classroom, being disciplined for some special ministry of joy (vss. 3-14).

What everyone is invited to know is the peace of heart that comes in believing the Lord’s New Covenant promises. Remember, for a very long time Abraham and Sarah seemed not to enjoy that “continual feast” until their heart yearnings were finally granted in the birth of Isaac. If you believe in the Lord Jesus, you are already a child of Abraham (Rom. 4:12-21) and therefore “heirs” of the same promises he clung to by faith. So, read those promises again (Gen. 12:2, 3) and take them to your heart. They are yours!

October 4, 2004

I am indebted to Jacques B. Doukhan (DANIEL: THE VISION OF THE END, p. 14) for a suggestion that may help us understand a fascinating problem in Daniel 2. God gives king Nebuchadnezzar a most impressive dream of the great image with the head of gold succeeded by kingdoms of inferior metals until finally the image is struck by a huge rock from heaven that crushes everything into a pile of dust that is blown away by a hurricane wind. The giant stone then fills the earth as an everlasting kingdom of God (vss. 31-35).

The problem: how could the king possibly “forget” such an impressive dream and yet retain a foreboding conviction from it? He told his Chaldeans, “The word is gone forth from me” (vs. 5). Doukhan cites several scholars who have an inkling of what happened: an unconscious function of the king’s mind was seeking to banish the judgment of God from his mind; he was demonstrating a classic example of Romans 2:28--pagans “did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” He arrogantly wanted to banish “the God of heaven” and take His place on earth with a never-ending kingdom in rebellion against Him (some others have also wished the same, such as Charlemagne, Charles V, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin).

This unconscious function of the human mind was begun in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve first sinned. Their sin was far, far greater than merely eating an “apple;” deep inside was the guilt of deicide. That guilt would have killed them then and there if they had fully realized its dimensions. They were crucifying the Son of God, but didn’t comprehend it! Therefore their human mind began a function of repression--“they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” Ever since, “the carnal mind is enmity against God,” and “enmity” is always preparatory to murder (1 John 3:15). All of us humans therefore share the corporate guilt of the crucifixion of Christ, but it’s our great unconscious sin.

But Daniel says there was a streak of honesty in Nebuchadnezzar’s heart. Is there, in yours and mine?

October 3, 2004

It seems a coincidence that today millions of Christians are directing their attention to the book of Daniel which describes great events that happened in what is now Iraq, and at the same time the presidential debate this week directs world attention to modern day Iraq. History says it was the cradle of civilization. The Bible places the end events of world history in the same locale. But the book of Revelation makes clear that the great city of “Babylon” is now a symbol of global spiritual confusion.

The Enemy of God loves to cloud the books of Daniel and Revelation with that confusion. But we don’t have to be confused; the two books are clear as bright sunlight if we permit the Lord Jesus to teach us to “read” them and “hear” them. He commands us to “read” and “understand” Daniel (Matt. 24:15), and He promises to “bless” anyone who “reads” and “listens” to Revelation (1:1-3). And He gives us the key that resolves the confusion: the two books are explained and fulfilled within the human history that extends from Daniel’s day to ours. And every human soul is called to “come out of [Babylon],” for “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” Babylon [spiritual confusion] is everywhere, but God’s Holy Spirit is also everywhere providing a refuge for everyone who will heed heaven’s call.

The Lord Jesus didn’t tell us to listen to scholars talk about Daniel; He said to “read” and “understand” the book itself. Nor did He tell us to speculate and invent theories about Revelation; He said he will bless the person who will “read” the book itself or listen to someone read it! The same angel Gabriel whom He sent to help Daniel understand (10:10-14) will be sent to help you understand. Jesus promised His disciples, “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper [Comforter, KJV]. . . . [who will] teach you all things” (John 14:16-26).

Confusion is lethal. Get on your knees with the open Bible before you, and claim those divine promises, unworthy as you may feel yourself to be. Pray in the name of Jesus. As if your life depended on it, “read” and “understand” those two books in your Bible.

October 2, 2004

Someone writes a letter inquiring: “Is it possible that people today can become devil-possessed as Mary Magdalene was long ago?” More particularly the question narrows down closer: “If a girl or young woman has been sexually abused, raped, deceived, and seduced, is it possible that the results in her psychic makeup can become the equivalent of devil-possession?”

Jesus has given us permission to come to the Father, His Father, and ask Him any question we wish, and He has promised that the Father will not disdain us (John 16:23-27). The evidence that you are indeed a child of God is that your heart cries out to the Father: “You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The [Holy] Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:14-16). In your tears you see that “witness.”

So the answer is Yes. But even if a human soul is possessed by every demon in hell, the Holy Spirit of God is stronger and will cast them all out if one comes to Jesus. He has promised: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). That’s a promise to hang on to!

There is “power” in “the truth of the gospel” that casts evil out of the human heart (Gal. 2:5, 14; Rom. 1:16). Paul says that there is “another gospel” besides the “true” one (Gal. 1:6-9). But the true gospel is the one that lifts up “Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:1, 2). Jesus promised that if He is so “lifted up,” He will “draw all to [Himself]” (John 12:32, 33). John says that “God is love,” but the word in the original is AGAPE, a different kind of love than anyone on earth can invent: it “casts out fear” and fear is the elixir of devil possession, “because fear involves torment” (1 John 4:8, 18). Satan wants to distort, pervert, and confuse what happened on the cross when Jesus gave Himself for us. But you can get it straight: He died the second death of the human race, “He poured out His soul unto death,” the real thing (Isa. 53:12), He went to hell in order to save us. That “truth” is powerful!

October 1, 2004

What can we as individuals do to help in this world’s troubles?

• What can any one of us do to help with what Colin Powell must honestly declare is genocide in Darfur, Sudan? He himself doesn’t know what to do--international politics is involved. The pictures TIME shows us are horrendous.

• What can any one of us do to help in Iraq? Again, the daily news is “men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth” (Luke 21:26).

• What can any one of us do to help our wounded state of Florida? Jesus used this word, “distress of nations [peoples, states], with perplexity” in describing life today (vs. 25). Among those who have been hit four times with wild winds and floods there is deep psychological pain as well as economic ruin. There is a marked increase
  of suicides, and crushing emotional “distress.” Even those fortunate enough to have insurance must face a repeated deduction for damage from each hurricane. There are many who consider themselves “ruined.” And these people are not across the oceans somewhere; they are within our national borders.

• We in our fortunate 49 states can help with money.

• But people need to understand where God is. What do these troubles mean? A wise writer said once that as we near the final events of this earth’s history, we shall “need a faith that can endure weariness, hunger, and delay.” The people in Darfur need it; so do the people in Iraq, and the people in Israel and Palestine. And, dear people in Florida--we in our 49 states can put ourselves in your place: “if one member suffers,” says Paul of our human body, “all the members suffer with it” (1 Cor. 12:26).

• In the ruin that once befell Jerusalem, Jeremiah said: “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not, they are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. . . . Let us search and examine our ways, and turn back to the Lord. Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven” (Lam. 3:22-41).

• It’s a great chapter to read just now! Let’s remember: “We brought nothing into this world. . . . Having food and clothing, with these we shall be content” (1 Tim. 6:6-8). Yes, we choose to believe and trust the Lord!