Daily Bread  -  June, 2007

by Robert J. Wieland

The Samaritans were right when they declared Jesus of Nazareth to be “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42). He is not just the Savior of the Jews. They discerned that it is He who “gives life to the world” (John 6:33).

The Father “laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). He has “tasted death for every man” (Heb. 2:9). He is a cosmic Savior, “the last Adam” who is the true “Father” of the human race having taken over the lordship of the world from the first Adam (1 Cor. 15:21, 22).

Thus Christ has reversed the evil that the first Adam brought on the entire human race (Rom. 5:15-18). The Samaritans at the village Sychar knew nothing of what Romans and Hebrews were later to declare, but they were dead right in their conclusion about who Jesus is. (And they didn’t ask any theologians!)

If the Samaritans were right (and they were!), then Christ also is the world’s great “High Priest” that Hebrews talks about so much (2:17, 3:1, 4:14, etc.), not just the high priest of the Jews or of the professing Christians.

And if so (and it is true!), then the great antitypical Day of Atonement is the world’s Day of Atonement! Fox, CNN, the NY Times, Time, Newsweek, all should be trumpeting the news everywhere.

According to Revelation 18:1-4, they will—when the “earth [is] lightened” with the glory of the good news. The Enemy can not succeed forever in keeping that truth of the fourth angel’s message “from the world.” The Lord Christ is to be “crowned King of kings and Lord of lords” and His “angel” knows how to get the attention of the world.

And all this glorious good news need not await another century; all the Lord needs is a people who will not further oppose the message, but whom He will be safe to put on the stage for the intense scrutiny of the world (and of the universe!), a people in whom He and His truth can be glorified, a people who have “grown up” out of their spiritual infancy to become “the Lamb’s wife” (Eph. 4:15; Rev. 19:7, 8).

Isn’t that a truth worth living for, worth giving your all for?

The story of Joseph in the Bible is no fairy tale; Egyptian history and archeology attest how true to historic life the details are.

It fits well in the Hyksos era, for the Pharaohs were not native Egyptians. They could well have employed a Hebrew in a high government post.

Egyptian records show how there came a change in national economy when all the land except in temples was acquired by the crown. We can trust our Bible story!

Is Joseph a type of the church that will proclaim a message that “lightens the earth with glory” in our last days?

This special church is given “the spirit of prophecy” as Joseph was gifted (see Rev. 12:17; 19:10).

It must pass the test of moral purity, as Joseph passed the test with Potiphar’s wife tempting him. “Fornication” or “adultery” is not to be even mentioned among that people who “overcome even as Christ overcame” (Rev. 3:21).

The church that proclaims a message that lightens the earth with glory will suffer persecution, as Joseph suffered it from his brothers and even his father.

The last-days’ message will save people; lives will be changed; characters will become “at one” with God. Joseph saved many people’s lives; the “remnant church” will proclaim a message that will lead many souls to eternal life.

But every one who will partake of the blessing will know first-hand “the chastening of the Lord” (Heb. 12:5-12). That will make more distinct how much the Lord loves him/her! That agape will be the dominant element of the final message.

What does it mean to “glory ... in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” as the apostle says in Galatians 6:14—“God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”? To “glory” in something is to revel in it, to be absorbed in it, to think of it day and night, to live for it; we do that all the time when we “glory” in our speed boat, or in our wardrobe, or in our palace-like house, or even in our garden, or in our special abilities that make people envy us. How can we learn to “glory in the cross”?

To “glory” in earthly things is idolatry; and the end is boredom (the nursing homes are full of people who have spent their lives in various forms of idolatry and now have nothing to live for).

To “glory in the cross of Christ” would be a delightful experience if one knew how to do it; but what does the cross mean to us?

Christ suffered for us, but the soldiers who are dying in Iraq are also suffering; some of them lie in agony, wounded, for longer times than Jesus suffered on His cross. What is so special about the suffering of Jesus? When Paul “gloried in the cross” the world itself was “crucified to [him]” and he was “dead” to its alluring temptations; the cross of Christ had done something for him and to him. The love (agape) demonstrated there impacted him so deeply that “henceforth” he was “constrained” to devote himself to the cause and mission of Christ; he was “crucified with Christ” (2:20). It wasn’t because Paul was a super-hero; he was a sinner by nature as much as any of us; he said he was “less than the least of all sinners” (Eph. 3:8).

What the apostle “saw” we can “see” today: the death that Jesus died on His cross was not the ordinary “death” we know; He died “the second death” (Rev. 2:11; 20:12-15), which meant under “the curse of God,” the horror of the endless darkness of hell; and Christ suffered it for every human soul on earth (Gal. 3:13; Heb. 2:9). Let the solemn truth stretch your mind and “enlarge [your] heart” as David prays (Psalm 119: 32), so you can “comprehend” its vast dimensions (Eph. 3:14-19).

The last book of the Holy Bible is “the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place” (1:1).

This presupposes that God has people on earth whom He acknowledges as “His servants” who appreciate the gift of this “Revelation.”

Throughout history “the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity whose name is holy [who] dwells in the high and holy place” has had those “servants.” They have always been of “a contrite and humble spirit” who “tremble at [His] word,” not in fear or abject terror but with holy excitement as they have traced in history the fulfillment of that “prophecy” (Isa. 57:15; 66:2). A special angel had “signified” the holy “revelation” in symbolic language that enabled inspiration to tell a vast amount of truth in only a few words (Rev. 1:1), words that scoffers and fools might despise but which God’s “servants” would reverence until the end of time.

One such “contrite” person was a man now almost universally despised for his part in sacred history—William Miller, honored by those who knew him as “father Miller.” A veteran of the War of 1812, he did his share of mocking the holy Word until the Holy Spirit solemnized his heart as he was reading a sermon about the cross of Christ one Sunday morning; he broke down in tears and spent the remainder of his life seeking to lead others to reverence the Bible and its Author.

There has now arisen a new movement that rehabilitates this man and honors him for his ministry in recognizing the “day for a year” principle of symbolism in understanding Daniel and the Revelation. There was in the early 19th century a cadre of sober-minded young men bent on studying out the application and fulfillment of those prophecies. They were led by the Holy Spirit as the responders to the inspired two books. Christ has not always been “crucified afresh,” for there have always been some who have consecrated their all in the energetic study of His Word.

Be one of them!

The Jews of old waited long for their Messiah to come, and many said, “The days are prolonged, and every vision fails” (Ez. 12:22).

But their Messiah came, precisely on time according to the prophecy of Daniel (9:24-26). Furthermore, Daniel had foretold His rejection and crucifixion (vs. 26). Some precious few in Jerusalem were “awake” and ready to welcome Him (Simeon, Anna; Luke 2:25-36). All might have been!

Now we have again come to a time when many say, “Every vision fails”! Ezekiel describes our time: “Son of man, look, the house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision that he sees is for many days from now, and he prophesies of times far off’” (12:27). What is “the house of Israel”? The “angel of the church of the Laodiceans” (Rev. 3:14-21). The “times afar off?” The coming of the Lord Jesus the second time.

It used to be that those who reverence the books of Daniel and Revelation expected that the “this generation [that] shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” was the generation that recognized the “signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars” (Matt. 24:31; Luke 21:25); they followed the chronology of Archbishop Usher who worked out the “time” of world existence to be some “6000 years.” But, confused and perplexed because it seems that “every vision fails,” many are trying to work out some kind of synthesis between “short chronology” of the earth and the indefinite time periods apparently dictated by “science.” Result: faith in the nearness of the Lord’s return wanes.

To abandon that faith is like jumping off a precipice into a fearful black hole of despair. Let’s let Ezekiel finish his paragraph: “Thus says the Lord God: ... in your days, O rebellious house, I will say the word and perform it, ... the word which I speak will be done’” (vss. 23-28). It may be lonely standing atop a precipice; but if it’s the word of God, stand!

We all wish that the Bible could tell us more about the earthly life of Jesus, the divine Son of God, what He was like when He was with us “in the flesh” as a man, as a child, as a youth. Luke spends a little time telling us some, in his chapter two (vss. 40ff), but we long for more.

For example, when Jesus prayed, how did He pray? We read often that He prayed, and one prayer we have (John 17); but what would it have been like to listen to Him pray?

We have a vivid picture in Hebrews 5 where He is compared (and contrasted) with the earthly high priests (the words “so also”):

(a) He, like they, “is taken from among men” (vs. 1). Jesus must be one of us!

 

(b) He has “compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since He also Himself is beset by weakness” (vs. 2). Note: Jesus was not beset by His own sin, for He had none; but He was beset by the kind of our “weakness” that left Him utterly dependent on His Father. He is needy, one of us!

 

(c) He “did not glorify Himself to become High Priest” but was “appointed” by the Father (vs. 5, 6). He did not push Himself.

 

(d) “In the days of His flesh ... He ... offered up prayers and supplications” (vs, 7): two words—the latter derived from the custom of an utterly bereft suppliant carrying an olive-branch (Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words). He begged the Father for help!

 

(e) When Jesus prayed, it was “with vehement cries and tears” (vs. 7). We say He was “broken up.” The climax of course came in Gethsemane when He prayed so “vehemently” that He sweat blood (Mark 14:33, 34; Luke 22:44), but He came near to that many times in His prayers.

 

(f) As one of us, He begged to be “saved from death” (vs. 7), the most anxious praying imaginable. “Death” to Him meant the second death.

 

(g) He was “heard because of His godly fear,” not because He was the Son of God! As one of us, He had humble reverence for God!

Just before Jesus was to be crucified, His disciples wanted to show Him their glorious Temple, in their eyes the wonder of the world. As they were able to grasp that He was the long-awaited Messiah, they naturally associated His coming “kingdom” with the glories of their Temple.

Its coming ruin was the most ignominious national ruin in the history of the world (70 A.D.), more devastating than Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction (586 B.C.), more horrible than the Sack of Rome (410 A.D.). In Matthew 24 Jesus lovingly cautions us of a similar devastation to come before He can return the second time. Imagine the disciples’ bewilderment when He tells them that of its huge stones “not one ... would be left ... one ... upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

He was especially concerned that we not be “deceived,” for over a dozen times He mentions some aspect of spiritual deception or apostasy that will ruin the souls of “many.”

(1) The name of “Christ” or “Christian” will cover a huge amount of poisonous deception (vss. 5, 23, 24, 26). He cannot copyright His name.

 

(2) A large part of the “deceiving” will be “lawlessness,” which is anti-agape in spirit (vs. 12; that’s the word in the original).

 

(3) Because the agape will “grow cold,” it means those who have that experience will have professed the service of Christ; in other words, they are church members.

 

(4) Anti-agape is the spirit that pervades the lukewarmness of the world church of Laodicea. Why? It humbles self.

 

(5) The experience of agape is what happens when the soul understands the “breadth and length and depth and height” of agape (Eph. 3:14-17), the love that drove the Son of God to go to “hell” to find us and die our second death (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14, 15); that agape “constrains” the believer to take up his cross and follow Jesus—it’s the cross on which self is “crucified with Christ”(Gal. 2:20).

 

(6) But there’s a big BUT in what Jesus says: “But ... this gospel ... will be preached in all the world ...” (vss. 13, 14).

 

(7) And there is the great angel of Revelation 18:1-4. Lukewarmness is impossible in the light of his message!

Meet Mr. Bezaleel, someone you probably don’t remember. He stands as one of the worthy members of the cast of heroes in the Bible story, but he gets neglected. He didn’t kill a Goliath as David did or tame lions in their den as Daniel did, but he was as blessed as they were with a special gift of the Holy Spirit that needs recognition today.

Mr. Bezaleel was gifted by the Holy Spirit in ways that we don’t normally recognize as His gifts: he gets a significant write-up in the Bible with his genealogy as a craftsman working in gold, silver, bronze, wood-carving and the like. But he is designated as being “filled with the Spirit of God” (Ex. 35:30-36:2). We have been naïve in assuming that the Holy Spirit blesses only (or mainly) with spiritual knowledge—that it’s on a higher plane of living. “Every wise hearted man in whose heart the LORD hath put wisdom” is on the same level (36:2).

Mr. Bezaleel can be the patron saint of all who have developed a special intricate expertise in a profession that is a blessing to life on planet earth, the “knowledge [that] shall be increased” promised to Daniel (12:4).

So, the gentleman who takes my crumpled Passat and makes it look new again (in Nairobi we call such, “panel beaters”), who has given him that skill? Exodus 35, 36 says, “the Holy Spirit.”

The physician spends long years memorizing all the little bones and nerves in your body, studying how diseases work, that he might be a blessing to you; the Holy Spirit gives him that skill. The rich man is not to “glory in his riches” (Jer. 9:23), neither is the physician to glory in his skill, but that he “understands and knows Me,” says the Lord, that I am “love” manifested in constant “lovingkindness.” Thank God when you are healed; it was really “the Great Physician” working through His servant (who may not even know who he is).

All this talk about “old/new covenant” may be perplexing to someone who honestly wonders what it’s all about, what’s the difference. We could apologize for bringing it up, but then we can’t—it’s in the Bible almost everywhere.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus “by night” (old covenant people love the dark) with some old covenant flattery (“we know You are a teacher come from God”) and gets a stark new covenant response: “The son of man must be lifted up so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:1-15).

The fear-laden jailer in Philippi asks an old covenant question, “What MUST I DO to be saved?” and gets a new covenant answer: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:30, 31). (No obeying the law? “Believe” and there will be no end to your law-obedience.)

The 23rd psalm is probably the most new-covenantish chapter in the entire Bible (forgive me for coining a word!). Nothing about “the law”? Not a word about “doing” anything except following where the Good Shepherd “leads”? The old covenanter (again, forgive me!) would probably re-write it, “The Lord is my Dog who DRIVES me home” ( no, that’s not the idea). The Shepherd psalm is the “Come unto Me and I will give you rest” idea (cf. Matt. 11:28-30).

The LORD who is your Shepherd is the special name for the “our Father which art in heaven” who loves to hear us cry, “Abba, Father!” when we are in distress (Matt. 6:9, KJV; Rom. 8:15, 16). The very fact that your perplexed heart cries out those words is proof that He has “adopted” you into the family of God (a 23rd psalm idea). Read Romans 8 carefully, to see who you are.

The new covenant truth: you are not a “wolf” to be shot down; you are a “lamb” (a prodigal son) who has gone astray. That same LORD is the “father” who welcomes the prodigal home and puts the best robe on him (Luke 15:22). Flee where you wish but you can’t escape that new covenant love that pursues you (Psalm 139:9-12).

You are praying for someone, a loved one; your heart is drawn out for that person. It’s the real thing, for you find yourself willing to be “accursed from Christ” for the sake of that person (cf. Rom. 9:1). That’s the genuine article that the Bible says is agape.

Moses had that kind of love, for he begged the Lord to remove his name from the Book of Life if He could not save rebellious Israel (Ex. 32:31-33).

The very intensity of your agape praying for your loved one is evidence that the Lord hears your prayers; He will not deceive you! And now you have something in common with the Lord Jesus, for He loves that person more than you have ever loved him/her. Now you two are working together!

Very likely your beloved has somewhere become alienated from “the commonwealth of Israel” (Eph. 2:12) because he/she has been inoculated with the virus of the old covenant, possibly in a “Christian” school or church. The “old covenant” “genders to bondage” (Gal. 4:24). There are probably millions around the world in various stages of spiritual bondage because of the machinations of old covenant thinking.

But do not give in to despair; you may be part (or a great deal) of the problem and not realize it, but now that you realize you have something in common with the Lord Jesus, you are on the way to recovery. If the agape of Christ leads you to experience the love that the apostle Paul or Moses had for Israel, that means that you have begun (maybe only begun!) to sense that the great controversy between Christ and Satan is an issue of greater importance than your own personal salvation. You are “growing up into Christ” (Eph. 4:15). Now your supreme concern is not (a) your own salvation, but (b) the salvation of someone else, and (c) the honor, the vindication, the reward that the Lord Jesus deserves for His great sacrifice of dying the world’s second death (Rev. 20:14). “Big idea”!

When the Holy Spirit outpouring of the latter rain comes, will it sweep like a tidal wave throughout the church? Let history speak and tell us something:

An example is the birth of Jesus. The coming of Jesus of Nazareth did not do that for the scribes and Pharisees in Jerusalem. The great Messiah, the “Desire of all nations,” anticipated throughout the world, came in that humble birth of a Baby in a cowshed.

A handful of “wise men from the East” responded to the call of the Holy Spirit; in Jerusalem here was Anna, a very old woman, who came to see Him (Luke 2:32), and there was old Simeon who was ecstatic with joy at His birth (vss. 25ff.); but beyond them, no one that gets a mention in the Bible.

Apparently the lesson is clear: when the latter rain comes, no one will get a morsel of bread except the hungry ones who are famished for it, and no one will get a drink of water except the desperately thirsty ones. The latter rain may be falling in copious showers of grace all around us and we slip through the grand experience untouched, only to embrace a counterfeit cleverly done up by the “father of lies.” And then we would collide with the “mark of the beast” test—unprepared.

Some fearing and trembling is appropriate now.

“The high and lofty One who inhabits eternity” is wide awake and is responding to prayers that are arising here and there throughout the world. He “dwells in the high and holy place” but “also [only] with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isa. 57:15). He pays special attention to the prayers of “him who ... trembles at My word,” He says (66:2).

All around the world He is doing that today. Things are happening, beneath the surface.

Are you within His little circle?

The last page of the Bible invites us to come if we are thirsty, and “take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17). And Jesus says, “Come to Me” if we’re weary and heavy-laden, and He will give us “rest” (Matt. 11:28-30). So, we “come” and we are baptized, and we become members of the church. We are so happy at last to find fellowship in the Lord, heaven on earth.

And we continue to “read the Bible, and pray, and witness” like we’re always told to do. And we believe the Bible and say so, but then opposition and controversy arise. We’re tempted to wish that we had kept still. So, we are driven to our knees to pray, and we ask the Lord, “Why is this happening? I wanted peace, and now this ‘war’ has come!”

The Lord has indeed promised, “the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out”! (John 6:37). As you wait quietly before Him in prayer, He answers your questions faithfully: 

(a) If you keep your eyes on Jesus you will see a Man who was cruelly crucified because He told the truth. And He tells us all, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). Deny self, take up your cross daily (Luke 9:23). But wait a moment—you never fight a battle alone! This is what you must believe.

 

(b) He faithfully promises, “‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’” (Heb. 13:5, 6). You choose not to be afraid, in the Lord. Then ... you’re not afraid.

 

(c) Even in the church, the Lord’s house, where we expect to find heaven on earth, we find conflict and even persecution. That’s where the most severe and painful conflicts come! But the Lord still assures you, He won’t forsake you.

 

(d) He loves the church for it is yet to become the Bride of Christ; and it does indeed have very severe problems within it, for Jesus tells the leadership of the church today that of all the “seven churches” of world history, you are the one outstandingly “miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (the little Greek word “ho” is there, the one; Rev. 3:17).

 

(e) Therefore do not give up on the church, the body of Christ, His Bride-to-be. The final victory in the “great controversy between Christ and Satan” comes at the very end and it requires that the church finally “overcome” and do what He says in Rev. 3:19—repent . It won’t at last be fear that motivates her, but a deeper appreciation of what it cost Him to save us. That melted-hearted repentance will come, it has to come; hang on!

If there is anyone out there in the world who feels unworthy of God’s goodness, let him think of the thief on the cross (the eventually believing one):

(1) His body is inert; all he has left are the functions of his eyes, his ears, his voice; so he can’t “do” any good works to merit God’s goodness. If he is saved at last, it must be totally “by grace.” The same with us.

 

(2) He sins even while he is crucified on his cross, for we read that he “reviled” the sinless Savior, the Son of God (Mark 15:32). He joined the unbelieving scribes and Pharisees and the rabble in ridiculing “the Son of God,” challenging Jesus to prove that He is the Son of God by coming down from the cross. He joined his fellow thief in this bitterness, and “cast the same in His teeth,” a vivid expression of his contempt (Matt. 27:44, KJV): “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe,” they mock; and our thief is joining in heaping this bitter ridicule on Jesus (Mark 15:32). If anybody on earth proves himself unworthy of salvation, it must be this man!

 

(3) Jesus utters no word to rebuke him (or them).

 

(4) But then something happens: our thief does what Jesus didn’t do—he rebukes his fellow thief, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?”(Luke 23:40).

 

(5) Then our thief confesses his unworthiness: “And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds” (Luke 23:41). Note: he takes a giant leap forward, by faith. He does the same thing that Paul later did by faith when he said, “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). He climbs up by faith to share the place of those who at last “overcome even as [Christ] overcame” to “sit with [Him] on [His] throne” (Rev. 3:21). Some of us have spent a lifetime learning how self can be “crucified with Christ,” and here this man has gotten there in a few minutes! (That should encourage us to believe that when the loud cry of Revelation 18 goes out to lighten the earth with glory, people will respond quickly and overcome.)

 

(6) Our thief confesses the sinlessness of Jesus: “this Man has done nothing wrong.”

 

(7) He prays to be saved from hell: “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Then he hears words that many a worldly billionaire would give anything to hear: “You will be with Me in paradise.”

Take heart, burdened soul; there is no higher place than that of this thief, or greater reward. Let’s join him where he is.

The teens were shocked a bit, or at least interested, when I suggested that God has at His heavenly headquarters a special angel whose career is that of Chief Cartoonist. Of course, to them “cartoons” are funny papers; they haven’t come to the age that they appreciate political cartoons. But the idea is not outlandish. We read in Revelation 1:1 of how the Father, the supreme Ruler of the universe, takes those five steps in communicating to us the book of Revelation: [1] its source was He, who [2] “God gave [it] unto [His Son] Jesus Christ” with the ultimate goal [5] of giving it to us in a form we could assimilate, “to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass.”

The huge mass of information would be greater than the Encyclopedia Britannica, beyond our comprehension; so in one of the five steps, it must pass through this special angel, the Cartoonist whose is this special task: “and He sent and signified it by His angel,” who then communicated it “unto His servant John” in a form that the lonely apostle on Patmos could transcribe: a slender little volume of 22 chapters. “Signified” is put in sign form.

The “cartoon” method of communication is illustrated in the book of Daniel. The pagan king Nebuchadnezzaar is given a dream (obviously crafted by this same “angel”) that depicts world history in the form of an “image” with a head of gold, breast and arms of silver, thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet and toes of iron and clay mixed. And there we have the truth of world history that Charlemagne, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, even Hitler, battled against vainly. Europe simply will not “cleave.” The United States of America can “cleave” but not the states of Europe.

The same “angel” gave Daniel the visions of the four beasts coming out of the sea (ch. 7), etc. All it takes to understand these two books of Daniel and Revelation is some humble common sense and the patient willingness to let the holy book, the Bible, explain itself. “Humble” because the Holy Spirit has enlightened reverent-minded scholars in past centuries to dig for truth and have found it, and the common sense enables us to appreciate their contributions; but their mines, unlike the “49ers” gold mines, have not been exhausted; there is still precious truth yet to be discovered and understood—though it will never contradict previous truth.

The fifth step is you and I understanding and appreciating this “revelation” in the book that bears the name. Read it, as if for your life, as it may well be in the tumultuous times “which must shortly come to pass.” The “blessing” is promised; reading it brings happiness.

That fascinating time prophecy set in the “sixth trumpet” of Revelation 9 constitutes the nearly unseen foundation on which the faith of millions in one church rests. But most have no idea of what that one-verse time prophecy means or of its historical importance in the existence of a world church that remains virtually the only Protestant church still “protesting” the claims of the Papacy.

It’s verse 15: “The four angels were loosed which were prepared for an hour and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.” The setting is Islam and its burgeoning explosion toward its goal of world domination. It has arisen as the scourge of apostate Christianity; the book of Revelation makes clear how that is the only reason why God permits its existence.

It’s the point in world history where the Ottoman Turks are putting an end to the last gasps of the Eastern Roman Empire; the world rule of millennia is nearly at an end. Constantinople with its massive stone walls still stands wherein the teetering Emperor still sits on his crumbling throne. “The seven trumpets” portray world history in relation to the work of God on earth. The Saracens have introduced the world to gunpowder and massive cannon that smash the walls of Constantinople. A time prophecy of 391 years and fifteen literal days has begun and it will end on August 11, 1840 with the collapse of the independence of the Sultan of Turkey.

“Insignificant past history, forget it!” No! This prophetic drama on the stage of world history established for all the world to see that the biblical prophecies of Daniel and Revelation are true, because they can be understood even by a child. Children will begin preaching them. This prophecy establishes the year for a day principle which is the divinely inspired key to reading them, and human life makes sense in the context of the great controversy between Christ and Satan. A world movement of present day Christians who believe the second coming of Christ is imminent was strengthened by this remarkable prophecy of August 11, 1840. Even atheists were converted when they saw the clear evidence of the inspiration of the Bible. Now let us renew our faith likewise.

For people who loved the Bible, life in the early 1800s became exciting. Not one but many in different places had become convinced that the books of Daniel and Revelation contained vital truth, and the seal that had closed the book of Daniel for millennia (12:4) was now open! Highly respected scholars such as Sir Isaac Newton had discovered that in Bible prophecy a day is a symbol of a year. As a bleak wintry landscape comes to thrilling life with the awakening of spring, so serious minded youth in many places began studying those two prophetic books.

The long night of the Dark Ages had ended with the close of the “1260” years of papal oppression in 1798 (cf. Dan. 7:25, Rev. 12:6); the capture and imprisonment of the pope had inspired Thomas Carlyle to declare (mistakenly) that the papacy was dead forever. Now the chains that had bound people’s minds were broken; people could think and study and even speak! (Not the least exciting thing to happen was that 13 British colonies in North America had just won their independence!)

A Methodist pastor, Josiah Litch, recognizing that Revelation 9 was a prophecy of Islam, was moved to study into the time prophecy of the sixth “trumpet—the “an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year” allotted to the Muslim Ottoman Turks’ supremacy. Litch was concerned: the “day for a year” principle that Isaac Newton had alleged—was it really true? Would history uphold it?

That prophetic time period equaled in literal history a total of 391 years and fifteen days.

Relying on the most authentic history of that time, Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Litch took July 27, 1299 as the starting point (Gibbon had said, “The singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster”). The Roman emperor in Constantinople had on that beginning date meekly surrendered its independence to the Ottoman Turks. The end of the 391 years and 15 days would be August 11, 1840.

Litch didn’t wait for the date to arrive; two years before he boldly published his prediction of what would happen, and many thousands watched anxiously. On that date, the Sultan of Turkey meekly surrendered his independence into the hands of the European powers. The year-day principle was firmly grounded in history!

Now comes a worldwide resurgence of interest in those prophecies about Islam combined with a clearer view of justification by faith that transcends both Calvinism and Arminianism. It’s a message that must lighten the earth with long-delayed glory (Rev. 18:1-4).

If you are under a cloud of fear, or not sure if the Lord accepts you, you do not understand His discipline, you feel like you are on the outside, you know you have sinned and you do not deserve His blessings, the party is going on inside and you feel “thrust into outer darkness,” the Father has commissioned His Son Jesus to minister especially for you:

“‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,’” He says, “‘because He hath appointed Me to preach the gospel [good news] to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord’” (Luke 4:18, 19).

Even Christ’s enemies confessed that He “receiveth sinners” (15:2). The last page of the Bible welcomes all who are “thirsty” (Rev. 22:17). David has written the exact prayer for all to pray who feel that they are unworthy sinners: it’s Psalm 51; read it, on your knees.

“But there are so many things I must do and I don’t know how to do them all.” Well, two things in Hebrews 11:6: (1) you must believe that God exists, and (2) you must believe that “He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” That is, that He is faithful love.

“But that’s my problem: I don’t know how to believe. I was born and bred in unbelief.” Wait a moment: God has already given you “a measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3), the gift of believing; no one can ever say that God has deprived him of faith! He has given you exactly the amount you need for eternal salvation. Now, choose to believe. But maybe it‘s as difficult for you as it was for the poor father of the devil-tormented son in Mark 4. He had come to the ordained pastors of the church (yes, the nine disciples at the foot of the mountain in Matthew 17) and they had failed to help him and he was distraught with a terrible fear (you would be, too, if the Lord’s own disciples, some of the Twelve, had pronounced your case hopeless!).

And then the Lord Jesus appears to dangle a great blessing before him, IF—“all things are possible to him that believeth” and in a burst of honesty you also cry out “with tears, ... Help Thou mine unbelief.” But that ellipsis contains your deliverance: “Lord, I believe ...” (9:17-24, KJV). You confess the battle raging in your soul: you believe and at the same time you disbelieve. Now, in the face of the most discouraging outlook, choose to believe. Let the tears come—that father cried and cried; then choose again. You can never perish while you pray that simple prayer; people wiser than I have said so.