Daily Bread  -  October, 2007

by Robert J. Wieland

Suppose a husband and wife are both church members, even “missionaries,” but they can’t be happy together: the first question they usually ask is, What can we do in order to learn to be happy together, to save our marriage from collapsing?

They are both ever so sincere. You meet them both individually, they are the loveliest people on earth, the nicest neighbors you can imagine.

But together they’re in an unending lovers’ quarrel. It’s not what they need to DO but what they need to LEARN and BELIEVE.

Now suppose you are a third party who loves them both as friends and fellow believers in Christ: how can you help them? Granted, of course, you “pray” for them; but you are so helpless in just “praying.”

Then you remember the New Covenant promise the Lord, the God of Abraham, has made to you as a “descendant of Abraham” by faith”: everywhere you go throughout the earth, throughout your whole life, “You shall be a blessing” (read it in the original, Genesis 12:2). That means the Lord intends that you as a third party will be a healing agent to these two quarrelers. (And that introduces you to some deep thinking: do you believe the New Covenant? Yes, you do: you “believe” but then immediately you pray, “Help my unbelief,” Mark 9:24.)

And then you remember what Jesus promised on that “last day ... of the Feast” of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, when He “stood and cried out, ...’If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me, and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37, 38). A parallel promise to the one in Genesis 12!

The Lord is perfectly capable of healing this troubled marriage; He longs to do so. Now, when your soul is deeply humbled before Him, your prayer enables Him to do what otherwise He is not able to do: yes, His omnipotence is hindered by our heart-unbelief and self-sufficiency. Now, broken-hearted, humbled but repentant sinners have a tremendous, special advantage: they are the ones who have been “grant[ed] to sit with [Him] on [His] throne” because they are “overcom[ing]” (Rev. 3:21). You can’t get closer to Him than that!

And around the world there are “144,000” who are overcoming.

P. S. Let’s not get hung up on a literal or symbolic number.

When we come to our day’s end and we’re about to get in bed, we kneel to pray.

On our knees, we are quiet, subdued, in the presence of “our heavenly Father.” We think back: have I honored my Savior today? Have I done and said what He would have done and said in my place?

Maybe when we gave something to help someone today, now we wish we had been more generous. When we said “Good morning” to someone, now we wish we had paused just a moment to look that person in the eye and truly pray for him a GOOD morning, the beginning of an eternity of “goodness” which David said “shall follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6); now we wish we had shared that “goodness” more liberally.

When we had contact today with someone discouraged, defeated, enmeshed in Old Covenant despair, we wish now that we had known how to inject into our little conversation some saving, some vital truth of the New Covenant gospel, that would have “made [him] free” (John 8:32).

Yes, we wish that we had had that “truth” at our mental fingertips as Jesus always had something to say that was life giving!

Well, He made a magnificent, tremendous, life-changing promise at the last Feast of Tabernacles He attended: “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his inmost heart will flow rivers of living water” (cf. John 7:37, 38).

When we lay our head on our pillow and think just a moment before drifting off in sleep, we may not be “alive” enough to “hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matt. 5:6). (The only truly happy people in the world are they!) But we do sense a yearning for some “bread” for our own starved souls; we can’t help but pray another little prayer before going to sleep, “Father, forgive for wasting some time this precious day in watching useless TV or reading that vain novel. Please give me grace to be so hungry for the bread of life that nothing else can satisfy me!”

The Lord has solemnly promised, “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:27). Thank Him a thousand times for that promise. Now believe it and trust in Him.

Our on-going Bible lessons assure us that hardships and trials and disappointments are a necessary but effective preparation for the coming of Jesus.

If that is so, many in Southern California are getting a real boost in their spiritual life because hardships and trials are falling all over them as they return to life again after the cataclysmic fires. Even some of those whose houses somehow were spared the flames return to find no electricity and no water. Life has been disrupted.

The traumas are enormous. One lesson seems to be apparent to everyone, Christian or non-Christian: this world is not our home; and the finest house that money can build is nothing more than “a tent” or “tabernacle” in realistic biblical thinking. The media attention this past week has been focused on the palatial mansions consumed like matchsticks.

“What shall a man be profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Jesus asks (Matt. 16:26).

One little girl lived in a house at the end of the road and the neighbors hardly knew they were there. Let’s call her “Mary.” Every night Mary would pray to Jesus (her daddy taught her to pray, thank God), “Dear Jesus, please bless the animals in our forest, the chipmunks, the squirrels, the deer, and keep them safe.”

Whether their modest little home survived, we do not know; but He did answer her prayer.

The deer, for example, the moment they sniff smoke, test the wind to see where it is coming from, and the Lord has already given them legs that can run, and they do. With all the media literature flowing from Southern California, there have been no reports of wild animals overtaken by the flames.

The original copies of the Bible texts had no pictures, of course; but divinely inspired words paint vivid pictures like the one in Psalm 145 of the great God, the heavenly Father of us all, the Ruler of the universe, kneeling with His hands holding some nuts for the wild animals to come and eat out of His hand (vss. 14-16). This is a “picture” that captures children’s attention forever.

Yes, the Bible was written for children!

And those who remember that they are still children at heart understand it best.

Can you think a moment and envision God in the way that Psalm 145 does? (The Book of Psalms is where our intimate closeness to the King of the Universe is emphasized; you and I may be the most lowly inhabitants of this globe, yet we remember that “the Lord thinketh on me” (Psalm 40:17, KJV).

You are delighted when a friend tells you he/she has been thinking about you—with good will.

Well, it is solid truth that the Lord, infinite though He is, busy as He is keeping the Milky Way running smoothly, takes time to devote His thought processes to you and me individually, with good will (cf. Luke 2:14). “In Christ” the infinite Father is as close to you and me, unworthy as we are, as if we were the only inhabitants of this “desert island” of earth.

Yes, we must as the most rudimentary lesson of heaven’s kindergarten, believe two magnificent things: “he that comes to God must believe (a) that He is, and (2) that He is a rewarder of those who diligntly seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). He has reconciled us who are in heart at “enmity with God” (Rom. 8:7), but at the same time we must let go this enmity we have: now “be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:19).

Here is how Psalm 145 pictures God: (it’s like He puts pictures in His Bible like we put pictures in our books): here is the mighty God kneeling down like you kneel down with some nuts in your hand to entice a fawn or chipmunk to come and eat them out of your hand. “The eyes of all look expectantly to You, and you give them their food in due season. The LORD ... opens [His] hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing” (vs. 16). This includes the squirrels and the birds, and the bears, and all.

But that’s not all that is in this “picture.” Read more: “The LORD upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down” (vs. 14). “All,” yes; if we will let Him do it.

Don’t be ashamed to kneel before Him so the entire universe sees you; let everybody on earth and in heaven see that you are “bowed down.” When He does that, He puts “a new song” in your soul, “even praise to our God: many shall see it, and ... trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40:3).

That’s His substitute for an anti-depressant drug, or the psychiatrist’s chair.

Several times our California governor has spoken compassionately of the more than a thousand home owners whose homes have burned in this dreadful conflagration. He remarks that he sympathizes with people who have struggled and worked and saved and sacrificed in order to buy a house that they can live in. And then “in one hour, it’s gone,” he says.

For these many people owning a home was their lifetime dream.

While these disasters come, let us remember that our heavenly Father still loves us; and our Savior is working night and day as our High Priest to attract our attention to building a house that cannot burn.

Paul speaks of that in these words: “You are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. ...

“If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw; each one’s work will become manifest: for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward; if anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss.”

But let’s pause here in reading this dramatic promise. Paul goes on:

“Yet he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire ...” (1 Cor. 3:9-15). Imagine a homeowner in San Diego coming back and finding his house in ashes, only the concrete slab intact. That is “loss” to “suffer.” No more showing his friends how nice his house is.

But if he is a sane, happy man, he will indeed rejoice that he himself has been “saved through fire.”

To be happy, think of yourself as owning nothing more of this earth’s goods than a pile of ashes. Then thank the loving Savior that you still have your life.

And then be happy forever singing the 23rd Psalm: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Remember that Jesus died penniless on His cross. For sure He doesn’t want you to be penniless; but He wants you to appreciate what you do have as a gift from Him and receive His gift of happiness which is not dependent on this world’s goods, which can go up “in one hour” (read Rev. 18:17).

To all of you who live out there somewhere in the world that is not Southern California, be thankful if your house is not in the path of conflagration. Be thankful if you can get some sleep through the night without worrying if the fire racing down the mountain is headed for you.

Be thankful to God if the air you can breathe is not lethal for your lungs. Thank Him profoundly if when you turn the faucet pure water comes out; be thankful if there are disciplined police who guard you from criminals—oh, there are so many blessings that you may have taken for granted all your life.

The dear Lord and Father of us all has not sent these tragic disasters that we call “natural,” but for sure He has permitted them because love for our souls demands that He remind us that this world is not our home. Says the apostle who was inspired by the Holy Spirit, “We know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens “(2 Cor. 5:1).

The most palatial movie star mansion you could buy in Malibu is described here as only a “tent.” The sooner you and I can realize this, the happier we can be.

Two truths emerge bright and clear:

(1) The most secure dwelling we can imagine on earth that money can buy is ethereal. You can’t count on anything. Heart-rending are the stories that the media serve us almost daily of people who had “everything going their way,” and then an all of a sudden car crash, or a cancer diagnosis, interferes, and they are reduced to nothing but fear and anguish.

(2) But Paul’s use of the pronoun “we” and “our” doesn’t mean only the Corinthians he happens to be writing to, but it’s we now, everybody. By virtue of the sacrifice of the infinite Son of God in His love for the world, “we” worthy or not (the right word is “unworthy”), “have a building from God, a house not made with hands.”

This means that Christ has become the cosmic Savior of the world, “the Savior of all men, specially of those who believe” (1 Tim. 4:10). He has given “all men” the gift of a reversal of the judicial condemnation that came upon us all “in Adam”; He is the world’s Savior, but He cannot force His salvation on those who refuse it.

Now, unworthy as you know yourself to be, grab hold of the gift He has placed in your hands and don’t let it slip through.

This daily mini-Bible study likes to concentrate on happy subjects, and find good things to say about discouraging topics. But we’re struggling to find something good to say about the calamity in Southern California.

Imagine—over 350,000 people evacuated from their homes (according to the governor)! Imagine what “evacuation” means—how do you “evacuate” without getting on the freeway to get out, and can you imagine 350,000 people clogging the freeways? They can be one vast parking lot.

I used to live in the San Diego area; I never dreamed I would see things like this before the Bible’s “seven last plagues” of Revelation 16.

Can we find some good news? Yes: 

(1) Innumerable acts of kindness are being done by people, even strangers; the Holy Spirit has not yet been withdrawn completely from the earth!

 

(2) There is evidence of the love of God still active; in wrath He has remembered mercy (Hab. 3:2).

 

(3) In the disasters described by the prophet Ezekiel his “woes” usually ended with the promise, “and thou shalt know that I am the LORD” (35:9, for example, KJV).

 

(4) It’s ALWAYS, yes, always, good news to learn to “know the LORD.” Even the final “lake of fire” at the end of the millennium (the 1000 years of Revelation 20:11-15), demonstrates the mercy of the Lord. The lost will say “Thank You” for that “Lake” rather than exist forever in tortured consciousness of their own utter self-condemnation. They will “welcome destruction,” says a very wise writer.

 

(5) Is God sending these terrible disasters? Is San Diego more wicked than other great cities, thus deserves them? This same question was asked Jesus after a local disaster: “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than other Galileans, because they suffered such things?” He answered: “I tell you, no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:2). Jesus didn’t bring that disaster but He brought good out of it, for all the world to learn.

 

(6) There is precious good news in this remark of Jesus: it’s possible for all of us to “repent” because repentance is a universal gift that the Holy Spirit tries to give us (if we will believe and receive the gift; John 16:8).

 

(7) This painful disaster, with world TV and news coverage, educates us all in a happy lesson about Reality; it’s another proof of God’s love: “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out [when we “evacuate” we won’t even carry our papers with us]. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content” (1 Tim 6:7, 8). Precious contentment! Enjoy it today.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception has the appearance of being a teaching sublimely beautiful; but it hides Jesus from our view.

So completely does it hide Him, that multitudes have no idea who Jesus is, while they think they know Him.

This incorrect idea severs the link that binds the Virgin Mary to humanity because it declares that when the fetus of the Virgin Mary was in the womb of her mother, God worked a miracle (the Bible says nothing about this!) that broke the DNA or genetic link that has bound every person on earth to our father Adam.

Thus in one stroke this “dogma” denies the fundamental truth of the Bible that says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. ...” (John 3:16). Thus it says in effect that God did not give Him to us; God kept Him back by breaking this genetic link to humanity. The Virgin Mary is thus some kind of a new creature that God made, but who was separate from humanity.

If that’s all there were to this “dogma” of Immaculate Conception, the human race might not feel bad because of it: it would simply be that here’s one woman different from any other woman. That’s all.

But wait a moment:

The problem is that this “dogma” also means that her Son, Jesus Christ, has been separated from humanity by having that DNA or genetic link broken; thus He is not a human being at all. He too is some new creature that God created independent of a genetic link to humanity.

Thus it says that He doesn’t know how you feel deep down; He cannot be tempted “like” as you are tempted. This dogma denies multitudes of Bible statements that tell us how close Jesus is to all of us, how real He is.

Don’t let anyone or any organization, no matter how powerful or wealthy it might be, rob you of the Savior whom you need, and who rightfully has been given to you, and is yours.

The Bible has two very special books which are often neglected in both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.

They meant much to the Protestant Reformers of the 16thCentury who saw in them the story of Roman Catholic supremacy and political power in the Dark ages.

To Daniel, this political-religious power symbolized the “little Horn” of Daniel 7, and also of chapter 8. The symbolism is so precise and simple to understand, that serious people have recognized it for hundreds of years.

In Daniel 8 it is seen as lifting itself up arrogantly against the “Prince of princes,” which of course is Christ. It lifted up “the continual” in vss. 11-13, which some thoughtful Bible students believe is the paganism that has flourished in the Roman Catholic church in its history and in its doctrines (for example, Sunday keeping in place of biblical Sabbath keeping).

In chapter 7, the little horn exercises political-religious power for “a time, times and a half of time,” meaning 3-1/2 years prophetic time, but 1260 years literal time. This time period is easily identified as being 538 A.D. to 1798 A.D. when Berthier, the French general, arrested and imprisoned the pope of Rome, and ended its political power, ostensibly.

But Revelation, which fits with Daniel superbly, declares that this “deadly wound” was to be healed. Thoughtful scholars believe that this describes the phenomenal resurgence of popularity and influence that the papacy has achieved in recent decades. After 1798, people thought the papacy was dead forever, including Thomas Carlyle of England.

The prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation are unique in Scripture because Jesus singled out Daniel, of all the Old Testament books, as worthy of our attention: “Whoso readeth, let him understand” (Matt. 24:15), and likewise Revelation, because Jesus pronounces a special blessing on the person who either reads the book, or if he can’t read, who “hears” it (1:1-3).

The common theme of both precious books is the identity of Jesus Christ as the true Messiah, the true Son of God.

We must not allow the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception to influence how we view Jesus, whether He took the sinless nature of the sinless Adam or if He was “sent in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, [who] condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3), One is the true Christ of the Bible; the other cannot be.

The famous “History Channel” on TV loves stories of rebellions and war. Watch them before you go to bed at night and you’ll have nightmares all night long.

They should tell the story of the greatest rebellion drama ever told—Lucifer’s rebellion against the King of the Universe (if they should tell it straight, and you believed the truth, you wouldn’t have any nightmares ever, for “the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes, Rom. 1:16; precious good news).

Lucifer was the highest created being in the universe (the name means bright light).

He was like the multibillionaire who wants more money (actually, same spirit). He was not content with his highest position; he wanted to be “like God” in power, and eventually this greed turned into his hatred of God and his desire to drive Him from His throne and grab it himself.

He fomented his rebellion, telling his accusations against God everywhere, and “one-third” of the formerly holy angels of heaven joined him in his rebellion. “War broke out in heaven: Michael [another name for Christ] and His angels fought against the dragon [Lucifer]; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him” (Rev. 12:7-9).

The inspired story doesn’t say they fought with sticks and stones or with bullets; they fought with lies catapulted against truths. It was ultimate war. Lucifer’s “weapon” was false charges against God, lies, but they sounded plausible to one-third of the angels.

God’s true character was known —He is pure unadulterated love (agape). Lucifer said He is selfish, unfair; that for God to ask that everyone be obedient to His holy law of ten commandments is just too impossible, especially so for the people who can’t help that they have come from the one man on earth who joined Satan—our father the fallen Adam.

Don’t imagine that when Lucifer was cast out that he stopped telling lies; He deceives the whole world” (vs. 9). His lie Number One: just because you’re human, you are doomed to keep on sinning forever or until the Lord Jesus comes and gives you a different nature. Grand lie!

Jesus came from heaven with a “job description” from the Father: defeat Lucifer, prove him wrong, condemn sin in the last place where sin had taken refuge—human hearts. His job: “condemn” sin, stamp on it, defeat it, annihilate it, disarm all its temptations, set the entire world population free from its slavery.

Christ did it!

Letters come from heart-broken church members dismayed and discouraged by apostasy they see overwhelming their church; they are tempted to stay home on Sabbath.

The Enemy seems to be coming in as “a flood,” but the Lord has promised, “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him” (Isa. 59:19). That is happening today! The Lord is faithful!

The church where they were baptized seems to have departed from the faith. There is now a new meaning to the solemn words of Jesus: “On the earth distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear, and the expectation of looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven will be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26).

It’s those “powers of heaven” being “shaken” that so distresses sincere, honest-minded people. The Psalmist anticipated this when he said, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).

Answer: They must stand firm even if the foundations around them crumble. The Lord has placed these messages in His Bible to alert us of the terrible “shaking” that must come. The answer to the Psalmist’s question is clear: stand for the “truth of the gospel.” Bear witness of your faith; the Protestant Reformation was a work of the Holy Spirit, but even Protestantism has now crumbled, and no longer is protestant; but nevertheless the Holy Spirit keeps the spirit of “protest” alive. Truth has not died.

In the final “shaking” everything that has been built up may crumble around us like ashes after a fire. “Think it not strange,” says the apostle Peter, “concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you.”

The Lord is a jealous God, He has tremendous Self-respect, determined not to let the Jews crucify Christ again, and also determined not to let His glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the latter rain to be “insulted” again. When Laodicea lays her self-righteous, proud offering on His altar, “rich and increased with goods” when in reality she is of all the seven churches of history the most “wretched, and miserable, and poor and blind and naked,” He will treat her offering as He treated the offering of Cain—just walk away until it withers and becomes garbage that the janitor has to cart away. The Lord will not accept the offering of those who choose to remain proud and self-sufficient.

It’s time to let the Lord have all there is of us; share the cross of Jesus with Him (that’s where we belong, you know). “Humble [ourselves] ... under the mighty hand of God” (1 Peter 5:6). Get down to rock bottom.

Does it make any difference to Africans who may have but little education what they believe about Jesus Christ—whether as the Son of God He took upon Himself the nature of sinful man or the nature of the sinless Adam before he fell?

As the sun rises around the world this new morning, millions of thoughtful people who hunger for the gospel will be perplexed at the news that the most prominent of our world church leaders says it makes no difference to anyone, educated or not.

But what does everyone read in the Bible?

Character is vitally important as we all face the “judgment seat of Christ” (cf. 2 Cor. 5:10):

“Pursue peace with all men, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking diligently lest anyone fall short of the grace of God” (Heb. 12:14).

We have all inherited from the fallen Adam a sinful nature; unless we are “born again” we cannot even “see” the kingdom of God, let alone enter it (John 3:3, 5).

The reality of salvation from sin is known only by those who “overcome” in a lifelong struggle against this sin “which so easily ensnares us” (Heb. 12:1); but Christ assures us that we are not alone in the battle for overcoming. “To him who overcomes will I grant to sit with Me on My throne, even as I also overcame and sit down with My Father on His throne” (Rev. 3:21).

The divine Son of God humbled Himself and was “made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:5, 6) so He could come very close to us to save us from that “sin which so easily ensnares us.”

In so doing, the divine Son of God had a terrific battle to fight. He “died unto sin” (Rom. 6:10), and “condemned sin in the flesh” which Paul defines as “the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin.” Only thus can we “overcome” that “sin which so easily ensnares us.” His battle which He fought in the flesh was so severe that He “resisted to blood, striving against sin” (Heb. 12:4) in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44). What a battle!

Here is the biblical “Savior of the world” who “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (4:15).

It makes all the difference in the world, yes in eternity, whether we believe in the true Christ or in what Jesus warned us against—a false christ (cf. Matt. 24:23, 24).

Is it possible that the Lord Jesus Christ in His glorified state is discouraged with the slow progress of His church on earth? Their progress, that is, in getting ready for His second coming? He wants to come, He says, “that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3).

Their lack of spiritual progress delays that homecoming.

We may not say that He is “discouraged” (actually, we are told that “discouragement” is a sin!); but the word that we may use to describe how Christ feels is, “disappointed.”

Divine “disappointment” cannot be described as a sin, but it is very painful for Him to endure while we go on generation after generation in a spiritual state that is childish. His “disappointment is beyond description.” We should be growing up to be a bride for “the marriage of the Lamb” (cf. Rev. 19:7, 8), but generation after generation goes by with each repeating the spiritual childishness of its predecessor. In fact, it’s century after century!

Can you imagine the “beyond-description-disappointment” that the Lord Jesus feels?

He loves His corporate people who are His church; yes, He loves them individually. He loves you as an individual, yes you, the one-of-a-kind person you are; but He also loves His church corporately. The church has a corporate personality that in Scripture is given the female pronoun (Rev. 19:7, 8).

A teacher is disappointed “beyond description” when his student makes no progress in learning. Such was my first violin teacher’s feelings about me as a student; I was working, holding the bow correctly, etc. But my heart wasn’t in it; nothing in violin music attracted me. Until one day I discovered an old broken Victor Red Seal record of Jascha Heifetz. My mother had left it before she died (when I was two); my father glued the two halves together on the back of another record. Heifetz was playing a Schubert-Wilhelm melody on the G-string of a genuine Stradivarius violin.

I thought, if that’s what a violin should sound like, I love it! From then on my teacher saw progress.

This is a crude illustration; but when God’s people learn to appreciate the kind of love (agape) that motivated Jesus to die the world’s “second death,” that is, when they see the “breadth and length and depth and height” of that love “which passes knowledge”(Eph. 3:18, 19) their progress will become phenomenal,—yes, in one generation!

It was an innocuous magazine advertisement (the latest TIME) but it said something the advertiser didn’t think of: “Tomorrow Begins Today.” (They were advertising Conoco Phillips gasoline.)

But they unwittingly repeated what the Lord said when He made the week in seven days: “And the evening and the morning were the first [then second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth] day” (Genesis 1:5ff). Always, the evening comes first; then the “day.”

Was this an accident?

We haven’t learned to live happily and healthfully until we learn this.

Roman so-called civilization denies it; you can’t (or you shouldn’t) stay up until midnight in order to welcome the new day; but each new day should be welcomed as another gift of God’s much more abounding grace. We read in one wise author’s writings that when the Lord Jesus was with us in the flesh incarnate, it was with the voice of glad melody Jesus in His youth and in His ministry went out to some solitary place early in the morning (without waking the family), and He would welcome the new day.

What happened was that the heavenly Father (His Father and ours, too) would awaken Him (see Isa. 50:4, 5); not too early, for the Bible also says that the Father “giveth His beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2). The Father always let Jesus have the rest He needed, and He knows we need adequate rest (children and teens seldom get enough).

But what they need is not late morning sleep unless in some emergency; they need to learn (like Jesus) to welcome the morning light.

The problem is going to bed too late at night. Forgetting that “the evening and the morning” are each “new day,” they follow Roman paganism’s way of living and think the day begins at midnight. Watching a late-late show on TV is a violation of God’s original plan for our daily happiness.

Sometimes we think we need a violent one to watch, just for excitement, also forgetting God’s wisdom, for He says in Psalm 11:5, 6 that if people “love violence” He will give them what they love. (Wow, that’s serious!)

And then the happiest “evening morning” sequence is the holy Sabbath. It begins at sunset, blessed plan of God. It’s when husband and wife kneel together to welcome the holy day in mutual peace. Maybe because they are human and not yet quite ready for perfection, there has been a tiff; thank God for Sabbath “family worship;” both join in praying, and the dear Lord forgives both. And if there are children, they are part of our Sabbath “family circle”—kneeling together before the throne of the heavenly Father. A moment of heaven’s peace in a tumultuous world! It’s healthful; life-giving.

In our Sabbath evening family worship, the question came up: “What is the difference between imputed righteousness, and imparted righteousness?” The question is momentous, for it opens the door to vast understandings of truth.

The Greek word for imputed righteousness is dikaiosune, a good word to learn, to know, to write in your Bible margin. It is always only the righteousness of Christ—He is always its ultimate value. He is the only God in the universe who possesses genuine righteousness because He went to the cross and there died the “second death.” None of the inhabitants of the vast unfallen universe possesses real righteousness, for none except Christ has died the “second death.” No unfallen angel possesses “righteousness.” They have only “holiness.”

The reason? To choose of His own free will to die the second death motivated by genuine love (agape) is alone genuine “righteousness.” The Islamic God (their Allah) rejects the cross of Christ, rejects the love revealed there; thus rejects dikaiosune, which is defined as “the righteousness of saints” (Rom. 8:4).

Imputed righteousness is a legal or “judicial verdict of acquittal” (Rom. 5:16, REB) achieved by the Son of God because He has died the “second death” of the world (yes, of the universe). What He has accomplished is alone the legal or ultimate tender of character—value that the universe can know. Scripture assures us that the “unfallen inhabitants” of the universe appreciate that divine sacrifice of agape and ascribe unending praise to the Son of God (cf. Rev. 19:1-7). It’s time that those who profess to keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus also learn to appreciate or “comprehend with all saints the what is the breadth, and length, and depths, and height; and to know the agape of Christ which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, KJV).

Imparted righteousness is a different word in the original language—dikaioma. It is the gift of Christ’s righteousness finally appreciated, received into the heart so that the soul can never be moved, it now hates sin with such total hatred that he or she would rather die forever than yield to a sinful temptation; it is a sharing with Christ that agape, being a “partaker with Christ of the divine nature”(2 Peter 1:4).

For example: I give you a check for a thousand dollars and you have the check in your hands; but in fact you don’t even have a dime. The money is still in the bank in my name. You only have an imputed $1000, worthless to you until you take it to the bank and “cash” it.

But even the paper money is worthless unless it is backed up by what is of monetary value—gold, silver, or platinum. We could say that only that in your possession is value imparted. Until then money anywhere has had only imputed value.

Will the church on earth ever become pure and clean? Harried and bewildered church leaders (even at the very top) long for when the Holy Spirit will be honored, listened to, instead of “insulted” as inspired history says has been, too true.

The Bible over and over says that the answer is “yes.”

The Lord Jesus did not die in vain. For example, Psalm 22 assures us that as Jesus hung on His cross in the darkness crying “Why have You forsaken Me?” He was granted the assurance that His suffering was not to be in vain:  “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee. For the kingdom is the Lord’s. ... A seed shall serve Him. ... They shall come, and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born” (vss. 27-31, KJV).

On His cross, Christ gained the victory over the Enemy of the universe!

But for how long will new generations continue to “be born,” further postponing the time when “[Christ] shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied”? (Isa. 53:11). Is it always to be in a future generation that these wonderful prophesies will be fulfilled?

The prophet Daniel has assured us that in “the time of the end” “they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament [obviously “shine” without it going to their heads in pride!]; and they that turn many to righteousness [when the earth is lightened with the glory of the final message of righteousness by faith, Rev. 18:1-4] as the stars for ever and ever” (12:4, 3).

Therefore, the remaining question:  Have we come to “the time of the end,” or is it still future?

Revelation unseals Daniel: the 1260 years of papal oppression (Rev. 12:6-17) ended in 1798; we are in “the time of the end,” when “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14).

That “knowledge” is “the truth of the gospel “ which “truth shall make you free” (Gal. 2:5; John 8:32). The truth is what happened at the cross. With no extremism but presented in perfect “balance,” the church will proclaim the “third angel’s message in verity” as “not to know anything ... save Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (cf. 1 Cor. 2:2).

The result: hierarchical self will at last be gladly “crucified with Christ” (cf. Gal. 2:20). Then things will move. Let it be ... now.

George F. Will, columnist for the Washington Post, writes in today’s newspaper that “It’s Not So Easy Being Ultra Rich.”

That’s unusual common sense to come from a popular newspaper columnist.

But who are the “ultra rich”?

Almost any of us who has a roof of some sort over our heads in the rain, who has a water tap out of which flows clean water, a toilet that flushes; you went to bed last night not hungry, you have some kind of wheels to take you places. My wife and I have lived among people who lacked all these things; I was well off for I had a BSA bicycle to go to town 12 miles away over a rocky rough road.

One percent of America’s population controls 90 percent of its wealth ($16 trillion). But the fun of being super-rich is diminishing because now being wealthy is easier for everyone to attain; the fun of being wealthy is largely the fun of being better off than others.

George F. Will ends with sage advice—if you want to really have fun, start giving your wealth away.

How we ultra-comfy people will fare in the final judgment is the impact of some interesting biblical economics:

“Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6:6-10).

You won’t believe this: yours truly was once so pathetically idolatrous that to him possession of a 1928 Chevrolet was his dream. How silly it looks now; and how silly will we look in our final judgment with our yearning for a 2008 SUV.

In the centuries since the apostles, there has been a constant underground tendency among professed Christians to doubt or to underplay the reality of Christ’s full humanity. This has been justified on the assumption that if we believe that Jesus took our full humanity as it is, then we must believe that He was a sinner (which is blasphemy), for Paul says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

But that “all” has the One grand exception: Jesus Christ, who “condemned sin in the flesh;” the common flesh that all humans have inherited from the fallen Adam (Rom. 8:3).

Paul’s next verse says that He did this so that “the righteousness of the law [dikaioma] might be fulfilled in us.” That is a rare word; it appears again in Rev. 19:8 where the we read that the bride-to-be of the Lamb will be “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, ... the dikaioma of the saints.”

The reason for the denials of the full humanity of the Savior is the shying away from the reality of our overcoming completely. Biblical “perfection” has often been misunderstood, it being assumed that it means physical perfection but that is not biblical perfection; it’s character perfection—and that is never to be a matter of “works” but only of faith.

The Enemy in the “great controversy between Christ and Satan” has his most violent hatred bottled up in this idea of human beings overcoming sin through the faith “of Jesus,” because this Reality of “the power of the gospel” (Rom. 1:16) will constitute his final defeat and eternal condemnation—soon.

If a corporate body of believers in Christ so “overcome,” they will “judge” all humankind for the 6000 years (plus) of life on earth; and Christ will stand vindicated for all eternity. It will be seen by the universe that Christ has defeated Satan in his last lair where he has holed up for his last great conflict—the fallen, sinful flesh of humanity. People living in the same sinful flesh that Adam has passed on to us all, will themselves trample Satan underfoot in their “overcoming, even as [Christ] overcame” (cf. Rev. 3:20).

Oh the joy of victory over Satan! Not through self-righteousness (not a whiff of it!); but “in Christ.” The stories and the news will be flashed over the universe; at last the wound of sin will have been healed, and the Lord’s prayer will be answered, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

The climax of the book of Revelation is not the reward that the saints will receive for their self-sacrifice in following Jesus, but the reward that Christ will receive for His great sacrifice.

It is a grand paradigm shift in thinking for us to get our minds off praying about our reward (“Lord, please be sure to save me and my loved ones”), and begin to think of Christ and the reward that He deserves.

Isaiah speaks of Him, “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (53:11). It’s like little children finally growing up so they can be mature and think of the “travail” of their mother in bearing them and of their parents in caring for them.

God’s people cannot remain children forever. “Let us go on to full growth, “ to “maturity” (Heb. 6:2), to the possibility, yes, to the blessing of being able to think of Him rather than always thinking of ourselves. This is the interesting turn that the story in Song of Solomon 5:2ff takes when the bride-to-be, warm and snug in bed on this cold rainy night can change her thinking from how much fun it is to snuggle under the covers, and begins to be able to think of her true Lover out there in the rain “knocking” on her door.

The famous “Laodicean message” that we have all memorized by now has its setting in that little story, for Jesus concludes His last days message with a quotation from that story: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev. 3:20; taken from the LXX). The original story tells how she finally repents and gets up to let Him in; how long she left Him out there “knocking” it doesn’t say; but when she got to her side of the door, she found him “gone.” (In our case it’s well over a century.)

We cannot always serve as the flower girl at the wedding, “the marriage of the Lamb” (cf. Rev. 19:7, 8). God’s people in a corporate sense must become the “wife” at the wedding.

And that must be the ability to appreciate “the travail” that the Bridegroom has gone through. With no trace of extremism, the remnant will learn to proclaim “nothing ... except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

All that the little flower girl at the wedding cares about is the refreshments; the bride has begun to enter into the Bridegroom’s thinking and to feel for him (at least, let’s hope so; else there can not be a happy marriage!). Those who have never learned to appreciate “the travail” of the Savior cannot be happy in His personal presence. Which is the practical truth of shutting oneself out of heaven by one’s unfitness for its companionship. Let’s use our last few moments of time in learning to understand.

It’s like a gigantic earthquake so powerful that it changes the landscape everywhere: it’s a new direction in thinking in people who believe the Bible and who appreciate the love of Christ. What seems to be a new idea for multitudes.

To grasp it we need to go back to the pathetic story in the Song of Solomon 5:2ff.

The Lover (that is, the Bridegroom-to-be) has been on a safari and has returned to his beloved, to be with her. It is evening, and she has already gone to bed and is in that half-way state between awake and drifting off to sleep. It’s raining, according to the text, and the Lover is wet, cold, hungry, longing to be with her.

The Hebrew text says that He not only knocked on her door; He banged on it in His eagerness. (Jesus’ words in Revelation 3:20 are a direct quotation, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” but not from the Hebrew Masoretic text but from the Septuagint, ancient Greek translation.)

The girl (the Bride-to-be) hears him, but she is indifferent. She repulses Him; she has gone to all the trouble to get ready for bed, she does not want Him to disturb her. “I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet: how shall I defile them?” (In some developing areas of the world, people still live in mud houses with cow-dung floors; the last thing you do when you go to bed is to sit and wash your feet; then gathering them into bed you stay there until morning; no telling what is running around the floor at night.)

To her, too bad; her Bridegroom-to-be is a nuisance tonight. No opening the door for Him tonight.

What can He do but turn away sorrowfully, deeply pained to be so repulsed. He loves her; and she has in the past told Him she loves Him, but now she has gone back on that profession of acceptance; she no longer believes in Him, at least for now.

Why this sudden heart-rejection?

Finally, as she lies there, her conscience begins to prick her; she stops thinking only of her own selfish comfort snug in bed on a cold rainy night and she begins to think of Him out in the cold, alone, hungry; this paradigm shift in thinking and in feeling rouses her and she gets up belatedly to go and open the door for Him. But when she does, He has gone. Gone, for over a century.

Is this an inspired story of Jesus and His church which He “loves”? Could it be, that He is heart-broken with love?

Have you ever wondered how the Eleven disciples felt when one of their number, Judas Iscariot, betrayed Jesus? They also felt betrayed.

They had never suspected that one of their number, the most talented of them all, the one who everybody felt would surely become the prime minister of the new “kingdom” Jesus was setting up, went over to the side of the scribes and Pharisees.

And think how elated the scribes and Pharisees were that they had captured Judas Iscariot!

We have long known that into the seasons of all who remain faithful and true to the end there will come times of trial and keen disappointment, like Elijah running away from Queen Jezebel who threatened to kill him. The final issue that comes into the open just before the very last days will be that of the seal of God versus the mark of the beast.

Congregations that have always ostensibly been loyal to “the seal of God” (cf. Rev. 7:1-4) will be tried severely when the popular mark of the beast is enforced; some, in fact we understand many, formerly loyal congregants, will become turncoats and will engage in persecuting their former brethren.

Those loyal to the “seal of God” will sense what it means to be “betrayed”!

Jesus was betrayed, and those closest to Him will share His experience.

In mercy to His disciples, the Lord Jesus had permitted them to go through a preview experience in John 6 when He had preached about the bread of life. “Many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more,” and Jesus sorrowfully turned to the Twelve and asked, “Do you also want to go away?” They responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go? ... We have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (vss. 66-69); but even then Jesus knew who Judas Iscariot was! (vss. 70, 71).

It’s in similar mercy to our souls that Jesus permits us to go through the sad experiences of “betrayals,” in preparation for the final issue when it comes (and it may be very near). It will be like a great dam bursting when the water gushes down sweeping everything (almost!) in its path; but none need be swept along if we have prepared. Our roots now can be sunk deep down into the truth and by the grace of Christ we can stand.

But we must study, we must know the truth for ourselves. Hours spent in pleasure and TV watching must become hours spent in pursuing the truth so we know it for ourselves first hand, not because some guru has told it to us. “Happy” are those who are hungry and thirsty to learn, to know, to understand (Matt. 5:6, GNB).

We couldn’t get enough of the 23rd Psalm even though we had spent the week studying it. Questions came up in our discussion:

“Can anybody in the world repeat the 23rd Psalm and claim that the Lord is [his] Shepherd?” Or “Is saying that a reserved privilege only for people who have done things right?”

Or, in stronger language—can sinful people who have wasted their lives in evil-doing, say that “the Lord is my Shepherd” and make that claim?

There is nothing in the Psalm that says, Warning! Don’t say this unless ... !

In our discussion we remembered that Jesus said, “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ...” (Matt. 11:28). “All you.” No restriction.

The problem with saying that the Lord is your Shepherd is that you immediately obligate yourself to follow where the Good Shepherd leads you! His destination is “home,” His Father’s house, where you will be welcome for the coming, no matter who you have been.

Just believing and saying that “the Lord is your Shepherd” will strengthen your faith because you realize that you do not deserve the blessings that are wrapped up in that blessed psalm. Immediately you will sense that they are conferred on you undeservedly and are given to you through the much more abounding grace of the Shepherd of your soul; and that is step one toward salvation in eternal life.

Your self-pride is washed away in the tears of repentance; just simply realizing how unlimited is your debt of gratitude becomes a step toward Christ. “He who comes to God must (1) believe that He is, and (2) that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6).

YES! Memorizing and everyday repeating the 23rd Psalm is eating the “bread of life” and drinking the “water of life. It reminds your sinful, worldly heart of the kindness of the Lord to you. Your heart is melted; faith begins to grow; you begin to “comprehend [appreciate] what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love [agape] of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:18, 19). That last step can be nothing short of translation at the second coming of the Lord Jesus.

Of course you never stop with one Psalm; your hunger and thirst have been activated; they have been there all along as you “dwelt” in the world, but now they have been aroused from dormancy and you become aware that you want to know more and more. Eternal life has begun! The Holy Spirit says, “Welcome!”

Any victim of gambling addiction who cries to the Lord for deliverance, the heavenly Father hears his prayer, for the promise is sure: “It shall come to pass, that whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved, for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the LORD has said” (Joel 2:32).

Satan will try to make you think you are unworthy of such attention by the heavenly Father, so he will say, don’t “call” upon Him. The enemy will say that you have made a fool of yourself too much, there has too much water gone under the bridge, it’s too late, your situation is hopeless. That’s not true.

Now, make your choice to believe the Lord’s promise of deliverance from your slavery.

You may feel as unworthy as you do, but don’t keep the feeling to yourself—tell it to the Lord. Awkward as it may seem for you to pray, “Call upon the Lord.” It’s easy for someone to tell you, “Stop gambling!” but the Savior “delivers” you from the sin itself. When He forgives, it’s more than legal pardon; He delivers from the root of the sin. The principle is true whether your particular addiction is liquor, cigarettes, drugs, pornography, lust, jealousy, or gossip—there’s no end to the sins He delivers us from.

At Mt. Sinai the Lord gave the people His ten commandments to be written in their hearts. That was His idea; but they invented the Old Covenant, so the law was written in stone; but it wasn’t a harsh “do this, or else!” It was justification by faith for He told them that He had already delivered them from Egyptian darkness and slavery; they were now a free people “in Christ” because “I the LORD your God ... brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex. 20:2). That “you” is the gambling addict; who you really are is an “Israelite in Egyptian slavery,” waiting for your exodus-deliverance.

Your “exodus” occurred when the Son of God took upon Himself our sinful nature, “tempted in all points like as we are,” “made to be sin” for us (Heb. 4:15; 2 Cor. 5:21). The spotless Christ was “made” to be what He was not—a gambler. But He took into His own soul the guilt of sin (and it killed Him—it wasn’t the nails that did it). He paid the price, the “karma” for all the world’s sin and guilt, so that He was “made to be a gambler” when He was not a gambler; but He “overcame” for your sake. He proved that a person who has gambling in his blood can be “delivered” from it, and will be when he appreciates what it cost the Savior to save him. Then his heart is melted, and the sin is “slain.”

And the same applies to every addict in the world, whatever the addiction-pit into which he has fallen. He says to every one, “I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out of ... the house of bondage.” Mt. Sinai is tied to Calvary where Christ died the world’s “second death” on His cross. Come to Him, learn of Him, listen to Him. Come.

Untoward circumstances (like the loss of an appropriate map) forced us to take refuge for the night in a casino hotel. Masses of people gambling! We couldn’t wait to get out and get home.

We saw the sad faces of wives who come only to accompany their husbands on their addiction sprees. Some spouses are so addicted that they lose their family bank account, their cars, even their houses. We heard the shouts of triumph when one in a party strikes a win and gets a little something, which then encourages them all to gamble all the more furiously.

In some places houses of gambling are legal, as also are houses of prostitution. People who love the Bible used to call the casinos “gambling hells.” Lots of electric lights; the place is as bright at 2 a.m. as at noonday (but God designed the darkness of night to be a blessing).

Some who would like to help God run His “economy” think it would be good for Him to strike these houses of ill with lightning bolts of His wrath; if this were their sure punishment, the world would learn to be “righteous,” right? Up in our tenth floor room we naturally hoped and prayed that no lightning bolt would strike our sin-loving hotel—that’s not the way God runs things.

Ever since the Son of God died for the sins of the world, He has treated everybody alike, the good and the bad. He holds no chip on His shoulder against anyone, no matter who. “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). All this is the fruit of that great sacrifice of the cross, which reversed the “condemnation” the fallen Adam brought on the world. Our fallen father Adam brought on us a “judicial verdict of “condemnation,” but our Lord Jesus has brought upon us all a “judicial verdict of acquittal” (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB). Those masses who seek selfish, sensual pleasure do not know that they are riding piggy back on the benefits Christ has given the world by virtue of His sacrifice of Himself. “I am come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” refers not only to the gift (not merely offer) of eternal life He has given the world (but many reject it); “all men” are eternally and infinitely in debt to the Son of God, whether or not they realize it, for their daily temporal benefits of life. (It’s time that we learn to say “Thank You!”)

“The truth of the gospel” (cf. Gal. 2:5, 9) is the good news of that indebtedness; honest hearts will recognize and confess it. The honest gamblers who at last understand will renounce their self-worship and honor their Lord “henceforth” because this “love of Christ” will “constrain” them to do so.

But maybe there’s a secret of an effective appeal from Mt. Sinai that will win more hearts; ... if the Lord wills, tomorrow?

Is the divine Son of God still also a human being? We read that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father ...” (John 1:1, 14).

Yes, we believe.

Now can we ask a question: is this divine Son of God still with us as a human Being?

If the answer is Yes (and we believe it is!), can we ask another question: does He know human impatience for His “marriage of the Lamb [to] come”? Doesn’t any bridegroom who truly loves the “woman” committed to him long for the wedding day to come? (Assuming of course that he hasn’t already moved in with her in violation of God’s commandments, taking prematurely what God has not yet given him in holy, public marriage.)

Can we say that Jesus has no feeling of urgency for His marriage to come?

Does He truly love that “corporate woman” with a desire to be “one” with “her”?

If the answer is yes, is He beginning to be impatient with those who are hindering it, “frustrating the grace of God” (cf. Gal. 2:21)? They are shying away from the “honeymoon” which of course must come, the time of intimacy together?

Before the Lord Jesus can come in the clouds of heaven in fulfillment of His promise in John 14:1-3, the grand end time events of earth’s history must first come, including the close of human probation and the time when the “corporate woman” of His choice must “dwell in the sight of a holy God without a Mediator” and endure as “seeing Him who is invisible”(Heb. 11:27).

The answer to all these questions is “Yes!” And yes, the Lord Jesus Christ, still human as well as eternally divine, wants those final events to be now: He is tired of the anguish and suffering of the “have-nots” in the world as well as of the useless vanity and pure selfish pleasure of its “haves.” He longs to answer every prayer for relief from pain.

If you “know” Him, in your intimacy with Him you can clearly sense that divine-human impatience, that longing which He cannot hide any longer. If we are following the Lamb wherever He goes (Rev. 14:4), we will participate in that impatience, too.

What do you do when everything has gone against you, and it seems that every evil angel is seeking to discourage you?

Our Sabbath School Lessons this new quarter are about that problem; and those who follow Jesus “wherever the Lamb goes” (cf. Rev. 14:1-5) will all know experiences like that. As surely as the Lord Jesus loves us individually, personally, and intimately, so surely does Satan hate those who respond to Christ’s love. So don’t be surprised, Peter says, if such troubles come to you (see 1 Peter 4:12-17).

Instinctively your heart cries out, “O Father, Father ... !”

And right there you have the grandest encouragement under heaven: that is proof that the Father has already adopted you as His child! Yes, turn to Romans 8:14-16:

Verse 14: who only is being “led by the Holy Spirit;” only those who are “the sons of God.”

Verse 15: you have already received by faith the “Spirit of adoption.”

That is why when troubles and disappointments and heartache come upon you, your first response is to cry out “Father, Father ... !”

Now Paul says, when you cry out “Abba, Father,” that is your assurance that He has adopted you!

In the original language, “Abba” is the cry of a baby; our baby cries, “Baba,” meaning “father.” The “ba” syllable is a universal baby-cry; no other consonant is so easy for a baby to utter with the “a” sound than “b,” and “a” is also the easiest vowel to mouth.

If when trouble comes, your first reaction is to blame someone else, stop right now and humble your heart before the Lord and ask Him to convert you (He will!). According to that passage from Paul’s Romans 8, you don’t have to compose an involved prayer: just say “Baba, Abba, Father ... !”

The cry of your heart is a prayer in itself, and the Holy Spirit will take, Paul says, and fill in the blanks that your tongue can’t yet utter; but nonetheless, your guardian angel carries all the news to all the heavenly host that you are now an adopted child of God the Father.

Yes, lift up your head. No moping around, from now on.

There is a promise (or prophecy) tucked away in an obscure corner of the Bible that people don’t seem to talk about, but nevertheless it’s there awaiting the future.

It’s about the last-days events that will startle the world when God’s people humble their hearts and lay self aside and let the Holy Spirit teach and guide them—that is, when the corporate “self” of the church is “crucified with Christ,” and He only exalted.

The Lord doesn’t dare let this prophecy be fulfilled so long as His church would become proud or arrogant because of it, for it is something that would startle the world more than anything else imaginable; so much so that thoughtful people just say it’s impossible.

It’s what John the Revelator “saw”: “Something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory [had gotten the victory, KJV] over the beast, over his image, and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of gold” (15:2).

Multitudes who love the Bible and “tremble at [the Lord’s] word”(Isa. 66:2; “tremble” with excitement] recognize (a) that the “beast” of Revelation 13:1-8 is Romanism; and (b) “the mark of the beast” is its arrogant claim to have the authority to abolish and change the holy law of God that says “the seventh day” is the Lord's holy Sabbath, instituting the first day instead; and (c) that the “image” of the beast is that segment of professed Protestantism that has abandoned “protesting” and has adopted the essential nature of Romanism.

But “d”? “The number of his name”?

That is the Roman Catholic headquarters of Romanism, the heart of the papacy, the Curia.

And the inspired prophecy declares that there will be some from this group who will respond positively to the “light” of that “other angel” of Revelation 18 whose message will “illuminate” the earth with “glory,” a final message of justification by faith that will startle the word and will call every honest-hearted soul now in “Babylon” to “come, out of her, My people” (18:4).

Does the Lord Jesus Christ Himself personally want this glorious denouement of Bible prophecy to take place now in “this generation”? Yes!

When the collective or corporate “self” of “the remnant church” (12:17) has received the “atonement” and is reconciled to Him, the earth will be “lightened.” God will know how to grip the world’s attention!