Daily Bread  -  November, 2007

by Robert J. Wieland

The world is spiritually dark no matter where you look, but the bright light of Jesus shines: “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels ... that He by the grace of God might taste death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9).

Here is a brilliant revelation of salvation through “much more abounding grace” (cf. Rom. 5:21). Satan may try to foist on us enormous, impenetrable darkness, but here the light shines beautifully: “Jesus tasted [the second] death for everyone.”

No matter who you are or where you are sitting in your darkness of despair, this simple but brief revelation of truth is like a shaft of lightning on midnight darkness. Christ has already died your second death! That’s the biggest truth you will ever confront.

That’s what Hebrews 2:9 says, a million highly trained theologians to the contrary notwithstanding.

Note what Hebrews 2:9 does NOT say: By the grace of God Jesus offered to taste your second death IF you first do something to please Him.

No! The Bible is clear: “God so loved the world, that He gave [not merely offered to give!] His only begotten Son” (John 3:16); the Father actually GAVE His Son to you as your Savior; and He “tasted [your second] death” when He “tasted” it for “everyone.”

Now, simply believe this real, solid truth. Of course, that does not mean that He will force you against your will to enter the New Jerusalem; along with the gift of Himself to you He has given you the freedom of your own choice to refuse the gift of Himself as your Savior, if you want to make that choice (it will break His heart if you do).

Only one text comes to mind as soon as we say that: “But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation” (Heb. 6:9).

A heart appreciation of what Christ suffered for you when He “tasted” your second death will motivate you “henceforth” to live unto His glory forever. You will never tire of saying “Thank You!” This faith delivers you forever from that “fear of death” which has kept you “in bondage all [your] life.”

Why is there so much opposition when truth is proclaimed, even sometimes in the church?

For example, Bible teaching is clear as sunlight that the New Covenant is the “better promises” of God, and the Old Covenant is the worthless promises of the people (cf. Heb. 8:8-10): yet Old Covenant ideas keep cropping up, and there is tension and suspicion where there should be pleasant fellowship and harmony among the people of God (“Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”! Psalm 133:1).

Like the prophet Jeremiah who was hounded and cursed in Jerusalem by God’s own people until he longed for a place in the wilderness where he could cry and cry (“Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night ... in the wilderness ...” (Jer. 9:1, 2); people who love the truths of the Bible weep today. Jeremiah was not a psychopath; the truth is that his opposing people were at war with God Himself. After Jeremiah’s death, the Jews began to recognize how he was the greatest of the prophets whom God had sent to them; yet they made his life a hell on earth for him.

The Son of God came one Sabbath day to a congregation of God’s true people in the town of Nazareth, and told them He was the true Messiah their people had looked for, for millennia. Result? The people of God who “kept” the holy Sabbath tried to kill Him (cf. Luke 4:16-29).

The common people “heard Him gladly” but the higher you went in the hierarchy of the true church of that day, the more bitter was the hatred that the meek and gentle Jesus provoked (Matt. 12:37; John 1:11).

A delegation from the intellectual capital of the then world came to invite Jesus to come and teach them in Greece. The temptation for Him was enormous—get away from this bitter prejudice where he could go and teach receptive people; but He chose to stay and go to His cross and be crucified by the leaders of God’s people (cf. John 12:20-27).

He has told us not to be surprised by the painful opposition coming sometimes from God’s true people in the last days. As Jesus prayed “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), so He prays today.

And the prayer will be answered: God does forgive His people for opposing and rejecting the beginning of the latter rain and the loud cry; but He will also be very severe. He gives any generation only one chance to accept or reject “the beginning” of that rare and most precious gift of the latter rain. Let no idle word escape our hearts from now on!

Bible prophecy is clear: we have come to Daniel’s “time of the end” ( 11:35; 12:4), to the “last days” Paul describes (2 Tim. 3:1), to when “then shall the end come” that Jesus speaks of (Matt. 24:14).

Yes, “there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was” (Dan. 12:1). But it will also be a time of lighting “the earth with ... glory” such as has never been because God will prepare a people all over the world to stand at Christ’s second coming. It will be the time when God’s people shall be delivered from fear. The righteousness of Christ will clothe them, and so clothed, they cannot be afraid any more than Christ was afraid when He was among us and faced the raging tempest (Matt. 8:26), or the wild men of the Gadarenes (vs. 28).

Deliverance from fear “in Christ” will be a glorious blessing; but even now we can learn to receive such deliverance from fear.

This is accomplished through understanding how close Christ is to us, says Hebrews 2:9-15: “We see Jesus, ... that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man. ... Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy [paralyze, Greek] ... the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

Note: eventually, Christ will destroy Satan; but for now, He paralyzes [Greek, makes ineffective] the one who has “the power of death.” We are “the children” who “partake of flesh and blood” now; and we do have a mortal enemy; but Christ has “shot” our enemy with a tranquilizer that paralyzes him, so we do not need to be afraid of him.

The common excuse that we give for falling into sin is a false one, “the devil made me do it.” The devil cannot force us to do one wrong thing! Temptation to sin may be fierce but the much more abounding grace of Christ is far stronger. The key truth involved here in learning to overcome fear is that in His incarnation Christ “took part of the same ... flesh and blood” that we have received from our fallen “head,” Adam. Thus we realize that we are united with Christ; His faith becomes ours; His fearlessness also becomes ours. There is no need to fear a paralyzed enemy!

Over and over the Lord tells us, “Don’t be afraid!” In fact (and I speak softly and reverently) it’s a sin to be afraid; it implies that there is unbelief buried or woven into our so-called “faith.” And unbelief is the sin of the ages, the last sin to be overcome on planet earth.

But we can overcome it! And we must overcome it, and for all those who “follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (cf. Rev. 14:1-6—God will have such a people!) there is that blessed gift of freedom from fear.

If you have ever been in despair, be encouraged, the apostle Paul himself was there too. It was in Romans 7 when he cried out, “‘O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?’”

Then imagine his delight when he gets into the joy of Romans 8: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

“No condemnation” means release from what the fallen Adam left to us—our inner sense of a verdict of divine judgment which has hung over us all our lives. Although these feelings of psychic wrong and maladjustment were deep and penetrating, “the law of the Spirit of life” has gone even deeper and is therefore more far reaching. A new principle delivers from the craven sense of fear. Guilt and moral disorder have enslaved us even from infancy.

No psychiatrist can accomplish such a catharsis of the human soul. It heals. Wrongs and anxieties that even our parents were helpless to relieve find inner cleansing. David speaks of the process: “When my father and my mother forsake me [that is, where they must leave off], then the Lord will take me up” (Psalm 27:10; my dear mother had to “leave” me when I was two! “The Lord” has taken the place of my mother; He alone has understood me).

Here’s a breathtaking bit of good good-news: “he who takes God for the portion of his inheritance, has a power working in him for righteousness as much stronger than the power of inherited tendencies to evil, as our heavenly Father is greater than our earthly parents” (E. J. Waggoner).

God the Father solved our problems by “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3, 4).

The word “likeness” means identical, the same as. Christ who was fully God now became fully man. He built a divine-human bridge that spanned the gulf of alienation that sin had made between us and God. Its foundations reach all the way to the deepest root within us of sinful alienation.

Someone unknown to us writes asking us to pray that God will send “THE man into [her] life” that God has called to be a father to her baby. She quotes extensively from Steps to Christ, and we can only pray that the Lord in His mercy and grace will help her to believe its message and save her from making a tragic mistake now.

God has promised to write His holy law in our human hearts; that law says “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and the prohibition includes the sin of fornication.

When we believe the Preamble to the Ten Commandments which says that the LORD has “brought us out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, “ the apparently stern Ten Commandments become ten precious promises (cf. Ex. 20:2, 12). That Preamble is the statement of the Lord’s forgiving gift of justification (cf. Rom. 3:21-26; 5:15-18).

Any mother anywhere in the world needs the LORD God to be with her, to guide her in raising her baby, whether she is married to a man or not, and whoever that “man” may be. Even if he is the best man in the world, she needs to be guided by the Lord; and if she has no husband, she still must “know the Lord,” and she can know Him.

Here’s what it means to “know” Him (the wisdom is in Jeremiah 9:23, 24):

(1) “Let not the wise person (the masculine pronoun is not in the Hebrew) glory in his [her] wisdom,

(2) let not the mighty person glory in his [her] might,

(3) let not the rich person glory in his/her riches,

(4) But let him [or her] who glories glory in this, that he [she] understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

(5) For in these I delight, says the LORD.”

A single mother who “knows” this by faith, believing this truth about the love, forgiveness and goodness of the LORD, will know His blessing in raising her child.

“Any man,” whoever, can be a very poor substitute for the LORD. But the Lord gives Himself to anyone who seeks Him in faith.

When the little Boy of 12 watched His first Passover at Jerusalem, He wondered what it meant. No one could explain it to Him. He had to reason it out through His inspired mind and conclude that it meant that Someone sinless must come and be sacrificed as the Lamb of God.

What’s amazing is that this teenage Boy did not fight the conviction that He was called to die as the “Lamb of God”!

We know He accepted the call, because the first words we have from His lips were what He said to His mother when she later found Him in the Temple, “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). That 12 year old Boy was dedicated! He was the first of many who have out-thought their parents, and yes, their pastors, in understanding the leading of the Holy Spirit.

That “Boy” stayed dedicated to His Father’s “business” until He “set His face” to go to Jerusalem to be crucified (see Luke 9:51).

There are in the world today many teens who likewise hear and respond to the call of the Holy Spirit to dedicate themselves to the Lord Jesus. The nation’s religious leaders in the Temple in Jerusalem had no idea what was happening up in Nazareth in Galilee, while this Teen was growing up and while He was working as a carpenter. The Holy Spirit was teaching Him.

So there are youth today, some as young as 12, who are thinking very seriously, and responding to the Holy Spirit very deeply. They may be 144,000 in number!

Let them ponder that Youth of 12. He does not impose upon them the heavy burdens of Old Covenant living; He invites them to fellowship with Himself in joyous New Covenant freedom. Theirs will be the once-forever joy of proclaiming the message that will lighten the earth with glory (Rev. 18:1-4).

The apostle Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit when he cried out, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.” He was talking about “the exceeding grace of God in you,” the believers in Macedonia, and their giving themselves to “the gospel of Christ” (2 Cor. 9:13-15). What was that “unspeakable gift”?

(1) “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (Jon 3:16). Not a loan, not an offer in some kind of mutual bargain struck between the two—God and man; nothing in any way temporary, exalting human merit.

(2) It was a permanent abandonment of the “high and holy place” Christ held in the vast government of God (cf. Isa. 57:15). He “emptied Himself” is the way Paul describes His condescension (Phil. 2:5-7). It was a progressive turning Himself inside out, in seven steps:

(3) First, the giving up of all His heavenly prerogatives (vs. 6).

(4) Then, “being found in fashion as a man” (a remarkable description of how He came to realize in His humanity who He was and what He had done with Himself thus far—perhaps at the age of 12?), “He humbled Himself” still further.

(5) When He witnessed His first Passover, the Holy Spirit impressed upon His soul the conviction: He was that real “Lamb of God”! And that Boy of 12 surrendered Himself to be just that, for He told His parents, “I must be about My Father’s business” (Luke 2:49). Here was no Teenager resisting and fighting Duty, but One surrendered to it!

(6) Witnessing the bloodshed of the innocent lamb, He knew what His commitment entailed: from that day the Cross was His destiny, freely embraced. He “became obedient” to it.

(7) Paul described it as “even the death of the cross,” which everybody in that day understood to be the death that involved “the curse” of God (cf. Gal. 3:13; Deut. 21:22, 23). Scripture is clear: His enemies who watched Him die assumed that God had cursed Him and He was lost forever; even He Himself confessed it! (Matt. 27:46).

Does your heart offer “thanksgiving”?

Where I happen to live on the face of planet earth, there is a measure of political peace. The highways are comparatively safe; grocery stores are open; there is a measure of that “good will” that the angels sang about over the hills of Bethlehem at the birth of the Messiah.

On this particular early Thanksgiving morning, the almost full moon shines brightly ... not only over my little landscape, but over Baghdad, too; and media reports that filter through say there is a measure of stability returning to that land of horror. Since the “surge,” say the reports, there is some renewed activity in the streets, and people are beginning to emerge.

Could there be a modicum of peace returning in Iraq?

Could Sunnis and Shiites be tiring of strife? We pray the answer is yes.

If so, it is because of what the LORD God said to the Serpent in the Garden of Eden long ago: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed. ...” (Gen. 3:15). Default on planet earth is a measure of war between good and evil, between Christ and Satan, which is heart enmity against violence; because of what the LORD said, peace cannot help but break out at last. People just get tired of fighting, they yearn for peace from the Lord.

But if so, it is also because of Bible prophecy: as surely as the continued division of Europe into the iron and clay of the great image of Daniel 2, so is the prophecy of an open door for the proclamation of the fourth angel’s message of Revelation 18:1-4. The same LORD God of Eden is determined today that people get a chance to hear His message of grace that must lighten the earth with glory. Not all will accept, but all must be given the opportunity, and that will require that the “four angels” hold back the four winds of strife. God is not asleep!

There are places in the Bible that sound embarrassing for God because they seem to say that He has sinned; at least, He felt terribly as though He had sinned. For example, we read that the Father has “made [Christ] to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Imagine the best person on earth becomes overwhelmed with the pollution of filthy, sinful guilt, he feels kicked out of all decent society; He has to stay outside in the darkness and watch the happy party going on inside with Himself thrown out, yet He knows that He belongs inside! He has suffered the grossest injustice of eternity and there is no help for Him.

A sinless Person “made to be sin”! Imagine the most horrible place to find yourself—we can’t name it; and think of Yourself thrown there with no sweet relief of death possible for you, forever. You are the hated One of all eternity; “made to be sin ... !”

There are passages in the Psalms that are clearly Messianic but confess such sin, such as this: “Innumerable evils have surrounded Me: My iniquities have overtaken Me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of My head, therefore My heart fails Me” (Psalm 40:12). The context is clearly talking about the Messiah.

“Made to be sin for us who knew no sin”! Felt the pollution and horror with all the sentient feeling of divinity imprisoned in humanity—felt it to be His never-ending hell. We quote it in deep reverence: He was in that one spot in the wide universe that is “hell” itself (Acts 2:27). The Father had forsaken Him!

And all this in the full surrender of His own volition in the primeval past eternity when divine Father and Son clasped hands, made the covenant to “give” and to be “given” for the sin of the word.

Our shriveled up hearts and dwarfed minds need to be stretched to comprehend what it cost the Father and the Son to save us.

It was only yesterday that we were discussing here what is that “unspeakable gift” for which our hearts cry out to the Father, “Thanks!”

We saw that the angels and the “twenty-four elders” who praise the Lord unendingly are not fanatics (Rev. 4:8-11); when we come to “comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of “the love [agape] of Christ which passes knowledge,” we can’t help doing the same.

We even went so far yesterday as to suggest that there is salvation in comprehending, choosing, expressing, that “thanksgiving”! It’s the only appropriate response to the love Christ poured out on His cross. It’s exceedingly close to a true definition of what faith is.

Now today comes the Sacramento Bee with a front-page article saying “Thanks is Good Therapy.” A university psychologist, Robert A. Emmons, says that “even when the odds are against you, having gratitude can bring many emotional—and physical—benefits. Gratitude, he said, is not something to be kept tucked away until the holiday season.”

He tells of a 56 year old pharmacist undergoing treatment for lung cancer who has learned to be grateful for even one more day given him; the physician sees what he believes is renewed life given the sick man because of his gratitude for even a little life.

How much greater is the life-giving value of faith in Christ if such faith is understood as a mind-stretching, soul-stretching heart appreciation of what it cost Him to save us! Involved intimately in that heart experience is the conviction pressed upon us by the Holy Spirit that it was our heart “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7) that brought Him to His cross. You will feel like telling Him “Thank You!” forever.

Do I dare say it—it’s better to tell Him that today than to wait to tell it to Him in the blessed hereafter. Why? Because telling Him now changes you and saves you for being happy in the blessed hereafter! It delivers you from Old to New Covenant living.

Too many of our celebrated holidays are of pagan origin and bear those marks even today; but one is free of it—Thanksgiving.

But even that one last touch of national gratitude to God is marred now by the designation “Turkey Day,” so the Day is marked by indulgence of appetite. A popular Bible text for Thanksgiving Day sermons is, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15).

The one gift above all gifts He has given us is this: “God so loved the world that He gave ...” It was all that He had in the gift, not the loan, not the mere offer, of His Son (John 3:16). The Son of God is now the Son of man; He is eternally a member of our human race; but that wasn’t far enough for the Father to “give.” He went further in pouring out the “gift.”

The Father gave Him to take seven steps in stepping down lower, itemized in Philippians 2:5-8: [1] He abandoned His high heavenly position; [2] He suffered the loss of His pure reputation, He Himself was covered with disgrace; [3] He took the lowest level of social honor; [4] He became One “made in the likeness” of fallen man (Rom. 8:3, 4); [5] He took a nose dive below that—[6] humbled Himself as low as a human being could go so He could “taste death for every person,” [7] which had to be the most horrible death one could know, “even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).

“Thanks” for that, says Paul!

But that was not far enough down, as most people understand it: the death which He died was far more than the physical, social agony of His cross. It was what the Bible calls “the second death,” the death in which there is no hope of a resurrection (that was the death that Christ saved us from!). He carried with Him that hope of a resurrection all His life, up until when He was “made to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21), when He cried out in most bitter agony, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?”(Matt. 27:46). That point there was where the “giving” was the greatest; it was a gift for eternity, an infinite gift.

Contemplating that gift of His love has a subduing effect upon the human soul; no one can be the same after his heart grasps that!

If the idea can be translated and the consciousness of its “breadth, and length, and depth, and height” can be grasped, there is salvation in the very thanksgiving, as there is salvation in faith. Such thanksgiving is close to what faith is! The human heart is moved forever. Those heavenly beings who are still humans (the “24 elders,” see Rev. 4:4; 5:9) never cease to give their thanks; neither will you, once you grasp what that “unspeakable gift” entails.

Massive prayers are being offered worldwide for the Lord to “open the windows of heaven” and pour out the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon the “remnant” of Revelation 12:17.

The Lord Jesus has promised to give that most precious gift; the problem is, will we recognize the gift when it comes?

Jesus explained the gift clearly: “And when He is come, He will reprove [convict] the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”(John 16:8). Jesus promised that “if I depart, I will send Him unto you” as the One called to come and sit down beside you and never leave you [Paracletos].

One Christian lady whose heart was right with the Lord and whom He blessed abundantly, would pray, “Lord, show me the worst of my case!” When the Lord does that for us, it puts us on a level with Isaiah in chapter 6 when he cried out, “Woe is me! for I am undone, ... for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (vs. 5).

To show one “the worst” of his “case” is not rubbing our nose in the dirt; the Lord does not want to humiliate us, to destroy us by crushing all sense of self-respect. Self-respect is a healthful conviction (it’s self-esteem that we need to guard against; the two can be confused easily).

Remember, that when Isaiah saw self as “undone,” he was experiencing what it means to be “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20), and that meant that he was resurrected with Him too (Rom. 6:4, 5).

The more Elijah prayed after the exhilarating experience of Mt. Carmel the smaller he saw himself to be and was then prepared to experience and endure the “rain” (1 Kings 18:41-46).

We may think that it’s no fun to be “crucified.” But would you disdain, refuse, to be the believing, repentant thief on the cross “crucified with Christ”? He heard the words spoken to him in assurance, “Verily I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with Me in paradise”! He died in that full assurance; not a bad experience for anyone! For him, that was being “full of the Holy Spirit.” And the end of his soul-winning ministry is not yet. (I can’t wait to see the Lord Jesus give him his “reward” in the judgment day, for I myself will be one of the “stars in his crown.”)

We were reading the words of that wise author in Ministry of Healing, page 452, “If we should come to the close of life with our work undone, it would be an eternal loss.”

Sober thought!

“AN eternal loss”: it doesn’t necessarily say a TOTAL eternal loss.

The apostle Paul can help us here:

It is true that each of us has a life work that we are called to do, and if we come to our end of life with that work neglected, it will be a tragedy: it will be like planting a crop and reaping no harvest. “He who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. ... If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, [or] 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 he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:8-15).

Do we have a right to say that if anyone’s life work is a total loss, he can still be saved?

Yes, says Paul; but he will be like someone in our recent California forest fires—he will escape with only the clothes on his back; everything else just ashes.

What the Lord wants your life work to be only He can tell you; what we know for sure is that He wants you to be happy when you meet Him face to face. When we come up to the One who sits on the Great White Throne before “whose face the earth and the heaven [flee] away” (Rev. 20:11; yes we must “all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” 2 Cor. 5:10), we will see the cross of Christ looming high “above the throne.” Yes, the cross is higher than the throne! It’s something that even the Father bows to! In that moment, we will see our life as it should have been.

If you are still short of your death-bed, kneel and plead with Him to help you surrender to the “constraint” of that love (agape) of Christ. Don’t try to “earn” a reward, but truly “believe” in Him so the fountain of living water may flow out of your empty heart to bless others (cf. John 7:37, 38).

Someone deeply perturbed has written in spiritual distress. She was reared in a strict church long ago that preached high standards; she became discouraged, thinking that she could never measure up to those requirements for salvation, so she left the church.

Then in the providence of God, she discovered that the gospel is good news of what the Lord Jesus has done for us, that His love for us is active, not passive, that He will hold us by the hand rather than leave us to hang on in our own strength, in short, she found that “it is easier to be saved than it is to be lost,” that resisting the Holy Spirit is itself is hard work.

The good news of the gospel encouraged her, so she came back to church.

Then she discovered the book Ministry of Healing, page 452, where we read that “the struggle for conquest over self, for holiness and heaven, is a lifelong struggle. Without continual effort and constant activity, there can be no advancement in the divine life, no attainment of the victor’s crown. ... The way of return can be gained only by hard fighting, inch by inch, hour by hour. We cannot be off guard even for a moment ... Should we come to the close of life with our work undone, it would be an eternal loss.”

Yes, it sounds scary, even while we know that it has to be common-sense-true that there is no “vacation” release from following Jesus and bearing His cross. Jesus “said to them all, If anyone will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). What appears “difficult” is closeness to Jesus; and His yoke is “easy.”

Then why this plunge back into the icy waters of apparent discouragement? It’s not discouragement: listen:

All this wonderfully high standard is absolutely true: but “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). The Lord Jesus as our Savior motivates us by His love to keep His commandments. If the Preamble is joined to the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1), reminding us that Christ has delivered us from Egyptian dark bondage, then the Ten apparently difficult commandments become Ten wonderful promises.

Sister; don’t turn your back on the good news of what Christ has done for us; thank Him, cherish it. The good news is better than you think; no standards are lowered; instead, the grace of Christ is multiplied “much more” than sin has abounded (Rom. 5:21).

Why is unbelief a downright sin, and not merely a weakness of the flesh or a little fault?

It’s extremely serious, for (a) the world is condemned for it (John 3:18). (b) Israel was kept out of the Promised Land because of it (Heb. 3:19). (c) It is sin itself (vs. 12). (d) It keeps people away from salvation (Luke 8:12). (e) It makes one a fool (Luke 24:25). (f) God has concluded everyone in unbelief—it’s the sin of sins, the one universal sin (Rom. 11:32). (g) It is the ultimate rejection of Christ (John 5:38). (h) Unbelief is the actual love of darkness (John 3:19). (i) Unbelief brings the loss of souls (2 Thess. 2:10-12).

Unbelief is the preeminent sin that we should pray to be delivered from (Mark 9:24).

It’s hard-heartedness. I have had men confess to me with anguish that their hearts are just plain hard, they find it impossible to shed even a tear, anytime. Even the story of the cross leaves them cold.

I tell them Thank God! You sense your need. That’s tremendous progress. Ask Him and He will “restore unto [you] the joy of [His] salvation (Psalm 51:12). But don’t let your heart resent the fact that you have become hard-hearted; it’s true of many people. Often unwise parents kill the little plant of tenderness in the heart of a child; fathers sometimes want to make Johnny become “hard,” like they think a “man” should be, forgetting that we read of the greatest Man who ever walked this earth, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

I knew a man once whose pastime in childhood was pulling wings off of flies; when he became a man, it was hard for him to feel compassion for people in need.

Even the “cream” of the Twelve apostles, Peter, James, and John, went sound asleep rather than sit up with Jesus and empathize with Him in His awful hour of Gethsemane anguish (Matt. 26:37-45). They missed an opportunity of the ages!

How can a hard-hearted person become tender-hearted? By learning to feel for Jesus, to sympathize with Him. (That’s another word for “faith”).

One of the most neglected passages in the Bible explains simply how righteousness by faith works. Yet it’s profound.

The topic talks about when you and I will meet Jesus Christ face to face in final judgment, a very real moment of life, the most real ever (2 Cor. 5:10), “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ”). What will ensure our happiness, then? Not what we have done in achievement, but what we have permitted Him to motivate us to be and to do: “The love of Christ constraineth us” (vs. 14), the opposite of re-strain—that love impels us, pushes us outside of ourselves, makes us do things we never thought we could do. When you’ve been “constrained” by love to do something any whiff of merit is denied.

This “constraint” is not mysterious emotion but sober, rational thinking: “because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then [that’s equivalent to saying that] all died, and that He died for all.” In other words it’s a 2 + 2 = 4 phenomenon: what happened on the cross means that when He died, actually you died, for the simple fact that if He had not died then you would not have survived! “We thus judge,” the most profound reality of all human life. You and I owe everything in exchange, to Him.

From now on living is simply recognizing the honest obligation that we are in debt eternally and infinitely.

It’s the most joyous debt you can imagine.

What’s wrong with the world?

The Lord Jesus Christ has His answer: “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12).

Love is the problem? Or the lack of it?

Could we translate that to mean that people are disobeying the holy law of God? Yes, of course that’s true. And they need to be warned?

But is it wiser to say that people are disregarding the holy law of God because they do not truly know that “love of God”—what it means?

Could it be that instead of needing again to be warned people need to be won?

If we had a kind of meter that could determine the extent of our true obedience (like a thermometer determines how warm we are), it would register the awareness there is in our soul of the love of Christ; and that would directly correlate with the extent of our obedience to the law of God.

The reason? “He who loves another has fulfilled the law. ... If there is any other commandment [it] is all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:8-10; that is not teaching we should love self; Luther got that right long ago: now you love others as you have always previously, naturally, loved yourself).

Our “love-thermometer” is not to measure our love for Christ; it is to measure our appreciation of His love for us.

We are not saved by our love for Jesus. We are saved by His love for us.

We will gain an incalculable blessing if we will get on your knees and spend “a thoughtful hour in contemplation of the life of Christ, especially its closing scenes.” Let His love, not yours, wash through your soul. Don’t begrudge the time!

That grand day when “Jesus stood and cried out” so all the world could hear Him (and heaven too), “If anyone thirsts, ... come to Me and drink,” He knew that some people are not “thirsty.” Even He cannot force them to drink. They go through life bereft of a drop of the “water of life.” They may be billionaires, but don’t envy them.

There’s much being said in the media about how important it is to drink more water for our health. We should drink it even if we don’t feel thirsty, doctors tell us. Maybe we can learn to develop a thirst mechanism that will keep us healthy (!?).

Suppose you’re not “thirsty,” but in cold logic you sense that you are spiritually dry; you know that your heart is onto worldly pleasure, self-seeking, empty vanity: can you make a life choice that involves doing what Jesus said—“come to [Him] and drink” even if you don’t think you feel like it?

You cannot save yourself; and no, you cannot come to Him on your own for He said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). The “drawing” is a very real tug on your heart; the Spirit of God is active. He is working even when you wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat after a disturbing dream; “come” right then! Get out of bed onto your knees and thank Him from the depths of your soul that it was only a dream.

I dreamed one terrible night that I had been unfaithful to my dear wife who was sleeping beside me; I remember the moon was shining full in the window; I just got out on the floor and poured out my unworthy heart in profound thanks to the Savior that the dream wasn’t real. You read about people who never stop thanking and praising the Lord; well, I’m one. It’s my eternal choice. Isaiah reminds us that we don’t “own” an iota of character perfection; “their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord” (54:17).

Yes, begin where you are with a prayer of thanks that you have been saved from a hell on earth; just that, nothing more profound. (It’s the truth!) That will be for you the beginning of eternal life “in Christ.” That choice will be “the right action of your will,” for it will make an entire change in your life, for eternity.

It’s among the more fantastic things that Jesus said about what it means to believe in Him. The statement was made under the heat of his passion just before His crucifixion, as if it were His farewell message to the people at a Feast of Tabernacles:

“On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘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).

The evidence that we truly believe in Him will be seen in the quality of the spiritual food, or refreshing “water of life,” that we share with others. We can’t help it—that “water” is continually flowing like an artesian well to refresh the people the Lord brings us in contact with. You and I don’t need to worry about it, or be anxiously concerned (well, we are of course concerned lest we may muddy the “waters” somehow), but we don’t make the water flow out from our hearts. That’s just the nature of the “water of life,” it flows up continually.

It’s what Paul said is “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5), which is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). New Covenant truth is explosive “gospel.” “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason the hope that is in you ...” (1 Peter 3:15).

A prayer that is according to the will of God (1 John 5:14) and therefore sure to be answered in our behalf is a prayer for understanding of the pure truth of the New Covenant in contrast to the Old; the Old leans toward bondage (Gal. 4:24). For sure, that is not “water of life”! Only the New has life in it.

Two millennia ago in the days of Christ, the captives of Satan were a pathetic lot whom nobody could help, like the demoniac who lived in the graveyard. “No man could bind him, no, not with chains, ... neither could any man tame him” (Mark 5:1-5). Another example, the lady whose daughter “had an unclean spirit” (7:24, 25). And many more. But Jesus Christ delivered them all.

Today the helpless but pathetic captives are addicts: slaves of alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, pornography, kleptomaniacs, even gluttons whose appetite they can’t control. On and on the list goes. There are even slaves to shopping who feel driven to buy stuff they will never need.

The Book of Ephesians presents a power greater than that of all the addictions the devil has invented: the power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead. That’s beyond any guru! Paul says in Ephesians, “I pray that your inward eyes may be enlightened, so that you may know ... how vast are the resources of His [the Father’s] power open to us who have faith. His mighty strength was seen at work when He raised Christ from the dead. ... He put all things beneath His feet” (1:18-22, REB).

A few verses later he reminds us that we have been “dead because of your sins and wickedness ... We too were ... ruled by our physical desires, and did what instinct and evil imagination suggested ... like the rest of mankind” (2:1-3). But now there is salvation:

“God is rich in mercy, and because of His great love for us, He brought us to life with Christ when we were dead because of our sins” (vss. 4, 5). Wait a moment: let’s look at that again. When the Father raised Christ from the dead, says Paul, He raised us too! But we weren’t even born then!

Paul’s “big idea” is this: (a) In joining our humanity, Christ became the “last” or second Adam; and this is forever. (b) He assumed all our liabilities, took our guilt, died our second death, redeemed the human race. (c) He became totally our Substitute—the law cannot demand second death from us now (unless of course we take the condemnation back upon ourselves—many do). (d) Thus when Christ was resurrected, “we” were resurrected “in Him.” All this is our “inheritance.” Paul speaks of it as our right, given to us; nothing but our own choice of unbelief can prevent the same divine power from saving us today from our addictions.

We have witnessed the sad wreckages of broken homes, the husband and wife alienated and the children suffering. And they were miserably unhappy, too.

So often it’s like a broken egg; no one seems able to put it together again—happily. And the pain is deep; money and fine cars don’t help. Even trips to Hawaii don’t heal the wounds.

There are tons of books about what to do. But a list of rules makes one feel helpless. Is it possible that the Gospel can help?

No matter what mistakes the husband and wife have made, the Gospel presents Good News:

(1) God cares about your marriage, in fact, more than you do. If it breaks up, He is the One who gets the rap, because it embarrasses Him. He’s the one who invented marriage; and if it doesn’t work, the real pain is on Him. (And of course, He feels the deeper pain the children feel, that no one can express.)

(2) It was God who brought the two of you together. “When we’re so unsuited to each other?!” you say? Well, He knows the two of you better than you know yourselves. He knows what the problem is, and He knows that if you will believe that He brought you together, and if you can trust Him because He did so, springs of healing can be opened to flow again. You may think you can’t trust each other; but a choice to trust Him sets you free from your dark bondage, into sunlight.

(3) “But suppose the love is dead?” If there is to be a resurrection when Jesus comes, then there must be a resurrection of “dead” love now. Yes! By the same One who presides at both resurrections. It’s time to believe Romans 4:17.

“For he [Abraham] is the father of us all, as Scripture says: ‘I have appointed you to be father of many nations.’ This promise, then, was valid before God, the God in whom he put his faith, the God who makes the dead live and summons things that are not yet in existence as if they already were” (NEB).

Conservative Christians for hundreds of years have discussed (even argued) the relationship between faith and works. Their favorite word used to describe it is “balance.” The popular idea is that one must hold faith and works in “balance.” If you talk about faith for ten minutes then you must also talk about works for ten minutes. However, a check of the concordance reveals that nowhere in the Bible is the word “balance” used to describe this relationship. In inspired writings, there is practically nothing to suggest the use of that word as being appropriate. Scripture and inspired writings are clear “beyond question” that salvation is totally by grace through faith, and Paul even goes out of his way to add, “Not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 9). The “balance” idea strongly suggests that salvation is by faith and by works, a 50/50 deal. Which if true, would certainly give the saved ones something to boast about: “yes, Jesus saved me, but look, I did my part too!”

One popular little book is entitled Faith And Works, the title having been added by editors long after the author’s death. Yet inside the covers, the original author repeatedly speaks of the correct formula as being “faith which works.”

Yes, the Bible is true; there is only one Savior, Jesus; none of us is a co-savior. It’s not a 50/50 salvation trip; it’s 100% salvation by Christ, received by faith. But the faith is not the “dead faith” that the apostle James decries (James 2:20). A “dead faith” can produce nothing except self-righteousness (which doesn’t have a very nice fragrance!). A living faith works; it has to work; it will work; it always works. The “works” is a verb and not a noun.

What is faith? How does the Bible define it? It is not a synonym for works! The devil hates the idea of salvation by faith alone, by faith which works. If in any way he can inject into our thinking the idea that faith is itself works, then he has us deceived. John 3:16 has it: “God loved,” “God gave,” and we “believe” (the same in Greek as have faith). Faith is a human heart response to God’s loving and giving. “With the heart one believes to righteousness” (Rom. 10:10). “Beware, ... lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief” (Heb. 3:12).

In my copy of the Holy Bible, 944 pages are called “the Old Testament,” and 285 pages are called “the New Testament.” The word “testament” is the same as “covenant.” So 77 percent of the Holy Bible is called “The Old Covenant” and 23 percent is called “the New Covenant.” Why this difference?

Are these two “dispensations” in God’s plan of saving the world? Many hold to that view. They understand that the New Covenant began with the crucifixion of the Son of God.

But does it make sense that God has been experimenting, that He tried for 4000 years the Old Covenant method and finally decided that it didn’t work, and now He is trying a new method? If so, can we really trust Him that He knows what He’s doing?

Instead, the Bible is clear that God has always had only one method of saving people. It’s called “the everlasting gospel” or “the everlasting covenant” (Rev. 14:6; Heb. 13:20). No, God is infinitely wise; He has not been poking around with trial-and-error experiments. Ever since the Garden of Eden He has had only one plan of salvation—“by grace through faith” (Eph. 2:9). Christ is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).

Then why the two Covenants?

They are not two methods of salvation; they are two understandings of God’s people through the ages, two opposite perceptions of God’s plan of salvation, not two “dispensations” that He has used as experiments. The Old Covenant was a “faulty” understanding of His people at Mt. Sinai—God was not to blame for it. He tried His best to get them to understand His glorious “New Covenant” as Abraham understood it and was “justified by faith.” But no, they were perverse; they themselves chose the Old Covenant idea. It led them to “bondage” and finally to torture and crucify our Savior (cf. Gal. 4:24). That’s not really good, is it? (Read Gal. 3 and 4.) A kindergarten child can easily understand.

A wise man said, “Peace is such a precious jewel that I would give anything for it except truth.”

The Lord Jesus Christ has not promised us peace in this world of sin: “I came not to send peace, but a sword,” He declares (Matt. 10:34).

There is a group of people all around the world who are symbolized by the expression “who follow the Lamb wherever He goes” (Rev. 14:4, 5). They are following Him just now—in “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” (14:6).

Christ was “despised and rejected of men” (Isa. 53:5); these “144,000” will have known that heart-breaking experience,