Daily Bread  -  February, 2008

by Robert J. Wieland

Elijah had been the most hated and despised man in Israel; but he ended up the greatest when he faced King Ahab and the nation on Mt. Carmel.

The Lord has sent him to “us” now (Mal. 4:5, 6); the great confrontation of ancient Mt. Carmel must be repeated on a world scale. Elijah has work to do.

The reason? The Lord Jesus Christ is coming to fulfill His promise (John 14:1-3), and it’s necessary to judge before His coming who will have part in the “blessed” first resurrection (cf. Rev. 20:6) and who will be left to sleep on until the dreaded second resurrection (vs. 5) at the end of the thousand years.

Jesus explained that this judgment (being “accounted worthy”) must of necessity precede His second coming. The steps are explained: “We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord [grab that, by faith; be in that group!] shall not precede (Greek) them which are asleep. ... We which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so [in this way] shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:15-17).

But not only must the dead be judged as to who comes up in the first resurrection; Jesus says that those of us living on the earth must also be pre-judged as to who shall be “accounted worthy” to meet Him and be translated (as Elijah was; Luke 21:36; cf. 2 Kings 2:11).

That judgment is going on right now. If you listen to the Holy Spirit He will convict you that life now is solemn. Whether you are young or old, the reality is the same. Our last day on this planet will be the same as our first day in whichever resurrection we shall find ourselves at last.

If games and sinful indolence are our “life,” we can’t be happy in any resurrection. Jesus adds that if we let the “cares of this life” occupy our time and attention (Luke 21:34), we can’t be happy at the end. Better give up that ambition to acquire a Hummer or a palace in a gated community; Elijah’s message points us to a serious reason for modest living just now.

Do you want the Holy Spirit to point you to an effective motivation for better living?

Behold, ponder, consider, contemplate, think, appreciate, spend quality time, ... at the cross of Jesus; His love will “constrain” you to live “henceforth” unto Him who died for you and rose again (2 Cor. 5:14, 15).

The great prophet is here! God promised to send Elijah “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5, 6).

But don’t look for a solemn white haired old man with a beard down to his toes, pronouncing woes upon us.

Jesus said that Elijah had already come in His day, but the disciples had missed him, even though Jesus’ day was not the “great and dreadful day of the Lord.” “Elijah” is not necessarily or only a physical person; he is a message that God sends.

What happened in Jesus’ day? The message of John the Baptist fulfilled the promise of God. So, in our last days, there’s a message that God is sending just as startling as was Elijah’s declaration that no dew nor rain would fall on the land of Israel until he, Elijah, gave permission (cf. 1 Kings 17:1).

John the Baptist’s message startled the people in Jesus’ day; God sends a special message that startles the Christian world today—that of three angels in Revelation 14:

(a) The hour of God’s judgment is here right now (vss. 6, 7). Not only that God is judging us; He has submitted Himself to judgment—is His administration of the government of the universe upright and fair? He is facing the cosmic rebellion of Lucifer (who became Satan, 12:1-4, 7-9).

(b) The second angel says, “Get out of Babylon” (14:8), which means confusion. The same message came to Abraham—get out of the great city of “Ur of the Chaldees,” out of your father’s family; nothing must hold you back from following the Lord (Gen. 11:28; 12:1). That’s what Elijah says today (he says it in love).

(c) A great falling away from the truth has happened to the Christian church in general (cf. 2 Thess. 2:3-7). Daniel predicted it (7:7-25). The second angel’s message tells the Christian world what to do (Rev. 14:8).

(d) Elijah standing alone on Mt. Carmel before King Ahab and Israel, faced down the prophets of Baal, defeated them and brought the nation to its knees in repentance (1 Kings 18).

(e) This massive realignment of human souls worldwide is what “Elijah” is doing today.

(f) ”Baal” was the common word for “lord” in Elijah’s day; but it was a false Christ for that day. Baal worship today? It’s the worship of self disguised as the worship of Christ. “The hour of God’s judgment” goes deep in penetrating our motives.

We may have an unseen Guest in our midst at any time—unseen, but not unheard. The Lord promised that He will send “us” the prophet Elijah “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal. 4:5, 6). That’s now.

Elijah was a serious prophet of the Lord. He did something for him way back then that He will do for those in these last days who “overcome” (cf. Rev. 3:21)—He invited the praying man from Gilead to come up and sit with Him on His “throne.” Not literally any more than those will; but the evidence seems clear that the Lord gave Elijah carte blanche to do with Israel what he, the prophet, believed was necessary: that is, bring a famine and drought on the nation.

Sounds mean and cruel?

No, it was all in love, true “hard love,” the kind so necessary to avoid total ruin. The praying man from Gilead knew that if Israel should go on in their Baal worship, the nation would be totally destroyed. Even more serious: the witness that God had set Israel to be to the world (yes, and to the universe) would be silenced. Something drastic is necessary.

Elijah did not tell King Ahab that there would be no dew or rain until the Lord gives permission; instead he sounds unbelievably arrogant: he tells the king there will be no dew nor rain until he, the prophet, gives permission. “There will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word” (1 Kings 17:1, NIV).

James confirms: “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain” (5:17, 18, NIV).

Elijah was translated without seeing death (2 Kings 2:9-11); therefore he has a glorified body and can go where he wishes as Jesus could after His resurrection (cf. Luke 24:33-37).

The Lord has sent him with a special mission: to “turn hearts” in families (Mal. 4:5, 6), the most difficult thing to do in God’s great universe.

Everybody in the world is invited to pray the Lord’s Prayer, which addresses God as “our Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9). That’s because the Father gave His Son Jesus to be “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42); He is that already. You don’t have to do anything to make Him become your Savior. What you have to do is to welcome Him for what He already is, to receive Him for what He already is—your Savior.

You are not worthy, you have no merit of your own. You cannot save yourself, but you can thank Him for saving you. That’s happiness!

Something happens deep inside your soul when you come to Him in that prayer of thanksgiving:

(1) You feel deeply humbled (but not humiliated; there’s a great difference). You sense that He honors you in His recognition of you as a child of His Father. You are a member of “the family of heaven” (Eph. 3:15), closer to Him who is on the throne than any angel in heaven can be.

(2) You are already “adopted” (1:4, 5). An adopted child in a family is a member of the family, not on probation; he is secure in his new relationship although he may not realize it. He may be a naughty adopted child (such kids are often naughty simply because they are not sure that their adoption is genuine—they try to test its reality). They need to learn the truth of their adoption into the earthly family through the avenue of understanding their adoption (and ours!) into the heavenly “family.” Oh how precious is the truth that earthly family happiness depends on first appreciating our adoption into “the whole family in heaven and earth” (Eph. 3:15).

(3) The blessed New Covenant gospel implants that solid confidence into the hearts of family members and children. Let’s not confuse our situation with any Old Covenant teaching in our family. Let’s not employ fear as our method of imposing control; some heart-broken, tearful prayer of humility will do father and mother (and adoptive parent) worlds of good. The Lord does love you and your children, natural and adopted; He is working. Let Him work!

Recently we were writing about Proverbs 22:14, “Adultery is a trap—it catches those with whom the Lord is angry”(GNB). The KJV says that the Lord “abhors” them, but that does not mean that He dislikes them or that He turns away from them. He still loves whom He “abhors.”

They are the people in Isaiah: “For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart” (Isa. 57:17; “frowardly” = proud stubbornness).

But don’t stop yet: yes, the Lord was forced to punish this “froward” person (someone who goes his own way), BUT read on: “I have seen his ways, and I will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. ... and I will heal him” (vss. 18, 19). Twice it promises He “will heal him.”

The Lord does not want to dishearten or discourage any sinner. The previous verse tells us: “Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (vs. 15).

Never was King David dearer to the heart of God than the day he was humbling his heart with bitter tears for his sin of adultery and murder (Psalm 51:3, 4, 11, etc.). We have to stop and think: the Lord does love sinners!

“I came not come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” says Jesus (Matt. 9:13).

If you have sinned and fallen into that “deep pit,” you must believe: (1) that the Lord Jesus gave His life for you on His cross because He loves you; (2) that He accepts you when you come to Him broken-hearted and repentant, hating now the sin that ensnared you; (3) that He felt as you feel (though He was pure and righteous) when He “was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21); (4) it was your sin (and everybody’s) that killed Him; you have not yet fully repented until you understand and realize that it was your sin that tortured and killed Him when He died for you. That’s the repentance that the Lord gives.

From now on you can’t be a lukewarm, indifferent, world-loving Laodicean: you have “tasted” that “deep pit” with its horrors: genuine repentance will never stop hating sin; the closer you come to Jesus the more keenly you feel its guilt. But “the joy of the Lord” sustains you when you have learned to hate sin (Psalm 51:12).

Since the beginning of Daniel’s great “time of the end” at the end of the “time, times, and half a time” (7:25) in 1798 A. D., those who love the prophecies have reveled in the “blessed hope” of seeing Jesus return in the clouds of heaven.

It’s in Titus 2: “The grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared, teaching us to say ‘No!’ to ungodliness and worldly lusts, that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (11, 12; cf. NIV; the Greek allows this).

It’s not fear of annihilation that “teaches” us to swim upstream against the current; please note, it’s “the grace of God,” which Paul says elsewhere is “much more abounding” than all the popular sin of the last days (Rom. 5:20). It involves the action of our own personal will, our choice. Saying “No!” to worldly lusts is contrary to our basic nature which we have inherited from our fallen father Adam; but a heart appreciation of that “grace” teaches us, trains us, motivates us, yes, “constrains” us (2 Cor. 5:13-15) to follow the self-sacrificing Jesus.

That “grace” is not an emotional wave that passes easily; it’s hard-as-rock, solidly deep conviction. We finally learn (being “taught” by that grace) what Jesus personally surrendered to experience the total repertoire of frightful agony that our sin brought on us—the second death.

Paul was so absorbed in his understanding of what Jesus endured that he told the Corinthians that he knew nothing among them except that cross where Christ was crucified (1 Cor. 2:1-3). What Paul “saw” did not move him any more than it will move us when we see what he saw. Paul is not a better person than we are down here at the close of time. We are not by nature more hard-hearted and unimpressible, as some think, because the Lord Jesus will find that 144,000 from this last generation who will be moved to forsake the world and all its pleasures and “follow” Him, singing the new song of joy (Rev. 7:1-4; 14:1-5; that may not be a literal number, cf. 7:9).

Come, join them!

Can you even begin to understand why you read in the Bible of people praising God always, who are so overjoyed at what they know the Lord has done for them when they know they are unworthy?

These are people mentioned in Isaiah 54:17 that says: “This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of Me, saith the Lord.”

Let me mention an extreme example: here is a man who finds himself terribly tempted to try to seduce a woman who is not his wife, but the Lord holds him by the hand and saves him from doing this stupid thing, for Proverbs 22:14 tells us that anyone who messes with a “strange woman” (that’s any who is not your lawful wedded wife) falls into a “deep pit” because (hold your breath, it’s true!) he “is abhorred by the Lord.” The GNB says, “adultery is a trap—it catches those with whom the Lord is angry,” The NEB says, “those whom the Lord has cursed will fall into [that deep pit].”

If you have ever been tempted to fall into fornication or adultery (as many do), and the dear Lord has held you by the hand and saved you from that headlong fall, then you feel like singing His praises forever. Those who are so blessed are those of whom the Lord says, “Their righteousness is of Me.”

The joy of that deliverance keeps coming back to them even into old age. They count up the happy blessings that have come to them repeatedly in consequence of that act of the Lord’s saving grace.

For example, the joy of that salvation may be a happy marriage (which is goodness straight from the Lord).

Maybe I can praise the Lord just here: we have just conducted a Memorial Service for my beloved Grace of 66 years (happy marriage); do I dare tell the truth? The dear Lord saved us in our youth—no righteousness of our own: He reached His long arm down to us, held us up and saved us from evil so that we came together as married virgins; then followed 66 years of blessed one-ness. We can never take an iota of credit to ourselves.

There are several things that Jesus declares are true now of my beloved Grace of 66+ years marriage who has gone to her rest:

1. She “cannot die any more” (Luke 20:36). One bereavement her loving husband and others must endure, is enough for them, Jesus says. One of the most comforting verses I have found in the Bible is Revelation 2:24, “I will put upon you none other burden.” The wealth of love that shows in those few words is encouraging: Jesus knows how heavy are the burdens that we carry and He will see to it that we are not to be loaded down with what will break us.

2. My darling Grace is now “equal unto the angels,” says Jesus (Luke 20:36). She is “asleep in Jesus” and awaits the resurrection, but now her status has changed, Jesus says here: when I think and speak of her, it must now be with a respect I never felt before, even with that touch almost of a little reverence.

3. It takes my mind forward to what will be in the resurrection morning, when I meet her in her glorified state. Oh, what a towering personality she will be! To be “glorified” is beyond our imagination; but in God’s eyes she has already been “glorified” (Rom. 4:17). Every little nuance of understanding will be enhanced, all the glorious truth she never could comprehend fully will then be clear to her. She will exude saving truth; in that coming day, I would sit at her feet to learn.

4. It seems unbelievable but it is true: Jesus says that she is now one of “the children of God” in a special sense (vs. 36). A glorious elevation in status, although since her baptism in 1929 Grace had always been a “child of God” but, as also for all of us, only in an infantile way. This special sense in which she now is, is the glorified one, according to Jesus.

5. He says further that she now is one of “the children of the resurrection,” people of whom the angels are in deepest awe. They step back and let those special “children” pass, “children” who are “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” who now own the universe itself (Rom. 8:17). That is a status that no angel can share. No angel is invited to climb up on to the throne and sit down to share a seat with Jesus, but she is— for He says, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne” (Rev. 3:21).

All this is to be yours “in Christ,” also. Open your heart, let the loving, saving truth pour in.

In our 66+ year marriage, Grace did not assume the place of scholar or theologian; I was supposed to be that, however unworthily. Often as we lay in bed she would ask questions that I was expected to answer.

Now that she is gone; I think of her as more than she used to be because she is the recipient from Heaven of a “blessing” that I have not received. And the word “blessing” is not a little vain touch; the “blessing” is real and it is momentous:

Says John, “I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, for their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:13).

God “calleth those things that be not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17), which means that now He sees her as already resurrected; but in actual reality, she sleeps in a special class that I am not a part of—a “class” “blessed” in some way that makes them super-special. Luke 20 says that they are being “accounted” or judged to “obtain that world [to come] and the resurrection from the dead” (vss. 34-36).

My Grace died “in Christ,” I know; it was dark, we were sitting by the fire and had a bowl of soup before us. I asked God’s blessing on it, giving thanks as I always do, and I remember clearly that she uttered a fervent “amen.” She made my prayer become her prayer; she ate with thanksgiving in her heart. That “amen” that made my prayer to be her prayer was almost the last word I heard her say. Yes, she did not die “from henceforth” thoughtlessly; her faith was active and working right to the end,—she “died in the Lord.”

Therefore I find myself thinking (and speaking) of my wife of over 66 years differently; a special “blessing” rests on her that does not as yet rest on me. There is even a touch of reverence in my thinking: time for me to realize how humble and lowly I am in God’s sight before her.

Yes, and how fortunate I always was to have her for my life companion. If ever I wonder, “does the Lord love me?” I need only marvel anew that He gave this woman to be my spouse!

If you who read this have a spouse that the Lord gave you, appreciate him/her a little more deeply than you ever have.

And for those who don’t have, let me remind you that the Bible teaches that “thy Maker” is your “spouse.” His personal love is closer than any spouse’s could be (Isa. 54:5). Let His truth lift up your head, and be very close to Him.

I wish I could write a message of thanks to each of you around the world who has sent e-mails expressing comfort in my grievous loss of my dear wife Grace.

I continue to speak of her in our daily messages; and I want to thank each of you by this note of appreciation.

Sincerely,

Robert J. Wieland (for Dial Daily Bread)

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The ancient pagan Romans had an idea that a god named Cupid would shoot a couple with his mysterious arrow and cause them to fall in love. The idea is still quite widely prevalent.

The problem was that the same Cupid could shoot them again and cause them to fall out of love so that fornication, adultery, and divorce were common as a new “love” takes over.

Bible teaching on love and marriage is beautifully clear and is lasting good news. Great principles are seen in the story in Genesis 24 of the courtship, love, and marriage of Isaac and Rebecca:

1. Make up your mind that you will put Christ first in your life and that you will not marry someone who is not equally committed to Him (vs. 3).

2. The Lord loved them both so much that it was He who appointed them for each other (vss. 14, 44). He loves you that much, and if you will let Him lead you He will give you that happiness.

3. The Lord loved them so much that He held them and kept them both as virgins until He brought them together in marriage (see vs. 16). Fornication (which is the same as adultery) leaves a painful memory that can be poison to happiness in marriage.

4. The parents were taken into confidence, their counsel was sought, and they became convinced that the Lord was leading these two young people together (vs. 50). This in itself was a blessing.

5. All this Genesis 24 story about Isaac and Rebecca happened after Abraham had discovered the joy of New Covenant living (Gen. 15:6), although he faltered in his faith.

6. Now you can discover the New Covenant today. It’s the Lord’s seven great promises in Genesis 12:2, 3 that apply to you as a descendant of Abraham by faith.

7. You don’t earn your status as a descendant and thus an heir of Abraham; it’s a gift given to you by the Lord Jesus. Now, on your knees to thank Him for the gift!

After you’ve been married to a wonderful one for over 66 years and you lose her, you grieve and the tears come.

It used to be that she looked to me for answers to questions; now I think of her as being on a different level; I must speak of her with a new sense of respect, yes, with a touch of reverence, for she has been given a new gift I have never had—yet. It’s a new “blessing” most special:

Says the Bible, speaking of our day today,

“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the [Holy] Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:13).

Not everybody who dies “from henceforth” is so highly honored: only those who “die in the Lord.” And my Grace did; when we were about to eat our last little supper together [not knowing], I asked God’s blessing on it; she said a fervent “amen.”

Jesus describes in detail those specially “blessed” ones; they are students as it were in a special elevated class—“they who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead ... they [cannot] die any more: for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:35, 36).

I know my darling Grace is at rest, “sleeping” in Jesus, for “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him [that is, from the dead]” (1 Thess. 4:14). But she is being “accounted worthy” in that great pre-Advent judgment; her death has been “precious in the eyes of the Lord”(Psalm 116:15); He too has grieved with me just as Jesus grieved with bereaved Martha at Lazarus’s funeral (John 11:35), but her death was received by Jesus and treasured by Him for He has enrolled her in that special “class.”

In reality she “sleeps in the dust of the earth”(see Dan. 12:2), but being enrolled in that special “class,” she is “a child of the resurrection.” To Him to whom a thousand years are as a day (Psalm 90:4), God sees her as already resurrected, for He “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17). I used to cuddle her in my arms and answer questions; now she is somebody above me in God’s great kingdom—now sleeping, but “in Jesus.” In God’s eyes, she is already resurrected; my job is to believe by faith, and to let that faith work its beautiful fruit of at-one-ment with Him, reconciled to Him, reconciled to His holy law, at one with Him, in harmony with that pre-Advent judgment that Jesus has described. I grieve, but I live “in Him.”

For the many who have inquired: A Memorial Service for Grace Wieland will be held February 16, 4:00 p.m., at the Meadow Vista Seventh-day Adventist Church, Meadow Vista, California. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, charitable donations be sent in Grace’s memory to ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency) for the Kenyan Refugees Project. Address: 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904, USA (www.adra.org)

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When someone loses a beloved wife of 66 years of happy marriage, the loss is devastating. He longs for comfort, some truth that can assuage the pain of the bereavement.

The comfort that Bible teaching gives is vastly more effective in softening the blow of the loss, than popular ideas about the dead.

Multitudes think is that the human soul is by nature immortal; there is no death—the good people supposedly go to heaven immediately at death and the bad people go immediately to some kind of hell where they suffer endlessly. (Imagine the anguish some feel when they realize that the loved one whose loss they mourn was not a good person!)

According to this popular idea, when the saved person dies and goes to heaven, he/she is fully conscious; imagine the pain that “saved” person must feel watching all the tears and anguish of those sorrowing in bereavement! (Grace would be miserable watching me cry!)

Imagine the confusion a person must feel according to this popular idea when he hears the preacher at the funeral say the dead person is in heaven in bliss when you know deep in your heart that person could not be happy in the righteousness that pervades heaven! Suppose the dead person they mourn was indeed an unbeliever and they know it: that’s when many turn to drugs or alcohol to relieve the mental anguish they feel.

How much more comforting is Bible teaching:

The human soul is not immortal, for in the beginning the LORD God said that the result of sin is that “thou shalt surely die” (see Gen, 2:17).

But such death is not eternal, for Jesus adds when He talked with weeping Martha, “Thy brother shall rise again” (John 11:23). “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth” (John 5:28, 29).

Revelation 20 says there will be two resurrections: those who have believed (“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power,” vs. 6). But the unbelieving hosts will come up in the second resurrection at the end of the 1000 years (vss. 5, 6; 11-15).

My beloved Grace is “asleep in Jesus.” She feels no pain; she does not weep at my pain of bereavement; she is at perfect peace. She is now one of those “blessed” ones who are special, for “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:13). That’s where my beloved Grace is resting, “in the arms of Jesus” as it were, in a group that are specially “blessed,” awaiting that happy first resurrection.

You never realize how deeply you have loved the one closest to you until that one is gone. It’s then that you sense what’s real in God’s great universe: the love enriched by the love of Christ (agape).

If Jesus, the Son of God wept (John 11:35), it’s good for us to cry. Thank God we can. The Lord needs to help the man or woman who can’t.

And some from babyhood through no fault of theirs aren’t able to cry tears; the Lord wants to heal them.

Some will want to know how my beloved Grace went last Wednesday night (February 6), and why in the midst of our tears we are praising the Lord for mercies granted. We had had a nice day together (that last day; had we known we could not have been happy). Then as it was getting dark, we had opened a tin of soup and were enjoying it, sitting by the fireside.

Then I said, “Grace, I need to go to my little office down the hall and work on my message for Dial Daily Bread.” She said, “Bob, please don’t leave me now.” I think she sensed that something was coming. I am so thankful to the Lord that I listened to her and stayed.

It wasn’t long until I noticed she had become distant, unresponsive. I said “Grace, Grace!” No response. I knew what had come. I dialed 9-1-1, they came, worked on her, no consciousness; took her in ambulance to hospital, I followed.

I stood by her side, holding her hand, and watched the monitor figures go lower and lower. She couldn’t hear me, I knew, but I said, “Grace, I’ll see you in the morning. Thanks for marrying me!” (I’d said it a thousand times; it’s marvelous that one so unworthy as I should have married such a wonderful girl.)

She went so easily, so simply, no pain. We were both so afraid of being bedfast in a nursing home for months. The dear Lord was merciful to us!

So, in our tears we have some rejoicing.

Believe in Him; be reconciled to Him; let His love fill your soul. Even in death He is faithful and merciful.

A wise and gifted writer  once said that  ”Love is a precious gift, which we receive from Jesus” (Ministry of Healing, p.  358). When, after 66+ years of such preciousness, one of the two has to go, the loss the other feels is enormous. The deeper one has loved, the more painful the loss.

But the absent one is “safe in the arms of Jesus,” as an old hymn says. From the moment sleep came until the resurrection morning is for her hardly a second of time; but the grieving one is left alone.

But not alone: the tears pour out and one cries in anguish, but the shortest verse in the Bible takes over: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). His comfort is as great as His inexhaustible supply of much more abounding grace (Rom. 5:20).

He wept at a funeral where Mary and Martha were grieving; He wept in sympathy with them but also in sympathy with everyone who all through time would weep in bereavement.

So close to us has the Son of God come in His incarnation! He knows what painful loss is; He knows also the more bitter pain of divorce which so often involves the agony of rejection from love.

If in time of suffering your lonely heart cries out “Father! Father!” you can be happy for one wonderful encouragement: it means that the Father has adopted you as a child into His family (consider what Rom. 8:14-17 says). You can walk past all the holy angels directly to His throne because you are now more than any of the angels: you are family!

Verse 14: step one—you are not resisting the Holy Spirit; where He leads you follow. Thank Him!

Verse 15: step two—you do not resist the good news; you believe that the Father has adopted you!

Verse 16: step three, the Holy Spirit manifests agreement with our human “spirit” that it’s true! We are the children of God!

Verse 17: step four, here comes the dessert, purest 2 + 2 = 4 reasoning: being children means we are “heirs of God.” Conclusion: heaven and the wide universe have become ours. An idea too big to be true?

It is true. Inheritors of the vast universe. The Milky Way has become ours “in Christ.”

So why the weeping and wailing when we occasionally now have “the fellowship of [Christ’s] suffering”? (Phil. 3:10).

Grief has overwhelmed me at the sudden death of my darling wife of 66 years, Grace Wieland. She was a loyal and devoted friend of Dial Daily Bread as she often denied herself my companionship as I studied and wrote this little daily message.

But may I voice my praise to the Lord for two things that were direct answers to my prayers of the last few months:

1. I had often prayed to the Lord that He would enable me to become a good caregiver to her in her last years. He did. I was enabled to minister to her until the last moment.

2. I had also prayed earnestly that the Lord would care for her in a special way. He did. She simply lost consciousness Wednesday evening, and slept until she drew her last breath; Now I am overwhelmed with thanks to the Lord for His mercy.

3. I want to praise Him for goodness like this. And recommend Him to you as a faithful and loving heavenly Father.

4. You know I am sure that if in time of trouble your heart cries out “O Father, ... Father!” that is the proof that He has already adopted you as His child  (study carefully Romans 8:14-17). Maybe you are not yet His very faithful child, but you have been adopted!

Thus, we are very brief today: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, Be ye reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

Even in bereavement He demonstrates His love and faithfulness!

Call upon “the Father” and be reconciled to Him.

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A memorial service for Grace Wieland will be held February 16, 4:00 p.m., at the Meadow Vista Seventh-day Adventist Church, Meadow Vista, California. Charitable donations may be made in her memory to Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) for East African Projects. 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904, USA (www.adra.org).

We have some very sad news to report. Grace Wieland, precious wife of Robert J. Wieland, author of “Dial Daily Bread,” passed away February 6. Please join us in prayer for Elder Wieland and his family in their time of sorrow.

When you think of Elijah the prophet, you think of a towering personality bossing King Ahab about like he was a child, standing alone before a huge crowd on Mt. Carmel as the prophet’s prayer brings heaven’s endorsement in fire flashing from heaven.

But wait a moment. Think also of his humiliation: his years of apparently unanswered prayers up in the mountains of Tish as he pleaded for Israel’s repentance, all apparently in vain.

The Lord had given him an understanding of truth, but it brought him pain as he was forced to watch his beloved Israel sink ever deeper in the horrible morass of Baal-worship. It seems that a precious knowledge of God’s truth always brings pain to God’s servant who must watch his people turn from it.

Elijah spent no one knows how many years in such apparently fruitless prayer, denying himself also in fasting. Finally the Lord invited Elijah to share the “Revelation 3:21” experience: “to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne ...” Come, Elijah: you have the good of My Israel on your heart: what do you say we do for them, to save them from utter ruin?

As we study the story, it seems that the 3-1/2 year’s drought was Elijah’s idea (James 5:17, 18). This drastic step was the only way the nation could be awakened to reality. (Yes, Elijah agreed with what James says when he told King Ahab there would no rain until he himself, unworthy as he may have been, gave the order for heaven to send it (1 Kings 17:1, “but according to my word.”)

As the weary 42 months dragged by and all vegetation gradually dried up, the lone but sorrowful prophet was forced to watch the people suffer and some children die; he himself survived only by a little water trickling through the Brook Cherith, and casseroles the ravens brought him—and when even that brook dried up, the Lord sent him to the widow of Zarephath in pagan Sidon (giving Jesus a magnificent story to tell the people of Nazareth,  Luke 4:25, 26).

You too have sincere prayers lifted heavenward daily for the good of someone else: Elijah never stopped praying, but he also let the Lord show him what to do to bring about an answer to his prayers.

Yes, pray; but such prayer may not be enough. Ask the Lord to deepen your knowledge of His gospel: that special “everlasting” one of Revelation 14:6, 7 which is the only way the Holy Spirit can reach the heart of your beloved one you are praying for. Come sit with the Lord on His throne: takes more than fasting and prayer—takes study and understanding, to be at-one with Him.

When we think about what Jesus Christ accomplished in His incarnation, and by His sacrifice on His cross, we must take a serious look at the idea of His being the second or “last Adam.”

When God created man in Eden, He did not create billions of individuals such as we today: He created one man, and one woman to be his “help meet.”

They were to be “fruitful” and “multiply,” and fill the earth with people—through the exercise of love and sex.

But they rebelled against their Creator, and imposed upon their progeny a “judicial ... verdict of condemnation”(Rom. 5:16, NEB).

When God so loved the world that He gave His Son to be our Savior, Christ had to dismiss Adam as head of the human race and take His place as the new or “last Adam” (see 1 Cor. 15:45).

And Christ has also dismissed or has reversed that “judicial ... verdict of condemnation” that Adam fixed on all of us, and has given all of us instead His “judicial ... verdict of acquittal” in Himself (Rom. 5:16, NEB).

This does not mean that now we are all forced to go to heaven, against our will; but for sure He has opened the gates of the New Jerusalem for all to enter if they choose. But it does mean that even those who come up in the second resurrection do so “in Christ,” for “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).

Amazing, but there it is: the hopelessly wicked who come up in the second resurrection (cf. Rev. 20:5ff) do so “in Christ.” They will at last realize, when it is too late, that every breath they ever took was by the grace of Christ as their “last Adam,” and that the cross of Christ was stamped on every loaf of bread they ate. They will at last realize that their true name is Esau—they HAD the most precious “birthright” “in Christ” but wickedly “despised” it and “sold” it for “a mess of pottage” (comparatively speaking), as Esau treated his birthright (Gen. 25:34).

How happy we will be if we can come to see all this glorious truth now, today! Then we will thank the Lord for every breath we have, for every morsel of bread; and we will gladly yield Him our life in return and sing forever after.

People around the world are asking questions: what is the rock-bottom truth of what Jesus Christ accomplished when He died on His cross? Two ideas are in conflict: (1) Did He make a provision whereby it might be possible for “all men” to be saved if they take the initiative to do everything right, that is, keep all God’s commandments? Or, (2) did Jesus actually save “all men” by His sacrifice on His cross? An accomplished deed.

Ordinary people are in perplexity; so also theologians. Is there a clear answer?

1. John 3:16: the Father so loved the world, including all its bad people, that He GAVE His only Son. The giving was done, finished, accomplished, total, eternal. He was given to “all men” (Rom. 5:15-18).

2. Just before He died, the Son told the Father that He had “finished the work” the Father had given Him to do: what work?

3. “Save the world”! (cf. John 17:4).

4. The Samaritans understood before the disciples did: He is “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).

5. But how can the Bible say He is “the Savior of the world” when the world is largely still in rebellion against God?

6. Romans 5 has an answer: as our fallen father Adam brought upon all his descendants a “judicial ... verdict of condemnation,” so Jesus Christ as the second or “last Adam” brought upon the world a “judicial ... verdict of acquittal “ (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB). He actually reversed what the first Adam had done to us all!

7. This means that because of His “much more abounding grace” (vs. 20) the Father can treat every man, including all sinners, as though they have never sinned, sending His rain and sunshine upon good and bad alike (cf. Matt. 5:45).

8. Now if the sinner sees and believes what Jesus Christ has done for him, he will cease the process of “self-perishing” that he has done all his life (read John 3:16 carefully: the “perish” is in the voice of the Greek verb that gives that insight; the Father eventually gives each one of us what we want).

9. The initiative to save was taken entirely by Christ, the Good Shepherd; there is no parable of a lost sheep that must look for its shepherd.

10. We sinners are like a woman loved initially by a man; he did the seeking, for her. Then she responds to his initiating love: that’s the church making herself ready for “the marriage of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:7, 8). The love process begins with Christ.

11. So, from beginning to end, Christ alone is our Savior; in no way do we save ourselves; every tongue in eternity will sing His praises—because the redeemed will at last appreciate that Christ died the second death of “every man” (Heb. 2:9).

12. Maybe more tomorrow, the Lord willing.

Have you wondered why God permitted you to suffer a keen and painful disappointment? Perhaps an illness, a bereavement, perhaps a love betrayed and lost?

The biggest, most painfully shrieking “WHY?” ever screamed was on the Cross by the Son of God Himself: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Everything came apart; His life and His mission totally disintegrated; He drank to the full the bitter cup of purest disappointing agony that you have had just a brief taste of; and He drank it to the full so that He could comfort and encourage you now in your experience of pain.

And He permitted you to have this taste of it so that you might share with Him the joy of ministering comfort to someone else who is going through it.

For example, here is the divine anatomy of comfort: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the all-merciful Father, the God whose consolation never fails us! He consoles us in all our troubles, so that we in turn may be able to console others in any trouble of theirs, and to share with them the consolation we ourselves receive from God” (2 Cor. 1:3, NEB).

Talk about fun! To become a pipe through which flows the healing water of life to people who suffer—that’s a little taste of the joy that the Lord Himself knows! No way can we fully appreciate what the Son of God went through for us, but this little is a heavenly gift of joy—to become “consolers” who minister the consolation He ministers!

Think of that outstanding example of suffering: Job. He and his wife suffered enormously, but what he was doing was to defend the plan of salvation before the rebel forces of the universe; he was loyal to the character of God; he proved Satan was dead wrong and that God is totally right—a magnificent achievement that will make him happy forever, and maybe better still, has “comforted” billions in our here and now before final judgment.

Find somebody (you won’t have to look far) who needs a living word of salvation to come from some human lips; and take your place in God’s great economy of comfort ministered.

John Ernest Bode was as faithful and sincere as a pastor could be when he wrote the poem that has become popular in Protestant church hymnals around the world—“O Jesus, I Have promised to serve Thee to the end, be Thou forever with me, my Master and my friend.”

Pastor Bode wanted to lift the spiritual experience of his church, and through them the moral tone of their town of Castle Camps near Cambridge, England, a worthy goal for any pastor.

In 1866 he has three teenage children, a daughter and two sons, who are to be confirmed Sunday morning in the Church of England. Teen temptations were as alluring then as they are now; thus he wrote, “O let me feel Thee near me; the world is ever near! I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear. My foes are ever near me, around me and within, but Jesus, draw Thou nearer, and shield my soul from sin.” If my teen children will only promise from the depths of their hearts that they will be faithful to keep God’s commandments, he thought, they will be faithful to Him. Thus this hymn.

Yes, Pastor Bode was faithful to the light as he knew it. But the advancing Protestant Reformation had not as yet discovered the Old Covenant confusion that lurks in this popular idea of making promises to God to be faithful to Him.

The principle is clear: the value of promises depends on the righteous fidelity of the Promisor: If the Promisor is God, be thankful and rejoice in His promise, for it will never fail; but if the promisor is a fallible sinful mortal, the promises are empty, for Scripture maintains that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

We only set our clock back when we make these vain promises to God. Abraham experienced his sad foray into the old covenant when he married his second wife Hagar; finally he overcame by believing God’s new covenant promises (cf. Gen. 12:2, 3; 15:6).

At Mt. Sinai 430 years later God sought to renew His new covenant promises to Israel, newly released from Egyptian slavery (cf. Ex. 19:5), but they were absorbed in Pastor Bode’s hymn and made their vain promises to keep God’s law (vs. 8). Result: the “bondage” that Paul explains in Galatians 4:24 always follows absorption in the old covenant.

Pastor Bode’s hymn is still beautiful and now effective when we sing it in its true wording, “O Jesus, I Have Chosen ...”