“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.”

“Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Mat 7:13,14)

    In Daniel two, the prophet lays out a vision that is not only amazing in its historical prophetic accuracy as seen from our present day but enlightening with regards to contemporary events. Many Bible scholars who study prophecy (which, by the way is about 1/3 of the Bible) point to it as the foundation lesson.

You see, you don’t have peace with God, fellowship with the Creator, based upon your ability to be without ‘leaven’ – sinless.  Rather, the sacrifice was acceptable to God, inclusive of the leaven because of the perfect or spotless animal sacrifice.  None of us establishes peace with God on any other basis.  You can’t qualify yourself, purge yourself, make yourself holy enough to obtain that peace.  You can’t do enough good works to somehow grasp it.  That’s the fundamental doctrine of grace, isn’t it?   

We need to understand that although our Lord does indeed tell us to be conformed to the image of His dear Son (Rom 8:29, 12:2, Phi 3:10-12) and though godly character is indeed one fruit of His testing (Rom 5:3,4), there’s only one kind of real failure. 

   These passages are wonderfully prophetic in a pictorial way and their message is very pertinent to us.  You know, the scriptures say, “…the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev 19:10)  That is, His life and words fulfilled prophecy and declared it.   Let’s look at the circumstances of each of these two miracles and then I’ll give some suggestions for you to consider. 

Keeping our focus on coming to faith in Christ, let’s consider this woman’s heart. To begin with, she’s bluntly honest and this is always the starting point on the road to salvation. Those who try to play an insincere or dishonest game of verbal dodge-ball with God find Him silent. But Jesus gave this woman a response that engaged her beautifully.

But the time is nearly upon us when all of that will change. You see, much to the disappointment of patriotic Christianity, America is NOT mentioned even indirectly in scripture as playing a role during the Tribulation, that is, during the last seven years of this age of history also known as the 70th prophetic week of Daniel 9:24-27.

“Do you know what I did in Tripoli?” he smiled broadly almost like a child.

“No, Abdul. What did you do?” We anticipated something unusual just by his body-language.

Back in the US for about a month, we got a call from a couple we knew in Rome. They asked us to consider joining them on a short-term mission to Acapulco, Mexico. Darlene was several months pregnant, so our inclination was to say no. Nevertheless, we prayed about it and felt that the Lord was saying yes. So, we got a small trailer to tow behind our little Chevy Vega – yeah, a Vega, and headed off to meet our friends and drive down south.

Simply by becoming a man, God made is Son vulnerable. Think of that. The wording also indicates that Jesus was always ‘facing’ the Father as He grew. His entire life was dedicated to God Almighty. And when we read, “no form or comeliness” and “ no beauty”, the Holy Spirit wants us to understand that although His character was amazingly beautiful, His outward appearance was ordinary; that is, the crowds did not surround Him because He was handsome.