-------------------------<BrethrenVoice>------------------------- [which seeks to be guided solely by the NT Biblical pattern, facilitates free flow of Christian info. To God be the glory!] [eMail Moderator: brethrenvoice-owner@...] [The Moderator would welcome your comments/feedback] [<SUNDAY-GLEANINGS> Archives/Read online: http://associate.com/digests/brethrenvoice/ezmlm.cgi] <SUNDAY-GLEANINGS> <29 September 2002> Contents: ----------- (1) <Devotional> "Treasury of David - Psalm 84:8"- C.H.Spurgeon (2) <Bible-Study> "Exposition of the Levitical offerings" (Pt-8)-C.E.Wigg (3) <Devotional> "The coals" - Le Lien Fraternal (4) <Bible-Study> "Perfect through sufferings 2/2" - F.B. Meyer (5) <From-the-Gleaner> "Top-stories-of-the-week" - Ben (1) <DEVOTIONAL> TREASURY OF DAVID - PSALM 84:8 C. H. Spurgeon Verse 8: O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer. Give me to go up to thy house, or if I may not do so, yet let my cry be heard. Thou listenest to the united supplications of thy saints, but do not shut out my solitary petition, unworthy though I be. Give ear, O God of Jacob. Though Jehovah of hosts, thou art also the covenant God of solitary pleaders like Jacob; regard thou, then, my plaintive supplication. I wrestle here alone with thee, while the company of thy people have gone on before me to happier scenes, and I beseech thee bless me; for I am resolved to hold thee till thou speak the word of grace into my soul. The repetition of the request for an answer to his prayer denotes his eagerness for a blessing. What a mercy it is that if we cannot gather with the saints, we can still speak to their Master. Selah. A pause was needed after a cry so vehement, a prayer so earnest. EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS - Ver. 8. There are two distinct thoughts of great practical value to the Christian, in this short prayer. There is the sense of divine majesty, and the consciousness of divine relationship. As Lord of hosts, he is almighty in power; as the God of Jacob, he is infinite in mercy and goodness to his people. Things New and Old. _______________________________________________________ 2) <BIBLE-STUDY> THE BREAD OF GOD - AN EXPOSITION OF SOME OF THE LEVITICAL OFFERINGS (PART-8) Charles E. Wigg ... THE FLAYING OF THE SACRIFICE: Next the priest takes the knife and removes the skin of the victim, cuts the body open, removes the inner organs one by one, and cuts the sacrifice into pieces This act revealed the inner perfection in, every part, of the sacrifice, and would remind us once again of the absolute perfection, both outward and inward, of our Lord Jesus Christ. There are many, (especially in India,) who claim to be holy, assuming poses and postures to impress their admirers, but inwardly they lack true holiness, these are the bhagavans, gurus, sanyasis, etc. who sit in the lotus position and encourage people to worship them. This was also true of the Pharisees, as it is also true of all religious hypocrites, regardless of their religion. The Lord Jesus compared the Pharisees to whited sepulchres, outwardly beautiful, but inwardly full of corruption. But he, our sacrifice , was just as perfect inwardly as he was outwardly. He was outwardly perfect in every detail of his life and character, and inwardly perfect in every thought, motive, and desire. The cutting of the sacrifice into its pieces would reveal the perfection of each piece. THE HEAD: The head is mentioned first, and in the type would suggest to us the perfect wisdom which the Lord Jesus displayed all his thoughts and actions, his every thought was pure, holy, and delightful to the heart of God. Paul speaks of the "mind that was in Christ Jesus", that is the mind to be humble and lowly, a mind that put others first. Even as he was suffering on the cross, he was thinking of his mother, the one through whom he came into the world, and he spoke with such wisdom, that without uttering any word of command, John knew what to do, and took her to his own home and into his care. In his death as throughout his life, the Lord Jesus did everything with perfect wisdom, even in his final words! He knew that all things written of him had been accomplished except for one detail, he therefore said "I thirst", enabling the statement of Psalm 69;21 to be fulfilled, after which he cried "It is finished", whereupon he bowed his blessed head. gave up his spirit, and died in perfect dignity. These words were not uttered , nor his actions fulfilled in panic or desperation, but controlled by a mind filled with perfect wisdom. All this was indeed a sweet savor to God, such as only he could fully appreciate, nevertheless the believer can express his tiny appreciation of it in worship and adoration. THE FAT: Then the fat was to be placed in order, and typically this would remind us of the richness of the inward moral excellence of Christ. he inner motives that were the spring of all his actions. No one was ever to eat the fat, like the blood, it was wholly for God. I suggest that this would teach us that only God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ was able to fully appreciate and assimilate his inward moral excellence. THE INWARDS AND THE LEGS: We read next of the inwards and the legs which were to be washed in water, then burnt upon the fire. The washing does not suggest that there was ever anything about our Lord Jesus that was impure, or needed cleansing, but the washing was to remove anything that was unacceptable that clung to the sacrifice, due to the clumsiness of the priest. The water used to cleanse the sacrifice, represents the word of God, (Eph.5;26,) and sometimes in our worship, in our offering to God our appreciation of the worth and glory of the person of Christ, we use expressions and thoughts that are not just in accord with the scriptures, and are not acceptable, such need to be cleansed away by a better understanding of the word. This may be because of ignorance, or because of wrong teaching, yet the person's motives or intentions may be perfectly right. Sometimes through nervousness what the believer wanted to say may escape from his mind and he says something he never intended to say. Then a priestly or spiritual person may gently correct that by showing what the word of God does say, but this should never be done harshly, or in rebuke. The washing only further reveals the purity and perfection of the offering. THE INWARD PARTS: These would again remind us of the purity and perfection of the deep inner desires aims, motives and feelings of the Lord Jesus. The stomach of the bullock, once all the food, acids and extraneous matter is removed by the washing, is a pure, creamy-white colour, and has a soft texture. This would remind us that the Lord Jesus not only did what was right , pure and holy, but he did those things from a perfectly pure motive, which was the motive of eternal love for his Father, and a desire to please him only, see Psl. 40;6-8, 45;7, Jn.4;34, 8;28-29. He did nothing for his own prominence, pleasure or glory, but for that of his Father alone, never once was he motivated by selfishness. THE LEGS: The legs are mentioned next and these would remind us of the perfect and holy walk of our Lord Jesus both before God, and before men. Peter said that he went about doing good, (Acts 10;38,) and John tells us that we should walk "as he walked". (1 John 2;6.) It was the walk of the Lord Jesus that attracted John the Baptist and caused him to exclaim, "Behold the Lamb of God." His was a pathway of true perfection, of perfect holiness, complete dependence, absolute dependence and of true separation from all that was evil. Those legs carried him to the cross, and though the legs of the two thieves were broken by the soldiers, yet his legs were not broken, so delightful was his pathway to God. Though God "taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man", (Psalm 147;19,) yet God found perfect delight in the pathway, the legs of his beloved Son. [To be concluded] --- [Reproduced with permission] _______________________________________________________ (3) <DEVOTIONAL> THE COALS Le Lien Fraternal Coals are often used as illustrations amongst Christians to encourage us to mutual fellowship. It is a well known fact that that isolating a burning coal will cool it off in a short while but that in the company of others they will mutually entertain each other. The disciples of Emmaus said : "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the scriptures". (Luke 24 :32). If you gather cold coals, they will remain cold. But when there is contact with a burning coal then they too are ignited and heat up. In Psalm 31:12 (NT) we read "I am forgotten in their heart as a dead man" - surely cold hearts towards Him even if the mind may know much about Him. But the heart of the Lord Jesus is ever burning with fervent love for us and He delights, as we are gathered around Him, specifically to remember Him in His death for us, to warm our cooled-off hearts by His unchanging love. He alone is that coal burning with fervent, infinite, inexhaustible love that restores and warms ours so that they, in turn, burn for Him. "He was made known to them in the breaking of bread " (Luc 24 :35 NT) What a Saviour! What a love! ---- [Reproduced with permission] _______________________________________________________ (4) <BIBLE-STUDY> "PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERINGS" 2/2 F.B. Meyer "It became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Heb 2:10 (2/2) What true soul has not its wilderness of temptation; its conflicts with Sadducees and Scribes; its hour of weariness and watching; its tears over cities full of rebellious men; its disappointments from friends; its persecutions from foes; rejection, agony, friendlessness, loneliness, denials, trial, treacheries, deaths, and burials? Such is the draught which the noblest and saintliest have drunk from the golden chalice of life. Foreseeing our needs, our Father has provided for us a Leader. It is a great boon for a company of pilgrims to have a Great-heart; for an army to have a captain; for an exodus to have a Moses. Courageous, sagacious, and strong leaders are God's good gifts to men. And it is only what we might have expected that God has placed such a One as the efficient Leader at the head of the long line of pilgrims, whom he is engaged in bringing to glory. The toils seem lighter and the distance shorter; laggards quicken their pace; wandering ones are recalled from by-paths by the presence and voice of the Leader, who marches, efficient, royal, and divine, in the van. 0 heirs of glory, weary of the long and toilsome march, remember that ye are part of a great host: and that the Prince, at the head of the column, has long since entered the city; though he is back again, passing as an inspiration along the ranks as they are toiling on. Our Leader is perfect. Of course this does not refer to his moral or spiritual attributes. In these he is possessed of the stature of the perfect Man, and has filled out, in every detail, God's ideal of manhood. But he might have been all this without being perfectly adapted to the work of leading many sons through suffering to glory. He might have been perfect in character, and desirous to help us; but, if he had never tasted death, how could he allay our fears as we tread the verge of Jordan? If he had never been tempted, how could he succor those who are tempted? If he had never wept, how could he stanch our tears? If he had never suffered, hungered, wearied on the hill of difficulty, or threaded his way through the quagmires of grief, how could he have been a merciful and faithful High-Priest, having compassion on the ignorant and wayward? But, thank God, our Leader is a perfect one. He is perfectly adapted to his task. His certificate, countersigned by the voice of inspiration, declares him fully qualified. But this perfect efficiency, as we have seen, is the result of suffering. In no other conceivable way could he have been so effectively qualified to be our Leader as he has been by the ordeal of suffering. Every pang, every tear, every thrill, all were needed to complete his equipment to help us. And from this we may infer that suffering is sometimes permitted to befall us in order to qualify us to be, in our poor measure, the leaders and comforters of our brethren, who are faltering in the march. When next we suffer, let us believe that it is not the result of chance, or fate, or man's carelessness, or hell's malevolence; but that perhaps God is perfecting our adaptability to comfort and succor others. Are there not some in your circle to whom you naturally betake yourself in times of trial and sorrow? They always seem to speak the right word, to give the very counsel you are longing for; you do not realize, however, the cost which they had to pay ere they became so skillful in binding up gaping wounds and drying tears. But if you were to investigate their past history you would find that they have suffered more than most. They have watched the slow untwisting of some silver cord on which the lamp of life hung. They have seen the golden bowl of joy dashed to their feet, and its contents spilt. They have stood by ebbing tides, and drooping gourds, and noon sunsets; but all this has been necessary to make them the nurses, the physicians, the priests of men. The boxes that come from foreign climes are clumsy enough; but they contain spices which scent the air with the fragrance of the Orient. So suffering is rough and hard to bear; but it hides beneath it discipline, education, possibilities, which not only leave us nobler, but perfect us to help others. Do not fret, or set your teeth, or wait doggedly for the suffering to pass; but get out of it all you can, both for yourself and for your service to your generation, according to the will of God. Suffering educates sympathy; it softens the spirit, lightens the touch, hushes the tread; it accustoms the spirit to read from afar the symptoms of an unspoken grief; it teaches the soul to tell the number of the promises, which, like the constellations of the arctic circle, shine most brilliantly through the wintry night; it gives to the spirit a depth, a delicacy, a wealth of which it cannot otherwise possess itself. Through suffering he has become perfected. His sufferings have purchased our pardon. He tasted death for every man. But his sufferings have done more in enabling him to understand experimentally, and to allay, with the tenderness of one who has suffered, all the griefs and sorrows that are experienced by the weakest and weariest of the great family of God. So far, then, from rejecting him because of his sorrows, this shall attract us the more quickly to his side. And, amid our glad songs, this note shall predominate: "It behoved Christ to suffer." "In the midst of the throne, a Lamb as it had been slain." _______________________________________________________ (5) <FROM-THE-GLEANER> A-GLANCE-AT-THE-TOP-STORIES-OF-THE-WEEK Ben US, UK. Propose Iraq Deadline: The United States and Britain are proposing that the United Nations set a seven-day deadline for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to agree to disarm and then open his palaces to weapons inspectors, a Bush administration official and U.N. diplomats said Friday. Mubarak warns: 'In post-Soviet world, U.S. attack inevitable': Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has delivered a warning to Saddam Hussein that a U.S. war against Baghdad appears inevitable. Tens of thousands march in Lebanon chanting ``Death to Israel'' and ``Death to America,'': Tens of thousands of Lebanese marched Friday through the streets of Beirut in support of Palestinians' third year of uprising. Israel: Arafat siege pre-emptive before Iraq war: Israel defended its week-long siege of Yasser Arafat's headquarters against world criticism on Thursday, saying it was preventing Palestinian escalation of violence planned in anticipation of a U.S. war with Iraq. Gunmen execute charity workers in Pakistan office raid: Seven Dead in Attack on Pakistan Christian Charity - Two gunmen burst into the offices of a Christian charity in the Pakistani city of Karachi Wednesday and tied up and gagged seven Christians before shooting them at point blank range, police said. Siege ends at India temple after massacre: Indian commandos stormed a Hindu temple complex on Wednesday, ending a seven-hour standoff after gunmen armed with grenades massacred 29 people and wounded more than 70. Southern Africa famine 'accelerating': The United Nations special representative for humanitarian issues in Southern Africa, James Morris, has said that the crisis there is accelerating much faster than had been anticipated. _____________________<BrethrenVoice>_____________________ Subscribe, eMail:<brethrenvoice-subscribe@...> Unsubscribe, eMail:<brethrenvoice-unsubscribe@...> FAQs/Faith Statement, eMail: <brethrenvoice-faq@...> <BrethrenVoice> Home: http://associate.com/digests/brethrenvoice/ <eFellowship> Home: http://groups.msn.com/BrethrenChristiansForum/ "Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith." 2 Cor 13:5 "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Jn 8:32 _______________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com