-------------------------<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@...] [<GLEANINGS-FOR-THE-DAY> Archives/Read online: http://associate.com/digests/brethrenvoice/ezmlm.cgi] <GLEANINGS-FOR-THE-DAY> <28 October 2002> Contents: --------- 1) <Exhortational> "Come unto me!" (Pt-3/3) - Charles E. Wigg 2) <Devotional> ".....Transcendence, Personhood and Man - Ravi Zacharias 3) <Prophetical> "The Redeemer's Return" (Pt-64)- A.W.Pink 1) <EXHORTATIONAL> "COME UNTO ME!" MAT 11:28-30 (PART-3 OF 3) Charles E. Wigg .... Then the driver would give a command, and the old bullock would begin to move. The trainee would not move, but he soon learned that he had to do what the old bullock did, otherwise the strong yoke would hurt his neck. Thus he learned what the words of the driver meant, and while walking beside the old bullock, he learned from him. This is the picture that the Lord Jesus is giving us in this passage. He wants you to surrender your own will, and to accept that the will of God is best. After all, whose will is best, your own will, or God's will? Could it possibly be that you or I know better than God what to do in any situation? Impossible! There is one major difference between the training of the bullock, and what you and I are called to do. The bullock had no choice, but we do have a choice. Are we willing to surrender our wills fully to the Lord Jesus? We sometimes sing, (and we may mean it also), "All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give", but when it comes to practice it is often a different matter with us. When He says "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from Me", He gives you an option. You can choose to willingly surrender your will to Him, or you can choose to go your own way, and do as it suits you. If you choose this option, the burden will remain, and you will experience constant weariness and disappointment. But if you choose to voluntarily surrender your will wholly to Him, then His strength, and His wisdom will be yours. You will no longer be able to go your own way, but it is such a joy just to walk with Him, and to pull the load together. You will learn to watch the way that He does things, (and men said, "He doeth all things well") There will be no fear any longer of getting out of the path of God's will, because He came to do the will of Him that sent Him, and He will never deviate from that pathway. While ever you walk by His side, you are safe. The hymn writer could say, "He knows the way He taketh, and I will walk with Him." O that we may learn the truth of what He said, "Without ME you can do nothing", John, 15:5. That we may discover the truth of what Paul said "I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me". Phil. 4:13. We will not have a holiday, we will not lay the burden down, but His strength will be ours, and we will find that His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. Thus His rest will become ours, and we shall find rest unto our souls. The poet could write, "Who serves thee with a constant mind, finds in that service rest". But there is another still greater blessing, because as we learn from Him, we shall become like Him. There can be no greater honour than this in this life. It is this, that the divine nature within us longs for. Just to be like Him. He says of Himself, "I am meek and lowly in heart", These are lovely words. If they could only be true of us, most of our troubles would disappear. Let us look at the average Church or Assembly. What causes the most trouble, bitterness and division? Is it not self, our old selves? If only we too were to be meek and lowly in heart, how different things would be! So the end result of our coming to Christ will be glory for Him, blessing and rest for us, peace and blessing for our brethren, and blessing and salvation for the lost. Then let us hear, and heed His loving invitation, "Come unto ME!" May God's holy name be glorified. [Concluded] --- Reproduced with permission of C.E. Wigg (22-10-2002) _______________________________________________________________________ 2) <DEVOTIONAL> <SLICE-OF-INFINITY> "....TRANSCENDENCE, PERSONHOOD AND MAN" Ravi Zacharias One of the sublime realities of the Christian faith is what we commonly call the Trinity-three persons in one essence of the Godhead. The Trinity does indeed present a mystery, but as one of the great philosophers and legal scholars of our times, Mortimer Adler, noted, any knowledge of God would be expected to bring both rudimentary clarity and legitimate mystery. Adler's scrutinizing mind led him to his own conversion to Christ. Obviously, a troubling question may be raised as to how there can be a "three-ness" and a "one-ness" without equivocation. We must bear in mind that God is a person. There has to be a dimension where, by analogy, we understand how He can be infinite and yet be personal. C.S. Lewis does a masterful job in helping us approach this mystery. Here's what he says: "You know that in space you can move in three ways-left or right, backwards or forwards, up or down. . . They are called the three Dimensions. Now notice this. If you're using only one dimension, you could draw only a straight line. If you're using two, you could draw a figure: say, a square. And a square is made up of four lines. . . If you have three dimensions, you could then build what we call a solid body: say, a cube.... And a cube is made up of six squares. Do you see the point? A world of one dimension would be a world of straight lines. In a two-dimensional world, you still get straight lines, but many lines make one figure. In a three-dimensional world, you still get figures but many figures make one solid body. . . As you advance to more real and more complicated levels, you don't leave behind the things you found on simpler levels; you still have them, but combined in new ways-in ways you couldn't imagine if you knew only the simpler levels." (Footnote 1: C.S. Lewis, Beyond Personality (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1944), 14-16.) This helps us get an albeit slender grasp on how the concept of personhood can contain a complexity and yet retain a meaningful simplicity. In practical terms this concept of unity in diversity has fascinating implications for life. For only in the Christian message can we explain unity and diversity in the effect of this universe, because there is unity and diversity in God the first cause. God's blueprint for us is unity, diversity, and community. God's gift to us is our individuality meant to express itself best in community. What a glorious gift this mystery unfolds. Try explaining unity, diversity, and community in other paradigms and you will see not a sublime mystery but systemic contradiction. --- Copyright (p)(c) 2001 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. A Slice of Infinity is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries _____________________________________________________________________ 3) <PROPHETICAL> "THE REDEEMER'S RETURN" (PART-64) THE RECOVERY AND REVIVAL OF THE BLESSED HOPE ITSELF Arthur W. Pink .... 8. Because the partial-rapture theory introduces a situation that is full of Confusion. The leading advocates of the partial-rapture theory teach that all believers who fail to come to the standard necessary for participation in the Rapture will not only be left behind on earth to suffer the judgments of the Great Tribulation but that such will have no part or place in the Millennial kingdom, and therefore that they will not be raised from the dead until after the thousand years. Now apart from the fact that there is no Scripture which teaches a resurrection of saints at the close of the Millennium, we affirm that such a theory as the above involves confusion of the worst kind. We are told that certain saints (many of them) because of their unfaithfulness or failure to "look" for their returning Saviour will not be raptured at the time our Lord descends to the air, in fact will not be "glorified" until the close of the thousand years. Unquestionably there have been many saints all through this Dispensation who failed to measure up to the standard fixed by partial-rapturists and yet, dying hundreds of years ago, they have during all the intervening centuries been "present with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:8). What absurdity is it then which teaches that these saints who have been with the Lord all these centuries, will nevertheless, be separated from Him during the Millennium! Again. During the Tribulation period there will be on earth a Jewish remnant who will cry unto God in the language of the Imprecatory Psalms. These Jews, harassed by the Anti-Christ and persecuted by his followers, will cry--"Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be: and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth" (Ps. 59:13). They will exclaim:--"Keep not Thou silence, O God: hold not Thy peace, and be not still, O God. For, lo, Thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate Thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people, and consulted against Thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against Thee. ** Let them be confounded and troubled forever; yea let them be put to shame and perish" (Ps. 83:1-5, 13-15, 17). Now could such prayers as these ascend from the lips of the members of the body of Christ who have been saved by grace! The above are inspired prayers which the Jews will appropriate to themselves in the time of "Jacob's Trouble," but who can imagine Christians praying such prayers? We have been instructed to be "king one to another, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Eph. 4:32). The saints of this Dispensation are told "Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not" (Rom. 12:14). The requirement of the Church Epistles is, "See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men" (1 Thess. 5:15). If then a part of the Church were on earth during the Tribulation period we should have the following strange anomaly--The Jews praying to God to take vengeance upon their enemies and Christians praying to God to "forgive" these same foes! Surely a theory which involves such confusion as this cannot be according to the Scriptures. The truth is that partial-rapturist's confound entrance into the Kingdom with position of honor in it. All believers who belong to this Dispensation will partake of the blessedness of the Millennial era and will reign with Christ throughout it, but all will not be on the same level. Special positions of honor will be allotted to those who have qualified themselves for such (Luke 19:17, etc.). Special "prizes" await those who shall win these marks of distinction. But this is quite another thing from entrance into the Millennial Kingdom itself. Entrance into that Kingdom is solely a matter of Divine grace, but an "abundant entrance" into it is conditional upon our present fidelity to the Lord. New birth admits us into the Kingdom of God (John 3:5), but diligent service, faithfulness unto death, and loving the appearing of Christ are the several conditions for the "crowns." ------------- The present argument will not apply against those who hold to a modified view, of a resurrection of the left-behind believers at the close of the Tribulation period. [To be concluded] _____________________<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 _______________________________________________________