-------------------------<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/groups/brethrenvoice/ezmlm.cgi] <SUNDAY-GLEANINGS> <15 December 2002> Contents: ----------- 1) <Devotional> "Treasury of David - Psalm 19:1"- C.H. Spurgeon 2) <Bible-Study> "Levitical offerings" (Pt-19)-Charles E.Wigg 3) <Science> "Wonderfully made" (Pt-1) - Dr. Paul Brand 4) <From-the-Gleaner> "Top-stories-of-the-week" - Ben 1) <DEVOTIONAL> TREASURY OF DAVID - PSALM 19:1 C. H. Spurgeon Verse 1. "The heavens declare the glory of God." The book of nature has three leaves, heaven, earth, and sea, of which heaven is the first and the most glorious, and by its aid we are able to see the beauties of the other two. Any book without its first page would be sadly imperfect, and especially the great Natural Bible, since its first pages, the sun, moon, and stars, supply light to the rest of the volume, and are thus the keys, without which the writing which follows would be dark and undiscerned. Man walking erect was evidently made to scan the skies, and he who begins to read creation by studying the stars begins the book at the right place. The heavens are plural for their variety, comprising the watery heavens with their clouds of countless forms, the aerial heavens with their calms and tempests, the solar heavens with all the glories of the day, and the starry heavens with all the marvels of the night; what the Heaven of heavens must be hath not entered into the heart of man, but there in chief all things are telling the glory of God. Any part of creation has more instruction in it than human mind will ever exhaust, but the celestial realm is peculiarly rich in spiritual lore. The heavens declare, or are declaring, for the continuance of their testimony is intended by the participles employed; every moment God's existence, power, wisdom and goodness, are being sounded abroad by the heavenly heralds which shine upon us from above. He who would guess at divine sublimity should gaze upward into the starry vault; he who would imagine infinity must peer into the boundless expanse; he who desires to see divine wisdom should consider the balancing of the orbs; he who would know divine fidelity must mark the regularity of the planetary motions; and he who would attain some conceptions of divine power, greatness, and majesty, must estimate the forces of attraction, the magnitude of the fixed stars, and the brightness of the whole celestial train. It is not merely glory that the heavens declare, but the "glory of God," for they deliver to us such unanswerable arguments for a conscious, intelligent, planning, controlling, and presiding Creator, that no unprejudiced person can remain unconvinced by them. The testimony given by the heavens is no mere hint, but a plain, unmistakable declaration; and it is a declaration of the most constant and abiding kind. Yet for all this, to what avail is the loudest declaration to a deaf man, or the clearest showing to one spiritually blind? God the Holy Ghost must illuminate us, or all the suns in the milky way never will. "The firmament sheweth his handy-work;" not handy in the vulgar use of that term, but hand-work. The expanse is full of the works of the Lord's skilful, creating hands; hands being attributed to the great creating Spirit to set forth his care and workmanlike action, and to meet the poor comprehension of mortals. It is humbling to find that even when the most devout and elevated minds are desirous to express their loftiest thoughts of God, they must use words and metaphors drawn from the earth. We are children, and must each confess, "I think as a child, I speak as a child." In the expanse above us God flies, as it were, his starry flag to show that the King is at home, and hangs out his escutcheon that atheists may see how he despises their denunciations of him. He who looks up to the firmament and then writes himself down an atheist, brands himself at the same moment as an idiot or a liar. Strange is it that some who love God are yet afraid to study the God-declaring book of nature; the mock-spirituality of some believers, who are too heavenly to consider the heavens, has given colour to the vaunts of infidels that nature contradicts revelation. The wisest of men are those who with pious eagerness trace the goings forth of Jehovah as well in creation as in grace; only the foolish have any fears lest the honest study of the one should injure our faith in the other. Dr. M'Cosh has well said, "We have often mourned over the attempts made to set the works of God against the Word of God, and thereby excite, propagate, and perpetuate jealousies fitted to separate parties that ought to live in closest union. In particular, we have always regretted that endeavours should have been made to depreciate nature with a view of exalting revelation; it has always appeared to us to be nothing else than the degrading of one part of God's work in the hope thereby of exalting and recommending another. Let not science and religion be reckoned as opposing citadels, frowning defiance upon each other, and their troops brandishing their armour in hostile attitude. They have too many common foes, if they would but think of it, in ignorance and prejudice, in passion and vice, under all their forms, to admit of their lawfully wasting their strength in a useless warfare with each other. Science has a foundation, and so has religion; let them unite their foundations, and the basis will be broader, and they will be two compartments of one great fabric reared to the glory of God. Let one be the outer and the other the inner court. In the one, let all look, and admire and adore; and in the other, let those who have faith kneel, and pray, and praise. Let the one be the sanctuary where human learning may present its richest incense as an offering to God, and the other the holiest of all, separated from it by a veil now rent in twain, and in which, on a blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, we pour out the love of a reconciled heart, and hear the oracles of the living God." _______________________________________________________ 2) <BIBLE-STUDY> THE OBLATION OR MEAL OFFERING - AN EXPOSITION OF SOME OF THE LEVITICAL OFFERINGS - CHAPTER-2 (PART-19) Charles E. Wigg SOME FIRST-FRUITS OFFERED BUT NOT BURNED: In verse twelve of our chapter we are told of some first-fruits which were offered unto the Lord, but they were not to be burned. These first-fruits were the result of the blessing of God on the labors , sowing and harvest of the covenant people of God. These offerings would correspond to the material things which we offer to God. These offerings were are a sweet savor, as we are told in Phil.4;18, and though given to God, they are used by His servants for the meeting of their needs, and the spread of the Gospel, the carrying on of the work of the Lord, they are "Holy Things", as we shall see in another chapter. LATER REFERENCES: In Lev. 6;14-18, several of the details that we have considered are repeated; this is in keeping with the divine principle of witness, and the repetition is confirmation of the authority and importance of what has already been stated. However in that chapter, the holiness of the meal offering and the way that the priests were to regard and to handle it are emphasized. Also the fact that the remainder of the offering, what remained after the handful was burnt on the altar, was to be eaten by the priests in a holy place. The oblation is also spoken of several times in chapter 21 of Leviticus, as the "Bread of God", and the "Bread of His offerings". This is indicating that God finds satisfaction and delight in the memorial of the holy and fragrant life of Christ, and in our appreciation of Him. But for us, this bread not only satisfies, but strengthens and sustains. Thus the priests were to eat the meal offering, suitably prepared, in a holy place, in the court of the tabernacle.. This was to strengthen them and sustain them in their service as they assisted the worshippers each day in the presentation of their offerings. This would seem to suggest that as we gather to remember the Lord Jesus in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and to worship, there we receive the richest and deepest thoughts of Christ, and we are to feed on such at that time. These thoughts will be suggested to our minds and hearts, as we listen to the audible worship and the praises offered to God by fellow believers. It often happens , where believers are gathered to the name of our Lord Jesus alone, and where there is no control or supervision by man, but the leading of the Holy Spirit, that as the believers are engaged in worship, that a brother will rise and read a short passage from the scriptures, and bring out from that passage rich and precious thoughts of Christ. This stimulates the hearts of the saints and moves them to worship. Such thoughts will not be teaching, or exhortation, and certainly not rebuke, ( that is not the time or place for such ministry ), but it causes the believers to think, and fills their minds with that which will satisfy and strengthen them in their life of service to God. It is in this way that we are to feed on the oblation in the holy place. We see in Lev.6;18, that it is the males among the children of Aaron who are to eat of the oblation. The reason for this would seem to be that it was the males who carried on the priestly service. In normal circumstances it is still so in the assemblies today. It is not that the sisters are not to worship, indeed they are, but in the assemblies of God's people they are twice commanded in the New Testament to be silent. Much true worship is silent; often the deepest emotions that are stirred within us cannot be expressed in words., and in this way the sisters being silent in their worship greatly enrich the atmosphere of the meeting. In our days these principles are being constantly challenged, and in the formal churches women are clamoring to be "ordained" as priests. The motive of many seems to be that they want the men to know that the women are as good as the men. This is acknowledged and I will gladly admit that many are even better than the average man, both spiritually and in their understanding of the word of God. The sisters are not in any way inferior to the brothers, but they are different in their place and ministry. We cannot fault the ordering of God, and we should never seek to interfere with what God has commanded in His word. May these few thoughts, drawn from this beautiful second chapter of Leviticus, enrich and encourage my brothers and sisters in their knowledge and worship of God. [To be concluded] --- [Reproduced by permission] _______________________________________________________ 3) <SCIENCE> "WONDERFULLY MADE"* Dr. Paul Brand I have closed my eyes. My shoes are kicked off, and I am wiggling the small bones in my right foot. Exposed, they are half the width of a pencil, and yet they support my weight in walking. I cup my hand over my ear and hear the familiar seashell phenomenon, actually the sound of blood cells rushing through the capillaries in my head. I stretch out my left arm and try to imagine the millions of muscle cells eagerly expanding and contracting in concert. I rub my finger across my arm and feel the stimulation of touch cells, 450 in each square-inch patch of skin. Inside, my stomach, spleen, liver, pancreas, and kidneys, each packed with millions of loyal cells, are working so efficiently I have no way of perceiving their presence. Fine hairs in my inner ear are monitoring a swishing fluid, ready to alert me if I suddenly tilt off balance. When my cells work well, I'm hardly conscious of their individual presences. What I feel is the composite of their activity. My body, composed of many parts, is one, the analogy our Bible uses for the Church. One drawer in my medical laboratory contains neatly filed specimens of an array of cells from the human body. Separated from the body, stained with dyes and mounted in epoxy, they hardly express the churn of living cells at work inside me. But if I parade them under the microscope, certain impressions about the body take shape. I am first struck by their variety. Chemically my cells are almost alike, but visually and functionally they are as different as the animals in a zoo. Red blood cells, discs resembling Lifesaver candies, voyage through my blood loaded with oxygen to feed the other cells. Muscle cells, which absorb so much of that nourishment, are sleek and supple, full of coiled energy. Cartilage cells with shiny black nuclei look like bunches of black-eyed peas glued tightly together for strength. Fat cells seem lazy and leaden, like bulging white plastic garbage bags jammed together. [To be concluded] --- *[From "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made", by Dr. Paul Brand & Philip Yancey, Zondervan] _______________________________________________________ 4) <FROM-THE-GLEANER> A-GLANCE-AT-THE-TOP-STORIES-OF-THE-WEEK Ben SADDAM FOES MEET IN LONDON TO MAP IRAQ'S FUTURE: Opponents of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gathered in London on Saturday in a bid to bury their differences and map out a future for the country in the event Saddam is toppled. BUSH ADMINISTRATION SAYS IRAQ'S WEAPONS DECLARATION SHORT ON FACTS: The Bush administration dismissed Iraq's weapons declaration today as woefully short of facts. "We know that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and has programs to create more," the State Department said. US WARPLANES HIT 3 TARGETS IN S. IRAQ: US jets attacked three air defense installations Saturday south and east of Baghdad after Iraqi military jets violated the southern no-fly zone, the U.S. Central Command said on its Web site. TURKEY MOVES TROOPS TO IRAQI BORDER: Turkey has once again moved troops to its southern border with Iraq. Turkish sources said thousands of military and paramilitary forces were deployed around the Iraqi border over the weekend. They said the forces were comprised of mostly infantry as well as support units. HIZBULLAH, NOT AL QAIDA, 'MOST COMPETENT TERRORIST GROUP': Leading members of Senate and House intelligence committees say Hizbullah is more powerful than Al Qaida and is threatening new attacks. ALLEGED TERROR LEADER BASHIR WARNS AUSTRALIA AGAINST PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE: The alleged spiritual leader of the Islamic group blamed for the Bali bombings warned Australia would be "destroyed instantly" if it launched pre-emptive strikes against overseas terrorist targets. AL-QA'EDA HAS VX NERVE AGENT FROM IRAQ, CLAIMS REPORT: The CIA is investigating a "credible" intelligence report that Islamic terrorists linked to al-Qa'eda recently acquired VX nerve agent in Iraq. BUSH THREATENS TO USE NUKES: The White House warned Wednesday the United States was prepared to use all weapons in its arsenal, including nuclear devices, in retaliation for any attack with weapons of mass destruction on the country, U.S. military forces abroad or U.S. allies. ISRAEL TELLS VATICAN OF EFFORTS TO RE-DEPLOY OUTSIDE OF BETHLEHEM: Israel's president promised the pope during a meeting Thursday that the army will re-deploy outside the pilgrim city of Bethlehem during Christmas if there are no warnings of terrorist attacks, the Israeli embassy said. PALESTINIANS WARN ISRAEL: 'LET ARAFAT VISIT BETHLEHEM ON CHRISTMAS': Palestinians warned Monday of a "dangerous escalation" of tensions if Israel stops Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from celebrating Christmas in Bethlehem for a second straight year. ISRAEL, US ENGAGE IN MILITARY PREPARATIONS: Israel and the United States have been engaged in high-level military cooperation meant to prepare for a U.S.-led war against Iraq. HAWKS DEFY SHARON IN VOTE FOR CANDIDATES: Right-wing opponents of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday seized top positions following a ballot of the ruling Likud party for parliamentary candidates. EU SUMMIT DRAFT CONFIRMS 2004 REVIEW DATE FOR TURKEY: European Union leaders will confirm Friday December 2004 as the review date for entry talks with Turkey, according to a draft statement of their summit released by the EUs Danish presidency. COMBAT LASERS NEAR REALITY: Futuristic laser weapons under development by the U.S. military are making the transition from fodder for science fiction to reality and could soon be ready to play a major role in protecting troops on the battlefields of the 21st century. NEW ARCTIC STUDIES POINT TO WARNING: Scientists see 'compelling evidence something is changing' NASA satellites and radar helped construct this map of the Arctic, which scientists are using to study how and why the Arctic's sea ice cover is changing. Sea ice is a key barometer of global climate conditions. _____________________<BrethrenVoice>_____________________ Subscribe, eMail:<brethrenvoice-subscribe@...> Unsubscribe, eMail:<brethrenvoice-unsubscribe@...> FAQs/Faith Statement, eMail: <brethrenvoice-faq@...> <BrethrenVoice> Home: www.brethrenvoice.com <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