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<GLEANINGS-FOR-THE-DAY>
<9 January 2002>


Contents:
------------

1) <Devotional> "Freud and Jeremiah diagnose the soul" - Ravi Zacharias
2) <Bible-Study> ""Ruth the Moabitess" (Pt-7/10)-Charles Wigg
3) <Prophecy> "The Redeemer's Return" (Pt-119)- A.W.Pink


1) <DEVOTIONAL> <SLICE-OF-INFINITY>
"THE COMFORT ZONE"
Ravi Zacharias


1) <DEVOTIONAL> <SLICE-OF-INFINITY>
"FREUD AND JEREMIAH DIAGNOSE THE SOUL - KEITH COX"
Ravi Zacharias

Do you ever have the sense that a thought or a feeling arises in you out
of nowhere?  Suddenly a totally unexpected idea or emotion seizes you.
Psychology has a category for this: the unconscious.  The unconscious mind
is the source of those unexpected thoughts and feelings.  This was the
fundamental insight of Freud, the father of modern psychology.  Most of
his particular claims today are at best controversial, but his fundamental
insight has some hints: The human psyche is not transparent but, rather,
is highly complex.

This insight is the bedrock of psychology.  And it explains the need for
notions such as the unconscious mind.  We are such complex beings that we
are not even aware of all the things that are affecting our thoughts and
feelings.  Freud simply gave us a name for those things: the unconscious.

Freud gave us the term, but the idea has a much longer lineage than he.
Twenty-five centuries before Freud, Jeremiah, the prophet in the Old
Testament, said, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?" (Footnote 1: Jeremiah 17:9)  Jeremiah saw that we
are so complex that even we can't understand ourselves.  But he also saw
that we are sinful.

Paul picks up this same theme in writing to the Romans: "I do not
understand what I do.  For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I
hate, I do." (Footnote 2: Romans 7:15) Peter, in his reversal on the night
of Jesus' crucifixion, tragically illustrates this fickleness in the human
condition.  At one moment Peter expresses his willingness to die for
Christ, and yet hours later he denies Christ, not once but three times.
Freud is partly right.  Our psyches are complex. But his answers fell
short because he had no God to untangle the complexity.  The Christian
knows that the only hope for the web of ignorance and sin is faith in
Christ.  But how can we respond to our complexity and inability?  How do
we respond when the most confounding assaults on our faith come not from
the outside but from the inside?  When the sinner that needs conversion is
not our neighbor but the depths of our very soul?

Whatever answer we give, it must include the understanding of our faith.
Faith not in a vacuum, but a living trust in Christ from our ignorance to
His knowledge so that we might see ourselves as we really are and see Him
as He truly is.  Then the soul moves from darkness to light.
---
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.
_______________________________________________________________________

2)  <BIBLE-STUDY>
"RUTH THE MOABITESS - RUTH'S RESPONSE" (PART-7/10)
Charles E. Wigg
....
Ruth's response to these words of encouragement was to fall on her face
before the one that had shown such kindness to her. Her heart was filled
with wonder and she exclaims 'Why', this question will constantly arise in
the hearts of those that come to Christ. Why should He take an interest in
me? Why should He love me so? This question will never be answered, even
in eternity. We will never be able to understand why the blessed Lord
Jesus has set His love upon us.
The Poet has written:      That thou should'st take delight in me,
                                     Yet be the God thou art,
                                     Is darkness to my intellect,
                                     But sunshine to my heart!

The wonder of the love of God to us. That which has been expressed in the
person and work of Christ, we will never be able to understand. However we
do not have to understand it, but just to accept it, and to rejoice in it.
His is a love that passes knowledge. Eph. 3:18-19

Boaz then revealed the fact that many had testified of the moral worth of
this Moabite maiden. The kindness that she had shown to her widowed mother
in law. The fact that she had left her own people, and come to a people
that she had not known before. These people she had made her own people.
But more than this, she had come to trust under the wings of Jehovah. He
was now her God. These things meant very much to Boaz, and where they are
seen in us, they mean so much more to our blessed Savior. We are told in
Ephesians 6:1-3 how God our Heavenly Father appreciates such qualities in
His children. Ruth confessed her unworthiness, because she was like us, a
sinner of the Gentiles. She gladly confessed, "I am not like one of thine
handmaidens".

FELLOWSHIP

Boaz then invited Ruth to share in their fellowship. He made her to feel
that she was one of them. Ruth was happy to take up this invitation; she
enjoyed this unexpected provision. She partook of the same food that was
enjoyed by her benefactor and his workers. Ruth was not selfish in this
matter; she reserved some so that she could take it home to her mother in
law. Thus she sets a good example for us all, because when we think of
others and we share with them what we enjoy, then we experience a special
blessing from God.

The reapers were also instructed to encourage Ruth's diligence, by leaving
behind 'handfuls of purpose'. Here is some instruction for the reapers
amongst us today. Often ministers of the word try to impress others by
using big words, and lofty theological expressions. This only discourages
those that are younger in the faith. I have been told that the art of
teaching is the ability to make profound things simple. We should never
make it our aim to impress others, and to capture the admiration of those
to whom we minister. Rather it is our responsibility to make provision for
those that are young in the faith, and to teach the truth simply, clearly
and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

When the day was done, Ruth beat out the grain that she had gleaned. The
day had been long, and at times weary. Perhaps she thought that she was
getting very little for her efforts. But she beat out what she had
gathered up, and found that she had an ephah of barley. This was more than
enough for food for her and Naomi for five or six days.

We can learn several things from these actions. First we see that Ruth was
not one for outward show. She did not like others bind up what she had
gathered, and march home with it on her head, so that all could see the
reward of her industry. Second. She did not want to carry useless straw
home to her mother in law. Many today give great importance to size. Like
the wood, hay and stubble of 1Cor. 3:12, it has size but not weight.
Third. By threshing and winnowing, she not only removed the straw but the
chaff also, and what she took home with her was pure grain. Ruth must have
made use of the threshing floor of Boaz; this place was later to play an
important part in her life, and in the plan of God. It is a sad
characteristic of the day in which we live that many that claim to be
believers, are feeding on chaff, but they do not want the solid food of
the word of God.  [To be concluded]
---
[Reproduced by permission]
_______________________________________________________________________

3) <PROPHECY>
"THE REDEEMER'S RETURN" (PART-119 OF 123)
CONCLUSION (PART 1 OF 3)
Arthur W. Pink

As we take up our pen to write these closing paragraphs, we do so
conscious that we have merely skimmed, here and there, the surface of a
vast ocean of truth. Though upwards of five hundred Scriptures have been
referred to in these pages, yet, hundreds more could have been cited in
support of the positions which we have advanced. An exhaustive
classification and examination of all the passages which are connected,
directly or indirectly, with the subject of the Redeemer's Return, would
necessitate many volumes rather than one. Our opponents greatly err who
suppose that pre-millennialism rests upon a few doubtful and obscure
passages. The texts upon which we rely are neither few nor ambiguous, and
their testimony is neither scanty nor uncertain. No other doctrine of
Scripture can produce a larger, more distinct, and more vigorous testimony
in its favor. The Coming and Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ is a theme
which pervades the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It is the central
burden of prophecy. It is the grand solution to the mystery of Divine
Providence. It is the one great hope of the Church, of Israel, and of
creation.The personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ to set up His
Kingdom on the earth and reign over it in power and glory is no novelty of
a feverish age, no hasty conjecture caught up at random without
consideration and unsupported by reliable evidence. It is no fable of
romance, but sober, Scriptural reality, though far beyond what fancy ever
painted. It is no creation of a disordered mind, but the Golden Milestone
of Scripture to which all lines of prophecy are rapidly converging. It is
no pet theory of certain religious fanatics, but the approaching Climax of
all history. It is no mere dream of idealists, but the promised
consummation and glorious issue of all the confusion and change, the sin
and sorrow, the disease and death which have desolated the earth for six
thousand years. It is the divinely ordained Remedy for those deep and
manifold evils under which humanity now groans and which men are so
earnestly, yet vainly, seeking to cure.

Had we followed the inclinations of our own heart, we should have devoted
a chapter to the history of Millennarianism. We might have quoted from the
early Church "fathers" and shown that during the first three centuries of
the Christian era it prevailed universally, its only opponents being the
Gnostics. We might have referred to the writings of the Reformers, and
shown how they one and all looked for the imminent coming of Christ. We
might have inserted citations from modern authors whose piety and
scholarship are unquestioned. But we had no desire to buttress our
position by human authority even of the most ancient and honorable kind.
Let not our faith stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Unless our theses can be unequivocally maintained from Holy Scripture, it
were vain to call in human witnesses however numerous or however
venerable.

The saddest thing of all in connection with our subject is that Christian
theologians have divided into opposite camps. And yet it need not surprise
us that the Second Coming of Christ is a controverted doctrine--what
doctrine of Scripture is not? Nevertheless, it is the bounden duty of
every lover of the Lord's appearing to pray earnestly that it may please
God to lead out a greater number of His children into the light, and that
there may be a more harmonious and united testimony borne to this most
important of all truths. We fervently trust that one result of our humble
labors will be that many who read these pages will go forth crying
"Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him." That the masses
will give neither heed nor credit to the alarm is only to be expected.
When Lot warned his sons-in-law of the impending doom of Sodom "he seemed
as one that mocked"(Gen. 19:14). When Israel's prophets clamored for those
who would speak unto them "smooth things" (Is. 30:10). And when our
Saviour announced the destruction of Jerusalem His words fell upon ears
which scepticism had closed. But, notwithstanding, our duty is plain.
Results belong unto God; our business is to sound the alarm and "to exhort
one another: and so much the more, as we see the Day approaching" (Heb.
10:25). [To be concluded]

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