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A
Broken and Contrite Heart By
Kent Heaton The
sacrifices of the Law of Moses were ordained by God as a sign of the covenant
between In
David's mournful Psalm of sorrow over sin the psalmist declares, "For You
do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with
burnt offering. The sacrifices of God area broken spirit; a broken and a
contrite heart, 0 God, You will not despise (Psalms 51:16-17). Godly
sorrow is the essence of repentance. "For the sorrow that is according to
the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but
the sorrow of the world produces death"(2 Corinthians 7:10). When one comes
before the throne of God in sorrow it can only be from a heart broken by the
weight of sin. Isaiah declares, "For thus says the high and exalted One who
lives forever, whose name is Holy, I dwell on a high and holy place, and also
with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite (Isaiah 57:15). Sorrow
in repentance comes from a heart that has been crushed under the weight of
bringing shame to the Heavenly Father, to His Son and to the Holy Spirit.
"Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be
pleasing to Him (2 Corinthians 5:9). The relationship with the Father is based
upon an earnest desire to please Him in everything. When we fail to do that and
we follow our own desires, the feelings of sorrow should overwhelm us with
untold grief as we realize we have been displeasing to God. Nathan
came to David and told him God knew what he had done. When faced with the
realization of his sin, David did not react in pride and arrogance defending his
actions. "Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD (2
Samuel 12:13). David's heart was broken and contrite. He experienced the grief
of his sin within his own heart and when brought before God through the hand of
Nathan, his grief increased dramatically. David was a man after God's own heart
(Acts 13:22) because David understood that no number of animals could bring him
closer to God without a heart that was broken down with guilt and overwhelmed
with the knowledge of what sin had done. Our
view of sin must be based upon the understanding of its impact upon our lives.
Repentance is the willingness to humble the heart in broken tones of deep
remorse in the presence of God. "These, 0 God, You will not despise (Psalm
51:17). &
(Via SEARCH, Volume 15, No. 12) Sensory
Perception & God By
Alexander Campbell I
believe all experiments yet made upon [deaf] persons have proved that faith, or
the knowledge of God, and of a Creator, has come by hearing. By faith, Paul
said, and not by reason, "we know that the worlds were made by the word of
God." This case is extracted from "The Memoirs of the Academy of
Science at Paris”-- “The
son of a tradesman in Chartres, who had been deaf from his birth, and
consequently [mute], when he was twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, began
on a sudden to speak, without its being known that he had ever heard. This event
drew the attention of every one, and many believed it to be miraculous. The
young man, however, gave a plain and rational account, by which it appeared to
proceed wholly from natural causes. He said that about four months before he was
surprised by a NEW and pleasing sensation, which he afterward discovered to
arise from the ringing bells; that as yet he heard with one ear, but afterward a
kind of water came from his left ear, and then he could hear distinctly with
both; and from this time he listened with the utmost curiosity and attention to
the sounds which accompany those motions of the lips which he had before
remarked to convey ideas or meaning from one person to another. In short, he was
able to understand them, by noting the thing to which they related and the
action they produced. And after repeated attempts to imitate them when alone, at
the end of four months he thought himself able to talk. He, therefore, without
having intimated what had happened, began at once to speak, and affected to join
in conversation, though with much more imperfection than he was aware. "Many
divines immediately visited him, and questioned him concerning God, and the
soul, moral good, and evil, and many other subjects of the same kind; but of all
this they found him ignorant, though he had been used to go to mass, and had
been instructed in all externals of devotion, as making the signs of the cross,
looking upward, kneeling at proper seasons, and using gestures of penitence, and
prayer. Of death itself, which may be considered as a sensible object, he had
very confused, and imperfect ideas, nor did It appear that he had ever reflected
upon it. His life was little more than animal, and sensitive. He seemed to be
contented with the simple perception of such objects as he could perceive, and
did not compare his ideas with each other nor draw inferences, as might have
been expected from him. It appeared, however, that his understanding was
vigorous, and his apprehensions quick, so that his intellectual defects must
have been caused, not by the barrenness of the soil, but merely by the want of
necessary cultivation." [Campbell-Owen Debate, page 154] & Can
the Creature Be Greater than the Creator? By
Bob Myhan Some
may say that this is a foolish question. And it would be if it were addressed to
one who believes the Bible. But it is a question with which a deist must come to
grips. Man is an intelligent being; therefore, his Creator must be more
intelligent, by far. Else a non-intelligent being created an intelligent being
or a lesser intelligent being created a being of greater intelligence. Man
is a loving being; therefore his Creator is a being of love. But how can the
Creator be a loving being when He seemingly allows moral and physical evil to go
unchecked? The deist cannot answer this question but the believer can; he
believes there will be a day of reckoning, as the Bible teaches.
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