LESSON 04:
Your Body Systems
1: The smallest unit of life is the cell. Do you have any idea how many of these tiny microscopic units make up your body? You are made up of approximately one hundred trillion cells. It is hard for the mind to grasp such a large number. These are your body's building blocks!
2: Different kinds of cells do different kinds of work. Let us look at a few.
3: When you ride in a taxi, jeep, or bus, why do you not worry about how the vehicle will turn the corners and weave in and out of traffic? You know the driver will take care of that by steering. But the steering is a very complicated system requiring many parts. There are also other systems in the car, and these must cooperate with the steering system to make the car go. Your body is like a car. It has many systems in order to help it function properly. There are various kinds of cells, which make up these different systems.
4: As every building has some kind of framework to support it, so also the body. There are 206 bones held together by connective tissue: This is the skeletal system. By the way, if you think of bones as dry and dead you are very mistaken. Bones are like busy factories.
5: One of the important differences between the framework of the human body and that of a house is the parts must be able to move! Your bones can move only when they are pulled. So, there are over 600 muscles making up the muscular system. Thanks to them, you can move your arms legs, feet and hands, head and trunk. This system also has the job of pushing food through the body, pumping your heart, and making your blood circulate through the heart and body. Wherever there is movement in the body, the muscles do the work. You use thirty-nine muscles when you frown.
6: We speak of a healthy muscle as having good tone. Your muscles should be able to contract and expand like a good piece of rubber. Poor muscle tone is like worn-out rubber that has no more life in it. Regular exercise is important for good muscle tone.
7: The muscles that move your bones do not move by chance, they must be signaled by the brain. So the body is equipped with a system somewhat like a computer network. This intricate network is called the nervous system. Your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and touch, all help to collect information to be signaled to the brain.
8: One part of the nervous system sends signals without your having to think about them. For example, you do not have to tell your heart when to beat, and you do not have to remind yourself every time you need to take a breath. It is not necessary to tell the stomach to start digesting your food. This marvelous system takes care of these vital processes automatically.
9: Everyone of your body cells needs fuel in order to do its work. And the greater the movement of the body, the more fuel is necessary. Food is your fuel, and it provides energy to every cell through the marvelous digestive system. This system breaks up food so that it can be absorbed to supply energy for living and working. It starts with the mouth, continues to the stomach, receives help from several other organs such as the liver, pancreas, gall bladder, and goes on through the small and large intestines where food and water are absorbed.
10: But just as fire cannot burn without oxygen, so your body cannot use the energy it gets from food unless it has oxygen. Oxygen is in the air that we breathe. Through the respiratory system life-giving oxygen is carried to the blood, which in turn carries it to the cells. This system starts with the nose, and continues to the lungs, through the trachea, or windpipe. Here the pipe divides and divides until the air passes into pipes so small they cannot be seen except by a microscope.
11: Whenever fuel is burned, carbon dioxide is formed. This is true with the cells of your body also. So the respiratory system removes the carbon dioxide from the blood and sends it out when you exhale. You should learn to sit and stand properly so that the lungs can get the oxygen the body needs. Feeling drowsy and tired is very often simply the lack of enough oxygen in your tissues!
12: The food prepared by the digestive system, and the oxygen made available by the respiratory system gets to each of the 100 trillion cells by means of another great system Your circulatory system passes the blood, loaded with the necessities for the cells, through more than 62,000 miles (112,000 kilometers) of tubing. From the wide tubes of the heart, the blood flows as if going from the trunk of a tree out to the smallest leaves. This set of tubes is called arteries. It returns to the heart through another set called veins. These are literally your life lines! Are yours in good working order?
13: Whenever fuel is burned, gas is given off and ashes are left. We have mentioned the carbon dioxide gas, but what about the "ashes", the other substances that are left? The fire of life would soon be burned out if these were not removed somehow. This is the work of the excretory system. Would you believe that each of your kidneys has more than 124 miles (200 kilometers) of microscopic tubes through which more than the equivalent of 158 (150 liters) of fluid pass every 24 hours? The kidneys carefully strain this fluid. The keep back the substances needed by the body, and the dispose of the rest in the urine, which is passed every day. To keep this system in good working order, you should be drinking at least six to eight glasses of water every day.
14: One of the most wonderful of all the systems God placed in man is the reproductive system. Each of us started with just one single cell which was actually a combination of two cells, one from the mother and one from the father. The cell divided into two. Those two divided again, and then there were four, and so on.
15: In that first cell was the exact pattern to make you, a human being instead of a frog or an elephant or a fish. But not only that! All the details were there in that first cell to make you an individual and not a carbon copy of any other human being! Your height, sex, straight or wavy hair, your features were all there in that first cell! And as the cells divided they knew just when and how to become the various kinds of cells which compose all these various systems we have mentioned.
16: There is no single-celled creature in the world that can laugh, sing, play, know what joy is like, or how it is to be sad, know the thrill of love and worship, or the fun of learning something new. Human beings have truly been given the priceless gift of life in a most marvelous form.
17: David Grant, a noted doctor, was one day dissecting a body and lecturing to his class. Suddenly he paused and turned to the students. "Gentlemen," he said, "here in this human organism is a complete denial of what is called atheism. No reasonable being can look upon the miraculous construction and arrangement of organs in this body without acknowledging that some Creative Power above and beyond human comprehension must have been responsible for them." God never intended man to die. The scientists do not know why man should die, they only know that he does. God intended all systems in man to be able to function endlessly.
18: Yes friends, God made man. David declared, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." How true! Every organ has a vital function to perform. Man truly is organized for action. You have not actually seen yourself inside as I have described. But any one who has seen what man looks inside must be convinced that God placed all these organs in man for a purpose, that all functioning properly and in a healthy manner can help man to honour this wonderful Creator and God.
19: Yes, Medical Science has pulled back the curtain of mystery and let man take a little peek at himself. But Medical Science cannot tell us what God, who created man is like. We must turn to God's book for that. This book is called the Bible.
20: The Creator, the One who made all things, is God. God rules the universe. God made everything in heaven and earth. He made the world and everything in it; the stars you see at night, the sun and the moon; they are all His. The power of creation, the ability to bring a world into existence by only speaking, is the reason for His being God. Only the true, living God has the power to create by His word and to give life.
21: When God created the world, He did it by speaking. "He spake and it was done; He commanded and it stood fast." Psalm 33:9.
22: When God made man, He said, "Let us make man in our Image." Genesis 1:26. This lets us know that there is more than one person in the Godhead. There are three in the Godhead, or what may be called The God Family; they are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These three together are one God.
23: In the Bible we read, "There is but one God, the Father of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him." These are mysteries which we, being human, do not fully understand, but we believe them because God has told us about them in His Holy word, the Bible.
24: Ephesians 1:20, 22 says that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and that God has given all authority to Jesus. The Bible further tells us that Jesus performed the work of creation. Colossians 1:16, "By Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions or principalities or powers."
25: The Bible further tells us that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is equal with His Father, and the Father does everything through Him. By His power, Jesus Christ sustains, or upholds all things.
26: Because we are His children by creation, God loves us, and gives us all good things. He wants us to be healthy, happy, and prosperous. As His children, we should love and honor Him by believing His word and obeying His commandments. This is the way to more abundant life now and eventually, joyful life eternal.
27: God's nature is to love. We read in 1 John 4:8, "God is love." The only thing God really hates is sin, because it causes death. Romans 6:23. Because God loves man, He has given him everything he needs to reach life's goal of happiness and correct balance of physical, mental, social and spiritual development. Man is not able to attain these goals by himself, so God also gave His only begotten Son, Jesus, that through His power our failures and mistakes can be overcome and God's desire for our happiness be fulfilled.
28: It was His Son, Jesus, who as represented by the Lamb of sacrifice to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve learned that the lamb they killed could not of itself take away their sins.
29: They believed that when Jesus would come and would die, He would take away all the sins by His death. In the studies to come we shall learn more fully of the wonderful provision God has made for us. We can overcome sin through Jesus Christ, and we can have a more abundant life now throughout all eternity.
The story of redemption is God's plan to save us from sin. Jesus died so that we could be forgiven and empowered to obey God's Law. He is our Sacrifice, Priest and Lamb:
"And let them make Me a Sanctuary that I may dwell among them. According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it." Exodus 25:8:9.
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." John 1:29.
"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly . . But God commended His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6,8.
