22
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
January, 1936
BLACKBOARD LESSON
of her hand in marriage to the one who should shoot an arrow through twelve rings with the bow Ulysses had used in other days. In the meantime, Ulysses had arrived and, disguised as a beggar, was present on the day o f trial. The first thing to be done was to bend the bow in order to attach the string. One by one the suitors stepped forth to prove their prowess and amidst the laughter and jeers o f their companions confessed it was a task beyond their strength to perform. Then spoke Ulysses: “Beggar as I am, I was once a soldier, and there is still some strength in these old limbs o f mine. Let me try.” The suitors hooted at him and demanded that he be turned out of the hall for his insolence. But to gratify the old man Penelope bade him try, when lo! with ease he bent the bow, adjusted the cord to its notch, and sped the arrow unerring through the rings. It was Ulysses, indeed, and Penelope threw herself into his arms. What little use to profess if our actions belie the profession we make I It is not so much for us to say we are Christians as it is#to prove it by the life we live. It was Venning who said, “ In religion not to do as thou sayest is to unsay thy religion in thy deeds, and to undo thyself by doing.”—W . E. B iederwolf . Jesus Tells Us What to Do L uke 6:17-49 Memory Verse: "Speak not evil one of another” (Jas. 4:11). Approach: Jesus lived a very busy life. Many times He went off alone to pray to God for wisdom and strength. But always He came back to the waiting crowds of 4 L e s s o n S to r y : Jesus told the people things that sounded strange to them. He said: “ Love your enemies.” That seemed to them a hard thing to do. He said: “Do good to them which hate you.” The Jewish leaders in those days had never told them anything like that. The people had thought that to be good to those who loved them and to love their friends was enough. But Jesus expected them to love their enemies I He said: “ If ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye?” Any one would do that. He said also: “I f ye lend to them o f whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? . . . do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great.” He told them not to be always telling others their faults, but to think about their own faults first. And He begged them to do as He said. He ended by telling the story of the two houses. One was built on sand and the other on rock. When a storm came, o f course the one that was built on the sand was swept away. The Lord Jesus said that that house is like the man who listens to Jesus’ words but does not do them, while the man who builds his house on a rock is like the man who hears our Lord’s sayings and does them. Object Lesson T he B ox B rothers Objects: Two jewel boxes, a narrow black ribbon, a black cardboard heart, an p eop le to ta lk to them. A n d as H e walked among them, He saw so much sin and tr o u b le every where! People were so selfish and proud and mean, that Jesus began to talk to them ab ou t it. H e to ld them that that was not the way that God wanted them to be.
imitation cigarette, a small flask-shaped bottle filled with vinegar, some rags, a narrow white ribbon, a white cardboard heart, a yellow piece of cardboard cut in the shape o f a book, a red cardboard cross, and several diamond-shaped pieces of paper of various colors. (The jewel boxes can be made from cardboard and decorated with colored paper, or they can be purchased at a novelty store. String the black heart, cigarette, bottle, and rags onto the black ribbon, and place these objects in one of the boxes. Let a little of the ribbon stick out from under the lid of the box. String the other objects on the white ribbon in the order mentioned, leaving the diamond-shaped papers flying at the end in the manner of a kite tail. Put these in the other box, leaving some o f the white ribbon sticking out.) Lesson: I brought a pair o f twins with me this morning. They look exactly alike, but they are far from being the same. Here they are—Bob and Bill Box. Looking care fully, can you notice any difference in them ? “ They have different colors o f ribbon sticking out under the lid.” You are correct. That is the only dif ference noticeable from their outward appearance. When the Lord Jesus was here on earth, He said that you could tell the condition o f a person’s heart by the words which came out oS the mouth. These are His words: “ Out o f the abundance of the heart the mouth soeaketh.” By looking at the ribbons which come out of the “mouth” of these boxes, you can tell the color o f the heart on the inside. See! Bob has a black heart, the same color as the ribbon. When boys and girls have unclean words, the reason is that thé heart is unclean. Look! A cigarette follows the black heart. It’s only an imitation cigarette. If you never touch a real one, you will never learn to smoke them. Next is a bottle, representing whiskey. It does not have real whiskey in it, Never touch real whiskey, and it will not make a drunkard o f you. Rags follow the bottle, for the drunkard will come to rags. That which comes out of Bill’s mouth is clean, and his heart is clean, too. His heart is clean because o f the W ord o f God. This little card, shaped like a book, is marked “ Holy Bible.” The psalmist said : “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.” The Bible tells Bill about the cross of red which comes next. It is red. because Christ shed His blood upon the cross for our sins. The one who takes Christ as Saviour will have peace and happiness, just as Bill has this long string of beautiful papers following the cross. The Lord Jesus says to those who follow Him : “ Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”
Points and Problems 1. To understand verse 40 of this lesson, one must connect it closely with the thought o f verse 39. Our Lord has as serted that if a blind man tries to lead an other blind man, both will fall into the ditch. The disciple who is taught by his master, even though he learns every lesson perfectly, will only be equal to the teacher, not above him. In other words, it is folly to expect that those who are taught will rise above their teachers, or that those who are guided will do better than their guides. 2. The illustration of the “mote” and the “ beam" in verses 41 and 42 is a priceless literary gem, perhaps as widely used as anything else from the New Testament. For the quaint English terms we are in debted to the famous Wycliffe Version (about a . d . 1400). Some one has suggested that, to bring the language up to date, we might translate by the words “splinter” and “rafter." Weymouth’s modern version does use the former term. The entire passage proves that our Lord did not hesitate to employ humorous illustrations. What a laughable situation to picture a man with a rafter in his own eye trying to extract a splinter from another man’s eye! Yet there is also tragedy in the situation, for eternal destinies were at stake. The men with rafters in their eyes were the ac credited teachers of our Lord’s day. 3. It is astonishing how men have re versed the teaching of verses 43 to 45. Christ is not teaching here that men can become good men by doing good. On the contrary, He declares that men do good because they are already good. The fun damental difference between men, there fore, is a difference in nature. It is the nature of the tree that produces the fruit o f _the tree, and the fruit is merely the evidence o f the nature. Modern legalism has turned this hole matter unside down, telling us that we must do good works in order to be saved, a view which means that the bad tree by producing good fruit can change itself into a good tree. How utterly foolish! Any farmer would know better. The nature o f the tree must first be changed, before it can produce anything • good. And this truth means, in the lan guage of John 3:7, “ Y e must be bom again." The sinner cannot change his na ture any more than a tree can change its nature. But with God all things are pos sible. Golden Text Illustration One of Emerson’s terse and telling epi-, grams is this: “What we are sometimes speaks so loudly that people can’t hear what we say.” It is said that Adelina Patti, of the marvelous voice, one time lost her passpost, and sang a song to prove her identity. And we are reminded of Ulysses who handled his bow for the same purpose. While Ulysses was absent at the siege of Troy, his faithful wife, Penelope, annoyed by suitors, after waiting ten years and thinking Ulysses dead, at last gave promise
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