September, 1940
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
336
Father and-' the Holy Spirit, before the world was made, but He was bom in Bethlehem. He came to this earth to seek and to save that which was lost. We are like sheep that wander away and get lost. The Lord Jesus is the good Shepherd, who seeks for the lost sheep and saves it from Satan, who is like a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may de vour. The Lord Jesus calls little chil dren His lambs. He loves you and wants to carry you in His arms to keep you safe. Luke wrote that the Lord Jesus Christ forgave sins, healed the sick, raised the dead, conquered Satan, fed the hungry, and blessed little children. Then He died on the cross for us all, and after three days came alive again and went up into heaven where He is living today. He is coming again, not as a little baby, but in great glory as a King to bring peace on earth. These and many other things are in Luke’s book, show ing that God always keeps His word and that the Lord Jesus Christ is His Own dear Son. Object Lesson P ens and P eople OBJECTS: A fountain pen, an ordi nary pen, and a bottle of ink. LESSON: Did you know that pens are like people? You see, a pen is an instrument in the hands of its owner, with which a message may be written. Very important messages have been written with pens. Pens have been used to place-signatures on treaties and con tracts. Christians, like pens, should be yielded instruments in the hand of God. Both of these pens are yielded to my hand, but they are different, even as Chris tians are different. In what way do these pens differ? “ One has to be dipped often, and the other is a fountain pen.” You are right. All Christians are supposed to give forth God’s message, whenever they have an opportunity. Some do this only when they have re cently been fed by a sermon or a Bible lesson. At other times they are dry and cannot be used to give out God’s message. Other Christians are like a fountain pen. They are fil’ed and ready at all times to be used of God. In looking at this fountain pen, I am reminded of Luke, the man whom God R- 15•AV jo ■e •«o
mighty works, His atoning death, and His resurrection body. Hence, even apart from the fact of divine inspiration, it is clear that Luke was not dependent upon mere traditional accounts far re moved from their source. He traveled and labored with the Apostle Paul, and also knew personally other apostles who had seen thé Lord. Still farther, Luke claims to have “ traced the course of all things accurately from the first” (cf. v. 3, R.V.). All this wa3 done that we who believe might “know the cer tainty” of the facts of our faith. Golden Text Illustration L uke 1 :3, 4 “I have been waiting for you for ten years!” was the greeting of the old man of Mesopotamia to the stranded mis sionary in the mountains. “Why, how did you know I was here ?” said the missionary. Then the old man told his story. “Ten years ago,” he said, “I went on a pil grimage to Arabia. There, in a mar ket place, I bought this little book from a stranger. As I traveled home I read how God sent His Son into the world, and how He died and rose again. The journey did not seem long to me. Then I prayed: ‘O God, send me a teacher, that I may understand these things.’ And for ten years, I waited. Now the teacher has come. Teach me!” —Five Thousand Best Modern Illustra tions.
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they could hardly have been the other Gospel writers, for John had not yet written his Gospel, and the other two (Matthew and Mark) could not be spoken of properly as “many.” Further more, the reference could not be to the well-known spurious Gospel accounts be cause they were not written until long after Luke composed his Gospel. “It is probable that Luke refers to frag ments of history, or. to narratives of de tached sayings, acts, or parables of our Lord, which had been made and circu lated among the disciples and others. . . . That this was what he meant, ap pears further from verse 3, where Luke professes to write ‘in order,’ that is, to give a regular, full, and systematic account. The others were broken and incomplete. This was to be regular and full.” 2. “Those things which are most surely believed among us’’ (Lk. 1:1). Here the writer, acknowledged to be a careful historian even by unbelievers of our day, bears clear witness to the unan imous conviction of the truth of the historical facts of Christianity which existed in the generation following the life of our Lord upon earth. The mem bers and leaders of the early church were at one in their belief regarding Him and His saving work. Schools of critical thought in the professing church were later developments. Furthermore, it is highly significant that in the era which produced the New Testament writings there existed absolutely no comparable body of literature which disputed the facts believed by the church. This was not due to any lack of competent writers among the un believers of that age. In fact, all the advantage in this respect was in the world of unbelief. There is only one possible way to account for this very striking lack of any competent body of contemporaneous literature in dispute of the Christian tenets of faith, and this is that the things believed had actually taken place and any successful denial was impossible in that early generation. 3. “They delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewit nesses” (v. 2). Here we should note that.although Luke does not claim to have been an “eyewitness,” he dees claim to have secured his information from those who had been with the Lord personally and therefore had seen His
Luke’s Book About Jesus L uke 1; C olossians 4:14
MEMORY VERSE: “These are writ ten, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31). APPROACH: God the Holy Spirit spoke to Luke the beloved physician
telling him to write a book about the Lord Jesus. It is in the Bible as "The Gospel According to Luke,” and we know every word is true. Luke, being a doc tor, knew it was wonderful that the Lord Jesus healed every sickness of
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the people. Luke and Paul traveled to gether to tell others about the Lord Jesus. Luke’s book is a history, and it explains why things happened. LESSON STORY: Hundreds of years before the first Christmas, God the Father promised that His Son would visit this earth, bom of a virgin (Isa. 7:14). Luke’s book explains how God kept His promise by sending the angel Gabriel to tell the Virgin Mary she was chosen to become the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus'was God’s Son who lived in heaven with His
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