July 1932
340
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
Discussion Material I. O n ly T wo W a ys
The more I pray, the more I feel my need of the Word, and rejoice in it. The more I read God’s Word, the more I have to pray about, and the more power I have in prayer. One great cause of prayerless- ness is that we read. God’s W ord too little, or only superficially, or in the light o f hu man wisdom. It is the Holy Spirit through whom the Word has been spoken who is also the Spirit o f prayer. He will teach me how to receive the Word, and how to approach God. How blessed would the inner chamber be, what a power and an inspiration in our worship, if w6 only took God’s W ord as from Himself, turning it into prayer, and definitely expecting an answer! It is in the inner chamber, in the secret o f God’s presence, that by the Holy Spirit God’s W ord will become our delight and our strength. God’s W ord in deepest reverence in cur hearts, and on our lips, and in our lives, will be a never-failing fountain of strength and blessing. Let us believe that God’s W ord is indeed full o f a quickening power that will make us strong, gladly to expect and receive great things from God. Above all, it will give us the daily blessed fellowship with Him as the living God. “ Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law o f the Lord; in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psa. 1:2 ). — A ndrew M u rray . there is a great readiness to listen to the singing o f the hymns, and to the reading and explanation o f the Bible story. Sometimes I go to the seashore with Amor and his fourteen-year-old sister Re bah, who tends her father’s camels, and as we sit on the crumbling walls o f an old mosque, Amor will say, “ Let us sing” ; for he and his two sisters have learned several verses of hymns by heart. Even little two-and-a-half-year-old Mebrouka joins in “Jesus Loves Me,” and we all smile as she sings in her baby Arabic pronuncia tion. One day when I was feeling lonely (be cause you do get lonely sometimes when you live by yourself in a foreign land), I called around to see my little friends Amor and Rebah, and as they were about to set off for the seashore with the camels, I gladly accompanied them. When the camels were set free from their leading ropes to wander at will along the steppe like shore, we sat down in a wind-sheltered spot on the ruins of the mosque, and Amor suggested that we should sing. This was followed by a request for a story, and I spoke o f the power o f the Lord Jesus. Then Rebah remarked that she loved the Lord Jesus. I asked her why she loved Him. Her reply was so simple and so sincere that I felt sure she had un derstood, and believed. She said, “I love Him because He died instead of me, to take away my sins.” Amor also said that he loved Saidna Yasooa” (the Lord Jesus) and there on the seashore, I suggested that we should tell Him that we loved H im ; and so we prayed, thanking Him for having died to save us, and asking Him to wash away our sins. JUNIOR KING’S BUSINESS [Continued from page 324]
Our Present Helper I bind unto myself today ,j The power o f God to hold and lead, His eye to watch, His might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need, The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, His shield to ward, The Word o f God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be my guard. — T h e B ible T oday . The sun was beginning to sink, and a strong cold wind was blowing, but as I left the children collecting the camels, I returned to my dwelling place with a heart warmed with the Sun o f Righteousness, and I thought o f His words o f long ago, “ Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom o f heaven.” CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR NOTES [Continued from page 327] happened on earth mattered, for we would all be happy together in heaven, was equal ly skeptical about the reality of the pres ence o f Christ in the lives o f Christians. When the visitor had finished what he had to say, the Oriental burst out in a manner not in the least like his usual calm cour tesy, “You tell us God loves u s! Why isn’t He making your Christian country just to us? I.came here and I work hard. I am hon est. I teach my children to obey the Lord. I try to make good Americans of them. You take our work. You, oh, yes, you try to make good Christians out o f my chil dren by taking them down into Japanese town to a Sunday-school! Your minister, he is good Christian; he invites me into his home and comes to mine. But you! You say, 'Yes, you can go to heaven, but you cannot be in school with my child; you cannot own land; you must move just so often, because you might feel you owned land if you stayed too long in one place!’ You will not allow us to vote, for we can not take out citizenship papers. You can not prevent my children being citizens, but you are sorry for that. I do not want your religion; it stands for too much injustice.” —A. J. B allard . III. D riven from G od An Armenian migrant was bitter in dis cussion of the religious contacts which her people had with settled communities. “My people have been martyrs; they have died for their Christ; even my own people—they were killed for their faith before my own eyes. I only escaped. But when my boy goes into a young people’s meeting, they say, ‘W e don’t have wops here.’ He left, and he says he will never go into a church again; he is going other places and I cannot stop him. My girl has a fine voice; she has taught music, but they do not want her to sing; if she does, the choir will leave. My boy and girl, they say religion isn’t true or the churches would want us. My family, they believe in God, but they do not believe in American churches or American Christians; they both hate us. — R oving w it h th e M igrants .
The broad and the narrow : One downward, the other upward; One to destruction, the other to life; One taken by many, the other by few. H. T he O ld L a m p A lamp once hung in an ancient town At the corner of a street, There the wind was keen and the way was dark And the rain would often beat. And all night long its light would shine, To guide the travelers’ feet. The lamp was rough and plain and old, And the storm had beaten it sore; ’Twas not a thing one would care to show, Whate’er it had been before, But no one thought what the lantern was, ’Twas the light that, within, it bore. The lamp is a text for young and old, Who seek, in a world o f pride, To shine for their Lord and to show Him forth And never their light to hide. You are the lantern, a thing of naught, But Christ is the Light inside. —G. G. III. B ible E xhortations “ That ye may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst o f a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15, R. V .). “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). “ Having your conversation h o n e s t among the Gentiles; that, whereas they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they shall be hold, glorify God in the day o f visita tion” (1 Pet. 2:12). Rescued from Romanism M r . an d M rs . C arl W intersteen , mis sionaries o f the Bolivian Indian Mis livia. “ For all the religion and so-called Chris tianity that the people here have,” they write, “they seem to be, as a rule, quite without a sense o f sin and almost without a conscience. They say they believe in God, but oh, what a false conception of Him they have! Not long ago, a little girl from a Spanish family was heard to say some thing like this: ‘Yes, I know who_ Christ is. On certain feast days, especially at Easter, they take Him out o f the temple, they wash His face with vinegar and wine, they carry Him in the procession, they take Him to the cemetery and then back to the temple.’ How one longs to lead them into a knowledge of the living, glorified Christ!” But missionary work in that dark land has its bright side, too. “ There is a woman here,” the Winter steen letter continues, “ who has not been able to walk for about eight years, crip pled with rheumatism. She was visited several times, and she heard, perhaps for the first time, o f the finished work of Christ. Then she asked us to come and sing to her. A fter that visit, placing her hand over her heart, she said, ‘I have a joy welling up here that it seems I can hardly contain!’ ”
sion, are working in a hard field in Bo
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