200
June, 1933
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
JULY 23, 1933 ISAIAH DENOUNCES DRUNKENNESS AND OTHER SINS I s a ia h 5 :l-30 Lesson T ext: Isa. 5:8-12, 18-24.
1,180,000 B IB LE S placed by THE GIDEONS In Hotel Bedrooms for the Benefit of Those Who Travel. Y qu are invited to .have a part in this important work by sending a contribution to the Bible fund. $1.00 will place a Bible. ELIGIBILITY FOR MEMBERSHIP The field of the work having now surrounded the globe, has caused the opening of membership to ALL CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MEN The Gideon Magazine, $1.00 per year. Write for particulars to THE G IDEONS The Christian Commercial Travelers' Association of America, International 202 Seuth State Street Chicago, Illinois cidents in the lesson prove her close fellow ship with God? Golden Text Illustration At one o f the Bible classes held for women at a mission station in Korea, a bright, clean, earnest woman with a baby on her back, walked from her home to the meeting, a distance of one hundred miles. When she told of her journey and saw the astonishment in the face of the missionary, the devoted woman said, “It was not dif ficult ; God helped me along.” This simple and sincere expression of one recently brought from heathen dark ness to gospel light has in it a great lesson for the Christian worker. Any hard ser vice becomes exceedingly difficult when we attempt it in our own strength. How bright are the days and how cheering the reward when we can say of the most dif ficult undertakings that God helps u s! — N e w Y o r k O bserver . God Helping Deborah J u dg es 4:1 to 5:5 Memory V erse : “The Lord is with us”’ (Num. 14:9). • Approach : Joshua was the leader of the children of Israel for many years. After he died, the children of Israel had judges for their leaders. There were many ene mies all about, and the children o f Israel
devoted to pronouncing six woes upon va rious classes in the nation whose sins made necessary the destruction o f the vineyard. These six woes are included in our lesson today. I. T he W oe u p o n G reed (8, 9 ). The Lord speaks of those whose ambi tions carry them away and whose covet ousness leads them to forget the rights of others. They join house to house and field to field, until* ‘‘there is no room.” . The meaning is that these avaricious ones crowd out those who cannot protect them selves, and enlarge their estates without thought o f the discomfort or distress of the ones they dispossess. They forget the original law of Israel’s possession which said that every family should have a cer tain portion of the land provided for it. They isolate themselves on their estates, keeping others from enjoyment of what should be the property of all. This is a common sin in modern times. Enclosed es tates from which the “ common people” are excluded and upon which vast sums of money are expended to signify the posses sion o f great wealth are a curse to a nation instead of a blessing. The expression, “in my ears said the Lord,” indicates a continuous saying—“the Lord kept on saying.” In other words, as long as such greed existed, the Lord would keep on saying that a curse would rest up on all possessions wrongly used. The punishment upon such greed would be the extinction of the family name and the desolation o f the great estates. This would be brought about by various and seemingly natural means, but behind all would be the providential hand o f God bringing ruin to all who forgot Him and His commands. This principle may be traced in many a family whose name has been honored in the past. II. T he W oe upon D runkenness (I I , 12). Warnings against drunkenness frequent ly occur throughout the Scriptures and should be sounded again and again in the ears' of all pupils. Drunkenness, says the prophet, is a tyrant rousing its victims in early morning to follow strong drink, and all day long it makes its power felt, so that the drinker is wholly without self-con trol. It leads to the misuse of the musical instruments given by God for healthful en joyment, so that these instruments are turned into agents which still further in flame the drinker. Drunkenness leads to a spiritual blind ness which regards not the works o f the Lord. Even the wine which is drunk comes from the grace of the Lord in making the vine to grow and bear, but the drunkard disregards the work of God’s hands. Drunkenness carries within itself the woe pronounced against it (13-17). III. T he W oe upon S coffers (18, 19). The scoffers sin, as it were, with a cart rope; that is, they go to extremes in their iniquity, and they scoff at the threatened judgment upon it. They go so far as to brazenly dare God to perform His work of judgment against them (v. 19). Like many in modern times, instead o f trem bling at the rebuke of God, they scoff at it. Thus the people did in the days of Noah and of Lot, and so surely as judgment fell in those days will it fall when the Son of man returns to this earth.
Golden T ext: “Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any peo ple” (Prov. 14:34), The Wine Press r u n k e n n e s s was not c o m m o n among the Hebrews, although occa sionally one was found who “tarried too long at the cup.” Very few grapes are grown in Palestine today, although there is evidence o f a much more extensive cul
ture of grapes and traffic in wine in by gone ages. This evi dence is furnished by t h e numerous wine presses which are to be f o u n d throughout the land. In t r a v e l i n g through the Shephe- lah a few m i l e s
southwest of Bethlehem, we saw a wine press cut in the rock. At this particular place, the soil on the hill was quite shal low. It was underlaid by solid limestone. At a place where the stone cropped out from beneath the soil, the people of ancient times had hewn out a wine press. It con sisted o f two reservoirs. One of these was about four feet square, and about three feet deep. The other was dug immediately alongside it, with a partition of natural stone about six inches thick left between the two. The latter reservoir was about two feet deeper than the former, and not quite so large on each side. The two recep tacles were connected by a hole in the par tition which was on the level of the bottom o f the shallower one, and which was about an inch in diameter. Many references are made in the Scrip tures to “treading the wine press.” That was the method by which the juice was squeezed from the grapes. The bunches were thrown into the shallower pit, and a man tramped upon them with his bare feet until the juice was squeezed out o f them. As the Scripture suggests, his garments were frequently stained red with the juice. The juice ran through the small hole into the deeper receptacle, from which it was dipped and put into wine skins. Some o f these ancient wine presses are used by the natives to this day. Outline and Exposition In the chapter from which our lesson is taken, the Lord describes His people under the figure o f a vineyard upon which He has expended much thought and time and trouble, doing for it all that could be done to make it productive. In spite o f all He did, the vineyard brought forth only wild grapes. He tells how He allowed it to be laid waste, permitting briers and thorns to spring up in it, and Withholding the rain from it. The remainder of the chapter is BLACKBOARD LESSON
spent most of their time fighting. T h e judges needed to lead the people in battle. L e s s o n S to r y . We think of these judges as b e i n g brave and powerful men who could lead armies. Most of the judges were o f this sort, but the one
about whom we are going to talk today was a woman. Her name was Deborah. She was brave, and she was powerful, too. She was brave because she was not afraid o f the enemies which were all about. She was powerful because she was very wise. She listened to what God had planned for the people, and she led them to obey these plans. Sometimes it meant that she must send men out to fight great battles, but even if they were fearful of winning the fight, Deborah was not, if she knew that God had planned it so. Then when the battle was won, Deborah didn’t say to the people, “ See what I have done for you.” She remembered instead to thank God for taking care of them. She sang a song of praise to Jehovah God. She sang these words, “Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto Jehovah; I will sing praise to Jehovah, the God of Israel.”
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