September, 1936
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
346
You are wondering how an alarm clock can be like a boy, or how it can be like the Apostle Paul. As we examine this clock, I feel sure that you will agree with me that it is like Paul, the great missionary, and is like every true Christian also. First, we notice that Carl is clean. Those who work for God must be clean, for we read in the Bible: “Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord’’if(Isa. 52:11). Carl Clock, like a real Christian, is true. When he tells the time, he tells the truth. “ Lying lips are abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 12:22). He who would serve God, must be truthful. The Apostle Paul was a truthful man. Carl is on time. A clock which is either too fast or too slow is never satisfactory. God wants people who neither lag behind nor run ahead o f Him. Paul was this kind of a Christian. W e read in Acts 16:10: “And after he had seen the vision, im mediately we endeavored to go into Mac edonia.” Carl is faithful in giving a warning. (Release the alarm.) Paul was faithful in giving a warning to those who transgressed the commandments of God. Notice, Carl has hands, but they do not scratch. A scratching, fighting Christian cannot be used in the service of God. Carl has feet, and like the feet o f a true Christian, they do not kick. God never uses a person who is always kicking others. The Bible says: “ How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation” (Isa. 52:7). God is looking for people like the Apostle Paul and Carl Clock who will carry His gospel to the unsaved. of God in the stocks, thrust the apostles into the inner dungeon, and with no thought of their discomfort, pain, and suffering, went to sleep. This rebellion against the power o f God (vs, 22-24) re veals the natural enmity of the human heart for the Spirit. The treatment given to the servants of God by the world reveals that “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7) and needs only an occa sion in which to express itself. The reve lation of the condition of the human heart shows the need of the new birth. II. T he M ethod (Acts 16:25-34). First, there will be conviction o f sin (vs. 25-30). Various media are used by the Lord to awaken conviction in hearts. In this instance He accomplished it through the prayers and praise of the prisoners. Paul and Silas, far from being cast down by the harsh treatment, began to pray and sing praises unto God. As though in answer to the prayers and praises, a great earthquake shook the prison, flinging the doors open and allow-
where he had been b e f o r e and had preached the gospel. His plan was to stop in these same coast c i t i e s and then to take roads that led farther inland. He wanted to preach to the p e o p l e there. This was P a u l ’ s plan, but God’s plan was not this. God showed Paul His plan in a wonderful vision that He gave him one night. Lesson Story: Paul and his helpers were spending the night in the little seaport town of Troas. Paul was wondering where he was to go next, but he was waiting for God to show him where it was to be. He didn’t know just how God would make it clear to him, but he waited, for he knew that, somehow or other, God would let him know. That night, God showed Paul what he ought to do. Before him there seemed to stand a man from a country across the sea. As he looked, the man beckoned to him and cried something like this: “ Come over into our country, into Macedonia, and help us.” Paul knew at once that this was the place to which God would have him go. He didn’t hesitate about going, although it meant that he had to change all of his plans. It meant that he was to travel to places where no one but God had prepared a way for him. But Paul knew that if he was doing God’s work and doing it in God’s way, God would prepare the hearts o f the people to listen. And that is just what happened, for in the first city where Paul and his helpers stopped, there was a little group meeting each Sabbath on the bank of the river, ready and waiting for some one to come and preach the good news. _ _ _ _ _ _ Object Lesson C arl C lock Object: An alarm clock. Lesson: This alarm clock reminds me so much of the Apostle Paul, that I almost named it Paul. However, I have given it a boy’s name, Carl. 3 :7-14. Golden T ext: “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). Outline and Exposition I. T he N eed (Acts 16:22-24). B y the power of God, demons had been cast out of a poor slave girl who, being so possessed, had brought much gain to her owners by her soothsaying (vs. 16-21). The loss o f their ill-gotten gains roused the enmity of her owners, and they stirred the rulers to action against Paul and Silas. The two men were not accorded a fair trial. They were not al lowed to speak for themselves, and with out a semblance o f justice they were beaten with many stripes and then were cast into prison. The jailer, exhibiting the roughness and brutality of his business, and wholly lacking in human sympathy and kindness, placed the feet of these two men Lesson T ext: Acts 16:22-34; Phil.
again by the Holy Ghost (v. 7), Whether the Spirit stopped his work in these places by speaking in an audible voice, or, as some think, by means of some providential circumstance, need not concern us. Hav ing been stopped in these two directions, and refusing to go back, Paul had but one opening, and that was straight ahead to Troas, where God gave him the vision of the “man of Macedonia” (v. 9). 2. It should be noted that God may not always reveal the exact place o f our min istry in advance. Even the great Apostle Paul apparently started out on this jour ney without knowing definitely just where he was to preach. That fact should be a great comfort to most of us. Sometimes we are envious of those who seem to have complete assurance in advance as to the exact place where God has called them to labor, wondering why we also do not have the same assurance. W e should re member that often the vision o f God comes to us while w i are on the way, not before we start. The important thing is to begin to do something, as Paul did, the thing which is immediately at hand. If we do this, we shall experience the guiding hand of the Spirit, we shall see the vision in the manner that God chooses, and we shall receive the assurance of being in the divine will. 3. In this lesson we have an account of the beginning of the church at Philippi. It will pay the teacher to read the Philippian epistle in the light of Acts 16:12-15. Two things at least are of interest:, First, the church began in a prayer meeting; and second, it began among women, the first convert being Lydia. Could this account in some measure for the fact that of all the churches, the Philippians were the most generous and thoughtful in caring for the needs of the Apostle Paul? How poor the church would be without the min istry of godly women in prayer and in those humble services which the men so often overlook! Golden Text Illustration “You are angry,” said a Negro fellow traveler to Dan Crawford, at the end of a fifteen-mile trek in the tall grass of Cen tral Africa. “Why do you say soP’lp j “ Because you are silent,” was the reply. “ Tell me more about it.” “In our language,” answered the black man, “ we say that if a man is silent, he is angry. This is why we know God is angrySbecause He is silent.” “God is silent!” The intrepid missionary was cut to the heart. He opened his pocket Testament and read to the man the first verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Much more, he went to work at translating the New Testament into the language o f his Central African brother, and at building school houses in which the people might be taught to read the Word which God had spoken in Jesus Christ nearly two thousand years before. God was not silent. But the messengers to whom He had com mitted His good news had been slow to tell it as He had bidden them, unto the ends of the earth.— Vision and Power. Paul’s Wonderful Dream Memory Verse: “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it” (John 2 :5). Approach: The Sunday before last, we were talking together about the second missionary journey that Paul took. He wanted to go back to visit the places
OCTOBER 11, 1936 BECOMING A CHRISTIAN A cts 16:16-40; P hilippians 3:7-14
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