December, 1935
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
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Grandma Jones’ magnifying glass. As I focus the glass over the center of this heart, the picture is enlarged until I can see it clearly. It is a picture representing Christ. This magnifying glass reminds me o f what Mary said—“My soul doth magnify the Lord.” She sang a song of praise, and in doing so, she magnified the Lord, caus ing others to see Him more clearly. Did you notice that the heart did not grow in size—only the picture? If Mary had been like some people, she would have praised herself because she was to be the mother of the Saviour. Instead, she praised and magnified the Lord. This is the right attitude for each child o f God to have. Paul said: “ Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.” John the Baptist had this same desire in mind when he said of Christ: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” We need to ask ourselves the practical question: How may we magnify Christ? Not many people have the opportunity or the need for dying for Christ, as Paul suggested he might; but every Christian can and should magnify Christ by living the right kind o f a life. We cannot live in the days of Mary, Paul, or John the Baptist, but God has given us the great privilege of magnifying His Son Jesus Christ to those with whom we come in contact day by day. The world sees Christ in the Christian when the Christian is kind, honest, unselfish, and Christlike. He was a man acquainted with Scrip ture—one who read, understood, and be lieved what was written. Therefore he was “waiting for the consolation o f Israel,” the One whom the prophets had declared should come to earth. Simeon had a living faith. There are two kinds o f faith, just as there are two kinds o f fear. There is a dead faith that takes God’s Word questioningly, and there is a living faith that takes God’s Word com pletely. In Simeon’s waiting for the Lord, there is revealed his own inner life o f faith and yearning and hope. All his aspirations were centered in the One whose coming alone could bring conver sion and deliverance to the nation. Furthermore, Simeon, in some aspects, was like the Lord Jesus Christ: First, Simeon was a Spirit-anointed man. “The Holy Ghost was upon him” (v. 25). O f course, he knew nothing o f the indwelling and abiding presence of the Spirit o f God, as every Christian today may know and experience that presence, but he had an anointing which opened his understanding to the truth revealed in God’s Word. Sec ond, he was a Spirit-enlightened man. He had a revelation by the Holy Ghost (v. 26). Like another at a later date (Acts 23:11), Simeon knew he was not to die until a special sight had been granted to him. There must have been a great calm ness in the soul and spirit o f Simeon as he held communion with God by the Spirit of the Lord. Third, he was a Spirit-led man. He came “ by the Spirit” (v. 27) into the temple, and there found himself present at the right moment to meet the Lord’s Christ. Today, as in that day, the Holy Spirit seeks to lead, but Christians hesitate to
How surprised Mary wasl At first, she was puzzled and a little afraid, but soon she forgot all o f this in her great joy. Mary hurried to her cousin Elisabeth to tell her the good news, and was so happy that she sang a song about God’s goodness. It is one of the most beautiful songs of praise ever written.
and of our Lord he reproduces even ver bally the account as it came from the only possible human sources who knew exactly what happened and what was said, namely, the two mothers. And both were Hebrew women whose minds and speech were sat urated with the Old Testament. As a mat ter of fact, Mary’s song is closely related, in thought and form, to Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2. The Holy Spirit, in making a New Testament revelation, often uses the words and expressions of the Old Testa ment. Golden Text Illustration A woman in India had learned that she was a sinner, and that God is holy and cannot pass over sin. She often said, “I need some great prince to stand between my soul and God.” After a while she heard that the Bible contained the account o f a Saviour who had died for sinners.. She therefore asked a pundit to read the Bible to her. He began at the first chapter o f Matthew, and as he- read the list of names in the genealogy of Christ, the woman thought, “What a . wonderful Prince this Jesus must be, to have such a long line o f ancestors|” And when the pundit read, “Thou shalt call his name J esus : for he shall save his people from their sins,” the woman exclaimed, “Ah, this is the Prince I want! This is the Prince I want! The Prince who is also a Saviour 1”— Christian Herald.
Object Lesson M agnifying C hrist
Objects: A large cardboard heart, with a small picture in the center representing Christ, and a magnifying glass. (I f a small picture is not available, a profile sketch will serve the purpose.) Lesson: What is a magnifying glass, such as this one, used for? “To make things larger, so that you can see them better.” That is a very good answer. Here is a large heart with a small picture in the center. It is quite difficult to tell what this picture represents without the aid of
Why Mary Sang L uke , C hapter 1
JANUARY 12, 1936 A PROPHETIC VISION L uke , C hapter 2
Memory Verse: “Thou shalt call his name J esus : for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1 :21). Approach: You remember that in our Bible stories last year we talked a great deal about the prophets, God’s helpers who
Lesson T ext: Lk. 2:25-35, 40. Golden T ext: “Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared be fore the face o f all people” (Lk. 2:30, 31). Outline and Exposition I. T he M an N .. med S imeon (25-30). L ittle is to ld us con cern in g w ho Simeon was. Apparently he was an unknown man residing in Jerusalem, unnoticed by the crowd and unheard of for greatness in the eyes of his fellow townsmen. But the Lord is not concerned about who we are; it is what we are that is important (v. 25). W e are told that Simeon was a “just” or righteous man; hence, he must have been a forgiven sinner (cf. Rom. 4:3 ). He was also a “devout” man; that is, he was a man of true piety, one who feared God. There are two kinds o f fear: the fear of the sinner, like Adam (Gen. 3:10), and the fear of the saint, like Abraham (Gen. 22:8, 12). Simeon possessed the latter kind of fear. BLACKBOARD LESSON
could tell the people ab ou t th in gs that were going to hap pen. S om etim es these prophets told of the sad things that were going to happen because the people were acting w ick e d ly . But al ways they told, too, o f G o d ’ s g o o d promises to them if
they would but listen. There was one very special promise o f which the prophets al ways reminded the people. It was the promise that God had made away back at the beginning—just as He led Adam and Eve out o f the beautiful Garden of Eden— the promise o f a Saviour, One who should save them from their sins. Lesson Story: Always from that time on, people had been waiting and looking, for the Saviour. God didn’t tell them when the Saviour should come, but He told them how they should know Him when He arrived. His mother was to be a very young girl, and God Himself was to be His Father. You can imagine that every young girl as she grew up wondered whether she would be chosen to be the mother o f this precious Saviour, the Son o f God. And our story today tells us about the girl who was chosen. Mary was a young Jewish girl who was soon to marry a man named Joseph. One day, God’s messenger, the angel Gabriel, appeared to Mary, and told her that she v^as the one chosen by God to be the earthly mother o f His <_'ift to the world.
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