THE KING’S BUSINESS
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Appointed, questions in her every breath, but assuring me that it was impossible for her to believe that the Bible was the Word o f God. “I’ve read everything I can find about it,” she said, “ Christian Science, The osophy, New Thought, and I read all the sermons in the papers, but some way noth ing seems to help.” “ Suppose,” I suggested, “you stop reading these things about the Bible and read the Bible itself.” “ But the Bible is just Greek to me; why should I read that which I cannot understand ?” Then I tried the old plan which has been blessed o f God in bringing so many people out o f darkness. Giving her a Gospel of John, marking John 7:17 and 20:31, with a chapter outline for study which I always carry with me, I left with her promise to D URING August our work has taken us into the lower fields, Bakersfield, Fullerton, Whittier, La Brea, Olinda. The writer’s first experience in Olinda was nearly sixteen years ago when he preached in an old school house^ and from ■those meetings was organized the Union Church at Olinda. ' A rich oil man entertained my wife and I, and for a time we believed he had becofne converted to Christ, because he took such an interest and paid most of the 'expense o f building the church, but he “went back.” W e left it a fine Union church, but a few years later it was turned into a Methodist church, which split up on thé Nazarene church doctrine. On this last trip we were permitted to use the church one Wednesday evening only, but we were *given the use o f the Columbia Oil Company’s boarding house for ten days, besides holding house to house Bible readings. Some real Spirit- filled Christians were found, and it was a great pleasure for me to have their fel lowship in the Word and in. the Gospel
lay aside everything else, read the book o f John over and over again, ask God to show her the truth, and obey the truth just as far as she saw it. Then we began the study o f God’s plan as revealed in the study o f dispensational truth, in the class. TWo weeks passed and she said, “I never understood the Bible before; I never heard o f dispensational truth before; it makes the Bible a new book to me. I know now the reason people do not believe the Bible; . it is because they do not understand it.” Another week Went by, and at ’her request she and her husband came to my home to have some questions answered. Before they left she had received the Lord Jesus as her Saviour,; and her husband, a backslider for twenty years, had returned:—C. meetings. A good interest was manifested. W e had most o f the young men from the Columbia lease and did a great deal o f per sonal work with them, some o f whom I believe received the Lord. W e found two brethren who had been at the Bible Institute o f Los Angeles, heard the Gospel, came home and surrendered to the Lord Jesus in their own home. It is very comforting, when we do not always “ see results,” to be able to “stay ourselves,” knowing that God’s W ord cannot fail or return void. I often think o f an incident connected with Olinda, which has greatly fcomforted m e: While riding in a street car in Los Angeles ond day, a young lady touched me on the shoulder and asked my name, and then said, “I heard you preach the Gospel at Olinda and went home and could not sleep until I had given my heart to the Lord.” Then she told me how she had been studying God’s Word, had become a student at our Bible Institute, had married a Christian man and hoped to go to South
O --------------- WORK IN THE OIL FIELDS By Frank J. Shelley
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