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T h e K i n g ' s B u s i n e s s
December 1928
and ceased murmuring because the Great Shepherd had taken their lambs over the River. They began to look up, and to look forward to the time when they would rejoin the loved ones. m D ecember 10, 1928 Text: Rom. 8:15-16 A lady who had adopted a baby-waif, lavished upon her the same love and care as upon her very own children. When the child was old enough to attend school, she one day heard some one there remark that she was “only an adopted child.” She ran home crying bitterly, and sobbed.out: “Is it really true that I’m not really your little girl?” “Why, of course you are my little girl,” , was the answer. “Isn’t this your very own house, and aren’t May and Josey and Willie and Tom your sisters and brothers?” The child’s head was hid in her mother’s lap, and the mother stroked her hair soothingly. Suddenly the little girl looked up, and asked searchingly: “But, mother, did you born me?” So God’s Word doesn’t use only the figure of adop tion in teaching us how he plans for us to become His children. We are not merely adopted into the family of God, we are his “bairns,” “born ones.” Christ gives the right to sonship to those who believe on His name, and who “were born, not—of the will of man, but of God.” ate D ecember 11, 1928 Text: Matt. 7:9 Robert Burns, the poet, was often in dire poverty. After his death his admirers built him a very beautiful monument of solid granite. When they had completed it, they took his aged mother to see it. Instead of going into rapturous admiration, she said, in her broad Scotch, with a tear glistening in her eye : “My Bobbie asked for bread and you gave him a stone.” Sometimes we send flowers to people who need bread.
I l lu s t r a t e d D a i ly T e x t Interesting Stories from Everyday Life tin VQ*
D ecember 6, 1928 Text: Jn. 16:8-9 (R. V.)
One day in Geneva, Dr. Caesar Malan believed he saw in front of him a Christian friend with whom he was on the most confidential terms in spiritual things, each of them opening his mind freely to the other. Quickening his pace, he touched the gentleman’s shoulder, saying, “Well, my dear friend, how is it with your soul?” This produced embarrassment on both sides, for the gentleman proved to be a perfect stranger. Dr. Malan apologized for the intrusion, and explained the circumstances from his point of view. Some time after, the same gentleman called on Dr. Malan to thank him for speaking the words; they had dwelt in his mind until he found salvation in Christ. He said: “The question that you asked me, as you believed, by a mistake, was really asked me by God Himself—How is it with your soul?” m Mr. Spurgeon told about a Sunday-school boy who asked his teacher to get the people at the prayer-meeting to pray for his sister, that she might read the Bible: “Because if she would read it, I am sure it would do her good, and she would be con verted, and be saved.” So the teacher presented the request, but to his surprise the boy left the meeting immediately after: he thought this rude, and said so. “Oh, sir,” the boy replied, “I did not mean to be rude, but I thought I should just like to go home, and see my sister read her Bible for the first time.” His desire was granted, for she was reading the Bible when he reached home. D ecember 7, 1928 Text: Matt. 17:20
D ecember 12, 1928 Text: 1 Cor. 3:15
A woman who was determined to have nothing to do with religion, threw her Bible into the fire, together with all the tracts she could find in the house. One of the tracts fell out of the flames; she picked it up and thrust it in again. A second time it slipped down, and once more she put it back. Again her evil intention was frustrated. The next time, however, she was more successful, though even then only half of the tract was consumed. Taking up the portion that came out of the fire, she exclaimed, “Surely the devil is in that tract, for it will not burn!” Her curiosity was excited. She began to read i t ; and it was the means of her conversion to Godl The tract was one of Spurgeon’s Sermons; it led her to the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly the sermon, and the woman too, were saved, yet “so as by fire.”
D ecem ber 8 , 1928 Text: Psa. 121:8
On the doorpost of a Christian home in Dalmatia, in the early Christian centuries, the number 8051 was inscribed. This number is the numerical value of all letters of Psalm 121:8, “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth, and forevermore.” Duncan Matheson, the well-known evangelist, asked that the one word, “KEPT,” might be engraved on his tombstone. It was the sum of his Christian experience. And the beloved dis ciple gathers up the teaching of his great doctrinal Epistle in a similar expression: “He that was begotten of God keepeth him.” Christ is the guard and guide of the believing soul; trusting Jesus, that is all.
D ecember 13, 1928 Text : Deut. 6 :6-7
D ecember 9, 1928 Text: 2 Thess. 2:16-17
Dr. Potter tells the story of a young man who stood at the bar of a court of justice to be sentenced for forgery. The Judge had known him from a child, for his father had been a famous legal light, and his work on the “Law of Trusts” was the most exhaustive work on the subject in existence. “Do you remember your father,” asked the Judge sternly, “that father whom you have disgraced?” The prisoner answered, “I remember him perfectly. When I went to him for advice or companionship, he would look up from his book on the ‘Law of Trusts’ and say, ‘Run away, boy, I am busy.’ My father finished his book, and here I am.” The great lawyer had neglected his own trust.
D. L. Moody told about two friends of his who were un settled by the death of all their children. In Syria they saw a shepherd lead his flock to a stream. He crossed, and called to the sheep to follow, but could not get them to respond. So he went back, took a lamb under each arm, and crossed. Then the old sheep followed at once, and he led them to newer and fresher pastures. The bereaved parents felt that here was a lesson to them,
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