174
May, 1936
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
How to Win and Hold Children [Continued from page 168]
As t h e P u p il S ees t h e T eacher Another factor in your work as a Sunday-school teacher is your personal life. You may say that that does not have anything to do with your work in the classroom. “I can be a good Sunday-school teacher and—” But wait. Your pupils know exactly what you are doing. They know more about what you are doing than you would like to have them know, many times. Are you right with God ? Are you ask ing God to take everything out of your life that is hindering His work? Ask Him to cleanse from your life everything that would keep you from being an example that those chil dren could follow—for they will follow. I had a tragic experience in my early work as a Sunday- school teacher. I had been brought up not to go to the theater. When I grew up, I felt that I knew better about the matter. And when I could go, I went. I was very care ful. I chose what appealed to me—Shakespearean plays and opera. I had a class of early teen-age girls. In the course of a year, one of those girls was dying of tuberculosis. I went to her and said, “Isabel, have you accepted the Lord ?” She said, “What are you talk ing about ?” I repeated, “Have you accepted “Listen, I don’t want to hear a word from you. You are to blame for what I did. If you hadn’t gone to the show, I wouldn’t have gone. You were my idol.” “But that isn’t fair,” I protested. “I went to the nice things. I was very careful. I didn’t go to anything but Shakespearean plays and opera.”A “You are a highbrow and I am a lowbrow. You chose your kind of shows, and I chose mine. And I don’t want to hear a word from you.” She died, and I believe she went into eternity unsaved. She would not let any one talk to her. If some of you would have an experience like that, it would wake you up. Don’t try to bluff young people. When I was attending a summer Bible conference, a boy of about fourteen came up to me and said, “I wouldn’t mind going to Sunday- school if they’d give us another teacher. The old bird doesn’t believe what he is teaching.” I said, “You must be mistaken.” I had met the “old bird,” and he was quite respectable. “No, he doesn’t believe what he is teaching, and he can’t put it over on us. You don’t know him.” And I didn’t. I had merely met him. I made some in quiries and found that the boy was absolutely right. This man did not believe in hell. He did not believe in the sec ond coming of Christ. He was not sure about the resurrec tion. He was teaching in a perfectly orthodox Sunday- school. He was teaching because he was such a wonderful teacher and had promised to keep still about these things. You cannot fool adolescents. If you do not believe God’s Word from first to last, then do not try to teach young people. You may escape detection in the adult Bible class, but you cannot deceive young people. They will know. the Lord? You have been in my Sunday-school class.”. I was very young and did not know how to go about the winning of a soul. “You ought to have Christ for your Sav iour,” I added. This girl had wrecked her life with cheap shows and dances. Her reply to my timid plea was,
W in n in g and H olding t h e P u p il No child is won until he is born again. Because you have them in Sunday-school, do not think they are won. They are not won until they have been born again. And only God can hold any one. After the teen age, what is the matter? Why is it that they drop away? We have amused them and entertained them until they have come to the place that that does not satisfy them, and out they go. But God can hold them. I love those words in John 10:27-29: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they fol low m e: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s handil And that is the only place we can put them where they are safe. The only way we can win and hold the chil dren is to lead them to the foot of the cross. When they are born again, they are safe in the double-locked hands of the Son and the Fathep. Then we can hold them. R ea ch ing L ost C h ildren I have spoken only about the Sunday-school children. Do you realize that that is. a very, very small percentage of the children of America ? There are far more mil lions outside the Sunday-schools than there are under any Christian education. And there is not one person in this room but could reach some of those children that are lit erally pagan. Every little while, some one says, “There is no use in talking to the very tiny children.” How old must they be to hear of the Lord Jesus ? I had a very practical opportunity to see an answer to that question a year ago. I have a niece who has a little girl that was then about four years old. That child was go ing up and down the streets trying to get other children to go to Sunday-school. A neighbor overheard her say to a group of boys, “Do you go to Sunday-school ?” “No, what would we go to Sunday-school for ?” “To know about the Lord Jesus.” Courtesy, Sunset “Well, I guess you will care, all right.” That was a four-year-old girl. She had been in the Sunday-school since Cradle Roll days. She may not have been able yet to tell her playmates the story of salvation in Christ, but she cared. Didn’t she know what salvation means? Absolutely. Is it too much to say that every child that is born again, every child that God has in His keeping, is going out as an evangelist, as this tiny girl did ? Do you realize that one en thusiastic child can bring more children into your class than you can gather in any other way ? Every child that you lead to the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be an evangelist for Him. Is it worth while ? I wish I could speak to the mothers and fathers and Sunday-school teachers of our land. Nothing under heaven except the salvation of the rising generation can save America. Our God is able, and He is willing. The trouble is all ours. Oh, I long that we may humble ourselves and confess our sin and pray and give out the Word, that He may save our children and save America. “We don’t want to hear about Jesus.?’ “All right, you will go to hell then.” “We don’t care.”
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