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ing city. This younger girl said, “I am all upside down. I don’t know what to believe about Genesis.” I took my Bible and talked to her. And then she said, “Why isn’t the teacher teaching this? She speaks altogether differently. Why don’t our church people stop it if it isn’t right ? Our people don’t do anything about it.” I sent her some literature. And I was so concerned that I wrote to the man and the woman who were sponsoring the group of young people of which she was a member. I was told that I was an alarmist, that the girl was at the age where she was trying to be dramatic, that she really believed the Bible, although she had led me to believe that she was in great darkness concerning it. Later the Biola graduate wrote to me again, saying that this girl was in a terrible
him.” If you lack wisdom, ask of God. In Zechariah 4:6 we read: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” We have put methods in first place, and they do not belong in first place. W h e r e in H ave W e F a il ed ? A great cause of our failure is that we do not know God’s Word. It is not at all unusual for a Sunday-school teacher to come to me and say, “I wish you could help me about my Sunday-school class. I really don’t know any thing about the Bible.” How can you possibly teach a Sun day-school class if you do not know anything about the Bible? A woman said to me in a class, I was teaching on the tabernacle, “Isn’t it funny! I’ve taught this tabernacle to
spiritual condition. There were this man and woman sound asleep; they could not imagine that Satan would try to come in and get one of their flock. That case is typical of the benumbed con dition in which many Christians are today. Why is it that we have lost ground as we have—because you have to admit that we have lost ground. You go into the ave rage Sunday-school, and the Primary and the Kindergarten Depart ments are overflowing. There are many Juniors, too. But something happens then. Your Intermediates—your early
my Sunday-school class over and over. We have even built one. And I didn’t know those things meant anything.” I was not only sorry for her, but ashamed of her as well. David said: “The entrance of thy words giveth light” (Psa. 119:130). If you do not know God’s Word, give up your Sun day-school class. But there is no excuse for one’s not learning God’s Word, not the slightest excuse. Nothing in all of life’s activities is so important as know ing God’s revelation to man. Then, another hindrance is that we do not pray. Oh, yes, we do pray—we
# Because the Sunday-school seems to them to be childish and inadequate, the vast majority of boys and girls of adoles cent age and older are forsaking the house of God. The challenge of the athletic field, of the classroom, or of the highway of pleasure is being accepted heartily by young people whose spiritual leaders have allowed them to substitute these and other attractions for the satis faction of personal regeneration through Jesus Christ. Alas—some one has failed 1
say prayers, anyway. Do we really pray? You have a child. If that little one were lying at death’s door, you would be telephoning everywhere asking people to pray for that child. Why? You would be deeply concerned,.because you would not want that child’s life to go out. But I know Christian fathers and mothers that are not one bit disturbed when their children are without spiritual life. They say, “They are just having a little fling, and they are going to be all right.” These parents begin talking about what a good boy Johnny is and what a darling Mary is, and seem to think that God is going to give some special dispensation and that they will go to heaven. But we cannot do anything. The Lord Jesus Christ has done everything: If you ask people how to get to heaven, what will they tell you? Nine out of ten of them will say, “Be good.” You ask even born-again but untaught Christian people how they are going to get to heaven, and all too often the answer is, “Be good.” All right, how good? Legalism is grievously
teen—how very few there are! And in the late teens the loss is even more startling. One of the reasons for this condition—and perhaps the greatest reason—-is that we have been depending merely on methods. M ethods O ut of P lace The most powerful electric motors would be absolutely dead without electricity. Our best methods are just as dead without the Spirit of God. In one Sunday-school that I visited last summer there was everything anybody had invented to entertain,, amuse, and instruct children. And yet it was dead, just dead. We have put methods in the wrong place. I do not for one minute dedry methods. I believe God expects us to use the very best comrhon sense, pedagogy, and psychology of which we are capable. But my motto for Sunday-school teachers is James 1 :5: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given
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