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HAPTER III
•
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL'S TRUE EV ANGELISJ\1
•
BY CHARLES GAL,LA UDET TRUMBULL, ,
•
•
'EDITOR ' ''THE SUND .. \Y ,SCH ,QOL, TIM .ES, ,'
PHILADELPl '.{IA, 1
PENNSYLVANIA
rl''he,re ar ,e m
1
ore tha :n thirty millio
1
11 perso ,ns rep
1
or·te,d· in
the
enro]lment
of
the Sunday Schools
o f
tl1e world. But if
all these
persons, and
all
cl1urch
members
as well, knew
,vhat
the Sunday School is really for, the enrollment would leap
Upwar
d
millions up
11
0n milli,ons,.
, The Sund .ay School is of
ten
spoken .
of
as the child of
tl1e cl1urch, or
tl1e
ch.urch of tomorrow, or a branch
or
devart
tnent 0
1
£
'tl1e
church. It is mor
1
e than any and , all of these.
Tl1e tru
1
e Sunday S
1
choo,l is
1
the Cl1urch of Jesus
1
Christ en
glaged in syst
1
en1atic ,study an.d teacl1in,g
1
0£ the Word of G1od
for three
great purposes :
to
bring into
the body of
Christ
those within tl1e membership of the Sunday School who are
not
yet
members of
tl1e chu1·
c:h
or
of
Christ;
'to
train 'UP
tho se
Who are
in Christ into a full-grown knowledge and ap,propria
tion of the riches
which are
theirs because they ·
are Christ's ;
and to send out into the world fully equipped, victoriou .s soul
Winners who shall be Christ's living epistles to those who
do
.
not yet l
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The Fundamen tals
•
day School partly in theo·logical ter ·ms, the purpose of the
Sunday School is Bible stu ,dy for · justifica ·tion, san .ctificati
1
on
and service ..
I
Whoever needs to know what
tl1·e
Bible has to
say about
next-world freedom from tl1e penalty 0
1
£ our sins, and this
wo1ld
freedom from the po,wer of
0
1
ur
sin,
together with the
su.pe.rnatural power of God .as, th e equipm ,ent of the f
ttll
gro ,wn
man for servic
1
e, may properly b,e in the Sunday 1School. Only
those
who do no~
need the fulle st possible message
of
the
Bib
1
l,e on the s
1
e subj ect,, can log ·ically stay out side the Sunday
,Sch,o.o,1.
And that mea.ns that few can
1ogica11y
or safely stay
outside
the
Sunday School. The
true S,unday
School is the
whole Church of God engaged in systematic Bible study to
asce·r·tain the whol ,e will of Go
1
d as r,evealed in His Word for
thei ,r
lives+
Witl1
the
cradle roll at
one
end of the age
limit
for non -attending membe rs and the home
departmen ·t
at
tl1e
other end for non-attending members, there is little reason
today for any
1
on,e to rema in outside tl1·e membe·rship,
o,f
the
,Sunday Scl1ool. It is not necessary
to
attend t.he
Sunday
services of the Sunday School in or
1
der to be a member in
full and
regular standing~
Liter ·ally
the
entire
church
mem
bership can with great
pro ifit
be
enroll
1
ed : babies, invalids,
,sh·ut-ins, tr ,aveling men, mothers tied down by home
dutie ,s·,
railroad men .. telegr ,aph or telephone operators, the Sunday
School welco
1
mes the representatives of
every
walk in life.
Blessed stories are told
,of
the
home.
dep
1
artm
1
en.t, such as of
the engineer miles fro
1
m his SundaJ Sch
1
ool, safeguarded i11
the cab ,of his
l
1
ocom
1
ot·ive
by
his nea ,rness to his Lord, and
rejoicing in his privilege of studying the same Sunday School
les son that the
boys,
and girls in the home school are poring
over. Or about tl1e telegraph operators wl10, miles apart fro ·Jl1
each o,th,er,
co,m·pare:
not
1
es over the wir ,e about their Sund.ay
School lesson. Cradle roll members don t do much reading or
studying for
themselves;
but
when
the enthusiastic, tactful,
I
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The Sunday Schoo,l s True Evangelism 47
loving cradle roll superintendent hurries aro,und to a home in
the neighborhood and asks for the
name
and enrollment of
th~ baby
not
yet twenty-four hours old, you may be sure
that
that household, especially the father and
mother,
are
not offended at this show of
interest
in the little life which
•
ls
all the world
to
them. - And stony hearts
that may
have
seemed
hopelessly remote from the Gospel have been warmed
and Won to a
wide -open
acceptance of the
love
of Jesus
Christ
because the littlest member of the family first entered
the
Sunday
School
through
the cradle roll.
. 1 hus it is that,
from any way we
look
at
it, the
true Sun
day
School is a
migl1ty
evangelistic
agency. If the Sunday
it one. The true Sunday School of the Church
of Jesus
splendor of
the
Good News
better
known, both to those
Within
and without.
A young crockery merchant in New ·vork State who
rejoiced
in
Christ
as his Saviour had found tl1at when he
to be
used for
the saving of
others,
his Lord took him
at
his
\Vord. Saving souls became his great
joy .and
interest.
He
Wanted to do more
systematic work
in
that
line, and
to know
et
there were
sixteen
thousand
young
men in that city.
ire Sunday S,chool just then meeting as one class in a rear
r?
0
tn,
this man-hunter noticed some
young
men waiting
out
lttcht and
with
him
find
a place
for
a
Bible
class that
he
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The undamentals
tl1e,n
a,nd ther ,e ask
1
ed
tl1
em to
form
with him.
They liked the
novelty of the idea, an~ the class was
f
or1ned, the
n1embers
sitting on the back of a s.eat while their teacher £aced
tl1em,
standing. Under the scaffolding, amid dirt and plaster, he
taught l1is first men's class, praying and telling the lesson
sto
1
ry in simple
language.
From that b
1
eginning the young crockery merchant got
more and more intere ste
1
d in bringing together
young
men
for
organized Bible study in Sunday School classes. In si)C
mo
1
ntl1s his class of
eighteen
had grown to one hundred
and
eight.
In tl1e
n
1
ext seventeen
y
1
ears,
three
hundred ,a·nd fifty ,.
two men
were won to Chri st
in that one class. He gave up
his crockery bu siness to
give
his
whole
time to
young men's
Sunday School
Bible
classes. After he
l1ad
brought
tl1ree
hundred thou sand men
into
the
Sunday
Scl1ool for
organized
effort and systematic Bible study, his ideas got large, and
he we11t on unti ,J, he ,actually be,gan to tallc about wanting a
million
not dollars, but
men.
It
is
not
as
easy to
get a
mil ..
lion men enrolled in an organized Bible class movement as
it
is
to get 'three hun dred th ,ousand, even
if you
have a
whole
conti11e,nt
to
work in; and
perl1aps
some
didn't
expe
1
ct to
see
''tl1e man wl10 wants a million, as
he
liked to call himself,
succeed during his lif
e-tin1e
i11 his expansive ,vi sh. But
he
got his million; and now he signs his letters ,, ''Yours for 3
million more. Marsl1all A. Hudson, Fou11der and Pre s,ident
of tl1e World's Baraca Bib,le Class Union, has
shown
wl1at
ju st one depart1n
1
ent of
the tr L1
e Sun
1
da,y
School can be and
do
as a mighty
evangelistic agency. His
worlc wottl .d not
staY
limited to men, but
has
reacl1ed out to a similar work
for
women, the Philathe ,a movement.*
The quiet, persistent, undef eatable evangelistic work
o
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*Two little
books telling
of Mr.
Hudson's
methods, one
oil
the B,ar ,aca work for men, the
oth
1
er
0
1
n the Ph1l1tl1e,a
work
fot
New
ork,
at 50c
each.
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The Sunday School s True Evangelism 9
Widely known
as
is. tl1.e
blessed work
of
the
Bar aca and
.Philathea classes but none the · less effective on that account.
of a city church on personal soul winni ng and had among
?ther things urged the duty of being willing to risk mistakes
111
doing this work rather than make
the
greatest mistake of
saying nothing for Christ. · After the meeting a woman came
up and
told him
of
her experience.
She was
a
Sunday
School
ace talk upon tl1e subJect with the girl but finally determined
he found her 1n ;
and
although she had ample opportunity
age failed her
1
and talking about ·anything and everything but
. YeWithout
hav1ng once
mentioned
the subJect. Starting home
1
n.discouragement the teacher had not gone far from the house
.
1
e doorway
why
she
had
called
to see
her and in a
blunder-
ouse for the second time and went home but not before the
0
he.r
.At the next communion service o f their chur~h the teacher
d
her
how
glad she
was
that
she had
taken
this step.
And
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so
then she said to her, Tell me, what was
1
it
that
finally
in~
fluenced
you
to do this?
f
Why,
it wa,s what you said
to
me
that
day
y,ou
called,
was tl1e
reply·~
And a
Sunday
S
1
cl1ool
teache·r
was
gla,d
that she
had
dared to make a,mistake for her Lord.
There ar ·e
many metl1ods
of
evangel.ism. of
which the Sun
da,y
School
makes
blessed use. Decisio n
Day when wisely
,obs
1
erved has
1
res
1
ulted in gre ,at b1elssing, On this day a direct
appeal to
accept
Jes ius
1
Chris ·t
as
Saviour is n1ade
from
the,
platform
to
the
school or the department
as a
whole, and
op
po1tunity
is given for
f
1
ormal respo :nse i.n the
way
of
signed
cards
1
0r
1
otherwise. T he
ob1,e.rv1nc
1
e 0
1
f
su
1
ch a
da.y
is mo
1
st
blessed
wl1en the re
has been earnest, .
faithfu ·t
preparatio
1
n
for
it in prayer, by teachers
and
officers. It seems
better not
to
have the day an.nounced in
advance
to
the
~chool,,
but
only to
teac.her,s
an
1
d
1
offi1,ers,
that they ma,y· p
1
r,epare
for
i,t in,
prayer
a11d r1
personal work.
But
the all-tl1e-time
evang ,elisn1 o,f
the
faithful teacl1er is
the surest an
1
d most effective. Most eff
1
ective, that is., if ac
companied
by
all-the ·-time
prayer ·. Prayer
meetings of
thie
teach ,e.rs
for
t·he
conversio11 and
consecration of tl1, pupils is
a secr ,et of the co
1
ntinuously evangelistic Sunclay School.
What
sort
of teachi1tg
is
done in the Sunday ScJzool in
which true ev
an.gel1:S1n
s
co nspicuous?
It
is teaching th,at
ass1.1mes
that the
·whole Bible ii1
the
ins,pired W 0
1
rd of God; unique,
authoritat ,ive,
inf
al lib l
1
e. The
acceptance of destructive criticism s theories and
conclusions
can
have no
place in this
t,eaching.
The
evangelistic school knows that all men (and
1nent
1neans1
men ., women and
1
.hildren )
1
are
lost unt .il
sa.v
1
ed
by
tl1e
b]ood
of
Jesus
Christ. The teaching
in
such
a school
brings
out
clearly
the
lost condition of
the
entire human
r:ace by
nature, a,nd reco .gnizes
no,
possibility
of salvation
by e·duca
tion1
character, or
any other
works
of
man . . It
gives
full
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recognition to ed11cation as the duty and privilege of the
Christian, but it does not substitute education for salvation.
The evangeli stic Sunday School holds up the Lord Jesus
Christ
as
the
only Saviour of
men,
accepting the Word
of
the Holy Spirit that ''neither is there any other name under
heaven,
that is given among men, where in
we
must be saved.
A.ndbecause no man or created being can save another created
being that is spiritually lost, the uncreated deity of Jesus as
Saviour is recognized and declared.
Tl1e
new birth, accom
plished by the Holy Spirit in the
one who
believes in Jesus
Christ as Saviour, marl{s the passage from death unto lif e,
that is the
Gospel of the evangelistic Sunday School.
Tl1e
workers in suCh a Sunday Sc]1oolknow that no human
being can save a sou l; they know that no human being, no
tnatter ho,w faithfully and truly he tells tl1e story of salvation
and
0ffe·1·s
the Gospel
invitation, ·can win
another soul-
to
Christ
or
enable
that
soul to
believe
on Christ
as
Saviour.
It
•s reco,gnized tha ·t tl1is act of· acceptance and belief i.s not the
result of hum .an teaching or telli ng or persuading
0 1
inviting,
biut
is a supernatural work
of
God. The ref
ore
the evangelistic
teacher
depends chiefly
upon
prayer to succeed in
ihe
cl1ief
lllission of the
Sunday Schoo l.
Tl1e
teaclier recognizes that
.Prayer is the great secret, the great essentia l of effective evan
ge]istn.
The
evangelistic teacher prays
souls
into salvation
before even expecting to
be
used to that end
in
teaching or
Pers
onal conve rsat ion.
Not all so-called Sunday Schools are evangelist ic. Not all
are being supernaturally used of God in tl1e iniraculous work
of
bringing
lives into the new birth and the new
]if
e in Christ
Jesus. There are dangers that tl1reaten the Sunday School
of today probably more than in any preceding •gener ati on.
These dangers not only threaten; they are disastrou sly and
effectively at work in many schools.
Tl1e under111ining work of the destructive criticism has
Crept into Sunday Schoo l lesson helps. Not only in so-called
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52 The undamentals
independent courses of Bible study but in helps on the
In
ternational Lessons, issued by regular denominational boards,
are found lesson con11nents that assume the error and human
authorship of parts of the Bible instead of inerrant, inspired
authorship. It has been a distres sing thing to many to note
thi s terrible encroachment of the Adversary as he. uses the
very tools of the Church of Christ to lead teachers and pupils
away from the hope of eternal life. For, as has been well
pointed outj the Adversary's first 1nove is to discredit parts of
the Bible, th en the aton e111entof Jesus Christ, then the deity
of Chri st. And without a Saviour who is God the evan
1
gelisn1 of the Sunday School is not the Good News.
Not long ago The Sunday School Times had occasion to
investigate a certain Completely Graded Series . of Sunday
School lessons (not the International Graded Lessons) of
which the publisher said: These lessons are already in use
in thous ands of up-to-date Sunday Schools. The various
cour ses of study have been prepared under the direction of metl
who are recognized as authorities in this country in religious
education, and they therefore en1body the results of the latest
scholarship . Upon looking into the lesson courses themselves,
such stateme nts as the following were found:
It is easy to see that the age that produced the Gospels
would not be anxious for scientific accounts of the deeds of
Je sus, but that it would expect of I-Iin1 exactly the acts that
are attrib ut ed to Him. It is possible therefore that sorI e
events, like the restoration of the centurion's servant, were
si1nple coincidences; that others, like the apparent walking
of
Jesus on the water, were natura l deeds which the darkne ss
and confusion caused to be misunderstood; that others, like
the turning of water into ,;vine, were really parables that be
came in course of time changed into miracles. As nearly all
the miracles not of healing had their prototypes in the Old
Testament, 1nany of then1 at least were attributed to J est 5
because men expected such deeds from their Messiah, ar1d
, finally became convinced that He must have perforn1ed therJl·
-EDITOR.
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•
'
The foregoing p,aragraph was f ron1 a help for
the
Inter -
mediate teacher.
In a s,i,.1nilar
volume
for
the J
11ni
1
or
t,eacher
'there
appeared
tl1
e
following discussion
,of
tl1e
rea,sonable ness
of miracles :
•
''There ar 'e some scholars who find traces of th is tende11cy
t,o magnify 'the n1arvelous even i,n ·tl1e Gospels tl1emselves,
whi.ch, with all tl1eir uniquene ss, ar,e hun1an docu111ents,
'' t·i.t
ten by flesh and blood hu1nan beings. For example, in our
story
of Jairus' dat1gl1ter., Marl
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The Sunday School ~ True Evangelism
·scholarship does not seem, in dealing with Jesus, to be deal
ing with the same eternal Christ who was disclosed to John
and Peter and Paul and others of like
min
and experience.
Indeed, the limitless ascriptions of John, the sweeping decla
rations of Peter, the passionate abandon of Paul, by no means
characterize this kind of scholarship. On the contrary, its
]
esus is far less than the New Testament Christ; its New
Testan1.ent a record quite open to reasonable doubt. Yet the
superior advantages of lesson helps embodying the results of
this attitude toward Jesus and the record of his life are
widely urged upon teachers and pupils in the Sunday School
today."
Just here those who have the Sunday School at its highest
point of evangelistic efficiency should have clearly before them
the facts concerning the course of Graded Lessons issued by
the American Section of the International Committee. It is a
seventeen year course, of which sixteen years of study have
been issued, running from the first year "Beginners, for four
year-olds, through the third year Senior, for nineteen-year
olds." The writer had occasion to discuss this course of les
sons in the columns of "The Sunday School Times" ju st before
the International Sunday School Convention held in Chicago
in June of
1914,
and takes the liberty of printing here a por
tion of what was said at that time:
"These lessons are renclering a greatly needed service in
awakening the Sunday School world to the claims and rights
of the child. They are showing what a supremely delicate
and difficult task it is to bring to the child, in the way that
child nature is entitled to, the instruction that God intends. It
is to be hoped that these lessons have mad,e it impossible for
the Sunday School ever to go back to what may have been its
armer carelessness, indifference, and ignorance on this sub
Ject.
"There is welcome evidence that the Graded Lessons are
resulting in bringing pupils to decision for Christ. Mrs.
Bryner, the International Elementary Superintendent, recently
Published in the state Sunday School papers the results of her
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•
The undamentals ·
inquiry of state and provincial
el,ementary superintendents
concerning the spiritual resttlts that can be reported from the
int ·roduction of the Graded Lessons; and tl1e testimony was
most encouraging. One
school reported that the numb ,er of
Junio ,rs coming naturally int,0
1
the chur ·ch had increased .sev
enty-five percent sin,ce the adoption of these lessons in that
scl1oo·t,
''In
the
First Year
Senior
there
is. excellent
topical study
,offered on
'The
N,eeds
1
of th ,e W
0
1
1·ld,'
'The
St.andard
1
0£
Su
1
c,
cess,' 'Tl1e Challenge to the Individual;' and this year offers
also two complete book studies, t.akin,g up the Book 0
1
f
Ruth
in tl1ree lessons and the Epistle of
J
a1nes in nine lessons.
''The opportunity
for com.plete
book sttt
1
dy
is still
further ·
extended in the T·h'ird Year Senior, just ·issued by· t'he Les.son
Committ~e,
offering ·
opportunity for
bri,ef, rap ,id
surveys of
more than
twenty
o·f
the
b,ooks
of tl1e
N,ew
T·es,tament. ,
Tl1e
doctrine of salvation is well taught here also, in a lesson de
vote1d t,o 'Developing ·
the
TI1eolo,gy of Salvati
1
on.,'' f ro1n
Ro
1
mans.
''In such p
1
oints as these, and in many other admirable op
p,o,rtu.nities for t.horough-go ,i.ng Bible stt1dy., the Interna ·t.ionaI
Graded
Lessons
off
er
the S,unday
School a
rich field for
profitable
worlcl
''Yet in spite of all this there are other factors in tl1is
series o,f Graded Lessons , tl1at ar ,e fairly chat·acterized a.s re
grettab 1e and harmful .. If 011 e asks why these words should
be
used, here is the answer:
,·,Bec,ause
there -are elements ·
here · thlat·
tend
to
1ninimize
or
ignore
the unique
an .d
supreme character and authority of
the Bible as the inspired Word of
Goel I
tl1at tend to blur the
line between the natural and the supernatur .a1 ;, that tend to
place nature study on the same plane ,as, Bible study in gainin ,g
a knowle ,dge of
God; and
that tend
to
a
lack
of
empl1asis on
certain vital d
1
octrinal teaching , of
t.he
Gos
1
pel of
c ·hr·ist. ·
• ''Extra-Biblical lessons
have
been inserted througl1out this
Gr ,ade
1
d series, that is,
lessons th
1
e
material
for whic .h i.s
drawn
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. The Sunday School s T rue Evangelism 57
chiefly
fro1n other literature than the Bible. .In one instance
ts - -in the Second Year In ·te1--me,diat,e, a full six months is ·de
\roted to
the
study of
Later Christian Leaders, including such
characters as Lutl1er, Calvin, John Wesley, the Earl of Shaf tes ..
bury and Florence Nightingale; and th ree months of tl1e six
a.re devoted to the sludy of a single mod.ern missi
1
on1ry, Al.ex
ander Mackay. A note · from the Les son Com.tnittee points
out that the material upon which these tl1ree months lessons
.are ba.se
1
d is f
1
ound in the
well-k·11own
b
1
0
1
o·k Ug ,anda s White
Man of
Work,
tl1e Committee having previously
said:
It is
1 1
1nten.de:d that a mo1~ecaref uI analys ,is of a single character
shall prepare the pupil for the nine n1ontl1s study in the life
of Christ
which .will immediately follow in the lessons for tl1e
Third
Year Intermediate.
Ju st what
effect will it
have
upon
fourteen-year-old s to bring in a bool
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The Fund.amental s
witl1
intense earnestness : 'We
deny at
every point
that our
c,our .se is
a
BrB·L·E
cours .e;
ou1· course . is a CH
1
I.LD-TEACHING
course ..
As
we speak of
'the
Sunday
Scl1001't
1
oday, ·we refer
t·o
the
very
limit.ed opportu .nity for
Bi.b.le study
offered
in
the ses,sion
of an h·our o,r .so on
Sunday,
where the actual Bib .le situdying,
B.ibte teaching
period
is about thirty
minu·t,es.
This is the
church's chfef a.nd
onl.Y
Bible teaching
service,
at present, in
t.he vast
1najori·ty
of · chur ·ches. To give
any o,ther f
01·m of
matef"ial tl1an
th ,e
B.ible
the right
of way in
tl1is r,estricted
peciod is a
perilous thing.
The
church
must
have
a
service
of
Bible study and Bibl,e.
te.aching.
Its very li,fe, and
the life
of
the home and the community, depend
upon
this. Nothing
tl1at
is ext1~a-Biblical can be permitt .ed to
1
enc·roach
upon tl1at vital
pa .rt of
the ,church's
work..
It will be a sad day
in,deed when
t 1is question is considered even debatable
by
the maj·or·ity of
tl1e 1nemhersof the Churc .h of Chri .st on ,earth.
•
''It is important
to
recognize also that there is no real
dilemma between the Bible
and child-tea .ching.
We do
'not
have to choose between the
two,
W·e must have them
both,
and we can.
Th·e Bible
is God's
best pro,vision
for
cl1iid
·teacl1ing1
''There
is a
real danger, also, in using nature as the chief
material for
Sunday School teaching ·,. even ·
with th,e
yo·ungest
beginners ...
Nature study
has
its
valued
place as material
to
· illustrate Bible truths ,,
Our
Lord
use,d
it in tha ·t wa.y. But
tl1ere is no s,ucl1 reve lation of God in nature as there i.s. in ·the
Holy
Scriptures. Nature is natural; the
Bible
is supernatural.
Th ,e two
1
a:re in
no
sense
·equal revelations
of
the :heart
of ,God
and
of
the Gospel
1
0£
Chris
1
t . .
Indeed, nature is a sin-distorted,
sin-cursed thing · God ·made this very
plain
when He said in
t.he Garde .n o·f E.den, 'Curse,d is the ,ground for
thy
sake ;
• . . . . . thorns also
and
thistles shall
it
bring
for·th
to
thee,' as He told Adam and Eve how they had degra .ded even.
the ea.rth
beneath
tl1eir
feet
throu .gh t11eir
sin. It
n1ay not
be
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necessary or wise that the little child should be taught this;
but it is very necessary that the teacher should have this in
lllind
in using nature material to illustrate the ways and the
love and the protection of the Heavenly Father. It puts sharp
limitation ·s upon our use of nature materials, and it suggests
that such nature material, in and of itself, should ·not
e
the
leading material in any lessons for Sunday School study.
. Apart from the question of nature studies as such, there
is
present in the International Graded Lessons the modern
steadily encroaching atmosphere of the 'natural' as over
against the 'supernatural.' The atmosphere in many col1eges
today is an atmosphere that denies the supernatural. There
are evidences, here and there throughout this scheme of 1es
sons, of such a handling of the Bible as one would give to any
other book. Such lesson titles, for example, as 'Gideon, the
Man
Whom Responsibility Made Great' (First Year Inter
tnediate), 'Abraham-. .The Challenge of an Ideal' ( Second
Year Senior), 'The Development of Religious Ideas in Ear1y
Israel' ( Second Year Senior), are hints of this; as is also
the note on Lessons
7
to 22 of the First Year Intermediate,
~David, the Man Who Showed Himself Friendly' : 'the aim
is
to show that David's power to make and retain friends ex
Plains his career and his character.' This ignoring of God's
sovereign grace as the secret of David's career is not suf
ficiently offset by the close of the note, that David's 'intimate,
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60
The und
amentals
lif ,e
oif victor ,y,-by-f ree
1
do
1
m in Christ which this
Epistle
so
gloriously
brings out. . ·
''Many
would have been glad to see somewhere in these
lessons, among the
many
statements
of aim and purpos ,e
of tl1e
courses for · the. ,diffe.r·ent years, .a dec.la1"at.i
1
on Of aim tl1at the
pupil
shall come to recognize man's lost condition as
consti·
tuting our need of a Saviour. This is nowhere stated. It is
sta ted that
the
less
1
ons
have the
aim of bringing the pupil to
the personal
acceptance of
Jesus as
Saviour and Lord ;
and
that is
good.
But
a clear declaration
of
the universal need
of tl1e new birth would have given increas .ed
doctrinal
st r,ength to the serie .s. This lack is
accentuated
by sucl1
ex
pressions , as
the fallowing : 'The average age of thirteen calls
for a new ~ype of J,essons whi,ch shall mal
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The Fund
1
amentals
tionizing. There is no socia l service worker in America today
whose work can compare, in the very result s for Whi,ch the
social
.service
p
1
rog ·ram
a:ims,,
with
tl1,at of
,Sunday's.
And
so
the
Sunday
School of ·
true eva11gelis·m
will d,o an
effective .
work in social service; but
it will
do
it
in tl1e
Lo1·d's
way.
One last word. If the
Sunday
School is
real.1y
to
do
its
work ,as an
evangeliz ,i,ng la.gent .,
the Sunday
S
1
·h.ool must
co
1
n
sist
0
1
f
workers whose personal Iivesl are ra
1
diant :
with
vic't0
1
ry.
The S
1
unday School of true evangelism declares
with
C
1
on
vincing poVt~er
the
1nessage of the
victorious life.
H ,ere is an evangel, a Good
New,s,
which is all too new to
many a f
1
ollow·,r of th ,e Lord Jesus Cl1rist who
rejoice :s
jn
the Sunday Schoo
1
l a .s hi s
fi-eld
of
s,ervice.
But
our Lord
wants it to be the experienced possession of · His every fol-
lower.
Evang ·elism that is lirn,ited to the G
0
1
od N'ews
that there
is
f
reedo ·m f 1-om
the penalty of ot11·
sins is
1
onl
1
y a h.alf-way
evangelisin. It ·is
a
c·rip
1
ple,d, halti1rig
evangelism~
If w,e
wo11ld
tell ''that
sweet
story of
old,'' let
us tell the whole story.
And the
whole
story
is
that our
Lord
l esus
Clirist came
not only
to
pay·
the penalty of
our .sins but
to
break the
power
of our sin. I-le laid aside His glory and came from heaven
to eartl1,
not
1
011ly tl1at
m
1
en migl1t
be
saved
f ron1
dyi11g the
second death, but also that they 1night live without sinn ing in
tl1is prese11t life.
Here
is Good News
indeed;
so
good
that
to
•
many
it
sound s too good to be true. But, praise God, it is
'true ' Wl·1en the Ho
1
y Spir ·it s,aysl t:o
us,
''S ,in .s,11.allnot h.ave
dominion ov,er, you: for
ye
are not under law, bu ·t
under
grace,'' He
means
it. When Paul
declared
in the
exultant joy ·
of the Spirit, ''The
·taw of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
made me free f r,om the law o ,f
sin,' '
he mlea nt
it.
It was trite.
An,id th
1
e same Spirit of life i.n Christ , Jesus i,s rna:kin,g men f 1~ee
to day from the law of sin, when they are ready to take 1-Iim
at His w,ord,
When
the beloved Apostle wrote, under
the
•
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direction of the Holy Spirit, My little children, these things
Write I unto you that ye may not sin, he meant just that.
When our Lord Jesus Himself said, first, Every one that
con1mitteth sin is the bondservant of sin ; and then, instead of
leaving us h6pelessly there, went on to say: If therefore the
Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed, He was
trying to tell us what His whole salvation is.
The victorious life is not a life made sinless, but it
is
a
life
kept from sinning. It is not, as has well been said, that the
sinner is made perfect here in this life, but that the sinner
even in this life has a perfect Saviour. And that Saviour is
lllore than equal, while we are still in this
life,
to overcoming
all
the power of our sin.
The Keswick Convention in England has for forty years
been blessedly used of God in spreading abroad the Good
N
ws of the Gospel of victory over sin. The
Iif
e that is sur-
rendered unconditionally to the mastery of Jesus Christ and
that then believes :inconditionally in the faithfulness of that
Saviour Lord to make His promises true, begins to realize
the meaning of the unspeakable riches of God's grace.
.
There are Sunday School teachers who are rejoicing today
in the privilege of telling their classes the whole message of
true evangelism. May God mightily increase the numbers of
those who shall bear witness, by their victorious lives and
by
their eager glad message, to the whole evangelism of the
Word: the saving and the keeping power of our wonderful
lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Then, ''If He shall be mani-
fested, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him
at Bis coming.