Uncle Bud Robinson Part 2 Evolution

BLJ: Today, Uncle Bud explains evolution in even a way that a genius can understand it.

MONKEYS AND JAWBONES

One of my objections to evolution is that if you want anything done you have to put in your order anywhere from five to ten million years before you want the goods delivered. And then the question naturally arises, "Where will you be when Master Evolution delivers the goods?" Well, that really depends on how you lived while the goods were being manufactured.

I have seen the beautiful pullet in the barnyard sly and so timid that she would make you think of the blushing maid. But one day she laid her first egg and went to cackling. And strange to say she laid one egg each day for seventeen days and cackled every time she laid, for a cackling hen is a laying hen, and a laying hen is a cackling hen. But on the eighteenth day she went to setting and began to cluck, for a setting hen is a clucking hen, and a clucking hen is a setting hen. I would like to know how long it took Master Evolution to teach that pullet to turn her eggs over each day for twenty days and then hatch off her brood and go to clucking and scratching to provide food for her little ones. After the chicks are hatched, the hen then shelters them under her wings and lets them nestle in her feathers.

If an evolutionist were to have just one good thought, he would have a fit, for he came from nothing and he is nothing, and he is going to nothing. Therefore he can't evolve one good idea. He thinks that we don't know anything, and we know that he doesn't. So the man with a divine Creator, and he himself a divine creation, is a million miles ahead of the gentlemen who have been millions of years coming from the lower order of animals to the higher order of animals.

Just how a bald-headed man can look at a monkey with a fine suit of hair on his little head and make himself believe that there is blood relationship between him and the monkey is a mystery to Old Bud. The elephant walked about in the pasture and said, "Gentlemen, if you want to see the biggest thing in the nation, please look this direction." The billy goat walked about in the pasture, he gave his head a toss and said, "Gentlemen, if you want to see the fellow who has the stiffest neck of any other animal, please look here." The polecat walked out and waved his beautiful bushy tail over his back and said, "Brethren, if you want to smell something, just walk this way." The evolutionist walked down the sidewalk with a cigar in the corner of his mouth and said, "Gentlemen, if you desire to see an animal that has been ten million years evolving and hasn't made a success of it yet, please look at me."

Some time ago Reverend U. E. Harding told some of us boys a good story he had just heard. It is good enough to pass on to you. There was in a certain community a very gifted doctor. He got interested in trying to prolong life. He began studying how to make a medicine that would make a man young again. After many long, weary years of study, he finally got up his remedy, and it was a great success. One drop of this wonderful medicine would make a man five years younger than he was before he took the drop, and so two drops made him ten years younger. Just a few drops would take a man back to childhood.

An old gentleman heard of the wonderful discovery and went to see the great doctor. The doctor confirmed the reports of the medicine and told him that just a few drops would make him a young man again. The old man, being very anxious for this, asked the doctor the price of the medicine. When told it was five hundred dollars a drop, he was heartbroken, because he could not buy any at all. While he talked with the doctor, the phone rang, and the doctor stepped out to answer the call. The old man grabbing the bottle drank every drop of the medicine. When the doctor returned, the old man was gone and to the doctor's surprise, he saw an old pair of shoes and some old clothes. Behold, as he looked up, a monkey was swinging on the chandelier by the tail. This wonderful medicine had taken him back to prehistoric days, which all goes to prove to us that the evolutionist is correct!
A "genius" is a gentleman who can take a jawtooth that was discovered in Egypt and a jawbone that was discovered in England, a shinbone that was discovered in Italy, a shoulder blade found in western Canada, the joint out of a backbone seen down in Brazil, and with some clay and putty so arrange these bones as to build a jointed man, who lived ten million years ago. This same gentleman can then trace his blood relationship back to this made animal. Gentlemen, I tell you, the man who performs that miracle is a genius of the first magnitude!

Uncle Bud Robinson Part 1 The Modern Church

BLJ: "Uncle" Bud Robinson was the heart and soul of the early Church of the Nazarene. He was an evangelist that spoke plain truth. He was not afraid to tell the truth and oftentimes in a humerous manner. I want to spend a few days returning to some of his writings. They blessed me so in my early days walking in holiness. Today's portion is about the church in 1942. How much more true is what he wrote today than even in 1942. The church for the most part is a social club that has substituted fun, games, and movie night for the power of the Holy Ghost and real moves of God.

THE MODERN CHURCH IN 1942

The American church as an institution is so great that it makes one stagger to think of its greatness. There are two hundred different denominations. There are nearly two hundred thousand local churches, with almost an equal number of ministers. There is a church membership of about 46,000,000, and there is scarcely any way to tell the real value of the church property. And yet this great institution is drifting with the tide of worldliness.

As an institution, the church has very largely substituted church membership for the new birth and has substituted the activities of the church for the gifts of the blessed Holy Ghost. All that is left is a salvation without regeneration, and a Christianity without Christ. It is perfectly natural for such an institution to lead God to the back door and bow Him out of existence. God is not needed any longer to help run that kind of a church.

Many times we find that the type of Christianity now found in the churches is simply human enthusiasm. This naturally leads the members to take the fire out of hell, for they see no need of eternal punishment, and to take the gold out of heaven, for they no longer need golden streets. They then make heaven a condition and not a locality. If heaven is only a condition, then where will our saints go when they die? Can a saint go to a condition?

Some of the churches have substituted man's wisdom for God's revelation and according to them we no longer have an inspired Bible. It is not needed in a man-made church. They have removed the blood from the atonement, for according to them, man can redeem himself with his own good works and his own great wisdom and powers of learning. The deity and eternal Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ also have been taken away, and so today we often find the Son of God is only a "nice, respectable gentleman," and in many respects does not equal the scholars of the present day.

Beloved brother and sister, the Book says, "How can two walk together except they be agreed?" Now, we don't have to agree on who is to be President or who is to run for Congress, or who is to be county attorney. These things don't enter into the wonderful statement from the blessed old Book. The Scripture refers to saints and sinners, for we read again the wonderful statement that the "friendship of the world is enmity to God," and "He that is a friend to the world is the enemy of God." And in still another place we read, "You cannot serve God and mammon," or in other words, God and the devil.

To make it just a little plainer, we cannot be worldly and righteous at the same time. When Christ comes in, the devil moves out. If you finally decide that you would rather have the devil in your heart and life, then Christ must go, for we "cannot serve two masters." We will "hold to the one and despise the other, or else we will hate the one and love the other."

You ask, "Why do the Nazarenes preach holiness as a second work of grace?" This is the answer: Holiness is the only theory that we ever heard preached which ever got anyone into the experience of grace. All other theories allow the carnal mind to remain in you until you die. The second blessing theory proposes to get rid of the "old man" before death. See Mark 8:22,23,24, 25; James 1:8; James 4:8; Genesis 19:17; Romans 5:8,9,10,11, and Hebrews 13:12,13.

What are the results of neglecting to seek holiness? Part 2

BLJ: We continue looking at the results of neglecting to seek holiness. I so enjoy the quotes from holiness preachers from days long gone. These men had testimonies to back their experiences. 

4. Professor Finney says: "No man can be a Christian who does not sincerely desire it, and who does not constantly aim at it. No man is a friend of God who can acquiesce in a state of sin, and who is satisfied and contented that he is not holy as God is holy."

5. Mr. Wesley's views are presented by Dr. Peck as follows:
"We must either be in possession of this high state of grace, or be pressing after it, if we would retain the favor of God, and be certain of heaven."

6. Dr. Doddridge says: "To allow yourself deliberately to sit down satisfied with any imperfect attainments in religion, and to look upon a more confirmed and improved state of it as what you do not desire, nay, as what you secretly resolve that you will not pursue, is one of the most fatal signs we can well imagine that you are an entire stranger to the first principles of it." -- Rise and Progress, chap. 20.

7. President Mahan gives you his views on this subject, in his work on Christian Perfection, thus: "We are also prepared to account for a melancholy fact which characterizes different stages of the experience of the great mass of Christians. From the evangelical simplicity of their first love they pass into a state of legal bondage and, after a fruitless struggle of vain resolutions with 'the world, the flesh, and the devil,' they appear to descend into a kind of Antinomian death. " -- Christian Perfection, p. 100.

8. Here backsliding often commences. He who fights against sin, and overcomes it, will soon be convicted that it is his duty and his privilege to seek a clean heart. Let him hesitate to do it, and he does not remain where he was before. He has taken back part of the consecration which he made. His power is gone. He is under condemnation." -- Rev. B. T. Roberts: Editorial in Earnest Christian.
We are fully convinced that a neglect on the part of regenerated souls to seek entire sanctification, is a more fruitful occasion of losing the witness of justification, and of backsliding, than all other causes combined. Indeed, it includes, virtually, all other causes. The witness of a justified state can no more be retained without seeking holiness, than a witness of entire sanctification or holiness can be retained without a further and constant growth in grace and knowledge of the truth.
The very conditions upon which a state of justification is retained inevitably lead to Christian purity. The same is true of the conditions of retaining a state of perfect love -- they are those by which the soul is to grow and mature in holiness. A violation of the conditions of increase and growth in holiness forfeits the state of holiness itself. The way for a regenerated soul to obtain the blessing of perfect love, is to abide closely by the conditions of retaining his justification. If he does, he will soon, very soon, bathe in the fountain, and come out pure through the blood of the Lamb.

The converted soul cannot retain the clear light of justification long without a knowledge of its need of being cleansed from heartfelt impurity, of unreserved submission to God, and trust in the blood of Christ for full redemption. Glory to God! In this way millions have obtained the perfect love of Christ.

4. Many good men think the church is sadly backslidden on account of this neglect.

1. Bishop Peck asks: "Is it not true that the large majority of real Christians are yet without it? -- that, in consequence of its neglect, the church is loaded with a body of death filled with backsliders, and comparatively powerless for the great purpose to which she is ordained of Heaven? ...

"How many thousands have been slain by harbored inward foes, which have seemed to be harmless! What a mass of backsliders there are now in the Church, for the very reason that they have been satisfied without going on unto perfection." -- Central Idea, p. 315.

2. President Mahan says: "We see the reason of the aspect of living death which the church now presents to the world. It is simply this: she is in a state of unbelief in respect to the nature and extent of the provisions and promises of divine grace. Christian Perfection, p. 51.

3. Bishop Foster says: "To say that the church is now living, and from the time of the beginning has been living, beneath her privilege, below her mission, would certainly be but a mild and moderate, though humiliating, utterance of the conviction of Christendom." -- Christian Purity, p. 25.

5. A neglect to seek holiness causes a spirit of opposition to holiness.

It is usually the case that persons who have been repeatedly convicted of their need of holiness, and of their duty to seek it, and have refused to do it, or have put forth at times some slight efforts to obtain it, and then relapsed into indifference upon the subject, become its worst enemies. They become displeased with those who faithfully preach it, and dislike to hear it personally professed. This is the natural result of neglected duty, and of grieving the Holy Spirit. They become opposed to holiness because holiness is opposed to them. Sinners who pursue a similar course in regard to regeneration, experience similar results.

If I lose the blessing, must I tell others of it?

Usually this would be very improper. It would weaken the feeble-minded, and stagger those who are seeking. Fly directly to Christ. Take him again by simple faith as a present Saviour. Cry, Lord, here I am; I repent; I give up all; I am fully thine. Thou art my Saviour; I will, I do believe. You might tell an intimate friend or two; they would help you by their prayers.

What are the results of neglecting to seek holiness? Part 1

BLJ: Today, we start a study on the results of neglecting holiness. Again, this is a somber read because it is a somber subject. 

1. It affords fearful advantage to Satan, our great enemy.

He comes to enslave the soul with fear, to inflate it with pride, to inspire it with the love of the world, to inflame its lusts, to excite anger, to obscure the path of duty, and induce rebellion against God. In the soul but partially sanctified Satan finds some tendency, more or less, to unbelief, to fear, to pride, to covetousness, to lust, and, indeed, to every sin. The seed of all sin is yet in the heart. What a fearful advantage is thus allowed to the enemy!

"But of all the foes we meet, None so oft mislead our feet None betray us into sin,
Like the foes that dwell within."

2. It is the occasion of frequent defeat in spiritual conflicts.
Sinning and repenting, rising and falling, are prominent characteristics of those who refuse to seek the blessing of holiness. How truthfully does this familiar stanza describe the lives of multitudes of converted men!

"Here I repent and sin again;
Slain with that same unhappy dart
Now I revive, and now am slain Which, oh, too often wounds my heart."

"We are compelled to declare," says Bishop Peck, "in our honest judgment, there are few cases of only partial sanctification in which every single day does not make bitter work for repentance... How many, through the influence of remaining depravity, have been betrayed into angry passions, into vanity, pride, and unbridled lusts! How many have gradually yielded to the suggestions of an evil heart, and found at length that their strength was lost, their confidence gone, their Saviour grieved, and their souls brought into bitter condemnation!" -- Central Idea, p 122

3. It is the origin of those grievous apostasies which have dishonored the church and ruined souls.

1. "Can there be any question of this ? Who, that believes in the possibility of either temporary or final apostasy, could suggest a mode of backsliding more effectual, more inevitable, than to allow the sinful propensities of our nature to remain undisturbed -- to disobey the great law of progress, which is revealed as sacredly binding upon every converted man?" Central Idea, p. 124.

2. Dr. George Peck says: "Leaving 'first principles,' and going on to perfection, is the only way to be secure against final and total apostasy. ... If, then, we do not wish to end in the flesh, to fall from grace, to lose our first love, to be deprived of the talent committed to us, to have the candlestick removed out of its place, and finally to be cast into outer darkness, we must leave the things which are behind, and go forward to those which are before. ... It is our only security against utter apostasy, the dismal gulf of infidelity, and the pit of hell.

"If we resist or neglect it, we are guilty of disobedience; we contract guilt, and come into condemnation. What, then, is the condition of those Christians who do not seek at all the entire sanctification which God requires? Are they doing the will of God? Let all concerned lay their hand upon their heart, and decide this question according to truth and evidence."

"But what I do mean is, that those Christians who do not seek, and seek CONSTANTLY, for an entirely sanctified nature, FALL INTO CONDEMNATION. And I may add that this condemnation must be removed by pardon, upon repentance, or it will finally 'drown the soul it destruction and perdition.' " -- Christian Perfection, pp. 16, 23, 419.

3. Rev. Timothy Merritt says: "If Christians would not backslide, and bring a reproach upon the cause of Christ, they must go on to perfection. There is no medium between going forward and drawing back. As soon as any one ceases to press forward, he declines in spiritual life." -- Christian Manual.

If I Knew I Was Going to Die Today Part 2

BLJ: We continue reading from Bro. H. Robb French's work on if you knew you were going to die today.

Fourthly, If I were dying tonight I would want to know I had some sheaves to lay at the Master's feet. I don't want to go up empty-handed. God has been good to me--better than I deserve. I want to carry a few sheaves with me. "Bringing in the sheaves -- bringing in the sheaves: We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves." Have you ever done anything for the Lord? Get busy for God. Don't you care a rap if other souls go to hell?

The "one-pound man" was not a thief. He was an honest man. I wish everybody was as honest as he was. He went and dug a hole and buried it. When the Lord came back, the servant got his pound and handed it back. "Where are the dividends?" Friends, do you know a lot of people are burying what God has entrusted to them? Burying it in the earth. Isn't that suggestive language? In cars and houses and bank accounts and gadgets, etc.. Oh, my God! It pays to live for Jesus. Can't you hear that sweet voice say: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant?"

Fifthly, If I were dying tonight, I would want to know I didn't have any bitterness or hatred or unforgiveness in my heart against anyone in the world. (John 4:20) "If a man say he loves God and hates his brother he is a liar."

Isn't that strong language? I have never gotten over an experience I had in California. The pastor and wife were both good friends of ours. Godly people. But the mother-in-law was as radical as she could be, I believe. She said she was not treated right. If we go out into eternity with bitterness in our hearts there is just no hope. If we forgive not men their trespasses, neither will our heavenly Father forgive us.

"Lord, don't let me ever harbor ill will against anyone, regardless of what they do." Jesus said of those that were pounding the nails into his flesh: "Father, forgive them, for they know not

what they do." The grace of God, Hallelujah! I would not want any unadjusted sins against my fellow man.

Sixthly, I would want to leave a good influence behind me. Wouldn't you? I stood by the grave of Napoleon Bonaparte. It didn't thrill me a bit. He murdered a lot of people. He was a genius. He was a powerful man. He was a great man of history.

But when he was a prisoner on the Isle of St. Helena, he said, "Alexander, and Charlemagne and myself have established great empires with the force of arms, but here comes Jesus Christ without a sword, without a spear, and He established a kingdom that the world and the devil and man cannot destroy. He established a kingdom in the hearts of His people." And across this world there are hearts that are being true to Jesus Christ. Many of them are dying martyrs while I am talking to you, but they won't deny Christ. They love Him.

Paul is not dead. John Wesley is not dead. Nobody really dies. Their life lives on, either as a curse or as a blessing--a curse to damn humanity, or to bless humanity.
Seventhly, I would want to know if I were dying tonight that I did not have the blood of souls on my hands. God told Ezekiel: "You must warn the people. If you don't warn them, and they die in their sins, their blood will I require at your hands. If you warn them and they don't repent, their blood will be on their own hands."

That is true of every child of God. I don't want any blood on my hands, because I have not been faithful to people--because I haven't warned them--because I haven't done my best. There is the blood of my own unsaved children. Parents, if you were to die, would you have the blood of your children on your hands? Seems like in America, homes are going down. Parents are losing their children.
Maybe a tornado is going to hit us in the night while we are sleeping this coming summer. "Oh," you say, "I don't want to think about that." Thousands have been carried into eternity while they slept peacefully in their bed at night.

At the great judgment throne the books will be opened--the book of my life. I don't just want to get saved to escape hell. I want to do something for Jesus. He's done so much for me.

If you forget all else I have said tonight, don't forget the text: "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live." I've showed you some of the important things you must do to set your house in order well enough so you would dare venture into the chilly waters of death, from whence you shall not return to make any more corrections.

I wish every soul in this house would act in the light of eternity tonight, as though you knew you were slipping out into eternity at midnight tonight. If you had known, you would have gone to the altar. If we knew we would die tonight at twelve o'clock, we wouldn't care what people thought. We wouldn't hang on to the trifling things of this world and reject God one more time.

If I Knew I Was Going to Die Today Part 1

BLJ: A somber thought for today. If you knew you were going to die today, what would you do differently! The below article comes from a wonderful holiness preacher H. Robb French. Read it prayerfully.

Text: "Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live." 2 Kings 20:1 and Isa 38:1

If I knew I was going to die today, I will tell you what I would consider the most important.
First, I would want to know that every sin I had ever committed was blotted out (Proverbs 28:13: "He that covereth is sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.") I would want to know there is nothing between my soul and my Saviour. I would want all of my confessions and restitutions made.

Secondly, I would want to know I was sanctified wholly. I am thinking of the man that was holding the meeting when I got sanctified. He was a farmer in southern Kansas making lots of money feeding hogs and cattle. And he was a big man in the Methodist Church. I guess he had about every office in the church. They wanted a meeting, and by mistake they got a holiness preacher--Brother Rollins, and he was preaching full salvation. And it made this young man mad. And he jumped up one night in a mad fit and said, "Mr. Rollins, we called you here to preach Methodist doctrine and not to preach holiness."

Rollins replied: "Brother Young, holiness is the fundamental doctrine of the Methodist Church. John Wesley said the Methodist Church is a sect raised up of God to spread Scriptural Holiness."
"I can't help it, we are not going to have holiness preached here," Young retorted. Then he called for a vote of the congregation and they all voted in his favor except his wife. She voted against him.

He said, "I went home and went to bed, but not to sleep. I rolled and tumbled and pulled quilts. I got up about 4 o'clock in the morning, and said: 'Wife I am in an awful fix. What do you think I'd better do?'"

" 'Well,' she said, 'I don't know what you ought to do, but I know one thing--you didn't treat that preacher right.'"

So he went to the barn and saddled the pony, and climbed in the saddle, and started across the country, four miles, to where preacher Rollins was staying. He said, "I bawled like a calf all the way. The devil hopped up on the saddle behind me, and said, 'Take a chew of tobacco. It will keep down the excitement.' I said, 'Good-bye Mr. Devil, I'm on the hunt for God this time.' "
He knocked at the door and the lady of the house came to the door. "Is Mr. Rollins here?"

"Yes."

"Tell him I want to see him."

Mr. Rollins came and Young said, "I fell full length on the floor, and said to Mr. Rollins, 'I am a lost man, pray for me.' "

Bro. Rollins and the man and woman of the house prayed and God saved him. He said a peace came into his heart. The burden rolled away.
He said, "I got on my pony and went home. Got the milk buckets and started out to milk the cows," and God witnessed to his conversion. He said he thought he would tramp all the grass out of the yard shouting the victory. Finally, he quieted down enough to get the chores finished. Then he got on the same pony and went through the country announcing the meeting was started again at the church that night

A big crowd was there, and Bro. Rollins preached. A number of people sought God for regeneration and some for sanctification. He said: "The meeting went on and my wife got sanctified, and my neighbors got sanctified, and some of the church officials got sanctified, but I couldn't get the blessing. The meeting closed and I still didn't have the blessing of full salvation."
He said, "I went to every revival meeting in the country seeking holiness." And he said, "I had been seeking holiness for five months." Brother, it pays to hold on if it takes five years. It hadn't ought to take that long. It doesn't take God that long to apply the blood. Doesn't take long for the Holy Ghost to come. Praise God He's waiting.

Young said, "I was riding on the mowing machine one day. It was a beautiful day and the sky was blue and the sun was shining. I just looked up and said, 'Lord, why can't I get sanctified? My neighbors got sanctified. My wife got sanctified.' I hardly got the words out of my mouth when the fire fell." He rolled off the seat onto the ground.

The hired man saw him fall and ran to the house and said, "Oh, Mrs. Young, come quick, your husband is having an epileptic fit of some kind!" She ran out of the house shouting. She said, "Glory to God! Husband got sanctified!"

Some time after this he was making lots of money with hogs and cattle there in South Kansas, and he said, "I was on the hay stack pitching hay down to the cattle and I had a vision. I had a Bible under my arm, and I was going up and down in front of the crowd and they were weeping and kneeling for prayer. I jumped off the hay stack and ran into the house and said, 'Wife, God has called me to preach. Don't ever tell anybody about it. I am so ignorant I could never do that.'" But God called him out from the plow and from feeding cattle and hogs.

I will never forget the wonderful Sunday morning when I died out to self and the world, and the Holy Ghost came. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

Thirdly, I would want to know something else--that I had walked in every ray of light that God had ever shed on my pathway. "If we walk in the light as He is in the light..." There is no salvation back of light, my friend. It is a wonderful thing to follow the Holy Ghost. If there is a happier old man around here I would like to see him. It is a wonderful thing to walk in the light.

Now, you know, those old-fashioned revivals. It looked like a tornado swept through the country. It is astonishing to me that more people these days are not making restitutions. Oh, I don't see why people should be exempt.

I remember when just a lad, I had a restitution to make. I'll tell you, it didn't amount to five cents, but it seemed much bigger than that to me. It wasn't the money involved. It was the humility of a sking that merchant to forgive me. And I went to make my confession. I was pacing back and forth. It was a cold night in December, and I was wiping the perspiration off my face. I was going through a test, I am telling you.

The devil said, "Go home tonight and try it tomorrow night," and I did. I came the next night. And it was my intentions to get up enough courage, but I went home the second night. The next night was Saturday night and the stores stayed open later on Saturday nights. And I was pacing back and forth.
Presently, the merchant began to pull the blinds, and was going to lock the door. I thought, "Oh, my God, I can't carry this thing over the Lord's day," and I bolted in there. I guess he thought a gangster had come in. But I was desperate. I put some money in his hand and made my confession. You say, "How did you feel?" I had my first airplane ride. Brother, I took off! It seemed like I didn't touch the ground. And I began to look around to see if there wasn't another confession I could make, and get another blessing like that. God pays big dividends.

You know, a lady--she professed a lot of religion. It is astonishing what some professors of religion can do sometimes. She was in a remnant sale. And if there is anything that can get a lady down to a store it is a remnant sale. And she selected what she wanted, and the clerk was going to wrap up the bundle. When she turned to do something she put an extra one in. She paid for the original. She got the other free. She stole it. That's what she did.

I think the preacher said something about remnants that night and she got under awful conviction. And so she went down to the merchant's and said, "Now you know I got an extra piece mixed up in the bundle, and I didn't pay for it, and I want to pay for it." And the man said, "Oh, that's all right lady." And she paid him.

When she stepped out, a voice said to her: "You aren't only a thief, but you are a liar. You know you didn't get that piece mixed up. You deliberately put it in that bundle."

Brother, she was broken up the next time she went back. She was sobbing like a child, and said: "I want to see the manager." And so when the manager came, she said, "Sir, I have a confession to make. I lied to you. I stole that remnant. I didn't get it accidentally mixed up in that bundle. And I want you to forgive me."

He said, "I will forgive you on one condition--that you let me get these clerks together in here, and you tell them what you have told me." She said, "I'll do that." And she stood up on a little platform and spoke to--oh, there were a lot of clerks. And do you know what that merchant said? He said, "I realized four hundred dollars from that confession." Other folk had been stealing remnants. Thank God! It is a wonderful thing to know that everything is in the clear.

Tenth Bible Study: The Temple Repaired

Today's study comes from 2 Chronicles 24: 4-14. The lesson's focus deals with the financing of the work of God. God's financial plan for the temple, church, or tabernacle, has always been consistent. The plan is the people of God are to give. From Abraham and Melchizedek, construction of the tabernacle, to the Pharisees' paying tithe in the New Testament, we are to give of our means to finance the kingdom. In tithing we recognize that God actually owns all, and we are mere stewards of that which He has placed in our hands. Offerings are expressions of our love and devotion to the furtherance of His work.

The first part of the lesson deals with the failure of the Levites to gather the money for the reconstruction of the temple. The second part of the lesson covers the successful plan of utilizing a chest set at the gate to receive the people's support. Our giving of tithes and offerings is still important in our day. It is commanded in the Word of God.

Joash was the eighth king of Judah. He was seven years old when he began to reign and did so for forty years. For the first twenty-three years, Joash was under the positive influence of the high priest Jehoiada. During the reign of Joash, Elisha was the prophet in the northern kingdom living in Samaria.

The first section is "Joash, the Reformer." The life of Joash divides itself into two marked periods. So long as he was under the influence of the upright and noble high priest, Joash had a fair character and was interested in religious reforms. However, his piety was too much from without and too little from within. When Jehoiada died, Joash manifested a different character. This led to a rapid deterioration in Joash. He had Zechariah the priest stoned to death beside the altar in the temple. There were four works of reformation under Joash:
1. The first work was at the coronation when the people were bound anew to God by a solemn league and covenant.
2. The second work was the popular outburst against Baalism. The people sought to destroy Baal worship.
3. The third work was the reorganization of the priests and Levites after the manner of David.
4. The fourth worked occurred years later and that was the restoration of the temple.

The second section is "The Levites' Negligence." vv. 4-7 The priests and Levites were sent out to all the cities of Judah to gather money for the repair of the temple. There were three kinds of offerings:
1. Redemption money for those attaining the age of twenty.
2. Money the priests were instructed to assess on those who had bound themselves by vows.
3. Voluntary gifts.

However, the Levites were slow to act. Why were they negligent? It could have been because they had lost interest in the project. The work was great and the expenses were very large. They may have wanted their support to be assured before seeking money for the repair of the temple. The king now summoned Jehoiada the chief for an accounting. Jehoiada may have become use to the dilapidated condition of the temple or he may have sympathized with the priests in their reasons for delay.

The third section is "The Temple Repaired." vv. 8-14 Changes were made in the whole matter of contributions. First, they made a chest which changed the method of collecting. No one could have access to the money except by the royal officers. Contributions were secure. Second, the people now had great enthusiasm. God loves a cheerful giver. People went to serve and be served, to give and to get. Third, there was a new method of guarding the money from misuse. The money was placed in the charge of two responsible persons: the king's scribe and the high priest's officer. Fourth, there was a separation of the money given for the temple from the money to be used by the priests. Every one knew exactly the purpose for which his gift was being used. Finally, the money was used for skilled workman. The changes brought a successful conclusion and the work was finished, all to the glory of God.

The Golden Text is "God liveth a cheerful giver." (2 Corinthians 9:7) God loves it when His people manifest His love in their walk. God gives to us. We give to the work of God, and when done with a cheerful disposition, God will bless and multiply the gift for His good purposes.

My summary points:
1. It is extremely foolish and dangerous to place ourselves under bad influences.
2. When we know what to do, we should act without delay.
3. We are to be cheerful givers to the work of the Lord.

Next week, "The Death of Elisha." 2 Kings 13: 14-25