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the Spirit of God, under His direction and power,
and that constantly looks up and communes with
God. That kind of a prayer life will bring fruit.
Jesus Christ emphasized it in His own prayer life.
Jesus spent more time in prayer than any other
one thing He ever did. He spent one whole night
in prayer before He selected the twelve disciples.
The night before He delivered the Sermon on the
Mount He spent a whole night in prayer. And if
Christ should need to spend a whole night in prayer
before He could trust Himself to the selection of
His disciples, what about us? More and more
I am getting to believe that a man who claims to
be a Christian has no right to engage in any busi
ness of whatever character until he has first asked
God’s will about it, and if every man today who
names the name of Christ should practice that,
what a different world we would have! Iremem
ber a time in our church when there was a young
man who was going to embark in a business which
was new to him. He called me up over the tele
phone and said, “I am going to engage in a cer
tain business at a certain time and before I dare
complete my arrangements for it, I want to know
if it is God’s will, and if it is not, I don’t want
to do it, and that I may have help in trying to
find out if it is God’s will, I want you to come
over and let us have prayer together about it.”
We met in a room, got down before God and asked
Him for the revelation of His will, and God gave
it, and that man’s business has prospered and His
Christian life has been a blessing to Him and a
blessing to others.
BIBLE STUDY.
Then* again, growth in grace comets through
Bible study. By prayer we talk to God. Through
the Bible God talks to us. God uses the Bible as
His phonograph in which He has spoken His mes
sages to the world, and in order to have God to
talk to us, we have got to learn to use God’s
phonograph. This is a day of phonographs.
Here is a phonograph made before any of these
modern instruments. God has spoken His message
once and for all into this divine phonograph that
we call the Bible, and we come to Him through
prayer and connect ourselves with His phonograph
and He speaks from heaven to us a message that
is just as fresh as it was the day when it was
originally given. We are bound to have God’s
message if we grow. We may pray ever so much
and not read the Bible and our exercise is one
sided. It is just like a man talking to a deaf man.
He may be able to talk back to him, but he cannot
hear you talk to him. How many of us realize
the place of the Bible in Christian growth? Some
time ago a woman came to my study asking if I
would not take her name 1 off the church book. I
asked her why? She said, li ßecause I do not be
lieve that I have any business in it.” “Well,
why?” said I. “Well,” she said, “I do not be
lieve I have ever been saved.” I said, “Why?”
“Well, because I do not believe that I am any
better than I was when I was converted ten years
ago. ’ ’
After talking with her I found that she was
mistaken about her salvation, for she had exercised
faith in Jesus Christ and was saved. Then I took
her up on the subject of growth in grace. I said
to her, “You are honest where a great many people
are dishonest, that is the only difference between
you and a great many people in the church. You
have made no growth and neither have they, and
you are just honest enough to confess it.” I
asked her if she was willing to grow in grace. She
said, “I do not know how.” I then took her along
the points I am taking you this morning, first, dedi
cation, and that dedication to be complete, then the
appropriation of the Holy Spirit in all of His
rvn A A/TI>T>I?T T A/THDr ( ANT , Q exposition of the bible will be published in the
-L/Jlv. \j. vj/iIIVLa lVlV7lxvr/\i>l O golden age beginning about January Ist, 1907. dr. morgan
IS KNOWN THROUGHOUT TWO CONTINENTS AS THE GREATEST EXPOUNDER AND INTERPRETER OF THE TEXT OF THE BIBLE
NOW LIVING. THE SERIES OF ARTICLES WHICH WILL APPEAR IN THE GOLDEN AGE WILL COMPOSE THE CONTENTS OF A WORK
TO BE PUBLISHED BY AN ENGLISH PUBLISHING HOUSE, THE GOLDEN AGE HAVING SECURED THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO SERIAL
PUBLICATION IN AMERICA. THE WORK WILL COVER THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS, AND WILL BE INVALUABLE TO THE LAY
MAN AS WELL AS THE BIBLE STUDENT.
ALEX W. BEALER’S ''Clipping's from the Ancient Press” will begin with our first December number.
The Golden Age for November 29, 1906.
fullness to dominate and control the life. Then
I took her through prayer, and finally I came to
the Bible. She said, “Now that is exactly where
I am lacking. I simply stopped reading my Bible.
I have not read my Bible in months and months,
and you need not go any further; I see exactly
where I am lacking.” After we had finished our
conversation, she went home. In about three weeks
after that she came to see me again, and she came
with a smile on her face that told me of the work
of grace in her heart that she had never had before,
and just as soon as she entered, she began to talk
about the Bible. She said, “I went home and
began to read the Bible and study it, and I have
gotten in love with it, and I have got more joy and
pleasure out of it than I have ever gotten out of
the past ten years of my Christian life.” She
began to grow and is growing yet, and will keep
on growing as long as she lives up to what she bus
begun. My brethren and sisters, it is utterly im
possible for a Christian to read the Bible and not
grow in grace. If you read the Bible, it is going
to keep you from sin. It is going to send you to
your knees in prayer, and you are going to see
less in self and more and more in Him.
EXERCISE.
The last point I want to mention is exercise.
One may dedicate himself completely, one may
appropriate the Holy Spirit, one may lead the
prayer life, may read the Bible and read it regu
larly and systematically every day, and still if
that is all of it, fail to grow in grace. The spirit
ual life is likened unto our physical life. Salvation
is a new birth. We are, then, babes in Christ ac
cording to the Apostle Paul’s teaching, and, alas,
how many of us remain babes for the rest of our
natural existence. But suppose a babe should be
fed every time it cried, upon the very best food,
and lie Hat upon its back forever, do you think
there would be any normal growth? It would soon
die for the lack of exercise. It would fail to ap
propriate the food it took because it failed to
exercise according to the demands of nature. And
so it is with respect to our growth in grace. If
we grow in grace, we have got to grow in service,
and I believe that after all, this is, perhaps, the
thing that is keeping most of you from growth in
grace. You are not active in the service of God.
Now, hear me. If you cease to be active in the
service of God, you will finally cease to read your
Bible, you will finally cease to pray, you will give
up your dedication and call in all that you have
given God, and then your life of dwindling and
dwarfing begins.
GO TO WORK.
Is there a man or woman here this morning that
feels that you have come to a standstill in your
spiritual life? If there is, I want to beg you to go
to work. Do not go to work until you have laid
the foundations, but today lay the foundation in
a definite surrender of yourself, with your struggles,
with all your doubts, with all your difficulties. If
some one has been unkind to you, if something
is going on that you do not think ought to go on,
in God’s name lay it all down. Stop nursing your
difficulties and doubts, stop hugging your spiritual
ailments. There is something better than that. Put
it on the altar just all it is. God knows all about
it. Put it down there definitely ,and say, “Oh,
God, there it is and there it shall stay.” That
will be the happiest day of your life. And then
receive the Spirit in His fullness, begin to pray and
read your Bible and “go to work.”
Miss Freeman —Why, I thought you knew her.
She lives in the same square with you.
Miss Hutton—Perhaps. But she does not move
in the same circle.
Baptist Memorial to Sam Jones.
An incident of striking interest occurred at the
Baptist Convention when that body voted with
unanimous enthusiasm to place a memorial window
to Rev. Sam Jones in the new Methodist church at
Cartersville.
Rev. Walter Holcomb, co-laborer of Sam Jones,
who is assisting Mrs. Jones in writing a life of her
distinguished and beloved husband, was introduced
to the convention and he made a captivating talk,
asking all present who knew of any striking or
significant incident in the life of the great evangel
ist to kindly send it to him or to Mrs. Jones to
be incorporated in the biographical volume. At the
conclusion of this talk Mr. William D. Upshaw,
editor of The Golden Age, arose and offered the
following resolution:
“Resolved, that it is the sense of the Georgia
Baptist Convention, meeting for the first time since
the death of Rev. Sam P. Jones, that it is fitting
to take note of the home-going of this great and
good man, and we hereby express to his bereaved
family, and neighbors among whom he lived so
long, and was so highly honored, our tender, pray
erful sympathy.
“Resolved, further, that we recognize the beau
tiful and appropriate honor conferred jointly upon
themselves, and the memory of a valiant and fear
less soldier of Christ, when the church of which
he was a member at Cartersville voted recently
to name the new building now in course of erection.
‘The Sam Jones Memorial Church,’ and as a
token of our love for the memory of Sam P. Jones,
a Christian brother, and a citizen, we will count it
a privilege, as individuals, to contribute an amount
sufficient to place in the new M. E. church building
here in Cartersville a memorial window to Sam P.
Jones, as a gift from the Baptists of Georgia.”
The reading of the resolution struck fire to ev
ery heart and created a spontaneous enthusiasm
that was beautiful in its tenderness and unanimity.
Mr. Upshaw, in his pertinent talk, referred to the
fact that a handsome memorial window in the Bap
tist church at Cartersville had been dedicated to
Rev. Joe Jones by his brother, the Rev. Sam Jones,
at a cost of SSOO, and he considered this a most
beautiful expression of friendship for the Baptists,
and he deemed it only fitting that this sect place
a memorial window in the Methodist church for
Rev. Sam Jones.
Rev. Alex W. Bealer, who was a neighbor of
Sam Jones for a number of years during his pas
torate in Cartersville, then paid a charming tribute
to the brother, concluding with these words:
“Over there is the window which Sam Jones,
Methodist evangelist, placed in the Baptist church
in honor of Joe Jones, Baptist evangelist, and I
heartily endorse the resolution that the Baptists
of Georgia give this expression of their love for
Sam Jones.”
Hon. W. J. Neel, of Cartersville, was made chair
man of the committee to receive the funds for the
memorial, and Mr. Robert Buchanan, of Lawrence
ville, a traveling salesman and a devout Christian,
with whom the idea of this memorial originated,
was also placed on the committee with Mr. Neel
and Mr. Upshaw. Funds will be received and re
ceipted for by any one of this committee. We are
sure that the response will be as prompt and lib
eral as the occasion merits and that the plan born
of a genuine and sincere spirit of brotherly admira
tion and interest will soon take the tangible and
lasting form which has been outlined.
The next session of the Southern Educational Con
ference, of which Robert C. Ogden, of New York,
is president, will be held in Nashville, in April.
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