The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1922-08-09
Sunday School
Lesson

Subject-The Sacred Return from
Exile. Scripture-Ezra, 7:1-lO and
S:21-32
Golden text-The hand of our God
is upon all them that seek Him for
good Ezra, S-22.
Ezra, as we'd say today, belonged to
a family of ministers and we can see
the work of a real minister in his
work. First, Ezra set his heart to
seek the law OF Jehovah. We have
such ministers today, and then we
have some who don't believe his word
at all, and what we need is to know
we have the real thing yet, and what
ever we do, thank God for them and
unload the other to the last man;
don't go to hear him nor support him
i'm any way. So we read in Proverbs,
1927. we see that he not only made
a study Of the word hut he put it in
practice When man sets his heart
on Christ, his word and his work,
the cheap stuff is all gone, because
the Holy Spirit has possession of ev-
cry member of the body to do the
will of God; he then is the power
and the man the channel. One has
said, God honored Ezra because Ezra
honored God; but if you read Jer.
% 2S-32, you'll see it is his own word
that he hOnOrs first of all. Ezra had
IA purpose - he saw the need - he
meant to be teacher, and he meant
&C. teach the perfect word, and he had
to know it, and how gladly the Holy
Spirit will and can teach such a soul.
We cant truly know religious prin-
Ciple until it is carried out in our
lives. 1t is said of Horace Mann that
he wouldn't graduate a student until
u fine character went with the work
Of the college. My readers will find
veery little ~ in Ezra's testimony
all the glory goes to his Lord To
become like Christ and in his service
is all that is truly worth while. A
college man who might have been a
great scientist became an evangelist
to college men all over this world be-
cause he chose to be Christian lead
err In Yer. PILL. Seek Him for us.
and for our little ones and for all
Hur substance When a fellow be-
cones 4 Clri-'iIa w:,,i Ms heart set
IN life like that tn devil las found
his match sure enough. Yer. %, For
was ashamed to ask of the king a
Land of soldiers and horses to help
us, because we had spoken unto the
king, the hand of the Lord is upon all
that seek Him. Do you get that?
He'd given a testimony of his God TO
the king and that held him true to
his God and his God made his testi-
mCny true to God in the life of the
king. That's what God needs in this
day. And His testimony must come
from a humble heart. Humility puts
God where He belongs and us where
We belong, and then we can see the
work go. A minister gave a good
talk on Daniel in prayer three times
Il day. How easy it would have been
for Daniel to go to another place,
hide away, or pull the curtain. 1t
truly is Il wonder to know the tricks
and schemes of cowardly professors
of religion and the lack of holy
courage and thus fail in building a
strong Christian character. But
coming to the wind-up, he said, mo
one expects you to live up to the
sermon on the mount, but we are all
condemned if we don't try" You see,
he upset his whole talk-he had said
that this was a great day of compro-
mise-that the need of the hour was
standing out on Jesus. Then he
turned right around and said that
God had asked the impossible-that
there was no grace for the standard
set up by the Lord. You see, such a
preacher and Sunday school teacher
need to stay out of this lesson. HUI
man weakness is readily admitted
the power of temptation is on every