Arizona sun., 1953-06-19
SERMONETTE
The Common Evils Of Our Time
BY REV. L. BUTLER NELSON

final sermon in a special series of
discussions on the above theme.
Three ministers of our Alliance
have proceeded me on this subject.
This week 1 have chosen to dis
cuss two of the common evils of
our day, namely, lying and adult
cry. Webster has given various
definitions for the word common
Among the many which he gives
are the following: that which is
not distinguished" extraordinary
and not of superior excellence"
The two common evils involved
here are largely motivated by
church folk. Living in adultery is
so common today, that many peo-
pie of high social and religious
standing in the church and in COM
munity, live in it WITHOUT the least
fear or thought. Some how some
people have always found a nice
way to excuse themselves for the
act of adultery, and lying. These
are the two types of evil out of
which all sense of shame has been
removed According to what the
Bible says about adultery, many of
our churches are filled with people
who are living in adultery. MAJ
of them are lawfully married in
the face Of the laws of our land,
only to find themselves living in
adultery in the face of the divine
low of God.
Let us see what Christ has to
say about, adultery. Read Matthews
5:27-2S. "Ye have heard that it was
said by them of old time, thou
shall not commit adultery, but 1
say unto you, that WhOsoeVer
! looketh on a woman to lust aft
er her, hath committed adultery
with her, already in his heart" !"
| Now let us see what Christ had to
say about divorce. Read Matthews
1889. Moses, because of the
you to put away your wives; but
from the beginning it was not so.
And / say unto you, whosoever
shall put away his wife, except it
be for fornication, and shall marry
another, committeth adultery, and
whoSoever marieth her for which
is put away, doth comit adultery"
Are you sure you are not living in
adultery? Adultery is such COM
mon evil in our day that many peo-
pie come to church only to perfect
dates. The low moral character of
some of our church folk is making
it hard for the church. We have
less respect for the Christian
church today than we have ever
known before in the history of our
time.
Lying is another very common
evil in our time. Some folks seem
to get great satisfaction out of the
lies they tell. Let us turn to Prov
erbs 6:16-17. Here we find six
things which God hates, namely
"a proud look, lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood, a
heart that deviseth wicked, imagi-
nation, feet that be swift in run
ming to mischief, a false witness
that speaketh lies and soweth dis
cord among the brethren.
There has never been a time
since my birth that people could
tell such big lies on each other as
they do here in our state today.
Some folk seem to live on the
telephone telling lies, and listen
ing to barber and. beauty shop gos-
sip. If you want to know how much
your neighbor's house cost, or what
John Doe and Mrs. Doe separated
about, just hang around some of
these beauty and barber shops.
There are some people in the
church, who say they are on their
way to Heaven and do not speak to
their neighbor. There are four
ways by which people can lie. They
are as follows-tell a lie, act lie,
sing a lie or imply lie. One can
imply lie without opening his