Pop’s Lessons— Part One

My grandfather, James Arthur West, was a devout Christian, a Baptist by denomination.  He regularly did things for his local church, including, it appears, doing brief lessons for his Sunday school class in Wilmington N.C.  He was not a college educated man, but he studied and knew his Bible well.  My sister discovered spiral notebooks full of these lessons, written out in beautiful cursive script while cleaning out the garage. What follows here for some time is some of them which I have transcribed.  I believe you will find these a blessing.  BW3

10/18/70

Matt. 7.24— ‘whosoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon a rock.’

Our forefathers founded this nation on the rock of God’s Word. Today people buy more Bibles and know less about the Bible’s teaching than ever before. The result is a spiritual depression more serious than the economic one. By neglecting the religious principles once reverenced, our nation has slipped from the rock to shifting sand.   Daniel Webster left this warning: ‘If we abide by the principle taught in the Bible our country will go on prospering…But if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority no one can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury our glory in profound obscurity.’

The only way back to real stability is by restoring the Bible to its rightful place in our homes, and Christ in our hearts, and love for our fellow human beings.  If prosperity should return under our present low moral standards it would mean more drinking, more deaths on the highways, more gambling, more divorces and suicides.

First, we must have a moral and spiritual recovery, for ‘except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it.’ Our citizens must turn again to the Bible, to the church, and to God. We must undergird our character with the Bible truths and teach our children from the Word of God, gather every Lord’s Day in God’s house to study the ways of life, then say with Joshua, ‘as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’. When we become a Bible revering people, once again our nation shall stand on a rock where no storms can shake it. Is your house built upon that rock?