SEPARATION, WORLDLY
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
—Rev. 18:4
5621 Robinson Wanted Not A Thing
Bud Robinson, the well-known Holiness preacher, was taken by friends to New York and shown around the city. That night in his prayers he said, “Lord, I thank You for letting me see all the sights of New York. And I thank You most of all that I didn’t see a thing that I wanted!”
Blessed is the man who can sit loose to the charms of this old world, independent of them because he doesn’t want them.
5622 To Love World Or Word
“Just one letter of the alphabet makes all the difference between us now,” said a recently-converted young woman to an unsaved friend, who could not understand the great change that had come over her. “You love the world,” she said, “and I love the Word.”
—Word of Life
5623 Governor’s Daughters And Bobbed Hair
School had dismissed for the day. A couple of teenage sisters had slipped into their father’s office at the governor’s mansion. It was during the time when bobbed hair was becoming very fashionable for the young ladies.
The southern governor did not want his girls to have bobbed hair. On this particular day, they were both pleading with him for permission. One of them came out with that often-used remark, “But father, everybody’s doing it.”
The governor asked, “Whose daughters are you?” After hearing them acknowledge him, he said, “Sure. You are the daughters of the Governor. You do not follow the styles. You set the styles.”
—Bible Expositor
5624 Jenny Lind’s Deciding View
“The Swedish Nightingale,” Jenny Lind, won great success as an operatic singer, and money poured into her purse. Yet she left the stage when singing her best and never went back to it. She must have missed the money, the fame and the applause of thousands, but she was content to live in privacy.
Once an English friend found her on the sea sands, with a Bible on her knee, looking out into the glory of a sunset. They talked and the conversation drew near to the inevitable question, “Oh, Madame Goldschmidt, how is it that you ever came to abandon the stage at the height of your success?”
“When every day,” was the quiet answer, “it made me think less of this (laying a finger on the Bible) and nothing at all of that (pointing to the sunset), what else could I do?”
5625 George Fox Forsakes Friends
In the year 1643, a young shoemaker’s apprentice in Leicestershire, England, on business at a fair, was invited by a cousin and another friend to have a jug of beer with them. Being thirsty, he joined them. When they had drunk a glass apiece, his friends began to drink healths, agreeing that he who would not drink should pay all. This shocked the serious youth, and, rising from the table, he took out a groat and laid it before them, saying, “If it be so, I will leave you.”
That night he walked up and down and prayed and cried to the Lord. The Lord spoke to him, saying, “Thou seest how young people go together into vanity, and old people into the earth. Thou must forsake all—young and old—keep out of all, and be as a stranger unto all.”
In obedience to this command, the young man left his relations and his home and became a wanderer in England. His name was George Fox, and he became the founder of the Quakers.
5626 Unless It Got Inside
All the water in the world,
However hard it tried,
Could never sink a ship
Unless it got inside.
All the evil in the world,
The wickedness and sin,
Can never sink the soul’s craft
Unless it got inside.
—Selected
5627 “Why Not Dance?”
Question: My parents and I are Christians. They have told us children that we are not to go to dances and have never told us why we can’t.
Answer: You should obey your parents as you are commanded to do in Ephesians 6:1–3. This is especially true since you are a Christian.
Since I am no expert on dancing, I have no complicated opinions on the subject. However, I want to pass along some questions which you should ask yourself regarding dancing. They will help you in making up your own mind on the subject.
(1) Why do you suppose your parents take the attitude they do? Whenever possible, parents ought to take time to give reasons for their decisions. Your parents must have some opinions or questions concerning dancing even though they cannot explain them. When they set standards, they do it not because they hate you but because they love you.
(2) Do the Christians you know and trust dance?
(3) How many older, more mature Christians do you know who dance?
(4) Do you think you would be comfortable if you took Jesus with you to dance? Would you be happy if He came and found you there?
(5) What about the music? Does it lift you? Does it strengthen you morally or in any way? Does it build up or tear down your emotional life?
(6) Why do you want to go to a dance in the first place? What is there that would make a Christian want to go? What does it offer? What do you expect to get there that you will not get anywhere else? Do you think you will come away better or worse?
(7) Does what happen at the dance lend itself to proper Christian behavior after the dance?
(8) Would you feel you were a good influence as a Christian if you attended dances? Would you feel free to witness for Jesus Christ while there?
(9) How would you feel if your pastor, parents or your Sunday school teacher were there?
(10) There is also a set of spiritual guidelines which are simple but may be helpful to you in making your decision. In everything a Christian does, he should (a) do it to the glory of God (I Cor. 10:31), (b) thank God that you can do it (Eph. 5:20), (c) do it in the name of Jesus, as if He sent you to do it (Col. 3:17), and (d) pray for God’s blessing and His guidance in all you do (Phil. 4:6, 7).
You need not feel it is necessary to explain why you do not go to dances now. We do many things we do not explain, just as we refrain from doing a lot of things without explanation. If you honestly feel this way, you might say, “My parents believe it is not best for me, and I appreciate my parents and want to please them.”
—Selected
5628 Simple People’s Idols
Dr. F. B. Meyer tells of going to a meeting of the Salvation Army where it was announced an exhibition of idols was to be displayed. He said, “I expected to see idols from India, Africa, and the South Seas. But instead of that eight young men stepped to the rear of the platform and returned, each bearing a large sheet of cardboard. One card was covered with pipes, cigars, and tobacco; another with sham jewelry, feathers, ribbons and things of that sort. There were eight cards, each covered with things that had been idols to some.
“A man behind me pointed and said, “That was my pipe.” A woman said, “See my bow of ribbon?” These simple people felt that these things had become idols to them and they had given them up.”
—Sunday Companion
5629 Unlucky Salvationist Officer
Les Howell, 86, of Sydney, Australia, was fired after sixty-eight years as a Salvation Army solicitor of contributions. It all began, he says, when a relative gave him a lottery ticket that won $30,000. After news of his bonanza got out, two other members of the Army took out a newspaper ad that said “the Salvation soldier must have no connections” with gambling. Then Howell’s supervisor visited him and banned him from wearing the Army uniform and collecting donations.
“It was like somebody had knocked me to the ground,” the old man told reporters. A qualified pastry cook, he reportedly was already well-off.
A hotel owner who donated to the Salvation Army regularly through Howell has called on fellow hotel operators not to permit Army solicitors on their properties until Howell is reinstated.
—Christianity Today
5630 Why Persecuted In “Vanity Fair?”
Here are the reasons, given by John Bunyan, why Christian and Faithful were persecuted in Vanity Fair.
First, the pilgrims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of any that traded in that Fair. The people, therefore, made a great gazing: some said they were fools … bedlams … outlandish men.
Secondly, … few could understand what they said; they naturally spoke the language of Canaan, but they that kept the Fair were the men of this world; so that they seemed barbarian each to the other.
Thirdly, … these pilgrims set very light by all the wares sold in the Fair; they cared not so much as to look upon them, [but] looked upwards, signifying that their trade and traffick was in Heaven.
5631 Marching Off The World
Harold Lamb’s Life of Alexander the Great.… describes memorably the consternation which came upon the Greek army following Alexander across Asia Minor, when they discovered that they had marched clear off the map. The only maps they had were Greek maps, showing only a part of Asia Minor. The rest was blank space.
Isn’t this what Christians are to do?
5632 City Lights And Astronomy
Astronomers are now faced with a problem—the glare of city lights is threatening some of the country’s largest optical telescopes out of business, in California especially.
The blinding glow from nearby Los Angeles has rendered Mount Wilson Observatory’s 100-in. telescope useless in looking at distant galaxies. Even the 200-in. Hale mirror on Mount Palomar—the world’s largest telescope—may soon be seriously imperiled by the increasing glare of San Diego and Los Angeles.
California astronomers agree that the day is not far off when they will have to transfer to new peaks—if any suitable ones can still be found.
5633 The Intervening Dark Room
An artist asked a friend to his studio to see his latest painting. He came at the time appointed, but was shown into a dark room. There he waited fifteen minutes. Finally the artist came in, greeted him cordially, and conducted him to the studio.
Before he left, the artist said laughingly, “I suppose you thought it queer to be left in that dark room so long?” “Yes, I did.” “Well,” said the artist, “I knew that if you came into my studio with the glare of the street in your eyes, you could not appreciate the fine coloring of the picture; so I left you there until the glare had worn out of your eyes.”
Today we are blinded by the glare of trivial realities. “If thou knewest,” describes our lack of spiritual vision. We fail to recognize Christ and the priceless gift which he offers. We ask many things of God. But how often do we ask for the most precious gift of all? The presence of Jesus removed the glare of the street from this woman’s eyes at the well.
—Will L. Brown
5634 Stewardesses’ Skirts
When stewardesses on British Overseas Airways Corp. planes complained that their skirts fitted on the ground, but not in the air, a BOAC spokesman blamed it all on Sir Robert Boyle’s Law. This law says that if the quantity and temperature of a gas remain constant, its volume will vary inversely with pressure.
The application of the Law to the skirts is simple: air pressure decreases as an airplane ascends, and thus the pressure on the gas in a stewardess’ stomach lessens, which means the volume of the gas increases. In other words, her tummy bulges.
British stewardesses now wear adjustable skirts.
—New York Herald Tribune
5635 A Thread And The Universe
David Rittenhouse, of Pennsylvania, the great astronomer, was skillful in measuring the size of the planets and determining the position of the stars. But he found such was the distance of those orbs, that a silk thread stretched across the glass of his telescope would entirely cover a star; and, moreover, that a silk fibre, however small, placed upon the same glass, would not only cover the star, but would conceal so much of the heavens that the star, if a small one and near the pole, would remain obscured behind that silk fibre several seconds. Thus a silk fibre appeared to be larger in diameter than a star.
—H. L. Hastings
5636 Keep Him Off Ground
According to the ancient mythology, when Hercules wrestled with Antaeus, every time he was thrown, he jumped up again stronger than ever, gaining fresh power from every contact with the earth. Hercules conquered him at last only by holding him in the air away from the source of his strength, until he grew weaker and weaker and finally became exhausted.
5637 Massive Jupiter
On Jupiter, 318 times more massive than the earth, gravity at the surface is so intense that an astronaut in his spacesuit would weigh nearly half a ton. Even if he could safely land, we cannot yet provide him with a propulsive force strong enough to get him off again.
5638 Pastor Of What Group?
A new pastor was invited by the local Kiwanians to join their club. The membership secretary reminded him, however, that it was the rule of the club to have only one representative from each profession and that they already had one for the category of pastor. The only profession not represented at the moment was that of hog-caller. Would the pastor mind? “Well,” was the reverend gentleman’s reply, “where I come from, I was known as the shepherd, but, of course, you know your group best.”
5639 Epigram On Separation (Worldly)
• If it’s really true that “all the world is a stage,” then God’s children should all have stagefright.
—The Bible Friend
• John Newton’s life rule: “I make it a rule of Christian duty never to go to a place where there is not room for my Master as well as myself.”
• The eagle that sears in the upper air does not worry itself about crossing rivers.
—Calendar
See also: Purity of Life ; Tit. 2:12.