Shall We Keep On Sinning?

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 12, 1914

Shall We Keep On Sinning?

Lesson for the Children — No. 6

Shall We Keep On Sinning?

MEMORY TEXT: “For he that is dead is freed from sin.” Rom. 6:7.

Repeat the lesson verse in concert. Ask the children if they have seen a dead person. Did he talk or sing? If some one was angry with him and called him bad names, did he answer back? Did he do anything wrong? No, nothing any one could do would provoke him. He was dead.

The Bible uses this illustration to show our relation to sin. We should be like the dead as far as sin is concerned.

Perhaps the children will be thinking, “But I am not dead. I am alive. I did something bad today before I came to meeting.”

Teach them that they die by reckoning themselves dead. When they do this, God makes it true. They become alive to God but dead to sin. They open the heart wide to Jesus, but shut it tight against Satan. They choose to serve the Lord. They say to the devil, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Each morning they should give themselves anew to Jesus, and, like the Elder Brother he is, he saves each one who trusts in him.

A poor heathen man in Africa named Mochuana was a drunkard. He was dying of drink, when a missionary pleaded with him to stop the habit. He said he could not. He was told the story of Acts 3, and that there was power in that Name to save him, degraded as he was, and that Jesus was waiting to be asked.

In reply the poor man begged to be taken to this great doctor. He would give him money — anything — if he might become well. The missionary told him to simply ask and believe, and they knelt to pray. The poor man, who had no strength to do right, offered this prayer: “Great Doctor, make me well.” That was all, but it was heard in heaven.

Then the man asked the missionary for the name having such power, and went away whispering softly to himself, “Jesus, Jesus.” He was entirely cured, and said his “mouth felt clean like a child’s.”

Then he was tempted. A man tried to get him to drink, and as they started for the saloon, the old thirst came back. He thought he must drink. But he said, “Just as I was halfway to the saloon, there by a bush I called out softly three times, ‘Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!’ and the disease left me at once, and I turned back. And so you see there is power in the Name.”

Show the children that the power of that Name is just as effectual to overcome any sin in us as drunkenness in that poor heathen man, and that we may gain the victory over anger, impatience, idleness, or any wrong if we claim the victory in the name of Jesus. Make this lesson so plain that victories may be gained before the close of the meeting.

When we are in a good meeting it may seem very easy to do right; but if when we get home mother asks us to do something that we do not like to do, or somebody takes our things, and we feel cross and hateful, then let us whisper that Name that is above every other name, and we shall overcome.

There are two things we must do if we die to sin: First, we must read and study the Bible. Ps. 119:16, 11. This is the way Jesus lived,—without sin. Second, we must pray for victory over sin, and expect it. We may want to do wrong, but we can ask Jesus to change our minds so we shall not want to. Jesus often prayed far into the night.

This meeting should be one in which those conducting it, as well as the children, receive new light and life and power, and victory over sin. Give all opportunity to confess their sins and tell their needs, and to pray for forgiveness. There is power in Jesus’ blood to save to the uttermost, great and small.