Questions.—What are the different parts of a chain called? How many links must be broken in order to break the chain? What did God give to Moses on Mount Sinai? How many commandments are there? Who makes the laws for the nation, the state and the city? Are laws perfect which are made by men? Do human laws change? Is God's law perfect? Do moral laws ever change? Was there ever a time or a place where it was right to lie, or steal or murder? Will there ever be such a time or place? How many murders must a man commit before he is a murderer? How often must he steal before he is a thief? Are men put into prison for breaking a single law? Is the entirety of God's law violated if we break only one commandment?
LOOKING-GLASS.
SEEING OURSELVES IN GOD'S LAW.
Suggestion:—The object used is a looking-glass of any desired size.
MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS: In my sermon last Sunday, I showed you that God had made the law perfect, but that none of us has perfectly kept the law, that we have all broken the law, and God has said, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." (Gal. iii:10.)
If the law is perfect, and no one has ever kept it perfectly, but all have broken the law in some one way or another, and on that account all are guilty before God, you may ask, what is the purpose of the law? Why did God make the law? Now, I desire to explain that to you to-day.
I have here a looking-glass. Now the Bible compares the law to a looking-glass. In the epistle or letter of James, in the first chapter, we are told, "If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." (James i:23-25.)