Newspapers / The Fool-Killer (Pores Knob, … / Jan. 1, 1922, edition 1 / Page 4
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V 3?AG POUR A SERMON ON "HOLINESS' Now if any of you people want to have a jeeminy-fit before this sermon begins, just crank away. I will gladly wait till you get through. I'm waiting. But nobody seems inclined to throw a fit, so I'll begin. Yes, that's what I said. Holi ness. I find that in some sec tions the subject of "Holiness" somebody might be interested in what I have to say about it. The word "Holiness" as I am here using it refers to these peo ple who claim that they can live gad do live absolutely sinless tUves here in this world. They claim to be just as perfect and iinless as Jesus was when he liv ed here among men. Now I believe everybody 4ught to be just as good as they possibly can, and there is no 4anger of any of us getting too jood. But I think we ought to we sorter careful how we boast s our goodness. Boasting is a &i to start with, and people who jure really very good are never boastful Instead of making themselves tiresome to every body by going around telling 3iow good they are, they just quietly go about doing their du ty and not saying much about it. They are willing for their daily Mves to bear witness as to how good they are, and they would he the last people in the world to boast about it. If a man really Mu!d live a holy and sinless life, j his neighbors would soon dis cover the fact without him tell ing it. But still there are people who seem to think it is their duty to set themselves up as equals of Jesus, claiming that they are absolutely perfect and holy and do not sin at alL Well, they lie, and lying is a dn. That alone is enough to knock the socks off of all their pretended holiness. And now let me go a little deeper into the thing and show you WHY a man of Adam's fal len race cannot live an absoluto ry holy and perfect life m this dispensation of the world. Here's why: Adam was created a perfect numan being, and he was put on trial m a perfect Eden to see if he would STAY perfect. He was given his choice of obedi ence and eternal life or dis obedience and death. Please get this fact well set tled in your mind and don't for get it: Adam before the fall was just as perfect and holy as Jesus Christ. And he COULD nave remained so. But God made him a free moral agent in order that he might take which ever course he preferred. You see if God had made him so that he COULDN'T sin, it wouldn't have been one bit of credit to him that he remained holy. Because you see he would have had no choice in the mat ter and could not have done otherwise. But after being made so that he COULD sin, THEN if he had stood the test and re- THE POOL-KILLER, mained holy it would have been some credit to him. But we know the perfect Adam didn't hold out very long. Here came the temptation and the holy man fell for it just like a rednosed prohibitionist grab bing at a quart bottle. Well, what then? He was no longer holy. He had become a sinner and had fallen under the condemna- tion of death. iow get uus: ; Adam had begotten no cliil dren previous to his fall. All of his children were born AF TER the fall after he had be come a sinner. No other mem ber of the race started life with the same advantage that Adam started with. Do you get tht? Then try another on : If Adam, who started life as a sinless man, could not RE MAIN sinless, then how do you expect any of his sinful chil dren to climb back to perfec tion and live holy lives? It cannot be dona We are plainly told that the whole human race was com demned to death because of Adam's sin, and there wasn't a human being on earth who could redeem the race out of death. That would require the life of another perfect man, and there wasn't any. Now, if some of Adam's chil dren had been bom BEFORE the fall, and supposing that they didn't take a bite of the for- bidden apple along with Dad and Marn why, then they would; have been on the 'perfect plane and might have stood a chance to stay there. In that case they could have started another race that was not under the 'sen tence of death. But since they were all BORN under the death sentence there was no one to get them out. That was just exactly the reason that the Son of God had to leave the glories of heaven and take upon himself the form of a inan in order that he might STAND THE TEST which Adam failed to stand, and afterward to sacrifice his holy humanity to buy back the life of Adam s race. Perhaps you never thought about it in that way, but it is a fact that Jesus COULD have sinned. He had all the tempta tions that Adam had, and possi bly more. Satan seems to have just tried himself in tempting Jesus. But Jesus was man en ough to stand out against every temptation and live a holy life. If he had made one little com promise with Satan if he had iust stuck one tooth m the ap pie of sin it' -would have been Good-morning John with him. His power to save the world would have been gone in a flash and he, too, would have been numbered among the sinners. But we are thankful today that Jesus was not the failing kind. He stood every test and came off more than conquerer. Thus he proved his worthiness to serve as a substitute for Adam, and his ability to pay the debt that Adam owed. BOOMER, N. C, If it had been possible for any member of Adam's race to climb back to perfection, then he could have done all that Jesus did, and it would not have been necessary for Jesus to com at aH The human race had 4,000 years in which to produce a holy man before Jesus came. But it didn't produce him. And God knew that fallen humanity never would produce a holy man, else He would not have made I the supreme sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son. It is true that when Jesus came and redeemed the race he started an absolutely new thing tnat never nad been neard before. He opened up an offer of a spiritual or heavenly king- dom m' addition to the earthly kingdom that the nronhets v about. He begun to select a Bride Class" to be composed o- a "little -flock of faithful follow-1 ers. That class, even in the present Human condition, will live such devoted lives thev will not WANT to sin, and such sins .... . . as they DU commit through the weakness of the flesh will not be set down asrainst them as sins. They will have IMPUTED - to them the holiness of Jesus, : ttto . 1 T tAnSZLJA r-,r.L.Z. 1-iSi?; .1.1 nt-- tTi:ii. .1.1 ii i vv ir i -l iiiii: i n jr-vt : T rr uie very uvsi lie cui imuor uie vxxctuiiura, xi ,wiu uc But please remember that when you are getting through uuiuwiw ui oux, yvu nut geumg Vl. uvvu mi.w. iudi mw a T41?TJC TG 1?PT!i7 Eugene Debs is free, but the peanut politician ; who ion; C ZZLkri h until they get down m the dust of humihation and ask God to lift the terrible burden of guilt g WcMeirndtoS from their benighted .heart&r84 They are the fellows who are guilty of crime the low-down- est, blackest and most inexcus- able crime that was ever com- mitted by men in high authority since the crucifixion f Jesus Christ. nim a neater welcome man any And please understand that president ever received, Ban this belated release of Pebs does ners waving. Bands playing, not atone for the crime of his The whole city m tears of joft imprisonment. There was -a time when Harding had a chahcai to do a great deed a deed tnat would have covered mm with glory and won for him the last- ins esteem of all good people. That was the day he entered the White Housa If he had been i bi enough and brave enough to j pT tttjw Q - mroTirorcrob - order the release of Debs as his n? BUTTEBCUPS first officiar act as president, he would then have been entMed to a degree of credit which he cannot claim now. After nearly a year of bluffing and stalling, after nearly a year of listening to th war jintroes ana me paxnots lor pre)iiL, and then reluctantly domsr a duty that he could have done and SHOULD have done the very first day seems to me like that isn't anything to brag about nor to be honored for. J AIT., And so I say the Harding ministration has forfeited -d credit for a deed that -might have covered it with glory. After the release of Debs from the Atlanta prison, his trip Washington and from there tfc his home in Indiana was one ong and glorious ovation. Every where throughout the journey the stations and the streets were packed with cheering multi tudes. It was a strange demon stration to be given a man who? has bean in orison as a 'cnm nal." An eye-witness to the whole thing has declared that only one other man m modem history nas received such an. ovation from the people. That was Woodrow Wilson when he went to Europe after the war closed to make peace on the terms of his tamotis xourtee&i points." Wilson had made great promises of what he would do over there how he would liber- ate the suffering and bleeding masses of the world and bnnjr home a peace treaty that would' It :u - - j L i t a we. nuin upon justice ana ngnu ine common people all over the world believed m Wilson then. I 1 il . i m wt ana tne Dieeamg mimons 01 uu FPe welcomed mm as tne sav- ' civiiizawim. Bu Wilson went over there Ud betrayed his trust and came iv i n . nome discredited ana aisnonor- i e(j But there ig one man wh) k00 xfnm ta traying his fnends and sejlinr iout to the enemy. Eugene Debs was willing to tro to nripon for what he believed was riht. an i Xkl J V O VVclS llUu. xiiat wcis tne Lesi,. jnf MT world that he would not betray his Mends. That he would not 0 "-IVVr SSS. . CSS5 . . nr That is why 25,000 people wete Packed around the railroad sta- I n- 01 ms nome town to ve at his nome-commg. A strange way to welcome1' aa i -vunviuv. T eow ZZZZTTZ TT' 3t. rr.'r t.CVZ ' 22ilS5i: 7X5 Pw. ? JS th- rhe hook ntains about 20 poemsn pew written in the author's Girlhood I lays, hnt most of them in later tit t is neatly printed, and has a pi of the author. I will send yon i yx w"w x w imw lxjj u w m xor gooa measure aiv ther little book entitled "An Auto dogaphical Sketch of James LarMs eairson," giving a complete history 4 The Fool-Killer and its edited Mrs. Cora Wallace Pearson. Boomcj?, N C.
The Fool-Killer (Pores Knob, N.C.)
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Jan. 1, 1922, edition 1
4
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