By Rev. Barney Thames
Where was Christ last night? I can tell you where he wasn’t. He wasn’t a chaperone to the dance held by the local Elks at the Automobile Show last night, neither was He present for such an hour. If Jesus Christ the Son of the living God, crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended and coming again for the salvation and glorification of both soul and body—had walked out on that dance floor, every mother’s son of the crowd would have melted like a lukewarm snow in a fiery furnace.
It is nothing short of dingy, dirty, cowardly, dastardly shame and reproach on any community for a group of God-dishonoring, Christ-forsaking men to pull such a stunt, knowing that to do so was against the mind and will and perfect conscience of every God-fearing and Christ-loving man and woman in our city. Respects to Chaperones
“Oh,” you say, “we were well chaperoned.” Yes, you were chaperoned, but by whom? If any of those chaperones get to heaven, they shall most certainly roost on the lowest limbs of the tree of life. Yes, you were chaperoned—but Jesus didn’t chaperone you. He wasn’t there. He will not be there. Jesus Christ has never attended a dance. You never heard of Him being there. You never saw Him there. You never knew a lost soul to be converted at a dance. But many a saved innocent soul has been damned by your hellish daggers. YOU NEVER SAW AN ATTENDER UPON THE DANCES WHO WAS A SOUL WINNER TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
“It’s none of your business,” I hear you say, “Keep your mouth shut.”
But just a minute—I’m taking my orders not from Rome, but from the throne of God eternal in the heavens. God called me—no man had anything to do with that. He empowered me, sent me forth, placed my feet on the walls of Zion, put his Message in my heart and said, “Speak it, young man, ‘ere I require at your hands to blood of those to whom I have called you to minister.” And I cannot but speak His revelations to me concerning such wickedness of men. “If God be for me, who can be against me?” If any man shall raise his hand against me, God will smite him, call the undertaker, pallbearers and mourners, slip his body beneath the cold sod, and send me on my way with the message of the King. There are not enough devils in hell and on earth to stop the love message of the flaming evangel.
God Speaks
We saw Elijah at work for the King last night at the Second Baptist church, as Dr. Peele followed the prophet’s unique career. Elijah was the kind of man God loved. The type of men headed in our churches in our city. Elijah stood for SOMETHING—for the Lord God Almighty, first, last and always. You recall the wickedness of that old bloody, cowardly king, Ahab. How he established Baal worship throughout the kingdom, “And did more to revoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the Kings of Israel that went before him. How Elijah challenged Ahab, saying “As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not rain nor dew these years, but according to my word.” How that God directed Elijah to flee to the brook Cherith, where He fed and watered, cared for and prepared him for Mt. Carmel. How God further directed him to the widow at Zerephath, where she baked for him a little cake first.
Brave Elijah . . . .
From the front page of The Goldsboro News, May 9, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn93064755/1925-05-09/ed-1/seq-2/#words=MAY+9%2C+1925
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