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^Strong Man’s” Child Sits Up Alone At 17 Days Old Sunday School Lesson LESSON 1Ï PREPARING FOR A LIFE OF SERVICE.-â€"Mark 1:1-13 Goldeei Textâ€"Make ye ready the â- way of the Lord. Mark. 1:3. THE LESSON IN ITS SETTING Time.â€"We do not know exactly when John the Baptist began his preaching, but it is generally assign- ed to the summer and fall of A.D. 26, while the baptism of Jesus took place in January, A.D. 27, and was immediately followed by the tempta- tion. Place. â€"- John’s preaching took place in Judaea., the southern part of Palestine, which included the city of Jerusalem, though most of it was probably done on the -eastern side of Judaea in the Wilderness -near the Jordan River, where also Christ was baptized, and somewhere near which, possibly on the eastern side of the Jordan River, he was tempted. 1, The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.: This verse is a super- scription or title, not for the first fifteen verses of Mark’s Gospel, but for the entire book. All that Mark records, may be considered only as the beginning 'of the gospel of Christ. The word ‘gospel” meant simply “good news.” In the phrase “the gos- pel of Jesus Christ” we are to under- stand the proposition “of” to mean “1er gospel which concerns the Lord Jesus Christ,”: the message of good new. which men would never have hear !, and which never would have had an existence, except through the life and work of Jesus Christ. In the very title “Jesus Christ” is the gospel deeply embedded, for the fact that .there would come One to deliver Mrpeople, a prophet.speaking' for God, all axe to be taken as not only good news, but the greatest of good news. The Son of God. Mark and the early Christians knew the Lord Jesus to be the very Son of God, partaking of God" - nature, of his power, of his holiness,, of his wisdom, the only be- gotten Son of the Father. John, the Baptist 2. Eveft as :h. is"written in Isaiah the prophet. The two passages here quoted are, from Mai. 3:1 and Isa. 40:1', Professor Lenski well reminds ns that Mark, by referring only to Isaiah; and indeed the form of this prophet’s words makes them most valuable The words from Malachi and: ridded as of. life nature. Behold, I senij my messenger before thy face, who -shall prepare thé way.” The Fa- the: i£1 actually speaking to the Son concerning the messenger who was to â- 3 f, ns com- precede iiïM and jjr<? i:ng 3. The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Literally, the wilderness here referred-fo was that great desert including the whole eastern portion Cf Judaea, and extending on both sides of the Jordan River. “In this very wilderness Elijah made his last appearance. John was a living illus- tration of how little man really needs here below, something we are prone to forget;,” Make ye ready the way of the Lord,- -make his -paths straight. Jose- phus, when describing a march of Vespasian, says that with the van- guard of an Oriental procession were ‘such, as were to make the road oven and straight, and, if it were anywhere rough and hard to be passed over, to plane it, and to cut down the woods that hindered their march, that the army might not be tired’.”â€"Thomas M. Lindsay. 4. John came, who baptized in the wilderness and. preached the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins. The word “repentance” means “to turn around,” “to change one’s mind,” “to reverse one’s attitude and verdict.” It is not here said that baptism will secure the remission of sins, but that baptism was a public recognition that;;, the heart had re- pented of sin. Baptism for adults, unless there is repentance and a washing away of sins by the I.oid Jesus, is of no value whatever, but really a mockery. 6. And John was clothed with cam- el's-hair. This probably means that John wore a long, loose robe woven from camel’s hair, a garment of coarse texture often worn by the ex- treme poor. And had a leathern girdle about his loins. “The girdle kept the robe from flapping apart, and enabled il; to be tucked up for rapid walking."' 8. And did ocusts and wild honey. “Th* rmitted the use, for food, ol md certain large kinds of ; ” “There Cometh After Me” 7. And he preached, saying, There cometh after me he that is mightier th*v.i I. John here implies that he too is strong, the divine strength of the word having been given to him. The latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. In an Oriental household it was the task of the slave to stoop down and unloose the thongs which bound the sandals of a guest or the slave’s mas- ter to their feet, and John here ack- nowledges that there is such an in- finite difference between Christ in all of his glory and perfectness and him- self in all of his human limitations that, though he is gladly the servant of Christ, it is only by the grace of God that he is such, for in himself he is not worthy even to perform a me- nial task for the Lord Jesus Christ. 8. I baptized you in water; but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit. The contrast between the work of the Baptist and that of the Messiah amounts to this, that the mightier One who is to follow John will do the real work of which the Baptist is able to perform only the sign. Water cleanses only the body. But the Holy Spirit is the element in which man is cleansed inwardly and really, arid it is this real baptism which the coming One was to per- form.” Jesus Baptized 9. And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee. Nazareth was located midway between the Lake of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea. Arid was baptized of John in the Jordan. “Jesus recognizes that the office of John was of divine appointment. Though he had no personal need of baptism, by refusing or neglecting it he would (if he had not been baptiz- ed) have cast discredit upon the work of John.” Furthermore, our Lord formally identified himself with the human race in its sin and degra- dation. 10. And straightway. Coming- up put of the water, he saw the heavens rent asunder, and the Spirit as a dove descending upon him. The appear- ance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove is indicative of the gentle- ness and pureness of the One upon whom the Holy Spirit rested. .11. And a voice came out of the heavens, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee 1 am well pleased. This is the first of three declarations heard from heaven; the second being at the transfiguration and thé third being just before the passion of our Lord. There can be no question that the voice here heard was the voice of none other than God the Father. Of no other person in all -Metos* were these words spoken- from heav- en, or could they be literally true. And straightway the Spirit driveth him forth into the wilderness. The strong urge of the Spirit met the con- sent of Jesus. He did not go into this temptation against his will. Yet Je- sus did not throw himself into this temptation of his own accord, Jesus was brought into it by his Father’s own Spirit. This means that his temptation had to be, and at this very time . It was God’s will to have his Son’s ministry begin with this mighty battle against Satan and with the resultant victory. 13, And he was in the wilderness forty days. Forty is almost always in the Scriptures used as a symbol of testing, of trial, of suffering, of pun- ishment. Christ could not be tempt- ed in his divine nature, for God can never be tempted to evil. The temp- tation relates only to the human na- ture of the Lord Jesus. And he was with the wild beasts. By inserting this phrase Mark probably intends only to emphasize the loneliness and the wildness of the environment in which Jesus was tempted. And the angels ministered unto him. Discover Former Map-makers Out Cartographers of old were none too accurate because of the crude instru- ments upon which they were forced to depend, and within recent years» many maps have had to be re-shaped. Recently, two young Englishmen, R. «T. Ã". Gray and P. D. Baird, mem- bers of a Cambridge University ex- pedition, re-surveyed the western coastline of Baffin Land and discov- ered that former map makers were out to the extent of 2,000 square miles of land too little. Wallace “Whatababe” Gough, 17 days -old, of Fort Wor th, Tex., sits up without assistance. Son of a professional strong man, Wallace has even attempted walking. Cjê Radio fin By VIRGINIA DALE ^ The best motion picture o£ years, according to the figures on h- cash registers, is “Nothing Sacred.” Tin mad and merry story through which Carole Lombard and Fredric March scalable draws such crowds to- thea- tres wherever it plays that engage- ments are being extended even in smaller towns where two-day show- ings are the usual rule. In big cities, it looks as it “Nothing Sacred.” had settled down to spend the whole win-, tev. Carole plays the role of village beauty who comes into national prominence when a doctor says that she has radium poison- ing and will live but briefly. They soon find that he was mistaken, but ill the meantime a metro- politan newspaper has assigned one of their reporters, Fredric March, to fill her last days with enough excite- :or the paper. lAkv.j fun at night çlùbs, pu gullibfe .public. n a n- .la; ion builder pen-piously the picture ; ie wspaÿfe; • . doctors, dicity seekers, .win’ .'.he New combinations of stars W* proven, so popular at the box offlt; that Hollywood producers are vyir with each other thinking up extravj gant star-studded casts for their nf pictures. Columbia is going to ha! Grace Moore share top billing Edith Fello.wes, whose singing ük“I; tie Miss Roughneck’’ is a thrilling sj prise. Bing Crosby and Fred MacMi ray are going to be learned in “Hi mony for Three.” Jack Benny is | ing to abandon musicals for once | appear opposite glamor-girl Francis Gaal in “Never Say Die.” Before starting his picture for W ner Brothers, Rudy Vallée rush back to; New York for a night cl engagement. Popular as ever, it ri more so, he drew such crowds HI hundreds'! were turned away. One 0 friend who managed to get a rings! fable was Frances Langford. Calf to the stage to be introduced to V crowd, Frances told, with tel streaming unashamedly down cheeks, how much it meant to b^_ have Rudy Vallee send for her a f: years ago to sing on his progfaih. : Gonzaga University certainly start something when it awarded Bing Cr by a doctor’s degree in music. N Northwestern university is going ; bestow the honorary degree of “D: tor of Innuendo and Snappy Cor back” on Charlie McCarthy. Ed? Bergen, Charlie's mentor, worked way through college at this sa. Northwestern by presenting Chat in shows. Leopold Stokowski is slated to ceive various honorary awards for trancing the cause of classical n? on the screen in “One Hundred and a Girl,” But Stokowski believes that Mickey House can do even more to popularize great music. He has of- fered to arrange and direct the score of “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” for Mickey. Don’t -be surprised if it is advertised as “One Hundred Men and a Mouse.” Bette Davis is hours a day to 'ïfr : " «f I -..-rAl .-t , Bette *)av rs â€"co-stars...nine were all with the O’Neill was i,h painted scenery usher. going to school two learn just the right Southern accent for “Jezebel” and Pro- fessor Dalton Rey- mond, formerly of Louisiana State uni- versity, reports that she is progressing .wonderfully. .Inci- dentally, one of the â-  . » small voim; in this picture, is play- ed by Henry O’Neill who knew Bette Da- vis and Henry Fonda years ago when they' Cape Cod Playhouse.! s star. then. Fonda s,i;d Eetix; 'was - an Odds and Ends “Three on a" Match,” the--picture that launched Joan Blondell, Bette Davis and Ann Dvorak toward star- dom will be re-made featuring Warner Brother’s newest discoveries, Lada Turner, Gloria Dickson and Mary Mi guire . . . The bearded outlaws i| ‘ Robin Hood” had to clank tankard of root beer instead of the ale th script called for, because Bidwej Park, where the scenes were tilme 3 I I Is This Yd By WHAT THE STARS FO! JANUARY 7, was'endowed, by à prohibitionist . . . Jean Hersholt’s scripts for “Dr. Chris- tian” are rapidly becoming treasured items of collectors. Thé:veteran screen star, graduate of the Copenhagen Arts school, covers the margins with sketches during re&earsal . . , Spen- cer Bentley played both Betty and Bob on a Vecent broadcast when Betty Relier fainted just, before broadcast time. Early in his stage career, he -clid a female impersonation act, so he wasn’t nervous., Indians In North Use “Stop Signs” Indians in Canada’s northland have learned to use “stop signs,” Pilot Er- nie Kubicelt reported last week. He said an elaborate one, consisting of spruce boughs flanked by two bon- fires, had beeri- used to stop him while •he flew his United Air Transport mail plane in the Yukon just f the Alaskan boundary. “We were flying from L _ 'ost to Whitehorse and were ^-100 miles out when my co-pilot, . may Trowadell, saw the smoke and- then the sign,” said Kribicek. “We didn’t know what to makg-ol it, but decided that it must bo an emergency of some kind, so.we went down to see. The Indians told us they "**-'* their message