Good teaching, it is said, "combines learning with doing," and is progressive. Therefore in teaching new believers the standards of Christian living and conduct, we ought to employ sound educational procedure to reach the desired end. It follows that as the candidate for church membership has been led step by step into the knowledge and acceptance of the general teachings of the church, so must he be led into an experimental knowledge and practice of denominational standards.
The standards here referred to are those great reforms which every Christian is expected to make when his pattern of living experiences a conversion from the carnal to the spiritual life. Among these may be named reforms in apparel, diet, speech, conduct, thinking, and such like. To bring these reforms into practice and establish them as habits of conduct in the lives of new believers is the goal of the Master's workmen.
An example of this recommended procedure seems to be found in the conversion of Babylon's great king. When Nebuchadnezzar learned by what divine power the Hebrews he examined had gained superiority in knowledge over their competing fellows, he was impressed. So serious were his impressions that after their training was over the king quite willingly assigned the wise Daniel and his fellows leading roles in state affairs in the empire.
When Daniel recalled and interpreted the forgotten dream, the king was convinced. The superiority of the Hebrew God over the gods of the Babylonians was easily admitted by the king, because he had been convinced. (Dan. 2:47.)
The miraculous deliverance of the three Hebrews from the fiery rage of the king sent a humbling conviction into his heart. That conviction and humility lingered with the proud monarch. and explains his patronizing manner toward the hesitant Daniel when the vision of the great tree was interpreted.
Returning to sanity after seven years of humility, the degraded king recalled his past experience with the God of the Hebrews and the oft-repeated pleas of his Hebrew prime minister. It was enough. The king yielded; and his conversion is revealed in his own testimony.
Daniel 4 is more than the king's acknowledgment of faith in God and his allegiance to Him. It is a statement showing the culmination of his experiences with God. It is the story of the king's personal effort to place before the people of his world empire the benefits he had derived in learning to serve the true God—a missionary service to a nation by its monarch. It is God's declaration of the gospel of salvation to all the world through a converted heathen, at a time when His chosen people had failed of their mission. Chapter four of Daniel shows again the primary truth that even God utilizes the warm willingness of new believers to make known to others the things they have learned of salvation; and that He has left us this example as one of the master methods by which sinners may be taught the ways of God. This method every workman for God should be ever alert to employ.
Even a casual listening to•the preaching of God's special message for this time will leave the average person impressed. Any conscientious person sitting through a series of messages on Christ's Second Advent would very likely be convinced. The truly Christian person hearing present truth will soon find himself under deep conviction to unite with the heralds of this message. But it is experimenting with the providence of God that makes practical the teachings of the standard truths of God's last great message.
It is encumbent upon workers for God to lead all new converts into training which combines learning with doing as one of the divine methods of effectively teaching him denominational standards.
One never sees more clearly the necessity of being an example of the Christian he wishes another to become than when he attempts to lead others to God. No learning is more thorough than that which one gains to conscientiously impart. Nothing does more to cause one to learn truthfully and accurately the standard teachings of this people than to lead the new believer to work for the salvation of his associates as soon after his conversion as is practical.
