Years ago I was a somewhat 'new' Christian, yet one who was very much involved in the Church, and studied the Bible extensively, and had a Sunday school class of Junior high boys. A friend of mine there in the Church wanted to do some work on the church library. The library was small and he wanted to increase it and make it better.
He got the approval of the church leaders to go ahead with the work. The leaders showed him all the books of the library, and some still stored in boxes. They instructed him that he would have to do a lot of shelf building to present all the books they had. But that was no problem as he also was given a larger room in the Church in which to do just that. My friend was very efficient in the work he did.
He called me up one evening and asked me if I would come to the church as he wanted to show me something. He had been going through the books that had been stored. Most were books not having to do with anything about Jesus Christ. And some were immoral books, 'romantic novels'. They found their way into the library because they had been donated by some family on the basis of one who had just died. In other words, 'dedicated by the family of John Smith'. But they were terrible books. And so many dedicated by so many families over the years.
Neither my friend or me wanted these books in the new library. But we also knew these were dedicated by the church members who knew everyone in the church. We knew if we took it to the church that they would have the books placed in the library. My friend asked me, what should we do?
I told him we need to just get rid of them. Don't ask or say anything to anyone. We knew a place out in the country near a river and went there and camped out all night. Started a fire and burnt everyone one of them. If you have never burnt a book, it's not easy. It takes a long time. But we burnt them all. And never said a word.
My friend continued on with the work on the library and made a very good one filled with good Christian books. And no one ever asked or mentioned any 'missing books' in the old library.
Let every man answer to his own conscience, but I never lost any sleep over it. I personally think we were doing the Lord's work that night.
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