A Jot From John
To stay from the church services because we have so many other engagements and so little strength left is like staying away from the table because we are so weak and hungry, and it takes all our time to clean up and wash dishes. The church is the place to get spiritual strength from other duties, just as the table is a place to get bodily strength.
I truly believe that attending church services will refresh one who is tired. It will take his mind from the busy affairs of this life and center it in the Lamb from which strength issues. He will leave the services stronger than he was before he went and physically refreshed from the toils of the day. The average person doesn’t think about this. Have you ever thought of it in this light? What do many think the Lord’s church is anyway?
It is wrong for us to become so involved in the business of this busy world that we have no time left for the things of God. Jesus commanded, in the great sermon on the mount, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God with its righteousness, and these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt. 6:33). Dear friends, do you believe this? God will not forsake those who seek him. He is to be sought, found, and placed above all else. If we do not, then we are evaluating the perishables of time above the everlasting riches of the next life.
I know that religion has slipped a long way from the original pattern. One man said, “I do not go to church anymore because I can get what the church has to offer in better form elsewhere.” Now this gentleman thought he had found the one excuse that could not be overthrown. Had he? Certainly not! When the church gets into the business of offering the world what the world already has, it is in the wrong business. But many churches have done just that. That is why they have quit having Sunday night services and Wednesday night Bible study. That is why their people have forsaken them for other things. The church can’t put on a stage show comparable to what professional entertainers can do. But many have gone into the entertaining business. They have forgotten the gospel which is “the power of God unto salvation.” (Rom. 1:16). When they do that, they have no right to exist.
But, when the church stays in its proper place, ministering to the needs of the souls of men, it has that to offer which nothing in the world can match. In fact, it offers that which the world must have. The world cannot do without it. However, the church should remember that when it comes to entertaining, putting on shows trying to appeal to the sensual natures of men, and some do, it cannot hold a light to the world. The world is well educated in such things, and the church is not. So let the church stay in the business which God assigned it to promote. And it is not the promotion of worldliness.
In what other institution can the children of men have the assurance that they have in the church of our Lord. The church offers the world what the world cannot get from any other source!
Onward Rejoicing, John B. Daniels, Associate Minister
