JOINING THE CHURCH

OBJECTS: Seven Cards with the Letter "I" Printed
on them

This is a lesson showing the importance and value of joining the local church after the heart has been given away to Jesus. There are some people who think that this is an act purely voluntary. Do as you please they think is the thing to do, and so they dismiss the question as settled. The fact is they do not understand the arithmetic of the New Testament.

There 2 and 1 make more than three. Joining the church enables the Christian to count more than one. There is power in organization. I may take a piece of red silk, also a piece of white and blue, and I can shoot them full of holes—no one will object. They stand for nothing. They are simply a piece of personal property. I may do as I please with them all. But, if these three colors are united and made over into a flag, then, the man who shoots them full of holes must answer to the government of the United States, for every soldier and marine is pledged to protect those colors from harm. They are organized into a flag. They mean more than simple strips of colors.

To illustrate this big fact, secure seven large cards and have on each one the figure "1" painted, making it as large as possible. Distribute them to children in various parts of the church, avoid giving two children in one row each a card. The children holding the cards represent the Christian who declared that he can be "just as good a Christian outside the church as in it," and so stays outside of organized relationship. Now ask them to give you the number on their cards, and they all exclaim "Number one." That is all they stand for, "Number one." That really means they stand for themselves and by themselves. They stand for "one," themselves. This is just what "Number One" looks like. They represent nobody, they are independent units, they stand alone: they have but small representative power.

Some years ago when the West was a child, a little boy wandered away from his prairie home, and was lost in the tall grass, and could not be found. His parents and neighbors started on a searching expedition to find him. They all went in different directions, and after a day-long search came back without the child. They could not find him by individual searching. The next day they formed a line each in sight of the other and, like a net, swept the prairie, and within two hours the lad was found and brought home to his sorrowing parents. They failed as individuals—they succeeded as a united body. God knew this first, and so established his church, where unity of action could do more than independent service.

Now ask the children to come to the platform, and stand them in a line holding the figure "one" side by side. Once they stood for one only, now united they stand for one million one hundred and eleven thousand one hundred and eleven. This is the large reason why all Christians should join the church, and thereby multiply many times their value to their Master and his Kingdom.

If you are a Christian make the most of yourself, and you can do this by coming into church relationship with the brotherhood of Christians. A young convert gave as his reason for joining the church the following: "If I was going to Chicago on the Broadway express and had my ticket straight through to my destination, including the comforts of a Pullman car, and then stood outside on the platform all night, standing up and facing the storm, what a miserable man I would prove myself to be, and what a faulty thinker I would also be. But I am going to get all my ticket grants me. I will go inside and take all the pleasure and comfort of the journey. So I am going into the church and take all my salvation has provided for me. I will no longer stand on the platform of the world. I want the best and all of it." He was right. Get all that is coming to you, and get it now. Come inside; you are entitled to a seat.

Years ago a boy, sixteen years old, came into New York City, with a pack on his back containing all his belongings. He was a stranger in a great city. Wandering through the streets one night, he saw a lighted church with open doors, heard sweet singing from within. He entered uninvited except by the open door. He heard the story of Jesus and was saved. At once he offered himself for baptism, and was received into church-membership. There the lad was trained and schooled in righteousness. He became a great man. His name was William Colgate, the founder of the great firm bearing his name. He died worth millions, most of which he gave to his church, and left a name that will never die. His influence permeated the denomination that he honored as the perfume from his shops has permeated the world. The Colgate Perfume Company of which he was the first member, gathered its first sweetness from the Rose of Sharon that he found in the Lord's sweet garden—the church of the First-born.

Before you dismiss the children and send them to their seats, pray that God may deepen the lesson of the hour so it may sink into their hearts, and charge the children to go and govern themselves accordingly.