Ah, my boy, you see what staying away from church does. It develops a habit of lying. There isn’t one man in a hundred who could go on the witness stand and give, under oath, the same reasons for not going to church that he gives to his family every Sunday morning. My son, if you didn’t think you ought to go, you wouldn’t make any excuses for not going. No man apologizes for doing right.
A young man from the country went to New York to engage in business. The first Sunday he visited the old Wall Street church, and was invited by Robert Lenox, the president of the Bible Society, to a seat in his pew. The next morning he went to buy leather to start shoe-making. When he asked for credit, the merchant asked: “Did I not see you yesterday in Mr. Lenox’s pew?” “I don’t know, sir; I was at church, and a kind gentleman asked me to sit in his pew.” “Yes, young man, that was Robert Lenox. I’ll trust anyone that Mr. Lenox invites into his pew. You need not trouble yourself about references. When the goods are gone, come and get more.” “The attendance at church that Sunday,” said this young man in after years, “was the means of my becoming a prominent successful merchant, and contributor to the support of God’s house.”
A humble brickmason who confessed Christ united with His people. Rising in meeting, he stated the reason that prompted him to this step. “I used to think,” he said, “that I could be as good out of the church as in it. I felt that I was moral and upright and had as clean a character as the next man; but one day while walking by a building under construction, I happened to see a new but dirty brick lying in the road useless and neglected. ‘There,’ said I to myself, ‘are you, Henry Crane, thinking you are as good a brick out of the church as if you were in it. But you are of no account to anybody, and nobody cares anything for you. You are lying around in everybody’s way, and nobody cares to step over you; they all tread you down into the mud as if you were a stone. If you were built into the wall, as you ought to be, you would amount to something, and have an honest man’s place. Then you would be of some use.’ So I made up my mind that I would not be like that brick any longer. That is why I have come out on the Lord’s side and joined the Lord’s people, that I may be built into the wall and have a place in the building of God.”
WHY ATTEND AND UNITE WITH THE CHURCH?
To attend and be a member of a church should be considered a pleasure rather than pain, a privilege rather than duty. Some boys go because they are compelled by parents who are members. They laugh and talk, instead of worshipping God. Without a blessing they enter the sacred place, without a blessing they leave.
The most sacred entrance to the Kremlin, in Moscow, is called the “Redeemer Gate,” because there is hung in it a picture of the Saviour—a picture of great sanctity. Even the Emperor has to uncover his head as he passes through this gate. The passage under the gate is long, but even in a terrific snow storm every one is compelled to uncover his head. It is said that when Napoleon refused to take his hat off while passing before the sacred picture, a sudden gust of wind took it off for him. God’s House is sacred. There He manifests Himself, having declared, “Ye shall reverence My Sanctuary: I am the Lord.” (Lev. 19:30). And Jesus said: “My House shall be called the House of prayer.” (Matt. 21:13).
The blessedness derived from attending and uniting with the church exceeds the blessedness of everything else. God’s Word approves it. Nehemiah said, “We will not forsake the House of our God.” (Neh. 10:39). David said, “How amiable are Thy Tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! my heart longeth, yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” (Ps. 84:42). Paul exhorts not to forsake “the assembling of ourselves together.” (Heb. 10:25).
It is at church where God says: “There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat.” (Ex. 25:22). It is there God provides a spiritual feast of good things for the soul. “He brought me,” said Solomon, “to the banqueting house and His banner over me was love.” (Cant. 2:4). It is here He reveals His glory: “I will glorify the House of My glory,” (Isa. 60:7) said God. Jesus declared, “There am I in the midst.” (Matt. 18:20). Because of this General O. O. Howard stood the scoffs and sneers at West Point, and said: “I gripped my Bible, shut my teeth and went for my mother’s and Jesus’ sake.”
To unite with the church is proper and profitable. It is one of the ways of confessing Christ. That beautiful character, Henry Drummond, united with the church at twelve. How interesting to read his first experience in taking part in meeting. “In prayer,” he wrote, “I trembled in voice and all through. Voice seemed not my own. I had outlined the prayer during the afternoon, but didn’t remember it.” Little by little however he became a man who had great liberty in addressing God and pleading with man.
Many men who live without uniting with the church do not want to die out of it. When the great shipbuilder John Roach was struck with a mortal illness, he said. “I want to be received into the church.” Let any Christian boy consider carefully that out of seven millions of young men in this land, only two-thirds attend church and only one-twelfth belong, and he will say with General Grant when baptized by Bishop Newman, “O that I might live for years, that I might show the joys of being a consistent member of the church.” Church relationship, my boy, creates holy desires and aspirations, augments power for doing good, throws a magic uplifting influence around others and extends the kingdom of Christ on earth.