Memory Verse: Urging Believers to Attend Church

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” -Hebrews 10:23-25.

Maybe you’ve heard someone say, “I was brought up to go to church!” If so, listen to find out why. First, it is an admonition from the Word of God on how we should conduct the Christian life—with love for and faithfulness to the church. Jesus said that “upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Jesus was referring to the confession Peter made when he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). To assemble ourselves together with other believers helps us affirm jointly that Christ is Lord. The church has no power to save us, but through the church we learn who Jesus is and come to accept Him as Savior and Lord.

In the focal passage from Hebrews we learn that the church has a mission to “stir up love and good works” among fellow believers. There we can help each other to understand the Word and in time together for study, prayer and worship, and then go forth to live out the love of Christ in our own lives, and to do good works. Christians strengthen and encourage each other. We also help as we are taught and then may become teachers ourselves.

I am glad that even as a child I loved to go to the house of the Lord. To be absent from the “assembling of ourselves together” was a felt loss in my week and on Sunday. In retrospect, I can see that this early love for going to Sunday School, worship services and mission meetings at my church was preparing me for future work the Lord had in mind for me to do. I never dreamed as a young child that one day God would want me to be the wife of a minister and assist in the teaching ministries of the churches he served and the mission work to which he was called.

Hebrews advises strongly: “Hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,” and to “not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some.” This desire to be in the house of the Lord worshiping and studying should be a hunger of the soul. If that love for the church is no longer in your heart and practice, unless it is because of ill health or other necessary cause, I would say “beware!” A wise Christian leader taught me: “God does not move away from the believer unless first the believer strays from God.” There should be a strong desire to go into the house of the Lord. As we read in Psalm 122:1: “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord.’ “ If that joy is not with you, ask yourself “Why?” Seek God’s forgiveness and find a congregation of believers where you can experience the worship and fellowship the verses from Hebrews 10:23-25 teach, and the exuberance and praise that Psalm 122:1 radiates.

Dr. Vance Havner, a great minister of the gospel, wrote: “There is something wrong with our Christianity when we have to beg most of our crowd to come to church to hear about it.”

I love the words and music to the hymn, “Come All Christians, Be Committed.” Eva B. Lloyd wrote the words and James H. Wood adapted the tune “Beach Spring” from the Sacred Harp to go with her words on the same theme as we read in our focal passage for today.

“Come all Christians, be committed To the service of the Lord.

Make your lives for Him more fitted, Tune your hearts with one accord.

Come into His courts with gladness, Each His sacred vows renew,

Turn away from sin and sadness, Be transformed with life anew.” Amen!

-Ethelene Dyer Jones 06.26.2016

Joy in Going to the House of the Lord

“I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” - Psalm 122:1 (ESV) [Read Psalm 121]

A ‘Psalm of Ascents’ or a pilgrim psalm, this psalm, attributed to David as author, celebrates going up to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. It has become a doxology for all peoples everywhere who worship God and who enjoy going to the church house dedicated to the worship and gathering of His people.

Within the psalm which calls the people to worship is also a poignant reminder: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers!” (Psalm 122:6-7).

A few years ago Billy Graham’s daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, went to Jerusalem, and standing on the hill overlooking Mt. Zion and the temple mount, she made a plea to Christians everywhere to pray daily for a whole month for the peace of Jerusalem, quoting Psalm 122:6. We know the distress and troubles that sacred city has known almost since its founding. Because of its importance to both the Jewish and the Christian believers, it is held in great regard throughout the world, and people are eager to hear of news of the city and its inhabitants. “Peace” (shalom in Hebrew) means more than absence of strife. It also means health, well-being, wholeness. “Salem”, meaning “place of peace,” was the original name for the city when Abraham met the priest Melchizedec there and the priest blessed Abraham (see Genesis 14:18). Jerusalem is a place many pilgrims from many lands and throughout the ages, even to our present day, want to travel to and see. It was my privilege in 1978 to visit the Holy Land with my husband, the Rev. Grover D. Jones. A special sense of sacredness and deep spiritual thoughts come to any pilgrims who can visit this city which has seen centuries of history unfold, both religious and secular. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” foresees the day when the new Jerusalem is established and the Lord reigns, a time when Jerusalem comes into its fullness and “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Isaiah 45:23; Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10).

We gain experience in bowing before and worshiping the Lord God as we gather in our congregations and worship God together in concert and individually as believers. Strength and faith come from genuine worship. Since childhood, I have been “glad,” as the psalmist so aptly expressed, when it was time to go to the house of the Lord to worship. For those who claim they can worship as well alone as within a congregation, I do not doubt—if only we will. But there is strength in numbers gathered to adore and praise the Lord. The poet Henry van Dyke (1852-1933) expressed our desire to worship in the house of the Lord in corporate adoration as he penned the words of the hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” Set to the lofty “Hymn to Joy” tune by Ludwig van Beethoven (1170-1827), our hearts are lifted as we rejoice and sing:

     “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,/God of glory, Lord of love;

     Hearts unfold like flow’rs before Thee,/Op-‘ning to the sun above.

     Melt the clouds of sin and sadness,/Drive the dark of doubt away;

     Giver of immortal gladness,/Fill us with the light of day!”

    “All Thy works with joy surround Thee,/Earth and heav’n reflect Thy rays;

    Stars and angels sing around Thee,/ Center of unbroken praise.

    Field and forest, vale and mountain,/ Flow’ry meadow, flashing sea,

    Singing bird and flowing fountain/Call us to rejoice in Thee!” Amen!

And all the people said, “Amen!” -Ethelene Dyer Jones 05.01.2016

Going to the House of the Lord

“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good.” –Psalm 122:1, 9. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple.” –Psalm 27:4. “For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. –Psalm 84:10. “And daily in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to tech and preach Jesus Christ.” –Acts 5:42. (KJV).

Going to the house of the Lord—for worship, praise, prayer, learning, listening, being challenged in the Christian life, for quietness and meditation, knowing that God is God, enjoying Christian fellowship! When it comes time to go to church, are you like the psalmist who exulted, “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord’ ”?

Each cited scripture above exclaims with what gladness the writers considered going to the house of the Lord and what a privilege for the worshiper. Even a lowly task, that of a doorkeeper, one who greeted people when they came to worship and bade them farewell when they left worship to go from the temple or sanctuary or place of worship into the work-a-day life, even a doorkeeper is better than considering wealthy dwellings of wickedness. And when the early Christians met to worship, even the threat of being jailed and persecuted (a very real possibility), they “daily in the temple and in every house” did not cease to meet, to teach and to preach Jesus Christ.

What has happened in our modern age to take away the love for and the help from assembling ourselves together at the house of the Lord? What has occurred to harden our hearts and remove our zeal for the church? I have heard many excuses as I have tried to encourage persons to renew their faithfulness to the Lord and their faithful attendance at church. The writer of Hebrews 10:25 admonishes: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is: but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as we see the day approaching.”

Some of the excuses offered for non attendance at church are: “I work on Sunday”—or “I work hard during the week, and I must sleep-in or rest on Sundays.” Another is “I can worship as well at home or wherever I am on the Lord’s day; I don’t have to go to church to worship.” Then this excuse, a bit more bitter: “I don’t like to associate with those ‘hypocrites’ at church.” Still others claim, “I can hear good sermons on television or radio; it’s not necessary for me to go to church.” And the excuses go on.

A person must develop his/her own commitment to the Lord that includes a love and longing for fellowship with other Christians in the house of the Lord, the church. For me, this is vital and necessary. I pray that, if going to church is not a regular and necessary part of your spiritual life, that you will pray about it until you, like the psalmist, can exclaim: “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord!” On this Lord’s day, I am eager to got to church and worship! -Ethelene Dyer Jones 11.15.2015

A Day for Rest and Worship

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. “ –Exodus 20:8-11 (ESV)

In the first statement of this commandment recorded in Exodus 20:8-11, a reason for rest on the seventh day of the week is in remembrance of God’s resting after He had completed creation. For the second listing of the commandment about the Sabbath, see Deuteronomy 5:12:14. In it a reason for keeping the Sabbath is in remembrance of the Israelites’ deliverance from Egyptian bondage. In the wilderness wanderings, it was forbidden that the people gather manna on the seventh day but that they gather enough on the sixth day to last for two days. It is interesting to note that a system of working six days had already been established by the time the Ten Commandments were given. This was as God had done in creating the heaven and the earth and all within them. On the seventh day God rested. It was beneficial that man, too, rest on the seventh day. The seventh day became a day of worship as well as a day of rest. 

 

Leviticus states that a ‘holy convocation’ (for worship) was to be declared for the Sabbath day.  Thus worship began to be observed on the Sabbath Day. In the New Testament we read that Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath Day to worship: “And He came to Nazareth where He had been brought up. And as was His custom, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and He stood up to read” (Luke 4:16). Also in the New Testament, we learn that Christians began to observe the first day of the week as a day holy unto the Lord and for worship, in commemoration of the Resurrection of the Lord on the first day of the week: “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked to them…” (Acts 20:7a). “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,” wrote John in Revelation 1:10a.

Why did the observance of the Sabbath become so burdened down with “thou shalt nots” for Jewish worshipers? The observance of the Sabbath became somewhat the heart of the law. Prohibitions became burdensome. Some, like tying and untying a knot (as work) were enforced, and others as well were added to what was permitted and not permitted. By Jesus’ day, the practice of keeping account of Sabbath rule-breaking was so prevalent that Jesus was prompted to say: “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28). This occurred after his disciples, hungry on the Sabbath, plucked some grain from a field they passed and were criticized. Lest anyone think they were “stealing,” as well as plucking grain (working) on the Sabbath, the Deuteronomic law allowed for anyone hungry to gather enough grain from a field to assuage hunger (see Deuteronomy 23:25). 

 

What shall we say of the Sabbath as it relates to Christian practice? Sunday, the first day of the week, is observed as a day of rest and worship. We are to consider the day set aside for the work of the Lord and for gathering in assembly to study God’s word and worship. Our society has made work on Sunday almost a necessity and a way of life. We ought to seek a time to set aside for worship and a day to rest. Hebrews 4:1-11 speaks of the Sabbath Day as a foretaste of the heavenly rest to come when we are gathered into the eternal kingdom. We should say with conviction about Sunday and the day of corporate worship: “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord” (Psalm 122:1). -Ethelene Dyer Jones 09.20.2015