The Bible, from beginning to end, is a series of object lessons. God
sets before us certain persons, things, events, and bids us look at
and learn from them, just as the teacher at school draws a diagram
on the blackboard, and tells the children to look at and learn from
it. No word, or single incident, recorded in the Bible, is wasted or
useless; what may, at first glance, sometimes appear trifling and
unimportant to us, may, on closer examination, mean very much, like
the decimal point in arithmetic or the accent on a word. So it is
with the words of the text just quoted. They may seem insignificant,
yet are they most important.
The present season, beginning with this Sunday, is called Advent.
We are accustomed, in the four weeks before Christmas, to direct
our minds to Christ's advent or coming. This advent, we say, is
threefold: First, there is Christ's coming in the flesh, when as a
little babe He lay in the manger at Bethlehem, taking upon Himself
the form of Abraham, made in the likeness of human flesh, and
performing the pilgrimage of an earthly life that He might thus save
man. Again, we distinguish His second coming, _i. e._, His return,
as we confess in the Creed, "to judge the quick and the dead," when,
arrayed in all the power and majesty of Almightiness, He shall
come to execute vengeance upon the evildoers, vindicate and take
home with Himself those who believed in Him. And between these two
comings lies a third, which we are wont to designate "His spiritual
coming," by which we mean His coming and knocking at the door of
our hearts for admission. This coming is not visible, however,
as the other two, but invisible, yet none the less real on that
account, and it is carried on by means of His Word and sacraments,
through the instrumentality of the preaching of the Gospel and
the administration of Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper, for the
execution of which He has founded a divine institution called the
Church. To that Church He has entrusted the work of Gospel preaching
and sacramental giving. She, if true to her calling and message, is
the conservatory of His truth, the disseminator of His kingdom upon
earth. It is within her pales that He dispenses salvation. Outside
of the Church He does not promise to bestow forgiveness of sin and
the blessings of His grace. How these preliminary remarks bear upon
the selection and consideration of our text, what precious and
instructive lessons we may gather from the comparison, that let us
see, and may we be wise and heed.
"Come thou and all thy house into the ark," reads the command of
God. We immediately perceive with what account of ancient history
that connects. The people of the Old World, the antediluvians, as
they are generally called, had become so corrupt in morals and life
that God determined their destruction and said: "The end of all
flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence,"
yet, to show His desire to save them, He appointed His servant Noah
to preach righteousness to them, and directed him to build an ark
as an evidence that He was minded to carry out His purpose, and as
a means of safety for Noah. Few, however, none, in fact, except
Noah and his immediate family, eight souls in all, took the warning
to heart. Many a one of that perverse generation, we may surmise,
even assisted in the construction of the ark, and the patriarchal
minister would exhort them to forsake their sins and worship God,
only to be sneered at for his credulity and ridiculed for his
nonsensical eccentricity of building such a boathouse.
But the hundred and twenty years given for probation expired, and
Noah receives directions to embark. "Come thou," is the command,
"into the ark." Just one week is allowed to bring into the ark
all his family, and the birds and beasts to be preserved, and
then--what an unusual sound it must have been--the door was shut,
not by Noah's, or any human hand, but by the hand of Jehovah; for
it is written: "And the Lord shut him in," and now, amid the war
of heaven's artillery and the shaking of the earth, the fountains
of the deep burst open, and the windows of the skies break loose,
and the greatest and most terrible calamity Revelation records is
on. Imagination cannot portray the scenes that must have then been
enacted,--how, forgetful of everything but self-preservation, they
fled towards the singular building, which but a little before they
had insolently defied; how, perhaps laboring in their distraction
to scramble up its huge sides, the angry tide of waters keeps
them down, and with a cry of despair they dash into the watery
abyss; how some, climbing up to the loftiest pinnacle and summit
of the mountains, in the hope that perhaps at the end the door
may be opened to receive a few more, they see the wondrous ship
dashing along, gallant and safe, and hear that gurgling sound, the
death requiem of their race, rising higher and higher. Oh! who can
describe the anguish, the woe, the cursing of self. But it was now
too late, and yet, whose fault was it? Provision had been made,
probation time had been granted them; there was none to blame but
themselves. God's warnings are not empty sounds, His institutions
not for ridicule and rejection. And now, more generally, for the
application.
We, too, have an ark, a New Testament Ark. God, Himself, as the
divine architect and artificer, has built it; He devised the plans,
He selected the material, and employs the Noahs in its construction;
daily do we see before our eyes its towers and walls, hear regularly
and pleadingly the bells sending out the invitation: "Come thou
into the ark." You know what this ark is,--it's the Holy Christian
Church, that divine structure which by Him has been finished these
1900 years. There, in the midst of a world of sin and depravity,
upon which God has pronounced His righteous judgments as clearly as
upon the race of antediluvians, it stands,--the great, the capacious
Gospel Ark, a refuge of safety; come whatever Jehovah may commission
upon our guilty world, it is certain to ride safely above the
tumultuous tempest and bring us gallantly to the celestial mountain,
the Ararat of Heaven.
My dear hearer, have you entered into that ark? Is your name
enrolled among the list of passengers? And why not? Make known the
reason of your backwardness. In other words, without figure, lay
before you the question: Why are you not a church-member? Why do you
stand aloof from the church? Why do you not join? I shall listen
to a few of your reasons, and then tell you why you ought to join.
Perhaps you are laboring under the fear that there is not room
enough for you in the ark, that you are not invited among them to
whom the gracious offer is tendered. Banish that thought instantly
from your mind. "Not room enough in the ark!" "Not wanted!" "Come
thou and thy house into the ark." You know the beautiful parable of
the Great Supper, to which all and sundry were invited, and after
everything had been precisely done as the master had commanded,
the servant comes and tells the master of the house: "Yet there is
room." A striking truth! Those words reveal that the Christian Ark
is not yet fully tenanted, that, as the invitation is still out, you
are yet in time.
"Not _room_--not _wanted_!" God forbid that such a thought should
in your breasts be found. "Come unto me," declared your Savior,
"come thou into the ark." But you say: "I do belong to the church,
the so-called 'Big Church,' _i. e._, to the number of those who
still profess to be Christians, who uphold Christian principles and
live good moral lives, who aim at what is right, and I am just as
good and honest as any in the church." Perhaps so, my dear friend,
perhaps more so, for not all that profess to be church-members
are such; some are slimy and wily hypocrites. But _you_, as an
honorable and professing Christian, ought to be a church-member,
for you know that Christ does not acknowledge the "Big Church" of
which you are speaking. You cannot put asunder what Christ has
joined together. He has joined these two things together, Himself
and the Church; outside of His ark He promises no salvation, and
you have no right to expect it. For what is the Church? It is
Christ's provision for the salvation of man,--how? By the preaching
of His holy Word and the administration of His sacraments, as we
heard. Is the Word of God preached in the "Big Church"? Is Baptism
administered, the Lord's Communion received? How can faith in the
Savior then be wrought, maintained, forgiveness of sins secured,
hope and salvation? "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God," says the Bible. "If ye continue in my Word, then are
ye my disciples, indeed," says the Savior. "He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved." "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink His blood, ye have no life in you."
I doubt not that many of the antediluvians did not despise the ark
outright. Who knows but what they might have thought there was
something to it,--when the great calamity comes we shall be all
right,--and that they told the preacher of righteousness: "Never
mind about us, Noah, our record is still good." But salvation was in
the ark, and there it is to-day; you cannot separate Christ from His
Church, Christliness from Churchliness, for the Church is Christ's,
and Christ is in His Church; and I know not, from the study of God's
Word, the Bible, what right any man has to stand aloof from the
Christian Church and call himself a Christian. The "Big Church" is
a big delusion.
"Yes, I recognize that I ought to belong to the Church, but I do not
like to bind myself," pleads another. Bind yourself? To what? To a
life of godliness, to a conduct becoming a Christian, to the duties
incumbent upon a member? Why, if you are a Christian at all, you are
bound by these things already. The further few hours occasionally
given to the deliberation of congregational affairs ought not to
deter you. You are bound already, why speak about binding yourself?
And you certainly do not want to be unbound,--for in the ark alone
is your safety.
There are yet other reasons why some do not join the Church. In our
materialistic age, there are hundreds whom the love of money keeps
out of the house of God. It costs something, and they shun costs, no
matter for what purpose--ever so noble. They hold connections which
the Church cannot sanction, belong to organizations against which it
finds itself compelled to testify, and because people cannot bear
to have their connections reproved, and do not stop to weigh and
consider what the Church has to say, they immediately, without any
further ado, break off all relation with the Church, and raise the
cry against it of being too strict, and stay away from the preaching
and the sacraments, none of which have been denied them, and to
which they are warmly invited and heartily welcomed. They will once
have to answer for it. The invitation remains: "Come thou and all
thy house into the ark."--
And now, having listened to why some people do not belong to the
Church, let us regard a few reasons why each and every Christian
ought to be a church-member. First, there is the positive command
of God. The Lord said unto Noah--commanded, directed him: "Come
thou and all thy house into the ark." His directions to us and ours
are not less specific. His Third Commandment reads: "Thou shalt
sanctify the holyday." Where does the sanctification of that day
take place but in His Church, in the observance of its institutions?
He warns: "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as
the manner of some is." Again, take all such clear passages in
which He commands us to profess piety as this: "I say unto you,
Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess
before my Father which is in heaven," which, if it means anything,
certainly means that we must either be publicly and openly rated
among His confessors, or He will not consent to acknowledge us among
His saints. How can a man be a proper child of God who will not so
much as give His name as a believer? What guarantee has he to count
securely on salvation if he refuses to say before men whether he
takes Christ as his Redeemer, or not? It is true: "With the heart
man believeth unto righteousness," but it is equally true: "With the
mouth confession is made unto salvation." Church-membership is not
optional; it is imperative, it is based upon God's command.
Another reason for church-membership is, that a Christian must
advance his Master's cause. If you are at liberty to decline
connection with Christ's Church, then I am; if one is, all are,
and how, then, can there be the maintenance of the ministry, the
furtherance of the manifest kingdom of God? We pray daily: "Hallowed
be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven." When is God's name hallowed? When does His kingdom come?
And by what influences and agencies is His will done on earth but
by this organization established by Himself for that purpose,--His
holy Church? Who keeps up the work of the ministry with its
schools of education, who maintains the propagation of the faith
by the support of missions, and all those other efforts essential
to the preservation and spreading of Christ's kingdom, and you,
as a disciple of Christ, should be found standing aloof from it,
not helping along yourself, yea, by your passive indifference and
non-cooperation setting a bad example unto others? Your duty in this
respect is as plain as Noah's,--you should get into the ark.
And, reason last. It promotes your own good. Aside from what we
have already emphasized, there is something in the simple matter
of being known and feeling committed as a member of a Church which
strengthens and helps a man. It restrains where otherwise there
would be no restraint. It induces to arouse a livelier sense of
religious obligations, stimulates to stricter fidelity in the
observance of things which otherwise are easily neglected, secures
the watch and oversight of experienced Christians, and, withal,
gives a force and quickening which comes from conviction that one is
rated as a disciple of Christ and looked to for example in faith, in
word, and in deeds. It brings spiritual things and Christian duty
closer home. If conscientiously attended to, it is a blessing to
you, and it makes you a blessing to others.
Let this suffice on this subject at this time. Let those who have
held and are holding membership draw a rule from what has been said
for the regulation of their conduct. So divine and essential a cause
enlists their endeavors. Let them make it their business to honor
it, to widen and extend its influences by being punctual at the
services, by being particular in the observance of its sacraments,
by being uncompromising in the belief and defense of its faith, by
being active in encouraging all efforts necessary to its life and
success. And those who have hitherto stood aloof from the Church,
or who are mere lingerers about its gates, let them also learn from
this the unsatisfactoriness of their position, and be admonished of
the duty and necessity that is upon them if they would find God and
salvation.
"Come thou and thy family into the ark,"--what time could be more
opportune than this first day of another year of God's grace?
Consider the matter, and may it lead you to lay your vow upon God's
altar and have your name recorded on the roster of the Church. Amen.