HOW TO GO TO MEETING

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 5, 1869

HOW TO GO TO MEETING.

Few persons realize that it makes any special difference how they attend the meetings of the people of God. They suppose that it is quite necessary to go to the place of worship, and that it will be of benefit to them to do this regularly. But they do not attach any importance to the manner of doing this, or to the circumstances of the case. Many attend the meetings of the saints, and reckon themselves of their number, who feel not the slightest burden of the cause of God. They expect that there will be an excellent meeting, and are very free to find fault should the meeting be one of trial and labor. Yet they themselves are the very ones who bring the labor and darkness upon the meeting. They do not realize that the meeting is composed of those who attend it. They forget that good or evil predominates in a meeting according to the persons who make it up. Yet nothing is more certain than that a meeting represents the sum total of the piety, devotion, and moral worth of those who compose it. God has said of certain worshipers, that he will “not smell in their assemblies.” No savor of piety, self-sacrifice and consecration comes up as grateful incense to God. But carelessness, irreverence, levity, worldliness, and self-righteousness, are present to grieve the Spirit of God. And they are there simply because that those who assemble, as the worshipers of God, take these things in their heart.

Do not go to the assemblies of the saints of God with a careless spirit. It may be that your next time will be your last. Go there praying God to meet you. Go there with a heart prepared to meet the Lord, and you will not find it a dark place to your own soul. But do not go there with a visiting spirit. Many go to meet and converse with friends, but entirely forget that the object of the meeting is to meet the Lord of hosts. Oh! if the hearts of those who attend the house of God could be as open to man as they are to Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, how manifest would be the reason why the Spirit of God did not enter the assembly. The people present had not assembled to meet Him. Some had come to show their piety; some to visit their acquaintances; some for the ride, or the walk; some to criticize, or find fault; some to hear others reproved; some to hear others confess; some simply because it is custom to go, but without the least idea of preparing their hearts to seek God. Do not go to meeting in that manner. God will not accept such worship. Prepare your heart to seek him. Go with the deepest self-abasement. Plead with God to prepare you for his worship. Let there be one, at least, who worships God in spirit and in truth, and be you that one.