MEET OFTEN TO WORSHIP GOD.
By G. T. Wilson
“AND that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for He is faithful that promised; and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” Rom. 13:11; Heb. 10:23–25. What if you are few in numbers? what if those who should show the most interest and attention to the worship of high heaven seem indifferent and cold? yet the promise is sure “that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matt. 18:19, 20. What a promise is this! Then shall we not claim it and often meet to pray to the Father of mercies and to give thanks unto the name of our God? We are soon to be taken to heaven if we are prepared to meet Jesus when he comes to gather his saints, and are we now learning to talk the language of the court of heaven? Paul says in Phil. 3:20, “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.” We need to know all we can about the place we are going to occupy all the long ages to come. A thousand years we will spend in heaven with all the redeemed and with Jesus and angels and our Father in heaven, and we need to talk of this to each other much, that we may provoke each other unto love and to good works. “We are in the time of waiting;
Soon we shall behold our Lord,
Wafted far away from sorrow,
To receive our rich reward.” We need to have our loins girt about with truth, and to have our lamps burning, that when our Lord returns from the marriage to gather home his guests, you and I may be prepared to say, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us.” “We are living, we are dwelling,
In a grand and awful time;
To be living is sublime.” We are altogether too worldly, and take too much time for the things of the world, which do us no good, and then we excuse ourselves from reading our Bibles and from secret prayer, because we are too busy. “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” Worry yourselves about nothing, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” When we go to meet each other, let us have our conversation on the things of God as much as we can, and then when we have made our visit, let us pray together, for each other and the cause of God. We pray far too little, and we let go of the arm of the Lord too soon, and for this reason we sometimes do not see the answers to our prayers we had hoped to see. Some may complain that they cannot find words to pray, that they do not know what to say. Well, the Lord has told us to ask for the things we are in need of, and that if we ask in faith, it should be done unto us. God has also promised his Holy Spirit to help us to pray. See Rom. 8:26: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.” Mal. 3:16. Then let us pray, and talk of heaven and its joys, of Jesus and his love, of our Heavenly Father and his unbounded mercies, and we shall be kept by his grace safe until Christ comes.