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the work God has given him to do. Support every activity of your church beginning with the Sunday school. A strong Sunday school leads to a strong church. Make sure that you are in your place on the Lord’s Day with your les son studied, and with a readiness to learn more about the Saviour and His will for your life. Try to interest other young people in your church and in your Sun day school. Support the services of the church. It thrills the pastor’s heart to see you in your place on Sunday morning and Sun day evening, vitally alive to all that is being said, and eager to add your weight to the spiritual power of the service. The midweek service is another opportunity for you to build for Christ in your church. If there is no midweek service especially for young people then work to have your entire group out on Wednesday night to study with the pastor and to pray for the work God has given your church to do in your local area and throughout the world. Sept. 27, 1953 Void if Detached Acts 2:42-47; Heb. 10:24, 25 God made us to work together. This is especially true of the church. The Saviour Himself instituted His church (Matt. 16: 18). This He did, not upon Peter, but upon the basic confession of faith Peter enunciated (v. 16). Our Lord gave to His church a simple organization (Acts 14: 23; 20:28). By so doing He indicated that He intended the church to persist through the centuries’ as a spiritual fellowship de signed for the growth and spiritual service of His people. A ll of this adds up to the fact that the fellowship of the church is important or else the Saviour would never have origi nated it. And if it is important then every man who names the name of Christ must appreciate the church and do all within his ability to further it and strengthen it. God’s people grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ in fellow ship with those who love Him, too, and who delight in His worship and service. It is the command of God that His people thus assemble (Heb. 10:25), and it is the great loss of the believer’s spiritual power and of the power of the church when be liever’s lose out in the fellowship of other believers. This is what we mean by the topic “ void if detached.” We have already called attention to the verses in Hebrews (Heb. 10:24, 25). The chief purpose of the fellowship of the church according to these verses is to “ provoke” (that is, to encourage) one another to good works, that is, to the service of the Lord. God’s people are not to forsake the assembling of themselves, but are to gather together often, and so much the more as we see the day of Christ’s coming drawing nearer. The Bible tells us that in the days prior to Christ’s re turn there shall be perilous times (2 Tim. 3:1; Matt. 24:37-39). W e are living in these days, and thus we need one an other more than at any time in the his tory of the church. We need the mutual encouragement and mutual comfort that comes from the assembling of ourselves CONTINUED ►
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