There are many benefits to attending church. Here is another reason church attendance is necessary.
“She tied the scarlet cord in the window.” Joshua 2:21
British pastor and theologian, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), was known by many as the “Prince of Preachers.” He had a knack for extracting grand spiritual truths from seemingly insignificant details in a single verse.
In the context of today’s verse, found in Joshua chapter 2, Spurgeon referred to the story of a woman named Rahab. She saved her entire family and herself from death by simply hanging a blood-red cord of fabric in her window.
A Woman of Faith Immortalized
Rahab was a citizen of the pagan country with whom the Israelites would be at war. But she had come to a true faith in the God of Israel. In her home, she gave refuge to Israelite soldiers who were surveying the situation. After advising them to escape to a certain mountain, she helped them to escape by hanging a crimson (blood-red-colored) cord out the window.
The soldiers told her that if she kept that crimson cord in the window when they returned, she and her entire household would be spared when they returned. This she did, and the Israelite soldiers kept their promise to her.
Spurgeon said that, “to tie this scarlet line in a window was a very trivial act in itself, but she dared not run the risk of omitting it.” (Italics added.)
An Eternal Lesson in a Piece of Scarlet Rope
Spurgeon asks us, the readers, “Is there not here a lesson for thee? Hast thou been attentive to all thy Lord’s will, even though some of His commands should seem non-essential?”
He then ties this “trivial act in itself” to two ordinances of the Church: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion). He goes on to say, “These neglected, argue much unloving disobedience in thy heart.”
In modern English, Spurgeon is telling us that the neglecting of one or both of the two Protestant sacraments of the church – water baptism and the partaking of Holy Communion – indicates that there is a definite spiritual problem: To do so “argues” a lack of love for our Christian fellowship and a disobedience to the commands of the Lord deep in the heart.
In what way should this argument of Spurgeon’s convict us of the need to attend church on a regular basis? By reminding us that the Lord commands believers to be baptized and to “do this [partake of Holy Communion] in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19)
If we neglect regular church attendance, how can we obey the Lord’s command to partake of the elements representing His broken body and shed blood in remembrance of Him?
If we consider ourselves to be believers and to love Jesus, then we must obey His commandments.
Love for the Lord and Obedience to Him are Inseparable
“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever.” John 14:15-16
To decide that church attendance is no longer necessary is to decide that partaking of Holy Communion with the saints of God is also no longer necessary. The questions that Spurgeon asked over a century ago still hold today:
“Hast thou been attentive to all thy Lord’s will, even though some of His commands should seem non-essential? Hast thou observed in His own way the two ordinances of believers’ baptism and the Lord’s Supper? These neglected, argue much unloving disobedience in thy heart. Be henceforth in all things blameless, even to the tying of a thread, if that be matter of command.”
Ever true to the authority of Holy Scripture, Spurgeon never succumbed to the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the church of his day. Neither should we.