Some time ago I had the privilege of sitting in a meeting where the two speakers for the afternoon were giving their concluding messages from expositions on Ephesians 4 and John 17 respectively. Their "excellency of speech" on the unity of believers was unique and very persuasive and convincing to the average listener. The last speaker, with some degree of emotional appeal, climaxed his message with the touching story of a beautiful little girl who wandered away from home in a small town in Canada one cold wintry evening. In deep concern for the lost child people were scattered everywhere seeking for the lost but were unsuccessful. Finally, someone suggested that the searchers join hands as they continue their search. In this way the child was soon found, but alas, it was too late — she had frozen to death while the multitudes were scattered in their search for her. This, of course, was to prove the importance of church unity and the seriousness of disunity.
But a story like this sometimes illustrates more than the speaker means for it to. The joining hands in this case was a uniting on the part of those who were of one mind and one judgment. They all had one purpose and all moved in the same direction. When the professed church is ready to go the same direction on principles of the Word and their proper application and observance, we will in this way have joined hands and be ready to move forward seeking and finding the lost. If we were to join hands and continue to pull in opposite directions on the plain and positive commands of the Word we would find ourselves getting absolutely nowhere. And in these last wintry days when the love of many is waxing cold, if we were to join hands and all move together with hippie-styled, immodestly dressed, divorced and remarried, politically involved, draft-dodging, jewelry adorned, worldly minded, disobedient, etc., etc. professing Christians, the only thing we should find is cold death.
Aaron M. Shank