The Daily Service a Law in God's Kingdom
We have here the very remarkable fact that the Apostles and the whole Church of Christ still continued, after the day of Pentecost, to attend the daily services of the temple. There was nothing contrariant between God's elder and later dispensation. They both worshipped Him in His temple, and offered the eucharistical sacrifice in their upper chambers. The time was not yet come when the daily sacrifice should be taken from the elder and given to the Catholic Church. Until this time came, the Church of Christ daily served God in the courts of the sanctuary on Mount Zion. When the time came that Jerusalem should be overthrown and the Divine Presence forsake His temple, the daily service passed to the altars of the Catholic Church. Consider some of the objections to the daily service which weigh with serious people.
I. As, for instance, it is often said that the daily service is unnecessary now, because of the prevalence of family prayer. We painfully overstate the extent to which family worship has been restored. At the most, it is to be found in the houses of the educated, and of some others among the more unlettered, but more devout of our people. But in the homes of the millions of our population family worship is still unknown. The Church must open a shelter for the desolate, and dress an altar for those whose lot is cast in households where God is unknown.
II. Another common objection is, that the daily service of the Church is unprofitable, because so few are able to attend it. But why should any be defrauded of a blessing because others deprive themselves of it. Why should Simeon and Anna be thrust back from the gate that is called Beautiful, because others see no comeliness in it that they should desire it.
III. It is said that the habits of life are so changed as to make daily service impossible. They are changed but for the worse. Once the world waited upon the Church, and took its hours and seasons from the hours and seasons of God's worship; but now all is reversed. When once the Church has restored the solemn days of fast and festival and the stated hours of daily prayer, there will be an order marked out for all men of goodwill to follow. No sun should then go down on sins unconfessed, or blessings unacknowledged; and if any be truly hindered, still in their own home, or by the wayside, or in crowded marts, or in busy cities, or in the fields when the bell is heard afar off, or the known hour of prayer is come they may say with us the Confession and the Lord's Prayer, and though far from us on earth, may meet us in the court of heaven.
H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. i., p. 186.
References: Acts 2:46; Acts 2:47. T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. vi., p. 180; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 269. Acts 2:47. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xx., No. 1167; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ix., p. 52; New Outlines on the New Testament,p. 81.