December 30, 1996
Dear Br. Carpenter:
When I use the abbreviation Br. before your name, it stands for brother, but it stands for more then that, it really means a Christian brother, a universal brotherhood of men joined with Christ as our older brother and God as our father.
In the human sense, brother signifies one of the male gender genetically
related to the other children of the same family. Therefore, brother
signifies a family relationship between men, a family based on
our Christian heritage. Every person, who has ever lived, and
who is alive today, was and is born into this family. Many voluntarily
leave it, preferring another family and another father but this
does not diminish the family of God, for as brothers and sisters
leave it, others are born into it. Thus God’s family, although
temporally diminished by terrible losses and defections, will
yet be a glorious family, encompassing, not only all inhabitants
of earth, who remain loyal to God, but the angels and the inhabitants
of other worlds who never deserted his family.
Because of our association with other men, based on our connection
to our Father, we ought to seek for them as for a long lost earthly
brother. Yet this analogy is flawed, for many earthly brothers
are estranged not only from their parents but from their natural
brothers and desire not to be found or returned to their kindred,
and, in many instances, I can’t blame them. Parents ought
to perfectly reflect Christ’s brotherly love, but they and
we fail miserably at our task. Thus, many sons and daughters are
driven from their natural homes and the brotherhood of God through
carelessness or a deliberate misrepresentation of His character.
Let us search high and low for our missing siblings and, when
we find them, we ought to jump all over them with condemnation
for leaving the home and causing such heartache and misery to
our parents. Not quite! We are God’s missing persons detective
agency, assigned the task of locating His children and gently,
lovingly, carefully, and wisely bringing them back to the clan.
Imagine your grief if one of your children or grandchildren, lost
and wondering cold and naked in the woods, were found by a neighbor
who neglected to bring him or her back to you but went on his
way, oblivious of the child’s fright and tears, leaving it
to starve or freeze, uncared for and neglected. You would rightly
be incensed and accuse your friend of negligent homicide. Can
God be any less concerned when we neglect His lost children who
live all about us. Those whom we think to be all right and in
need of nothing may be on the very brink of hopeless despair,
contemplating the ending of their lives. They live all around
us and we are responsible for their eternal welfare.
We need not travel to a distant land to be missionaries or expend
huge sums of money to win the heathen to the Lord. There are enough
heathen who live on our block to satisfy any ardent missionary
and they can be just as dangerous to find.
Turn off the television, put away the gulf clubs, trash that newspaper,
put down that romance book, junk the old racing car, hang up the
hunting rifle, burn the smut magazines and, on bended knees, confess
our criminal neglect of our neighbors. Resolve now to redeem the
time by doing all in our power to restore God’s children
to His household.
Here is a work that we can do regardless of our infirmities or
disabilities. May the Lord bless you as you open a local office
of the Lord’s missing persons bureau. He will most assuredly
provide the clues you need to search for His children.
Allen A. Benson