Forsaking The Assembly
by Tom Wacaster

My travels in raising funds, giving reports, and filling in preaching at various locations has reminded me that our brethren continue to struggle with faithful attendance.  I have visited congregations where the drop in attendance from Sunday morning to Sunday evening is shameful.  A number of years ago I visited a congregation in Texas where the Sunday morning attendance was more than 80, and the evening attendance was only 15% of the morning figure.  Such was not due to sickness, or travels, or some kind of emergency.  That was, as one of the members noted, the regular practice; or what the inspired writer referred to as the “custom.”  On the other hand, I have visited congregations where the difference between morning and evening worship is only minimal, and that on a regular basis.  But for the most part, the average decline between AM and PM worship runs somewhere around 30% (give or take a percentage).    The admonition that we “consider one another to provoke unto love and good works; not forsaking our own assembling together…but exhorting one another” largely goes unheeded by many a weak saint.   

While there are certainly exceptions due to age, health, and perhaps travel obligations, those who miss Sunday evening services do so because they “choose” to be absent.  The heart is the seat of all actions, and where the heart leads the feet are swift to follow.  Habitual absenteeism is a heart problem.  It is reflected in the neglect and apathy regarding the works of the church, and is manifest in the neglect of the worship assembly.   In my commentary “Studies in Hebrews,” I included the following excellent quotes from good brethren who have addressed this problem that plagues God's people in every generation:

If we never determine the day here covered, it will not lessen one degree the divine prohibition, 'not forsaking our own assembling together,' which unto this day is still a custom of too many and a curse within the church. The fact that many do it with clock-like regularity but adds weight to the Hebrew writer calling it a custom.  It is a public sin that needs a public confession with penitence to correct it. This is as much a 'not' as those found in Romans 13:9. As we are not to commit adultery, nor kill, nor steal, so we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together....Far more than just the missing, it is the attitude one must have toward the Master that led him to miss which crowns this act with shame. We do not love the Lord, His Church, His Word, His worship, His service and sacrifice as we should or we wouldn't miss! Some, in order to emphasize the grace of God, tend to justify 'missing a few services' or 'missing now and then,' or 'if missing one time would condemn us, then none of us will make it.' The inherent danger here causes us to raise and answer some questions lest some be deceived into thinking they can 'get away' with some known violations (Dayton Keesee). 

Perhaps there is nothing so much needed in current America as a return to the old-fashioned virtue of church attendance.  Our beloved nation was founded by a generation of church-goers; and, although the Puritans and the settlers at Jamestown have been made to appear rather ridiculous in contemporary literature, being hailed as dull, hypocritical, and intolerant; it is nevertheless true that such a caricature is false.  They were not dull or uninteresting.  The eloquent literature of those far-off days denies the current slanders against that generation of spiritual giants who lived on the highest plane of religious conviction, whose emotions ebbed and flowed with the tides of eternity, and whose men of letters, such as Whittier, Hawthorne, and Longfellow, captured in their writings the immortal loveliness of that people.  Moreover, as the noted radio preacher, Charles L. Goodell, said, 'Wherever there is a town meeting house, a free school, a free church, or an open Bible, those forbears of ours might lay their hands upon them and say, `All these are our children'.'  Our greatest institutions are the fruits of their church-going; and when any generation shall forsake the house of prayer and worship, that generation is dangerously near to losing those institutions inherited through the piety of others.  As for the cliché that 'mere church attendance' is without value, we do not speak of 'mere' church attendance, but of wholehearted, sincere, devout, and faithful public worship of Almighty God through Christ; and as for the falsehood that people can worship God anywhere they are, it is refuted by the fact that they don't!  When people do not attend worship, they do not give, nor pray, nor sing God's praise, nor observe the Lord's Supper, nor study the sacred scriptures, all of which things are related to the public worship and have practically no existence apart from it. Then let people heed the commandment in this verse that they should not forsake the assembly of the church; and the fact that some do, as was the case then, is no permission for the faithful to follow an unfaithful example.  Reasons why people forsake the assembly are rationally explained, ardently advocated by them that wish to defect, and established with all kinds of charges, excuses, allegations, and insinuations against the church; but the only true reason for disobeying this basic commandment is simply unbelief, or the carelessness and sin which lead to unbelief (Coffman, page 235). 

The various reasons that men offer for missing the services are ludicrous to say the least.  When business, recreation, personal desires, unexpected company, bad weather, et al, are offered to others as a "legitimate" excuse for absenting one from worship to God, it sends forth the message (whether intended or not) that these things are more important than one's devotion and worship to God. 

There is one more item that needs to be addressed before we close this week’s column.  The neglect of the assembly will eventually lead the neglect in other spiritual responsibilities that rest upon the child of God.  Forsaking the assembly is only the first step into the far country; the journey away from God, once begun, will eventually lead the man into the proverbial spiritual (and moral) pigpen.  Such is the inevitable consequence of forsaking the assembly! Think about it!