The Sunday evening service and why you should attend it

In most churches today it is the case that the Sunday evening service is more sparsely attended than the morning service. In some congregations the difference is minimal, yet in others it is significant; a church which is more than three quarters full in the morning may be less than half full in the evening. Although there can be prevailing circumstances in the lives of some church members which genuinely prohibit them from attending the evening service, with others their absence is harder to explain. There are those who have been associated with the church for decades, have professed the name of Christ, yet have rarely if ever been seen at their local church in the evening. In dealing with this matter we are not taking issue with those who have genuine reasons why they cannot frequently attend the house of God twice on a Sunday. For parents with young children it is understandable that there are occasions where both parents cannot be out twice on a Sunday. Amongst the elderly of the congregation there will be those who through age and infirmity are simply unable to attend two services in the one day. Where church members are employed in the emergency services it is accepted that as a result of their shift patterns, there will be occasions where they cannot attend as many services as they would desire. These are justifiable reasons for why some people may miss church services and we would not seek to condemn them. Our concern is with those who are regularly, and sometimes always, absent from their local church on a Sunday evening.

Calling the Sabbath a delight

'If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it'. (Isaiah 58:13-14)

When the subject of the Sabbath is considered it is very often done from the negative point of view. The focus will be on what we ought not to do, those things which we should refrain from on the Lord's day. And it is true that observing the Sabbath does require us to cease from particular activities. In Exodus 20:10 the fourth commandment says of the Sabbath that 'in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:' Question number sixty one in the Shorter Catechism says that 'The fourth commandment forbiddeth the omission or careless performance of the duties required, and the profaning the day by idleness, or doing that which is in itself sinful, or by unnecessary thoughts, words or works, about our worldly employments or recreations.' Clearly a right observance of the Sabbath includes ceasing from particular activities, yet if we only focus on the 'negative' commandments regarding the Sabbath then there is the danger that we will consider the Lord's Day in a negative light, and even regard it as an inconvenience. The prophet Isaiah says that we are to 'call the sabbath a delight'; it is a day which should be viewed positively by the Christian because of the great benefits which it holds.