Godfrey: My own inclination is when people ask, “Should we have two services on the
Lord’s Day?” to say that I think we as the people of God ought to rise up in righteous
revolt against the parsimony of our preachers and ask, “Why can’t we have three?”
The day belongs to the Lord.
We rest on that day, we worship on that day, and surely it’s a good thing to have morning
and evening worship, and presumably would be an even better thing to have an afternoon
service as well.
Now, I’m being a little bit facetious.
The spirit may be willing but the flesh may be weak, but, I don’t think there’s a
verse, not even Psalm 92 that talks about morning and evening sacrifice on the Sabbath.
I don’t think that’s actually a proof text for evening worship.
I do think it’s a prudential matter, and I think if we are committed to Sunday as a
Christian Sabbath, which I think we ought to be as a day belonging to the Lord for distinct
resting in Him and worshiping Him, then we have to ask, “How should that day be used?”
And it ought to be used in rest and in Christian fellowship and service, but also in worship.
And if it’s to be used in worship, then we have to ask ourselves, “How much worship
is good for us?”
And, speaking as a historian, one of the things that strikes me is that I think you can draw
a pretty close corollary between the decline of Sunday evening worship in Christian churches
in America and a decline in Bible knowledge, a decline in disciplined Christian living,
a decline in Sabbath observance, and a decline of general cultural influence.
I don’t see how any good thing has come out of abandoning Sunday evening worship.
What are you all doing with your Sunday evenings?
Are you all sitting at home and watching Ligonier DVDs?
As long as you don’t buy them on Sunday that might be legitimate.
But, I mean that as a very serious question.
If Sunday is the day for the Lord, what are we doing with our Sundays, and how are we
using our Sundays to draw closer to the Lord?
And I have met in my lifetime one or two people who did not go to church Sunday night who
were home studying the Bible and catechizing their children, and I don’t know that I
necessarily want to criticize those people, but most people who are not going to church
Sunday night, are not going to church and not doing really spiritual things with that
time, and I want to blame particularly, not exclusively, but I want to blame particularly
the ministers who too often find life easier if they write one sermon a week instead of
two.
Now, they’re giving in to pressure, very often, from people, and I think any of us
would know if you went to a teacher of algebra in high school and said, “We want you to
produce students knowing just as much algebra as they always learned, but we’re giving
you half as much time to teach them” that you’d end up with a lot of trouble.
But that’s what we’re doing in our churches, for as far as I can see, no good reason at
all.
So, you know, church history isn’t useful for much other than illustrations, but it’s
very interesting that the great Synod of Dort, which was an international gathering of Calvinist
theologians and ministers in the early seventeenth century, was asked with the question, “What
should we do if nobody wants to attend the second service?”
So, at least we can be comforted it’s not a new problem.
And the answer of the Synod of Dort was the second service must be held even if only the
preacher’s family is in attendance.
And that advice was taken and the Dutch Reformed in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth,
early twentieth century, became a very Sabbath-keeping, worshipful, Bible-knowing people because of
that advice in part being taken.
And so my feeling is, no, you’re not absolutely required to go to church on Sunday but — the
second time — but what are you doing with that time?
Use it for the Lord with the Lord, and tell your preacher you want two or maybe three
sermons a Sunday.