Go to Church!
By Matthew D. Adams,
Lead Pastor,
First Presbyterian
Church, PCA
Dillon, SC 29536
If you remember anything about the book of Daniel, or even Daniel’s story, you know that this young man is taken into Babylonian captivity after King Nebuchadnezzar conquers Judah. As Daniel and his three friends are brought in to live in Babylon, immediately they are subjected to pagan indoctrination. Here’s what Daniel 1: 3-4,
3 Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, 4 youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.
Notice what Nebuchadnezzar does immediately with these wise teenagers (Daniel was probably about 14 years old when he was taken into captivity) after they are brought into his kingdom. He isolates them. To assimilate Daniel and his three friends into this new culture and nation, he pulls them away from everything that would remind them who they really are – members of God’s covenant people. He isolates them. Nebuchadnezzar takes them away from their families, from Jerusalem, from the temple, from the reading and hearing God’s Word, and the sacrificial system. He isolates them, he pulls them away, from anything that would cause them to think of their Lord.
In the same way, our culture desires to pull us away from our godly practices. Let’s just take church attendance for example. So often Sunday, the Lord’s Day, becomes our busiest of days. We fill it with all sorts of personal projects and desires, or its used as a day of recovery due to our busy Saturday. But did God create the Sabbath Day for our personal hobbies? Did God create the Sabbath Day to be considered just another day in our weekend? Absolutely not. God set aside the first day of the week, Sunday, to be His day. He created it so that we might worship Him and find our rest in Him. Just remember what the fourth commandment teaches:
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Deuteronomy 20: 8-11)
Clearly, God sets apart this day and promises that through the ordinary means of grace (the reading and preaching of the Word, the prayers, and the sacraments) He will be with us; speak to us; interact with us; encourage us; strengthen us; sanctify us.
So often I hear people say, “Matt, I want to see the Lord working amongst his people here in Dillon!” Well, to see the Lord working in our community we must keep the Sabbath holy. We must start by committing ourselves to the worship of the Lord on Sunday – morning and evening. We must treat the Lord’s Day as holy!
Well, that demands the question, doesn’t it? How do we keep it holy? You guard it and preserve it. There is such a fight for the Lord’s Day. Kids are especially rowdy and sleepy on this day. I’m not sure how that happens, but it does! Sunday mornings are the easiest morning to sleep in. Think about that. You’re up at 6:30am on Saturday morning without even setting your alarm clock, but on Sunday it’s easy to sleep in until 10am. You can fill in the blank; you know the excuses that we all come up with. They amaze me.
But do you know what these excuses reveal? Spiritual warfare. Satan hates Sunday. Satan hates for you to have your family in church. Satan hates for you to plan out your Saturday so that you can make sure you can get to church for Sunday school and worship. And you might say, “Matt, it’s just showing up for church.” No, it’s not. It’s not just showing up for church. It’s being obedient to the Lord. It’s taking serious the promise that it’s on this day that the Lord will specially bless you.
Do you know who knows the extraordinary benefits from coming to church? Satan. That’s why he will do anything he can to get you not to come; to make you come up with just another excuse not to be in the presence of the Almighty. Satan knows that God will bless you when you commit to coming to church each and every Lord’s Day. He knows that you will grow in Christlikeness. He knows that you will receive wisdom and strength. He knows that it’s good for you to be in corporate worship. So, he’s trying his hardest to talk you out of coming. He will tell you that you’re too tired, that worldly things are more important, and that it’s not worth your time. It’s all lies. He will fear your mind with fear. He will fill your calendars with stuff. All the while, he smirks because he knows he’s winning this spiritual battle.
You see, Satan employs the same strategies that Nebuchadnezzar does in Daniel 1. He attempts to isolate you from God and His people. He does this because he knows that if he can pull you away from the church then you will slowly but surely be indoctrinated by the culture. You will take on a new worldview. You will become just another number in the pagan world in which we live.
That’s why my exhortation is simple…go to church. Go to church! Make the Devil mad, and commit to being in church on Sundays. But also come expecting a blessing from our God!
