W. L. Totty
“Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering;...And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” (Heb. 10:23-25.) If our faith is not constant and unwavering, it is not acceptable to God.
The above scripture, no doubt, refers to the meeting together of the saints on the first day of the week to worship God: to break bread, to hear the word of the Lord, to sing his praises, to invoke his blessings, to express our thanksgiving, and to return a portion of our prosperity to the Lord’s work.
Milligan, in his commentary on Hebrews, says, “The Apostle refers here, not to apostasy from the Church, as some allege, but simply to the neglect of public and social worship.” (P. 283.) However, forsaking the assembling and neglecting to be constant in our worship can lead to apostasy, because the apostle continued, “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins...Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” (Vs. 26, 38.)
We know that the early church met together upon the first day of the week to break bread as a memorial to the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, for we read in Acts 20:7, “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.” No doubt, it is the same sort of meeting which the Hebrews writer told us not to forsake. We are not living in accord with the Scriptures if we meet only occasionally; for in doing so, we are forsaking the assembly often.
Excuses were readily made in the days of Christ for not receiving his teaching. In one of his parables Christ taught a lesson on the evils of making excuses: “A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” (Luke 14:16-20.)
Of course, Christ’s parable did not directly refer to our assembling to worship in the church, for the church had not been established at that time; but he taught a lesson about making excuses for not doing God’s will; and that parable extends to us today who are in the kingdom when we are prone to excuse ourselves from keeping his command to assemble upon the first day of the week.
Such excuses as Christ gave in his parable are sometimes heard today from members of God’s church. Maybe a man, who is a member of the kingdom of God, does not regularly attend the worship and uses his wife as an excuse; or a woman sometimes uses her husband as an excuse. But Jesus said, “If any man hate not (that is, hate not by comparison—WLT) his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26.) Matthew expresses it this way, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matt. 10:37.) Therefore, we are not justified in making excuses.
That which one’s wife or son or daughter does, or fails to do, will not be charged to one’s account if that one has faithfully kept all God’s commandments. We will be judged individually when Christ comes, not as a family unit. Only by that which I have done will I be judged. Therefore, we cannot use our families as excuses for not worshiping the Lord acceptably. We must be baptized into Christ individually. One cannot do that for another. We have to live the Christian life individually. In all of our worship and work in the kingdom of God, we must put God first no matter what might be the desire of our wife or husband, father or mother, son or daughter, brother or sister, or we cannot be a disciple of Christ.
The writer of Hebrews said it was the manner of some to forsake the assembling then, just as it is in our day also. Many people have no justifiable reason to forsake the assembling and to forsake the remembering the Lord’s death till he comes again by eating the Lord’s supper every first day of the week. Also, many who do assemble, fail to have the suffering and resurrection of Christ in mind when eating the Lord’s supper. In doing so we eat and drink damnation to ourselves. (I Cor. 11:29.) The Corinthians were eating together, but they were abusing the worship of God by using that occasion to satisfy their hunger, as we are told in I Cor. 11:20. Thus, when we come together to worship God, we must revere him, humbly bowing ourselves in obedience to his will and not walking after the desires of the flesh.
Parents will be held responsible for taking their children regularly to worship the Lord; and by example they will instill in their minds that worship is to take precedence over affairs of the world. In matters of less importance, we do not leave decisions to our children’s choice; for instance, whether or not they should attend school, etc.; therefore why should we think it is best to leave their spiritual training to their choice.
We must “hold fast to the profession of our faith” and be constantly trying to “provoke unto love and to good works.”