Saturday Worship
“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24).
On September 13, 2013, the Orlando Sentinel published a religious news article titled, “Prefer Church on Saturdays? Services Ease Sunday Crunch.” No doubt readers are thinking, “Well, it’s about time. Local traffic is so heavy with people trying to get to worship on Sunday mornings. Why, sometimes it takes an extra fifteen minutes just to get to the drugstore because so many Christians are on the road!” Yes, sirree, having a Saturday evening service ought to cut down on those Sunday morning traffic jams.
Okay, so apparently that’s not the crunch being referred to. The article is written by Jeff Kunerth who seems to seek every bizarre and anti-Biblical practice in the Orlando area to promote. In fact, if he has ever written an article with the message, “This church insists on teaching the Bible and remaining faithful to it,” many of us would be greatly surprised. One is more likely to find from him information about a church that is serving piña coladas or promoting homosexual “rights” than anything dealing with a passage of Scripture. If there is anything his piece on Saturday Worship lacks, in fact, that is it—a Scripture. Kunerth never questions if some new idea has a basis in the Bible; he is only concerned about the practicality of it.
The article begins by touting an Episcopal Church in the area who will be trying something different—“a worship service for those who work, play or sleep in on Sunday.” Well, isn’t that special? Obviously, sleep on the first day of the week must rank higher than the worship of Almighty God, Who gives every individual the same 168 hours every week. And playing? Well, how much more exciting is that than remembering our Creator? As it pertains to work, we have recognized for decades that some jobs require working on Sunday. For that reason, most congregations of the Lord’s church have worship in the morning and in the evening; some are only able to come to one; many come to both. However, both are on the Lord’s day!
“Increasingly Secular Sunday Morning”
The “reverend” introducing the new Saturday service said:
Sunday morning used to be a sacred time that nobody competed with. Now I have volleyball tournaments and soccer tournaments and another dozen things going on. There are a large number of folks, especially young families, who are finding it difficult to come to Sunday-morning service.
Perhaps sacred is not the best term to apply to Sunday morning, since Christians have the liberty of meeting any time during the day (and in the first century it was probably in the evening). But it developed into the customary and traditional time for worship. And it is true that few would, in years past, have dared to encroach upon it. Some restaurants and stores remain closed on Sundays, but one can thank sporting events for having the nerve to compete with God. The truth is that many have replaced God with sports as a religion.
One wonders, however, how it is that a “reverend” has volleyball and soccer tournaments going on. What are they—church leagues, school programs, or community teams? He is wrong about the difficulty of coming to worship on Sunday morning, however. Those who have a commitment to God and to Jesus, Who died on the cross for our sins, have no problem knowing where they will be on the Lord’s day. No peripheral activity is going to take the place of what is at the heart of our lives. Those who imagine that there is a conflict should quit singing, “Living for Jesus,” and substitute for it a new song: “Living for Pleasure.” (For Jar Jar Binks, it would be, “Living for Meesa”). That would be the truth of the matter. The actual conflict is whether we are living for Jesus or for Self. If sporting events triumph over worship, well, you make the call.
Kunerth does make a valid observation when he says that various denominations, both large and small, have begun offering Saturday services as “a counterpunch to the increasingly secular Sunday morning.” The fact is that over the past few decades church attendance has dropped significantly, and most churches now have an elderly population, which means that young people have become increasingly non-religious. Thus, the secularists in society have become emboldened to schedule more and more events on Sunday and have been meeting with less and less resistance. The appropriate response for the “churches” is to stand firm, but just as they have caved on moral issues, they are capitulating on the day of worship as well.
That people are willing to put sporting events and other secular activities first and fit God into their busy schedules whenever they can just shows further weakening of those who call themselves Christians. Does anyone remember the level of commitment that Jesus required of His followers? He taught:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26-27).
Hating one’s own life means putting one’s own interests (such as sports or entertainment) below one’s love and obedience to God. And that means meeting to worship Him at the time He specifies—the first day of the week—which is the day Jesus arose from the dead, the one when brethren met to honor Him (Acts 20:7). Again, Kunerth stated the case with precision:
In many cases, Saturday services are an acknowledgment by church leaders that American culture has shifted its emphasis on Sunday morning from worship to leisure, recreation and work. Saturday worship appeals not only to those with soccer tournaments and adult softball games, but also the large segment of Central Florida’s tourism and health-care work force that works on Sundays.
This statement, however, is nothing less than an admission that leisure, recreation, and work take precedence over God (if churches do not schedule Sunday evening services). One “senior pastor” acknowledged that people’s lives are busier and that Saturday evening just provides people another option.
Authority?
Okay, but why stop with scheduling services on Saturday night? Why not go whole hog and arrange for worship every day of the week? Then there would really not be a Sunday crunch. How about having the Monday Night Worship (for those who don’t care anything about football)? That might be a plus for those who are always making those weekend trips.
The question nobody, including all the “reverends” and “senior pastors,” in the article is asking is, “What does the Bible say about the day of worship?” The Bible teaches that getting worship right is important. For those who have taken time out of their busy schedules to actually read the Word, Nadab and Abihu were burned with fire from heaven because they offered profane fire before the Lord (Lev. 10:1-2). God does not want His specifications for worship to be tampered with under any covenant.
Jeroboam changed four aspects of worship when the kingdom split. He changed the object of worship (idols instead of the invisible God), the place of worship (Dan and Bethel instead of Jerusalem), those leading the worship (from priests of the tribe of Levi to just whoever wanted to do it), and the time of worship. He changed the time of one of the feasts from the 15th day of the seventh month to the 15th day of the 8th month (1 Kings 12:25-33). This was regarded as presumptuous, as well as displeasing to God. When the northern kingdom of Israel was taken captive by Assyria more than two centuries later, what Jeroboam did with respect to worship was cited as the reason: “Then Jeroboam drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them commit a great sin” (2 Kings 17:21b).
When men make changes that God has not authorized, those alterations are sinful. The woman at the well in Samaria asked Jesus where was the correct place to worship—in Jerusalem or at the mountain where the Samaritans worshipped. Jesus did not try to spare her feelings (or those of her countrymen); He told her the place would soon not matter at all (since there would be a change of covenants), but then He added: “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). He went on to say that true worshipers are those who worship God “in spirit and in truth” (v. 24).
No one seems to care about the “in truth” part. One “reverend” was quoted as saying, “I don’t like it,” referring to the Saturday worship; why did he not ask instead, “Where is the authority in the Bible for changing the day of worship from Sunday to Saturday?”
What if someone had come to Moses and said, “Observing the Sabbath day is interfering with our soccer championships”? Would Moses have permitted them to keep the Sabbath at some other time? Suppose the farmers insisted, “We cannot give the land a Sabbath year of rest; we’ll go broke”? Would Joshua have allowed them to disobey God? What would have happened during the Year of Jubilee if some Israelites had whined, “An entire year is just too long; how about we proclaim liberty throughout the land every other Thursday instead?” Does anyone really think there would be any Divine sympathy for such shenanigans? Then why do we think God would tolerate changing the day for worship that He ordained? From the first century, the church met on the first day of the week, as taught by the apostles and practiced by brethren. No one has authority from Heaven to change it.
A Religion of Convenience
One mother with four children under the age of nine commented, “It’s nice you don’t have to rush to get everybody ready in the morning.” Why, yes, it is much more convenient, and isn’t that what Christianity is all about? Surely, we don’t expect worshiping or serving God to involve inconvenience, do we?
Another advantage is that maybe some people will come that ordinarily would not be present. Ah, flexibility is so important these days. We have the “traditional” service for old fuddy-duddies and modern bands for younger folk. Many religious groups determined years ago that people could just stay home altogether—so long as they sent their contribution in. How about a wine-tasting service for those that love alcohol? And a gambling service for high rollers? We’re not talking about any penny-ante bingo here. We’re talking high stakes poker, and the winner has to give just 10% of his take as an offering. While the contest is ongoing, someone could read Luke 12:15-21 and other texts in the background to give the “service” an atmosphere of respectability. If this practice becomes popular, the denominations could do away with fund-raising efforts.
The article describes some worshiping in a park where folks are preparing to fish or play softball. What a great idea! Maybe someone could start a time of worship for members of “The Redneck Yacht Club.” “Going to Sunday church would interfere with the 10-week fall softball league season,” said a softball team manager, who no longer attends Sunday worship. See? Some people know what their priorities are.
Of course the article could not close without the obligatory comment about one being inspired by nature. One who enjoys rowing commented, “…getting out on the water on a calm, beautiful Sunday morning is a form of worship.” Fisherman likely think the same way, as do golfers. All of these alternative forms of worship are listed in 2 Titus in the approved list of substitutions.
Seriously, do people really think that God said, “Worship Me any way you want any time you want”? One would think so. What will sinful human beings say, however, when they stand before their Creator and Savior, Who will ask them to give an account of the deeds done in the body (2 Cor. 5:10)? At last they will perceive God as the Sovereign Lord He really is. It will not be the time to play word games and attempt to be clever. With eternity ahead, what should our priorities have been prior to that hour?
How will Jesus view those who ignored the instructions given by the Holy Spirit regarding worship? How will He regard those whose lives were so busy pursuing trivial matters that they could not find time to remember His death each Sunday (1 Cor. 11:23-29)? What eternal pronouncement will He make concerning those who chose to live selfishly? “And why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).