TOPIC:"You Can't Live Without the Church"
by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap
TEXT:Hebrews 10:19-25
"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is"
(Hebrews 10:25)
I submit that once you and I come close to the brink of death, and if God in His sovereign will permits us to recover, we will look at life from a different perspective. We will begin to see not only how life ought to be lived, but also, we will behold perhaps for the first time those things which are really essential to life.
Let me mention a few of those essentials which we can't live without if we desire not just to exist, but to live life to the fullest. We can't live without God. We can't live without forgiveness. We can't live without prayer. We can't live without friends. And as we come to the words of our text, the author of Hebrews is telling us that we can't live without the church. Listen again to his words as rendered by the New Living Translation: "And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do."
And yet many people do neglect church! In this message I want to challenge you to lift the standard when it comes to regular church attendance.
I.
For one thing, when it comes to this matter of church attendance, let us come to grips with the ALARMING SITUATION. Again quoting our text: "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together," and then the added words by the writer "as the manner of some is." Already here in the early church there were some believers who had abandoned the practice of meeting together. They were absenting themselves from the meeting place of worship.
Now that alarming situation is still present with us today. Church attendance has fallen on hard times. Church-going people are on the decline. The latest Gallup Poll survey made a sobering discovery when it found that just 26% of young adults and 32% of middle-aged people go to church every week. Excuses for not attending are as plentiful as one can imagine. The fact is that many professing believers think they can be good Christians without being part of a local congregation.
But I would have you notice that the writer of Hebrews would disagree. Here this first-century Christian urgently admonishes these followers of Christ not to let down or abandon their attendance at these church assembly meetings. In view of these words of our text we must affirm that non-attendance at church without a legitimate, reasonable excuse, acceptable by Christ, . . .