Dr. Barclay with Something to Think About - ASSEMBLING TOGETHER

 ASSEMBLING TOGETHER

In the book of Hebrews there is this statement:

[N]ot forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, 

as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, 

and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

(Hebrews 10:25)

The above states very clearly that we should assemble together to help and support one another regularly and even more so as we see potentially the end of the age approaching. But in reality, the opposite seems to be happening. According to many news sources, church attendance in Canada is steadily dropping. CTV news has reported that only about 11% of Canadians attend church weekly, down from 67% after WWII and 30% in 1996. The Bible did also say that you should not be deceived for:

…that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, 

and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition…

(2 Thessalonians 2:3)

Humans have no problems filling stadiums for sporting events or concerts and expending large sums of money in doing so, but it often seems to be too much to go a few blocks to get together as a church body. There seems to be the idea that we can do the same by watching TV or doing whatever virtually rather than coming out of our homes and gathering as a group. Certainly, at times doing events on the internet can be beneficial, but it is not the same any more than attending a concert virtually replaces the in-person event.

But it is not only religious services that have changed, people often won’t leave their homes for goods, nor will schools be open if the weather is any ways inclement. Although there may be good reason for this, it may also indicate a tendency towards isolationism and the resultant increased social and mental problems. It wasn’t too long ago that people would walk miles to go to church or school and in all types of weather. As I mentioned before, persons in Minudie, N.S.* would walk for miles, carrying their shoes because of their value, just to attend Sunday services.

And as for school, well, before there were buses all children walked to school - winter or summer. It was just the thing to do. And still in many places, where people are not as fortunate as we are here, children still undertake great hardships just to get the education that we take for granted. In 1994, it was reported that 10 children, because of the carnage in Rwanda, walked through Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, without money, begging and stealing as needed, fording rivers and avoiding animals and eventually, after 2400 km, coming to South Africa. Why? The Refugee Center on the outskirts of Johannesburg reported that:

 

They were finished. All they had was what was on them. 

They came all this way to go to school.**

One of the group said:

[I]n Zimbabwe they told me to try South Africa. 

It was rich and I could study.**

It’s the desire to become educated and to study that drives people to do extreme things such as this. It’s also the desire to know God that drives people in Indonesia to go to church, causing them to have the highest church attendance on earth at 91.8% in 2018.***

It seems that the desire to obtain a secular education, or to know the Word of God, is not as great in the Western World as it once was. And perhaps, in part, that is why we have as many problems as we evidently do.

It certainly is enough to give one something to think about.  

*Something to Think About - Sept 13, 2020

**Rwandans trek 2,400 km to safety in South Africa by Alec Russell - The Chronicle-Hearld, Wednesday, October 5, 1994

***Church Attendance - Wikipedia