1. Sense of the Sabbath’s Value
See that you have an intelligent and deep sense of the value of the Sabbath as a day of holy rest, and of the obligations lying on you to enter into the great and precious designs of the Lord of the Sabbath in giving you this precious boon. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and is a memorial to the end of time of this precious event. This is the day God made.
2. Order Household Affairs on Saturday
Be careful to put your household affairs in order on Saturday evening and to make arrangements such as to allow you and your family to retire early to rest. In some homes, through thoughtless mismanagement, many matters that might be attended to on Friday are put off until Saturday, with the result that the amount of accumulated work on this day runs on well to the midnight hour, and the workers, weary with their exertions, find it difficult to rise in time for the morning service on the Lord’s Day. Households where God is honoured should be so regulated that such a state of things would not be tolerated, except in cases that are beyond control. God is not the author of confusion.
3. Prayer on Saturday Night
Before retiring on Saturday night give your thoughts and your prayers both at family worship and in private in the direction of the services of the Lord’s Day, praying for a blessing on the speaker, on the word spoken, and on yourself as hearer. Sanctify yourselves, for the Lord will do wonders on the morrow.
4. Rise Early on Sabbath Morning
Form the habit of rising early on Sabbath morning, thereby avoiding the opposite evil with its train of mischiefs, and thereby securing for yourselves and your families full time for the requisite preparations of God. Lying long in bed on Sabbath morning was never a practice indulged in by the godly. Its commonness in these times is to be traced to that low ebb of vital godliness which is showing itself everywhere in the homes of professing people, alas! as well as among the godless. Early will I seek Thee.
5. Prize Sanctuary Ordinances
Prize the ordinances of the sanctuary as the appointments of God for your salvation, and be regular in your attendance on them, not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is. God will not lightly regard the careless observance of the means which He has ordained in His infinite wisdom for the salvation of sinners. And it should be borne in mind that He has expressly intimated to us in His Word that He loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Abstention from the means of grace, except in cases arising from God’s providence or something in the service contrary to God’s Word, is not to be encouraged. The Bible may be read diligently enough at home, and the Spirit can bless it there, but we should remember what the Westminster Divines say:—”The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith unto salvation.” It is not every trifle that should be taken as an excuse for staying at home. Lord, I have loved the habitations of thy house.
6. Avoid Coming Late
Be careful to avoid the evil of coming too late to the house of God, take your places in your pews reverently, and pray to be delivered from a wandering and carnal mind, and that the spirit of natural and spiritual drowsiness may be kept away. Special care should be taken to avoid entering the house of God during prayer. If we cannot be in time we should remain in the vestibule, where the prayer may be heard, and enter on its completion. The unseemly disturbance caused by worshippers entering when this solemn part of the service is being engaged in betrays a lack of reverence. Let all things be done decently and in order.
7. Hear the Word with an Honest Heart
In sitting under the preaching of the Word seek to bring to the exercise of hearing an honest heart and an earnest desire to profit; receive the word of truth with meekness; let there be no endeavour to belittle the force of God’s Word when it admonishes us. Beware of lifelessness and drowsiness, and unintelligent hearing of the Word. Pray to be delivered from these evils and the other hosts that besiege the mind while listening to God’s truth. Let our prayer be that the Holy Spirit might graciously keep us from wandering thoughts and worldly plans on the Lord’s Day. The excessive activity of the mind of many of God’s people on worldly business has been a source of pain and grief to them. And with all our diligence let us never forget that, except the Lord the city keep, the watchmen watch in vain. Let us take heed how we hear and what we hear, and to be on our guard not to receive or reject what we hear because it is in the one case pleasant and in the other repugnant to our ideas. Let us be like the Bereans who searched the Scriptures to see if such things are to be found there, and, if not, then they must be rejected.
8. No Early Departure from Church
Let no preparation be made for leaving the church till after the benediction is pronounced, and then let the retirement be not in haste, but with reverence. For this is the house of God. The unseemly preparations that are made by many before and while the benediction is pronounced is a perfect scandal, and no reverent worshipper will be a party to it.
9. Avoid Loitering
Let the younger and more unthinking avoid collecting in knots around the church gates, where the mind is let loose on what is frivolous and vain, and where the solemn impressions received from the preaching are soon dissipated. Abstain from all appearance of evil.
10. Profitable Homeward Walk
Let those who may have long distances to come, especially if in company with others, remember that their walk homeward from the sanctuary will be profitable or hurtful according as they are employed. In reviewing the services, in pondering some points of truth which they may have felt to be interesting, their walk home may be a walk with God, and they may return to bless their households; while by indulging in worldly conversation and worldly frames of thoughts they will defeat the very ends for which they took their journey. Boston, in his Memoirs, tells of the great benefit received by him on the long walk home from church, thereby listening to the conversation of the godly. While they communed Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.
11. Sabbath Evening Observance
Let the Sabbath evening be spent in harmony with the spirit and exercises of the day. Where there is a family it is a useful practice to ask the younger members to repeat the text and the older to give the main points discussed in the sermon. Where there is a wise father or mother earnestly solicitous for the eternal wellbeing of his or her children, they will find this a very useful practice, and especially if it is accompanied by the other religious instruction which is incumbent upon all to give who have promised to bring up their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. All attempts on the part of the young to confine their attention to grammatical slips, mispronunciation, and other minor faults on the part of the preacher, should be met by reminding them that these are but trivial points in comparison to the truths declared. In some households the practice here condemned reaches a degree when the one theme discussed by the young folks is the preacher’s slips.
12. Evening Acknowledgment and Prayer
Before retiring let there be humble acknowledgment of God’s goodness in granting the privilege of listening to the Gospel, and prayer that the Holy Spirit might bless the truth of God declared. Let there also be acknowledgment made of sins committed in connection with holy things, with the prayer that God, for Christ’s sake, would not mark iniquity.—Extracted.