Forsake not the Assembling of Ourselves Together: Why I Stopped Assembling 1

So.. It's Sabbath, today. The second one since I started blogging. And at least once during the week (and several times during recent times), I've heard the snippets of the following:

Hebrews 10:25 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.

It's the one piece of scripture that SDA's use to motivate themselves to drag their tired bodies out of their beds on Saturday mornings, and valiantly try to remain awake and appear attentive for 3-4 hours each week. It rarely matters whether they understand or agree with what is being said, or argued. There is scriptural guidelines reminding them to get their butts "into church", and so they do. Many comply out of tradition, some out of fear that they'd lose out on heaven at the last moment, some out of duty, and others out of social motivation-to meet their friends.

Yours truly, however, isn't one of them. And it's not that I'm boasting, but in the past three years I've probably been to church a dozen times. Around 2003/2004 I had some burning questions to which I have yet to receive a satisfying answer, and my sporadic appearances in church became more social visits, than spiritual pilgrimages.

I guess a lot of answers that one perceives to have found rely to a large extent on the questions that one has asked. For this reason, I first entered the SDA church at the age of 10, it having answered my question of: what can I do on Saturday mornings when my mother's at work? Someone volunteered to take care of us during the day, take us to and from church, feed us, and life was grand. At the age of 12, I got baptized because I felt that my question of: do you want to see Jesus when he comes, was answered. They also allowed me to get baptized because it was felt that I could adequately (a.k.a correctly) answer all the doctrinal questions that they would have to ask me before allowing me to get baptized on my baptism day.

At the age of 16, the contented feelings were waning, and I began to question myself: why go somewhere to hear folks read from the same place I could read from and better make myself understand the point they were trying to prove? Around 17-18 the question was: how do I rekindle my interest, and make myself go on? By 20 I hinged on to the appeal of group activities, and would attend drama-club meetings (after afternoon church), and bit by bit I was re-mainstreamed. In 3 years I was holding down leadership positions, i suspect mainly, because I could be counted on to ask the right questions, and give the right responses. This went on for a number of years until around 2003 I began to ask a different kind of question, and things haven't been the same, since. It's a very ticklish question when one begins to ask the unquestionable.

Any SDA member in church leadership knows the surefire way to speak according to the law and testimony, and deliver a thus saith the LORD!! It's as simple as

• finding a topic,
• searching for that word in one's Bible concordance,
• finding all the places the word/topic appears,
• finding where it also occurs in the Spirit of Prophecy to ensure the 'argument' is sound, and then delivering it.

I forgot to mention that there's usually a bout of fervent prayer directly before finding the topic, but even without prayer, it is possible to deliver a perfectly scriptural and irrefutable presentation following the formula.

So.. What were my unquestionable questions? And why couldn't I rely on the usual "That isn't salvaric" and "If the Bible doesn't say it, it wasn't meant to be known" and "God moves in mysterious ways" and "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me"??

Stay tuned till next sabbath!

P.S.

For the unwise/uninitiated/unknowing, "Spirit of Prophecy" refers to a series of literature written by the SDA prophetess Ellen G. White until her death in 1912. She covered a range of issues: health and diet principles, education, youth behaviour, family, history, and the list goes on.

P.P.S.

Revelation 12:17 states the following: "And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ". Revelation 19:10 talks about "thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus", explaining that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" By the same neat formula just described, Sis. White ensured that her writings would receive an unquestioning readership, because, if (as demonstrated) she was a prophet, benefiting from the "spirit of prophecy", then her fellow believers would be the remnant, who (if they WANTED to remain the chosen 'remnant') would have to believe in her writings. Astutely, she named them, "Spirit of Prophecy".