A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath.
It is good to give thanks to the LORD,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night.
(Psalm 92:1–2)
We have previously seen how the Sabbath reminds us who we are and what we have been made for. And on the Sabbath, we have worship services in the morning and evening to saturate our whole day in the gospel, bringing us back to the truth and to rest in who we are in Christ. We find biblical prescriptions for worshipping morning and evening in both the Old Testament and New Testament. We also notice this pattern throughout the history of the church.
Old Testament: First, let us think about the Old Testament sacrificial code. Of course, the sacrifices are no longer incumbent upon us, however, the principles they represent are. God commanded the priests to make sacrifices every morning and every evening. Specifically, they were to sacrifice one lamb with a grain and drink offering every morning and evening of the week. (It is referred to as the tamid). However, on the Sabbath day they were to double both the lambs and the drink and grain offerings (cf. Ex. 29:39,41; 30:8; Nu. 28:4,8). Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, references are made to the practice of morning and evening sacrifices (2 Ch. 13:11; Ez. 3:3; Da. 9:21; Ps. 141:2; cf. Ps. 34:1; 55:17; 119:164).1
New Testament: Though no explicit statement is made in the Old Testament about frequency of worship, there is ample circumstantial evidence that the New Testament Church viewed the whole day as belonging to the Lord (Acts 20:7; 1 Co. 16:2; Re. 1:10). There is never any debate among the Apostolic Fathers as to the appropriateness of the Church meeting for worship both morning and evening on the Lord’s Day. Since the Old Testament commanded sacrifices to be made at the opening and close of each day, and since prayer is the New Testament successor to sacrifices, then it was clear to them they must worship morning and evening.
Church History: Scripture is our ultimate authority, but God gives us church history so we might see how the Spirit has led our forefathers to interpret and apply Scripture as well. Like the Old and New Testaments, we see a commitment to morning and evening worship throughout church history. The only deviation is the Middle Ages when the Roman Catholic Church thought God could not be properly worshiped except in the cloister.2 The Reformers and the Puritans liberated worship from its clerical bondage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.3 They too took seriously the Old Testament call to daily morning and evening worship, especially on the Lord’s Day. By the practice of family worship, morning and evening, the Puritans recaptured the sacrifices’ daily reminder that we belong to the Lord and depend on him all the day for his mercies.
Matthew Henry wrote two classics to help Christian families worship morning and evening, A Method of Prayer and Directions for Beginning, Spending and Closing Each Day with God.4 The Westminster Directory for Worship, a Puritan document in our heritage, prescribes family worship for “morning and evening.” Reflecting the doubled sacrifices on the Sabbath day, Puritan worship was intensified morning and evening of the Lord’s Day.5 The biblical prescription and the historical practice of our forbearers calls us to make morning and evening worship part of our daily practice, and especially our practice on Sunday.
Finally, notice the two attributes of God the psalmist proclaims in conjunction with morning and evening worship. In the morning, we are reminded that God loves us. That is not something we naturally believe, so we have to be reminded. In the evening, we are reminded of God's faithfulness. As we wind down and prepare for the week ahead and all of its various responsibilities, we are reminded that God keeps his faithfulness to us. There is no more tangible way to seal to our hearts and minds that God loves us and is faithful to us than by opening and closing the Lord's Day with corporate worship.
- Cf. John Calvin, Commentary: Harmony of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, s.v. Second Commandment, p. 301.
- Juan Mateos, “The Morning and Evening Office,” Worship 42 (Ja 1968): 31-47.
- Douglas F. Kelly, “Family Worship: Biblical, Reformed, and Viable for Today,” Worship in the Presence of God (Greenville: Greenville Presbyterian Theological Press, 1992): 103-129.
- See discussion of these books by Hughes Oliphant Old, “The Reformed Daily Office: A Reformed Perspective,” Reformed Liturgy and Music 12:4 (1978): 9-18.
- J.I. Packer, “The Puritans and the Lord’s Day,” A Quest for Godliness (Wheaton: Crossway, 1990), 241.