God revealed His judgment against Israel to the prophet Amos in the vision of a basket of summer fruit (Amos chapter 8). He condemned corrupt businessmen who hastened to make profit by oppression and deceit. These people were so fixated on their wickedness that they came to resent having to spend time serving the Lord. God had heard their complaints, “When will the New Moon be past, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, falsifying the scales by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals - even sell the bad wheat?” (vs. 5-6).

While we may not be involved in corrupt business dealings, how many of us are thinking the same thing when we are sitting in the pew on the Lord’s Day? “When will this be over? I’ve got other things that I want to do.”

Remember when we used to meet for a second worship service at 3:00 in the afternoon? The attendance was always less (sometimes much less) than the morning worship. Now that we only meet in the morning, I wonder if some of us are still complaining in our hearts, “When will this be over? Hurry up and finish this sermon. My children are bored… and so am I. This is too much time for us to be assembled in worship to God and study of His word. We’re going to quit coming to the 9:30 service – we can’t get everyone in our family up and ready that early.”

I remind you that Sunday is the Lord’s Day – not the Lord’s 2-3 hours! There is nothing wrong with making plans for other things on Sunday afternoon. However, there is a problem when these plans make us groan because the morning service goes a little past noon. To a faithful Christian, there is nothing more important happening on Sunday than assembling to worship God. “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24).