I call your attention this morning
to two texts of scripture which will form the basis of our meditation
this morning and for perhaps the rest of the messages prior
to our departing for three weeks. I will be gone three Lord's Days.
Mrs. Martin and I, as most of you
know, will be privileged to go first of all to Scotland and
then down into England for a theoretically a vacation, but a ministry. And
we are combining these two as the opportunity has been afforded
for this ministry in Scotland at a Bible conference, would
be the closest American parallel to it, and then in London at
a school of theology for ministers and Christian workers. And in
the light of the fact that our attendance is so erratic, I have
broken off our regular series of studies in 1 Thessalonians
in the mornings and in Psalm 1 in the evenings, and we shall
be considering for these few remaining messages until our
departure for these weeks the subject set before us so clearly
in these two passages of scripture. The first is found in the fourth
chapter of the Gospel of John. In this discourse of our Lord
with the woman of Samaria, our Lord Jesus declares in verse
21 of John 4, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall
neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the
Father. Ye worship ye know not what.
We know what we worship. for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And then a text in Philippians
chapter 3, Paul's letter to the church at Philippi, chapter 3, and verse 3. Here the Apostle Paul is dealing
with these Judaizers who were telling the young Christians
at Philippi, you're only second-rate Christians until you get circumcised. It's all right just to believe
in Christ. But if you'd go on and be circumcised and come under
the ceremonial law, you'd be a little bit better. You'd be
real, sure enough, Christians then. And so Paul, in answering
his opponents who are teaching this heresy, says in Philippians
3 and verse 3, For we are the circumcision who worship God
in the Spirit, or better translated, who worship by the Spirit of
God. who rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. We are the circumcision who worship
by the Spirit of God. The Father seeks true worshipers
to worship him in spirit and in truth. We meet each Sunday
morning for what we call a worship service. Some of us have done
this for months and years. Some of us, for as long as we
can remember anything, we have been found almost every Sunday
morning in a church at a so-called worship service. But it's been
a growing conviction of my own, as I've sought to study the matter
of worship in the pages of Holy Scripture, that perhaps very
few of us have even begun to understand, let alone experience,
what true worship really is. Could it be that God would say
to us, as he said to his ancient people Israel through the prophet
Isaiah, that what you bring to me as worship is an abomination
to me? Isaiah chapter 1 deals with that
subject. Could it be that the Lord would
say to us, as he said of the religious people of his own day,
in vain do they worship me? John 4 in verse 23 indicates
that the Father is seeking true worshipers. And that very word
is used, true worshipers who will worship God in spirit and
in truth. That is, the worship that is
true worship is characterized by these two things. It is worship
in spirit. It is worship in truth. In spirit
means it is worship that involves the entire heart. It is not worship
in which the mouth is merely found saying the right words.
The ears found listening to the right words. But it's worship
in which the spirit of a man or woman, the spirit, the inner
being, the heart, the total man, is involved in being poured out
at the footstool of God. But then it must be worship not
only in spirit, that is, the entire heart entering into it,
but it must be worship in truth, that is, worship done according
to the truth of God as revealed in the Word of God. You can't
just let your heart run out in any direction in any way, but
the running out of your heart must be bounded by truth. Now it's possible to seek to
worship God in truth and have it like an empty riverbed unless
it's worship in the Spirit and in truth. Conversely, there's
some people so concerned about worshiping in the spirit, they
don't care about truth. Well, their worship is like a
river that overflows its banks. And instead of bringing blessing,
it brings destruction. But a true worshiper is marked
according to our Lord by worship that is in spirit. It involves
the whole heart. And in the realm of truth, it
is worship according to the revelation of God. Now, if the Father is
seeking true worshipers, the obvious implication is before
us that he isn't concerned about false worshipers. He's not seeking
false worship or vain worship or abominable worship. He wants
true worship. Now, you're here this morning
in a Sunday morning worship service. You have been in many previous
to today, and if the Lord spares you, I trust you will be in many
more. Now, any activity that's a regular part of your life,
unless you're just marking time and going through the motions,
you ought to be concerned as to whether or not it is acceptable
unto God. Now, I asked you at the outset
of our study on this subject of true worshipers, do you have
any grounds to believe that God will have accepted what you have
given to him in this hour and 15 minutes that we spend here
this morning? When 1215 or 1220 rolls around
and the benediction is pronounced, do you have any assurance to
believe that God will have accepted that which you brought to him
in that hour, 15 or 20 minutes? Do you have any assurance based
upon Holy Scripture that God has accepted the worship you've
brought to him in past Sunday mornings? You say, I just never
thought of that. Well, if you haven't, it's high
time you did. And I want us to think seriously
about this whole matter of what is it to be a true worshipper,
to bring to God the kind of worship which he will gladly accept,
the worship which he himself seeks and of which he himself
is the author. So much then for introducing
the subject. I want us to consider in the first place, as we think
our way through this subject, this very basic question, what
is worship? Then we will begin in the second
place to consider what are the prerequisites of worship. Now, what is worship? When you
say, I am going to a worship service and someone on the corner
of Bloomfield Avenue and Roseland Avenue would ask you, now you
say you're going to a worship service. What do you mean by
worship? What would you answer? What would
be your definition of worship? Well, let's consider in the first
place a formal definition, then a working description of worship
which will be more helpful. The word worship in the Hebrew
means to bow down or to prostrate oneself, and in the Greek it
means basically the same, to prostrate oneself, to do obeisance
to someone or something. Worship might be formally defined
in the following way. Worship is the honor reverence
and homage paid to a superior being, whether men, angels, false
gods, or the true and living God. The word worship sometimes
is used to express the homage that is given, the reverence
that is paid to something other than the true God. It is said
in Romans 1 that they worshiped and served the creature more
than the creator. Deuteronomy 17.3 speaks of the
worship of false gods. Revelation 22.8 speaks of John's
attempt to fall down and worship the angels. So a formal definition
of worship would embody these ideas of honor, reverence, and
homage paid to some superior being. Now, for a working description
of worship, which is far more helpful than a formal definition,
let's turn to several portions of Scripture where it is said
that a certain person or certain persons worshipped, and then
it tells us what was involved in their worship. Will you turn
to the book of the Revelation, chapter 4? Now remember, what
we're trying to do is simply get a working description and
definition of worship. Am I worshipping God this morning?
Have I worshipped Him? Is my worship acceptable? Well,
I want to know what the thing is. That's the first and most
basic consideration. Revelation chapter 4, beginning
with verse 10. The four and twenty elders fall
down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that
liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the
throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and
honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy
pleasure they are and were created. They worshiped, saying, Thou
art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. What is worship, according to
this passage? It is the conscious, wholehearted
ascription of honor and praise to God for who He is and for
what He has done. Turn to chapter 7 of the same
book and notice verses 11 and 12. And the angels stood round about
the throne and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell
before the throne on their faces and worshipped God, saying, Amen,
blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and
power and might be unto our God forever and forever. Amen. They worshiped, saying, Amen,
blessing and glory and honor and power and thanksgiving and
wisdom and might be unto our God. They were worshiping. What
is this working description of worship? You have the same elements
as we had in the fourth chapter. A conscious, wholehearted, God-directed
activity of homage and praise being rendered unto Him. Chapter
11. And verse 16, this will be the
last passage we'll look at here for a moment. Chapter 11 and
verse 16. And the four and 20 elders which
sat before God on their seats fell upon their faces and worshiped
God, saying, We give the thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art
and was and art to come, because thou has taken to thee thy great
power and hast They worship saying, we give thee thanks for who you
are. You're the God who was and is
and ever shall be. For what you've done, you're
the God who's exercised your power in bringing judgment upon
the nations. Now, do you see the elements
of true worship as described in these passages? In the first
place, will you notice in every case, wherever it said that a
person or group of beings worshipped, it was a conscious activity. Now every one of you has been
engaged very consistently in a certain activity from the time
you entered this building. You have been engaged in the
activity of breathing. Now, that is not a conscious
activity. I doubt there's a one of you
who has thought from the time you entered this building 43
minutes ago to the time I mentioned it, who sat there and thought,
I am breathing. I must inhale. I must exhale. I must inhale. I must exhale. No, it's an unconscious activity,
a very real and personal activity that only you can perform for
you. Someday when you get tired of
breathing and would like to have your wife do it for you, see
it, try it and see what happens. Or you'd like to leave it for
Henry to do. You can't do it. It's a very personal, conscious,
necessary activity, unconscious activity. Now, worship is not
like breathing. All you need to do to breathe
is just come in here and sit down and do what comes naturally,
and you don't even think about it, you breathe. But you see,
worship is not that way. The fact that you've come and
placed yourself down in a seat in a building set apart for holy
worship does not mean that you'll worship. For worship, unlike
breathing or walking, is a very conscious, deliberate activity. For you'll notice in each of
these descriptions of worship, which I've read in there, but
a few recorded in Holy Scripture, these elders, these angels, these
heavenly creatures are consciously involved in an activity. They
cast their They have thrown their crowns before the throne and
they worship God saying. Their minds are active. They
are thinking about God's character. He is, He was, and He is to come. They are consciously thinking
about God's works. They are praising Him for either
creation or providence or judgment. There is conscious, physical,
mental, spiritual activity. And I'm convinced with all my
heart, dear ones, that this is perhaps the greatest stumbling
block to true worship. We have not grasped the fact
that worship is a conscious activity to which you must give yourself
with every fiber of your being, or you won't worship. If you simply come into a gathering
such as this, as it were, sit back and shift into neutral,
and think that somehow worship will just automatically come.
It will not come. It is a conscious activity. And
then I've hinted at the second factor. It is a wholehearted
activity. There's no indication that these
beings around the throne while they're worshiping are knitting.
Now I've watched women knit. And it's amazing how they can
do all that and keep the things straight, and yet it's sort of
a subconscious activity. They can be carrying on a conversation,
they can be watching a TV program, and the needles just seem to
go right. They can really do two things at once. A person
who can knit well seems to be able to do two things at once.
I can't do that with knitting, but I've learned that with driving.
There are times when I've wondered, how in the world did I get from
this place to that place? I'll be engrossed in conversation
with someone and I won't even remember going through a certain
town. And yet apparently I've been driving very carefully.
I could tell you what the name of the town was and what the
speed limit was and all the rest. But I've been able to do two
things at once, carry on an intelligent conversation or half intelligent
and at the same time operate my motor vehicle. But you see,
worship is not like knitting or driving. Not only is it a
conscious activity, but it is a wholehearted activity that
demands the employment of all of your faculties in this one
thing, the act of worship. And don't you get that feeling,
feel that mood as you read these passages that I've read to you?
They're all business. The four and twenty elders fell
upon their faces and they worshiped God's sake. There was one thing
in their minds, one thing occupying them when they came to worship.
It was not only a conscious activity, but a wholehearted activity. And in the third place, it was
a God-directed activity. We'll consider in a subsequent
message the posture of true worship, and it's interesting that verse
after verse after verse indicates that worship is always issuing
from the posture of brokenness before God. These verses say,
they fell down before the throne and worshiped God. In other words,
when a man worships, his worship, like the narrow end of a funnel,
is all poured out in the direction of the living God Himself. Let me state it in as blunt a
way as I know possible. If the center of your mental
attention and the focus of your expectations when you come to
church is the pulpit and what comes over the pulpit, you're
not a worshiper of God. This is why I've often thought
I wish we could somehow do away with the idea of the pulpit.
I tried for a while when we sang our hymns to sit down in the
old church where there was a platform behind the pulpit and get myself
out of sight. I felt that one of the great
stumbling blocks to worship is the idea that all of our eyes
are fixed upon the person who leads the service rather than
on the unseen but very real presence of the living God. True worship,
as we see in these passages, is not only a conscious activity,
a wholehearted activity, but it is a God-directed activity. It does not focus upon the hearing
of sermons. Nor does it focus upon the listening
to music, but it focuses upon God Himself, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Now, with this kind of a working
description, can we come up with a definition of worship? We got
the formal definition, giving homage or reverence to some higher
being. But now, can we come up with
a very practical definition? See if this fits. Worship is
that conscious, wholehearted activity of ascribing honor and
praise to the living and the true God. Worship is that conscious,
wholehearted spiritual activity of ascribing honor and praise
to the living and the true God. They who worship Him must worship
Him in spirit, that's the whole heart, in truth, the true and
the living God is revealed in Holy Scripture. So much then
for a brief description of what worship is. Now we come to the
core of our consideration for this morning, namely, what are
the prerequisites of true worship? You know, not everyone can worship.
Not everyone here can worship. Not everyone here is able to
worship in your present spiritual condition. For if there's to
be true worship, there must be, in the first place, true knowledge
of God. If worship is the conscious,
wholehearted direction of praise and adoration to the living and
the true God, there can be no worship until, first of all,
there is some knowledge of the true God. Notice how Paul very
clearly assumes this in his discourse to the Athenian philosophers
in Acts 17. Here these people were quite
involved in worship. And they were worshiping many
gods. And Paul tells them in Acts 17,
in verse 22, He, men of Athens, I perceive
that in all things ye are too superstitious or very religious,
as some translate it. For as I passed by and beheld
your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, to the
unknown God. Now he says, how ridiculous.
How in the world can you worship an unknown God? Someone comes
over and bows his head and says a little prayer to the unknown
God. He said, well, that's ridiculous. If you're going to worship a
God, you've got to know something about that God. So he says, here's
my mission. Notice the next verse. Whom therefore
ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. And then he begins
to give them some basic facts about the knowledge of the true
God. You see what he's saying? In essence, you people will never
be worshipers of the true God. until you know some certain facts
about him. And so he begins by declaring
unto them facts about God. He is Creator, God that made
the world and all things therein. He is the Sovereign. He is Lord
of heaven and earth. He is non-material, he is spirit,
God is spirit, he dwells not in temples made with hands, neither
is worshipped with men's hands as though he needs anything,
and he goes on to give them these elementary facts about the nature
and being of God. Why? For they cannot worship
God in truth until they know the truth about him. And so he
doesn't begin by seeking to work up their spirits to worship.
He starts by straightening out their heads and putting some
facts into their heads regarding the nature and character of God. Now, do you see the application
of this to our own lives? Where does one begin to create
worshipers? Those of us who are parents,
how are you going to make worshipers of your children? By teaching
them to be quiet when they come into a building set apart for
worship? No, you ought to do that simply
on the basis of teaching them good manners. That has nothing
to do with worship. Quietness is not worship. In fact, true
worship might be a pretty noisy thing sometimes. I think sometimes
our silence is an indication we aren't worshiping. If we really
got to worshiping, we just might get some burst of ecstatic joy
come over us that some loud hallelujahs and praise the Lord might leap
out of us unexpectedly. And true worship might be very
noisy. There are other times it's very silent. You see, true
worship is not determined by the decibels or lack of decibels. That's how you measure sound.
You don't put a decibel counter there and say, well, they must
be worshiping. It's up to 40 or it's down to minus two. Now,
worship is not measured in terms of volume or lack of volume.
How are you going to make worshippers out of your children? Here's
the place of your responsibility as a parent. Teach them the facts
about God. This is why you ought to catechize
your children, because most catechisms are arranged to teach elementary
facts about the character of God to our children, like the
little Children's Catechism so beautifully says, are there more
gods than one? No, there is only one God. In
how many persons does this one God exist? In three persons.
What are they? The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Can you see God? No, but he always sees me. Can
God do all things? Yes, God can do all his holy
will. Does God know all things? Yes, nothing can be hid from
God. What is this doing to a child? It is putting into his mind some
facts about the true God. For what purpose? That he might
know the truth about God, that when the Holy Ghost touches his
heart, he might worship in spirit and according to the boundaries
of truth. Now, that's where Paul started
with the Athenians. That's where we must start with
our own children. That's where we must start in
our own family circles. That's where we must start in
our evangelism. That's where Paul started. You
don't start by trying to get men to feel better and hope that
if they feel better, they'll begin to worship God. They've
got to know some things about God first. But there must not
only be some true knowledge of God, but now listen carefully,
there must be a spiritual sight of God. In order to see something,
a man needs two things. He needs light as well as sight. Now when David prayed, he prays
for both of these things to be given to him by God. Listen to
his prayer or his declaration in Psalm 119, 105. Thy word is
a lamp unto my feet and a light to my pathway. He says, all right,
the word of God sheds light upon my pathway. But in Psalm 119
and verse 18, this is what he prays. Open thou mine eyes, that I might
behold wondrous things out of thy law." And I looked up that
word, open, and it's an interesting word. It's the word used in a
standard way for denuding someone, undressing someone. It's the
word used when it describes the fact that Noah's son came and
found him uncovered. He found him undressed. He found
him naked. In Leviticus chapter 20, you
have the rules of God, the Mosaic legislation concerning a man
that would uncover the nakedness of his brother's wife, or his
father's wife, or some other illicit relationship. But that
word used again and again for uncover, to undress, is precisely
the word that David uses here. He says, Oh God, it's not enough
that your word is there as a light upon my pathway. My eyes have
cataracts that need to be pulled off. I need to have my eyes undressed. I need to have my eyes denuded,
uncovered. Two things are needed. Light,
yes, but all the light in the world will not help a man whose
eyes are veiled. There needs to be sight, eyes
that can see, and light that will reveal the truth to be seen. And so if we are to be true worshipers,
there must not only be true knowledge of God, But there must be this
spiritual sight of God, and by nature we are spiritually blind. Ephesians 4, 17 and 18 declares
that by nature the understanding is darkened and we are alienated
from the life of God. Second Corinthians 4, 4 says
the God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe
not. Now I might take a blind man and describe to this blind
man a tree, an oak tree. And I might tell him that it's
so wide and it's so tall and the leaves are of such and such
a shape. And that blind man might be guided over to that tree and
feel the bark. and feel the leaves. He knows
something of the shape of a tree. He knows something of the size
of a tree, the density of the bark and of the wood of the tree,
something of the texture of a leaf. But he's never seen a tree. He
has some idea, but his eyes have never seen all of that in its
living form. Now this is a little bit. What
happens to that child of ours into whose mind we put right
thoughts of God? God is everywhere. God can do
all things. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It's like teaching a blind man
what an oak tree is like by guiding his hands to feel its shape,
to feel the leaves, to feel its texture. And that we must do.
But God must do something else, or there'll never be worshippers
of him. God must open the eyes to see us. That's what a tree
is. That's who God is! Not only right
knowledge of him, but a spiritual sight of him that will cause
them to become true worshippers. It's obvious in those passages
which I read to you from Revelation that those people that are worshipping
God are worshipping and seeing a real God. They're responding
to a present sight of God. It says they fall down before
His throne and they worship Him that sits upon that throne. They
are worshiping in terms of a very real sight of God. Now this spiritual sight of God,
which is absolutely necessary to true worship, is not something
that I can create nor can you, for the Scripture reveals at
least three things about that spiritual sight of God. First
of all, that it comes to men according to the sovereign will
of Christ. Will you turn to Matthew chapter
11, a very interesting portion of scripture along this line? How is it that someone comes
not only to have the external knowledge of God, but this spiritual
sight of God? Matthew chapter 11 in verse 25. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank the old father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and has
revealed them unto babes. Even so, father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto
me of my father and no man knoweth the son, but the father. neither
knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever
the Son will reveal him." Notice his statement, no man knows the
Father, no one has this spiritual sight of God save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son wills to reveal him. This spiritual
sight of God comes sovereignly by the will of Christ. But, oh,
look at the next verse. Is he reluctant to reveal his
Father to man? No, listen, come, come unto me,
all ye that labor in your heavy labor. Scripture teaches that
this sight of God comes sovereignly, but it comes from the hand of
a willing Christ. Who says come? Come. He that
hath seen me hath seen the Father. All that come to me I will receive. All who come unto God by him
find him a willing and an able revealer of the Father. So it
comes sovereignly and then secondly it comes and I don't know a better
word to use so I'll use this big word and then explain it.
It comes in a mediatorial way. That is, this sight of God always
comes through a mediator, through the Lord Jesus. For he says in
John 14, 9, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. In that verse on worship from
which we read earlier in Philippians 3, 3, Paul says we are the circumcision
who worship in the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus. For we've come to the true worship
of God through the Lord Jesus, the Son of His love. And it comes
by the power of the Spirit, 2 Corinthians 4, 6, God, who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, where? In
the face of Jesus Christ. We come to this spiritual sight
of God not directly, but through a mediator. And we come to it
as the Holy Spirit reveals the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. This is why our Lord describes
eternal life in these very terms in John 17, 3, when he says,
This is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. So that there is no true
knowledge of God except through the Son. And any true knowledge
of the Son introduces us, as it were, to the true spiritual
worship of God. Now, the first then prerequisite
of true worship is knowledge of God, a spiritual sight of
God. Now, what are the implications
of this as we try to bring this to a practical conclusion? Well,
the first implication is that it's obvious there's no true
worship until a person is born of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said
in John 3 and verse 3, except the man be born again, he cannot
see. And that word see could very
well be translated. He cannot perceive the kingdom
of God. When someone hands me something
and I say, now read that. I say, but I can't see it. I
read it, but I can't see it. Well, what I mean is there's
no malfunction in my eyes. I can read the words, but I can't
perceive what's there. Now, Jesus, when he said, Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He means
there is no perceiving. There's no ravishing sight of
God until the Holy Spirit has opened our spiritual eyes. You and I may be able to say
with theological precision in answer to the question, what
is God? We can memorize, and we ought to, the answer of the
shorter catechism. God is a spirit, infinite, eternal,
and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice,
goodness, and truth. That's fine. And you ought to
know that. God is a spirit, infinite, eternal,
and unchangeable in His being, His wisdom, His power, His holiness,
justice, goodness, and truth. You know all of that, and never
be found like those people described in the book of the Revelation,
prostrate on your face, crying, worthy art thou of God. See? Until we are born of the Spirit,
so that we have spiritual eyes that perceive the beauty of this
God who is Spirit, we will not be found worshiping Him. Any other worship other than
that which is the result of this sight of God is vain worship.
I ask you this morning, could it be that some of you cannot
worship today because you're strangers to the new birth? Just
as much a stranger to it as this man, Nicodemus, who knew many
things about the true God of Israel. But Jesus said, you'll
never really know anything, Nicodemus, until you're born from above.
Someone asked Mr. Whitfield why he preached so
often on the third chapter of John, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. He preached some 350 times
on that subject in the course of his ministry. And he said,
the reason I preach on the subject, you must be born again is because
you must be born again. Does it seem elementary? for
me to say to you young people and adults and visitors and friends
with us, except you're born of the Spirit, except there is this
work of the sovereign Christ revealing the Father through
himself to you by the Spirit, you'll never be a true worshiper.
Oh, may it cause you to throw yourself down upon your face,
crying out, Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me, show me the Father,
show me the Father. Child of God, do you see the
implication of this to yourself? If the first prerequisite of
true worship is a true knowledge of God and a spiritual sight
of God, how should you prepare yourself for worship? Well, how do most of us prepare
ourselves for a Sunday morning worship service? Well, we break
out our best suit and our nice dress And we fix ourselves up
a little nicer on the outside, which is perfectly fine. But
are we, as it were, digging up from the storehouse of past understanding
what we know about God and setting it in order before our eyes,
before our mental eyes? Are we preparing ourselves by
seeking the first thing Sunday mornings to turn our minds to
the being of God and think about who he is? As we get out of our
cars and walk through the doors and take our places, are we focusing
our minds upon what we know of God? Jesus said true worshipers
worship Him in truth. They worship according to what
they know of God. I venture to say that the very
suggestion of this sounds strange to some. But that's what's involved
in true worship. You cannot worship with holy
zeal like these beings before the throne unless you presently
are thinking about the very things that they're thinking about.
What were they thinking about? I'm sure they weren't thinking
about their roast at home. And I'm sure they weren't thinking
about many of the trivial things that occupy our minds. They were
thinking about this person before them. He was the eternal God. So when they worship him, they
say to this great God, thou art the God who was and is and is
to come. They were thinking about his
character, about his works. about the manifestation of His
power. So you and I, if we are to worship,
must fix the mind upon Him, call to remembrance what we know of
Him. We must worship Him according
to truth, but we must worship Him in the Spirit. There must
be the involvement of the whole man. So if we are to truly worship
We must learn what it is to cry to God for the Holy Spirit to
give us ever-increasing measures of understanding and to enable
us to shake off the dullness, the lead feet, that would keep
us from marching up to his throne and prostrating ourselves before
him. I just wish that you could stand
where I stand sometimes and look at your faces when we're singing
hymns that ought to make you look drunk with ecstasy. And beloved, we look like we're
drunk, not with ecstasy, but with indifference. Hymns that focus upon the being
of God. There ought to be sometimes when
I'd have to thunder out in the middle of a hymn, contain yourselves,
lest you be deranged by your zeal after God. Oh, that God would give us the
opportunity of having to restrain in your holy worship. Frankly,
dear ones, this is why I just long to get away from this pulpit. I wish I could sit right down
there. and have on a board somewhere the order of service and would
just check up occasionally and just be able to take my place
with you and lift up my voice with no thought of anybody or
anyone else but me and the Lord and my voice blending with the
voice of His people in holy praise and holy worship." Does that sound like enthusiasm?
If it is, you better get prepared for it because that's the kind
of enthusiasm you're going to be occupied with for eternity.
For among other things, you're going to join that crowd described
in the book of the Revelation, who's going to be lost in that
conscious, wholehearted ascription of praise and honor to the living
God. May God grant that he would give
us that which we cannot give. We cannot crank up some kind
of enthusiasm. That would be strange fire upon
God's altar which would provoke His wrath and His judgment. But
we can turn our minds consciously and deliberately to think upon
what we know of God. We can and we must ask the Holy
Spirit to send fresh fire of holy zeal into our hearts, that
we might praise Him with our whole beings, and then give ourselves
to the praise of God, consciously, deliberately bringing the mind
into subjection, bringing our dissipated affections into subjection. And then as God is pleased to
receive that worship, I believe he will give us ever-increasing
measures of the ability to truly worship him in spirit and in
truth. God is a spirit, and he seeks
true worshipers who will worship him in this way. Have you found
the cause, perhaps, of the weakness of your worship this morning?
I hope you have. I want this to be not just theoretical,
but remedial. You know what remedial English
classes are, remedial reading classes. You try to find where
people's problems are and meet them there and take them on to
something better. And I hope that this has been
a remedial worship class this morning, so that even as we come
tonight, you will consciously, as you come through the doors
and even before, as you're driving here, turn your thoughts to your
God, who He is, what He's done. Turn your heart to the Lord afresh,
asking that the Spirit will come, enabling you to worship. And
I'm convinced as we do and as we sense and experience a little
bit more of what true worship is, it'll wet our appetites and
spoil us. For just a dull, dry round of
the mouthing of our hymns and our prayers and we will be restless
unless we know what it is to be abandoned to his praise as
we read of those creatures before the throne in the book of the
Revelation. May God grant that to this end
we shall absorb and work out in life and practice this portion
of the truth of God to the end that God may have that which
he seeks. What a delight it would be to
know that our worship was acceptable to him. That's all we ask. Whether
it's acceptable to anybody else or any human standard, who cares?
But if the God who made us to be his and revealed himself that
we might worship him, if he's satisfied, then we're satisfied. Let us pray. O God, we confess to Thee this
morning the sin of our failure to worship Thee as we ought.
Forgive us that so many other things draw forth our conscious,
wholehearted, enthusiastic effort, but Thy worship so often finds
us languishing in zeal, sluggish in spirit, Dull in mind, O Lord,
when shall the day come when we will shake off all the limitations
of this earthly frame and join those pure spirits before Thy
throne, lost in wonder, love, and praise? God, minister to
us. Give us such a satisfying and
ever-unfolding knowledge of Thyself, quickened by a spiritual sight
of Thy beauty, that we may be true worshippers who bring delight
to Thee. For those who cannot worship
because they are yet in their sins, they've never been quickened
to life by the Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, may it please Thee
to reveal the Father to them. O Lord Jesus, do Thy work of
revealing the Father as His glory is seen in Thy face. Hear us and seal to our hearts
this word. Send us to our homes to meditate
upon it, to think upon it, to discuss it about our family tables. Grant, O Lord, that we may hallow
and sanctify this day to our prophet and to thy glory. Now may the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, the fellowship
and communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.