We shall be considering this
morning the third in a series of studies on the general theme
of spiritual worship—what is it, and how may I render it to
God? I have been increasingly convinced
that this is a vital subject, for we come week by week, meeting
here or elsewhere, especially during the summer, for what we call a worship service. And most of us here have spent
a good many months and years involved in what we call attending
worship services. Now, if this is so, then the
question that ought to be before us continually is this. Is what
I am bringing to God in a, quote, worship service really acceptable
to Him? Perhaps different temperaments
will determine how we think about this thing, but I cannot imagine
a person content to just come and sit and say the right words,
be at the right posture at the right time, and go his way week
in, week out, and never ask this question, is God accepting what
I bring to him? If he isn't, then let's quit
and spend Sunday morning out on the golf course, worshiping
by watching the birdies as we hit the ball down the fairway.
Is God accepting what you bring to him this morning? It's just
that personal. Has he accepted what you brought
to him? You have brought him in past
Sunday mornings. That's a pretty basic, important
question. And the only way to answer it
is to turn to Holy Scripture and seek to understand what is
true worship, what is that worship which is acceptable unto God. We saw in our studies last Lord's
Day that according to the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John,
the worship which the Father seeks is worship in spirit and
in truth. For our Lord said to the woman
of Samaria, God is a spirit. And they that worship him must,
must, it's imperative, if they are to offer acceptable worship,
they must worship him in spirit and in truth. That is, their
worship must be the involvement of the whole person. Worship
in spirit, worship of the whole man. and it must be in truth,
that is, according to the revelation of truth as found in Holy Scripture. Therefore, we are seeking to
understand what is that true worship and how may we render
it to our God. Last Lord's Day we defined worship
formally and then practically. practically as that conscious,
wholehearted description of praise and honor to the true and the
living God. We read several passages in the
book of the Revelation where we have a description of people
of whom it is said they worshiped God and whose worship was obviously
received by God. So if those people did something
that the Bible calls true worship, and it's obvious that God received
what they did, then we must emulate it. And we saw that their worship
was a conscious, wholehearted involvement in ascribing worship,
ascribing praise and honor unto the true and the living God.
Now we are considering from Holy Scripture the prerequisites for
such worship. How is it that those elders,
those heavenly creatures, in one case the beasts that surround
the throne, in another case the angels, a great multitude of
them, how is it that they are equipped to render this true
worship? Not everyone can worship. Not
everyone can render acceptable worship to God. There are certain
prerequisites to true worship. We've considered three of them
thus far. The first one is a true knowledge of God. Worship of
God must be worshipped, Jesus said, in truth. You cannot concoct
a God out of the stuff of your own mind and worship that, no
matter how wholeheartedly you give yourself to that worship
and have it acceptable worship. No, we must worship Him in spirit
and in truth. That is, there must be a true
knowledge of God. The mind must be furnished with
right concepts of God before the life can be involved in acceptable
worship to God. Second prerequisite is a spiritual
sight of God. It is one thing to have intellectual
understanding of the true God. It's another thing to truly see
him with the eyes of the soul so that that sight brings delight. And every picture of true worship
in Holy Scripture, we find the person who is worshiping delightfully
involved in worship because the eyes have been opened to behold
the beauty of God. And then the third prerequisite
is a right posture before God. Not a physical posture, but a
posture of the soul. And the physical posture is important
only as it reflects the posture of the heart. And we found last
Lord's Day evening, in passage after passage, reference to the
physical posture of a man who worshipped. He bowed the head.
He prostrated himself upon the ground. He lifted the hands. But whatever that posture was
externally, it was simply a reflection of the posture of the soul. And
the only posture in which we can worship God is the posture
of humility and submission. If you come with a high head,
you cannot worship. It must be the bowed head, the
acknowledgment that we are but creatures, we are things. He
is the uncaused and eternal God. And you'll notice, as we looked
in those passages in Revelation, the creatures are found worshiping
prostrate before the throne, the place of authority, the place
of power. And so we must take that place
of submission or we cannot worship. Now, I want to make this intensely
practical, and I want to say it in such a way that the youngest
child can understand it. If you, as you sit there now,
are not in a posture of humility and submission to God, God has
not accepted one thing that you uttered in his presence this
morning. And this first 35 minutes or so, the clock on the wall
is fast when you leave. Please be patient with me because
that clock is five to six minutes fast and I haven't gone quite
as long as it may seem. when you look at that clock,
but the first 35 minutes, unless the posture of your soul has
been one of humility, consciously taking your place as a worm before
God and bow before his throne, God has not accepted one thing
that you'd offered unto him. It has been vain, empty, hollow
worship, unacceptable to him. Now we come this morning to the
fourth prerequisite of true worship. And for lack of a better way
to state it, I'll state it this way and then we'll enlarge it,
and I'm sure when we're done studying the thing you'll understand
what I mean, even though my title may be rather poor. There must
not only be true knowledge of God, a spiritual sight of God,
a right posture before God, but there must be purity of heart
and life before God. Now the principle is very simple
yet very basic to all worship. It is this. A man's moral condition,
that is, the condition of his life before the law of God, determines
his ability to worship. Now, this is not true with many
other things. No doubt there will be some people who this
very day will be enjoying ballgames, really wholeheartedly involved
in watching a ballgame. Now, their moral condition has
nothing to do with their ability to enjoy a ballgame. They might
have been out last night painting up the town, drinking it up,
boozing it up, chasing around to the haunts of iniquity, and
yet they can come today and really enjoy a ballgame. In other words,
their moral condition, the condition of their heart and life before
the law of God, has nothing to do with their ability to enjoy
a ballgame. There will be other people visiting
art galleries, and they will stand before a great work of
art, and they will enjoy that and almost worship before it.
Now, that makes no demands upon their moral condition. They could
be the most despicable, low-down, open, profligate lawbreakers
that you could find, and yet they can go down somewhere off
Fifth Avenue today in New York to one of the art centers and
thoroughly enjoy somebody's work of art. Other people will be
listening to concerts today, out in the park or maybe in halls
or auditoriums, and beautiful music will be created by orchestras. And people will thoroughly enjoy
that. But you see, there's no relationship between the life
that they bring to the ballgame, to the art gallery, or to the
concert hall. There need be no relationship
between the moral condition of the spectator at the ballgame
the admirer at the art gallery and the listener in the concert
hall. But now that's not true when you worship. If you and
I are to enjoy God, for that's what worship is, the life that
comes to worship will determine whether or not we can truly enjoy
Him. Therefore, you cannot separate
the life you have lived Monday through Sunday morning at 5 minutes
to 11 from what you do and render to God from 11 o'clock to 12.15
or 12.20. In fact, what you have done and
been from Monday through Sunday at 10.55 determines whether or
not God accepts what you bring from 11 to 12.20. It's just that
simple, just that basic, just that inescapable. That there
is a direct relationship between the moral condition of the worshipper
and whether or not God will accept his worship. Now, before man
fell and sinned, this created no problem. Adam was like God
in the sense that there was no stain of sin upon his conscience.
He could think of a being like God, holy, just, full of power
and might, omniscient, knowing all things, and it didn't bother
him. He could be at home with a God
like that because he was like that God. Was God holy? So Adam was created in original
righteousness, the theologians say. They don't use the term
holiness, but there was no stain of sin. Is God just? Adam can feel at home with a
God like that and look upon Him with delight. Why? Because Adam
was just. There was no injustice in his
state of innocence. Is God all-knowing? Does He know
everything? Does His eye search out the finest
crevice of the human heart? Adam can feel at home with a
God like that. Why? Because there's nothing folded
away in the crevice of his heart from which he would hide. He's
willing for God to be omniscient. There's no dark crevice that
he's trying to keep from the eye of God. So man in a state
of innocency can worship with no problem. Ah, but you and I
are not in a state of innocency. Man in sin has a tremendous problem
because instinctively our sin makes us do exactly what Adam's
sin made him do. The moment Adam sinned, what
is his first activity? He runs. And where does he run? It says he runs, he flees to
hide from what? The presence of God. You see,
the moment sin enters, he can no longer be at home with delight
with a God like that. For now, that God is holy and
Adam knows, I'm unholy, I want to run. He is omniscient, and
I want to hide in the crevices of my heart my sin. So he seeks to run, seeks to
run. He seeks to keep it a distance
from his God. Now, that's the way all of us
are by nature. We are born running from God. And the moment we begin to have
any true knowledge of God, the reaction of our heart is not
that of a man who has, say, a disposition for music, a man who's born with
a musical gift. You hear of some of these geniuses
who at age three were playing stuff that some of us couldn't
play at age 300 if we took ten lessons a week, four hours a
lesson. There was that something in them,
and the moment they heard a piano or something, they sat down and
they took to it like a duck to water. The musical instinct responded
to music. Others, it's the same way with
ability in the realm of sports. You've seen some people that
maybe never played a certain sport, and you put a soccer ball
at their feet or put a baseball bat in their hands, and inside
of five minutes, you think they had the thing all their lives.
But now the moment we begin to get some knowledge of God, there
is never that corresponding response of delight. There is that corresponding
response of aversion, hiding from the presence of a God like
this. Now I hope, when I mention this
problem, you know experimentally what I'm saying. So man in this
state cannot enjoy God. To think upon the true God is
to bring torment. Now, if we can create a God of
our own, a God who isn't holy, a God who will not punish sin,
a God who doesn't know everything, why, then we can worship a God
like that. That's why man continually makes idols. For what is the
idol? The idol is man's attempt to
make a God that he can worship and feel at home with in his
state of sin. So I make my little God and I
set him in my living room. So when I go to the shop and
I cheat and I take home a little material and when I pocket a
little of the boss's money, my little hunk of wood in the living
room, he doesn't see me. So I can feel at home and I can
go back at night, bow down and worship that kind of God. Doesn't
bother me to have that kind of God. But a God whose eye searches
out every place, as scripture says, the eyes of the Lord are
in every place beholding the evil and the good. That man doesn't
want a God like that, does he? That God interferes with what
he does in his business when nobody's around. Even when he
just pilfers a quarter, that God sees that pocket and hears
the quarter when it touches the other change at the bottom. So
man is continually attempting to make an idol. There's this
instinct to worship, but since he's rejected the true God, he
makes a God that he can worship and feel at home with in the
state of his sin. You see, that's why the requirements
for worship are spiritual. For once we begin to know who
the true God is, then our spiritual condition must be such as to
make us feel at home in his presence. This is why I am not at all impressed
when people try to tell me that a beautiful building aids them
in their worship. Rubbish. Poppycock. True worship has nothing to do
with aesthetic surroundings. Nothing whatsoever. If you can
worship God better because of stained-glass windows or the
absence of them, your worship is carnal, not spiritual. For
what does stained-glass windows have to do with the condition
of your soul before a holy God? Does the soft light that filters
through the picture of Christ as the shepherd holding the lamb
have any sanctifying power upon your spirit? If it did, I'll
find the nearest stained-glass window and stand there three
hours a day, because there's sure a lot of sanctification
that needs to be wrought in my life. if there is anything in
the sonorous tones of a beautiful organ that can penetrate the
inner recesses of the heart and make it more like Christ. And
I think the top item ought to be not an ad in the paper, Newark
News, all this week for land and a building for the Trinity
Church, but it ought to be for an organ. Because we need to
be sanctified more than we need brick and mortar, don't we? No,
no. Worship is spiritual. That's
why when Jesus was talking to this woman at the well, in the
whole context of spiritual worship, he brought in this whole matter
of her moral condition. Call your husband. The father's
seeking true worshipers, but he's got to make people fit for
worship. Call your husband. We've got to get your life adjusted
before you'll ever offer acceptable worship to God. I don't want
to labor the point, but do you see the basic principle, and
it's illustrated again and again in Holy Scripture. Now let's
focus on the problem this principle creates. If this principle is
valid, that true worship is directly related to the life it worships,
its moral condition, then this creates a tremendous problem.
Turn with me to Revelation chapter 4 again, one of these worship
passages. Revelation chapter 4, John has this vision of the throne
of God, and the best way he can describe it is in these terms
of lightnings flashing and thunder pealing and lamps burning before
the throne and a sea of glass like pure crystal. And then he
sees these beasts who are surrounding the throne, and notice what the
theme of their song is, verse 8 of Revelation 4. And the four
beasts had each of them six wings about him, and they were full
of eyes within, and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy,
holy, holy Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come. And when these beasts give glory
and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne who liveth
forever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before
him that sat on the throne. Remember who he is now. He is
this thrice holy God. And they 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." Now they seem to be perfectly at home in the
presence of a God so holy that these beasts that surround full
of eyes within and without, crying day and night, 24 hours around
the clock, John says, holy, holy, holy. Yet these elders, whoever
they are, they feel perfectly at home with a God like that.
They draw right up to his throne, cast their crowns before his
throne, and they delightfully worship him. You know why, don't you? Because
there's no stain of sin to hinder them. These beasts, if they represent
heavenly creatures who've never been here on earth and part of
the fallen race of Adam, they have no problem. They've never
known what it is to have their eyes dimmed by sin. They worship
God with undimmed eyes. They love Him with undivided
heart. They praise Him with undefiled lips. They pour out their worship
from an unspotted character. We aren't those creatures. We're
part of the fallen sons of Adam, part of that race. What about
these elders? Well, if they represent all the
redeemed of all ages, they're in a glorified state. Every last
stain of sin has been purged from them. They are glorified.
Sin has been forever removed. But now I thought God sought
worshipers here and now. How can we worship? That's the
problem that Mr. Binney focused in his hymn, Eternal
Light. Eternal Light, Eternal Light,
how pure that soul must be, which placed within thy burning light,
shrinks not, but with calm delight can live and look on thee. You
see what he's saying? If any creature is to look upon
a holy God with delight, he must be holy, for any unholiness in
the presence of a God like that would make us run like Adam.
And so he says in the second verse, the spirits that surround
thy throne, whether they be the beast or the elders, they may
bear this burning bliss. But surely that is theirs alone,
for they have never, never known a fallen world like this. But
how shall I? whose native sphere is dark,
whose mind is dim before the ineffable appear, and on my naked
spirit bear the uncreated being. Mr. Binney said there's a problem.
How in the world can a creature like me worship a God like that? Now, has that problem ever gripped
you? Has it? Listen to the words of Mr. Spurgeon.
Where angels bow with veiled faces, how shall man be able
to worship at all? If angels veil their faces, creatures
of never known sin, if they veil their faces to worship, how shall
man worship at all? The unthinking, and I fear, brethren,
that this includes some of us, the unthinking may imagine it
to be a very easy matter to approach the Most High. And when professedly
engaged in worship, they have no questionings of heart as to
their fitness for it. In other words, Spurgeon says,
there are people who say, sure, I go Sunday morning to worship.
I open the hymn book, sing the hymns, listen to the sermon,
go home. So I worship. If you have never been perplexed by
this question, am I really fit to worship God? Spurgeon would
call you an unthinking person. But truly humbled souls often
shrink under a sense of utter unworthiness and would not dare
approach the throne of God, the God of holiness, if it were not
for Him, our Lord, our Advocate. Do you see the problem? To worship God, one must be like
God. But we are not like God. We cannot
worship? No. Mr. Binney says in the next words
of his hymn, there is a way for man to rise to that sublime abode
and offering and a sacrifice of Holy Spirit energies and advocate
with God. Having looked at the principle
and focused on the problem, now in the third place, what's the
solution to this problem? We must be at home in the midst
of a God of burning holiness. The answer is we must be pure.
And how can we be pure? God has made a way that we might
be pure positionally and that we might be pure experimentally. Now, what do I mean pure positionally? I mean by that we have a legal
purity before God. Once I begin to know something
of how holy God is and how just he is and what a sinner I am,
I know that God, if he's God, must punish my sin. Therefore,
though I may admire him for his holiness, Though I may praise
him for his justice, I can never draw near to him and delight
in him, because I know I'm drawing near to my judge." Did you ever
see anyone in his right mind who knew he was condemned walk
into a courtroom and hold his head high and walk up to the
judge and say, all right, give me what's coming? No, he may
have been some kind of a brassy, impudent person But if he had
any understanding of what it meant to receive the wrath of
the powers that be, he would have to cringe to come before
the presence of his judge. And so you and I, if we have
any right understanding of God, if we're to worship him in truth,
he is in truth the God of holiness, the God of justice. But He's
the God also of mercy and of grace, so that every time we
approach Him, we should recognize that we cannot worship unless
we are pure. Positionally, that is, we have
a legal purity, and that legal purity has been worked out by
the ministry and person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's beautifully
set forth in Hebrews chapter 10. We don't have time to go
into a detailed exposition of this, but will you look for a
moment at just several of the principles in Hebrews chapter
10. He begins the chapter by speaking
of the fact that the old economy, under the old Mosaic system,
there was a repetition of sacrifices year by year. Verse 2 of Hebrews
10, For then would they have ceased to be offered, because
the worshipers, once purged, should have had no more conscience
of sins. But in those sacrifices there
is a remembrance again made of sins every year. Get the picture. People come to worship. But they
come with the sense that sin has not yet been finally put
away, for they see the high priest every year taking that innocent
bullock. And they see the high priest
shedding the blood year after year and taking it in to the
presence of God. And then the high priest comes
out and pronounces blessings. Sin is passed over for another
year. But then the year rolls around
and there's a repetition of the sacrifice, a repetition, a repetition. But now the writer says Christ
has come. And by one offering, verse 8,
and when he said sacrifice and offering and burnt offering for
sin, thou wouldest not neither had pleasure therein which are
offered by the law. Then said he, lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first that
he may establish the second by the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all. There's the key thought. in the
Lord Jesus and in the shedding of his blood. There has been
a sacrifice of finality. Man may now come to God confident
that sin is blotted out and covered over. So he says in verse 19,
having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter the holiest by the blood
of Jesus. Verse 22, let us draw near with
a true heart in full assurance of faith. Now isn't that what
we're talking about? Worship in which we draw near,
not in a cringing fear, not in that kind of trembling awe, but
with confidence, as the words of that hymn go, with confidence
I now draw nigh and have a father cry. Why? Because five bleeding
wounds he bears, received on Calvary, they pour effectual
prayers, they strongly plead for me. What does this say to
us practically? And oh, may God make it real
to us this morning. All worship must be preceded
by a sense of a reconciled God. I can't come to God in that sense
directly as angels come to Him. They don't need to come through
a mediator. They need to veil their faces
before the glory of God. But they don't need to sink their
sins beneath the blood of a mediator. Those beasts with the eyes within
and without may move about the throne with a holy restlessness
because of the burning holiness of God, but they have no sin
nor defilement to make them ashamed in His presence. But you and
I are not angels, and we are not those sinless beasts. We
are foul, depraved, defiled creatures of the dust. And how can we be
at home with a God like that? If you come to Him directly,
it's either because you have no knowledge of who He is or
you have no knowledge of what you are. Anyone who dares to
approach this holy God in the defilement of his sin is either
ignorant of God or ignorant of himself or ignorant of both.
But people who know something of God in truth and something
of themselves in truth, they'll never approach God directly.
They always approach Him through a mediator. They approach Him
through His Son. And so the scripture says in
Hebrews 13, 15, that even our praise to God is offered through
a mediator. By Him let us offer to God continually
the sacrifice of praise. Hebrews 7, 25 said He's able
to save to the uttermost those that come unto God by Him. No man cometh to the Father to
praise or to worship or to live with Him forever, Jesus said.
No man cometh to the Father but, what? By Me. Oh dear ones, as you sat here preparing
your heart to worship this morning, were you consciously turning
your thoughts to Jesus, the Mediator? That you might approach God through
Him? Every true approach to worship
should be a fresh application to the Lord Jesus as our righteousness,
the one who's given us a pure standing before God, whose blood
has blotted out our sin, whose presence there before God pleads
on our behalf. This is why, frankly, I find
it so difficult at times when we're singing hymns directed
to Christ, Like that one we sang last week, it's been going through
my mind all week. Jesus, my great high priest,
offered his blood and died. My guilty conscience seeks no
sacrifice beside. And I look out and I see the
look on the faces. I can't judge the heart. But
when I see a general look of dullness and apathy and wandering
eyes and easily distracted, I have to ask the question, as one who's
seeking to lead you as a congregation in worship, do we really understand
what we're doing? If we know the God to whom we're
coming and know something of the sinner who's coming, Then
to think of Christ, to sing of Christ, should make us beside
ourselves with early ecstasy. So if we are to worship, the
prerequisite is not only a true knowledge of God, a spiritual
sight of God, a right posture before God, but a purity before
God—positionally, legal purity, justification based upon the
work of Christ. But then there must be an experimental,
personal purity. our own present experience of
sanctifying grace. Now what we are considering at
this juncture is based upon the first. If you do not have that
positional purity—in other words, if you are not justified by faith
in Christ and in his work—Psalm 15 is not for you. But if you are, then Psalm 15
is and is the necessary fruit of that positional purity. Lord, who shall abide in thy
tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Now, what was the tabernacle?
The place of worship, the place where the people of God drew
near to their God. And the psalmist asked the question,
who can abide in that place of worship? Who can dwell in the
holy hill of God? And now the answer, he that walketh
uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his
heart. He that backbiteth not with his
tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach
against his neighbor, in whose eyes a vile person is contend,
but he honoreth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to
his own hurt and changeth not, he that putteth not out his money
to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent, he that doeth these
things shall never be moved." There is only one who perfectly
kept the requirements of this psalm, and that is our Lord Jesus
Christ. and only those who are in Christ
with that positional purity, who kept the law for us, who
walked uprightly in every sense of the word, who worked righteousness
perfectly, who perfectly spoke the truth in his heart, whose
lips never uttered guile. His perfect record is put to
the account of every believing sinner, and we have a position
of righteousness. We now have a position before
God that enables us to draw nigh. But this psalm is not only speaking
of Christ, the perfectly righteous one, in whom by faith we stand
before God, but it's speaking of the child of God and that
practical righteousness which makes him at home in the worship
of his God. Now notice what he says in answer
to the question, who can stand in the place of worship? Who
can abide in the tabernacle of God? In verse 2, he gives a general
description of practical godliness. It touches a man's walk, that
is, the general course of his life. He that walketh uprightly,
it touches his work. He works righteousness. It touches
his words. He speaketh the truth in his
heart. Who's going to go on up to that tabernacle and render
worship that is acceptable to God? Who's going to go up to
that tabernacle and be accepted? Well, it's obvious no one was
accepted without the blood of sacrifice. David knew that. The
whole worship of the tabernacle was, we might say in a real sense,
drenched with blood. So David understands that, that
the basis legally and positionally is sacrifice. But now from the
practical, experimental standpoint of the worshiper, who will really
be able to worship? And his answer is the man who
walks uprightly, that is, who walks according to the law of
God. Now let's make it very personal. Who has truly entered the place
of worship this morning? The person who through this week
has sought to frame his life by the holy law of God. The husband
who has sought to love his wife as Christ loved the church. The
wife who has sought to be subject to her husband as the church
is subject to Christ. The young person who has sought
to honor father and mother and be obedient to God's rule through
the parents. The person who has sought to
love his neighbor as himself. the person who has sought to
keep all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil
speaking from his lips, the person who has sought where there has
been anything on a horizontal level that has not been right
to be reconciled to his brother, the person that walks uprightly,
that is, who frames his life by the law of God, he will enter
the place of worship. So I say again, the life lived
from Monday through Sunday at 10.55, determines whether or not we
truly worship. He works righteousness. That is, he seeks to positively
do what is commanded in Holy Scripture. He speaks the truth
in his heart. He is found worshiping the God
of truth, and his knowledge of that God so permeates him that
he himself seeks to walk in truth. Then he gets down to the specifics
of what we would call interpersonal relationships. He that backbiteth
not with his tongue. What's backbiting? Well, you've
been bitten, so you're going to bite back. Isn't that what
backbiting is? You can't bite back unless you've been bitten.
So your wife bites you with a stinging word, and instead of having the
love that covers a multitude of sins and the soft answer that
turns away wrath, you bite back. The fellas on the playground,
they bite you. with a false accusation and say,
you cheated, or you were out and you knew you were saved.
So what do you do? Instead of the soft answer that turns away
wrath, you bite back. That's what he's talking about.
You mean God won't accept the worship of these lips no matter
how well they're formed if these lips have been given to backbiting
precisely? Precisely. How can lips be raised
in holy worship as we sang in our hymn this morning. How can
these lips bring neat homage to God if they've been backbiting
lips? Cannot do it. He doeth no evil
to his neighbor. That is, he's concerned about
his neighbor's good. He takes up no reproach against
his neighbor. One old saint said it so quaintly,
he who gossips has the devil in his tongue. He who listens
to gossip has the devil in his ear. And so whether the devil
is in our tongue or our ear or both, he says, we cannot worship. In whose eyes a vile person is
condemned, we seek to have the same attitude to men that God
does. We don't show wrong kind of honor
and flattery to men who are unworthy of it. but we honor those that
fear the Lord. We are glad to let it be known
that we cast our lot with the people of God, no matter how
despicable they may be. He that is a man true to his
word, he sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not. Some of
us have made some pretty serious vows when we came into the membership
of the Trinity Church. We swore before God that we would
do all within our power to attend faithfully the services of this
Church. to support its work with our giving and our prayers, to
conduct family devotions, to watch over one another. We've
made vows before God that we have broken. And what's worse, we're unconcerned
that we've broken them. We cannot worship in that state.
The person who can truly worship is the man of integrity, who,
even though he's made a vow that means he must hurt himself to
keep it, he will be a man of his word and keep his word. He
doesn't take advantage of his neighbor, he puts not out his
money to usury, nor taketh reward of the innocent. That's a brief
description of experimental, practical godliness, which the
psalmist says is the mark of the true worshiper. We could
develop any one of these thoughts so much more thoroughly, but
time has gone from us. May I close by bringing a brief
pointed word of application? There are those of you here this
morning, young and old alike, who have never seen this great
problem that I've tried to bring before your mind this morning.
You thought, oh well, daddy and mommy go to church and they open
a hymn book and sing praise. I guess I can too. So you thought
you could worship. Worship is something you could
learn like your ABCs. No, it isn't, young people, until
you get a true knowledge of God and a true knowledge of yourself
that causes you to say, how in the world can a creature like
me ever come and delight in a God like that? And seeing that problem,
you see that Jesus Christ is God's answer. And seeing him
as God's answer, you throw yourself at his feet and plead for his
mercy. You've never worshipped. I don't
care how well you've learned the hymns and can go through
the order of service. And I plead with you this morning,
unable and unwilling, Savior stands before you, among other
things, to make of you a true worshipper, to make of you a
true worshipper, instead of just a little parrot of the right
words at the right time. I say to some of you adults who
thought, well, worship is like anything else. I grew up, went
to church, I learned how, so this is the place I'll worship.
If you've never asked the question, how can I truly worship? Is my
worship acceptable? I trust you'll ask that question
and give yourself no rest until you have a biblical answer. But
I would say to those of you who, by God's grace, are savingly
joined to Christ, do you see now the necessity of conscious
preparation for worship? Just as Sunday morning you instinctively
go to the closet and take not your work britches or your house
coat or your, or your, you may take your house coat first before
you come, but I mean as your last piece of attire before you
leave. But you instinctively move to
take out of the closet your Sunday dress and your Sunday britches
and your Sunday shirt and your Sunday tie. We should cultivate
the holy art of true preparation for worship, that we instinctively
move to the closet alone with God, that He would cleanse us,
that we would again fix our faith upon Christ, our Advocate, that
we would ask the Lord by His Spirit to search us out and prepare
us to stand in His holy place. You can't turn on worship by
passing through those doors if you bring through those doors
a dirty life. You can't do it. You can't do
it. I can't do it. And I mentioned
to you last week how real this is to me as a preacher, to be
sure that there are short accounts with God. See the necessity of
Acts 24, 16. Herein do I exercise myself to
have always a conscience void of offense to God and to man. And in the last place, see the
great grace of God. There's a beautiful description
there in 2 Samuel 12. We don't have time to look at
it. But it says that after God took the life of David's son,
the fruit of his illicit union with Bathsheba, it says that
when David received the news, he went into the presence of
God and he worshipped. Think of it. God received the
worship of an adulterer. But he was a repentant adulterer. And God is more delighted with
the worship of a repentant adulterer who looks to Christ alone for
forgiveness than the proud, self-righteous, morally impeccable person who
has no conscious need of the blood of Christ as the way into
worship. Oh, let me encourage you, no
matter how stained you've been in this past week, If there is
true repentance and true confession, the Scripture promises he's faithful
and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,
and we're fit to worship him. The Father seeketh men to worship
him in spirit and in truth. May God make of us true worshipers. The Lord willing, tonight we're
going to consider what is the personal activity of true worship. If the prerequisites are met
and we are fit to worship, then what's actually involved in the
activity of worship? I trust you will come and pray
that God may make this profitable, that we might render to Him the
worship that He will receive. Let us pray. O Lord, we confess with shame
that we have often brought to Thee unacceptable worship. Forgive us for this terrible
sin. For we remember when men dared
to offer strange fire upon Thine altars in the old economy, Your
judgment fell upon them. We thank You that You have been
merciful to us. But having received new light as to the kind of worship
that is acceptable to thee, may we not be guilty of rejecting
that light or being indifferent to it, but give us grace to walk
in the light as thou art in the light, that we might be true
worshipers. Lord, seal this word to our hearts
according to our individual need. We pray with thanksgiving through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.