Turn with me to the book of Genesis
chapter 22. Genesis 22. I would like to read one verse. Genesis 22. And Abraham said unto his young
men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder
and worship and come again to you. Now, I'm going to be real honest
with you this morning. I believe that the Lord has given
me a message on this subject of worship. And the more I look,
search, seek out in the Scriptures, what does the Scriptures have
to say about worship, the more I realize how Very little I know. I know what men by nature, and
when I say that, you know what I mean. Man by nature is religious. Men by nature are religious.
There is a way in which a man left to himself is going to worship
something. Paul told the group that he met
at Mars Hill, he said, I want to talk to you about this statue
that you have right here. They had statue after statue
after statue of gods, gods and gods and gods. And there was
one that said to the unknown God, he said, this is a God I
want to talk to you about, one you don't know. Now, man by nature
does not know God just the way it is. Man is born
dead spiritually. Now, the first thing that man
doesn't believe is he doesn't believe that. Man thinks that
he can somehow Worship, and I've said this before, and you know
when I tell you this, I've said it time and time, but this is
what men think. They think that worship somehow
is something that we can conjure up, that we assume the position,
assume the position, I guess, is the word of worship. It's
somehow, if someone were to say, let's just worship the Lord right
now. Let's begin to worship the Lord.
Well, what would you do? What do you do? I mean, you close
your eyes. It's what they think. Somehow
you close your eyes and you Maybe it's more spiritual if you put
your head back. And maybe lift your hands up. And then maybe move back and
forth. Now, I'm serious. I know that
sounds funny. But I'm telling you, that's what
man thinks. Let's worship the Lord. And then
let's mumble something. Like words, you know, you can't
hear them. The more I looked at this sacred thing, worship, as I began to
look, I realized this is a subject concerning this marvelous blessing. that is too high for me. It is a privilege that is mysteriously
wonderful. It is that for which the believer,
and only a believer, only one that has been, and I won't take
the time to go in this, I feel as though I can hardly use a
word and not qualify every word, Carl, that I say. But I am going
to say a believer is one that has been taught by God's grace
that he of himself can do nothing to merit salvation before God. He can't choose God of himself. He can't seek God of himself.
He must, by sovereign grace and power, be made to behold with
new eyes, a new heart, new ears, spiritually to behold. But a believer only is given
the privilege, and worship is a privilege. to worship the Lord God of heaven. And he must be, a man, a woman,
must be prepared and qualified to do so. Because it is not within
the power of a man, the natural man, to worship God. You cannot do it. You cannot
do it. Because man doesn't know what
to do. This is an amazing thing. Worship. I do so pray that God
would bless the words that I believe He's prepared my heart to preach,
and He would teach me what the Scripture has got to say, teach
you. Whatever you thought about worship,
whatever you do, I ask you right now, and I ask myself, trying
to even tell myself, please, Put it out of your mind what
you've ever thought about worship. Put it out of your mind what
you've ever tried to come up with. What does the Word of God
have to say about worship? The Lord Jesus Christ told the
woman that we read a moment ago, He said, true worshipers. Well,
obviously, there's false worshipers. True worshipers. I want to know
something about this. I want to know what it is to
worship God. True worshipers, because I'm
going to bring out in just a minute a man or a woman that does not
worship God, does not know Him. True worshipers, true worshipers. This mention of worship, first
time that the word worship is ever mentioned in the Scriptures. is right here. When Abraham said
to these two men that had gone with him, he said, I want you
to stay right here. He said, the lad and I are going
to go yonder and we're going to worship. We're going to worship
God. And he did. When he said that,
he was convinced. He was going there to worship
God. Lad and I are going to go worship,
and we're going to come back." Now that's an amazing thing.
Abraham knew that he was going to do something that Almighty
God alone would give him a heart to do. I know that worship is
an evidence of regeneration. That Scripture we read a while
ago, And now is when the true worshipers shall worship the
Father." This is this, in spirit and in truth. I had someone tell me something
a few years ago about that passage right there. And they said this. They said, we worship God. She said, in spirit. She said,
now, you may worship Him in truth, but we worship Him in spirit.
And I told them, I said, you don't truly worship God without
both of them. They that worship God, this is
what I know so far. They that worship God, worship
Him spiritually. and truthfully. That's what that
Scripture means. Spiritually and truthfully. Before
a man or woman can worship God, they have to be given a heart,
a new heart, to worship God in spirit because they are void
of the spirit of truth. They must worship Him truthfully,
but they must be taught the gospel. They must be taught the truth.
So therefore, if a man or a woman believes a lie, and what is it
to believe a lie? It is to believe, as I said last
week, I think it was, the essence, the pinnacle. If you want to
look, take a triangle. Sometimes I have to form these
little things in my mind to know what I'm talking about. Take
the pinnacle of a triangle. If you want to talk about this
triangle is what I'm going to call rebellion against God. The
pinnacle of that rebellion against God is the belief that a man
has a free will to do what he chooses to do over what Almighty
God has purposed he's going to do. You think about it. If a man or a woman believes
that they have the wills to either receive or reject what God has
purposed, truthfully, they are more powerful than God because
they can overrule. I heard someone say, God has
willed to do so and so, but man, it's left up to man to make the
last and final decision. That is blasphemy against God.
That is blasphemy against God. That makes man, that false teaching
makes man to be the one who has the final say. And salvation
is of the Lord. Worship is reserved for only
those that Almighty God has given a heart after Him. Worship is
initiated by God Himself. You know the Scripture. In that
same Scripture that we just read, "...the hour cometh, and now
is, when true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him." Someone
says, you see there? You see, I told you. God's just
looking for somebody. He's just looking for somebody
to worship Him. Oh, how He wishes that He could
find somebody to worship Him. Well, the only problem with that
is that it's not what he's saying. If anyone worships God, let me
say it like this, God sought them out. God seeketh such. God seeketh
such. You know why God seeketh such?
Because man won't. Leave a man to himself. The Scripture
says no man seeks after God. So therefore, who shall worship
Him? Those that the Father seeks,
irresistibly seeks. The Father seeketh such to worship
Him. God is not worshiped with men's
hands. That is to say, externally by
that mumbo-jumbo that I was talking about. There are some folks in
this congregation right now that are worshiping God. They're worshiping
Him. Worship is in the heart. It's a new heart that worships
God. This stony heart must be removed. God said, I'll do that. I'll
remove the stony heart and I'll give you a new heart, one after
My heart. Let's look at the passage then
and pray that the Spirit of God will teach us something about
this thing of worship. As I said a while ago, worship
is reserved only for God's elect and they must be prepared to
worship Him. Genesis 22, verse 1 says, It
came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and
said unto him, Abraham, and he said, Behold, here I am. Now let me say this first of
all, when that word tempt is used right there, James 1.13
says, Let no man say when he is tempted, that I am tempted
of God. For God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempted He any man. Well, the Scripture right
here says that God did tempt Abraham. But we're talking about
two different words here. This word, tempt, right here,
means to prove, or to test, or to show, or to reveal. We looked last week at Hebrews
12, verse 6, For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. And that word, chasten, there
means educates, instructs them. He teaches them. And He does
scourge or flogs every son whom He receives, accepts, and delights
in. But this flogging or scourging
is not that of condemnation, for there is now therefore no
condemnation to them that be in Christ Jesus. But these light
afflictions that we have These scourgings that we have are from
a loving Father who chastens us and teaches us, instructs
us. Abraham is going to be instructed
in that which Almighty God has done for him. He's going to be
taught something. The Lord did tempt. And how did
He tempt? How did He prove? How did He
test Abraham? Well, verse 2 says, He says,
Take now thy son. Thine only son, Isaac." Well,
I thought he had Ishmael too. Well, by Abraham's own help,
there was a young boy, Ishmael, born. But this is the son of
promise. This is the one God gave him.
Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest,
and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for
a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell
thee of." True worship is only when a man's eye is made
to behold the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. And I'm going
to expound on that in just a minute. What is it to behold Christ alone. Matthew 6.22 says, "...the light
of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single,
or that is, be sincere, or be toward Christ only, thine whole
body shall be full of light." Abraham heard from Almighty God. Verses 1 and 2, that's when the
Lord spoke to Abraham. tempted him, and this is what
he said, I want you to take your son, your only son, whom you
love, and I want you to sacrifice him unto me. God did not speak to Abraham
again until the eleventh verse. When the Scripture says in verse
11, the Lord called unto him the angel of the Lord, the Lord
Himself called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham,
and he said, Here am I." That was the next time God spoke to
him. Now listen, worship first of all is when Almighty God reveals
Himself. The bottom line, the essence
of worship, if you worship this morning, if I worship this morning,
it is going to be first of all initiated by God. And Almighty
God Himself must initiate it. Leave a man to himself, and I'm
telling you, he knows nothing of worship. He has no desire
to worship. If a man or a woman sits in this
congregation this morning and knows not, by faith, Almighty
God, as He has revealed Himself in the Scriptures, Sovereign
God, Sovereign God, Sovereign in creation, sovereign in providence,
sovereign in salvation, if God has not revealed Himself, if
God has not sought a man out that seeketh such to worship
Him, if God has not sought him out, no matter how hard, which
you wouldn't do, no matter how hard you think or how hard you
try to worship, you just don't know. You don't know. You don't
know. And I wouldn't know. I don't
know. Leave me to myself. And I cannot worship God. But
a believer desires to know. He sees in Scripture, the Lord
says true worshipers and a believer will say, I want to know something
about that. I may not want to know what the
stock market is going to do tomorrow. I may not care whether or not,
you know, so-and-so happens tomorrow, but I tell you this, I want to
know something about this. A believer, you listen to a believer
talk, and out of the abundance of their heart, their mouth speaks.
And a believer, they speak of life and you hear it. They want
to know something about this. I want you to tell me. Worship. What is that? What is worship?
What is that? The chastening hand of the Lord,
the teaching hand of the Lord is known to a believer. As I
said last week, the bottom line, what is the greatest point at
which a believer knows something of being taught of God? It is
when a believer is left in his own mind to the apparent presence
of God. That's the greatest trial that
a believer will go through. The testing, the proving, the
tempting. Abraham, God did tempt Abraham. And what did He say? I want you
to take your son, your only son, and take him to a place that
I'll show you and sacrifice unto Me. Sacrifice that boy unto Me.
And God didn't say one more word to him until after Abraham had
gone up on that mountain. When Abraham said to the two
men that were left to him, he says, the lad and I are going
to go over there and worship. What was the last word that he
had gotten from God? The last word. The last word
was, I want you to take that boy and sacrifice that boy unto
me. Now I know that at the point
at which Abraham told the two men It had been three days since
God had spoken to him. God spoke to him in three days.
Abraham went and knew the last word that I had received from
God. Someone says, I'm telling you, that must have been tough.
You and I don't have any idea. We have no idea. What if you
truly, truly, truly believed it? That's what God told me to
do. Would you do it? Sure you would. Struggling. This is what the
believer is chastened with, taught with. The apparent loss of God's
presence. His presence is salvation. That's what Psalm 42, 5 says. His presence. God Almighty told Abraham, take
this boy. Worship is the evidence of regeneration. I said a few moments ago, we
are the circumcision. That's what Paul said. Which
worship God in the Spirit. Worship Him. Worship is never separated from
obedience. And this 22nd chapter in the
3rd verse, Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his
ass and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son
and claimed the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and
went into the place of which God had told him. Then on the
3rd day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and he saw the place far
off. Worship has something to do with
obedience. It has something to do, first
of all, I know this, with God revealing Himself to a man. I
know that's the first thing. God must reveal. Pat, if God
doesn't reveal Himself to you, you don't worship. Secondly, I know worship has
got something to do with obedience. Obedience. Obedience. Abraham did as God instructed
him to do. If you know him this morning,
you know something about obedience. That's just the way it is. God
gives a man or woman a heart after Christ Call upon Him. You obey Him. Come unto Me, all
ye that are weak and heavy laden. I'll give you rest. If God gives
a man a heart or a woman a heart to call upon Him, they obey.
Thy people shall be willing. But you'll say to yourself, and
rightly so, but I don't see myself as obedient as I ought to be. And you're not. And I'm not either.
But thanks be to Him that it is His obedience charged to me
by which Almighty God views me in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ as perfectly obedient by His obedience, His righteousness
before God's law charged to the believer. God is pleased. But I'll tell you this, there
is an obedience to God's people. and the Lord Jesus Christ because
of the failings of my obedience." God's people are obedient in
this world, not perfectly in themselves. But here is the way
it is. This is just the way it is. He
Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, was perfectly obedient toward
God. Is that not true? That's right.
His obedience The righteousness that He earned as a man. The man. Christ Jesus as a man. He walked perfectly before Almighty
God. In word and in deed. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. The righteousness that He Himself
wrought. God charges. to those that He
calls out of darkness, believers imputed to them. They are imputed
by the righteousness of Christ. They themselves now, they have
a heart after Him. The presence of sin is still
there. And we have a longing after Him
and long to serve Him, admitting all the while in myself I see
no good thing, but even the failings of my disobedience, I have this
peace." The Lord Jesus Christ paid for that. He paid for it. I long after Him. I fall. I fail. In myself, I am disobedient,
but He is perfectly obedient. But there is no obedience. And
where you do not find a hungering and a thirst, a longing after
obedience to Christ. Paul said, shall we sin? You
know, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, are we
supposed to then go ahead and just live in disobedience to
Almighty God and think, it just doesn't matter because if Christ
paid my debt, it doesn't matter. If that's your attitude, you
don't know Him. You do not know Him. There is
an obedience there. Abraham obeyed God. Obedience. Go back and read when you get
a chance. Hebrews 11. And what we call the roll call
of faith. By faith, Noah built an ark. By faith, Moses left Egypt. By faith, not every man, not
every woman is called to do the exact same thing as far as your
life is concerned. Your life doesn't parallel my
life in every aspect of my daily life. But I tell you this, there
is a resemblance in that they obey God. They long after God. They hunger after Him. Worship
is never separated from obedience. Hath the Lord as great delight
in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the
Lord? Behold, to obey is better than to sacrifice and to hearken
than the fat of rams. Peter said in Acts 5.29, we ought
to obey God rather than men. This is what I know about worship. It has to be revealed. God has
to be revealed and there is obedience. They come. They seek after by
a new heart. But now I want to get down, in
closing, to the essence of worship. I know that it takes a revelation
of God Himself to a manner of woman. I know that there is a
semblance of obedience there. But the bottom line, what is
it to worship God? What is that? Abraham in verse
5 said, unto the young men, abide ye here with the ass, and I and
the lad will go yonder and worship." What happened on that mountain
right there that set forth, that revealed the essence of worship? If I worship God, what happens? That's what I want to know. Tell
me, what is it? They that worship, worship in
spirit and truth. True worshipers, what is it? What is it to worship God? Well,
I know this. I know that Galatians 3, 6 said,
Abraham, that's who we're looking at right here, Abraham believed
God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. He believed God. When we say
God, we're talking about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Father, Son, Abraham believed
God. Abraham believed God Almighty,
the Father, who had chosen him from the foundation of the world.
And every believer does too. Every believer believed God. Abraham believed God. Let's just
say it like this. Do I know something about this?
Pat McGinnis believed God. What do they believe? What do
they believe? They believe that God Almighty
chose them from the foundation of the world unto salvation. that it was not something that
they did. It was that Almighty God's purpose
to set His affection on them for no reason in themselves. That's what Ephesians 1 says.
They believe, secondly, that the Lord Jesus Christ, God Himself,
came into this world and by Himself took upon Himself the guilt,
the penalty of all those that the Father had given Him from
the foundation of the world. And He said, I'll lay down My
life for the sheep. They believe the Lord Jesus Christ
redeemed them and paid their debt. They believe, thirdly,
that God the Holy Spirit will irresistibly and has irresistibly
called them out of darkness, spiritual darkness, into the
light, the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham believed
God. He believed Him. God Almighty
told Abraham, He said, I want you to take your son, your only
son, and I want you to take him up on that mountain. God had
already told Abraham, this son, this boy right here, he was in
the line of the Messiah. Abraham knew that. He knew it. He said, we're going to go up
there and we're going to worship God. We're going to worship Him. You take away the revelation
of God Himself to Abraham, and Abraham is not going to worship.
You take away obedience, Abraham is not going to worship. We're
going up there and we're going to worship. Worship is the occupation
of the heart with God Himself revealed Himself, as He has revealed
Himself. Let me just read this to you
out of Nehemiah 9, 7 and 8. Here's what this prophet says,
Nehemiah 9, 7 and 8, Thou art the Lord, the God who did, number
one, listen to this, choose Abram. That's what Nehemiah said. You're
the Lord. You chose Abram. And you brought him forth. out
of Ur of the Chaldees, and gave him the name of Abraham, and
foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with
him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the
Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it,
I say, to this seed, to his seed, and hast performed thy words,
for thou art Righteous. What Nehemiah said is, God, You
chose him in electing grace. This man that worshiped God,
God chose him first of all. Chose him and brought him forth. That's what Nehemiah said. You
brought him forth by irresistible grace and foundest his heart
faithful. That is, you established it faithful. Lord, You did that. You did it. Abraham said, You abide here
with the ass. The lad and I are going to go
yonder and worship. Abraham believed God. He believed
God concerning the promises that in Isaac shall thy seed be called. He believed God that God was
able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he
received him in a figure. He said, I and the lad are going
to go and we are going to worship and we are coming back. God told
him, you go up there and you sacrifice that boy unto Me. But Abraham believed that God
would satisfy himself by providing himself a lamb. Verse 6, Abraham
took the wood, and here they go. He just told them, he said,
I am the lad. We're going to go up here and
worship. Here they go. Abraham took the wood of the
burnt offering. laid it upon Isaac his son."
There is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. The cross that
was laid upon his back. He laid that wood on the boy
and he took the fire in his hand, the knife, and they went, both
of them, together. And Isaac, going up that mountain,
here they go. They are going to go worship.
Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and he said, My father?
And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire
and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham is going up here to worship
God. And hear the words of this man
that is going up to worship. Abraham said, My son, God will
provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of
them together. This is what Abraham said. We're
going to go up here and worship, and God will. God will. God will provide. And if God
wills, God will. If God purposes, God will. God
will provide Himself. We're going to go up here and
worship God. Here's the wood. Here is the fire. Where is the
lamb? God will. God is going to provide. God
will. God will see to it. Abraham and the lad are going
up. And Abraham took that knife. He laid that boy. The Scripture
says, it came to the place in verse 9, which God had told him
of. And Abraham built an altar there
and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son laid him
on the altar upon the wood, and verse 10 says, and Abraham stretched
forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. He was going
to cut that boy up, section him up, and lay him in the appropriate
order, and was going to put that fire to that wood and sacrifice
that boy. That's what he was going up there
to do. And he said, I'm going up there to worship God. I'm
going to worship the Lord. And the Scripture says in verse
11, and I'm getting to the essence of worship. We're getting here. Abraham stretched forth his hand,
verse 10, and took the knife to slay his boy and the angel
of the Lord, the Lord Himself, called upon him out of heaven
and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand
upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. For now I
know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy Son,
thine only Son, from me." Let me ask you something. Do you
think that God Almighty, God Omnipotent, God Omniscient, Who
knows all, the Eternal God, Do you think Abraham just showed
him something? God said to him, Abraham, now I know. Do you think
he was ignorant of that before? Do you think Abraham just showed
God something? Now I know! Oh no. I'll tell you who said that.
The I Am said that. When he said, Now I know, he's always known. When Moses
said, Who shall I say sent me? The eternal God says, You tell
them that I am sent you. The right now sent you. Abraham,
now I know. And he knew it three days ago.
And he knew it from the foundation of the world. And He'll know
it in that day as far as we think. You see, Almighty God is the
I Am. He's the Now. He is the Eternal.
We think in time like God didn't know it a while ago, but now
He knows it. God has never learned anything.
Now I know. And Abraham, now you know. Now
you know. But I've always known. Now I
know. Lay not thy hand And then he
said in verse 13, And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked,
and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his
horns. And Abraham went and took the
ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of the
sun. Behold, behind him a male lamb, a ram, a picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And he took that ram and he took
his son off of that altar. And he took that ram and he put
the ram on the altar in the stead, the Scripture says, of his son. And he looked and he saw right
then substitution. He saw it. The Lord Jesus Christ
says, Abraham saw my day. And he rejoiced. And he was glad. And he worshipped. He bowed. That's what that word
worship means, to bow. In heart, Abraham saw my day. He saw substitution. He said,
the lad and I are going to go up yonder and we're going to
worship God. He believed God. And he worshipped
Him. He saw substitution. That's what
that boy deserved, and that's what I deserve, and that's what
you deserve. He saw my day. The bottom line,
the essence where the paddle meets the water of worship is
when Almighty God reveals Himself to a man, to a woman, and He
reveals to them substitution. That's the bottom line of worship.
That's when a man will worship God. Lord, You're worthy. You
have taken what I am and You charged it to Your Son. He put
that ram on that thicket. I mean, I took that ram out of
that thicket and put it on there. And Abraham saw the day of the
Lord right then. He saw it. Rejoice. Here Abraham and the lad, he
said, the lad and I are going to go up there and worship. That
lamb cut up and laid on that altar. And now Isaac and Abraham
stood there and watched. And Isaac, I can just imagine,
the words rang in his ears. And he asked his dad, he said,
here's the wood, here's the fire, where's the lamb? And Abraham
told him, he said, God will provide Himself. God will provide Himself. God will provide Himself. Not
only will God do it, but God will provide Himself, a Lamb. And they worshipped. They bowed. Worship is seeing by faith Christ
and Him crucified. Substitution. Beholding the provision
of the Lord. in the providing of Himself,
a Lamb. And the Scripture says in that
next verse 14, Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh. And it is to this day in the
Mount of the Lord. It shall be seen. That's what
Jehovah-Jireh means. It means the Lord will provide
or the Lord will see or see to it. That's what the Lord will
see to it. Here's the wood. Here's the fire. Where's the lamb? The Lord will
see to it. The Lord will see to it. The
lad and I will go yonder and we're going to worship. And we'll
come back. This morning, if you worship,
if you worship, you worship spiritually and truthfully, Well, what's
the truth? The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
am the truth. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man comes to the Father but
by Me. By Me. If a man or a woman worships,
this is what they see. By faith, they see substitution. That's the heart of the Gospel. Substitution. God Almighty has
everlastingly loved a people. Christ must redeem them. He must redeem them. The soul
that sinneth, Robin, must die. If Christ be not their substitute,
what hope do they have? Abraham worshipped, and all God's
people do. Amen.