Public Worship

I preached some time ago a message
on worship, and I announced at that time that I would be preaching
the Lord willing another message on the subject. And so this morning
I hope to do that. I hope the Lord will enable me
this morning to bring the things that are upon my heart. Here
in the eighth and ninth verses primarily, I want us to read
these verses and think about them just a little bit. Notice,
if you will, he said here in verse 8, John does, he's the
writer of this book, and he's in the Spirit, the Lord has blessed
him and he's had the ability to both hear and to see the things
that the angel of God has been talking about in regards to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, I John saw these
things and heard them and when I had heard and seen I was moved
to fall down and before the feet of the angel I was moved to worship
before the feet of the angel which showed me these things.
He was inclined to worship as the Lord had by this angel had
been pleased to unfold to him the mysteries of God and been
pleased to unfold to him some of those things concerning the
end times and concerning the blessings of glory, the blessings
of eternal life in glory. He said, I was inclined to worship. I was inclined to fall down at
the feet of the angel which showed me these things. And then verse
9, Then saith he unto me, that is the angel speaking, See thou
do it not. Now the angel speaks I believe
here in haste in that that John is about ready to do something
that is absolutely forbidden, it's wrong, it's not right for
him to fall down before a created being, it's not right for him
to fall down before this angel and worship even though the message
has been tremendously enlightening, it's been of the glory of God,
it's been a tremendous message of Christ. But nevertheless,
the angel says, see thou do it not. Just like we would hastily
maybe cry out to one of our children if we saw them about to stick
their hands in the lawnmower or about to stick their hands
someplace where they shouldn't. See thou do it not! See thou
do it not! If there's something that's going
to harm somebody, we would immediately hastily cry out, don't do that!
Don't do that! And so it is with the angel here. He speaks to John and says, see
thou do it not! Don't do that! He said, for I
am not, he says, for I am thy fellow servant. I'm just like
you are. I'm one of God's servants, just
like you're one of God's servants. And of thy brethren the prophets,
none of them which keep the sayings of this book. I'm on the same
ground that you are. I'm just a servant of God. I'm
a created being. And he would say, you're not
to worship the servant of God, but you're to worship the master.
He said, you're not to worship a creature, but you're to worship
the Creator. And he says, I'm a created being
and I cannot accept such homage as this. You cannot bow down
before me. I cannot accept this reverence.
I cannot accept your worship. Because I'm a created being just
like you are. And just like the prophets are.
And I cannot take this. Now then, he said, worship God. your worship is to be rendered
toward God. And Christian worship, my friend,
this morning is the act of paying divine honor unto God. That's what Christian worship
is. It's the act of paying divine honor to God. Now who is honored
in our services? I thought about these services
this morning. This service this morning is
for the purpose of worship. That's why we're here. We're
here to worship this morning the living God. And all across
the land this morning there are assemblies gathered together
supposedly for the purpose of worship. Is it man or God who
is worshipped in this place. My friend, this morning I make
bold to say that God is worshipped in some few places across the
land this morning, but that man is also being worshipped. The
creature is being worshipped. The creature is being honoured.
The creature is being exalted in many places, in houses of
worship, even this very day. And I know that many, many times
there are people who surely think of this little service here and
they think of how simple it is and they think of the fact that
we seemingly do not somehow or other get involved in trying
to honor people on certain days and so on and so forth. And most
all of you, of course, are aware that today is Mother's Day, and
motherhood is a wonderful thing, it's a blessed thing, and Scripture
says, give honor to whom honor is due, but my friend, we recognize
that that honor must be given in its proper place, in its proper
setting, and in a church service, it's not the place to do that.
That's my conviction. I believe that's power falling
down even, and you know, here John was forbidden to fall down
before the angel. And certainly we would be forbidden
to fall down before flesh. We would be forbidden to do that.
We're here in honor of the living God. That's why we're here. We're
here to worship the living God. We're not here this morning because
there's some group of people here that the world is honoring
on this day. We're not here for that purpose.
I want that to be understood. Then who is honored in our service? Is it man or is it God? Now the
words used in the Old Testament scripture for worship, they speak
of a bowing or a falling down before the Lord and that's what
John here was about to do before this angel and he's told don't
do that but you fall down and you worship before the living
God. Now in the typical worship service
there is a spirit of exaltation of man, of honoring man, and
this does not suggest, I think, a frame of humility before the
Almighty God. It does not. It does not assist
us. Now, in true worship, only God is praised and the flesh
is abased. The flesh is abased. Now, in
the common worship service, there is little praise for God in the
hymns and little praise for God in the sermons. What we have,
I believe, in the majority of places, religious places today,
is strange praise. It's added to the flesh. It's
given to the flesh in songs and in promotions. and in entertainments,
announcements, recognitions, and etc. This praise is given,
it's added to the flesh. Worship is the response of the
grateful heart toward God. It's the response of the heart. One who stands in awe of the
reverence and the majesty of God cannot help but fall down
and bow, as it were, in his heart before the God of the Bible,
the august God of the Bible, and worship at his feet. Now
it is very difficult to maintain such an attitude as this, an
attitude of humility and praise, grateful praise unto God for
what he's done for us, when the service is interrupted by songs
that edify the flesh, speeches that are aimed at the motivation
of the flesh, entertainments and recognitions for the gratification
of the flesh. It's very difficult for one to
maintain this spirit of brokenness and humility before the living
God. Now, a real worship service must
be directed toward nothing but God's glory. When we come together,
when we meet, when we assemble, it's all to the glory of God. Well, how can a church have a
true service? Nowadays, is it possible once
again that we could have a worship service? Is it possible we could
come together and truly worship the Lord God of the Bible? Is
it possible that we could render the kind of homage to Him, the
adoration that's due Him? Is it possible that we could
do that nowadays? Could it be done? Well, most
certainly it can be done. It certainly can be done, and
let me suggest to you this morning some ways by which we could return
unto true worship unto the living God. Number one, let me say that
we ought to have a whole service of worship, an entire service
of worship, not snatches of worship that are sandwiched between promotions
and frivolities. My friend, many, many times in
churches we have just a little bit of worship that's sandwiched
in between all the other stuff that's going on. We're greeting
the folks, we're having them to stand up and so on and so
forth and we're greeting the visitors and then we're having
the announcements and we're doing this and we're doing that. And
every once in a while we'll sandwich in between all that other stuff
that's going on just a little bit of worship. But what I'm
saying is, let us have a whole worship service. Let God's glory
be the very theme from the first hymn to the final benediction
that's rendered. Let God's glory be the entire
theme of the meeting. And let's not just be sandwiching
a little bit of worship in between everything else. Number two,
let us eliminate all excess baggage. Anything that interferes with
the worship of God must go. Anything that would interfere
with our being of a right mind, a state of mind, anything that
would cloud our minds must go. I call it excess baggage. Now
if we have a great deal of announcements we don't have here, I think we
probably ought to print a bulletin. We don't have that many announcements,
therefore we don't need a bulletin. And then if a church does have
all these announcements, and I know there's a lot of churches
that print bulletins, and then they insult the intelligence
of the people that come by getting up and reading, taking the time
out of the worship service to read the bulletin unto these
people. Now, we don't have to spend also,
we don't have to spend, I'm talking about this excess baggage that
people have in their churches. We don't have to spend a lot
of time trying to let visitors know that they're welcome. Now,
as I mentioned earlier, in some churches they have the visitors
to stand up so they can be recognized. We'll recognize these visitors,
you see. Well, my friend, that is flesh
worship is what that is. Strangely enough, I believe that
visitors know whether or not they're welcome before you sing
them a special song, or before you shake their hands at a special
time in the meeting, everybody moving around shaking their hand,
or before you hand them a card to sign. I think people know
whether they're welcome or not. I just believe they know whether
they are or not. I don't think we need to spend all this time
in recognizing flesh. Don't make any difference whose
flesh is there. The important thing is, is God
there? And the important thing is, do
I know why I'm there? And if I know why I'm there,
then my friend, I'll know that my business is to be there with
a humble attitude, bowing in my heart before Him, who is the
living God. Well, somebody says, well, won't
enthusiasm die, preacher, if we do not promote and build it
up? Won't enthusiasm die for the things of God if we don't
pump it up? We got to pump it up, and if
we don't keep it pumped up, it'll surely just die out. Well, spiritual
enthusiasm, all of it we need is to be found in the gospel. It's to be found in the gospel
of God's free grace. And it's of the Holy Spirit. I'm talking about spiritual enthusiasm. The kind that is glorifying and
honoring to God is of the Holy Spirit and it's toward Christ.
And it's all to God's glory. All to the glory of the God of
heaven and earth. Now a smile on the face does
not necessarily produce or reflect a smile in the heart. It is not
necessarily. Now some people say, well, if
you just smile, everybody's gonna feel better. Well, there's nothing
wrong with smiling. I'm not against that at all. But when it comes
to worship, and when it comes to enthusiasm, I'm telling you
the only enthusiasm that enables people to worship the living
God is that which is born in the heart by the Spirit of God,
which is toward Christ. That is toward the glory of God.
Now listen to me. Mark it down. Enthusiasm. faithfulness or generosity that
is stirred by any other means, but the gospel itself is not
genuine and will sour and not enhance true worship. Now you
mark it down friend, I'm telling you the truth. You can pump people
up. You can do anything you want
to. You say, I want them to be faithful. I want them to be generous.
I want them to stand true. And I want them to be enthusiastic
people. And we're trying to make them
that way. My friend, you better leave that business with God.
Because God's the only one that can produce these things in the
people of God by His Spirit. It be true. It be, tell you why. Now then, in the next place,
stick to the gospel. Stick to the gospel. Now I know that we've been, there's
lots of people that would browbeat and I've heard other preachers
being browbeat who preach the gospel and they are called, you
know, they say that they've made Jesus Christ an idol because
all they do is preach Christ. Too much gospel, too much gospel,
too much Christ preached there for me. Yeah, I don't want that.
I want some other things. Well, my friend, you're not a
worshipper of the God of the Bible. God would have his son
to be honored. We honor Christ and they honor
God who honor his son. And if you don't honor Christ,
you don't honor God. You're not worshiping God unless
you hear the gospel, unless you know the gospel. Now stick to
the gospel. And error in music is as bad
as error in doctrine, error in preaching. And you hear a lot
of songs in some circles that are not scriptural at all. They
are not scriptural and they're not saturated with the gospel.
A hymn or special music that is not thoroughly consistent
with the gospel is out of place in Christian worship. Now I mean
what I'm saying here. I love music. But if it is not
sound music, if it's not in harmony with the gospel of redeeming
grace, then my friend, that music is out of place in a Christian
church. Anything short of the gospel
of free sovereign grace does not belong in a worship service. It don't belong there. Now, just
to illustrate my point here, most all of you have heard of
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle
in London, England. Charles Haddon Spurgeon had a
congregation of over 6,000 people. He never would preach a funeral
sermon, never would have anybody, wouldn't bring a body into that
tabernacle and him preach a funeral sermon. Every member of that
church that died was buried without a funeral sermon being preached. Now here's what he said and it's
very important and I believe my own self. Now you do what
you want to do. When you die, when you pass away, you do whatever
you want to. But I don't want anyone having
me or having a funeral service as such for me. I don't necessarily
want anybody to come and preach. I mean, I feel like I've preached
my funeral sermon. I've preached all my years. That's what I've been about.
I've been preaching and preaching and preaching and preaching all
these years. And not only have I preached
by what I've said, but I've preached by the way I've conducted myself
and the way I've lived. And that's where I stand on that.
Now you do whatever you want to, but in my own conviction,
and like Brother Spurgeon said, he thought that you ought never
to say anything about the dead, but what is good. You ought to
say, if you're going to talk about the dead, say good things
about the dead, folks. And the best place to say that
is somewhere else besides the church, because you don't talk
good about flesh In the church. That's not where we utilize people
is in the church. When we're having a meeting in
the church, it's to glorify God, exalt God, and to abase the flesh. We preach God up and men down
in the church. Now I'm talking about worship.
That's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about you gathering
around the castle and talking about how good somebody is. I'm
not talking about that. That's fine. That's fine. That's
alright. You talk about how good folks
are anywhere else, but not in a worship service. We don't exalt
flesh in a worship service. John couldn't even worship an
angel. He was forbidden to do it. And we're not, of course
I'm concerned, we're way below the angels of God. Now that's
the way I see it myself, but nevertheless, we're not to worship
flesh and eulogize flesh. My idea of a correct funeral
service would be you take the body out to the graveyard, open
up the Word of God and read, let the brethren stand around
and read the Word of God and sing a hymn of praise unto God
and commit that body to the dust of the earth. But my friend,
there is nothing settled in a funeral sermon. Nothing is ever settled
there. It's settled before you get to
there, and if you don't, if you're not right when you get there,
then my friend, ain't anything can be said to help you. But
I say, and I agree with what Brother Spurgeon said, he said
he didn't think God was in it, and I doubt seriously the Lord
is in it. But now if you want me to preach when you die, if
you want me to preach a sermon when you die, then you just ask
me to do it, and I will do it. But I'll preach just like I always
do. I won't eulogize your flesh.
I won't be there for that purpose. I'll be there to honor and extol
the God of the heaven and I'll preach the gospel of redeeming
grace. I'll honor Christ. I'll exalt
Christ. And if you want that, if you
want that, then that's exactly what we'll do. But your flesh
will not be eulogized in any worship service because I don't
believe in exalting flesh or eulogizing the flesh. I don't
believe in doing it. The Bible said no flesh shall
glory in his presence. Now that's where I stand. And
so even my friend the prayers that are offered should be filled
with the gospel. They should be filled with Christ.
We're here in honor of Christ. Now it is amazing what the pure
unadulterated gospel will do for men when it is the sum and
substance of their worship. It's amazing what it'll do. And
a lot of people don't believe it'll do anything because they've
always been doing something else besides honoring the gospel and
preaching Christ and lifting Him up. Not interested in that. Well, the next thing is this.
I'm suggesting to you how we can have a worship service nowadays.
Let worship have life. Let it have life. Now, not the
artificial kind mentioned before. But it is the war with which
the Spirit of God often stirs the heart of true worshipers. And we must wait on Him for it.
Lying. Well, I love to be in a service
where there's spirit lying. It is the Spirit which give us
lying. stirred through worshipers will
finally get around to you. The Lord will finally, he'll
stir your heart too one of these days. He'll stir your heart.
And that's what we want. It will come. It will come. Now, deliberate deadness is also
bad or worse than false enthusiasm. I went into some places where
they said they were places of worship, which felt more like
a funeral parlor than it did a church. I mean it was all death. Worship cannot be measured in
decibels, many or few, but it is expressed and it's to be expressed,
religion is, and the gratefulness of the heart, the praise of the
heart is to be expressed with vitality. Listen, the truly grateful,
the thankful heart speaks forth with exuberant praise But that
is with genuineness. It's not with false enthusiasm
or with deliberate deadness. Life. Now, the tunes in the church
certainly need not to be somber. And the words need not to be
hard to pronounce and hard to understand. The spirit of the
meeting need not be subdued. I've been told that if you raise
your voice in a worship service that you kill the spirit. My
friend, that's a bunch of foolishness. Kill God, can you? No, you can't
do that. I believe that there should be
life in the service, in the worship service. The gospel deals with
vital union, not a sad face. A vital union. It deals with
a man, a woman, it deals with a soul being joined to Christ. That's what it deals with. And
a lifeless spirit is out of place in a true worship service. There's life. Let there be life. There's a remarkable difference
between life and death, don't you agree? And there's one place
where there's life. It's in the New Testament church,
where the Spirit of God is coming. Folks have been born in the New
Testament church, where the Spirit of God is coming. Folks have
been born from above, and they're alive unto God. They're joined
to Christ, the Living Vine, and they're alive unto the Lord. Now this is why we here at this
church sing some well-selected hymns
full of the gospel. Read from the Word of God and
pray earnestly and genuinely, preach the gospel and leave off
everything else. Just leave it up there. Let the worship of God go uninterrupted
from the start to the finish. Why do we have to stop and pass
the place? Why? Why can't we just worship
God from the start to the finish? What have we got to do anything
else for? This is the reason why we come
together as we do. Worship will take on new meaning,
I believe, and significance to all when they discover that that's
what we're here for. That's what it's about. That's
what it's all about, is worship of God. Oh, that men will worship
God, both privately and publicly. Which is the most important?
Private or public worship? Which is the most important? Well, I've studied this some,
and I've thought about it a great deal. And I'd like to say that
there is, and I know there's a lot of thought, there's people
who say that if you don't meet God outside the church, you'll
never meet him inside. Well, that sounds awful good,
it sounds awful pious, but I don't know so much about that. I believe
that all who trust the living God ought to worship Him daily,
and I believe they do. I believe they do worship Him
daily, privately. And all who follow Christ, I
say let them walk in the path of faith, In the solitary place
of private prayer, let them pray privately in their closets. I
believe that's important. And I believe that every believer
is a priest of God and ought to offer daily the sacrifice
of thanksgiving, the sacrifice of praise unto God every day. I believe they should. I believe
that's right. I believe they will. But there
is something about this business of public worship that I think
that makes it most important, probably the most important aspect
of every believer's life, this public worship in the assembly
of the saints of God. Now I know and recognize that
such talk as this is contrary to the popular opinion of religious
people. It's contrary. to the idea, you
know, this idea of public worship being ever biggest important
or maybe even more important than private worship. It's certainly
unpopular when religious people hear you make that statement.
A lot of people like to think, you know, that they're just as
religious as they can be and they don't ever go to church.
that they worship God just as much, I mean they worship God
as much out at the lake as they do in the house of God where
the gospel is being preached. That they worship God looking
up at a cloud as much as they worship God listening to the
preacher and so on and so forth. But I believe that the idea is
inconsistent with the word of God and the experience of God's
people. I believe that public worship
is more important It's the most important aspect of your life.
Public worship. And there are five facts which
I want to give you this morning that demonstrates this to me.
I'll give you this in closing. Five facts that demonstrates
to me that public worship, the coming together, as we have stated
here this morning, as we've been talking about all morning long,
to worship God is more important than just simply pride and worship. Now let me give this to you.
Number one, I want to say that God meets with sinners in saving
mercy in the assembly of his saints for worship. Now if you
would turn back in your Bibles to the book of Acts, the book
of Acts chapter 2, and notice verse 1. Acts 2 and 1 Listen
what the word of God says here. He says and when the day of Pentecost
was fully come They were all with one accord in one place
Now if you were turning if you would just look at the end of
this chapter and sometime you can read from verse 37 down to
verse 41 you'll see in verse 41 that there were those that
gladly received his word and were baptized the same day there
were added unto them about 3,000 souls when they were all together in
one place, in one accord. Now my point is this, that generally
God saves his sheep. in the place of public worship
where the gospel is being set forth, where the gospel is preached. Sinners in need of mercy should
seek mercy where it is always found, and mercy is to be found
under the sound of the gospel in the assembly of the saints. So my point is this, that God
meets with sinners in saving mercy in the assembly of his
saints. That's the first reason I give
as to why I believe that public worship is more important, more
necessary than private worship. Now the second thing is this,
that the public assembly of the church is the gathering together
of the family of God. It's the gathering together of
the family of God. I want you to turn in your Bibles to the
book of Ephesians chapter 3 and I want to read verse 14 and 15.
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named
the whole spiritual family the family of God is named now let
me say this that every true local church is a family of saved sinners
is what the church is and family members need each other they
need each other they need to comfort each other and help each
other because there is a love there is to be and ought to be
and certainly there is among the family of God a love which
binds them together and they have this love for each other
and they desire to be with each other and they desire to be in
the fellowship of each other now whole family. This is the assembly, the gathering
together of the family. This is my family. This is my family. This church,
this is my family. This is the people of God. And
we feel that, do we not? Toward each other. We desire
the fellowship of each other. So my friend, just like it's
very important, necessary for members of the family to go to
be with the family and go to be with other members of the
family, their own individual families. So it is so important
that we gather together to fellowship with our spiritual family, the
church. Now thirdly, the Lord Jesus Christ
meets with his people when they assemble in his name. He meets
with them. And you know that classic verse
in Matthew 18 and 20 where Jesus said, where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst. Think about it. Think about it. The Lord Jesus Christ comes to
the worship service. He comes and meets with his people
like Simeon of old, God's people, come together seeking Christ. Remember Simeon who came into
the temple looking for the baby Jesus, looking for him. And when
he saw Christ, he said, mine eyes have seen thy salvation.
And so we come together, we come together seeking Christ. Don't
come here to see me. Don't come here just because
I'm here. You come here because Christ comes. He comes where
his people meet. in His name. And they always
find Him in the house of God, the assembly of those who worship
Him. If our heart attitude is right
and we bow before Him, then He is there. Christ is there. He
walks the aisles of His church. He fingers the heart of the people
in His church. He speaks to them. He visits
them in the church. And that brings me to the next
thing. The fourth thing, the assembled congregation of the
Lord is the place where God deals with men, where God speaks to
men. Now, each local congregation
of believers is the house and the temple of God. It's the house
of God. We're told that in 1 Timothy
3 and 15. Now, what I believe, what I'm saying is that the church
is where God reveals his will, where he gives out his word,
where he shows his glory, where he reveals himself, makes himself
known, where he instructs his people, and where he bestows
blessing upon his people. I'm telling you, That the church
is where God meets with his people and where God deals with his
people. I'm talking about his children. God deals with his
people there. And you can't afford not to be
there because that's where God's going to grow his crop is in
the church. That's where God's going to fertilize.
That's where God's going to cultivate, is in the church. That's where
he's doing his business. The church is God's husbandry. Have you ever read that in the
Bible? You know what that means? It means the church is God's
farm. That's what it means. It means
that's where God tends his crop, is in the church. That's what
it's about. That's why all this talk about
this worship business this morning, this is where God does his business,
is in the church. Now that brings me to the last
thing, and I believe this to be true, and I've got to give
it to you, the neglect of public worship, public worship, is the
first step toward total apostasy. And I want you to turn with me
in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews. Now these are familiar verses
to some people. Others they're not. And there
are some things in connection with this that many people have
never been, I think, been pointed out to. But I want you to see
this this morning. I begin here with the 23rd verse. Hebrews
chapter 10. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful with promise.
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good
works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the
manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the
more as you see the day approaching. For if we sin willfully, after
that we have received the knowledge of the truth, There remaineth no more sacrifice
for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, fiery
indignation, which shall devour the adversary. He that despised
Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses.
Of how much sore punishment, verse 29, Suppose ye shall he
be thought worthy who have trodden underfoot the Son of God, counted
the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing,
and had done despite unto the Spirit of grace. Now those who
willfully neglect the assembly of God's saints, though they
may be thoroughly orthodox in doctrine, tread underfoot the
Son of God and count the blood of the covenant a useless thing
and despise the spirit of grace and their forsaking of public
worship I believe is their proof that they never knew Christ.
They never knew it. I'm talking about people that
just say I will not Worship, I'm not going to public worship.
I'm not going to go to be to meet with God's church I'm not
going to do it. I turn it out of my life. I'm
not going to do it Now there's a verse over in 1st John it's
1st John chapter 2 and it's verse 19 Let me read it to you and
John said this this is my proof of why I'm saying that a person's
forsaken a public worship is proof that they never knew Christ
and They went out from us in verse 19, verse John 2, but they
were not of us. For if they had been of us, then just coming together to
pay homage to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not interested in
this business of the gospel and just coming together in honor
Christ, to worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit. I'm not interested in that. I want to bow down before
the angels, and I want to bow down before flesh. I want to
render a little homage. I want to go someplace where
they're paying a little attention to people. I want to go where
people are being honored, and so on. Well, you please yourself. Suit yourself, but I'm telling
you what worship is. I'm telling you about worshiping
God. That's what I'm telling you about. I'm telling you about
a worship service and about how to have it. If you're interested
in having a New Testament worship service, then that's what this
is about. That's what this is about today
and the importance of it. That's what all this is about
this morning. I hope that God is giving you some help. I hope
I haven't offended anybody, hurt anybody. I hope I haven't somewhere
or another bursted somebody's balloon this morning in any way. Most of you people are aware
of the fact that what this church is about is it's here to honor
Christ as long as we've got breath, as long as we've got strength.
It's here to preach the gospel of redeeming grace. That's what
it's about. I feel that these things need
to be said over and over because Satan, you know, he can just
very easily sidetrack people and get them to think that worship
is a whole lot more to do than what that New Covenant Baptist
Church ever thought it was. There's a whole lot more involved in
worship than that. And you know we gotta have a little bit of
something here to say in which thou wilt add in when you know
we gotta make it palatable to people. We just can't give them
a full steady diet of that. That'd be a little something
else. I'm just trying to tell you what the Bible teaches about
what worship's all about. And that angel, as it were, grabbed
John quickly and said, see thou do it not! You worship God. Bow down before anybody else.
You worship God. Worship God. Father, thank you for the privilege
we've had this morning of preaching your word. I pray that this message
will not fall on deaf ears. I pray that we might all this
morning receive light and instruction and that all of our hearts would
be moved toward a right mind, humble heart, humble attitude
toward Thee, the Living God, and we would truly worship. Every
time we meet together, we would worship and we would have the
presence of the lovely Lord Jesus Christ in our midst. Father,
receive glory, receive praise. You're so good to us. We love
Thee, Thou art our God, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Public Worship

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Public Worship

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