WORSHIP

Worship is different from prayer and praise; for example, "Lord,
save my soul" or "Lord, give me this" can be a prayer. "Thank
you, Lord, for saving my soul," is praise, or, "Thank you, Lord,"
for whatever the Lord has given you, is praise. But worship is
thanking God for what He is. Worshipping is adoring God as a
living person, a living being, an Almighty Creator who is God of
gods, King of kings, Lord of lords, the Almighty, the
Everlasting, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending.

The first mention of the word "worship" in the Bible occurs in
Genesis 22:5, which tells us plainly that true worship is always
connected with a blood sacrifice. Abraham tells his men, "I and
the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you" (Gen.
22:5). The fact that he believed he and the boy were both coming
back shows that Abraham believed in resurrection. So the first
time worship occurs in the Bible it is connected with Isaac, a
type of Christ; a blood atonement, typified by a lamb; and the
resurrection of a dead son. Any worship of God that is not
connected with a bloody sacrifice of a Son who died and rose
again is pagan hallucination and religious clap-trap.

We didn't say "heresy," lest some think we are out to kill
somebody or shut up everybody who disagrees with us. Some people
think that every time you lay down the line, hard and straight on
the truth, that you are condemning everybody to hell who doesn't
believe it, and that you will attack anybody who doesn't believe
it. This is nonsense. The people who kill missionaries in Africa
are not Bible-believing people. The people who kill Christians in
Russia are not Bible-believing people. The people who murdered
four million people in China were not Bible-believing people. The
commandant of Buchenwald, Herr Koch, was not a Bible-believing
Protestant; neither was the commandant of Treblinka concentration
camp; neither was the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hess. There
was not one Bible-believing Protestant in the entire bunch. When
we talk about Bible-believers, we are certainly not setting up
ourselves as inquisitors and persecutors of those who disagree
with us. We believe that you have a perfect right to be wrong if
you want to be, and if you want to make a fool out of yourself,
that is your business and nobody else's. However, we are not
going to compromise the truth to please your hallucinations or
match your fancy. "Worship" is connected with bloody sacrifice!

The first time the word "worship" occurs in the Old Testament, it
is connected with a son who, in type, dies and rises from the
dead. In Matthew 2:2 the wise men came to worship the newborn
king, Jesus Christ; so, the first time the word "worship" occurs
in the New Testament, it is connected with the birth of Jesus
Christ. The Bible defines its own terms, sets its own standards,
has its own computerized format in which you are to think. If you
don't want to think that way, then help yourself; it's your
funeral, not mine. The fact that remains is, the first mention of
worship in the Old Testament is connected with Isaac, a type of
Christ dying and coming up from the dead, and the first mention
of worship in the New Testament is connected with the birth of a
Jewish king.

Jesus said, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God" (Matt. 4:10).
The substitution of the second commandment for the first
commandment is the beginning of Communism. Karl Marx used Acts
4:32 for his Bible verse, since all heretics have to have some
authority for what they say. Karl Marx's idea was simple: instead
of worshipping God, you worship man. Instead of trying to get
unsaved men fit for heaven, you try to get earth fit for
Communists to run. To put it the way Karl would put it, "To make
the earth a better place to live on, and to end man's inhumanity
to man by following the will of the people." Did you ever hear
that before? That's the old gaffed act that every politician has
been putting on since Cain knocked Abel's brains out. What it
amounts to is forget the first commandment and concentrate on the
second one. That will be enough to send you to hell. All you have
to do is major in the minors and minor in the majors, and you are
over the cliff.

What is the meaning of worship? The word "worship," like "grace"
and "love," is not easy to locate exactly. The word "grace" in
the Bible sometimes refers to a present condition, sometimes a
past opportunity. Sometimes "grace" refers to a present
application for a present necessity. Sometimes the word "grace"
refers to the ability to give.

Worship means to do reverence or homage to a superior being. Men
ought to worship God because He is God. David said in Psalm 23
that God is his shepherd, and that he is not going to want, and
that God does many things for him.

Worship is the uprising of a heart that has known the Father as a
Giver, the Son as Saviour, and the Holy Spirit as the indwelling
Comforter. Worship is the occupation of the heart, not with its
needs, or even with its blessings. Worship is the occupation of
the heart with God Himself. This is the difference between the
modern Charismatic and the Bible-believer. The Charismatic is
mostly concerned with God giving him what he needs: healing,
money, and prospering his ministry so he can "share" it with
others. This is not worship. Worship is the occupation of the
heart, not with its needs or the needs of others, or even with
its blessings. Worship is the occupation of the heart with God
Himself.

The importance of worship cannot be overestimated or overstated.
It is the First Commandment of the Law. The Lord said, "Thou
shalt have no other gods before me" (Exod. 20:3). Jesus Christ
Himself said, "The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O
Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind, and with all thy strength: This is the first
commandment" (Mark 12:29-30), not the second commandment.

If you are a Communist, you will take the second one. Since
Communists are unsaved people, in the flesh, they will take the
fleshy commandment that deals with the fleshy bodies of the
fleshy men which they can see in the flesh because to them the
flesh is the beginning, and the flesh is the end. They are nature
worshippers; they worship Darwin's theory of evolution. There is
no Communist in Russia or China who is not an evolutionist. The
fruit of such a belief is murder, and if you don't believe that,
go to Russia between 1920 and 1940, to China between 1940 and
1970, and to Africa between 1970 and 1980. Bloody killing and
murder. All evolutionists believe in an animal culture, an animal
religion, an animal civilization, and a jungle of animals, by
animals, for animals called "the people." That is the motto of
the French Revolution and Mao Tse-tung and Castro: "Of the
people, by the people, for the people." Or as the King James
Bible says, Laodicea, "the rights of the people." That's why
Communist countries are often referred to as "the People's
Republic." God has no rights.

God caused the erection of the Tabernacle and Temple for the
purpose of worship. Most of the instructions in Leviticus regard
the worship of the true God. God taught men like Abraham, Moses,
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Isaiah, and others the art of worship.
Since worship will be your occupation for eternity, you certainly
should know something about it. In Revelation 4 and 5 the
inhabitants of heaven worship God. The elders about the throne
cast their crowns before His feet day and night, and the four
beasts and elders and angels say, "Worthy is the Lamb that was
slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and
honour, and glory, and blessing." That is worship.

Worship is something the unsaved man cannot understand because
being born in the flesh he is fleshy, and they that are in the
flesh cannot understand the things of the spirit because "the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for
they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14). Therefore, no
unsaved man can understand the flrst principle in worship. "God
is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in
spirit" (John 4:24), and you are not in the spirit if you have
never been born again. "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the
Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you" (Rom. 8:9).
A Charismatic will say, "Well, 'in the Spirit' means going into
some ecstasy."

That might be in an Old Testament sense, or a sense of the
tribulation passage of John going to the third heaven (Rev.
1:9-10), but from our study in pneumatology, there is no saved
person who isn't "in the Spirit." If you are not in the Spirit,
you are not saved. "He that is joined unto the Lord is one
spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17), and "that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit" (John 3:6), and "they that are in the flesh cannot please
God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be
that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom. 8:8-9). Don't let
anybody kid you that "in the Spirit" means an ecstatic utterance
of an Old Testament prophet, or the transportation of John to
heaven for the revelation of one book in your Bible. You had
better get your Bible straight. If a man is not born of the
Spirit, he is not in the Spirit, and he can't worship God in
spirit and in truth. The scripture is very clear.

Luke 4:8 says, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God." Psalm 45:11
says, "for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him," not your brain,
not your education, not the school you went to, not Christian
scholarship, not higher education. You are not to worship idols.
God said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exod. 20:3).

The surest proof that the occupants of UFO's are not the Lord and
God spoken of in the Old Testament is that their language doesn't
match. There has never been a UFO spotted by anybody where any
occupant dared say what God said when He came down on Mount Sinai
and spoke to the children of Israel. The teaching that God is in
a flying saucer is rabid nonsense put out by a bunch of demented
people who can't read. Whoever heard of a UFO occupant talking
about the restoration of Israel with King David on the throne?
That is what the so-called UFO occupant of Ezekiel 1 talked about
to Ezekiel. Whoever heard of a UFO occupant coming down and
saying, "Thou shalt not commit adultery"? The things that ride in
those UFOs do not have any moral standards. You can't find one
reported case of any UFO occupant in fact or fiction that ever
told anybody, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength and with
all thy mind." Why, you can't imagine that a UFO came down on
Sinai unless you are about half crazy. If you can read, you know
perfectly well God is not a UFO occupant because UFO occupants do
not talk like Jehovah God talks.

Many people worship dead idols of wood and stone. Many others
worship self, business, or pleasure. In America there are three
false gods: money, sex, and education. These are the three false
gods of America. All three of them are tied to the love of money,
and that is why the Bible says "the love of money is the root of
all evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). We are not to worship angels (Rev.
19:10). We are not to worship nature (Job 31:26-28). We are not
to worship men (Acts 10:25-26). You have no business at all
bowing down and kissing the feet of any man on the face of this
earth. We are to worship God the Father. Jesus said, "The Father
seeketh such to worship him" (John 4:23).

We are to worship Him for what He has done: loving us and giving
His Son for us. We are to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. the
Second Person of the Godhead (John 9:38). We are to worship Him
because of what He has done: His incarnation, His life, and His
sacrificial death. We are to worship Him because of His present
work as Intercessor and High Priest. We are not instructed to
worship the Holy Spirit, though it may not be wrong. But the Holy
Spirit's job on this earth was to magnify Jesus Christ and
glorify Him, and that is why nobody in the New Testament ever
worships the Holy Spirit, and that is why the people who talk the
most about the Holy Spirit know the least about Him. The Holy
Spirit leads the believer into a life of worship, not of Him, but
a worship of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit teaches one to
worship, appreciate, and apprehend God in the Bible through
studying and reading the Bible.

Worship is not primarily something that is to be stored up and
released at a meeting Sunday morning. It is something that should
rise from the believer's soul seven days a week. For a full
worship of God, we must not possess a grieved Holy Spirit. We
should allow the Holy Spirit to teach and guide us through the
Bible. Never throw away your Bible for a "reliable translation"
and get misled.

Our worship must be spiritual (John 4:24). Worship must be
sincere; that is, in the truth. God looks at the heart to see
whether or not the words of our lips are true, sincere, and
genuine expressions of what comes from the heart. Worship must be
intelligent. God does not put a premium on ignorance. He desires
that we have a knowledge of what the Bible teaches because God
wrote the Bible and gave it to us as a revelation of Himself.
Many modern people attempt to worship God by bowing in church and
reciting prayers they don't understand, and that is not prayer.
There's many a priest who has conducted a mass while trying to
figure up his score on the golf course last week. "The sacrifice
of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of
the upright is his delight," we read in our Bibles (Prov. 15:8).
Sitting through a church service is not necessarily worshipping
God. Some minds are miles away preparing meals, catching fish,
making money, or God knows what. Each child of God is duty bound
to see to it that the worship he presents to God through Jesus
Christ is spiritual, sincere, and intelligent; that is, according
to what God said, the way God said it. We may worship in each
part of the service: singing, praying, preaching, offering, so
forth and so on, but worship in church or in private has to be a
heart exercise. It delights the heart of the Father to find true
worshippers of Himself. The Lord greatly longs for the worship
from our hearts, but He is very often disappointed.

There are many hindrances to worship. Worship is the Christian's
highest occupation and is therefore contested by Satan. Satan
will do everything he can to keep you talking about "the Holy
Ghost" and "the gifts of the Holy Ghost," instead of worshipping
God. Satan will do everything he can to make you think that
Sunday morning worship service is the time to worship God, and
the rest of the time is a time to enjoy yourself.

The first hindrance to worship is self will. God killed a man in
the Old Testament for wanting to serve Him. You ask, "Who was
that?" Uzzah, who put forth his hand to steady the Ark, with a
good motive, but not according to knowledge, not according to
intelligence, and not according to the revealed will of God. That
is, he was a zealous man who wanted to help God out by "sharing
his experience," and "being a blessing to others," and he was
knocked dead in the road because of it. It was against what God
said. The Philistine expedient of hauling the Ark of the Covenant
around on an ox cart was Satanic. God had already commanded them
that the Ark was to be carried by poles through rings in the Ark
on the shoulders of the priests. The same thing happened to Nadab
and Abihu in Leviticus 10, when they offered strange fire. They
figured they would serve God in their own way without regard to
what God said, so they were both dropped dead.

The worshipping believer has no confidence in himself. People
say, "Go to the church of your choice." You don't have any
choice, son; the choice is God's. People say, "I use the King
James Bible because I prefer it." Then you had better get rid of
it; your preference does not matter. The Christian is not his
own; he is bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19-20). People say,
"Well, I may decide to come to church next Sunday, and I may
decide not to." It is not your decision to make. That is what the
modern Christian hates about the authority of the Authorized
Version. The Authorized Version says, "Ye are not your own. . .ye
are bought with a price." According to the Bible, you born again,
saved people are bond slaves, knocked down on the block and
bought. The price of your redemption is blood, and you are not
your own. You are bought. BOUGHT! Therefore, every time you make
a decision instead of letting God do it, according to His word
you are rebelling against your Master. I do not expect unsaved
people to understand that. They have no Master; they are their
own god, and the highest authority in their lives is their own
brains. The worms will get that god before very long.

Worldliness hinders worship. The believer is in the world but
definitely not of the world (John 17:11). Jesus Christ must
become the center and circumference of your Christian life.
Worship is the person, mind, and body concentrating on the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself.

A critical spirit hinders true worship. Those who come home from
church and have "roast preacher" for dinner have not worshipped
God. True worship goes beyond the preacher, beyond the church,
and beyond the choir, and worships God Himself. Nothing in the
world will kill the spirit of true worship like a critical
spirit, like saying, "This verse should have been this," and "A
better translation would be this," and "A better rendering is
this," and "It's an unfortunate translation." These people
worship their education. Don't look for something to criticize;
look rather for something to commend.

Some people are just too lazy to exert the energy needed to
worship God. Many, in attempting to worship God, fall asleep,
mentally if not physically, and fail in their basic desire to
meet the Lord and praise Him. Spiritual laziness must be viewed
as a thief, and spiritual lethargy must therefore give place to
spiritual alertness. You are going to have to wake up. As Paul
said to the Christians, not to the unsaved, "Awake thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee
light" (Eph. 5:14).

Impatience hinders worship. The Lord said, "Wait" (Isa. 40:31).
Our speeded up generation has failed to learn to sit quietly in
His presence in meditation of His goodness and works. Our speeded
up generation has forgotten how to sit and wait on God, and our
generation does not obey Samuel's admonition to Saul, "Stand thou
still a while, that I may shew thee the word of God" (I Sam.
9:27). Some people have never heard a thirty-minute radio
broadcast from beginning to end yet. Some people studying these
lessons have never sat down with paper and pencil for thirty
minutes even to check whether I am telling you the truth or not.

Formalism is a terrible hindrance to true worship. Substituting a
ritual or sacrament for the free heart worship of God is Satanic,
blasphemous, and demoniac. Nothing in the world can kill the
spirit of true worship like a standard form of service or a
standard way of speaking, a standard way of folding the hands, a
standard way of singing, and a standard, educated format that is
followed to the letter. Dead orthodoxy is the deadest death there
is. Dead orthodoxy is deader than heretical teaching. There is
nothing deader than a bunch of born-again, saved people who
profess to believe the fundamentals, gathering in their best
clothes on Sunday morning and following a format that is designed
to increase the attendance and offering. Worship doesn't even
enter as a factor in such a service.

Pride of person, pride of race, pride of faith, pride of place,
or pride of grace will deter from true worship. Whenever
Christians get so proud they think they are able to correct the 
Authorized Version, the Holy Spirit ceases to bless them, and
they continue in the form and have what the Bible calls, "a form
of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (2 Tim. 3:5). There
is no way any genuine worship goes on in America where educated
sinners have got together to make an idol out of their ministry
or a god out of their work at the expense of what God said.

We are to worship God, not just in a place, but in spirit and in
truth. We worship God when we enter into His presence and engage
in worship, the highest occupation, and when we do, God will be
glorified for then He receives the praise, honor. and glory due
Him, and it is certainly due to Him. You will be blessed if you
do it; God will fill your heart with joy and peace.

May there rise from every Christian's heart a constant flow of
adoring worship which will delight the heart of God and bring
glory to His holy name. He alone is worthy to be praised, a great
King of kings, God of gods, Lord of lords, the Alpha and Omega,
the Beginning and Ending, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Way, the
Truth, the Life, the Door, the Bread of Life, the Water of Life,
the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Valley, the Altogether Lovely
One, the King of Israel, the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed of
God, my Saviour, my God, my Beloved and my Friend. May His name
be praised for ever and ever. Amen and Amen.