Home » Posts tagged 'worship' (Page 4)
Tag Archives: worship
Worship Is God’s Priority for Men: The Case of 2 Chronicles 26
Man isn’t going to make his way through life without sinning, but he can as a habit or lifestyle come to God by faith in worship of Him through the means and in the way prescribed by God. 2 Chronicles reiterates this. In the midst of annals of especially various battles and conflicts with other nations, worship of God surfaces again and again.
Uzziah became king of Judah. 2 Chronicles 26 says “he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord” (v. 4). He “sought God” (v. 5). Verse 15 says, “he was marvelously helped, till he was strong.” The next verse (16) says:
But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against the LORD his God, and went into the temple of the LORD to burn incense upon the altar of incense.
I think we should assume that “being strong” in this sense means that he was so strong that it went to his head. It’s the opposite of 2 Corinthians 12:10, the Apostle Paul, “for when I am weak, then am I strong.” The strength comes from the acknowledgment of weakness. Uzziah’s strength came from above and he didn’t recognize that, so he was really weak, the opposite of what Paul talked about. I think you get it.
So. “His heart was lifted up to his destruction.” Destruction sounds serious. That isn’t successful, being destroyed. What caused that? The strength that didn’t come from Uzziah, but he was considering it to be his strength, lifted up his heart, so that he did something that merited destruction. Another layer is that Uzziah “transgressed against the LORD his God.” Everyone transgresses against God, and it doesn’t result in destruction. What did result in destruction? This verse states it very plain.
He “went into the temple of the LORD to burn incense upon the altar of incense.” Well, is it wrong to burn incense at the altar of incense? No. It wasn’t wrong. So why did that result in destruction? Just because something isn’t wrong doesn’t mean that it is right. Worship is regulated by what God says, not by what He doesn’t say. God designated the priests to burn incense on the altar of incense. When Uzziah did it instead, this was according to God “to his destruction.” God does not want innovation in worship. He wants exactly what He said that He wants.
The next few verses read:
17 And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of the LORD, that were valiant men: 18 And they withstood Uzziah the king, and said unto him, It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the LORD, but to the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary; for thou hast trespassed; neither shall it be for thine honour from the LORD God.
I guess you could call this an intervention. When someone violates biblical worship, it must be stopped and other people should involve themselves in stopping it. In this case, it’s someone in authority, but the worship of God is more important than his office. They couldn’t just “agree to disagree.” They had to do something about it.
Uzziah thought he was participating in an honorable activity, something an honor for him to do, burn incense to God. He might have felt good about it. Azariah and 80 other priests brought that to his attention, probably risking their lives to do so even as verse 17 calls them “valiant men.” It took guts for them to perform this intervention and to stop Uzziah from doing this.
People offered incense to God. It was permissible for them to offer it, but it wasn’t permissible for just anyone to do this. They had to be ordained and qualified people to do it. They were consecrated to do so, or in other words, they were set apart to do so, fulfilling the scriptural requirements. Others were not permitted to do it.
Silence wasn’t permission. This is very often where worship goes off the rails. If scripture doesn’t say it’s wrong, then someone is at liberty to do it. God didn’t tell Cain he couldn’t bring fruits and vegetables. That didn’t mean that bringing fruits and vegetables was right.
Today professing Christians, including leaders, say that a church shouldn’t stress over methods. It’s not worth being strict, onerous, or intolerable over methods. That’s not how scripture reads and especially when it comes to worship. Believers through the centuries observed that all worship must be regulated by scripture, including in its methodology. This is the regulative principle of worship. This text in 2 Chronicles 26 is further evidence of this.
Why are so many men, 81 of them, needed to stop one man from practicing false worship? I have noticed through the years, that when men are not functioning based on scripture, they are operating based on something else mostly related to their feelings. What they are doing is closely related to their own personal opinions. It’s pride. When someone crosses someone in a personal way and against their emotions or feelings, they react in an emotional way and even a violent way. It’s not an easy reaction. It can be difficult to deal with.
Consider what occurs in the next two verses:
19 Then Uzziah was wroth, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense: and while he was wroth with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the LORD, from beside the incense altar. 20 And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence; yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the LORD had smitten him.
Worship Is God’s Priority for Men: The Case of 2 Chronicles 25
The impression from an overview of scripture is that worship is God’s priority for men. Jesus said to the woman at the well, God is seeking for true worshipers (John 4:23). Jesus said this. David was a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). What was David’s priority? The worship of God. 1 Chronicles 25:14-16 provide another example:
14 Now it came to pass, after that Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them. 15 Wherefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against Amaziah, and he sent unto him a prophet, which said unto him, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand? 16 And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king’s counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbare, and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy thee, because thou hast done this, and hast not hearkened unto my counsel
Amaziah, king of Judah, conquered the Edomites based on a prophecy from God. God gave his mercenary army the victory over Edom, which had rebelled against his great-grandfather, Jehoram (verse 14). He obeyed God in slaughtering the Edomites. However, as you can read above, he brought Edom’s gods and bowed down to them and burned incense to them. How did God react to that?
God’s anger was kindled against Amaziah, because of the false worship. There’s more. God was the one who delivered the Edomites, and these new gods could not deliver them. So, God sent a prophet to confront Amaziah.
False worship doesn’t make any sense. God gives every good thing and yet people worship another god and in numbers of different ways. What is it? It doesn’t explain the insanity of this, but we know it still occurs. The true God is not worshiped in a true way. He’s ignored. He’s refused. What causes men to choose a different god or worship the true God in a way He would never accept? Why do they do it?
Maybe it doesn’t matter why. Maybe all that matters is that they do it. In the end, the judgment will come for what, but why still matters. It doesn’t say, but I think we know. We’re supposed to know. God gives everyone every good thing, but God expects something from His worshipers. False gods don’t have the same expectations as God. It’s like doctor shopping. You shop for the god of your choice and have him be your god, and then you get what you want.
Another avenue today is to keep the God of the Bible but conform Him so much to your own preferences and your own style, that He’s not even the same God. He’s god, not God. That’s all over “evangelicalism.” People are important to evangelicalism, and evangelicalism’s god conforms to people. That’s who he is.
The wrong worship and the wrong god merge into one another. They become indistinguishable at some point. Keeping the same “God” is just a masquerade. And then people are so self-deceived, they just don’t know anymore. God knows and He’s angry.
In many ways, people again in a self-deceived way are thinking they can fool God. He won’t know. Or He’ll understand and accept. 2 Peter describes apostasy and in the most rudimentary way, it is not wanting accountability or authority. This does challenge the goodness of God and redefines goodness. Goodness becomes the object of man’s lust, and man doesn’t want a God who doesn’t give him what he wants. Reader, God knows. You won’t get away with it. His worship is His priority.
God is angry with false worship as described in the previous four paragraphs. On the other hand, someone who prioritizes that worship, as flawed even as he may be personally, is a man after God’s own heart. He prioritizes the true worship of God. That doesn’t excuse His flaws, but it’s helpful to know God’s priority.
Amaziah’s worship story is an amazing one. Do you agree? But let’s move on.
God sends a prophet to warn about false worship. True prophets warn against false worship, preach true worship. Practical, successful living matters to God, but worship is the priority. Today that would be to worship the right God the right way, which is in His church, regulated by scripture. Church growth is not the priority, except for more true worshipers. If there isn’t true worship at all, God doesn’t want church growth. He wants church disappearance or elimination.
The message from God through the prophet is not to seek after other gods. Don’t seek them in whatever way anyone may seek them. On the other hand, seek the true God. People don’t know Him, because they don’t seek Him. He must be sought to be known. This relates to a lot about believing the Lord. He is available and can be known, but we must seek Him. Sure, we can’t seek Him without His seeking us, but we must seek Him. It’s crucial.
The first half of verse 16 accounts of the threat by Amaziah to the prophet. That sounds serious, threatening someone who impedes your false worship. I’ve stood at the door arguing about worship for hours. A lot of people would say, let it go. It’s not important, the gospel is important. Except for the gospel is about worship (see John 4:23 again).
When doing spiritual warfare with someone about worship, it is emotional. People don’t want their worship rejected. If it is, something isn’t wrong with them, the false worshipers, it’s you the prophet. It was so serious for Amaziah that he threatened the prophet in one of the most mafia like threats in scripture. There were two components. First, there was a veiled threat of his job as the king’s counsel, a job he would have lost anyway if, second, he was killed by Amaziah.
I want to emphasize that false worshipers want to defend their false worship. I contend that it’s not about their god. It’s about them. They want what they want, and their god is allowing it. God gave the victory. He deserved to be worshiped, but whatever the gods of Edom offered Amaziah, he preferred it.
Not allowing the false worship is like taking food from an animal. I’ve found this to be the reaction. The false worshiper attacks the prophet to keep the worship. I’ve experienced dozens of personal attacks in similar situations with people angry over the challenge of their worship. Cain is an early example in scripture, challenging God and killing his brother over this same issue.
The prophet addressed both threats in an economy of words and in reverse order. Getting straight to the point, God is going to destroy you, implying that you are not going to destroy me. Second, you didn’t listen to my counsel anyway, so you really can’t threaten me with my job. The prophet stood up to the false worshiper and his false worship. He did not back off. This is God’s will, to confront false worship.
Modern evangelicalism and fundamentalism attack those who confront false worship. If you are reading this and you’re one of them, you’re probably defending your attacks with bad arguments. They call it a tertiary issue. You will be canceled by them for confronting false worship. Love is love after all according to the leftish value list. Love would accommodate false worship. God will kill over it. The prophet actually was saving Amaziah’s life. That is actual love, not the toleration of the leftist values now foremost in evangelicalism and fundamentalism. I face those values every week and almost every day.
2 Chronicles 25 is another case for worship as God’s priority for men.
Free Psalm Singing Resources
In the section on ecclesiology on my website, I have a number of resources discussing psalm-singing. I hope you are in a church that obeys the command to “sing psalms” (James 5:13; Ephesians 5:18ff.) and that you also obey this command in your personal life and in your family worship. If you are in a position of church leadership, and you are not obeying God’s command to sing to Him the inspired psalms, why not start–now?
Crown and Covenant publishes conservative psalm-singing recordings. The large majority (but not all) of them are Biblically acceptable in their musical style. You can now stream the large majority of their music for free–for example, you can listen to them on YouTube here. It is a blessing to have these high-quality audio productions available for free.
Being glad for their psalm-singing is not an endorsement of their unscriptural Presbyterian theology.
–TR
Four Thousand Praised the LORD with the Instruments Which I Made
In the midst of a variated list, 1 Chronicles 23:5 reads:
Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised the LORD with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith.
1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. 2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. 3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. 4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. 5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. 6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
Psalm 33:2, Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.Psalm 92:3, Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.Psalm 98:6, With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King.Psalm 144:9, I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee.
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.
Support Bethel and Faithsaves.net When Shopping at Amazon
Black Friday is today, and Cyber Monday is coming up! I relatively recently wrote a post about Amazon Smile and how you can, whenever you shop at Amazon.com, support Bethel Christian Academy, a ministry of Bethel Baptist Church, without paying a penny more for whatever you were buying. However, there is a way to go one better–you can support both a ministry such as Bethel as well as faithsaves.net while paying exactly the same price as you would normally at Amazon.com. If you go to Amazon via the link below:
Support Bethel & FaithSaves
you will support both your Amazon Smile organization such as Bethel and faithsaves.net. (While the page opens to the Amazon page for the book Thou Shalt Keep Them, you do not need to buy that book, but can navigate from there to anywhere on Amazon and you will still end up supporting Bethel or whatever other Amazon Smile organization you use and FaithSaves with what you purchase. Also, Bethel Christian Academy gets exactly the same 0.5% whether or not you also help support fathsaves.net–there is no decrease in the amount given to BCA for having Amazon give a small bit of their profit to FaithSaves also.)
If you don’t want to support faithsaves.net, but only an Amazon Smile organization such as Bethel, you can use the link below to sign up for Amazon Smile, and then afterwards just go to smile.amazon.com:
Click here to sign up for Amazon Smile and/or pick Bethel Christian Academy as the charity of your choice
If you don’t want to support an Amazon Smile organization, but only faithsaves.net, you can use the link below:
I would encourage you to use the first button above and support Bethel and FaithSaves whenever you shop on Amazon.com, and share the link with others so they can do the same (unless your church has its own Amazon Smile account–then support your church–which you can still do by making it your Amazon Smile organization and then just clicking through the first link above). Save this blog post to your bookmarks and click from here into Amazon whenever you are going to buy something from them. (You can also explore other options to get discounts on purchases online here.) The sending church of Dr. Brandenburg does many things for the glory of God in addition to having this blog, from giving people a place to have pure worship for the 7 million people in the Bay Area, to the new church plant that Evangelist Brandenburg is establishing in Oregon, to the faithful ministry and gospel outreach in the Bay Area, to the school and other educational ministries, etc. At faithsaves.net we are working to help Bethel expand its video outreach so that college courses, debates, podcasts, etc. can be online, and the video equipment for all of that is expensive, so support would be a blessing. If Amazon is willing to help out by donating a portion of what you purchase, why not do it? Thank you for your consideration!
–TDR
“Come as you are” or “sanctify yourselves”?
Today we hear a great deal about how we should come to church just as we are. I recall a life-size ad that was posted for many weeks at a local mall in Wisconsin. It had a picture of a guy in a T-shirt holding a Bible, a big tattoo visible on his arm, wearing jeans. The ad asked, “Would Jesus wear jeans to church?” There was no gospel on the ad anywhere, although the religious organization claims to be evangelical. Even if someone were to (wrongly) think that the answer to that question is, “Yes,” unless wearing the jeans and the tattoo were an idol, one could answer “Yes, but who cares? Why aren’t you giving these lost people the gospel instead of asking them a silly question about clothing?” On the other hand, if the casual clothes are an idol that one is not willing to forsake to take up the cross and follow Christ, then the ad makes sense; we can “put down the cross and serve ourselves,” can keep everything in the world that the jeans and tattoo represent, instead of taking up the cross and following Christ.
But is the answer really “yes”? Are we supposed to come to church as we are?
Scripture regularly contains the following phrase when people were entering the presence of the infinitely holy Jehovah (in each case the Hithpael of the verb qds, “holy”):
Ex. 19:22 And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them.
Lev. 11:44 For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Lev. 20:7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God.
Num. 11:18 And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat.
Josh. 3:5 And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the LORD will do wonders among you.
Josh. 7:13 Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.
1Sam. 16:5 And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the LORD: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.
1Chr. 15:12 And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it.
1Chr. 15:14 So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel.
2Chr. 29:5 And said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the LORD God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.
2Chr. 29:15 And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and came, according to the commandment of the king, by the words of the LORD, to cleanse the house of the LORD.
2Chr. 29:34 But the priests were too few, so that they could not flay all the burnt offerings: wherefore their brethren the Levites did help them, till the work was ended, and until the other priests had sanctified themselves: for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests.
2Chr. 30:3 For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem.
2Chr. 30:15 Then they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought in the burnt offerings into the house of the LORD.
2Chr. 30:24 For Hezekiah king of Judah did give to the congregation a thousand bullocks and seven thousand sheep; and the princes gave to the congregation a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep: and a great number of priests sanctified themselves.
2Chr. 31:18 And to the genealogy of all their little ones, their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, through all the congregation: for in their set office they sanctified themselves in holiness:
2Chr. 35:6 So kill the passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Moses.
So the world, and most of evangelicalism, says to come to church just as you are, the same way you come to any worldly event. Indeed, making no difference between the common or profane and the holy temple of God in this age is important enough to many evangelicals that they will refrain from giving people the gospel to instead focus upon the importance of coming to church in your T-shirt and jeans sporting your tattoo with your modern Bible version. Come as you are, sing to God the tunes of the world, and add a little religion to your life–your life which is all about you. By contrast, Scripture affirms, over and over again, that one is to sanctify himself before coming into the presence of the holy, holy, holy God.
So, in a true church, where the special presence of God is found in a manner comparable to the holy of holies in the Old Testament tabernacle (Gk. naos), you should not come just as you are. You should sanctify yourself–you should come in a way that is distinctly different, that is not common, not profane, but set apart to the righteous Lord and God who dwells in a special way in His true church. Jesus Christ walks in the midst of His churches, and He still hates any profanation of God’s worship the way He did when he took a whip and drove out the moneychangers and merchants from the Temple (John 2) and when He sent fire from heaven to burn up those who failed to sanctify Him in their worship (Leviticus 10).
Nor should true churches set up special meetings where the people of God specifically fail to sanctify themselves in their appearance and come into the presence of God in an informal, casual, common way so that lost people who visit feel more comfortable. There is no model for this in Scripture, and when in the New Testament a lost person comes under conviction after visiting church, it is because of the truth of the Word he has heard from the godly example and speech of the church members, not because they decided not to sanctify themselves. That is not the way to get the lost to confess “God is in you of a truth” (1 Corinthians 14:25), but to get them to confess: “There is nothing special here.” Much less should church services be turned into carnivals with give-aways to attract children who would not come for Christ but will come for candy.
On the other hand, if you are going to a religious organization that does not fit the Biblical criteria for one of Christ’s true churches, you might as well come as you are and make no difference between the holy and the common, since Christ is not there anyway. Go for it! But don’t deceive yourself and think that you are doing anything that is for the glory and honor of God when you are there. It’s about you. Be honest.
So, considered Biblically, a religious organization with a “seeker-sensitive, come as you are” philosophy of ministry is saying “God is not here. This is about us and what we want. No to Immanuel, yes to ourselves. The Bible says ‘sanctify yourselves’ before coming into God’s presence–but we say exactly the opposite.”
On a side note, the Keswick / Higher Life idea that “You cannot sanctify yourself” is the opposite of what the passages of Scripture above teach. The sons of God, enabled by grace, do indeed sanctify themselves; that is one of the ways that God sanctifies them.
Please do not draw the conclusion from this article that the lost need to make themselves worthy before they can come to Christ. This post is about God’s people and how they should come into the presence of God in His church, not about how the lost should come to Christ as empty-handed sinners with nothing but their sin. Please also do not conclude that we should discourage lost people who know nothing about God’s Word from hearing preaching or attending services if they do not dress nicely enough. That is not what the post is about either. Nor did the post say anything to the effect that the outside is more important than the inside; that is not the case. God does care about sanctifying all of who we are, inside and outside. Do not take the post for what it does not say, but what it does say.
Let’s just be honest with these passages of Scripture and recognize that the saints should sanctify themselves in their hearts, minds, and appearance before they come into the special presence of the God who commanded, “Be ye holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16; Leviticus 11:44). Not soli mihi gloria, but soli Deo gloria.
–TDR
Recent Comments