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Sept. 13, 2008

Good Sabbath,

Last week I introduced the subject of formal worship. The scriptures are filled, from beginning to end, with examples of how God’s people worshiped him. There are also examples of the worship of idols and false gods and instructions that God’s people are NOT to worship him in those ways. So it becomes our job to sort it out.

Of course, there are the obvious examples of people worshiping idols they have made with their own hands to resemble animals, people, or anything else in the universe. There are examples of human sacrifice, child sacrifice, and wild orgies taking place in front of these man-made idols. These are obvious prohibitions concerning worship, but the less obvious might be a little harder to spot.

Most of us today are aware of the possibility for mankind to create idols for themselves without even realizing they are doing it. Modern idols can include money, material possessions, entertainment such as television or music, alcohol, drugs or tobacco use, food consumption to the point of being overweight, sexual appetites that lead to pornography and perverted sexual acts, and the list could go on and on. We live in a very materialistic world today.

While these are all examples of idol worship, it’s rare for people to view them in that light — at least it’s rare for those people who do not know the one true God or do not worship the one true God.

Jesus said … “whoever commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). In the Sermon on the Mount, he said …

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matt. 6:24 NKJV)

Mammon is a Semitic word for money or riches and, in context, this verse follows on Jesus’ instructions to his disciples to store up treasure in heaven, not on earth. We understand that treasure to be much more than just money. It is our whole being and spiritual nature that we are preparing in order to be among the chosen when Christ returns.

Speaking to virtually the same subject, Paul told the Romans …

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? (Rom. 6:16 NKJV)

In light of scripture it becomes incumbent on us to clarify what and who we are worshiping. Most of us in the Church of God tradition believe that we have a handle on this. We are not in danger of faulty worship in attending most of the Church of God services conducted today because the most we are engaging in is singing a few hymns. It’s not danger-free, however. Because all of the service revolves around the leadership, there is still the danger of people looking too highly on these men and possibly coming to the point of worshiping them. Most would say that could never happen, but it does … especially among the spiritually immature.

There is another aspect of worship in the modern contemporary Christian churches that we need to also watch for — and that is emotionalism. Their services are designed to create an emotional response and they are calling it worship. Extreme emotion is not worship. There is little danger of that happening in a Church of God service, but when we begin to approach God individually in worship, it may evoke emotions within us.

Proper use of our emotions is not a bad thing. It only begins to work against us when we allow it to take over and lead us into saying or doing things that appear to be out of our control. A good example is the charismatic movement in the world today. They claim it is the Holy Spirit that is leading them to abandon all their senses and go into a frenzied state where they begin babbling non-sensical sounds — some even to the point of passing out in the aisles. It’s a spirit all right — but it is not the Holy Spirit. There are NO examples in the scriptures of the Holy Spirit working in this way. The only examples we see of such behavior was what Jesus and the Apostles were casting out of people.

A thorough study of the scriptures reveals that when the Holy Spirit came upon people they were endued with power and the ability to do things they had not previously been able to do. For example, God gave Bezalel the spirit sufficient to allow him to build and lead the work of building the Tabernacle in the Wilderness (Exo. 35:30-35). Suddenly, he became an artisan with the power to work with raw materials and fashion them into the finished products that God had described to Moses on the mountain.

In the New Testament, we see God’s spirit descending on the Apostles and they suddenly were able to heal others only by speaking the words. They had the ability to call down the Holy Spirit on others following repentance and baptism by merely laying their hands on them.

In every instance of the giving of the spirit, in both the Old and the New Testaments, it was for the purpose of allowing that person to have the power to do something they could not have done before. In the Gospel Age, the spirit opened people’s eyes and ears and minds to understand God’s truth … and is still functioning in that way today.

The Holy Spirit does NOT come upon people and cause a high or extreme level of emotionalism. The most common emotion felt by true worshipers of God is their own sense of how unworthy and low they are. The first time it happens, it may invoke tears and profound weeping. This could last for several days, but if it continues indefinitely, it might be an example of a person allowing their emotions to rule. In true worship of God, we will always recognize our lowly state and how unworthy we are of receiving God’s grace, but with spiritual growth and maturity we move out of the emotional and into true knowledge. Only the spirit can move us there. We can stop that growth by becoming caught up in our emotional nature.

Last week I ended my letter with a comment: “Many will claim they would rather just allow the spirit to speak to them in whatever way it will.” I then went on to say it is somewhat of a dangerous game to hold this kind of thinking when it comes to formal worship of the one true God. I also promised to explain what I meant by the statement.

First, the comment is usually made by people who are talking about WHAT they are going to study for the Sabbath. That’s good! Let the spirit lead you in this area. The spirit knows best what you need at any given time. I fully endorse and agree with turning within or paying attention to what crosses my path when it comes to my studies every day of the week.

However, study is not the same thing as formal worship of God. Formal worship of God follows on the example of the Temple Worship System given by God in the Torah. It is obviously modified in the Gospel Age, but it is still a requirement of God’s people throughout all their generations. We’ll begin looking at that in more detail next week.

The Holy Spirit does not lead the ways of formal worship, but lends itself to that worship to help us gain more from it. God defined HOW we are to worship him, the spirit gives it life. When it comes to prayer — we don’t even know what to pray for. Then we need the spirit to pray for us — to lead our prayers. Without the spirit our prayers can easily just become a wish list of what we want God to do for us. The spirit helps us to get things more in perspective and to approach God in a true state of humility.

When I say that following ONLY the spirit is a dangerous game, what I mean is that without some formal structure to our worship and continuity in engaging in it, it is easy to slowly reach a state of not worshiping God at all. We may think we are, but a serious look at what we are doing on the Sabbath could reveal something different. We might be doing a little bible reading, perhaps reading or studying an article written by someone who claims authority in the subject we’re reading about, maybe listening to a tape or live sermon, and maybe we’re spending a little time in prayer. But, we are NOT worshiping God.

The spirit leads us to what we need to learn, the spirit guides us in how we need to pray, the spirit gives us power and knowledge — opens our eyes and ears to truth — but the spirit does not worship for us. We have to come to that on our own. Once we do, the spirit is right there beside and within us to give our worship power and meaning. But we have to make the decision to actively worship God as he commands.

We all pray and we all are aware of the command to pray without ceasing. Good! Don’t stop. But take some time to look into this for yourself. Is prayer the same as formal worship?

We’ll begin looking into what formal worship really is next week.

Have a great Sabbath.

Sincerely,
B.J. Lord
www.soundatrumpet.com