What Happened to Worship                        A.W. Tozer                  

CHAPTER 6

Awed by the Presence of God

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.  Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.  Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.  Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.  Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. Isaiah 6:1-8

 

THROUGH THE YEARS, I have quite often heard educated and intelligent persons say, "Let me tell you how I discovered God."  Whether these discoverers went on from there to a humble and adoring worship of God I cannot say. I do know, however, that all of us would be in great trouble and still far from God if He had not graciously and in love revealed Himself to us.  I am a little irritated or grieved at the continuing hope of so many people that they will be able to grasp Godunderstand God, commune with Godthrough their intellectual capacities. When will they realize that if they could possibly "discover" God with the intellect, they would be equal to God?  We would do well to lean toward the kind of discovery of God described by the prophet Isaiah:

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the  Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple (Isaiah 6:1).

Now, that which Isaiah saw was wholly other than, and altogether different from, anything he had ever seen before. Up to this point in his life, Isaiah had become familiar with the good things God had created. But he had never been introduced to the presence of the Uncreated.  To Isaiah, then, the violent contrast between that which is God and that which is not God was such that his very language suffered under the effort to express it.

Significantly, God was revealing Himself to man. Isaiah could have tried for a million years to reach God by means of his intellect without any chance of succeeding. All of the accumulated brainpower in the whole world could not reach God.  But the living God, in the space of a short second of time, can reveal Himself to the willing spirit of a man. It is only then that an Isaiah, or any other man or woman, can say with humility but with assurance, "I know Him."

Unlike men, God never acts without purpose. Here God was revealing Himself to Isaiah for eternal purposes. Isaiah has tried to give us a true record, but what actually happened is greater than what Isaiah wrote by as much as God is greater than the human mind. Isaiah confesses that he had never before seen the Lord sitting upon a throne.  Modern critics of this record by Isaiah warn us of the danger of anthropomorphism the attempt to bestow upon God certain human attributes.  I have never been afraid of big words. Let them call it what they will, I still believe that God sits upon a throne, invested with self-bestowed sovereignty. I believe, too, that God sits upon a throne determining all events, finally, according to the purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began.

Now, because we are dealing with worship, let us consider the joys and delights of the heavenly creatures, the seraphim, around the throne of God. This is Isaiah's record: Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory (Isaiah 6:2-3). 

We know very little about these created beings, but I am impressed by their attitude of exalted worship. They are close to the throne and they burn with rapturous love for the Godhead. They were engrossed in their antiphonal chants, "Holy, holy, holy!"  I have often wondered why the rabbis and saints and hymnists of those olden times did not come to the knowledge of the Trinity just from the seraphims' praise, "Holy, holy, holy." I am a TrinitarianI believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, begotten of Him before all ages. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who with the Father and Son together is worshiped and glorified .  This is a very moving scene the seraphim worshiping God. The more I read my Bible the more I believe in the Triune God.  In Isaiah's vision the seraphim were chanting their praises to the Trinity 800 years before Mary cried with joy and her Baby wailed in Bethlehem's manger, when the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Son, came to earth to dwell among us. The key words then and the keynote still of our worship must be "Holy, holy, holy!"

I am finding that many Christians are really not comfortable with the holy attributes of God. In such cases I am forced to wonder about the quality of the worship they try to offer to Him.  The word "holy" is more than an adjective saying that God is a holy Godit is an ecstatic ascription of glory to the Triune God. I am not sure that we really know what it means, but I think we should attempt a definition.  Complete moral purity can only describe God. Everything that appears to be good among men and women must be discounted, for we are human. Not one of us is morally pure. Abraham, David and Elijah; Moses, Peter and Paulall were good men. They were included in God's fellowship. But each had his human flaws and weaknesses as members of Adam's race. Each had to find the place of humble repentance. Because God knows our hearts and our intentions, He is able to restore His sincere and believing children who are in the faith.

Much of our problem in continuing fellowship with a holy God is that many Christians repent only for what they do, rather than for what they are.  It should help us to be concerned about the quality of our worship when we consider that Isaiah's reaction was a feeling of absolute profaneness in the presence of the moral purity of the divine Being. Consider that Isaiah was a commendable young mancultured, religious and a cousin of the king. He would have made a good deacon in any church. Today he would be asked to serve on one of our mission boards.  But here Isaiah was an astonished man. He was struck with awe, his whole world suddenly dissolving into a vast, eternal brightness. He was pinned against that brightnessred and black, the colors of sin.

What had happened? Isaiah, only human, had glimpsed One whose character and nature signaled perfection. He could only manage the witness: "Mine eyes have seen the King."  The definition of' "Holy, holy" must certainly have room for "mystery" if, in our attempts to worship, we are to have an effective appreciation of our God.

There are leaders in various Christian circles who know so much about the things of God that they will offer to answer every question you may have.  We can hope to answer questions helpfully as far as we can. But there is a sense of divine mystery running throughout all of the kingdom of Godfar beyond the mystery that scientists discover running throughout the kingdom of nature.  There are those who pretend to know everything about God  who pretend they can explain everything about Cod, about His creation, about His thoughts and about His judgments. They have joined the ranks of the evangelical rationalists. They end up taking the mystery out of life and the mystery out of worship. When they have done that, they have taken God out as well.  The kind of "know -it-all" attitude about God that we see in some teachers today leaves them in a very difficult position. They must roundly criticize and condemn any other man taking any position slightly different from theirs.

Our cleverness and glibness and fluency may well betray our lack of that divine awe upon our spirits, silent and wonderful, that breathes a whisper, "Oh, Lord God, Thou knowest."

In Isaiah 6 we see a clear portrayal of what happens to a person in the mystery of the Presence. Isaiah, overpowered within his own being, can only confess humbly, "I am a man of unclean lips!"  I remind you that Isaiah recognized the "strangeness"something of the mystery of the Person of God. In that Presence, Isaiah found no place for joking or for clever cynicism or for human familiarity. He found a strangeness in God, that is, a presence unknown to the sinful and worldly and self-sufficient human.  A person who has sensed what Isaiah sensed will never be able to joke about "the Man upstairs" or the "Someone up there who likes me."

One of the movie actresses who still prowled around the nightclubs after her supposed conversion to Christ was quoted as telling someone, "You ought to know God. You know, God is just a livin' doll!" I read where another man said, "God is a good fellow." I confess that when I hear or read these things I feel a great pain within. My brother or sister, there is something about our God that is different, that is beyond us, that is above us transcendent. We must be humbly willing to throw our hearts open and to plead, "God, shine Thyself into my understanding for I will never find Thee otherwise."

The mystery, the strangeness is in God. Our Lord does not expect us to behave like zombies when we become Christians. But He does expect that we will have our soul open to the mystery that is God. I think it is proper for us to say that a genuine Christian should be a walking mystery because he surely is a walking miracle. Through the leading and the Power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian is involved in a daily life and habit that cannot be explained. A Christian should have upon him an element that is beyond psychology beyond all natural laws and into spiritual laws.  God is a consuming fire. We are told that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Do you recall the first chapter of Ezekiel? The dejected prophet saw heaven opened. He was given a vision of God. And he then witnessed four-faced creatures out of the fire.  I think in our witness and ministries, we Christians should be men and women out of the fire.  Because our God is holy, He is actively hostile to sin. God can only burn on and on against sin forever. In another passage Isaiah asked, "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? (Isaiah 33:14)

Isaiah was not thinking about those who would be separated from God. He was thinking of a company who would live for God and dwell with God. He answers his own question: "He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he shall dwell on high" (Isaiah 33:15-16).  The Salvation Army has always had as its slogan "Blood and Fire." I am for that in the things of God. We know of cleansing by the blood of Christ. The references to God's workings often have to do with a holy flame. John the Baptist pointed to Christ's coming and said, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; . . . he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire" (Matthew 3:11)  When Isaiah cried out, "I am undone!" it was a cry of pain. It was the revealing cry of conscious uncleanness. He was experiencing the undoneness of the creature set over against the holiness of the Creator.

What should happen in genuine conversion? What should a man or woman feel in the transaction of the new birth?  There ought to be that real and genuine cry of pain. That is why I do not like the kind of evangelism that tries to invite people into the fellowship of God by signing a card.  There should be a birth from above and within. There should be the terror of seeing ourselves in violent contrast to the holy, holy, holy God. Unless we come into this place of conviction and pain, I am not sure how deep and real our repentance will ever be.

Today, it is not a question of whether we have Isaiah's cleanness, but a question of whether we have his awareness. He was unclean and, thank God, he became aware of it. But the world today is unclean and seems to be almost totally unaware of it.  Uncleanness with unawareness will have terrible consequences. That is what is wrong with the Christian church and with our Protestantism. Our problem is the depravity still found within the circle of the just, among those called to be saints, among those who claim to be great souls.  We like Isaiah's vision and awareness. But we do not like to think of the live coal out of the fire being placed on the prophet's lips.

Purification by blood and by fire. Isaiah's lips, symbolic of all his nature, were purified by fire. God could then say to him, "Thine iniquity is taken away" (Isaiah 6:7).  That is how the amazed and pained Isaiah could genuinely come to a sense of restored moral innocence. That is how he instantly found that he was ready for worship and that he was also ready and anxious for service in the will of God.  With each of us, if we are to have that assurance of forgiveness and restored moral innocence, the fire of God's grace must touch us. It is only through the depths of the forgiving love of God that men and women can be so restored and made ready to serve Him.  In the same vein, is there any other way in which we, the creatures of God, can become prepared and ready to worship Him?

I can only remind you of our great needs in this terrible day when men and women are trying their best to cut God down to their size. Many also believe that it is possible to gain control of the sovereign God and to think Him down to a plane where they can use Him as they want to.  Even in our Christian circles we are prone to depend upon techniques and methods in the work that Christ has given us to do. Without a complete dependence upon the Holy Spirit we can only fail. If we have been misled to believe that we can do Christ's work ourselves, it will never be done.  The man whom God will use must be undone. He must be a man who has seen the King in His beauty.  Let us never take anything for granted about ourselves, my brother or sister.  Do you know who gives me the most trouble? Do you know who I pray for the most in my pastoral work? Just myself. I do not say it to appear to be humble, for I have preached all my lifetime to people who are better than I.  I tell you again that God has saved us to be worshipers. May God show us a vision of ourselves that will disvalue us to the point of total devaluation. From there He can raise us up to worship Him and to praise Him and to witness.

CHAPTER 7

Genuine Worship Involves Feeling

And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.  And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:  And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?  And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.  And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.  And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.  And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.  And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat or drink. Acts 9:1-9

HOW LONG DO YOU think it will be, if Jesus tarries, before some of the amazing new churches like those in the primitive Baliem Valley of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, will be sending gospel missionaries to Canada and the United States?  If that thought upsets you, you desperately need to read this chapter.

I have a reason for suggesting this as a possibility at some time in the future. In Chicago, I was introduced to a deeply serious Christian brother who had come from his native India with a stirring and grateful testimony of the grace of God in his life.  I asked him about his church background, of course. He was not Pentecostal. He was neither Anglican nor Baptist. He was neither Presbyterian nor Methodist.  He did not even know what we mean by the label, "interdenominational." He was simply a brother in Christ.  This Indian had been born into the Hindu religion, but he was converted to and became a disciple of Jesus Christ by reading and seriously studying the New Testament record of the death and resurrection of our Lord.  He spoke English well enough to express his Christian concerns for the world and for the churches. I asked him to speak in my pulpit.

Through that encounter I realized that unless we arouse ourselves spiritually, unless we are brought back to genuine love and adoration and worship, our candlestick could be removed. We may need missionaries coming to us, indeed. We may need them to show us what genuine and vital Christianity is!

We should never forget that God created us to be joyful worshipers, but sin drew us into everything else but worship. Then in God's love and mercy in Christ Jesus, we were restored into the fellowship of the Godhead through the miracle of the new birth.  "You have been forgiven and restored," God reminds us. "I am your Creator and Redeemer and Lord, and I delight in your worship."  I don't know, my friend, how that makes you feelbut I feel that I must give God the full response of my heart. I am happy to be counted as a worshiper.

Well, that word "feel" has crept in here and I know that you may have an instant reaction against it. In fact, I have had people tell me very dogmatically that they will never allow "feeling" to have any part in their spiritual life and experience. I reply, "Too bad for you!" I say that because I have voiced a very real definition of what I believe true worship to be: worship is to feel in the heart!  In the Christian faith, we should be able to use the word "feel" boldly and without apology. What worse thing could be said of us as the Christian church if it could be said that we are a feelingless people?

Worship must always come from an inward attitude. It embodies a number of factors, including the mental, spiritual and emotional. You may not at times worship with the same degree of wonder and love that you do at other times, but the attitude and the state of mind are consistent if you are worshiping the Lord.  A husband and father may not appear to love and cherish his family with the same intensity when he is discouraged, when he is tired from long hours in business or when events have made him feel depressed.  He may not outwardly show as much love toward his family, but it is there, nonetheless, for it is not a feeling only. It is an attitude and a state of mind. It is a sustained act, subject to varying degrees of intensity and perfection.  I came into the kingdom of God with joy, knowing that I had been forgiven. I do know something of the emotional life that goes along with conversion to Christ.  I well remember, however, that in my early Christian fellowship, there were those who warned me about the dangers of "feeling." They cited the biblical example of Isaac feeling the arms of Jacob and thinking they were Esau's. Thus the man who went by his feelings was mistaken!  That sounds interesting, but it is not something on which you can build Christian doctrine.

Think of that sick woman in the gospel record who had had an issue of blood for twelve years and had suffered many things of many physicians.  Mark records that when she had heard of Jesus, she came in the throng and merely touched His garment. In the same instant "the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague" (Mark 5:29).

Knowing what had been done within her by the Savior, she "came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth" (Mark. 5:33). Her testimony was in worship and praise. She felt in her body that she was healed.

Those of us who have been blessed within our own beings would not join in any crusade to "follow your feelings." On the other hand, if there is no feeling at all in our hearts, then we are dead! If you wake up tomorrow morning and there is absolute numbness in Your right arm, no feeling at all,  you will quickly dial the doctor with your good left hand.  Real worship is, among other things, a feeling about the Lord our God. It is in our hearts. And we must be willing to express it in an appropriate manner.  We can express our worship to God in many ways. But if we love the Lord and are led by His Holy Spirit, our worship will always bring a delighted sense of admiring awe and a sincere humility on our part.

The proud and lofty man or woman cannot worship God any more acceptably than can the proud devil himself. There must be humility in the heart of the person who would worship God in spirit and in truth.  The manner in which many moderns think about worship makes me uncomfortable. Can true worship be engineered and manipulated? Do you foresee with me the time to come when churches may call the pastor a "spiritual engineer"?  I have heard of psychiatrists being called "human engineers," and of course, they are concerned with our heads. We have reduced so many things to engineering or scientific or psychological terms that the coming of "spiritual engineers" is a possibility. But this will never replace what I have called the astonished wonder wherever worshipers are described in the Bible.  We find much of spiritual astonishment and wonder in the book of Acts. You will always find these elements present when the Holy Spirit directs believing men and women.  On the other hand, you will not find astonished wonder among men and women when the Holy Spirit is not present.  Engineers can do many great things in their fields, but no mere human force or direction can work the mysteries of God among men. If there is no wonder, no experience of mystery, our efforts to worship will be futile. There will be no worship without the Spirit.

If God can be understood and comprehended by any of our human means, then I cannot worship Him. One thing is sure. I will never bend my knees and say "Holy, holy, holy" to that which I have been able to decipher and figure out in my own mind! That which I can explain will never bring me to the place of awe. It can never fill me with astonishment or wonder or admiration.  The philosophers called the ancient mystery of the personhood of God the "mysterium conundrum." We who are God's children by faith call Him "our Father which art in heaven." In sections of the church where there is life and blessing and wonder in worship, there is also the sense of divine mystery. Paul epitomized it for us as "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

What does happen, then, in a Christian church when a fresh and vital working of the Spirit of God brings revival? In my study and observations, a revival generally results in a sudden bestowment of a spirit of worship. This is not the result of engineering or of manipulation. It is something God bestows on people hungering and thirsting for Him. With spiritual renewing will come a blessed spirit of loving worship.  These believers worship gladly because they have a high view of God. In some circles, God has been abridged, reduced, modified, edited, changed and amended until He is no longer the God whom Isaiah saw, high and lifted up. Because He has been reduced in the minds of so many people, we no longer have that boundless confidence in His character that we used to have.  He is the God to whom we go without doubts, without fears. We know He will not deceive us or cheat us. He will not break His covenant or change His mind.  We have to be convinced so we can go into His presence in absolute confidence. In our hearts is this commitment: "Let God be true, but every man a liar" (Romans 3:4).

The God of the whole earth cannot do wrong! He does not need to be rescued. It is man's inadequate concept of God that needs to be rescued.  Thankfully , when God made us in His own image, He gave us the capability to appreciate and admire His attributes.  I once heard Dr. George D. Watson, one of the great Bible teachers of his generation, point out that men can have two kinds of love for Godthe love of gratitude or the love of excellence. He urged that we go on from gratefulness to a love of God just because He is God and because of the excellence of His character.  Unfortunately, God's children rarely go beyond the boundaries of gratitude. I seldom hear anyone in worshipful prayer admiring and praising God for His eternal excellence. Many of us are strictly "Santa Claus" Christians. We think of God as putting up the Christmas tree and putting our gifts underneath. That is only an elementary kind of love.

We need to go on. We need to know the blessing of worshiping in the presence of God without thought of wanting to rush out again. We need to be delighted in the presence of utter, infinite excellence.  Such worship will have the ingredient of fascination, of high moral excitement. Plainly, some of the men and women in the Bible knew this kind of fascination in their fellowship with God. If Jesus the Son is to be known and loved and served, the Holy Spirit must be allowed to illuminate our human lives. That personality will then be captured and entranced by the presence of God.  What is it that makes a human cry out:

                     "O Jesus, Jesus, dearest Lord!  Forgive me if I say,  For very love, Thy sacred name

                      A thousand times a day."  "Burn, burn, O love, within my heart, Burn fiercely night and day,

                      Till all the dress of earthly loves Is burned, and burned away."

Those expressions came from the worshiping heart of Frederick W. Faber. He was completely fascinated by all he had experienced in the presence and fellowship of a loving God and Savior. He was surely filled with an intensity of moral excitement. He was struck with wonder at the inconceivable magnitude and moral splendor of the Being whom we call our God.  Such fascination with God must necessarily have an element of adoration. You may ask me for a definition of adoration in this context. I will say that when we adore God, all of the beautiful ingredients of worship are brought to white, incandescent heat with the fire of the Holy Spirit. To adore God means we love Him with all the powers within us. We love Him with fear and wonder and yearning and awe.

The admonition to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart... and with all thy mind" (Matthew 22:37) can mean only one thing. It means to adore Him.  I use the word "adore" sparingly, for it is a precious word. I love babies and I love people, but I cannot say I adore them. Adoration I keep for the only One who deserves it. In no other presence and before no other being can I kneel in reverent fear and wonder and yearning and feel the sense of possessiveness that cries "Mine, mine!"

They can change the expressions in the hymnals, but whenever men and women are lost in worship they will cry out, "Oh God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee" (Psalm 63:1). Worship becomes a completely personal love experience between God and the worshiper. It was like that with David, with Isaiah, with Paul. It is like that with all whose desire has been to possess God. This is the glad truth: God is my God.  Brother or sister, until you can say God and I, you cannot say us with any meaning. Until you have been able to meet God in loneliness of soul, just you and God as if there was no one else in the world you will never know what it is to love the other persons in the world.

In Canada, those who have written of the saintly Holy Anne said, "She talks to God as if there was nobody else but God and He had no other children but her." That was not a selfish quality. She had found the value and delight of pouring her personal devotion and adoration at God's feet.  Consecration is not difficult for the person who has met God. Where there is genuine adoration and fascination, God's child wants nothing more than the opportunity to pour out his or her love at the Savior's feet.  A young man talked to me about his spiritual life. He had been a Christian for several years, but he was concerned that he might not be fulfilling the will of God for his life. He spoke of coldness of heart and lack of spiritual power. I could tell that he was discourageand afraid of hardness of heart.   I gave him a helpful expression which has come from the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux: "My brother, only the heart is hard that does not know it is hard. Only he is hardened who does not know he is hardened. When we are concerned for our coldness, it is because of the yearning God has put there. God has not rejected us."

God puts the yearning and desire in our hearts, and He does not turn away and thus mock us. God asks us to seek His face in repentance and love and we then find all of His gracious fullness awaiting. In God's grace, that is a promise for the whole wide world.  You have read of Blaise Pascal, the famous seventeenth century French scientist often classed as one of the six great thinkers of all time. He was considered a genius in mathematics, and his scientific inquiry was broad. He was a philosopher and a writer. But best of all, he experienced a personal, overwhelming encounter with God one night that changed his life.  Pascal wrote on a piece of paper a brief account of his experience, folded the paper and kept it in a pocket close to his heart, apparently as a reminder of what he had felt. Those who attended him at his death found the worn, creased paper. In Pascal's own hand it read:

From about half-past ten at night to about half-after midnightfire! O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacobnot the God of the philosophers and the wise. The God of Jesus Christ who can be known only in the ways of the Gospel. Securityfeelingpeacejoytears of joy. Amen  Were these the expressions of a fanatic, an extremist?  No Pascal's mind was one of the greatest. But the living God had broken through and beyond all that was human and intellectual and philosophical. The astonished Pascal could only describe in one word the visitation in his spirit: "Fire!"

Understand that this was not a statement in sentences for others to read. It was the ecstatic utterance of a yielded man during two awesome hours in the presence of his God.  There was no human engineering or manipulation there. There was only wonder and awe and adoration wrought by the presence of the Holy Spirit of God as Pascal worshiped.  What we need among us is a genuine visitation of the Spirit. We need a sudden bestowment of the spirit of worship among God's people. 

CHAPTER 8

Churches that Fail God Fail Also in Worship

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:  That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;  But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:  From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.  This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,   Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. Ephesians 4:13-18

 

MANY PEOPI.E WHO feel they were "born into the church" and many who just take for granted their church traditions never stop to ask, "Why do we do what we do in the church and call it worship?"  It appears they have very little knowledge of, and probably even less appreciation for, the kind of Christian believers whom Peter describes as "a royal priesthood, an holy generation and a peculiar people."  Let me ask, then, the question so many men and women with religious backgrounds never get around to asking. What is the real definition of the Christian church? What are the basic purposes for its existence?  Now, let me answer.

I believe a local church exists to do corporately what each Christian believer should be doing individuallyand that is to worship God. It is to show forth the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. It is to reflect the glories of Christ ever shining upon us through the ministries of the Holy Spirit.  I am going to say something to you which will sound strange. It even sounds strange to me as I say it, because we are not used to hearing it within our Christian fellowships. We are saved to worship God. All that Christ has done for us in the past and all that He is doing now leads to this one end.  If we are denying this truth and if we are saying that worship is not really important, we can blame our attitudes for the great wave of arrested development in our Christian fellowships.  Why should the church of Jesus Christ be a spiritual school where hardly anyone ever graduates from the first grade?  You know the old joke about the man asked if he was well educated. "I should be," he answered. "I spent five years in the fourth grade."  There is no humor in the confession of any man or woman that he or she should be a good Christian, having spent the last nineteen years in the second and third grades of the Christian fellowship. When did anyone ever find in the Scriptures that the Christian church is dedicated to the proposition that everyone ought to remain static?

Whence came the notion that if you are a Christian and in the fold by faith you need never grow? On what authority are we not to worry about Christian maturity and spiritual development?  Ask people in church why they were converted and you will get the answer: "So we could be happy, happy, happy! Everyone who is happy say Amen!"   This condition is not isolated. It is the same all over North America and far beyond. I suppose all around the world we are seriously busy evangelizing and making more first graders.  It seems to be a bright and accepted idea that we can keep converts in the first grade until the Lord comes, and then He will give them rule over five cities.  Now, you who know me well know that I have not said these things about the church in an effort to be clever or to make fun of the church. Certainly I have not said them in any effort to appear "holier than thou."

We live in a time when the Spirit of God is saying to us, "How genuine are your concerns for lost men and women? How real are your prayers of concern for the church of Christ and its testimony to the world? How much agony of soul do you feel about the pressures of this life and modern society as they relate to the spiritual well-being of your own family ?  We will do great harm to the church and to those for whom we have love and concern if we do not recognize the kind of terrible day in which we live. Are you foolish enough to believe and expect that everything is going to remain just as it was, week after week, month after month, year after year?

Probably we are all better acquainted with Canadian and American and British history than with that of the rest of the world. But it is well to remember the history and the fate of Rome. One of the most civilized empires the world has known, Rome went down like a great rotten tree. She still had military strength and the show of power on the outside. But Rome had crumbled away on the inside. Rome doted on plenty of food and drink and on circuses and pleasure and, of course, on unbridled lust and immorality.  What great army put the Roman Empire down?

Rome fell before the barbarous hordes from the north  the Lombard, the Hun, the Ostrogoth people who were not worthy even to care for the shoes of the Romans. Rome had become fat and weak and careless and unconcerned. And Rome died. The Roman Empire in the west ended when the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 AD.  The tragedy that happened to Rome on the inside is the same kind of threat that can harm and endanger a complacent and worldly church on the inside. It is hard for a proud, unconcerned church to function as a spiritual, mature and worshiping church. There is always the imminent danger of failure before God.

Many people loyal to the church and to forms and traditions deny that Christianity is showing any injury in our day. But it is the internal bleeding that brings death and decay. We may be defeated in the hour when we bleed too much within.  Remember God's expectations of the Christian church, of the believers who form the invisible Body of Christ.

It was never in God's revealed plan that the Christian churches would degenerate to the point that they would begin functioning as social clubs. The fellowship of the saints that the Bible advises is never dependent upon the variety of social connections which the churches lean upon in these modern times.  The Christian church was never intended to function as a current events forum. God did not intend for a popular news magazine to serve as a textbook, providing the ramp from which a secular discussion can take off and become airborne.

You may have heard me talk about dramatics and acting, of make-believe and hypocrisy. If so, you are not surprised when I declare without equivocation that the church of Jesus Christ was never intended to become a religious theater. When we build a sanctuary and dedicate it to the worship of God, are we then obligated to provide a place in the church for entertainers to display their amateur talents?

I cannot believe that the holy, loving, sovereign God who has given us a plan of eternal salvation based on the sufferings and the death of our Lord Jesus Christ can be pleased when His church becomes any of these things.

We are neither holy enough nor wise enough to argue against the many statements in the Bible setting forth God's expectations of His people, the Church, the Body of Christ.  Peter reminds us that if we are believers who treasure the work of Christ on our behalf, we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a special and peculiar people in God's sight. Paul told the Athenians that an effective and obedient believer and child of God lives and moves and has his or her being in God.  If we are willing to confess that we have been called out of darkness to show forth the glory of Him who called us, we should also be willing to take whatever steps are necessary to fulfill our high design and calling as the New 'Testament Church.  To do less than this is to fail utterly. It is to fail our God. It is to fail our Lord Jesus Christ who has redeemed us. It is to fail ourselves and to fail our children It is also to miserably fail the Holy Spirit of God who has come from the heart of Jesus to do in us the works that can only be accomplished for God by a holy and sanctified people.

In this total concept of the Christian church and the members who compose it, there are two ways in, which we can fail God. We can disappoint Him as a church, losing our corporate witness. Generally linked with that is our failure as individual Christian. We look around at one another and use one of the oldest of all arguments: "Well, that kind of failure certainly could not happen here, among us.  If we are concerned and praying Christians, we will remember a pattern. When a church weakens in any generation, failing to carry out the purposes of God, it will depart from the faith altogether in the next generation.

That is how declension comes in the church. That is how apostasy comes. That is how the fundamentals of the faith are neglected. That is how the liberal and uncertain views concerning sound Christian doctrine surface.

It is a serious and tragic matter that a church can actually fail. The point of failure will come when it is no longer a Christian church. The believers who remain will know that the glory has departed.

In Israel's days of journeying, God gave the visible cloud by day and the fire by night as a witness and an evidence of His glory and constant protection. If God was still giving the same signals of His abiding Presence, I wonder how many churches would have the approving cloud by day and fire by night.  If you have any spiritual perception at all, I need not state that in our generation and in every community, large or small, there are churches existing merely as monuments of what they used to be. The glory has departed. The witness of God and of salvation and of eternal life is now just an uncertain sound. The monument is there, but the church has failed.

God does not expect us to give up, to give in, to accept the church as it is and to condone what is happening. He expects His believing children to measure the church against the standards and the blessings promised in the Word of God. Then, with love and reverence and prayer and in the leading of the Spirit of God we will quietly and patiently endeavor to align the church with the Word of God.  When this begins to happen and the Word of God is given its place of priority, the presence of the Holy Spirit will again begin to glow in the church. That is what my heart longs to see.  Now, the second thing is the matter of individuals who are failing God.

God has had His own purposes in the creation of every man and every woman. God wants us to know the new birth from above. He wants us to know the meaning of our salvation. He wants us to be filled with His Spirit. He wants us to know the meaning of worship. He wants us to reflect the glory of the One who has called us into His marvelous light.  If we fail in this respect, then it would have been better had we never been born! The facts are plain: there is no turning back. After we are born from above, there is no turning back. We are responsible, we are accountable. How utterly tragic to be a barren fig tree, having the outward show of leaves and growth but never producing any fruit! How terrible to know that God intended us to mirror His beautiful light and to have to confess that we are shattered and useless, reflecting nothing!

Be sure we will be aware of our loss, my friend. We will be aware of it. The most startling and frightful thing about us as human beings is the eternal consciousness that God has given us. It is an awareness, a consciousness, a sensitivity given us by God Himself. It is a gift to humanityan awareness, an ability to feel.

If we had not been given such an awareness, nothing would harm us for we would never be aware of it.

Hell would not be hell if it were not for the awareness God has given men and women. If humans were just to sleep through hell, hell certainly would not be hell.  My Christian brother or sister, thank God always for the blessed gifts of sensitivity and conscience and human choice He has given you. Are you being faithful as a Christian believer where He has placed you?

If God has called you out of darkness into His light, you should be worshiping Him. If He has shown you that you are to show forth the excellencies, the virtues, the beauties of the Lord who has called you, then you should be humbly and gladly worshiping Him with the radiance and the blessing of the Holy Spirit in your life.

It is sad that we humans do not always function joyfully for God in the place He has marked out for us. We may even allow trifling things and minor incidents to disturb our fellowship with God and our spiritual witness for Him who is our Savior.  I once had an opportunity to preach in another pulpit, and after the service I was seated in a restaurant with the pastor. A man came by our table with his wife, and they stopped for a moment to talk.

"I enjoyed hearing you today, Mr. Tozer, "he said. "It was like old times."  There were tears in his eyes and a softness in his voice as he recalled a minor incident in our church life years before. "I just foolishly walked out, and today was a reminder of what I have been missing," he said. He then excused himself and the couple bade us good-by.

The man was fully aware of the consequences of poor choices and snap judgments apart from the leading of God's Spirit. I know very well that he was not talking about my sermon or my preaching. He was talking about faithfulness to the Word of God. He was talking about the sweet and satisfying fellowship among those who love the Lord. He was talking about the loss of something intrinsic and beautiful which only comes to us in our obedience to God's revealed truth.

There is no limit to what God can do through us if we are His yielded and purified people, worshiping and showing forth His glory and His faithfulness.  We must have an awareness, also, of what sin and uncleanness are doing all around us. Sin does not recognize any kind of borders or limits. Sin does not operate exclusively in the ghettos. Wherever you are, in the suburbs or in  the country, sin is sin. And wherever there is sin, the devil rages and demons are abroad.  In this kind of a sinful world, what are you doing with the spiritual light and awareness God has given you? Where do you stand with God in your friendships, in your pleasures, in the complexities of your day-to-day life?   The psychologists have been telling us for some time now that we will not have so many problems if we can just get to the place where we do not let our religion "bother" us. We are told we can dispel most of our personal problems by shedding our guilt complexes.  I am thankful that God has made us with an eternal awareness, and that He knows how to lay the proper care and concern upon us.  People call on me for spiritual guidance and counseling. But I can do little for them. When a person has come to the place of submission and obedience, God has promised that He will give that person all the comfort he or she needs.

After my arrival in Toronto, a cultured, attractive young woman made an appointment to see me in my office. When she came, we talked for a few moments to get acquainted, and then she came to the point. She said she was troubled about her homosexual relations with her roommate. She told me she had already talked with other professionals about this. I had the distinct impression she hoped I would assure her that what she was doing was permissible in our day.  Instead, I faced her squarely "Young woman," I said, "you are guilty of sodomy, and God is not going to give you any approval or comfort until you turn from your known sin and seek His forgiveness and cleansing."  "I guess I needed to hear that," she admitted.

As a Christian minister and counselor, there was no way that I could console and comfort that girl and ease and soften the pain of guilt she was experiencing within her being. She would have to endure it until the moment of decision when she would confess her sin and plunge by faith into that cleansing fountain filled with blood from Immanuel's veins.  That is the remedy, that is the comfort and the necessary strength God has promised to those whose awareness and sensitivity lead them to repentance and forgiveness and wholeness.  God assures us in many ways that His worshiping people will be a purified people, a people delighting in the spiritual disciplines of a life pleasing to God.  No person who has found the blessings of purity and joy in the Holy Spirit can ever be defeated. No church that has discovered the delight and satisfaction of adoring worship that springs automatically from love and obedience to God can ever perish

CHAPTER 9

The Normal Christian Worships God

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. . . .

But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.  Thou host loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.  And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning host laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:  They shall perish; but thou remainest: and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;  And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.  Hebrews 1:1-4, 8-12

"WHAT KIND OF A Christian should be considered a normal Christian?" That question deserves more discussion than it currently is arousing.  Some people claim to be normal Christians when actually they mean they are nominal Christians. My old dictionary gives this definition as one of the meanings of the word nominal: Existing in name only; not real or actual; hence so small, slight, or the like, as to be hardly worth the name. With that as a definition, those who know they are Christians in name only should never make the pretention of being "normal" Christians.  Is the Lord Jesus Christ your most precious treasure in this world? If so, you can count yourself among normal Christians.  Is the moral beauty which is found only in Jesus Christ constantly drawing you to praise and worship? If so, you are indeed among those whom God's Word identifies as normal, believing, practicing Christians.  But I can almost anticipate an objection if someone is that delighted and that occupied with the person of Jesus Christ, is he or she not an extremist rather than a normal Christian?

Have professing Christians really come to that time in their humanistic and secularistic leanings that they can sincerely deny that loving Jesus Christ with all their heart and soul and strength is normal Christianity? We must not be reading and studying the same Bible!  How can anyone profess to be a follower and a disciple of Jesus Christ and not be overwhelmed by His attributes? These divine attributes attest that He is indeed Lord of all, completely worthy of our worship and praise. As Christians we like to say that we have "crowned Him Lord of all," but we find it difficult to express what we really mean.

I have always been interested in the phrasing of one of our great hymns:

Lord of all being, throned afar,

Thy glory flames from sun and star;

Center and soul of every sphere,

Yet to each loving heart how near.

The Lord of all being is far more than the Lord of all beings. He is the Lord of all actual existence. He is the Lord of all kinds of beingspiritual being, natural being, physical being. Therefore, when we rightly worship Him we encompass all being.

When young people begin to comprehend this truth of the highest position and stature in the universe accorded to Jesus Christ as Lord of all, they also begin to sense the importance of His call to a lifetime of loving service.  Many young people give themselves wholly to science and some to technology and some to philosophy or to music or the arts. When we worship the Lord Jesus Christ, however, we embrace and encompass all possible sciences and philosophies and arts. This is our answer to those in other religious backgrounds who are willing to accept that Jesus was a man but who do not accept His claim to be One with the Father as the eternal Son of God.  These other religionists contend that when we give worship to the man Jesus Christ, we are guilty of idolatry, because we, too, have confessed that He was man. We do believe that Jesus came among us as the Son of Man, but we believe the entire record. That record informs us He was the only begotten of the Father. Thus Jesus was also God.

By the mystery of the Incarnation, Jesus Christ was fully united with men and women of the human race. The eternal plan was not to bring God down to man's level but for the Son to take humanity up into God. Thus we are to be joined in the beauty and wonder of the theanthropic unionGod and man in one.

The synopsis of this unique mystery involving God and man is just this: whatever God is, Christ is. When you are worshiping the Lord Jesus you are not displeasing the Father. Jesus is the Lord of all being, and He is the Lord of all life.

The apostle John has told us plainly in his first epistle that none of us would know anything about the meaning of life if Jesus had not come forth from the Father to show us the true meaning of eternal life. But He came, and as a result, John assures us, "our fellowship is With the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."  The fact that Christ is now the fountain of life for redeemed and worshiping men and women was expressed simply in the meaningful hymn, "Jesus Lover of My Soul," by Charles Wesley:

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,

Grace to cover all my sin;

Let the healing streams abound,

Make and keep me pure within.

Thou of life the Fountain art,

Freely let me take of Thee;

Spring Thou up within my heart,

Rise to all eternity.

We know that there are many kinds of life and we may be assured that Jesus is the Lord of all kinds of life. In the spring, we watch the new, eager buds on the trees and shrubs. They are ready to push themselves out and extend themselves into the blooming patterns of floral life.  Soon we expect to see the birds return. I do not forgive the birds too easilythey are such fair-weather friends. On the dark and stormy days when we need them the most, they are in Florida. But they return each spring, expressing their own kind of life as they warble.

We begin to see the rabbits and the other animals. They have their own kind of life. Christ is Creator and Lord of them all. Beyond these manifestations of life is the intellectual life, for instance the life of imagination and dreams.  We know something also of the spiritual life. "God is. . . Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth" (John 4:24). God's eternal Son is our Lord. He is the Lord of angels and He is the Lord of the cherubim and seraphim. He is the Lord of every kind of lifethis same Jesus.  In our day it is important that we find out Jesus Christ is the Lord of all wisdom and the Lord of all righteousness.

The sum total of the deep and eternal wisdom of the ages lies in Jesus Christ as a treasure hidden away. There is no kind of true wisdom that cannot be found within Him. All the deep eternal purposes of God reside in Him because His perfect wisdom enables Him to plan far ahead. All history becomes the slow development of His eternal purposes.  God in His wisdom is making evil men as well as good men, adverse things as well as favorable things work for the bringing forth of His glory in the day when all shall be fulfilled in Him. The Scriptures give us many delightful concepts of the manner in which Christ is the Lord of all righteousness.

Righteousness is not a word that is easily acceptable to lost men and women in a lost world. Someone will say, "Oh, I will be satisfied if I can just get my hands on a good book dealing with ethics." Outside of the Word of God, there is no book or treatise that can give us a satisfying answer about righteousness because the only One who is Lord of all righteousness is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of His kingdom. He is the only One in all the universe who has perfectly loved righteousness and hated iniquity.

In the Old Testament period, there was a picture of righteousness in the shadows of the temple system of worship. The high priest was instructed to enter into the Holy of Holies once each year to offer the sacrifices. He wore a miter on his forehead and the Hebrew words engraved on the miter would be  translated in English, "Holiness unto the Lord." Our great High Priest and Mediator is the righteous and holy OneJesus Christ, our risen Lord.  He is not only righteous, He is the Lord of all righteousness.  Then, too, He is the Lord of all mercy.  Who else would establish His kingdom upon rebels; Rebels whom He himself has redeemed and in whom He has renewed a right spirit?

Think with me about beauty and this One who is the Lord of all beauty. We know by our own reactions and enjoyment that God has deposited something within the human being that is capable of understanding and appreciating beauty. God has put within us the love of harmonious forms, the love and appreciation of color and beautiful sounds.   What many of us do not understand is that all beautiful things, so pleasant to the eyes and ears, are only the external counterparts of a deeper and more enduring beauty that which we call moral beauty.

In relation to Jesus Christ, it has been the uniqueness and the perfection of His moral beauty that has charmed even those who claimed to be His enemies throughout the centuries of history. We do not have any record of Hitler saying anything against the moral perfections of Jesus. One of the great philosophers, Nietzsche, himself an instrument of antichristian forces in this world, died finally beating his forehead on the floor and moaning, "That man Jesus I love. I don't like Paul."  Nietzsche objected to Paul's theology of justification and salvation by faith, but he was strangely moved within by the perfections of moral beauty found in the life and character of Jesus, the Christ, the Lord of all beauty.

We see this perfection in Jesus, but when we look closely at this world system and society, we see the terrible and ugly scars of sin. Sin has obscenely scarred and defaced this world, making it inharmonious and unsymmetrical and ugly, so that even hell is filled with ugliness.  If you love beautiful things, you had better stay out of hell, for hell will be the quintessence of all that is morally ugly and obscene. Hell will be the ugliest place in all of creation. When rough-talking men say that something is "as ugly as hell," they employ a proper and valid comparison. Hell is that reality against which all ugliness is measured.

That is the negative picture. Thank God for the positive promise and prospect of heaven's being the place of supreme beauty. Heaven is the place of harmonious numbers. Heaven is the place of loveliness. The One who is all-beautiful is there. He is the Lord of all beauty.  My brother or sister, earth lies between all that is ugly in hell and all that is beautiful in heaven. As long as we are living in this world, we will have to consider the extremes. Light and darkness. Beauty and ugliness. Much that is good and much that is bad. The things that are pleasant and those that are tragic and harsh.

Why? Because of the sense in which our world lies halfway between heaven's beauty and hell's ugliness.

Against that background let me report a person who called me to ask this question: "Mr. Tozer, do you think a person who is really a Christian can hurt another Christian?"  I was forced to say, "Yes, I think so."  Why is it that a man can be on his knees one day, praying earnestly, and the next day be guilty of offending or injuring another Christian?  I think the answer is because we are halfway between heaven and hell. It is because the shadows and light fall upon us.  The best answer is that we are being saved out of all of this. The Lord of all beauty is saving His people from the ugliness of sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to this ugly, selfish, violent world that He might save us and deliver us to a beautiful heaven.  We will never be able to comprehend the awful, terrible price the Lord of all beauty paid to gain our redemption. The prophet said of the Messiah to come, "There is no beauty [in Him] that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2). I do not believe the artists have given a proper concept of Jesus the man. They paint Him as a pretty man with a tender, feminine face. They ignore the statement that "there was no beauty that we should desire him."

Jesus was fully one of us, a strong Man among men. He apparently was so much like His disciples that Judas Iscariot had to make a special arrangement to earn his thirty pieces of silver. "Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he" (Mark 14:44).   We may well say that when the eternal Son had taken on the form of a man, only His soul was beautiful. Only when He was suddenly transfigured on the mount did "his face shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light" (Matthew 27:2). Only then did His closest disciples really see how beautiful He was. While He walked among men, His perfect beauty was veiled.

There is an effective illustration in the types and figures of the Old Testament reminding us of the   adornments of grace and beauty that will mark the believing Body of Christ, the Church, being prepared as the bride awaiting the heavenly Bridegroom. It is the memorable story of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 24. Abraham sent his trusted servant to his former homeland to select a bride for Isaac. Of course, Rebekah passed all of the tests which Abraham's servant had posed. There is no statement concerning Rebekah's beauty, but presumably she was beautiful.  The adornment of her beauty consisted of the jewels and the raiment that came as gifts of love from the bridegroom whom she had not yet seen.  It is a reminder of what God is doing in our midst right now. Abraham typifies God the Father; Isaac, our Lord Jesus Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom. The servant who went with his gifts into the far country to claim a bride for Isaac speaks well of the Holy Spirit, our Teacher and Comforter.

I ask, what is our real beauty as we are called out one by one to take our places by faith in the Body of Christ to await His coming? God has not left this to chance He gives us one by one the beauties, the gifts, the graces of the Holy Spirit, typified only imperfectly by those jewels and gems that the servant bestowed on behalf of Isaac. Thus we are being prepared, and when we meet Jesus Christ as our coming Lord and King, our adornment will be our God-given graces and gifts. By that means it will be possible for us to stand with the One who is the Lord of all beauty!  If you do not know Him and worship Him, if you do not long to reside where He is, if you have never known wonder and ecstasy in your soul because of His crucifixion and resurrection, your claim of Christianity is unfounded. It cannot be related to the true Christian life and experience at all.  Meanwhile, I believe that we as Christians must become willing to allow every ugly thing in our lives to be crucified. We must indeed worship the Lord of all beauty in spirit and in truth. This is not a popular thing, for so many Christians insist that they must be entertained while they are being edified.

I have long been a student of the life and ministry of Albert B. Simpson, founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance. I pass on to you his warning that we may become so enamored of God's good gifts that we fail to worship the Giver.  Dr. Simpson was once invited to preach at a Bible conference in England, on the assigned topic, "Sanctification." When he arrived, he discovered that he was to be on the platform with two other Bible teachers. All three of them had been given the same topic"Sanctification." The first speaker used his time in making clear his position that sanctification meant eradication. "The sanctified person has had his or her old carnal nature removed, as you would remove a weed from your gardeneradicated."

The second speaker arose and set forth his view that sanctification meant the suppression of the old nature "The 'old man' will always be there," he said, "and your victory is to sit on the lid and keep him down and beat him at his own game. He must be suppressed."  That was not an easy situation for Dr. Simpson, scheduled to be the third and final speaker. He told the audience that he could only present Christ Himself as God's answer "Jesus Christ is your Sanctifier, your sanctifcation, your all and in all. God wants you to get your eyes away from the gifts, the formulas, the techniques. He wants your gaze to be on the Giver, Christ Himself. He is your Lord; worship Him."  That is a wonderful word for those who would worship rightly.  Once it was the blessing; Now it is the Lord.

CHAPTER 10

If You Worship On Sunday, What Happens on Monday?

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.  And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.  And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.  And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.  Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. Exodus 3:1-6

DO YOU QUIETLY bow your head in reverence when you step into the average gospel church?  I am not surprised if your answer is no.  There is grief in my spirit when I go into the average church, for we have become a generation rapidly losing all sense of divine sacredness in our worship. Many whom we have raised in our churches no longer think in terms of reverencewhich seems to indicate they doubt that God's Presence is there.  In too many of our churches, you can detect the attitude that anything goes. It is my assessment that losing the awareness of God in our midst is a loss too terrible ever to be appraised. Much of the blame must be placed on the growing acceptance of a worldly secularism that seems much more appealing in our church circles than any hungering or thirsting for the spiritual life that pleases God. We secularize God, we secularize the gospel of Christ and we secularize worship. No great and spiritually powerful man of God is going to come out of such a church. No great spiritual movement of believing prayer and revival is going to come out of such a church. If God is to be honored and revered and truly worshiped, He may have to sweep us away and start somewhere else.

There is a necessity for true worship among us. if God is who He says He is and if we are the believing people of God we claim to be, we must worship Him. I do not believe that we will ever truly delight in the adoring worship of God if we have never met Him in personal, spiritual experience through the new birth from above, wrought by the Holy Spirit of God Himself!  We have such smooth, almost secularized ways of talking people into the kingdom of God that we can no longer find men and women willing to seek God through the crisis of encounter. When we bring them into our churches, they have no idea of what it means to love and worship God because, in the route through which we have brought them, there has been no personal encounter, no personal crisis, no need of repentanceonly a Bible verse with a promise of forgiveness.

Oh, how I wish I could adequately set forth the glory of that One who is worthy to be the object of our worship! I do believe that if our new convertsthe babes in Christ  could be made to see His thousand attributes and even partially comprehend His being, they would become faint with a yearning desire to worship and honor and acknowledge Him, now and forever .

I know that many discouraged Christians do not truly believe in God's sovereignty. In that case we are not filling our role as the humble and trusting followers of God and His Christ.  And yet, that is why Christ Jesus came into our world. The old theologians called it theanthropismthe union of the divine and human natures in Christ. This is a great mystery and I stand in awe before it. I take off my shoes and kneel before this burning bush, this mystery I do not understand.

The theanthropy is the mystery of God and man united in one Personnot two persons, but two natures.

So, the nature of God and the nature of man are united in this One who is our Lord Jesus Christ. All that is God and all that is man are in Christ fused eternally and inextricably.  Consider the experience of Moses in the desert as he beheld the fire that burned in the bush without consuming it. Moses had no hesitation in kneeling before the bush and worshiping God. Moses was not worshiping a bush; it was God and His glory dwelling in the bush that Moses worshiped.  That is an imperfect illustration, for when the fire departed from that bush it was a bush again.  But this Man, Christ Jesus, is eternally the Son. In the fullness of this mystery there has never been any departure, except for that awful moment when Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). The Father turned His back for a moment when the Son took on Himself that putrefying mass of our sin and guilt, dying on the cross not for His own sin, but for ours.

The deity and the humanity never parted. And to this day they remain united in that one Man. When we kneel before Him and say, "My Lord and my God, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever," we are talking to God. I think the prophets of God saw farther into the centuries and into the mysteries of God than we can with our great modern telescopes and electronic means of measuring light years and planets and galaxies.

The prophets saw the Lord our God. They saw Him in His beauty, and they tried to describe Him. They described Him as radiantly beautiful and fair, a winsome being. They said that He was royal and that He was gracious. They described Him as a majestic being; and yet they noted His meekness. They saw Him as righteous and filled with truth. They tried to describe the manner of His love, with its gladness and joy and fragrance.  When the prophets try to describe for me the attributes, the graces, the worthiness of the God who appeared to them and dealt with them, I feel that I can kneel down and follow their admonition: "He is thy Lordworship thou Him."

He is fair and He is kingly, yet He is gracious in a sense that takes nothing away from His majesty. He is meek, but it is the kind of meekness that likewise takes nothing away from His majesty. The meekness and the majesty of Jesus. I wish I could write a hymn about that or compose music about it. Where else can you find majesty and meekness united?  The meekness was His humanity. The majesty was His deity You find them everlastingly united in Him. So meek that he nursed at His mother's breast, cried like any baby and needed all the human care that every child needs.  But He was also God, and in His majesty He stood before Herod and before Pilate. When He returns, coming down from the sky, it will be in His majesty, the majesty of God. Yet it will also be in the majesty of the Man who is God. This is our Lord Jesus Christ. Before His foes, He stands in majesty. Before His friends, He comes in meekness.

It is given to men and women to choosea person may have either side. If he does not want the meek side of Jesus, he will come to know the majestic side.  On earth, the children came to Him. The sick and the sinful came to Him. The devil-possessed man came to Him. Those who knew their needs came from everywhere and touched Him, finding Him so meek that His power went out to them and healed them.  When He appears to men again, it will be in majesty. In His kingly majesty He will deal with the pride and conceit and self-sufficiency of mankind, for the Bible says that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord and King.  To really know Him is to love and worship Him.

As God's people, we are so often confused that we could be known as God's poor, stumbling, bumbling people. That must be true of a great number of us for we always think of worship as something we do when we go to church.  We call it God's house. We have dedicated it to Him. So we continue with the confused idea that it must be the only place where we can worship Him.  We come to the Lord's house, made out of brick and wood and lined with carpeting. We are used to hearing a call to worship: "The Lord is in His holy Templelet us all kneel before Him."  That is on Sunday and that is in church. Very nice!

But Monday morning comes soon. The Christian layman goes to his office. The Christian school teacher goes to the classroom. The Christian mother is busy with duties in the home.  On Monday, as we go about our different duties and tasks, are we aware of the Presence of God? The Lord desires still to be in His holy temple, wherever we are. He wants the continuing love and delight and worship of His children, wherever we work.  Is it not a beautiful thing for a businessman to enter his office on Monday morning with an inner call to worship: "The Lord is in my officelet all the world be silent before Him."  If you cannot worship the Lord in the midst of your responsibilities on Monday, it is not very likely that you were worshiping on Sunday!  Actually, none of us has the ability to fool God. Therefore, if we are so engaged in our Saturday pursuits that we are far from His presence and far from a sense of worship on Saturday, we are not in very good shape to worship Him on Sunday. I guess many people have an idea that they have God in a box. He is just in the church sanctuary, and when we leave and drive toward home, we have a rather faint, homesick feeling that we are leaving God in the big box.

You know that is not true, but what are you doing about it?  God is not confined to a building any more than He is confined to your car or your home or the office where you work.  Paul's earnest exhortation to the Corinthian Christians is just as valid for our lives today as it was when he expressed it:  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)  If you do not know the presence of God in your office, your factory, your home, then God is not in the church when you attend.

I became a Christian when I was a young man working in one of the tire factories in Akron, Ohio. I  remember my work there. I remember my worship there, too. I had plenty of worshipful tears in my eyes. No one ever asked me about them, but I would not have hesitated to explain them.  You can learn to use certain skills until they are automatic. I became so skillful that I could do my work, and then I could worship God even while my hands were busy.  I have come to believe that when we are worshiping and it could be right at the drill in the factoryif the love of God is in us and the Spirit of God is breathing praise within us, all the musical instruments in heaven are suddenly playing in full support.  Well, it is my experience that our total lives, our entire attitude as persons, must be toward the worship of God.

What is there in you that strives to worship God?  Faith, love, obedience, loyalty, conduct of lifeall of these strive in you to worship God. If there is anything within you that refuses to worship, there is nothing within you, then, that worships God very well.  You are not worshiping God as you should if you have  departmentalized your life so that some areas worship and other parts do not worship.  This can be a great delusionthat worship only happens in church or in the midst of a dangerous storm or in the presence of some unusual and sublime beauty of nature around us. I have been with some fellows who became very spiritual when they stood on the breathtaking curve of a steep mountain cliff!  Occasionally we are in some situation like that and a person begins to yell, "Hooray for Jesus!or some other corny expression.  My brother or sister, if we are believing children of God in whom the Holy Spirit nurtures continual joy, delight and wonder, we will not need a storm on the mountain to show us how glorious our Lord really is.

It is a delusion to think that because we suddenly feel expansive and poetic in the presence of the storm or stars or space that we are spiritual. I need only remind you that drunkards or tyrants or criminals can have those "sublime" feelings, too. Let us not imagine that they constitute worship.

I can offer no worship wholly pleasing to God if I know that I am harboring elements in my life that are displeasing to Him. I cannot truly and joyfully worship God on Sunday and not worship Him on Monday. I cannot worship God with a glad song on Sunday and then knowingly displease Him in my business dealings on Monday and Tuesday. I repeat my view of worshipno worship is wholly pleasing to God until there is nothing in me displeasing to God.

Is that a view that seems very discouraging to you?  Let me say that if you listen to me long enough you will receive some encouragement in the Spirit, but I have never had an inclination within me to encourage people in the flesh. I have never had very much faith in peopleas people. I do respect the good intentions that people have. I know they mean well. But in the flesh they cannot fulfill their good intentions. That is because we are sinners and we are all in a predicamentuntil we find the source of victory and joy and blessing in Jesus Christ.

There is nothing in either of us that can be made good until Jesus Christ comes and changes usuntil He lives in us and unites our nature with God, the Father Almighty. Not until then can we call ourselves good.

That is why I say that your worship must be total. It must involve the whole you. That is why you must prepare to worship God, and that preparation is not always pleasant. There may be revolutionary changes which must take place in your life.  If there is to be true and blessed worship, some things in your life must be destroyed, eliminated. The gospel of Jesus Christ is certainly positive and constructive. But it must be destructive in some areas, dealing with and destroying certain elements that cannot remain in a life pleasing to God.  There have always been professing Christians who argue: "I worship in the name of Jesus." They seem to believe that worship of God is a formula. They seem to think there is a kind of magic in saying the name of Jesus.

Study the Bible carefully with the help of the Holy Spirit and you will find that the name and the nature of Jesus are one. It is not enough to know how to spell Jesus' name. If we have come to be like Him in nature, if we have come to the place of being able to ask in accordance with His will, He will give us the good things we desire and need. We do not worship in name only. We worship God as the result of a birth from above in which God has been pleased to give us more than a name. He has given us a nature transformed.

Peter expressed that truth this way:  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust (2 Peter 1:4).

Why should we delude ourselves about pleasing God in worship? If I live like a worldly and carnal tramp all day and then find myself in a time of crisis at midnight, how do I pray to a God who is holy? How do I address the One who has asked me to worship Him in spirit and in truth? Do I get on my knees and call on the name of Jesus because I believe there is some magic in that name?  If I am still the same worldly, carnal tramp, I will be disappointed and disillusioned. If I am not living in the true meaning of His name and His nature, I cannot properly pray in that name. If I am not living in His nature, I cannot rightly pray in that nature.  How can we hope to worship God acceptably when these evil elements remain in our natures undisciplined, uncorrected, unpurged, unpurified? Even granted that a man with evil ingredients in his nature might manage through some part of himself to worship God half-acceptably. But what kind of a way is that in which to live and continue?  "I want to dwell in your thoughts," God has been saying. "Make your thoughts a sanctuary in which I can dwell."

I do not have to do something wrong to feel blistering conviction and repent. I can lose fellowship with God, lose the keen sense of His presence and lose the blessing of spiritual victory by thinking wrong.

I have found that God will not dwell in spiteful and polluted thoughts. He will not dwell in lustful and covetous thoughts. He will not dwell in proud and selfish thoughts.

God tells us to make a sanctuary of our thoughts in which He can dwell. He treasures our pure and loving thoughts, our meek and charitable and kindly thoughts. These are the thoughts like His own .  As God dwells in your thoughts, you will be worshiping, and God will be accepting He will be smelling the incense of Your high intention even when the cares of life are intense and activity is all around you.  If God knows that your intention is to worship Him with every part of your being, He has promised to cooperate with you. On His side is the love and grace, the promises and the atonement, the constant help and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  On your side there is determination, seeking, yielding, believing. Your heart becomes a chamber, a sanctuary, a shrine in which there may be continuous, unbroken fellowship and communion with God. Your worship rises to God moment by moment with God.

Two of Spurgeon's greatest sermons were "God in The Silence" and "God in The Storm." The heart that knows God can find God anywhere. I surely join with Spurgeon in the truth that a person filled with the Spirit of God, a person who has met God in a living encounter can know the joy of worshiping Him, whether in the silences of life or in the storms of life.  There really is no argument. We know what God wants us to be. He wants us to be worshipers!