Exodus (2)
Message Ten
The Worship of God
Scripture Reading: Rev. 22:9b; 14:7; 4:8-11; 5:9-14; Gen. 4:3-5; Exo. 20:22-26; 32:1, 4-6; 24:10-11; John 4:23-24
I. "Worship God"—Rev. 22:9b:
A. The last commandment in the New Testament is to worship God:
1. God wants worship; God wants man to know that He is God and to declare that He is God— 4:10-11.
2. To worship God is to confess that He is God— John 20:28; 9:35-38:
a. The highest knowledge of God is of His Godhead.
b. Worship is the recognition that He is God and that we are men.
3. Worship comes from seeing; it takes revelation to worship.
B. The devil has been seeking worship—Matt. 4:8-10; Rev. 13:4, 8, 12, 15:
1. God wants worship, and Satan also wants worship—14:6-7.
2. God needs our worship of Him, and what Satan fears is our worship of God.
3. The devil's temptation of Jesus in the wilderness opens our eyes to see what Satan wants—the worship from man— Matt. 4:8-10.
C. In the book of Revelation we see a special line—the line of worship—4:8-11; 5:9-14; 13:4, 8, 12, 15; 14:7; 22:9b:
1. In Revelation 4 we see that because of creation God receives worship; the picture in Revelation 4 shows us that from eternity to eternity God has His throne and continual worship; God has had this worship from before the foundation of the world.
2. In Revelation 5 we see that because of redemption God receives worship.
D. In the New Testament, serving God is actually the same as worshipping God—Rom. 1:9:
1. In the Lord's answer to Satan in Matthew 4:10, we see that to worship God is to serve God.
2. We cannot serve God without worshipping Him; neither can we worship Him without serving Him.
E. Today worship is realized in the Body of Christ—Eph. 3:20-21; Heb. 2:12:
1. Apart from the Body, it is difficult to have the proper worship.
2. Worship in the New Testament is a corporate matter.
II. Whereas Abel worshipped God according to divine revelation, Cain worshipped according to his own opinion and concept—Gen. 4:3-5:
A. Cain did not follow the way of salvation through the anticipated redemption but presumptuously offered the fruit of his own labor to God—v. 3:
1. Cain's way of worshipping God was to invent a religion according to his human concept and opinion— Jude 11.
2. Throughout the centuries and generations there have been countless followers of Cain, people in every place and time who have invented their own religion.
B. According to Hebrews 11:4, Abel's offering, a sacrifice, was offered to God by faith, which comes by hearing the word of the gospel—Rom. 10:17, 14:
1. Abel was the first priest of God, representing all the believers in Christ—1 Pet. 2:5, 9.
2. In type, Abel offered Christ to God—Num. 18:17:
a. This offering included the sprinkling of the blood upon the altar for redemption and the burning of the fat as a satisfying fragrance to God.
b. Abel's offering, corresponding exactly with what was later revealed in the Mosaic law (Exo. 20:22-26), proves that his way of worshipping God was according to God's divine revelation, not according to his own concept.
III. Exodus 20:22-26 reveals the statutes of the law concerning the worship of God:
A. In the worship of God no place should be given to riches, signified in Exodus 20:23 by silver and gold (cf. Acts 3:6; 1 Tim. 6:17); we cannot serve God and mammon (Matt. 6:24).
B. The proper worship of God must include the burnt offering— Christ offered to God for His enjoyment and satisfaction— and the peace offering—Christ offered to God for our enjoyment and satisfaction mutually with God—Exo. 20:24.
C. According to Exodus 20:24-26, the altar God requires for man's worship is primitive and uncultured in the eyes of man and offers no place for man's wisdom and power—1 Cor. 1:17-25:
1. The altar was erected with materials created by God, indicating that the cross has been prepared entirely by the work of God, with no place given to man's work—Exo. 20:24.
2. To erect an altar in this way means to receive what God has prepared, with no human work added.
D. In the proper worship of God there should be no name other than the name of the Lord—v. 24; Deut. 12:5, 11; 14:23; 16:6, 11; 26:2.
E. The proper worship of God invites God's visitation and blessing—Exo. 20:24.
F. To add man's work to the worship of God is to bring in pollution—v. 25:
1. Because fallen man himself is sin, pollution, in the eyes of God (Psa. 51:5; 2 Cor. 5:21), no work of man is acceptable to Him (cf. Gen. 4:3-5; Gal. 2:16).
2. Every fallen man who worships God must be terminated, with all his work and ways.
G. Steps refer to man's way, which promotes achievement by natural ability and creates different levels of attainment among God's people—Exo. 20:26:
1. God's salvation clothes man with Christ as his righteousness (Gen. 3:21; Luke 15:22; 1 Cor. 1:30; Phil. 3:9), but man's way uncovers the nakedness of his fallen nature.
2. In principle, the exercise of man's wisdom in building an altar with steps puts Christ aside and causes man's fallen nature to be exposed.
3. Instead of exercising our wisdom in things pertaining to God, we should fully trust in Christ and thereby remain under Christ as our covering.
IV. While Moses was receiving the divine revelation concerning the worship of God, Aaron made a golden calf, and the children of Israel worshipped it as if it were the true God— Exo. 32:1-6:
A. The golden calf was not a pagan idol, for it was made by Aaron, a genuine high priest appointed by God—vv. 2-4.
B. Aaron made the calf in the name of Jehovah and took the lead to worship the idol in the way of presenting offerings to God and worshipping God—vv. 4-6, 8.
C. God's redeemed people worshipped an idol in the name of Jehovah their God and in the way ordained by God—cf. Psa. 106:19-20; Rom. 1:23.
V. To see God is to worship Him, as revealed in Exodus 24:1, 10-11:
A. "They beheld God and ate and drank"—v. 11:
1. While they were beholding God, they ate and drank.
2. As they were experiencing a most wonderful sight, they were refreshed by eating and drinking.
B. God wants us to enjoy Him and to worship Him out of this enjoyment.
C. The worship of God here consists of beholding God and of eating and drinking; this is true worship, the worship God desires.
VI. The divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity is the supply to the believers in their worship of the Father in the dispensing of God— John 4:14, 23-24:
A. The genuine worship of God the Father is in spirit and in truthfulness; the divine reality, experienced and enjoyed by us and constituted into us, becomes the truthfulness in which we worship God with the worship that He seeks—vv. 23-24.
B. The Lord's word in John 4 shows us the worship of the Father in the dispensing of God:
1. The worship that the Lord spoke of is the worship of the Father in the Son and in the Spirit; this is a worship in God's dispensing, the worship by the divine dispensing— Eph. 2:18; 3:14-21.
2. If we would have true worship, we need God in His Divine Trinity to be dispensed into our being—2 Cor. 13:14.
3. The worship of the Father in the dispensing of God is related to drinking the living water— John 4:10, 14:
a. To contact God the Spirit with our spirit is to drink of the living water, and to drink of the living water is to render real worship to God—v. 24.
b. In order to worship the Father in the dispensing of God, we need to drink of the Spirit so that God may dispense Himself into our being—v. 14; 1 Cor. 10:3-4; 12:13.
4. We practice this kind of worship mainly in the Lord's table meeting, where, after we partake of the bread and the cup, the Lord brings us to the Father in the Spirit, and we worship the Father in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity—Matt. 26:30; Heb. 2:11-12; Eph. 2:18.
5. The more we experience the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, the more we will be the kind of worshippers whom the Father is seeking and we will have the kind of worship that the Father is seeking—worship in the dispensing of God— John 4:10, 23-24.