What Is True Worship?

Well, good afternoon, brethren.

We all await the arrival of God’s kingdom. We know it’s a seven-year kingdom that we’re awaiting to, if you will, kick everything off. God’s masterful plan will soon begin. And this seven-year kingdom, Daniel refers to it as the last week of a seventy-week prophecy. We understand that sixty-nine weeks are complete. But I want to draw our attention today to the second half of the first kingdom.

We understand that in that second half, a terrifying period, an unprecedented terrifying period will begin. It will be a period unlike before or any time after that, and it will culminate in God pouring out His wrath. Jeremiah refers to this period as Jacob’s trouble. He pictures men with their hands on their loins, describing them as women in travail. Women can identify with that more than us men, but that’s the kind of pain it’s going to cause. It describes men with paleness on their faces.

In Matthew, Christ hints at the horrific nature of what will happen. What takes place during this time will be unlike anything the world has ever seen or will ever see in the future. It’s so terrifying that Christ warns, two thousand years in advance, not to stop for anything, as they flee from what He calls great tribulation. He warns people not to return to their homes to grab their belongings, their cherished belongings. He calls pregnant and breastfeeding women woeful.

He warns people to pray that the cold or a Sabbath will not inhibit their flight. Why? Why? Christ told the disciples, “No flesh will be saved except those days be shortened.” And brethren, Revelation gives the most incredible detail about this horrific, terrifying period in human existence. Turn to Revelation chapter six. Turn to Revelation six, to begin. Let’s read a few verses that perfectly summarize what lies just ahead.

Now, a setup to chapter six. In chapter four, John records this amazing look into God’s throne room. And in chapter five, depending on where it’s in your Bible, which could be on the same page where chapter six begins, it speaks of no man being found worthy to look into to open the book with the seven seals except for the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. So here in chapter six, the seven seals begin. Remember, all this will happen during the three-and-a-half years of the Great Tribulation.

Now in verse one, if you look at it, the first seal is open, which loosens the white horse. False religion. Verse three and four cover the second seal, the red horse, described as a great sword of war and killing on a massive scale. Then in verse five and six, the black horse appears after the third seal is open, then the fourth seal, the final greenish pale horse. “‘Between them, brethren, a quarter of the earth’s population is killed.’” Why? We’re building toward the answer.

Now comes the fifth seal. Verse nine, “And when He,” referring to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, “opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them who were slain. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?’” And white robes were given to every one of them. And they were told to rest for a little season, until their fellow servants also, and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. Now, wait.

A question could arise, who killed these individuals? Who killed these servants and brethren? More importantly, why were they killed? The answer to this question will be the focus of this message. Let’s turn to Revelation thirteen. Revelation thirteen. A few pages. Let’s start down in verse nine. This phrase always has jumped out at me, I’m sure it will to you as well. “If any man has an ear, let him hear.” Hear what? I mean, that’s a powerful statement in the Bible. You don’t read that very often. Well, let’s go up to verse four for the reason.

“And they worshipped the dragon,” Satan, of course, and Satan gave power to the beast, it continues, “and they,” vast numbers of people, “worshipped the beast.” Verse eight, “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life, slain from the foundation of the world.” Then you get to verse nine, it says, “If any man has an ear, let him hear.”

Brethren, every human being whose name is not written in the book of life will worship the first beast. And everything is riding on it. But these people will be without excuse. They will learn what they need to learn in the first part of the kingdom, of that one-week prophecy, that seven-year kingdom. What sets all of this off is Christ shutting down sacrifices. One-third of mankind will be taken to the wilderness, will be taken to a place of safety where they will be nourished and pampered by God.

The other two-thirds will be tested. What test will that be? Let’s continue reading. Verse eleven, “And I beheld another beast come up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and spoke like a dragon. He will exercise all the power of the first beast before him, and cause the earth and them which dwell therein, to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.”

“And he does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceives them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.”

Verse fifteen, “And he had power to give life to the image of the beast, that it should speak and cause anyone who will not worship the image to be killed.” I asked the question when we were reading back in chapter six, why will the servants and brethren be killed? The answer is clear. They refuse to worship. And in this case, they refuse to worship Satan. They refuse to worship the seventh and eighth heads. They refuse to worship the image. That’s why they’re going to be killed.

But God is going to destroy even a greater number of people, brethren. Think back to chapter six, after the fifth seal, Christ opens the sixth, and there comes a great earthquake on the planet. It says the sun turns black and the moon as red as blood. And we know all of that. What ushers in the Millennium, the thousand-year kingdom of God, is the day of the Lord. Christ opens the seventh seal, and that’s covered in chapters eight, nine, fifteen, and sixteen.

And it unleashes the seven trumpet plagues. It unleashes the seven vials. We don’t have time to read all of it. But it is so terrifying that kings, it says, “The great, the rich, and mighty, slaves and free,” that’s interesting, all of them will beg for the mountains to fall on them. But let me ask another question. Why will God pour this terrifying wrath on vast billions? Why will He destroy two-thirds of the people on earth? What could cause God to annihilate billions of people after a wonderful first half of a kingdom?

I asked my daughters, and they accurately stated or recalled what most mainstream Christians remember. People take the mark of the beast. You ask anybody about Revelation, that’s one of the things that they’ll point to. Will you receive the mark of the beast or won’t you receive the mark of the beast? But what if I told you God’s reason is similar to why these servants and brethren are killed?

Let’s turn to chapter fourteen. Some of you in the Bible don’t even have to turn the page. Now, the chapter begins with the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and the hundred and forty four thousand standing on Mount Zion, singing the new song before God’s throne. Powerful knowledge that we’ve learned recently. Verses four and five identifies them as the firstfruits of God. We just came out of Pentecost not too long ago. Their mouths are without guile or fault before God’s throne.

In verse six, a first angel is seen flying with the everlasting gospel, saying the following. Number one, he says, “Fear God.” Number two, he says, “Give Him glory.” And here it is in verse seven. “Worship Him. God the Creator, who made heaven, the earth, the sea, and the fountains of water.” This is the first angel crying out, “and there followed another angel, the second, saying, Babylon is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”

And now the third angel, brethren, and anyone slightly familiar with Revelation and the beast would often say that people taking the mark are destroyed. Nope, it’s not completely accurate. Verse nine, “And the third angel followed them saying with a loud…” that word in the Greek is megas, didn’t matter if you have any hearing issues in heaven, you’d hear this angel, distinct from the first two, a megas voice, “If any man receives his mark in his forehead or his hand…” no, I’m sorry, I skipped something.

“If any man worships the beast and his image and receives his mark in his forehead or his hand, the same shall drink of the wine,” in verse ten, “of the wrath of God.” Verse eleven, “In the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night.” Who? “Those who worship the beast and his image, and receive the mark of his name.” Brethren, worship. Worship is listed first. Receiving the mark of the beast is a close second.

Who people worship has indescribable consequences, one way or the other, during the kingdom. That second half. Think back to everything we covered just in these few moments. Then think about the things I didn’t cover. The description, the detail, and all those chapters, about the seals, desolation, plagues, famine, war, death, men, women, and children. Revelation reveals that the cause behind much of what happens during the three and a half years boils down to worship.

And this Greek word worship appears sixty times in the New Testament. It is found more than a third of those times in Revelation alone, twenty-four times. That means, brethren, worship is a big theme, or you could make the case, the theme of revelation. It’s about who worships whom, and what happens to a person once he chooses who will be the object of their worship, his or her. Those who live to worship anything or anyone other than the Creator, the Creator of heaven and earth, will die forever.

But more importantly, those who worship God, although they are killed, will live forever. Is that different for us, brethren? Not so much. So today, we’ll examine why worship is vital to our lives. And we’ll talk about the two tools we need to worship God, and add the two forms, the two ways, that we can worship God. So why is worship so vital to our lives? We just saw why it’s so vital to the lives of those in the future, in the very near future, people, in fact, that we know and love. That’s why it’s vital to them, but why is it vital to us?

Let’s turn to Exodus thirty-four. Exodus thirty-four. What we are about to read is best understood starting back in chapter thirty-two. We’re not going to go there, but just before Moses breaks the first set of tablets, which is there in Exodus chapter thirty-two, the Israelites were growing restless. In fact, they grew so restless that Aaron, too, got caught up in what was about to happen. Everyone was unsure of what happened to Moses.

He’s been gone for a long period of time. So rather than pray for him and their situation, they devise a better idea. Here’s the idea they come up with. Let’s have Aaron make a golden calf from their earrings. So instead of praying for their situation, they said, “Well, let’s just make a calf, and let’s build them of gold from the earrings that we have.” That is when it says Moses waxed hot. He was infuriated by what he saw. And he broke the tablets with God’s commandments. That happens in chapter thirty-two. That’s all a setup.

Now, some might accuse Moses of anger management issues. If that were true, based on Revelation fourteen and the seven seals, one might accuse God of the same thing, that He has anger management issues. No, brethren, carnal Israel had worship management issues. So do carnal men. The question is, brethren, can we have worship management issues ourselves? Israel’s example, as we know, is an admonition for us.

Let’s jump to verse ten in Exodus thirty-four, you should be there now. Verse ten, “And He,” referring to the Lord, God, said, “Behold, I make a covenant such as has not been done in all the earth, nor with any nation, and all the people shall seek the work of the Lord, for it is a terrible thing that I will do. Observe that which I command you this day, behold, I drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, the Jebusite.”

“Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land wherever you go, lest it be for a snare in the midst of you. But you shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves. For you shall worship no other god. For the LORD, whose name is Jealous. Capital J, brethren, God refers to Himself, He gives Himself the name Jealous, is a jealous God. Verse fifteen, “Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land.”

So coming off of that statement, God says, “Here’s a warning. I’m a jealous God. You will not worship other ones, or you’re going to make a covenant with inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods. And one call you, and you eat of his sacrifice,” verse sixteen, “and you take their daughters to your sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make your sons, your children go a whoring after their gods.”

Verse seventeen, “So don’t make molten gods unto yourselves.” This is a repeat commandment within the Ten Commandments that God gave in Mount Sinai. Brethren, detecting who or what we worship is relatively straight simple. Why is it vital? Worship in our lives? God warned Israel that they would follow and sacrifice for whomever they worship. The same, I am afraid, brethren, applies to us, to each and every one of us.

Let me say it plainly. We will follow and sacrifice for whomever we worship. Makes all the sense. No different for Israel, no different for us, spiritual Israel. Now, who thinks that worship isn’t vital? The God who never changes is jealous. He’s a jealous God. We’re not finished. Why is worship so vital to us, brethren? Not just to avoid us following after and sacrificing for whatever or whomever we worship other than God.

Let’s turn to Second Kings, chapter seventeen. There are more dangers, more reasons why it’s vital that we worship God. Second Kings, chapter seventeen. Why else is worshiping God so extremely vital? Every being ever created by God in heaven, think about the angels, think about, now, demons. Satan himself, once Lucifer. Archangel Gabriel. Michael. They understand the previous point that I just made. They understand that they will follow and sacrifice for whomever they worship. They understood that.

Why did God tear Israel from the land, separating them from Judah, and being lost even up until this day? Why did He make them become captives under the Assyrian king? Their identity is lost to this day, thousands of years later. Why? Verse five. “The king of Assyria,” you can read further, Hoshea, “Hoshea came up throughout the land into Samaria and besieged it for three years.”

“In the ninth year, Hoshea, he overtook Samaria and carried Israel away into Assyria, placed them in Halah and Habor, by the river of Gozan, and the cities of the Medes.” Brethren, Israel, since this time that we’re reading right here, they have been lost. The following verses reveal why. Verse nine, “And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God.”

Brethren, the heart, or the mind, is the most secret place anyone can do anything. But eventually, what’s up here will surface. It will manifest itself. “Out of the abundance of the heart speaks the mouth.” Look, they built high places in all their cities. And they set up images in verse ten. You go to verse twenty-three. “So Israel was carried away out of their land to Assyria unto this day.” Unto this day.

Verse thirty-four. “Unto this day,” again, speaking in the present tense, “they do after the former manners. They fear not the Lord, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinance, or after the law and commandment which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel.” Verse thirty-five, “With whom the Lord had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them.” Brethren, in the Hebrew, that means to worship, shâchâh. We’ll define that shortly.

“Nor bow down yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them.” There’s sacrifice again. “But the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched out arm, Him shall you fear, and Him shall you worship, and to Him shall you sacrifice.” Verse forty-one, “So these nations,” the Israelite countries of today, “served their graven images,” it says, “their children, and their children’s children,” their grandchildren, “as their fathers unto this day.”

Nothing has changed with Israelite countries today. Israelites worship everything today. They even worship and have taken on worshiping the Muslim god, Allah. Israelite nations, you’ll find people worshiping Buddha, Shinto, Brahmas, Shiva, Vishnu, and of course, large number of Israelites claim they worship Jesus. And I want to focus on them for just a moment. So-called Christians worship in the most absurd ways. I’ve seen it. I’ve traveled quite a bit around the world.

My wife and I, as we journeyed, saw many different types of absurd worship. You can look back and laugh at it, but it’s really, brethren, quite serious. There’s nothing spiritual about a Christian rock concert, nothing. I can assure you that God is not seeking any worshipers there. Ripped jeans, earrings on men, chains, t-shirts, mosh pits, mosh pits, that he’d get up in front of where the lectern was. Imagine removing all of these chairs and everybody’s just jumping for Jesus, bouncing against each other. Absurd.

And they think they’re worshiping Jesus. These are carnal minds at work, driven by emotions and impulses. They’re praising a false Jesus and worshiping a false God. Baptist or Pentecostal choirs swing back and forth in a fantastic display of talent. Some of them are extraordinarily talented at what they do. It’s not pleasing to God either. How can I tell? How can we tell? What does Romans eight tell us?

“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Look carefully at the lives of these people, just because they sing lovely songs, just because they’re tremendously talented at what they do, does not mean they obey the true God, much less serve the true God. I say, “Mr. Houk, that’s powerful, that’s true, but that doesn’t apply to us. We don’t do any of that. There’s no mosh pit here at headquarters. We don’t come to services in t-shirts and ripped jeans.”

Matthew chapter fifteen. Matthew fifteen. A big part of our Christianity, brethren, is not to be hypocritical. Now in Matthew fifteen, Christ was addressing His own, the Jews, particularly the Jewish religious leaders. But what Christ quoted from Isaiah was directed at all of Israel. Again, look at the Israelite countries. Some of the things I just described. But is there a warning in here for us? Let’s look at verse seven.

“You hypocrites. Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draw near to me with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. But in vain they do worship me.” When I read this, it’s easy to see the errors of these so-called Christians and these Christian groups, by looking at their lives. But I ask myself, and I mean that, is my heart closer to something or someone more than it is to God?

Let me ask that again. Is my heart closer to something or someone more than it is to God? Just because I sing lovely Christian songs or hymns with all of you, brethren, does not mean I truly worship God, does it? I must examine my life because it will reflect whether my heart or my worship is near to God or focus toward God. It will reveal if I’m worshiping, caring for, cherishing for something or someone more than I am God.

So let me ask, do we cherish or secretly cherish our marriages, our wives or husbands, more than God? No. Of course not, right? Okay. Do we care about the relationships that we have, maybe with our children or our grandchildren, more than the one we have with God? No? Okay. What about our pets? There are people that love their pets more than their own family members, and if that’s the case, God’s invisible.

Family is, we can see them and hug them and reach out and touch them, and there are people that love their pets, care for their pets more than they do their own family members. So I think the point’s made. We care for someone that we can see more than we do God, who’s invisible, but we in turn worship pets more than we do, or love our pets, more than the people we can see. You get the equation. It works itself out.

Brethren, you name it, we can allow our hearts to fall into worshiping someone or something more than God. If it’s not our marriages, not our children or pets, then maybe our careers. If not our careers, then our cars. If not our cars, then our clothes. The clothes that we wear. If not our clothes, our cell phones. A lot of C’s in there, so we might as well throw in cash. There are people that have... if they don’t have a cell phone or a car or clothing, they have a stockpile of cash.

Brethren, do we fall into that? Because where our hearts is, that’s where our dedication, our sacrifice, our serving, our obeying is going to be. There was an individual who attended for years with us, recently removed. And during that process, he revealed, almost with a certain pride, his passion for the two motorcycles and eleven classic cars that he secretly had hidden. He lived to ride, if I could quote him. He secretly married a woman outside the Church.

In the years with us, his worship was in vain. His heart was far from God. Brethren, that man ultimately worships himself. Not just his Harleys, not just his cars, and his wife. Likely, his wife is in third place. I’m not sure which is first, the motorcycles or the cars, but I would venture to guess his wife would be a distant third. Or any other boy toys, or girl toys for that matter, brethren, that we may fixate on.

There’s nothing wrong with getting married. There’s nothing wrong with buying a car, pursuing a career, buying nice clothes, or having pets. God didn’t drive us out of the world or drive the world out of our lives. He has given us power not to worship it, or anything, or anyone in it. Jesus asked the Father not to take us from the world but to keep us from the evil one, which brings us back to the dragon, which brings us back to Satan. Brethren, Satan finds gratification in being worshipped.

He longs for it. How badly does he want it? Matthew chapter four. Let’s go over some chapters. Matthew four. Now, recall, Satan takes three shots at Christ after he’s fasted, without water as well, food or water, for forty days. We’ll look at the third temptation in this account. For these reasons, brethren, I said earlier that worship is vital to our lives. If it isn’t, a lot is riding on it.

Because a lot, remember, mankind’s salvation, in this account, those temptations that Satan threw at Christ, human existence was riding on it. Riding on what was about to occur. Verse eight, again, it says here, Luke’s account listed as second, here it is listed third. “The devil takes Him up into an exceedingly high mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and he says to Jesus, All these things I will give to you, the God of this world, if you will fall down and worship me.”

Now he is the father of lies, so he could have been setting up Christ for a lie, and he wouldn’t have intended to give any of that to Him. But on its face, it looks like he was willing to give up that, just to be worshipped. Being worshiped is so crucial to Satan that he tempted a member of the God family to worship him, to do it. Now think about that. For something to tempt Jesus Christ, because it was a temptation, for something to tempt Him, it must have been extraordinary, what Satan showed Him.

Similar to what we’ll see in the kingdom of God, and the Millennium, and for all eternity. And Satan wanted to rule that, and wants to rule it. Why would Satan desire to be worshipped? Verse ten. Then Jesus says, “Get you hence,” move along, “Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.” Satan has seen what true worship is, since God created him. He knows what worship is. Every spirit being, as I said earlier, except demons, worships God.

Satan wanted to sit on God’s throne, I think we can all agree, so that everyone would worship him as God. Why? Brethren, Satan has long known what I hope we understand more clearly now. People don’t just follow and sacrifice for whomever they worship. People of every age will also obey and serve whomever they worship. For example, professional athletes, actors, artists, internet influencers, rank idolatry today. People worship everyone and everything today.

They don’t think of it in the terms that we’re talking about, but they do. They worship, idolize these people. People don’t follow people on Facebook or X. They go whoring after people on Facebook and X. They’re idols. We have programs, television programs, American Idol, British Idol, Australian Idol, Italian Idol, you name it, Russian Idol, programs designed to find the next idol that people can worship.

Young people follow and sacrifice thousands of dollars of their parents to go watch an artist dance and sing and gyrate on a stage for two hours. But after the parents pay for them to follow after their favorite artists, those same youth, those same children obey and serve everyone but their parents. Because we will obey and serve whomever we worship. John chapter four. John chapter four.

Satan seeks worshipers for these vital reasons. And maybe because God seeks the same. He seeks worshipers for Himself. Brethren, He knows that our lives and how we live them merely reveal whatever it is or whomever it is we worship. Because whomever or whatever we worship, we will follow it, or him, or her, we will sacrifice for it or for her, we will obey it, or him, or her, and we will serve that it or someone. Worship impacts every area of our lives.

Now John four here, we pick up where Jesus leaves Judea, and He’s heading for Galilee. His route takes Him through the region of Samaria. Verse five, “Then He arrived at the city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph,” a very familiar account. Now, “Jacob’s well was there, therefore, Jesus, wearied by His journey,” looking about twenty, thirty miles, or forty miles, “He sat there on the well.” So He was tired. He was exhausted.

“At about the sixth hour in, there comes a woman of Samaria to draw water.” We know this account. “Jesus said to her, give me to drink.” Verse eight, “For His disciples went to the city to buy food.” “Then the woman of Samaria says to Him, How is it that you being a Jew, ask drink of me, a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.” Now skip down to verse eighteen.

After the woman perceives He’s a prophet because He knows that she’s with her sixth man, who’s not her husband, the five previous ones were, we get to verse twenty. Now notice, she changes the subject to worship. Nowhere in the account does it say that Christ brought up the subject of worship, it was her. Maybe she was being inspired now. Maybe carnally so, but being inspired to worship the man who just laid out her entire life, and the words of hope that He just spoke to her.

Verse twenty, “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, you say that Jerusalem is where men should worship.” Now, likely, she was repeating what she had heard since her childhood from the Jews. Again, it doesn’t say that Christ mentioned worship at any point or made that statement. Remember, worship appears sixty times in the New Testament, twenty-four of those times in Revelation. You know how many times in these five verses that we’re reading? Nine times. We just read two of them.

That Greek word is proskynéō. Proskynéō It’s a powerful word. It means to crouch, to prostrate, literally or figuratively, starting in our minds, our hearts, we’ll get to that moment, in homage to, reverence, to adore. You know, it’s derived from two words. First word is pros, toward, and the other one is kyōn. It means dog. So, it means to kiss like a dog, licking his master’s hand. That’s what worship means by definition in the Greek. It’s not small words we’re talking here.

He said to her, verse twenty-one, “Woman, believe me, the hour comes when you will neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship you know not what…” Important. “We know why or what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is when the true worshipers…” that’s the only time in the entire Bible that word exists. One time. So unique.

“True worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit…” that’s lower case s, “…and truth.” Brethren, anyone who wants to understand God’s mind about worship, let alone what it looks like, must start here. Christ’s exchange with the Samaritan woman reveals two tools. We need to worship God. Not one, two.

Remember I said we use two tools to worship God, in two ways. Christ said we need spirit and truth to be true worshipers of God. These are the tools we need to worship God. They are not the forms by which we worship God. Important distinction. We’ll get to those momentarily. Philippians chapter three. Let’s start with the first tool. Philippians chapter three and verse one.

“Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you to me indeed is not grievous, but for you, it is safe.” It means it’s fail-proof, what I’ve been repeating to you, it’ll keep you from failing in life. “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision, for we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit. Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.” The first tool of a true worshiper is the mind.

No rocket science here. The Apostle Paul confirms Christ’s words. It’s a lowercase s. It’s used here, and it’s the same word that Christ used back in John four. True worshipers are created in God’s likeness and image. He gave us a mind with which His Spirit works in this area of our brains, brethren. Now, understanding true worship can be a little tricky because in this area of our brain, it controls our emotions and feelings as well, our impulses.

But brethren, we don’t worship based on feelings or emotions, even though we can experience feelings and emotions when we worship God. But worshiping God will never be impeded or inhibited by our emotions or our feelings. Let me say that again. We don’t worship with our emotions and feelings, but we can experience feelings and emotions, God gave them to us, when we worship God with our mind.

The world gets it backwards, because God gave everyone, all the human beings on the planet, a mind. That distinguishes us, how we use that tool. But our mind, as I said, that’s the first tool, our mind. We don’t have to go in depth on that. Pretty straightforward. The second tool, it’s required. Or this is useless relative to worshiping God. Think of knitting. Some of you who know what knitting is or have knitted before, to knit, you need two needles. It’s not crochet.

I can’t make the comparison with crochet because I believe crochet only requires one hook. But think of the tools that we need as knitting needles. Try and make a sweater with only one knitting needle. It will be a disaster. You need this second needle or this second tool to worship God. Christ said it. We cannot truly worship God with just our minds. The world’s version of worshiping is crochet. They’ve only got one needle and they don’t even use it correctly.

Turn to Psalm one thirty-eight. Psalm one thirty-eight, in verse two. “I will worship toward,” or that means at, “your holy temple and praise your name for your lovingkindness, and for your truth, for you have magnified your word above all your name.” Those words, for, if you read it slowly, are different. The first and the third for, a preposition, are the same, and that preposition is the prefix kî. In other words, kî means, for as much, or in as much, whereas, or because.

“I will worship you at your holy temple and praise your name because of your lovingkindness, because you have magnified your word above all your name.” That’s why I’m going to do it. But the second for is very different. That is the preposition al, al, which means according to, or touching. King David worshiped according to, touching God’s truth. For your truth, touching your truth, I worship you according to your truth. The second tool, brethren, is God’s Word.

You cannot worship God without a mind, and you cannot worship God without His Word, without His truth. That is the key that unlocks the ability to worship the Father. God’s Word. And think about all the truth and the knowledge we’ve gained about the Father. And the value that it has for us to worship Him, because you cannot worship without the truth. You want to talk about one of the greatest gems that the prophecy series has brought us? Understanding about who the Father is, the truth about who He is.

How can we worship something or someone we don’t know? Brethren, we worship what we know. I guarantee you, that man who was removed could tell you all you ever wanted to know about Harley Davidson motorcycles and every one of those eleven classic cars that he secretly had. And he could tell you a lot about the woman that he married outside the church. Because brethren, the more we know about something or someone, the more we’ll worship them.

And the more we worship them, the more we’ll know about them. It’s this wonderful cycle when it comes to God, the Father. The more we know about Him, the more we’ll worship Him. The more we worship Him, the more He’ll reveal Himself to us. We worship the Father because we know Him in truth. But let’s get more specific. What scriptures... because truth is a part of worship. What scriptures are best suited for worship? Colossians chapter three. I thought I was going to go to the Old Testament. Maybe.

Let’s go to Colossians three, because the Apostle Paul makes a helpful statement. And verse sixteen, Colossians three, sixteen, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you, inhabit in you, richly in all wisdom.” Powerful statement. He wants the Word of God to inhabit us. Well, where does the Word of God inhabit us? In our minds, of course, our hearts. What’s the very next words he says? “Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Let the Word dwell in you.

Now he’s talking to, primarily, lay members, Colossians who are lay members. That phrase, one another, is reflexive. Of course, that’s obvious. But why is that important? You know what that word most accurately is translated? Himself, herself, yourself. In the singular, own self. Read it again, teaching and admonishing yourself. That’s what it means. So it doesn’t necessarily mean we should teach and admonish one another with psalms. I don’t go around singing to you to teach you things. It’s not what it means.

It means when I look at the psalms, I teach myself. I admonish myself. It can mean that, for example, at the last new moon, one of the ladies here at headquarters sang a beautiful spiritual song. What made it beautiful and spiritual is that she’s a daughter of God who has a mind and has the truth of God, and has God’s spirit working, the spirit of truth. She sang I’ll walk with God. The music inspired me. It was wonderful music, beautiful music, but the lyrics moved some to tears.

And the lyrics taught me. A spiritual psalm, a hymn, and the Psalms, brethren, teach us. Listening careful, going back to study those lyrics, there were five lessons, a minimum of five lessons in that three-minute psalm. I’ll walk with God, because if and when we do, there is no death. There is no fear. He will not fail me. He’ll hear the words that I say, and I’ll never walk alone. Just in a three-minute psalm, spiritual song by one of God’s people. She just happened to be the channel by which God taught me in that particular instance.

Spiritual songs can teach us, brethren, no doubt about it. But I want to focus on a more powerful point. Psalms are the scriptures best suited for us to worship and to do it in two ways. Because I can assure you, we’re not all great singers. Don’t ask my wife. She has to stand beside me every service and endure six hymns. My voice. No, I think I’m an okay singer. We’re not all great singers, but we all can be great worshipers, regardless of our singing voice.

Whether we’re singing, or in the second form of worship, you probably already know it. We worship using our minds and God’s word through song and prayer. So let’s focus on prayer. It’s more important than singing. Because the first helps the second. The better you worship in prayer, brethren, the better you worship in singing. It’s not the other way around. You can be a great singer and you can worship in singing. It doesn’t necessarily make you a great worshiper in prayer.

And if I recall correctly, Christ never instructed disciples specifically about singing, but He did instruct them about prayer. “Christ told His disciples to pray after this manner. Our Father in heaven…” what are the very next words, or the next phrase? “Hallowed be your name.” Before we ask God anything in prayer, whatever we need, maybe it’s something we want, we are told to make a place to express all He is and all that He means to us in prayer. Let’s go to Psalm ninety-five. Psalm ninety-five.

And if you don’t mind turning your hymnals to page fifty-one. You’re going to see, if you look in your hymnal, probably there in Psalm ninety-five, the fifty first hymn in our hymnals comes from Psalm ninety-five, which was written by Mr. Armstrong’s younger brother Dwight Armstrong. Verse two, in Psalm ninety-five, “Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto Him,” with what? With psalms.

And if we look here in the hymnal, it’s certainly something that we sing. But I thought we were talking about prayer, Mr. Houk. This almost exhorts us to go before God with psalms. But it reads as though he’s talking about singing, right? Okay, true. But verse three, “For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in His hand are the deep places of the earth, the strength of the hills is also His.”

All the attributes, many attributes of God just being laid out right there in verse three, you get to five, and four, “In His hands are the deep places of the earth, the strength of the hills is His also.” Verse five, “The sea is His, He made it, and His hands formed the dry land.” Obviously, His mind is filling up with all of these attributes of God, who He is, what He can do.

Verse six, “O come, let us worship, and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our ruler, for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.” The music is probably coming to your mind right now. You’re singing it.

O come, let us in songs to God,

Our cheerful voices raise.

Not bad. That word, worship, in Hebrew, is shâchâh, means to prostrate, especially in homage to royalty or God, to crouch, to fall down. When do we prostrate, crouch, lie flat, and kneel before God? Brethren, when we pray. And it adds there. We don’t do it when we sing, but it adds there, to bow down, to kneel. These are all physical actions, literal actions. Certainly, we can do that in our hearts when we’re standing in services, when we close with a final hymn, our hearts will prostrate, our minds will prostrate towards God. But this is literally talking about in our private time, our prayer lives.

So prayer is the ultimate way to worship God, privately. Whether you’re many years in the church or new, how many find it difficult sometimes to express gratitude to God in words while you’re praying? I do. I have difficulties at times. Do you find yourself saying, I just don’t know what to say or how to say it in this first part of the prayer? My words fall well short of how I feel about Him and what He means to me. It can be challenging to find words to express to God what He means to you. Because that’s what worship is. Worship in essence, in a nutshell, is expressing to God what He means to you. Not what He can do or what we want Him to do. Those are requests. Those have their place.

How do I find the right words? Paul tells us, use the Psalms. I liken it to selecting a Father’s Day card. Father’s Day is coming up. It’s right at the door here. And before selecting one, I read several. I carefully consider whether the words accurately describe my dad and how I feel about him. It’s probably one of the few times that I spend that much time in the grocery store. I’ll read card after card. The last thing I want to do is send some mushy-sounding card that doesn’t describe or reflect who my dad is to me. He’ll know. He’ll know. He’ll know if it’s a mushy card. Ah, it’s just something he pulled off the shelf. So I take the time.

Brethren, we can’t go wrong using the Psalms. Now, which Psalm should I pick, Mr. Houk, to worship, to learn to worship God during prayer or singing? We have plenty here to examples for that. Which Father’s Day should I pick? Which Father’s Day card has the words? Can’t go wrong. There are one hundred and fifty Psalms, Father’s Day cards, if you will, to choose from. Seek and you will find. But some lend themselves better to improving your worship and prayer. There’s no doubt about it.

Here’s a way to begin. Pick a word that describes God. For example, worship. Start there. Psalms five, you can write them down, twenty-two, twenty-nine, forty-five, sixty-six, seventy-two, eighty-one, eighty-six, Psalm ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-nine, Psalm one hundred and six, one hundred and thirty-two, and one hundred and thirty-eight, all contain the word worship. Pick any of those to start. You know what’s going to happen? Inside those Psalms, you’re going to find other words describing God. Mercy, six times in those. Holiness, eleven times. Beauty, nine times. All describing God directly. Strength, couldn’t tell you how many times. Loving kindness, twenty-one times. All descriptions of who God is and what he means to us. True, righteous, I stopped counting. These take you to more Psalms because you’ll find other words, more attributes.

It’s a seemingly unending journey, brethren, of discovering who God is and giving us the words that we need in our prayer time. Each time I searched, I found more. All you need is one word to set up the rest of your prayer. Do you need healing? Worship Him for being a healer. You’ll find that in Psalm one hundred and three, one hundred and seven, and one hundred and forty-seven. What about deliverance from financial trials? Financial trials deliver. Specifically about that in Psalm forty and Psalm seventy. What about being shielded from evil, disease, sickness, and enemies? God describes himself or the psalmist described God as a shield for their lives.

Psalms three, twenty-eight, thirty-three, one hundred and nineteen. If God can call Himself jealous, God knows that we can call Him or assign to Him, and worship Him for the attributes that He carries Himself. He’s our shield. He’s our deliverer. He’s our healer. Brethren, we cannot talk about the mind or truth without simultaneously considering meditation. Meditation helps us worship God, and specifically, meditating on what the Psalms teach us about God.

Think of the Psalms as an unabridged dictionary of all the characteristics that God has, a wealth of words that describe him, that can be used to worship him during prayer. In the church’s article, meditation, it suggests one hour of prayer, one hour of Bible study, and then one hour of meditation. That’s three hours. You can do that on a Sabbath, maybe on a non-working day. Most of us don’t work on a Sunday, but that doesn’t make us Sunday worshipers, brethren. But the rest of the week, I don’t have three hours to do those things, but you can find the time to do that, should find the time to do that. So start small.

But can I make a suggestion? Before you begin to pray, take one psalm and just read it slowly and carefully, and then highlight it. Highlight the words that bring out the attributes of God. Meditate fifteen minutes, ten minutes, whatever on just those attributes, and then get on your knees and pray to God. And then you can say our father and then begin to give back to him all the words that you’ve meditated on when you took the time to read a psalm, meditate on it, and then go to prayer. That’s how you develop your worshiping skills.

God inspired David, think about this, to record his thoughts and write down what he regularly meditated on, and he gives it to us as a gift to use. You go to your hymnal, page 58, Bless the Lord eternal, Oh, my soul. That’s from Psalm one hundred and three. David’s talking to himself out loud. If you were to go there, it says, Bless the Lord, Oh, my soul, all that is within me. Bless His holy name. Same as in the hymnal. Verse two, Bless the Lord, Oh, my soul. Down in verse twenty-two, you’ll find it. Let’s go there very quickly. Psalm one hundred and three, pop over there.

I’m going to see something interesting here. Like David, we should be talking to ourselves when we meditate. Nothing wrong with that. And even when we sing, we’re talking to ourselves, brethren. Think about it. Certainly, we’re talking to each other, but primarily we’re talking to ourselves as we read the words or sing the words off the hymnal like we will at the end of services her. Then it says who gives, then it transitions, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. It appears that David begins talking to us, to an audience till it reads. It’d be easy to think that but that word, your brethren here in the psalm it’s second-person singular.

Let’s read it again. “Who forgives all your iniquities?” David. “Who heals all your diseases?” Carl. Let’s continue reading the next verses and see how this psalm, like many others, it can show us how or what to meditate on. Verse four. “Who redeems your life?” David? He’s talking to himself. “From destruction, who crowns you,” Carl, “with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth,” David, “with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s?”

So, Carl, bless the Lord. Go and worship Him. Find time to do that. But you know King David is not addressing God directly yet. He’s thinking about it. meditating. The Psalms are a meditation or thinking out loud about all the attributes, but some of the Psalms and some of the hymns actually address God directly, which is a direct worship. All you have to do is turn to page Psalm one hundred and four and look on your hymnal, page fifty-nine, Psalm one hundred and four.

How does it start out? “Bless the Lord, Oh my soul, Oh Lord my God.” Here, King David begins to worship God directly, immediately after. He’s filled his mind with thoughts, and now he’s ready to pray or sing to God with the truth that he’s just meditated on. He’s using his mind, guided by God’s Spirit, and using the truth coming from the Psalms. Here it is, “You are very great and clothed with honor and majesty. You cover yourself with light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a curtain.” Look at verse thirty-four. “My meditation shall be sweet.” There it is. Meditation shall be sweet.

The meditation is a critical component to developing our worshiping skills. And what can we meditate on? The Psalms. I’ve just given you a few examples. Look at your hymn. Oh, bless and praise God, oh my soul, praise His name. Eternal One, my God, You are very great. Now, you’re worshiping God. But I could take any of the Psalms. Take Hymn fifty-eight. “Bless the Lord eternal, O my soul. Bless His holy, sacred name. And forget not all His benefits to those who fear His name. You forgive all our iniquities.”

Just take the word, “our diseases” you heal all of our diseases where it says, “He” change it to “You,” very simple. You can go from praising about God and what he can do and what he has done to worshiping in a more intimate way by just addressing him directly.

“From destruction, You redeem our life and You crown us with Your love.” The last stanza there in the second part, and his days again reading from fifty-eight, and his days “My days are like the grass, but from death you redeem my life our life, and you crown us with your love.” That’s how easy it can be, brethren, but it takes practice doing it again and again and again. Brethren, our hymns like bless the Lord eternal my soul Oh bless and praise God, they touch, remember Psalm one hundred and thirty-eight, they touch and are according to the Psalms. Our prayers can be used in a way that touches or is according to the Psalms if we just use them to train ourselves.

Of course, other places in the Bible can inspire and help us, but again, I would make the case nowhere like in the Psalms. Like King David, we will follow, sacrifice for, obey, and serve God as we worship Him in prayer alone or when singing hymns together. In either case, we have the Psalms to help us, brethren. Our private worship will reveal itself in how we live publicly. How we worship God together while singing will be revealed in how we live publicly.

The effects of true worship will spill over into every area of our lives, at home, at work, school, in our marriages, in our relationships, in our parenting, all of it. Young people, in your studying. If you learn to worship God and God alone, you’ll avoid all the pitfalls of falling into worshiping other things and other people in your life other than God. People may not see how we worship God, but they will see the effects. And not only that, let’s turn to Revelation three. Two more verses as we close.

Again, people may not see how you and I worship God in our prayer time, using the tools that we’ve been given, our mind and the truth, and doing so in prayer and together, here singing or singing at home alone. People may not see that, they’ll only see the effects. But not only that, verse seven, “And to the angel to the church in Philadelphia,” right, “these things say he that is holy and true, he that has the key of David, and the keys to worship, he that opens and no man shuts, shuts and no man opens, I know your works and your worship,” I would add. That would be included in our works.

“Behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it, for you have little strength and have kept My word, and have not denied My name. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, maybe some say they are fellow Christians, and are not, but do lie, they’re hypocrites, their lips are far removed. Their hearts are far removed from God. I will make them come and worship before your feet and know that I have loved you.”

One day, brethren, people may ask us, “How? How did you get to this point? You’re a God being, and I’m going to worship you.” We will tell them that we followed, we sacrificed for, we obeyed, and we served the God we worshiped. How? By prayer and singing. Is that surprising that some of our loved ones will worship, follow, sacrifice for, and serve God as well as us one day?

Revelation twenty-two to end. Remember I told you, twenty-four times in Revelation, a book much about worship. Here’s how Revelation essentially wraps up brethren. And with this, I’ll close. Verse six, “And he, and the angel who had been revealing to John all these wonderful, majestic, terrifying, horrific, awesome things, said to me, these sayings are faithful and true, and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show to His servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly.” How true is that, brethren? Blessed is he that keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this book. Blessed is he who follows God, sacrifices for God, obeys God, and serves God as this book, brethren, teaches us.

Blessed is he who keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this book of this book. “And I, John, saw these things and heard them. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. Then he says to me, see that you do it not for I am your fellow servant and of your brethren the prophets and of them which keep the sayings of the book, who follow sacrifice, obey, and serve God.” What’s his final statement? Worship God.