Word of Salvation – Vol. 23 No. 05 – November 1976

 

Lord’s Day 35

 

Sermon by Rev. Wm. F. van Brussel

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 1:10-20, John 4: 19-26

Psalter Hymnal: 89; 264; 315; 488.

 

Not everybody is aware of the difference between the first and second commandments.  The Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches take them together as one.  They are mutually related, no doubt, yet either of them has its own content.

In the first commandment, YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME, the Lord God tells us that we should worship and serve Him only.  In the second commandment, about the images, God tells us HOW He wants to be worshipped by His people.

In the first commandment the only true religion is at stake.  In the second one the pure way of worship of the only true God.

When we look at the literal contents of the second commandment, we may think that the commandments is a little out of place in today’s situation.  We would not make pictures, or images of God in order to worship Him through these man-made things, would we?  We know only too well that God cannot even be pictured since He is spirit….!  There is no way we would go about making an image of God.

Yet, we must be able to read between the lines, as it were, in order to find that this particular commandment would be just as up to date as any other one out of the ten.

We stated already that the second commandment deals with the need for pure worship.  We are forbidden to worship the only true God in a man-made way.  Whenever we worship God we should do this in harmony with His will.

Well, when would our worship become home-made, impure?

This happens as soon as we fail to allow God to tell us how He wants us to worship Him.

And that is relevant alright, is it not?  Every man worshipping God is tempted to worship Him according to his own taste rather than according to God’s own command.

This temptation became acute for Israel when they came in touch with other nations who would worship their gods by means of images.  You remember of course, that the heathen ways of worship would influence Israel time and again.  And most fatally as well.  One of the reasons why God let them wander in the desert for forty years was to let them learn this lesson that God is always present among His people, even though He cannot be seen with the eye.  God has always wanted the worship of His people to be “bare”, in this sense, that whatever they could look at during their time of worship, God Himself would never become visible.  They had to learn and worship their God the way He WAS, and never the way they might imagine He would be.

Israel did not like this “bare” way of worship.  So, one day they ordered the high priest, Aaron, to make them a golden calf.  This was not because they did not want the true and only God any more, the God of the first commandment.  Oh no, the only thing they wanted was a different approach, a new format of worship.

They were tired of having this God Who could not be seen.  They wanted to have God within their circle, on their level.  They wanted to be able to do what they had watched other people do: dancing and jumping around their gods who were visibly, tangibly in their midst.

Thus they rejoiced in their deliverance from Egypt, dancing around the golden calf.  Not realizing however that they had not really and truly left Egypt behind!  In actual fact they were still in bondage.

You remember of course how angrily Moses responded to this homemade kind of worship.  Hebrews tells us that Moses ENDURED AS SEEING HIM WHO WAS INVISIBLE (11:27).

He was so much convinced that it was impossible to contain God in a statue made by human hands that he could not be happy again until the whole thing had been crushed to dust.  It is utterly impossible to worship GOD first of all with our eyes or fingers.  He wants to be worshipped from the HEART.  For a newborn heart does not demand what can be seen with the eye or touched with the hand.  Moses was deeply disappointed after he had been in the presence of the Lord in such a heart-warming fashion on the mountain without really seeing God.

The question now would be whether you and I are able to see the relevance of this familiar story of Israel for our situation today.  In what sense is this particular sin of Israel OUR sin today?  For WE are trespassers of this and all the commandments of God.

No, we have no images.  We have left that habit far behind us.  But does that mean that in our way of worship we worship God really and truly from the HEART?  That we worship Him in spirit and in truth?  Is it evident from our way of worship that WE endure as seeing Him Who is invisible?

Is it nothing but the WORD of GOD which determines how we would worship God?  For it is God Himself, and God alone, Who tells us in His Word HOW He wants us to worship Him.

Let us never forget that – so easily, our worship could become a superficial show.  This is bad enough and we must remain aware of this awful possibility.  We tend to be far too earthly, even in our worship.  God demands worship in spirit and in truth.  He demands a spirit of total surrender and obedience and the truth of a heart which is open before God.

If our heart fails to be in our worship, if our worship is not truly alive, God feels offended by it rather than honoured.  God is very sensitive in this matter.  He is jealous of His honour.  And He wants His people to be truly happy and blest by having a living faith.  And a faith that expresses itself in a healthy, intelligent and pure way.  GOD IS NOT WAITING FOR THE LEFTOVERS OF OUR LIVES, HE WANTS ALL OF IT.  He Himself would not fail giving us His grace and His Spirit in abundance would He not?  We must be aware that we are inclined to do things “better” than God has prescribed them.  King Saul wanted to do that after his victory over Amalek (1Samuel 15).  He had not killed their king plus the best samples of their cattle, for what use would that have been to God???

But God’s response through Samuel was: BEHOLD, TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE, AND TO HEARKEN THAN THE FAT OF RAMS.  And Samuel further said to the king: BECAUSE YOU HAVE REJECTED THE WORD OF THE LORD, HE HAS ALSO REJECTED YOU FROM BEING KING!

In other words, the second commandment boils down to this: disobedience in the matter of worship is nothing but worshipping images.  Whoever wants to decide for himself how God should be worshipped and served best, would observe a home-made religion, and trespass the second commandment of God’s holy law.

We are guilty of trespassing this commandment as soon as we make a picture of God in our MINDS that suits us, and commence worshipping Him as such.  There are many possibilities of going wrong here.  Satan would like to make an awful lot of suggestions to us in regard to this matter.  No matter whether we are evangelicals or liberals in our approach to the Christian faith, we are in great danger in this matter of worship.  We go wrong whenever we stress certain points of God’s Word at the expense of other points which are just as valuable.  Wrong thoughts and false ideas about God must make us end up in a false way of worshipping Him.  Anything that would lead us either to a false, unwarranted spirit of ease, or a needless spirit of fear, must make us land in an impure way of worship, a twisted way of worship, or a merely formal and impersonal way.

There are people who can only think of God as the good, lovely old father; there are others who would be happy only when they hear a lot about sin and hell and perdition.  And because of all this twisting of the Gospel man is more in the centre in the end than God.  Man is going to state WHO God must be and HOW He ought to be approached and worshipped.

How often do we get stuck in our own ideas and pictures which we don’t want to let go of, or have corrected?  And in the meantime we want others to worship images together with us.  This is a real danger and it does make no difference whether we are in the pulpit or in the pews.

We must keep listening with an open heart to God’s Word and give way to His testimony.

This is the heart of the matter according to our Catechism: THE WORD OF GOD.  The Word of God is what must rule our lives as well as our worship.  We do not need this poverty of dumb images as God is present and alive to offer us the living preaching of His own living Word.  And the living preaching is the preaching of the Christ as the ONLY WAY.

Whenever we follow our own line of thinking and reasoning we end up with a message and a format of worship where Christ would be either in the background only, or pushed out altogether.  The only way of worship which God demands is the form of worship where the Christ is in the very centre.

When thinking about the second commandment we cannot help but taking a close look at the way we go about our worship services every Sunday, can we?

What is it that moves us to come to church, twice every Sunday?  What else than the desire to worship our God, to acknowledge Him, to praise Him, to listen to Him and to tell Him that we are keen to act upon His commandments?  Do our church-services really bear the stamp of CHRISTIAN WORSHIP?  Or do we go to church to hear a sermon?  Or to undergo a sermon sitting there passively?  Are we aware that we are supposed to go to church to DO something there?  We do not come to church to simply sit through a service, do we?  We come to DO our share!

People would often complain that our services are a “one-man-show”.  It would be so much nicer, they would say, if the congregation could participate a bit more.

But the congregation which knows what worship is all about DOES participate, no matter what is being done in church.  We could not simply leave the service to the “man in the pulpit” and to a few others who have something to do there: the elder in charge, the organist, the men taking the offerings, the caretaker……!

All of us, every one of us comes to church to worship God.  This demands our whole heart.

There is a dialogue going on between the minister and the congregation.  The congregation responds in the confession of sin and to the pardon of grace.  The congregation speaks, sings of its faith, its love, its desires, its gratitude.

Our attitude in church ought to be one of reverence from beginning to end, with no intervals in between for a little chat.  How can we ever receive the Word of God, if we fail to observe an attitude of awe and adoration?

Our Catechism speaks of a living preaching of the Word of God.  But there ought to be a living LISTENING as well!  Our worship, be it at home or in church, should never become a matter of plain routine, but this is what it has become far too often.  We must stay awake, because we are tricked into sinning against this holy command of God before we are aware of what is going on.

It is so beautiful that, whenever we meet in church, God is there Himself, to greet us, to bless us.  We re-discover our sin.  We re-live the release which the Word of pardon brings.  We share in our prayers as a congregation, and we sing our songs to give expression to our thoughts of shame, of joy, of defeat and of victory….!

Let us pray much and often for church-services in our midst that are meaningful to all who attend them.  Services where we love to be present as we find there the living preaching of the Word of God in the centre of all the activities.

God calls us Sunday after Sunday to this activity of sacred speaking and listening.  Thanks to His own presence, we may expect much from it.  God will make us experience the eternal power of His vital presence.  What people cannot do, God can do as long as we obey this second commandment of God, and come to church to worship Him with our whole heart as frequently and faithfully as we can.

Our Lord promised that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all the truth.  He teaches us to understand God’s Book more and more.  He works in the hearts of your ministers when they prepare messages quietly in their study.  He works in your heart and mine as we meet in church and pray for the light of His Word to shine through clearly.

The Holy Spirit was sent to make it possible for you and for me to see Christ and all that He means, more and more clearly all the time.  The preaching is alive as long as it presents the living Christ, the living Word of God.

HIM we need, the Christ of God; His severe holiness which did not want His Father’s House to be defiled by impure worship and disobedience to the Word.  His tender mercy also, towards all tax-gatherers and sinners who would not know where to go apart from Him.

Yes, we ought to meet Him Who would tell us off whenever we need that, and Who would heal our wounds with the balm of the Gospel.  He wants to be God’s IMMANUEL here in this place of public worship, God close by.  He could not be any closer.

May God grant us His grace that we practise genuine worship here every Sunday according to His second commandment.  Only the living preaching of the living Word of God can result in a situation where a congregation would be alive and well.  A congregation which knows what worship is for, and what it is about.

May God graciously cut away from our midst all that would be the product of our own will and build further what would be in harmony with His will.  That we may hear the Word and learn to DO it, too.

Many people are longing for new ways, new ideas, new approaches, often without having properly investigated the old ones because of prejudice.  Anyway, what God wants, what He expects from you and me would be: new lives, altogether new lives.  New approaches to church, to the family, to education, to the economy, to entertainment, you name it.  To those who believe the promise that was given that EVERYTHING will be new.  This promise will come true, more and more as long as we worship our God in spirit and in truth.

Why not thank God for His second commandment.  For after all, He did not only give it for His own glory but for His people’s good!

Amen.