I'm not discussing anything, I'm just reading something verbatim. I'm qualified to be up here because I can read. This chapter was written by Herman Hanco, who was a pastor and theologian and professor for the Reformed Protestant Church, which I had never heard of until I looked him up. So, pretty similar to us in a lot of ways. But this chapter is on the fear of the Lord in worship. And I know that I can be guilty of this, and I'm pretty sure all of us can. We come into church on Sunday, and it's what we do, and we come in here, and we go through the liturgy, and we sing our songs, and we stand up and sit down, and we receive the Lord's Supper. And it can kind of become rote for us, but cultivating the right attitude when we come into worship is very important. So that's what we'll be discussing now. Congregational worship is the highest expression of God's covenant of grace with his people. It is this truth of the covenant which determines that the fear of the Lord ought to control completely worship services of the church. That congregational worship is covenantal is evident if we consider the fact that the covenant of grace is essentially a bond of friendship and fellowship between God and his people in Christ in which God is the God of his people and they are his children, his sons and daughters. So we use the word covenant a lot. And we hear the word covenant, but what does that mean? And I love his definition. It's a bond of friendship and fellowship between God and His people. We think of it as a legal contract, which it is, but it's more than that. In my personal reading this morning, I read where Jesus says, don't fear him who can kill the body, but fear the one who can kill both body and soul. And I thought, well, geez, that's a kind of a devastating understanding of God. But then what is he going to say? The very hairs of your head are numbered. Fear the one who loves you. Big difference. He loves you. All scripture emphasizes this truth, a truth already expressed to Abraham, the father of all believers within the covenant, when he says, I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. So that's God's promise to Abraham. God is the God of his people in all their life. But when God's people come together in worship, this blessed reality comes to its highest expression. Jesus himself reminds us of this when he says, An expression which refers to Christ dwelling in fellowship with his people. Paul expresses this same truth without specifically mentioning the covenant when he writes to the Corinthians. Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters with the Lord Almighty." For those who know me, a quick note, I did not change this to King James for my own preference. It's written this way. This is covenantal language throughout. God's promise is here described as almost identical language with the description of the covenant made to Abraham. God will be the God of his people, and they will be his people, his sons and daughters. That this refers, at least indirectly, also to worship is evident from the fact that the people of God are called God's temple, an expression which refers back to the meeting place of the congregation of Israel in the Old Testament. This obvious reference, therefore, to the Old Testament temple where Israel met to worship connects this unmistakably to the idea of the covenantal aspect of worship. All the elements of the covenant are present in the worship service. Because the covenant is a bond of friendship and fellowship, a crucial element in such fellowship is conversation, which Chris just talked about. Two who have fellowship together speak to one another. They cannot have fellowship without conversation. Whether we speak of the fellowship of husband and wife, of parents and children, of friends and their mutual relationships, or of the saints within one household of faith, the communion they share is a communion of conversation. So true is this that even those who lack the power of speech must learn to communicate with others in order to share in the fellowship of their fellow men. A deaf mute learns to speak sign language. Without, he is cut off from any fellowship with those about him. Such conversation is important because fellowship implies that two share with one another their lives. They speak to one another of their hopes and plans, sorrows, fears, longings, and aspirations. They seek advice and counsel and comfort and encouragement to support them. They willingly offer sympathy and aid to those who need someone to help bear the burdens of life. All of this takes place through conversation, and this is true of a worship service. There is a conversation that takes place between God and his people. At the center of worship is the preaching of the word of God. The word of the gospel is God's promise to his people. The good news of everlasting salvation in Christ. God gives to his people the assurance that his promise will be fulfilled in them. Two ideas stand on the foreground here. In the first place, through the gospel, God speaks to His people. He tells them of all the secrets of His will and the purpose which He is determined to do, not only in their salvation, but in what takes place in the world. This is why the psalmist in Psalm 25, 14 can say, The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. God tells us of Himself, of His great glory, the glory of His infinite perfections, but also of His mercy and grace and love. He tells us of all that He is Himself in His own infinite being, sharing with us those precious secrets. He tells us of all his counsel and will which encompass all that happens in heaven and on earth and will happen in the new heavens and the new earth when Christ shall come again. Great and marvelous secrets he shares with his covenant people. That's amazing. But, in the second place, the whole scripture makes clear that the promise which is proclaimed in the gospel, and which is part of God's secret which he shares with us, also forms an essential part of the covenant. The scriptures almost make the promise of God synonymous with the preaching of the gospel. It is for this reason that the covenant is even called in the New Testament Scriptures a testament. The reference is very obviously to a will which contains the promise of an inheritance. That's why we read in Hebrews 9, 15 to 17, and for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also be necessity of death of the testator, for a testament is of force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth." We may conclude, therefore, that God speaks of the promise of his covenant within the worship service when the gospel is proclaimed. But while it is true that God speaks to his people through the preaching of the word and through other elements of the worship in which the minister speaks in God's name, God's people also speak to God. They speak to him in the songs they sing, in which they pour out their souls in expressing the deepest thoughts, desires, and emotions of their hearts. God's people speak to God when they lift up their hearts in prayer to bring their needs to the needs of God's church, to the throne of grace. It is in this way that a conversation which stands at the very heart of covenant fellowship takes place in the worship service. God and his people are talking together. Yet, we must be clear on the nature of this conversation. If we are to understand that worship must be characterized by awe and fear, we must also understand that this holy conversation is always initiated by God, and it is initiated by God in such a way that our part of the conversation is always the fruit of God's part. Never can it be any different. God is sovereign in all the work of salvation. He is sovereign also in his covenant. He establishes his covenant, and he maintains it by his grace. The realization and continuation of the covenant are never dependent upon what we do. Though we are called to walk as God's covenant people, and though our part of the covenant is to respond to God, never must this be interpreted in any other way than that God speaks first and we respond. God speaks first because his speech is sovereign, efficacious, creative, renewing, powerful, and irresistible. His speech affects our response, and our response is the fruit of His powerful Word. This is very clearly the idea in Psalm 27.8, When thou sayest, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Never are we able to say, Thy face, Lord, will I seek, unless God first says to us, creatively and powerfully, Seek ye my face. Although therefore the conversation between God and his people is truly conversation, we must not construe this as two equals speaking together, two neighbors chatting over the backyard fence, two friends talking earnestly on a walk through the woods, or two saints discussing last night's sermon. It is not even the conversation of husband and wife or parents and children. God is God and we are and always remain creature. There are two aspects to this which we must consider. In the first place, scripture makes clear that the vast chasm which yawns between the creator and the creature is infinitely wide. Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles as a very little thing. Isaiah does not say the nations are a drop in the bucket. If one has a drop in the bucket, one has something, though not very much. But all the nations are as a drop in the bucket. They are all, taken in their entirety, equal to a drop which hangs on the bottom lip of a bucket, a drop which no one notices and which soon falls to the dust. All nations are no more than that. What then is one little man? After all, before him, even the angels cover their faces with their wings and cry all the day, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The second aspect is that we are not only infinitely small specks of dust in comparison with God, but we are also hostile to him, sinners. We are dreadful sinners, born in sin and depravity, unable to do good. We are slaves of sin, dead in trespass and sin, to use the word of scripture in Ephesians 2.1. We daily increase the mountain of our sin and guilt until it becomes as high as the sky. The psalmist sings, Iniquities prevail against me. There is nothing in us which makes us fit for covenant fellowship with God. We are, apart from his grace, his enemies who fight against him, attempt to drive him from his throne and take into our own bloody hands the power of creation. We daily by our sins forfeit all right to covenant fellowship with him and bring upon us only his just wrath and everlasting displeasure. Our nature is corrupt and God can dwell in fellowship only with one who is holy as he is holy. We cannot even will to do good. Our wills are bound to the service of sin. Nevertheless, God is pleased to dwell with us, and it is a great wonder of His everlasting mercy and the love in Jesus Christ our Savior. No saint can be in God's presence and experience the riches of communion with God without being overwhelmingly conscious of His unworthiness and the great depths of the mercy and grace of God. These important components determine the character of this holy conversation that takes place between God and his people. What this important element is missing is much of what goes under the name of worship, and our day is to be condemned in the strongest possible language. Anything in a worship service that distracts from the holiness of God is to be a bored. And yet, this is constantly being done by means of all kinds of liturgical innovations. In some instances, worship services become so informal that one would think he were at an informal social gathering in which people chat about the everyday affairs of life. No sense of reverence and awe pervades the assembly. In other instances, the minister opens the worship service with a cheery remark of some kind, hello God, or hi folks, or how is everyone doing, or with some joke. Through such opening statements, the congregation is not led consciously into the presence of God, much less are the people inspired with a sense of reverence, which is becoming to those who have entered into God's presence. Prayers and sermons follow the same pattern. God is blasphemously referred to as our brother in the sky, or some such familiar title, which brings God down to the level of mortal and destroys the sanctity and holiness of him whose ways are from everlasting The second commandment, especially in distinction from the first commandment, tells us how God must be worshipped. We are not in a position to decide how we ought to worship God any more than a subject of the Queen of England is in the position to decide how he or she will enter the Queen's presence. God alone tells us how he is to be worshipped. We are bound absolutely to the principles which God himself sets forth in scripture. When we refuse to follow the scripture's instruction on this point, we break the second commandment, we create a graven image, and bring down on us and our children the terrible judgment of God. God is jealous, so this commandment teaches us, of his honor and his glory, and he will surely visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children under the third and fourth generation of them that hate him. It is preposterous in the height of arrogant presumption to think that we, less than specks of dust, should determine how God is to be worshiped. When we inquire from the scriptures concerning how God would have us worship him, one central feature stands out above all others. We are to worship him with fear. What does scripture mean when it speaks of fear? In his book, Principles of Conduct, John Murray begins his chapter on the fear of God with a startling statement. The fear of God is the soul of godliness. He considers it to be the central feature of all Christian ethics from which the whole of the Christian life arises. If this is true, then surely the fear of God is also the one distinctive feature of worship. The idea of the fear of God is so all pervasive in scripture that one can quote almost anywhere, almost where he will to demonstrate how important scripture considers this attribute to be. In Job 1.8, God pronounces his own verdict on his servant Job with words spoken as a challenge to Satan. Hast thou considered my servant Job that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man who feareth God and askeweth evil? In Ecclesiastes, a book which we may consider Solomon's own confession of the sins of his reign, he speaks of what is the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole duty of man." Again and again, God's people are described in Scripture as those who fear the Lord. And indeed, Scripture repeatedly reminds us that the life of faith which the saints lived arose out of the fear of God, which ruled their hearts. It may even come as somewhat of a surprise that our Lord himself is described as possessing the spirit of fear. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, of the fear of the Lord. Isaiah 11-2. And the author of the epistle of Hebrews tells us concerning Christ, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, was heard in that he feared, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by all the things which he suffered. If this was true of our Lord himself, perfect and without sin, that he feared God, how much more ought not the repeated injunction to live in fear be impressed upon our souls? It is perhaps this very lack of fear in our present generation which in large measure explains the low state of morals, the worldliness and carnality, the pleasure madness and the ethical perversion which characterize our times. There are, however, in both the Old and New Testaments, two senses in which the word fear is used in the Scriptures. This must become clear to us, for our understanding of these uses stands at the very heart of our calling to worship God in fear. There are many passages in scripture which speak of fear as that terror of God and his just judgments upon sin, which seize the soul of the sinner and make him live in dread and anxiety. There are many passages which use the word fear in this sense. When God appeared to Israel on Mount Sinai in clouds of darkness, thunders and lightnings, and the sound of a trumpet, He appeared as one who is terrible in judgment. It was to be expected that the Israelites, called to assemble before the Mount, would be terror-stricken. Moses therefore said to them, Fear not, for God has come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not." The reference is very obviously to the fear of terror incited in the people of the dreadful appearance of God on the mount. The same meaning is to be applied to the words of the Lord in Matthew 10 28. Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. God is a righteous and holy God. He is so perfectly holy that he cannot look on sin without great displeasure and fiery indignation. He must, to maintain his own holiness, punish the sinner with the judgments of his righteous anger. When men sin against Him, they sin against the One who will surely vindicate His own name and protect His holiness, for He is jealous of His honor. It is this judgment against sin which invokes terror in the heart of the sinner. It can be nothing else. It is true that the sinner may, while in this life, suppress the terror with impunity. He may mock at the thought of judgment and rail against the infinitely holy God. He may harden himself to spiritual insensibility against the thought of judgment. But for all that, he knows in the depths of his heart that God is judge and that he will surely render just judgment upon the ungodly. Even in worship, this is true. The preaching of the word of the gospel with its blessed promises to the elect is also a proclamation of God's just judgment against all who remain unconverted. While, therefore, the godly see the greatness of God's everlasting grace, the judgments of a holy God against sin fill the soul of the unconverted with terror. And when Christ appears at the end of time as the judge of the living and the dead, the sinner can only shrink in terror before the judge of the earth. Jesus himself reminds us of this, when on the way to his cross, he spoke these words to the daughters of Jerusalem. Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming in the which they shall say, blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bear and the pape which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, fall on us into the hills, cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? This terror can only strike dread and anguish in the soul of a sinner. Surely it is true that the sinner has every reason to live in such terror before the face of a holy God. But God's people are delivered from the fear of terror by grace, through the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. He bore all judgments of God against the sins and guilt of his sheep for when he died, so that no anger, no wrath, no judgment remains to be brought upon their heads. And so it is that the word fear in scripture comes to have another meaning, the meaning of reverential awe and adoration. There are also many texts which speak of fear in this sense of the word. We need, quote, only a few. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul admonishes the church, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do his good pleasure. The psalmist sings of this fear in Psalm 19, nine. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. It is obvious that these and many other texts speak of a different fear than that of terror. This fear of awe and reverence characterizes even the angels in heaven. We read in Isaiah, in the year 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 seraphim, each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, 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. It is clear from this that fear arises, first of all, from a sense of God's greatness. If even angels in heaven who stand in the presence of God himself are filled with awe at his greatness and glory, how much more ought not this to characterize us? But the same fear arises also from the fact that we are constantly in God's presence, that we cannot escape it even for a moment. The sweet singer of Israel was moved deeply by this when he sang, Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. But no less does this fear arrive from a consciousness of our smallness in comparison with the greatness of him who dwells far above the heavens. The twenty-four elders who fall down before God and worship him shout, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. Though the fear of terror may bring anguish and dread into the hearts of the wicked, so does the fear of awe and reverence bring forth many virtues in the elect as a fountain pours out the streams of clear water. This fear, when found in the child of God, brings into his consciousness an awareness of and sorrow for sin. After all, fear in the sense of reverence and awe is also a profound concern that we have provoked God by our sins. It is a deep desire not to offend the Holy One of Israel. And when we do, it evokes in us this conscientiousness of our sin and deep sorrow for them. For this reason, fear humbles us before God. It humbles us not only because we, so small and significant, stand before the face of a holy God, but also because we are sinners worthy of only his great wrath against us. Fear brings about a deep and profound humility without which no man can come to God. Yet, we know, too, that God has redeemed us, unworthy sinners that we are. That God should, in His great grace and mercy and boundless love and compassion, save us, fills our souls with wonder and awe. We, when captured by His great salvation He has provided for us in Jesus Christ our Lord, can only fall before Him in amazement and wonder, in awe and reverence, in praise and extol Him who has been so merciful to us. This can only lead to reverence before him and praise to his holy name. Thus, when we live in the assurance by faith that we are God's people, redeemed through the blood of the Holy Cross, destined to live forever in the everlasting tabernacle of God's covenant, we are so overwhelmed with good pleasure. The psalmist sings of this fear in Psalm 19, 9. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous So we've talked about the two kinds of fear. There's the fear of God because of fear of impending doom and judgment in the heart of a sinner. Then there's the fear of God that comes when we are aware of how big and powerful and wonderful He is. This second type of fear is such a kind that the people of God are concerned that they live lives of obedience to God. Does that work as a transition? They are afraid that they will offend God by their sins. The psalmist speaks of this in Psalm 119, My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments. And this fear is a profound motivation to strive to live according to the will of our God who has saved us. Yet in the consciousness of their salvation in Christ, they no longer have terror of God's wrath. We don't have to be afraid of the wrath of God anymore. It's a different kind of fear. There is no fear in love, the Apostle John states. Love casteth out fear because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. If you're not going to be tormented, you don't have the first kind of fear any longer. You now have the second kind of fear. It is clear from all this that the man who attempts to come into God's presence without fear is guilty of sin. When he assumes an attitude of familiarity, when he speaks to God and of Him as he speaks to a fellow man, when he without any semblance of awe and reverence in his voice and words addresses the Holy God, he is profane and blasphemous. It is precisely to this sin that God refers to the third commandment, In worship, we take God's holy name upon our lips. When the fear of all is lacking, we use the name of God in vain. He who does this is guilty of intolerable presumption and almost unbelievable arrogance. He drags God down from his high throne above the heavens and molds him in his own filthy hands. making God in the likeness of his own evil thoughts. It is a presumption and pride that God will not allow to go unpunished. He will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. God is God. He is jealous of his honor. He will maintain his own greatness and glory. Puny man may rail and rant, may mock and curse, may blaspheme and ridicule, may seek to pull him from his throne, but such dreadful sin can only bring curses upon him who does it. This is, of course, true in the whole of our lives. How much more, therefore, ought not this to be true in our worship? As we have already pointed out, God has graciously taken people into his covenant fellowship to live with him in friendship, to talk with him and enjoy his companionship. But this very blessing does not breed in men an air of familiarity, quite the contrary. when we know what great depths of mercy and love, what great oceans of compassion and pity are involved in God coming down to us in Christ to take us into his own covenant fellowship. The reaction in the heart of every saved man can be nothing but awe and profound wonder at the greatness of it all. It is almost too good to be true. It is almost more than we can bear. Has the living God indeed done this for us, poor, wretched, undeserving sinners? He has, praise to his glorious name. that awe and reverence is an essential characteristic of all worship. This is true in the service we give God in all our lives. If it does not characterize our prayers, these become a mockery. If it is not the deepest principle of all our lives, we will not have the spiritual motivation to walk in the ways of the precepts of our God. But if this is true in all our life, it ought especially to be true when we come together with God's people to worship him and his house. All of worship must reflect this fear, or it is no worship at all. An atmosphere of reverence must pervade all the worship of God's people. The prayers that are made, the songs that are sung, the words of the minister, the congregation must all express that awe without which it is impossible to please God. And then when fear, true fear is present, we will enjoy the blessedness of God's favor and love, the great wonder of his grace in taking us into his covenant fellowship. The wonder of this is so great that eternity itself will not be long enough to give praise to him who has so abundantly blessed us.