Welcome to Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad. God's Word is a lamp on our pathway. It's a guide for our feet. And the entrance of His Word grants understanding, knowledge of God. It imparts understanding even to the simple. Today's topic is holiness and worship. That is the holiness of God and our worship of Him as His people. As you go into your church, the assembly where you gather with other believers, what do you see in front of you? What you see in front of you gives you an indication of what is believed in that church and of how the worship of God is conducted. Now, you may not have paid much attention to it, but in today's world, there's a lot of people that are beginning to pay attention to it. You see, a recent article in Christianity Today and some other journals have indicated how a number of younger Christians in the 30s, et cetera, are beginning to look elsewhere for worship because they feel a sense of the loss of the presence of God in the assembly. Now this is tragic because we should, when we go into the place where the church gathers, feel that this is a special place where God's people come together and where they offer to him the worship that's due his name. Perhaps one of the elements that's missing is a sense of awe. a sense of reverence, a sense of the presence of the holiness of God in the place where God's people gather. The furniture and its arrangement should tell us something about God and about what goes on there. But what do we see in so many churches today? When you walk in the church, you see the platform or the stage. And on it, you see all the musical instruments that might be employed and a microphone. That's basically what you see. You don't see anything that speaks to you of what's going to happen outside of singing in that meeting. Where is the symbol of the preaching of the word of God? Where is the symbol of the practice of the Lord's Supper? Where is the symbol of the open Bible that should be declared in the assembly of God's people? They're missing. And why are they missing? It's because the elements of worship have become centered on the stage, on performers. Now, they may not say that, and that may not even be their intention. but they are what we call the worship team. And we often speak about the singing as worship, and then we treat the preaching as something different or something that's added on. Now, if this is true in your experience of church, I want you to think about what the word of God says about holiness, the holiness of God and the worship of God. Because you see, if we get a hold of the holiness of God and the fact that when God's people gather, they're gathering before and in the presence of the holy God who is meeting with them, this will add a great dimension to what we're expecting and to our experience of worship. The psalmists were aware of the holiness of God and they wrote about them. Psalm 22 speaks about, to God, you are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel. So they understood that this attribute of God, of holiness, entitles him to be worshiped. In fact, it calls forth his worship. Psalm 99, let them praise your great and awesome name. He is holy. or verse five of Psalm 99, exalt the Lord, exalt Yahweh our God, and worship at His footstool. He is holy. Verse nine, exalt Yahweh our God, and worship at His holy hill, for Yahweh our God is holy. We, in our churches today, must recapture a sense of awe at the holiness of God, and that when we come together for corporate worship, we're coming before the presence of the holy and majestic God. Now, how do we do that? Well, we do it by how we begin worship. We must begin worship with a declaration concerning God. We must begin worship with something that separates what we have been doing with what we're now going to do. We're now going to offer God concentrated worship as a people of God gathered before him, gathered before his word so that we might hear him speak and gathered with our hearts humbled in his presence, that we might acknowledge him for who he is and we might hear what he has to say to us today. King David wrote in Psalm 29, given to the Lord, the glory that's due His name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Now we understand the beauty of holiness to be that inter-character that God gives to us in regeneration and in a life that's sanctified before Him, that is a life that's separated unto His honor and glory. But even in David's day, the beauty of holiness also spoke of the dress of the priest. Now, I'm not advocating that we go back to the dress of the priest of the old covenant. That was the old covenant. But in the new covenant, we do have a dress, the dress of the righteousness of God. And we have the dress of a holy life that appears before God, seeking his presence, a life that's marked out as separated and belonging to God. I think that we can learn lessons about the holdings of God in worship by looking at some examples of how this occurred in the Bible. There's a scoundrel in the book of Genesis. His name is Jacob. Now, I call him a scoundrel because in many ways he was. His attitude, his action were often not very godly at all. But you know, he was one of God's chosen. because God revealed himself as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And to Abraham and these descendants, his son and then grandson, he renewed the covenant that he had made, the Abrahamic covenant. So each of them have an experience of the worship of Almighty God. And when Jacob was running away from his brother Laban after having stolen his birthright, he got to a place that was in the ancient days called Luz. He took a pillow, a stone for a pillow, and laid his head on it, and he went to sleep. Now that must have been a really hard sleep. But at any rate, he had a dream during the night. In the dream, he saw a ladder that came down from heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on the ladder. And so Jacob awoke in the morning from his sleep. And he was aware of this dream. He was aware of the presence of God, that God was in that place. He woke up from his sleep, Genesis 28, and he said, surely Yahweh, surely the Lord is in this place. And I did not know it. And he was afraid. And he said, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God. And this is the gate of heaven. And he worshiped there at that place and made a vow before God. Now go ahead, some 400 years. And Moses, now the age of approximately 80, out on the hillside, keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. And he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, and he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush." Now, that's the angel of Yahweh. It's the very presence of Yahweh in that bush. Moses looked in the distance. He saw this bush catch on fire, but he noticed that he kept burning and burning and burning. It never tend to be consumed. He looked and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And so Moses said, I'll turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called him out of the bush. Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am. And he said to him, do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. and Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. And as you go on to read in that account, God reveals to Moses his name as he calls Moses to go back to Egypt as the deliverer for the people to bring them out of Egypt and out of bondage to worship him on that very mountain. These are examples of the worship of God And as people enter the presence of God, it calls for reverence. It calls for holiness. It calls for an awareness that God is present among his people. And he summons us to give him praise. He summons us to hear his word. He summons us to have a transaction with him. the transaction of listening, the transaction of faith, the transaction of obedience, the transaction of submission, the transaction of confession. We're there to do holy business with God. We need to enter the presence of God with that awareness. And what's around us, how things are organized should speak to us of why we are there and of the holy transactions that are to take place. One of my favorite examples of how God's presence impacts us in worship is found in the book of Isaiah, chapter six. You see, Isaiah was what we would call the court chaplain. He was one who was the minister of God. He also was a prophet of God, and he spoke to the king on God's behalf. And in the year that this king died, King Uzziah, who overall was a rather good king, I saw the Sovereign setting upon the throne. Not Uzziah, but Jehovah God. The Lord setting upon the throne, high and lifted up, as the train of His robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim, each had six wings, and with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew. And one called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. The foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me, for I am lost. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal, that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and he said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. And then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And then I said, here am I, send me. All we need to be aware that when we come into the presence of God in the sanctuary where God's people meet, that place is set aside for a meeting with God. We need to know we're there to do business with the Holy One. We need to hear the calls to worship. They need to signal. This is special time. You're now with God. Behold the Lord. Yahweh reigns. Let the people tremble. He sits enthroned among the cherubim. Let the earth be moved. Worship Yahweh and the splendor of holiness tremble before him all the earth. Who would not fear, O Lord? and glorify your name, for you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. Who is like you? Yahweh among the gods. Who is like you? Glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. Remember, we're gathered before God. We're gathered before him to give him praise and honor. We're gathered before him to hear him speak to us. We do not need to have to be moved by emotion in song to indicate that. We need to be aware by the proclamation of the word from beginning to end that God is in our midst and we are there to do worship before him. Therefore, let us be grateful, the writer of the Hebrew says, for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. This has been Wayne Conrad with Bible Insights, indicating to you from the word of God that the worship of God must be in the spirit of holiness, of awe and reverence before the holy God with whom we have to do.