Now, this morning I'd like to preach on the subject of worship.
That's a term that we've all heard many times, but sometimes the words that we hear the most,
we don't stop to think about what they really mean and what they entail.
Now, go back if you would to the book of Genesis.
In the book of Genesis, we can find one of the main definitions of worship in the Bible.
In fact, three out of four times that the Bible uses the word worship in Genesis, this
is what it means to basically bow down before someone.
Now, if you would, go back to Genesis 24 and I'll show you that, beginning in verse number
26 there.
The Bible reads in Genesis 24, 26, and the man bowed down his head and worshipped the
Lord.
Go to verse 48 of the same chapter.
And I bowed down my head and worshipped the Lord and blessed the Lord God of my master
Abraham which had led me in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto
his son.
Go back to verse 52, and it came to pass that when Abraham's servant heard their words,
he worshipped the Lord, bowing himself to the earth.
Now, this is one of the main definitions of worship in the Bible, bowing down.
Now, a lot of people have questioned, you know, why do we bow our heads when we pray
unto the Lord?
I've even heard some people criticize, you know, bowing your head when you pray to the
Lord.
Nothing could be more biblical.
Over and over again, the Bible gives us examples of not only bowing our heads, but also getting
down on our faces before the Lord to worship Him.
You don't have to turn to these.
If you would, flip over to 2 Chronicles chapter 29, and while you do that, I'll read for you
some of these other verses that are along the same lines.
Exodus 4 31, and the people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had visited
the children of Israel and that He had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their
heads and worshiped.
So notice, worshipping and bowing down are used over and over again together.
Exodus 12 27, that ye shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover who passed
over the houses of the children of Israel and Egypt when He smote the Egyptians and
delivered our houses, and the people bowed the head and worshiped.
Exodus 34 8, Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
Joshua 5 14, and he said, nay, but as the captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship and said unto him, what sayeth
my Lord unto his servant?
In 2 Chronicles 20, it said, Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and
all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshiping the Lord.
Look down at verse 29 where you are there in chapter 29, and when they had made an end
of offering, the king and all that were present with him bowed themselves and worshiped.
Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto
the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer, and they sang praises with gladness
and they bowed their heads and worshiped.
Flip over to Psalm 99.
While you're turning there I'll read for you Nehemiah 8 6, and Ezra blessed the Lord
the great God and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands and
they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
Job, in chapter 1 verse 20, arose and rent his mantle and shaved his head and fell down
upon the ground and worshiped.
Look down at your Bible there in Psalm 99, verse 5, exalt ye.
This is a command, exalt ye the Lord our God and worship at his footstool for he is holy.
Notice we are being commanded to worship at his footstool, which implies again kneeling,
bowing down, getting on our faces.
It says, O come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker.
So this is something that should be a part of our lives.
We're commanded in the Bible to worship the Lord and part of our worship for the Lord
should be bowing down, kneeling before him, prostrating ourselves on our face.
Now again, a big part of this is in private.
See a lot of people, they only want to do things publicly to be seen of men.
The Bible talked about the Pharisees.
They would love to pray publicly and make long prayers and I just preached about this
on Wednesday night.
If you were here on Wednesday night, you know what I'm talking about because we talked about
Zechariah chapter 7 and the fasting where they would fast in order to be seen of men.
It's so funny because there's a Muslim guy who for some bizarre reason listens to all
of my sermons even though he's a devout Muslim and he's always commenting on YouTube about
you know how Islam is the only true religion, all this nonsense, but he leaves a comment
on the Zechariah chapter 7 sermon that said, you know, this just shows how Islam is the
true religion because we fast more than anyone.
And I'm thinking I'd say, wow, this sermon just went over your head.
The whole sermon was about all the scriptures that talk about how people who fast are often
being a hypocrite and they want everybody to know about it and God said when you fast,
you should not appear unto men to fast and you should hide that and do that between you
and the Lord and so forth.
And the Muslims are also hypocrites about this where they'll just kneel in the middle
of the sidewalk.
They'll just drop to their faces on the middle of the sidewalk or just publicly five times
a day, just an outward show.
And you know what?
You can sit there and bow your head to the ground five times a day for the rest of your
life.
You're going to split hell wide open if you don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
And it's not enough to say, oh, Jesus is a prophet.
No, he's the prophet.
He's the Son of God and Mohammed is nothing before him.
And so this, you know, dropping to your face publicly.
I've heard some people say, well, don't bow down when you pray because that's Muslim to
do that.
But it's not.
No, it's only Muslim to do it if you're a hypocrite that wants everybody to see you
doing it.
But you know, in the privacy of our homes and the privacy of the prayer closet, we should
get down on our knees and pray to the Lord.
Bow down to the Lord on our faces.
And I'm not saying it'd be wrong to kneel with others too in public.
But remember, according to the Bible, most of our prayers should be done in private.
Public prayer should be short and sweet.
The prayers that we do in private is the major praying that we do to our Father in secret.
But we should be on our knees.
Let me ask you this, and it's a rhetorical question, but when was the last time you got
on your knees to pray?
When was the last time you got on your face?
When was the last time you bowed down to pray?
This is a biblical practice.
It shows humility.
And often, the posture of our body will affect how we feel in our heart.
And when we get down on our knees, when we get down on our faces before God, that does
something for us spiritually because it puts us in a humble position before God.
Again, not to put on a show, hey everybody, look how humble I am, you know, that's kind
of the opposite of what you're accomplishing when you're trying to bow down, get on your
face, prostrate yourself before the Lord.
You know, when God's telling us over and over again to worship Him, worship the Lord in
spirit and in truth, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, part of that involves
getting on our knees, bowing down.
That's a big part of worship, isn't it?
Look at all these verses that we're seeing.
Flip over to chapter 132 there in Psalms.
Psalm 132 verse 7.
While you're turning there, I'll read for you a verse from the New Testament.
This is from the New Testament.
1 Corinthians 14 verse 25.
And thus the secrets of his heart are made manifest.
And so falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth.
Now look at Psalm 132 verse 7.
We will go into his tabernacles.
We will worship at his footstool.
Now let's look at Jesus being worshipped in the New Testament.
Go to Matthew chapter 2.
Matthew chapter 2.
The New Testament, of course, places great emphasis on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that he has been given a name.
God has given him a name that is above every name.
That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Now there are false teachers out there that teach that Jesus is not God.
That Jesus is not divine.
That he's basically just a human being who was the son of God, but that he is not God
in the flesh.
He's not divine.
They don't believe in the deity of Christ.
Now that's a false doctrine.
Over and over again the Bible teaches it.
We just saw it in Hebrews 1.8 when the Bible said, but unto the Son he saith, thy throne
O God is forever and ever.
General chapters later in Hebrews chapter 3, the Bible says of Jesus, for this man was
counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more
honor than the house.
For every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God.
So he says right there, Jesus is to Moses as the guy who built the house is to the house.
Jesus is the creator.
Colossians chapter 1 spells out that by him all things were created.
Jesus is the creator.
Without him was not made anything that was made the Bible says.
And so Jesus is God.
There are many scriptures that tell us, for example, 1 Timothy 3.16, God was manifest
in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed
on in the world, and received up into glory.
That's Jesus that did all those things.
It says God was manifest in the flesh.
In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we beheld his glory, the glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth.
The Bible says, for there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and
the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
So Jesus Christ was God in the flesh.
And evidence of that is that Jesus is worshipped throughout the New Testament.
He's frequently worshipped.
Now remember what Jesus told Satan, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt
thou serve.
And he's quoting the Old Testament there, he's quoting Deuteronomy.
So look what the Bible says in Matthew chapter 2.
You don't have to get very far in the New Testament before Jesus starts being worshipped
in the New Testament.
And you'll notice that he never corrects anyone for worshipping him.
He always accepts and receives their worship, because he's worthy of worship.
In fact, by the way, do you know where the word worship comes from?
It actually comes from worth, worth-ship, being worthy.
Worthy is the lamb to receive glory and honor and power.
The Bible says that he's worthy, and he receives worship gladly in the New Testament.
He never corrects anyone.
In fact, sometimes people even tried to get him to correct people.
For example, the Pharisees said, you need to tell these people to stop praising you
like this.
And he said if they would stop, then the rocks would cry out, right?
But look what it says in Matthew 2.1, not very far into the New Testament, are we?
He's a baby, and he's being worshipped.
Now when Jesus was born, verse 1, in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold
there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, where is he that is born king of the
Jews?
For we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him.
I mean, he's just been born, and they say, let's go worship him.
I mean, this is how the New Testament begins.
Flip over to chapter 4, and again we see this scripture in verse 8.
And by the way, while you're turning there, I forgot to show you in verse 11 of chapter
2, when the wise men get there, it says when they were coming to the house, they saw the
young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshipped him, okay?
But look at Matthew 4, it says in verse 8, again the devil taketh them up into an exceeding
high mountain and showeth them all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith
unto him, all these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Again, notice bowing down is associated with worship.
And saith Jesus unto him, get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
So let me ask this, if him only shall we serve, why do we see so many people worshiping Jesus
even in the book of Matthew alone?
Because he is God in the flesh.
Look at chapter 8, verse 2.
You got to turn quickly on these.
Matthew 8, 2, and behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt,
thou canst make me clean.
And Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will, be thou clean.
And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Chapter 9, verse 18.
While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler and worshipped
him, saying, My daughter is even now dead, but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she
shall live.
Look at chapter 14.
Chapter 14, verse 33.
Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, of a truth, thou art the Son
of God.
You can look up all these passages.
You'll never find Jesus correcting these people and saying, well, don't worry, only worship
God.
Hey, get thee hence.
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
You just see him just accepting the worship.
In fact, he's pleased with the worship.
Why?
Because he's worthy.
Look at chapter 15, verse 22.
And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried in it.
This is just in the book of Matthew alone.
Cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David.
My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil.
But he answered her not a word.
And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away, for she crieth after us.
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it
to dogs.
And she said, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's
table.
Then Jesus answered and said to her, O woman, great is thy faith.
Be it even unto thee as thou wilt.
And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
Now look, Jesus praising this woman and saying that she has great faith.
One of the things that she did was worship him.
And he never says, Don't worship me.
Look at chapter 20, verse 20.
And remember, this is the verse that, this is the book of the Bible that told us that
we should only worship God, and then he's being worshipped in every other chapter.
Look at verse 20 of chapter 20.
Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him and desiring
a certain thing of him.
Then chapter 28 is the last place, Matthew 28.
Isn't there just a mountain of evidence here?
It's everywhere.
Matthew 28, verse 9, and as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them,
saying all hail.
And they came and held him by the feet and worshipped him.
Now again, if you're holding him by the feet while you worship him, where are you?
You're down on your face.
You're down on the ground.
You're kneeling.
You're bowing.
They're bowing to Jesus.
They're holding him by the feet.
The only problem was that some doubted.
Look at verse 17.
And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted, okay?
Worship was appropriate for Jesus.
You'll find the same thing in Mark.
You'll find the same thing in Luke, other scriptures about Jesus being worshipped.
In the book of John, Jesus is worshipped.
Over and over again, we see these things.
Then if you would, go to John chapter 20.
Show you one last thing here.
John chapter 20.
While you're turning to John 20, I'll read for you from John 9, where when Jesus had
heard that they had cast out this man who was healed, when he had found him, he said
unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?
And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.
And he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him.
Look at John chapter 20, verse 27.
Then saith he to Thomas, this is Jesus speaking, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands,
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing.
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
Now I've heard people just try to grasp at straws when they're in a cult like the Jehovah's
Witnesses where they don't believe that Jesus is God.
I mean, what do you do with this verse?
Here's Thomas saying, My Lord and my God.
And then what does Jesus answer?
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed.
What's the evidence that he believed?
That he's calling him Lord and God?
Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.
You know what I've heard some people say from the Jehovah's false witnesses?
Because they don't know what to do with this verse.
So they said, Oh, he's just taking God's name in vain there.
You know how people would take God's name in vain where they just say like, Oh, my God.
Like he's just using Jesus' name, God's name as an expletive there, just Oh, my God, my
Lord.
I mean, isn't that just ridiculous?
That's the kind of ridiculous things people come up with when they don't want to give
Jesus the glory that he deserves.
Blessed was Thomas for realizing that he was the Lord and that he was God in the flesh.
But I've heard them say that, you know, he's just blurting that out.
I mean, what kind of nonsense?
But anyway, go if you would to Acts chapter 10.
And I'll read for you again Hebrews 1 where we started.
It says this, listen to this verse as you're turning.
And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the
angels of God worship him.
So it's not that Jesus was just worshiped by human beings where, you know, maybe the
Jehovah's false witnesses would just say, Oh, well, these people are just getting too
excited and they're going overboard, even though he never corrects them, even though
it's every chapter almost, okay.
They'll say, Oh, they're going overboard.
Yeah, but when Jesus came into the world, the Father said, let all the angels of God
worship him.
Let all the angels of God worship Jesus.
That's coming from the mouth of the Father himself.
Now let's contrast that with preachers in the Bible, preachers, apostles.
Did they allow people to worship them?
Look at Acts chapter 10 verse 25.
And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped
him.
But Peter took him up saying, stand up, I myself also am a man.
Now look, there's a guy going around wearing a dress.
He calls himself father, but he dresses like he's mother.
People worship this guy and his name is the Pope.
And you say, well, they're not worshiping him.
Okay, were you not here for the last 20 minutes of the sermon?
Welcome to church this morning, because we just looked at how many verses that defined
worship as what?
Bowing down, kneeling, getting on your face, prostrating yourself.
Okay, what happened when somebody tried that with Peter?
Oh, oh, you know, and what did he do?
He grabbed him and he picked him up.
Who's ever seen the Pope grab somebody and pick him up when they bow down?
No, people worship the Pope.
And you can call it whatever you want, but if we use a biblical definition, if we study
what the Bible is showing here, he is worshiped.
He stands there and just kind of takes it all in as people bow down.
Look, he demanded in the Middle Ages that people would kiss his toe.
They would literally, because back in the Middle Ages, one way to show respect unto
someone was to kiss the hand.
And that kind of carried over even into modern times where men would sometimes kiss the hand
of a lady.
But kings and rulers and officials, often they would have their hand kissed as a form
of submission, but the Pope would literally take it a step further and have his foot kissed.
Can you imagine getting on your knees and kissing the foot of another man and saying,
oh, I'm not worshiping him?
It's nonsense.
Isn't it just ridiculous?
But this is what they're doing.
Now go to Revelation 19.
And by the way, isn't it interesting that they claim that Peter was the first Pope?
Well he's a little different than the current Pope, isn't he?
Humble, meek, picking people up and saying, no, I'm a man like you are, don't worship
me, get off your knees.
But yet Roman Catholicism will teach the worship of the Pope.
And you know, you can play word games with me, well, that's not what we worship.
Well, you know what, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
When you're putting up a picture of the guy, when you're lighting a candle, when you have
a literal statue or graven image or molten image of the guy, and you're bowing down and
lighting that candle and touching his feet and kissing his feet and crying and weeping
and wailing before him, you know what, you're worshiping him.
Don't be in denial.
What does it say in Revelation chapter 19 verse 10?
And I fell at his feet to worship him.
This is not Jesus.
And he said unto me, see, thou do it not.
I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus.
Worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Look at chapter 22, verse 8, and I, John, saw these things and heard them.
And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which
showed me these things.
Then sayeth the enemy, see, thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren
the prophets.
He's saying, look, I'm just a fellow preacher, don't bow down to me.
He said, and of thy brethren the prophets and of them which keep the sayings of this
book.
Worship God.
Look, don't worship me.
Worship God.
All right, that's what they're saying.
Don't bow down to me.
Don't worship me.
Now here's a couple of verses that can be misunderstood on worship, okay?
Go back to 1 Chronicles 29, 20.
And the reason I want to show you these is because I know that sometimes when I read
these verses I was confused at a time, but then later I understood what the verses meant.
And so I figure if they confused me they might have confused someone else in their
Bible reading.
These are some verses that could be misunderstood and I've actually seen someone also misconstrue
these verses.
So let's look at these verses and answer the objections here.
1 Chronicles 29, verse 20 says this, And David said to all the congregation, Now bless the
Lord your God.
And all the congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers and bowed down their
heads and worshiped the Lord and the king.
Now a lot of people have misread this and I know that sometimes when I was listening
to this on an audio Bible sometimes the way that it was read on the audio book would sometimes
be almost misleading a little bit because they would read it like they worshiped God
and they worshiped the Lord and the king like they're worshiping both God and King David.
Because people were pretty excited about David.
But actually notice the comma there, do you see that comma?
It's saying they worshiped the Lord, comma, and the king.
What that means is that the king also worshiped the Lord.
Okay, because he's basically telling them, hey look everybody, you guys need to all worship
the Lord and then he also worships the Lord along with them.
So let's read it again.
It says, David said to all the congregation, Now bless the Lord your God.
And all the congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers and bowed down their
heads and worshiped the Lord and the king.
That's why, because if you took out the comma then it would be like they worshiped the Lord
and the king.
But what it's saying is they worshiped the Lord and the king also worshiped the Lord
along with them.
Go to Psalm 45.
You see, first of all, it was never God's will that there be an earthly king anyway
besides Jesus.
Because when God set up the nation of Israel, he ordained that they would be ruled over
by judges.
And the judges were not these type of men that would be bowed down to and worshiped
and revered and exalted too much.
It was never God's will to have a king in the first place.
Because if you give somebody that much power and that much praise, it can go to their head.
And they can become, in their mind, lifted up and exalted and to the point where they
would even be willing to receive worship.
But I don't believe that that's true about David because of the fact that, you know,
that comma is there.
Now if you would look at Psalm 45, this is another verse that could be misunderstood
or misconstrued.
And it says in verse 11 here, So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty, for he is
thy Lord, and worship thou him.
So this is another verse that would be about King David in a sense because of the fact
that he's the king of Israel at the time.
Look at verse 1.
It says, My heart is indicting a good matter.
I speak of the things which I have made touching the king.
My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
Now this scripture is a bit of a love story in a sense because it basically, and for sake
of time I'll just kind of explain it to you.
You can study this all more on your own.
But it's talking about basically the king taking a queen.
And it's talking about how she's basically coming from another country.
So sort of like Song of Solomon, it's this kind of love song between the king and the
bride.
But there's a symbolism also that has to do with, you know, Christ and the church.
You know, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, for example.
So there is a deeper meaning here in this passage.
But it's telling her, you know, hey, forget the country that you came from.
Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children and, you know, you're going to come here and
you're going to be happy and the king's going to exalt you.
It's going to be great.
And obviously there's a lot of symbolism that goes deeper that's referring to Jesus and
the church.
Okay?
Here's some evidence for that.
Look at verse number six.
What does the verse say in number six?
Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.
Sound familiar?
The scepter of thy kingdom is a right scepter.
Thou lovest righteousness and hatest iniquity, or wickedness, I'm quoting Hebrews.
It says, hatest wickedness, therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of
gladness above thy fellows.
Now this exact quote is found in Hebrews 1, 8, and 9.
About who?
It's referred to Jesus.
So we have concrete proof that Psalm 45 is directing us toward Jesus.
And often scriptures in the Old Testament will have a double meaning.
They'll have a literal meaning to the people that we're talking to right then and there,
but then they have a double meaning that applies to Jesus.
Why?
Because the whole Bible's about Jesus.
The Bible says, to him give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth
in him shall receive remission of sins.
That's what all the prophets are preaching about.
So there's often a secondary meaning that points us to Jesus.
This one is crystal clear because it's a direct quote in Hebrews about Jesus.
But if we look at the verse in question itself, it says in Psalm 45, 11, so shall the king
greatly desire thy beauty.
Now this would imply a literal interpretation because of the fact that we're talking about
a man and a woman.
And obviously a husband should greatly desire his wife's beauty, right?
In a healthy marriage relationship, the husband should look upon his wife with great desire
and the wife should look upon her husband with great desire.
We should not look on someone else's wife with desire, but we should look upon our own
wife and our own husband respectively with desire.
So that would imply a literal interpretation when it says, so shall the king greatly desire
thy beauty for he is thy Lord and worship thou him.
So you say, you know, Pastor Anderson, is this teaching worship of man, worship of the
king, worship of King David, worship of human being?
Well no, because number one, first of all, there's a prophetic meaning here in the passage
about Jesus being worshiped, number one.
And that is pictured in the husband-wife relationship because husbands are to love their wives as
Christ loved the church.
The wife is to submit to her husband, right, as the church is subject unto Christ in all
things.
So therefore in the husband-wife relationship, the husband does represent the Lord.
That's why Sarah even called her husband Lord, because he's in authority, he's the head.
And the relationship between husband and wife is a picture of the relationship between Christ
and the church.
Okay.
So here's the thing.
The husband has more authority over his wife and is to be reverenced by her, and is to
reverence her husband, right?
But hold on a second, outside of the marriage, that would be totally inappropriate.
For example, the Bible says, see that the wife reverenced her husband, okay, and she
calls him Lord and everything else, but hold on a second.
Would it be appropriate to call the pastor of the church Lord?
Would it be appropriate to even call him reverend?
I don't even, you know, I'm not against people who use the term reverend.
I don't get mad at people if they say reverend.
But honestly, I prefer not to use the term reverend because I feel that it's too strong
of a term to use for a pastor.
I believe in respecting the pastor and honoring the man of God.
He's counted worthy of double honor, the Bible says.
But you don't want it to go over the top, do you?
Now who's the guy that takes it way over the top?
The pope.
Yeah, I mean, where people are making graven images of him, they're bowing down to him,
they're kissing his feet.
But here's the thing.
We need to make sure that we don't take even a Baptist pastor that we should look up to.
Great.
You want to follow him as he follows Christ and you want to give him honor and respect,
but wait a minute, you don't want to go over the top.
You don't want to make a statue of him.
You don't need to have a picture of him in a shrine in your home with a little candle
in front of it or something.
No.
Whoa.
That's crazy.
You don't want to go over the, and I feel like titles like Reverend are over, because
if God doesn't want us to call the pastor master, should we call the pastor master?
No.
Rabbi?
No.
Father?
No.
What should we call?
Pastor.
Or brother.
Brother Anderson, right?
Brother Anderson.
But don't call me Father Anderson.
I don't want to be called Reverend Anderson.
Don't call me Master or Lord.
Don't bow to me.
Don't kiss my hand, for crying out loud.
You know?
And definitely don't kiss my feet.
The bottom line is that we don't want to go overboard in exalting man, do we?
We don't want to go overboard and exalt man.
We want to worship God only.
We want to worship Jesus, okay?
Now, the closest thing to that in this life is the reverence that a wife should have for
her husband.
It goes beyond what a church member has for their pastor.
It goes beyond what a child has for their parent.
Okay, it's short of what God gets.
God gets the supreme worship along with Jesus, of course, these three are one.
So anyway, I just wanted to point out those scriptures that could be misconstrued.
I know that when I read Psalm 45 and when I read 1 Chronicles, I asked myself, you know,
are they worshiping David?
Or are they worshiping the king?
But honestly, it's not the case.
You know, the worship goes to the Lord, not a man should not bow down before another man
and worship him.
Okay, also we see the whole book of Esther where the whole controversy is about the fact
that Mordecai doesn't want to bow down to Haman because he doesn't want to bow down
and worship somebody.
What about the three children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?
They don't want to bow down before the graven image that had been set up.
And with that, let's talk about worshiping graven images.
Go to Exodus chapter 20.
So just while you're turning to Exodus 20, I'll just give you a quick review here.
In the Bible, the thing that is most associated with the word worship, the thing that is tied
in the closest is bowing down, getting on your knees, or being on your face.
That is worship.
Okay, we saw that we should worship the Lord, we're commanded to worship the Lord, this
should be a part of our lives, to get on our knees before the Lord and bow to him.
We also saw that Jesus is worthy of that same worship.
No question about that.
Plenty of scripture on that.
But then we saw some people that are not worthy of that kind of worship.
And that would be religious leaders, pastors, priests, the Pope, are not worthy to be worshiped.
They should rebuke anyone who tries to worship them and they should follow Peter's example
in doing that.
And now let me show you that another thing that we should not bow down and worship, besides
worshiping religious leaders or political leaders, another thing that we should not
do is we should not bow down ourselves before any image.
Now look what the Bible says in Exodus chapter 20 verse 4.
This is the Ten Commandments.
And this is the Second Commandment.
And it says this in verse 4, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in
the water under the earth.
So we should not make a statue, is what it's saying, of any animal, male or female, or
of any human being, male or female.
It says, Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.
So this thing of, oh well, you know, when I bow down to the statue of Saint so-and-so,
I'm not really worshiping.
Well what does the Bible say?
It just says don't bow down.
Don't make a graven image, number one.
And don't bow down to a graven image or serve it.
You know, whether you want to delude yourself and say, well I'm not really worshiping Saint
so-and-so, or I'm not really worshiping Mary, look, if you're bowing down to a statue of
Mary, you are in violation of this scripture.
If you are bowing down before a statue of the saints, or a statue of a long-haired pothead
that you call Jesus, because Jesus is not a long-haired pothead, sissy, weirdo.
But that's who they make images of.
This blonde-haired, blue-eyed hippie, right?
This long-haired hippie.
The Bible says it's a shame for a man to have long hair.
That they have this guy that was literally invented, literally, about 1,500 years after
Jesus walked the earth.
About 1,500 years later.
I mean, those pictures weren't painted around the time of Christ.
Those pictures were painted in the Renaissance, okay?
We're talking 15th, 16th century, when we start seeing the current image of Jesus.
And he's painted by white Europeans, so they paint him snow white.
He's painted by sodomite homos, so they paint him like a homo.
That's why he looks like a girly-man.
Girly-man, you know.
It's true.
Why?
Because people, when they make an idol, they like to make God in their image.
See, God created man in his own image.
Man likes to turn that around and say, I'm going to create God in my image.
This is why we're not supposed to make any graven image.
We're not supposed to bow down before images.
Look, God said when you went to Mount Sinai and you got to take commandments from the
mouth of God, you saw no similitude.
You saw no image, Moses.
Don't make an image.
My word is my image.
You know, that's what we should think of as the Lord.
His word is where we get a picture.
The picture of faith.
Now one day we will see him and physically lay eyes on him.
What a day that will be.
But until then, we're not to make any images or likenesses on this earth of Jesus.
He, you know, he, did you notice that the Bible never gives a physical description?
It never tells us he's thin, he's stout, he's athletic, he's tall, he's short, he's brown
haired, blond.
It doesn't give us any physical description until he's glorified and then he transcends
human description where he's just white and eyes like fire.
You know, nothing like a human being would naturally look.
He's just glowing and so forth.
Now Jesus, if he, by the way, if you go to a black church, they'll paint a black Jesus.
You go to a Chinese church and it's a Chinese Jesus.
I've seen it.
You go, you know, there's the Indian Jesus.
If you go to India, they got the Indian Jesus.
And we have the, you know, the white Jesus, right?
You say, well, which one is it?
And people literally get in arguments like, Jesus was white, no, he's black.
No, he's brown.
No, he's Asian.
I mean, I had somebody tell me that Jesus was a Hungarian.
I'm like, come on.
What in the world?
You know, you're taking your national pride a little farther, buddy.
That's probably the last theory I'm going to believe, that he was a Hungarian.
You know, but there are people out there, guess what, there are Hungarians that said
that.
Does that shock you?
That it was a Hungarian who said, Jesus is a Hungarian.
You know, why?
Because people just want to make this image that conforms to what they want him to be.
They're a little queer little sissy, then that's what they make a picture of.
And if you doubt that Michelangelo and Leonardo and the rest of the Ninja Turtles, no, I'm
just kidding.
But if you think that these painters from the Renaissance were straight, yeah, you're
pretty gullible.
They weren't.
I mean, that's a whole sermon on those guys.
Those freaks.
But the point is, we should not bow down.
It's real clear, isn't it?
Don't make a graven image.
Don't make a molten image.
And then he says, verse 5 there, look down at your Bible, thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them.
For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
Now you say, well, what do Catholics do with this?
With all their graven images and molten images and bowing down into them?
What's the deal?
Well, here's what they do.
They've modified the Ten Commandments.
Now what they'll do, believe it or not, they'll absorb this commandment into the first commandment.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
So if you look at a Catholic list of the Ten Commandments, it won't include the graven
image commandment.
Because they'll just absorb it as like part B of the no other gods before me.
So then what they'll say is, well, no, no, no, this is only applying to other gods, because
they merge them.
Well, here's the problem with that.
Did you know that God is the one who told us that it's ten?
We didn't just count.
And oh, ten.
No, no, no.
God called it in Deuteronomy 10-4.
It's easy to remember because it's like, 10-4, over, you know.
So that's how I remember it.
Deuteronomy 10-4, he said, these Ten Commandments.
So he calls it the Ten Commandments in the Bible in Deuteronomy 10-4.
So the Catholics are kind of in a bad place here because they're left with nine.
Because they absorbed it into one.
So they said, okay, what are we going to do to fix this?
They're going to have to cut another commandment in half.
Right?
In order to kind of, it's sort of like when you take a piece of pizza when you weren't
supposed to, and there's like a missing piece of pizza, and then you're kind of like, okay,
take the biggest piece, cut it in half, and then kind of shift everything around so that
every piece has just a little, that's kind of what the Catholics are trying to pull out.
Like a corrupt pizza delivery driver, okay, is what they're doing, who's taking a little
off the top, as it were.
So here's what they do.
They take the Tenth Commandment and cut it in half.
But they weren't as smooth as that pizza guy because look at verse 17.
It says, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that
is thy neighbor's.
Okay, okay, let's isolate out of this the big one, coveting your neighbor's wife, and
let's make that its own commandment.
But what's dumb is that if you make that the Ninth Commandment, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's wife, then basically the Tenth Commandment is basically surrounding it.
Do you see that?
Because look at verse 17, wife's not the first thing.
So it's like, okay, commandment 8, and then it's like, okay, commandment 10, thou shalt
not covet thy neighbor's house, okay, wait, back up, commandment 9, thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor's wife, okay, we're 10B, nor his manservant, I mean these are the kind
of acrobatics that they have to like, you know, okay, we're going to go commandment
8, and then 10, and then 9, and then 10, you know, and it's just like, why?
Just because we just love statues.
We just love making sculptures and bowing down to saints and Mary.
We just love idolatry so much that we have to find a way to make it justified.
I mean, isn't that just an acrobatics that they're doing there?
But see, the New Testament quotes the list of the latter five commandments, and it just
shortens it to thou shalt not covet, period.
God's just listing examples, we're not supposed to covet, period.
That's how it's quoted in Romans 13 and elsewhere.
Now I've got to hurry, I'm almost out of time, but let's talk briefly about how else do we
worship the Lord besides bowing down?
Because so far we've shown just a multitude of scriptures where the main form of worship
is bowing, kneeling.
And what does that mean?
We're being humble.
We're showing reverence, respect, and so forth.
But what's another way that we could worship the Lord besides that?
Well, go if you would to Psalm 66, Psalm 66, and I'll show you another way to worship
the Lord besides bowing down.
Because we're commanded to worship the Lord.
We should desire to worship Him.
We must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
And so, how do we do that?
How do we fulfill this commandment in our lives?
We don't want to do it wrong, or we don't want to just not do it.
We need to worship Him, it's a command, it's imperative.
Worship the Lord, it says, over and over again.
Well another way that we worship the Lord besides bowing down is through singing, according
to the Bible.
It says in Psalm 66, 4, all the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee, they
shall sing to thy name, Selah.
Second Chronicles 29, you don't have to turn there, you turn to Ephesians 5.
You turn to Ephesians 5.
Second Chronicles 29, 28 says, and all the congregation worshiped, and the singers sang,
and the trumpeters sounded, and all this continued until the burnt offering was finished.
So there's another place where worshiping is tied in with singing, praises unto the
Lord.
Of course, we could go all through the book of Psalms, all the places that talk about
praising the Lord, worshiping the Lord, and singing unto Him in the same breath.
But here's a good New Testament passage to apply this to our lives.
It says in verse 18, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with
the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and don't miss
this last part, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
Now I think a lot of people come to church and they sing the hymns, or even come to church
and play a piano or play a guitar or a trumpet or some other instrument, and maybe sometimes
it's easy to lose sight of the fact that they're supposed to be singing unto the Lord
in their heart.
We're supposed to be doing it unto the Lord, not just going through the motions, not just
entertainment, not just cheer and fun and, oh, I like this song, but actually to be singing
unto the Lord.
It's supposed to be something that's honoring unto the Lord.
And the Bible says, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
Obviously this is not limited to the church.
The Bible does say in the midst of the church, I will sing praise unto thee.
But even in our daily lives, one way that we can worship the Lord is by singing praises
to his name.
He's glorified when we give him worship in that way.
It says, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
And I wonder if someone is singing to the Lord when they're like, praise the Lord, praise
the Lord, let the earth hear his voice, praise the Lord, praise the Lord.
You know, or somebody's on a piano and just kind of, I mean, is that, are you really doing
your best?
Are you really singing unto the Lord?
Can you honestly say that when we say, hey, turn in the hymnal of this song that you're
really singing your best?
That you're really singing out from the heart and that you're really making melody in your
heart to the Lord?
You say, well, I'm just doing it in my heart only.
That's why you don't hear me.
But here's the thing, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, not just making
melody, sing.
The Bible says to lift up our voices and praise the Lord.
The Bible says that the musicians should play skillfully with a loud noise.
The Bible says that we are to make a joyful noise, to lift up our voices and praise the
Lord and sing unto him from the heart, not a going through of the motions.
It's a form of worship.
Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, he's saying as we sing.
We find virtually the same thing in Colossians 3.16 where it says, teaching and admonishing
one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to
the Lord.
Now, what is a spiritual song?
A spiritual song would be opposed to a fleshly song, a carnal song, a worldly song.
Now, God is not glorified when we sing songs that have nothing to do with Jesus.
I don't care how good you sing, I don't care how good you play that instrument, unless
the song is about the Word of God or Jesus, he's not being worshiped, he's not being praised.
Okay?
Now, sometimes people might learn other songs as a learning tool, as a way to get better
at their instrument.
They might learn other songs just to practice.
You know, they might start with Row Your Boat or Three Blind Mice or whatever, and sometimes
people might branch out, but hold on a second though.
Every song, and I want you to listen carefully, anybody that's involved in any kind of music,
every song that is not a spiritual song is wood, hay, and stubble before the Lord, okay?
It's not gold, silver, and precious stones.
What do I mean by that?
What I mean is that it has no eternal value.
It's wood, hay, and stubble.
Now, there are many things that we do in our lives that have no eternal value, but don't
think that you're worshiping the Lord because you're not.
And also, we need to examine ourselves and wonder how much of our lives we spend on that
which is vain and worthless inside of God, versus how much time we spend on that which
has eternal value.
I believe that there's value in worshiping the Lord.
I believe it's beneficial.
It helps us be filled with the Spirit, but I don't see the value in just constant practicing
songs that don't matter.
I've seen so many people, they learn piano, and they spend so much time learning how to
play classical music on the piano, and I just have to ask myself, what is the point in the
end?
Because you know what?
And here's the thing.
Think about all the kids that are in high school band practice, and they're learning
their wind instruments, right?
And they play all the different songs, and correct me if I'm wrong, but in the public
school system, it's probably not a lot of hymns that you're playing?
What types of songs are you playing?
You guys were in band, right?
Marches.
You know.
Okay, but you know what you'll notice about a lot of those kids that go to that band practice
in school, guess what happens when they're an adult?
They totally quit playing, because that music has no purpose in their lives.
I mean how many people, I bet this auditorium, who was in band class as a kid?
Put up your hand.
How many of you were in band class and you don't play it regularly?
You don't play it anymore regularly?
Yeah, several hands are still up, yeah.
Why?
Because it has no point.
There's no purpose anymore.
You're not just playing that trombone just around your house, just doo, doo, doo, doo.
But then a lot of those same people though, then when given an opportunity to play in
church, all of a sudden they're like, oh yeah, let's do it, because why?
Now there's a point.
Now there's a purpose.
Now there's meaning behind it.
Okay, now that's what we should think about in our lives.
Before you just spend hundreds of hours working on something that doesn't profit, when you
know that learning the hymns is going to be profitable, you know you can use that to be
a blessing, you know, you can go into a nursing home and play hymns for people and then give
them the gospel.
You can go publicly and play hymns and then give people the gospel.
You can do that in church where you can glorify God playing the hymns and helping God's people
as they sing and worship the Lord and making a joyful noise unto him.
These things please God.
These things have value.
These things are spiritual in nature, whereas that which is worldly and fleshly and carnal
will pass away with the lust thereof.
Now this is an important point to bring up in a sermon about worship, because when we
think of those who are worldly and ungodly, they have objects of worship, it's just not Jesus.
You know who the world worships?
Only musicians.
I mean if you have ever been to a rock concert, if you've ever been to a concert of this type
of music, you'll see that the fans literally worship at the feet of those musicians.
I mean literally, they're up on stage and down at the front, people are literally just
ah, ah, trying to touch the hem of the garment.
True or false?
They'll toss their drumstick and everybody's like ah, ah, you know, right?
They toss out some, they take off a jacket and throw it, it's like ah.
I mean you see people crying and hugging jackets of musicians and smelling it and hugging it
and crying, just at the feet, just trying to touch the hem of the garment of these musicians.
They worship them.
Now as a result, you will find that a lot of these worldly musicians are some of the
most ungodly people in the world.
And the reason why is because when you're that popular and everybody's worshiping you,
and they don't get the hate mail very often.
I mean it's 99% positive for these people, because you know if people don't like their
music they probably just go to a different, you know, concert, right?
I mean these guys are just getting pure praise.
They upload to YouTube, it's going to be 90 some percent likes, very few dislikes.
You know what I mean?
Because it's just, they're just lifted up and exalted so much in worship.
And then it goes to their head and they become these really prideful, arrogant, bad people.
You know and then they get all the money and you know the Bible says the prosperity of
fools shall destroy them.
So when you got, you know the Bible says the fool that said in their heart there is no
God.
When you have a guy who's an unsaved guy, doesn't believe the Bible or a woman like
that and then they just get all this fame and money and power and everybody's worshiping
them and just telling them how great they are.
Literally even some I'm saying that they're God.
Literally putting the poster on the ceiling above their bed at night, you know just like
saying their nighttime prayers to these people.
It's true.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
It's true right?
I mean it's everywhere.
They worship these people.
Now listen, American Idol is called that for a reason.
Notice Idol?
Sounds like idolatry because it's worship.
Okay now listen, this same mentality can sometimes creep into churches when they bring in professional
musicians and have them perform in church or when they have soloists get up and wow
us all with their singing.
This mentality will creep in and you get an attitude where somebody gets up to sing and
it's not unto the Lord but they sing in a way that is self-glorifying, self-glorifying.
Think about these rock stars and everything, how self-glorifying they are, how they just
pose and they just love to just go out there and just, right?
They revel in it but think about this, have you ever been in a church and this will be
different for everybody based on your experience, have you ever been in church and seen somebody
get up and sing a solo and they're just basking in their own glory and you can see it from
the time they walk up there to the time that they sit down that they're not glorifying
God, they're up there to show off and glorify self and honestly there's a self-glorifying
style of singing.
You know when a woman is getting up there and seducing the microphone practically, you
know what I'm talking about?
And you know they put the microphone up real close to their voice, you know, why?
Because they're kind of like getting what my former pastor would call the bedroom voice
and that's a good way to describe it.
They get this bedroom voice and they need the microphone so that they can get real breathy
with the microphone.
You know when women do it, it's seductive and when men do it, it's faggoty.
And you know what, neither one has any place in God's house.
You know this whole just glorifying self, sensual kind of breathy bedroom voice kind
of singing, not interested.
Now I've heard other people get up and sing a solo and they weren't like that where they
actually sang and you know you can tell they're singing loud like the Bible tells you to.
They're singing loud, it's from the heart, they're glorifying God, they're singing the
praise to him and all the emphasis is on him.
I mean some women sing Amazing Grace where you know you don't even, you can't even figure
out what the song's about anymore because they're so all over the place with it.
You know it just becomes this like athletics, it's like musical athleticism where they get
up and it's just like oh man.
You know it's like the church equivalent to Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner.
You know you can't even tell it's the Star Spangled Banner anymore, it's just.
You're just like trying to hold on through the roller coaster.
Why?
Because it's just, look at me.
I mean why don't you just get on stage and do some handsprings while you're out, why
don't you do some cartwheels for us?
Why don't you do a juggling show while you're showing off your miraculous athleticism of
your vocal cords?
And you know what, there are churches that I've seen online where there, I believe it
was New Spring, you know this church in South Carolina with Pastor Perry Noble where I
saw people doing handsprings across the platform on a church service.
Or where the worship leader, listen to this, the worship leader opened the church service
when one of my relatives visited there.
The worship leader opened the service by playing Guitar Hero on a big screen.
The congregations watching him play a video game called Guitar Hero, that's worship in
the modern church today.
I mean you think that's the worship that God's looking for?
Doing handsprings, juggling, you know, and doing all this stupid stuff.
This stupid, worldly, carnal, self-glorifying, sensual junk that has nothing to do with worshiping
the Lord.
It's an entertainment, it's a sideshow, it's a carnival show.
And one of the reasons why that will never happen at our church is that we never have
any special music and we never will.
And when I say special music, what I mean by that is we don't ever have people get up
and perform, ever, ever.
Meaning that we don't have a solo, we don't have a duet, we don't have a quartet, we don't
have a choir, and we never will.
Why?
Because of the fact that when you have congregational singing, where everyone is singing, and all
the musicians are playing, then guess who's glorified?
That God.
You're not just glorifying one person.
Now look, I'm not saying that a church that has solos and duets is bad.
Don't misquote me and say that I'm saying, hey, that church is bad, or a choir is bad.
I'm not saying these things are bad or sinful, but what I'm saying is that I'm the pastor
of this church, and as long as I'm standing here, running the show, we're never going
to have any performances at this church.
And all God's people said, amen.
Why?
Because of the fact that if you never take the first step down that road, you're never
going to end up at that carnal destination.
And I've seen way too many times where it's a self-glorifying, I've even seen people that
I knew well, good Christians, godly people who love the Lord, who I've stood next to
in church and sung with them, and they sung normal.
Here's a word for you, normal.
They sung normal.
And then they got up to do a solo, and it was just like, they just get up and start
doing that amazing grace, you know, and they just switched into lounge singer mode.
They just got all Las Vegas on you all of a sudden.
Not interested.
And you know what?
It's a lot easier not to switch to becoming like Star Search Baptist Church or American
Idol Baptist Church when just everybody participates.
God wants to hear us all.
God wants to hear you, not just a bunch of pros, not just the people who are the best
musicians and the best singers and the best players.
No, God wants to hear all of his people.
God wants us to do our best with what we've got, but you know what though?
He isn't just looking for these polished pros.
And by the way, our society has become a spectator society.
I don't want to be a spectator, I want to be a participant.
Don't come to church and just spectate, participate.
You don't just show up and sit back and watch the show.
No, you pick up a hymnal and you sing along, and you turn to the scriptures in your Bible,
and you read along and you participate.
Okay, and I don't know about you, but when I go to these churches that have special music,
it bores my brains out.
It's boring.
I mean what's more fun, to watch a basketball game or to play a basketball game?
Well I want to watch because I'm fat and lazy, but here's the thing though.
The point is though, we ought to be participants and not just sit around.
No, we need to worship the Lord.
We need to sing out in the congregation.
It says in the midst of the congregation, I will sing praises unto thee.
It doesn't say in the midst of congregation, I'm going to sit back and enjoy the show.
When Jesus was with the 12 disciples, you know, and then Judas walks out, but when they
had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Notice it says they sung a hymn, it doesn't say Peter got up and crooned for a while.
They all sung.
Look I love congregational singing.
I love it.
Why?
Because everybody can be involved.
And you know what I do sometimes when I, if I go visit a church, and I have a big family
so I have a lot of clout.
When I show up, I've got a minimum of 10 people with me, you know.
I got 10 people and then, you know, if I bring other people.
But here's what I do.
If the special music is actually a hymn, I just start singing along from my chair.
If it's a real hymn, you know, if the choir is up there singing blessed assurance, I'm
just like, this is my story.
I mean, I think people all over America should just start singing along with these specials.
If they're real hymns.
Whoa, what's going on?
What are they doing?
Hey, we just want to praise the Lord too.
We're tired of listening to all the fancy schmancy, you know, worship team.
We're all the worship team here.
Everybody's involved.
And you know, but half the time you can't sing along anyway because it's some song that
nobody's ever heard of.
It's some song out of the Pentecostal movement or something that's, you know, or it's the
latest from whatever the pop star that's been, you know, sanitized for your protection.
But honestly, there's a reason why we don't, it's not that we don't have the talent or
something, although that's also, no, I'm just kidding.
You know, the bottom line is that we don't want people to get up here and glorify themselves.
And I'm sure that some people could get up here and not glorify themselves, but you know
what, nine out of ten people, if they got up here and sang solos, would glorify themselves
because it's human nature.
That's what I've noticed.
Why?
You know, think about how Satan was lifted up because of his great beauty and sometimes
people who have great talent, it goes to their head and they rarely, they rarely use it for
the Lord, sadly.
So again, just to clarify my position in the closing moments, I'll have to skip the last
point of the sermon, but in the closing moments of the sermon, just to clarify my position
on this, I'm not saying that it's wrong or sinful for someone to get up and sing a choir
or sing a special.
I'm not adding to the word of God here.
I'm not teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
But I'm telling you that nine out of ten times that I see special music performed, I didn't
like it.
And I didn't feel that it was very glorifying to God.
I felt that it was just self-glorifying in a lot of ways.
And so therefore, my personal opinion is that I would rather just not have any special music
than to go through all this kind of special music just to get to that one that we actually
like.
And I don't want to perpetuate our society's tendency toward being a spectator when I believe
that we should all be a participant.
And what I see scripturally is many commands for all of God's people to praise him, all
of us to sing in the congregation, teaching and admonishing one another with Psalms and
hymns, spiritual songs.
So that's why we're going to take that path in this church.
I just want to be on the safe side.
And my dad always taught me when I was growing up, he had these little proverbs that he would
give you.
And you laugh at them at the time, but then later you kind of realize, wow, that was actually
true.
But for example, he would say this, never go to the first Baptist church because it's
had time to become liberal.
It was kind of a joke, you know, he would be joking.
But 99% of the time that's actually true.
Now the exception proves the rule, of course there are good first Baptist churches, usually
it's because they got taken over by a new guy who changes everything.
But he said never go to the first Baptist church because it's had time to become liberal.
And he always said beware of the choir members, they're always the most liberal church members,
are the members of the choir.
So we just don't have a choir.
But anyway, a little wisdom from dad there.
But the bottom line is that, you know, we need to worship the Lord in our lives.
And what does that mean?
That means that when we pray, we get on our knees, we bow our heads, we get on our face,
and if that's something you're not used to doing, it's something you ought to start doing.
It's something that God likes, okay?
So we get on our knees, we bow down, we worship him, and he's the only one we should worship.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, no one else.
And another way that we worship him is through song.
What does that mean?
That means you should show up to church and sing it out and do your best.
Do your best.
And if you play an instrument, let's say you play piano or guitar or some kind of a wind
instrument, whatever the instrument you play, why don't you worship God with that instrument
and quit playing a bunch of meaningless music and wasting so much time on that?
Why don't you actually get some spiritual songs in there and actually do something worthwhile
with your life?
Something that's going to matter for eternity.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for all that you've done for us, Lord, and we really
should worship you and praise you because of all your wondrous acts.
Lord, you are worthy to receive all of our worship and praise.
Jesus is worthy.
Lord, help us to praise him with all of our might as we come to church and even in this
holiday season, Lord, help us to focus on songs that exalt Jesus and not to focus on
all of this Rudolph, snowman, Santa Claus, just wood hay and stubble, Lord.
Help us to focus on actual songs about you.
And in Jesus' name we pray these things, amen.
Amen.
All right, let's sing one more song before we go.
Let's sing 293.
Is your all on the altar?
I'm not sure if everyone knows this song.
We've only done this one a couple times, but if you know it, sing it out nice and loud.
And by the way, let me say this also.
There is a method to the madness here.
There's a reason why we sing all the verses of every song.
Have you ever noticed that?
Ninety-nine percent of Baptist churches I've ever been to, we only sang the first and the
last or the first and the second.
Why do we sing all four verses?
I'll tell you exactly why.
Because of the fact that we want new people who come to the church or people that are
newly saved or new to church who don't know the song to be able to learn the song.
So if you've never heard the song before, on the first verse you're kind of lost.
Then the second verse you're just starting to get the hang of it, and then it's like
over, right?
Well by giving you four verses, by the time you get to the fourth verse, hopefully you're
starting to pick up the tune and able to sing along.
So this is a good way to learn the songs by singing all four verses.
That's one of the reasons why we do it that way.
So let's sing it out on that first verse, 293, as you're all on the altar.