I am very glad to be able to bring to you the Word of God this morning. I would like you to turn to one or two places in the Bible.
First of all, Psalm 149.
Praise ye the Lord.
Sing unto the Lord a new song,
And His praise in the assembly of the saints.
Let Israel rejoice in Him that made him:
Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.
Let them praise His name in the dance:
Let them sing praises unto Him with timbrel and harp.
For the Lord taketh pleasure in His people:
He will beautify the meek with salvation.
Let the saints exult in glory:
Let them sing for joy upon their beds.
Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
And a two-edged sword in their hand;
To execute vengeance upon the nations,
And punishments upon the peoples;
To bind their kings with chains,
And their nobles with fetters of iron;
To execute upon them the judgment written:
This honor have all His saints.
Praise ye the Lord.
And then Psalm 145, from verse 1.
I will extol Thee, my God, O King;
And I will bless Thy name for ever and ever.
Every day will I bless Thee;
And I will praise Thy name for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
And His greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall laud Thy works to another,
And shall declare Thy mighty acts.
Of the glorious majesty of Thine honor,
And of Thy wondrous works, will I meditate.
And men shall speak of the might of Thy terrible acts;
And I will declare Thy greatness.
They shall utter the memory of Thy great goodness,
And shall sing of Thy righteousness.
The Lord is gracious, and merciful;
Slow to anger, and of great lovingkindness.
And then Psalm 34, from verse 1.
I will bless the Lord at all times:
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make her boast in the Lord:
The meek shall hear thereof, and be glad.
O magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
I sought the Lord, and He answered me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
They looked unto Him, and were radiant;
And their faces shall never be confounded.
And then, in the New Testament, the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 4, verse 10.
Then 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.
Shall we bow together in prayer?
Father, we do want to thank Thee that we are found here in Thy presence this morning. As we turn to Thy Word, Lord, we are so glad that Thou hast made specific provision for us. Thou hast not left us, Lord, to our own resources, or talents, or energies, either in speaking or in hearing; but Thou hast made a deliberate, specific provision for this time this morning, apart from any other.
Lord, we praise Thee and worship Thee that, as we come, we know, Lord, that of ourselves, apart from Thee, we can do nothing. We can say words; we can hear words, Lord; but Thou knowest it will amount to nothing as far as Thou art concerned.
But, Lord, we want to appropriate that provision Thou hast made for all of us, speaker and hearer together. We stand by faith, Lord, in that anointing for the speaking and for the hearing, that Thy purpose for this little time may be fulfilled, Lord, and we may meet with Thee, receive from Thee, and Thou mightest speak that kind of Word that accomplishes that to which it has been sent.
Lord, we shall give to Thee all the praise and all the glory. We commit ourselves now to Thee together, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I would like to speak this morning, and maybe this evening, on the power of worship—the power of worship.
Worship is a forgotten art amongst the people of God. It is something that you only find in the first days of every movement of the Spirit of God. Whenever God has worked at any time, from Pentecost all down through the long centuries of the history of the church, every time the Lord has worked, there has been an outburst of genuine, spontaneous worship.
Men and women redeemed by the grace of God, born of the Spirit, have been carried out of themselves and have worshipped the Lord together. They have worshipped the Lord individually.
But, as always, in every movement of the Spirit, once the thing begins to crystallize, once it becomes institutionalized, once it is formalized, worship becomes a liturgy, or a form, or in some way or another—even in our open time—we make it a drudgery.
Do not think that simply because we are not good Catholics and we do not have a good and marvelous liturgy, we have a free time like this, and it is worship. It is not necessarily worship at all. I have been in places that are as thoroughly bound as an Episcopalian church in its worst form.
You know, no one dares to do anything slightly different. I remember on one occasion—this was not even in a free, open time—one of the leaders of the church decided to pray before the children’s hymn instead of after it, and four Sunday school teachers resigned on the spot.
Absolutely incredible. But this matter of bondage is something that is a tendency amongst human beings. As soon as we move from one thing to another, we develop our own form. Sometimes our form is a formlessness, if you get what I mean. But we still dare not really follow the Holy Spirit.
We have developed our own form, and in that kind of thing the art of real and genuine worship in spirit and truth is lost.
Now, that is really why I want to talk about this. I think that prayer, witness, Bible study—these things at least we all consider to be essential. But when it comes to worship, we do not consider worship to be essential.
Worship is a luxury. Worship is a mountaintop experience. Worship is something that comes once in a blue moon, when God touches His people, and it is a kind of luxury experience. It is a Thanksgiving meal, spiritually—once a year, a special time.
This is not what I find in the Bible. And not what I find only in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament everywhere: God seeks those who will worship Him. The Lord Jesus summed the whole thing up by saying, “God is Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
What we often call worship is not worship. It may be sermonizing—preaching at one another under the guise of talking to the Lord. Horizontal digs that come somehow or other in our so-called worship are not really worship, because a soul that is worshipping has lost sight of place and people and is only conscious of the Lord.
It is the language of love. It is the language of a heart in touch with God, walking with God, seeing God, and expressing something of the infinity that we see in God: the infinity of grace, the infinity of love, the infinity of truth, the infinity of mercy. Somehow or other, it is the language of our heart.
Worship is fundamental to all spiritual growth, to spiritual soundness, and to spiritual fullness.
Now, I do hope that you understand what I am saying. I am saying that worship is not something we come to after we grow, but it is fundamental to spiritual growth. In other words, if you and I have not learned how to worship, even as little ones in the Lord, in a kindergarten way, we are not going to grow. We are going to grow up here, and that is the tragedy of Christendom.
So many companies, even such as this, have lots of people who have got it all up here. Over the years, we have heard marvelous speakers. We have had marvelous Bible studies. We have heard marvelous messages. We have got it clear up here.
But when it comes to actual practice, it is not there. We do not know how to minister to one another. We do not know how to build one another up in practice. It is all in the air. We talk about building one another, but we cannot build one another. We do not know how to exercise a gift. We do not know how to function in the Body of Christ. We do not know how to touch each other in the Lord.
We do not know how to worship. To be shut away in a room with the Lord for half an hour, we would not know what to do.
“Oh, we would, if you mean prayer. Of course. I can go right to a whole list of relatives immediately. Great-grandmother has got an arthritic hip, and then there is Aunt So-and-so, who has got real problems in the home, and then there is the neighbor down the road whose marriage seems to be breaking up.”
We can spend half an hour with the Lord if it comes to prayer. We can get a list of things this long about ourselves and others, and we can start talking to the Lord. But to be shut up with the Lord for half an hour and just admire Him—oh no, we could not do that. We would be bored stiff. We would not know what to say.
Admire the Lord for half an hour, when there is so much housework to be done, when there is so much to be done in the business, when there are so many more practical things to be done! Ooh—admire the Lord; worship.
The Westminster Confession put it like this: “The supreme end of man is to worship God.”
Now, this matter of worship, I want to tell you, is one of the great secrets of the Christian life. I really mean it. It is one of the great secrets.
I will tell you—and you know this—that any psychiatrist will tell you that one third, at least, of his patients are evangelical Christians. Now, is that not incredible?
This is why, in Sweden, they have been trying to bring some laws through Parliament to curtail Christian activities. One great professor in Uppsala said in the university, and it was televised, “Until we get rid of the Christian conscience, we shall never be able to live normally.” Now, is that not a terrible thing to say?
That is the pattern of things coming. But we believers have often given the evidence, only too sadly, that we are neurotics—that we are continually nervously exhausted, that we are all of a jangle.
We know the Lord. We know we are born again. We believe the Book. We believe the revelation that has come to us. We believe in the fundamental truths of the gospel. But we have no rest and no peace.
The secret is worship.
Now, let us start to say a few things, and we will see how far we go. First of all: the purpose of God and worship.
If you turn to Isaiah 43:21, we read these wonderful words:
The people which I formed for Myself,
That they might set forth My praise.
That is the purpose of the Lord: “The people which I formed for Myself, that they might set forth My praise.” The purpose of God is for a people who really express the praise of God, who set forth the praise of God.
They do not just set forth something about themselves. They set forth the person of God—something of the beauty of God, something of the glory of God, something of the infinity of God, something of the grace of God, something of the power of God. They set forth His praise.
In this same chapter, it begins like this in Isaiah 43:1-2:
But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob,
And He that formed thee, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed thee;
I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee:
When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned,
Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
So here are people who have been redeemed, who have been called by His name, and who are His. Then they have to go through some pretty deep experiences: going through rivers, going through waters, going through fire, going through flame. That all, I think, amounts to some kind of deep trial and experience, do you not think? It is not anything easy. It is not a joyride.
Then He says in Isaiah 43:19-21:
Behold, I will do a new thing; now shall it spring forth; shall ye not know it?
I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
The beasts of the field shall honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches;
Because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert,
To give drink to My people, My chosen,
The people which I formed for Myself,
That they might set forth My praise.
Well, that is the supreme thing about worship. God wants us to be a worshipping people, setting forth the praise of the Lord.
It is perfectly true that when we witness to the Lord, we do set forth the Lord. But do you not think that we sometimes give the impression to the world around us that we are salesmen?
Is that not one of the rather unfortunate aspects of evangelism: that we give the whole impression that we have got something to sell, and we are trying to persuade them, trying to get them, as it were, to buy it—to decide on it, to take it?
I am not against evangelism. Those of you who have been with us in the conference know I have said two or three things about increase and multiplication, and the need for it. But the fact is that in witnessing we do sometimes give the impression, even when it is the best kind of witnessing, that we are selling something, that we are advertising something in order to get people to receive or take it.
When a people worship the Lord, He is set forth. They forget the world. They forget the unsaved, even in their midst, and they worship the Lord. The person amongst them, it says in 1 Corinthians 14, will fall down and worship, saying, “God is here.”
He sees a people not bored, not apathetic, not all waiting, sort of toeing a party line, but a people lost in the Lord—absolutely worshipping the Lord, flowing out from themselves because they are seeing the Lord. They are understanding the Lord, and they are, as it were, setting forth the praise of the Lord.
Something happens to people when they see that. Either people reject it and say, “Nonsense,” or they find the Lord, because they know it is not directed at them. They are not being cornered by us, all sort of saying, “You know, I do thank You, Lord, how ten years ago I found You, when I was a drunk”—dig, dig, dig.
You know the kind of thing. We say things that we hope someone who is with us, who is unsaved, will take note of and get saved. But when we really worship the Lord, we forget the unsaved entirely, and we just go out to the Lord. Then something happens in the unsaved heart.
They say, “What is wrong with these people? They are either crazy, they are either hallucinated, they have either got some spiritual drug, or something real has happened to them. Who is this God they are all talking to? Where is He? Look at their faces. They are absolutely enraptured. They are somehow out of themselves. What is it?”
In Ephesians 1, it says three times a little phrase that I am sure most of you know. In verse 6: “To the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” Or verse 12: “To the end that we should be unto the praise of His glory, we who had before hoped in Christ.” Or again in verse 14: “Unto the redemption of God’s own possession, unto the praise of His glory.”
To the end that we might be to the praise of His glory. Oh, do we have to wait until we get there? Is there no way in which we, as the people of God, could be to the praise of His glory, in some poor way, some small way, relatively speaking, now? Is there not some way in which the unseen hosts around us—fallen principalities and powers, as well as those angels who have remained faithful to God—might see in us the praise of God’s glory?
What about Psalm 40:1-3? You know it, I am sure, again so well.
I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
He brought me up also out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay;
And He set my feet upon a rock,
And established my goings.
And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God:
Many shall see it, and fear,
And shall trust in the Lord.
That is a way to evangelize, do you not think? Oh, if we could only break through all the bondages, all the forms, all the restrictions, all the fears that are in our hearts—fears of one another; fears somehow of being out of the Spirit, or doing the wrong thing, or somehow letting the flesh have its way, or emotion getting on top of whatever else we are frightened of.
I am not asking for people to roll around on the floor or, as I say, swing on the lamps—that would be a job in this place. But, I mean, people say, “Oh, what does he want to do? Get all emotional? Are weeping? Crying?” No, no, not at all. I just want you to be people in love with God, that is all, and expressing it.
I am sure the Lord must be bored stiff sometimes with the way we treat Him. You know, same old thing every week. He says, “Oh dear, I wish so-and-so could just change the tune.” Just a little bit of love.
God is love. If He could hear one person break through all the palaver, all this sort of jargon, and say, “I love You, Lord,” I am sure God would almost do a dance. “Did you hear it? Did you hear it? He has been saved forty years, and he just told Me he loves Me. I have not heard him say he loves Me since forty years ago when he was saved.”
“All he gives Me is a whole lot of jargon all the time—Canaanite language. And now he has got through. He just said those magic words. He said, ‘I love You, Lord. I love You.’”
It means so much to God. Do you not understand? God is love.
God does not want sentiment, but He does want reality. He wants people who are in love with Him, who break through all these forms of words which seem to be so spiritual but are actually a façade. We are at last real with God: “I love You, Lord. I worship You, Lord.”
How marvelous it is that it says, “He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.”
There is no doubt about it: when a man or a woman becomes a worshipper, something happens in their lives. In the office, people start to note something altogether different. They may have been saved for twenty years, and everybody in the office is frightened to death of them.
They seem to be a paragon of virtue. They open the windows when they think the windows should be open, and shut the windows when they think they should be shut. Woe betide anyone who has a cigarette; they will get a pamphlet on lung cancer. Woe betide anyone who drinks a little wine; they will probably get a long lecture on, “Strong drink is a mocker.”
That is how we are known often. We are known for what we do not agree with, and the things we ought not to do. Then they say, “Oh, so-and-so, he goes to church at least twice on Sunday.”
But when a man becomes—or a woman becomes—a worshipper, it is as if a fullness is released in their life, as if some reality comes into their life, as if somehow love touches them and gilds them and makes them a human being again. Suddenly, people say, “What has happened to so-and-so?”
“Many shall see, and shall fear, and shall trust in the Lord.” Oh, what the Lord does in this matter. It is His purpose. This matter of worship is His purpose.
Now look again at Isaiah, chapter 61. Listen to this wonderful little word. The first, of course, is of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me;
Because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek;
He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all that mourn;
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion,
To give unto them a garland for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
A garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. We cannot help a spirit of heaviness; we have got a lot against us as believers. No, we are not like the world. We have turned right round, and we have got the whole full flood, the full stream of the world, against us.
The enemy is all the time trying to trip us up. It is not the big things, is it? It is the small things. Suddenly some tank in the loft leaks, and the whole house is flooded. It is not necessarily a big thing in one way, but it is enough to send us crazy for at least half a year.
Then the lawnmower breaks down, or something catches fire on the stove, or the children get one trying cold after another, after another, after another, and we just get a spirit of heaviness.
But our Lord’s work is to give, for a spirit of heaviness, the garment of praise. Now, do we look to Him for this? Or do we say, “Oh, this spirit of heaviness—we have got to accept it. It is the way of the cross.”
Amongst the way of the quail! All those who are going to enter the kingdom are going to enter it through much tribulation. It is perfectly true: we enter the kingdom through much tribulation. There is no doubt about that.
But the wonderful thing is, God can be the help of your countenance. He can give you a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. So why indulge in the spirit of heaviness? Why just let the enemy impose it upon you for good?
Why not say, “Lord, Your work through Calvary is to give me a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”?
Now listen to Isaiah 61:10:
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My soul shall be joyful in my God;
For He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decketh himself with a garland,
And as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.
Not in oneself—that is the trouble with most of us. I will come to that in a moment. We think that praise is rejoicing in ourselves: “Oh, I feel wonderful this morning, Lord. Absolutely marvelous, Lord. I feel so good. I feel sound and full and powerful and everything else, Lord.”
We are not rejoicing in the Lord; we are rejoicing in ourselves. Listen to Isaiah: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.”
You cannot know the garment of praise until first you have got on the garment of salvation. But once you have got the garment of salvation upon you—the robe of His righteousness—then you can add the outer garment of praise.
Why do most of us have problems over praising the Lord? Because we are accused by the enemy, or by our own conscience. The enemy comes and says, “Did you lose your temper? Were you not irritable an hour ago? You cannot praise the Lord in that meeting, you hypocrite.”
Then, you know what the devil does? Especially with men, he has a whole box of filthy thoughts, and he injects them into somebody’s mind just at the right moment. Then he comes a few minutes later and says, “That filthy thought in your mind—you do not think you can praise the Lord in this place, do you?”
And you say, “Oh, I must be the only person thinking a thought like that in this place.” It never even came from you; it came from the enemy. But we do not know what to do. We are not aware of the enemy’s devices. The result is that we sit there in a kind of somber heaviness.
“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.” How wonderful it is.
You must all do this. Every time you come into a time like this, the first thing you must do is not just go round talking. Get into your seat. Sit down quietly for a few minutes and say, “Lord, I am in the garment of salvation. I am in the righteousness of Thy Son. Now, by faith, I put on the garment of praise.”
Otherwise, you will find the enemy working so powerfully amongst you that always, at least eighty percent of you will be silent—the great dumb majority.
You say, “Well, I do not want to be one of those people who is always opening my mouth and saying a whole lot.” You have just said something about it. “I do not want to be one of those people.” That is another way the enemy gets us.
You listen to so-and-so—someone we do not get on with too well—and we hear them praising the Lord away. We do not say that outwardly, of course, but that is what we think inside: “Wind. Wind, and a windbag again. If God could only do something deeper in him, he would shut up.”
“But then God is doing something in me. That is why I do not open my mouth. God is doing something in me.” I mean, we are all the same, are we not? Let us face it. We sit there with these lovely, pious looks upon our faces, but the actual fact of what goes on inside is quite different from the look on the outside.
You sort of sit there in a wonderful little feeling of righteousness—self-righteous—saying, “Well, thank God, I believe He is doing something in me. That is why I believe worship is deeper than words.”
But if God is really doing something inside, it will come out. There will be times when you will not be able to utter a word. But in the end it will come out, and it will not come out in great, long, huge paraphrases of Scripture. It will come out in a few simple, direct words of love.
The purpose of God. Well now, there is something else too. Why should we worship? This is a good question, is it not?
First of all, God is utterly worthy of our worship. Psalm 145:3:
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
And His greatness is unsearchable.
Is that not a wonderful word when you think about it? We all know these words. We often sing, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God,” and so on. But we do not often think what we are singing or what we are reading.
“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable.”
I will not go on any more, otherwise we will find time has gone once again. But I think that is enough just to say one thing: why should we worship? Because God is utterly worthy of our worship. That is why.
Anyone who really knows the Lord knows He is worthy of our worship. So here is the first thing.
Here is the second thing: not only is God utterly worthy of our worship, but we were created to worship Him originally.
That is how the Lord Jesus answered the devil when the devil said, “Bow down to me just once, and I will give You all these things.” The Lord said to him:
Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.
Every human being has to worship something. Now, just for a few moments, let us think about this matter, because it goes to the heart of the whole thing.
The human being was made spirit, soul, and body. Even in his fallen state, he is still spirit, soul, and body. He was created, if I may put it in Sunday school language, with a God-shaped blank in his being.
In other words, he was made for God. The supreme thing about the human being is that he was not made for the earth. He was not made for one another. He was not made just for sort of horizontal fellowship, and then afterwards God thought of something higher. He was made originally for God.
We were made to worship. So every human being has to bow down to something. Many bow down to themselves. They worship themselves every day. They come into the shrine of self, look at self, bow down low, and say, “You are worthy.”
Oh, you smile, but it is absolutely true. The whole world is made up of people who worship themselves.
Others worship friends—husband, wife, family. Sometimes it is a concept we worship. Sometimes it is a philosophy, an ideology. It may be Marxism; it may be something else. But it is an ideology which we worship. Every human being has to worship. Even those who are atheists worship.
They have made man god, and they bow down before the shrine of man and say, “I acknowledge your worthiness.”
This is an interesting point, because it means that if you and I have been saved, we still have this instinct within us: we have to worship. If we are not worshipping the Lord, we are worshipping something. This is what idolatry is all about.
That is why it says again and again in the New Testament, “Idolatry, which is covetousness.” In other words, there is something or other—a friendship, a relationship, actually a legitimate friendship, a legitimate relationship sometimes—which has taken the place of God and has become an idol in our hearts.
Sometimes it is a covetousness. We have caught the spirit of the world, and we so want such-and-such. We want that more than anything else in the whole world. We will even be deaf to God if we think we cannot get it. If we think the Lord would deny it to us, we will just pretend we do not hear Him. We cannot trust Him. We cannot go on with Him in that way.
We were made to worship. Why should we worship? Because there can be no peace, no fulfillment, no joy, and no satisfaction without worship. Try it. Maybe you know it.
I go all over the place, and I am always meeting Christians thirty years in the Lord, twenty years in the Lord, ten years in the Lord, and they have lost all their joy, all their peace, and all their satisfaction. They say, “I do not know, if I could be honest with you for a few minutes, I just lost everything. I sometimes wonder what I am saved for. I dare not tell anybody, but that is what I feel in my heart.”
I always ask one or two questions. The first question I always ask is, “Do you ever worship?” “Oh, of course.” Now, what do you mean, “Of course”? “Well, I have my quiet time.”
No, I was not asking whether you have a quiet time. Your quiet time can be a quarter of an hour of petition. That is not worship. I want to know if there is any place in your life where you do nothing else but bow before the Lord and glory in Him, and exult in Him, and refuse to turn a single comment of praise into prayer.
This would be almost sacrilegious to suggest, but I am going to. I want to preface it with that remark lest anyone get upset.
It would almost be a good idea now and again amongst us to ask one brother, whom we all trust absolutely and completely, to tell us if we are turning our praise into prayer. We are often not aware of it.
We start off by saying, “Lord, we thank You for what You are. We thank You that You have saved us. We thank You, Lord, that we are here. Now, Lord, please do this and this and this in us.” Then suddenly we have a little check, and we go back again: “Well now, Lord, we do thank You.”
But, you see, we cannot help it. We cannot praise the Lord for a few moments before we say, “Do this and this and this, Lord.” We cannot help it. Often we are unaware of it. We are not worshippers; we are grabbers.
There is nothing wrong in receiving. The Lord says, “Ye have not, because ye ask not.” But the fact still remains that there is hardly anybody, even those great older saints, who can really worship the Lord in a sustained way. They have to turn it to prayer.
Some people even feel that it is quite selfish to worship the Lord. You know, unless we start praying for the world around us, it is quite wrong. I entirely agree that there are lots of groups that are just blessed little groups. They simply could not care less about the dying world around them. They could not care less about the nation in which they are found. They could not care less about intercession, or prayer warfare, or outreach to men and women to bring them to the Lord. All they want is just a kind of escapism.
Well, I understand that. But the fact remains that when a man or a woman who is saved by the grace of God begins to worship the Lord for the first time as an adult Christian, you know peace.
For the first time, a joy comes up that you do not even know where it has come from. In the midst of the most unhappy circumstances, something bubbles up inside. It is the joy of the Lord, which becomes your strength.
You get an incredible satisfaction deep, deep down in your being, as if you have touched the meaning of your being—the meaning of your creation. And you have.
When a man or a woman bows down and really worships the Lord, forgetting themselves, for the first time they have actually touched the heart of the matter. In that moment, they know satisfaction. Suddenly, it is just as if we touch the thing that we belong to.
I know the first time—I must be careful; I might not go on this subject again—but I remember the first time. I was brought up in Britain. I was brought up amongst the British. I never knew my family background because of the mystery of it and the way that I and my sister were hidden.
I used to think the British were the most extraordinary people. I used to love their phlegmatic, unflappable ways, but I used to find them very amusing at times. I wanted to run into my room and shriek with laughter.
I know the first time I went to Israel and sat on the beach at Tel Aviv and looked at all these people, some of whom I did not like, and felt absolutely at home. That was the first time I ever touched the roots of my own being. That is a physical thing.
With it came a peace and a joy and a fulfillment I had never known before. Now, that is exactly what happens on a spiritual level, on a spiritual dimension, when a man or a woman saved by God begins to worship.
They suddenly touch something and they feel, “Oh.” They touch something and they feel an immediate release within, as if they are doing what they were meant to do and are in the milieu, the atmosphere, that they should be in—as if for the first time they are actually living and not existing.
Oh, you live in such a rushed society; so do I. I do not know where the years go. I do not know where the years go.
I remember when I was a boy of six, I used to think, “When is my next birthday coming?” We had only just blown out the six candles on the cake, and it seemed to be an endless millennium right the way round a whole year. I used to often ask, “When is my birthday?” Mother said, “No, of course not. You have just had one.”
Then it went on and on and on until at last my seventh birthday came. Then there was another whole year, and then my eighth birthday came. It is not like that today. Believe me, it is not like that today.
I was only sitting down at the Christmas meal in ’78, and then—boop!—here we are in ’79. Where has it gone? I do not know where it has gone. We live such rushed lives.
You here on this side of the pond—in America and Canada—you live in what is really virtually and wonderfully a success story. This success complex has bitten into the North American mentality, so much so that the whole thing is one of tension, of rush, of busyness, of moving on, on, on—always on, on.
It is marvelous the way you get things done. We take years to do what you take weeks to do. But it is a success complex, and it gets into the Lord’s people. You have all this kind of inner tension and strain of getting things done, going on, on, on. No one ever stops to worship. No time for worship.
“You do not want us all to become mystical Marys, do you? We are all Marthas. We get things done. We cannot go sitting at the feet of the Lord.”
“You do not want us to be these kind of mystics, do you, that sit there with glazed eyes meditating?” No, I do not want you to go into any transcendental meditation. But let me tell you something: meditation is a very real necessity in the believer’s life.
If we could only reflect on the Lord, if we would only meditate on the Lord, if we would only digest the Word of God.
All spiritual growth and life and fullness and power is related to worship. All I am saying is this: try it. See for yourself. You can see it for yourself negatively.
Many of you have been in the Lord for quite a few years, but you have no joy. You have no peace. You have no sense of satisfaction. You have no sense of fulfillment. You know that you are a Christian. You know you are born again. But there is no wonderful, deep center of peace in your life.
Worship is the key. When you begin to learn to worship the Lord, then something begins to happen.
Now, I think I will stop there. I should imagine our time has well and truly gone. I will stop there and maybe go on to say a lot more practical things.
It will not upset me if you do not come this evening. It really does not bother me at all. I would much rather you came if really God has something for you and really wants to speak to you and do something.
But I will go on, if the Lord leads, and say a lot more practical things about this matter of worship. How do we worship? When should we worship? What is the real key to it? We will see if the Lord does not teach us some more things.
Shall we pray?
Lord, Thy Word says, “We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God.” Dear Lord, do forgive us that many of us do not know what it is to worship.
Lord, what we call worship is just a giving of thanks. We do not know what it is, Lord, to really appreciate Thee, to really express our appreciation of Thee—not for what Thou hast done, Lord, but for what Thou art.
O Lord, we ask Thee that Thou wilt, in Thy great love and mercy, really lead us all to be true worshippers—to be worshippers in spirit and in truth. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.