Worship services abound in the nation. We have more mega churches than
ever before, it seems. We have worship services brought into our homes by
television. Many churches are filled with loud music and raised hands. Some
even resemble rock concerts with the music being so loud that you can hardly
hear yourself sing. There are all sorts of musical instruments from guitars to
drums to cymbals to orchestras. Worship services abound and music abounds in
them. Many churches have become seeker friendly and have Saturday night worship
services or very informal services on Sunday morning. We have experts in
worship. We have books on worship. We have seminars and teaching on how to
conduct worship. We have the latest state of the art audio and projection
systems in our churches. We no longer need hymn books. It’s all on the screen
or screens before us. We have well trained worship teams to lead us. Worship
abounds in evangelical churches. Yet, in all of this are we pleasing God? Is He
the center of our worship?
Jon D. Payne in his book In the Splendor of Holiness
writes, “Indeed, the so-called seeker-sensitive churches, well-meaning as they
may be, put more emphasis upon what man will get out of a service of worship
(unbeliever or believer) than upon what God will get out of it. To be sure, we
are supposed to be seeker-sensitive when designing and executing worship, but
according to Scripture, God (not man) is the Seeker toward whom we are to be
sensitive in worship.” (p. 25) Payne goes on to write, “In the New Covenant, as
in the Old, Christians are called to worship God in the manner that He
prescribes, and not according to the shifting desires and changing fads of the
unbelieving culture. If we worship in God’s Spirit and according to His truth,
the object of our worship will inevitably be God Himself. In other words, our
worship will be God-centered. Therefore, to make anything other than God the
center of our worship is, in a word, idolatry.” (p. 26) This is a very serious
charge and something that we need to be concerned about in our modern day
worship services.
When we come to worship, should not we be concerned the most at
directing our worship toward God? After all, God is the one who is seeking our
worship. In John 4:23-24, Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman and tells us
some important things about worship in his discourse with her. Jesus told her,
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship
the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to
worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in
spirit and truth.” God is seeking worshipers who will worship him truly from
their hearts. E. J. Young points out in his commentary on Isaiah that “….the
people ‘worshiped’ God in the way that pleased them, but not in the way that
was prescribed. This they did in that they regarded the outward form of worship
as sufficient, irrespective of the attitude of the heart. The priests evidently
encouraged this, exhibiting a concern only that the worshipper bring the
requisite sacrifices, but not that he come to the Lord in humble and true
devotion.” (The Book of Isaiah, Vol. 2, p. 320)
So many of our worship services today put emphasis on the music, the
worship leaders, the acoustic and sound system but not coming to the Lord in
humble and true devotion. There are churches that have little of these things
but where people truly worship the Lord with a humble and devoted heart. God
could care less if we have the latest sound system and the best worship teams
if we do not come to worship Him from our hearts. God wants our hearts!
Isaiah 29:13 says, “The Lord says, ‘These people come near to
me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from
me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.” God wants
our hearts. This is something we need to come to grips with in our churches. It
would be better if we get rid of our great sound and projection systems, do
away with our worship teams and worship bands if we could just have simple
worship services where people come with humble and devoted hearts. We don’t
have to have all these other things to worship God. Our greatest need is to
have people who come to worship with their hearts turned toward God and who
come to worship in spirit and truth. It would be better if our mega churches
would disband, get rid of their giant sanctuaries with the latest state of the
art equipment and have smaller services in different places with people who come
with humble and devoted hearts to worship. That’s what God wants. He wants our
hearts. He could care less about our big modern buildings that are built to
make people comfortable. God is seeking true worshippers. When and if true
revival comes, we may see much of what we see in worship today come to an end.
God wants us to get back to the basics and rid of all this stuff we have
accumulated in our churches. He does not want our stuff. (Our great buildings
and elaborate equipment) He wants our hearts.
Our outward worship is not what God wants. Great worship services
are not necessarily what God desires. We think we are pleasing God by holding
worship services that are great in the eyes of men. Yet, God may not be pleased
with our worship services at all. The Bible condemns worship services that are
not what God wants. Listen to what God says in Amos 5:21-24 – “I hate, I
despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you
bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though
you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away
with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But
let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” God
is more interested in our heart devotion to Him and our obedience to His Word
than He is in our offerings and songs. We may have all kinds of praise songs
and gifted song leaders and a great variety of musical instruments and the
latest in sound and projection systems. We may have all of that with lively
worship services but unless our hearts are devoted to the Lord and we are
walking in obedience to Him, all of this is useless. We just as well close down
our worship services if God does not have our hearts and devotion.
Another passage that addresses this matter of outward worship is
Isaiah 1:10-17 – “Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom: listen to
the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah! ‘The multitude of your sacrifices –
what are they to me?’ says the Lord. ‘I have more than enough of burnt
offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the
blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to meet with me, who has
asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless
offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and
convocations – I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and
your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am
weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my
eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands
are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of
my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the
oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.’”
You see, God is not interested in our great worship services as much as
we are. He is more interested in the state of our hearts. He wants our heart
devotion and obedience to His Word more than He wants our elaborate noisy
worship services. He even grows weary of our prayers in worship if our hearts
are not where they should be.
David puts the whole matter like this in Psalm 51:16-17 – “You
do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in
burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and
contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” God wants our hearts.
He could care less about our fancy worship services and costly sanctuaries and
elaborate equipment. He wants our brokenness before Him. He wants our humble
heart devotion. Edward J. Young writes, “Religion was on all hands, but
the heart of the people sought not the Lord.” (The Book of Isaiah – Volume 2,
p. 320) Today, we can say that our nation is filled with religion but the
hearts of the people are far from the Lord. We are pretty good at devising
elaborate worship services that attract people to our churches but are we
pleasing God with them? Where are our hearts when we come to worship God?
Matthew Henry writes, “But there are many whose religion is lip-labor only.” (Matthew
Henry’s Commentary on Isaiah, p. 161) We come with our mouths and our lips
and our raised hands but where are our hearts?
The second part of Isaiah 29:13 says, “Their worship of me is made up
only of rules taught by men.” We want to see now that the Word of God
should guide and dominate our worship. Not only are we to worship from our
hearts but to worship in accordance with God’s Word. Jon D. Payne writes,
“Authentic Christian worship, when carried out according to what God (the
ultimate governing authority) has instituted in His Word, is the context in
which God is honored and His people flourish.” (In the Splendor of Holiness,
p. 25) John Calvin writes, “On the second point, when God is worshipped by
inventions of men, he condemns this ‘fear’ as superstitious, though men
endeavor to cloak it under a plausible practice of religion, or devotion, or
reverence. He assigns the reason, that it ‘hath been taught by men.’…But it is
the will of the Lord, that our ‘fear,’ and the reverence with which we worship
him, shall be regulated by the rule of his word; and he demands nothing so much
as simple obedience, by which we shall conform ourselves and all our actions to
the rule of the Word, and not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.” (Calvin’s
Commentary on Isaiah – www.ccel.org) When we
let music dominate our worship services and give the Word of God only an
inferior role in the service, are we not conducting our worship to please men
and not giving God’s Word its rightful place? Matthew Henry writes, “They do
not make the Word of God the rule of their worship, nor his will his reason:
Their fear towards me is taught by the precept of men. They worshipped the God
of Israel, not according to his appointment, but their own inventions, the
directions of their false prophets or their idolatrous kings, or the usages of
the nations that were round about them.” (Matthew Henry’s Commentary on
Isaiah, p. 161)
The preaching of the Word of God should be foremost in our worship
services. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his book Preaching & Preachers writes,
“The primary task of the Church and of the Christian minister is the preaching
of the Word of God.” (p. 19) Jon D. Payne writes, “…I have discovered time and
again through the study of Scripture that it is through the primary means of
Word-centered proclamation that God advances His redemptive purpose in the
course of history. This is precisely why the preaching of God’s Word has
historically held a central place in Protestant worship.” (Payne, p. 83) Today,
many evangelical churches have done away with the pulpit entirely to make room
for the worship team. The preacher either has no lectern at all or only a small
one that takes up little room. The days of the large pulpits with the big
pulpit bibles are just about gone in modern evangelical churches. What does
this tell us about the importance of the preaching the Word today?
Payne goes on to write, “The Apostle Paul builds on this truth,
namely, that God has ordained the act of preaching to be the primary means and
method of advancing the Kingdom. In his first epistle to the Corinthian Church,
Paul has in view the sharp contrast between the wisdom of the world and the
wisdom of God. He states that ‘since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not
know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to
save those who believe’ (1 Cor. 1:21).” (Payne, p. 84) John Calvin comments on
the role of preaching in the Christian Church, “Paul expressly states, that,
according to the command of Christ, no real union or perfection is attained,
but by the outward preaching….The church is the common mother of all the godly,
which bears, nourishes, and brings up children to God, kings and peasants
alike; and this is done by the ministry (of the word). Those who neglect or
despise this order choose to be wiser than Christ. Woe to the pride of such men!
It is, no doubt, a thing in itself possible that divine influence alone should
make us perfect without human assistance. But the present inquiry is not what
the power of God can accomplish, but what is the will of God and the
appointment of Christ.” (Quoted by Payne, p. 86)
If the preaching of the Word of God is portrayed in scripture as
of supreme importance, why then have modern evangelical churches relegated the
preaching of the Word to an inferior position? Payne explains, “If the Word of
God, then, is the primary means by which God saves and nourishes the elect and
the faithful proclamation of His Word is His primary method of accomplishing
His redemptive purposes, why has preaching taken a back seat in modern-day
evangelical churches? In short, it is because God-centered, careful,
exegetical, authoritative preaching is not appealing to the culture. In order
for the church to get big, church growth experts surmise, biblical preaching
must go (or be changed into a superficial, therapeutic, anecdote-filled
message).” (Payne,
p. 85)
True worship should then have the proclamation of the Word of God
at its center and everything else should take their place behind it. When the
preaching of the Word of God returns in power to our pulpits, we will know then
that revival has returned to this nation. Iain Murray comments on the word
“revival” when he says, “Our English word for that phenomenon (revival) is akin
to the French, reveille, and provides an illustration. Reveille,
the morning hour of wakening in the army, is announced by a bugle. When times
of awakening occur in the church the preaching of the Word serves that same
function, as was once said of John Knox: ‘The voice of this one man is able in
one hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets continually
blustering in our ears.’…Truth preached is the means of awakening.” (The Old
Evangelicalism, p. 5-6) May the Lord restore to us the powerful preaching
of His Word and may this powerful preaching usher in the long awaited revival
that we so desperately need.
Works Cited
All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version
unless indicated otherwise
Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible –
Volume 4 – Isaiah to Malachi, Fleming H. Revell Company, United States of
America.
Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. Preaching and Preachers, Zondervan
Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1971.
Murray, Iain. The Old Evangelicalism, The Banner of Truth
Trust, Edinburgh, 2005.
Payne, Jon D. In the Splendor of Holiness, Tolle Lege
Press, White Hall, WV, 2008.
Young, Edward J. The Book of Isaiah – Volume 2, William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1969.
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