standing for prayer and the reading of God's holy and fallible Word. Beloved, we will read from two passages of Scripture, 1 John 3 and Deuteronomy chapter 5. And before we read these wonderful texts of Scripture, let's once again go into the presence of our living God. Let's pray. Father, now we come to you in great need as your children. We are in great need of instruction. We're in great need, Lord, of having You correct our thinking, straighten out our doctrine, deepen our love and affection, sharpen and clarify the things we must hate. Lord, we pray now that You would come to us as the Word of God. Come to us, Lord Jesus. in your prophetic office and teach us, instruct us, enlighten our minds, loosen the bondage of our own hypocrisy and legalism. Set us free to the teaching of Your Word. Liberate us with Your royal law. And we pray that the fruit of this time, of you preaching your Word to our hearts, would be a greater life for you, would be a greater love for you, and would be a more faithful testimony of your grace and mercy. We pray, O now, for the Holy Spirit to descend upon us with enlightenment, with great light, shine upon us, shine in us, shine around us, but come upon us. O Father, we pray that what we think as we receive Your Word would be honoring to You. In Jesus' name, Amen. Hear the Word of the Lord, 1 John 3, beginning at verse 4. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins, and no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother." And now, Deuteronomy chapter 5, beginning at verse 12, Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey. or any of your cattle, or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day." And thus ends the reading of God's Word. You may be seated. Beloved, we continue our exposition of 1 John 3, expanding on John's comment that sin is lawlessness. And of course, I've said it many times, and I feel compelled to continue to say that when John makes those statements, he's presupposing a standard. When John says that sin is lawlessness, He's presupposing that there is some standard that if we break, that's sin. And that's why we have gone off on an exposition of the Ten Commandments, God's moral law. to deepen our understanding of what John is referring to here, because throughout the epistle of 1 John, remember, what John is saying is that, I want you, beloved, to have an infallible assurance of salvation. And one of the hindrances of having an infallible assurance of salvation is disobedience to the commandments of God. That's one of the hindrances. Now, there are others he deals with in the book, such as doctrine. Doctrine can be a hindrance as well. Some churches teach that man cannot know he's in the state of grace, that he cannot certainly know that he has a relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, that doctrine itself would be a hindrance to one's walk. You might be thinking of, as I said, that of some of our Pentecostal brethren, where they believe that a man can be saved and lost again in the same day. And in my discussion with these brethren is, well, what sin necessitates the losing of salvation? And everyone I've talked to all gives a different standard. They all have a different sin that you must commit in order to lose your salvation. Now the reason that's the case is because they don't have a place in the Bible that teaches that. So they have to make it up. Now, beloved, because they believe they're losing their salvation, and I love my brethren because it's not depending on what they think. You see, their thinking, even though they think in wrong doctrine, it does not make them less secure in the infallible sovereignty of God. Amen? How faithful is God to you and to me? And how correct and accurate and pure, beloved, is our doctrine this morning? You see, beloved, what we commit ourselves to will either aid in our salvation, aid in our assurance, and it will aid in our union and communion with Christ, or it will hinder it. What we believe, that is not only our practice, but what we believe will be an aid or a hindrance to our salvation. And beloved John even goes that next step, and he separates, even though this is an application of the law and the commandments, but he emphasizes throughout his ministry, throughout his writings, that God's people, one of the infallible assurances of salvation is love for the brethren. Love for the truth. The truth as it is in God's people. A compulsion. in us to love the people of God. And beloved, who here is worthy of the love of one another? Yet, because of the Spirit of God in us, because of the Word of God before us, we can love one another and we desire to love one another, though it's sometimes filled with many types of other motivations. But we're working out those motivations. That is more and more as we grow in grace, God is changing our love for one another so that it more and more reflects the love He has for us. And that's the example John gives in the epistle. That is, we love because God loves us. Now, how did God love us? God loved us by keeping His commandments. That's why Jesus had to come. Because God is a holy and just God and could not just excuse sin. Sin had to be paid for. Your redemption had to be purchased. And how did God purchase you? How did He redeem you from the bondage of sin and from the grasp of Satan and out of the kingdom of darkness? by sending His Son who perfectly kept the law of God and then offered Himself as our High Priest in sacrifice. And based upon that work, God freely accepts us into the beloved because then he takes the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and he imputes the righteousness that Jesus has secured by his life, by his work of redemption. He applies that to us so that we are what the Bible calls justified. We are justified in his sight, not because we have justified ourselves, but because Jesus has justified us. And now that justification, beloved, must bear fruit. Plant a seed in the ground. And something's going to come up. Well, unless I plant it. But if you plant a seed in the ground, hopefully you're going to expect, if you plant an apple tree, you're going to have an apple tree come up. And your expectation of that tree is that it will bear fruit. Beloved, the doctrine of justification bears out in the fruit. And that's what John is saying. John is saying, to the one who is justified is noticeable, recognizable. Not perfect. Not perfect. Yet there is there is these commonalities among the people of God. Beloved, we're from different backgrounds and situations. We all had different experiences this week. Yet, yet we have this in common, the same Holy Spirit in all of us. And throughout this week. We have been disgruntled with our unfaithfulness. We have loved righteousness. We have been compelled to be holy. We have been compelled, okay, the Lord's convicted me of this sin and I'm going to begin to practice righteousness. I'm going to take this sin seriously now. I'm going to quit ignoring it. I'm going to start taking it seriously. I'm going to be diligent in putting this sin to death. in my life. That is common among God's people. And that's because we have the same Holy Spirit. Now, beloved, as we have been studying the commandments, we have to have this impressed upon our minds. That is this. When Hebrews chapter 8 says that the Holy Spirit has written the law upon our hearts, we have to ask ourselves again, is presupposing a law? What law? God's moral law. And the reason God's moral law is because God's moral law is a reflection of Him. See, God's moral law is nothing more. I'm going to be real simplistic here. God's moral law is nothing more than the Lord abbreviating His holiness and putting it in script so that a weak Infantile people could read it, understand it, and to begin to apply it into their lives and become mature. Do you understand? That is, the moral law is a summation of God's holy character. To do away with the moral law would be to do away with God, and that's impossible. You can't get rid of the moral law, because to get rid of the moral law would be to get rid of God. Because God is immutable, which means He's unchangeable, that means the moral law is unchangeable. It's unchangeable. And when we rightly understand it, it is our guide. And the reason I emphasize rightly understand it, because remember, Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 1 told Timothy that it was the right use of the law that was good. The right use of the law, you see, beloved people use the Bible to do all kinds of things. But we have to have a right understanding of the Bible. That's why we are compelled to study, come to church, to be fed the word of God, to learn from people who have studied the Bible rightly and can demonstrate from the Bible that this is the way we should view this text. Because it is the right understanding of God's Word that leads to right living, that leads to right thinking, and that leads to an infallible assurance of salvation. So you see, beloved, if we can do away with the moral law of God, then we can do away with God. And exactly that's what the atheists have done. And that's why the atheist, see, believes in his own heart there is no God, because then what does he do? He erases the standard. When the atheist does away with God, he does away with this moral standard. And that's why in the atheist, if there is an atheist worldview, there's not a monolithic atheist worldview. That means every atheist is a law unto himself. Every atheist is his own authority. Every atheist is his own God. Therefore, as many atheists as there are, that's how many worldviews are there. Because they determine for themselves right and wrong, good and bad. OK, just and unjust. And that's why it's so easy to dismiss God and then to dismiss his law, because there's no standard. And beloved, listen, now what the church has done, the church has dismissed the law, yet wants to retain God of the law. They want to dismiss the law of God, yet they want to retain God and His blessings. They want to retain God in all of His splendor and all of His glory and all of His majesty. But one of the things we have to recognize is, as part of that glory and majesty and that revelation, is that God has revealed to man Himself in the moral law. That is this. If you want to understand who God is, you have to understand the law. And see, there's this intimate connection between our salvation and imitation of God in righteousness. Imitation of Jesus Christ in righteousness. As we are holy, you're worthy of imitation as you keep the law of God. That's what Paul says. Imitate me as I imitate God. What's Paul talking about? Paul's talking about as I keep the commandments of God, therefore, I'm acting like God because this is what God would do. This is how God thinks. See, God's revealing something to us in His law. And if you do away with the law and yet you want to retain God, what happens is you've got to replace that law with your own opinion. And that's why every church or every family that wants to dismiss the law and yet retain God, worships a different God. It depends on who's speaking, who's preaching, who's teaching. or whatever, because remember, if we do away with the objectiveness of God's revelation, that is, He has revealed to us in word. If we do away with that objective revelation, then all we're doing is what? Being subjective in our ideas about God. Now, some of those might be right. Some of those may be right because God has pretty clearly revealed Himself. And The true people of God cannot be consistent in their denial of God's law. Praise God for that. They cannot be consistent as they reject God's law and still retain God as their God. We have to remember, beloved, that John is teaching us that the standard of life is the law of God. And he says that he desires for his people, God's people, his flock, to have an infallible assurance. And he says it comes in a right understanding, in a right keeping and walking in the commandments of God. And beloved, we're on the fourth commandment. And we've preached several sermons on the fourth commandment. We have been discussing what God requires of us on the Lord's Day. And everybody wants a checklist, and I can understand that. Everybody wants this itemized checklist, so every moment and every second, minute of the Lord's Day, they want to make sure they're faithful, and they can check off this list, make sure they're not doing anything that's displeasing to the Lord. And I have failed to give you that test, and I refuse to give you that list, I mean. I refuse to do so. Because, beloved, I want to preach to you the intent of the fourth commandment. And the intent and the command of the fourth commandment is that we love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. even as it pertains to the Lord's day. That is, the Lord's day demonstrates that God is the God over time. He is sovereign even not only over our actions and over our thoughts, because God requires us to think thoughts after Him and holy thoughts, He requires us to do certain things and to abstain from certain things. He also requires a sovereignty, or He demonstrates a sovereignty over our time by requiring us to work and labor six days with our common affairs and interests, and the seventh day to be set apart as the worship of Him. That is, beloved, we are required to come into the presence of the Lord. One day out of the week with deep love and veneration. Is that what you came with this morning? Did you come with a desire, a true desire to honor Him, to love Him, to trust Him, to glorify His name in your singing? When the preacher prays that you are listening intently as best you can, I know some of you have children, and that you're working with these children to sit in the worship of God. Praise the Lord for you. Don't give up. God understands it. But to the best of your ability, when you listen to the prayers, are you learning theology? Are you learning, oh, that's so correct of me, that is so true to me. And I say yes and amen to the preacher. You see, beloved, did you come into the presence of God this morning to worship and adore him because of his worth, because of his value? Remember, we talked about the English meaning of the word worship as it relates to value and weight. And that could be in several things as possessions, as of status, of estate, character. And see, God is the most of all of those things. That is, who owns more possessions than God? Who has the highest office in the land besides God? Who has the highest office in the land? Is it truly the President of these United States? Or is it the Lord Jesus Christ who sits in heaven? The reality that Jesus Christ sits in heaven at the Father's right hand and He has a crown upon His head. that he has already claimed ownership of the earth. So I ask you again, in reality, who is the leader of this nation? It is the Lord Jesus Christ. Who has he delegated authority to? The President of this United States. Of these United States. You see, that's so important because the thing about it is, does that mean the President can do anything he wants to do? Absolutely not. So you see, beloved, there is a great reality check when we come into the worship of God. That is, on the Lord's Day, it's not only a day that's set aside as a worship of God, but that we should also recognize that there's a particular kind of worship that we ought to be exercising. Let me remind you of some of the titles of the Lord's Day that are out there, particularly among the Puritan works, because it's lost today. I mean, you will not go to a bookstore. In fact, challenge me. I've taken the challenge myself. Go to the common bookstores around here and find a book on the Lord's Day. And then ask yourself, why? Why can you not find one? If it's so important as to be the fourth commandment, if God has commanded us to come into His presence one day out of the seven to worship and adore and serve Him with gladness and thanksgiving, it seems to me that it would be important enough to write about because they write about everything else. But you will hardly find a book in our modern bookstores concerning the Lord's Day. And thus, they do not understand that the Lord's Day is the market day of the soul. The best of seven, said the Puritans, the day of heavenly invitation, or the day heaven and earth converge together. It is the brightest of the seven. The sun shines the brightest on this day. So much does the sun shine the brightest on this day is that this day illuminates the other six. It's this day that gives light, warmth, and depth. in illumination to the other six days of the week. How you worship on this day and your love and adoration of God, how you exhibit and express it, will flow into the other six days. It will determine how you live and work among yourselves and in your callings these other six days. And how you labor and how you work these other six days will reflect how you worship. on the one they're intimately connected and they cannot be separated and ripped apart. You know, the French Revolution, or the French revolutionists, during that terrible time of massacre, one of the things they tried to do to rid themselves of God, to totally eradicate any view of God, any resemblance of God in their culture, is they went from a seven-day week to a ten-day week. They didn't want the seven days. They wanted to rid their culture and society of the seven days, and thus they did so by replacing it with a ten, and guess what happened? It failed miserably. Who knows more what man needs than God? When God says, work six, rest one. Work six, worship one. Work six and come into my presence one. You see, beloved, we are required by God to perform several positive duties on this particular day that we are not required to do the other six days. This doesn't mean that you cannot go to a midweek worship service. Not at all. If you had the opportunity and could afford to and could practically make it, and you could labor and you could worship every day of the week, worship every day of the week. Remember Calvin in Geneva preached about every day of the week. There was some form of worship every day of the week, some preaching of the Word of God every day of the week. If you could practically make it, but you're not commanded to. So it doesn't mean that you only worship on Sunday Divorce yourself from any other opportunities. But remember that God has called you to labor and to work and to provide for your family. And he's given you six days to do that. It does not mean that the Lord's day is not the queen of the seven. It is not to be neglected the Lord's day. That is, beloved, you may have a good reason Not to come to midweek services and Bible studies and things of that nature. But you have no good reason, apart from God's providence, apart from the providential hindrance of God, to neglect the worship of God on the Lord's day. We are obligated. It's an obligation. It's a holy obligation. It's in God's moral commandments. We are commanded to worship and rest and serve Him upon that day. The simple answer to the reason we're obligated is because God has sanctified it and hallowed it above all the other days. That is, children, why is the Lord's day better than the rest of the days? It's not because the day is magical. It's not because it's a day that's not like the other days. It doesn't have an extra hour or any extra minutes or anything of that nature. It's only special because God says it's special. It's only special because God hallowed it and separated it unto Himself. He sanctified the day. In the creation, in the Old Testament Sabbath, in the Old Testament church, it was the last day of the week. God sanctified that day by hallowing it, by Him resting Himself from His creation on that day. That is, He demonstrated to Adam and Eve what they were to do on the Sabbath day by imitating Him. Imitating him, which would have come very natural, obviously, being made in the image of God. So you see, beloved, it's special because God says it's special. It's special because he hallowed it and he sanctified it. It's just like this. Why does God say you're my special people? Is there anyone here? better than the guy walking up the sidewalk? Is there anyone here, is there any family here that's just better than the other family across the street that's watching TV right now, getting ready to go to the mall or to the lake? Is there any family here that's just inherently, qualitatively better than the atheist down the street that's mocking all the churches right now? No. What makes you a special people? Because God brought you into his presence and he sanctified you unto himself. And he says, you are my people because I have set you apart the same way with the Lord's Day. Beloved, we're learning that the Lord, the Lord's Day is a means of grace. What do we mean by that? It's a day of salvation. And I want you to understand this. It's not only a means of grace. It's a means of grace. It's a day of salvation. And the means of grace, as they are given to us as gifts to the church, are those means, are those tools, are those activities that God uses in our lives to keep you a Christian. to keep you saved. That is, do you want to persevere? You must make use of the means of grace. Do you want to stand before God on His right hand and not on His left? Do you want to hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant? Do you want to grow in your salvation and not remain retarded in your knowledge of God? Not remain retarded concerning the doctrine of the church? God has given you gifts. He's given you all of these things, not for His benefit, but for your benefit and my benefit. That is, when we make use of these means of grace, particularly the Lord's Day, He does a saving work in us that can only be attributed to His grace and not ourselves. We come into His presence. And He blesses us. He saves us. He causes the prayers, the praying, and the singing, and the preaching of the Word of God to do something in our hearts and our minds that we cannot lay claim to. In fact, we might even call it this mystical understanding, even though we're not talking about mysticism. What we mean by mystical is that we can't actually put it in our own words. That doesn't mean it's not. It can't be explained. It just means that God has not explained it so we can fully and rightly understand it to the depth we need to understand it. But when we get to glory. It may please the Lord to unveil to us how these things work so perfectly and drastically and radically in our lives to make us more holy. It's a means of grace. It's a means by which God does His saving work in Jesus Christ, in us, in you, and in me. It's the day that the Lord Jesus Christ strengthens all of your holy desires. Do you want to love holiness? Do you want to strengthen your desire for holiness? Make use of the Lord's Day. That doesn't mean, listen to me, that doesn't mean just come to church and show up. You can show up to church all you want and never increase in your holy desires and affections and love and adoration of God. You can come to church all you want, sit here and sing and nod your head all you want and never at all grow in your faith, grow in the knowledge of Christ, grow in the doctrine of the Lord, grow in your love, worship and all of these things and you will continually remain, I'm going to use the word, retarded in your faith because You have not come properly to the Lord's day. You have not come properly to the means of grace. It does require something of us. It's the day that Jesus Christ does the saving work in us. He strengthens our holy desires. He causes our focus to be sharper upon Him. He makes us more compelling to be faithful. He increases our love for Him. He increases our love for one another. He increases our joy, peace, happiness, goodness, and delight in all holy things, beloved. He even deepens our hatred. for everything that rises up against him, if we make a proper use of the means of grace, if we rightly understand, beloved, that it's God who is God alone. And that's what he says in the commandment. Know that I am God. I brought you out of the land of Egypt. I saved you with my mighty hand, not yours. If I had not saved you, you'd still be the slaves of Pharaoh. You would still have the whip upon your back. You'd still be making bricks and treading mud. You'd still be a slave. Beloved, it's this overwhelming reality that when we come into the presence of God, we realize that we are the creature and He is the Almighty Creator. And it doesn't matter what the economical situation in America is. In fact, it is what it is because the church is what it is. The Bible clearly says, you want thy land healed? Repent, my people. Repent of your sins. Repent of your lawlessness. Repent for breaking my Sabbath day. How many Christians have been duped to not view the Sabbath day as important? I want to remind you of the quote I read last week. from Charles Finney. Because this whole idea of revivalism, that is, you know what, this whole idea of revivalism teaches this. It teaches that the Lord's Day is not enough. that God's common and ordinary means of grace and coming into His presence and the worship of His people, the common, ordinary preaching of the Word of God simply isn't enough. We need the evangelist. We need the revival preacher to come who's fiery, who has the personality everybody loves. We need him to come and tell it like it is, brother. And what happens is this whole mentality of revivalism has squashed the ordinary view and love for the Lord's Day. They're waiting on the next revival. I don't know when they happen. Now, I've completely forgotten. Like March, that's a fall revival, and then you have some in the spring. Usually twice a year, everybody gets happy. Now, beloved, I'm not against preaching like, you know, tell it like it is, obviously. But we have to be against the philosophy. We have to be against the philosophy that promotes this revivalistic attitude that the Lord's Day is not enough. That the common, ordinary worship of God's people in His presence is not enough to save us. We need a revival. And this is exactly what Charles Finney said. He said, and if you think that you can separate the Lord's Day, the one day, and not separate all the others, He goes, then you're really truly not a Christian. That's what the article says. That's what his lecture says. But what does Deuteronomy 5 tell us? God! God tells us, six days you shall do all your labors. And the Sabbath day is the Sabbath unto the Lord thy God. How does he reconcile that? Well, I bet you I know how. Or let me say, I think I know how he would reconcile that is saying this. That's Old Testament. That's not New Testament. That's Old Testament stuff. Not New Testament. In the New Testament, we're more spiritual than the Old Testament moral law, and every day is the Lord's day. Now, how many of us have heard that? I want you to know I fell into that philosophy. In fact, you know, the psalm that I quote, this is the day that the Lord hath made. We shall be glad and rejoice in it. I get that confused with the praise song that goes with that. And you know, you wake up every day singing that song, but that song doesn't pertain to the other six days. That psalm pertains to the greatest day of the week, a day in which Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, never to die again, and was a monument to the world that God's Son is the Christ Jesus who walked the earth, who's been resurrected as He said He would be resurrected. Jesus said, just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the grave. Beloved, when He was resurrected, it was a testimony that Jesus was the Son of God, Son of Man. It was a testimony that God was serious about defeating sin. All the way back to Genesis 3.15, the seed of the woman will come and He will crush the head of the serpent. What are you talking about? It's a day that has been recognized in the church for 2,000 years, and that's exactly why the apostles from that moment on did what? Worship on the first day of the week, no questions asked. And most Christians don't even know why they worship on Sunday. And I hope our next sermon will deal particularly with that. Beloved, it's a means of grace. It's a day by which God does a work in us, that is, as we apply ourselves in faith. Listen to me. You're not only trusting God for the saving of your soul, but you see, our trust is broader than that. It is when we come to God, we're saying, Lord, I'm going to trust in what you say. You say this is good for me. I'm going to trust that you know what's good for me and I don't. And I will commit myself to it. And I will believe in faith, not blind faith. There's no blind faith in Christianity. There is none. It's only faith in the objective revelation of the triune God who has made himself known to all the earth. And because he has made himself known in all the earth, the whole earth is to shout praises and joy to God. We don't exhibit blind faith. We put our faith in God, in that, Lord, You know what's best for me. You say I am to commit myself to this commandment, and I will commit myself to this commandment, and I will what You do in me, that which is well-pleasing in Your sight, make me more and more and more and more holier. That's the fruit. Ask yourself this, everything you put your hands to do, everything you put your mind to do, all your activities, all your habits, everything you do, ask yourself this, has it benefited my Christian walk or has it hindered it? That includes your jobs. Is it a hindrance or is it a help? And then you ask yourself this, how much is your soul worth? Strike a check. and get rid of everything. That's a hindrance. Reform it. Repent of it. Change it. Whatever you have to do. That's why the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews, there are these sins that are an entanglement to you and your walk. Rid yourself of them so that you can be what God has called you to be. Beloved is a means of grace. And worship is one of the most natural activities any person can engage in. Natural! That is not to say that proper worship is natural. That is, we just worship properly naturally. That's not what I'm saying. It doesn't say that true worship comes easily either. Nevertheless, worship is as natural to man as breathing. Why, beloved? Well, we must presuppose that Genesis 1 is accurate. We must presuppose that Genesis 1, 2, and 3 is absolutely true and infallible and is historical narrative instead of a myth, instead of a story, instead of some analogy. If we hold that the first chapters of Genesis are historical narrative, we must believe that we were made in the image of God and God made us to live for Him and serve Him and to worship Him. It includes that. And it's natural for man. Adam didn't wake up and say, who are you and what am I to do? He was made in the image of God. He had the Holy Spirit. The moment he laid eyes on God, he worshipped God because he noticed and recognized His value and His worth and he knew that God was the God above everything else. I've seen God's creation and He is far above it. He knew it. And He knew it infallibly. And that's why you never find a command to worship God in Genesis. Never. You know why? Because it was natural. Now, when sin entered into the world, it surely complicated things. Because then what did man start doing? Man started interjecting everything he liked instead of what God liked. When sin entered into the world, man started worshipping God as he saw fit and not how God had commanded him in the Bible. Beloved, worship is one of the most natural things that you can possibly do as a person. You know, how do we explain that for these children? Well, let me explain it like this. Let's use these anonyms. What I mean by this is that it's abnormal not to worship God. It's abnormal. It's not normal. I remember sitting down one time in a restaurant with my children. We're very small. And we always pray when we eat. Thank the Lord for the meal. Recognizing that it comes from Him. And I noticed she was very hesitant to pray, and I could relate to that as a small child. And she said, I began to ask her after we got through praying about that, and she said, well, we're the only ones praying, and no one else is praying. And I said, shame on them. Shame on them. Shame on them for not recognizing the goodness of God. Shame on them for not wanting to praise God for the meal that He has so graciously provided for them. Shame on them. And I told her, I said, honey, you are to never be embarrassed to be thankful to God. They ought to be embarrassed. They are the ones that ought to be shamed because they will not recognize the obvious. And what is the obvious? What does it say from Genesis to Revelation? God is good. Is that not what we teach our children from the earliest days? God is good. It's abnormal, children, to not worship the Lord. It's uncommon. It's unnatural. not to worship the Lord. Beloved, it's the natural order of things. The natural order of things itself dictates that God is to be worshipped. Throughout the Bible, the whole Bible exclaims that not only are His people to worship Him, but the whole earth, the earth itself, the rocks, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, The lakes, the valleys, all of these things the Bible says gives praise and glory to God. Romans chapter 8 says that because of sin, the earth was subjected to mourn and ache and groan because of the sin of men. The earth, celestial beings, the angels in heaven, are commanded, naturally, to praise God. Look at some of these verses. Psalm 19, verse 1. The heavens are telling of the glory of God. And their expanse is declaring the works of His hands. Psalm 69-34, let heaven and earth praise Him, the seas and everything that moves. Psalm 96, 11 and 12, let the heavens be glad, let the earth rejoice, let the sea roar in all it contains, let the field exult in all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy. How many of you ever heard trees singing joy to God? Maybe it's because we don't believe they do. But they do. And they do it in a way that God hears it. And that's all that matters. And all that matters is that we know they do it. You see, beloved, that's not being silly. is taking the Word of God seriously. And we understand there are figures of speech and metaphors and such. But the bottom line is what the Bible is impressing upon us is that in every facet of God's revelation praises Him, adores Him, and loves Him because of who He is and nothing else. Psalm 148. I'm going to read the whole psalm. The children are going to love this. Praise the Lord, the psalmist says. Praise the Lord from the heavens. Praise the Lord in the heights. Praise Him, all His angels. Praise Him, all His hosts. Praise Him, sun and moon. Praise Him, all stars of light. Praise Him, highest of heavens, the waters that are above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded that they were created. He has also established them forever and ever. He has made a decree which shall not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth. sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and clouds, stormy wind fulfilling His word, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and winged fowl, kings of the earth, and all peoples. Princes and all judges of the earth, both young men and virgins, old men and children, let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted. His glory is above earth and heaven. He has lifted up the horn of His people for His people. Praise for all His godly ones, even for the sons of Israel, a people near to Him. Praise the Lord. And children, I hope you recognize that even the sea monsters of the deep are to praise the Lord. You know what it really does mean? How does a lion or a sea monster praise the Lord? By being a sea monster. By being a lion. And doing what lions do. And doing what sea monsters do. How can you praise the Lord? By being what God has made you to be. Created in His image. To love and to worship and adore Him. particularly on the day that he has sanctified by blessing it and hallowing it. Beloved, it is very clear, God's creation is very clear to the testimony or the requirement of all men. Romans 1, 18 through verse 20, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them, for since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." Beloved, the Bible says that by virtue of creation, man is without excuse. By virtue of creation, that is, that creation itself is so clear, the evidence on the outside and the evidence that God has revealed to them, the Bible says that it's clear enough that they do what? That they suppress the truth that's revealed with unrighteous behavior. And that unrighteous behavior begins in the mind when they say this, I really don't know if there is a God. That's unrighteousness. That's sin. Or, they're flat out, it's not a God. Okay? Atheism. Practical atheism. Atheism proper and practical atheism. Beloved, listen to A. A. Hodge's commentary. It's a wonderful piece, a statement here. Listen to what he says concerning this verse. He says that it is the dictate of natural reason and conscience that a being of infinite and absolute perfection, the Creator, possessor and sovereign Lord, the preserver and bountiful benefactor of all creatures, and the absolute moral governor of all moral agents should be adored, praised, thanked, supplicated, obeyed, and served is self-evident. and is witnessed to by the common consent of all nations in all ages." And here are the reasons why, he says. He gives seven. He says, number one, he says, because God is absolute, because of His absolute perfection in Himself. That is, that is this. Here's what he's saying. If God is God, And He reveals Himself. He can't reveal anything but His splendor, glory, majesty, and infinite worth and value. That is, any time God reveals Himself, it would have the cause and effect of everybody recognizing how good He is. The cause would be that everybody would drop down on their face and on their knees before Him and say, Glory be to God, because He is that infinitely glorious. That's number one. Number two, because of His infinite superiority to us. That is, we recognize naturally that God is superior. Think about, beloved, this. The arrogance of the atheist and agnostic. The atheist says there is no God absolutely. And the agnostic says, I don't know if there's one. Think about how arrogant that statement is. It is full of blatant arrogance for a creature of God to say something contrary to the majesty of God's power, glory, and revelation, even naturally. We recognize the moment. I mean, listen. The moment there is some type of self-conscious, when the child self-consciously looks out in the face of the mother, that child knows there's a God. And that child will either spend the rest of their life denying that revelation or submitting to it. Now, they may grow up fighting that revelation like some of us did, and God will have mercy on us and bring us on into His kingdom. But you get the point. The moment there is a self-conscious revelation of reality, and when that infant looks into the face of the father and the mother, it immediately knows there's a God. That's what he's talking about. Thirdly, his relation to us as Creator, Preserver, and Moral Governor. We understand. You know what, beloved? Listen. When you talk about all this proof of God, and we want to be told, oh, you can't prove God. I don't have to prove God. God proves Himself. But I'll look at every nation historically, and you go look at all the activities those nations participated in, and you compare them to the moral law of God and ask yourself where they are today. That's proof that God is the moral governor of the universe. Fourthly, our absolute dependence upon Him for every good and our obligations for His infinite goodness to us. That is, we automatically recognize, when we recognize that God is, we know we can't take care of ourselves. We're dependent upon Him to do it. You know it. And that's why, listen to me, this is why people have problems with 1 John because, listen, how many brand new baby Christians you meet who are truly, sincerely born again, the moment they become born again, even in the smallest things, they want to be holy. They want to be like God. They want to serve God. They want to love God. They want to worship Him. And a lot of times they get caught up in all kinds of, you know, emotionalism and everything else because they're young and naive and don't know any better. You've got to be tall. Y'all should have met me 18 years ago. Fifthly, that His commands to come into His presence requiring at our hands. That is, anything He commands us is required of us, we are to do. We don't even question it. When God tells us to do something, we do it. That is because we recognize His character, we recognize His person, we recognize all of His infallible attributes, and we know that this good God could never ask us to do one thing that would bring harm to us, spiritually or physically. That's what Jesus said. He goes, hey, a human father won't even give his child a snake as a gift, you know, a viper. How much more so does your heavenly Father know how to give gifts to you? Whatever God commands, we know it is just. We know that it is good. Whatever He commands of us, we are obligated to perform. And then sixthly, before our good now, we're not just legalists. We're not legalists at all. The fact that our faculties find their highest exercise in our whole being, its highest development and blessedness is in this worship and service of God. That is, beloved, you are no more, you are more like God in the worship of God than at any other time. You know why? Because you're overwhelmed with truth, light. joy, thanksgiving, praise, adoration. There is not a time more in your week that you are so overwhelmed with goodness and all of these things and being pressed into His image than in the worship of God publicly with all of His people. I've said this before because we live in such a culture that is such a quiet time culture, and I'm not opposed to quiet times. Very good thing. But there's so many people, they would rather have, that is, there's so many fathers that would rather do quiet time than to have family worship. And I don't understand that. I mean, if you can sit down and just sing with your family and read a Bible verse or something like that with your family, that would be better than just individual. If you can do it. I mean, if you can do it by yourself, fine. But if you had to choose between, you don't have time to do it yourself, and you've got to neglect family worship if you do it yourself, do family worship. And this whole idea that we're going to do family worship on the Lord's Day versus the corporate worship of God's people, forsake the family worship and go to corporate worship. That's the highest of all worships. The corporate worship of God's people overrides individual and family worship. Because it's in the gathering of God's people together that He promises to bless abundantly as the body of Christ. See, as we come together, we're the church. When you leave here, you're not the church in the same sense. as we gather with one voice, one heart, one mind, being conformed, all the body of Christ in the earth being conformed together into one glorious image. Listen to this and we'll close. We'll finish this up tonight. Listen to another Reformed commentator who is so wise. And again, beloved, this is our Reformed heritage. This is what we believe to be the Christian faith fully articulated from the Bible. He said this, he said, the duty of the worship of God has both a natural and a revealed basis and sanction. The confession says that the light of nature shows that God is. And who has lordship and sovereignty over all? And who is good and does good to all? This being the case, the light of nature further indicates that this God should be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the might. This is natural religion. pure and simple, which by reason of sin has been sorely perverted and sadly corrupted. As a matter of fact, this ideal state of natural religion could exist only among unfallen, sinless beings, such as man was prior to the apostasy of the fall. Yet in all these discussions, in the light of the modern evolutionary theories of the origins of the religious nature of man, that is, because we believe in evolution, Man felt like he needed a God to help society and culture. Therefore, they create a God in their own image and not being made in the image of God. He says, it is of the utmost importance to vindicate the reality of the native or the religious factor of the human constitution, he says, by taking them and pressing upon them the word of God as it is taught from cover to cover. Beloved, here's what he's saying. It's absolutely natural that God be adored and worshipped. And because it's natural, it has been revealed in the Bible in the fourth commandment that he be worshipped on the Sabbath day. That's a command. All of those psalms that talk about come, those psalms that start with the word come, come into the presence of the Lord, those are commands in the Hebrew. He's not asking you. He's not saying this is a good idea. He's saying, compel yourself to bring yourself into the presence of God and bow down and worship him. Let's close with the reading of Psalm 95. Listen to Psalm 95. O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms, for the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth. The peaks of the mountains are His also, the sea is His, for it is He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God. We are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand." Today, if you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah. as in the day of Massa in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, they tried me, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said they are a people who err in their heart. They do not know my ways. Therefore, I swore in my anger, truly they shall not enter into my rest." Beloved, there's nothing greater than to come into the presence to worship God, to adore Him and to love Him as God has commanded even these children. Everybody wants to know how to evangelize a child. You start by keeping the commandments of God and bringing them into the worship of God, teaching them as soon as you can to sit in church. It's not and they say, well, they don't comprehend, Pastor Jess. Wait a minute. How much do you comprehend? God promises to do something and He will do it. Have you heard the voice of the Lord today? Don't harden your hearts. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for answering our prayers. You have enlightened us. You have instructed us. You have corrected us. And Lord, we pray for the application of your word into our hearts. We pray that you would impress upon us and compel us, Lord, to walk faithfully before you in your power and strength and grace and not our own flesh. Lord, we pray that our lives would be the fruit of the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ to us, and that from the least to the greatest would benefit in growing grace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Beloved, with thankful and joyful hearts, let us stand and sing the glory of Padre together.