Let us all unite our hearts together in prayer, and let us take the Lord as the chosen priest to save us. Eternal God, Abundant Father, we bide humbly and reverently in thy divine and holy presence, in the Saviour's wordly and all-prevailing name. We thank thee for the one who brings us night to God, our blessed, dearest man and redeemer and soul mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee for his light and his incarnation in human flesh. We thank thee that he became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh in spotless, impeccable humanity. And we thank thee that he kept the law of God for us, and we rejoice that he lived a perfect life. We thank thee that he was tempted, he was tried, and yet he was found flawless and spotless. And we finally have, as a young man, he laid down his life in accordance to the demands of the law of God. Not for his own sins, but for the sins of his own lovable people. And it results to me that we're part of the great family of God, the Church of the Redeemed, that worships thee in spirit, mind, and truth, and that desires to serve thee in a manner that is acceptable and pleasing in thy sight. And as we would commence this week of meeting, we pray for thy presence to be known. We think of those words of Wesley, thou wilt manifest thy presence here. Lord reveal the presence of God to our hearts this week. Call us to know that we're in the presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. humble our hearts, for we confess these hearts are proud and self-sufficient. We pray that there may be a due humbling and ordering of our hearts and minds before God at this time, and that God will draw near and teach us to do wondrous things from out of idolatry. But thank You for every head voice, but thank You for every soul that is present in the gallery, and I pray that Thou, O Holy Spirit, will take of this work tonight and apply it in a sanctifying manner to every layman that is before me. So abide with us, Lord, as we look to Thee, and we pray that this night, and every night of this week, that Thou wilt be with us and lead us in guidance and direct us, and take all that we owe, and have all that we ask. For we ask our petition to this evening hour in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen. Turn with me, please, in the word of God, to John's Gospel, the Gospel according to St. John, and we're going to read together from verse number 7. This whole week is given over to a study of what is Christian worship. You may think of it as a novice one, and one that is well understood in the Church today, but allow us to listen. And we have lost sight on the fundamentals, and we have lost sight on our understanding of what is the basic concept of Christian worship. As I said to some of you yesterday, I'm not here to teach anything new, and I'm glad for that. I'm here to go over old truths that were accepted by our forefathers of old, and through which the church of Jesus Christ cloned him in days of adversity and brought him to death overnight. So we're going to make a roughly reading of John's Gospel chapter 4 and we're going to read from verse 10. John 4 and verse 10. Let us hear the word of God. There cometh the mother of Samaria to throw water. Jesus said unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy me. Then said the woman of Samaria unto him, Why is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which ask a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gifts of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman said unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw us into the well of sea, from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. For whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. For the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman said unto him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to throw. Jesus said unto her, Go call thy husband and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had thy husband, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband, and that is so true. The woman said unto him, Sir, I have received a third prophet. Our father worshiped in this mountain, and he said that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when it shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour hath come, and now it is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The woman said unto him, I know that Messiah hath come, which is called Christ. When he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus said unto her, I will speak unto thee. Amen. Amen, we'll end our reading here at verse 26 and we know that God will bless this opening reading of this whole week to his great glory. Our whole theme of the week that lies ahead of us pertains to Christian worship. And tonight I would like to introduce the whole series of messages to you, just with a simple overview of how God caused men and women to worship him. I believe it's a subject of great relevance, it's a subject of great importance, not just on the home field, but on the foreign mission field as well. The age that we live in, Brethren and Sisters, is one of great departure from the Word of God. The Lord Jesus warned us that in the last days there would be a great departure from the Word of God and a great turning away from the things of God. So therefore, not to deprive us, but it should never cease to alarm us that the primary aspects of Christian worship in the Church are being challenged, and are being challenged in a way that our forefathers would have been alarmed at the start of that. In the past decade alone, there's been a dramatic change in the witness of evangelical churches with regard to what is viewed as Christian worship, new worship practices, and what we will turn in the next eight minutes. are now common in what were once Orthodox, Conservative, Reformed, Evangelical Churches, where just a few years ago they would not have been tolerated. But we have great toleration today in the society that we live in, and the broad liberalism of a binding society, somehow or another, has found its way into the Church of Jesus Christ, whereby some Christian pastors are afraid to lift their voice and to oppose that which is encroaching into the worship of God, which is clearly against the clear command of God's holy word. So the bottom lines are being drawn. And the clear objective, I believe, of the devil is to destroy what we believe is spiritual and physical worship. And in the church, we need not believe all is well. And some people say, well, we still come and we do what our forefathers said. But I want to ask you, do you understand why you do what you do every Sunday, even if you do it according to the way your forefathers said it? We have lost many children in our evangelical churches because we have failed to teach them the value of biblical, scriptural worship. And parents have been unable to teach their children what is biblical worship, and therefore they've been obligated to wander and live where they want to live. So this week, it's not only about reaffirming what we believe, I hope it will help you to explain what we believe to the generation that is coming up in Angus. The devil is the master of temptation. Precious faith on the devil is never added. The Church of Jesus Christ has been lulled into a lackadaisical attitude concerning the worship in the Sanctuary of God, and has put the devil in so vivid peace and so in the terror of confusion amongst the broader and the wider community. And so when it comes to the whole question of worship, the ordinary man in his faith is faced with an amazing array of choices. And you can't blame the ordinary unsaved individual out of his faith for being absolutely bewildered as to what is the true way of God. If we need to look down some of the webpages of the local churches, You don't need to look up what perhaps is the Church's speech in the local paper. And you will find churches that advertise traditional worship, and then others advertise what is known as contemporary worship. And then others will step further and they will offer what is known as blended worship. Have you ever heard such a bland, ineffective phrase, blended worship? Trying to take the wordless of the church and put it into the one bit and have something that is acceptable to go. I was going through a little village back home in Northern Ireland, and I stopped and I looked at the church and I looked at the floor. I didn't know what was up there for hundreds of years. And do you know how it entangles the worship of God? It entangles the divine worship of God. The divine worship of God. Now, could that, to say some of the soundbites, that authorised modern worship services, like, when they have such phrases like, services as musical praises and busts of celebrations, what does that mean? Would you go to the site to clear Divine, divine worship of Almighty God. So with such confusion, I thought it would be cause of development in the world, but also, sadly, at the middle, the worship of God and the Church itself. Because you know what we've done, brothers and sisters? We have just voided the guidance of the mother of human choice. You pick your service, I pick my service, somebody else picks their service. And in these modern contemporary churches, they have music ranging from this spectrum to that spectrum, and you can just pick the service out whichever way you want to continue. That's what the worship of God has been reduced to. The word worship can be used, I think, in a double sense. There is the general attempt to worship, and that teaches us that we owe devotions to God in all of our lives. There's not one part of your life or my life that we don't owe to the Lord our subjection, our obeisance, and our devotion to Him. And so I'm not saying you do something different outside the Church as you do in the Church. So in an aspect, the word of God gives you a sub-word for it. Therefore, we eat, or drink, or whatsoever we do, do all to the glory of God. So it doesn't matter what you're doing, a home tomorrow, a home tonight, a work at school, wherever you are, we're to do it all to the glory of God. In that sense, that's the general aspect of worship. But we're dealing with the specific tenets, the exercise of worship, what we do at the appointed hour, at the appointed time. One of the most common words for worship is found in our key texts, John 4 verse 24. And this is a verse that we'll come back to, I think, probably every hour of the week, in some shape or form. God is spirit. And they that worship him must worship him in spirit, and in truth. The meaning of the word worship here is to kiss. It's even more intense than that. It's like a joke back in the monster times. It is to fall. It is to literally or figuratively prostrate oneself in an act of homage to do rather than just to adore the one that you're contemplating. Who got the idea, Brethren and Sisters, to say modern and contemporary worship and you get something like a world apart? The idea of reverence The ideas of awe, the ideas of wonderment. The ideas of Christ's covenant, they're all bound up into this word in John 4 and verse 74. And they tell us this is worship that is reserved to, of making God and reserved to him alone. We're not to give this worship to anybody else. We're to give this worship to God and to God alone. Now of course this is a very high and lofty concept. And I don't think that you and I, with all of our limitations, can attend that summit, but that's what God calls us to do. Just as He called Moses from the bottom of the mountain, right up to the top of the mountain to his fellowship with him, to continue with him, when we come to the worship of God, God calls us, and in His presence. He calls us closer to himself, to worship him, to adore him, to glory in his attributes, to meditate upon this person, to spend time with him. It's not about us. Worship is not about us. It's all about making God. So in order to set the tone for the rest of the week, we're going to consider tonight just how God then calls men to worship him. And I'd argue it's just as important that we understand how God calls us to the worship of the divine as to what we would say are the constituent parts of worship, or the day on which we worship, or before we get to the dominant According to the word of God, contemporary worship, we have to start with the very foundation, because God is calling us, you and I, let's say, to worship Him. And the next time you're in the house of God, amongst an assembly of His people and His children, I want you to have this thought in your mind. Somebody might have brought you to the beacon. Some prophets might have organized a certain substance that you're in that meeting, but it's God who's calling you in that meeting to worship Him. So first of all, I would like to see if we're called to worship God as part of His creation. Our first knowledge of God is knowledge of Him as our Creator. In the book of Genesis, we learn from chapter one, verse twenty-six, before Rahman even had a physical form, God, in the striking nature of His existence, had decreed that He was to be made in His image. Not a wonderful thought, but human eyes are made in the image of God. Of course, after that, Rahman's spiritual composition And then, in contrast, we read in chapter three, verse seven, the Lord God formed man by the instruction of the Christ, which, of course, has a reference to the physical composition. So it is very clear that it is almost all creation that God is man with a spiritual disposition to worship Him. We are physical, as on Goliath, we're made of the dust of the ground. We're both physical attributes and characters. We're physical men and women, but also we're spiritual. We have that spiritual disposition. The first Imam of Aqaba, of course, I believe, had a clearer view of God at the end of his saving generations. Why? Because he could read the will of God from creation. He could read what God wanted to say from the grandeur and the glory of what God created. The signs and rules of creation came from Psalm 19, a wonderful psalm. The heavens declare the glory of God. The heavens declare the glory of God. Adam is of all condition. He can look at the heavens, he can look at the ground earth of creation, and he can read it because it all declares the glory of God. He can see it as nobody else could ever see it. So the first obligation of every creative individual is to serve the Creator and to worship Him. The determinacy based in the Book of Romans will delude you in a variety of scriptures. It will help you to look them up, mark them in your Bible. Romans 1 verse 18. The Book of Romans chapter 1 verse 18. We read here, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness, all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who all defer to unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them. How? How did God show it unto them? what knowledge to cause you unto others, and have sinless, free all concessions. He was able to see the invisible things of God. That's what we believe in. 1st Corinthians, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. 1st Corinthians, and what's the excuse? Because all around the book we see the grandeur and the glory of God's creation and it declares there is a God. And even through creation, God calls men to worship him. But when man fails, that knowledge is corrupted. And when man felt his ability to reap what we term natural revelation, creation itself, it was diminished. And soon we discover that man read natural creation and he twisted it to suit his own sinful, fallen purpose. Read from verse 22, protecting himself to be wise in eating foods. and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man, unto words and four-footed beasts and creeping things, wherever God also gave them up." I've read that passage so many times and every time I read it I have to shudder when I come to that verse 24, God gave them up. We live in nations, but we get said generally that God has given them up because they are giving themselves over to that which is totally against the revealed will of God. God gave them up. Now, we're off to the power of evil in Genesis chapter 11 when man was scattered upon the face of the earth and God confounded their language. What happened? Well, each group is set with its own interpretation of how to worship God as their Creator. I'll stop speaking to this story for another day. It doesn't matter where you go in the world. Because all of those people's groups, they spread out all over the world, and they took up the mis-created disposition to worship God, but as they went further from that original created disposition, as they came more closer and got further away from that original objective, And all over the world today you'll meet men in various tribal groups and people groups, and they have a miscommunication to worship. But they're not worshipping according to the revealed Word of the Living God. Sin has corrupted the original worship of God. Paul saw this truth, remember, when he was preaching at Athens, he was preaching to the academics. How did he address himself to them? In Acts chapter 17, verse 73. Let me read this part to you. He said, as he went up to Athens, he said, I passed by, and I held your devotions. You see, it wasn't that the men, these academia and Athens, were without worship. They had worship. I even held your devotions. Paul said, look this over. I find an altar with its inscription to the unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." And how did he go about it? God made the world. He took them right back to creation. He took them right back to the very beginning, because we're part of God's creation. and as part of his creation he calls us to worship him. The original intention has been that a destroyed man has substituted his own likeness. Man-made religions are based in this world and yet we can't deny that all over the world men are spirits of beings that are given over to worship. Though perverted by sinners, though corrupted by sinners, we state again tonight the original alternation stands. And God calls Kingston tonight to worship Him. And the basic premise why He calls so many in this vicinity to worship Him is because He is their Creator. They might not accept that truth, they might not invite evolutionary teachings, but still the Word of God stands, and the truth of God stands. And so the basis of that is God calls men from this world to worship Him. As a church, our doctrinal statement is embodied in the Westminster Confession of Faith. If you have not a copy of the Lessons of Confession gift, you should do all the things required to get a copy of it. And in chapter 21, section 1, it says this, The light of nature shows that there is a God, who has worshiped and solemnly overcome his good, and doeth good unto God, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, and trusted in, and served with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind. An issue of nature, creation, shows all of that. God has a claim on the affections of every individual. Sometimes you're standing on the street, you're giving out a gospel tract, you're trying to be a witness, and somebody turns their back on you and says, that has nothing to do with me, I'm not interested in it. But God has a claim on that place. Whether they like it or not, God is claiming on that individual because that individual is part of God's God, of his great creative power. So by the act of creation we can say, first of all, God calls us to worship him. But then thirdly, let me say this, the call of worship comes to us as part of God's redemption. And it is not a farce of creation to worship, because he partly was creative in his design, and it is even more so applicable to those who have experienced his great resemblance to Greece. If as part of His creation we come into His presence and we acknowledge Him as God and Lord and Sovereign and we acknowledge His goodness and we acknowledge all of His attributes, well then how much more so do those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb come into the presence of Almighty God. In view of this truth, I want to reiterate again, and I'm going to do that every night this week, that the Church's first and foremost duty is to worship God. It's not to do good. It's not to be a social club or social enterprise. Both of those things are secondary issues. The first call of the Church over the deeds of God is to worship Him. The life and witness of the Church has no meaning. It's no meaning whatsoever, and it's not a worshiping Church. It can have the weight of the hour in the course of the coming and the setting. Every week, from every day of the week, it will be occupied with activity after activity. That is very stressful. But if it's not worshipping the Lord, it's no better than a tennis field, no better than a bowling field, it's no better than a swimming pool, and it's hard enough to worship a pilgrimage. Today, of course, we have to confess that the Church has become polytheistic. We should never allow politicians to take over the Church. Never allow it to become polytheistic. And so we are seen by the majority of the world as a vehicle for addressing social ills and social problems. However, as those who have experienced the redeeming grace of God, our first priority – I'm not saying we close our eyes to the suffering of the slave owners of this. I'm not saying we ignore the needs of society. But our first priority, and our foremost objective, is to get the worship of God right in this century. Peter wrote in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 5 and verse 9, he said, ye also as lying stones are built up a spiritual house. That's the description of the church. What are we? We are a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. That's the description of every believer. Every child of God is a priest unto God. There's another wonderful statement. He helped three of us, priests, come to God. Us, as we come into His presence, we offer up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God by Christ Jesus. That's what we do in worship. We come into His presence. We offer up royal priesthood. Thus being redeemed by God. And as we come into this premise, we are offering up, and we look at it consecutively, and how we worship God, we are offering up spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God by Christ Jesus. The First Man tells us, we're a chosen generation, we are a royal race, we are a holy nation, we are a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the creatures of heaven, and call the light of darkness into His marvelous light. That's what we're doing. We're doing it every day of the week. We're showing forth light. in the midst of all the spiritual darkness. We're offering up spiritual sacrifices unto God which are acceptable through the Lord Jesus Christ. So to me it's very clear that the first obligation of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, those who have been retained by His precious blood, is to show forth in worship His grace, His glory, His attributes, His might, to exalt His name, not to make a name for ourselves, but to magnify His holy name. And that's the love of the name of Jesus. How we worship God, and I'm not going to remind you It's more important than anything else you do on earth. It's more important than the biggest business deal you'll find this week. It's more important than the closest intimate contact that you have with other individuals. It's the worship of God, and that time that has been set aside for the worship of God. That should, for the sake of God, be the very, a pivotal time so to speak. Third, we have to see it. In order to worship and to obey this call of God to worship, we need to dine on the issue. What we know, God has been pleased to have given it to us. What we know about God, God has taught us. because we could not have a part of it merely by ourselves. And I think that's an amazing truth in and of itself. After the fall in the Garden of Eden, God was pleased to reveal himself to Adam and to his subsequent generations, by tragedy, over a period of time, but by means of a written revelation. And this has come to us in the infallible, inspired, complete work of the Living God, as through this Bible, brethren and sisters, that God taught for strength the exact way in which we are to worship Him. As a part of His creation, If, more importantly, as members of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are obligated to worship Him, then we have to love and we have to understand and our thinking and then our practical application of the worship of God, that we can only worship God in a manner that is agreeable to Him, as it is in accordance to how He has revealed it to us. The Church, as indeed is true of all men, must worship God how God directs us to worship through whom we are being led. When men worship God in any other way, the Bible talks about will-worship or worshipping God in men. That's a serious thought. Turn with me please to Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 15. Think of all of the worship that was done, every week all over the world. I'm not doubting the sincerity, I'm not questioning the earnestness of those that are involved in it, but it's not according to the Bible, it's in the English. In Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 15, Verse 8 and 9. Remember Jesus is saying this of his own Jewish people. He says, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 1 to the 2nd. How many dear unconverted souls, for example, commit to the worship of God, and with their lips they will sing the praises of the Messiah. But they don't know what's great in their heart and in their lives. That'll be a challenge to you tonight, if you're in this meeting. And you know not the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal saviour. He can sit very attentively, reverently, respectfully. To all attention purposes, he can be following, he can be kicking in. But if your heart is not made with God, nothing else will ever be made with God. Get the heart right tonight. If you're not saved, come to the Lord Jesus Christ and have the heart of yours put right by his grace into his cleansing blood. The Bible tells us, in vain, Jesus said, they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. When you introduce the commandments, the innovations of men into the worship of God, you're just doing here what Jesus said these Jewish people were doing. They're teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. will of worship. Will men prefer their own traditions rather than clinging to the commandments of God? As we are to worship God, our right hands must alight for only those things. which have been authorised, or commanded, or required through our studying of the Word of God in the service of God. And as I said, what does it bring? It brings a curse on us rather than a blessing. And we're going to look at some of those things later on in the week. The approach to Christian worship that we're speaking about here has come to be known by Reformed Christians as the Regulative Principle. So what regulates or permits us our worship of God? The Word of God. It's not a pressed-to-date code book. It's not a book taken down from the shelves of some bookshop that tells us ten ways how to improve your worship of God. A short, quick fix. It's the Word of God. I gave one of the verdicts I wrote in a Westminster Confession of Faith. If you're unfamiliar with it, the Westminster Confession of Faith was a product of the Law of Parliament in 1640 in London, when they fixed a period. The Presbyterians and the Independents came together in the Westminster Conference and they agreed a set of doctrine that would govern the Church. The unfortunate thing was they couldn't agree a system to govern the Church. because the Presbyterians wouldn't allow the bishops to rule in the Church, and the Independents didn't want Presbytery, and so they denied it. But this is a unique document because it articulates, I believe, that which is the broad understanding of all evangelical Christians pertaining to doctrines of the Word of God. A confession that I was thoroughly writing into. So, chapter 21, section 1, states it like this, that the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself. I'm so limited by a dozen of people. It's instituted by God, it's limited by what God says in the Bible. This regulation of the principle, of course it stands in contrast to what has come to be known as the normative principle. The normative principle states that it's not forbidden to be a theist. Are you with me? If it's not forbidden, we can use it. So, really, it's up to your own interpretation, isn't it? The regulated principle states we can only use it if it's commanded. And what's commanded must be used. Now, I have to admit there are some parts of the Reformed Church, of course, they have taken this regulated principle to extremes. And I want to explain that. And they have developed this idea that unless a scripture expressly mentions the thing, that it cannot be included. So let us say, for example, some reformed churches would not have public schools to teach children, because it's not very likely that they should have a public school and a superintendent and teachers. Although the principles of that are incorporated in what we believe is in the word of God. There are many dear brethren of the old dear in the Lord would not have musical accompaniment to the singing of the praise of God because they don't find it expressly stated in the scriptures of truth. But the confession of Jesus deals with a scenario, an alternative or confession Again, in Chapter 21, Section 6, there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and the governance of the Church, calling for human actions in society which are to be ordered by the letter of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the work which are always to be observed. So, whilst we believe that scriptures are the complete rule of faith in practice, whilst we believe that nothing should be regarded as obligatory and as a religious duty which is not explicitly taught in scriptures, we have to confess it does not descend into practical details in every point. It doesn't tell me in the Scriptures that I must have a worship service in Kingston at 10 a.m. every Sunday morning. It doesn't. Or wherever else, just your phone. And so that has to be discerned out of our confessional states through Christian prudence and the application of common sense. Common sense is a gift from God. You wouldn't think it to see how you thought it would develop, but common sense is a gift from God. And God expects us to exercise our common sense. And that's why, for example, I was a missionary in Kenya. For quite some years, we never had any service in Kenya. Not because we didn't love the worship of God, but because we didn't have any justice. and therefore the people couldn't come to the worship of God. So you have to apply it in a practical manner to bring the Lord along the journey of life. So if we recap, we also include in the worship that which only has the sanction of the word of God. What is commanded must be incorporated in the worship of God. But what is not commanded is to be excluded. Solving its human inventions, innovations of no place in the worship of God. Fear to go far in the UK. They introduced in a evangelical church's dance. Dance. And one church that was adjacent to my own congregation that I served in, they brought in dancers coming up the aisle with scoobers to hang them. And so they would run up the aisle with these scoobers, shaking them all over the place, and come around the front and go down the stage, and this was a tremendous atmosphere. The water belongs to another faith, it's open to interpretation, but it's certainly not commanded in the world of God. And what's not commanded ought not to be included in the worship of God. We need a revival, brethren and sisters, in such thinking today. This is what the Reformed Church does with worship of God. I'm not that young and new to me, but I do want to love earth, that which our forefathers shrunk unto, and that which this generation has destroyed. I want to love earth, I want to love the earth too, I want to I want to show you its glory, I want to show you its beauty, and I want to show you its visible, scourged, all-embracing body. And I want to say to you tonight, this is worth holding on to. This is how God calls us to worship Him. He is calling us to worship Him, but He calls us to worship Him according to His own precious Word. Worth without the other. God calls us to worship Him through the weekly institution of the Sabbath day. I'm only going to mention that because we have a whole day different to it in our own life, but where there's no Sabbath day, it's in worship. And I have sought the good of people over the years, and they have a belief that they want to keep the Sabbath day. and the worship leaves, and the Testament only went, and they went back again to the Word. He comes changing one's individuality, who professes the Name of the Lord, and thus discharges the Sabbath day from the school of the Lord God. This weekly institution of the Sabbath is God's means to maintain and to preserve and to perpetuate the worship of God. will come and close in tonight to say that God, when He calls us to worship, He expects preparation on our part. We have to prepare for worshiping God. Some people think worship is something you do on a Monday. I've just started a charter that just happens on a Monday. It doesn't happen now. Worship requires preparation. Amongst the Jews, the day preceding their Sabbath, as it is in our time, was called the Day of Preparation. And so the idea was that as the Sabbath was on its way, a huge preparation had to be made for its proper service. I'm still going to say, even in secular Israel, you go back to that psalm and shops close down early on the night in order that they may prepare for their Sabbath day. And people get in what they need in order to prepare for the Sabbath day. I know the idea is open to abuse, I know it's open to megalism, I know it's open to ritualism, but it has its place in preparation for the Sabbath day. Again, the grammars of the Confession picked it up and intended it to be kept holy unto the Lord. When man, after a deep reparation of their hearts and ordering of their common affairs... We can simplify that. Suddenly, get their shelf in there. Get their car and load up the diesel or petrol. The ordering of your common affairs beforehand. before the dawn of the Lord's Day, do not only observe and slowly rest all the day from their own works and thoughts about work, employment and recreations. Once when a book of sleep was taken in there, how many evangelical churches would stand up to such a scrutiny today? but are also taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship and the duties of necessity and mercy. Do you know we should be preparing, in Athens we should be preparing all the way for the Sabbath day. My preparation was not to start at 11 o'clock on a Saturday night, I was to be preparing all day to get to the house of God on the Lord's Day. Some people use the word, say, for example, well, I don't have to go to worship today. I'll go and visit my friends. I'll go and have a barbecue on the beach. I'll go and visit someone. I'll applaud them, I'm sorry. We'll just have some social event on the worst day. Why do I have ancestors? Because it seems I'm doing it on my own working day. It's the same God's saying, in order that they may enjoy their day. And since God says to us, give me six days, I give you one day. God only says to us, give me one day, I am giving you six days. the Lord with joy in our hearts. If we look up to God, I hope we'll see it, because we're losing our brother's health more and more than they can understand. It's more than Psalm 122, in the message of immersion, it says, I joined into the house of God. Go up, they said to me. Is that your joy when it comes to the Lord's Day? Well, it's no drudgery to go out to the worship of God. It's a joy. It's a blessing to be crowned amongst the Lord's people in the house of God. Of course, we prepare our common affairs beforehand. We prepare our hearts beforehand. As I come into His presence, I prepare my heart so that it will blossom in the presence of God. I'm preparing my heart. I'm preparing my faith. Such preparation just let me give you a glimpse of answer. It means good punctuality. Now, I know there are circumstances sometimes in which we're all delayed, and those are not the rules, those are the exceptions to the rules. So I'm not in any way saying that I've ever been late for a meeting because I have, but there are exceptions. But some people make the exceptions normally. You would never, never, go for, say, an appointment with your bike monitor at that time in the United States. Would you? You'd never go in for an appointment with your doctor at that time in the United States, because the next guy would be taken and you'd lose your place. And that's why you saw some people every time shake the house of God. I want to stress the seriousness. of what we're like. We're calling into His presence, the presence of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. He's calling us. He's calling you and me. This week, every week, till the journey's over, He's calling us to worship Him. And then, in glory of God, we'll join with the new group of companions that are ready to serve, and we're going to worship Him for all of God's eternity.