short series of messages called A Call to Pure Worship. It has three sermons. Admittedly, we've taken multiple pulpit sessions for each one, at least two sessions for each sermon. Those sermons are entitled The Corruption of Worship, The Standard of Worship, and The Inspiration of Worship. Today, I begin the several session third installment called The Inspiration of Worship, rather. But to help us appreciate where we've been and to bring us to where we should be today, allow me to indulge a brief review. As God's glory is the ultimate end of our being, nothing is more important for us and to engage in and to persist in His worship. And by that I mean worship according to His will. And therefore, since this is true, since worship, pure and true worship of God is the ultimate priority, nothing is more desirable to the devil than to corrupt that worship. And he does so by the introduction of elements not contained in God's Word or by twisting worship into some violation of God's Word. And we must be able to recognize this when it happens. This realm of thought occupied our attention in the first sermon, the corruption of worship. Now, indispensable for pure worship then is an appreciation of the standard of worship so that we might be able rightly to judge the difference between pure and corrupt worship and reform out of any corruptions in worship to pure worship. And this standard is God's word alone. This is the part of our series that occupied our attention in the second sermon, the standard of worship. Further, for the glory of God, the church must then, having been able to recognize corrupt worship and understood the standard for pure worship, we must be moved by the call of God to reform what is amiss and to remain ever vigilant against corrupt worship. In other words, we need more than simply being convicted of our corrupt worship and then being instructed as to what pure worship looks like. But we need to be motivated toward pure worship. And that brings us to the third part of our series and the last part, the inspiration of worship. These are the three themes we've been expounding in the series A Call to Pure Worship. Now, let me remind you again where we've been biblically. I tried to say just two basic things in the first sermon, The Corruption of Worship. First of all, that God desires pure worship. And our text primarily was John 4, where Jesus, in dialogue with the woman at the well, having received her inquiry about the proper way of worship, said to her, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And further, Jesus said, God the Father seeks Worshippers like that. That is true worshippers who worship Him in spirit and in truth. So that's the first point I wanted to show you in the first sermon. God desires pure worship. Secondly, man offers corrupt worship. Man offers corrupt worship. And I showed you a number of biblical examples where worship had been corrupted, but none more infamous in my view than Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel. And we studied the text in 1 Kings 12, which showed us several parts of his corruption of worship. First of all, we saw that corrupt worship arises from misplaced priorities that Jeroboam had. And it's ever true. Misplaced priorities corrupt worship. Secondly, we noticed that corrupt worship flourishes when convenience replaces conviction, when an easy way to worship is sought rather than the right way. And thirdly, we saw that corrupt worship multiplies man-made religious innovations. And what is illustrated in the policy of Jeroboam has still been the sinful urge of man ever since. And whereas Jeroboam erected temples and golden calves, and installed uncalled and unqualified priests to do service, and ordained unscriptural feasts, certain so-called holy days that did not have biblical warrant, He even dared to offer upon the altar. All these things were offensive to God because He didn't require it of Jeroboam. There was no divine direction to worship this way. And the very wording of the narrative in 1 Kings 12 highlights the fact that at root of all these innovations introduced by Jeroboam was self-idolatry on his part. He came up with these things out of his own heart rather than seeking the Lord and the Lord's will in them. And that corrupted the worship. Now, in the in the second part of our series called The Standard of Worship, I introduced the topic by describing to you in brief the controversy centuries old about what has been called the regulative principle of worship. That idea, essentially, that whatever is not commanded in Scripture for worship is forbidden. This has been held by Calvinists and by the Reformed branch of the church, if we could call it that. And the other point of view that says whatever is not forbidden is allowed. This has been championed by Lutherans and, after them, Anglicans. I didn't hold you in suspense very long because I told you bluntly that I side with the Calvinist and the Reformed view of worship. I do adhere to the regulative principle of worship. And if you remember, I showed you a classic statement of this doctrine in our church's Confession of Faith, the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 22, Paragraph 1. That part of the confession appeals primarily to two proof texts from Scripture. The first was Exodus chapter 20, the passage giving us the second of the Ten Commandments. The second passage is Leviticus 10. Oh, I'm sorry. The second passage appealed to is Deuteronomy 12 verses 29 to 32. And we work through these passages one at a time. The one from Deuteronomy was God's warning of His people before they entered Canaan, not to inquire for the purpose of imitation how the Gentiles worshipped their gods, and then to incorporate some of their methods of worship into the worship of Jehovah. It was not so much a prohibition of worshipping idols per se, But it was a prohibition about the manner of worship, not to worship the Lord in an idolatrous way as the heathen worship their gods. And the Lord said instead what the people were to do was to listen to His voice and His voice alone concerning the manner of worship. that they were to keep His commandments, adding nothing, taking nothing away. And this justifies our belief that the Lord our God requires of us scrupulous conformity in worship to His revealed will, which for us is Holy Scripture. Then we consider the implications of the second commandment, which prohibit the use of images in worship. But if we understand by the analogy of faith, the proper scope and the proper intensity of application for the second commandment, like all the others, then we realize that prohibitions of a gross sin condemn all other sins of the same kind. So the prohibition of images in worship by by application and by inference also condemns all worship practices derived from any other source than God, and it condemns worship of idols of the heart. We also realized, I trust you did, as I was helping you see what Jesus had to say about the proper interpretation of the Ten Commandments, that prohibitions of certain sins imply command of the irrelevant virtues associated with those sins. In other words, when it comes to the second commandment, the Lord requires our deliberate intention and earnest efforts to render worship that conforms scrupulously to God's revealed will as our sole rule. And I use the analogy of a football coach that rushes out onto the field in a desperate situation, grabs the quarterback's face mask, turns him away from all the players huddled around who are telling him, do this, do that, and the coach says, hey, quarterback, look at me, listen to me, don't pay any attention to them, throw the Hail Mary pass. He wants them to disregard all other influences and to tune in, to zero in on what the coach is saying and just do what the coach says. This is the basic idea of how we learn to worship God, is to listen to God and God alone for direction. Not what the community wants us to do. Not what non-Christian religions do in worship. They have nothing, absolutely nothing, to teach us concerning how to worship God in the proper way, but to tune in to the voice of God, His univocal direction. I also compared, I use the analogy also of a conductor before an orchestra. And worship is a symphony of praise to God. And who is the conductor? God and God alone. You can't have multiple conductors before the symphony. God strikes up the tune and raises the baton and gives us the direction we need to make beautiful music to His glory, so to speak, if you'll allow the analogy. Finally, in the second sermon of the series, we showed the very striking illustration where Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 offered what is called in that account strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not and the very characterization of their offensive act as doing something which the Lord commanded them not, of offering unauthorized or foreign fire to the Lord in an act of worship, this is very persuasive in my judgment for the justification of the classic, historic, reformed, regulative, principle of worship. And that brings us now this morning to this third sermon in the series, the inspiration, the inspiration of worship. And I will tell you now, although it won't won't come up for a few minutes here, that our main text for all this preaching in the third sermon will come from Deuteronomy Chapter four, so you may turn there now if you wish, but it'll be a few minutes before I comment on that. Now, friends, I have. Sought to speak in the most clear and effective way about this matter. And hence the title for the third sermon, the inspiration of worship. And I need to explain why I've chosen to use that word for the theme before us, the inspiration of worship. In theology, we ordinarily use the term inspiration in a very precise and technical way. Almost universally, when you see the word inspiration in a theology book or even a serious commentary on a book of the Bible, for example, it means that supernatural process, that miraculous process by which God produced the Scriptures, His very words, written down through men as his agents. Inspiration technically doesn't have so much to do with the men being inspired as the words being inspired. The end product of the writings that have come to be known as the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the very words of God Himself. Indeed, written by men. The passage that gives rise to this technical term, inspiration, is 2 Timothy 3.16. All Scripture, it says there, is given by inspiration of God. And I could speak for a long time about this subject, but that's beside the point. Now I want to use the term inspiration in a different and a more general way. I want to use it, and I hope you'll find this not only legitimate, but helpful. I want to use inspiration as a label for the phenomena of true worship as produced by God and motivated by men. I want to use it in sort of a general sense that you would understand if I said, We were inspired to worship God. We were inspired to worship God. If we're going to speak in a way that's consistent with the grand Christian theology, what we would realize then is that has a twofold connotation. First of all, it connotes the work of the Holy Spirit that moves us to worship. And secondly, it recognizes the use of means and our own intelligence and feelings and will to prompt us to worship. Both Holy Scripture and holy worship are inevitable. when you stop and think about it, because they are the products of the effectual work of the omnipotent Holy Spirit who can do what He pleases, being God. In John 4, we still have this expression ringing in our minds, the Father seeketh true worshipers to worship Him. That is His desire, that is His His purpose, it's His initiative and intention to have true worshipers to worship Him. And so the Sovereign Father sends forth the Sovereign Spirit to raise from spiritual death true worshipers. And having raised them from the dead, He continues to send forth His Spirit that he might transform the true worshipers progressively into the pure worshipers he desires. The Holy Spirit is a sanctifying spirit. The Holy Spirit is a life-giving spirit who calls the dead to stand, as it were, in God's courts and appear as His loyal servants to Him who were dead in trespasses and sins before. That's the kind of thing I intend by using the word inspiration, the inspiration of worship. Without this powerful Holy Spirit, absolutely no true worship could possibly even begin, much less Continue. The church, in other words, is utterly dependent on the Holy Spirit for the maintenance of true worship. And when we grasp this, then we realize that God and His redeeming work, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are the ultimate and responsible cause for all true worship. Why is there true worship? because God creates and sustains and fills the worshipers. Amen? I mean, we have to give God the praise for the very existence of the church, the true church. We will praise God through all eternity for the church being liberated from bondage to idolatry and loosed to appear in His courts with hearts set free and tongues unleashed to praise Him. It's all because of God and His powerful, sovereign grace. But the inspiration of worship I intend to have a second connotation, and that is related to human motivation. God uses means to draw people to Himself. God uses means to turn idolaters into His loyal servants and to purify the worship that suffers some degree of corruption. And the Spirit is behind the use of these means. The means God uses is chiefly His Word. And I mean that as a double entendre. Listen. The same Holy Spirit that gave the Word written by inspiration is the Spirit who gave the Word incarnate or in the flesh by the virgin birth. You remember in the narrative, the birth narratives of our Lord Jesus, Matthew and Luke, how that it says the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin Mary. And that holy thing in her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was creating the Word with respect to His human nature. So the Spirit gave us the Word written. The Spirit gave us the Word incarnate. And the Spirit uses men to proclaim the Word written. That is Holy Scripture and the Word incarnate, even Jesus Christ. We preach the Scriptures and we preach Christ. Now this is all the divine pattern and design for ministry. That men today should stand and herald, that is to announce, what the Word says. And men should stand today as representatives of Jesus Himself and proclaim Jesus in their preaching. And when the Holy Spirit owns this ministry of the Scriptures and of Christ by miracle of grace, true worshippers are the result. And worshippers who are progressively purified and their worship is purified toward the biblical standard is the result. Now, this is not theory. We don't have to depend on conclusions and logical deductions and inferences for these observations. This is what has been going on in a dramatic way from the first century till this. Acts chapter 2 gives us the account of the early church. And it testifies that before the Spirit came down, as He did in great power on the day of Pentecost, there were but 120 trembling worshipers afraid for their lives in the upper room. And then one day, suddenly, That is, on the day of Pentecost, that little band of 120 worshipers in Jerusalem, a tiny remnant found within apostate Israel at that time, swelled to thousands of true worshipers, constituting the new Israel, the Spirit-filled church. And this, this explosion that added first on one day 3,000 souls, and then in the weeks to come another 5,000 souls, this was a mere precursor of tens and hundreds of thousands and then millions to appear throughout the world in the centuries to come who would be the product of the Holy Spirit's gracious power. True worshipers of our Lord Jesus Christ, those whose worship is in spirit and in truth, those who worship by the standard of Scripture alone. and whose worship is being progressively reformed by the word. And I want you to know something else about the Pentecost event. The Holy Spirit honored and used the preached word through Peter to quicken the hearts of those who had been dead in trespasses and sins. What was The God-ordained means that He used for this revival in Acts 2. What else was it but a preacher of the Word standing up in the power of the Spirit and proclaiming Christ and Him crucified. That's what God used. It wasn't a band. It wasn't a tent and sawdust. I don't know if they had a tent and sawdust. But that wasn't what God used. It wasn't all kinds of man-made inventions to promote revival. What we could, I think, very fairly call revivalism that has come to take the place of genuine spirit-wrought revival. No. Peter, The one who had been so timid that when a little maid asked him, well, you're one of Jesus' disciples, aren't you? And he said, I swear, I don't know the man, just days before. Now that the Spirit has come, Peter finds divine emboldenment to speak to literally people who had Christ's blood on their hands. and tell them that they were the murderers of God's Christ and they needed to repent and be baptized and so forth and believe in Christ. Notice also from the Acts 2 account that the people's response to the Spirit's mighty work is described and summarized there in what people today would consider a very non-sensational way. When Peter had preached the Gospel in the power of the Spirit, and all these souls were born unto God and took their ranks among the true worshippers of God, what was the response of the sinners who were saved to the Word? Here's what the book of Acts tells us in that chapter. The first thing it says is, they gladly received the Word. This is one way to describe what true and saving faith is. Secondly, it tells us they repented from sin. Thirdly, it tells us they were baptized by the apostles in water. Fourth, it tells us they were formally added to the number of church members in the local church at Jerusalem. Fifth, They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread, which I believe includes the Lord's Supper, and in prayers, Acts chapter 2, verses 41 and 2. That was the product of the Holy Spirit's supernatural work to beget true worshipers of God. That was the product. That's what it looked like in real life. We don't read anything about them, you know, bouncing off the walls or rolling down the aisles or hanging from the chandeliers. We read about them confessing their faith in Christ, confessing their sins, being baptized in water, becoming church members and then giving themselves with devotion. to the apostles' teaching, and to the fellowship, to the Lord's Supper frequently observed, and the prayers." In other words, when the Spirit came with power, the result was true worship, pure worship. Worship in spirit and in truth, such as the Father seeks. No images no stained glass windows, no statues, no icons, no banners on the wall, no incense, no bells, no clerical garb, no holy water, no liturgical calendar, I might add, no Christmas, no Easter, no concerts, no puppets, no plays, no dancing, and no elaborate church programs. This was a church produced by the Spirit. This was a church being pastored by the apostles themselves. It was unadorned obedience to God's revealed will. Nothing added. Nothing taken away. It was simple, spiritual, sublime. This is what happens whenever the Spirit inspires worship. We could get back to that. Simple, scriptural, spiritual, sublime worship. That's what the father wants. And by the grace of God, that's what this pastor seeks as well in our congregation and in all the congregations of Christ everywhere. I want you to know something else. Even illustrated in the acts to event. Notice that God appeals through through the human preacher to the human hearers as the thinking, feeling, and choosing beings which He made us to be. He instructs our minds, inflames our hearts by the truth, and induces our wills to give Him His due. God works through means and God operates upon us with recognition of our entire humanity. And the result is pure worship. Now, I believe that giving myself to this topic, if I have for really a couple of months now thinking about it, has been blessed by God in me with a new light, maybe not completely new, but new in its intensity on our faith. And I've realized that in a general way, we could say that true worship and pure worship is the purpose of the whole Bible from cover to cover. Why does God give us His word that we might glorify Him? That's what it's all about. That's the ultimate priority. That's why we desire and God is pleased to save people, not primarily so that they will feel good and be comfortable in the afterlife, but to swell the ranks of those who willingly, intelligently, zealously give God glory throughout the ages together in the church. In other words, the glory of God is supreme, not man's existential happiness. And the whole Bible is a book about how that we should and can come to be the true worshipers of God. But Deuteronomy 4 contains a classic Old Testament passage summoning God's people to pure worship. It was great indeed on that day when Moses stood and in the Hebrew language verbalized these words to the mass of assembled Israelites at the base of Mount Sinai. But it shines with an exceedingly bright luster for us when we understand it in the light of the New Testament. We have light that Moses and the Israelites then did not have. And in the proclamation of the substance of Deuteronomy 4, the first 40 verses, God helping me, I want to bring the New Testament further revelation to bear on our understanding of the meaning of Deuteronomy 4. So now, if you would, please turn in your Bibles to that passage. Deuteronomy 4. Only the first 40 verses will be before us in the preaching. This Lord's Day and I believe one more pulpit session next Lord's Day. The book of Deuteronomy, as it's called in English, has a title that came to us from the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. The name of the book is actually the result of a compound of two words in the Greek, Deutero, which means a second, and gnomion, which means law. So the book of Deuteronomy has this title that means basically the second law or the second giving of the law, more precisely. And it was given after the wilderness wanderings had come nearly to an end. Whereas the law, especially as it's summarized in the Ten Commandments, was first given at the beginning of that 40 year wilderness wandering period. But do you remember that whereas it would have only taken a short time, maybe a month or two, for the Jews to travel from Egypt to Canaan and go in and take the land, because they rebelled at Kadesh Barnea, God pronounced a curse on the people 20 years old and up, and they dropped successively in the wilderness under the wrath of God. And it took that 40 years for the generation of young people under 20 to grow up in the wilderness, and they were the ones to go in and take the land. And just before they entered in, on the threshold of the promised land, the aged Moses, 120 years old preached this sermon to them that we read in Deuteronomy. And it contains, the book of Deuteronomy chapter 5 contains a rehearsal once again of the Ten Commandments originally found in Exodus 20 from 40 years before. Now, Deuteronomy is given as a, not simply as a sermon, but as a covenant between God and his people. And this book of Deuteronomy as a whole exhibits the structure of an ancient treaty. It's in the form of an ancient treaty. And scholars who study these things, not only the scriptures, but ancient writings of the peoples who lived in those days, have come to realize this parallel between the covenantal structure of Deuteronomy and the ancient treaties of peoples like the Hittites and the Assyrians. In both Hittite vassal treaties with their people, the kings with their people, and this covenant between Yahweh, the king of Israel and his people, you have several common elements. There is a preamble. followed by historical prologue, and then stipulations of the covenant or treaty, followed by blessings and curses. Blessings if you keep the terms of the treaty, curses if you violate the terms of the treaty. Then there is a section called the document clause, which means a provision for periodic reading and relearning of the covenant through future generations. And finally, the appearance of witnesses at the end of the treaty or covenant. And this is a neat outline for the book of Deuteronomy. In chapter one, the first five verses, we have a preamble of the covenant. We have historic prologue then after that through chapter four. Then the stipulations of the covenant are the main part of the book occupying chapters 5 through chapters 26. Blessings and curses are found in chapters 27 and 8. The document clause is in chapter 31 and the witnesses of the covenant in chapter 32. Now I mention this because especially because it will help you appreciate the context of our special passage of consideration, Deuteronomy chapter 4. Deuteronomy 4 is at the very end of the historical prologue section of the book. And as such, it mostly is a narrative. It is the telling of the story of God's chosen people. with the historical events that occurred in their experience. But it's not just any, it's not like just a travel journal. On Monday we did this, and then on Tuesday we went over there and we saw this, and on Wednesday this happened to us. No. It is a special kind of history, what we call redemptive history, because it focuses on God's work in and upon and for His people and the significance of God's acts in their history. So it's a selective history. And it's a history that interprets the meaning of the events that happened in terms of the people's relationship with God. So that's what we're going to look at. And I said the prologue, the historical prologue, lasts from chapter 1 through chapter 4. And the part of the prologue that is in chapters 1, 2, and 3 is narrative. But in chapter 4, here's what happens at the end of the prologue. Moses, led by the Spirit, applies the spiritual implications of the redemptive history of Israel to explain what is the proper response to what God has done. In other words, he takes what is past, what God did for His people, and then proclaims the implications for how they conduct themselves in the land as God's people. In other words, he makes practical application of the Word. He's been telling them, God has done this for you and God has done that for you. And remember how God did this and God did that. And when we come to chapter 4, he turns it around and says, now you should do this as those for whom God has done all these things. In other words, God's redemptive work in history require spiritually and ethically require a response of faith and obedience in his people. In other words, another way to put it is we can only respond rightly to what God has done by true and pure worship of the Lord. And any other response is a failure, it's a rebellion, it's ingratitude and idolatry. So now in the time that remains for our several pulpit sessions, all I want to do is to take you through Deuteronomy 4 verses 1 to 40 and show you the reasons and the motives for pure and true worship. All right, so that's it. Now, I'm not going to get very much further this morning because time is about up. But God willing, we'll devote ourselves to this pursuit in the afternoon service, and it appears that the Lord will give me one more opportunity in the morning service of next Lord's Day. Now. I know you think, well, he's about to get into Deuteronomy four, but no, no. We I want you to consider with me, first of all, what comes before Deuteronomy four, namely Deuteronomy one six. to the end of chapter 3. That's verse 29. But we don't have time to read it now. We don't have time to read it. So let me just summarize it for you in a minute. But the import of all this, the exhortations of Deuteronomy 4 coming after Deuteronomy 1, 2, and 3 teach us that we can offer pure worship to God and we must offer pure worship to God. That is, we have a moral obligation. because of what he has already done for his people. And this is the point I want to stress right now. The greatest and weightiest consideration for why we should worship God is his redeeming work for his people. We don't worship God so that we can get Him to act in a way of salvation toward us. He has acted in a way of salvation toward His people. And the only proper response we can offer that is to worship Him. In other words, God's grace is the initiator of worship. And our worship is the proper and only response to God's grace. Now, this historical prologue of Deuteronomy 1, 2 and 3 doesn't actually start with the beginning of what God did for his people. It assumes that their knowledge of some things God had done for his people prior to the history recounted in Deuteronomy. The people of God, standing at the base of the mountain, listening to Moses, would have already known several things about what God had done for them. They would have already known that Jehovah, Yahweh, was the Creator of all, and therefore, He was their Creator. They already knew that He elected and called their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So that's not mentioned here. They already knew that God had multiplied their descendants in the land of Egypt. And then after 400 years, when they found themselves as miserable slaves in Egypt, they knew that the Lord had delivered them out of Egypt to be His holy people. And shortly after they left Egypt, that God had given them His covenant at Mount Sinai. And basically, this is where the historical prologue of Deuteronomy starts. So if you look, you might look just browsing over this at Deuteronomy chapter one. I'm going to run through the content very quickly. In verses six through eight of chapter one, Moses rehearses before the people how that God had called them to journey on from Mount Sinai. And then how God gave them more leaders because Moses was inadequate to be their only leader. Verses 9 to 18 of chapter 1. Then God encouraged them to go up and possess Canaan. But they rebelled at Kadesh Barnea. So God judged them without totally casting them off. Chapter 1 verses 19 through the end of chapter 1. After that, they traveled through the wilderness. And there is something of a travelogue journal kind of entries there in the first 15 verses of chapter 2. But in their trek through the wilderness, by the power and grace of God, they had overcome powerful enemies. Sihon, king of Heshbon, his defeat is celebrated in the end of chapter 2. Og, king of Bashan, he was defeated in the power of God by the Jews in the wilderness. His defeat and their victory is celebrated in chapter 3. And having then defeated mighty kings outside the promised land, the people received land on the west side of the Jordan in God's mercy. That's what occupies the middle part of chapter 3. Finally, Moses tells the people, that he learned he couldn't inherit the promised land with them, but his successor, Joshua, would lead the people. That's the last part of chapter 3. So there you have it. That's basically the historical prologue leading up to the exhortation of Deuteronomy 4. This glorious redemptive history is foundational to exhortation. Redemptive history prompts exhortation. and empowers exhortation and obedience to the exhortation. In other words, faith and obedience and pure worship is the only valid response to redemptive history. Now, somebody might be thinking, Pastor Meadows, you know, this is about the Jews who lived on the other side of the world, who lived thousands of years ago, and really, what does this have to do with us? This has everything to do with us. You know why? Because this is the history of our people. God has had one people from the beginning of the world to the end. This is our history as believers. We are one people with them. These are God's redeeming acts on our behalf to our forefathers. And I'm not talking about people who are physically or ethnically considered Jewish. I'm talking about Christians. Look with me, if you would please, at 1 Corinthians 10. I want to show you something startling, at least it is to this recovering dispensationalist. 1 Corinthians 10. Here the Apostle Paul is writing in this letter to a largely Gentile church in Asia Minor in the wicked, ancient city of Corinth. And he says to these, you know, Gentile Christians, Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant How that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat that same spiritual meat and drink that same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. Paul has stated in one of his other letters that he is a Hebrew of the Hebrews of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee. He had been a member of the strictest sect of the Jewish religion. And now that Paul has become a true worshiper by the Spirit, he identifies with these Gentile Christians and he says to them, I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, about what happened to our fathers in the Old Testament period. Ours. Yours and mine. Me, the Jewish Christian. You, the Gentile Christian. Why is he writing like that? Because the continuity is not between Old Testament Israel and then modern Jews, the continuities between God's people in the Old Testament who were known as Israel and God's people in the New Testament who are known as the Church or the New Israel. When Christians today read these Old Testament histories like we have in Deuteronomy 1, 2 and 3, brethren, Take this on faith. I mean, faith in God. This is your history. This is the history of your people. Because it's a history of God's people and we are God's people. And God has done so much to save his people since those days. God preserved Old Covenant Israel as a people until our Lord came from heaven and was born from a long line of Hebrew kings through the Virgin Mary. God in this was fulfilling the ancient messianic promises to His people. Jesus Christ, all that He is and all that He has done and continues to do, This is the highest inspiration for pure worship. Jesus Christ and His work is the foundation of our highest moral obligation to worship Yahweh. Jesus Christ and His saving work is the assurance of our God-given ability to respond in obedience to God and His Word. Amen. So what is the inspiration of worship? God and His redeeming acts, especially as they climax in our Lord Jesus Christ and His work. That's the inspiration of worship. And now we come to our main text, Deuteronomy 4. which Matthew Henry says is a most earnest and pathetic exhortation, pathetic means appealing to your feelings, a most earnest and pathetic exhortation to obedience both in general and in some particular instances backed with a great variety of very pressing arguments repeated again and again and set before them in the most moving and affectionate manner imaginable. And indeed it is. And God willing, when we come together again in this room this afternoon, we'll begin the afternoon preaching with a reading of Deuteronomy 4, the first 40 verses, and I will try to to drop the plow and make as much progress through this good field as I can in the preaching, because I'm telling you, after today, I only have one more opportunity before I depart for the pastor's conference down south. And I've got to be done with this before I go. So may the Lord own the sincere and earnest proclamation of his truth. And that is Holy Scripture. And bless us all, I pray.