Lost in the Worship of God 1978

A couple of verses from Matthew 4, starting at verse 8. Again the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. And he said to him, All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan.

For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. This, according to Matthew, is the climax of the temptation. When Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship, and Jesus responds with words of which he really is the incarnation.

You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. There's no such thing as a human being who doesn't worship. Every human being worships just as surely as he or she breathes.

Right now, each one of us here is giving himself or herself to something or someone. And whatever you're giving yourself to, that's what you're worshiping. And what you worship, you serve.

What you serve, you worship. And this package that Satan holds up before the eyes of the Son of Man is now being dangled before us. And it looks quite attractive to us.

All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory that seems to go with this. And if we're honest with ourselves, we have to admit that many times we're very strongly tempted to bow down. For instance, the pursuit of money is not just something we do to pass the time.

But it's worship. It's a form of slavery. You know, we love it.

We adore it. Our eyes light up when we see it. Or take romance.

This idea that the one real valuable thing that gives vitality to life is to be in love. Consumes the minds of many people who have, male and female, gone long beyond in years, adolescence. And when this desire for romance is that this is going to fulfill my life, is frustrated, and it fails, then bitterness sets in.

And the reason this happens is because romance becomes worship. It becomes an idol. A god that lures us either into an unreal fairy tale or into an unreal soap opera.

Sexual fulfillment. Never since the days of Babylon has sexual fulfillment so clearly been held up before the masses as the thing that's going to do it. The billboards, the TV, the newspapers, all announce that one of the chief gods in the temple of this age is sexual fulfillment.

And it's surrounded by wrecked, frustrated, disappointed lives. The pursuit of success, especially in the religious realm, to become God's man or woman for the hour or to be part of something that's really booming, is not just innocent ambition. It's worship.

Lots of people consider this lust to have power over other people's lives as a kind of legitimate character trait in those who are born to lead. See, but the lust for power over other people's lives is an intoxicating form of worship that causes intelligent men and women to fall on their faces before the very feet of Satan. Now, in the town of Christendom, you can go through all the motions of having faith in God while, in fact, your real worship, your real service, the thing that obsesses your mind day and night is one of these other idols.

But when you leave the town of Christendom, plunge out into the desert in the pursuit of the reality of God, you will survive out in that desert only if you get to the place where you worship God alone so that no longer is there this secret love, this secret lust going on underneath. But now God becomes, in fact, our everything, our joy, our fulfillment, and all other loves fade away before His Majesty. Behold, I am doing a new thing.

Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I have formed for myself that they might declare my praise.

Now the place where such people are formed is always the desert. When they leave Christendom, the town of religion, and go forth, following that narrow path through the wilderness of forgiveness and on through dry places where even the jackals and the ostriches have a hard time surviving, where there is absolutely no food for the ego, no eye to watch the wonderful things we're doing, no sights to gratify the lust of our flesh, where there's nothing anymore but dryness and pounding heat, searing light and eerie silence. And then suddenly you hear singing up ahead, singing such as never has touched your ears or your heart before.

Who could be making the sound of such unearthly beauty out here in this desert? You look in all directions and you see nothing. You hear voices all around you, but you see nothing until you come to the top of a dune and there in a hall seven people with their hands lifted up toward heaven are in worship. Seven people, it sounds like 70,000 or 70 million.

Gradually your own heart begins to be lifted and as it does, your mouth opens and to your own amazement words of praise pour forth across your lips as have never touched your lips before. And as you continue to praise God in this manner, your eyes open and you begin to see things which before were hidden from you. You discover that these seven worshipers are surrounded by a countless multitude of magnificent beings whose voices are blending with theirs.

And you realize that you have already come into the outer courts of the city of God in a mysterious way out here in this desert. But you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels and festal gatherings and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to a judge who is God of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood which speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking for if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth much less shall we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

His voice then shook the earth, but now, he has promised, yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven. This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of what is shaken as of what has been made in order that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire.

And as you render to God out there in the wilderness acceptable worship you realize that you are in fact beholding the kingdom which cannot be shaken the city of the living God, angels and festal gatherings the spirits of just men made perfect worshiping him who is the judge of all and Jesus who is the mediator of the new covenant. How long this goes on one cannot tell whether it was three hours or seven days and then finally the noise and the music and the sounds of heaven die away and you are surrounded by silence. Before your eyes are only the seven worshipers who bid you God's blessing and pile up over a dune and lead you by yourself.

Then you are joined by your old companion from the wilderness of forgiveness who leads you to a rushing stream and provides you with a magnificent meal. What's the name of this place you ask? This is the wilderness of worship where believers learn to worship the father in spirit and in truth. In fact, you can call it the outer gate the outer region of the city of God for as you have seen the inhabitants of the city of God are all around you here.

When you were in the wilderness of forgiveness you were experiencing the power of the blood of the lamb cleansing your inmost heart. Now, in the wilderness of worship you are receiving the Holy Spirit who is giving you power from on high to in fact worship God. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions. Even upon the men servants and maid servants in those days I will pour out my spirit. When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place and suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting and there appeared to them tongues as a fire distributed and resting on each one of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

And this promise is given to all who are willing to leave the refuge of Christendom and pursue God out in the wilderness. And when God pours out his spirit upon us three things happen. First, our hearts are just moved with worship such as we've never experienced.

Second, our mouths open and out of our mouths pour words of praise and thanksgiving and prophecy and life. And then our eyes open and we begin to see things which before were hidden from our sight. I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh opening the heart.

And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy opening the mouth. And your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions opening the eyes. And someone protests, wait a minute.

You mean I have to come all the way out in this wilderness to experience these things? Aren't they going on back there in Christendom? Don't they have that going on also? Isn't it possible to experience every one of these things in that wonderful cathedral of the future every Sunday night? Why, people even tell me that they can taste it while they're watching television in their living room if they turn to a Christian channel. The difference is that here in the wilderness of worship we don't just taste. We don't just dabble.

We don't just get our little spiritual uplift once a week. Here in the wilderness we are lost in the worship of God. And that's the difference.

You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve. What's needed is for our worship and our praise to go entirely and utterly exclusively to God so that everything we think and do is done for Him in some way. This is not fanaticism.

This is truth. This is the one way to freedom. For it is only when we are so consumed in the worship of God that we are set free from the worship of money, romance, lust, success, power.

We have found the one who alone deserves our worship. And as we worship Him we also find our only satisfaction. For it is only when we are lost in the worship of God this way that we are emancipated from our slavery to the deceiver who forever dangles apparent beauty that belongs to this age before our eyes and sucks us in again and again.

May God help us to understand how this fits in our own lives to have the courage to leave Christendom and press on into the wilderness of worship for there, behold, He is doing a new thing. Even now it springs forth. He is opening a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.

He is forming a people for Himself that they might declare His praise. Let's pray.