This week we will get into the matter of “The Worship of God” throughout the Bible in a crystallized way, especially as it relates to the book of Exodus. In Exodus God delivered His people from Egypt, brought them across the Red Sea, fed and cared for them in the wilderness, and brought them to His holy mountain to unveil to them what is in His heart and make them His people.
God gave His people ten words, the Ten Commandments, as a revelation of who He is; the first commandments are related to worshipping God and acknowledging that He and only He is God.
In the whole universe and throughout the ages there is a battle raging concerning the worship of God; since the rebellion of Satan, man has been very much deceived by the evil one and distracted from the genuine worship of God.
Even among Christians today and in our meetings in the church, there is too much influence from the fallen Christendom and there’s not much worship according to the divine revelation.
We need to look to the Lord that He would enlighten us and supply us according to our capacity to have a divine view on what is the real worship of God. There are at least seven main aspects related to the worship of God:
- Worshipping God by knowing His Godhead and confessing that He is God.
- Worshipping God according to the divine revelation.
- Worshipping God with Christ as the offerings.
- Worshipping God through the cross.
- Worshipping God by beholding God and by eating and drinking Christ.
- Worshipping God by experiencing Christ and feasting on Christ with God.
- Worshipping God in spirit and truthfulness and in the dispensing of God.
Today we would like to see more concerning the worship of God in the aspect of knowing God in His Godhead through having a revelation from God, and confessing that God is God. We need to be before the Lord and open to Him concerning this matter, not considering that “we are Christians, so we worship God!” but be enlightened further and brought back to the genuine worship of God.
Seeing that only God is God and Worshipping God by Confessing that He is God!
The last commandment in the New Testament is to worship God (see Rev. 22:9b). It doesn’t say, Worship the Lord, or, Worship the Father, but, Worship God. When the Apostle John, being overwhelmed by the revelation given to him, fell down and tried to worship the angel that spoke with him, the angel said, Don’t do that: I am your fellow slave – worship God!
God wants worship: He wants man to know that He is God and to declare that He is God (Rev. 4:10-11). We may know that God is God and we may worship Him, enjoy Him, and pray to Him, but we should not have the confidence that we truly know God as God.
We may appreciate Christ as our Savior, the Lord as the Spirit, and the Father as the source of life, but do we realize the official position of God over the universe in His supreme Godhead? Do we realize that God is God with unrivaled sovereignty? Do we see that God is ever-existing, self-existing, all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnipresent?
When the Lord Jesus taught His disciples to pray the first thing He said is, Father, Your name be sanctified (Matt. 6:9); this means that the name of God is set apart only for God to have; only God is God and nothing or no one else can be called God.
The Lord Jesus also took God as His God; He acknowledged God as His Father, but He also said, “My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (John 20:17). We can know God as our God after we know God as our Father; knowing God as our Father is a personal intimate relationship, while knowing God as God is a universal relationship.
To worship God is to confess that He is God and declare that God is God (John 20:28; 9:35-38). The highest knowledge of God is knowing God in His Godhead, knowing that God is God. To worship God is to recognize that He is God and that we are men.
How can we have a true and genuine worship of God according to how God wants us to have it? Worshipping God comes from seeing a revelation. We first need to see, by the shining of the divine light, that God is God; He doesn’t have to give an account of Himself to us, we cannot question His decisions or actions, and He is the Potter with full authority over the clay.
Then, we need to experience, in our daily life, how God is God; when we go through some exceedingly difficult things, unbearable sufferings, inexplicable situations, we need to still acknowledge and confess that God is God.
Satan may be there to inject his thought, What kind of God is this? What kind of universe is this for such a thing to happen to you? – but God, our God, is still sovereign, and we worship Him. God is our God not only when things go well or when things are easy to bear; in all manner of circumstances and situations, we as His people need to worship Him as God based on the revelation He has shown us.
We just need to be here, where God has placed us, and worship God as the sovereign God. We worship God not merely because He cares for us, He does things for us, and He supplies us; we worship God simply because is God.
Oh God, we worship You! You are God: You have the supreme Godhead, You are the God in this universe, and You are ever-existing, self-existing, all-knowing, omnipresent, and all-powerful! Lord, You are, and we are not! We realize our nothingness before You. We confess that You are God. You are God not only when things go well but also when inexplicable things happen and when we go through exceedingly difficult things. God, You are sovereign, and we worship You. We are here on earth as men, and we worship You, God, simply because You are God!
God Wants Worship and Satan Seeks Worship: We choose to Worship God!
Satan’s happiest day will be when Antichrist calls himself “God” (2 Thes. 2:4). This is what Satan has wanted throughout the past six thousand years. The worship of the beast is the worship of Satan. Revelation 13 shows that the beast wants worship. The message of the “eternal gospel” in 14:6 and 7 is to “worship Him.” In Revelation 22 the last commandment in the New Testament is to worship God. (Watchman Nee)
Satan seeks worship; his real intention toward man was revealed in his temptation of the Lord Jesus in Matt. 4:8-10,
Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, All these will I give You if You will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Go away, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.”
Satan didn’t merely tempt the Lord Jesus to do this or that: he wanted the Lord Jesus as a man to worship him. For six thousand years the devil has been seeking worship (Matt. 4:8-10; Rev. 13:4, 8, 12, 15), and he disguises himself in many idols in order to get man’s worship.
Satan doesn’t want us merely to sin; he wants us to not worship God but worship him. God wants worship, and Satan also wants worship (Rev. 14:6-7). God needs our worship of Him, and what Satan fears is our worship of God.
What satisfies God is our genuine worship of God, and what Satan yearns to obtain is our worship. It is therefore not enough to preach or teach others about God but to worship God and bring others into a genuine worship of God.
Both heaven and hell are fighting for worship, and we have what both Satan and God want: our worship. Who do we worship? In our daily life, in doing this or that, in going to work, in our studies, in travelling, in spending time on the PC or on our smartphones, who gets the worship?
The worship of God is costly, subjective, and experiential; we worship the Lord our God and we serve only Him! We cannot serve both God and Mammon – we serve God alone!
Lord, grant us a revelation of who You are and how we should worship You. Save us from serving both God and Mammon. May we be clear concerning the battle for worship in the universe, and may we choose to worship God and serve Him only! God, we acknowledge that You are our God, You are God, and we worship You! Amen! Enlighten us to see Satan’s plotting and rebellion, and to realize how he tempts us to worship him….oh God, as it is written, we worship You and we serve only You!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and the Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 46, ch. 200, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (2), week 10 / msg 10, The Worship of God.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# Gracious God, we worship Thee, / Rev’rently we bow the knee; / Jesus Christ, our only plea: / Father, we adore Thee. (Hymns #49)
# O God our Father, we would come to Thee / In virtue of our Savior’s precious blood; / All distance gone, our souls by grace set free, / We worship Thee, our Father and our God. (Hymns #55)
# Immortal, invisible, God only wise, / In light inaccessible hid from our eyes, / Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, / Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise. (Hymns #14)
About aGodMan
Since God’s motive is to obtain worship and Satan’s motive is to obtain worship, what is the duty of a Christian?…What will satisfy God? It is not enough to just pray or preach. God needs our worship of Him, and what Satan fears is our worship of God.
Matthew 2 records the wise men coming to worship. Only those who had the eyesight could see that the small child was God. The greatest revelation of the New Testament is found in the temptation in the wilderness. It opens our eyes to see what Satan wants—the worship of man. We have what God wants and what Satan wants; what heaven wants and what hell wants. Both heaven and hell are fighting for worship. (Watchman Nee)