They are building new houses
all around ours. At various times, I see
the foreperson pouring over a set of blueprints that need to be followed. The construction team takes its directions
via the person in charge from the blueprints drawn up by the architect. Any variation requires architect agreement
and then city council approval or the whole project could be shut down.
From this passage, we clearly
see that God wants to be worshipped. But
that worship is to be undertaken in a prescribed way. He gives us the parameters under which we are
to worship. To the Children of Israel in
the Old Testament, God gave specific instructions of how to build an altar and
what to do with it.
Most of us would agree that
today we no longer have to make sacrifices on altars to worship God because His
Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, was the ultimate sacrifice, and it was made on
our behalf. Fair enough. However, sometimes in our rush to throw out
sacrifices, altars, burnt offerings, and peace offerings, we discard some of
the principles God attached to Old Testament worship – principles that were, I
believe, intended to transcend the ages.
Let’s look at some of those.
First, there is the principle
of parameters themselves. All behavior
may be called worship by the worshipper, but God does not view all behavior as
worship. We need look no further than
Genesis 4 where God accepted Abel’s sacrifice, but not Cain’s, to support this
thinking. Here in Exodus 20, God tells
the Israelites what kind of an altar He prefers and what they are to offer on
it. Today, under the guise of what we call
‘freedom in Christ’ we tend to worship Him in whatever way we feel like. I am not speaking of modern music as compared
to century old hymns. That is not the
point. The point is that we need to
consider how we worship God for while God is a God for all of time, He does not
change. There are things that He will
not accept as He did not accept Cain’s worship.
And the Holy Spirit can and does speak to us as to what those things
are, if we care to listen and obey.
Having said that, it is then also possible to accept the fact that what
we all may not have arrived at the same point of hearing God on this matter, or
some of us may well have misunderstood what He has told us when we hear Him
with the filters of our own experiences and upbringings. All that is possible and thus we should be
careful not to criticize what others call ‘worship’ for them. And I think that’s the secret – worship has
to be ‘for us’ and it has to be truly perceived as, and believed to be
acceptable to God, by the worshipper – no one else.
Second, we need to realize
that God causes His “name to be remembered” in some very physical spots. It may be a chapel pew for you. It may be a gravesite of a loved one for
me. It may be someone else’s closet for
them. We would do well to keep an eye
out for such places. We would do well to
listen to the rhythm of our heartbeats when we approach these special places in
our lives. Try visiting Israel and walk
where Jesus walked or suffered, or performed miracles, and take your
pulse. I guarantee you it will be higher
than normal. We need to remember that
one of God’s principles in our act of worship is that He causes His name to be
remembered. We may often call on the
name of God and remember it, but we need to understand that it is He who brings
it to our mind. Even that we do not do
ourselves.
Third, whenever we come
across a place where God (not man) causes His name to be remembered, God says
about that place, that He will come to us there and bless us. That’s our God; we can count on that. Want God to meet with you and bless you? Make sure you are aware of where He causes
you to remember His name; and visit there often. When I think of what God is saying,
promising, and doing here, I am reminded of the classic fast-food commercial
that came out in 1978 that goes something like this – “at _________, we do it
all for you!” I’m sure you know the
fast-food chain I’m talking about. You
may know them as the ones that build these large golden arches near their
stores. And if you’re still wondering
who I’m talking about, check the commercial out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOMJ5nAaS08
. Yes, God does it all for us – He
reminds us of His name at various junctions in our lives; He visits us there;
and He blesses us from there. What more
can we really ask for in response to our worship?
Fourth, while God has the
right to be a “my way or the highway” God, there are aspects of our
relationship with Him in which we are given choices. Before I personally studied this passage, I
would have been the first one to say, “Oh yeah, show me!”. Well, Exodus 20:24-26 is one such
example. Here God clearly states His
preference for an altar made of earth.
But then He goes on to say, “but if you make an altar of stone for Me,
here are the specific directions for that.”
Our God is not the no-choice autocrat many of us have made Him out to
be. And of course, the fact that we do
have acceptable choices in our positive relationship with Him (and not just
with the negative choice to reject Him altogether) is complementary to the
notion that we have been created with free will.
But no matter what our choice
may be in some things, we still have to implement that choice within God’s
parameters for that aspect of the relationship.
In the case of the Children of Israel, God did not want the Israelites
to use cut stones that their implements had been applied to, if they were to
build altars out of stone. He wanted
them, in that case, to use uncut natural stones.
Bible commentator Chuck Smith
has much to say on this verse. For
starters he believes God did not want carved stones because He wanted nothing
to distract the worshippers from worshipping Him. He did not want anyone including those that
built the altar to say or think, “my, isn’t that a great masonry job!” Think for a moment of all the famous
cathedrals or synagogues or temples you have visited. What comes to mind first? How awesomely you can worship God there or
what a marvelous job the architect did?
Be honest.
Smith goes on to say we can
glorify man’s handiwork any time we want, since he is using the abilities God
Himself gave him, but we are never to regard it at all when we are in the
process of worshipping God. Many
unbelievers hear a great preacher and marvel at his or her ability as an orator
but they totally miss the point of what God has sent that individual to say to
the world and to them. Eloquent oratory
can sometimes be a hindrance to the spreading of the Gospel. Smith says “God help that man who seeks to bring glory and
attention to himself while doing the service of God.”
Robert Jamieson suggests that
they were not to carve the stones because that may lead to carving images on
them and those images may in turn lead to superstitious thinking and behavior. Perhaps.
But what we do know for sure
is that God said if they do use carved stone, they would “profane” the altar. That is, the altar would become irreverent,
disrespectful, wicked, and even sacrilegious. Our failure to worship God in His way ruins
the entire exercise of worship for us.
Finally principle number five
from this passage is this: God is concerned about our own showiness or
flashiness. One could argue that He is
concerned about that at the best of times, but He certainly does not want any
of it during our worship of Him. Matthew
Henry suggests that the Israelites were to make their altars low to the ground
so that they would not think that the higher up the altar was built and the
closer to the heavens they were, the more acceptable any sacrifice made on it
would be to God. Chuck Smith, however, I
believe has a much more relevant explanation for this verse. He writes:
In other words,
don't go up steps and high where people can look up and see your bare legs or
something. God just doesn't want attention drawn to anything but Him when we
are worshiping God. He wants your heart and your mind to be centered upon Him,
not to be distracted.
Then Smith goes on to explain why at his church they try to
keep distractions to a minimum and even when dealing with musicians, they
discourage “little antics that draw
attention to themselves, even a special movement as you're playing the bass,
you know. It draws attention to you, and takes the attention of the people off
of what you're saying, what you're singing.” Need we say more about how we dress or how we stand or how we
move? Smith goes on, “But the minute I draw attention to me, then the person's attention is
taken off of God, and I am robbing God of that which is His. God will hold me
accountable for it.”
So
there we have it. Keep the five simple
principles for worship in mind, especially when you are leading it. If you and I do that, then God readily
accepts our worship. And if He does, He
will also bless it. That’s all the
success we need.
_____________________________________________________________________
[Are you
looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken
is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]
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