Episode Transcript
We're in 2 Kings 17 and verse 35.
2 Kings 17 verse 35.
"As I began my study yesterday, like I always do,
I prayed and thanked God that He's never let me down
and has always given me something to teach from His work."
For a Bible teacher, that would be,
I guess if we had a fear, the greatest fear is that
when we get up here or sit around a table or however you have your class,
that we wouldn't have something to feed the sheep with.
That would be something I'd never want to do.
I'd rather go mute than get up here and say something and not feed anyone.
So I asked the Lord to help me to understand the text so I can rightly divide it.
And that in turn allows me to teach the text according to truth
rather than according to the direction I want to take it.
So you see, without prayer, I cannot hope to have the right mindset
going into my Bible study.
And I need prayer and that reminds me, when I pray,
that reminds me that I am completely dependent upon the Lord
and the ability to teach, which I hope to do this morning.
Now let's reread verse 35.
I hope you're there by now if you're just tuning in.
We're in 2 Kings 17 verse 35.
"Speaking of Israel, with whom the Lord had made a covenant
and charged them saying, 'Ye shall not fear other gods,
nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them.'"
Last week we finished our lesson by taking a look at the phrase
"and charged them."
And we used a passage from Genesis to learn a little more about the Hebrew word
that was translated "charged" in our text.
And we found that not only did it mean to command,
but that the command could either be positive or prohibitive.
It would tell you what to do or what not to do.
And just as it was toward Adam and Eve concerning the fruit of that
forbidden tree and concerning the other trees of the garden,
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil being the one that was prohibited,
so trees of the rest of the garden, or the rest of the trees of the garden,
being the ones for which they received a positive command,
"Thou mayest freely eat."
And just as God did them, so He does us.
He commands or charges us concerning both what to do and what not to do.
And with that in mind, we learn in our text that not only had God
made a covenant with Israel, but He had also commanded them,
or as the text says, He charged them.
And in verse 35, God gives first the prohibitive part of that charge.
Look at it. He says, "You shall not fear other gods, nor..."
Now, "nor" is simply, you could say, a form of "not."
It means we're continuing the "nots."
"Not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them."
Now, these were first in importance here, I believe,
because violating these prohibitions leads to all manner of sin.
It opens the floodgate for the rest of it.
Which of the Ten Commandments did God first give Israel in Exodus 20?
Well, that was in verse 3, which says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
So He told Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai the same thing
that He's telling the children of Israel here who've been scattered in these Samaritans as well.
And that is, "Have no other gods before me."
He told them to fear no other gods in our text.
In fact, eight of the Commandments, eight of the ten, are prohibitive.
They tell you what not to do.
And the two positive commands were to honor thy father and thy mother,
and remember the Sabbath, keep it holy.
But to begin with, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," sets the tone for the rest of the Commandments.
And it's because God is the one who brought them out of bondage.
That's why He says, "You'll have no other gods before me."
It's because He brought them out of bondage that they should have no other gods before Him.
And if they had no other gods before Him,
then the obedience of the rest of the Commandments would logically follow.
Now God established His authority over Israel as their Lawgiver.
He gave them a law, and then the people said, "All that the Lord has spoken, this we will do."
But He was not only their Lawgiver, but if you go back in time, He was also their Creator.
So when He charged them with these Commandments, it was their duty to obey them
because God had the authority to give them as their Creator and as their Lawgiver,
and as their Deliverer, as we'll see.
So to set aside that first Commandment, that very first one, whether it's in Exodus 20 or in our text here,
as it's given, to set that aside leads to setting aside all the rest of them, doesn't it?
After all, if the children of Israel or people today concluded that God has no right to tell them what to do,
then they would see no reason to keep the Sabbath holy, to keep from killing or stealing or lying or coveting, and so on.
So for our text to remind us that the children of Israel were taught to fear no other gods
is to remind us that disobeying this Commandment is what leads to all the other trouble.
It's really not that hard. In fact, Jesus simplified it, didn't He?
He said that there were two Commandments.
The great one is that thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength.
And the second one, love thy neighbor as thyself.
The second one in order, you can't love your neighbor as yourself if you don't love God as you're supposed to.
That one springs all the others.
And what did He say about those two Commandments?
He said, "On these two Commandments, hang all the law and the prophets,"
meaning the writings of the prophets, not the prophets themselves.
Just in case your imagination wondered.
Now, what did Adam and Eve do before they took of the fruit of the forbidden tree?
They had another God before the Lord. That's what they did.
The serpent who was the manifestation of Satan tempted them.
And so there was another God there for them because He is the God of this world, the Bible says.
There was another God for them to listen to.
Yet they had the God who created them, the one true God, the one who also created their adversary,
though He was in perfect form as Lucifer when He was created.
And so they had a choice to make.
Had they chosen to fear the Lord and to fear no other gods, then history would have been written a different way, wouldn't it?
But that's not what they did.
Rather than honoring the Lord's charge to them, His command to them,
Adam and Eve placed the serpent's words before the Lord's words,
meaning they placed the serpent before the Lord.
And the sins they committed after that, such as trying to hide from the Lord and the finger pointing,
whether it's that woman you gave me and the woman said, well, the serpent beguiled me.
You notice nobody said, I chose wrong. I chose to sin.
I made that choice. You didn't see any of that. You saw finger pointing.
That's where that started, that finger pointing.
And so after that, the violation of any commandment came that much more easily.
They first set aside God's authority.
And the sins of Israel and the Samaritans follow that same path, don't they?
They placed other gods before the Lord, and then their sin just took off from there.
As wild as the imagination can run, sin can flourish, can't it?
Now, what is it that...
Let's bring this to something modern that we deal with.
What is it that the perverted segment of our population try to do to our children?
They tell them the opposite of what God's word says.
That's what Satan did as the serpent.
God said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."
Satan said, "Thou shalt not die."
And so the perverted part of our population says, no, that's not right, what God says.
That's not an abomination.
They tell them the opposite.
They tell them things like, "Well, it's your own body, so you can be who you want."
The Bible says, "You are not your own, for you are bought with a price,
therefore glorify God in your body and spirit which are His."
They don't belong to you.
Now, in an earthly sense, I get to decide whether I walk over here, walk over there,
which route I take home and all of that, but my body doesn't belong to me.
It's God's.
So they teach them that they have the right to decide what gender they want to be
or that they don't have to decide at all.
They're fluid.
The Bible teaches male and female made He them.
And yes, I know, I've studied enough to know there are very infrequent birth defects
that allow or cause both parts to be on the baby
and the parents have to make a decision of some type.
But you know, that comes from the curse of sin.
The Bible says, "Male and female made He them." God didn't make any mistakes.
Now, what do liberal politicians tell the criminal population of our country?
They tell them, "You're victims of the economy.
It's not your fault that you steal or it's your upbringing.
You can't help it. You grew up in a bad environment."
Okay. Or maybe it's your race.
People are blaming you because of your race or because of your environment.
I mean, who could live in that city and not commit crimes?
Well, there are people who can and do.
The current Dallas County District Attorney ran for his office in 2018
and he promised to enact a new policy when he was elected.
And that policy specifically exempted people from prosecution
if they stole diapers, formula, or food as long as the value wasn't over $750.
Unless they did it for economic gain.
In other words, unless they stole and then they started selling it.
Well, that's exactly what happened.
Why do you think formula had to be put behind lock and key?
I never thought I'd see that happen because it became just like a drug.
Drug dealers deal drugs. Baby formula dealers deal baby formula.
So criminals had a new black market drug called baby formula.
Can you imagine the convenience store owners?
They don't have anything in their store worth $750.
So shoplifters came in there and just filled their baskets and left
knowing they weren't going to be prosecuted by this district attorney.
They begin, even retail businesses, they begin losing merchandise like never before.
You've seen it on TV. You've seen videos of people just walking in
and there is no hiding something and sneaking down the aisle.
They just load their baskets up and walk right past the cashier.
So what this district attorney's policy did was to embolden thieves
in an effort to win their hearts.
That's what he did.
Why else would he call out baby formula, diapers, and food?
Making it sound like it was okay to steal as long as you were doing it
to take care of the children, the children.
Stealing is a wicked habit and God's word says thou shalt not steal.
So do you see what this district attorney has done?
He's told people the opposite of what God's word says.
It's okay. Just don't make money off of it.
It's okay to steal. That's what he said.
Now whether it be a perversion of gender confusion
or the legalization of shoplifting,
the authors of these wicked practices have set aside God's word
and what it says about the matter.
And they, by doing that, have denied the authority of God's word.
Without saying it outwardly, they've said God doesn't have any right
to tell us what to do. We can do what we want.
Now can you imagine that coming out of your mouth?
That ought to never come out of a Christian's mouth,
much less be in their hearts.
And when you fear other gods, the possibilities for sin are endless
and the depths of sin are measureless because it waxes worse and worse.
You think, well, we've seen it's just as bad as it's ever going to get.
No, it's not. It's going to get worse and worse and worse.
I'm not sure if you remember a previous study
where we went into great detail about the order of the events
when it comes to violating the first of the Ten Commandments.
Now we just read, "You shall not fear other gods,
nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them."
And that is a summary of the progression of sin.
That is, they first feared a god other than the Lord,
then they bowed to that god, and next they served that god,
and then they sacrificed to that god.
And we went into great depth about that a few months ago,
so I won't do it again here, but it is recorded in another lesson.
Now look with me in verse 36,
"But the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt,
with great power and a stretched-out arm, Him shall ye fear,
and Him shall ye worship, and to Him shall ye do sacrifice."
There's the word "but."
It is a conjunction, and it contrasts the phrases before it and after it.
In fact, the word "but" often precedes an example of the grace of God.
You see something negative written, and you'll say,
"But," I like the one that says, "But God commendeth His love while we were yet sinners."
That's what I like there in Romans chapter 5.
So the word "but" often precedes an example of grace just like it does here.
It says, "But the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt,
with great power and a stretched-out arm."
Now let's look at the contrast between the Lord
and the gods that are mentioned in verse 35,
whom Israel was commanded not to worship,
not to fear, not to bow down to, not to sacrifice to, not to serve.
Israel was long ago in bondage to Egypt.
They were slaves. They had no hope.
They had no power to change their destiny, at least in their own flesh.
And through all of their captivity and all of the ill treatment afforded to them
by these Egyptians, God used this time to prepare them
to raise up Moses as a deliverer.
And God showing Himself mighty in the plagues
and showing Himself merciful in the Passover.
He brought them up out of the land of Egypt.
And thinking back to our conjunction, the word "but,"
we see a contrast between the Lord God and the gods mentioned in verse 35.
One thing we notice is that the gods mentioned in verse 35
did not bring Israel up out of the land of Egypt.
That was a claim that only the Lord God Himself could make,
regardless of how many Israelites and Samaritans worship these other gods.
At no time could any of those gods make that claim.
Do you remember when Moses was in the mountain
and Aaron and the Israelites were at the foot of the mountain,
and when the golden calf was made,
what was the statement that was made about that golden calf?
"These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of Egypt."
No, they didn't.
That was a silly thing to say even on a logical platform.
That golden calf hadn't even been made yet when Israel was delivered from Egypt.
So how could any of them claim that something that didn't exist
had brought them out of Egypt when they fashioned it out of their own earrings
after they had been brought out of Egypt?
Now, why is this important?
Who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt?
Well, in our text here in 2 Kings,
God is appealing to Israel based on the fact that He is their deliverer.
Yes, He's their creator. Yes, He's their lawgiver.
He has authority over them in all those areas.
But here He's basing it upon the fact that He is their deliverer.
And without Him, they would have continued to be in bondage
until the end of the age.
There would have been no hope for them.
Oh, sure, they may have been in bondage to Egypt,
and then whoever conquered Egypt, they'd have been in bondage to them.
They would have stayed in bondage.
And to remind Israel of that should be all it takes for them to agree with God.
They would have said He delivered us, so we should love and serve Him.
Adam and Eve should have obeyed God because He was their creator.
They didn't need a deliverer at that time because there was no sin in the world.
They had been created, and God had given them commandments,
a commandment really, but commandments based upon His relationship with them
as their creator.
And when they sinned by eating the fruit of that forbidden tree,
they also showed their disregard for God as their creator.
Now, He could have said, "All right, that's it.
I'm your creator. I gave you a commandment. You disregarded it,
which means you disregarded me. You favored the serpent's words over mine.
You're done. I'm done with man."
God never needed man. He never needed earth.
He always has been and always was. He was nevertheless happy.
He is the same.
So how merciful was it for God, the creator of Adam and Eve,
after they sinned, to show them their sin?
He didn't have to do that, but He did. He showed them their sin.
And He showed them their adversary, the serpent.
He pronounced the curse, but then He showed Himself as their deliverer as well,
rather than wiping them out.
In fact, God could have wiped them out when they even entertained the thought
of eating from the fruit of that tree,
because He knew their hearts. He knew that when they heard the words of the serpent,
that they were considering doing, that Eve was considering doing what God told her not to do.
He could have stopped it right there and said, "You just lusted after that fruit on that tree."
But He didn't. He gave her the opportunity to not eat of it, and she failed.
And Adam failed.
They cast off God's government and accepted the government of the God of this world.
But when God shed the blood of those innocent animals and put those skins on them,
clothe them in those skins, He was showing them their deliverer,
because Jesus, the innocent Lamb of God, would one day shed His blood for their sins,
clothing them in His righteousness when they were otherwise unrighteous and naked,
trying to clothe themselves in their own righteousness.
Adam and Eve tried to clothe themselves in those leaves.
And Isaiah said that all of man's righteousnesses are as filthy rags in the sight of God.
Try to put a clean set of spiritual clothes on yourself. It's dirty to God.
And now, since the fall in the garden,
all of mankind is legally obligated to fear the Lord,
not only because He's our Creator, but He is also our deliverer.
If you remove the Creator from the literature, from the schools, from the churches,
you've removed the deliverer as well.
You can't say, "Well, we don't think God created us,
but we think that He'll be merciful to deliver us."
That's the wrong God. That's a God with a little "g."
The people in that case, when the Creator has been removed from the literature,
the people will not see their sin. They won't see the need for a Savior.
They won't see their present condemnation that they're already hopelessly lost
because they've not first feared the Lord.
Now look back in verse 36, and let's see a second contrast between the Lord
and the other gods that were mentioned in verse 35.
It's found in this phrase, "with great power."
Not only did God bring Israel out of Egypt, He did it with great power,
or great strength. That's what the word means, power.
God didn't wait until the dark of night and say,
"Hey guys, you'll have to be real quiet and sneak out of this gate right here
and pay off this guard and maybe you can get out.
I mean, you're on your own." He didn't do that.
No, He did it right in the Pharaoh's face.
He performed terrifying plagues, every one of which could have been avoided,
had the Pharaoh let the children of Israel go three days' journey into the wilderness
to sacrifice to the Lord.
You know, that was the original request Moses made to the Pharaoh.
It's not necessarily the "let my people go,"
but "let my people go into the wilderness three days' journey
to sacrifice to the Lord with the promise of coming back."
Pharaoh said, "No way."
On the other hand, the false gods in verse 35 were not to be feared,
nor bowed to, neither served, nor sacrificed to,
because not only had they failed to deliver Israel from bondage,
but they also had no great power to do so had they wanted to.
Only God has the great power to deliver the captive from sin and its wages
and to do it with great power.
Now here's a third contrast between the Lord and the false gods in verse 35.
Look back in your text. It's seen in these words,
"a stretched-out arm."
A stretched-out arm.
"He brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a stretched-out arm."
Well, what's the significance of a stretched-out arm?
That's what we think of, isn't it?
That's the image we see.
Well, its meaning from the Hebrew language is not really complicated at all.
When you stretch out your arm, you're reaching in the direction of something.
For an example, if a cashier wants to hand me my change,
I never tell him, "Keep the change. I want my change."
If she says or he says, "I have your change,"
then my arm is going to outstretch in the direction of that change.
That's where if I stretch it in the direction of the candy aisle or toward the door,
then I'm not stretching it in the direction of the thing that I want,
which is my change, all of it.
By the way, I'm just right here.
If you're ever in the service industry and you work as a waiter, waitress, whatever you do,
don't shortchange people.
Bring them their change.
All right, I'm done with that.
You can ask me more about after church if you like.
But what's at the end of my stretched out arm? It's a hand.
That hand is where I want my change to be put,
to be delivered from the clutches of that greedy cashier.
Stretching out my arm in the direction of something means I'm committing my arm
and my hand toward a specific person or a specific task.
Now, when God stretched out his arm toward Israel,
it was not a physical arm. He's a spirit.
In fact, in Job, Jeremiah, and here the words arm and the word power are used together.
They don't mean exactly the same thing, but they're used together.
So the stretching out of God's arm, we learned from those passages,
was the stretching out of God's power.
It was the directing of his power to a certain place and for a certain purpose.
In Exodus, that certain place was Egypt with a stretched out arm.
God figuratively, he literally delivered the people,
but the stretched out arm is figurative because, again, God is a spirit.
And so he stretched it out for the purpose of delivering his children.
That's how he delivered them with a stretched out arm.
He determined in his grace and mercy, with his great power,
to stretch that arm out in the direction of the thing that he wanted to accomplish,
and he did it.
And by contrast, the false gods, back in verse 35, had no stretched out arm,
either figuratively or literally.
They were not spirits. They were made by their worshippers.
Their images or statues were made by their worshippers.
And those statues couldn't do anything but stand there and corrupt.
You know what the statues were made of? Well, different things.
But every statue that was made was made of something that is corruptible,
something that will burn up, made up of elements,
and the elements will be melted with a fervent heat one day.
So these were made of things that corrupt, some more quickly than others.
You make something of stone, you make something of gold.
The thing that is made of stone is probably going to fall apart or erode
a crack sooner than something made of gold is going to be melted away.
But that's what they have in common.
So those statues couldn't do anything but stand there and corrupt.
In fact, it's quite a silly notion that a statue could do anything at all.
But, just so you know that it can, not of its own volition, by the way,
not of its own will, listen to 1 Samuel chapter 5 verses 1 through 4.
Which says, "And the Philistines took the Ark of God,"
that's the Ark of the Covenant they stole,
"and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod.
When the Philistines took the Ark of God,
they brought it into the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon."
Now, Dagon was the chief false god of the Philistines,
and they had a statue made of him.
So when it says the Ark was set by Dagon, it means by the statue, they call Dagon.
"And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow,
behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the Ark of the Lord.
And they took Dagon and set him in his place again.
And when they arose early on the morrow, morning, behold,
Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the Ark of the Lord.
And the head of Dagon, and both the palms of his hands,
were cut off upon the threshold.
Only the stump of Dagon was left to him."
Do you see that?
The mighty Dagon was nothing more than a statue,
a false god worshiped by the Philistines, not the Philippines.
I almost typed that yesterday, Philippines.
I'm sorry to my brother, Espeso, and you all, I don't believe that at all.
But the only thing Dagon could do is fall over on his face.
That's all he could do.
And we know who did that. That was God.
God pushed that statue down on his face.
That statue would not tower above the Ark of the Covenant set beside it.
But rather than Dagon giving strength to his worshipers,
his worshipers had to prop him up.
Do you see that?
And you also notice that Dagon's, his palms, his hands were cut off
and his head leaving only a stump.
Now that literally means he had no stretched out arms
to redeem his Philistine worshipers.
And just like Dagon, none of the false gods, the Samaritans,
or the children of Israel feared, had great power.
They could not deliver anyone.
And about now in history, the children of Israel could use a good dose
of the power and outstretched arm of their deliverer, couldn't they?
Because they are in Assyrian captivity.
They're in bondage again.
Just like they were in Egypt now, they're in bondage again.
This time to Assyria.
I look back in verse 36, it says in the middle of the verse,
"Him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship,
and to him shall ye do sacrifice."
Now we saw that verse 35 contained the prohibitive parts
of God's charge to Israel, where he said,
"You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them,
nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them."
However, verse 36 contains the positive parts of God's charge.
And the first one being, "Him shall ye fear."
Another way to say this would be, "Ye shall fear him."
That is a positive command.
That means you are being told to do something.
They were to do it and not leave it undone.
And this type of fear is the type of fear the priests taught the Samaritans
in verse 28 of this chapter.
That's the type of fear that the Lord commanded them to have for him.
Now the second positive part of this command says, "Him shall ye worship."
We looked at, "Him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship."
Now let's take a look for a few moments at the word "worship."
It's used quite a bit in religious circles, isn't it?
In fact, in some rather large churches, it has taken on its own meaning.
Some churchgoers refer to that very lengthy part of their service
that involves singing repetitive choruses and swaying back and forth with their hands
and just droning on and on and on and on.
That's what it turns into, is just a repetition of things for the sake of repetition.
And they'll call that the worship.
They'll say, "We had great worship, and if you don't ask them what do you mean,
you'll assume that they worship the way you worship or the way that the Bible says to worship."
But they'll call that their worship service.
All right? So that's actually a very narrow definition of what worship is.
And the singing of endless repetitive choruses is not by itself worship.
There are lost people who sing beautifully, and they can sing songs of the Lord.
Let me tell you, I listened during the Christmas time,
and even now my wife had it on YouTube yesterday, Handel's Messiah.
And if you know anything about classical music,
that is one of the most beautiful and difficult to sing.
It's got 42 movements or 50. Anyway, it's long. You'll be there a while.
And every word sung in there is the Bible.
It is Scripture being sung, and it is beautiful.
But in that large choir and orchestra and with that conductor up there,
just doing the math, you know there are some lost people who are singing,
and I mean they're singing beautifully, every one of them.
But they're not worshiping just because they're singing that song.
And I realize there are different styles of music in the churches,
but the style of music or the length of it is not what the Bible is referring to here as worship.
The word "worship" here in our text means to bow down,
to crouch down, even to prostrate oneself on the ground, face down.
And in fact, the word translated "worship" is also translated as the word "reverence"
five times in the Old Testament.
So the idea of worship is that of sinking down.
You are lower than the one whom you worship.
You reverence the one whom you worship.
So you don't have to lay down here on the ground to worship.
That's just what the word means.
And I thought about this morning, I was reading a couple of things Brother Fulton had written,
and one he wrote about Zacchaeus on his Facebook page.
And I thought, man, this is perfect.
I'm about to teach about what worship means.
It means seeing yourself as a wee little man in the presence of God.
That's good, isn't it?
If that's all you remember about worship, I am a wee little man in the presence of God.
Now that's not all worship is, but that's the idea, is that God is above you,
and worship is reverent.
Worship is not gamey or catchy or cool.
It's reverent.
It's respectful.
It's done in the proper fear of the Lord.
Now when this Hebrew word for worship is used to describe what a subject does before a king,
it doesn't necessarily mean that the person is worshiping the king like you worship God.
But it will show you the attitude that's expressed by the worshipper.
Here's an example in 1 Kings chapter 1 verse 31.
1 Kings chapter 1 verse 31, and the word will be reverence here.
It's the same as the word worship in our text, but listen for the word reverence.
"Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the earth and did reverence to the king and said,
'Let my Lord King David live forever.'
Now Bathsheba did not worship David as she would worship God,
but she lowered herself to him, she sunk down in his presence to him as her king.
She recognized that she was the subject and he was the king."
Now this is the problem that prideful man has when it comes to God.
The hip religious crowd wants to talk to God like he's some kind of cool brother
who hangs out with them rather than their sovereign creator and the ruler of the universe.
And some of these pastors who practice that way and believe that way
draw large audiences by telling people things about God that are not true.
They'll say things like, "Oh God understands your sin, it's okay,"
rather than telling them God hates sin.
So until those pastors themselves understand that they are spiritually to be prostrate on their faces before God,
that they're we little men before God, then they're never going to learn nor be able to teach their people
what the word worship really means and how to do it.
Jesus tells us how we should worship God.
In John chapter 4, Jesus met a woman at a well, and it's a very familiar story to many of you,
and he taught her about the living water that she can drink and for which she would never thirst again.
And he told her also that she had five husbands and that the man with whom she lived was not her husband.
What a great lesson, but I want you to look with me at the discussion she and Jesus had about worship.
And that's found in verses 19 through 24 of that same chapter, John 4, 19 through 24.
"The woman saith unto him, 'Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her, 'Woman, believe me, that our cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father.
If ye worship, ye know not what.
We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews.
But the our cometh now is when the true worshippers,"
Now, you want to know what worship 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."
Now, this woman's worship was geographical. She tied it to a place.
The true worshippers' worship is spiritual.
It's not tied to a place. It's tied to truth.
It's both in spirit and in truth.
And there are those churches who practice all sorts of spiritual rituals,
like slaying in the spirit and laughing in the Holy Ghost and so-called speaking in tongues.
And those practices are in spirit, but they're not in truth.
And when we come back next week, we'll see why that's the case.
Let's pray.
Father, we're grateful for Your Word, for how You teach us.
And I pray now that we meditate upon what we've learned today,
and that it would edify us as Christians.
And if there is a lost person here or listening,
that it would draw them to the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus
and away from all of the entertainment of the world
and the extra things that the religious groups have added
to the simplicity of the Gospel.
And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
