Good morning, friends, and welcome again to Sabbath School Study Hour here at the Granite Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sacramento, California. A very warm welcome to our online members and our friends who are joining us for our study time across the country and literally around the world, a very warm welcome. Thank you for studying with us today. Also, I'd like to welcome our regular church members, our Sabbath school members, and our visitors who are here in person. Now as you know, over the past few weeks, we've been studying through a lesson quarterly dealing with the subject of unity.
It's actually entitled "oneness in Christ." And we'll continue that theme this morning. Today, we'll be looking at lesson number 11 if you're following along in the book. It's entitled "unity in worship." Unity in worship, lesson number 11. Now for our friends who are joining us, if you don't have a copy of the lesson quarterly but you'd like to study along with us, you can download today's lesson simply by going to lesson.aftv.org. That web address is lesson.
aftv.org, and you can download lesson number 11, and you'll be able to study along with us. We also have a free offer that goes along with our study. It's entitled "the search for the true church." And this is our free offer for those who are viewing. If you'd like to receive it in North America, all you have to do is call 866-788-3966 and ask for offer number 134. And if you'd like to receive a digital download of this book, all you'll need to do is text the code sh115 to the number 40544, and you'll be able to then download a digital copy of the book, "the search for the true church.
" Well, before we get to our study this morning, we always like to begin by lifting our voices in song. I'd like to invite our song leaders to come, and they'll lead us in our music this morning. Thank you so much for singing along with us, and we will continue our Christmas songs next time. Right now that Pastor Ross is going to have our opening prayer. Dear, father, once again we are grateful for the opportunity to gather in your house and study Your Word.
And even though it's rainy outside, we are grateful for a warm dry place where we can open up the word. And, father, we ask for the Holy Spirit to come and guide our hearts and our minds talking about such an important theme found throughout the Bible, unity in Christ. So bless our time today. In Jesus' Name, amen. Our lesson this morning is going to be brought to us by Pastor Doug.
Welcome, friends, to the Granite Bay church and to our Sabbath School Study Hour. Glad to see each of you today, and want to welcome always those who are watching via the internet or Facebook or from around the world, some are watching on satellite television, it's on the 3abn, hope channel, and number of others. And we're just glad you're tuning in with us. We also want to welcome those who are online members of the Granite Bay church. There are folks who are isolated in different parts of the world, and we just want to send you a special greeting.
You might be in that category. There are some people that have no local church they can attend, and we do our best to try to connect with folks and give them a sense of belonging by being one of our online or digital members. If you'd like to know more about that, you can simply go to the Granite Bay website which is granitebaysda.org and inquire about that. We want to try and do what we can to nurture and encourage you. So our lesson today.
.. It could be an interesting one, unity in worship. You know what one of the most divisive things is in churches? Worship styles. And so our lesson is about unity in worship. And we have a memory verse and our memory verse comes to us from the book of Revelation chapter 14.
This is part of our message to the world, part of the three angels' message. Revelation 14:6-7, it's a long one but I'd like if you could say it with me. If you're a good adventist worth your salt, you'd probably know this by heart already. You ready? Revelation 14:6-7. This is the new king James version.
"Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting Gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, 'fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made the heaven, and earth, the sea, and springs of water.'" A call to go to the world to return to the worship of the creator is to proceed to the second coming. After this message goes to the world and it says, "I saw one sitting in the clouds of heaven like The Son of man," talks about the coming of Jesus. So this, talking about worship and this focus on worshipping the creator in spirit and in truth is going to be the core of our lesson today. So I thought it's appropriate for us as we delve into the subject of unity in worship to just talk a little bit about what is worship. The word worship comes from the word worth-ship.
It's middle english word, and it means a reverent love, honor, esteem and... Yeah, I'm ocd, I saw something around my jacket, sorry. Devotion that is accorded to a deity, an idol, or a sacred object, the ceremonies, prayers, or other religious forms by which this love is expressed, ardent devotion or adoration. Worship means to honor... This is merriam webster's dictionary.
To honor or reverence as a divine being of supernatural power or to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion following up with performing or taking part in worship or acts of worship. Some of the thesaurus entries for worship are to revere, to adore, to love. So when we come to church, we say, we're going to church or we're going to worship God, what are we doing? Well, worship is really the confluence, it's the combination of several things where we demonstrate our adoration, our reverence, our love, our devotion for God, our appreciation for his thinking of us. And this is done with a spirit of humility because there is none greater than God. Amen? Amen.
So we come into his presence, there should be an awe, a respect. And I'm always... You know, a pastor's job is to always try to help people understand that when we gather together in a formal sense to worship God, it shouldn't be frivolous, there should be a sense... That doesn't mean you never smile, you never laugh, you sing, but it should be... There should be a respect, a sense of the awesomeness of the one to whom we're offering worship.
"the Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silent." You know, there's a reverence there that should be demonstrated. So under the first section we're considering today, talks about worshiping our creator and our redeemer. Now lot of companies and organizations and even, you know, restaurants, they got like a mission statement. What is the mission statement of the church? The core mission of every church, what would it be? God is love. Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.
There's probably a lot of verses you could point to and say, "what is our mission?" You know what it is? Worship God. Our mission is to worship God. Now the Bible tells us that whatever you eat, whatever you drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. So the goal for the Christian is in everything you do, seek to glorify God in your life. Let your light shine, think of everything in the context of "I am his representative in a fallen world, and I want to glorify him in a world where the devil is trying to steal the glory of God.
" So we have a mission statement. Now we read Revelation 14:6-7, we're going to go to Revelation 14:8-10 and you'll see how worship fits into this as well. "And the four living creatures..." This is Revelation 4, I'm sorry, not 14. "The four living creatures, each have six wings, full of eyes around and within, and they do not rest day or night saying, 'holy, holy, holy, Lord, God, almighty, who was and is and is to come.' And wherever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him," so part of worship is giving glory, honor and thanks to him, "who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-fours elders fall down," part of worship is posture, reverence, "to him who is seated on the throne and they worship him who lives forever and ever, and they cast their crowns before the throne saying, 'you are worthy," that's what worship is, the worth-ship, "you are worthy, o Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for," why do we worship him? "You created all things and by your will, they exist and were created.'" We are created in him and for him and through him. And so worship is recognition, an acknowledgement of that.
Now where else do you see these creatures that are saying "holy, holy, holy?" How many of you know Isaiah 8 or 6 rather, verses 1 through 8? "Above it stood seraphim, each one had six wings with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew. And one cried to another and said," what they say? These angels by the throne of God are ever declaring, "holy, holy, holy. the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory." And we just read there in Isaiah where it talks in chapter 4 about these four creatures around the throne of God. Do you remember what their faces were like? I think one like a lion, eagle, man, a calf, I think I messed up the order, but that's them.
And do you know if you go to Ezekiel chapter 1, the first chapter in Ezekiel talks about the creatures around the throne of God that glorify God. It doesn't say so much about what they say but it talks about the same creatures, the lion, the man, the calf, the eagle. These are like different facets or attributes of God's character, ways that Jesus is represented. William temple said, "worship is the submission of all of our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness, the nourishment of mind with his truth, the purifying of imagination by his beauty, the opening of the heart to his love, the surrender of will to his purpose, and all of this gathered up in adoration the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable.
And therefore, the chief remedy for the self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin." So worship is the highest act. Worship of God is the highest act in which we can engage in. It is the antithesis. It's the opposite of what we normally do, which is worship of self. And so it pulls us out of our self and it directs our attention to the creator, the way it should be in the beginning.
All right. So now we're going to talk a little bit about false worship. And someone's going to read... Diane, are you going to be the first? Someone's going to read a verse for me in just a moment. Let's start with.
.. Does the devil like to kidnap or hijack the worship that belongs to God? He does. You see an example of that here in Matthew 4:8. Did it happen in the beginning with cain and abel? Devil trying to corrupt true worship and hijack true worship. And it happens in the beginning of the ministry of Christ.
Matthew 4. "And again, the devil took him up to an exceeding high mountain and showed him all the Kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, 'all these things I'll give you if you will fall down and worship me.'" So what does the devil want? "Worship me." He wants to be God. And Jesus said, "away with you, satan, for it is written, 'you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'" Have you ever gotten a letter from somebody, and you know that there were something heavy coming in the letter, and you keep waiting for the shoe to drop? And sometimes, you can go to the end of letter and finally they'll tell you what the real purpose of that letter is. They try to soften you up, they wait until the end, then they reveal what the real request is in the letter. They get to the bottom line, they call it the moral of the story or the punch line in the joke.
We just got to wait till the end. So what was the last of the three temptations that Jesus gave... Or the devil gave Jesus? Worship me, that's what it was all about. Finally, when Jesus said he knew who he was, he didn't hold back anymore, he said, "look, you don't have to die on the cross. We can settle this all right now.
" He says, "you want the world, I'll give you the world. Just worship me, recognize that I am God." And that's at the core of all false worship. The devil is wanting to be God. All right. Please go ahead, read for us the next verse.
Revelation 13:12, "and he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed." So now you get to the end of the Bible and what's the big battle over? It's all about worship. Who are we going to worship? Are we going to worship God? The devil is wanting that supreme worship, and he's threatening to get it by force. Now, can you force true worship? I'll just tell you, I'm reading a very interesting book right now, and it's called roger williams and the birth of the American soul. And it's talking about the struggle that our country went through when it was founded because he realized the church of england and even the puritans that came from england to America, they compelled people to go to church. They compelled people to worship.
They physically punched and sometimes mutilated people that did not worship. And william said, "that's not right. You cannot make people love God. If you force people to come to church who don't love God, you corrupt true worship because you get people there that don't want to be there." And, of course, there's always some kids in that category, right? But you know, I'd still remember the time we're trying to train them up in the way they should go. But the devil is forcing worship.
Can you force true worship? It must be voluntarily given to adore the Lord. And then you go to Revelation 14, it says, "this third angel followed saying with a loud voice, 'if anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his Mark on his forehead or his hand, he himself will drink the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out with full strength into the cup of his indignation, and they have no rest day or night who worship the beast and his image." Now Jesus is coming to me and I'll give you what? Rest. What's the state of those who worship the beast? No rest. God's people keep the Sabbath, love the Lord, rest. "Great peace have those that love him.
" Those who worship the beast and his image? No rest. You notice that difference there? And so the most fearful curse that's pronounced on any humans in the Bible is in Revelation 14. People always think, "I don't like the old testament, it's full of plagues and cursing." But, you know, there's pretty serious plagues and curses in the new testament too. And the most fearful plague and cursing is pronounced on those who worship wrongly. So we've got to know the difference between true worship and wrong worship because the consequences are pretty severe.
True worship must be given to God from the heart because he's worthy. False worship is compelled, and the devil tries to extract it by force. Did Jesus ever tell anybody when he said, "come, follow me," if they chose not to follow him, did he tell the disciples, "go, beat them up?" You remember when James and John came to Jesus, they said, "we found somebody who was teaching in your name, and he didn't follow us. We told him, 'you're not allowed, you're not licensed to do that, you can't do it." And what did Jesus say, "don't forbid them. No man can speak well in my name and be against me.
" Jesus never used force. The rich young ruler walked away from Jesus. Jesus said, "follow me, you'll have treasure in heaven." He walked away, Jesus was sad, but he didn't clobber him, he didn't force him, he didn't have him arrested. And so Jesus' attitude was an invitation to follow. He doesn't force.
True worship cannot be forced. The devil in the last days tries to force, he tried to bribe even Jesus. He said, "I'll bribe you to worship me." Now, you know, some pastors still do that today. "If you worship the Lord, he's going to make you healthy, wealthy, and wise. He's going to make you rich, you'll get a new house and a pickup truck if you worship God and donate to our ministry.
" Is that worship? Trying to bribe people? Or even if someone says, "I'll worship you if you heal me." Do you remember one man came to Jesus and in his heart he was thinking, "my son is sick and if he heals my son, then I'll worship him." And Jesus knew what his thought was, he said, "except you see signs and wonders, you will not believe." And The Father responded, "Lord, come down and heal my son, ere he die." And the Lord healed his son, he says, "but your worshiping me was conditional on your getting what you want." How many of you know people that say, "you know, if God will just heal my wife, my child, then I'll love him." It's a conditional worship, isn't it? They're making deals with God. And that's what the devil did, "I make you a deal." He said, "come on down, I'll make you a deal." Revelation 16, it says, "so the first went," these angels that poured out the vials, "he went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and a loathsome sore came upon the men who had the Mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image." So it's telling us that plagues fall upon those who worship falsely. I don't want to spend much more time on that. But go to Revelation 13:15. "He grants power to give breath to the image of the beast that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship.
.." So what's this big battle about in Revelation? It's about worship. "Those who would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." Now where else do we see that in the old testament? Was there a king who said, "if you don't worship my image, you will be killed? What was his name? It's always fun to say that name, isn't it? I remember, the first time I got it right, I felt pretty good. Nebuchadnezzar. He said, "worship my image or you will be killed." And what did shadrach, meshach, and abednego say? They would not because it's against the commandments of God, idolatry. And they said, "we have to keep God's commandments before the commandments of the world or Babylon.
" What's the issue in the last days? Commandments of God or commandments of Babylon, except it's spiritual Babylon. And so same thing, battle over worship. Did Jesus tell us this is going to happen again in the last days? Have you read in John 16:2? Christ said, "they will put you out of the synagogues," they did that to the apostles too, "yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think he offers service to God." Do you know half the new testament was written by someone who thought he was worshipping God when he killed Christians? Isn't that right? Paul, Saul. When he was helping kill stephen and others, he thought, "this is... I'm worshipping God.
I'm doing what God wants." And he was deceived. Now, here, we're going to venture on some dangerous ground here. When we come together here in church and we worship the several things we do... Matter of fact, I want to jump to that first and just talk about what are some of the ways that we worship. When we worship the Lord, we worship God with our giving.
.. Is there a Scripture for that? Let me just give you a couple... Somebody's going to read for me 1 Samuel 1:3. See, I'm jumping around. 1 Samuel 1:3, you got that? Get ready whoever's got that one.
I'm going to read psalm 96:8. "Give to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering, and come into his courts of worship." You notice the connection right there? Bring an offering, come into his courts, and worship. Is there often a connection between showing our love for God, our adoration, and giving? Doesn't God show his love for us by giving? "God so loved the world he gave..." Do you sometimes show love for your kids by giving time and other things? All right. Go ahead.
Please read. "This man went up from the city yearly to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in shiloh." So here you've got. This is elkanah. He goes up to worship and sacrifice. Is giving connected with worship? Do we worship the Lord sometimes in a time or place? Yeah.
Isaiah 66, "it will come to pass that from one new moon to another and one Sabbath to another, all flesh will come and worship before me." On a particular time and place, before the Lord we come to worship. So when we come on Sabbath, we are worshipping in a place, we come to this place that is especially set aside to worship God. Do we sometimes worship with our witness? The way that you witness for the Lord, are you worshipping? If you're going out, letting your light shine, is that part of your worship? We teach in Amazing Facts evangelism, we're teaching worship. I told you, the motto for the Christian is worship God. Psalm 96, "oh, sing to the Lord a new song.
Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name. Proclaim his good news and his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations." We are proclaiming and declaring his wonders among all the people, among the nations. Part of worship, we just read that, is to sing and to declare the goodness of God with your witness, you worship.
And do we worship in posture? Our physical posture? You know, people, I don't think, think very often about... You speak with your body language. You know, you see the kids in class, and my teacher was always like throwing books at me because I'd be slumped down halfway, slid out of my chair, and they would say, "sit up. Pay attention. That's disrespectful to slouch like that in your chair.
" Karen and I were in the white house a few weeks ago. We didn't meet with the president, we were meeting on a religious liberty issue with about 30 people. And we had to wait a little while, we're sitting in these chairs, and so I decided to do my high school pose in the chair. No. I'd sit there, you know, because it's respect.
And so when we come in for God, do we say something with our posture? What does it mean when we kneel? It's submission. And there's verses for this. I'm just telling you, but I should be reading the verses to you. Exodus 4:31, "so the people believed when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, that he had looked on their affliction, and they bowed their heads and worshiped." There you have it. You ever heard the pastor say, "please bow your head as we pray?" It's a sign.
.. You know, they say, "if you're out in the jungle there in uganda and you run to a gorilla, if it's the male gorilla, you know what you do? Don't look him in the eye. He will interpret that as a challenge. Look down." Even animals show what they're thinking by their posture. Have you ever seen a dog come up to the alpha dog.
.. And what does one of the regular dogs do when it comes up to the alpha dog? It gets down. It says, "I'm not here to fight. You are the big dog." They even show it in their posture, don't they? You know, there's something that we say, and when you're talking to somebody and they started going like this and they lean back, are they saying something? "I'm not so sure I believe you." So we worship with our posture. And so when we kneel, when we pray, all of this is saying something about God.
Psalm 95:6, "oh, come, let us worship and bow down." There you have it. So... Yeah. And worship should be the most exciting thing but sometimes we think it's boring. I remember hearing where a boy asked his mother, "how high can you count?" She said, "I don't know exactly.
I've never tried. And how high can you count? He said, "5,426." She said, "why do you stop at 5,426?" He said, "the sermon was over." People come sometimes and they just get bored. So we talked about worship, and witness worship, and giving worship, and our time and place worship, and posture worship, and music. Now, do we find that sometimes our churches do not have unity in worship in music? I've talked to a different people in church leadership with a lot of age and experience, I said, "you know, what do you think the most contentious thing has been that divides the church?" And more times than not they'll say music. The different ideas people have about worshipping and music.
Now because it's sometimes hard to define, people think, "well, you know, it's so hard to draw the line," so they just become exasperated and say, "let's not draw any lines." But I think at the beginning, we need to establish if we're going to have unity in worship, there is a right way and there is a wrong way. Do you remember when Saul was tormented with spirits, king Saul? And they finally found a young shepherd who played skillfully and sang. And when he came and he played for the King, the evil spirits were driven away by the Godly-inspired music of David. Is that a fair statement? Biblical? So you got the right kind of music that has a right kind of effect, but then you also have the wrong kind of music that can have the wrong kind of effect. And so there is, biblically, we see there is good music.
Was there music that was played just before Nebuchadnezzar had everybody bow down, he's had all these instruments of Babylon playing Babylonian music. And I don't know exactly what it was, but it was the music designed to overwhelm the people to bow down and worship inappropriately. And so music and worship is something very important. Some people... We err on both extremes if I want to try to be fair.
Some people because they're afraid they might sing the wrong kind of music, they're afraid to ever sing a new song. That's not biblical. How many times does king David say, "sing a new song to the Lord?" Right? And then there's others that say, "well, you know, it doesn't matter as long as your heart's in the right place, it doesn't matter what kind of music you sing." And so then they try to take Christian words and put them with worldly music, as you get both extremes that are happening. But this is a subject that I think we need to really pray about. Ellen white says in the book education, page 62, "music forms a part of God's worship in the courts above and we should endeavor in our songs of praise to approach as nearly as possible the harmony of the heavenly choirs.
" I say, "okay, I want an audiotape of the angels, so I'll know exactly what that sounds like." But sometimes, I think, we inherently know that something would not be sung by the angels. So you know, whenever you're thinking about different music, say, "can I imagine this is something that Jesus and the angels would sing?" You also have to ask, "what is this doing to me physiologically," 'cause music actually evokes different physiological reactions. I've not always been a Christian. When I was a kid, I would sometimes go to rock concerts. And when they got all wound up in the frenzy of their music and the speakers.
.. I think I still have hearing loss because of that. It's like madness came over the crowd and there was all this wild behavior. And I'm sure that the music helped instigate the behavior. The right kind of music can help with the right kind of behavior.
You know, why do you think you play certain songs when an army is going to battle that are... They're supposed to, you know, drive. Why do you sing a lullaby to a baby? You don't sing battle songs to a baby when you're trying to put them to sleep, right? Now there's a place for battle songs. Matter of fact, some of the Psalms you read in the Bible are victory Marches. They're made for the battlefield.
And there's a song of love in the Bible. You wouldn't sing a battle song at a romantic dinner? You know what I'm saying. So we all know that there's certain kinds of music that are appropriate for certain occasions. I'll suggest, there's music you might do in an evangelistic meeting that you wouldn't do in a worship service. There's music you might do at a Christian camp that you might not do at a worship service.
We need, I think, more education about music so we know how can we be united in our worship to know that there's stuff that's right and there's stuff that isn't right. Here's another interesting statement. This is from the book maranatha. It's probably found several places in the Spirit of prophecy. Maranatha, 234, "the Lord has shown me what would take place just before the close of probation.
Every uncouth would be demonstrated. There would be shouting with drums, music, and dancing. The senses of rational beings would become so confused, they cannot be trusted to make right decisions, and this is called the moving of the Holy Spirit." I've already seen that because before I joined this church, I used to worship with pentecostal churches. And there was a lot, some of the churches I went to, there was music, and drums, and dancing, and shouting. But I don't think that should be in the remnant church.
I think there ought to be reverence. I'd love to have an amen right about now. Because I want people listening to know that, there is a difference here. Let me give you some… someone's got psalm 57 going to read in just a second here, right? I want to read something else. What did the prophets of baal do just before their sacrifice? 1 Kings 18:26, "so they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it, they called on the name of baal from morning till evening.
" So all morning going for hours. And here's what they said, for hours they repeated. "O baal, hear us! O baal, hear us! O baal, hear us!" It's called vain repetition. Jesus said, "do not pray in vain repetition." I don't think we should sing in vain repetition. That doesn't mean you cannot sing a verse a couple of times.
Even the angels go holy, holy, holy. But for hours, they just say the same thing. Jesus said, "don't pray that way as the heathen do." Become like as a hypnotic chant. And I'll bet you anything that some of those 400 prophets of baal were equipped with instruments that day, and they were pounding away as they all chanted, "oh, baal, hear us! Boom, boom. Oh, baal, hear us.
Boom. " They get everybody into a frenzy until they cut themselves and the blood gushed out. Music was almost certainly connected with that. 2 Timothy, "many have a form of Godliness but deny its power, from such we should turn away." Go ahead, read for us. Psalm 57:9, "I will praise you, o Lord, among the peoples, I will sing to you among the nations.
" God wants us to be a witness and so we praise him. There's a singing that is appropriate. There's some singing that is obviously not appropriate. You know, here's an interesting quotes. Plato said, "give me the music of a nation and I will change the mind of that nation.
" Confucius, "if one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed or its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer." I know it's not Bible, we're talking plato, confucius, but they were smart guys and I think they're right. Andrew fletcher said, "I knew a very wise man who believed that if a man was permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation." If you could write the music, you wouldn't need to worry about who wrote the laws. We underestimate how powerful music is and it is very much a part of our worship. We see them singing in the Bible right from the beginning, all the way to Revelation. They're singing, music is a form of prayer, it is a form of communication.
And we should be, I think there should be a reverence in the way that we have our music and it should be quality and… amen? So that's something I just want to throw in there, it's talking about true worship and false worship. There's, music is definitely part of that. Now in the first angel's message. Revelation 14:6 and 7, "I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, 'fear God," there should be an awe, a reverence, a Godly fear of God, "and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.'" So part of this message is saying that, you know, there's a judgment coming. Worship him who made.
Do we find that phrase, "sea, earth, springs of water," anywhere in the Ten Commandments? And the fourth commandment that deals with what? The Sabbath. It talks about, "in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth." And it says, it's talking about worshiping the creator. Something else that's in this command, it says, "the hour of his judgment is come." Do we sometimes behave differently if you're standing before the judge? It even says in Revelation, "behold the judge is at the door." That's like if you go… the judge is at the door, there should be judgments, caution in our behavior. And so this is part of that worship. In psalm 138, "I will worship towards your holy temple, and praise your name, for your loving kindness and your truth, for you have magnified Your Word above your name.
" We talk about worshiping in our witness, worshipping in our music, worshipping in our giving, worshipping in time and place, worshipping in posture. What's one of the other principal things connected with worship? The word. Did you catch that? Revelation 22:9, the angel says to John, "I am of your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and those who keep the words of this book, worship God." Are we worshiping as we come together and study His Word? Yeah, it's like you're showing your adoration and love by embracing the message God has given you, His Word to us. We're showing reverence for that. We're wanting to hear what he has to say, that's part of worship is receiving what God has to give us.
Next section in our lesson, I'm running out of time, breaking of bread in prayer. You know I was reading again this week, so often in the Bible when there was a covenant made, there was a meal. Some of you remember when laban nearly killed Jacob his son and when Jacob ran off, and took his wives, laban hunted them down, God stopped him with a dream. Finally when they made peace together, they made a covenant, they sealed it with a meal. You'll see even Abraham when God made his covenant with him, there was a sacrifice.
God often did that, Jesus the new testament, take, eat, he sealed a covenant with a meal. And so breaking bread and prayer was something that was done in the early church. All of these continue, acts 1:14, "they all continued in prayer and supplication with one accord, the women and mary, the mother of Jesus, his brothers, and breaking of bread together." So it's something that's done in fellowship, but it's also talking about the communion service. Now not every time it says breaking bread in acts is talking about the communion service. Sometimes breaking bread meant they ate.
When Jesus walked down the hill with the two on the road to emmaus. It says, "he was known to them in the breaking of bread." It wasn't a ceremonial last supper. Matter of fact, Jesus had the Lord's supper two days earlier, so they weren't having another one. It means they were going to eat together, they called it breaking bread. Now it's important because there's one place in the Bible where it says in acts 20 that they came together on the first day of the week to break bread.
Everyone says it was a communion service on Sunday. Doesn't mean that. It means they came together to eat 'cause Paul was leaving. And it doesn't always mean it's a communion service. Matter of fact, it says break bread twice in that story.
They did it once that evening and once again in the morning. So, but sometimes they definitely did come together and they celebrated the Lord's supper. Acts 4:29, he prayed and this is through verse 31. "Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to your servants that with all boldness we might speak Your Word, by stretching out your hand to heal, that signs and wonders might be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together were shaken or let that happen again.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the Word of God with boldness." They gathered together, they worship, they prayed, they studied, and they were filled with power for what? To be witnesses. So we got the true worship, we got the false worship. And let me see what I'm forgetting. Bible study and fellowship, I just read that one. I know I didn't get through all the lesson yet.
I've got too much here to go. Yeah, and so part of it is worship only something that happens on Sabbath morning. You know, I have people that come to me and they say, "well, Pastor Doug, I know that you are a Sabbath keeper, and you worship God on your Sabbath day, but I worship God seven days a week." And they think that they're… say, "yeah, gotcha. You worship God one day a week, I worship God seven days a week." And I said, "no, no. I worship God seven days a week too.
" Sabbath keeping is not just about worship. Matter of fact I don't think you find the word worship in the Sabbath commandment, do you? Sabbath keeping says, "it's your resting." If person says, I'm resting seven days a week, that's not being holy, it's being lazy, right? So worship is something different. Do we worship in our homes? Do we have private worship? And then if you have a family or spouse, do you have family worship? Every night Karen and I before we go to sleep, we pray, she typically prays. And that last night, she went to bed before me. And so I said, "all right, I'll be right there.
I wasn't quite done with my sermon." So I came in, and I held hands with her, and she prayed, I went back to my office. But we make it a point to be religious to worship God at the beginning and end of every day and say, "he's our God." I think when you do that, you're making a statement to the angels, let's say, look, "we're his property." We won't mess up what belong to you. And we're acknowledging every morning, the Bible says, "when you rise up, when you lay down, let these words be on the post of your house, let them be written on your hand, let them be frontlets between your eyes, we worship with the word." We say, "we belong to God." And you've got to make it a priority. And sometimes, you know, sometimes you can take more time. Last night as we welcome the Sabbath, we've got a great book we're reading, and we read several pages in this book and it is inspiring, and we prayed before we read, prayed after we read, knelt down together.
And sometimes, if you're on your way to work, it might be a quick prayer. But you should always make it a habit to say we're going to take time to worship because that's part of what it means to be a believer. Amen? So your worship is also an attitude. It's something you should not be ashamed to have people see that you do publicly. Should we hide that we pray? I mean sometimes we're in a restaurant and I expect, I hope that all of you thank God for your food, and your family, and even if you're alone, that you'll bow your head and thank the Lord.
If you're with someone else, you may pray out loud. And Pastor Ross and I would play racquetball. And when it's just he and I playing racquetball, we pray together before we play. And if you saw us play, you'd understand why we pray together. It's a dangerous game.
And we want to have the right spirit. We want to make sure we're doing this for exercise. Now we don't always, you know, if we're playing with other people, we don't say, "hey, everyone stop, we're going to pray." But I know one guy who's a muslim and all of a sudden the game was done, we say, "where ali goes?" So it's part of his daily prayer. He goes off even, you know, between games, he's going to go, and he's going to pray to the east towards mecca. And I thought you know why I may not agree with his worship, I respect that he's not ashamed to let people know this is a priority in my life.
Should Christians do any less if we're at a restaurant in public? Why not? Take your spouse's hand or tell your family, "let's ask God to bless the food." And I have had hundreds of occasions where while I was praying, the waitress was coming back to bring our water or something like that and they paused there for a moment and they see you praying, is that a bad thing? I think it's good for Christians to let their light shine. Aren't the lost in the world, don't they make fools of themselves for the devil that don't care? Can we be fools for Christ? You know what I mean. Don't be ashamed. Let your light shine. Don't let the devil intimidate you.
And so that's part of worship. Every day in all we do, what is the… I guess that there is, if there's a slogan, what's the slogan of a nike? Used to be, "just do it," right? So you know that. But do you know the slogan for Christ? Whatever you do, whether you eat, or whether you drink, whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. It's worship God. You read Revelation, the big emphasis in the last days is worship him that made.
He is our creator, he deserves our worship. We should be united in our worship. And isn't it wonderful when we are, "behold, how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," the Bible talks about. Well, we've just about run out of time. I want to take a moment to remind those who are watching, we do have a free offer, we'll be happy to share with you.
It's called "the search for the true church," a good book by Joe Crews. If you want it, text this, get this via text, you can download it by just texting "sh115" and do that to 40544. And you can also call 866-788-3966. That's 866-study-more. Ask for offer number 134, and you'll enjoy this.
After you read it, share with a friend. God bless you, friends. We're out of time for today study. And God willing, we'll do it again next week. Don't forget to request today's life changing free resource.
Not only can you receive this free gift in the mail, you can download a digital copy straight to your computer or mobile device. To get your digital copy of today's free gift, simply text the key word on your screen to 40544, or visit the web address shown on your screen, and be sure to select a digital download option on the request page. It's now easier than ever for you to study God's Word with Amazing Facts wherever and whenever you want, and most important, to share it with others. We're here on the beautiful coast of the island of puerto rico. And if you were to travel east about 2000 miles, of course, you would be out in the middle of the ocean.
But you'd also be in the middle of a mystical sea called the sargasso sea. It gets its name because of this common brown seaweed that can be found floating in vast mass. The area of the sargasso sea is about 700 miles wide and 2000 miles long. Now the seaweed itself is fascinating stuff. It was first observed and called gulfweed by Christopher columbus.
It gets the name sargon from the portuguese. Some people use it as herbal remedies. But out in the middle of the sargasso sea, the water is some of the bluest in the world. It's there you can see 200 feet deep in places. It also has a great biodiversity and ecosystem that surrounds the sargasso sea.
For years, scientists wondered where the American and the atlantic eels were breeding. They knew the adult eel swam down the rivers out into the atlantic, but they never could find a place where they reproduced. Finally, they discovered it was out in the middle of the sargasso sea. So it's a fascinating place. But if you are an ancient sailor, you did not want to get stuck there.
Being caught in the doldrums was extremely difficult for the ancient sailors. Of course, their boats were driven by wind and sail, and they'd be caught in the vast mass of the seaweed that would wrap around the rudder, barnacles would begin to grow, it's an area that is notorious for light and baffling winds, and so they'd make no progress. They get stuck. The men would become extremely dispirited. Sometimes violence and even insanity would break out as people were trapped in the doldrums.
But, friends, perhaps sometimes you felt that you're trapped in the doldrums. You've gone through episodes of depression. You feel like you're going in circles, life seems stifling. You know, the Bible offers good news. There is a way out.
Bible talks about a famous character that was trapped in a cycle of depression. He was low as you could be. Matter of fact, he even had seaweed wrapped around his head. His name was Jonah. But God gave him a way of escape.
In Jonah 2:3-7, we read, "for you cast me into the depths, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me, all of your billows and your waves passed over me. Then I said, 'I have been cast out of your sight, yet I will look again towards your holy temple.' The waters surrounded me, even to my soul, the deep closed around me, weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the moorings of the mountains, the earth with its bars closed behind me forever, yet you brought my life up from the pit. O Lord, my God. 'When my soul fainted within me, I remember the Lord, and my prayer went up to you, into your holy temple.
'" You know, friends, the way that Jonah got out of his discouraging circumstance, he turned to God and he prayed. And if God could hear Jonah's prayers, just think about it. He was as far away from God as anybody could be. He was in the belly of a sea monster in the bottom of the ocean in the dark. Yet he turned to God and God heard his prayer.
You know, these ancient sailors, when they were trapped on the deck of a ship for weeks, stuck in the doldrums discouraged, sometimes they would have a prayer meeting, and pray that God would send a breeze that would set them free, and get their boats moving. They turn to God in prayer and often miracles would happen, and the wind would flutter in the sails, and bring them out of their seaweed prison. Friends, maybe you have been stuck in the doldrums. Maybe you've been caught in a cycle of depression. If God can do it for Jonah, if he can do it for the ancient sailors, he can do it for you.
Turn to the Lord in prayer. Trust his spirit to blow through your soul and to set you free. You probably heard the expression before, "if you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait, it'll change." And you've also heard, "everything is bigger in Texas." The ranches, the belt buckles, the cowboy hats, but the most famous slogan about Texas is remember the Alamo. The violent battles and bravery of iconic heroes have been the stuff of legends throughout which entire cultures often draw their identity and pride, even long after centuries have passed. And in Texas, the story of the Alamo has been a rallying cry of Texas independence for 200 years.
One reason that texans love to brag that everything is bigger in Texas is, of course, because Texas is the largest of the lower 48 us states. It's hard to believe that this massive state got its beginning in a very small Christian mission during the battle of the Alamo. Every year, this famous mission museum receives over two and a half million visitors from all parts of the planet that are eager to get a good look at this legendary site. The Alamo played a critical role in the Texas revolution. In December, 1835, texans and tejano volunteers battled Mexican troops quartered in the city forcing general martin perfecto de cos to surrender.
The victorious volunteers then occupied the Alamo and strengthened its defenses. Famous Americans like davy crockett, jim bowie, and Colonel william Travis, made this location, this ancient mission, the beachhead, the last stand in an epic battle to win independence of Texas from Mexico. On February 23rd, 1836, the arrival of general antonio lopez santa ana nearly caught them by surprise. Undaunted, the texans and tejanos prepared to defend the Alamo, for this small ragtag group of rebels, the youngest of who was about 16 and the oldest 75 was against the well-trained and organized Mexican army of 6,000 plus soldiers. It was a fierce and lopsided battle.
Yet, the small force of rebels was able to repel the troops for 13 days. Legend holds that with the possibility of additional help fading, Colonel Travis drew a line in the ground with a sword, and asked any man willing to stay and fight, to step over the line. All except one crossed over. The final assault came before daybreak. On the morning of March 6, 1836, the 13th day of the siege, cannon and small arms fire from inside the Alamo beat back several Mexican attacks.
Regrouping, Santa Anna's soldiers scaled the walls, and rushed into the compound. The desperate struggle continued until the defenders were overwhelmed. By sunrise, the battle had ended, and the garrison was slain. You know, historians may debate some of the details regarding the battle of the Alamo, but none of them questioned the incredible sacrifice that was made and the courage that was displayed during that intense conflict. They made the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives.
And this is why the story of the Alamo is so inspiring and so encouraging. You know, and that's why the Bible is so inspiring, friends, because someone was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, and give his life so that you can have freedom and eternal life. Don't you think you could trust your life to a friend like that, that would give everything? The story of the Gospel is a story of courage and hope. It's a story of a God who will never leave you without defense and support. Jesus is the good news, and the Gospel is a story worth remembering.