Good morning and a very, very warm Sabbath morning. Welcome to, those of you who are joining us this morning from around the world, we welcome you to Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist church here in the capital city of California in Sacramento. Many of you send in your song requests every week and it is exciting to hear from so many of you and see all the different countries that join us every week for Sabbath school. And it is truly humbling and amazing and very exciting. Our first request that we're going to be singing this morning is 537, "he leadeth me.
" This is from jizelle in antigua and barbuda; stuart in australia; ralph and birdie in bahamas; pedro in barbados; valencia in belize; barbara, leon, and betty in California; tata in cameroon; marlon, alison, and terry in Canada; junard, myla, and lorene in england; and leandi and henk also in england; bob and Paula in Idaho; joyann in New York; adegoke in nigeria; michelle, angel, and jezer in Philippines; ancel and saint vincent in the grenadines; henry in saudi arabia; vernon and queeny in south africa; jenny in South Dakota; lorna in south korea. There's a lot of souths this morning. Melody in taiwan; susie jay in thailand; and pius in zimbabwe. We are going to be singing the first, second, and fourth stanza, "he leadeth me," 537. [Music] is he leading you this morning? I hope so because no matter what you're going through, sometimes we think, "oh, we have it all figured out.
And we can do it." But you get to the point where you realize that is not the case. You can do nothing without trusting Jesus completely and letting him lead you. And he has your best interest at heart even though sometimes you don't see the outcome. He has over a thousand ways to solve whatever problem you're going through and that is very encouraging. If you have a favorite song that you would like to sing with us on an upcoming Sabbath, it is very, very simple.
You're going to go to our website at saccentral.org, click on the contact us link and you will see a little button that you can send in your hymn request for central study hour. So we look forward to hearing from many more of you as we keep singing your favorite songs. Our next one, "stand like the brave," 610. This is from cecilia in barbados, william and Karen in florida, horace in grenada, and bradley in south africa. 610, We will do all 3 stanzas.
[Music] Father in Heaven, this morning we do, we want to stand like the brave. We want to be one of the brave. We want to tell the devil that we don't want him anymore. We don't want him in our lives. We don't want him in this world.
Father, we ask that you would just come quickly and that we'd each be ready, that every day we would surrender our hearts to you and be filled with the Holy Spirit so that we truly can be ready to stand like the brave. Father, be with us as we open up Your Word this morning and we study it together. Please be with Pastor Doug in a special way and each one that is here in our extended Sabbath school family, that we will sense your presence no matter where we are. In Jesus' Name, amen. At this time, our lesson study is going to be brought to us by our senior pastor here at central church, Pastor Doug Batchelor.
Morning friends. You never know exactly how those first words are gonna sound. Happy Sabbath. Glad to see you. Thank you to our musicians for leading us in song and we got to sing some of those great hymns of the church.
Want to welcome our friends who are watching in our extended class through satellite television and again want to thank the stations that carry this each week for free. We really do appreciate that and we want to greet our friends who are all over the world. We have quite a few that are watching in australia, in africa, in Canada, in europe, and we greet the extended members of central church that are there as well. This is a special day. We are beginning a new study in a new quarter's lesson dealing with the subject of worship.
And we'll get to lesson one in just a minute. We have a free offer for anyone who would like to receive it. It's called, "three steps to heaven." "Three steps to heaven," if you call 1-888-study-more and you've got the number there on your screen, we'll send that to you just for asking. 1-866--I'm sorry, I said, 888. 1-866-Study-more.
That's 866-788-3966, and we'll send you the book, "three steps to heaven." If you don't know how to get to heaven, that's a good book for you to request. And we're going to get into our new quarterly. If you have been watching the central study hour for sometime now, you can study along with us. Usually the quarterly appears right there on the internet if you type in, "Sabbath school," you'll find probably two or three links where you can find the quarterly online or if you are in the vicinity of a seventh day adventist church, please drop by and visit them. Study with other believers there and they may also--i bet they'll give you a quarterly you can study with as well.
Well, here we go. We're going to talk about worship now for the next 13 lessons. And this is probably one of the most important subjects we could talk about. Now, if you'd have asked me that, oh, 30 years ago when I first accepted this message, I wouldn't have agreed. I thought, "worship?" I was sort of ethereal.
How do you describe worship? I wasn't sure exactly what that meant and it was confusing to me. Seemed kind of ethereal, little nebulous but we discovered it's the most important thing, worship. We are going to be studying the most important thing. Why is it so important? Think about the role that it plays in salvation in the Bible. Think about the message of the three angels, what do they revolve around? You read in Revelation 14, it says, "then I saw," and this is verse 6, "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.
'" Worship the creator. Now, of course we're being told today that he's not our creator. You know, it's odd--it's odd to me that here in this culture where our constitution says that we believe that we are endowed by our creator, capital c. That in a culture where we--our founding documents say we have a creator, that we're teaching there is no creation and you're not allowed to teach creation in the public schools. That's strange.
I mean, at least let them teach, as a theory, intelligent design. But it's not even being allowed to be taught. And it's our foundational principle on which the country is based, that it is by virtue of rights that are given through a creator. But we're to worship our creator. That's one of the founding things.
Why were we created? You exist, let's assume that we all accept that we're here, we exist. Why were we created? For what purpose? To worship. We are created--well, let me tell you--all, I'll let you talk. And I'll repeat what you say. It is true, we were created in God's image.
We're created in God's image, for what purpose? Well, one of it is, God wanted to create a race that was built on other centered love. He--oh, that's great. God wanted to create a race built on other centered love, to love out. What is worship? Why did God make us? Bored? Needed some toy soldiers or lego to play with and so he made people like the Greek Gods so he can manipulate them like chess pieces for your entertainment? Where does man find his highest fulfillment? In real worship. I think most of us misunderstand what worship is but if you've ever been involved in real worship, God fearing worship of an awesome God, it is the highest joy.
It is the greatest experience to really be engaged in worship. Now, we're gonna have a number of lessons so I don't want to go too far, too fast or I'll get ahead of myself but a lot of churches call different things worship today that may not be biblical worship. And, you know, having some ecstatic hootenanny or falling down and twitching is not--that's not the kind of worship I'm talking about. But really being filled with the joy and the love of God and having the knowledge of who he is. Maybe I ought to let the dictionary define it for us too.
Not that merriam-webster is the ultimate expert, I think we need to let the Bible define what worship is but I'll tell you what she says. "Worship, to honor or revere as a divine being or supernatural power or to regard with great, extravagant respect, honor or devotion." Following up with, "to perform or to take part in worship or an act of worship." There's three thesaurus entries for worship that include, "to revere, to adore, to love." Now if God is love and if part of worship is to love--you ever seen people worship their hollywood idols? Yeah, they just--they pour love upon them. Another definition here, I think I just go this from microsoft encarta, I'm not sure, "worship, the reverent love and devotion accorded to a deity, an idol, or a sacred object." So if the greatest happiness comes from love--i mean, if you really experience love. Someone said, "one's better to have love and lost than never to have loved." Have you ever heard that before? So if the greatest experience is to really feel love and to have reciprocal love, it is the greatest happiness, to give love and get it back whether it's a mother for a child or a wife and a husband or a creator and a creation. If God is love and for us to feel ultimate, complete love for him and know that we're getting reciprocal love, that's worship.
All right, more definitions. "To honor ardent devotion; to honor and love a deity; to regard with ardent, adoring esteem or devotion; to participate in religious rites of worship; to perform an act of worship." And the word worship comes from an old english word, "worth ship." To adore someone who is worthy of your adoration, it is their worth, they're deserving of this worship that makes it possible for you to give it to 'em. 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 the 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 this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and all the source of all actual sin." It's the opposite of our self-centeredness, in other words. That was a good definition, do you want me to read that again? I want to anyway.
Let me read that again, that's really good. Again, this is from william temples, "worship is the submission of all of our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness, the nourishment of the mind with his truth, the purifying of imagination by his beauty, the opening of the heart to his love, the surrendering of will to his purpose and all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and all the source of all actual sin." True worship is the opposite of sin. And if we are called in the three angel's message--these angels are given the everlasting Gospel, saying, "fear God and worship him," then part of all true worship--stay with me, this is the three angels' message that goes to the world before Jesus comes. And if we're to fear God and worship him but these angels are seen flying with the everlasting Gospel, what is the Gospel? The good news, central to that is the sacrifice of Christ.
All true worship is done in the context of his sacrifice. Does that make sense? The lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Well, that's a feeble introduction to such a big subject but it is--it's what I've got. Worship is so important, who are we worshiping? Think about the priority that is given in the Lord's prayer. "Teach us to pray," Jesus said, "this is how you should pray, 'our father which are in heaven,'" so it's a love relationship.
First thing in the Lord's prayer, first petition, it is worship to God. Ten Commandments, what's the first commandment? "I am the Lord, your God," don't ever forget that part, God spake all these words saying, now the writing begins in stone, "I am the Lord, your God, that brought you out of the land of Egypt out the house of bondage, thou shalt have no other Gods." It's the supreme object of our worship, it's not to be confused, it's God. It's all about God. Bible begins with what? First verse, "in the beginning, God--" so, the central focus of all worship, real worship, satisfying worship--you'll never be satisfied if you worship idols or if you worship movie stars. You'll only find satisfaction in worshiping God.
It's got to be, "in the beginning, God created." He says, "I am the Lord, your God." How does the new testament begin? Now, keep in mind, when I say the new testament--new testament could begin with any one of the four Gospels. Let's suppose it begins with the Gospel of John. How does that start? "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was," g-o-d, "God." Real worship begins with him. On the borders of the promised land, and this is a good one here, Deuteronomy, last words of Moses before they entered the promised land--by the way, we're on the borders of the promised land as a people now. We've wandered long enough, don't you think? Deuteronomy 30:15, Moses' last words before he went up the mountain and died.
Deuteronomy 30:15, I'm going to read through verse 20, there's a lot here. Boy, I've given out that Scripture and I got so carried away, I forgot to give it to anybody. All right, let me read this for you and I'll give--I'll try and compensate. "See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil," ultimate contrast here, "in that I command you this day to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments." What is the greatest part of worship? To obey is better than sacrifice. I command you to love him and obey him, that's worship.
"Keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that you might live and multiply; and the Lord you God will bless thee in the land that you go to possess it. But if your heart turn away so that you will not hear, and you're drawn away, and," here it is, you can circle and underline, highlight, "worship other Gods." So here, he's making a contrast between worshiping the Lord, loving and obeying is how you worship, or worship other Gods and serving them. Notice, whatever God it is that you serve, if you worship, you serve. Did you catch that connection there? "Love the Lord, your God, and keep his commandments, serve him." Or if you worship other Gods and serve them. People tend to serve who they worship, is that fair to say? "I denounce to you this day, that you'll surely perish, and that you will not prolong your days in the land, where you pass over Jordan to go to possess it.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: choose life, therefore, you and your seed that they may live. That you might love the Lord your God," here it is, the worship again, "that you might obey his voice," notice, "love and obey." You worship, you serve who you worship, "and that you might cleave unto him, be glued unto him, for he is you life, and the length of you days." And that's just a wonderful summary there of what it all means, to love and to worship God. All right, that was really an introduction, let's get into day number one, worship in eden. Somebody please look up Genesis 2, Genesis 2, we gave that to somebody. Genesis 2:1-3, who has that? You got it over there? Where's your microphone? Right in front of you there.
And we're gonna start out with--you know, people, often when we talk about worship, they think about going to church, a day of worship. Well, that was part of the creation story too so why don't you read that for us, Genesis 2:1-3, "thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it, he had rested from all his work which God created and made." So God made man in segments of time. First God created segments of time, first rotation of the earth with his light facing one side of the planet, keep in mind sun wasn't made yet so that light was the light of God.
God is light. He's going to illuminate the new earth, right? There's no need of a sun for God lights the city. So God comes to this chaotic orb and he says, "let there be light," and he spins the earth and he begins to separate the day and the night and he creates segments of time. We live in time. First day, second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day, he makes things, creatures, land, air, he's got water, the heavens, crowning act of creation, man and then woman, type of his church, crowning act of creation, his people, object on earth upon which he bestows his supreme regard is his church.
All right, just wanting to have that picture. So he's done creating. Sun goes down after 6 days, he's done creating. Is he done? People often say, "God created the world in 6 days." And I'd beg to differ. Why do we have 7 days in the week if he was done after 6? He made one more day to make one more thing, and that thing he made was sort of hard to measure because it's time.
If I ask you to point to time, you'd probably point to your watch, you're not pointing to time, you're pointing to your watch, measurement of time. And even if you look at your watch, you can't really see time. Time is kind of hard to see, it's like wind or the Holy Spirit. We live in this dimension of existence called time, right? God created another day specified with one purpose in mind, what was it? Worship, holy time, for love. See, God created a holy time for quality time and you know, how many of you have ever heard someone say, and it might be the husband sitting here or listening that heard their wife say, "well, I know we spend time together, you come home from work and then you, you know, you get dinner and then you go off and you play with the remote control and then you, you know, go to your computer and--i was home, we were together but it's not quality time.
We're not bonding, we're not communicating, we're not spending time together." You ever heard that? Don't raise your hands. Is there a difference between existing together and having quality time together? Adam and eve could have existed on the planet in a 6-day week but God said, "no, I've given you work to do, you're going to be busy with doing your thing. I want to have a love relationship with you, that's gonna need specially reserved time 'cause you're not gonna be happy unless you worship me." God doesn't command us to worship him because he's narcissistic or an egomaniac. God commands us to worship him because we are made to worship and will never be fulfilled or happy without it. It's like, you know, if you buy a car and that auto dealer says you need to bring that thing in for certain maintenance on a regular basis and you think they just want to sell me oil.
They're just trying to sell me maintenance. Well, they probably do get something out of that, but they also know if you don't bring it in, little lights are going to start going off it'll eventually stop running. And God, it's probably a bad analogy, but I think you get the point. God knows that we will not function right without worship. I'll tell you, I'm convinced that we are all created by God--this is kind of harsh to say it this way, but it get people's attention.
God creates us addicts, addicts, an addict, to be addicted. Now what I mean by that is humans, by virtue of their nature, are creatures that have a gaping vacuum in them where we must fill it with something because we are designed to be addicted. We are designed to worship. We're designed to be in love with something. And if you are not addicted to God, if you are not in love with God and worshipping him, you will be addicted to something else.
Everybody--just pick your addiction and there's all kind of 'em out there. And it might be that you're possessed with some baseball character and you got all their paraphernalia, you watch all their games. It could be somebody, a movie star. You got all the records of somebody. It could be shopping.
You know, some people are addicted to shopping. They are so addicted to shopping, they buy things they never unpack once they get them home. And then--what do they call those people that just store and store and--they hoard, yeah. Houses are filled. I know one dear man that was just addicted to buying things.
Had his garage full of stuff he had never even opened. Bought it online, bought in store, and buy, buy, buy. In debt, badly in debt. There's an addiction. Some people are addicted to physical passion or sex.
Some people are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Some people are addicted to work, but we sort of, you know, pat those folks on the back and say, "ah, I'm a workaholic," and they brag about. That's you know, taking it to the extreme. That's pretty bad. And we're all prone to these various addictions and I'd like to say that I'm convinced the remedy is to be addicted to God.
When we really fall in love with God so that he controls our day, our schedule, our life, you know, my dad was an alcoholic. And i, you know, want to say this respectfully 'cause he's my father, but he just--he told me once, "I have drunk more than any man I've ever met in my life." He admitted that. And he did drink an awful lot. And every day he'd plan his vacations, he'd plan his day around his stops with alcohol. He was a functioning alcoholic.
He could be sober all morning, lunch he had to have a little something. And then by dinner time he'd stop on the way home every day and get home and drink more. And his whole day--but it was interesting that his schedule was always planned around--if we say, "can we go out to dinner?" He'd never take us somewhere to eat unless they also served alcohol. They had to serve drinks. So that controlled his planning.
Vacation, whether it was fishing, whatever, there had to be a beer chest. Just everything was controlled by alcohol. And you know people like that. Just you know, they--everything is planned by--based on their addition. They got to ferret away the candy bars in their suitcase wherever they go just in case.
What if we were that way with God? Addicted to God? Just our schedule is all about spending time with him and making sure that we got our Bibles with us? And will there be witnessing opportunities? And where am I gonna go to church on this trip? And just be so in love with God that that just controls our thinking. And that's where real satisfaction comes from. So in the garden, God gave them a day for worship. Now you'll notice in the Ten Commandments the reason that the commandments are commandments is because they're all things that we, left to ourselves, naturally forget. We have to be told not to worship idols because if not told that, we tend to.
We have to be told to remember the Sabbath day because if he didn't tell us that, what would be our tendency and our fallen state? We'll forget. And unfortunately, we need to be told not to kill each other. And we got to be told not to covet our neighbors' goods because the unsanctified heart has all these despicable characteristics. Genesis 3:14-15. Now you've got the entrance of sin.
Everything was perfect up then. Adam and eve were totally satisfied with worshiping God and every bite of fruit that they ate until they ate the wrong fruit, they just praised God. They didn't just have a blessing once. They just were worshiping and praising God all the time. But Sabbath was a special period of time designed for them to recalibrate their priorities for existence.
But then they ate the wrong fruit and the whole creation came under a curse. Genesis 3:14-15, "and the Lord God said unto the serpent, 'because you have done this, you are cursed of all cattle, above every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, dust shall you eat all the days of your life. And I'll put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed; it will bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.'" So now you've got a spilt in worship. And keep in mind our lesson titled, "two classes of worshipers." With the entrance of sin, there came divided worship. Now maybe since we want to be peacemakers, instead of saying, "look, either got to worship the serpent and the seed of the serpent, or you've got to worship the seed of the woman, Jesus.
Maybe we can find some compromise and we'll just sort of worship in between." Does the Bible teach you can have in between worship? Is there any peace that can be made between the enmity between these two forms of worship? Can you kind of get the seal of God and worship the beast also? Can you be a friend of the world and a friend of the Lord? Or does the Bible say friendship with the world is enmity with God? Can you sort of live half way between the Spirit and the flesh? But do we try? You know who are the most miserable people of all? The ones who are trying to find one worship between those two worlds. You can't. You can't do it. You're either with me or against me. Did I say that or is that what Jesus said? Or does the Lord say--well, I'm getting a little ahead of myself in our lesson here.
All right, worship outside of eden. Someone look up for me Revelation 13:8. Mike's got that microphone. Who's got the microphone? Hold your hand up. Revelation 13:8.
I want someone to look up--i gave a verse to somebody and I took it away from them. But I want you to look up Titus 1:2. So whoever had that verse in Revelation I had before, I want you to look up Titus 1:2, okay, give you a chance. All right, mike, you ready? Read for us Revelation 13:8. Okay, "all who dwell on earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
" Very good, thank you. I actually--i was listening along. You said it right. Those who receive the Mark of the beast do not worship God. They don't worship the lamb slain from when? The foundation of the--was there a lamb slain at the foundation of the world? Genesis 3:21, and unto adam and his wife, eve, after sin and after he explained there'd be a plan to redeem them, God did make coats of skins and clothe them.
Now had cain killed abel yet? No, they weren't born. So what was the first thing that ever died in our world? Well, you could argue fig leaves or some animals that covered adam and eve. I think the first thing you can see, first animal that ever died would have been some lamb. We're assuming it was lambs there in the garden. Who knows? How many creatures did he make? Well, he must have had enough lambs, I guess.
God made one man, one woman, and then he made the other creatures. He could have made multiples. I was thinking if in the Garden of Eden, and if adam and eve sinned shortly after creation, how many were there? Certain creatures could have become extinct if you sacrificed enough to cover adam and eve. He probably had multiples, don't you think? It wasn't like Noah's ark. So God sacrificed a lamb.
Or actually, he had adam do it. But he established a sacrificial system and that lamb, can you imagine, how adam felt those creatures that he named, they were to look to him for compassion. They trusted him. A little lamb looking up adoringly and trusting at adam. Adam and eve worship God, the animals worship man.
Man was the God of his world, is that right? I mean, they also worshipped God, but man was the God of this world and they trusted and adored 'em. When adam had to take--cut the throat of that little lamb and then God, from that sacrifice, provided skins to cover them. And it talks about the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The sacrificial system was set up that without the shedding of blood, there would be no remission. So to worship God connected with the sacrifice of Jesus, there would be the shedding of blood.
Well, that seemed that kind of messy. I remember doing an evangelistic meeting up in clear lake, California and this one sister went through the entire series and she just believed just about everything, wanted to join the church. She said, "I've just got one thing you got to help me with. I can't believe that a loving God would command people to kill innocent lambs and goats." See the lady just really loved animals. And I just struggled to try to explain it to her and I don't think I ever satisfied her.
But I tried to explain how horrific sin was and that God was trying to communicate to humanity how terrible the suffering of his son would be and how costly sin was. And keep in mind, in Bible times if you wanted forgiveness, if you were a shepherd and you knew that if you sinned, you had to take one of your lambs and kill it. Wouldn't that make you reluctant to sin? It'd be expensive for one thing. And I think that we, you know, living a new testament times, we think about yeah, Jesus died for our sins and I just ask him and he forgives me and I got a free license to fill up tomorrow. We don't appreciate the cost of sin as a deterrent to temptation.
So all right, I think one more verse here. Well, I had--someone was gonna look up Titus 1:2. Who was that? In the back, hold your hand up. We'll get you a microphone. And while we're doing that, I'm gonna read Ephesians 1:4, "according as he has chosen us in him," when? "Before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
" Before the foundation of the world, the plan of salvation was set up and how we should worship God. And you're gonna read for us then Titus 1:2, are you ready? "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." All the way back at the beginning, lamb slain from the foundation of the world, promise of eternal life goes back to the beginning. Well, we see a split in the beginning. You can look in Genesis 6, why don't we start there? Genesis 6 and I want somebody to look up Luke 16:13. I'm going to go to Genesis 6.
Who had Luke 16:13? I gave--right up front here. Okay, ethan, you can hold your hand up so he sees you. And I'm gonna read Genesis 6:1-6. "Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that The Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose." Now how many of you, this--I'm reading this verse, but I know a lot of people listening right now are reading out of different translations that are getting some pretty squirrely ideas. There are actually translations out that say, "these fallen demons saw the daughters of men that they were fair.
These aliens from another world saw the daughters of men that they were fair. These fallen angels saw the daughters of men that they were fair. There are some really strange translations of this verse out there. Well, if you want go pretty close to the original, it says sons of God. Now who are these sons of God that saw the daughters of men? Some people say, "well, it says there was a day when The Sons of God presented before the Lord and satan came also.
" They're angels. Well, the terms does sometimes appear that way, but more times than not, it says it's believers. "Behold with manner of love," 1 John 3, "behold with manner of love The Father bestows on us that we are called sons of God." "Those that believe," Isaiah says, "are sons and daughters of God." And so we are baptized, we are called, "this is my beloved son and daughter whom I am well-pleased--" we're adopted into the family of God. So what's happening here after cain killed his brother, there was a split and we haven't quite gotten to that yet, but we will. And seth and his descendants and adam and eve, they continued to worship God the way God prescribed.
Cain, he took his wife, his sister. They started populating and a whole group of people grew. Keep in mind, they lived thousands of years and they reproduced very effectively. They've got all the plumbing and everything was working perfectly. And you do the math exponentially, they grew very quickly.
And cain and his descendants, he had beautiful daughters, they did not worship God. They were called the children of men, the daughters of men, men, enos, the mortals. They're dying. Got The Sons of God who are eternal. So you got these two groups that are opposites.
When The Sons of God, the descendants of seth began to see the daughters of men, they intermingle sometimes, they maybe even shop in their bazaars, who knows. And when they began to intermarry, do not be unequally yoked. Then wickedness became great in the earth because true worship was lost. They thought, "we'll find some compromise worship." And whenever you seek to compromise worship, you end up losing the true, and it's taken over by the false. During the dark ages, Christians in rome said, "we're tired of being slaughtered by these Romans.
Maybe if we make a few concessions, we'll get more pagans into the church, make a few compromises. The church will grow." Well, what you ended up with is compromised religion, which will end up persecuting the true religion. And so when The Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wise of all they chose, what was the result of that? God said, "my spirit," verse 3, I'm in Genesis 6:3, "my spirit will not strive with man forever, he is indeed flesh; all his days will be 120 years." It says, "and there were giants on the earth in those days when The Sons of God came in to the daughters of men, they bore children to them. Those were mighty men who were of old, men of renown." And someone said, "well, doug, how do you get giants? The only way you can get giants is you got to have aliens, or angels, intermarrying with humans." Now does everyone here know that angels and demons do not reproduce or marry? Didn't Jesus make that pretty clear? Crazy teaching. It's a very simple scientific fact called genetic vitality that when you get two races of people that are separated for generations and then they intermarry, their offspring usually has stronger genes, they're more vital, often bigger.
If you cross a lion and a tiger, what you get is, who knows? You get a liger, it's true. They're both cats. They can cross breed. And the ligers are much bigger than lion or tiger. You can cross a zebra and a donkey and you get a zonkey.
It's true, yeah, absolutely. And you even see that in our culture. I used to tease my friend, John lomacang. Now those of you know, John, his mother was filipino. I met her, she's just a little more than 4 feet tall.
And his father was average size. They got married, John's 6'3" or something. And so it's called genetic vitality. That often happens. You see a lot of it in America because America's a melting pot of many different cultures.
The offspring--how many of you have kids taller than you? I do, all my boys ended up--yeah, it's just--it's the nuclear cereal they're eating and the genetic vitality from just the--all the amalgamation you got here in America with the different groups that come together. All right, so they intermarried and they compromised worship. And what happened to the world? The thoughts of men's hearts were only evil continually and the whole world was going to be destroyed. All right, I was going to ask you now to read Luke--did I say Luke 16:13? Okay, go ahead. "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Can we have compromised worship? Just somewhere--there's a switzerland somewhere where we can all worship differently and it'll all be true, or is there one true? And in the last days what will be the big issue? Same as it was in the beginning. Genesis 4:1-4, "adam knew his wife, and she conceived and she bare cain, she said, 'I've gotten a man the Lord.'" She maybe thought cain would be the redeemer, how disappointed she was. "And she again bare his brother, abel." And like Jacob and esau, they're very different. "Abel's a keeper of sheep, but cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass that cain brought forth the fruits of the ground unto the Lord.
" Now they both built altars to worship. So does it matter? I mean, wouldn't it make sense that I'm a farmer, I'll bring fruits and vegetables. You're a shepherd, you bring your sheep. If you're a carpenter, you bring a birdhouse. And he just--whatever you do, that's how you worship with what you--there's only one way, no matter what you are, to receive forgiveness and it's through the blood of the lamb.
And so for them to say, "well, we're just gonna change it a little bit," because what you've--you know, what you've outlined a little messy, it's gruesome. How's that gonna ever sell? Sacrifice a lamb? God said it wouldn't be accepted. Cain brought the fruit of the ground as an offering and abel brought the firstlings of his flock and the fatlings. "And the Lord had respect unto abel and his offering, but he did not have respect for cain and his offering," and cain became angry with his brother and God said, "why are you upset? Sin lie at the door?" Finally abel and cain are out talking in the field and abel is talking to his brother and says, "cain, you really should do what God says. He's our creator, we should worship him the way he says.
" And he knew he was right and that made him mad. And he got angry and he rose up in a fury, lost his temper, and bludgeoned or killed his brother somehow. There you have in the beginning a scenario that will be repeated in the end. Two brothers, both presumably worshipping the same God. They both had alters.
They both prayed prayers. They both sang songs. They both did everything the same, except one was doing something the way God said with the lamb, the other one said, I'm gonna change it a little bit. And God said, "fire came down and accepted abel's offering, nothing but fruit flies came to cain's offering." And the one who was worshiping wrong kills his brother who's worshipping the same God correctly. Notice this.
In Revelation, is there gonna be a contest over worship? Will they both claim to be worshiping the same God? They're like brethren. They know the language, they build altars, but they worship differently. At the golden calf experience, do you see a compromise in worship? They called the calf by the name of God, did you know that? They said, "this whole Israel," they made a golden calf, said, "this whole Israel is your God that brought you out of the land of Egypt." They said, "you want to know what he looks like? It's same God, talking about the same God. You just need to know what he looks like." Here he is, golden calf. Did God accept that? Or was there a big split over this and there was a big judgment that came.
So you see this--how important worship is. It does make a difference. You know what? I'll say something. I think you're better off attempting, humanly, to worship God biblically even if your heart is not right. Then to worship God incorrectly and say, "oh, but my heart's into it.
" Did you get that? I think that's very important. I could be wrong, but that's what I believe. I believe that if this is what God says you should do, you should do what God says you do even if you wonder if your heart is right as opposed to being a person who says, "I know this is what the Bible says, but I'm going to worship the way everyone else is worshiping and I feel good about it." I think you're better off worshipping God the way the word says than the way the world says even if you think the way the world does it feels better, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause the devil's gonna make it feel pretty good. He can affect your feelings. Two different kinds of worship.
Talk about Abraham for a moment here. Genesis 12--wait, I want someone to read Genesis 21:33, who'd we give that to? Over here, hold your hand up. Get you a microphone. And just a moment we'll have that, but I'll start with Abraham, Genesis 12:8. "And he removed from there unto a mountain on the east of bethel, and he pitched his tent having bethel on the west and ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the God.
" Abraham was surrounded in these nations by other people that worshipped other Gods, but they knew something about Abraham. Even though he had a tent, a temporary tent that he lived in, he had a permanent altar wherever he went. He would build a stone altar and everybody would see that he worshipped God according to the way that adam and eve had done it and according to the way that Noah had done it. What's the first thing Noah did when he got off the ark? Built an altar, worshipped, sacrifice. And this is a sign of God's followers.
They build these altars. All right, go ahead read for us Genesis 21:33. "And Abraham planted a grove in beersheba, and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned in the philistines' land many days." Surrounded by the philistines who worshiped dagon and all these other Gods and were involved in idolatry. Many days, he said, we may disagree, but I'm not compromising.
I'm going to worship the Lord and they saw him do it. So I think it's important for people to see that you live to worship God. Are you afraid to let people see you worship God? You know, in the big test of shadrach, meshach, and abednego. That's like the last days, worshiping and the beast and his image, right? Was worship involved? Worshipping correctly. In Daniel in the lion's den, was worship involved? Are we gonna be facing a similar test in the last days that is going to challenge how do we worship God? So as we delve into this study on worship, there are fewer things that I think we could be getting into that are really more important.
Wouldn't you like to come out the other side of this lesson quarter really knowing what it means to worship God? But when you come to whether it's Sabbath school or church or in your family devotions really say, I now know what worship is all about and I am experiencing worship. I've got this love for God. I adore Jesus. I am so thankful. I've got the joy of the Lord.
And to worship him in spirit, Jesus said--can you worship God without the Holy Spirit? To worship him in spirit and in truth. Well, you know, when I think about it, I saw this lesson and I thought, "Lord, this is what I want." I said, "I'm not--i don't even feel worthy to talk about worship because it is really, it's holy ground." It's the most sacred subject we could talk about, because if you get this right, you'll get everything else right, amen? And I want to have that experience, don't you? So we encourage you in your study, friends. We've run out of time for today's lesson but we'll pick up some of what we left out next time. God bless you and we'll study together again. If you've missed any of our Amazing Facts programs, visit our web site at amazingfacts.org. There you'll find an archive of all our television and radio programs, including "Amazing Facts presents." One location, so many possibilities, amazingfacts.org. [Music]