Godless Worship

All right, let's pray, and we are going to get started. Help us to grow in the knowledge of you, dear son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and remain firm in the confession of his blessed word. Give us the love to be of one mind and to serve one another in Christ.

Then we will not be afraid of that which is disagreeable, nor the rage of the arsonist Satan, whose torch is almost extinguished. Dear Father, guard us so that his craftiness may not take the place of our pure faith.

Grant that our cross and sufferings may lead to a blessed and sure hope of the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ, for whom we wait, we wait, amen.

Amen.

All right, we're gonna change it up a little bit today. If you have questions about the sermon, I ask that you hang on to them for a little bit. We're gonna dive into a lesson, and it's gonna be kind of a one-off lesson that's gonna build on what we talked about a couple of weeks ago.

The Church’s Response When God’s Word Is Ignored

A couple of weeks ago, we were doing a study on what God's word says about itself. Where do we go to hear the voice of God? Now, I want you to consider then what happens to the church, what happens to the true worship of God when his word is ignored, when his word is not listened to, when the voice of God fades into the past, what happens to worship of God?

Anyone wanna take a crack at it? Just a preliminary guess. Remember back in chemistry class, you had to come up with the scientific method hypothesis. What happens when I take this chemical compound and this chemical compound and I put them together?

The school will cease to exist, and it will be just a small, small little stub smoldering in the dust. Yeah, that's my hypothesis. What's your hypothesis? What happens when people ignore the voice of God?

What happens to the worship of the one true God? What happens to it? Self-glorifying, okay, yeah.

What else?

Any other hypotheses? Tough crowd today. Tough crowd, okay. They let their emotions rule, all right. That's not a bad way of putting it. If we let our emotions and our ideas rule, what happens then to the worship of the one true God?

Yeah, you're worshiping our emotions. So, the truth is gone. The truth is gone, or it's covered up. It's covered up with a whole bunch of other things. Now, I want you to consider for a second. In our society right now, because of political correctness, the worst sin that you can commit culturally is to do what?

Speak the truth.

Offend somebody, hurt their feelings, all right. You don't want to hurt nobody's feelings. That's a bad thing. So, you know, I remember the Seinfeld episode. Boy, am I dating myself. Years and years and years, decades ago now.

And the topic of homosexuality was being brought up. And every time it would be brought up, Seinfeld would say, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Not that there's anything wrong.

So, as not to offend, right. That's the culture that we live in. So, the worst thing you can do, the sin that is the unforgivable sin, is to say something that would hurt somebody's feelings.

All right.

Well, we're gonna take a look at a biblical text first that gives a positive command. And note here, we're gonna be dealing with law. And you're gonna note then something about the law. So, let me ask you this.

Is it unloving for parents to give consequences to their children when they disobey? You were quick on the draw there, yeah. Okay, that tells me something here. You are actively.

I used to think it was.

Yeah, you used to think it was, right?

All right.

We say no. What happens to children who experience no consequences for their bad behavior? They turn into monsters, right? Yeah, they turn into monsters. As adults, they are quite the handful. They are entitled.

And these are the people who oftentimes will be the most offended if you hurt their feelings. I recently read an article on a writer's blog. And I'm not a writer. That's not why I was there. I was referred there by a friend who is a writer.

And on this blog, it regaled us with a story of a young 25-year-old woman who had not too long ago graduated from college and got a job as a journalist working for a publication. And she submitted for publishing an article that she had written.

And the article itself contained a whole lot of grammatical errors and misspellings. And so the editor sat down with her and firmly said, well, let's go through your article and said, you've misspelled this word and this is not a grammatically correct sentence.

And this girl lost it. Absolutely came unglued and turned on the editor. And when she was done, she called her mother up from the writer's pool and had her on speakerphone and was saying, I cannot believe what an idiot my editor is.

She was saying that this word is spelled wrong. Well, that's the way I've always spelled it and I'm not wrong, you know? And who is she to tell me how to, like there's no objective standard other than her own feelings.

And there's a lot of that going on in our culture nowadays, all right? But I'm gonna point something out here that what we are going to read in our current cultural setting sounds insane, unloving, unkind.

And I'm gonna use an important word here, intolerant. Intolerant, ooh, yeah, ooh, yeah, that's right. Stone him, stone him, he used the I word, right? But I'm gonna ask the question here now, what is more loving?

Because we're gonna see a text in Deuteronomy 17 where God's voice is clearly commanding things. And we're gonna fast forward into Israel's history where all of those commands are utterly ignored and the consequences then run their course and the impact it has on the worship of the one true God will be seen.

And we're just gonna ask the question, which is more loving? Tolerance for evil or intolerance for evil? And don't worry, I assure you that this lesson will probably melt the internet once it's posted.

So, you know, if we start getting death threats, you know that it's because I was stupid enough to think that you could talk about these things in public. All right, so Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse two will be where we start.

And this is Moses speaking, and the book of Deuteronomy is like Moses' last monologue. This thing clearly lasted quite a bit. He's gonna die after he gives this monologue. And he's reminding the children of Israel about their covenant with God and the rules regarding that covenant.

So it says in Deuteronomy 17, two, if there is found among you within any of your towns that Yahweh your God has given you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God. Now, note what the standard is.

It's evil in whose sight? God's sight. Is it evil in your sight? It may not be. If it isn't, well, then maybe you're wrong. But you're gonna note that anyone who does evil in God's sight, he's the standard.

Not you, not me, not my feelings, not your feelings. It's God's opinion. So anyone who does evil in my sight, God's the standard. Here's what's gonna happen. And this is civil law here, because there's gonna be consequences that pertain in the civil realm.

Whether it's a man or a woman, and that person transgresses his covenant and has gone and served other gods, worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the hosts of heaven which I have forbidden.

So you're gonna note, idolatry, worshiping of other gods, the worship of the sun, the moon, the starry host of heaven, all of these are forbidden, then with the consequences for transgressing God's command and doing evil in his sight, you'll hear this, and it is told that you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently.

And if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or that woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones.

On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, the one who is to die shall be put to death. A person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people, so you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Did I just hear oofta?

Yeah.

It sounds harsh, doesn't it? Is God just unloving? You gotta note, he doesn't exemplify any of the things that our postmodern culture values regarding tolerance. He is absolutely intolerant. And we're gonna note this as we see this text unfold, that when it comes to idolatry, not only is it a capital crime, idolatry is a capital crime, to help enforce this, God is going to create the office of judge, and God is going to back up the office of judge with the death penalty for those who act presumptuously against the verdicts of those who are rightly installed in the office of judge.

Now remember, civil governments are established by God, we learn this from Romans 13, for the purpose of punishing the evildoer, punishing. And so, note then that in the Israeli civil government under King Jesus, King Yahweh, idolatry is a capital crime, and there has to be diligent investigations when somebody has committed this crime, and if it is certain that they have done it, then they are to be put to death, and you're gonna note that the witnesses who witnessed it, they're the ones who are to cast the first stones.

Yes.

So then, from giving the witness.

So we're gonna note then, first of all, these are stipulations of the Mosaic Covenant, okay? So when we look at the Mosaic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant is fulfilled in Christ, it is not a living covenant anymore.

And when we look at the laws of the covenant, there are moral laws, there are civil laws, this is civil, and there are ceremonial laws. The ceremonial laws all will point to Christ. The civil laws tell us something about jurisprudence, and what it looks like to order your society around just laws and proper offices and institutions for the purpose of carrying out those laws and the penalties of it.

So the text, though, that you bring up, the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery, when you look at your notes in your Bible, you're gonna note that it says that this does not appear in the earliest manuscripts of the Gospels.

It doesn't, we're not sure where it came from. And we do have, some of our earlier manuscripts have it in different Gospels. It's a story that got moved around. And so, as a story itself, we will note that the story the woman caught in the act of adultery and the long ending of Mark, that they do not have proper attestation that would make us confident that they were part of the original autographs written by the apostles.

And so these many stories, they are antedilogomena, they are written against. So we're careful with them, but we don't draw theology from either of them. We gotta do so very carefully, okay? Now, all of that being said, let me give you a counterpart to this that is a real counterpart.

If you wanna take a look, keep your finger here in Deuteronomy 17 and flip on over to Titus chapter one. Titus chapter one. And I want you to consider the responsibilities, the duties of the pastoral office.

The Pastor’s Duty to Rebuke False Teaching

So we'll start with the qualifications and then we'll talk about the duties. And you're going to note that in theme, this is quite parallel because we're dealing with the sin of idolatry in Deuteronomy 17.

And when somebody is teaching false doctrine and ascribing to God and Christ words and doctrines that he has not given, that is a form of idolatry. So here's what it says, Titus chapter one, verse five.

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach, husband of one wife, his children are believers, not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

For an overseer, you can say pastor here, as God's steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

Now listen to verse nine. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. So you'll note then a pastor has a standard.

The standard is sound doctrine. And part of the office, the duties of the office of pastor is to teach what's in accord with sound doctrine and to rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine. And then the text goes on to say this.

For there are many, not some, many who are insubordinate and they are empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. And listen to what it says in verse 11. They must be silenced.

Have you considered that in Christ's church, in the new covenant, that Christ wills for those who teach false doctrine to be silenced? If they are to be silenced, is God tolerant or intolerant of false doctrine?

Intolerant, right? So they must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. Now, one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons, so this testimony is true.

Therefore, rebuke them sharply so that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. So you note that we are warned in the new covenant about many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, who have turned away from the truth, and they are filling people's ears in church, not with the voice of God, not the word of God rightly taught, but with myths, doctrines designed to deceive, and doctrines designed to line their pockets with money.

And God says he wants them to be rebuked sharply and for them to be silenced. Notice, that's new covenant, that's new covenant. So is it loving or unloving to rebuke false teachers and to silence those who are teaching contrary things, things that are contrary to sound doctrine?

It's loving, right? And who is it that wills for this to be done? God, God does. So you can kind of see there's a parallel here. Let's come back to Deuteronomy 17 then, we'll continue. So we ended off in verse seven, which ended with these words, you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Now if any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide or another, one kind of legal right and another, one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go to the place that Yahweh your God will choose, and you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in the office in those days.

So note, God has established the office of judge in ancient Israel, and the office of judge is going to try harder cases, and you'll note that this type of understanding of jurisprudence still exists to this day.

Not every killing is a murder. Sometimes a human being kills another human being with no malice at all. It could be involuntary manslaughter, it could be an accident, or it can be full-blown murder. In order for it to be a murder, you have to demonstrate that malice was involved.

But back in the day, I mean, before guys wore hard hats on a construction site, somebody could be up on a roof, and the guy go, oh, I left my hammer on the roof, could you toss that down to me? Sure, no problem, they toss it down, the guy misses it, hits him in the head, and now he assumes room temperature, right?

That guy who tossed the hammer killed him. But did he murder him?

No.

And so you'll note, then, that God has established judges for the purpose of making these types of distinctions and giving a verdict on that, and that this is an office set, established by God. So you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision.

Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that Yahweh will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. According to the instructions they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do.

You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, neither, either to the right hand or to the left, the man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before Yahweh your God, or the judge, that man shall die.

So you'll note, then, that God backs up these judging offices with the death penalty for those who act contrary to it. In other words, God is saying, they are my agents, they're acting in my will, and their verdict stands, and you are to obey it, and you are not to act presumptuously as if you know better, because you're not in that office, the evidence wasn't presented to you, it was presented to them.

So often when you say something that someone doesn't like, they throw out the judge not lesson.

Yeah.

Totally misusing it.

Yeah, there's a fun quote from Paul Washer, he says, don't misquote God's word, lest you incur his wrath, you know, something like that, to that effect, and that's a total twisting of that text, because Christ tells us to make a right judgment.

So you note, then, that in the civil realm of ancient Israel, there were judges, and God backed up those judges and their decisions. With the death penalty, you will obey this verdict under penalty of death if you act contrary to it or presumptuously.

So you can see that God has established this. So we'll continue. So you shall, and watch what the text then says again, you shall purge the evil from Israel, and all the people shall hear in fear, and they shall not act presumptuously.

So the office of judge, then, is for the purpose of purging the evil from Israel in the civil realm to punish evildoers, and thus purge the evil from Israel. So when you come to the land that Yahweh, your God, is giving you, now we're gonna note this next part, this is an interesting thing, because when you read the book of 1 Samuel, Samuel is the first prophet and the last judge of Israel.

He's kinda got like one foot in each office. And his sons were wicked. They didn't follow his ways. And so the people of Israel come to Samuel and say, you're old and your sons don't walk in your ways.

We want a king. And this really upset Samuel. He was really upset by this. But note here that long before Samuel was even born, long before he was conceived, God knew ahead of time that Israel was gonna ask for a king.

And he put some boundaries in place and some rules regarding the office of king in Israel long before Israel asked for a king. And that's what follows next. When you come to the land that Yahweh, your God, has given you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me, you may indeed set a king over you whom Yahweh, your God, will choose.

So note, they have permission from God to have a king, but God gets to pick the king. And there's certain things that king has to do. So it would be one from among your brothers, you shall set a king over you.

You may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since Yahweh has said to you, you shall never return that way again.

And he shall not acquire many wives for himself lest his heart be turned away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. Can you think of a king who didn't follow that rule? Solomon, yeah.

He collected women the way some guys collect, millionaires, business millionaires collect rare cars and stuff like that. That's a bad thing. So Solomon disobeyed this command. And in the cross-reference we're gonna look to, we're gonna see how his disobedience of this command has an impact then on Israel later down the line in their history.

Now, here's the other rule. I want you to consider this then. So every king whom the Lord chooses to be king must do this. And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law of the Torah approved by the Levitical priests.

Now, this little aside here, approved by the Levitical priest, then has, this is the command by which the Levitical priests were ordered by God to maintain the integrity of the biblical copies. The copies of the text.

And so you'll note then, the king, when he gets on his throne, first order of business is you're gonna get hand cramps because you're gonna copy word for word from an approved manuscript, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

If you were made to write and copy in your own handwriting, those five books, tell me about the impact it would have on your understanding of those books. Right off the bat, you'd have a pretty good understanding, but watch then what that person is to do, what the king is supposed to do with their copy.

So that copy shall be with him. He shall read it, read in it all the days of his life so that he may learn to fear Yahweh his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them so that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, that he may not turn aside from the commandment either to the right hand or to the left so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel.

Handwrite a copy of the Torah and you are to be reading in it every day. I don't think it ever made it, okay? I don't think it made it as a practice. But had this been obeyed, what would the impact be?

So now we're gonna fast forward to the book of 2 Kings. And 2 Kings references all of the elements that we just saw here, but this is now far ahead in Israel's history and clearly something has gone terribly wrong.

Terribly wrong. 2 Kings chapter 22. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign. So he comes to the throne as a boy. He reigned for 31 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adahiah of Bozkath, and he did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh and he walked in all the way of David his father and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

Now, that's talking about the end of his reign after his 31 years reign. But you're gonna note this. He goes 18 years. 18 years in complete oblivion, utterly ignorant that there was even a Bible. And this story is crazy.

Because we're gonna see just how bad worship got, the whole institution of the temple and everything about it got as a result of God's word being neglected. So in the 18th year of King Josiah, he's 36 years old.

36, or is it 26? 26, he's 26, yeah, I don't do math. So he's 26, my apologies, 26 years old. In the 18th year, King Josiah, the king sent to Shiphon, the son of Azaliah, son of Meshulam, the secretary.

The house of Yahweh, saying, "'Go up to Hilkiah, the high priest, "'so that he may count the money "'that has been brought into the house of Yahweh.'". So you'll note that the temple is still referred to as the house of Yahweh.

There's still a high priest. There's all kinds of religious activity going on at the temple. Wait till you find out what's really going on there. So he brought to the house of Yahweh, which the keepers of the threshold have collected from the people, so let it be given into the hand of the workmen who have oversight of the house of Yahweh.

Let them give it to the workmen who are at the house of Yahweh repairing the house, that is, to the carpenters, and to the builders, and to the masons. Let them use it for buying timber, quarried stone, to repair the house.

But no accounting shall be asked from them for the money that is delivered into their hand, for they deal honestly. In other words, Solomon's temple is now in need of repairs. And so collect up the money that you guys have been saving, head over to the home temple depot, and get yourself some new timber, some new stone work, some fresh paint, and we're going to clean up the temple.

We're gonna repristinate it, make it look good again. And here's what happens. Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphon the secretary, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And you're gonna note the way he says this.

I found a book. Did you guys know there was a book? No, there's a book?

Well, it's right here.

So you'll note in cleaning this up in some back closet of the temple, they find a copy of the Bible. There's a book and they're stunned. I found a book, right? So Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphon and he read it.

Now, you still don't know exactly how bad things have gotten but all I can say is that what he reads and what he looks up and sees and then reads, oh boy, we're in trouble. Because things are way off from the book, really far off.

So at this point, this becomes a matter for the king. So Shaphon the secretary came to the king and reported to the king, your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of Yahweh.

And then Shaphon the secretary told the king, and Hilkiah the priest has given me a book. There's a book and listen to what it says next. And Shaphon read it before the king. Now, I want you to consider, how long do you think it takes to read from Genesis 1 -1 to the last chapter of Deuteronomy?

This is gonna take a little bit of time but this is so important that he reads the entire thing to the king. So you can kind of fill in a little bit of the data here that there's part that he starts reading it and the king's gotta go, goes, wait a second, hang on, I gotta clear my schedule.

I had some other appointments. And then the king says, I need a potty break. Bring it with you, let's go have something to eat. Keep reading while I'm eating. And maybe this goes into the wee hours of the night.

Who knows? But I mean, this is not done in five minutes. This is done over the course of many hours. So that's what's happening. So he reads the whole thing out. And keep in mind that King Josiah knows exactly what's going on in the temple because he's responsible for ordaining a certain group of priests who are serving in the temple of Yahweh.

We'll talk about that group later. And he's reading and he's seeing a huge disconnect between what's happening and what God has said. Keep like Deuteronomy 17, which we just read in mind, you kind of get the idea.

So he read it before the king. So when the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Achbor, the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan, the secretary, and Asaiah, and the king's servant saying, go inquire of Yahweh for me and for the people and for all of Judah concerning the words of this book that has been found.

For great is the wrath of Yahweh that is kindled against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us. So now he knows he's in trouble, and it's like, you need to find somebody who can talk to Yahweh for me.

We need a prophet. We need a prophet, a prophetess. Go quick, inquire, find out what's going on here, which is a smart move. So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah, the prophetess, the wife of Shalom, the son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe.

Now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter, and they talked with her. And she said to them, thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, tell the man who sent you to me. Thus says Yahweh, behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands.

Therefore, my wrath will be kindled against this place and it will not be quenched. But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of Yahweh, thus you shall say to him, thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent and you humbled yourself before Yahweh when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares Yahweh.

Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace. And your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place. And they brought back word to the king.

So note, God recognizes that this man after reading his word repented. And God gives him an absolution and also a promise that he would die in peace. Let's find out how bad things are, though. Because remember, our initial question is, what happens to the worship of the one true God when his word is ignored, when it no longer factors into worship?

So then the king, so he's gonna set about doing some reforming at this point. Josiah, I would argue, is a quite more aggressive reformer than Martin Luther ever was. So Josiah the king sent, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem were gathered to him.

And the king went up to the house of Yahweh and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of Yahweh.

And you're gonna note, for all of these people, that's the first time they'd ever heard those words. It's the first time. So the king stood by the pillar, made a covenant before Yahweh to walk after Yahweh and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all of his heart, all of his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book.

And all the people joined in the covenant. And so the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of Yahweh all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for the starry host of heaven.

And he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. Inside Solomon's temple were vessels for the worship of Baal, Asherah, the sun, the moon, and the stars.