Admonition Podcast

Good evening.

Well I mentioned, I know it is a deep subject, isn't it?

I mentioned uh last week if there was anything that uh or uh whenever it was, I think it
was last week, if there was anything that that there was interest in studying that I was

open to uh thoughts and suggestions concerning those things, and I got a little bit of
feedback from a few people.

Uh yes.

Did you just raise your hand?

Is it too late?

Well I don't know.

What's what's your thought or suggestion?

The book of Acts.

Mm.

Well I suspect we're going to be there a little bit anyway, based upon what w what we are
looking at doing.

But the a couple of people gave me feedback and I'm gonna kinda combine uh the requests,
uh one of which was spending some time with kind of an in-depth look at worship.

What is worship?

Biblical

view of worship and the the background around worship and the other one was fundamental
concepts of Christian and godly living.

And so I thought you know what?

Two kind of core basic ideas, let's let's bring those together because as you uh as we've
talked about many times before, especially in the Old Testament prophets

If our worship is being offered to God, but our lives are not in alignment with God, then
our worship is worthless.

And if we are seeking to do right things and live in good ways, but we do not honor God
and worship Him as we ought, our actions and our life is worthless.

So we're gonna kind of bring these ideas together.

Uh and as we get over into the New Testament, we're certainly going to deal with the early
church and some of the things pertaining to that.

as well.

So we're gonna begin tonight with the idea of worship.

And I I'm kind of, as most of y'all know, one of these people that if I'm gonna start on
something, I want to start at the beginning.

Uh and really understand it from a conceptual level and then build up to the activity
level as it were.

Because if we were to discuss worship and we were to begin with the acts of worship as
described in the New Testament, there's a lot of foundation behind what we understand

worship to be that would simply be missing.

So I want us to begin really where the scriptures begin with the concept of worship, and
that is at creation.

Uh when you go throughout the scriptures and you look at why God in revelation uh or in in
the through the Holy Spirit given giving revelation to mankind, why God says that he, in

contrast to others, are worthy of worship, so many occasions you find one of the very
first reasons to be because he created everything that exists.

And therefore he is worthy of worship.

He is worthy of praise, because he is the creator.

So that's where we're going to begin this evening, and probably where we'll spend most of
our time, if not uh a couple of weeks, is this idea of God as being worthy of worship, and

that worship is as old as creation.

Turn with me, if you will, to Psalm nineteen.

The nineteenth psalm.

Із one of these

Passages that is is a signal passage for revelation and how God speaks to mankind.

But in being such, it is also one of these passages that differentiates the nature of God
from everything else that mankind has tried to worship through the generations.

In Psalm nineteen and in verse one we read The heavens declare the glory of God, and the
firmament shows his handiwork.

Day unto day utter speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard, their line has gone out
through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.

In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his
chamber and rejoices like a strong man to run its race.

Its rising is from one end of heaven and its circuit to the other end, and there is
nothing hidden from its heat.

As the psalmist writer here begins to describe creation, he doesn't begin with the

Makeup of creation in the sense of he doesn't describe how things correlate to one
another.

Rather, he describes in a personification that all of creation is involved in a continual
activity.

And what is the continual activity?

that creation is involved in in view of this passage.

Speaking but speaking what, specifically, the very first line.

Declaring the glory of God.

So there's two senses of worship that I want us to comprehend.

um One is generic, okay?

What and the way I'm going to term it is generic versus specific worship.

Generic worship is to recognize the glory and the

The worthiness of someone or something.

It is something that is done, sometimes from afar, something that is done by nature of the
activity that the person was involved in.

Example of that might be uh if you were to cons uh if you were to observe or to have stood
there in ancient times and looked at

The temple of Solomon, you would have been able to describe it just the way we did.

The Temple of Solomon, right?

The very nature of the fact that he was involved in the building of it, the designing of
it, the work of it, and finishing that work declared the wisdom and the insight and the

glory of Solomon.

But it's also the temple of the Lord.

So in that sense, the Lord has the greater glory, but if you were to compare the temple of
the days of Zerubbabel or the temple of Herod to the temple of Solomon, you would have

clearly seen that the glory of Solomon's temple was significantly more than the glory of
Zerubbabel or Herod's temple.

Okay, so when we see the activity of someone, when we see what they've produced, then

There's some glorying, there's some recognition that comes with that.

The greater degree of that idea of recognition and glory is at the level of worship.

To give praise and honor to someone because they are worthy.

And creation here by the psalmist writer is spoken of as doing that every day.

That the heavens declare the glory of God.

And the firmament shows his handiwork.

And that creation is going about, personified here in this passage, as day in and day out.

Creation does nothing other than declare the glory of God.

We are constantly in our scientific world discovering something new that we did not know
about the world that has been around ever since we started studying it.

And there's no indication we're running out of things to study.

There's no slowdown in discoveries.

There's not a point at which scientists are going, you know what, I don't think any of us
are gonna be employed uh a couple of years from now because we're going to have figured it

all out by then.

The reality is when you look at the world, the universe that we live in, it is continually
involved in a generic concept from a biblical perspective of glorying God.

Now, when you put together what it is that Scripture says about it,

What you actually find is that God designed it to do that.

That God's intent behind the universe that He created was to show and to reveal Himself to
mankind to describe His glory.

So look again at the passage.

Day unto day utter speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard, their line is gone out
through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

The psalmist writer says it doesn't matter where you go on the planet, creation is going
to talk to you every day about the fact that God exists.

Creation is going to reveal to you that there is an intelligent creator, and you're going
to actively have to lie to yourself to convince yourself it's not true.

So turn to Genesis chapter one.

Genesis chapter one.

Moses' law opens with the words, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the
Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

And God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness, God
called the light day and the darkness he called night, so the evening and the morning were

the first day.

Some will come to this passage and they will attempt to argue the uh the gap theory.

They'll argue that uh verse one and verse two are only separated, you know, when they
started making the argument, they were only separated by a few uh hundred million years.

You know, long enough for creation to or for evolution to have occurred.

Uh and then

you know, science kept flubbing the the timetable.

So now we're up to 18 point something billion years between verse one and verse two.

There's just a big gap in between.

Um yeah, inconsistent with the text to say the least.

But furthermore, you have in this passage a clear declaration from God

About the timetable of the passage.

Because as you open the reading, you vi you find that the Spirit of the Lord was hovering
over the face of the water.

Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light, that it was
good, and God divided the light from the darkness, the darkness, or sorry, God called the

light day, and the darkness he called night.

So the evening and the morning were the first day.

Well, if you were to argue that

The universe that we live in is 18 something billion years old.

And if you were to argue that the sun in the solar system that we're in is however many
billions of years old.

Then how long was the first day?

So some have come along and say, Well, actually what we have and what we need to
understand is that each of these days is a long eon of time.

There's no way to make scientific sense of that, by the way.

reason number one.

What's a long eon of time of sunlight with no darkness?

Uh the answer is the end of everything.

Because it all burns up.

What's a eon of darkness with no sunlight?

The answer is the end of everything, because it stops growing.

You don't get past day one with the day-age theory until you finally have to admit, well,
either God said darkness and light were a day, and there was one day, and then there was

the next day, and he said, This is day one, and this is what I did on day two, or all of
it's just myth and folklore and nonsense.

But turn to Matthew chapter nineteen.

Because many for f in the

somewhat theological realm of things, and many in the uh scholarly realm of things and
many in the uh skeptical realm of things are more than willing to throw Moses under the

bus because most of the people that they interact with are Christians who don't really
have a whole lot to do with Moses.

So they're okay with that.

The problem is when you start throwing Jesus under the bus.

And when you start throwing Jesus under the bus, you're going have a real problem.

So Matthew chapter 19, verse 1.

Now it came to pass when Jesus had finished these sayings that he departed from Galilee
and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.

And great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there.

And the Pharisees also came to testing him, and saying to him, Is it lawful for a man to
divorce his wife for just any reason?

And he answered and said to them,

Have you not read that he who made them now what's the next phrase?

At the beginning.

What was Moses' opening phrase of Genesis?

In the beginning.

But you notice Moses didn't begin in the beginning.

God made man on the planet that already existed and had just waited a few billion, you
know, umpteen billion years before he got around to doing it.

That's not what he said.

Moses didn't begin with.

Man.

Moses began with God.

And so in the beginning, God created.

Jesus says, Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and
female?

And said, For this reason, a man shall not leave his father or mother, and shall shall
leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?

So then they are no longer two but one flesh, therefore what God has joined together, let
not man separate.

It's one thing in the minds of some to throw Moses' statements out and just go, first ten
chapters of Genesis are just a myth.

Uh except Jesus said they were factually accurate.

And if Jesus says they're factually accurate, then of the two people whose opinion I think
I'll go with, any man and Jesus, I'm gonna go with the guy who was there when it happened.

Jesus said, Do you not know that he that made them at the beginning made them male and
female?

Furthermore, when you add into that both John chapter 1 and Hebrews chapter 1.

Which both testify to us that the second person in the Godhead was the person who did the
act of creating.

Jesus is actually stating in Matthew nineteen, Do you not know that when I made them at
the beginning, I made them male and female?

Because the second person in the Godhead is the one who is described as doing the creative
act, and the first person in the Godhead is the one who is spoken of as speaking.

So you have in creation a testimony to the glory of God.

But then consider as you go down through the text of Genesis 1, Genesis 1, verse 20, yeah,
verse 20.

Then God said, Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures.

And let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.

Now remember, just just a moment ago, we had great long eons of time in each day.

I've seen some birds that can fly a long time.

But I haven't seen any of them that can fly for any yon.

In the midst of describing the day, God says, Here are the birds, and they're flying.

And that's the act of creating.

He says, So God created great sea creatures, and every living thing that moves, with which
the waters abounded according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good, and God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and
fill the waters in the sea, and let the birds multiply on the earth.

So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Then God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creatures according to its kind,
cattle and creeping thing, beast of the earth, each according to its kind, and it was so.

And God made the beast of the earth.

according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the
earth according to its kind, and God saw that it was good.

As the creation account is given to us, the first and unwavering principle of creation is
everything only produces after its kind.

And while many occasions will be found in archaeological evidence of changes inside of an
animal family.

resulting from breeding or catastrophe or dominant genes?

What is the thing that's missing from all geograph geological and archaeological evidence?

Any animal changing from one kind to another.

There's not one example of it.

There's not one piece of evidence for it.

Many of the pieces of evidence that have been heralded for decades have long ago been
debunked, but the scientific books in schools will still print them.

And furthermore, when you look at the geological evidence and you look at the things that
have been uncovered by archaeologists, they will argue that something is a certain age

because of where it is in that historical descent down times uh view in that earth.

The problem is that they also date the earth based upon what fossils they find in it.

So if you date the earth based upon the a based upon which creatures are found in the
fossil record, and you date the fossils by the earth that they're found in, what do you

have?

Circular reasoning.

How do we know this is this old?

Well, look at the fossils that are in it.

How do we know the fossils are that old?

Well, look at the Earth strata that it's in.

Doesn't work, folks.

Furthermore, many times there have been supposedly extinct animals that they are quite
certain only live during a certain period of Earth's history, only to be found alive.

in a part of the planet that we up until that point had not discovered.

So when you keep having problems with a theory, you can adjust the theory, but there does
become a point at which you go, maybe the theory just needs to be chucked.

In contrast, when it comes to creation, you have had a not a theory, but a declaration
from God that has been proven to be accurate over and over and over and over and over and

over and over again.

Which is why in every single zoo everywhere there has never been an occasion where two of
the primates

mated and a lizard came out.

There has never been an occasion where two of the parakeets mated and a fish came out.

They weren't like suddenly, go get the water.

This one's gonna need to go into the aqua display.

It's never happened.

You wanna know why?

Because it doesn't happen.

Do you know why?

Because God said when He created everything that He created, it's going to produce after
its

own kind.

So there's never been a transition fossil.

There will never be a transition fossil.

There will not be an occasion of the dog transitioning to the fish.

You might get some dogs that you never had before.

You might get some really weird dogs.

And I've seen a few.

But you're never going to get a fish instead of the dog.

When the mama dog gives birth.

When you pause and consider what the psalmist writer is saying.

That creation itself declares God's glory.

And then you examine what Genesis says, and let's notice verse 26.

Then God said, Let us make man in our image.

When creation is

described as revealed by the Holy Spirit to the prophet Moses, it is described accurately,
it is described factually in agreement with science, and it is described with a

description at the beginning and the very outset of Scripture concerning the nature of
God.

That God is not as many in the cultural world or the pagan world believe Him to be.

He is not as the Muslim world believes him to be.

He is not as the Jehovah's Witness world believes him to be.

He is most certainly not as the Buddhist or uh other uh Far Eastern religions believe him
to be.

But rather that he is one.

and plural at the same time.

That he is God, singular, and Elohim, plural, and us at the same time.

That he is made up of a variety of natures all in complete agreement and unity with one
another.

This, unlike many philosophies of religion that have come around through the years, is one
thing that the Bible does different than all other quote unquote religious books.

And that is it is consistent.

From Genesis one to John one, if you turned over to John chapter one.

John, as he opens his record of the life of Christ, begins with the same three words that
Moses began with in the beginning.

But as John describes, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.

And the word was God.

Many of the religious doctrines that have been promoted by false teachers through the
years have Jesus showing up sometime later.

Some will argue, because of their failure to understand context, that Jesus was the first
created being.

The Jehovah's Witnesses went so far, or sorry, the Mormons went so far in their Bible and
their translation to change the text from was God to was a God.

He is deity light.

The oneness will come along and say, Well, there's only one God.

And the explanation is almost too befuddling to explain.

But John says in the beginning, Christ was there.

John says Christ was with the Father.

that he was deity, that he was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, the second person in the Godhead.

And without him, the second person in the Godhead, nothing was made that was made.

So

Genesis tells us God created.

John tells us the second person in the Godhead created.

Jesus tells us.

And Moses was accurate when he said it was in the beginning.

Consider Psalm twenty four.

Psalm twenty four opens the earth is the Lord's.

If you watch children for very long, you will find invariably the moment in time where one
child picks up another child's toy.

And they are quickly reminded.

That's mine.

That's mine.

Mom, that's mine Especially when it's a younger sibling.

Almost Ryder.

Doesn't leave any doubt.

He says, the earth belongs to the Lord.

It is his possession.

He says, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded
it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?

Or who may stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart.

Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn sworn deceitfully, he shall receive
blessing from the Lord and the r and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face.

Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of
glory shall come in.

Who is the King of Glory?

The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, you O you gates, lift up you everlasting doors, the King of Glory
shall come in.

Who is the King of Glory?

The Lord of hosts, he is the King of Glory.

As a psalmist writer goes through this description of God and of those who are in
fellowship with him, of those who stand in his presence and those who are able to stand as

he describes them, he keeps using this phrase King of glory.

He's saying that when you look at what God has made, when you look at everything that
exists, when you look at everything around you, you are going to come, if you are honest,

to one conclusion.

There is someone worthy of praise.

There is someone worthy of glory.

Turn to Revelation chapter four.

John in Revelation as he sees the vision that we've described so many times in our
Revelation class on Sunday.

uh

Immediately I was in the spirit and behold a throne set in heaven and one sat on the
throne, and he who sat there was like a jasper and a Sardis stone in appearance, and there

was a rainbow around the throne in appearance like an emerald.

Around the throne were twenty four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty four elders
sitting clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads, and the

thrones were

And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices, seven lamps of fire
were burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God.

Before the throne there was a sea of glass like crystal, and in the midst of the throne,
and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.

The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the
third living creature had the face of a man, and the fourth living creature was like a

flying eagle.

The four living creatures, each having six wings, were 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.

As John's revelation

Дискріб'свери презенс огод.

He describes something which for those of us who read scripture shouldn't surprise us.

But to many in the world, rather a big surprise.

And I'm not talking about the vision.

I'm talking about the fact that God appears more worthy of glory the closer you get.

That he's worthy of glory when you're all the way out here with no verbal revelation, with
no inspired revelation from God, with nothing more than the world around you to see and to

observe, and you realize there is someone who is worthy of glory.

And the closer you get to God, the more apparent it is that he's worthy of glory.

You know, sometimes in life you see things that look amazing until you get up close, until
you get a chance to inspect them.

Uh un until you see uh the nature of them and so that looked like a really nice house and
you get close to it and you're like, and it is run down and in terrible condition.

Looked really good from afar when you couldn't see all the cracks.

Except here are the beasts and the elders who are day after day before the throne of God
and what are they doing every day?

recognizing that God is worthy of glory.

In other words, you have this picture of God from afar, and when you see God from afar
through his works

You go Whoever can do this is worthy of glory.

And you get up close and you see God and you go, and He's worthy of so much more glory
than I ever knew.

When we consider the idea of worship.

We need to understand.

We need to grasp that the very most fundamental thing that we need to evaluate when we
consider worship.

Is that God is worthy of it.

That God's glory and his acts and what he has done and the world that he has created and
the universe that we live in and the rules that he has established and the timetable on

which he performed all that he did are a testament to his worthiness when it comes to
worship.

There in Revelation chapter 4, I mentioned that this theme pervades the scriptures.

Verse 8 describes the saying of the four living creatures: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God
Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the
throne, who lives forever and ever.

The twenty four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who
lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, You are worthy, O

Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things, and by your will
they exist and were created.

We don't leave that picture, that visionary image of the throne room of God until someone
says God is worthy because he's the creator.

And it is the reason

Knowing that the humanist, the skeptic, the atheist, the agnostic, the unbeliever, and
even the false teacher knows that they have to dethrone God before they can do anything

They have to make it clear that God is not as worthy as is.

so that they can appear to be something.

Some reading.

I'm gonna try I'm gonna hold me to this.

I'm gonna try and do this each each week.

As we get ready for the next class, I'm gonna give you something to spend some time
reading on between the classes.

My encouragement for you for this week into next week is Job thirty eight through the end
of the book.

That's thirty eight through forty two, I believe.

Job thirty eight through forty two.

And as you read that, you're gonna be reading a series of questions for the most part.

A series of questions where God's asking Job, Job, where were you?

Read it in view of is God worthy of worship?

All right.

Thank you for your attention.