“There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god. I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” Psalm 81:9-10
There are many things in the Christian life that we will learn. A great number of them we will forget, but there are some things that must never be forgotten, the first of which is that God is holy, and the only true God. Thus, all worship is to be of Him, and done in His way for His glory. Why? First and foremost, it is because it is eternally true. There is but one God, maker of heaven and earth, and one Redeemer of men from sin, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is but one sustainer in life, custodian, giver, and guarantor of eternal life. True worship is always based on the truth of who God is, as unveiled to us in the Scriptures. Idolatry is the opposite of true worship, as its object(s) of worship is “man-made,” the product of man’s devising and application, and not the truth. For example, though God chose to dwell in the midst of Israel, and “dwelt” in the Tabernacle, later the Temple, He did not limit Himself to reside there, but only designate that place to be where one could seek and find Him. With regard to Jerusalem, and the temple that Solomon built there, God again chose to associate Himself, his presence and power, with a certain place for a specific reason. In this case, it was to be a place of testimony, also one of teaching. The testimony was the unveiling or revealing of His Person and nature as holy. There was also the objective to provide, not only the descendants of Abraham a place where they could come to worship, but to give them, and to the world, a knowledge of how to come to Him. God made clear by the provision of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and later, with the temple in Jerusalem, that there was a specific WAY to know Him, and that if one was to truly seek and find Him, and then to worship Him, it would of necessity have to be according to what the ways of God are. When Christ came, entering the earthly temple in Jerusalem in his day, He fulfilled Scripture, and showed mankind the way into the holiest of all. After His death and resurrection, Christ entered into the heavenly temple, there to present to His Father, in behalf of sinful men, the great essential of all true worship of God, the precious, shed blood of Christ. That blood revealed to mankind the only way to God, the way of perfect righteousness towards the sinner, who was devoid of all righteousness. The shedding of Christ’s blood, and its presentation to the Father, was the tangible, perfectly effective gift, which alone, if man truly would believe and receive it by faith, could truly be saved. By the perfect sacrifice of Himself, the veil in the temple, that separated the most holy place from the remainder of the temple, was torn in two. From that day forward, the true believer would be clothed with the perfect righteousness of Christ by faith in His blood. He thus, could come with assurance before God the Creator, and His Redeemer, without fear.
The reason for which a true knowledge of God, and His ways, as revealed in the Scriptures, is so essential, is that God will only honor the one who comes in accordance with the truth. God will in truth, never give His glory to another, in particular to an idol, the fabrication of man’s sinful thoughts. But the Father will accept the true believer, for the Name that is dear to Him, that of Christ. Also, God gives His Spirit to the believer only according to the truth that is in Christ, for the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth, and will never honor the lie.
Dear Father, Deliver us from every high and lofty thing that exalts itself against Thee, that we may worship Thee in Spirit and in truth. In Jesus’ name, Amen.