“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’ And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” [1]
Christian Faith is not about finding personal fulfilment or personal wholeness; Christian Faith should lead all who embrace Christ to a holy life. If that is not the case, the faithful have become worldly. There are multiple forms of worldliness that are comfortably at home among Evangelical Christians. When professing followers of the Risen Saviour substitute feelings for biblical truth, what can we call this other than worldliness? When those who name the Name of Christ cultivate an appetite for vapid discourses and for entertainment rather than the strong meat of the Word, that is assuredly worldly. When churches restructure the services to meet the expectations of consumers, that is certainly worldly. When the supposed people of God are on a quest for self-satisfaction rather than seeking repentance, they are worldly.
Seeking success rather than striving after faithfulness is worldly. Worrying more about size of the congregation than being concerned for the spiritual health of the assembly is worldly. When the Living God is no longer central to what we call worship as we endeavour to accommodate ourselves to the culture of this dying world, we have become worldly. Regardless of what we say or whom we claim to seek, if we are more concerned about the act of worship than we are concerned about meeting the Saviour, we have become worldly. And it is frightening to think that we have become worldly.
Do you not find it odd that among many of the churches of our Saviour, those attending the services can go about the business of “worshipping” without ever thinking of God’s greatness, without contemplating His grace, or without even considering His commandments? What has happened that we who claim to worship are no longer thrilled at the thought of actually meeting the Living God in the rituals we perform?
How is it that we can go about our business on a Sunday morning and never experience awe in the presence of the Lord God? Is He no longer present? Or are we so dull that we are incapable of recognising Him in our midst? Where is the wonder that should always flood over us when we witness His majesty? Or what has happened to the overwhelming adoration that inevitably comes when we think of His love and mercy? Here is the great question: Does our worship actually lead us to meet God? Or is our worship all about the act of worship and not about Who we meet? Our honest answer to questions such as these will reveal whether we are becoming worldly.
The message is intended to be foundational for Christians seeking to worship in Spirit and in truth. We were created to worship, and we will worship. Either we will worship the Lord God Who gave us our being, or we will worship the creature. Increasingly, we live in the world that insists that we worship our own desires. However, when we do worship before our own desires, disaster inevitably results for us. Without apology, I urge each one who hears me to worship Christ the Lord, He alone is God. However I caution each Christian that we must not worship our worship. We must never permit ourselves to be so caught up in the act of worship that we fail to meet the very One Whom we say we are worshipping. If we fail to meet the Risen Christ, we will not have worshipped, however ecstatic we may feel!
WORSHIP INDICATES TRANSFORMATION — “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” [1 PETER 1:13-16].
Note that the text for this day begins with a common conjunction, “Therefore.” As you’ve heard me say in multiple messages during my ministry to the members of this congregation, “Any time you see a ‘therefore,’ ask what it is there for.” Of course, the word “therefore” is a literary device compelling us to look back to see what has just been provided in this brief letter that Peter penned to saints scattered in the Diaspora.
Of course, he is just opening the missive, focusing the readers’ attention on God. In particular, Peter is focusing our attention on what the Father has provided for us through the resurrection of our Saviour from the dead. Because Christ gave His life as a sacrifice, and because He conquered death, we have an inheritance in Heaven. The one who follows Jesus is promised an imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance. This inheritance is assured because we who are redeemed are being guarded by God’s power. This guarding is reality for the follower of the Christ, despite the very real possibility (dare I say likelihood) of trials that will challenge our faith.
Peter boldly confronts the challenge of trials in this Christian life by pointing to the truth that the trials we face because of our faith in Christ the Lord will “result in praise and glory and honour” at the return of Jesus our Lord. The majesty of which Peter writes was promised even as Paul wrote in one of his earliest letters that would be included in the canon of Scripture. Writing in the second letter to the saints in Salonica, Paul wrote that our Lord would come “to be glorified in His saints, and to be marvelled at among all who have believed” [see 2 THESSALONIANS 1:10].
Peter pivots quickly to the Scriptures, reminding us that the salvation we have, with all the associated promises God makes, is not some novel creation of the Apostles; rather, the prophets who provided the Old Covenant writings wrote of what God was doing, even though they could not understand fully the meaning of the events of which they wrote. They foresaw the sufferings of the Messiah, but they didn’t understand why the Anointed One would be compelled to suffer. They foresaw the glories of the Christ as He returned in triumph, even though they could not have understood how marvellous His triumph would actually be. They did understand, however, that they were not serving themselves, but that they were serving us who live during this great Church Age. The message of salvation that is now announced throughout this present age is in view.
“Therefore,” in light of all this foundational truth for the Faith, we who follow the Christ worship Him. And throughout the days in which we serve on this earth, we will worship Him. Worship means service; so, Peter urges those who read this letter not to allow themselves to become religious dilettantes who treat the Faith as an excuse to rest. Rather, he reminds us that we are to prepare ourselves for action. We Christians are to now act deliberately to take control of our minds, equipping ourselves for advance. The foundation has been established, and that foundation is Christ Himself. The motive for service is provided, and that motive is the grace that will be fully realised at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Thus prepared, we are to invest ourselves in His service now. We are to be active in worship, active in service, standing firmly in the Faith of Christ our Saviour.
Peter’s message is a reminder that the Christian life was never intended to be a passive life; it was meant to be an active life. We are taught to take control of our lives, moving deliberately toward the goal of honouring the Master in all things. We are not called to drift through life as a leaf floating in the current of a streamlet, bouncing from rock to rock while being pushed by the waters flowing toward the sea.
Even the Commission we received from the Risen Saviour points to the active life Christians are expected to pursue. Jesus commanded, “As you go, disciple people in all nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit” [MATTHEW 28:19 ISV]. Translating His command somewhat literally, we would read, “Since you are going in any case, disciple all people…” We Christians are expected to be busy working at the business over which the Saviour appointed us.
In the parable of the Ten Minas, Jesus pictured the nobleman as charging his servants, “Engage in business until I come” [see LUKE 19:13b]. Of course, that parable pictures the Christian’s responsibility to be busy about the Father’s business during the interim between the time Jesus ascended into Heaven and His return. Though the citizens were not enthusiastic about receiving the nobleman again, the servants were responsible to be busy about the nobleman’s business throughout the time of his absence.
All that Peter says is predicated upon the thought that God’s people will strive for holiness. If we are not holy, we will not know God in His fullness. The Psalmist asked,
“Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully.
He will receive blessing from the LORD
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”
[PSALM 24:3-5]
There will be no worship if I fail to prepare for worship. You see, the thought that I want to see the Lord compels me to address my own sin. Even the desire to worship compels me to confess my sin and seek His cleansing. It is just as the Apostle of Love has said, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” [1 JOHN 1:9]. When our sins are forgiven and when we have been cleansed, we will enjoy the presence of the Lord.
I don’t want any follower of the Lord to imagine that God is not with him—the Saviour has promised, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” [MATTHEW 28:20b]. God has pledged on His sacred honour, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” [HEBREWS 13:5b]. The Lord is always with His child, but His child will not—indeed, cannot—enjoy His presence when the child is disobedient and when the child becomes self-willed and rebellious. The disobedient child will be reticent, will be hesitant because disobedience brings discipline, and the disobedient child knows that he or she must be disciplined. Contrasted to this, the obedient child is eager to come into the presence of the Father because that child is confident that he is accepted in the Beloved Son. As you well know, we have been “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred … to the kingdom of His Beloved Son” [COLOSSIANS 1:13]
Therefore, we are to prepare our minds for action for that is where the battles of life will be fought. Our minds are to be actively engaged as we engage the forces of evil. I would not want anyone to imagine that I am advocating for some form of physical warfare, some form of battle beyond the mind. Too many of the professed saints of the Lord have lost the war by moving into the political realm. They imagined that if only they vote correctly or elect the right candidate they will win the battle. Others have lost the war by trying to make the battle physical. Have we never heard the Apostle when he warned us, “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” [2 CORINTHIANS 10:4-5]. Our battles are spiritual, taking place in the realm of the mind.
The fact that we confront arguments and lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God implies that we must sharpen our minds. We must understand the teachings we have received in the Word and we must employ what is written rather than attempting to use some philosophical Terpsichore to astonish those with whom we are engaged. The fact that we take our own thoughts captive, ensuring that they are obedient to Christ, emphasises that the battle is taking place in the mind. We must know Who we believe, and knowing the One in Whom we have believed, we must know what we believe and why we believe it. This means, quite simply, that we must master the Word.
We witness a marvellous demonstration of the power of the Word when Jesus was tempted by the tempter. Each time the devil sought to distort the Word of God in order to tempt the Master, Jesus pointed to the Word which is given for all who would follow the Lord God. “It is written” was the sole response to the devil’s efforts to turn the Master from obedience. Jesus pointed to what is written in the Word, and it was sufficient to deliver Him from temptation and to defeat the devil. There was no yelling, no belligerent, boisterous demands; it was enough that Jesus merely point to what was written. And that will be enough for us, if we use the Word and recognise when the Word is being distorted.
Turning our focus once again to the text, I also note that we are to always be living in the light of the return of our Master. Peter urges those who read his words to “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” As followers of the Risen Saviour, we confess that Christ our Lord is coming again. We live in the light of His imminent return, saying, “Even so, come Lord Jesus.” We are taught that the knowledge of His return serves to restrain us from pursuing our own tawdry desires.
John states this issue in this manner. “Little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” Take special note of this final sentence that appends a gracious promise. “And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” [1 JOHN 2:28-3:3].
Thinking on Christ’s return becomes a means of purifying our life. No Christian wants to be found living in rebellion at the Lord’s return. Considering the grace that will be revealed at His return serves to cleanse the soiled soul. So very often we who worship the Saviour are soiled simply by walking through this life. We can’t avoid hearing the salacious stories that companions tell at work. Though we enjoy television and movies as much as any other person, the lascivious story line or the off-colour depiction contaminates us—we cannot easily flush from our mind what we have seen or what we have heard.
How shall we purify our mind, cleansing ourselves of the stain imposed on our soul? One major means of cleansing, according to the revelation Peter has provided, is to invest time thinking of the promised return of our Master. I’m not discounting reading the Word. Neither am I depreciating time spent in prayer, seeking the face of the Saviour. Nor should anyone imagine that I do not value meditation on the great themes presented in the Word of God. All these activities are valuable in equipping us to live holy lives and to prepare ourselves for worship. However, Peter has just presented a valuable, even an underrated activity that will enable the follower of Christ to pursue holiness, growing in the grace of Christ the Lord.
Perhaps you will recall the time that Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. The account is found in John’s Gospel. There, we read, “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’ Jesus answered him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean’” [JOHN 13:3-10].
Note Jesus’ statement, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.” The one who believes, the one who has received Jesus as Master over life, that one has been “cleansed by the washing of the water of the Word” [EPHESIANS 5:26b]. The redeemed child of God has been cleansed “by the washing of regeneration” [TITUS 3:5b]. Thus, it is those parts of life that are soiled by walking through the world that require attention. And as we remember His promise to come for us, as we look forward to His return, the dirt that stains is removed.
The writer of the Letter to Hebrew Christians may well have had in view this aspect of our great need as we walk through this broken, fallen world when he wrote, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” [HEBREWS 12:1].
To be certain, I haven’t spoken of the way in which worship transforms us, (worship does transform the worshipper simply because the worshipper meets God), but I have pointed to the necessity of being transformed in order to ensure that we actually worship. In short, if we prepare to meet the Lord, we will have witnessed a change in our life—a change that permits us to actually rejoice in the presence of the Saviour. Because the Spirit of God works in our life as we bring ourselves into conformity with the will of the Saviour, we are transformed before we even begin to worship. And then we worship!
WORSHIP IN CONTEMPORARY LIFE — “And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” [1 PETER 1:17-19].
The Apostle condemned the culture of his day as lying under divine judgement. Paul’s assessment is given in these dark words recorded in his letter to the Christians living in Rome. You undoubtedly remember the dark words Paul wrote. He warned, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” [ROMANS 1:18-32].
Focus in particular on what the Apostle has written in that TWENTY-FIFTH VERSE: “[Society] exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” Ouch! We may not appreciate having the mirror of Scripture held up to contemporary culture, but the words recorded provide a vivid description of western culture in this day. Contemporary society does not know God; and it is questionable whether our contemporaries have any desire to know the Living God. It is feared that should God appear before us in unveiled glory most of our contemporaries would continue to deny Him, finding some way to excuse what they witnessed! That was what happened when Jesus came the first time, and it will happen at His return.
People will worship something or someone. Either we will worship the True and Living God, or we will seize upon some feature of creation as worthy of worship. This inherent drive to worship reveals our nature as having been created. Our hearts crave fellowship with our Creator, the One Who has given us our being. Though we may refuse to acknowledge our Creator, we will attempt to elevate some facet of the creation to a level of a demigod or god that merits our worship.
Though many people within our contemporary society attempt to exclude God through fantasising an evolutionary origin, in our hearts we know that there is a Creator and that this Creator has given us our being. We are assured that “In him we live and move and have our being” [see ACTS 18:48]. Our spirit longs to worship, but our spirit is dead if we have never been born from above. Dead to our Creator, we reject Him as God in order to pursue that which neither lives nor is able to give life! We worship our own person, our own being, if we cannot find another acceptable being to worship.
Peter has just been pointing us to a means to equip ourselves to worship the Lord. He commanded us to be holy, reminding us that the call to holiness flows out of our relationship to God Who is holy. Then we see the conjunction “and” that opens this SEVENTEENTH VERSE. The use of this conjunction is a means of reminding us that all that follows is predicated upon what has preceded. God is holy, and He judges our actions impartially. The Apostle to the Jews is emphasising that our conduct does matter. How we live will either allow us to come before God or compel us to turn from God.
Our actions do matter. Every religious person acknowledges this truth, whether he or she realise this or not. The Muslim that wants to honour the desert demon he calls a god will shave body hair and wash himself carefully so that he can perform some act dedicated to his god. The reverent Hindu will be careful to avoid eating some foods that she believes might disqualify her from receiving a hearing before one of the thousands of gods she seeks to manipulate. The Christian, knowing that God is holy, will recognise that he must be holy if he will enjoy intimacy with the Living God. And that Christian will understand that there is no holiness through mere external acts—he will cast himself on Christ as Master over life so he can be declared righteous, can be declared holy. He will not act in such a manner that the Lord is dishonoured. Therefore, we must conduct ourselves with fear. We must be holy because this honours the Lord God.
Peter is not admonishing readers to cringe or cower at the fantastical thought of a vicious, capricious god poised to strike us down at any moment because we performed some displeasing act; Peter is urging us to honour the Lord God for His holy character, to esteem Him because of the grace and mercy which He has showered upon us. The text is urging us to hold a realistic understanding of God rather than deluding ourselves through formulating a phantasmagorical entity that neither can exist nor does exist.
As Christians, as people who are twice-born, we fear God, we honour Him, we esteem Him as Lord because He delivered us from the foolishness that characterised our lives in the past. Recall the words of the Psalmist who has written:
“If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.”
[PSALM 66:18]
But the Lord does hear us because we come before Him with reverence in our hearts. Because we know God is holy, we will have endeavoured to be holy in our conduct, knowing that the manner in which we live reveals our relationship to Him. We do not seek holiness in order to know God; but because we know God, we seek holiness.
Now we can get down to the business of worship! We who know God, or more importantly, we who are known by God, are drawn to worship. It is not so much that we are compelled to worship as though worship was a duty; rather, we worship because we long for intimacy with the Father. We want to worship because we are born of the Father and we want to rest in His presence. However, it is tragically true that we will not worship if we do not prepare for worship. The preparation required if we will worship is that we must be holy; we must come into the presence of the Lord God with a heart that does not condemn us. You will no doubt recall that the Apostle of love has instructed us, “If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God” [1 JOHN 3:21].
The individual who attempts to worship while tolerating some known sin will discover that her dark secret continually rises up to condemn her. Each time she wants to draw near to worship, her own condition will testify against her and render her efforts at worship futile. Until she has acknowledged the sin that continues to condemn her heart and has forsaken that sin, her own fallen condition will ensure that she cannot worship. God’s Spirit will constantly call that woman to cleanse her heart so that nothing stands between her and the Lord she seeks. It is not so much that God turns the sinful Christian away as it is that the sin continually rises to condemn the heart seeking to worship. The sinner is conscious of her sin, and until that sin is renounced her heart will condemn her. Surely, this is the message delivered by the Lord GOD through the Court Prophet Isaiah.
“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save,
or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;
but your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
so that he does not hear.”
[ISAIAH 53:1-2]
Throughout the message to this point I have stressed an essential truth that is not always recognised in our day—worship and service are synonymous. If we worship, we are serving. If we serve God, we are worshipping Him. When we are obedient to the commands of the Master, we are honouring Him, ascribing to Him the worth which He is due. I really cannot emphasise this truth too much. Without obedience to the revealed will of God, there can be no worship. Worship and service are inseparable concepts.
In this day, we have reduced worship to the act of singing, both as a congregation and in solo offerings during a church service. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard a song leader say, “Let’s worship and then we’ll have the sermon.” We even identify the one leading music as the “Worship Leader,” and the musicians and singers as the “Worship Team.” It is as though singing, or in extreme cases, listening to singers, is the only act of worship in the service!
Among the churches of this day, we tend to emphasise how one feels as we sing; however, remember that worship is less about us, (and in particular about how we feel), than it is about Who we meet. Worship is about serving the Saviour, and in serving Him by obeying His commands, we will worship. Without question, when the Christian meets the Risen Lord of Glory, his emotions will be stirred. That worshipper will experience joy, but the aspects of worship that seem often absent in this day—awe, wonder, and a sense of marvel—will overwhelm the worshipper, lingering long after the initial experience has passed. Meeting Christ, the worshipper will actually worship. There will be nothing artificial about what happens. Worship in the presence of the Lord will be spontaneous and unforced.
If one wishes to know the secret required for entering into worship, it is that we take care to ensure that we live a life that is holy and righteous. We must keep short accounts with God. We must confess known sins, renouncing those sins and seeking to do what honours God as holy and righteous. Before ever coming before the Lord Christ, we prepare ourselves by removing from our life those elements that dishonour Him, and choosing to obey Him in the manner of life adopted. Worship comes naturally to the one meeting the Risen Saviour, and the Saviour reveals Himself to those who seek Him, just as we are told in Scripture. I am well aware that the words of the Wise Man are penned about Wisdom personified, but they undoubtedly apply to our coming into the presence of the Living God. Solomon wrote,
“I love those who love me,
and those who seek me diligently find me.”
[PROVERBS 8:17]
We witness a similar statement encouraging us to seek Wisdom earlier in the Proverbs. Again, the call is not dissimilar to a call to worship the Lord. There, we read,
“Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you,
when terror strikes you like a storm
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.”
[PROVERBS 1:24-28]
A CALL TO SEEK GOD — “Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” [1 PETER 1:17b-19]. Peter instructs his readers to conduct themselves with fear. We speak of holy fear as awe of God, and that is true. We speak of reverence toward God, and that, also, is true. However, it is easy to miss the point that fear, as used here, speaks of worship.
As I was engaged in reading the Bible one day recently, I paused to meditate on something I had read. The divine author is informing readers why Israel was delivered into the hands of the Assyrians. In that particular passage I read, “This occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, Who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods” [2 KINGS 17:7].
Then, after describing their defeat and how the Assyrians deported them and repopulated the land with other conquered peoples, saying of these others, “The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the LORD. Therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them” [2 KINGS 17:24-25].
When Judean lions began attacking the populace, the Assyrian king was told that the people he had brought into Judea did not know the laws of the god of the land. So, the king commanded that a priest from Samaria be sent to teach the people how to worship the LORD. Only, this priest was a Samaritan, practising a religion mixed with truth and error. Thus, we read, “But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. They also feared the LORD and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. So they feared the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.
“To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the LORD, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. The LORD made a covenant with them and commanded them, ‘You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, but you shall fear the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods, and you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods, but you shall fear the LORD your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.’ However, they would not listen, but they did according to their former manner” [2 KINGS 17:29-40].
Take special note of how the word “fear” is used in this passage. It becomes obvious that it is not merely an issue of honour and respect for God that is meant by this word, fear speaks of the awe one might feel toward any god or demigod. Fear, as it is used in the Word of God, is synonymous with worship. If you serve other gods, whether it is the god of popularity, the god of possessions, the god of power, or the god of position, that is the god you fear. However, you cannot fear another god and worship the Living God. If you will fear the Lord GOD, you must refuse to worship all other gods. Has not our Lord taught us, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” [MATTHEW 6:24].
Isn’t it fascinating that the call to live a life revealing awe toward the Lord God is issued to those who profess to know the Saviour. We might anticipate that such a call would be delivered to lost people, but God addresses those who follow the Saviour with His call. The qualifying criterion for honouring God is given in the opening words of the SEVENTEENTH VERSE. There, Peter makes it clear that what he is about to say, and what he has been saying to this point, is for those who call on God as their Father. Worshippers come to God believing that He judges impartially. Therefore, those who profess Christ are responsible for how they conduct their lives. What a novel concept!
Whatever else may have been said in this message, my prayer is that you accept the challenge to seek God. Certainly, for those who have never known the salvation offered through Christ the Lord, we urge such people to believe the message of life. Christ Jesus, the Son of God, died because of your broken condition. He gave His life as a sacrifice in your place. The Good News is not just that Jesus gave His life as a sacrifice, but He conquered death and was raised from the tomb.
Scripture declares, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame,’ since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” [ROMANS 10:9-13 CSB]. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
