Commandment #2 - Worship

[0:00] Well if we could this evening with the Lord's help and the Lord's enabling, if we could turn back to that portion of scripture that we read, the book of Exodus chapter 20.

[0:20] The book of Exodus chapter 20 and if we read again just at the beginning. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

[0:38] You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

[0:51] You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

[1:11] The game of life, it's called the game of life and it's said to be one of America's oldest board games.

[1:27] I've never played it, but the game of life is, as you can expect, a game in which each player has to navigate their way through life.

[1:38] And at each juncture in life, they have to make decisions. Decisions that will inevitably change the outcome of what happens during the game of life.

[1:49] For example, will they begin a career or get a job or go to college? Will they take out a loan or invest in some shares or buy a house?

[2:00] But in order to win the game of life, you have to live your life to the full and make good choices before you reach your retirement.

[2:13] Because the richest person to reach their retirement at the end of the game is the winner. But you know, when I stumbled across an article about this board game called The Game of Life, the writer made the comment, the writer of the article made the comment that the game of life is fun to play, but without the right instructions, it can be very confusing.

[2:37] The game of life is fun to play, but without the right instructions, it can be very confusing. And you know, it made me think that that's exactly why God has given to us the Ten Commandments.

[2:50] Because without the right instructions, life can be very confusing. In fact, without the right instructions, such as the Ten Commandments, life is chaos.

[3:02] Life is chaos. And that's why we have to view the Ten Commandments and all the directions that we are given in the Bible, the Word of God, we have to view them not as something which is overbearing or restrictive or that God wants to take the fun out of our life, but we have to see them as a gift. And we have to see that they are for our good, that they are for our protection, and that they are teaching us how to live our life in the way in which we were created to live it.

[3:35] Because our chief end, our chief purpose in life is not to please ourselves or to glorify and gratify our own desires and the desires of others. Our chief purpose in life, the reason for our existence, as you know, is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

[3:56] And that's because we have been created in the image and in the likeness of God. Therefore, our purpose, our game of life, is not to ensure that by the time we retire and reach the end of our life, that we are rich and that we have financial security. Thank God if that is the case for you. But our purpose in life is to reflect and mirror the glory of our Creator. And we are to do it at every stage in our life. Whether we are in our career or in our job or in college or as a parent or as someone who is retired, our purpose in life from beginning to end is to reflect the glory of God back to God. It's to reflect everything back to God. And as someone once said, we reflect God best when we enjoy Him most. We reflect God best when we enjoy Him most. My friend, God has created us to enjoy Him. We are to enjoy God. We are to enjoy His presence, His personality, His power, His perfection,

[5:10] His promises, His peace. We are to enjoy everything about God so that we will reflect His glory not only back to God but also to the world around us and display to them that God is our greatest joy in life in all our circumstances, whatever our circumstances may be. And we are taught how to reflect God best and enjoy Him most by keeping His commandments and enjoying a covenant relationship with Him. Which means that everything God commands us in His Word is ultimately for our good and for His glory.

[5:51] It's so that we will live our life the way in which we were created to live it, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And so as we pick up our study in the Ten Commandments again, this evening we come to the Second Commandment. We've already considered what the Catechism describes as the sum of the Ten Commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength and your neighbour as yourself. We've considered the preface to the Ten Commandments as it says in verse 2, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And these words, they teach us that God is our Creator. He's our Creator King. He's the one in whom we are in covenant with. He's our covenant King. And He has provided for us our Christ, who is a King.

[6:44] And then last time we looked at the First Commandment. Verse 3, you shall have no other gods before me. And the First Commandment emphasised that in order to keep the First Commandment, we have to be a Christian. For we are to worship and give glory and honour to no other god except the Lord. We are to commit our lives to loving and following and serving the Lord.

[7:08] And so the First Commandment taught us whom we are to worship. We are to worship the Lord, only the Lord. But the Second Commandment teaches us how we are to worship. It's how we are to worship the Lord. And it was the Puritan John Flavel, he made this interesting observation between the First and the Second Commandments. He said that the idolatry forbidden in the First Commandment is a sin respecting the object of worship, when we set up anything in the place of God which by nature is not God. But he says that against the Second Commandment is when we pretend to worship the true God. But do so by such means and in such a manner as he hath not required or hath forbidden.

[7:59] Therefore the Second Commandment teaches us how we are to worship God. And as I said before, as we consider each commandment, we can see from the Catechism that it breaks down each commandment by highlighting what is required to keep it and what is forbidden. Or what is commanded and what is condemned. And with some of the commandments like this one, the Second Commandment, there's the additional explanation which seeks to clarify the teaching of the commandment. And that's the structure that we're going to use this evening. We can ask three questions. What is commanded by the Second Commandment? What is condemned by the Second Commandment? And what is clarified by the Second Commandment? What is commanded, condemned and clarified by the Second Commandment? So first of all, what is commanded by the Second Commandment? If you look again at verse 4, you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. And so what we ought to see from the Second Commandment is that it's commanding us and saying to us that worship is not a physical act, but a spiritual act. Worship is purely spiritual.

[9:41] And you'll remember that Jesus affirmed this when he was speaking to the woman of Samaria at the well in John chapter 4. And Jesus said to her, the hour is coming and now is here when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

[10:01] God is a spirit, he says, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. Therefore our worship is not physical, but spiritual. It's not an act from out with, it's an act from within.

[10:16] It's an act of the heart. Worship is an act of the heart, not the head, not the hands, but the heart. And this is what the Apostle Paul was emphasizing when he wrote to the church in Ephesus and to the church in Colossae.

[10:32] He was emphasizing that worship is an expression of the heart. Because he said to the Ephesians, he said, Be filled with the Spirit and address one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[10:55] And then to the Colossians, Paul gave a similar word of instruction when he said, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

[11:13] And whatever you do, he says, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And what Paul was highlighting to the churches was that our life is to be a life of worship, in which we reflect the glory of our Creator by enjoying him and glorifying him and worshipping him.

[11:37] And as we said, we reflect God best when we enjoy him most. Which means that we enjoy God by worshipping him, and we reflect him by giving back to God what he has given to us.

[11:53] We enjoy God by worshipping him, and we reflect him by giving back to God what he has given to us. And what God has given to us is his word.

[12:04] He has given us the Bible. He has given his word to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And because the word of God is inspired by God, who is a spirit, if you know the catechism, he's a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.

[12:28] Therefore, in order to worship God in spirit and in truth, we must use his word. We must worship him with what he has given to us.

[12:39] We must reflect back to God what he has given to us. Because we reflect God best when we enjoy him most. Which means that our worship of God, and our worship that is directed towards God, it should only be about God.

[12:56] Worship is not about us. It's not about what we like. It's not about what we feel is nice. It's not about what makes us feel good.

[13:07] It's not about our emotions. It's not about what we think is right. Because worship is about giving worth to God. And what gives God worth is himself.

[13:21] What glorifies God most is himself. Therefore, we must worship God with his word. And we have to worship God according to what the Bible says.

[13:34] Because in order to glorify God by reflecting his glory, we have to be directed by the word of God, and the word of God alone. As many of you know, this year, 2017, it marks 500 years since the Reformation.

[13:52] 500 years. 1517. The 31st of October, 1517, was the time when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg.

[14:04] That was the start of the Reformation. This year is 500 years. And much of the teaching of the Reformation, which, and what defined the Reformation, as well as the early church, was the teaching of sola scriptura, scripture alone.

[14:23] And what the Bible teaches, and what the Reformers emphasized, was that all our doctrine, and all our theology, and everything we do as a church, and as the people of God, the way we live our lives, it has to be directed by scripture alone.

[14:37] Everything we do must be biblical. It must be according to the Bible. Because it's the Bible that directs us to glorify God. My friend, we are called to do what the Bible says.

[14:53] Not what we want the Bible to say. Not what we think the Bible says. But what the Bible actually says. We can't just decide what bits of the Bible we want to adhere to, and what bits we want to ignore.

[15:07] What bits we like, and what bits we don't like. We are called to be biblical. And we have to be biblical in every area of our life, because every area of our life is an offering of worship to God.

[15:21] Present your bodies as living sacrifices, said Paul. Holy and acceptable to God. That is your spiritual worship. And you know, I don't want this topic to be divisive.

[15:35] I don't want anybody to think that I'm on my hobby horse to sing about when I'm talking about the need to sing psalms. I've never preached on this subject before.

[15:47] Nor do I want anyone to think that this is directed at anyone, or any church, or any denomination, or that we look down on anyone else because of what they do and the way they worship. And I don't want us to consider worship from the perspective of others, and say, well, Spurgeon did it this way.

[16:04] Calvin did it that way. Wesley did it this way. Knox did it that way. And I don't want us to look at church tradition either, and say, well, this is the way we've always done it. This is the way the free church does it.

[16:16] This is the way the Church of Scotland does it. This is the way the Reformed Baptists do it. My friend, all I want us to do is come before God's Word, which is, as the Catechism teaches, the only rule to direct us on how we may glorify and enjoy God.

[16:38] And I want us to ask the question, what are we commanded by the second commandment? And we have to look at Scripture, and we have to let Scripture interpret Scripture. And we have to do it honestly, consistently, and faithfully.

[16:53] And as we've said already, we are to worship God in spirit and in truth, which means that our worship has to be from the heart. And it has to be from the truth of God's Word, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

[17:06] And as Paul said, our heart must be filled with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And as many of you know, the Book of Psalms is a book which was compiled for the people of God to worship God.

[17:21] And the Book of Psalms is made up of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And the reason the Book of Psalms was called the Book of Psalms was simply because there were more psalms in it than hymns or spiritual songs.

[17:37] And this evening, we have sung a psalm, a hymn, and we will sing a spiritual song. Because we sung earlier in the most well-known and much-loved psalm, Psalm 23.

[17:50] And as the title of that psalm tells us, it's a psalm of David. Then we sang in Psalm 118, which is a hymn. And we know it's a hymn because by looking at Scripture, it's the last of a group of six hymns called the Egyptian Hallel hymns that were sung by the Jews at the meal of Passover.

[18:13] And in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, we're told that at the end of the Passover meal, during which Jesus had instituted the Lord's Supper, at the end of the meal, it says in Matthew and Mark, they sang an hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.

[18:29] And the hymn they would have sung because it's the last one of this group was Psalm 118. And then the last item of praise that we'll sing this evening is from Psalm 133, which is a song.

[18:43] And it's titled, A Song of Ascent. Because it's part of a group of 15 songs that were sung by all the Jewish pilgrims as they made their way towards Jerusalem for the annual feasts which were held there.

[18:57] And so we have in the book of Psalms, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And I've no doubt that it was the book of Psalms that Paul was referring to when he said that our heart must be filled with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

[19:14] Because Paul had a great love for the Psalms. If you look at all his letters, he quotes the Psalms time and time and time again. His theology has been drawn out from the book of Psalms.

[19:26] And this is because Paul knew that God's word was sufficient. He knew that the book of Psalms was sufficient to worship God. And yes, there are songs in the Bible which aren't in the book of Psalms.

[19:40] Like Moses' song in Exodus 15. There's Isaiah's song in Isaiah 12. There's Mary's song in Luke chapter 1. But if these songs were to be sung by the people of God in corporate worship, then they would have been incorporated into the book of Psalms.

[19:58] But the book of Psalms was sufficient. And the book of Psalms is still sufficient to worship God. And by worshipping God with anything other than what he has given to us, is like saying to God that his word is not sufficient.

[20:19] And so we've asked the question, what is commanded by the second commandment? And the second commandment commands us to worship God in spirit and in truth. But the next question we must ask is what is condemned by the second commandment?

[20:33] What is condemned by the second commandment? And we just look again at verse 4. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

[20:49] It's easier to understand what the commandments condemn or forbid because they all begin with the same phrase, thou shalt not.

[21:02] Thou shalt not. Thou shalt not. And as we've said before, the commandments are often viewed as negative and overbearing. But the reason the commandments are negative in their form is because the children of Israel were already in a position of privilege.

[21:19] They had been redeemed from bondage and slavery in Egypt. That's what it says in verse 2. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And so through their obedience, the children of Israel were going to receive the benefits and blessings of the redemption as God's people.

[21:38] And this is why the commandments are negative in form because they put a boundary or a perimeter around the children of Israel. The commandments, they were to act like a fence to keep God's people within that fence and to prevent them from corrupting their relationship with the Lord.

[21:58] And that's what the Ten Commandments are like. God has given to us everything we need to glorify Him and enjoy Him. He's given everything we need in His Word.

[22:09] And the Ten Commandments are the fence which indicates to us what God does not or what does not glorify God and allow us to enjoy Him.

[22:21] And the Ten Commandments there in place not to take away our fun or our enjoyment or to frustrate us, but they are there to make us see how good God is to us and how privileged we are as His people and that we can enjoy the benefits and blessings of His salvation.

[22:39] But the problem with us as sinful human beings is that we always want to push the boundaries. We always want to test the fence. We always want to see how far we can go without being pulled up for it.

[22:54] But what's clearly condemned in the Second Commandment is the worship of created things. The Commandment doesn't condemn the worship of idols which depict other gods.

[23:05] That was condemned in the First Commandment. You shall have no other gods before me. The Second Commandment though, it condemns the worship of anything that God has created or the worship of anything that we have created in order to depict God.

[23:22] And so if the Second Commandment condemns the worship of anything that God has created, that means everything. The sun, the moon, the stars, animals, buildings, human beings, everything.

[23:37] we are not to worship anything that God has created. We are only to worship the Creator. The Creator who has revealed Himself by His creation and through His Word.

[23:52] And He has provided salvation for us in the person of Jesus Christ. But as we said, the Second Commandment not only condemns the worship of anything that God has created, it also condemns the worship of anything that we have created to depict God.

[24:08] Which includes images or sculptures of Jesus or even Mary. And throughout the medieval church there were many images and sculptures of Jesus on the cross or Jesus in the arms of the Virgin Mary.

[24:23] And many churches they had stained glass windows which depicted various images. And some of them, I'm sure you've seen them, their beautiful works of art. But at the Reformation many of these stained glass windows they were smashed, they threw things through them and replaced them with plain glass.

[24:41] And that was because of the Second Commandment. The idols of Jesus and Mary they were also removed. And the churches they became very plain and very simple. In which the pulpit in our own experience, the pulpit is in the centre of the church.

[24:58] The Bible is elevated above the people to indicate to everyone that every element of the worship is to be directed by Scripture alone. But what we must see is that when the Second Commandment forbids the worship of anything that we have created to depict God, that includes items of praise.

[25:21] Because the Second Commandment teaches us that we are required to worship God the way in which He is appointed in His Word. We are not to add to it. We are not to take away from it.

[25:33] Therefore we are to worship God using His Spirit-inspired Word. And this is the issue between worshipping God with the inspired book of Psalms which God has written and worshipping God with non-inspired hymns which we as God's creation have written.

[25:51] And yes, there are hundreds of beautiful hymns which have been written by men and women throughout the centuries. And when you read them they're so full and so beautiful.

[26:03] And as you know I quote them so often but they're not inspired. And what I mean by not inspired is that they're not in the Word of God.

[26:15] They may contain the Word of God they may paraphrase the Word of God but they are not the Word of God. And it's only the Word of God that is inspired and God-breathed.

[26:27] It's only the Word of God that is both spirit and truth. And the second commandment commands us to worship God in spirit and in truth. And as those who are to reflect the glory of God we must reflect back to God what God has given to us because as we said we reflect God best when we enjoy him most.

[26:48] Which means that our worship of God and our worship that is directed towards God it should only be about God. So we said it's not about us it's not about what we like it's not about what makes us feel nice it's not about what we think is right.

[27:03] Worship is about God and it is commanded by God. And if we think that we're able to decide what's suitable to worship God and what's not suitable then all we have to do is consider Aaron's two sons Nadab and Abihu.

[27:19] If you remember Aaron was the high priest he was the leading priest set apart to lead the people in the worship of God and God was to be worshipped according to what he had commanded in his word but in Leviticus chapter 10 we're told that Nadab and Abihu they went into the sanctuary into the presence of God the place where God dwelt amongst his people and they went before the Lord and they offered to the Lord what the Lord had not commanded and in order to show the seriousness of offering something that God didn't command Nadab and Abihu died and it's then that the Lord said by those who draw near to me I must be regarded as holy and before all the people I must be glorified and through Nadab and Abihu the children of Israel and all the people of God they're to learn that God is holy and that we are to worship him by the way in which he is commanded in spirit and in truth therefore we're not to worship God according to what we desire and what we think is suitable now I don't want us to think that non-inspired hymns should have no place in our life at all that's not what I'm saying they should because as I said there are many beautiful hymns that have been written past and present but when it comes to worshipping God at his sanctuary like Nadab and Abihu in the public place of corporate worship that's where the children of Israel gathered to worship corporate worship like this

[29:09] I believe that we should only use what God has given to us to worship him namely the book of Psalms but all these non-inspired hymns they are for our benefit you cannot and they're not to be neglected and this is also what the Westminster Confession of Faith said about the Apocrypha now don't get excited about the Apocrypha the Apocrypha was a collection of books that were deemed as uninspired material therefore they were not to be part of the canon of scripture they were not to be part of the Bible but as our confession makes clear even though the Apocrypha is uninspired that didn't mean we shouldn't ignore it it didn't mean that we shouldn't read it it didn't mean that we shouldn't use it in fact the confession says the opposite it says that we should use it as a historical document but always view it as human writing and not the authoritative word of

[30:12] God and in some sense I believe that that's how we should view uninspired hymns we should view them as useful beneficial to our growth and our development as Christians and their expressions of the doctrines of the faith and we should sing them in gatherings and in fellowships but not in the sanctuary in public and corporate worship because at the end of the day they are human writings and we can't base the authority of our theology and our doctrine upon them because they are not inspired they are not infallible and they are not the inerrant word of God and just to give an example there is a beautiful hymn called how deep the father's love for us many of you know it and that hymn teaches us that at the cross the father turned his face away from Jesus when Jesus was forsaken but that statement it contradicts the words of Psalm 22 which as we saw this morning it is a psalm all about the cross and it says in

[31:29] Psalm 22 that the father didn't turn his face away when he forsook when Jesus was forsaken and this error in theology it immediately highlights the problem with singing hymns because they are uninspired written by fallible human beings and some of them contain error and this is why the second commandment was given because as we said the commandments were issued by God to give boundaries and guidelines on how to glorify God but when we sing uninspired hymns there are no boundaries and when there are no boundaries and no guidelines it can lead to chaos and confusion and there's one thing I will say and it's this the problem we have in our denomination at the moment as both an inspired psalm singing and an uninspired hymn singing denomination is that we are meant to sing items of praise that are confessional but who's checking if they're confessional or not because there are so many hymns and many of them not all of them not condemning them all not condemning any some of them have errors in them you don't have any errors in the book of psalms because it's the word of God but not only that every congregation is meant to sing at least two psalms in any given service but who's checking that who's ensuring that we worship within the boundaries that we have set because when we cross the boundary lines which God has set it can only lead to chaos and confusion and the

[33:21] God we worship is not a God of chaos and confusion he's a God of order and direction and he has given us direction in his word and so we've asked the question what is commanded by the second commandment the second commandment commands us to worship God in spirit and in truth and we've asked what is condemned by the second commandment the second commandment condemns the worship of anything that God has created or the worship of anything that we have created to depict God but lastly and very briefly we have to ask what is clarified by the second commandment what is clarified by the second commandment we read again the commandment in verse four you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments and what it ought to come across so clearly in this commandment is that the

[34:38] God we worship is a jealous God he's a jealous God of course God's jealousy is very unlike the jealousy that we experience because God's jealousy is a holy jealousy and God's jealousy is such that he is jealous over his creation God has created us and as his creation he is our creator king and we have been created to glorify and enjoy him the creator king has created us to reflect his glory and we reflect God best when we enjoy him most but God becomes jealous when his creation worships the creation rather than the creator God becomes jealous when we don't take worship seriously and we reflect back to him created things rather than what he has given my friend God becomes jealous when we worship anything that isn't him and we all worship and reflect something or someone and maybe for you as an unconverted person sitting here this evening maybe you think well this commandment it doesn't really involve me talking about psalms and hymns and songs it's not really an interest to me it doesn't involve me but I tell you it does because whatever your heart clings to and relies upon whatever you love and whatever you trust that's your God that's what you worship and the reason why the world is in the mess it's in today is because you choose to worship created things we choose to worship created things rather than our creator and when we live like that it ruins everything because it's not what we were created to do and as God says in the second commandment and as we can see in our nation today our worship of the creation everything else that isn't God our worship of the creation rather than our creator has an impact upon the subsequent generations to the third and to the fourth generation he says because if we don't live within the boundaries which

[37:05] God has set it leads to chaos and as we said before the command thou shalt not that's where the modern translations they fall down it's thou shalt not it's a singular form it's not plural it's singular which means that it's a personal command it's a personal obligation it's addressed to every human being who's made in the image of God but it's spoken to each and every one of us individually therefore the response and the responsibility for upholding the second commandment it's a personal one personal responsibility the same is true for every single commandment personal responsibility which means that we can't blame anyone else for our failure to uphold any of the commandments or even this commandment we can't point the finger at someone else or something else we are responsible personal obligation which means that there's the personal obligation put upon every single one of us and as we've been asking this evening what is commanded in the second commandment it commands us to worship

[38:20] God in spirit and in truth what is condemned in the second commandment the worship of anything that God has created or the worship of anything that we have created to depict God and what is clarified by the second commandment God is jealous and he has created us to glorify and enjoy him and him alone he has created us and given to us life and all the benefits of life because our chief end in life our purpose in life as we said at the beginning it's not to please ourselves it's not to glorify and gratify our desires or the desires of others and it's not to win the game of life by retiring as someone who is rich and reaching the end of our days with financial security our chief purpose in life the reason why we were created is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever and the apostle Paul said that we do that by letting the word of

[39:33] Christ dwell in you richly it's by taking God's word in your heart and responding to it responding to what God is saying if we had continued singing in Psalm 95 as we began our service this evening the psalmist says today if you hear his voice harden not your heart may the Lord bless these thoughts to us let us pray O Lord our God we give thanks to thee for the privilege of worship help us Lord we pray to to realise that thy word is one that directs us help us not to be the navigator but help us Lord to be navigated by thee the one who directs us in all things and how we are to glorify and enjoy thee

[40:38] Lord bless thy word to us we pray help us to exalt thy name together help us to worship thee aright to worship thee the way that thou hast commanded us to worship thee not because of our own heart's desire O Lord build us up we pray bless us and do us good help us to hear thy voice and help us to respond to it to know that thou art the one who is speaking to us in thy word go before us in the week that lies ahead O a week that is unknown to us a week O Lord that we do not know what a day nor an hour will bring but Lord in everything teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom go before us and do us good then for Jesus sake Amen We shall conclude by singing in Psalm 133 Psalm 133 that's page 424 in the

[41:39] Scottish Psalter As we said it's one of the songs of ascents from Psalm 120 to Psalm 134 that's the 15 songs of ascents that were sung by the pilgrims as they went to Jerusalem Behold how good a thing it is and how becoming well together such as brethren are in unity to dwell the whole psalm to God's praise Behold how good a thing it is and how becoming well together he'sочку inside the heaven an då h Monica bear it is the good and how into the kingdom

[42:52] Assointment of the head That down the bearded floor In his own spirit Unto the skirts Take on his garments go As Hermont Jude the Jude that died On Zion haired he said On haired the blessing God commands Life that shall never end The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ

[43:54] The love of God the Father And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit Be with you all Now and forevermore Amen Amen