Tag Archives: true worship

2 Chronicles, chapters 6-9

Solomon also brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the City of David to the house that he had built for her, for he said: “Although she is my wife, she should not dwell in the house of King David of Israel, for the places to which the Ark of Jehovah has come are holy.”
~2 Chronicles 8:11

At the beginning of his reign, King Solomon had a clear view of how to keep true worship uncontaminated from false religion.
He understood that his wife’s traditions were not just incompatible with Mosaic Law, but they diametrically opposed it.
At the risk of offending her, he removed her from within the Holy City and built her a separate house next to his own.
We should also hold true worship in high esteem and avoid contaminating it with antibiblical traditions, even when this may stress close relationships (Matt. 10:36,37; 2 Co. 6:14).

1 Kings, chapters 18-20

“Now you are saying, ‘Go and tell your lord: “Elijah is here.”’ […] When I tell Ahab and he does not find you, he will surely kill me. Yet, your servant has feared Jehovah from his youth.”
~1 Kings, 18:11,12

The man saying these words, Obadiah, was a servant to the apostate king of Northern Israel, Ahab.
While Ahab and his pagan wife, Jezebel, were determined to execute every one of Jehovah’s prophets in the land, Obadiah bravely hid the prophets in caves (1 Ki. 18:3,4).
The prophet Elijah’s soul was much sought after in royal excursions, for Elijah had caused a severe three-year drought to plague the land, on account of the people’s unfaithfulness to their God (1 Ki. 17:1).
That is why when Elijah asked Obadiah to tell Ahab that he would meet with him to relay a divine message, Obadiah hesitated.
He thought Elijah would immediately be sent elsewhere by God, thereby eluding King Ahab once more.
Then surely Ahab would take his wrath out on Obadiah himself.

“However, Elijah said: ‘As surely as Jehovah of armies whom I serve is living, today I will present myself to him.’
“So Obadiah went off to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah.” (1 Ki. 18:15,16).

What impresses me about Obadiah is his ability to have kept his zeal for true worship alive even under extremely dangerous circumstances.
His loyalty to Jehovah came first, even at the risk of his own life.
He collaborated with Elijah and put faith in him as God’s messenger.
As for us, do we let our bosses or professors order us around into a frame of mind in which God is no longer a priority for us?
Do we let work or school dictate our priorities, constantly leaving out spiritual activities because we are afraid of what our superiors will think?
Like Obadiah, we need to know where to draw the line when someone influential tells us to go against God’s principles.

1 Samuel, chapters 10-13

“Here I am. Testify against me before Jehovah and before his anointed one: Whose bull or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded or crushed? From whose hand have I accepted a bribe to make me look the other way? If I have, I will restore it to you.”
~1 Samuel 12:3

Samuel had a clean conscience because he maintained sincere, wholehearted worship of Jehovah throughout his life.

The people he served were able to testify: “You have not defrauded us or crushed us or accepted anything at all from anyone’s hand,” (1 Sam. 12:4).

While leaders of false religion use their religious institution as a sort of business and as a means to sustain themselves materially, true believers do not take advantage of their spiritual brothers to gain material benefits (Matt. 10:8; 1 Pet. 5:2).

We must be careful to always keep our form of worship free of commercial or potentially corrupt personal interests in order to not imitate the oppressive attitude of hypocritical church leaders (John 2:15,16).

Then we should ask ourselves: can I swear before Jehovah, like Samuel, that I have defrauded no one?

Deuteronomy, chapters 11-13

“You must not worship Jehovah your God in that way. […]”You must not do as we are doing here today, with everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes,”

~Deuteronomy 12:4,8

Many people take on the philosophy that God accepts all forms of worship as long as they’re sincere, that ‘all paths lead to the same destination.’
That idea is not taught in God’s Word.
While sincerity is an important aspect of true worship, it is not the only one (John 4:24).
Those wishing to serve and worship God have always had to meet a certain level of requirements.
We can see this since the story of Cain and Abel all the way up to prophecies pointing toward a coordinated worldwide preaching work in the book of Revelation (Ge. 4:3-7; Re. 14:6,7).
Since these “preaching” prophecies pertain to the last days and are currently being fulfilled, it is more urgent than ever to “seek Jehovah your God wherever he chooses to establish his name and his place of residence and go there,” (De. 12:5).
This implies regularly attending Christian meetings and heeding the Scriptural advice learned there (He. 10:24,25).

Numbers, chapters 22-25

But God said to Baʹlaam: “You must not go with them. You must not curse the people, for they are blessed,”
~Numbers 22:12

Balaam, to an extent, had knowledge of the true God, at one point calling Jehovah  ‘his God,’ (Nu. 22:18).

Still, he persisted in collaborating with the Midianites and the Moabites in their endeavor to curse Israel.

These people had a pagan form of worship involving sexual promiscuity in the sacrifices they offered to Ba’al of Pe’or (Nu. 25:1-3).

The chieftains had promised Balaam riches in exchange for a curse, for they acknowledged that ‘the one whom he blessed was blessed and the one whom he cursed was cursed,’ (Nu. 22:6).

What they did not take into account is that Jehovah cannot be bought out nor does he follow the orders of man.

In their practices of divination, these people implored favor of their gods without making personal sacrifices in the way of kindness, repentance or moral conduct.

Because of this and God’s promises to the patriarchs, he would never favor them over Israel.

Today, it would be wrong of us to pray for or persist in pursuing something that goes against God’s expressed will.

This is especially true if we are motivated by purely selfish reasons as in the case of Balaam, whose greed led him to lose all of God’s favor and be executed (Nu. 31:8).