Don’t Play at Worship

II Four Explanatory Messages

B The Response

1 Rebuke, Text: 7:4-7

Title: Don’t Play at Worship

Introduction

In some circles condemning modern innovations in worship is tantamount to condemning homosexuality at a gay and lesbian meeting. It draws a great deal of ire. My own experience with this is limited, but I remember mentioning the subject of homosexuality incidentally in a sermon in a church I was serving. Since I was not preaching on the subject itself and my mention was incidental to the main point, imagine my shock when I was addressed by an irate member condemning my viewpoint and regaling me with anecdotes about all their “nice” homosexual friends. It’s a hot button issue and so are the customs, forms and procedures in worship. Out of the Protestant Reformation John Knox wrote, “All worshiping, honoring, or service invented by the brain of man in the religion of God, without His own express commandment, is idolatry.” His remark was directed at the abuses and accretions in worship that had occurred over the centuries in the Roman Catholic Church. Just as fallen man naturally seeks to impose his will in salvation thinking that he can cooperate with God in salvation, or that he has a natural freedom to choose Christ, so fallen man naturally seeks to impose his will in worship saying “I can cooperate with God in worship by adding what I desire so long as God doesn’t specifically forbid it”. But just as God condemns a man-centered salvation, so God condemns a man-centered worship Colossians 2:23 specifically condemns all “will-worship,” meaning, all worship instituted by man. In 1682 the Puritan pastor John Owen wrote, “The principle that the church hath power to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God, either as to matter or manner, beyond the observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ Himself hath instituted, lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry, of all the confusion, blood, persecution, and wars, that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world.” At that time two thousand Puritan ministers of the Church of England resigned from their pulpits rather than sacrifice a clear conscience concerning the commanded worship of God. These men sacrificed their livelihood, families, and even their own lives rather than offend God by practicing the false worship propagated by the idolatrous prelates of their day. Today we are much more likely to see modern innovations. The alleged reasons for these changes are being led of the Spirit, or attracting more people, or making people feel good, or helping people to know and feel the presence of God. A modern writer, Gordon Dahl, has observed, “ Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play and to play at their worship. As a result, their meanings and values are distorted. Their relationships disintegrate faster than they can keep them in repair, and their lifestyles resemble a cast of characters in search of a plot.” This was the Israel that Zechariah addressed. Through him God calls them to account under three heads, fasting, feasting and following.

I Fasting

We read in verses 4 and 5, Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted?’ They did not fast because of God’s command, but because of the ordinances of men. It was not by God’s command, or to do him honor, that they fasted; not from hearty repentance or sorrow for the sins which had brought ruin upon their city and country; but from vexation at the calamity itself, and in a self-righteous spirit, with some idea of gaining merit by this punishment of the body. This formal observance did not excite God’s sympathy and did not constrain Him to show them favor. There is a name for this behavior. It is called supererogation, working more than asked. The Protestant Reformers condemned it outright pointing out that the demands of God are so extensive that human beings have not the slightest chance of ever satisfying them, let alone going beyond them. Supererogatory action is optional and personal on the one hand and not motivated by the subjection to the moral law on the other. In other words it doesn’t count with God and you get no merit badges for it. The question came from a specific group of people but God addresses the nation. They were all guilty of fasting for themselves and their tragic situation and not in true repentance toward God. God is telling them that fasting is in itself an indifferent thing, but it’s value is to be estimated by the conduct of those who observe it. Fasting implies repentance, but God unmasks their hypocrisy. The exceeding deceitfulness of ritualism and ceremonialism is shown here because all of God’s people, and even, apparently, all God’s ministers were deceived to so great an extent, and for so many years, and in such circumstances of trial that it defies credulity.

II Feasting

When they were not fasting they were feasting as it tells us in verse 6, And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Why did they feast? As in the case of fasting, so also in feasting they did not feast for the right reasons. God instituted the Biblical feasts to focus upon the salvation and redemption of man and the worship of God. They celebrated things God had done and what he was going to do in the latter days. They were given to strengthen faith and obedience. Did they worship God in their festivals? Did they grow in faith and devotion to duty through them? It stands to reason that if God had not commanded the feast as a religious exercise, then it was not for Him that they feasted. I am reminded of the words of Paul to the Corinthian church in I Corinthians 11:20-22, So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter! What this shows is the exceeding depravity of man in taking what is holy and sacred and trampling it under foot. In Exodus 32 we read of Moses being a long time in the mountain and the people growing impatient. Aaron told the people to bring their gold jewelry and he made an idol of gold cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then the people cried out that these were their gods, who brought them up out of Egypt. And we read in verses 5 and 6, When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. That surely was not a feast for the true God but for the people. Likewise in the New Testament Jude writing of licentious and disobedient professors of religion says in 1:12, These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted —twice dead. Thus it is not uncommon for people to pretend to be religious and hold feasts when the Lord is not invited. And they feasted for themselves.

III Following

While God did proclaim a fast and a feast on occasion, they were instituted to direct people to Him. What He is really interested in is following. Jesus reminds us of this in Luke 6: 46 and 47, And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever comes to me, and hears my sayings, and does them, I will show you to whom he is like: A man that built his house on a rock. Thus the Lord speaks through Zechariah in verse 7, Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled? It had been a common cry of the prophets from early times that men must not put their trust in the observance of outward ceremonies, but attend to the cultivation of moral obedience and purity. So we read in Jeremiah 7:22-24, For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. In Isaiah 1 God tells Israel that their offerings are meaningless because they do not obey. Their ceremonies have become detestable and God will hide His eyes from them. In Hosea 6:6 the same message is hammered home, For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. God reminds them of their former prosperity in comparison to their present destitution because he wants them to see the price of their disobedience, Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous. Today how many people go to Church because they think it will bring God’s favor but during the week break His commandments? “Compassion fatigue” is a new term heard among some people of our affluent society today. It means “I’m tired of repeated calls to do good.” Why must my enjoyment of the good life be spoiled by reminders that most of the world is slowly starving and many of our own neighborhoods are terribly poor? Israel was suffering from compassion fatigue. They thought they could cover it over with religious observances, but God says he desires mercy and not burnt offerings, and obedience rather than fasts. If we want God’s blessing the first thing we should do is not mourn in fasting, or celebrate in feasting, but obey in following.