Lesson 12: “Worship That Never Ends”
COLLEEN TINKER |
Problems with this lesson:
- This discussion of worship is built upon a false worldview that eclipses knowing the true God
- This lesson ties worship to the law and to the three angels’ messages.
- The Teachers Comments equate worship with response to God’s gifts, not to God Himself.
This penultimate lesson in the quarter dedicated to the Psalms is quintessential Adventist moralizing. While many of the statements in the lesson are not wrong, they are platitudes built on a worldview that denies that people are by nature dead in sin and unable to please God. The foundation for these moral platitudes is that a true worshiper must keep the law in order to know God and must see the “three angels’ messages” as the proclamation the worshiper is to make to the nations.
When a person’s assumed worldview is false, the words of Scripture can’t be understood. When verses are taken out of context and interpreted through the lens of a false gospel and a false worldview, those verses become tools of behavior modification instead of revelation of our sovereign God.
Tuesday’s lesson uses Psalm 15 to teach that only those who are worthy may worship in God’s presence. To establish context, we will first read the five verses of Psalm 15:
A Psalm of David.
O Yahweh, who may sojourn in Your tent?
Who may dwell on Your holy mountain?
He who walks blamelessly, and works righteousness,
And speaks truth in his heart.
He does not slander with his tongue,
Nor does evil to his neighbor,
Nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
In whose eyes a reprobate is despised,
But who honors those who fear Yahweh;
He swears to his own hurt and does not change;
He does not put out his money at interest,
Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things will never be shaken.—(Psalm 15:1-5 LSB)
In context, this psalm is describing a person whose heart honors the Lord and believes Him. It is describing a person’s whose trust and belief in God guards his behavior and his speech; he is truthful, honest, not conniving or on the lookout for personal gain. This psalm is describing a person who, like David who wrote it, had a repentant heart and believed and trusted God.
Yet the lesson interprets this psalm as describing “holiness” as honoring the law. Here is what the lesson states:
The sanctuary was a holy place, and everything in it, including the priests, was consecrated. Thus, holiness is a mandatory requirement for entering the presence of God. Israel’s holiness was to be comprehensive, uniting worship with ethics and exercised in all aspects of life. The law was given to God’s people to enable them to fulfill their greatest potential (i.e., live as a kingdom of priests).
The law was never given to enable God’s people to fulfill their greatest potential. It was given, as Romans 5:20 says, “so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”.
With the false foundation of believing that keeping the law is the way people realize their “greatest potential”—and with the Adventist belief that the seventh-day Sabbath is the pinnacle of their unique loyalty to the law—the reader of this lesson would never be able to see that the psalms are describing true worship that flows from a heart that has been made alive by believing God, as Abraham and David did. Rather, they will read these fragments of psalms commanding them to praise God and tell of His greatness to the nations as secret code for sharing the three angels’ messages.
Three Angels Messages
In fact, Wednesday’s lesson overtly ties Psalm 96 to the Adventist understanding of the three angels’ messages! First, here are verses 1–10 of Psalm 96:
Sing to the LORD a new song;
Sing to the LORD, all the earth.
Sing to the LORD, bless His name;
Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.
Tell of His glory among the nations,
His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.
For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
But the LORD made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before Him,
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.
Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples,
Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Ascribe to the LORD the glory of His name;
Bring an offering and come into His courts.
Worship the LORD in holy attire;
Tremble before Him, all the earth.
Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns;
Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved;
He will judge the peoples with equity.” (Psalm 96:1-10 NASB95)
In context we see that this psalm is declaring who God is in comparison with false gods. It is commanding His people to worship Him and honor Him among the nations. It even affirms that God will judge the people fairly.
Wednesday’s lesson, however, says this:
The universal appeal of Psalm 96 to worship the Creator and the Judge is reflected in God’s final gospel proclamation to the world, the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14:6–12. In many ways this psalm seems to incorporate this end-time message: creation, salvation (“everlasting gospel”), worship, and judgment. It’s all there.
Of course, the Adventist version of Revelation 14:6–12 is that the angels of Revelation are calling people to worship God on the seventh day. Christians are being warned that the Babylonian Sunday-churches are “fallen”, and they are to leave them immediately because God’s pre-advents judgment has begun. If they persist in worshiping on Sunday, they will receive the mark of the beast and suffer the second death.
These messages in Revelation do not state these ideas; these are private interpretations established by Ellen White in her “great controversy vision” and codified into Adventist doctrine. Yet this lesson juxtaposes Psalm 96 with the Adventist “gospel in verity”, the three angels’ messages, and incorporates Sunday-fear, Sabbath mandates, the investigative judgment, and the mark of the beast into this psalm of praise. The Adventist reader will be unable to see that this psalm declares that God is sovereign over the nations. People are to worship Him because He, not they, are in control. The future is secure not on the basis of people’s law-keeping and special knowledge but because God is sovereign over them.
Worship As Response To Gifts?
The Teachers Comments open with an almost-hidden explanation of the Adventist view of “worship”. Worship, the author explains, is a response to God’s GIFTS. In fact, this explanation makes no mention of God’s grace being linked to the Lord Jesus, His cross, or even to believing and knowing God. Here is what it says on page 158:
Worship may be summarized as follows: the response of the creature to the gifts of the Creator. Two Bible truths are evident in this abstract.
First, God has given many blessings to humanity. These gifts should awaken gratitude in the human heart for the greatness of God’s love so that we may unite with the psalmist in proclaiming “with the voice of thanksgiving” all of His “wondrous works” (Ps. 26:7, NKJV). The psalmist’s ardor for blazoning to others the greatness of God reminds us that worship has an evangelical dimension. Thus, as a church, we should proclaim to the world the Lord’s deeds for every individual and His divine mercy.
Second, human beings are hardwired with an inborn predisposition to respond to God’s wonders. In response to divine grace, we should bow with a grateful heart, submitting everything in our lives to the will of our Creator and Redeemer.
Worship should come from the heart. At the same time, the book of Psalms instructs us that worship should not be conducted capriciously. There are appropriate ways to revere the Lord. Keeping a wise balance between gratitude and reverent submission will make our worship enjoyable and unifying.
The Bible never establishes worship as a response to the gifts of God. This model is inside-out. Further, the Bible never defines God’s grace as His gifts or blessings. God’s grace to us is that He redeemed us through the blood of the Lord Jesus!
This lesson has divorced worship from the saving work of God in Jesus. Even the psalms were written by men who believed God and understood that He saved them by not counting their sins against them when they repented. They understood that God wanted their trust and love which produced obedient hearts. Yet the lesson presents it the other way around: do the law, do the Adventist doctrines, and you will demonstrate that you love God.
Adventism never leads people to trust God’s word, to acknowledge their natural spiritual death and to repent of their sins, believing that the blood of Jesus has literally paid for all their sins, past, present, and future.
Furthermore, worship has nothing to do with “balance”. What does it even mean to “keep a wise balance between gratitude and reverent submission”?
Worship is the natural response of a heart that has been made alive by the Lord Jesus when we trust Him. Adventism never tells its people that John 1:17 means exactly what it says:
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. —(John 1:17 NASB95)
The gospel does not combine the law with the grace of the new covenant. The law was given to point out sin, to cause people to realize they were entrapped in sin, unable NOT to sin, and to realize they needed a rescuer!
The law came through Moses—he was the mediator of the old covenant that was composed of physical shadows prefiguring the work of the Lord Jesus. When Jesus finally came, grace and truth were revealed through His atoning sacrifice and resurrection. It is only when we believe and trust in Jesus alone that we can truly worship.
This lesson has completely obscured the worship expressed in the Psalms by forcing the reader to understand them through the lens of the great controversy worldview and the three angels’ messages. Furthermore, the lesson has bound the consciences of the readers to believe that they can’t properly worship God if they aren’t proselytizing their neighbors into Adventism.
Furthermore, this lesson leaves the reader feeling obligated to “worship” in an Adventist Church with other Adventists whose lives center on keeping Sabbath, observing the health message, and inviting their neighbors to Adventist meetings in order to introduce them to the Sabbath. If they are not practicing Adventism in these ways, the lesson suggests, then the Adventist is not actually worshiping God properly.
But there is hope. Paul says this in Romans 3:28:
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.—(Rom 3:28 NASB95)
The Sabbath will not contribute to your salvation. There is only one way to be saved—in fact, there is only one way to truly worship God: Believe in the Lord Jesus. He took your sins to the cross; He was buried, and He rose on the third day according to Scripture, shattering your death penalty. Forget trying to figure out how to have a balanced approach to worship and throw yourself on the mercy of God at the foot of the cross. Confess your sin, and trust that Jesus’ blood has fully paid for all your sins.
He will give you a new heart, and you will finally know what it means to try worship God! †
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