It is very easy for man to poo poo worship – “Don’t see why you have to go to church”; “You can be a Christian and not go to church”; “I can worship God just as easily out in the bush”. To one who understands the truth of the Bible on this matter these statements sound so shallow and expose the ignorance of those who make them. Why do we put so much importance on assembling for worship? Because God does! According to John 4:23,24 God is seeking worshipers, and not because He needs an ego boost (Acts 17:25), but because man needs to worship God. He mentions true worshipers, which implies there are false worshipers (cf. v.22) – “you worship what you don’t know”. Why does He put such importance on it, that’s the question. If we learn that then we will grow in wisdom and understanding, and our spiritual lives will grow. Man is created a dependent being and therefore is a worshiper, and if he doesn’t worship God he will worship something else. Yale sociologists studied over 30 cultures from the sophisticated to the savage to develop a list of cultural constants. One item on the list was worship.
Why worship? One reason is because of a broken fellowship. There was a time when man walked with God in the garden of Eden, but since that time worship provides the way to commune with the invisible God. In doing this we need to glorify God and maintain a proper perspective (cf. Rom. 1 where man grew foolish and did not wish to retain God in his knowledge). Worship requires feeling. We must be awed by the presence of God, and conditions can be inducive to helping this. Worship requires leading. For example Jesus led in the original eating of the Lord’s Supper and men are required to do the same today. We need to approach God in the right way. The tendency is for man to glorify himself, amuse and entertain himself, equating feeling good with acceptable worship.
Paul uses an expression in Col. 2:23, and it is the only place where it is found – Will Worship. It is two words in English but only one in Greek. The word is ethelothreskeia which comes from ethelo (“to exercise the will; to choose; to be willing”), and threskeia, meaning (“religious worship; external form of worship”). Thus it is a form of worship derived by man, not God. In looking at vs. 18-23 it is seen that this was a heresy that involved an asceticism:- their focus was attempts at holiness similiar to that of the Pharisees with their endless restrictions rather than hungering and thirsting after righteousness. They could tell you what they were against but not what they were for. They thought by depriving themselves of things God ordained for man’s rightful enjoyment to be received with thanksgiving, that this somehow put them in the footsteps of Jesus. They worshiped angels, probably saying that God was too great and they were so lowly that they could not worship God directly but worshiped His angels. All of this may have a semblance of humility and wisdom, Paul says, but only in will worship. It may seem very humble but it is a proud humility. Certainly it is not the true worship which is in spirit and truth.
Though this is the only place where the word “will worship” is found, it certainly isn’t the only place where will worship is found. What is it, how does it happen, and what’s its attraction?
Jeroboam, the first king of the break-away kingdom of Israel, is given special attention in the Old Testament. It’s not so much the fact that he led the rebellion against Rehoboam who refused to reduce the heavy taxation of his father, Solomon, for God had decreed that Solomon’s kingdom was to be decimated because of his idolatry. But rather, no less that 21 times he is charged with having caused Israel to sin (eg. 1 Kings 14:16). What was his transgression that merited such attention? He was an innovator – he practiced what Paul called will-worship. His presumptive activities are chronicled in 1 Kings 12.
In verses 27,28 he corrupted the worship of God by instituting golden calves as objects of divine adoration. This was not the first time this had happened – you well remember the golden calf episode back in the wilderness whilst Moses was away on the mountain receiving the law. You shall not make any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth. God has never instructed man in any dispensation to do this. There was a holy of holies in the tabernacle, and later the temple, which was considered to be the special location of God who fills heaven and earth, and in that place was the ark of the covenant. On the top of that ark there were angels facing inwards and in between them was said to be where God dwelt – but there was nothing there!
I don’t know that there ever was a people that regarded the graven images made by their own hands to be the actual deity they served – they knew such things were only representative, but they adored and reverenced the thing they had made by way of transference to the god the idol represented. So men today bow and genuflect and cross themselves before statues and crosses and paintings meanwhile excusing themselves by saying:- “That which I bow to only represents the Lord”, oblivious to the fact that this is what idolatry has ever been. They see wisdom in having some tangible representation of God believing that such is an aid to man’s comprehension and focus of worship. God, on the other hand, never thought that was necessary. He created us with the ability to comprehend the invisible God and in Rom. 1:22,23 He says that when men changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things they became fools. There is nothing on earth, man or beast, that can adequately express or represent the glory of God.
Next, in vs 27-30, he changed the place of service from Jerusalem to the cities of Bethel and Dan. Why? All under the guise of convenience! (John 4:20 – Jerusalem was the place of temple worship in the O.T. – cf. 1 Kings 11:13; Ps. 122:137). It is true that location is of no consequence in the N.T. (John 4:21), and it’s true one can be a Christian by oneself in an isolated location, but Christians in a community are to come together into one place (1 Cor. 11:20; Heb. 10:25), but the doctrine of convenience is still with us. I don’t see why I have to go to worship! is commonly touted. I can worship God just as easily out in the bush or on the lake or at the beach! – and you know they don’t! The fact of the matter is worship is a corporate activity:- you can’t speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs by yourself. You can’t come together and tarry for one another in gathering around the Lord’s Table by yourself. You can’t preach by yourself to edify and be edified by your self. You can’t give into a treasury so there be no gatherings by yourself. Convenient Christianity is the order of our day.
Further, He appointed priests from tribes other than of Levi (V.31). He violated the law of silence. He may have said, “Where did Moses say you couldn’t have priests from other tribes” (although I suspect he was that incorrigible he wouldn’t have even bothered to try and justify his actions but if he had this may have been what he might have said). Note in Heb.7:14 how that the law of silence dictates that when Moses specified priests from Levi that eliminated priests from any other tribe. He didn’t have to spell it out for he told what God authorized. Not even Jesus could be a priest under the Mosaic code since He was from Judah. The only way Jesus could be a priest was if the law of Moses was changed, which of course it was, being nailed to the cross. Men, today, introduce all sorts of things, innovations which may well have a semblance of wisdom in Will Worship, under the guise that God didn’t say you couldn’t. With that attitude it doesn’t take very long for us to get a long way from the Scriptures.
“Where does it say we can’t have steak and coke in the Lord’s Supper? Where does it say we can’t burn incense in worship, or that we can’t pray to the Virgin Mary, or that we can’t have a Pope authorize our worship and a million other things?” The fact is God never had to speak on that wise since He specified what he wanted and that eliminated every other thing. “Where does it say we can’t get into the entertainment industry and strike up an organ and some you-beaut, full-tilt, hyped-up, boogie-woogie band in worship?” It doesn’t because God told us what He wants in worship:- He wants us to sing, making melody in the heart, and speaking to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
Further to those things, Jeroboam changed the time of the feast of Tabernacles from the 15th day of the seventh month, to the 15th day of the eighth month. “Hey, what’s the diff – same day just a different month.” Where did that come from? V.33 has the answer – he devised it in his own heart. He was a high-handed rebel who deserved the wrath of God. His kin are not extinct to this day. When 1 Cor. 16:1,2 specifies that it is on the first day of the week we come together to make a contribution and Acts 20:7 is an apostolically- approved example of early Christians coming together on the first day of the week to break bread, who amongst us would feel he had the right to change the time of assembly to, say, Thursday, or any other day? I know of people who go to worship on Saturday night so they can go fishing on Sunday: they just don’t want the worship of the Lord to inconvenience them or cut into their playing time. Hey, I tell you what, they need to have a yarn with those who think they can worship God out on the lake and then they won’t even have to go to worship on Saturday night!
Contrary to the belief of some, God has the right to specify the time for man’s observance, and God has the right to change what He wants to change. He specified the days and months for all the Jewish feasts and festivals. He specified that the Jews should keep the Sabbath, Saturday, the seventh day, as a day of rest in celebration of their deliverance from the constant toil of bondage in Egypt. That was the day He ceased His creation work. When He abolished the old covenant the Sabbath went with it, and He ordained the first day of the week for Christian worship. That was the day Christ rose from the dead, victorious over the grave, and the day the good news was first preached after that event in Acts 2, telling man of salvation free – an altogether fitting and appropriate day. What other day would we choose and why, if not simply for convenience and a desire to practice will worship?
Worship – always has been a problem and seems will be always. The ancient Greek philosopher and cynic, Diogenes used to walk around Athens looking for an honest man. God seeks true worshippers, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23,24).