It’s a sad thing, of course, when an
evil government shuts the doors of a church. If you keep informed of how
believers are persecuted in countries around the world, you ought to know that
this is one of the most obvious signs of a crackdown.
But what if God were to tell us to shut the doors of a church? Or if he called upon
volunteers to shut them? If you’ve read today’s passage, you might have been
startled by the first few words in it. The Lord is asking for someone—anyone—to
have the guts to go ahead and shut the doors of the temple!
Why would he do this?
Once again, this calls for thinking
clearly. We need to be careful here. Outside of Christ, none of our offerings
or worship is acceptable to him. Everything we are and do is tainted by sin. It
infects everything, including our worship. And the God we want to worship and
with whom we want a relationship is completely holy. He can't abide the
presence of sin, and he can’t accept the worship of sinners. Our offerings and
worship are only made acceptable by going through Jesus.
But that wasn’t the issue here. This
wasn’t a case of imperfect sinners trying to worship the Lord as best they could
under his grace (which is what we’re trying to do). Like we mentioned
yesterday, they were playing games with the Almighty. They were flouting his commands,
which openly demonstrated their attitude towards the whole enterprise.
This attitude was also expressed in
their murmurings. When it was time to offer sacrifices again, they would sigh
to themselves and say “Well, time to get it over with. Again.”
Why was he taking this so
seriously? Why was this so important to him? Well, his Name deserves all the
glory and honor. In Heaven, where every person or angel there will render
perfect worship and ascribe all glory, honor, praise, thanksgiving, etc., to
the Lord, that will only be what he
deserves. He deserves the best. Quite frankly, he deserves better than our
best.
But there’s more at stake here than
we realize. One day—hopefully I’ll live to see it—the Lord’s name will be
worshiped all over the world. God promised it here: “My name will be great
among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place
incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great
among the nations.” The apostle John echoed this—In his vision of Heaven, he saw
assembled before the Throne “every nation, tribe, people and language.” It will
happen.
How will it happen? What’s God’s timetable
for this? I don’t know.
But I know one thing: When the Lord's people treat his Name with contempt by offering half-hearted worship,
that’s not the way to do it. That’s a very large reason why he cares so
much about this.
His plan is to literally take over
the world. He will not rest until all his elect come to saving faith
in him. And remember the insight I got from John Piper: Missions and evangelism
exist because worship doesn’t. When you’re sharing the Message of Jesus with
people who don’t know him, in a very real sense you’re recruiting worshipers
to join you.
He will be glorified--one way or the
other--among the nations. And if he has to salvage his reputation by shutting
the doors of a church, he'll do it. Apparently as far as he’s concerned, no
worship is better than half-hearted or hypocritical or going-thru-the-motions
worship.
Father God, your Name is very important
to you. I want it to be important to me. I don’t want it to come to the point
of you shutting doors. Let’s not get to that point, shall we?
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