The Order of Worship Takes Shape

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 17, 1993.

Sermon transcript

We turn first of all tonight to Psalm 95, Psalm 95. Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms, for the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods. in whose hand are the depths of the earth. The peaks of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for it is he who made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down.

Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, they tried me, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said that they are a people who err in their heart and they do not know my ways. Therefore I swore in my anger truly they shall not enter into my rest. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.

Our Father, we know that the matters that pertain to your kingdom are spiritual, that is, they are matters in the control and pertain to in the control of and pertain to the dominion of the Holy Spirit. O Lord, we would be filled with your Spirit, and in the filling, Lord, we would find ourselves then responsive to you and responsive to your word. Bless us, our God, as those who would be blessed of you with the blessing that you would communicate to us from your word this evening. We ask it through the living word of Jesus Christ. Amen.

In Genesis 4, the form and administration of the Church, and that particularly now in her worship within the fallen order, within the fallen world, begins to take shape. In Genesis 4, the form and order of the Church, and that particularly here with respect to her worship, in the fallen order, in the fallen world, begins to take shape.

Verse three tells us, So it came about in the course of time. The words in the course of time, according to one translation, the one I read this evening, is in the American Standard. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord. In actual fact, the time reference in that statement is not as general as the translation suggests. The Hebrew phrase there literally reads, so it came about at the end of days rather than in the course of time. So it came about at the end of days that Cain brought an offering to the Lord.

We have two things in this statement then, literally rendered. We have two things that we do well to keep in mind. The first is, this phrase, the end of days, in this context, speaks of a specific termination point. It speaks of a specific termination point, and suggests to us, from any plain reading of it, that we are dealing with some sort of appointed time.

It is as if, then, we have in view here a seasonal offering presented by Cain, and one that is brought at an appointed time, a time not appointed by Cain, but we must assume appointed by God. Now in this, there is something prophetic. For this seasonal offering by Cain, and also by his brother Abel in turn, links up with those offerings that will in fact be presented by the children of Israel in their own time. They also would bring seasonal offerings according to the appointment of the Lord, offerings very much tied to the year’s cycle and tied to the labors of the people with their flocks and in their fields, just as was the case with Cain and Abel. Obviously then, the worship activity of Cain and Abel, and we would surmise that worship activity together with that of their parents, had a particular form and ceremony, character to it, although we are not given the specifics in this text. being as it was, the family, being as it was, the first church, gathers for worship. And it does so generally and regularly in a cycle that leads up to and then leads from the appointed times which are established by God himself.

Therefore, we need not think that schedule and form and ceremony were totally absent from the worship of the people of God prior to the institution of the law given at Sinai, and the prescriptions that are plain and clear in that law. to be sure with the coming of the law, a new day of worship dawns, a day in which worship is standardized and regularized afresh, so as to make the former ways of worship obsolete. When God then comes at Sinai and speaks as he does, Former ways of worship are no longer legitimate, for all worship then, if it be true worship, must be scrutinized in light of that revelation which God has given of himself at Sinai. Still, it is not that worship for God’s people in an organized and congregational sense appears first at Sinai, as if it existed for the first time only from that point. In fact, there are continuities with the previous ages that the newness of Sinai does not obliterate. The movement from Sinai then to Calvary and to the subsequent day of Pentecost brings new things.

It is, in fact, a new day itself, a day, however, in which it is important to think carefully about the continuities with that which previously took place in worship. As there was a change as we move from the patriarchal era to the Sinaitic era, there are also changes as we move from the Sinaitic era to the age of the Spirit and the blessings that come with the Spirit. But with those changes, we are to be sensitive, especially sensitive to the continuities that exist. There is a regularity to worship in the New Day of the Spirit, for instance, as well as in the former era of the law. There is also an ordained clergy, as much in the new era of the Spirit as there was in the old administration of the law. A clergy that is set to oversee the blessing of the people, the administration of the sacraments, and the instruction of the people with respect to the word of the Lord.

As Adam and Eve, then, congregated with their sons, and their sons, Cain and Abel, bring their offerings for the Lord, we see in infant form, in primal form, the church gathering for the specific and special purpose of worship, even at appointed times, at special at the end of days. And in this, there is a bond established between them and us, because we continue to do the very same thing.

Now, the reason that I am pointing this out to you this evening is the fact that the people of God have had a habit of rebelling against such things as regularity, form, and even ceremony, those ceremonies prescribed by God in his word, to the point that now the imposition of any of these things in some quarters is viewed as a quenching of the spirit.

Don’t bother me with form. Don’t bother me with those things that appear to me to be utterly restrictive. Don’t bother me with these things that set up what I consider to be an artificiality to the entire matter of worship. But regularity and form, and I might add even ceremony, have always been a part of the worship of God’s people.

From the time of the fall, and I would surmise even before the fall, What is being said now is that for anyone to suggest that there is actually a line of continuity running through the various eras of redemptive history regarding the forms of worship is to virtually identify oneself as a candidate for a padded shell. My plea to you is that you not be intimidated by our present circumstance.

I know what’s going on in other churches. You know what’s going on in other churches. As one individual said to me, the people in that church, they worship off the wall. They literally do. Worship services are turning into pure chaos. increasingly difficult to control, especially when you have in the midst of the congregation those who are clamoring because they contend that their gifts are being denied if they cannot be expressed in the formal worship gatherings of the people of God. My plea, then, with you is that you not be intimidated by the present situation, and that you realize afresh that our worship has very definite links to the very beginning of the worship experience for the people of God in a fallen world. Regularity, form, and even ceremony are not excluded at any point along the continuum.

But let’s go on to the second point with regard to this phrase in Genesis 4.3, the temple phrase, at the end of days. That’s what we’re looking at. Not only does this phrase set before us something that pertains to the regularity and the formality of worship, even from the beginning, it also sets before us something of worship’s unique character.

I don’t know whether I’ll be able to contain myself as I go through this. I want the power of that phrase to settle in upon you as you think about worship and what it is to be for you. We cannot deny in this the note of finality, the note of conclusiveness.

As a matter of fact, it is difficult for us to miss in these words the suggestion of the end. I mean the literal end. the end of the world. As if something of the end of the world is intruding upon the experience of Cain and Abel as they come and present their offerings. As if something of the end of the world is intruding upon these brothers as they come to worship God.

Here, the sobriety, the sobriety that is to attend worship is brought before us unmistakably. We are reminded, are we not, But worship is a meeting with God. The message about worship we do well to remember is that God is coming. God is coming to meet with his people. You understand why I read Psalm 95 for you this evening. God is coming to meet with his people. And sobriety is called for. Such seriousness. Such reflectiveness is called for because God himself is coming. But it is important for us to understand the nature of this sobriety that is to characterize our worship.

It is not to be that kind of austerity that excludes joy and exuberance and celebration. You hear how that 95th Psalm begins with an explosion of praise to God. Indeed, there are many, many passages in Scripture dedicated to the vision of God’s approach to His people. These all overrun with the glories of glad anticipation and unrestrained joy.

God is coming, He is coming to meet with His people. And that stands at the center of the worship experience for the people of God. Nevertheless, we do well to describe this attitude of the worshipers who are so then poised to meet with God as those who stand in reverent awe of Him, those then who understand the utter seriousness of what is transpiring. For this reason, it is so important for us to grasp the fact that the approach of God as He draws near to us in worship is not as if He were coming in some sort of general fashion, as if He were merely checking in on us. His approach here in Genesis 4 verse 3 is set at the end of days, as if worship itself were an end-time experience, as if in our worship we were coming face-to-face with something that approximates the end of the world. All of the things are in the balance. All of the things are passing before one’s eyes. It doesn’t help to sit and worship in a state of semi-consciousness. It doesn’t help to doze. It doesn’t help to be inattentive.

The context is the end of days, as if worship itself were an end-time experience, as if in our worship we were coming face-to-face with something that approximates the end of the world. Our justification is in view, just as it was in the case of Cain and Abel.

Eternal life is part of the picture, if not the most important part indeed. God’s gracious blessing and even His righteous indignation, then rise before us within this context the end of day. and to worship rightly, we must then grasp the end of day’s reality stamped upon our worship experience. We must understand that in worship, eternity, in its incomprehensible felicity, looms before us, and that in worship, eternity, in its ominous, gaping horror, stands ready to engulf us if we, in fact, reject God. God pleads with Israel, hear me, don’t harden your hearts as you did in the day of provocation in the wilderness. And all of this is being played out in the worship of Cain and Abel. It continues to be played out presently. in and for all of us, even as we seek to worship our God.

O the blessings that have come to us, the incomparable blessings, the great day that has dawned for us through what Jesus Christ has brought. We now are privileged to worship our God in spirit and in truth, and this in a fashion that those formerly could not worship our God because the work of the Son was not yet complete and the Spirit had not yet been given. We then are bold in our claims. claiming as we do the blood of our Savior, by which we have been cleansed, by which we have been declared righteous, by which we have been accepted in the Beloved. May we all stand then, not rejecting our God, but accepting him and being accepted of him in our worship. through him whose blood does in fact speak better things to us than even the blood of David.

Refresh yourself in the worship of your God. that you are standing in the line of true worship even as it comes down from the very beginning. That the regularity, form, and ceremony are intended as blessings, their directives from out of glory. But be conscious of the fact also that your worship is set in what is described as the end of days, so that even here in this assembly, something of the end of the world is coming to settle upon you here. Our Father, may we be sobered rightly. We know, our Father, that this sobriety does not exclude the great joy and exuberance that is to be shown by your people at your approach. But Lord, we ask that we might also have that appropriate sense of awe before your majesty, that we might reverence you as is right, and take stock of ourselves in terms of the seriousness of this whole matter of worship. For if you come to us in worship, then we are face to face with the matters of eternity and even our own eternal destination. O Father, we plead with you that we who understand the sacrifice of Christ would be prepared in worship and that even for the end. And Father, may it please you to change the hearts of those who are not so prepared.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.