Dennis Tuuri

Wait for thee, oh God in Zion. Oh thou that hearest prayer, all iniquities prevail against me. As our iniquities. Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and cause us to approach unto thee. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house. By terrible things in righteousness will thou answer us. Who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth? Which by his strength set fast the mountains which stilleth the noise of the seas and the tumult of the people.

Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice. Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God. Thou preparest them corn. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly. Thou makeest it soft with showers. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness. The pastures are clothed with flocks. They shout for joy. This is found in 2 Chronicles 6:12 through 7:16.

2 Chronicles 6 beginning at verse 12. Then he stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands. Now Solomon had made a bronze platform 5 cubits long, 5 cubits wide, and 3 cubits high. And he set it in the midst of the court. And he stood on it, knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven.

And he said, “Oh Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like thee in heaven or on earth, keeping covenant and showing loving kindness to thy servants who walk before thee with all their heart. Who has kept with thy servant David, my father, that which thou hast promised him. Indeed, thou hast spoken with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thy hand, as it is this day. Now therefore, O Lord, the God of Israel, keep with thy servant David, my father, that which thou hast promised him, saying, You shall not lack a man to sit in the throne of Israel.

If only your sons take heed to their way to walk in my law as you have walked before me. Now therefore, oh Lord, the God of Israel, let thy word be confirmed, which thou hast spoken to thy servant David. But will God indeed dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have built. Yet have regard to the prayer of thy servant and to his supplication, O Lord, my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prays before thee, that thine eyes may be open toward this house day and night, toward the place in which thou hast said, that thou would put thy name there, to listen to the prayer which thy servant shall pray toward this place.

And listen to the supplications of thy servant and thy people Israel, when they pray toward this place. Hear thou from thy dwelling place from heaven. Hear thou and forgive. If a man sins against his neighbor, and is made to take an oath, and he comes and takes an oath before thine altar in this house. Then hear thou from heaven, and act and judge thy servants, punishing the wicked by bringing his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness.

And if thy people Israel are defeated before an enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and they return to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication before thee in this house. Then hear thou from heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them back to the land which thou hast given to them and to their fathers. When the heavens are shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee, and they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou dost afflict them, then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants and thy people Israel.

Indeed, teach them the good way in which they should walk, and send rain on thy land, the land which thou hast given to thy people for an inheritance. If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, if there is locust or grasshopper, if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer or supplication is made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, each showing his own affliction and his own pain, and spreading his hands toward this house, then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive and render to each according to all his ways, whose heart thou knowest.

For thou alone dost know the hearts of the sons of men, that they may fear thee to walk in thy ways, and long may they live as long as they live in the land which thou hast given to our fathers. Also concerning the foreigner who is not from thy people Israel, and he comes from a far country for thy great name’s sake, and thy mighty hand and thine outstretched arm when they come and pray toward this house, then hear thou from heaven from thy dwelling place, and do according to all for which this foreigner calls to thee, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know thy name, and fear thee, as do thy people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by thy name.

When thy people go out to battle against their enemies, by whatever way thou shalt send them, and they pray to thee toward the city which thou hast chosen, the house which I have built for thy name, then hear thou from heaven their prayer, and their supplication, and maintain their cause. When they sin against thee, for there is no man who does not sin, and thou art angry with them, and thus deliver them to an enemy, so that they take them away captive to a land far off or near.

If they take thought in the land where they have been taken captive, and repent, and make supplication to thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, and have acted wickedly. If they return to thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their captivity, for they have been taken captive, and pray toward their land which thou hast given to their fathers, and the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house which I have built for thy name.

Then hear from heaven from thy dwelling place their prayer and supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people who have sinned against thee. Now, oh my God, I pray thee, let thine eyes be open and thine ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. Now therefore, arise, oh Lord God, to thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy might. Let thy priests, oh Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy godly ones rejoice in what is good.

Oh Lord God, do not turn away the face of thine anointed. Remember thy loving kindness to thy servant David. Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house, and the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house. And all the sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave praise to God, saying, “Truly, he is good. Truly, his loving kindness is everlasting.”

And then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord. And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. Thus, the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. And the priests stood at their posts. And the Levites with the instruments of music to the Lord which King David had made for giving praise to the Lord, for his loving kindness is everlasting, whenever he gave praise by their means, while the priests on the other side blew trumpets, and all Israel was standing. Then Solomon consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the Lord. For there he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not able to contain the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fat.

So Solomon observed the feast at that time for seven days and all Israel with him, a very great assembly who came from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt. And on the eighth day, they held a solemn assembly for the dedication of the altar. They observed seven days and the feast seven days. Then on the 23rd day of the seventh month, he sent the people to their tents, rejoicing and happy of heart because of the goodness that the Lord had shown to David and to Solomon and to his people Israel.

Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s palace and successfully completed all that he had planned in doing in the house of the Lord and in his palace. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people, and my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, Then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Now my eyes shall be open and my ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually.

We come together this morning with a series of talks going through the liturgy, or the order of worship of Reformation Covenant Church. And we’ve said before, we’ll say it several times during this series, that liturgy shouldn’t scare us. It simply means the order of service. Every church has a liturgy. The question is, is it going to be a good liturgy or a bad liturgy? And the degree to which we conform our liturgy and what we do in formal worship before God’s presence on the Lord’s day, the degree to which we conform that to the word of God itself, of course determines whether it is good or bad and how correctly we praise God with it and as a result of that also how well he edifies us in return.

And so we began a couple of weeks ago with the call to worship. Extremely important to realize that worship begins with God’s initiation, with God’s sovereignty. He calls us to worship. We talked last week because of that call and the need to prepare for that the day before and actually the week leading up to Sabbath services themselves. Particularly though on Saturday and then Sunday morning in our preparations for the meal, our preparations for coming and confessing our sins before God, our preparations in terms of making amends with those in the body that we may have need of reconciliation with prior to coming to the table on Sunday.

All these things are very important that we talked about last week. Hopefully this morning as you got dressed, maybe a few of you as you showered or cleansed or put new clothes on, you thought about the idea of confession of sin and how we’re washed with the word of the scriptures and confessing our sin. And that the formalities we go through in terms of the cleansing and dressing of our bodies really should remind us of the need to do that same thing in terms of our family devotions Sunday morning, in terms of confession of sin and recognizing that we come clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ into God’s presence.

And so hopefully we’ve understood now that worship is not getting together on Sunday as an audience to be entertained. We don’t come to Sabbath services to get something out of them primarily. We come here to render praise and homage to our creator. He’s our creator, our redeemer, and our sovereign. And we come forward joyfully, acknowledging that and understanding that he has created us to give him praise and that on this day out of the week it is a day in which we particularly remember that focus on that. He reminds us of the whole goal of our lives which is to worship and praise him.

Robert Ruden in his book Oh Come Let Us Worship gave the following definition for worship. Christian worship is the activity of a congregation of true believers in which they seek to render to God that adoration, praise, confession, intercession, thanksgiving, living in obedience to which he is entitled by virtue of the ineffable glory of his person and the magnificent grace of his acts of redemption in Jesus Christ.

Speaking more personally, he said that worship is the activity of the new life of a believer in which recognizing the fullness of the godhead as it is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and his mighty redemptive acts, he seeks by the power of the Holy Spirit to render to the living God the glory, honor, and submission which are his due. And so it is important to get our minds correctly attuned when we come to worship and prepare for worship, remembering we’re here to praise our God and creator and redeemer for who he is. That he is perfection. That he is holiness. That he is love. That in him is life. That he is perfectly just, merciful. He is beautiful in holiness. And he is a God who commands us to worship him in this way this day. And so we come forward to do that.

It may be demonstrated from various scriptures that we are created to give him that praise and worship. And so there’s nothing really in life that should occupy a greater priority for us than worshiping our creator.

Philippians 1:11 says that we are filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Christ Jesus unto the glory and praise of God. That’s the purpose, that we might glorify and praise God. 1 Peter 2:9 says that we’re a chosen generation, a royal priesthood to show forth the praises of him who has done these things. 1 Peter 4:11 says that to Jesus Christ be praise and dominion forever and ever. And so it is our calling to praise Jesus Christ in all that we are.

The first fifteen or so verses of Ephesians is a beautiful moving doxology. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. The entire passage is devoted to the greatness of his works as the only goal of all the activities of this life.

The first commandment is a commandment to worship God correctly and to worship him and him alone. The second commandment, of course, forbids us to use images in worship. The third commandment tells us we’re not to use God’s name in vain, and we invoke God’s name as we begin our worship service. He calls us forward in his name. And when we come forward in his name, we’re not to do so empty. We’re supposed to worship him in spirit and in truth. And finally, the fourth commandment tells us that all these first three commandments are not abstract things. They occur in space and in time. And it says in the fourth commandment to remember the Sabbath day. And that means to remember to keep it correctly and observe it correctly, which includes worship of our creator, worshiping him alone without the use of images according to his regulated principles of worship set forward in the scriptures and not doing so emptily, but in spirit and in truth.

And so the fourth commandment wraps up the first four commandments and tells us that in a very real way, it is in Sabbath worship services that we do these things correctly and we are commanded to do that and we do it joyfully. We are not here then as an audience. We are here as a participating congregation who have been called out of the world to worship our creator, redeemer, and Lord.

Now, it’s instructive to look at some of the historic liturgies the churches have used throughout the last 2,000 years of the Christian church. We’ll be looking at some of the Reformed ones specifically in a couple of minutes, but I wanted to just mention that the opening collect of the Anglican communion begins in this way. Oh, thou before whom all hearts are open.

And we read that in our passage from 2 Chronicles, from Solomon’s prayer, that before God he knows all men and all hearts. And that opening collect of the Anglican communion liturgy reminds us that we come before him before whom all hearts are open. That statement indicates what our next action should be. Having properly prepared for worship and having properly come in submission to the command to worship, when we come forward to God’s presence we come before the one before whom all hearts are open.

And if we understand that and we understand ourselves and we understand the God to whom we are coming in his holiness and righteousness, then our next action in terms of the liturgy, the order of service on Sunday morning becomes obvious. Because of the great brightness of his visage as it shines forward in scripture, because we’ve meditated upon the work of Jesus Christ in the Sabbath morning, and because we’ve heard a command from him to come forward and give him worship.

Because of the great beauty of who he is, we recognize that in response to that, our hearts which are open before him don’t have that beauty. We come forward hopefully recognizing that we are creatures and we come before our creator. And so the proper response at the next point in worship is our subject of discussion this morning. That is the confession of sins and absolution.

God awakens in us as we come forward into his presence, if we understand what we’re doing, and if we’re worshiping in spirit and truth, a sense of our own unworthiness to come before his presence and of our complete inability to stand in his light and in his holiness. We come forward recognizing that we’re sinners. We’re not alone in this. Throughout the scriptures, we’ll be reading here in several instances of men in this same state as they come to meet with God. Their initial response is one of great fear and dread before the holy majesty of his person.

Schlatter, whose book I’ve quoted on public worship, said the following. The effect of the first unveiling of God has been the same on humanity from the beginning and it will be the same until that end comes when sin shall be no more. The knowledge that our Lord is righteous altogether forces into our minds that related sin, that related and painful knowledge that our thoughts are not his thoughts and our ways are not his ways.

We’ll begin then this morning with looking at the biblical liturgical model of the presence of God, man’s confession of his sin, then absolution from God in service, a four-fold model.

Now, we saw this if we think about it in the scriptures we just read from 2 Chronicles 6:12-7:16. The situation is that Solomon is dedicating the magnificent temple that he has built. God has told him exactly how to build it. He has built it according to God’s regulated principle of worship. He’s created an environment there that God says is his house where he lives, where his furniture is special and you don’t touch it. You do things in that place according to his dictates. You worship him correctly.

Then Solomon has built the temple and God prior to the giving of this prayer has occupied the temple. He’s come into it and he’s manifested himself in his presence. And Solomon then goes in. Here we have a picture of Jesus Christ, of course, going down on his knees and making intercession for the people in the house of prayer.

You cannot read this prayer of Solomon’s, of course, without recognizing the repetition throughout it of prayer for forgiveness. When your people sin, and they’re going to sin, Solomon says, “No man does not sin. When they sin and come to this place and pray to you and ask you for forgiveness and confess that sin, hear, God, and give absolution here. Forgive their sins and declare to them that their sins are forgiven.”

And Solomon’s prayer is one long plea as it were of confession before God for the sins of the people that will surely come to pass. And he says in the basis of your work in this temple and your presence here, hear the confession of those sins of your people and forgive them. And so we have that model there. We have God’s presence in the temple in a special place. Solomon’s response to that is a confession of sin. And he talks about how the whole model for temple worship will be a model of prayer.

Sacrifices are not the preeminent feature of Solomon’s prayer. Solomon’s prayer is essentially saying that this house will be, in the words of our Savior, a house of prayer where people will come. And when they come they’re going to make confession of sin because they’re coming into the majesty of God. So Solomon gives us that model. And then as Solomon concludes that prayer the sacrifices are then given and accepted by God. And then God appears to Solomon and says indeed I will hear those prayers and I will give absolution to my people. I will give forgiveness of sins to those who approach me correctly.

And so we have the presence of God. We have confession of sin. We have absolution from God. And then the implicit in the absolution that God gives to Solomon is the idea that my people must humble themselves and walk according to my ways. They must serve me. There is obedience as a result of that entire process. So you have that four-fold process.

Now, this isn’t just some nice little Old Testament picture here. Remember that what we’ve got going on is a foreshadow of the heavenly temple. Solomon and the temple themselves are both types of Jesus Christ himself. And when we enter into worship, we enter into the worship that Jesus Christ offers to the Father on our behalf, making intercession for us.

And so what we have in the model of the Old Testament temple is a picture of what New Testament worship is—Jesus Christ in the covenant mediator going to the Father making intercession for the people and asking for that forgiveness of sins as it were on our behalf. And in the temple itself, which is himself ultimately, and then us as he collects us around him, we have that picture of what New Testament worship is all about as well.

And today, 1 Peter says that we’re stones, living stones that God has brought into the temple. And he addresses the church as the temple of God. And so we convocate together. We constitute a temple here. And one of the purposes that Solomon says is normative for temple worship is confession of sin and asking God to forgive us our sins. And of course it’s normal if we understand who we’re approaching. But it’s also normative according to the dictates of God’s word here.

He says this is what happens when you come into my presence. When you convocate together in a temple, when you come before the person of Jesus Christ, you come together confessing sin. You come together with a proper focus on the person of God and a resultant proper understanding of who you are. And so you confess sin.

You’ll notice that of course Solomon is talking about specific times that will come upon the people of great trouble. And so there is certainly a specific or special sense in which these prayers of forgiveness are offered. But he also talks about normative sin as well, normal sort of sin that hasn’t brought about great amounts of judgment but have brought about judgments on a man’s particular house.

He says in the verses we read earlier, if a man comes and he’s got a plague in his house, or if a man sins—and everybody does sin—hear these prayers. And so that gives us a picture of this normative process: the biblical liturgical model of worship which is coming into the presence of God, resulting in confession of our sin, God’s absolving grace, and then service to God being the result of that.

We’ll go through a number of scriptures now in which we see this same process. Some of these we’ve talked about a little bit before. We’ll get into them a little bit more today.

Isaiah 6:1-9. Isaiah in verse 1 says, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims, and each one had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly.”

And the seraphims around the Lord cry out one to another saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.” And the post moved at the voice of him that cried and the house was filled with smoke.

So we have a picture of the presence of God. And then Isaiah’s response to God’s presence and specifically to God’s holiness and righteousness. Isaiah’s response is, “Woe is me! For I am undone. I am as a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. I’m a dead man,” he says. He falls down before God. He says, “I am undone.”

So we have a picture of God’s presence, the confession of Isaiah’s sin. And then absolution comes, and the angel comes. He takes the coal with the tongs. He takes the coal from off the fire. He puts it on Isaiah’s mouth and says, “Lo, he hath touched thy lips. Thine iniquity is taken away and thy sins purged.”

So we have confession and then we have absolution coming from the Father. And then we have the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send?” And Isaiah says, “Here am I, send me.” Service. Presence of God, confession of sin, absolution, and service.

Jeremiah 1:4 and following. Then the word of the Lord came unto me. God makes his presence known to Jeremiah. The word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah. And Jeremiah’s response in verse 6. Then said he, “Ah Lord God, behold I cannot speak for I am a child.”

Jeremiah recognizes his unworthiness to speak forth a message for God. He says that in comparison to God, he is a child. He cannot speak. He is aware of his sinful condition. And again in verse 9, the Lord puts forth his hand and touches Jeremiah’s mouth. The Lord says unto me, “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.”

So we have forgiveness there. We have the preparation of the servant to go out into the nations and preach what God has told Jeremiah to preach in verse 10.

Again in Revelation 1:10 and following, we have the picture of John in the spirit on the Lord’s day. And he hears behind him a great voice as of a trumpet saying, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.”

So we have the presence of God here—the presence of Jesus Christ. John is in the spirit on the Lord’s day. And John hears this and he knows who it is. And he turns to see the voice that spake with him. And he sees Christ standing in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.

And John’s response to the presence of God in verse 17: “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.” Confession of sin, recognition of his creatureliness and his unworthiness and his deadness, as it were, before the creator of life. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, “Fear not. I’m the first and the last. I died and behold I am alive forevermore.”

So we have absolution. The Savior touching with his right hand John and calling him to forgiveness, calling him to understand that he has been absolved, that God has forgiven his sins. And then in verse 19, this is followed by service: “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.”

So we have the same four-fold pattern: the presence of God manifested to John, an awareness of who he is, falling down as a dead man, absolution, forgiveness of sins being declared to him—”Fear not”—and then preparation for service.

We talked about Exodus 20:18-20 last week, the meeting of the people with God. Verse 18 of Exodus 20: “All the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and they removed and stood afar off.” They knew that the thunderings were a manifestation of the presence of God. And their response to that manifestation of the presence of God is to remove and stand far off. And they say to Moses, “Speak thou with us. We’ll hear, but don’t let God speak with us lest we die.”

They recognized their sinful condition. They recognize their inability to approach God apart from his forgiving grace. And Moses responds. Then Moses gives the people the absolution, the assurance that they are not to fear. Moses says unto the people, “Fear not, for God is come to prove you, and that the fear of him may be before your eyes, that ye sin not.”

So he says, “Fear not, that you may sin not. You’ve confessed who you are, unworthily before God. And to those who confess, God says they are forgiven in the covenant mediator to come. And the result of that forgiveness is that they sin not, that they serve God correctly.”

And those follow. That portion of Exodus 20 is followed up in the next chapter with the giving of the law. Verse 1 of 21: “Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.”

And so there is the same four-fold pattern: the presence of God in the thunderings and the voice, the people saying “we’ll die” if before him, Moses interceding for them as a type of Jesus Christ, saying, “Fear not. Salvation is provided.” And then serve him who has redeemed you and brought you to life.

Matthew 17:4-8, the transfiguration on the mount. The same pattern we see there. They go up and in verse 5, “While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold, a voice out of the cloud, which said, ‘This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him.’”

Manifestation of the presence of God as they come before God and are called then with his manifestation to worship him. And when the disciples hear it, they fell on their face and were sore afraid. Same pattern. And Jesus comes and touches them and says, “Arise and be not afraid. Fear not. Be not afraid. This is okay. You’re accepted in me.”

Essentially is what’s going on here. And when they lift up their eyes, they saw no man save Jesus. Jesus only. And then Jesus proceeds to give them an order, a command. He tells them not to tell people of what has happened until things are accomplished. And so we have the same pattern: the presence of God, the recognition of their sinfulness and creatureliness falling on their face, Jesus’s absolution, the statement of forgiveness, touching them, saying “Fear not. It’s okay.” And then giving them a command to go forward and serve him.

Ezekiel 1, same pattern. Ezekiel, of course, having the visions coming into the presence of heaven, seeing the creatures. Verse 28: “As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so is the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God.”

So we have the presence of God manifested in verse 28 of Ezekiel 1. And then we have the response of Ezekiel. When I saw it, I fell upon my face. He falls on his face confessing his sins, confessing his own sinfulness and his own weakness before God. And I heard a voice of one that spake. And he said unto me, “Son of man, stand upon thy feet. I will speak unto you.”

But even here, notice that Ezekiel doesn’t exactly stand upon his feet by himself. In verse 2 of chapter 2, “And the Spirit entered into me when he spake unto me and set me upon my feet. That I heard him that spake unto me.” Obvious statement of God’s sovereignty and absolution and forgiveness of sins and reempowering a man to life who has fallen down, found dead before him as it were.

Then in verse 3 we have the call to service: “And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation.”

So we have the same thing: manifestation of the presence of God, the response on the part of Ezekiel—confession as it were, falling down dead before God or at least as a dead man. God raising him back up, telling him not to fear, giving him back life as it were, and giving him back life that he might serve him.

Daniel chapter 8. Before Daniel, there stands before him one as the appearance of a man, and I heard a man’s voice between the banks of Ulai, and called and said, “Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.” So he came near where I stood. And when he came, I was afraid and fell upon my face. But he said unto me, “Understand, O son of man, for at the time of the end shall be the vision.”

Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground, but he touched me and set me upright. And he said, “Behold, I will make thee to know that which will happen.” Obviously for the purpose of transmitting that knowledge to his people. So we have the same four-fold pattern here: the appearance of God, this messenger before Daniel. Daniel falls down upon his face. God raises him back up. Raises him back up that he might make known what he must do in terms of serving him.

Again, Daniel 10:6 and following. He sees the one whose eyes are like lamps of fire and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice, the words like the voice of a multitude. And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision. But here even the men that are around him with great shaking fall upon them even though they haven’t seen the vision. They flee to hide themselves, and he is left alone.

And yet then he says in verse 9, “Yet when I heard the voice of his words, there was then was I in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground, and behold, a hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands.”

Then in verse 18, “Then there came again and touched me, one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me and said, ‘O man, greatly beloved, fear not. Peace be unto thee. Be strong, yea, be strong.’ And when he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened. And he said, ‘Let my Lord speak, for thou hast strengthened me.’”

So the same thing in Daniel’s vision. We have the same pattern where God appears to Daniel through his messengers, through his mediators. Daniel’s response is to have no energy, no life before God, confession of his unworthiness as it were, and his state before God. God touches him. God raises him back, gives him strength for the purpose of going out and being his servant.

And so throughout these patterns, these biblical models of when people come into the very presence of God, into the special presence of God for a particular purpose—and that’s what we’re doing in Sabbath day worship into that presence—we have this biblical pattern, or liturgy—biblical pattern rather for liturgy or for the proper understanding of what happens as men come before God. That is the normal biblical pattern.

Now we talked last week about Hebrews 12 saying that we come before the holy assembly. We come together in the mount of God and before him who is the one who has called us to worship him. There is a correlation made between the two mountains and saying that now we have greater privilege and as a result greater accountability to worship God correctly.

Now we don’t want to get into all the implications of what that means in Hebrews 12, but surely it means that we come before the one whom these men came before. And the writer of the book of Hebrews is trying to warn us that we come before him who is a consuming fire. And if we do not understand correctly who we approach, we approach to our death.

And so Hebrews reminds us that this is what we’re doing in special convocative worship. We’re coming into God’s special presence. And that entrance into the special presence of God must be accompanied by a sense of our own awareness of our sinfulness, our creatureliness, and of our essential deadness before him in terms of our own being in person.

Whatever else the Hebrews passage means, it certainly is speaking in terms of entering into the worship that is perpetual around the throne of God. And it means that as we enter that worship we must confess our sins before him.

Now it might be useful here to read the Westminster Confession definition statement on the person of God, because I think that one of the great tragedies of modern evangelicalism and the modern church is a failure to apprehend the person of God. The reason why all this may sound somewhat strange to us as we come before God’s presence, to see ourselves in line with Daniel, Ezekiel, John, and these other men that fell down on their faces before him, is because we’ve come to see God very familiarly as it were.

And I think that’s because we failed to apprehend his holiness and righteousness. So let’s—I remember when we first had some of our studies in this church, at the beginning of this church, we used the Westminster Confession of Faith in those studies and specifically in the first lecture or two or discussions we had in the Bible studies we had about the sovereignty of God. We began with focusing on the person of God himself, and I remember the first time I read these statements from the Westminster Confession of the person of God. And I remember the impact it had on myself and I remember what impact it had on other men as they came into this church and were exposed to the teachings of the Westminster divines in terms of the person of God.

And I think that it’s important to recognize that if we don’t understand this, if we don’t understand the person of God and his holiness, we will never understand our correct response to who he is.

The Westminster Confession says this about the person of God: There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will for his own glory.

Most loving, gracious, merciful, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and withal most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin and who will by no means clear the guilty. God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness in and of himself, and is alone in and unto himself all sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he has made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them.

He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things, and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth. In his sight all things are open and manifest. His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain. He is most holy in all his counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands.

To him is due from angels and men, and every other creature whatsoever, worship, service, or obedience he is pleased to require of them.

This is the one in whose presence we come as we come in special convocative worship. He’s the one that we must have to do with. He is the one who, if we understand it correctly, brings an awareness of our sinfulness without which we demonstrate that we have no life in us.

We, as we come before God’s presence, then must in our minds fall down dead at his appearance. We must beg him for mercy as we come before him and approach his holy throne. What have we done this last week? How have our actions been? How well have we controlled our tongues? Have we snipped at each other? Have we been kind and forgiving and loving in all our words toward even the members of our own household, let alone the members of our extended household, or of our church, or of our neighborhood, or of our community?

Maybe we have successfully made a covenant with our tongue this past week in most things. But how successful was the covenant with our heart to walk in obedience to all the commandments that God has given to us, and all the need to show loving kindness and has said and covenantal faithfulness to one another in this church, or as I said, even in our own families? Our minds and our hearts surely have sinned this past week.

We have surely sinned in thought, word, and deed. Perhaps we’re able to refrain from overt big sins this past week. But then how righteous were our actions this last week? How much in conformity to working good were we this last week? You see, I’m not trying to throw a big onus here that you’ve somehow all failed in the sight of God. The plain fact of the matter is though that we all have failed in terms of his holy requirements.

Sunday is a day when we come forward to God’s presence and admit that and confess that freely and openly before him. And if we understand the person of God and if we understand his holiness, then we’ll understand the need to make confession of sins and to hear his absolving statements of forgiveness from his scriptures.

If we think we have no need of a prayer of confession, the prayers that we offer here in this place every week, then I’m afraid, as I said, we have no life in us. We must understand that these men we have been talking about who saw themselves in relationship to a holy God and as a result of that coming into God’s presence fell on their face—these were not bad men. These were Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the beloved apostle, Abraham, the father of the faithful, Peter, James, Ezekiel, Daniel, these are the great heroes of the faith.

And if they understood their need to respond to God by falling down before his presence and waiting for his touch and his absolving grace to bring them back to life, then how much more so us?

You know, we’ve talked before, I think, a little bit. I’ve mentioned that Jim B. Jordan in one of his tapes talked about the glory cloud and the incense in some of the Eastern Orthodox services, and the idea is that you get so smoked up in there that God won’t see clearly enough to hit you with the lightning bolts. Well, it’s sort of ridiculous. You know, it’s kind of a joke. But you know, in a way there’s some truth to that. Not that God won’t see us and get fooled somehow, but the point is that when the angel came to Isaiah with the tong—the seraphim did—and brought the coal, what was the coal? Well, the coal was part of the offering on the altar. And who’s the offering on the altar? That’s Jesus Christ.

You see, Jesus Christ is given to us. And that’s the absolution of sins. The declaration that in Jesus Christ sins have been forgiven. That a person who acknowledges his need for that forgiveness of sins when he comes before God’s presence is indeed forgiven by God. And the application of the sacrifice to our tongues is made.