Worship and Sweat (Gospel Music 3)

And it shall come to pass, that when they enter in at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them, whiles they minister in the gates of the inner court, and within. They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird themselves with any thing that causeth sweat. (Ezekiel 44: 17, 18)

I want to wind up the message on Gospel music by throwing a hammer into the works. And I will ask this small question.

Do you realize that sweat and worship are mutually exclusive? You can’t worship and sweat at the same time. It means you can’t worship in sweat.

Remember sweat was the curse on the disobedience of man. It was God’s way of saying that we live the way we had sought after when we disobeyed. It was man’s effort being crowned.

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis 3:19)

But worship is a totally different thing. It is man coming into God’s presence.

Sweat in worship indicates man approaching God on his terms and using his effort. It is akin to idol worship.

That is why God forbid sweat in worship.

Can you imagine a priest offering burnt sacrifices and all the burning fat, yet not required to sweat! Yet that is what God did.

And I do not remember seeing anywhere in the Bible worshipers participating in the kinds of frenzies we have in modern day ‘worship’. That frenzy was always associated with idol worship.

And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. (Exodus 32:6)

You also remember Elijah’s confrontation with Baal’s priests and the effort required compared with Elijah’s effortless ease in calling for God’s intervention.

Remember it is God who gave the complete design of the priestly attire to the last detail. Part of the reason was to ensure the priest did not sweat despite working with all the smoke and heat in his ministry.

And has it ever crossed your mind that in heaven it will be the tears and not sweat that will be wiped? It simply means that it is the state of your heart and its response to what is happening to the world. Remember God looking for people who are weeping for the sins of His people?

And do you also remember that many times Jesus taught while sitting? It simply means that he was not demonstrative like most of our preachers today. His power was on His words and not their demonstrative delivery.

I dare say that even in preaching God does not appreciate sweat; And for the same reason. Sweat is indicative of our effort. Yet preaching should point people to God’s truth.

Now let us examine the error of our days. Most people think sweat is the highest indicator of spirituality in worship, the exact opposite of the revelation we find in scripture and history.

But it is also interesting to note that choruses will lose everything when we remove sweat from them. Imagine singing a chorus without dancing?

Even in prayer, the whole idea of the closet is to remove sweat from it. Then you will be doing battle with God, on His terms. No wonder Christ said that nobody should see our prayer, even fasting. They should only see the results.

You see, God’s presence kills pretensions and impressions. I have nobody to please. I have only God to transact with.

I suspect dancing came in when we trashed our history as I mentioned in the first post (Gospel Music).

Have you realized that hymns, though musically very polished do not draw people to dance (that produces sweat)? Try dancing to Amazing Grace.

We thought to compensate the emptiness of our doctrine with the energy of our dancing, thereby locking out worship altogether. We ran away from singing that was only motions, only to end up going into alternative worship.

No wonder we have harlots leading worship in church and blessing people tremendously. Of course that worship has no issues with their lifestyle. That is why there is no conviction.

No wonder worshippers are invited to drinking dens and the drunkards thoroughly enjoy that worship as it is not any different from theirs. They will even pay those worshippers to ensure they return again and again.

It is no wonder we have a preacher preaching for years and has very faithful, even ardent supporters who are professional husband and wife snatchers, let alone very corrupt and wicked business and political leaders having the littlest sense of guilt. They are ready to kill for him because he preaches the gospel of their kingdom and about their god.

I know there are people angry enough to want to tear me to pieces. But hold your horses.

Go to the Bible and prove me wrong. I am waiting. And not just a verse here and another there, verses that were thrown to you by those worshippers and preachers who are just protecting their turf.

I have said ‘we’ because I have been part of that error for a long time. But I want to move out of it. I want to dance a dance that is worshipful, if I must dance at all. I want to preach in a way that is also worshipful, not demonstrating my expertise on things about Another.

Incidentally, have you ever realized that after all that dancing most people sleep through actual preaching, unless the preacher is also an entertainer? And I am saying that as a preacher. Chances are that they are so full of that other worship that they have no room to hear about the real God. Yet in the Bible we have Paul preaching the whole night and only one person was reported to have slept.

Get angry enough with me to start an earnest searching of the scriptures. Then we can start to speak the same language as we will be reading from the same script.

To set you off, allow me to say this.

Do you know that instruments were developed by the cursed (Cain’s lineage) and that it happened before men started calling on God? In short, the wrong people developed music before the right people started to worship.

How does that go for starters?