Biblical Worship 2

The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. (Proverbs 8:13)

And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; (Isaiah 11:2)

One word associated with worship is fear. In the scriptures it is sometimes called dread, an extreme form of fear associated with the Divine.

Is there any fun with dread?

Yet that is what we experience when we approach God, going by the examples we have in the scriptures.

As I said in my earlier post, this is the result of coming face to face, even from a large distance, with the Object of our worship.

Allow me to give an analogy.

High voltage electricity is useful. One reason it is raised to so many kilovolts is to enable it travel those distances. For that reason, the cables are raised to great heights

How many can come close to those cables?

We have heard of people who steal oil in the transformers lowering those voltages for domestic use.

Are there any who survive an error, however slight, in their stealing?

They are simply roasted dry, not much different from those hit by lightning.

That power is too much for a person to handle at close range.

Is that much different from God?

And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. (Exodus 33:20)

To be able to handle that much power, someone has to be attired appropriately and there is some that even with enough protection it has to be switched off and earthed before you can work on the system.

God is incomparable to such power. He is called a consuming fire because He will leave nothing after that encounter.

A few examples are in order

Remember Aaron’s sons?

They had been anointed into the priestly office as per God’s orders to Moses.

They had even completed their induction.

Then they became creative. Or isn’t creativity a gift from God?

That slight infraction cost them their lives. Their anointing was no match to God’s power.

Or Uzzah. He was just steadying the ark yet he was obliterated.

Or Korah and his 250 comparing their anointing with Moses’ being blasted even as their accomplices were swallowed by the earth.

Do you remember what happened after Elijah prayed for God to manifest?

Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. (1Kings 18:38)

Even the soil and water that are used to extinguish difficult fires were themselves consumed.

Nobody and nothing can stand before God without being consumed unless they do it under His direct orders.

Remember Moses was able to stay in that presence for two consecutive terms of forty days and nights each uninterrupted when he did not need food or water essential for living.

And he came out glowing, simply meaning radiating God’s glory.

But it was because Moses was so submitted to God and His orders that there was a single error in his forty years of ministry, the error that disqualified him from getting into the Promised Land.

Nitaendelea baadaye